'I mean Jim Courtot,' cut in Howard shortly. 'You know better than to drag any friend of mine into a game with him.'
Courtot appeared calm and unconcerned.
'The bet's made, gents,' he said briefly. 'Coming in, Longstreet?'
Longstreet looked confused. Before he could frame his answer, Howard made it for him. And he directed it straight to Courtot.
'I haven't had time to tell Mr. Longstreet about all of the undesirable citizens hereabouts,' he announced steadily. 'No, he's not coming in.'
'I imagine you'll spill an earful when you get going, Alan,' said
Courtot. 'I'd like to listen in on it.'
Straightway the two Mexicans rose and left the table. Barbee, though he scorned to do so, pushed his chair back a little and kept his eyes upon the faces of the two men. Longstreet went from confusion to bewilderment. Howard considered the matter briefly; then, watching Jim Courtot while he spoke, he said crisply:
'Mr. Longstreet, you should get acquainted a bit before you play cards out here. Jim Courtot there, who plans to rob you the shortest way, is a crook, a thief, a dirty liar and a treacherous man-killer. He's rotten all the way through.'
A man does not fire a fuse without expecting the explosion. On the instant that Jim Courtot's hand left his pile of coins, Alan Howard's boots left the floor. The cattleman threw himself forward and across the table almost with his last word. Courtot came up from his chair, a short-barrelled revolver in his hand. But, before he was well on his feet, before the short barrel had made its required brief arc, Howard's blow landed. With all of his force, with all of the weight of his body, he struck Jim Courtot square upon the chin. Courtot went over backwards, spilling out of the chair that crumpled and snapped and broke to pieces; his gun flew wide across the room. Howard's impetus carried him on across the table so that he too fell, and across the body of the man he had struck. But when Alan got to his feet, Jim Courtot lay still and unconscious. And, for one, Longstreet thought that he had seen manslaughter done; the man's look was of death.
Howard picked up his hat and then what few of the scattered coins he judged were Longstreet's. Then he took the gaping little man by the arm and led him to the door.
'Miss Helen wanted you,' he said as they passed outside.
'Did you kill him?' Longstreet was shuddering.
'No,' was the cool answer. 'But it looks as if I'd have to some day.
Better not say anything about this to Miss Helen.'
'Good heavens, no!' ejaculated Longstreet. 'Not a word!'
Chapter IX
Helen Knew
Second only to her father's was Helen's eager interest in the world about her. The ride back to Desert Valley through the rich moonlight was an experience never to be forgotten. She and Howard alone in what appeared an enchanted and limitless garden of silence and of slumber, their horses' feet falling without noise as though upon deep carpets, the bright moon and its few attendant stars working the harsh land of the day over into a soft sweet country of subtle allurement—the picture of all this was to spring up vivid and vital in many an idle hour of the days to follow. Little speech passed between them that night: they rode close together, they forgot the wagon which rocked and jolted along somewhere far behind them; they were content to be content without analysing. And at the end of the ride, when she felt Alan's strong hands aiding her from her saddle, Helen sighed.
The next morning early she and her father left Desert Valley, going straight to the professor's destination in the Last Ridge country. They did not see Howard, who had breakfasted and ridden away before dawn, leaving with the kitchen boy a brief note of apology. The note said that his business was urgent and that he would call to see them in a day or so; further that Tod Barstow and Chuck Evans had orders to haul their goods in the wagon for them and to help them pitch camp.
Their departure was like a small procession. The wagon, carrying all their household goods, went ahead. Longstreet's two pack-horses were tied to the tail end of the wagon and trotted along with slack tie-ropes. Behind them rode the Longstreets upon saddle-horses, which Chuck Evans had brought to the house for them with his employer's compliments.
'Al said you was to ride this one, miss,' said Chuck Evans.
It was the black mare on which Howard had ridden into their camp the first morning—Sanchia or Helen.
'What is her name?' asked Helen quite innocently when she had mounted.
Chuck Evans grinned his characteristic happy grin.
'Funny thing about that mare's name,' he conceded brightly.
'What do you mean?' queried Helen.
'Yesterday,' he explained, 'I heard Al talking to her down to the stable. He does talk to a horse more'n any man I know, and what's more they talk back to him. 'S a fact, miss. And what he said was, "Helen, you little black devil, I wouldn't sell you for a couple million dollars; no, not now." Calling her Helen, understand?'
'Well?' asked the other Helen.
'And,' went on Chuck Evans, 'that mare's been on the ranch six months and never did I hear him call her another thing than Sanchia.'
'Sanchia?' she repeated after him. 'What a pretty name!' And then, more innocently than ever, 'I don't think I ever heard the name before. She was named after somebody, I suppose?'
'Sure,' laughed Chuck. 'After a certain lady known in these parts as
Mrs. Murray. Her name is Sanchia.'
'Oh!' said Helen.
'And,' continued Chuck, 'that ain't all. This morning, just like he knew folks was going to ask her name, he tells me: "Say, Chuck; this here mare's name, if anyone asks you, is Sweetheart. Don't it just suit her?" he says. And when you come right down to it——'
'Hey, Chuck,' called Tod Barstow from his high seat. 'Get a move on.
We better get started before it's hot.'
So Chuck Evans departed and Helen sat straight in the saddle, her eyes a little puzzled. When her father rode to her side she was adjusting a bluebird's feather in her hatband. The feather, pointing straight up, gave a stiff, almost haughty look to the young woman's headgear.
They crossed the big meadow, wound for an hour among the little hills, and then began a slow, gradual climb along a devious dusty road. Less and ever less fertile grew the dry earth under them, more still and hot and hostile the land into which they journeyed. In three hours, jogging along, they came to Last Ridge.
'There's only one spot up this way that's fit to live in for more'n an hour at the stretch,' Barstow told them. 'There's a spring and some shade there. We'll drive right under it, and from there up we'll have to finish the job monkey-style.'
He stopped his horses in a little flat, just under a steep wall of reddish cliff. Here he and Chuck Evans unhitched and here the horses were tethered. Helen looked about her curiously, and at first her heart sank. There was nothing to greet her but rock and sweltering patches of sand and gravelly soil, and sparse, harsh brush. She turned and looked back toward the sweep of Desert Valley; there she saw green fields, trees, grazing stock. It was like the Promised Land compared with this bleak desolate spot her father had chosen. She turned to him, words of expostulation forming. But his eyes were bright, his look triumphant. He had already dismounted and was poking about here and there, examining everything at hand from a sand-storm stratum at the cliff's foot to loose dirt in the drifts and the hardy, wiry grass growing where it could. Helen turned away with a sigh.
From here the two Desert Valley men went forward on foot to show them the spot which Alan Howard had chosen as the most likely site for a camp. They walked to the end of the flat where the reddish, walls shut in; here was an angle of cliff and in the angle was a cleft some three or four feet wide. They passed into this and found that it offered a steep, winding way upward. But the distance was not great, and in ten minutes they had come to the top. Here again was a level space, a wide tableland, offering less of the desert menace and hostility and something more of charm and the promise of comfort. For a gentle breeze stirred here, and off yonder were scattered pines and cedars and in a clump of trees was a ring of verdure. They went to it and saw the spring. It was but a sort of mud-hole of yellowish, thickish water. But water it was, with green grass growing about it and with the shade of dusty trees over it. Beyond were the strange-shaped uplands, distant cliffs and peaks broken into a thousand grotesque forms, with bands of colour in horizontal strata across them as though they had been painted with a mighty brush.
'What though I have never been here until this second?' cried Longstreet triumphantly. 'I know it, all of it, every inch and millimetre of it! I could have made a map of it and laid the colours in. I have read of it, studied it—I have written of this country! Having been right in everything else, am I to be mistaken in the matter of its minerals? I said give me three months to find gold! Why, it's a matter to wonder at if I don't locate my mine in three days!'
The two men grinned readily. Before now they had heard men talk with the gold fever upon them.
'There's gold pretty near everywhere,' admitted Barstow, 'if a man can make it pay. But right now I guess me and Chuck had better start getting your stuff up the rocks. Suit you all right here for a camp?'
Helen turned and looked toward the south. There, broad and fertile below her, running away across the miles, were the Howard acres. She even made out the clutter of head-quarters buildings. Somehow she fancied that the sweep of homely view snatched from these bleak uplands something of their loneliness. When her father announced that this was just the spot he had longed for, Helen nodded her approval. Here for a time was to be home.
Throughout the day and until dusk the four of them laboured, making camp. Barstow and Evans lugged the various articles, boxes, rolls of bedding, up through the cleft in the rocks. They had brought in the wagon-bed some loose boards of various sizes; these they made into a rough floor. At the four corners of the floor they erected studding of two-by-four lumber. These they braced and steadied; they nailed other lengths of two-by-four material along the tops, outlining walls; they hacked and sawed and hammered and nailed to such advantage that in the end they had the misshapen frame of a cabin, rafters and all. Then over the rafters and along the sides they secured the canvas destined for the purpose. Doors and windows were canvas flaps; the sheet-iron stove was set up on four flat stones for legs; the stovepipe was run through a hole in the roof. And when Chuck Evans and Tod Barstow, amateurs in the carpenter's line, stood back and wiped the sweat off their brown faces and looked with fond and prideful eyes at their handiwork, Helen and her father were no whit less delighted.
'If you want more room after a while,' said Barstow, 'it'd be easy to tack more sheds on and run canvas over them, just the same as what we done. Me and Chuck would come up most any time and lend a hand.'
The breeze stiffened and the crazy edifice shivered.
'I don't know as I'd make it much bigger,' said Evans. 'If a real blow come on and the wind got inside—Say, Tod, how about a few guy ropes? Huh?'
Barstow agreed, and they brought what ropes they had in the wagon and 'staked her out, same as if she was a runaway horse,' as Chuck put it. In other words, they ran one rope from the rear end of the ridge of the house to the base of a conveniently-located pine tree; then they secured the second rope to the other end of the ridge-pole and anchored it to a big boulder. Meanwhile Helen opened some cans and made coffee on the newly-adjusted stove and they sat on the grass by the spring and made their evening meal. After which Barstow and Evans went down to their wagon and returned to Desert Valley. And James Edward Longstreet and his daughter sat alone upon their camp-stools in front of their new abode and looked off across the valley and into the distances.
The day departed slowly, lingeringly. The soft night came little by little, a misty veil floating into a hollow yonder, a star shining, the breeze strengthening and cooling. Before the twilight was gone and while one might look for miles across the billowing landscapes, they saw a horseman riding down in the valley; he appeared hardly more than a vague moving dot. And yet——
'It's Mr. Howard!' cried Helen.
Longstreet withdrew his straining eyes and turned them wonderingly upon his daughter.
'How in the world do you know?' he asked.
Helen smiled, a quiet smile of transcendent wisdom.
'Oh, I just knew he'd come over.' she said.
Chapter X
A Warning and a Sign
John Carr made a special trip back to Desert Valley ranch for a word with Howard. He rode hard and there was a look of anxiety in his eyes when he came upon his friend smoking thoughtfully in the big living-room of the ranch-house. It was late evening and a week after the departure of Howard's guests.
Howard dragged his boot heels down from the table top when he saw who it was and jumped to his feet his hand outstretched.
'Hello, John old boy,' he cried warmly. What's the good wind blowing you over this way already?'
Carr tossed his hat to the table, drew up a chair for himself and took a cigar before he answered. Then it was quietly and earnestly.
'Met up with Jim Courtot the other night, I hear?' he began.
Howard nodded and waited, his look curious.
'Well,' went on Carr, 'I wish you hadn't. He's a treacherous beast if this man's land ever cradled one. He's looking for you, Al.'
'He knows where to find me,' said Alan shortly. And then, 'Just what's worrying you, Johnnie?'
'I've known Jim for seventeen or eighteen years,' rejoined Carr. 'He's a cold, hard, calculating and absolutely crooked proposition. During that time I've never known him to go on a drunk more than two or three times. And every time there was trouble.'
'He's drinking now, then?'
'He started in right after you got through with him the other night. And he has been talking. There's no use being a fool!' he cut in sternly as Alan shrugged his shoulders. 'Courtot doesn't talk to me, but I've got straight what he has said. He talks to Moraga, and Moraga talks to Barbee, and Barbee passes it on to me. He told Moraga that if it was the last thing he did, he'd get you. And he is carrying a gun every step he takes.'
'The more a man talks, the less killing he does, I've noticed,' said Howard. But his tone did not carry conviction. Carr frowned impatiently.
'He hasn't talked much. He was mad clean through when he made that crack to Moraga. I tell you there's no use being a fool, Al.'
'No. Guess you're right, John. Anyway, it was pretty decent of you to ride over.'
He got up and went into his bedroom. A moment later he came out carrying a heavy Colt revolver in one hand, a box of cartridges in the other. The gun was well oiled; the cylinder spun silently and easily; the six chambers were loaded. He put the gun down on the table.
'I'll ride heeled for a few days, anyhow,' he decided. 'I guess I can shoot with Jim Courtot yet.'
'Did you ever find out for sure that it was Jim the other time?'
'Sure enough to suit me,' returned Howard. 'He was in town that night. And it was his style of work to take a pot shot at a man out of the dark.'
'He's not exactly a coward,' warned Carr.
'No, not a coward. But that's his kind of work, just the same. He would go after a man just as he plays poker—simply to win the surest, quickest, easiest way. Saw Sanchia Murray in town the same day he was there. Are they working together again?'
'I haven't seen either one of them. But I guess so. Barbee, poor kid, is trailing after her all the time, and he comes back hating Courtot worse and worse every day. Seen the Longstreets lately?'
Howard admitted that he had. It was only a little way over, he reminded Carr, an hour and a half ride or such a matter, and the old boy was such a helplessly innocent old stranger, that it didn't seem quite right to turn them adrift altogether.
'The girl is a pretty thing.' said Carr.
'Yes,' agreed Howard. 'Kind of pretty.'
Carr looked at him steadily. And for absolutely no slightest, vaguest reason in the wide world that he could think of, Alan Howard felt his face going red. Carr's look probed deeper. Then, with common consent, they turned to other subjects until bedtime. Nothing of business matters passed between them, although both remembered that a considerable payment was to fall due within ten days.
In particular Howard had cause to remember. He had recently balanced his books and had found that he had cut into his last five thousand dollars. Therefore, meaning to pay on the nail, he had arranged a sale of beef cattle. The range was heavily stocked, he had a herd in prime condition, the market was fair, and his system called for a sale soon and the purchase of some calves. Therefore the next morning, before Carr was astir, Howard and several of his men were riding toward the more remote fields where his beef herds were. Behind them came the camp wagon and the cook.
All day long he worked among his herds, gathering them, sorting them, cutting out and heading back towards the home corrals those under weight or in any way not in the pink of condition for the sale. His men rode away into the distances, going east and south, disappearing over the ridges seeking cattle that had strayed far. Howard changed the horse under him four times that day, and the beast he freed long after the stars were out was jaded and wet. In the end he threw himself down upon the hot earth in the shade of the wagon and turned his eyes toward the uplands of the Last Ridge. He had had no moment of his own to-day, no opportunity to ride for a call on his new friends, and now, after he rested a little and ate, he would go back to work with his men, night-herding. For the rounded-up cattle were now a great milling herd that grew greater as the night went on and other lesser bands were brought in, a stamping, churning mass whose deep-lunged bellowing surged out continuously across the valley stretches and through the passes of the hills.
To-morrow, thought Howard, he would ride toward the Last Ridge, taking it upon himself to gather up the straggling stock there, and, purely incidentally, he would look in upon the Longstreets. He had not seen them for three days. But the night was destined to bring events to alter his plans. In the first place, some of his cowboys whom he had dispatched to outlying districts of the range to round up the cattle there had not yet returned, and he and his men here were short-handed in their task of night-herding the swelling numbers of restless shorthorns. Howard, having had his supper, his cigarette and his brief rest, was saddling his fifth horse to take his turn at a four-hour shift, when he was aware that some one had ridden into camp. And then came a voice, shouting through the din and the dark:
'Hey, there. Where's Al?'
'Here,' called Howard. 'Who is it?'
'It's me,' and Barbee with jingling spurs came on. 'Special delivery letter for you, old-timer.'
Letters came rarely to Desert Valley, and Howard expected none. But he put out his hand eagerly; he had no reason to think such a thing, but none the less the conviction was upon him that Helen had written him. His arm through his horse's bridle, he struck a match and took into his hand a scrap of paper. As his peering eyes made out a sweeping, familiar scrawl, he felt a disappointment quite as unreasonable as had been his hope. It was unmistakably from the hand of John Carr, hastily written in lead pencil upon the inner side of an old envelope and said briefly:
'Better look out for Courtot, Al. He has left Big Run and is headed out your way.—JOHN.'
Howard tore the paper to bits.
'Where's Carr?' he asked quietly. 'Gone on back?'
Barbee chuckled softly.
'He was at your place last night, wasn't he? Well, he headed back and got as far as Big Run. That's where I saw him late this afternoon when he give me this for you. About that time I guess he changed his mind about going home and shifted his trail. He's gone up that way.'
The vague sweep of Barbee's arm indicated a wide expanse of country lying to the north. When Howard was silent, the boy went on lightly and perhaps a hint maliciously:
'Get me? Gone to see how the professor and his girl are making out. Keep your eye peeled, Al, or he'll beat you to it. Old John's a sure heller with the women.'
Howard snapped out a curt admonition to Barbee to mind his own business and flung himself into the saddle. As he spurred away to the outer fringe of his herd he was not thinking over-much of Carr's warning; somehow Barbee's stuck closer in his mind. A spurt of irritation with himself succeeded that first desire to slap the message-bearer's face. For he knew within his heart that he resented Carr's making himself at home at the Longstreet camp, and he knew that to-night he was an unreasonable beast. Had not Carr once already ridden far out of his way to warn him? Was there any reason in the wide world why Carr should not this time send Barbee and himself ride on wherever it suited him to go? At that moment Howard would have been glad than otherwise to have Jim Courtot present himself.
'Let him start something, damn him,' he growled savagely to himself, 'any time.' And he began wondering if now John Carr were sitting with Helen and her father in front of their little home? Or if perhaps Longstreet had gone in to his books, and Carr and Helen alone, sitting quiet under the spell of the night, were looking out into the shining world of stars? He cursed himself for a fool and an ingrate. Didn't Carr have a man's right to ride where he chose? And had he not already twice in twenty-four hours shown how clearly his thought and his heart were with his friend? A revolver knocked at Howard's side. It was there because John Carr had shown him its need.
Howard's impulse was to stay away from Last Ridge for a little longer. He reasoned that Carr would be invited to stay overnight and would naturally accept the invitation. Why should he not? There is always room in camp for one more, and no doubt both Helen and her father would be glad of company to break their monotony and loneliness. But before Howard had had time for more than an impulse there came the second episode of the night to set him thinking upon other matters.
As he rode he heard several voices and recognized them as those of his own men. One guffawed loudly and there came the sound of his big hand slapping his leg in his high delight; another swore roundly and impatiently; a third was talking excitedly, earnestly. This third was Sandy Weaver, an old hand, a little man characterized by his gentle eyes and soft voice and known across many miles as an individual in whom the truth did not abide. All up and down these fringes of the desert he was known simply as Lying Sandy.
'What's the excitement, boys?' demanded Howard.
Sandy wheeled his horse, pressing close to his employer's side, and burst into quick explanation. He had been working with Dave Terril over on the east side; they had found only a handful of stock there, and Sandy had left them to Dave, and in order to save time for the morrow had circled the valley and combed over the north end, under the Last Ridge cliffs. Just before dark he had made his discovery. His horse had found it first, shying and sniffing and then trying to bolt; Sandy was nothing if not circumstantial.
'We've got some work to do to-night, Sandy.' cut in Howard shortly.
'If you've got anything to say, go to it.'
'Haw!' gurgled Bandy O'Neil, recently from a California outfit, a man with a large sense of mirth. 'He's got his prize ring-tailed dandy to spring, Al. Don't choke him off or it'll kill him.'
Sandy hearkened to neither of them, but hastened on. He described the hidden sink in a boulder-ringed draw, the difficulty he had had in bringing his horse to the scene and his own stupefaction. And when he had done all of this with his customary detail he declared that he had come upon a yearling bull, dead as a door nail and slaughtered after a fashion that made Sandy's eyes widen in the starlight.
'It's throat was just sure enough tore all to hell, Al,' he said ponderously. 'Like something the size of an elephant had gone after it. And I says to myself it must have been a wolf, and I go looking for tracks. And, by the Lord, I found 'em! Tracks like a wolf and the size of a dinner plate! And alongside them tracks, some other tracks. And they was made by a man and he was barefooted!'
Bandy O'Neil's roar of mirth was a sound to hearken to joyously from afar.
'And,' he cried, dabbing at his tears, 'Sandy would sure take a man by the mit and lead him to the spot, only just then a big bird, size of half a dozen ostriches, flops down and sinks its claws into that there bull calf and flies right straight over the moon with it! Ain't that what you said, Sandy?'
'You're a fool, Bandy O'Neil, and always will be a fool,' muttered Sandy Weaver stiffly. 'That same calf is laying right there now, and if you don't believe it or Al don't believe it, I'll bet you a hundred bucks and show you the place as fast as a horse can lay down to it.'
He ran on with his tale, having the end yet to recount. He had headed his cattle down to meet Dave Terril; he and Dave had swung in together and moved still further south to herd in with the boys coming up from that direction; and being within striking distance of the ranch-house, Sandy had ridden there alone.
'I wasn't sure but you might be there, Al,' he explained. 'And I wanted to tell you what I saw. I rampsed right in and found somebody waiting for you. Know who?'
'Carr?' suggested Howard.
'No, it wasn't. It was Jim Courtot. There wasn't anybody at the house but old Angela and the Mex kid, and they let him in. He was setting there waiting, and when I went in the door he come up standing and he had his gun in his hand and it was cocked. And, Al, he looked mean.'
There was a pause and a silence. Sandy Weaver might be lying, and then again he might not.
'I got nothing against Jim, and it didn't drop on me right then that he was out to start a row. And, being full of what I saw up there, I spilled him the yarn. And I wish you could have had a look into that man's face! He's no albino to speak on, and yet when I got half-way through he looked it. His face was as white as a rag and his eyes bulged out like he was scared, and the sweat come out on his head and all over, I guess, and he kept looking over his shoulder all the time like the devil was after him. And when I showed him what I found on the rock by the dead calf, he just asks me one question. He says, "Sandy, what way was them tracks pointed?" And when I tells him it looked like they was pointed this way—well, Jim was gone!'
'You lying devil!' shouted Bandy hilariously.
But Howard, wondering, demanded:
'What was it you found on the rock, Sandy?'
Sandy yanked it from his pocket. They crowded closer and some one struck a match. It was a bit of buckskin, and in the buckskin was a little heap of raw gold.
Chapter XI
Seeking
Alan Howard got a lantern from the wagon and said briefly to Sandy Weaver: 'Show me the place.' For he knew that for once Weaver was not lying. When together they came to the hollow where the dead calf lay he dismounted, made a light and verified all that had been told him. He saw dimly the track of the bare human foot where Sandy had left it undisturbed; he passed from that to the other tracks. As his cowboy had said, they resembled a wolf's but were unusually large. As Howard noted for himself, the front feet had made the larger, deeper imprint; the hind tracks were narrower, longer, less clearly defined.
'It carries the bulk of its weight up forward,' he said thoughtfully. 'It would be heavy-chested, big-shouldered, slim in the barrel and small in the hips. And it is the same It that made those other tracks by Superstition Pool—where some gent was scared half out of his hide and clean out of any desire to linger or eat supper.'
'What's all that?' demanded Sandy. 'Seen tracks like that before?'
Howard nodded and went back to his horse in silence. And silent he remained during the ride back to camp, despite Sandy's chatter. For already he had a vague theory and he was seeking stubbornly to render that theory less vague. When they had ridden back to the herd he singled out Chuck Evans and moved with him out of hearing of the others.
'Chuck,' he said soberly, 'I've got a job for you. I've got to go on with the herd to San Juan and I don't know just when I'll be back. To-morrow you move the extra horses up into the hills; it's time, anyway, to feed off the grass in the cañons. And I want you to keep in touch with the Longstreets. At night-time make your camp within calling distance of theirs. And keep your eyes and ears open.'
'I get you,' said Chuck, 'only I don't. What's going to hurt them?'
'Nothing that I know of. But I want you on the job. I don't quite like the idea of the old professor and his daughter being out there alone.' And that was all the explanation he gave.
The next afternoon the drive began. Sitting a little aside as his men started the slow procession toward the San Juan trail, Howard watched his carefully bred cattle go by and drew from the moment a full sense of success achieved. As they crowded by in bellowing scores he estimated that they were going to net him above ten thousand dollars, and that every cent of that ten thousand was going to John Carr as a worth-while payment upon Desert Valley. From his own funds in the bank Howard would draw for the purchase of his calves and for running expenses. He would be close-hauled again, but he would have earned a long breathing spell. As the tail-enders pushed by him he dropped in behind them to be engulfed in the rising clouds of dust and to do his own part of his own work.
The wagon had gone ahead to the place appointed for to-night's camp. Since the herd was large, while days were hot and water-holes scarce, Howard had planned the devious way by Middle Springs, Parker's Gulch, the end of Antelope Valley, across the little hills lying to the north of Poco Poco and on into San Juan by the chain of mud-holes where the old Mexican corrals were. Hence, he counted upon being at least four days on the road to San Juan. There his responsibilities would cease, as there the buyers had promised to meet him, taking the herd on into the railroad.
During the days which followed he was as busy as a man should care to be, for the task of moving a large herd across a dry and baking country and through it all keeping the cattle in first-class condition, is no small one. And busy in mind was he when the stars were out and camp was pitched. He lay with his head on his saddle, his pipe in his teeth, his thoughts withdrawn from his business of stock-selling and centred elsewhere. The second night out the boys noted a change in Al Howard; the third night they asked one another 'what had come over the old man.' For whereas formerly his had always been the gayest voice around the camp fire, his the tongue to spin a yarn or start a cowboy ballad, now he withdrew after a silent supper and threw himself down on the ground and stared at the stars, his thoughts his own behind the locked guard of his shut teeth.
'He's figgering on something—hard,' said Dave Terril. 'Might be about
Jim Courtot.'
'Or them tracks,' suggested Sandy Weaver. 'The barefoot's and the gigantic wolf.'
'Or,' put in a chuckling voice from the shadows, 'a girl, huh? Having took a good look at old man Longstreet's girl, I wouldn't blame Al overmuch.'
By the time the adobe walls of picturesque San Juan swam into view across the dry lands Alan Howard had at least reshaped and clarified his theory of the tracks, had made up his mind concerning Jim Courtot and had dreamed through many an hour of Helen. As to Helen, he meant to see a very great deal of her when he returned to Desert Valley. As to Jim Courtot, he meant to end matters one way or another without any great delay. For to a man of the type of Alan Howard the present condition was unbearable. He knew that Courtot was 'looking for him'; that Courtot had gone straight to the ranch-house and had sat down with his gun in front of him, waiting for Howard's step on the porch; that when the first opportunity arose Jim Courtot would start shooting. It was not to his liking that Courtot should have things all his way. The gambler would shoot from the dark, as he had done before, if he had the chance. That chance might come to-night or a year from now, and constant expectancy of this sort would, soon or late, get on a man's nerves. In short, if Courtot wanted to start something, Howard fully meant to have it an even break; if Courtot were looking for him he could expedite matters by looking for Courtot.
As to his theory of the tracks; he connected them, too, with Jim Courtot. He knew that for the past three months Courtot had disappeared from his familiar haunts; these were La Casa Blanca, Jim Galloway's gambling-house in San Juan, and similar places in Tecolote, Big Run, Dos Hermanos and San Ramon. He knew that only recently, within the week, Courtot had returned from his pilgrimage; that he had come up to Big Run from King Cañon way. He knew that the man who had fled Superstition Pool had turned out in the direction of King Cañon, and that that man might or might not have been Jim Courtot. Finally, he had Sandy Weaver's word for it that Courtot went deathly-white when he heard of the slain calf and the tracks, and that forthwith Courtot had again disappeared. The imprint of a man's bare foot spelled an Indian from the northern wastes, and Courtot, during the three months of his disappearance, had had ample time to go far into the north. To Howard it seemed a simple thing to imagine that Courtot had committed some deed which had brought after him the unsleeping vengeance of a desert Indian.
In San Juan Howard found a representative of Doan, Rockwell and Haight, the cattle buyers, awaiting him; and the same day the deal was completed, a cheque placed in his hands and the cattle turned over to the buyers' drivers. His men he dismissed to their own devices, knowing that they would amuse themselves in San Juan, perhaps stir up a fight with a crowd of miners, and thereafter journey homeward, fully content. They were not to wait for him, as he had business to delay him a day or so. From the corrals he went to the bank, placing his cheque for collection with his old friend, John Engle. Thereafter, while his horse rested and enjoyed its barley at the stables, he turned to the Casa Blanca. For it was always possible that Jim Courtot was there.
As he stepped in at the deep, wide doorway Howard's hat was low-drawn, its brim shading his eyes, and he was ready to step swiftly to right or left, to spring forward or back, to shoot quickly if shooting were in the cards. But he knew upon the moment that Courtot was not here. At the bar were his own men ranged up thirstily; they saw him and called to him and had no warning to give. So he passed on down the long room until he stopped at a little table where three men sat. One of them, a thick, squat fellow with a florid face and small mean eyes, looked up at him and glowered.
'Where's Courtot, Yates?' asked Howard coolly.
Yates stared and finally shrugged.
'Left town day before yesterday,' he replied shortly.
'So he was here? I heard he wanted to see me. Know which way he has gone?'
Yates studied him keenly. Then again he lifted his ponderous shoulders.
'He was looking for you,' he said, his meaning clear in the hardness of his eyes. 'And, if you want to know, he's up Las Palmas way.'
'That happens to be lucky,' Alan told him, turning away. 'I'm going up there now to look at some calves in French Valley. If I happen to miss him and you see him you can tell him for me that I'm ready to talk with him any time.'
He went out in dead silence. Many eyes followed him, many eyes which when his tall form had passed through the door came back to other eyes narrowed and thoughtful. For Alan Howard was well known here in San Juan, and never before had a man of them seen him wearing a gun at his hip. There were bets offered and taken before he was half-way to the stable. His own men, hearing, were thoughtful and said nothing. All except Bandy O'Neil, who smashed his big fist on the bar and stared angrily into the florid face of Yates and cried out loudly that Jim Courtot was a card sharp and a crook and that Jim Courtot's friends were as Jim Courtot. Yates for the third time shrugged his thick shoulders. But his look was like a knife clashing with the cowboy's.
Though it was dusk when he resaddled and Las Palmas was twenty-five miles away, Howard's impatience hastened him on. It appeared that Courtot had made up his mind and, further, was publishing the fact across a wide sweep of country. Then there was no going back for him and Courtot, and like a man borne along in a swift current which offered rapids ahead, he was afire to get them behind him. If Courtot were still in Las Palmas he would find him to-night.
But again, at the end of a tedious ride, he learned that the man he sought had come and gone. No one knew just where, but at the one lodging-house which the little settlement possessed, it was hinted that Courtot had headed still further north, perhaps to Los Robles. Howard went to bed that night wondering what it was that impelled the gambler to this hurried travelling across the land. Was it something that lured and beckoned? Was it something that drove and harassed? His last thoughts were of the tracks he had seen by a dead calf and of the tale Sandy Weaver had told.
Early the next morning he rode out to French Valley for a look at Tony Vaca's calves. They proved to be about what he had expected of them, close to a hundred, of mixed breeding, but for the most part good beef-making stock in fair condition and all under a year old. Vaca was short of pasture this year, hence, he declared, forced to sell at a bargain. Howard nodded gravely, considered briefly, and in ten minutes bought the herd, agreeing to take them at ten per cent. less than Tony's bargain price provided they were delivered in Desert Valley within a week.
Now all of his business of buying and selling was done and there remained but to go home or to look further for Courtot. He rode back into Las Palmas and breakfasted at the lunch counter. There he learned that Courtot had probably gone on up to Quigley, another twenty-five miles to the north-east. And, very largely because of the geographical location of Quigley, Howard decided on the instant to continue at least that far his quest. For, coming the way he had from his ranch, he had described a wide arc, almost a semicircle, and by the same trail, should he retrace it, was a hundred and fifty miles from Desert Valley. But, if he went on to Quigley, a mining-town in the bare mountains, he would be at the mouth of Quigley Pass, which led to a little-used trail through the mountains and almost in a straight line across the arm of the desert known locally as the Bad Lands. Though he had never crossed these weary, empty miles, and though there were no towns and few water-holes within their blistered scope, Howard judged that he could save close to fifty miles of the return trip. So he slipped his foot into the stirrup and swung out toward Quigley, hopeful of finding Courtot and confident of a short cut home.
Chapter XII
The Desert Supreme
Considerably to his surprise Howard found absolutely no trace of Courtot in Quigley. He inquired at the pool room, at the restaurant, at the stable. No one had seen the gambler for several months. It struck the cattleman as strange that a man should have ridden out of Las Palmas, taking the Quigley trail, and not have come to Quigley. Where else could a man go? On the west lay the desert, on the east the Lava Mountains and beyond the desert again, and it was a far call to any settlement or habitation. Even the sheepmen did not come up this way; only the Quigley mines brought men here, and yet Courtot had not come to Quigley.
'He turned out somewhere,' mused Howard, 'the Lord knows what for or where. But it's his business, and I'm going home.'
He gave his horse an hour in the stable while he himself made ready for his short cut across the Bad Lands. The preparations were simple; at the store he bought a small pack of provisions, enough to last him three or four days at a pinch and in case of accidents; he filled his canteen; he spent half an hour with the grizzled old storekeeper, who in his time had been a prospector and who knew the country hereabouts as only an old prospector could know it. On a bit of wrapping-paper the old fellow sketched a trail map that indicated the start through the Pass, the general direction and the chief landmarks, the approximate mileage and—here he was very exact and accompanied his sketch with full verbal instructions—the few water-holes.
'You can make it all right, Al,' he said when Howard slipped the paper into his vest pocket. 'It's no trick for a man like you. But I wouldn't send a tenderfoot in there, not unless I wanted to make him over into a dead tenderfoot. And, mind you, every year some of them water-holes dries up; the only ones you can count on for sure are the ones I've marked with a double ring that way. So long.'
'So long,' said Alan, and went for his horse.
The forenoon was well advanced when he rode into the mouth of the narrow pass which gives access, above the mines, into the Lava Mountains and through them into the Bad Lands. In twenty minutes he had entered a country entirely new to him. He looked about him with interested eyes. Never, he thought as he pushed forward, had he known until now the look of utter desolation. The mountain flanks were strewn with black blocks and boulders of broken lava and were already incredibly hot; underfoot was parched earth upon which it seemed that not even the hardiest of desert grasses cared to grow; yonder the Bad Lands stretched endlessly before him, blistering mounds of rock, wind-drifted stretches of burning sand, dry gulches and gorges which one's wildest imagining could not fill with rushing waters. Here and there were growing things, but they were grey with desert dust and looked dead, greasewood dwarfed and wind-twisted, iron-fanged cacti snarling at the clear hot sky and casting no more shade than lean poles.
'A man won't find his trail all cluttered up with folks in here,' thought Howard. 'Wonder who was the last man to poke his fool nose into this bake-oven. Whew, it's hot.'
Hotter it grew and drier and, though such a thing had not seemed possible, altogether more repellent and hostile to life. He climbed a ridge to get his bearings and to locate in the grey distance the black peak which the storekeeper had indicated on his map as the first landmark and steering-point. He found it readily enough, a dozen miles off to the south-west, and jogged down the gentle slope toward it, his hat drawn low to shield his burning eyes. Within an hour the impression obtruded itself upon his fancies that about him the world was dead. He did not see a jack-rabbit or a slinking coyote or a bird; not even a buzzard, that all but ubiquitous, heat-defying bundle of dry feathers and bones, hung in the sky. Why should a rabbit come hither where there was no herbage? Why a coyote when his prey shunned these wastes? Why even the winged scavenger when all animal life fled the Bad Lands? The man's spirit was oppressed and drooped under the weariness of the weary land.
It was a tedious day, and more than once he regretted that he had taken this trail; for it seemed likely, as is so often the case, that the long way round was the short way home. But he was in for it, and plugged ahead, longing for the cool of evening. About noon he found the first water-hole and, what was more, found water in it. It was ugly, hot stuff, but his horse trotted to it with ears pricked forward and nostrils a-twitch and drank long and thirstily. Thereafter, though they came to other spots where there should be water, they found none until after sunset. Howard drew off the saddle, gave his horse a handful of barley and staked it out close to the spring. Then he made his own dinner, had his smoke and threw himself down for a couple of hours' rest and dozing. It was his intention to travel on in the night to the next spring, which was some ten miles farther on and which, because of its location in the centre of a cluster of hills already clear against the skyline, he was sure he could not miss. It was one of the map's double-ringed water-holes.
His horse finished its drink and its barley. He heard it shake itself as a horse does after its sweaty work is done. Without turning his head he knew where it was going to lie down for a roll. Now he did turn a little, seeing through the coming dimness of night the four legs waving in air as the beast struggled to turn over on its back. It was a new horse, one he had purchased some weeks ago with a number of others and had not ridden until now; he recalled how, when a boy, he had shared other youngsters' superstition in connexion with a horse rolling. If it went clean over, it was worth a hundred dollars, if it rolled back, another hundred, and so on.
But this animal did not complete the one effort. Howard heard its sudden terrified snort, saw it scramble wildly to its feet and go plunging off to the end of its tether, knew that even the strong rope had broken and the horse was running wild. And as the man jumped to his feet he knew why. For before the snort of fear he had heard another sound, one indescribable to him who has not heard it and unforgettable and on the instant recognizable to him who has; that quiet noise resembling as much as anything else the harsh rustling of dead, bone-dry leaves. As he ran forward, Howard prayed in his heart that the snake's fangs had not met in horseflesh.
Because the light was not all gone and he knew just where to look, he saw the rattler slipping away across the sand. He thrust his gun down as close as he dared and with the first shot blew the sinister, flat head off the ugly thick body. Then he went forward, calling soothingly to his horse.
Had it been any one of the horses he rode customarily, his voice might have carried something of quiet to startled nerves. But as it was the horse was frightened, it was free, it was running and the broken end of the tie-rope, whipping at its heels, put fresh terror into it. Howard saw it dimly as it crested a ridge a few hundred yards off; then its vague shape was gone, swallowed up in the night. He hurried after it over the ridge. The stars showed him empty spaces of billowy sand; there were black spots marking hollows and nowhere his horse. But yet he went forward hopefully or at least striving to retain his hope. He had little liking for the plight that would be his were he set afoot here in the heart of the Bad Lands. But at the end of upwards of an hour of fruitless search he went back to the water-hole and his traps, seeing the folly of further seeking now. He would have to camp here until daybreak. Tomorrow he might find his horse and might or might not recapture it; to-morrow he might see the poor beast lying dead and horribly swollen; to-morrow he might find in the empty desert nothing but emptiness. For to-night there was nothing better to do than make his bed and go to sleep under the stars and thank God for food and water.
At the first pale glint of the new day he was astir. With sleep still heavy in his eyes he hurried back to the ridge over which his horse had gone. As he was pretty well prepared to expect, there was no horse in sight. He waited for the light to brighten, probing with eager eyes into the distances. Swiftly the sky filled to the coming day; the shadows withdrew from the hollows, the earth stood forth, naked and clearly revealed. Save for himself, feeling dwarfed in this immensity, there was no living thing within the scope of his vision. He shook his head and turned back to camp and breakfast, frowning grimly. He would have to walk out of this mess, and like any twelve cattlemen out of a dozen he had little love of walking.
While he ate his morning meal he turned matters over in his mind. He saw that he could look forward confidently to a couple of unpleasant days. He did not anticipate any difficulty beyond that of the irksomeness of being obliged to trudge something like fifty miles in the sun. He knew that he would waste no end of time trying to track the vanished horse across such a land as this; he saw only foolhardiness in leaving the trail he had had picked out for him and, with little food and no knowledge of water, turning out across an utterly unknown land of forbidding desolation. He judged roughly that Desert Valley was as near as Quigley. Hence, having filled his canteen and tied his provisions into a bundle, he slung the two over his shoulders, left his saddle where it was and turned his face toward the home range.
Despite his determination to get an ugly task over and done with, he was a full four hours making the first ten miles. He walked as swiftly as he might to take the full advantage of the lesser heat of the earlier hours, but his way led him through loose sand, down into cuts and gorges, up their steep sides, across fields of loose stones, which, shifting underfoot, made his striving for haste a pure work of Tantalus. At the end of the first hour the heat was already intense; at the end of the second he felt that his skin was as dry as the desert sands and that the moisture of his body was being sucked out of it by the thirsty air and that at every stride the day grew drier and hotter. Thirst clutched his throat, ached throughout his body, that thirst which is like no other, desert thirst. Again and again he drank from his canteen. When he ploughed up the slope of the little hills and then down into their hollow to the double-ringed spring, his canteen was half empty. And when at last he came to the spring itself he found it as dry as a last year's seedpod.
Until this instant the day's adventure had been merely the acme of unpleasantness. Now something more sinister entered into it. He made certain that he had found the place where the water-hole should be. Then he sat down. His eyes were very grave.
'If I don't play this hand right,' he told himself solemnly, 'I'll never get out of this.'
He found a few breast-high bushes and crawled into their thin shade and lay down; before him he spread out the Quigley storekeeper's map. This he studied with thoughtful eyes. The storekeeper had said it would be no trick at all for a man like Howard to make the trip, but he had meant Howard on horseback. On foot it became quite another matter. The next spot where he should find water was some twenty miles ahead of him; at the rate he had travelled this morning it would take him some eight hours to come to it. Further, at the rate he had drank from his canteen this morning, that canteen would be empty when he had gone half the distance. Clearly, he must drink less water, just half what he had drank during the last four hours. Clearly also, it would grow hotter and he would want more instead of less water. Clearly again—and here was the point of points—when he came to the twenty-mile-distant water-hole, it too might be dry. And, after that, there was not another spring for another twelve or fifteen miles. Yes, many things were clear.
He sat up and rolled a cigarette; he sat still while he smoked it. Here was plainly a time for cool thinking; he would take all of the time that he needed to be sure that he had decided correctly. For later there might be no minute to squander. At present he had both food and water. At present he could go on or turn back. There was water where he had left his saddle; he could count on that positively and could get to it before he had emptied his canteen. But, if instead he went forward, there could be no turning back. He studied his map again. So far as he could make out from it, it was as well to go on as to retreat. So, putting his paper into his pocket he took up his food and water, made certain of his bearings and went on. It was a gamble, but a gamble his life had always been, and a fair gamble, an even break, is all that men like Alan Howard ask. He realized with a full measure of grimness that never until now had he placed a wager like this one; he was betting heavily and he knew not against what odds that at the end of twenty miles he would find water.
Hour after hour he trudged on. His feet burned; they ached; his boots made blisters and the blisters broke. Always he was thirsty with a thirst which his whole supply of water could not have slacked and which grew steadily more acute. Now and then he paused briefly and drank sparingly. His bundle of food, small as it was, grew heavy; his feet were heavy; only his canteen seemed to him lighter and lighter. A hot wind rose, blowing direct into his face, flinging at him fine particles of burning sand that sifted through his clothing and got into his boots, torturing further his tortured feet; the wind seared his eyeballs and threatened to blind him. He lifted his head, selected a distant landmark, sought to shelter his eyes with the broad brim of his hat and went on.
Noon found him plunging down the steep bank of a dry gulch, a hideous gash in the breast of the hideous land. He found a spot where there was a little shade under a clump of bushes growing upon the bank's edge. He ate a little of his dried beef; he treated himself to half a dozen big, slow swallows of water; then he lay and rested for half an hour. Again he rose; he moistened his mouth and lips, shut his teeth hard together as he took the first step upon swollen feet; again he wandered monotonously through a monotonous land. There was no wind now save, infrequently, frolicsome little whirlwinds which danced about him and were gone. When he found that their play angered him, that they seemed to mock at his weariness and dying energies, he frowned. This was no time and here was no place for nerves.
In the late afternoon, after having laboured all day through a hell of tedium and distress, he came to the water-hole. He marked it from afar by its dusty willows; he wondered if this time he would find water. It struck him that he must. He began to walk faster; he curbed a heady desire to break into a run. As it was, he came slowly, steadily to the spot. And there was no water. He would not believe it. He walked along the line of willows, looking carefully everywhere. And not until he had looked everywhere did he give up. Oddly, his compelling want at the moment was less for a drink than for a smoke. He began rolling a cigarette. Half-way through the brief task he desisted, returning the thimbleful of tobacco to its sack. For the hot smoke would merely dry out further his already dry mouth.
He lay down in what shade he could find and estimated very carefully the amount of water in his canteen. He weighed the vessel in his hand; he unscrewed the top and held it so as to look into it.
'I've got about three cupfuls,' he told himself.
Again he studied his map. Again he ate sparingly and thereafter took a sip of water. He screwed the top on quickly and tightly, jealous even of a drop which might evaporate in this sponge-air. He stood up, knowing that he must not loiter. For each second his thirst would increase as the arid air took the moisture forth through the pores of his body. Before he had moved a step forward he saw a man coming toward him. He laughed outright, a laugh of suddenly relieved nerves which had been very tense. That man would have water and would know where other water was to be found.
The man came neither from the direction of Quigley nor yet of Desert Valley. Rather he was coming in from the north, would cut Howard's trail almost at right angles. He was on foot. Howard wondered at that. Further, the man had a strange way of walking. He was half naked and about his head a dark cloth was tied. He trotted a few steps, seemed to hesitate and balance, he came on head down. Something seemed to get in the way of his feet; he stumbled, caught himself, stumbled a second time and fell on his face. He got to his hands and knees, slowly rose to his feet and came on, walking crazily. Then Howard understood. The man was an Indian or a half-breed and he was dying of thirst.
Chapter XIII
A Son of the Solitudes
Wonderingly Howard watched the man come on. For a moment he believed that the new-comer had gone both mad and blind. For the roving eyes were terrible to look into, black pools of misery, and the mouth was distended and the stumbling feet did not turn aside for scrub-brush or rock. From the waist up the gaunt coppery body was naked; of a ragged pair of overalls held up by a rawhide thong one leg was gone; the feet were bare.
'Hey there, compañero,' called Howard. 'Where are you going?'
It was no longer a question of breed or Indian now. Despite the grime that made a mask over the face the features were unmistakably those of a pure-bred Hopi; the shape of the body that of the desert Indian. He had the small shoulders, the thin arms and the powerful iron legs of his people. He was passing only a dozen steps from Howard. He stopped at the sound of the voice, stared wildly and then sagged on by. Howard called again and then followed, bewildered. The Indian fell twice before he came to the spot where there should be water. Here he went down on his stomach, putting his face down as though to drink. Howard heard him groan when the bleared eyes saw that instead of water there was but blazing hot sand. The Indian made no other sound but merely rolled over on his back and lay very still, eyes shut, jaw dropping, hands lax at his sides.
'You poor devil!' muttered Howard.
He came to the prostrate figure. Now he noted that from the string-belt there hung at one hip a little buckskin bag; it might have held a handful of dried meat. Tied at the other hip was a bundle of feathers that made gay colour against the grey monotony, feathers of the bluebird, the redbird, blackbird and dove. Scabbardless, tied with a bit of thong close to the feathers, was a knife with a long blade.
The Indian's chest heaved spasmodically; his breath came in dry gasps. Howard stooped over him and called to him softly. The eyes flew open and, after a heavy gathering of the brows bespeaking the effort made, focussed upon Howard's.
'Agua,' pleaded the swollen lips.
Howard took up a sardine tin, the contents of which he had eaten while he rested, and, very careful not to spill a drop of the priceless fluid, poured it half full from his canteen. Then he knelt and put an arm about the gaunt body, lifting it a little, offering the water to the broken lips. Now he noted that the cloth about the black head of hair was stained with blood.
He had expected the man to drink thirstily. Instead, manifesting a display of will power such as the white man had never seen, the Indian took the water slowly, held it a moment in his mouth, swallowed it drop by drop.
'More,' he said when the tin was emptied.
Again Howard filled it. Now the Indian sat upright alone and drank. Afterwards he looked at Howard with a long, piercing regard. A second time he said 'More.'
Howard with his finger indicated how low his water was.
'Not much water, compañero,' he said quietly. 'Pretty soon all gone.'
'No more?' queried the Indian sharply.
Howard poured out the third small tin; altogether he was giving the poor devil only about a cupful when a quart would have been all inadequate. Again the keen black eyes that seemed clearer now and like a bird's probed at him. Again and as before, the Indian drank.
'Me Kish Taka,' he announced slowly and with a certain dignity. 'Come far, head hurt, much sick, much blood. Pretty soon, no water, die. Now, pretty good.'
Howard grunted. That a man in this fellow's shape should declare himself as being 'pretty good' was worth any man's snort. He looked as though he would be dead in ten minutes as he lay back and shut his eyes. With his eyes still shut, the Indian spoke again:
'You sabe other water-hole?'
'No. I found it dry.'
'Kish Taka sabe water-hole. Sleep now, damn tired, damn hot, head sick. Sun go down, get cold, Kish Taka go there, you come, get water.'
'Where?' demanded Howard quickly. 'How far?' For he was half inclined to believe that if Kish Taka went to sleep now he would never wake.
The long, thin arm pointed out to the south-west.
'Not too far,' he said. 'Two big high mountain, some tree, water there. Maybe twenty-five mile.'
'Good God!' exclaimed Howard. 'Twenty-five miles! Might as well be a thousand!'
The Indian did not answer. He was breathing regularly, his lips were closed. For five minutes Howard stood looking down upon him and then he tiptoed a few yards away; Kish Taka was evidently asleep. Howard set his canteen down in the shade of a bush, found another bush for himself, and lay as the Indian was lying, on his back, relaxing his body. He did not regret having shared his water with an Indian, but he wondered why his destiny at this time of need had sent to him another thirsty mouth. Further, he allowed himself to wonder soberly if he would ever see his green fields again. He measured his chances with a steady mind, and in the end his mouth grew sterner.
'If I've got to cash in this way,' he muttered as his own sort of prayer, 'I hope I can be as game about it as Kish Taka.'
It struck him that in one thing the Indian was wise. It was as well to rest now until after sunset and then to start on again in what coolness the evening might afford. Further, it was not in him now to get up and sling his canteen on his back and go on, leaving the fellow wayfarer whom his fate had given him. He would try to sleep a little, though he had little enough hope of coaxing the blissful condition of rest and unconsciousness to him. But, physically tired, lulled by the great stillness, it was but a few minutes when he, too, slept heavily.
He woke and sat up. The day had gone, the stars were out, the air was cool against his cheek. He got to his feet and went to the spot where he had left the Indian, half expecting to find the man dead. Instead he found no man at all. He looked about him; there was light enough to see objects at a considerable distance. The desert seemed, as it had seemed all day, empty. He called and got no answer. It was obvious enough that Kish Taka had rested, waked, gone on.
'Got thirsty,' grunted Howard, 'and just trotted over to a spring only twenty-five miles off for a drink! That's the Indian for you.'
His own thirst sprang out upon him, clutching him by the throat. He stepped to the bush where he had left his canteen and groped for it. When he did not find it, he looked elsewhere, supposing that he had made a mistake in the bush. When the truth dawned upon him his whole body grew rigid, he stood motionless, even for a little his lungs suspended their function. His hands clenched; for some reason and apparently without any act of his will, they were lifted slowly until they were above his head. Then they came down slowly until they were at his sides, still clenched hard. It was his only gesture. He did not speak aloud. Again he stood still. But through his heart and soul and brain, sweeping upward and upward, came such a flood of rage as he had never known. And with it, born of it, came rushing the frenzied craving to kill. At last came his dry whisper:
'I am going to last long enough to kill you, Kish Taka, and may God damn your soul!'
One hand took up his little bundle of food; the, other dropped to the butt of his revolver. He went swiftly to the spot where he had left the Indian whom he had thought half dead. He estimated again and with great care the direction which the lean leathery hand had indicated as the direction of water. Then, walking swiftly, he struck out into the desert. Here was not the way to Desert Valley, not the way to Quigley. But here was the path for one man to follow when he sought another man who had wronged him. The fact that his chances of coming up with the Indian were few did not deter the cattleman; the obscurity of night on the desert did not give him halt or hesitation. The name of his wrath burned high and hot in his brain and in its lurid light he saw his desire fulfilled. Had one tried at the moment to reason with him, Howard would have cursed him and gone on. His anger had spurted up in a brain already mad with the torture of thirst.
And yet that brain was clear enough to guide him in the way he would go. He studied the stars, found the north and set his course painstakingly. Presently he began to walk less hurriedly, bent savagely upon reserving his strength. When there was some object ahead set visibly against the skyline, a hillock or a clump of bushes, he laid his course by it, checking again and again by the stars. When he had walked an hour he stopped and rested, lighting a match to look at his watch. He allowed himself exactly five minutes and floundered up and went on again. Doggedly he sought to shut his mind to the pain stabbing through his weary feet, to the constriction of his throat, to the ache of his body so sorely and so long punished. When, had matters been different, he might have cried out: 'God, for a drink!' he now muttered dully, 'God, put him into my two hands !'
The fine, delicate machinery of a human brain, like any man-made mechanism of great nicety, may readily be thrown into confusion, its exquisite balance disturbed, its functioning confounded. Thirst, near-exhaustion, severe bodily distress and, on top of all, blood-lust anger made Alan Howard over into another man. He was possessed, obsessed. As the night wore on endlessly he created for himself visions; he came a thousand times upon the Indian; he sank his fingers and thumbs into a corded throat; he beat with his fists at the pulp of a face. He grew accustomed to his own voice, muttering ceaselessly. He heard himself praying as another man; the burden of his prayers was always the same: 'Deliver him, O Lord, into mine hands.' He was half mad for water and he cursed Kish Taka; he drove his body on when the agonized muscles rebelled and, driving mercilessly, he cursed Kish Taka.
Somehow the night passed and through it he staggered on. He fell as he had seen the Indian fall; he recalled that the Indian had arisen and he rose. Each time that he failed in something that he tried to do it was as though an imp jeered and taunted him, calling to him: 'Ho! The Indian is a better man. He is off there in the darkness, laughing at you!'
There came a time when he stumbled at every step, when he pitched forward frequently and lay inert and had to gather his strength to get up; when he wondered if he was going mad or if already he had gone mad; when his thirst was a killing agony and he knew that it was in truth killing him; when he crawled on his hands and knees up slight slopes; when the stars danced and he frowned at them stupidly, seeking the North Star, seeking to know which way led to Kish Taka. When the first faint glint of dawn sweetened the air he was lying on his back; he felt, rather than saw, that a new day was blossoming. He collected his wandering faculties, fought with the lassitude which stole upon him whenever his senses were not on the alert and sat up. And he would have cried out aloud at what he saw were not his throat and mouth and lips so dry that he was beyond calling out. For yonder, a blurred moving shape came toward him. The shape was a man's, and he knew that it was Kish Taka.
Somehow he got to his feet, somehow he dragged his revolver out of its holster, somehow he took a dozen tottering steps forward. He saw that Kish Taka had seen him and had stopped; that the Indian carried his canteen; that he was moving again. Howard lifted his gun, holding it in both hands. He was afraid that even now his quarry would escape him, that Kish Taka would run and that he could not follow. His fingers found the trigger and pressed it as he sought to hold the wavering muzzle steady. There was a loud report that seemed to tear his brain to broken shreds, his arms dropped lax at his sides, the revolver fell, its muzzle burying itself in the sand. His knees sagged and he went down, settling slowly. As he fell he saw that Kish Taka was running—but not away from him. Running like a deer was Kish Taka, running straight to the fallen man.