Long before night came, Sink Weston’s one-wagon train had crossed McElmo Creek and was well down toward the Mesa Verde. The evening campfire was almost within the shadow of the old Aztec cliff home. The Cortez curio-dealer’s suggestion that Weston was a “little off” had bothered Roy a great deal; but his early apprehension had worn off somewhat as he failed to detect any outward signs of “crackedness” in the old guide.

Naturally Roy associated Weston’s vague references to the “Lost Indians” and the “old man of the sink hole” with what the storekeeper had said. And, as he thought the matter over, he finally concluded: “We are all a little daffy in some line. I suppose I’m crazy over aeroplanes. If Sink has a soft spot or peculiarity, why should I bother about it?”

However, concluding that the “sink hole” story, whatever it was, might be Weston’s hallucination, the lad decided to say no more about it.

In the gray-blue shadows of the Mesa Verde, Weston and Roy picketed their ponies and made camp. Long before Doolin came up with the wagon, they had collected wood and made a fire. The stars were showing when the wagon arrived. Then followed Roy’s first camp experience.

After all, the way Doolin and Mr. Weston did it, it was very simple. Water for this first stop was carried in a barrel. The horses were watered, given oats and picketed. A pot of coffee was made; two cans of baked beans were heated; a can of peaches was opened; the crackers were passed—there was not even condensed milk for the coffee—and the evening meal was over.

Immediately, with no dishes to wash, old Doolin extracted a rifle from somewhere in the wagon and, charging his pipe, strolled away in the dark “to stretch his legs,” as he put it. The sky was black-blue; the stars were like white hot carbons; no insects disturbed the breezeless soft surroundings, and the red-yellow glow of the dying cook fire sent a straight line of thin smoke upward.

“Goin’ huntin’?” asked Roy, indicating old Doolin.

“Doolin never sets by the fire,” explained Mr. Weston. “He may not be back till midnight. Jist onrestless. But he ain’t lookin’ fur no game. That gun’s like a cane to him. He may be up on the Mesa Verde afore he gits sleepy.”

Roy was tired, after his first day in the saddle. He was lying on a blanket, his eyes on the little fire, and wondering if he would like to be going with the “onrestless” Doolin. Weston was sitting with his back against a wagon wheel, his knees crooked before him, with one hand lazily grasping his bubbling pipe.

“So ye want to know why they call me ‘Sink?’” he said suddenly, as if the two had just been discussing the subject.

Roy cast his eyes again in the direction Doolin had taken. Their companion had disappeared. Somewhere, at that moment, a shivery half-bark and half-wail sounded.

“Coyote,” said Mr. Weston without moving.

The cook fire was but little more than a dying blaze. Just a little wave of apprehension crept over the boy. Was he alone with an irresponsible man? Was his companion about to recall an imaginary experience, an hallucination that might work him into a frenzy? Roy was almost sorry that the teamster had left. He was not afraid, but—

“Yes,” he answered stoutly, “I’d like to hear it.”

For a few moments, the guide, marshal and sheriff, said nothing. Then he recharged his pipe, threw a couple of bits of mesquite upon the fire and resumed his position.

“When I’m done,” he said at last, “ye’ll say I’m bughouse. They all do. Anyway, ye’ll know why I’m Sink Hole Weston.”

Roy breathed a sigh of relief. Mr. Weston’s tone was calm enough.

“In ninety-eight, I brung a party of railroad prospectors to Durango,” Mr. Weston began. “That winter, I herded sheep and fit Utes. In the spring, I was sick o’ Injuns and I made up my mind to do a little minin’. Jist then, a couple o’ fellers named Labarge an’ Moffett showed up in camp. They wuz nice men an’ it wuz bad fur ’em an’ others what happened to ’em, but it came nigh bein’ as bad fur me. These men come all the way from Washin’ton to make a map o’ the San Juan river. They had money an’ a outfit an’ a boat that come in pieces. The wages they offered me to go with ’em settled the minin’ idee.

“In May, when the arroyos wuz bank full and better, we toted the pieces o’ that boat up in the San Juan mountains beyant Pagasa Peak. Two weeks later, down about Alcatrez—or whar Alcatrez is now—we found timber and them fellers figured out they wanted a raft big enough to carry us an’ the boat. We made it. But it must a bin a bum raft. At the first bad rapids we struck, whar the river cuts through the Carriso mountains, the raft went to pieces and we all went down. Labarge he never did come up.”

“Drowned?” exclaimed Roy.

“An’ smashed,” explained Weston, tamping his pipe. “We saved the boat, an’ me and Moffett went on. The river was now sartin deep in the canyon. Mebbe Moffett knowed whar we was, but I didn’t. He put it down in his book. Then it got so bad thar was not no stoppin’ any more an’ we jist shot ahead. I don’t know whar we wuz, as I said, but it wuz about four days arter Labarge was lost ’at Moffett figgered out he was due to climb out o’ the canyon. It was like a mine shaft fur deep and dark, but he had some projeck about gettin’ his bearin’s. So we tried it. He lugged them instruments o’ his an’, I’ll say this fur him, he mighty near done it when somepin’ happened. He dropped six hundred feet like a rock.”

Roy shuddered and pulled his blanket nearer the fire. Mr. Weston snapped a piece of mesquite.

“When I got down to the water agin, they was not even his little books and measurin’ traps. Ever’thing but the boat was gone in the foam o’ the San Juan. I never knowed whar Moffett was killed. But it was about ten o’clock in the mornin’ I calkerlated—I didn’t have no watch.

“Before I started I et a good meal fur I knowed, the way that river was a boilin’ and roarin’ below me, I was not agoin’ to make no more stops till somepin happened. An’ I didn’t. It happened arter dark. When I couldn’t see no more, an’ it was plum dark down thar long afore the sun went down up on the plains five or six hundred feet above, I shoved off. I didn’t make no bluff at steerin’.

“I jist waited. Mebbe I was not goin’ a few? I shore was sorry I hadn’t stuck to my minin’ idee. I was sorry fur a good many things when the dark come on. I got tired o’ thinkin’ an’ waitin’ at last an’ I says to myself, says I, ‘let her come now an’ git over with it.’ I was accommodated.

“When I come to I was alive, but I didn’t believe it fur a long time. I peeled off the blood an’ by feelin’ round concluded I was on the rocks. But I was so nigh the water that the foam an’ spray was a blanket fur me all night. That’s whar I laid till it come light agin. O’ course the boat was gone, my chuck was gone an’ them walls o’ stone stood up afore and behind me—straight? They seemed like the inside o’ a ball.”

“How did you get out?” asked Roy. “And where were you?”

“I ain’t agoin’ to answer neither,” replied Mr. Weston, crawling over to the fire and using a coal to light his recharged pipe.

“Why ain’t I?” he added without a smile. “’Cause I don’t know. Don’t know no more today ’an I did then. Somehow I did git out. But it was not that day ’cause I slep’ on the rocks agin. I kin tell you this, though: when I fell down on the sand up thar some’ere on the top o’ that gash in the airth, my clo’es was in rags an’ two finger nails on each hand was missin’. I reckon I clumb some.”

“This was not the sink hole, was it?” interrupted the boy.

The plainsman took several long puffs at his pipe.

“What happened on the river was only what ye might expec’. What happened arter ain’t no man got no right to look fur. In a way, it was even excitin’. Or I don’t know as ye could say that. It was unusual, though.”

Roy’s apprehensions returned to him.

“I’ll try not to string it out,” resumed Weston. “But, remember, I ain’t askin’ ye to believe it.” The fire flared up and Roy saw that the man’s face was both sober and thoughtful. “Nobody believes it. Some of ’em’ll tell you I’m nutty. I’m used to it. I jist want to explain why I’m Sink Hole Weston.”

“Tell it all,” pleaded Roy, suddenly.

“I don’t know what day it wuz I found myself up thar in the sand. An’, as ye kin guess, I don’t know whar it wuz. Don’t know yit,” he added as if this were one of the regrettable details of his adventure. “But one thing I kin make affedavit to,” he said, with a drawl,—“my gun wuz gone, the soles wuz tore off my boots, an’ my hat wuz with the gun, I reckon, I didn’t have a scrap o’ food an’ as fur water, they was a plenty about six hundred feet below me an’ none, I reckoned, within a hundred miles ur more in front o’ me. I set down an’ tried to round up. I knowed I wuz so fur frum whar I started, that I was not agoin’ to try to git back by follerin’ that cursed river, though t’aint a bad river at that, take it all in all.

“It was comin’ night an’ the sun was facin’ me. By that my right hand was pintin’ north. Ef I went south, it stood to reason I must be some’ere nigh Navajo land. That settled goin’ south. Ef I went west, about the only thing I knowed of ’at I could find afore I come to the Nevada Mountains wuz the Ralston desert. An’ I had plenty o’ that whar I wuz. Goin’ east, I had my chice o’ dead craters, the Colorado and Green Rivers, which was like the San Juan only wuss, an’ more deserts.”

“You were certainly up against it,” sighed the boy. “You went north, I suppose.”

“Sometimes north an’ sometimes northwest,” continued Weston. “Depended on the goin’. I was not at jist the top o’ condition, as ye kin guess. But I cut off the tops o’ my boots, patched up a pair o’ soles an’, it bein’ evenin’ then, took a snooze. Sometime in the night I woke up an’ started. It was not much uv a start I didn’t have no preparations to make. Layin’ a trail by the north star I set out kind o’ northwest.

“It begun to git rough right away. That’s the way all along them rivers—the river hole, then a fringe o’ sand an’ then higher ground. Long afore sun up, I was makin’ up some purty stiff hills. When day come, I wuz in ’em. You’d a thought they wuz some life an’ timber thar. Ef they was, I didn’t see neither. As near as I could figger, it was like as ef they’d took all the rock out o’ the San Juan an’ piled it up on a kind o’ table land. They seemed to be big, high ridges o’ rock stretchin’ all over the country with here an’ thar a heap uv it high enough to make a peak.

“That day an’ the next, I knowed I was giner’ly goin’ northwest. At the end o’ the second day, I didn’t keer much whether I ever woke up agin. Only I didn’t exactly go to sleep. My head was wrong, an’ I knowed it. Onct I found myself diggin’ in the sand. I got up sneerin’ at myself. I knowed well enough they was not no water up thar. Then you know what I found myself adoin’? I caught myself atryin’ to spell out my name by layin’ little pieces o’ rock on the sand. That was the limit.

“I cut out restin’ an’ got up an’ says, ‘When I stop agin, it’ll be whar I’m goin’ to stay.’ My boots was not no good any more—leastways I didn’t somehow keer to try to tie ’em on no more. Then I rickollected ’bout starvin’ people chawin’ thar shoe leather. I tried it. Don’t you believe it’s wuth while. Anyway, I was not hungry. A little water would ahelped but, mostly, I reckon I jist longed to git out o’ that rock. That’s what bothered me. Curious like, it got to seem as if I could git whar I couldn’t see them walls ever’thing’d be all right. You’re agettin’ batty when you git that way.

“I kin remember the moon come out. But that made me mad. It looked so much like the sun. It was ashinin’ all over the rocks I had come to kind o’ despise. But thar was one place ’at wuz dark and I throwed away my boots an’ run in thar like as if somepin was a chasin’ me. An’ I kept agoin’ till, I reckon, I jist keeled over. I was not plannin’ to wake up no more, but I did. An’ thar was them rocks.

“I didn’t feel much like gittin’ up. But, fin’ly I turned over so’s I wouldn’t see them bits o’ granite er whatever they air. An’, lo and behold, they was not no rock at all whar my eyes fell. After awhile, I figgered out that this was a good thing. And then I knowed what I wuz tryin’ to do—I wuz tryin’ to convince myself ’at I ought to go over whar the rocks stopped.

“I couldn’t walk, so I crawled. Some o’ my thinkin’ apparatus seemed gone, but I got away all right—I was out o’ the rocks. Then I rickollected. I says, ‘They ought to be water here whar they ain’t no rocks. Whar’s the water?’ They was not no answer to that, an’ they was not no water. I wuz the maddest man ye ever see. ‘Whar’s the water?’ I yelled. Not actu’ly, ye know, ’cause my tongue was not movin’ seein’ as how it had my jaws pried open.

“Now comes a cur’ous thing,” continued Mr. Weston. “You’d athought I was all in, me acrawlin’ on my hands an’ knees the night before. But this goin’ without no water has funny angles. I was mad and demandin’ the water that should ’abeen waitin’ fur me. An’ on them raw feet o’ mine I started to find it. I couldn’t talk, an’ I couldn’t think, to speak of, but I could see. An’ afore I quit I saw smoke.

“Somehow, that didn’t int’rest me; didn’t even surprise me. But it was right whar I thought water was, an’, somehow, I kept goin’. This is one place they say I’m nutty. I’ve forgot a good deal about gittin’ out o’ the rocks, but I’ll make affedavit I went toward that smoke all day. How do I figger that? It was black all around me when I quit goin’.

“When I knowed anything agin, I knowed I was with Injuns. Couldn’t fool me on Injun smell. An’ when an old Injun woman poured water on my tongue, I jist shet my eyes an’ went to sleep agin.”