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diff --git a/44691-0.txt b/44691-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..125f252 --- /dev/null +++ b/44691-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6492 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44691 *** + +DUST OF THE DESERT + + + + +Dust of the Desert + +BY ROBERT WELLES RITCHIE + + +[Illustration] + + + A. L. BURT COMPANY + Publishers New York + + +Published by arrangement with Dodd, Mead & Company + +Printed in U. S. A. + + + + + COPYRIGHT, 1922, + BY DODD, MEAD AND COMPANY, INC. + + PRINTED IN THE U. S. A. BY + [Transcriber’s Note: printer’s information was not supplied in the + source text.] + + + + +CONTENTS + + + CHAPTER PAGE + PROLOGUE 1 + I WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LIMITED 17 + II A GIRL NAMED BENICIA 25 + III DOC STOODER 36 + IV COLONEL URGO REPAYS 51 + V THE GARDEN OF SOLITUDE 65 + VI JUSTICE 76 + VII THE CHAIN GANG 85 + VIII THE HEART OF BENICIA 98 + IX GOLD AND PEARLS 108 + X AT THE CASA O’DONOJU 112 + XI THE MARK OF EL ROJO 129 + XII DESERT SECRETS 145 + XIII CROSSCURRENTS 159 + XIV REVELATION 168 + XV WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT 178 + XVI ACCUSATION 184 + XVII THE ORDEAL 195 + XVIII THE DESERT INTERVENES 211 + XIX THIRST 219 + XX THE COMING OF EL DOCTOR 232 + XXI TREASURE QUEST 247 + XXII ALTAR TAKES ITS TOLL 257 + XXIII INTO THE FURNACE 266 + XXIV STORM 279 + XXV TREASURE TROVE 293 + + + + +DUST OF THE DESERT + + + + +PROLOGUE + + +Roads of men thread the world. They thunder with a life flood. They +are vibrant with a pulse of affairs. By land and water and air they +link to-day to to-morrow. But El Camino de los Muertos (the Road of +the Dead Men) is a dim highway leading nowhere but back and back to +forgotten yesterdays. Its faint sign-posts once were vivid in lettering +of tears and blood. Its stages were measured by the sum of all human +hardihood. Faith, valour, reckless adventuring, thirst for gold, love +o’ women--these the links in the measuring chain that marked its course +through a dead land. And black crosses formed of lava stones laid down +in the sand; these abide over all the length of the Road of the Dead +Men from Caborca to Yuma to cry to the white-hot sky of slain hopes and +faith betrayed in those buried years gone. + +The priest-adventurers of New Spain first blazed this trail through +an unknown wilderness. Restless pioneers of the Society of Jesus and +the Order of St. Francis, men with the zeal to dare, pushed out from +the northernmost limits of the Spanish settlements in a new world with +their soldier guards and their Indian guides. They fought death in +a land of thirst northward, ever northward. The cross fell from the +hands of spent zealots at some waterhole where water was not, and other +hands followed to snatch up the sacred emblem and push it deeper into +Papagueria. North and west through El Infiernillo to the red waters of +the Colorado where the Yumas had their reed huts. Thence on to the west +through a land that stank of death until at last the end of the trail +was smothered in the soft green of Californian valleys--good ground for +the seed of Faith. + +The overland trail of the padres became the single trail from Mexico +to gold when the madness of ’49 called to all peoples. Then the Road +of the Dead Men took its toll by the score and doublescore. Then men +fought for precious water at Tinajas Altas; many crosses of malapais +mark the sands there. Bandits lurked at Tule Wells, ninety miles over +blistering desert from the nearest water, to shoot men for the gold +they were bringing back from California. The Pock-Marked Woman, mad +with thirst--so runs the legend--walked at nights with the Virgin in +the flats beyond Pitiquito and found water with celestial candles +burning all about the pool. + +So passed the wraiths of the gold madness. A railroad was laid down +from the Pacific eastward across the desert. What once was called +Papagueria had come to be known as Sonora, in Mexico, and Arizona in +the Republic of the North. The Road of the Dead Men at its California +end became a way through green and watered valleys where bungalows +mushroom overnight; along its course in southwestern Arizona and +northern Sonora it lapsed to a faint trail from waterhole to waterhole +of a heat scourged desert. To-day this forgotten remnant of a high +road of adventure and hot romance exists a streak in an incandescent +inferno of sand and lava slag, wherein death is the omnipresent fact. +Occasionally a prospector putters along its dreary stretches, chipping +at ledge and rimrock. A Papago or a Cocopa creeps over caliche-stained +flats with baskets of salt from the Pinacate marshes near the Gulf. + +That is all. The Dead Men hold their road inviolable. It is dust of the +desert. + +That is all, did I say? No, the spirit of romance and the shape of +illusion have not completely passed from El Camino de los Muertos. +Remains that tale which carries itself over a span of a century and +a half, linking lives of the present to lives of men and women whose +very graves long since have passed from sight of folk. A tale strangely +like the desert trail along whose course its episodes of hot passion +and swift action befell; for its beginnings are laid in a mirage of an +elder day which we of the present can see but dimly, and its ending +is beyond the horizon of to-day. Would you know the full story of the +Lost Mission de los Cuatros Evangelistas: how the baleful spell of its +green pearls of the Virgin worked upon the fortunes of the House of +O’Donoju and how the last of that house wrought expiation for the sin +of a forbear through heroism and the fire of a great love--would you +know the full story, I say, you must see with me the substance of a +beginning. + +No more can one plump into the middle of this the last of the romance +tales of the Road of the Dead Men than could one drop onto the Road +itself midway of its length. + + * * * * * + +A King in Spain once followed a practice of careless munificence. +Whenever one of his generals in the great wars appeared worthy of +reward His Majesty used to ink the ball of his thumb and with a grand +and free gesture he would make a print somewhere on the map of Mexico, +then called New Spain. Then the lucky general, taking this patent of +royal favor across the seas with him, would hire surveyors to translate +the print of Philip’s thumb into terms of square miles of domain. These +square miles were his and his heirs’ to govern like little kings, with +justice in their hands, the Church to give them countenance and Indians +by the hundreds to serve them under a modified code of slavery. No +man has lived since as did those magnificent possessors of Philip’s +thumbprints. + +The Rancho del Refugio in the little known reaches of Papagueria was +one of these fiefs of the king. Michael O’Donohue, a wild man of the +red Irish who had fought English kings and queens under the banner of +Spain, had come by the grant originally and had taken a lady of Granada +to the new world to bear him heirs worthy of their inheritance. Michael +O’Donohue became Don Miguel O’Donoju, lord of a desert principality and +a power at the Viceroy’s court in the City of Mexico. He established +two rigid precedents to be followed by the house of O’Donoju: pride of +race and jealous conservation of the family principality. It became +a rule of the O’Donoju that none of the clan marry outside the pure +Castilian blood--Irish excepted if Irish could be found; and a rule +that, come what might, no O’Donoju pass title to so much as a foot of +the Rancho del Refugio. + +It was a day in April, the year 1780, that the clan O’Donoju came +to the Mission of the Four Evangelists to lend the dignity of their +presence to the solemn service of re-dedication. More than that, Don +Padraic O’Donoju, venerable head of the house and master of the Casa +O’Donoju in the oasis named the Garden of Solitude, was come to witness +a personal triumph. For it had been his money that had gone to the +Franciscan College to be used in the rebuilding of the frontier post of +God after the Apaches had raided and burned it fifty years before. And +one of his own sons, Padre Felice, had been the architect and builder +of the restored mission and was to continue the priest in charge. Padre +Felice was fourth in a line of O’Donojus to take orders, one from each +generation since the establishment of the grant. + +The O’Donojus--grandchildren, cousins and kin by marriage--had ridden +five days and upwards from various sections of the Rancho del Refugio, +up and out through the Altar desert to this remote sanctuary of God in +the country of the Sand People. They came by the way called the Road of +the Dead Men. Its asperities were softened by the quick desert spring +which tipped each thorny cactus cone with candelabra tufts of golden +and carmine flowers. The desert’s usual heat was tempered by the snows +that lay in unnamed mountains to the north. + +They came in a lengthy caravan of horses and burros, with half naked +Indians to herd the goats and the yearling steers that were to be +barbecued for the secular feast to follow the religious rites; with a +half-company of foot soldiers from the Presidio del Refugio to guard +the company against roving Apaches; Indian maids on mule back to serve +the needs of their mistresses, regally mounted on ponies of the Cortez +strain; baggage porters, cooks, roustabouts. Fully a hundred of the +clan O’Donoju and satellites on pilgrimage over the Road of the Dead +Men. + +All of the O’Donoju were there but one, El Rojo--the Red One. The “Red +One” was he because of the throw-back to the red Irish strain of his +fighting ancestor Don Miguel. Red with the pugnacious red of Donegal +was his hair; his cheeks had none of the sallow tan of the Spanish +but were dyed with the stain of Irish bog winds; his eyes were blue +lamps of the devil. A fatherless grandson of old Don Padraic, El Rojo +had played the wild youth in the City of Mexico with only occasional +visits of penance to the Casa O’Donoju in the desert country of the +north until, when the tang of youth still was his, he had tainted his +name with scandal. Followed his formal expulsion from the clan at the +hands of the old aristocrat, his grandfather, and the closing of all +doors of his kindred in Papagueria against him. El Rojo had ridden out +to the wide world of sand and mountains an outcast but with a laugh on +his lips; this a full year before the gathering of the family at the +Mission of the Four Evangelists. + +When El Rojo had turned lone wolf, a sadness that was not the sadness +of shame settled upon the heart of one of the O’Donoju. Frecia +Mayortorena, a cousin, one of the flowers of girlhood that caused old +Hermosillo to be named the Little Garden, sat behind her barred windows +on many a night with heart wild to hear once more the love song only +El Rojo knew how to sing. Frecia Mayortorena, all fire under the cold +ice of her schooled and decorous features, knew that the reckless devil +with the flame-blue eyes had but to come and strum a love call on his +guitar; she would go with him into banishment and worse. So on this +pilgrimage to the shrine of the four holy men the girl, who rode with +her father and brothers, allowed her imagination to frame the figure +of a phantom horseman on every ragged mountain top. At each camp fire +along the Road of the Dead Men, when the vast sea of desert round about +was stilled under the stars, Frecia Mayortorena sat with tiny pointed +chin cupped in a propping palm and seemed to hear in the clink of a +mule’s hobble chain the opening chord of that song of songs, + + Red as the pomegranate flower, my love, + The heart of him who sings. + +The cavalcade came to the mission with the firing of guns and with +shouts. The reed-and-mud huts of the Sand People beyond the cloisters +disgorged their shouting savages to welcome the travellers. Padre +Felice, a gaunt man with the face of an ascetic above the folds of his +rough brown cowl, hurried out from the doors of the new sanctuary to +meet and give embrace to his father, Don Padraic, and then in turn to +all his next of kin; behind him followed his two novitiate priests +who were, with Padre Felice, the only white men in all the stretch of +Papagueria from the Rancho del Refugio westward to the Sea of Cortez. +Five days’ travel were they from the nearest of their kind, and to west +and north stretched unguessed leagues of the desert. Only the Road of +the Dead Men linked them with the first of the Californian missions +thirty days over the western horizon. + +Missionary to the Sand People was Padre Felice--to that branch of the +Papago tribe of tractable Indians who lived about the east shore of +the Sea of Cortez and on eastward throughout the desert of Altar. The +rebuilt mission stood in the middle of a small oasis which was fed by a +stream down out of the burnt mountains not a mile behind; one of those +rare and furtive desert trickles of water which hides in the sand most +months of the year. The diminutive mission building, with its rounded +dome of sun-burned brick, lifted in sharp outlines above the vivid and +water-fed greenery of the oasis mesquite and _palo verde_; but the +whole--oasis and house of God--was dwarfed by the bleak immensity +of the flanking mountains leaping sheer from the plain to push their +fire-scarred summits against the sky. + +Before the choir of Indian voices intoned the opening prayer of the +dedication service the packs of the O’Donoju caravan yielded precious +things. There was a monstrance of heavy gold studded at its tips with +precious gems; this was the personal offering of old Don Padraic to +the shrine of the Four Evangelists. A chalice of gold, a great altar +crucifix of gold inlaid with mother-of-pearl, a pair of candelabra +wrought of chased silver and a communion service of the same metal +represented the pious contributions of the rest of the clan O’Donoju. + +But most precious of all the altar treasures was that double string +of the pearls of the Virgin which by a miracle had been saved from +plunder of the Apaches when the savages from the north had come burning +and murdering fifty years before. For a half-century the lucent rope +of moonbeam green had lain in the treasure vaults of the Franciscan +College in the City of Mexico awaiting this hour of restoration. Green +pearls fetched from the shell beads of the Sea of Cortez by Indian +converts. Pearls hinting of caves of ocean by their shimmering, +changeful lustre. Pearls to fire the lust of covetousness even from +their hallowed place about the throat of the Virgin. + +Padre Felice held the glinting rope of lights high in dedication, and +as reverently he draped them upon the bosom of the sacred effigy the +clan O’Donoju and all the dark-skinned children of the mission sang a +gloria. + +An untoward incident jarred the merriment of the feasting that followed +the re-dedication of the mission. When whole beeves were being lifted +from the roasting pits and the skins of wine and tequila were passing +from table to table beneath the flowering mesquite trees a column of +dust strode across the desert from the east and spawned two horsemen +upon the oasis. One, a naked Indian of the stature of a giant, reined +in his horse at the far fringe of the mesquite as befitting a servant. +The second rode boldly into the circle of the tables. Silver clinked +from bridle and stirrup leathers of his magnificent white thoroughbred. +The rider’s silver-trimmed hat came off with a sweeping bow to include +all there, and the red of his hair was like molten copper in the sun. + +“El Rojo!” was the startled cry on every lip. Men scrambled to their +feet as if to combat some overt move of an enemy. + +“God be with you all,” came the Red One’s speech of polite greeting, +made all the more ironical by the reckless upturn of his lips in a grin +and the steely lights that flashed from his blue eyes. + +“--And God, or his gentle vicar, Padre Felice, give me place at table +with my noble kin,” El Rojo added lightly. “I have travelled far to +have my cup here on this day of celebration.” + +The laughing horseman let his eyes dance over the circle of faces until +they came to rest for just an instant upon one. He saw cheeks flaming, +eyes filled with wonder and full lips parted to give a heart its song. +Frecia Mayortorena was seeing a vision in the life. Quickly El Rojo’s +glance leaped on as if to shield the girl from contamination. The +venerable Don Padraic, head of the clan O’Donoju, was on his feet now +and trembling. + +“We know you not, sir! We must ask you to begone!” + +El Rojo caused his horse to rear perilously. Before hoofs touched the +ground hardly two paces from the old man the rider again had made his +full-armed bow. He spoke with mock respect. + +“Sanctuary, my grandsire! I and my servant claim sanctuary of Holy +Church. We have ridden far, and good Uncle Felice can not deny us the +charity of his order.” + +Don Padraic was being swiftly mastered by his rage when the friar to +whom the unwelcome horseman had appealed pushed his way to the side of +the older man. + +“He speaks the truth, sire,” urged the man in the brown habit. “Here on +God’s ground we can not be guilty of uncharity.” Then, looking up into +the laughing blue eyes of his nephew, “I ask you to descend, sir, and +refresh yourself and your servant until such time as you take the road.” + +So all merriment in the oasis of the Four Evangelists was stilled. +There in the single green spot on all the leagues of the Road of the +Dead Men was wrought a comedy; a prelude it was to swift tragedy. The +clan O’Donoju, its satellites and retainers ate and drank in silence, +and apart from this company sat El Rojo and his naked copper giant +alone. From time to time El Rojo lifted his cup as if in ceremonious +health to his kin. Only Frecia Mayortorena read the glint in the blue +eyes which told that the toast was to her--and to what would eventuate. + +Near sundown El Rojo and his Indian rode off to the west, but not +until the outlaw had spent a few minutes alone in the mission. Padre +Felice saw him at prayer before the altar of the Virgin and was deeply +touched that the spirit of religion had not altogether departed from +the family’s scapegrace. + +In the dark of midnight Frecia Mayortorena, who had cried herself to +sleep, was awakened by the touch of a hand stretched under the side +of the tent where she slept with the women of the party. A silver +embroidered hat was slipped under the tent to rest on her arm. The +girl dressed herself in a folly of love and terror and stole outside. +The waiting figure of El Rojo’s giant Indian detached itself from +the shadow of the mesquite, motioning her to a tethered horse. Blind +infatuation for a hero lover brooked no questioning on the girl’s part. +She mounted and followed her guide through the alleys of heavy shade. + +A single dreadful cry sounded from out the opened door of the mission. +A minute later a vague horseman spurred to her side and stopped the +beating of her heart with flaming kisses. The silent desert swallowed +three phantom shapes on horseback. + +Dawn brought revelation and the beginning of that cycle of tragedy and +dreadful pursuit of Nemesis which was to overwhelm the clan O’Donoju. +Padre Felice murdered at the altar of the Virgin, where he had tried +to stay the hand of impiety. The green pearls of the Virgin gone. A +daughter of the house of O’Donoju flown with a thief and a murderer. + +One word more and this mirage of years long dead fades. The curse that +all Papagueria saw descend on the clan O’Donoju spared not even the +sanctuary of the Four Evangelists. A year to the night of the Virgin’s +despoliation the Apaches came again to this frontier post of the +Church, and after a spiteful siege they slew the white priests, burned +the mission and carried the Indian converts over the mountains into +slavery. The Franciscans dared not rebuild on such accursed ground. +Winds of the desert, which move sand mountains in their eternal sweep, +played upon the ruined mission year on year to blot even a vestige +of it from the eyes of man. God’s hand--so the Indians had it--shook +the mountains behind the little oasis so that the source of the tiny +life-giving stream was blocked. The green vanished like a mist, and +scabrous desert cacti crept in on prickly feet. + +The Mission de los Cuatros Evangelistas became legend. + + + + +CHAPTER I + +WHAT HAPPENED ON THE LIMITED + + +The Golden Sunset Limited, Pacific Coast bound, snaked its way through +a cleft in mountains and came sighing to a stop at the man’s town, +El Paso. A patchwork crowd spilled out from the station platform to +push around the ladders of the car icers to the train steps. Swarthy +Mexicans under sombreros, with their black-shawled women and their +little tin trunks, scrambled and clogged at the approaches to the +oven-like day coaches forward. Pullman passengers sauntered over frogs +and switches to plush and rosewood at the train’s end. + +Among these was Grant Hickman, civil engineer, New York, lately captain +in the First Division overseas. Arizona bound and west of the Ohio +River for the first time in his thirty years, Hickman had broken his +journey by a day’s stopover in El Paso. He had given Juarez a whirl, +decided the kind of life he saw across the International Bridge was +spurious and of little worth, and now was entraining again for his +destination some four hundred miles to the westward. He gave the porter +his bags to stow for him according to the directions scribbled on his +Pullman ticket and began a lazy pacing of the platform, his eye alert +for the colour and the bustle of it all. The blending of two races, of +widely differing civilizations, here in this sturdy city gave Hickman’s +restless imagination a smart fillip. He saw men with gaily coloured +blankets worn as cloaks over their shoulders like prayer shawls in a +synagogue; Indians with ornaments of beaten silver and raw turquoise +hasps on their belts had their shoulders planted against solid +brick walls with a grace born only of perfect indolence. All great +stuff--regular musical show background. + +On his first lap down the platform the New York man’s eyes rested +momentarily on two figures standing in the drip of one of the car +icers’ laden pushcarts. A girl and a man; she hatless as she had left +the car for a stroll, the man all gesticulating hands and eloquently +moving shoulders. Hickman caught a scrap of the man’s fervid speech +as he strolled past; it was in a foreign tongue, liquid--almost +lisping--with its softly rolled r’s and a peculiar singing intonation +at the upward lift of each period. Spanish undoubtedly. Just an +over-shoulder glimpse of a thin, dark face in sharp profile confirmed +Grant in his guess at the speaker’s nationality. The girl’s bared head +attracted his appreciative eye; it bore a glory of wondrously burning +red hair, coiled in great masses, vividly alive. + +Grant turned his corner at the platform’s end and began to retrace his +steps, consciously bearing in the direction of the beacon hair. When he +was still twenty paces off he saw that the swarthy man had gripped one +of the girl’s wrists and that his hawk face was pushed close to hers in +what might have been an access of fury or of pleading. Grant quickened +his pace instinctively; he did not like the looks of that man’s talon +grip on a girl’s wrist. He paused a decent distance from the twain and +made a pretence of lighting a cigarette while his eyes glanced steadily +over his cupped palms. + +Then a surprising thing. The girl launched some verbal javelin at the +man who gripped her wrist, at the same instant looking down at the +clamping fingers as if to emphasize what must have been a command +to release her. No answer but a flash of white teeth beneath a toy +moustache. The girl’s free hand shot to a great coil of hair over the +nape of her neck, came away with twin prongs of thin steel--anchorage +of some hair ornament--showing below her clenched fingers. A lightning +jab downward, and the Spanish-speaking man dropped the imprisoned hand +to whip his own to his mouth. He snarled something in sharp falsetto. +The girl with the red hair tilted her chin at him, and the laugh that +slipped between her grudging little teeth was thin and sharp as the +double dagger points she had used. + +She turned, took three steps to a stool below the Pullman’s steps, +mounted with a quick swirl of skirts and was gone. Grant thought he saw +a half-formed determination to follow flash into the Spaniard’s eyes. +Without knowing why he did it, the New Yorker hastily put one foot upon +the lower Pullman step and bent his body so as to block access to it. +Very painstakingly he unloosed the knot on his low shoe, straightened +the tongue in place and began taking in slack on every loop of the +strings. + +A grunt of exasperation from behind Grant. When at last he straightened +himself and looked around the Spanish gentleman was gone. He chuckled. + +“Now that, señor, should teach you not to play rough with a red-head.” + +He walked down to the Pullman his ticket called for and climbed aboard. +Just as the conductor’s bellow, “Bo-oa-rd,” sounded, Grant, looking +through the glass of the vestibule, saw the Spanish gentleman with a +grip flying for the train out of the baggage room of the station. + +Passing into the body of the car he found his bags piled upon a seat +midway of its length. As he seated himself he was the least bit +startled to see flaming coils of hair above the top of the seat across +the aisle and one beyond his. Grant was not displeased. Girls with +spirit always walked straight into his somewhat susceptible affections; +and a girl who carried a home-made fish spear in her coiffure-- + +“’Scuse me, Cap’n; ef I could jes’ have a look at youah berth ticket. +This gentmum says he reckons you-all’s settin’ in his seat.” Grant +looked up to see the porter shifting uneasily before him and with +a deprecatory grin on his face. By him stood the waspish Spanish +gentleman; the latter inclined himself in a stiff bow as Grant’s gaze +met his. Out of the tail of his eye Grant thought he saw a slow turning +of the sunset cloud against the high seat-back ahead. + +“This is my section,” Grant drawled with no show of inclination to +arbitrate the matter. “I always buy a section when I travel.” + +“But, pardon, sir--” The Spanish gentleman extended a pink slip. “The +agent at the station has but now sold me this lower berth.” + +“Indeed?” A slow ache of perversity began to travel along Grant’s +spine. He had no love for a man who will manhandle women. “Indeed. The +agent at El Paso sold me mine yesterday.” + +“Ef I could see youah ticket,” the porter began feebly. + +“You couldn’t,” Grant snapped. “Perhaps the Pullman conductor may.” + +A cloud began gathering over the finely chiselled features of the +Spaniard. His toy moustache went up. He spoke to the porter: + +“The señor is not what we call _sympatico_. Have the kindness to fetch +the conductor.” + +The darkey disappeared. Grant turned to look out of the window, +ignoring completely the standing figure in the aisle. But he did not +ignore the reflection a trick of the sun cast on the double glass of +the window. He saw there just the faint aura of a fiery head which +refused to turn, though the compelling gaze of the standing man strove +mightily to command it. Faintly in the magic of the dusty glass was +carried to this bystander, whose neutrality already was considerably +strained, the silent battle of wills. + +The Pullman conductor bustled up to Grant’s seat. To him the Spaniard +appealed, offering the evidence of the berth check. Grant vouchsafed +no comment when he passed his own up for inspection. The man in blue +compared them. + +“Some ball-up somewhere,” he grunted. Then to Grant: “When was this +ticket sold to you?” + +“Yesterday morning at ten-fifteen o’clock,” came the prompt answer. +The waspish Spanish person admitted he had purchased his only a minute +before the train started. The conductor waved at Grant. + +“Then I guess the seat belongs to this gentleman. I’ll have to find you +one in another car.” + +“But, señor, I have special reason for remaining in this car.” The +Spaniard’s carefully restrained wrath began to bubble over. Grant +looked up at him and smiled frankly. + +“So have I,” he declared levelly. The other’s eyes snapped and his lips +lifted over small white teeth in what was meant to be a smile. + +“Señor,” he began with a shaking voice, “your courtesy deserves +remembrance. I hope some day it may be my pleasure to show you equal +consideration.” + +“Until then--_au revoir_,” Grant caught him up. With the porter +preceding him, the loser walked down the aisle to the far door of the +car. As he passed the seat where the girl was he half turned with a +sulky smile. But it was lost. She was looking out at the procession of +the telegraph poles. Grant, catching this final passage in the little +comedy, grinned. + +“There’s going to be lots of paprika in this Western hike,” joyfully he +assured himself--“or do we call it chili?” + + + + +CHAPTER II + +A GIRL NAMED BENICIA + + +Grant Hickman was not one of that tribe dignified by the name of +he-flirts. He abominated the whole slimy clan with the loathing of a +clean man. When he had seized upon the part of studied rudeness toward +the Spaniard it was not with the ulterior purpose of winning a smile +or paving the way for acquaintance with a pretty woman; Grant’s vivid +recollection of the sidewalk cafés of Paris in war time and their +hunting women left him cold toward the type that is careless of men’s +approaches. In flouting the foreigner and preventing his scheme to gain +a place in the car with the girl he had bullied on the station platform +the New York man had acted merely on instinct; he had protected a +girl from annoyance. Yet now that he had won through by dint of crass +boorishness--and the young man’s conscience gave him a twinge over the +substance of his discourtesy--he suffered a not unreasonable curiosity +regarding the possessor of that glorious beacon in the seat across the +aisle. + +Who was she? What circumstances had led to that scene on the platform +which had ended with the unexpected dagger thrust of the steel hair +ornament? Was this little black-and-tan whipper-snapper a lover--a +brother--blackmailer? Grant’s galloping imagination built up flimsy +hypotheses only to rip them apart. And his eyes dwelt upon the soft +involutions of flame coloured hair, which were the only physical +indices of personality granted him thus far. + +Once the object of his conjectures shifted her seat so that a profile +peeped out from behind the wide seat arm. Grant’s eyes hungrily conned +delectable details: one broad wing of hair sweeping down in a line of +studied carelessness over a forehead somewhat low and rounded; fine +line of nose with the hint of a passionate spirit in the modelling; +mouth that was all girlish, mobile, ready to reflect whims or laughter. +The sort of mouth, Grant reflected, that could load a laugh with +poison--even as he had seen it done that tense instant on the platform +at El Paso--or freight it with sweetness for a favoured one. A world +of fire and seduction untried lay in the full round lips, yet a chin +with the thrust of will in it warned that the promise of those lips was +jealously guarded. + +A broad sheaf of sunlight lay across her cheek. Grant saw that hers +was not the usual apple tint of the red-haired, the characteristic +skin so delicate as to suggest translucence. Rather a touch of the sun +had spread an impalpable film of tan, warm as the colour of old ivory, +over cheek and throat. Duskiness of a southland dyed cheek and throat +despite the anomaly of the burning hair, quite Celtic. + +The afternoon waned with no favouring fortune throwing Grant’s way +opportunity to study the girl closer. When the sunset was in the sky he +walked through the train to the observation platform. As he drew near +the glassed-in end of the observation car he noted with a little leap +of elation that the girl was sitting under the awning beyond the screen +door. He saw, too, the objectionable Spanish gentleman. His midget body +was packed into a chair, one neatly booted foot under him; like some +hunting cat he sat in watchful patience inside the body of the car, his +eyes never leaving the figure of the girl beyond the screen door. + +Grant passed through to the platform, not giving the Spaniard so much +as a glance. As the door slammed behind him the girl looked up quickly. +Grant saw her eyes were blue, saw, too, a fighting gleam quickly pass +from them. Evidently he was not the one they expected to fall upon. +A pretty confusion which tried to deny recognition swiftly replaced +the strained look. Grant allowed himself to be bold to the extent of +tip-tilting his cap. The girl evidently decided that to overlook a +service done would be pushing decorum too far; she gave Grant a quick, +shy smile which might have carried a hint of gratitude mingled with +naïve humour. + +“You were very kind,” she said as Grant took the camp-stool next to +her, “and very amusing. The high hand--you possess the art of using it, +sir.” + +“I should be ashamed of my rudeness,” he answered with a quick smile. +“But somehow I am not. Your way of repelling attack has its advantages, +too--” His eyes strayed to the silver comb, whose concealed steel had +been so efficacious on the El Paso platform. The girl reddened prettily. + +“Always one must be--prepared against--persuasion,” was the answer +that put a period to all reference which might be distasteful. Grant +would have liked to know more of circumstances that had pushed this +radiant young person into the grip of a bullying little civet cat of a +Spaniard, but he dared not risk rudeness by further questioning. Reward +enough was his already; he had it in the swift play of laughter across +delicate features, in the sweetly resonant quality of her voice, all of +a part with the engaging exotic character of the girl. For American she +assuredly was not, though her trim tailoring was impeccably the mode of +the moment. Her speech had a rippling musical lilt to it suggestive of +a mother tongue less harsh than Anglo-Saxon; her enunciation was too +perfect to be American. There was a trick of the eyes, something almost +vocal, which was an inheritance from mothers whose speech is sternly +hedged about by conventions but who find subtler ways of expression. + +What could her nationality be? Assuredly not Irish, though eyes and +hair were exactly what Grant had seen in the green island during a +furlough spent in jaunting cars and peaty inns. Mexican? The flame hair +denied that. Here was another mystery to be set aside with that of the +encounter at the station. With two avenues of conversation closed Grant +plunged blindly along one strictly innocuous. + +“We seem to be getting rather deep into the desert.” He waved out at a +hundred mile vista of sunset painted waste, all purple and hot gold in +the glory from the west--a new picture for the eastern man. The girl +made an unconscious movement of half-stretched arms as if to free her +soul for wandering in limitless spaces. + +“Yes, the desert,” she breathed. “How wonderful! And for me, returning +to it after two years in cities--in cities where one chokes from walls +all about--you see how the desert welcomes with all its glory.” Grant +looked at her curiously; he saw a vision in her eyes. + +“Then you like this--this dry and barren land? Why, I thought +nobody lived out here unless he had to. No trees, no water--” The +girl’s wondering eyes upon him checked his summary of the desert’s +shortcomings. + +“You do not know the desert then,” she reproved. “You have never seen +the _palo verde_ tree when every branch is heavy with gold. You do not +know how the _sahuaro_ wreathes itself a crown of blossoms--the tough +old _sahuaro_, a giant with flowers on his head ready to play with +spring fairies. Water!”--a crescendo gust of laughter--“You think water +only comes from a faucet. If you dug for it with your bare hands--dug +and dug in hot sands while death moved closer to you each hour, then +you would come to see a real beauty in water.” + +“You know something of the desert,” Grant conceded. + +“Something! Señor”--the alien word slipped from her in her flurry of +devotion--“señor, my home is there and my father’s home has been there +more than a hundred and fifty years. I have been away from it in the +slavery of the cities--two years at music in New Orleans and Baltimore. +Now I return. To-morrow morning at Arizora big Quelele, my father’s +Indian servant, meets me to take me a hundred miles--a hundred miles +off the railroad and away from the nearest city to my home.” + +“But Arizora is where I am bound,” Grant eagerly caught her up. “That’s +on the Line, isn’t it? A hundred miles--why, then you must live in +Mexico.” She nodded. His curiosity would not down: + +“Then you are Mexican?” + +An instant her blue eyes sparkled resentment. Grant sensed he had made +some blunder, though he could not for the life of him guess how his +innocent question could have offended. The girl, on her part, quickly +regretted her show of displeasure; one new to the Southwest naturally +could not know much about its social distinctions. + +“Not Mexican,” she amended gently. “We are Spanish folk living in +Mexico. We have always been Spanish since the time one of my ancestors +got his grant from the king of Spain. Never Mexican. That sounds like +silly boasting to you. When you have lived in this country for a little +while you will understand why we have pride in our blood. Just as you +have pride, señor, in your American blood when all the cities of your +country are choked with mongrels.” + +Hoping to hear her name, Grant gave her his own. She repeated it as +if to fix it in memory; then she told him hers. Benicia O’Donoju it +is written, but in her mouth the two words had a quality like a muted +violin note, too fugitive to be imprisoned in letters. She spoke the +surname without accent on any syllable--“Odonohoo.” The man grasped at +something evanescent in the sound: + +“Why, I’d pronounce that ‘O’Donohue.’” + +“My great-great-grandfather did.” Once more Grant’s ears drank in that +velvety contralto laughter which bubbled to her lips so easily. “You +would pronounce his first name ‘Mike,’ and so did he.” + +“Then your first name should be Peg or Molly-o,” Grant rallied. She +shook her head in gay denial. + +“Señorita Peg--impossible! Benicia is much better. It means ‘Blessed’ +in our tongue. ‘Blessed are the pure in heart,’ Señor Hickman; or +‘Blessed are the meek.’ I might be either if I could forget I am an +O’Donoju.” + +“Benicia.” Grant tried to copy the slurring softness she gave to the +word.--“B’nishia: that sounds like little bells. I like it.” + +“You are gracious, señor. I thought Americans were too busy with +skyscrapers and wheat markets to learn the art of paying compliments +gracefully.” + +“Compliments are born, not paid,” he joked. Conversation limped no +longer. Youth has a way of opening little windows in the souls of two +brought together under its wizardry and giving each elusive peeps +into secret chambers. It was Benicia who first became conscious of +the lateness of the hour and the strain on strict canons of propriety +her presence alone with a stranger on the observation platform had +entailed. She arose with a little laugh. + +“My guardian”--a roguish glance toward the tiny figure of the Spaniard +still on the watch beyond the platform’s glass--“I fear he does not +approve. And so--_adios_.” She gave Grant the tips of her fingers and +was gone. + +He watched her pass where the sentinel was sitting. The little man +uncurled himself from his hump-shouldered crouch and scrambled to his +feet as if he would speak to her. But Benicia, bowing sweetly, passed +on up the aisle and into the alley of rosewood and glass beyond. After +a moment’s hesitation the Spaniard came to the screen door giving onto +the platform, where Grant now stood alone, and opened it. He scratched +a match and put it to his cigarette. Grant saw the flare illumine +a cruel hawk’s nose and thin, saturnine lips. The Spaniard inhaled +deeply, then let thin streams of smoke seep from his nostrils. + +“Señor”--his voice was cold as a lizard’s foot--“perhaps you do not +know that Señorita O’Donoju is travelling under my protection.” + +Grant took time to tap a cigarette on the heel of his palm and light it +before he answered. His eyes were brimming with laughter. + +“Perhaps not,” he said. “I congratulate the lady on her protector.” +Again blue smoke played over the toy moustache; little eyes were +snapping like a badger’s. + +“I have the honour to inform you, señor, that your attentions to the +lady do her no credit and that they must cease.” + +“Really!” Grant’s settled good humour received a jar. He felt a +tingling of fighting nerves down his back. “Really? And who constituted +you judge of the value of my attentions?” + +“Very naturally I have appointed that position to myself, señor, since +Señorita O’Donoju is to become my wife.” + +“Ah!” Grant’s interjection did not carry all the irony he would have +wished. His assurance was a trifle shaken. + +“And so,” the little man continued, “it is understood. You will not +address the lady further.” Grant laughed. + +“My understanding is very weak and not at all reliable. I promise you +that unless the lady objects I shall continue to address her whenever +opportunity presents.” + +The little figure in the doorway straightened itself in an access of +dignity. He snapped his cigarette over the car rail. + +“Señor, let us have no misunderstanding. We approach the Border, +where every man works justice according to the dictates of his own +conscience. To-morrow we touch Mexico, where it is known that Colonel +Hamilcar Urgo is a law unto himself. I am that Colonel Hamilcar Urgo. +Need I go farther?” + +“And I am Captain Grant Hickman, formerly of the First Division, +Expeditionary Forces. Go as far as you like!” + + + + +CHAPTER III + +DOC STOODER + + +With evenly divided cause and equal cheerfulness Grant could have +kicked the porter and himself when he awoke tardily next morning +and found his car at a standstill. He raised the berth curtain and +looked out. On the eaves of a station he saw a white board with the +name “Arizora” painted upon it and certain irrelevant advice as to +the distance to New Orleans and to Culiacan. Out through the curtains +popped his head and he whistled the porter. + +“Why didn’t you give me a call?” was his angry demand. + +“Yassuh, yassuh, ev’body in this kyar gets out here. Mos’ have gone an’ +done it a’ready. You see, Cap’n, this kyar’s been switched off here at +the Line two hours ago; train’s kep’ right on goin’ into Sonora.” + +Grant, cursing his luck, boiled into his clothes and made a race for +the washroom. He was hoping against luck that Benicia O’Donoju had not +been an earlier riser than himself. With his face puffy with lather, +he stopped from minute to minute to peep through the window giving onto +the station platform. A decrepit autobus was backed up against the curb +with a few passengers sitting patiently on its frayed seats; loungers +were dangling their legs from baggage trucks; under wooden awnings of a +business block across from the station a Mexican was languidly sweeping +out a store. Arizora had not yet come to life. + +Just as Grant was towelling the last remnants of shaving lather from +his cheeks he made another quick survey of the platform and his +heart dropped into his shoes. Benicia walked into the field of the +washroom window; with her the unspeakable Spaniard, who carried her +neat travelling satchel as well as his own bag. The girl was fresh +as the dawn in a suit of khaki, short-skirted over high laced boots +of russet leather. Rebellious hair strayed from beneath the brim of +a soft-crowned Stetson, saucily noosed to her head by a fillet of +leather under her chin. Soft green of a scarf lightly drew together at +her throat the wings of her khaki collar. Nothing of the theatrical +or self-consciousness of tailoring in the picture the desert girl +made; she was the spirit of the Southwest, unsophisticated and without +pretence. By her side the little Spaniard with his knife-edged +trousers and thin-waisted coat appeared comic. + +As Grant, towel in hand, lingered by the window feeding his soul with +vain regrets, a crazy thing on wheels swung around the station and came +to a stop by the girl’s side. It might have been called an automobile +by courtesy, though there was little to identify it as a member of +the gas family save that it went of its own traction. Engine naked, +dash gone, two high-backed seats of unpainted tin like the wing of +an old-fashioned sitz-bath and unprotected by a top; behind these a +home-built box body wherein a trunk and a suitcase were lashed. Grant +was seeing his first desert speeder, rebuilt for service of a highly +specialized kind. The man at the wheel was no less in character--an +Indian in overalls and high peaked sombrero; a giant of a man with +shoulders of a wrestler and dull bronze features of a Roman bust. + +What ensued upon the arrival of the auto nearly drove the watcher, +shirtless as he was, out to two-fisted intervention. Urgo, the +salamander, evidently was of a mind to make a third in the car. Grant +saw his humped shoulders and expostulating hands, saw Benicia tilt +her chin as she gave him some cold refusal. But the colonel calmly +stowed his suitcase by the side of the trunk in the box body, evidently +planning to use it as a seat. Again Benicia, now in her place by the +side of the Indian giant, turned to give him peremptory refusal. The +Indian at the wheel had his engine going and was sitting statue-like, +utterly detached from the quarrel. + +Urgo stepped on the rear wheel’s hub and had one hand on the floor of +the box body when one of the Indian’s hands flashed up the spark even +as his foot went down on the gear pedal. The crazy little car leaped +like a singed cat. Colonel Urgo cut a neat arc, hit the road on his +back and rolled over just in time to escape receiving amidships his +suitcase, which the Indian driver had dropped from the car without +turning his head. + +In the Pullman washroom Grant collapsed to the seat and smeared soap +into his eyes while he tried to check tears of laughter. The fall of +the peppery little Spaniard had been colossal, and he guessed it had +been wrought at the quick prompting of the spirited girl in khaki. What +a wonder she was! All laughter and bubbling spirits one minute; quick +as a leopard to strike the next. + +“Man”--Grant addressed a beaming face in the glass--“man, always lay +your bets on a red-headed girl!” + +That minute of communion with a smiling confidant was an important +one in the life of Grant Hickman, cautious bachelor. For it came to +him with the force of a hammer blow that he wanted and must have this +vivid creature of the desert named Benicia O’Donoju. Girl of fire and +sparkle--of a spirit free and piquant as the winds that blow across the +wastes--unspoiled of cities and the stale conventions of drawing rooms. +Oh, he would have her! Gone she might be, out into a land beyond his +ken. Unguessed barriers of circumstance, of others’ intervention, might +have to be scaled; but somehow, somewhere, Grant Hickman was going to +find and win Benicia O’Donoju. + +Love at first sight--old-fashioned, mid-Victorian stuff, says the +cynical débutante over her cigarette and outlaw cocktail. In New York +tearooms and Washington ballrooms, quite so. Where girls of twenty must +know the sum that stands in bank to Clarence’s credit, before Clarence +is marked down as eligible, love at first sight is, in truth, dead as +the dodo bird. Even so, spirit still calls to spirit and like leaps to +like most all the world over. It is only where fungus spots stain the +garden that love will not bloom. + +When Grant quit the Pullman Colonel Urgo was nowhere to be seen. Grant +idly wondered as he walked to the hotel, directly across a plaza +from the station, how long it would be before he encountered this +half-portion rival of his and what would be the Spaniard’s first move +in his frank threat of reprisals of the night before. But when he was +shown to his room--and the New York man whimsically reflected he had +seen better ones at the Admiral on Madison Avenue--events of recent +hours were pushed back from his attention by the more immediate demands +of his presence in Arizora. He took from his suitcase the letter that +had brought him sky-hooting across the continent to this back-water of +life on the Mexican Line and skimmed it through: + + “... I know just how hard it is for you to settle down to + office routine after the Big Show. All of us are in the same + fix, Old-timer, but I have the edge on you because out here in + this man’s country there’s something breaking every minute. + That’s the reason I’m writing you this mysterious letter.... + Old Doc Stooder is counted the prime nut of Southern Arizona, + but I believe he’s got a whale of a proposition and that’s why + I’m counting myself--and you--in on the deal. + + “I’ve sewed myself up with him--promised not to peep a word of + the real dope to you in this letter. The old Doc says, ‘We’ll + need a good engineer and if your buddy in France has a head on + him and knows how to keep his mouth shut tell him to come out + here.’ ... So if you still have that old take-a-chance spirit + that hopped you through the Big Mill from Cantigny to Sedan + I’ll see you in Arizora. If I’m not in town when you arrive dig + up Doc Stooder--everybody knows him. + + “Yours for the big chance, + + “BIM.” + +Grant folded the letter with a smile. Good old Bim with his “whale of +a proposition.” Running true to form was Bim in this characteristic +letter. Just as Grant had come to know and love him in training area +and dugout: Bim Bagley, six-feet-one of tough Arizona bone and muscle +and brimful of wild optimism. Always ready to take a chance, whether +at the enemy on all fours through midnight mud or at fortune in the +wild lands of the Border: that was Bim Bagley of Arizona, “the finest +country in the Southwest.” + +And Bim had shot truer than he could know when he sent this hint of big +things in the offing back to a man two years out of uniform and moping +for excitement on the sixteenth floor of a skyscraper in Manhattan. +Two years of civilian’s life had been just that span of slow moral +suffocation for Grant. For all his thirty years, for all his better +than moderate success in a profession of sharp competition, Grant +Hickman still could hear the call to the swimmin’ hole of adventure. +How he had yearned to hear it these past two years when the springs of +his soul still tingled with the high tension of battle lines! Then this +letter from a pal, promising all the substance of his dreams. It had +not been a week in the engineer’s pocket before he was on the train for +Arizora. + +Grant went out to find Bagley. He located his office--“Insurance, +Bonds, Investments” was the sign on the glass of the door; but the lock +was turned and no one opened at his knock. His eye caught a corner of +white paper projecting through the letter slot. + +“Grant:--Called out of town--back Friday. B. B.” was the scrawl across +the face of it. A stab of disappointment was his; he had builded +heavily on that moment of meeting when Bim’s big hand would have his +own in a vise. Nothing to do now but see the town and amuse himself as +he might, or call on that mysterious Doc Stooder and discover why Grant +Hickman had come racing out to this Arizora. He decided to do both. + +The Arizora Grant saw in an hour’s swinging round the circle was +something different from the “hick town” his New York smugness had +pictured in anticipation. It was a condensed El Paso, jammed in the +narrow compass of a mountain gorge, with railroad yards monopolizing +the whole of the flat space between crowding hills. A man could go from +his home to business by the simple trick of leaping off the front porch +of his bungalow with an opened umbrella. Arizora’s streets were jammed +with cars--fantastic desert coursers stripped to the nines and with +canteens strapped to the running board. Sidewalks swarmed with men--big +men with steady eyes looking out from beneath sombreros the size of a +woman’s garden hat; men with high-heeled boots and the pins of many +lodges stuck on their unbuttoned vests; lantern-jawed, hollow-templed +men of the sun, whose bodies were indurated by the desert law of +struggle and whose souls were simple as a fairy book. + +Across Main Street stretched a fence of rabbit-proof wire with three +strands of barbed wire topping that; a fence with something like a +pasture gate swung back for traffic. This was the Line. On the hither +side of that rabbit-proof wire web the authority of a President and his +Congress stopped; on the far side the authority of quite a different +president and his peculiar congress began. Over yonder, where stood a +man under a straw sombrero and with a rifle hung on one shoulder, lay +Sonora and the beginning of a thousand mile stretch of fantastic land +called Mexico. A cart with solid wooden wheels and drawn by oxen under +a ponderous yoke blocked the way of a twelve-cylinder auto seeking +clearance at the international gate. + +When he had tired of sight seeing Grant inquired at a cigar counter +where Dr. Stooder could be found. The breezy man in shirtsleeves +grinned and glanced at the clock on the wall behind him. + +“Well, sir, usually mornings he’s over across the Line getting +organized for the day on tequila. Mostly he comes back to his office +round noon time, steppin’ wide and handsome. Office’s over yonder, +top-side of the Bon Ton barber shop. You might give it a look.” + +Grant acted on the cigar clerk’s advice. He located a dingy door +at the end of a dark upper hallway with the lettering, “A. Stooder, +M.D.,” on a tin sign over the transom. Entering, he found himself in a +sad company. Three Mexican women and a man of the same race sat like +mourners on chairs about the wall; a big-eyed child squatted in the +middle of the floor and listlessly pulled a magazine to bits. The stamp +of woe and of infinite patience was set on all the dark faces. Mephitic +smell of iodoform was in the air. Grant hastily withdrew. After an +hour’s walking and when the whistles were blowing noon he returned. A +different collection of patient waiters occupied the chairs; evidently +the doctor was in and at work. + +He took a chair by the window where he could look down into the street +and so keep the set masks of misery out of his eyes. After fifteen +minutes the door to the inner office was violently opened and a Mexican +woman shot out of it as if propelled by a kick. Thundering Spanish +pursued her. Grant saw a scarecrow figure framed in the doorway. + +Tall beyond the average and gaunt almost to the point of emaciation; +frock coated like a senator of the Eighties; thin shoulders seeming +bowed by the weight of the garments hung thereon; enormous, heavily +veined hands carried as if hooked onto invisible hinges behind the +stained white cuffs:--this the superficial aspect of Dr. Stooder. Vital +character of the man was all summed up in his face: skin like wrinkled +vellum stretched on a rack; eyes glinting from deep caves on either +side of a veritable crag of a nose which had been broken and skewed off +the true. A great mane of grey hair reared up and back from his high +forehead; tufts of the same colour on lip and chin in the ancient mode +of the “Imperial” added the last daguerreotype touch to his features. + +Black eyes roved the room and fell on Grant, who had risen. The doctor +crooked a bony finger at him and he passed through into the private +office, taking the seat indicated. Without paying his visitor the least +heed, Dr. Stooder went to a closet, poured two fingers of some white +liquid into a graduating glass and drank it. His lips smacked like a +pistol shot. Then he returned and took a swivel chair before a very +shabby and littered desk. + +“I never seen you before, sah”--the man’s accent reeked of Texas, the +old Texas before the oil invasions. “So I’ll answer the question every +stranger’s just mortal dying to ask and don’t dare. How’d I come to +get this scar?” The surprising doctor tilted his great head back and +traced with his fore-finger an angry weal which encircled his throat +like a collar gall. “Well, sah, I was informally hanged once--and cut +down. Now we can get down to business. What’s your symptoms?” + +Grant, caught off balance by so unconventional a reception, stammered +that he had no symptoms. + +“My friend, Bim Bagley, who is out of town for a few days, told me to +look you up. My name is Grant Hickman. I’m from New York.” The black +eyes, never deviating from their disconcerting stare, showed no flicker +of recognition at the name. + +“What you want of me if you have no symptoms?” abruptly in the doctor’s +nasal bray. “I’m not in the market for the World’s Library of Wit and +Humour. I’ll cut you for a tumour or dose you for dyspepsia; but I +won’t buy a book.” + +“I have no books to sell.” Grant found his temperature rising. “I have +come out from New York because you told my friend Bagley to send for +me.” + +Doc Stooder suddenly snapped out of his chair like a yard rule +unfolding and strode to the closet. With bottle and graduating glass +poised he bent a severe eye upon his visitor. + +“You say you don’t drink. Highly commendable. I do.” Again the pistol +shot from satisfied lips. He replaced the bottle and tucked his hands +under the tails of his coat where they flapped the sleazy garment +restlessly. + +“You call yourself an engineer. How do I know you are?” + +Grant had said nothing about being an engineer. Doc Stooder had +identified him right enough. What reason for his bluff, then? + +“My dear sir, graduates of Boston Tech. do not carry their diplomas +round with them on their key rings. You’ll have to take Bagley’s word +for it that I’m an engineer if my own is not convincing.” + +The gangling doctor took two turns of the office with enormous strides; +one hand tugged at his straggling goatee. Abruptly he stopped by +Grant’s chair. + +“Young man, what need do you figure a doctor in Arizora would have of +an engineer--more especial an engineer from New York? Why should I tell +this Bagley, who’s as crazy as a June-bug, to fetch a graduate engineer +out to Arizora? Engineers are a drug on the market here--and every one +of ’em a crook.” + +Grant’s patience snapped. He rose and strode to the door. + +“Dr. Stooder, I didn’t come away out here to your town to have +somebody play horse with me. When you are sober you can find me at the +International Hotel.” + +A grin started under Doc Stooder’s moustache and travelled swiftly to +his ears. + +“God bless my soul, boy! When I’m sober, you say. I’m never sober and I +hope I never will be--” + +Grant slammed the door behind him. + + + + +CHAPTER IV + +COLONEL URGO REPAYS + + +Before he had descended to the street Grant began to regret his flash +of anger which had launched him out of Doc Stooder’s office. To be +sure, the unconventional doctor had been insulting; his was hardly the +orthodox reception to be expected by one who had crossed the continent +to become his partner in some hidden enterprise. Equally certain it was +that, to apply the cigar clerk’s pat phrase, Stooder was “organized +for the day”; the finishing touches to that organization had been made +in two trips to the closet in Grant’s presence. Need one have been so +touchy under these alcoholic circumstances? + +Strive as he would to put the best face on the matter, the man from +New York could not escape a lowering of the spiritual barometer. Here +he was, a stranger in an outlandish desert town with none to give him +so much as a friendly glance. Glances enough came his way, but they +were inspired by his clothes, the cut of which seemed to put them +beyond the pale. Grant pleasured himself by reviewing his case in the +most pessimistic light. He had been but a fortnight ago a sober and +industrious citizen. Came to him a wild letter hinting darkly of some +shadowy enterprise in a bleak land. Instantly he had quit his work and +galloped across two thousand miles to encounter a scarecrow cynic who +greeted him as a book agent. + +He wandered aimlessly beyond the town and out onto a road which +wound up to the edge of one of the mesas which were the eaves of +Arizora. Well might drivers of passing cars stare at the figure of a +broad-shouldered young man in a black derby and double-breasted coat, +who was afoot in a country where no man walks unless he carries a +blanket on his shoulders--unless he is a “stiff,” in the phrase of the +Southwest. Even though February was but on the wane, already the sun +was guarantor of a promise to pay with heat interest in sixty days. + +He came to the top of the rise and halted under the psychic compulsion +of boundless space. For space, crystalline and ethereal as the gulf +between stars, flowed from him as an ocean. The air that filled this +space was so thin, so impalpable as to seem no air at all, and it was +tinted faint gold by reflection from the desert below. Mountains near +and far were so many detached reefs taking the silent surf of the ocean +of space; they were tawny where shadows did not smear purple-black +down their sides. Near at hand showed the grim desert growths: prickly +clumps of _cholla_, whose new daggers sparkled like frosted glass; +fluted columns of _sahuaro_, or giant cactus, lifting their fat arms +twenty and thirty feet above the ground; vivid green of cottonwoods +laid in a streak to mark a secret watercourse. + +To the man just come from the softness and languor of Eastern +landscapes, where lakes lie in the laps of green hillocks, this first +intimate view of the desert carried some subtle terror prick. The iron +savagery of it! What right had man or beast to venture here? + +Then flashed to his mind the picture of Benicia O’Donoju, the girl who +loved the desert, who felt she was prisoner only when hedged about by +the walls of cities in the East. Somewhere to the south where a higher +raft of peaks marked Sonora’s mystery land--somewhere in country like +this she was speeding to her home. What kind of a home might that be? +How could a girl with the bounding vitality that was hers find life +worth living in a land enslaved by thirst? A hundred miles from town +or railroad, she had said:--a hundred miles deep in such a wilderness +her home! Heavens, how he pitied her! + +Grant turned back to the town, revolving over and over in his mind +the first steps he would have to take to learn where Benicia O’Donoju +lived; and, haply discovering the place of her abode, how to get there. + +By the time night fell the restless visitor to Arizora had exhausted +the town’s opportunities for amusement. He crossed the Line into the +companion Mexican community, Sonizona. Here was beguilement enough. +The rabbit-proof fence which converted Main Street into a Calle +Benito Juarez also marked a frontier no less obvious. North of the +fence was aridity to rejoice the conscience of the most enthusiastic +prohibitionist; south of it the frail goddess Virtue tottered in her +step. In Arizona a man sought traps and deadfalls consciously and +with a secret thrill of bravado; in Sonora he avoided them only by +the most circumspect watching of his step. Dark streets winding along +the contours of the crowding mountains were raucous with the bray of +phonographs and the tin-panning of pianos. Lattices over darkened +windows trembled as one passed and the ghosts of whispers fluttered +through them. Where an occasional arc lamp threw a spot of radiance +across the ’dobe road lurked shadowy creatures who whined in an +American dialect for money to buy drugs. + +Grant did not realize that when he passed through the rabbit-proof +fence he left behind him everything for which he paid income tax and +other doles--protection, due processes of law, all the checks and +balances on society and the individual painstakingly built up under +the Anglo-Saxon scheme of things. He did not conceive himself in the +light of an alien--of a not-too-popular nation--gratuitously placing +himself under the protection of laws quite the opposite in terms of +interpretation. Nor did he appreciate that, save for his suitcase and +a signature on a hotel register, he had left behind him nothing to +bear testimony to the fact that a man named Grant Hickman had come +to Arizora and had left the United States to enter Mexico. All these +inattentions he recalled later when opportunity for correction had +passed. + +Grant was circling the plaza, where the municipal band was giving a +concert, when amid the strollers he thought he saw a familiar face. He +looked again and was sure. Little Colonel Urgo, in a snappy uniform of +dark blue with back-turned cape, was walking with a woman whose beauty +was that of the blown peony. Chance brought Urgo’s eyes Grant’s way. +They lighted with sudden surprise, then the colonel brought up his hand +in a salute. A flash of teeth was cut by the travelling hand; it was +like a too quick shutter on the villain’s smile in Way Down East. + +Grant doffed his hat and passed on. Half an hour later a particularly +glittering sheaf of lights he had noted in earlier saunterings pricked +his curiosity and he turned into a low building just off the plaza. A +bare front room easily visible from the street was a too obvious blind +for complacent police inspection; through an open arch in its rear wall +a crowded gambling room was given false length by wall mirrors in dingy +frames. Fifty or more men and women were clustered about roulette, +faro and crap tables. A fat Chinaman with a face expressionless as a +bowl of jelly sat on a dais behind a little desk stacked high with +silver and with deft movement of his fingers achieved nice problems in +international exchange. Pursuit of the goddess Luck was being engaged +in with a frankness and business-like absorption quite different from +furtive evasions of hidden attic and camouflaged club across the Line. + +Grant exchanged a ten-dollar note for a heavy stack of Mexican silver +and moved over to a table where two ivory cubes were dancing to the +droning incantations of a big negro game keeper. He was curious to see +whether Big Dick and Lady Natural were as temperamental a couple in +Mexico as he had discovered them to be in many a front-line dugout in +France. + +“Come to papa!” A raw-boned Arizonan across the table was singing to +the dice held in his cupped palms, huge as waffle irons; a humorous imp +of strong liquor danced in his eyes. “Cap’n come down the gangplank and +says, ‘Good mawnin’, Seven!’” + +The ring of dark faces about the green cloth stirred and white teeth +flashed unlovely smiles when a six and a one winked up from the dice. A +chinking of silver dollars as a red paw gathered them in. + +“Baby! Now meet you’ grandpaw, Ole Man E-oleven. Wham! Lookit! Five an’ +a six makes e’oleven! How’s that for nussin’ ’em along, white man?” +The crap wizard looked across to Grant and grinned in amity. Mexican +scowls accompanied the covering of the winner’s pile left temptingly +untouched. Grant felt an undefined tugging of race bonds here in this +ring of alien faces, and he backed the Arizonan against the field. On +his third throw the big fellow made his point. + +“That’s harvestin’! That’s bringin’ in the sheaves! Now here’s my stack +of ’dobe dollars for any Mex to cop if he thinks the copping’s good.” + +When it came Grant’s turn to throw his new-found friend played him +vociferously against the Mexican field, calling upon all present to +witness that a white man sure could skin anything under a sombrero, +from craps to parchesi. For the first time since he had left the train +that morning the New Yorker felt the warming tingle of fellowship; the +gaunt, sunburned face of the desert man with the dancing imps of humour +in the eyes was a jovial hailing sign of fraternity. + +“Shoot ’em, Mister Man! You’re rigged for Broadway, Noo Yawk, but I can +see from here that you has the lovin’ touch.” + +Grant rolled and won, rolled and won again. Carelessly he dropped the +heavy fistfuls of dollars into the side pocket of his coat. Even when +he lost his point, he had a bulging weight of silver there. Grant was +enjoying the game itself not nearly so keenly as he did the Arizonan +across the table, his Homeric humour and the bewildering wonder of his +vocabulary. So intent was he that he did not see Colonel Urgo enter, +nor did he catch the almost imperceptible nod toward him that the +little officer passed to a furtive-eyed tatterdemalion who accompanied +him. The latter by a devious course of idling finally came to a stand +behind Grant and appeared to be a keen spectator of the game. + +“Ole Man Jed Hawkins’ son is a-goin’ splatter out a natch’ral. Ole Man +Hawkins’ son is a-goin’ turn loose the hay cutter an’ mow him a mess of +greens. Comes Little Joe! Dip in, Mexes, an’ takes yo’ fodder! Now the +man from Dos Cabezas starts a-runnin’--” + +A hand was busy at Grant’s pocket--a slick, suave hand which replaced +weight for weight what it subtracted. Just three quick passes and +the tatterdemalion who had been so intent on the prancing dice lost +interest and moved away. + +It came Grant’s turn to roll the dice. He dipped into his pocket and +carelessly dropped a stack of eight silver dollars on the table. One +of them rolled a little way and flopped in front of a Mexican player. +The latter started to pass the dollar back to Grant when he hesitated, +gave the coin a sharp scrutiny, then balanced it on a finger tip and +struck its edge with one from his own pile. + +“Señor!” An ugly droop to his smiling lips. “Ah, no, señor!” + +He passed the dollar over to Grant with exaggerated courtesy. Eyes all +about the table, which had followed the pantomime with avid interest, +now centred on the American’s face. As if on a signal the fat Chinaman +at the exchange desk waddled over to shoulder his way officiously to +Grant’s side. He growled something in Spanish and held out his hand. +Dazedly Grant laid the suspected dollar in a creasy palm. The Chinaman +flung it on the green felt with a contemptuous “Faugh!” and he pointed +imperiously at Grant’s bulging pocket. + +“It’s a frame, pardner,” called the Arizonan. “If your money’s bogus +it’s what the Chink himself handed you.” + +“I came in here with American money and changed it at your desk,” +Grant quietly addressed the Chinaman. “See here; this is the money I +either got from you or won at this table.” He brought from his pocket a +brimming handful of Mexican dollars and dumped them on the cloth. Two +or three of the heavy discs shone true silver; the others were clumsy +counterfeits, dull and leaden. + +A cry, half snarling laughter, from the crowd about the table, now +grown to a score: “Aha--gr-ringo!” + +A movement of the crowd forward to rush Grant against the wall. Then +with a cougar’s spring the big Arizonan was on the solid table, feet +spread wide apart, head towering above the tin light shade. He balanced +a chair in one hand as the conductor of an orchestra might lift his +baton. His gaunt features were split in a wide grin. Before Grant could +gather his senses a big paw had him by the shoulder and was dragging +him up onto the green island of refuge. + +“They don’t saw no whizzer off on a white man wiles ole Jed Hawkins’ +boy got his health,” Grant’s companion bellowed a welcome. “I got these +greasers’ number, brother!” + +Grant’s gaze as he rose to his feet over the heads all about +encountered two interesting objects. One was Colonel Urgo, who stood +alone in a far corner of the room; the colonel was smiling with rare +good humour. A second was a man wrapped about with a blanket, over +whose shoulder appeared the tip of a rifle; he was just coming through +from the front room on a run and there were three like him following. +Rurales, the somewhat informal bandit-policemen of Mexico. + +Just what ensued Grant never could quite piece together. He remembered +seeing Hawkins wrench off a leg from his chair and send it whizzing at +a central cluster of light globes in mid-ceiling. They snuffed out with +a thin tinkling of glass. Then the rush. + +Out of the dark swirl of figures about the table’s edge a vivid spit +of flame--roar of a pistol shot. Hands grappling for braced legs on +the table top. “Huh” of breath expelled as Hawkins swung his chair in +a wide sweep downward. A cry, “Hesus!” Oaths chirped in the voice of +songbirds. A knife missing its objective and trembling rigid in the +midst of the baize. + +The table collapsed with dull creakings, and then the affair of mauling +and writhing became a bear pit. Grant fought with steady, measured +short-arm jabs delivered at whatever object lay nearest. When one arm +was pinioned he swung the other against the restraining body until it +was freed. Some one sank teeth in his shoulder. + +“Ride ’em, Noo Yawker!” came the shrill cry of battle from somewhere in +the mill. Then a blow at the base of the brain which meant lights out +for Grant. + +When consciousness came halting back he found himself standing +half-supported by two of the rurales in a dark street and before a +high gate in unbroken masonry. The gate swung inward. He was propelled +violently through the dark arch and into a small room, where sat a man +in uniform under a dusty electric globe. He did not look up from the +scratching of his pen on the desk before him. + +A door behind the writing man opened and Colonel Urgo entered. His +start at seeing the bloodied and half-clothed figure which the rurales +supported was well acted. A hand came to the vizor of his cap in +mocking salute. Then he turned to the man at the desk and exchanged low +words with him. + +“Ah, Señor ’Ickman”--Colonel Urgo’s voice was tender as the dove’s--“I +regret to learn you are here in the _carcel_ on serious charges. The +one, counterfeiting the coin of Mexico; the other, resisting officers +of the law. Very regrettable, Señor ’Ickman. But, remembering your +courtesies toward me on the train yesterday, let me assure you of my +willingness to serve you in any way. You will command me, señor.” + +A sudden lightning flash of comprehension shot through the clouds that +pressed down on the prisoner’s mind. He saw the whole trick of the +counterfeit dollars in his pocket and remembered the little Spaniard’s +threat on the observation platform of the train the night before: +“To-morrow we touch Mexico, where it is known that Colonel Hamilcar +Urgo is a law unto himself.” Grant strained forward and his mouth +opened to incoherent speech. + +“And now, señor,” Colonel Urgo continued blandly, “unfortunately you +will be locked up incommunicado.” + +Five minutes later Grant Hickman, behind a steel-studded door in a +Mexican jail, was as wholly out of the world as a man in a sunken +submarine. + + + + +CHAPTER V + +THE GARDEN OF SOLITUDE + + +Benicia O’Donoju by the side of the big Papago Quelele and with the +twin towns on the Line behind her--ahead the unlimned immensity of +the wilderness--gave herself to the exhilaration of flight. For the +skimming and dipping of the little car over the wave crests of the +desert was like the flight of the desert quail, who rarely lifts +himself above the height of the mesquite in his unerring dartings from +bush to bush. On its partially deflated tires, provision against sand +traps and the expansion of imprisoned air under heat, the skeleton +thing reeled off its twenty miles an hour with snortings. + +The final incident at the Arizora station--little Colonel Urgo and +his unceremonious jettisoning--left no abiding impression with the +spirited desert girl. His struttings and posings, his humorously +impetuous wooing, resumed at the El Paso station after the two years’ +interruption of her stay in the States, were for her no more than +the high stepping of some barnyard Lothario. Benicia, little given to +the morbid business of self-analysis, was not sensible of how exactly +the dual strain of blood in her had reacted to Urgo’s advances; how +it had been the swift thrust of Spanish temper which had prompted her +to resort to the pronged weapon from her hair at El Paso even as the +persistent Irish humour tang inherent in the O’Donoju name had flashed +out in the dumping of the suitor at Arizora. + +No, Hamilcar Urgo’s dapper figure was as evanescent as the mirage, but +there was another which appeared to replace it. A man with the figure +of an athlete and a forthright way of looking at one--perhaps the least +bit too self-assured, perhaps inviting rebuke did one but feel in the +humour of rebuking. One of those quick-witted Americans, ever ready +on a hair trigger of resourcefulness yet seeming to carry a situation +as if no situation existed. Nice eyes, yes. A pleasant laugh, rich in +humour. But so New Yorkish! He thought the desert a place where no +one lived willingly. Amusing conceit! And his name was--? Ah, yes, +Hickman--Grant Hickman. One would try to remember that name. + +Retrospect could not long hold Benicia’s mind against the joy of the +homing journey. For the desert she loved spoke to her a welcome long +dreamed in the stifling precincts of cities. There was the sky she +had yearned for, something of infinite depths which did not shut down +over the earth like an inverted cup; rather an impalpable sea wherein +the earth swam free. Morning gold still tinted it. And the mountains +that rose sheer from the desert floor with no lesser foothill heights: +under the sun they were blue in the east and where slant rays fell upon +western barriers a tawny strength of naked rock clothed them. Between +the feet of the mountain stretched the level desert plain far and far +beyond the power of eye to compass; grey with the grey of saltbush and +greasewood, overtones of green where the first leaves of the mesquite +and ironwood answered the call of the spring sun. + +Quelele had turned the machine onto a westward wending road once the +Line was crossed at Sonizona. A few straggling ranches near the border +town, then the unsullied desert. Westward and southward sped the +machine, deep into the greatest stretch of unpeopled wilderness between +the Barren Grounds of the Dominion and Panama. + +The Desert of Altar lies there. From the Line south to the Yaqui +River and from the Gulf of California, once called the Sea of Cortez, +eastward to the Sierra Madre:--here is the terra incognita of Sonora; +here is the dominion of thirst. A territory large as New England and +with a population smaller than the average New England mill town. A +vast graveyard of vanished peoples, who left behind them mountains +terraced with fortifications laid in unbroken breastworks of porphyry +and rocks pictured with their annals of life and death. Rain comes only +with occasional summer thunder storms up from the Gulf, storms which +wake dead rivers into furious flood. So precious is this water from the +sky that the primitive peoples weave mystic rain symbols into their +basketry for a fetish, and their songs are all of thunderheads and +croaking frogs. + +Here in the Desert of Altar the impossible becomes commonplace. A man +caught in a river bed by the spearhead of a freshet drowns in sand made +mud and irresistibly rushing. Cattle drink no water for months on end +but are sustained by munching cactus whose spines can penetrate sole +leather. In the furnace heat of summer furious rain storms occur in the +higher air but the moisture is sucked up by the sun before it touches +earth. Gold lies scattered on the surface of the desert and water must +be mined. The desert kind slay after the manner of the ages but declare +a truce at the waterhole. Death of all life is ever-present, yet grant +so much as a permanent trickle of the life-giving fluid and the dust is +covered with a glory of green. + +For its devotees the desert holds mysteries potent beyond comprehension +of folk in a softer land. The venturing padres of an elder day called +it the Hand of God; they walked in the hand of God and were not afraid. +Divinity, force, original cause--whatever may be your term for that +power which jewels the grass with dew and swings the suns in their +courses--this is very close in the desert. In great cities man has +driven the Presence far from him by his silly rackets of steam and +electricity, by his farcical reproductions of cliffs and pinnacles. In +the Desert of Altar he walks in silence and with God. The very air is +kinetic with the energy that brought forth life on a cooled planet. + +The desert had been Benicia’s teacher; had moulded her spirit to its +own pattern of elemental strength. Born the last of the O’Donojus in +the desert oasis that was the ultimate remnant of the once kingly +Rancho del Refugio--grant of a Spanish Philip to her ancestor--she +had been reared in the asperities of the land, had absorbed into her +bone and tissue the rigours and simple verities of a wilderness. +Because there was no son in the Casa O’Donoju and because, too, this +only daughter came into the world with the inheritance of a spirit +impetuous and errant as a desert bird, Don Padraic, her father, gave +over all attempts at imposing on her the straight decorum that shackles +the Spanish maiden of gentle blood. With the death of her mother when +Benicia was still in short skirts came this loosening of the bonds. +Instead of growing to maturity a shy creature who must never quit the +sight of a duenna and whose eyes shall tell no secrets, the girl warmed +to a wonderful companionship with her father, lived the life of a boy. + +Her flaming red hair bobbed about the fringe of milling cores of wild +cattle at the round-up. At _Sahuaro_ feasts of the Papagoes, Mo Vopoki +(Lightning Hair) added her shrill soprano to the chorus of the Frog +Doctor Song. She learned where gold lay in shallow pockets and winnowed +it from the sands in the Indian fashion. She brought home a mewing, +spitting kitten she had taken from a bobcat’s litter. Her doll was +discarded for a rifle before her strength could shoulder it. + +Schooling came in her father’s library, filled with books in three +languages. English and music, the music of the great harp, became her +passions. The harp had been her great-grandmother’s; Don Padraic could +make the mesh of strings sing with the sound of rain on flowers. He was +her first teacher. Then, when twenty years were hers and Don Padraic +realized something besides the wild desert life was needed to round out +the full beauty of his daughter’s soul, he had urged further studies +on the harp as the excuse for Benicia’s two years in the cities of the +States. Those two years had served well to overlay upon the rugged +handiwork of the wild the softness and subtleties of culture. + +Benicia believed she possessed all her father’s confidences. So she +did--all but one. She did not know that when she came into the world +with tiny head furry in burning red Donna Francisca, her mother, had +cried herself into hysteria and Don Padraic’s heart had gone cold. Nor +was she ever told that her flaming hair marked her with the finger of +Nemesis. + +This day of the return from exile no premonition of the inheritance +of fate arose to disturb the singing heart of the girl. She rattled +on to the stoical Papago at the wheel unending questions concerning +her father and the most humble of the Indian retainers living on the +rancherias about the oasis, Don Padraic’s fief in the waste lands. +She told the credulous Quelele stories of the cities she had seen; of +white men’s wickiups climbing as high as the hill of La Nariz; of water +so plentiful that it was launched at a burning house out of a long +serpent’s mouth; how men lifted themselves above the earth in machines +like the king condor and flew hundreds of miles between sun and sun. +To all of which big Quelele, never lifting his eyes from the thin rut +lines in the sand, answered with a single monosyllable “Hi,” wherein +was compounded all his capacity for wonder. + +South and west about the skirts of the Pajarito they went, and then +into the old road up from Caborca, the ancient highway called the Road +of the Dead Men which swings north parallel with the Line, cutting the +tails of numerous ranges that are great in Arizona. And so, when the +day was hardly more than half spent, the little car crawled to the +height called the Nose of the Devil, and Benicia saw below her land of +desire. + +Fists of the mountains grudgingly opened out to permit a broad basin +running from east to west, and there against the savage baldness of +sentinel ranges showed a ribbon of green. Green of precious gems it +was. So vivid in the setting of the drought land. So cyclonic its +assault of colour against the eye inured to the duns and greys of a +hundred miles of parched terrain. And in the midst of the oasis the +shining white dot, which was the house of the O’Donoju; of Benicia’s +father and his fathers before him back to the day of a royal favourite +baptized Michael O’Donohue. The Casa O’Donoju in El Jardin de +Soledad--the Garden of Solitude. + +Indian women, in skirts of orange and cerise and with gay mantles over +their sleek hair, lined the way to the avenue of royal date palms +which led from the bridge over the Rio Dulce straight to the white +single-story house of ’dobe, heavy walled and loopholed like a fort. +They waved and sent shouts of welcome to the mistress of the casa as +she passed. + +Benicia knew her father would not be outside the house to greet her; +their love was not for the servants to see. Rather he would be waiting +in their own trysting place, the place where he had given her farewell +two years before. The girl leaped from the car before the heavy +studded oak door breaking the solid white front of the house at its +centre. It was opened to her by old ’Cepcion, feminine major domo of +the household servants. Benicia paused to give the parchment cheeks a +kiss, then she danced down a flagged hall to the flare of green marking +the patio garden in the centre of the house. + +Here was a place of beauty and a fragrant cave of coolness--the very +secret heart of the Garden of Solitude. Open to the sky and with +cloistered dimness of the four sides of the house all about, the patio +was a tiny jungle of climbing things, all green and riotous blossoms. +A stately date palm reigned in the centre behind the little basin of +the fountain; curtains of purple bougainvillea draped themselves down +its shaggy ribs; lavender water-hyacinths sailed their little barques +in the pool; geraniums flamed in living fire against the pillars of the +arcades. + +There in the garden waited a man all in white. Snow white his heavy +hair and beard, though the life in his deep-set eyes and the vigorous +set of his shoulders belied age; white were his thin garments of silk +and flannel. + +He caught the flash of a red head through the greenery, saw an eager, +breathless face turned questioningly. + +“’Nicia, heart of my heart--!” + +Then she ran to him, paused just an instant to lift swift fingers +under his chin and tilt his head. Their eyes measured each the love +that welled brimming in the soul’s windows. Then the father drew his +daughter close to his heart and his lips brushed her forehead. + +“’Nicia, my strong one, your father has great need of you.” + + + + +CHAPTER VI + +JUSTICE + + +The Mexican theory of the treatment of prisoners, their status before +the law and the responsibilities of government toward them has few +complexities and knows no interference on the part of prisoners’ +welfare leagues or humanitarian congresses. When a man is arrested +south of the Line he straightway ceases to be enumerated among the +living; if, haply, he reappears in the course of weeks or years his +family looks upon the prodigy in the light of a resurrection. Such +resurrections do not occur often enough to dull the edge of the popular +interest attending them. There are several dim roads, peculiarly +Mexican, down which a prisoner may march to oblivion, with no record of +his expunction left behind. Officials with easy consciences find these +extralegal methods of clearing the docket handy and expeditious. + +Grant Hickman, new to the Border and utterly ignorant of customs and +manners in the republic of _poco tiempo_, necessarily could not +possess a background of sinister knowledge against which to build +doubts of his immediate future when he found himself locked in a cell. +He was in darkness deep as Jonah’s. He ached from his scalp to his +toes. A gingerly groping hand applied to various parts of his body +took stock of the exterior costs of that healthy fight in the gambling +palace. The heat of battle was still on him. He recalled how nobly the +big Arizonan swung his chair from the vantage of the crap table; what a +virile call to battle was the stranger’s “Ride ’em, Noo Yawker!” + +As for Colonel Urgo’s clumsy frame-up--the handful of lead dollars in +his pocket to prompt arrest for counterfeiting--Grant dismissed the +trick as childish spite. When he appeared before a judge in the morning +he could easily prove that the only Mexican money he possessed was +that given him in change by the fat Chinaman and what he had taken in +across the baize. Some tool of the vengeful little wooer of Benicia had +“salted” him during the progress of the game. + +But when morning light through a four-inch slit in the wall roused +him from a restless sleep long hours of doubt were ushered in. Came +a jailer with dry tortillas and water but no summons to appear +before a magistrate. Three tortillas--clammy rolled cakes of meal +tasting strongly of a cook’s carelessness in matters of excluding the +unessential--were the sum of his receipts from the outside world that +day. The jailer, who had the features of a bandit, merely grunted a “no +sabe” at the volley of questions the prisoner launched at him during +the minute he was in the cell. + +Those hours of solitude in the six-by-ten box of stone gave opportunity +for much thinking. Little by little it was borne in on Grant how +completely he was a victim of whatever spite Colonel Urgo might care +to devise; and recollection of his smiling face seen in the prison +office the night before--thin lips parted over teeth in a ferret’s +grin--confirmed the assumption that at devising mischief Colonel Urgo +would be hampered by no lack of ingenuity. + +Grant weighed the hope of aid from the other end of the town across the +Border fence. Bim Bagley, the only friend he had in all the Southwest, +was still out of town and would not be back until the morrow. Doc +Stooder--small chance! The worthy doctor was velvet drunk when he +received Grant in his office; for reasons which only his satiric humour +could explain he had elected to consider his visitor an impostor. +Little chance that Doc Stooder would pay him a thought until Bagley +returned and inquired of his whereabouts. Remained just the cobweb +contingency that the Arizonan who had fought beside him had escaped +the clutches of the rurales; Grant was certain the big fellow’s simple +loyalty to a fellow countryman would prompt him to set going some kind +of inquiry from across the Line. + +Night came, with it three more tortillas and a bowl of _carne_ seasoned +with chili sufficient to burn the gullet of a bronze image. Then, +several hours after the scant meal had been shoved in to him, the +bandit jailer opened his cell door and motioned him to step into the +corridor. Two men with rifles were waiting there; they stepped to his +side and marched him off between them. + +Down a flight of steps, through a courtyard heavy with shadows, then +up tortuous stairs to a door beneath a dim electric globe. The door +opened from within, and Grant found himself in a chamber which might +have passed as a courtroom. At its far end on a raised dais was a long +desk lighted from above, three men sitting behind it. A sort of wooden +cage stood apart on a platform by itself. Six men with serapes over +their shoulders and rifles hanging by straps across the blanket stripes +were slouching before the judges’ dais. A black headed peon crouched +timorously on a seat to the left and behind the guards. + +Grant’s escort halted him before the judges. He kept silence, studying +the faces of the three. Not pleasant faces. A hardness of eye and +cat-like bristle of moustachios over thin line of lips was common to +the trio. + +“Grant ’Ickman?” challenged the man in the middle. + +Grant nodded. His interrogator gave a sign to one of the rurales. The +latter turned to the peon on the bench, dragged him to his feet and +hustled him to the cage-like affair to the left of the dais, evidently +a witness box. The little fellow’s head hardly showed above the top +rail that fenced him in; his eyes were all whites. + +The examining judge jerked a thumb toward Grant as he shaped a question +in Spanish for the witness. The peon bobbed his head emphatically. +Another question and, “_Si_,” chirped the witness. Then a lengthy flow +of interrogation prompted by reference to some dossier in hand. + +“_Si! Si!_” The witness hurried to oblige. Cat whiskers lifted in a +smile as the judge turned back to Grant. + +“You unnerstan’?” + +“I don’t,” bluntly. More twitching of the spiked moustachios. + +“Zeese man, ’oo’s make confession of counterfeiting and ’oo ees +to be shot to-day, says ’e sells you thirty pesos made with bad +metal--counterfeit. An’--” + +“He lies!” Grant interrupted. + +“_Quieto!_” The judge banged his fist on the desk and fixed the +prisoner with a savage glare. “’E says, zeese man, ’e meets with you +las’ night on Calle San Lazar outside Crystal Palacio gambling ’ouse +an’ for ten veritable pesos ’e gives to you thirty pesos of bad metal. +Then zeese man ’e says ’e sees you enter Crystal Palacio. What remark +you make for zeese?” + +The monstrous farce of this accusation numbed Grant. Judicial +subornation fabricated to give colour to what was already determined in +the minds of these three puppets. As clearly as if they were bearing +on him he could see the cold, mocking eyes of Colonel Urgo behind the +shoulders of his pawns on the bench. Perception of his peril steadied +him. + +“I demand a lawyer if I am to be tried on this outrageous charge. And I +demand that the American consul in this town be told of the accusation +against me.” + +The interrogating judge turned to his confreres with a bland +outspreading of the palms. Then to Grant: + +“American consul ’as no business with crime against state of Mehico. +You will ’ave lawyer when you are tried before court at Hermosillo. +Zeese court ees not court of condemnation. Court of condemnation ees at +Hermosillo. W’en you arrive there, w’ere you make for a start to-night, +Señor ’Ickman, you ask for American consul if you desire.” + +“But you cannot send me to this Hermosillo place without trial.” Grant +took a step toward the bench in his vehemence. He was roughly jerked +back by his guards. The interrogating judge beamed on him. + +“In Mehico, Señor ’Ickman, it ees folly to say ‘you cannot.’ Much ees +possible in Mehico. To-night prisoners make start for Hermosillo. You +go weeth them.” + +He nodded to Grant’s guards and they closed in on him. He heard a +farewell, “Adios, Señor ’Ickman,” from the bench as he was rudely +hustled out of the courtroom. + +An hour later he stood with seven other shadows in the _carcel_ +courtyard. About them were the rurales with their rifles; four were +mounted on horseback and a pack mule, lightly laden, slept on three +legs behind the horsemen. Men came with lanterns and heavy loops of +something which chinked metallically when it was dropped. They fixed a +broad steel shackle on the left wrist of each prisoner and linked them +all to a bull chain. Then the door of a courtyard swung inward, the +mounted rurales closed in and the eight chained men went clinking out +to the dark street. + +A few midnight dawdlers paused to watch the shadowy procession +stumbling over the cobbles. No word was spoken. The clink of the +horses’ hoofs, the patter-patter of the short-legged pack mule and +the metallic whisperings of the chain fitted into a measured cadence. +Despite the presence of the pack mule, Grant first had thought the +journey would be a short one, ending at the railroad station. But +after fifteen minutes’ marching no railroad line was in sight and the +houses began to be scattered. Suddenly houses ceased; nothing but the +hump-shouldered shapes of mountains about; clear burning stars and +ahead a dim ribbon of road leading out into the desert. + +To Hermosillo, a town unheard of and at a distance unknown--across the +desert to Hermosillo afoot and chained in line with seven men. In the +slim rifle barrels so carelessly slung under shadows of sombreros was +the sullen emblem of that unwritten law of Mexico which stills so many +accusing mouths: _ley de fuga_--law of flight. + +Out into the desert of Altar marched the American, whose name appeared +only upon a secret cachet in the hands of the puppet judges--a man +gone, as a German once put it, “without trace.” + + + + +CHAPTER VII + +THE CHAIN GANG + + +“But, Doc, I tell you you’re crazy! How could a tenderfoot like Hickman +just in town from the East breeze across the Line and get into a jam +the first night he’s in town--drop out of sight completely?” + +Bim Bagley, back in Arizora and distracted by the unexplained mystery +of his pal’s name on the hotel register, his pal’s suitcase in a hotel +room but no more material trace of Grant Hickman, was knee to knee with +Dr. Stooder in the latter’s office. The Doc made judicious answer: + +“Well, son, Jed Hawkins’ specifications of the gringo he fought with +atop the crap table in the Palacio tallies pretty closely with the +young man as I saw him in my office earlier in the day. But here’s the +funny thing: the rurales let Hawkins go even though he laid out two of +’em with a chair. Let that fightin’ wildcat go and trotted this fellah +Hickman off to the _carcel_. That’s what gets me.” Doc Stooder gave +his decision with a wave of the hand. He jack-knifed his bony knees up +to his chin and waited the younger man’s comment. + +“But what did Hawkins say started the big row?” Bim’s long face, +all criss-crossed with the wind wrinkles that make desert men look +older than their years, gave a vivid picture of his distress, of his +eagerness to seize upon any detail that might point a solution of the +mystery. Doc Stooder recited with picturesque detail Jed Hawkins’ story +of the battle in the gambling palace as the redoubtable Jed himself had +narrated it in the Border Delight pool hall before returning to his +ranch at Dos Cabezas. + +“That give me a clue,” he concluded, “so I laid my pipe lines an’ I’m +looking for to tap a well any time now.” + +Doc Stooder’s pipe lines--of information, if not of wealth--were the +most productive of any along the Border. He was one of those rare white +men in the Southwestern country who enjoyed the unreserved respect if +not the love of the Mexican population, among whom nine-tenths of his +practice extended. Though he bawled at his patients, stricken dumb with +terror of their ailments, though he cursed the women and manhandled the +men, no poor Mexican’s hovel of ’dobe was too far out in the desert to +discourage Doc Stooder’s night prowling gas-wagon. Through dust storm +and withering heat this blasted jack-pine of a man flitted on wings of +gasoline, with his nostrums for dysentery and asthma, his splints for +broken bones and needles for knife thrusts. + +Drunk he might be half the time, an indifferent physician all the +time--for the Doc had not been away from the Border for twenty-five +years and never read a medical magazine. But under his hard rind of +brutalities and cynicisms the Mexicans and Indians had come to discover +a deep sympathy with their homely tragedies, their patient sufferings. +Sometimes they paid him in coin; more often they paid him in slavish +fealty the coin of which was information. Of gold strikes in the far +hills; of shrewd business deals to be wrought through connivance of +knavish officials across the Line; even of stolen jewels to be picked +up from a pawnbroker:--these the flow of Doc Stooder’s pipe lines. No +man on the Border for a hundred miles each way knew so much of the +scrapple of life as A. Stooder, M.D. + +“I’m lookin’ to hear of a woman,” the Doc drawlingly resumed, a wry +smile greeting Bim’s gesture of negation. “Yep, son, when any likely +lookin’ young fellah along the Border drops outa sight--and this +Hickman fellah’s got an eye with him for all his Noo Yawk bridle +trimmin’s--they’s a swish of skirts comes to my ears. Or”--he sat up +suddenly and threw a bony finger at Bim--“or he knows somethin’ about +why he’s come out here an’ went an’ babbled.” + +“Rot!” Bim’s grey eyes were clouded with anger. “I told you he doesn’t +know why we got him out here--and he’s not the babbling kind if he did.” + +“Well, it sizes up thisaway,” the Doc continued, ignoring the other’s +flash of temper. “They’s one man down in Sonora who knows all we +know about the Lost Mission and like’s not a dam’ sight more. That’s +this proud old don who lives down in the Garden of Solitude with his +red-headed daughter--name’s Padraic O’Donoju, if I haven’t told you +that before. If he ever got a line on the fact we’ve asked a Noo Yawk +engineer to come out here to Arizora he’d put two an’ two together an’ +figure we’re after that Four Evangelists church his ancestors built. +You know he’s sorta king of all the Papagoes in Altar and--” + +“How about your Papago who’s going to lead us to the Mission?” Bim +interrupted. “If there’s any leak likely as not it’s through him.” + +Stooder’s great head wagged slowly; a grin tilted the rabbit’s tail +tuft under his lip until it stood out a quizzical interrogation point. + +“No, son; no. I got that Papago brother where he thinks all I got to +do is crook my little finger an’ his wife passes away with asthma +overnight. We can rely--” + +A timid knock on the office door giving onto the hall. The Doc bellowed +a command to enter. A wizened Mexican peon whose left arm was a stump +sidled quickly through the doorway and stood bowing, shaggy head +uncovered. He cast a quick glance at Bagley, then to the doctor for +reassurance. + +“Go ahead, Angel--shoot!” commanded Stooder. + +“Señor, I hear from Jesus Ruiz, ’e’s cousin to me an’ rurale at the +_carcel_; Jesus Ruiz ’e says the gringo arrest’ at Palacio goes last +night in chain gang for Hermosillo--” + +Bim leaped to his feet with an oath. The peon’s eyes were on Doc +Stooder in an hypnotic stare. + +“The gringo goes in chain gang for Hermosillo, but my cousin Jesus Ruiz +’e says that gringo mos’ like never arrive.” + + * * * * * + +That hour when Doc Stooder’s pipe line began spouting information Grant +Hickman was discovering deep down within him an unguessed hardiness of +spirit. A trial was on him, a test of his moral fibre no less than of +his physical powers. At the end of twelve hours’ steady plodding across +the desert he was coming into his second wind. Every effort a devilish +ingenuity could contrive had been tried out by the four rurales, his +guards, in their common endeavour to break down this gringo’s fighting +morale. The single result was a fixed grin on features smeared with +dried blood and sweat--a challenge provoking the Mexicans to fresh +barbarities. + +During the first dark hours of the march Grant had nursed the hope +that at some point outside of town he and his fellow prisoners would +be brought to a railroad station to await the coming of a train. He +could not conceive a reason for transferring prisoners afoot when a +railroad would serve. But with the coming of the dawn and the lifting +of the dark from an empty land not even a telegraph pole raised above +the scrub to point fulfilment of his hope. Just the dry ribbon of road +stretching ahead and empty speculation as to the number of days or +hours which must intervene between present misery and journey’s end. +Grant never had heard the name Hermosillo until it was spoken by the +examining judge the night before; he did not know whether the town was +just over the horizon or half way to Panama. + +Morning brought him the chance to study the men chained with him who, +during the night hours, had been just so many disembodied shadows +marching in a nightmare. The one ahead of him was a shrivelled little +Chinaman, whose legs were so short he was forced to a skipping step to +keep slack on his segment of the chain; his breath came in asthmatic +pipings and wheezes like the noise of a leaky valve in some midget +engine. Behind him was a giant of an Indian, almost the colour of teak. +With a timed regularity this Indian spat noisily all through the dark +hours and until the sun rose to dry up his throat. The rest were in +character with Grant’s nearer companions--just flotsam. + +The guards were typical of their class; Mexican peons brutalized even +beyond the inheritance of their mixed bloods by their small taste of +power. The quarter-blood Indian south of the Line, whose ancestry is +devious as his own starved dog’s, knows but a single law of life and +that the law of fear. Lift him by ever so little from the station +of the one who fears to that of the one to be feared and he has no +counterpart for studied cruelty anywhere on earth. + +The one who rode to the right of the line in which Grant’s position +was fourth from the front, had commenced with the dawn a calculated +campaign of nasty tortures. He would suddenly swerve his horse against +Grant, threatening his feet with trampling hoofs. He held his lighted +cigarette low at his side with elaborate air of carelessness, then +pressed in close for the burning tip to eat through the white man’s +shirt. Once he aimed a vicious backward kick at his victim; his heavy +spur left a line of red through the torn sleeve from elbow to shoulder. + +At each of these refinements of humour the rurale’s snickering laughter +was met by the American’s wordless grin. Just a tense spreading of lips +and baring of teeth, which carried to the guard’s savage perception a +taunt and a threat. Always in Grant’s twisted grin lay the unspoken +promise of retribution once the odds against him were lightened. + +The desert under sun at the meridian flexed its harsh hand to pinch the +crawling caterpillar of chained men. Heat waves made all the ragged +summits of the Sierras pulsate. A dust tasting of desert salts spread a +low cloud about the marching column. Thirst that was a poignant agony +was made all the more unendurable by the tactics of the guards. From +time to time one of them would unhitch a canteen from the pack mule’s +burden and in the sight of the eight helpless sufferers tilt his head +and guzzle noisily. Even he would allow some of the water to slop from +his mouth and be wasted in the sand. + +When the little Chinaman marching before Grant sighed and dropped, the +line was halted for half an hour. First the yellow man was revived, +then the canteen at which he had sucked so noisily was passed down the +line to the rest of the prisoners. It was their first taste of water +since the prison gate was passed. After the canteen circulated, black +strips of jerked beef, sharp with salt, were distributed. Grant never +had seen the “jerky” of the Southwest; the leathery stuff would have +revolted him did his body not cry out for food. He tore at the tough +substance after the manner of his fellows while the guards brewed +themselves some more complicated mess over a fire of greasewood sticks. + +Then the march again. Dragging hour after dragging hour. Clink-clank +of the swinging chain. Pad-pad of feet in time. Snuffle and +wheeze--snuffle and wheeze of the asthmatic Chinaman’s breathing. +All in an unvarying synchronism which tore at the nerves. All the +world--Grant’s world of a great city--was reduced to this dreadful +monotony of movement and sound. + +He tried to think. Came to his mind a picture of his office in the +Manhattan skyscraper--his desk with the mounted bit of shrapnel for a +paperweight, its clear greeny-white glass top, the two wire baskets +which held his correspondence. He saw the squash court at the club--men +in sleeveless shirts straining after a white ball. Henry’s bar in the +little side street off the Rue D’Anou in Paris; Henry selling stolen +American cigarettes for five times their value at the commissary. St. +Mihiel and the old woman who knitted lace. Then the girl--Benicia +O’Donoju. Grant called to his mind the vivid glory of her hair, the +trick of her short upper lip in curling outward like the petal of a tea +rose, a something roguish always lurking deep down in the warm pools of +her eyes. + +“Not Mexican. We are Spanish folk.” That was her sharp reproof when he, +blundering, had asked her if she was of Mexican blood. That night on +the train--it seemed a year back. “Not Mexican.” Now he understood why +the girl had corrected him so pointedly. Thank God she was not of that +breed! + +Near dusk the line was halted and one of the guards dismounted. Grant +saw him fumble in his shirt and bring out a bright bit of metal, saw +him approach the head of the line and tinker with the first fellow’s +wrist shackle. He heard a sharp intake of breath behind him and, +turning, caught the stamp of terror on the giant Indian’s face. +Something was going forward which he could not comprehend, something to +shake the stoicism of this Indian. Within five minutes the steel band +about his wrist was unlocked and he stood free of the chain with the +rest of the prisoners. He saw on the faces of all of them that same +terror mask the Indian wore. + +The freed men cast covert glances at the guards, followed their every +move with cat-like slyness. The little Chinaman began a falsetto +sing-song under his breath, which might have been a prayer to his +protecting joss. One of the guards turned in his saddle and called some +jocular order to the prisoners. They moved on in the wine-light of the +sunset, falling precisely into the line they had held when chained, +their eyes vigilant for every move of a hand on the part of the mounted +men. + +The rurales now carried their rifles swung free across the saddles. + +Though he could understand no word of the muttered scraps of speech +passed between man and man behind him, the magnetic fear waves +possessing all the rest began to prompt Grant to some comprehension. +The coming night--dropping of the chain--those rifles unslung from +shoulders and carried free across the saddles:--did these things +presage the near end of this farce of a pilgrimage across the desert to +a court? + +Light now was nearly gone from the western sky and the guards were +riding farther away from the trudging line, deliberately inviting some +one to offer himself for fair target practice while gunsights still +could be seen. Grant faced the hazard squarely. Certain he was that +none of the eight would see another sunrise, that butcher’s work would +commence the minute sporting chances were definitively ignored by the +victims. He was of no mind to be the passive party to a hog killing. +Better a quick dash--a bullet from behind-- + +The line of men had just emerged from an arroyo with almost perpendicular +sides; the bed of the dry stream was thick with shadow. Grant leaped from +line and ran straight for the guard who rode between himself and the +course of the stream. Almost at his stirrup he swerved and cut under the +horse’s rump. + +Shouts. A shot gone wild. Grant, zigzagging, was at the brink of the +arroyo. Two shots almost as one. A lance of fire through his shoulder. +Up went his arms and he plunged headlong into the gulf of blackness. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII + +THE HEART OF BENICIA + + +The Desert of Altar is transcendence of silence. From the savage +Growler range in Arizona south to the obsidian bastions of Pinacate, by +the dead Gulf, is space to crowd five million people with their tumult +of cities, their crash of machines, hoot of locomotives and shriek of +steel under stress. Yet in all this blank waste not a sound. + +The chirp of the wren from her hole in the _sahuaro_ carries not even +so far as the watching hawk on nearby skeleton _ocatilla_ stalk. The +meat cry of the prowling cat in the mountains where the wild sheep +range is swallowed in the muffling depths of the canyon under her feet. +Thin air seems too tenuous to conduct sound waves. Creatures of the +wild lands move mute under the oppression of unbounded space. + +Yet nowhere does rumour fly swifter than here in this vacant land. +Comes a strange prowler to the waterholes of Tinajas Altas, and the +antelope fifty miles away know the news and seek the hidden springs at +Bates’ Wells. A Papago three days’ journey from the nearest rancheria +stumbles onto hoofprints of six horses away over where tidewater climbs +into the delta of the Colorado, and he turns back to carry report of +revolution in Baja California. Strange signs tell their tales from +the sands; the arrangement of little sticks conveys whole chapters of +information to the wayfarer. When man meets man, be he white, brown or +copper coloured, news is a torch to be passed on to a new hand. Nothing +can be long a secret. The latent must out. + +Even as the worthy Doc Stooder in his shabby office at Arizora had +a never-ending messenger service from all the Border and the lands +beyond, carrying scraps of oblique news, another far distant in the +Garden of Solitude enjoyed the same intelligence. This was Don Padraic +O’Donoju, last of the line of masters over the once-great principality +of El Rancho del Refugio. Though a hundred years of revolution, of +uproar and the teetering of political balances in the more populous +Mexico to south and east of him had left to the last don of the +O’Donojus little more territory than that comprised in the oasis of +the Garden, still he had cattle enough to be counted a rich man and +six generations of custom gave him unbroken sway over the Papagoes. +From the Sand People of the Gulf away up to the San Xavier rancheria +at Tucson extended the secret kingdom of Don Padraic’s influence. His +only tithes were those of loyalty and the bringing of report. What the +Papagoes thought Don Padraic should know, that he knew as speedily as +word could be passed. + +So, a week after Benicia had returned to the Casa O’Donoju, came a +runner from the eastward--one sent by El Doctor Coyote Belly, whose +winter house was at Babinioqui near the railroad. The runner had big +news. El Doctor, known all over the Desert of Altar because of his +reputed skill at curing hydrophobia and the bite of the sidewinder, +had a sick white man--a seriously wounded white man who might be an +American--in his house at Babinioqui and he asked Don Padraic what he +should do with this man. + +El Doctor was returning from the Medicine Cave of Pinacate--this +was the runner’s tale--when on the road that runs from Sonizona to +Hermosillo he found seven dead men; dead men with the marks of fetters +on their left wrists. A little beyond he found still another; this one, +lying in an arroyo, had been shot through the shoulder from behind +and he still lived. El Doctor had tied the living man to his burro and +taken him to his winter house at Babinioqui, where he had treated him +with the most powerful herbs and had massaged the wound with the lizard +image. The wounded white man would live. Coyote Belly did not wish to +turn him over to the Mexicans, for he was a victim of _ley de fuga_ and +the Mexicans undoubtedly would shoot him again. + +Don Padraic, whose charity was wider than his acres, made his decision +instantly. He ordered Quelele to go, with the runner to guide him to El +Doctor’s house, in the little desert car and to fetch the white man to +the Garden of Solitude as soon as he was able to be moved. It was best, +the master instructed, that Quelele travel in the night, returning with +the wounded man, and tell no one of the object of his mission. + +The big Indian stocked the car with gasoline from the tank behind +the master’s house--a reservoir filled monthly from drums brought by +ox cart from the distant railroad point--strapped canteens and oil +containers on his running boards and was off. Don Padraic said nothing +of the incident to his daughter. + +That night Don Padraic and Benicia sat in the candlelight of the big +salon or living room which filled the space of one quadrangle off +the patio. In all Sonora there was no counterpart of this chamber of +mellowed antiquities, the collection of generations of the O’Donoju. +Low ceiled and with crossing beams of oak, whereon the marks of the +hewer’s adze showed like waves; walls hung with tapestries between the +heavy frames of portraits of grandees and their ladies of forgotten +days; a great fireplace wherein a man could stand upright, with its +hand-wrought andirons and heavy crane shank; floor almost black from +a hundred years of polishing and with the skins of animals floating +there like so many islands:--here was a magic bit of old Spain lifted +overseas to find root in the heart of the desert. + +Benicia, in a gown of rippling lines which left her strong young arms +bare to the shoulder, was seated behind the great golden span of her +harp. Candlelight falling across her shoulders made ivory the flesh +of her bare arms as they moved rhythmically back and forth over the +wilderness of strings. She was playing the Volga Boatsong, a peasant +melody whose minors rose and fell to the sweep of oars. As the girl +gave her heart to the music, the thrumming strings wove a picture of +some barbaric steppe coming down to a sluggish river; boatmen chanting +at the sweeps. The ancient room was a-thrill with resonance. + +She finished with just a breath of melody, the song of the boatmen +dying in the distance. Her eyes fell on the face of her father; it +was deeply etched by the play of flames from the mesquite logs in the +fireplace. Always he sat this way, moveless before the fire, when +she played on the great harp o’ nights, freeing his soul to drink in +the melodies; but to Benicia’s understanding eyes appeared now the +semblance of a deeper shadow not of the firelight. She softly left the +instrument and stole over to nestle herself on the broad chair wing, +with her coppery head laid against the snow white one. + +“_Pobrecito_”--this was her pet word carried through the years from +childhood--“_Pobrecito_, thy face is as grave as the owl’s. Some +secret? Remember, there are no secrets between us two--no worry which +the other does not share.” + +Her coaxing hand played through the heavy mane of hair; her cheek was +against his. Don Padraic slowly turned his head with denial in his +eyes; but that denial could not sustain the accusation in the steady +blue eyes of the daughter. During the week Benicia had been home a +secret doubt had steadily pressed upon the father; he had been waiting +some word from her which did not come. Now one of his hands stole up to +tweak her ear--signal of surrender. + +“’Nicia, great-heart, you have told me all about your two years in the +cities--your two years of life in the great world outside? There is +something you have withheld?” + +“Nothing, little father.” She gave him a peck on the forehead. Don +Padraic appeared to be groping for his words. + +“You met--many American men--young men who--ah--might have been +attracted by the beauty of my desert flower?” + +A ripple of soft laughter and the girl pressed closer to him. + +“Ah, _Pobrecito_, you forget that your desert flower carries thorns. +Ask that ridiculous Hamilcar Urgo; he has felt the thorns.” + +“But”--Don Padraic was not to be put off by evasions--“was there not +one whose heart was conquered by a girl of such fire, such beauty? +Come--come! These Americans are not men of ice.” + +For a minute Benicia was silent. She was weighing in all sincerity the +only shred of a secret she had in her heart; testing it for genuineness +as fairly as she might. + +“Yes, daddy, there were many with bold eyes and ready tongues; but +hardly had they begun to speak as friends or companions when their talk +was all of money--how much they were planning to make that year; the +‘big deal’ they were going to put through. All were like this--but one.” + +“Ah,” breathed Don Padraic. + +“That one I have told you of,” she continued. “The man on the train +who was so masterful with little Hamilcar. He was not like the others. +A man of wit--of sympathies; one who seemed to have understanding of +life--” + +“And he--?” the father prompted. + +“We said ‘_adios_’ the night before we came to Arizora. I did not see +him in the morning, though he said that was his destination.” + +They were silent once more. Finally from Benicia a wraith of laughter +on fluttering wings of a sigh: + +“But, my grave old owl, why these questions? Never before have I seen +my daddy play the prying duenna.” + +“Heart of mine, thou canst not be blind”--the father’s voice trembled +over the intimate pronoun. “I have been thy father, mother, elder +brother, all in one. And selfish--selfish beyond measure! Keeping thee +chained here to an old man in the wilderness when all the world of love +and life lies beyond--” + +“No--no, daddy mine!” Tears dewed blue eyes as yearning arm strained +him to her. + +“--My ’Nicia has her years ahead of her. Her love life must be awakened +and given freedom to unfold like a flower in a garden. Yet I have +permitted her to come back to me here in the Garden of Solitude because +I was lonely. Better far that I sell what we have here and take you +back to the world. In these evil days there is no fit mate to be found +for you in all Sonora. Hamilcar Urgo has threatened me if I do not give +you to him; he is of our blood, but he is abominable. I--” + +A soft hand clapped over his lips. He heard passionate words: + +“Father mine, stop! Never--never whisper again that you will sell our +Garden. For I love it, next to you, above all the world. We are desert +people, little father. We live in God’s hand and are happy. The cities +crush me with their noise, their confusion.” + +“But, ’Nicia--” + +“And, dearest of daddies”--her lips against his ear were giving kisses +light as thistledown--“I want no lover but you--no happiness but what +I have returned to here in the Garden. Now, not a word more!” + +She was on her feet and with the skirts of her gown caught in her +fingers was making him an old-fashioned curtsy. Then she slipped into +the shadows where the great golden harp stood, and in an instant the +ancient room began to hum with spirited arpeggios--rush of many waters +over a fall. + + + + +CHAPTER IX + +GOLD AND PEARLS + + +Bim Bagley, on the trail of the information brought by Doc Stooder’s +pipe line, found himself against a blank wall the instant he passed +through the barrier of the Line into Sonizona. He was too conversant +with the ways of Mexican officialdom to make any inquiry in high +places, knowing that to do so would be but to jeopardize Grant Hickman, +however he might be placed, and win for himself naught but suave +denials. Nor did he even go to the American consul, who, in the usual +course of things, would be the last man in Sonizona to hear of the +disappearance of an American citizen there. + +Rather, with Doc Stooder’s counsel, Bim circulated warily among the +gambling halls and in the _cantinas_ where the rurales were wont to go +for their salt and mescal. Here ten pesos slipped into a complacent +palm; there twenty. Then weary waiting for results. + +Bit by bit the story came to him, and behind the fragments was always +the dim figure of Colonel Hamilcar Urgo. Bagley knew Urgo for the +tyrant politician that he was: how he used his position in the garrison +as a cloak to cover his manipulations of government all along the +Sonora border. No man was stronger, not even the governor of Sonora +himself; and the central regime in Mexico City was forced to wink at +Colonel Urgo’s obliquities else run the risk of his firing the train to +revolution. + +But why this little sand viper in uniform should have conceived a +desire to be rid of Grant Hickman, a total stranger to the country, not +even the most astute of Bagley’s informers could guess. “’E’s not like +theese gringo” appeared to cover the whole case. + +The saturnine doctor, repenting him of his brusque reception of the +New York man--prompted, after all, by his superlative caution in the +presence of a possible impostor--sent the tip to the farthermost +ganglions of his news system: “Fifty gold dollars to the man bringing +information of the missing American’s whereabouts.” + +Doc Stooder’s proffer of that amount of money was not all humanitarian. +Below his surface show of concern, designed for the benefit of Bim +Bagley, good Dr. Stooder did not care a plugged nickel what might +be the fate of the Eastern man. He was not one to lose sleep over +the misfortunes of others if those misfortunes were not attributable +to strictly physical causes and under materia medica. Then only they +interested him. + +No, Doc Stooder’s real concern was the delay caused by the disappearance +of this third party to his scheme for a “great killing.” The killing in +question was one he could not make single-handed. Circumstances which +have no place in this tale had forced him to share the secret of it with +Bagley, and the latter had refused to move a step in the enterprise until +he had his pal from overseas in on the game. The Doc fretted aloud one +day, which was the tenth after Grant had dropped from sight. + +“Son, I’m tellin’ you ’less we make tracks for that Four Evangelists +mission purty pronto this here O’Donoju Spaniard down in the Garden’s +goin’ to get what’s in the wind and shove in on us. He’s got every +Papago from here to the Gulf runnin’ to him with every whisper a little +bird lets spill. He gets wind you an’ me are raising sand to lay hands +on an engineer out from Noo Yawk an’ he smells a mice.” + +“You go dig alone for your dam’d mission.” Bim Bagley’s temper had been +ground fine by days of restless anxiety. “Me, I roost right here till +I get the lay where my buddy is.” + +Next day all the silver of subsidy Bim had distributed bore fruit an +hundred-fold. There came to the office of Doc Stooder unquestioned +report that the missing American was alive, though shot through the +body, and under the care of El Doctor Coyote Belly at a speck in the +desert called Babinioqui away down beyond the Line. + +Bagley was off in his car that night. Doc Stooder, alone in his office +and with a graduating glass and bottle of fiery tequila at his elbow, +dreamed of gold plate brought to light from caverns of sand, of altar +jewels and hoards of nuggets--riches of crafty priests--salvaged from +the crypt of a holy place lost to sight of man a century and a quarter. + +“Gold all hammered into crosses an’ such!” The Doc tipped his brimming +graduating glass against the electric bulb and studied with fond eye +the liquor made golden by the light. + +“--Pearls, my Papago says. Pearls big as _bisnaga_ fruit an’ +greeny-white like a high moon. Gold an’ pearls! Pearls an’ gold! +Stooder, you’re goin’ be a prancin’, r’arin’ aristocrat!” + + + + +CHAPTER X + +AT THE CASA O’DONOJU + + +Six days after Quelele the Papago set out on his mission of mercy +from the Casa O’Donoju he returned to the oasis. It was in the first +flush of dawn that the _shuf-shuf_ of the little car roused master +and servants; Quelele had travelled all night and at a pace to +conserve the strength of the wounded man, who lay on thick straw in +the box body. All night without lights save the thickly strewn lamps +in the firmament, wending hither and thither through the scrub where +half-guessed lines in the sand marked the Road of the Dead Men--a +journey weird enough. + +For Grant Hickman it was but part of the moving drama of a dream. That +instant of flight from the chain gang, when a bullet tore through his +shoulder and sent him toppling into the arroyo, was the visitation +of death; in his flickering perceptions all else following was but +adventuring in the country beyond death--incidents to paint impressions +on a consciousness otherwise wiped clean of otherworld recollections. +First of these exposures on the cloudy plate of his mind came many days +after the rurales had left him for dead in the desert: a face deep-dyed +as mahogany and with white bristles of a beard about chin and lips, +a face kindly withal, which bent near his as a hand lifted his head +to bring his lips to a vessel of pungent brew. Then another age of +drifting and swimming through soft clouds. + +Grant had just come to accept the grey-thatched face of El Doctor +Coyote Belly as part of a permanent picture when another Indian +appeared between himself and the bundles of sticks making a roof over +his head. This second personage in the world of the unreal, a giant +with the features of a boy, had spelled El Doctor in ministering herb +brews and keeping the wet cloths under the burning wound in his back +for what seemed many years. Then Grant had felt himself lifted, carried +from the hut with the bundles of sticks for a roof and laid on sweet +smelling straw. In the starshine he felt the hand of El Doctor close +over his own with a heartening squeeze. + +Then--wonder of wonders!--the racking cough of a gas engine, and Grant +was soaring back to that familiar earth which had been lost to him so +long. + +Upon the arrival of the car bringing Grant to the Casa O’Donoju Don +Padraic, hastily dressed, superintended the moving of his guest to +a small, clean room, candle lit. The wounded man felt the gracious +softness of feathers under him, the suave clinging of sheets. An aged +Indian woman, working under the white man’s direction, divested him of +his tattered clothes and patted everything comfortable. Drowsy luxury +stole across his consciousness to cloud it and bring sleep. + +Sunlight flooded the room when Grant awoke. He was alone. His mind was +clearer than it had been since he was shot. Only the steady burning +in his vitals linked this moment of comfort with the tortured past. +His eyes roved about the room to take in its appointments. White walls +devoid of ornamentation; by the heavy door with its curiously wrought +iron latch a single chest of drawers of some antique pattern; the bed +he lay upon massive as a galleon of old days and with a canopy of +carved wood and tapestry for a sail: here was a room from the period +department of the Metropolitan Museum. + +Grant was patiently trying to fit together the jig-saw scraps of his +memory when the door opened and the white man he had seen the night +before entered. Seeing the light of reason in the patient’s eyes, Don +Padraic smiled and bowed. Something mighty heartening lay in that +welcome and the warm cordiality of Don Padraic’s features. + +“I am rejoiced to find you better to-day,” he said as he drew a chair +to the side of the bed. “Yours was a hard journey last night.” + +“I am still a little uncertain up here”--Grant tapped his forehead with +an attempt at a laugh. “For instance, I was just thinking I had been +lifted straight into a room of the Metropolitan in New York.” + +The host’s brows were knitted an instant, then he caught the allusion +and smiled. + +“Ah, yes; we have rather ancient furnishings here. But you are quite a +distance from New York, señor. This is the Casa O’Donoju in the Garden +of Solitude, and I am Don Padraic O’Donoju.” + +The name crashed into Grant’s consciousness like the clang of iron. His +heart gave a great leap. Could it be possible--? No, this must be but +part of the aurora dreams of the vague eternity still just behind his +back. Grant wished to make no blunder which might belie the present +soundness of his mind, so he held his tongue over the question burning +to be asked. Instead: + +“My name is Grant Hickman, sir. I am deeply obliged to you for your +charity in bringing me here. Of course, I do not know quite how it +all happened--my coming here from some place else, where an Indian, +or two of them--seemed to be caring for me. And I fear I am hardly a +presentable guest.” The sick man’s hand passed ruefully over his stubby +chin. + +Don Padraic made a gesture dismissing Grant’s fastidiousness. “Señor, a +gentleman should not consider the state of his beard and the state of +his health with equal seriousness. The one may be repaired at once even +if our wishes cannot immediately effect a cure of the other. Permit +me to retire, señor, and not tax you with questions until you are +stronger.” + +Shortly after the gentle host had bowed himself out an Indian servant +entered with basin and razor and effected an agreeable change in the +patient’s appearance. Then Grant was left alone with the tab to a +wonderful possibility to turn over and over in his mind. + +He was in the house of the O’Donoju. Could there be more than one +family of that unusual name in the desert country; or had fate thrown +him a recompense for all he’d suffered by lifting him from a line of +chained convicts to carry him through a nightmare straight to the one +spot in all the world he most desired to be in? Perhaps under the same +roof, near enough to him to permit the carrying of her laughter, was +Benicia, the vivid creature who had won his heart into captivity. + +He was not kept long in suspense. The door opened and Don Padraic’s +white clad figure appeared, behind it Benicia. She was in khaki, as +Grant had last seen her at the Arizora station, wide-brimmed hat noosed +under her chin just as she had come in from a ride through the oasis. +All the wild, free spaces of the wilderness seemed compacted in the +girl’s trim figure, in the flush of her browned cheeks touched by the +sun. + +“Señor Hickman--” Don Padraic began introduction, but Benicia was at +the bedside; her cool hand was given to Grant’s clasp with a gesture of +boyish comradeship. + +“We need not be introduced, father,” Benicia laughed, and there was +a queer catch in her throat. “Señor Hickman did me a service on the +train which served as the best introduction in the world.” Turning back +to Grant--“I did not know, señor, you were the wounded man Quelele +brought into our home so early this morning--did not even know we had +a guest until my father told me when I returned from my ride a few +minutes ago.” + +Grant strove to put all his heart prompted in words that were mete: +“And I did not dare hope that this house to which a miracle has brought +me was the desert home you described on the train.” + +Benicia’s eyes read surely what his lips would not frame. She saw in +the white face of the wounded man a touch of that old hardihood and +forthright spirit of address which had commended this American to her +at first meeting--commended him even against her own impulse to resent +his self-assurance. But she saw, too, how suffering battled to dim the +valiant spirit, and something deeper than abstract sympathy stirred in +her heart. + +“But, señor, to meet you again this way! Father has told me the message +brought from El Doctor: how you were found among dead men on the +Hermosillo road and brought back to life by that old Papago. You, a +stranger and unknown here in the desert country--how could this happen +to you, señor?” + +Don Padraic interposed: + +“Perhaps, ’Nicia, when Señor Hickman is stronger he will answer +questions. Would it not be better--?” + +The girl was quick to appreciate her father’s considerate thought. +Again she laid her hand in Grant’s. + +“If you will permit me to play the doctor--at least to see to it that +lazy old ’Cepcion, your nurse, does not neglect you?” The smile that +went with this promise was tonic for the sick man. It remained like +an afterglow when the door was closed behind the girl. And when the +wrinkled Indian woman came an hour later with broth on a silver tray +that smile reappeared, translated into the fragrant beauty of rose +petals laid by the side of the bowl. + +Five luxurious days passed--days each with a wonderful spot of sunshine +in them--that when Benicia accompanied the aged ’Cepcion to his +chamber. On these daily visits she would draw her chair to the side of +the great bed--she looked very small below the high buttress of the +mattress--and while he quaffed his chicken broth and nibbled his flaky +tortillas Benicia would talk. ’Cepcion, like some mahogany coloured +manikin in her flaring skirts and winged bodice, always stood, arms +akimbo and features passive as a graven image, behind her mistress’ +chair. + +The girl’s talk was directed away from the personal; with an art +concealing art she evaded Grant’s frequent endeavours to swing +conversation into more intimate channels. She brought the world of +the desert into the sick room, unconsciously revealing herself as +a flashing, restless creature of the wastes: now on horseback and +threading dim trails over the Line to carry quinine to a family +of Papagoes down with the fever; now beside Quelele in the little +gas-beetle and skimming to Caborca, the southern town, to buy a wedding +dress for an Indian belle. + +Not once did she touch again upon the subject of Grant’s misadventures +and how he came to be found on the road to Hermosillo. A delicate +sense of the fitness of things prompted her to await the moment when +he himself should volunteer explanations. Grant, on his part, felt an +impelling reluctance to give details, for to do so would necessitate +his revealing his conviction that little Colonel Urgo’s was the hand +that had pushed him so near death. A delicate--perhaps quixotic--sense +of personal honour prompted that he keep his enemy’s name out of +any explanations. He could not know how close might be the little +Spaniard’s relations with Benicia and her father--even discounting +Urgo’s boast that he expected to make the girl his wife--and, besides, +he felt the score between himself and Urgo must be evened before he +linked the Colonel’s name with his experiences. + +With Benicia’s father Grant modified his resolution to a certain +degree. It was no more than proper, he argued with himself, that the +master of the Casa O’Donoju have some explanation for the presence in +his house of a man from a Mexican chain gang. + +“Señor O’Donoju,” Grant addressed his host when the latter was come on +one of his daily visits, “you have been more than kind to me, but I +fear I may be an embarrassment to you--a fugitive, you know, if that is +my status before the law.” + +“My dear sir”--the courtly Spaniard waved away Grant’s scruples with +a smile--“you forget that the evidence El Doctor Coyote Belly found +on the Hermosillo Road--you the only survivor among eight men who had +been murdered, eight men with marks of fetters on their wrists; that +this evidence, I say, clearly indicates you now have no status whatever +before what the Mexicans call their law.” + +Grant looked his surprise. Don Padraic continued easily: + +“You are officially dead, Señor Hickman. It is the _ley de fuga_--the +law of flight. You were shot trying to escape while being transferred +from one prison to another. Monstrous barbarism! So the president, +Francisco Madero, met his end; so, perhaps, Carranza. When you were +chained to other convicts and sent afoot out into the desert you were +doomed; the men responsible for that act counted you as dead the minute +they ordered you overland to Hermosillo.” + +Grant recalled the mask of fear he’d seen settle over the features of +the big Indian, his chain mate, when the rurales began to loose the +fetters in the sunset hour of that fateful night on the desert; how the +asthmatic little Chinaman had commenced his chant to the joss--men who +had known every weary hour of that march brought them nearer to the +stroke of doom. + +“I have no direct evidence to explain why I was in that chain gang,” +Grant began, honestly enough; then he told the story of the fight in +the gambling palace after the discovery of the counterfeit dollars in +his pocket, reserving only all reference to Colonel Urgo. His host +heard him through with a grave face. + +“Perhaps,” he ventured, “you were on some mission to the Border which +ran counter to the interests of a scheming official on the Mexican +side.” + +“To be honest, I do not know yet on what mission I came to Arizora,” +Grant conceded with a laugh. “A friend of mine wrote me in New York +he wanted me to join him in ’a whale of a proposition’ out here along +the Border. I was fool enough to come just on that, and when I had an +interview with a Dr. Stooder--” + +“Ah!” The interjection escaped Don Padraic against instant reflex of +judgment, as his hand part way raised to his lips betrayed. Grant +caught the other’s quickly covered confusion and suddenly was sensible +of his careless garrulity. Here he was bandying names in a matter his +friend Bagley had surrounded with unexplained secrecy. He finished +lamely: + +“And so on my first night in Arizora I fell into a trap.” + +When Don Padraic left the chamber Grant still was dwelling upon his +host’s involuntary exclamation at the name of Doc Stooder. What was +there about the saturnine physician, what notorious reputation which +could lead a hermit such as Don Padraic away off in this desert oasis +to evince surprise that one under his roof had had dealings with him? +More and more an undefined regret for his mention of the name of +Stooder plagued him. + +In truth, the whole reason for his coming to Arizora and whatever +fantastic project might be at the bottom of it appeared now strangely +linked with this latest turn of fate, his coming to the Casa O’Donoju. +Grant became aware of a duty long overlooked and wrote a brief and +non-committal note to Bim Bagley, in Arizora, saying only he had +suffered an accident and would return to the Border town as soon as he +was able. This Benicia took from him to give to Quelele when he should +go to the nearest railroad town. + +Two days thereafter befell a boon the wounded man had dreamed of during +many yearning hours. Two male servants of the household came to dress +him in one of Don Padraic’s white suits--his own clothes were rags--and +assisted him down a long hall which turned into the green paradise +of the patio. There under the royal date palm they sat him, with the +fountain pool and its magic purple sails of the hyacinth at his feet, +behind and on either hand the green and crimson glory of the geraniums. + +Benicia was awaiting him there alone. The girl, in a simple green frock +which revealed bare arms and the warm round of her shoulders, was the +embodiment of the garden’s fairy essence. She was a sprite of this +green and glowing place. Hot sunlight falling upon her head made it a +great exotic flower. + +“Now both of us can revel in being lawbreakers,” she exclaimed when the +Indians had bowed themselves out. She was hovering about Grant, patting +into place the gay serape which covered his knees. + +“Lawbreakers!” Grant’s glowing eyes bespoke the intoxication of +pleasure. “I feel, rather, like a prisoner whose sentence is commuted.” + +The girl’s rippling laughter ended with, “Oh, but my father said you +should not be moved for three days yet. Now he has gone into town with +Quelele and you and I are breaking the law--with you equally guilty.” + +“What man would not rush into crime with you to lead?” he rallied, +and the little game of give and take in joke and repartee which had +been of their devising these last few days of Grant’s convalescence, +when Benicia made her daily visits at his bedside, was resumed. It was +in this course their friendship had grown: on a basis of comradeship +and with healthy minds in apposition, giving and finding something of +humour, of rollicking fun. No angling for sickly sentimentalism on the +part of this unspoiled girl of the waste places--so Grant during hours +of staring at the ceiling had appraised the heart of Benicia O’Donoju; +no place in their communion for any of the trite nothings a man burbles +into concealed ear of a flapper over tea or whatever else comes from +the sophisticated city teapot. + +During these delicious hours in the shadow-dappled patio, as +heretofore, Benicia continued a tantalizing enigma to the man of +cities. While seeming to give so freely of herself in laughing quip +and quick answer to his sallies, never was there that least suspicion +of some overtone to her buoyancy the man yearned to catch; not the +quick revealing of secret depths in the eyes which would betray a +heart responsive to the waves of the man’s love enveloping her. Yet +the lips of the girl, full, soft, trembling with unconcealed promise +of richness to the one conquering them: these were not the lips of one +devoid of love’s alluring tyrannies. Nor was the rounded body of her, +fully ripened to share in the law of life giving, one to wither outside +love’s garden. + +Grant could not speculate, with tremors of eagerness, on the flood of +passion that was dammed behind the girl’s sure mastery of herself. Dare +he believe that he might be the one to loose that flood? As he sat +there in the odorous garden the nimble, superficial part of his brain +was playing with bubbles while the deeper fibre of him resolved that +nothing in the world mattered beyond possessing Benicia’s love. + +When luncheon was cleared away--it had been a veritable feast of +laughter--Benicia clapped her hands and gave some direction to the +servant answering. The Indian woman disappeared in the body of the +house, soon to come waddling out under the weight of the great harp. +Grant gasped his surprise; he never had associated harps with any +surroundings other than the orchestra pit. + +“My Irish ancestors, who were kings in Donegal, always called for their +harp after a feast,” Benicia declared with laughter in her eyes. “That +is the reason we Irish are such dreamers. The harp is the stairs to +dreams. Listen, señor, and hear if I tell the truth.” + +Grant watched her, fascinated. Her slender body was in the shade of +a great palm frond, but when she leaned her head forward against the +carved sounding board a narrow lance of sunshine shot down to kindle +her hair to flame there against the gold. As her bare arms passed +in swift flight of swallows across the field of strings shadows and +sunlight played upon them in gules and chevrons of black and ivory. + +First she gave the solo, _Depuis le Jour_, from some opera Grant +vaguely recalled; it was a mad thing, wherein the great instrument +thundered to the far recesses of the patio garden. Then the girl’s mood +changed and was interpreted in the sighing motif of _In the Garden_. +It was all bird song and lisping fountains. Grant allowed his eyes to +close so his soul could take flight with the music. + +Slowly, reluctantly, Benicia’s fingers swept the final chords. The +great harp was still. + +Out from the shadow of a flanking archway stepped a dapper little +figure in a cloak. Heels clicked sharply and the marionette bowed low. +It was Colonel Hamilcar Urgo. + + + + +CHAPTER XI + +THE MARK OF EL ROJO + + +Colonel Urgo straightened himself, and the smile that had twisted his +little waxed moustache awry suddenly was smudged out. For his eyes +encountered what they were hardly prepared to see--a living dead man. +His face went sickly white; one hand arrested itself in the motion of +making the sign of the cross. He stared at Grant, fascinated. + +Grant himself was little less shaken at the appearance of his enemy. +It was as if a cobra suddenly had lifted its head from the patio’s +flowering jungle. In a moment of dreamy ecstasy, when he had felt his +heart yearning toward the girl’s over a bridge of music, came this +sinister apparition of evil. It was not fear of the man that caused +Grant’s heart to pound--the waspish little Spaniard possessed no +essence of malignity sufficient to terrify one of the American’s fibre; +rather a loathing and instinctive reflex of anger gorged his combative +nerves with blood. Grant read surely enough the shock of surprise in +his enemy’s eyes and cannily laid this revelation away as a weapon to +hand should necessity demand its use. + +As for Benicia, she made no pretence of concealing her annoyance. +Quick perception seized upon the coincidence of her father’s absence +and Colonel Urgo’s coming; she knew the wily little suitor had somehow +managed to time his visit to that circumstance. In the first flush of +her surprise Benicia caught herself feeling a great thankfulness that +Grant Hickman was in the house. + +“If you have come to see my father”--Benicia did not rise to greet Urgo +when he took a tentative step toward her--“he is absent at the moment. +I am sorry you have not found him at home.” + +Urgo’s lynx eyes darted from the girl’s face to Grant’s and back again. +Plainly he was in a quandary, not knowing how much--if anything--this +American had told his hosts of the circumstances of a night in Sonizona +and its consequences. Benicia, misreading his perturbation, was quick +to interpose with a smile all irony: + +“This is Señor Hickman, whom you may remember having seen on the +train. Señor Hickman, this is a distant cousin of mine, Colonel +Hamilcar Urgo, of the garrison at Sonizona. He is the gentleman who +believed you occupied his berth out of El Paso, if you recall. There +was some slight misunderstanding--” + +Grant flashed a glance at the girl, read the mockery in her eyes and +took his cue from her: + +“I believe I have seen the Colonel subsequently,” this in heavy +seriousness. “Was it not somewhere in Sonizona?” + +“I do not recall having had that honour.” Teeth flashed in a nervous +smile and the man’s eyes veiled themselves furtively. He caught the +challenge to battle of wits with the American and entrenched himself +accordingly. Colonel Urgo found himself at a momentary disadvantage, +however; he did not know what ammunition his rival would choose. +Essaying a diversion, he addressed the girl in rapid Spanish. + +“Our guest, Señor Hickman, does not understand Spanish,” Benicia +insinuated reproof. “Yes, it is quite true, as you have judged, that +he is recovering from a wound--a slight misadventure on the road to +Hermosillo. But pray be seated, my cousin, and let me order wine and a +light luncheon. You are visibly fatigued.” With a slight bow to Urgo +Benicia arose and crossed the patio to disappear in the shadows of the +arcade. + +Urgo, surprised into an unpleasant situation by being left alone with +the man he had sent to death, fidgeted with the hasp of his cigarette +case. He made great difficulty of scratching a match. Grant, watching +his every move, decided to play some of the cards fate had dealt him. + +“I guessed you were inquiring of Señorita O’Donoju about my condition, +Colonel. You are charmingly solicitous. I was shot in the back--bullet +through my shoulder. Left for dead with the other convicts.” + +The little Spaniard let smoke seep through his nostrils and spread out +his hands to say, “So much for that!” Grant was not to be denied his +advantage: + +“Of course, Colonel Urgo, I remember you were good enough to be present +when I was arraigned at the jail on a false charge of counterfeiting; +I shall not soon forget the promise you made then to do what you could +for me. You did--all you possibly could!” Grant’s smile had become set +and one hand resting on his blanketed knees flexed into a fist, white +across the knuckles. + +Urgo expelled a cloud of smoke from his lungs and showed his teeth in a +wolf’s smile. + +“You remember much, señor. Do not fail to remember, too, you are +a criminal under the laws of Mexico, to be tried on charge of +counterfeiting at the court of Hermosillo.” + +“Yes?” Grant was cool under the other’s counter. “And will you move +to take me to Hermosillo after what happened--out yonder on that road +through the desert?” + +“I?” Urgo’s shoulders lifted. “I am a soldier, señor. I have nothing +to do with justice and the courts. But assuredly you will be taken to +Hermosillo and put on trial.” + +The little Spaniard had fully recovered his poise by now. The uneasy +light in his eyes had yielded to a dangerous flicker of craft. Suavity +of a tiger’s purr lurked in his voice. Grant mastered the rage which +ridged all his fighting muscles despite the weakness of his body; this +was no moment to be betrayed into throwing away a trick. + +“But before I go to Hermosillo, Colonel, of course I shall take +precautions to insure that I get there--that there will be no more _ley +de fuga_ in my case. Don Padraic O’Donoju, who is an honest man; I +shall take him more fully into my confidence and--” + +“Then you have told--?” Urgo bit his lip in mortification over having +fallen into a trap. Grant’s answering smile was innocent as a babe’s. + +“I might prefer, Colonel Urgo, to confine our affair--call it a +misunderstanding between two gentlemen--strictly to yourself and +myself, trusting to take care of myself when I have recovered my +strength. But should I be driven to seek the assistance of an honest +man--” + +Benicia appeared that instant; behind her was ’Cepcion with a silver +tray. Before Colonel Urgo bobbed to his feet Grant caught a shaft of +cold fury from his eyes which said that if the girl’s presence forced +an armistice no promise of peace lay at its termination. + +Followed an interlude of quiet comedy. Grant, content to leave the +first move in the hands of his enemy, eased his shoulder lazily against +the chair back and let his eyes play over the Spaniard’s face and +diminutive figure. There was an indolent suggestion of probing, of +detached appraisal in the steady scrutiny which bit into Urgo’s pride. +That and dull rage over the unexplained presence of his rival here in +Benicia’s home kept the little whippet fidgeting. + +He essayed addressing the girl in her own tongue, but again and more +pointedly Benicia reminded him of this breach of courtesy. She made +no effort to conceal the imp of humour that tugged at the corners of +her mouth; this flickering of a smile and the dancing of her eyes +made farcical the sober decorum of her speech. Urgo, no fool, was not +long realizing he was being made the butt of his cousin’s sport. Thin +lines of strain began to appear about the mouth that smiled so smugly; +just below his temples irritated nerves commenced setting the muscles +a-twitching. Grant, who did not fail to note these reflexes, saw in the +figure opposite a preying animal setting himself for a spring. + +Urgo and Benicia had been exchanging commonplaces. Suddenly the man +leaned forward tensely and returned to the forbidden Spanish in a +hurried burst: “For your own good, my cousin, I must have a few minutes +with you alone. Arrange it, I command you.” + +“You are hardly the one, sweetest cousin, to be the judge of my good. +Nor the one to command me.” Benicia retorted in the same tongue. Then, +turning with a smile of mock apology to Grant: “You will excuse Colonel +Urgo his occasional lapse from a tongue that is difficult for him.” + +The Spaniard took a final draught of wine and pushed back from the +table where his luncheon had been spread. As he idly tapped the corn +husk of one of his cigarettes Grant thought he saw resolution shape +itself in the narrowed eyes. There was a moment’s silence, then Urgo +addressed himself graciously to Grant: + +“Señor Hickman, perhaps my adorable cousin here has not found +opportunity to tell you anything of the history of this remarkable +house in the desert where you have found such agreeable convalescence.” + +“I believe not.” Grant spoke warily, his senses alert for some pitfall. +He shot a warning glance at Benicia; but the girl, ignorant of the grim +feud between the two, could not read it understandingly. Colonel Urgo +surrounded his head with a blue cloud and continued: + +“An engaging history, señor. Not a house in all Sonora with such +romance behind it, such--how do you say it?--such legend, eh? Though +I am distantly of the same family, our branch cannot claim the +distinction that falls to my cousin, who is the last of the veritable +O’Donoju. + +“Behold her glorious head, Señor Hickman!” Urgo waved his cigarette +to point the burning of sunlight above Benicia’s brow; his own +head inclined as if in reverence. “There in my fairest cousin’s +so-marvellous hair lies all the legend and the history of the great +family O’Donoju.” + +The girl, frankly amused at what appeared a turgid compliment, tossed +back her head in a gust of laughter. But Grant could not join with +her. As from some iceberg veiled in fog came to him the cold feel of +malignity moving to some unguessed purpose. Was Urgo planning to strike +at him through the girl he adored? Yet what possible obloquy could he +call up against Benicia, whose soul was unsullied as the winds of the +wastes? Urgo spoke on: + +“Undoubtedly, my cousin, Señor Hickman has felt his heart snared by +those burning meshes of yours or he is not a judge of beauty”--gesture +of impatience from Benicia. “So it is for the benefit of the señor as +well as for your own, fairest cousin, that I recite this legend of the +red hair of the O’Donoju. Strange, is it not, that all Sonora knows it +and has told the story to its children for a hundred years, yet you, +_chiquita_”--a wave of the cigarette toward the girl--“who should be +most interested are the only ignorant one. + +“There was in the long ago, señor, a Michael O’Donohue--what you call +of the wild Irish, who had flaming hair and an untamed spirit. A king +in Spain gave him the whole district of Altar for his estate, and he +came here to the Garden of Solitude with his Spanish lady and built +him this house where we sit. He was a man who considered the safety of +his soul, so he built a mission to the glory of the four evangelists +out yonder by the Gulf where the Sand People needed the comfort of the +Mother Church and--” + +“He lived a life any one of his descendants might pattern after,” +Benicia put in with a smile carrying a sting. Urgo touched his breast +with delicate fingers and bowed. Then turning again to Grant: + +“When the Apaches burned that mission, señor, a pious O’Donoju restored +it and the family, then numerous, endowed that mission altar with much +gold and silver. There was, too, a great string of pearls--pearls with +a green light, legend says, which the Sand People brought from the +shell beds of the Gulf to show their piety. You are following me, Señor +Hickman, eh?” + +Grant made no sign. His eyes were upon Benicia’s face, reading there +a slow change. Now she, too, had begun to feel a nameless portent +stealing over her like the chill from hidden ice. The wells of her +eyes were deeper; faint colour came and went in her cheeks and throat. +Grant, certain that Urgo was preparing torture for her under the +innocent mask of narrative, was helpless to intervene; no diversion +short of the work of fists was possible, and that his weakness denied +him. + +“There was of that generation which restored the mission, señor, a +wild youth, true descendant of the original O’Donoju. He was known +from Mexico City to Tucson as El Rojo--the Red One--for his hair was +the veritable colour of that which our cousin possesses. And the devil +rode his heart with spurs of fire. You have never been told of El Rojo, +Benicia?” + +The girl made no answer. Her level gaze was a mute challenge. The +little colonel rerolled one of his eternal cigarettes, lighted it and +drank smoke with a sensuous inhalation. + +“At the feast of the re-dedication El Rojo, banished from the family, +appeared out of nowhere. Conceive the consternation, señor! The red +head of the devil’s own come to sanctified ground. This fiery head, so +like our Benicia’s, swooping as a comet into the feasting place of the +family; well might the pious O’Donojus be fearful. + +“And their fears were not without grounds. Before El Rojo quit the +Mission of the Four Evangelists he had murdered the priest, his own +uncle, and stolen the rope of pearls from the sacred image of the +Virgin. He rode away with one of his cousins, a foolish girl of the +Mayortorenas, who was wife to him in the desert without priest or book.” + +Urgo let his voice trail away as with a tale finished. His teasing +glance lingered on the faces of his two auditors. Benicia drew a +tremulous breath and forced a smile, as though she were relaxing from +strain. On this cue the story teller unexpectedly continued: + +“But I hear Señor Hickman ask, ‘What part has all this ancient legend +with Señorita Benicia’s red hair?’ Patience, señor. We approach that. + +“Legend says that though El Rojo’s wife worked upon his heart and +brought repentance, it was too late. He returned to the mission a year +after his double crime to restore the Virgin’s pearls to the sanctuary. +The Apaches had been there just before him. The priests were slain and +the mission burned. El Rojo buried the pearls within the stark walls, +hoping the good God would accept this his acknowledgment of sin. There +the pearls lie to-day beyond sight of man, for the desert has blotted +out the last remnants of ruins. + +“But the sin of El Rojo was not so easily to be forgotten in sight +of the good God, sweetest cousin.” Urgo suddenly turned away from +Grant, to whom he had been addressing his story, and fixed his eyes on +Benicia; almost there was the click of snapping fetters in his glance. +“You bear the mark of it above your brow like the mark of Cain--his +fire-red hair!” + +“Stop!” The girl leaped from her chair, blazing wrath in every line of +her face. “I shall not listen--” + +“The grandson of El Rojo and his grandson,” Urgo purred on with his +smile of a hunting cat, “every second generation of the O’Donoju has +one born with the curse of the red hair to tell all Sonora God does not +forget. And now you, the last of an accursed family, its great estates +gone--its power gone--your own grandfather with his red hair shot with +Maximilian!--You with the red head--daughter of a murderer--” + +A hand closed over the collar of the colonel’s military jacket, gave +it a twist, throttling his speech. Grant had leaped from his seat--a +pain like a bayonet point shot through his shoulder at the sudden +movement--and come upon the spiteful little slanderer from behind. + +“Gringo assassin!” whistled the little Spaniard, and his right hand +groped backward to a concealed holster. It fell into a grip too strong +to be broken. Grant was bearing all his weight on the other’s back, +for the instant he was on his feet he discovered a weakness of his +knees which would not support him. The impulse to shut off Urgo’s +venomous tongue had been acted upon without calculation; now that he +had committed himself to action the American realized how heavy was the +hazard against him. One arm useless, all the other muscles once ready +to respond instantly to call for action now seeming to be palsied. A +paralytic boldly attempting to bell a wildcat; this was the situation. + +Benicia saw the American’s face over the squirming Urgo’s shoulder; +it wore a strained grin which hardly served to mask the toll taken of +weakened muscles. She whirled and ran out of the patio to call aid in +the servants’ quarters. + +Now the hot fire from his wound was spreading across Grant’s back and +down his fighting arm as he swayed across the patio half supported +on the Spaniard’s back. The frantic jerkings of Urgo’s pistol arm in +Grant’s grip threatened momentarily to loosen the restraining fingers; +that done, the American’s end would be speedy. + +Grant found himself near a wall, braced one foot against it and lunged +outward. Down went both men. Urgo twisted out from under the heavier +body, pinning him, and raised himself to one knee. Grant saw a tigerish +gleam of triumph in the other’s eyes as his right hand whipped back to +the holster on his hip. + +Some power more rapid than thought moved the American’s sound arm +outward in a wild sweep which encompassed a giant fuchsia bush growing +in a Chinese tea tub. Over went the bush just as Urgo fired from the +hip, its branches swishing down over the latter’s head. + +The bullet went wild. Grant, near swooning from the consuming pain of +his wound, scrambled for his enemy--went up with him when he found his +feet. The revolver had been knocked from Urgo’s hand by the avalanche +of greenery; a sideways kick of Grant’s foot sent it spinning into the +fountain. + +Now the wounded man sent a final summons to his last reservoir of +strength. Slowly--slowly he forced the little Spaniard out of the +patio and down the long corridor toward the front door of the house. +When Benicia came running with two husky Indians they found Grant with +his man waiting before the heavy oaken portal. One of the Indians +swung back the door. Grant gave a supreme heave and the colonel went +sprawling like a straddle bug out onto the gravel. + +The great door slammed behind him. + + + + +CHAPTER XII + +DESERT SECRETS + + +Consider now the interesting activities of Doc Stooder, fallen angel of +Æsculapius: + +On a March evening of sunset splendour the worthy doctor descended +from the single combination coach and baggage car which a +suffering locomotive drags once daily from a junction point on the +transcontinental line south through naked battalions of mountains to +the ghost town of Cuprico. Once Cuprico was famous; once when primitive +steam shovels nibbled at solid mountains of copper up back of Main +Street Cuprico roared with a life that was dizzy and vaunted itself the +rip-roarin’est copper camp in all the Southwest. But the glory that was +Cuprico passed, even as that of Rome; to-day they tell of the town that +when its mayor fell dead on the post office steps his body remained +undiscovered for three days. + +No romantic craving for revisiting scenes of his youth had prompted +the Doc to his journey Cupricoward--he had been its premier stud +player in a day of glory fifteen years before. No, a far more material +urge had ended a period of fretting in Arizora by shunting him on a +westward-wending train. For a week Bim Bagley, his partner in a secret +enterprise, had been absent on his quest of El Doctor Coyote Belly and +the New York engineer, Bim’s friend, who was reported to be wounded +and under the care of the Papago medicine man. Ten days prior to +Bagley’s excursion into Sonora had been frittered away in groping for +information concerning this vanished engineer. All precious time wasted! + +It has, perhaps, become apparent that Doc Stooder was not enthusiastic +over the inclusion of Grant Hickman, the Easterner, in his golden +scheme of treasure trove in desert sands. The stubborn refusal of +Bim Bagley to move without this fellow Hickman’s being party to the +enterprise had prevented a start on the expedition for the Mission of +the Four Evangelists six weeks before. The canny physician--whose share +in the joint endeavour was to be his exclusive information concerning +the whereabouts of the Lost Mission--possessed in large degree that +sense of divination bestowed upon folk of the desert which gives their +imagination wings over the horizon of time. Each day of delay he read +a day to the advantage of Don Padraic O’Donoju, certain sure as he was +that the master of the desert oasis had come by knowledge of his own +treasure hunt intent through mysterious desert channels. + +The vision of gold and pearls Doc Stooder had seen in the depths of +raw alcohol on a night of dreaming in his office had become a goad. +So he came to Cuprico, the ghost town not seventy miles away from the +supposed site of the buried mission; his intent was to pick up his +Papago informant, who lived midway between Cuprico and the Border, and, +as Stooder happily phrased his purpose, “give things a look-see.” If +his luck was with him and he should stumble onto the mission during +this solo game so much the better. Conscience nor maxims of fair play +were any part of the doctor’s moral anatomy. + +The Doc upon his arrival did not pervade Cuprico’s centres of evening +society--the Golden Star pool hall and soft drinks emporium and the +back room of Garcia’s drug store--for reasons sufficiently potent to +merit a paragraph of explanation. + +Years before, when he was a resident of the mining camp and had money, +Doc Stooder took unto himself a Mexican wife who had a passion for +diamonds. Mrs. Apolinaria Stooder had a way with her which seemed +to win deep into the atrophied heart of her spouse, and he showered +her with the stones of her choice. No woman from Yuma to Tucson--so +legend still recites--“packed so much ice” as Doc Stooder’s. Then in +an epidemic of typhoid, which the Doc combated with the heroism of a +saint, Apolinaria died. + +Alone and with his own hands her sorrowing widower gave her sepulchre +somewhere amid the gaunt hills surrounding the town. He let it become +known after the interment that since Apolinaria loved her diamonds so +he had buried them with her, adding for good measure of gossip that he +figured their total value at round $5000. Immediately and for several +years thereafter all the prospectors for fifty miles about gave up +their search for dip and strike and prospected for Mrs. Apolinaria +Stooder. Failing to find so much as a “colour” of her diamonds, the +profession drew the conclusion that Doc Stooder was a monumental liar. +His popularity waned accordingly. + +Shadows were lengthening when Stooder tooled a rented desert skimmer +out of Cuprico’s single garage and brought it to a stop before the +general store. Into the wagon box behind the seat went his bed roll, +brought from Arizora and containing certain glassware whose contents +were more precious to their owner than life itself; boxes of grocery +staples; extra cans of oil and gasoline. Two big canteens on the +running board were filled. Plugs of chewing tobacco heavy and broad as +slate shingles were stowed in the tool box. In all this preparation +the doctor’s long legs calipered themselves from counter to car with +remarkable efficiency. + +“Goin’ on a little prospecting trip?” the storekeeper had volunteered +when the Doc first commenced his stowing. No answer. + +“Figgerin’ on a little _pasear_ down ’crost the Line?” hopefully from +that worthy as he helped noose the tarpaulin over the dunnage. The +Doc’s head was buried above the ears among the engine’s naked cylinders +and he professed not to hear. When Stooder was seated at the wheel +and the storekeeper had the edge of the final pail of water over the +radiator vent he feebly flung out his last grappling hook: + +“Reckon you might be selling Bibles to the Papagoes.” + +“Come here, friend,” sternly from the doctor. “Now I give you the way +inside if you’ll promise to keep it mum.” The storekeeper hopped +around to lean his ear over the wheel in gleeful anticipation. + +“I’m a-goin’ south from here to give a Chinese lady a lesson on the +ocarina. So long!” + +When the Doc skittered down the brief Main Street and out onto the +thread of grey caliche that was the road to the mysterious south +all of the west was a-roil with the final palette scrapings of the +sunset--umber, pale lemon and, high above the mountains standing black +as obsidian, cirrus clouds dyed a fugitive cherry. Ahead showed the +ragged gate into the valley of El Infiernillo--the Little Hell--place +of bleak distances between mountain ranges bare as sheet iron; place +of unimaginable thirst when summer sun hurls reflected heat back from +burning walls. Beyond El Infiernillo just a hint of peaks like fretwork +spires marked destination for the doctor; there at the foot of the +Growler range and where the Desert of Altar washes across the imaginary +line between two nations, lay the land of his desire. Somewhere on +the Road of the Dead Men passing through that savage waste perchance +a nubbin of weathered ’dobe wall lifted a few inches above the sand +to mark treasure of gold and pearls below; maybe naught but a charred +timber end concealed by a patch of greasewood and crying a secret to +the ears of the searcher. + +Gold and pearls--pearls and gold! The Doc’s rapt eye caught the colours +of sacred treasure in the dyes of the sunset and read them for a +portent of success. + +“Me, I’m a-goin’ just slosh around in wealth! Doc Stooder, the man with +the _dinero_--that’s me!” The gaunt head behind the wheel of the desert +skimmer was tilted back and A. Stooder, M.D., carolled his expectations +at the new stars. Then he reined in his gas snorter long enough to +fumble with his bed roll in the wagon box. Out came a square bottle of +fluid fire, such as passes currency with the international bootleggers +in the Southwest. The Doc drank heartily to the promise spread across +the western heavens. The bottle was tucked in a handy coat pocket for +future reference. + +Nights in the desert along the Line are psychic. They are not of the +world of arc lights, elevated trains and the winking jewels of white +ways. In that world man has so completely surrounded himself with the +tinsels of his own making, the noise of his own multiplied squeakings +and chatterings, that he comes to accept the vault above him as under +the care of the city parks department. His little tent of night is +no higher than the towers of his skyscrapers. But in the desert it is +different. + +Emptiness of day is increased an hundred fold at dark because it +leaps up to lose its frontiers behind the stars. Silence of the day +is intensified to such a degree that the inner ear catches a humming +of supernal machinery in the heavens. The eye measures perspectives +between the near and far planets. And the soul of man hearkens to +strange voices; sighings from the pale mouths of the desert scrubs, +born to a servitude of thirst; whisperings passed from mountain top to +mountain top; faint stirrings of the earth relaxed from the torsion of +the sun. + +Doc Stooder, desert familiar as he was, never could blunt his senses +to this emptiness of night in the wastes. It awed him, left him +itching under half-perceived conceptions of the infinite. Hence the +bottle carried handily in his pocket. From time to time as he careered +over the road faintly marked by the feeble sparks of his headlights +he braked down to have a swig. The more he felt lifted above sombre +unrealities about him the greater his impulse to break into song. The +iron gate of El Infiernillo heard his roundelay. + +Miles unreeled behind him. Dim shapes of mountains dissolved to new +contours and were left behind. The Doc came to a sharp eastward turning +of the road but kept straight ahead out over the untracked flats to +southward. He knew his way; the packed sand gave him as good traction +as the road. Down and down into the unpeopled wilderness of sandhills +and buttes bored the twin sparks of the little car. + +Another shift of direction and the Doc was teetering up a narrow cañon +between high mountain walls. His course was a dry wash, boulder strewn. +Only instinct of a desert driver saved him from piling up on some rough +block of detritus. Sand traps forced him to shove the engine into low, +and the snarling of the exhaust was multiplied from the cañon walls. + +A light flickered far ahead. A dog barked. The car wallowed and +snuffled out of the wash to come to a halt before several silhouettes +of huts. People, roused from sleep by the car’s clamour, stood ringed +about in curiosity; one held a torch of reeds. + +“Ho, Guadalupe!” Doc Stooder bellowed. A solid looking Indian with a +mat of tousled iron-grey hair stood out under the torch light, grinning +a welcome to “El Doctor.” + +“Show me a place to sleep,” commanded the visitor, and the one called +Guadalupe carried the doctor’s bed-roll to his own hut, of which +squaw and children were speedily dispossessed. So the good doctor +from Arizora slept the rest of the night in the rancheria of the Sand +People, last remnant of that Papago family for which the Mission of +the Four Evangelists was reared to save souls. In five hours the Doc +had covered by gasoline what it would have cost Guadalupe of the Sand +People as many days in painful plodding. + +Morning saw the rancheria in a ferment of excitement and Doc Stooder +viciously tyrannical in reaction from his accustomed alcoholic night. +Guadalupe found himself in a difficult position. Once in a moment +of gratitude when the white doctor had snatched his squaw from the +tortures of asthma--the miracle had occurred in Guadalupe’s summer +camp near Arizora--the Indian had babbled his knowledge of the buried +mission, its treasure. But he had not counted upon this unexpected +appearance of the white doctor, demanding to be led to the place of +wealth. It is common with all the Southwestern Indians to believe +naught but ill luck can follow any revelation to a white man of the +desert’s hidden gold; some say the early padres, themselves consistent +hoarders, inculcated this lesson. With the eyes of his fellow villagers +disapprovingly upon him, Guadalupe first attempted evasion. + +Stooder in an ominous quiet heard him through. Then without a word +he opened a small medicine chest he carried in his bed-roll and took +therefrom two tightly folded pieces of paper--blue and white. While +Guadalupe and the rest watched, round-eyed, the doctor made quick +passes with each bit of paper over the mouth of a small water _olla_. +The surface of the water sizzed and boiled. + +Guadalupe, two shades whiter, babbled his willingness to go at once to +the place where the mission lay hidden. + +“Prime cathartic for the mind,” grunted the Doc, and he tuned his +engine for the trip. + +They were off down the cañon and into the yellow basin of El +Infiernillo. Guadalupe, riding for the first time in the white man’s +smell-wagon, gripped his seat with the delicious fear of a child on +a merry-go-round. He watched the movements of the doctor’s foot on +the gear-shift, marvelling that the beast concealed in pipes and rods +answered each downward thrust with a roar. Earth spun under him as if +Elder Brother himself, master of all created things, had a hold on it +and were pulling it all one way. + +Down and down into the untracked miles of Altar. A single iron post on +a hill marking the Line. The sierra of Pinacate cinder-red in the south +for a beacon. Right and left sheet iron ranges with stipples of rust +where the _camisa_ grew. Mirage quivering into nothingness just as its +false waters were ready to be parted by the car’s wheels. + +They came upon an east-and-west track in the sand--the Road of the +Dead Men--and turned westward upon it. Away off to the north and east +a spiral dust cloud walked across the wastes along the skirts of the +mountains. Guadalupe pointed to it with an ejaculation in his own +tongue. A sign--a sign! There was the place of the mission! + +The Doc felt his internals quiver in expectation. Prickles of +excitement played in fingers that gripped the wheel. Automatically he +began to hum an ancient bar-room ditty. + +The Papago indicated where he should turn off the road in the direction +of a great gap in the mountains, into which the desert flowed as a sea. +Here the mesquite lifted from its crouch and flourished in a five-foot +growth--true index of hidden waters. The car made hard going, what +with brittle twigs that caught at its tires and the _cholla_ creeping +like a spined snake to threaten punctures. At his guide’s word Doc +Stooder stopped. Both scrambled out. + +Before moving a step the Doc must have a ceremonial drink, a +preliminary he did not deem necessary to share with Guadalupe. The +man’s big hands trembled as he raised the bottle to his lips; his eyes +were shining with gold lust. + +Guadalupe stood for several minutes slowly swinging his head from +landmark to landmark, his eyes following calculated lines through the +scrub. Then he commenced a slow pacing through the close-set aisles of +the greasewood and cactus, bearing in a wide circle. He peered into +the core of each shrub, kicked at every naked stub of root and branch +appearing above the surface. The Doc, cursing and humming alternately, +was right at his shoulder. + +An hour passed--two. The sun, now high, burned mercilessly. Still +Guadalupe pursued a narrowing circle through the scrub. Of a sudden the +Indian gurgled and dropped to his knees beside a salt-bush. He whipped +out his knife and began hacking at the tough stubs of branches near +the soil. The Doc, slavering in his excitement, dropped beside him and +looked into the heart of the salt-bush. He saw nothing but a rounded +slab of rock. + +Guadalupe finished his knife work and started to dig with his hands. +Terrier-like he pawed a hole away from what Stooder had taken for a +rock. The smooth black surface began to curve outward in a form too +symmetrical for nature’s work; it was rounded and gradually flaring. + +Guadalupe dug on. Blood pounded in the Doc’s ears. Snatches of song +trickled from his lips. + +Suddenly patience exploded. Stooder pushed the Papago to his haunches +and threw his own body full length into the hole dug. His arms embraced +a flaring shape of metal. His eyes fell upon faint ridges and lines, +like lettering. He spat upon the spot and rubbed it clean of clinging +soil. + + GLORIA DEI ET MUND---- + PHILLIPUS REX + ANNO DOM.----XXIV + +“The bell! The mission bell!” screamed the Doc. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII + +CROSSCURRENTS + + +An hour after the sun had set on the day of Colonel Urgo’s humiliation +at the Casa O’Donoju, Quelele tooled his car into the avenue of palms +at the end of the long return journey from Magdalena, on the railroad. +With him were his master, Don Padraic, and an American stranger, Bim +Bagley of Arizora. + +Fate had played capriciously with Bim. When he set out from Arizora on +the quest of his pal Grant Hickman it was only on the bare report that +the man was seriously wounded and under the care of El Doctor Coyote +Belly at Babinioqui, south of the Line. Near the end of his journey +his car had wrecked itself beyond repair hard by Magdalena; a mule had +been requisitioned to carry him over the mountains to the home of the +medicine man; once there he was as far from the end of his quest as +ever. + +For grey old Coyote Belly lied unblinkingly. He knew nothing of a +wounded man. Persuasion of words nor the chink of silver dollars +availed to budge him from a trust he conceived to be joined between +himself and the master of the Casa O’Donoju. + +The hours following the scene in the patio and the sudden gust of +action concluding the visit of Hamilcar Urgo had been trying ones +for Grant. Spent as he was by the struggle with the Spaniard, he had +suffered himself to be half-carried to his room by the Indian servants. +Benicia, accompanying him to the door, had permitted her hand to rest +in his at farewell; a clasp tried to tell what the storm in her soul +denied speech. The girl’s face was etched by suffering; sacrificed +pride and a shadow of some deep fear lay heavy in her eyes and the +drawn lines about her mouth. The wound made by her spiteful suitor was +deeper than Grant could conceive. + +Alone on his bed he conned over the tale Urgo had told. Unfamiliar as +he was with the Latin temperament, the belief of the romance peoples +in the very reality of inherited curse and whips of Nemesis pursuing +innocent generations, yet the raw tragedy of the story fired his +imagination. He tried to put himself in the place of the girl he loved +with all her pride of race and family; to feel with her the stripes +of scorn the despicable Urgo had laid on. El Rojo’s desecration of +the mission sanctuary by an act of blood; his flight into the desert +with the pearls of the Virgin and a girl, “who was wife to him without +priest or book”; the blotting of the mission from sight of man; all +this cycle of tragedy of the dim past linked to a gloriously vital +creature of the present by the chance colour of her hair. The thing was +monstrously absurd! And yet-- + +A knock at the door and Don Padraic entered. He turned to beckon some +one behind him. In the candlelight Grant saw the head of a giant stoop +to avoid the lintel. + +“Bim Bagley!” + +The desert man crossed to the bed by a single wide step and threw both +arms about Grant in a bear hug. + +“You dam’d old snoozer. You dam’d old snoozer!” was all Bim could give +in greeting. Don Padraic stepped outside and closed the door on the +reunion. Bim let his friend’s body lightly down on the pillows and sat +back to grin into Grant’s eyes. + +“I sure been burnin’ the ground all over North Sonora on your trail,” +he rumbled. “You’re the original little Mexican jumping bean.” + +“Jumped right into a flock of trouble, old side partner, with more +right beyond the front line waiting for me. The reserves seem to have +come up just the right time.” Grant gave his pal’s great paw a squeeze. +Bim roared assurance: + +“Reserves got all bogged down through failure in liaison--just like the +days of the Big Show. But they’re with you now from hell to breakfast, +young fellah; an’ I think I know the name of the outfit we got to trim. +Name’s Hamilcar Urgo, huh?” His buoyant spirit was wine to Grant; the +very animal force of him seemed to fill the old room. + +“Ran acrost that li’l sidewinder this afternoon when the old Don was +bringing me up here from Magdalena. Just our two cars on the road. He +pulls up when we’re makin’ to pass him--face on him just as pleasant as +a polecat’s. Your friend the Don passes the time of day courteous as +you please. + +“‘I had the honour to visit your daughter this day,’ whinnies this Urgo +gazabo; of course he speaks in Spanish, which is nuts for me. ‘And I +discover she is entertaining a convict who escaped from a chain gang.’” +Bim grinned. “I take it that convict is my li’l friend from Noo Yawk.” + +Grant nodded. The other wagged his head in a grotesque mockery of grief. + +“‘My daughter and I are entertaining an American gentleman who was +wounded on the Hermosillo road,’ your Don answers, civil enough. ‘While +he is a guest in our house we naturally ask no questions.’ + +“‘Then,’ snaps this Urgo boy, ‘I must inform you that for harbouring an +escaped criminal you are responsible before the law. The rurales will +visit your house and it is for me to say whether they take you as well +as the gringo convict.’” + +Grant started. Here was a phase of the situation he had not guessed: +that his courteous host might be made to suffer for Urgo’s rage and +jealousy. + +Eagerly, “What did Don Padraic say to that?” + +“He says something to the effect that the laws of hospitality were +above any this-here Urgo might care to dig up, the same I call being +mighty white of your Don Whosis with the Irish twist to his name.” +Bim broke off to shoot a quizzical look into his friend’s eyes. “Say, +brother, what you been doin’ to this little black-an’-tan stingin’ +lizard to make him ride your trail so hard? You a tenderfoot an’ +riding your herd across the fence line of the biggest little man in the +whole Sonora government!” + +Grant grinned childishly. “Well, I threw him out of the front door here +this afternoon for one thing and--” + +Admiration beamed from every wind wrinkle about the Arizonan’s eyes. +“Sho! You did that? Now I call that steppin’ some for a man with a +bullet through him. I thought from the gen’ral slant to Señor Urgo’s +manner when he met up with us some one’d been working on his frame +somewhere. He just sweat T.N.T. But why did you crawl him?” + +“He insulted Señorita O’Donoju,” was Grant’s answer. Bim lowered the +lid of one eye owlishly and his gaunt face was pulled down to a comic +aspect of concern. + +“Uh-huh; now I begin to get the drift. Old Doc Stooder was right +when he says there’s the shoo-shoo of a skirt somewheres in your big +disappearing act. Boy--boy! I had you figgered for the orig’nal old +hermit coyote who travels the meat trail alone. No wonder li’l Urgo’s +all coiled up for the strike, you aimin’ to run him out on his girl.” + +Before Grant could head off his friend on a topic that brought sudden +embarrassment to him ’Cepcion and a second servant entered with a +spread table. Bim tucked pillows under his friend’s shoulders with +clumsy tenderness, then in mellow candlelight they ate and talked. Both +were bursting with questions to be asked, but Bim claimed the right of +priority by virtue of his ten days’ blind search through the country +south of the Line. At his demand Grant gave him the whole story of +his feud with Colonel Urgo, from the meeting at El Paso down to the +afternoon’s events in the patio. Lively play of sympathies about the +Arizonan’s features followed the narrative of the dreadful march in +the chain gang and Grant’s burst for freedom under the rifles of the +rurales. The little his friend left unsaid Bim was shrewd enough to +supply; he guessed the story of Grant’s thraldom under the witchery of +the desert girl and found it good. + +When the man on the pillows began recital of what had occurred just +a few hours before--Urgo’s savage assault on a girl’s pride through +the story of El Rojo’s impiety--the big man by the bed stiffened in +intensified interest. He heard Grant through with scarce concealed +impatience. + +“But, man, that was the Mission of the Four Evangelists Urgo was +telling of!” explosively from Bim. Grant nodded confirmation. + +“Why, that’s the Doc’s big proposition--our proposition!” + +Grant looked his puzzlement. The other’s excitement swirled him on: + +“That proves what the Doc’s Papago told him. Pearls buried there. An’ +gold--lots of gold, the Papago says. I had a sneaking hunch all the +time it might be one of Stooder’s wild dreams, but this story proves +we’re on the right track.” + +“Do you mean--?” + +“Sure! That’s what I brought you out from the East for--to help us +uncover this Lost Mission, as folks in Arizona call it. Doc Stooder’s +such a cagey old monkey he wouldn’t let me put on paper just what I +wanted you to whack in on. Now you got it all--the pure quill. Isn’t it +a whale of a proposition!” + +Though Grant’s surface perception had grasped the full import of his +friend’s words some sub-strata of mind, or of heart, stubbornly refused +to be convinced that he had heard aright. He groped for words: + +“You say you brought me out here to help you uncover pearls and gold +that belong to the Church?” + +“Why not?” A subtle note of pugnacity in the other’s speech. “The +stuff’s been lyin’ buried for a hundred an’ fifty years more or less. +The priests’ve never lifted a finger to find it, though slews of +prospectors have rooted round trying to uncover this cache.” + +“But the old O’Donojus built this church and endowed it with that very +treasure you want to dig for,” Grant persisted. “What about their +rights?” + +He did not hear Bim’s arguments. Instead he was conning over the story +of the bane of the house of O’Donoju. Before his eyes was the face of +the girl he loved, as he had last seen it, deeply graven with tragedy. + +Grant’s hand went out in a comrade’s clasp. “Bim, old man, count me out +on this thing. I couldn’t consider it for a minute.” + + + + +CHAPTER XIV + +REVELATION + + +“Don Padraic’s compliments, and he awaits the pleasure of his guests’ +company in the music room if the sick señor feels able.” It was +’Cepcion’s soft patois that interrupted Bim Bagley’s explosion of +pained surprise in mid-flight. Grant gave him a smile which interpreted +the diversion as something to his friend’s advantage and, leaning on +Bim’s shoulder, followed the servant to the great room in the centre of +the house. + +A fire burned in the cavernous fireplace, for spring nights in Altar +have a chill; candles in dull silver wall sconces tempered the red +light. The vast room was so peopled with dancing shadows from the +antique furnishings that the tall man in white and the girl who +advanced to greet the guests appeared to be moving in a company of +hooded monks. + +“’Nicia, Señor Bagley, the friend of our friend.” Don Padraic bowed to +Bim, who crooked his lank body with surprising grace. + +“And I am a friend of you two,” came Bim’s forthright answer, “since +you have treated Grant Hickman so kindly. He is the salt of the earth.” + +Don Padraic indicated seats before the andirons. Benicia chose a low +settle by the side of the great winged chair where her father seated +himself. Grant saw shadows beneath her eyes where the firelight played +upon her features, almost waxen in uncertain light. The glint of copper +in the piled-up mass of her hair was like summer lightning in clouds. +Their eyes met, and Grant was disappointed in the hope he might still +find the soul of the girl revealed there as it had been that afternoon +in the unguarded moment when Benicia gave him wordless thanks. He +guessed she had told Don Padraic of the incident in the patio and that +what had passed between father and daughter thereafter had been a drain +on the emotions of both. + +Don Padraic turned to Grant with more than perfunctory concern in +speech and glance. “Your health, señor? I fear that certain events of +the day, of which my daughter has told me--” + +“Please!” Grant was quick to interrupt. “I am feeling fit as I could +be, thanks to the careful nursing I have had in your house.” + +The thing that had been left unspoken by both weighed like an unlaid +spirit on the silence that followed. Each of the four before the +fire had little thought save for the chapter of circumstance left +unconcluded by one who had departed the Garden a few hours before, +swollen with the venom of outraged pride. It was Don Padraic who +brushed aside reserve: + +“Señor Hickman, I may speak before your friend, who must share your +confidence. He will pardon my bringing personal affairs before him. I +can not postpone my thanks--my very sincere thanks--for what you did +this afternoon. My daughter was defenceless.” + +“And I--” Benicia began, but Grant quickly put in: + +“Will you not consider that I was really serving my own private ends--a +score to be evened between Colonel Urgo and myself?” + +Bim covered a reminiscent grin with a broad palm as Grant hurried on, +eager to withhold from the girl opportunity to speak her thanks. + +“When I was brought here I thought it best to keep silent on the matter +of my own private grudge against this man. But now that it appears we +all have common cause against him I think I may speak. Urgo himself was +responsible for my being shot.” + +He saw Benicia’s eyes grow wide, read the surprise that parted her +lips in a breathed exclamation. He thought he saw, too, just the flash +of something no eyes but his own could understand, and he was glad. +Briefly he sketched the incident of the gambling palace in Sonizona, +his encounter with Urgo in the office of the jail, the march with the +chain gang. + +“And so,” Grant concluded, “Colonel Urgo found a dead man come to life +when he saw me in the patio to-day. When Señorita O’Donoju was out of +hearing for a moment I could not resist a shot which left our friend +guessing whether or not I had told you, señor, how I came by my wound.” + +“Ah, yes,” from Benicia in a hushed voice. “I knew the minute I +returned there had been something between you. Urgo was like a cornered +animal.” + +“And so he turned on you,” Grant could not help saying. “If only I +could have guessed beforehand his attack--” + +Again silence fell. Grant was alive to the play of unspoken thought +between father and daughter; these two alone in the immensity of the +desert and facing unsupported the craft of an implacable enemy. He +sensed the battle between their pride and their desperate need for +an ally: the one impulse dictating that what was the secret affair of +the House of O’Donoju must remain strictly its own secret, the other +moving them to confide in him, who unwittingly had been drawn into the +struggle. Gladly would he have offered himself as a champion; but he +must await their initiative. Suddenly Grant recalled what Bim had told +him of Urgo’s threat at the meeting with Don Padraic on the desert +road: how the head of the Casa O’Donoju would be held responsible for +harbouring an escaped convict. There was no blinking his duty in this +direction. + +“My friend tells me, Don Padraic, that Colonel Urgo threatens your +arrest as well as my own; that you will be held responsible for +concealing a fugitive from justice. That cannot be, of course. +To-morrow, if Quelele can take Bagley and myself in the car--” + +“No!” Benicia’s denial came peremptorily and with a hint of passion +which gave Grant a sting of surprise. “No, señor, we do not turn +wounded men into the desert--particularly a friend who has served us as +you have done.” + +Again Grant saw in the firelit pools of her eyes just an instant’s +revelation of depths he yearned to plumb--the aspect of a beginning +love hardly knowing itself as such. He scarcely heard the voice of Don +Padraic seconding his daughter’s protest. + +“The hospitality of the Casa O’Donoju,” he was saying, “can hardly +recognize such silly threats. Colonel Urgo’s hope was that we would +send you back over the Road of the Dead Men to Caborca or Magdalena +where, naturally, you would be made a prisoner. Please dismiss from +your mind any idea of our permitting ourselves to play into this man’s +hands.” + +Bim Bagley ventured to break his silence: “Grant here and I have +important business together up over the Line. We ought to be moving +soon’s we can.” The white-haired don turned to Bim with a gracious +spreading of the hands. + +“When Señor Hickman feels able to make the journey Quelele will take +him and yourself, Señor Bagley, to westward. There is a way through El +Infiernillo up to the Arizona town of Cuprico. By so going you will +avoid any trap Urgo might lay. But you will not hurry Señor Hickman’s +going”--Don Padraic interjected reservation--“and you, Señor Bagley, +surely can remain with us until then.” + +The direct Bagley, finding himself thwarted by the don’s suavity, sent +a sheepish grin Grant’s way in token of his defeat and maintained +silence. Don Padraic, to dismiss the subject his reticence had +reluctantly introduced, struck a gong to summon a servant. Soon a +decanter of sherry was glowing golden in the firelight and cigarettes +were burning. The master of the Casa O’Donoju artfully led Bim into +talk of cattle, always currency of conversation in the Southwest. Grant +drew his chair closer to Benicia’s. + +“You startled me with that ‘No’ of yours to my proposal to leave the +Garden of Solitude at once,” he said with a boldness he did not wholly +feel. “Being a little deaf, I am not sure I heard all the reasons you +gave why I should not go.” + +“What you failed to hear me say my father supplied,” the girl quickly +parried, giving him her steady gaze. He was not to be so easily +side-tracked. What had begun in boldness swept him on in passionate +sincerity: + +“There are many excellent reasons why I should be somewhere else than +here this time to-morrow night; but there is one very compelling reason +why I welcome every added hour here in the Garden. May I tell you that +reason?” + +“If you think I should know.” The words came simply. He, looking down +into the hint of features the firelight grudgingly gave him, saw there +the frank camaraderie of a candid spirit: the soul that was Benicia +O’Donoju, unsullied of artifice or the vain trickeries of the woman +desired. “If you think I should know”--call of comrade to comrade. The +desert girl scorning subtleties and inventions; knowing what her words +would prompt yet wishing them to be said. + +“It is that I love you, Benicia, and that I cannot leave you, loving +you so, when I know you are in danger.” Grant gave her his heart’s +pledge in simple directness. Though the girl was not unprepared for +his avowal, the call in his words, elemental as the sweep of precious +rain over the thirsting desert, set quivering chords of her being never +before stirred. He saw the trembling of her lips; her curving lashes +trembled and were jewelled with little drops. She turned her gaze into +the fire for a long minute. Grant heard vaguely the voice of Bim Bagley +expounding some theme of cattle ticks. His heart was on the rack. + +“Grant--good friend--” Her voice broke, then valiantly found itself. +“You heard from Urgo the story of our house--of the Red One and his +crime against God--” + +“The hound!” he muttered. Benicia groped on: + +“My father--no one ever told me that story because--because--” Grant +saw one hand steal up to touch with a gesture almost abhorrent the low +wave of red over her brow--“I bear the sign, you see.” + +He put out his hand to stay her, for the dregs of suffering were +working a slow torture upon her; the face of the girl he loved had +become like some sculptor’s study of the spirit of fatalism. He could +not check her. + +“My father when he returned to-day and I told him--my father said the +story was true as Urgo told it. Once in every second generation--this +sign of El Rojo, murderer and violator of the sanctuary--” + +“But, Benicia, surely you don’t believe this fairy story!” Grant packed +into his low words all the willing of a spirit fighting for precious +possession. He felt that every word the girl spoke was pushing her +farther from him. + +“Ah, Grant, we desert people believe easily because the truth is not +hidden. It _is_ true; my good grey father knew that I knew it to be +true and did not seek to deceive me when I asked him. The O’Donoju with +this”--again the shrinking touch of fingers to the dull-burning stripe +on her forehead--“cannot give love, for with love goes unhappiness--and +death.” + +She broke off suddenly, rose and hurried into the shadows beyond the +range of firelight. Grant heard a door latch at the far end of the room +click to. + + + + +CHAPTER XV + +WHAT HAPPENED IN THE NIGHT + + +Somewhere in the darkness of the ancient house a deep-toned bell tolled +the hour of two. The sound came to Grant, broad awake in his room, as +if from a great distance--tocsin strokes against the bowl of the desert +sky. Four times in his sleepless vigil he had heard that bell measuring +night watches, and each successive hour struck seemed the period to a +century. + +He had gone to bed with a heavy ache following his words with Benicia +and her abrupt termination of his pleading. On his first review of the +girl’s abnegation of the love she could not conceal the whole thing +had seemed fantastic, almost childish in its essence of witch-bane and +belief in blighting curse. How could this virile creature of a fine and +cultured mind conceive herself the heritor of a weight of guilt carried +down from some ancestor in the dim past? There was the superstition +of the evil eye among ignorant peasants of the Latin countries, to be +sure; but for a girl of Benicia’s intelligence to be enslaved by such +mumbo-jumbo as Urgo had voiced--ridiculous! + +Such was Grant’s first review. Weighed from every angle and conceding +the girl he loved every mitigation of jangled nerves, nevertheless the +man of the cities could find naught but lamentable folly in it all. The +first striking of the distant bell found him rebellious. + +From where he lay he could look through a grated window up to the +heavens: a square of dappled infinity. Insensibly his eyes began +singling out the stars, measuring the gulf between this and that +steady-burning point of light. Somewhere outside a desert owl timed +the pulse of the night with an insistent call, unvarying, unwearying. +The man on the bed found himself tallying the blood beats to his +brain by this ghostly metronome. Beat--beat!--passing seconds of +mortality for the man Grant Hickman. Beat--beat!--How puny a thing, how +inconsequential the life of a man when calipered by the time measure of +those burning suns up yonder! + +He rallied himself, for such drifting into the subjective was a new +and puzzling experience for a practical man. But minute by minute the +spirit of the desert, which is the spirit of chaos become ponderable, +stole over him, chaining his imagination to things felt but not +seen of men. A chill of the untoward and the unreal swept over him. +He seemed to be braced nervously for some blow out of the void. His +imagination played with a dim figure, the shape of El Rojo of the +red hair riding--riding through the dark on his eternal mission of +damnation. + +The clock struck three and at the instant of the third stroke a shadow +like a bat’s wing flitted across the bars of the window through which +the eyes of the wakeful man had been roaming. A sharp tinkle of steel +on stone split the silence of the chamber. Grant was galvanized into a +leap from the bed. He stood shaking. Silence. Silence absolute as the +grave after that single sharp ring of steel on stone. + +He looked up at the window where the flitting passage of the bat’s +wing had showed. Just the clear-burning stars there. The dim recesses +of the room revealed no bulk of an intruder. Was this but the trick of +overwrought nerves? + +Grant fumbled for his matches and brought a light to the candle wick. +By the waxing yellow glow he peered round the chamber. A flicker of +white reflection caught his eye and he almost leaped to a spot on the +floor directly beneath the window. + +A dagger lay there. It was that curiously wrought affair of dulled +silver haft and double-edged blade which he had noted before as part of +the rosette of ancient knives and short swords clamped against the high +wainscoting above the window for a wall decoration--the weapons Don +Padraic had pointed to with the pride of a collector that first day the +wounded guest was brought in from the desert. + +But how could this dagger have slipped from its sheath with no hand to +disturb it? Grant stooped to pick it up. + +He had the haft in his grip for a quarter-second, then dropped the +thing and leaped back as if from an asp. Something gummed the palm of +his hand. Something showed dull black against the dim flicker of the +blade. With a gasp he knelt and brought the candle closer. + +Blood there on the blade! Blood on his hand! + +He stood frozen while the pumping of his heart volleyed thunder against +his ear drums. Murder cried aloud from that stained thing of silver and +steel on the floor. Somewhere in this rambling old pile--somewhere in +the silence a swift stroke that had snuffed out a life, and then the +murderer, fleeing, had flung this weapon through the window. He had +flung it almost at the feet of the only one in the whole house who was +not sleeping. + +Alarm! He must give the alarm while yet the murderer was near the +scene! Spur to action followed swiftly upon Grant’s momentary numbness. +He threw a dressing robe over him and ran through the door of his +chamber giving onto the arcade about the patio. Just over the low +balustrade lay the little jungle of flowering things, and on the +opposite side, he remembered, hung the great Javanese gong Benicia used +to summon the servants to the patio. Grant leaped the low balustrade +and stumbled crashing through the geraniums and giant fuchsias toward +the dim moon of metal he saw in the shadows of an arch. + +He came to the gong, groped for the padded mace hanging over it. The +patio roared with its released thunders. + +Muffled shouts. Banging of doors. Lights. A white figure came +blundering through the arcade; it was Bim Bagley. + +“Some one’s been murdered!” Grant greeted him. “A dagger--through my +window!” + +Came others--servants with blankets clutched around them. Bim directed +them to run to the great door in the outer wall and catch any skulker +they might find in the gardens beyond the house. Only dimly aware +himself of something untoward, the big man could give no more specific +directions. + +Then Benicia, bare-footed, her hair fallen down over a blue robe she +drew together across her breast. Grant started towards her. + +“Where is father?” she cried in a woman’s divination, and Grant noted +Don Padraic’s absence. He saw the girl make a quick step for a closed +door behind her. Unreasoned instinct prompted him to put himself before +the door, denying her. + +“No; let me,” he commanded. She made a swaying step towards Grant but +was met by the door swiftly closing in her face. Inside the chamber, +he turned the key in the lock and struck a match to grope for a candle +wick. + +In the pallid flicker he saw the figure of Don Padraic on his high bed. +A dagger wound was in his breast. + +And the girl outside the locked door stood very still. Her eyes, wide +with horror, were fixed upon the spot where she had seen Grant put his +hand in pushing open the door. + +Three small smears of blood there. + + + + +CHAPTER XVI + +ACCUSATION + + +Grant was stunned. The vision of the figure with the fine patrician face +there on the bed--in the breast the savage mark of violence--seemed but +a part with the disordered fancies of recent hours. Beating of Benicia’s +hands on the locked door and the faint sound of her calls aroused him. +He stepped to the bedside and felt for a pulse, listened for a breath. +There was none. + +Murder had been done swiftly and surely--and done with the ancient +dagger from the weapon cluster on the wall of his own room. In the +stunning discovery he had just made Grant did not find any grim +correlation between these two circumstances. He pulled up a coverlet to +conceal ugly stains, then stepped to the door and unlocked it. + +Benicia was waiting there. The eyes meeting his were blazing horror. +Almost Grant read in them unthinkable accusation. He put out his hands +to support her, for she was swaying in her effort over the doorstep. + +“No--no!” Benicia shuddered and drew away from him as though he were +a man unclean. Mystified, Grant stepped aside to let her pass. He saw +her run to the side of the high bed and kneel there. Her hands went +out blindly to grope for the still features on the pillow. They played +uncertainly over them, then rested on the heavy mane of hair. Her +fingers repeated little smoothing gestures. A breathless faltering of +love phrases in the Spanish came from her lips. Grant, seeing that the +girl retained mastery over herself, tiptoed from the chamber; it was +not meet that he should be witness to a soul’s acceptance of the bitter +fact of death. + +He blundered into Bim coming back to the patio from his excursion at +the head of servants beyond the great front door and told him what had +happened; of the dagger dropped through the window and the murder. The +big Arizonan reared back as if roweled. + +“My God, man, that leaves the girl alone here in this jumping-off +place!--With that snake Urgo in the offing. Boy, it’s up to us to help +her out!” + +Grant gripped his pal’s hand with a low, “I knew I could count on you, +old scout.” + +The dry patter of sandals came down the arcade from a knot of lights +where some of the servants had gathered in indecision waiting to be +given orders. Grant recognized ’Cepcion in the mountainous figure +approaching and was recalled to the necessities of the moment. + +“Tell her, Bim, what has happened and send her to her mistress. Then we +must get out men to circle the Garden and prevent any person’s getting +away.” + +Bagley strode to meet the major domo and rattled swift Spanish at her. +The waddling Indian woman quivered and lifted her fat arms above her +head. A dreadful wavering cry came from her lips. Instantly the cry was +taken up by the servants at the far end of the patio--a bone-chilling, +animal noise which climbed slowly to the highest register and ended +in a yelp. At the sound Grant’s blood went cold. This Indian death +howl was the cry of the desert kind, calling the despair of creatures +chained to a land of drought and ever-present death. + +To escape it he went with Bim out of the great door to the unwalled +spaces where the avenue of palms stood sentinels against the night. +Beyond the bridge over the oasis stream lay the clutter of huts that +was the Papago village, a fief under the overlordship of the manor +house. Not a light showed among the thirty or forty beehive shapes when +the two men started to walk under the palms; but suddenly a cry arose +from the midst of the village answering that coming down the night wind +from the mourners in the great house. Rumour of death had outstripped +the two who walked. + +The single cry from the village instantly grew in volume. Treble voices +of squaws lifted the abomination of noise to the saw edge of a screech; +men’s harsher notes rumbled and boomed intolerably. All the night was +made bedlam. + +Lights were winking through the chinks of the jacals when Grant and +Bim came to the outskirts of the village. There was confusion of +forms skittering about from hut to hut. Bim seized upon one man and +demanded to know the whereabouts of Quelele, head man of the village. +The big Indian soon stood before them with a gesture of hand to breast +indicating they were to command him. + +“Somebody has killed your master,” Bim told him. “Get out men on horses +to circle the Garden and go out along the road both ways. Cover every +foot and bring in anybody you may find.” + +Quelele sped with hoarse shouts down the village’s single street; a +dozen men joined him in a race for the corrals. + +“There’s no way for the murderer to get out and live except along the +road,” was Bim’s comment as they turned to retrace their steps to the +house. “If he took to the mountains even with a horse he couldn’t last +a day; they’re straight up and down.” + +They had not gone fifty yards from the Papago village when a new sound +punctuated the death cry, now settled to a monotonous chant promising +hours’ duration. It was the _bum-bum-bum_ of the water-drum--gigantic +gourds floated, cut side down, in a tub of water and drubbed with +sticks. That noise was accompanied by the locust-like slither and +rattle of the rasping sticks, another primitive tempo-setting +instrument of the Southwestern natives. + +The death howl began to catch its measure by the boom and screak of +these two instruments. A noise to beat against the inside of men’s +skulls and set the bone of them in rhythm. Savage as the peaks of +Altar, unremitting as the drive of wind-blown sand against granite. + +_Bum-chut-chut-chut!_ Sob of a land in chains. + +“Oh, tell them to cut it!” Grant’s frayed nerves cried out protest. The +other merely gave a wave of his hand comprehending resignation. + +“Might as well tell the wind to stop. This’ll keep up for three +days--this ding-dong business. It’s custom, old son.” + +As they drew near to the house of death again Grant caught his mind +harking back to that moment when he had come from Don Padraic’s chamber +to confront the girl’s wild eyes--eyes with almost the unthinkable look +of accusation in them. That aspect of her eyes dumbfounded him, left +him groping for an explanation. + +Once at the house, Grant took his friend to his chamber and showed +him the knife where it lay on the floor as he had dropped it. The big +Arizonan stooped over with the candle near the grisly thing--his hawk’s +nose and salient cheekbones were outlined against the candle flame like +the raised head of some emperor on a Roman coin--and very gingerly he +turned the dagger over. + +“Finger prints here on the haft,” he grunted. + +“Yes, mine,” Grant put in. “I picked it up at first without +knowing--without reckoning there might be--” He broke off to pour +water into the quaint old willow-ware bowl which stood with its ewer +on a stand in a corner, then he scrubbed his hands vigorously. A great +relief came to him with this act of purification. + +“Yours--yes, and probably somebody else’s,” Bim was mumbling his +thoughts aloud. He stood erect once more and measured the height of the +barred window over the lintel of which was fixed the rosette of arms. +“Hum. I simply don’t figger why the man who wanted to kill the old +don came to the outside of this room, clum up the wall an’ reached in +through those bars there to take one of these old knives. Can’t see why +all that fuss--more particular, why he snuck back here an’ tossed the +knife through the bars after his bloody work.” + +“Perhaps he wanted it to appear I am the murderer,” Grant hazarded +doubtfully. + +“You!” Bim looked up with a wry smile. “Why should you want to kill off +that fine old man?--What motive?” + +“What motive for anybody here in the house or in the Papago village +outside for that matter?” Grant voiced his perplexity. “Don Padraic was +the _padrone_ of every Indian from the Gulf to Arizora. From what his +daughter tells me there’s not a Papago on the place here who wouldn’t +gladly have died in his place. The whole thing’s too deep for me.” + +They left the dim chamber with its relic of violence still lying on +the floor and walked out into the perfumed patio. It was the hour when +first heralds of dawn were coursing across the sky. Grant looked up +to the dimming stars and read there the same message that had come to +him the hours before swift stroke of tragedy: the fragility of that +spider web man spins into the gulf of infinite time. And the oneness of +this unlimned stretch of vacancy called the Desert of Altar with that +ethereal desert of stars. How infinitesimal in the face of either the +soul of man, its hopes! + +A great sense of impotence weighed down on Grant. His thoughts dwelt +with the girl he loved, sore stricken by this cowardly blow in the +dark, bereft of one who had been soul of her soul. Now, the last of her +name, alone in this bleak wilderness with none to fend for her against +the wiles of Urgo except the child-like Indians: what a situation for +Benicia to face! The man yearned to go to where she knelt alone with +her dead, to take her in his arms and give her pledge of his love and +protection. Yet that was not meet. The gulf of Benicia’s grief denied +him. + +Bim brought Grant out of his reverie with, “It’s my hunch we won’t have +to look far to find the man behind this bad business.” + +“You mean--?” + +“That same--Hamilcar Urgo,” was Bim’s positive assertion. Grant +objected: + +“But you passed him well on the way to Magdalena this afternoon. It’s +not likely he’d risk coming back in his car to attempt porch-climbing +and murder. That’s not in his line.” + +“Sure not! But one of these Indians around here who knows the lay of +the house--somebody who savvyed, for instance, about those old knives +on your wall--a hundred silver pesos from Urgo’s pocket--” + +Grant’s mind was in no state to analyze subtleties of villainy. “I +can’t see what Urgo could possibly gain by killing Don Padraic unless +there’s a great deal behind his relations with Benicia’s father you and +I don’t know.” + +The fat shape of ’Cepcion waddled down the nearby arcade in the +direction of the room wherein Benicia had locked herself. Bim’s eyes +idly followed her as he pressed his argument: + +“Maybe so--maybe not. But figger the thing thisaway: Urgo’s dead set on +marryin’ this high-spirited señorita--if you’ll excuse me trompin’ on +a tender subject, old hoss--an’ he reckons they’s two folks who don’t +encourage those ideas to the limit--her father and yourself. Yourself +he tries to get on suspicion and because you riled him on the train +like you say. Now he does for the father an’ counts he has the girl for +the taking, she having no kith or kin to come up in support, as you +might say.” + +The dawn reddened and still the two men in the patio fruitlessly +pursued speculation. A sudden step crunched the gravel behind them. +Both leaped at the sound, so taut were their nerves. They turned to see +Benicia standing in the half light with the misty banks of geraniums +for a background. With her were the giant Papago Quelele and two other +Indians. They carried loops of hair ropes. + +“Señor Hickman”--the girl’s voice was deadly cold--“Señor Hickman, my +servant ’Cepcion has just brought to me the dagger she found in your +room. The dagger is stained with my father’s blood, señor. There are +prints of fingers on the haft of that dagger, Señor Hickman.” + +Grant caught the poisonous edge of hatred in the voice, read the bitter +accusation in her eyes. He opened his mouth to speak, but Benicia +checked him. + +“I saw you leave those prints of my father’s blood on the door of his +chamber, señor. Before my very eyes, señor! Just now when ’Cepcion +brings me the dagger she finds in your room I compare the print of +fingers on its haft with the print on the door. They are the same. What +have you to say, Señor Hickman?” + +“Say!” Bim Bagley’s voice snapped like a whip lash. “Are you accusing +Grant Hickman here of murder?” Benicia never even cast a glance at him. +She repeated: + +“What have you to say to this, Señor Hickman?” Grant answered levelly, +“Enough already has been said, Señorita O’Donoju.” Benicia signalled to +Quelele and he advanced with the ropes. + + + + +CHAPTER XVII + +THE ORDEAL + + +With the lithe spring of a cat Bim put himself between Grant and the +advancing Indian. His face had gone dead white and his eyes were coals +blown upon by the wind of anger. + +“None of that! Get back there--you!” Bim’s voice was scarcely audible +but his pose of furious battling on the hair-trigger of release was +sufficiently vocal to awe the Papago giant into a backward stumble. +Then to Benicia: + +“Young woman, you’re making the mistake of your life. I’m a’mighty +sorry for you, an’ you are going to be right regretful yourself when +you have time to think.” Grant made a step forward to lay a checking +hand on his friend’s arm. He would have spoken but the girl interrupted. + +“My father’s blood on this man’s hands!--the dagger from the wall of +his chamber--” Of a sudden the last shred of restraint she had battled +to impose upon herself gave way and a flood came under propulsion of +hysteria. Out fluttered her hands to point the object of her execration. + +“You--I do not know you! Just a chance meeting between us and we part. +Then fate brings you to this house wounded--snatched from death. An +escaped convict from a chain gang--you yourself admitted as much just +last night. With good reason my cousin, Colonel Urgo, must have caused +your arrest. Why should I not believe you capable of killing my father? +Why not when the signs of his very blood cry out against you!” + +“Señorita O’Donoju--” Grant’s effort to check her was fruitless, for +she had whirled upon Bagley: “And you! Unknown to my father--unknown to +me. He brought you here on your own representation. You said you were +hunting for your friend to whom we had offered our hospitality. Can you +deny that both of you discovered opportunity here to kill--and then to +rob?” + +The storm that had swept the girl through this welter of imaginings, +illogical, frenetic, took heavy toll of her physical reserves. Now +she stood trembling, white-faced in the spreading dawn, pitiful. Her +small hands were clenched into fists across her breast. Flutterings of +uncontrolled nerves made the flesh of her temples pulsate. Grant, for +all the crushing horror of these moments, felt pity pushing through the +numbness Benicia’s accusation had wrought. Never had he seen a woman so +tortured by the devils of hysteria; he was appalled. He spoke to her +gently: + +“If you will permit me to go to my room while you make further +investigations I will answer any questions they may suggest. It must be +plain to you, Señorita O’Donoju, that I cannot escape from this place.” + +The girl gave him a dazed look as if she hardly comprehended what he +said, then she slowly nodded and, beckoning the Indians to follow, she +turned and disappeared beyond the patio’s green. Bim threw an arm over +his pal’s shoulder and accompanied him to his room. At the door he +whirled Grant about with a strong grip of both his hands and gave him a +grin more eloquent than any sermon on fortitude. + +“When the she-ones get to stampedin’, old pal, they sure have us +helpless men winging. Now go in there and get a sleep while I take a +look round below your window and elsewheres.” + +Bim’s easy injunction to sleep was not so easily followed by the man +who was a self-appointed prisoner. On his bed Grant tossed in a fever +of mingled blind speculation and outraged pride. Strive though he might +to palliate Benicia’s charge against him on the score of the girl’s +complete prostration through the night’s tragedy, the quick and fiery +blood in her that was inheritance from Spanish forebears, yet always he +came against the same ugly fact: one whom he loved with all the passion +in him and whose return of love he had dared hope to win had accused +him of murder out of hand. + +Yet how could he prove his innocence? Of a sudden that thought plumped +down on him with the burst of a high explosive shell. + +Benicia’s accusation had appeared monstrous, yes. But, look upon +the facts through her eyes--so a curiously impersonal phase of mind +prompted; what were those facts as they appeared to the girl? A man +who was first a chance acquaintance in a train and then, by a trick +of fate, a guest in the house, rouses the household at three o’clock +in the morning by sounding an alarm in the patio. He calls “Murder!” +though he does not say who has been murdered, he has not apparently +discovered the body of Don Padraic in his chamber. + +This man--this waif brought in from the desert--prevents the daughter’s +going in to the room of death until first he has entered that room +and locked the door behind him. He leaves the marks of his fingers in +blood upon the outside of that door. Then he and his friend--“call him +confederate” was Grant’s cynical amendment--organize a hue and cry +outside of the house. While this is in progress a servant finds in the +guest’s room a dagger; instead of being in its usual place amid the +rack of weapons on the wall this dagger lies on the floor as if hastily +thrown there by one who had no proper time for its concealment. The +dagger is blood stained and on its haft are the same finger prints as +those on the door of the dead don’s chamber. + +There was the record. How refute it? + +Say that while lying awake he saw a hand appear at the bars of his +window and heard the tinkle of a knife dropped within? Why, if he was +so vigilant at three o’clock in the morning, had he not seen that hand +of a murderer steal in to abstract the weapon before the deed? And +whose hand was it? Did not the burden of proof that it was not his own +which took the dagger from the wall rest solely upon Grant Hickman? + +Another’s finger prints on that bloodied haft besides his own? +Perhaps. But it needed the instruments of precision of a detective +central office to juggle with such minutiæ as the whorls and spirals +in a finger print, and they most certainly were lacking at the Casa +O’Donoju. Graver difficulty still, there were a hundred and more +Indians in the oasis; how gather them all together and take the prints +of their fingers? + +The more his mind roved amid hypotheses the closer about him seemed +drawn the meshes of circumstance. As the sun of a new day painted a +glory beyond the bars of his window Grant Hickman felt himself as +helpless as that Tomlinson of the Kipling story who plunged headlong +through the space between all the suns of infinity. + +He must have slipped into the sleep of exhaustion, for it was near noon +when a knock on his door roused him. At his bidding ’Cepcion opened to +illustrate a command in Spanish with a backward jerk of her head. Grant +arose and followed her through a corridor to the patio. Benicia was +standing there in an attitude of awaiting him, a little beyond her was +Bim, his face wreathed with a heartening smile. + +The girl received him with bleak eyes. “You will please follow me, +señor,” was all she said. Then she led the way, the two men a step +behind her, out of the still house and down the avenue of palms +towards the Papago village. From time to time a turn in the path gave +Grant a glimpse of Benicia’s face. It was a changed woman he saw. + +Gone was the vital spirit of joy of living which always gave the +girl her character of Eurydice in khaki; gone, too, that softness +of grain born of happiness undisturbed, of life amid the elemental +things of nature. This Benicia was a cold fury moving to judgment. +The call of her Spanish blood from centuries past--call for vengeance +and blood-sacrifice--had possessed her. It was as if some mocking +cartoonist had run a brush over the features of Innocence in +portraiture, giving an upward twist of cruelty to lips, the glint of +blood lust in eyes. + +They came to the Indian village, all hushed in anticipation of some +prodigy. Only the frog-croaking of the water drums and the dry clicking +of the rasping sticks betokened a continuance of the mourning ritual. +All the retainers of the Casa O’Donoju, farmers, cattle handlers, house +servants, men, squaws and half-naked children, were assembled in the +rudely-defined street that led between rows of reed and mud-capped +huts. Two only were seated apart: the man who bobbled the drumming +sticks over the turtle-back halves of the gourds and an ancient who +manipulated the rasping sticks. On every bronze-black face showed the +strain of awaiting an untoward event. + +When Benicia appeared some elderly squaws started afresh the lugubrious +death howl, but a gesture from the girl silenced them. She beckoned +Quelele to her and spoke some rapid words in the Papago tongue. He in +turn passed the orders to two men, who ran into one of the nearby huts +to reappear staggering under the weight of a great metal kettle, such +as might be used for soap boiling, carried between them. Quelele laid +two heavy flat stones in the middle of the street; the kettle carriers +deposited their burden, rim down on the rocks. A space of two inches or +more showed between the kettle rim and the hard adobe. + +Still the hollow _bum-bum-bum_ of the water-drum, whisper and cluck of +the notched sticks. A very old man, the skin of whose naked legs was +grey and tough as elephant hide, had attached ceremonial circlets of +dried yucca pods about his ankles in a cuff extending almost to the +knees. He took his stand by the instrumentalists and his feet moved in +a shuffle in time to the drum beats. The pods emitted dry whispers. +The rapt look of a seer was on his leathern features. + +The kettle in place, Quelele himself went to a small pen of _ocatilla_ +sticks on the outskirts of the village and brought therefrom a young +rooster. The fowl’s head bobbed nervously and his small eyes glinted as +he was carried on the big Indian’s arm through the throng. Two helpers +lifted the edge of the soap kettle while Quelele thrust the cock +underneath. A faint clucking came muffled from the iron prison. The +bird thrust his head out here and there from beneath the rim, seeking +egress. + +Now Benicia took from ’Cepcion something she had carried wrapped about +in a handkerchief and carried it to the kettle top. She let fall the +handkerchief and with a slight gesture focused the eyes of all upon the +stained dagger. A sigh like the swish of a scythe in long grass swept +through the crowd as the girl balanced the knife on the exact top of +the dome of fire-smudged metal. The ancient with the yucca rattles did +a sacrificial step which caused a sharp alarm like that of the desert +sidewinder’s warning. + +Grant and Bim, still unaware of the significance of all this +preparation, sensed the growing tensity of emotions all about them. +The Papagoes, like all their kind, more than ready to invest with +ritual any untoward incident of life, saw in the white girl’s +preparations--particularly in the offering of the knife upon this +rude altar--formulæ of an appeal to decision of powers beyond human +comprehension. Perhaps the elders, remembering tales of ancient +custom, recognized the preliminaries and welcomed a revival among the +unregenerate younger men of a direct appeal to Elder Brother. If big +Quelele knew better he had kept his tongue still. + +Benicia’s features had never relaxed their cold intentness during +the preparations. There was even, to Grant’s troubled scrutiny, some +element of the barbaric there. A look like that on the stone visage +of an Aztec goddess, implacable, without mortal instincts. She took +her stand by the kettle and spoke rapidly to the Papagoes, pointing to +the knife, then lifting her finger to mark the place of the sun in the +white sky. + +Abruptly she finished, stooped and touched one finger to the bottom of +the kettle. It came away blackened by soot. Then she turned to Grant. +“It is the test of God,” she said in a dulled voice. “My people have +used it in times past when they were perplexed as I am. All here +including you, Señor Hickman, and you, Señor Bagley, will endure this +test even as I just have done. Put your fingers to the kettle and +show them to all, blackened. God will speak through the mouth of the +imprisoned cock when the guilty man touches the iron.” + +Grant gave the girl a steady look, then without a word he stepped to +the blackened dome, swept the fingers of his right hand across it and +held them aloft. Benicia was looking away when Grant stepped back +beside her; he saw a convulsive movement of her throat--no other sign. +Then big Bim dared the oracle with an easy grace. A shuddering intake +of breath from the Indians as each man underwent trial. + +Quelele now gave an order which brought all the men of the village and +great-house into line of which he was the head. Even the musicians were +replaced by squaws who did not permit the drubbing and squeaking to +diminish. The faces of all wore the set look of hypnosis--eyes white +and staring, muscles twittering in cheeks, tongues licking out over +dried lips. + +_Thrut-t-t-t-t!_ An extra flourish of the rasping sticks and a thunder +of the water drums as Quelele started the line forward toward the +kettle. The big Indian moved with a mincing sidewise step reminiscent +of some deer-dance of his people at the festival of _sahuaro_. His +arms were held rigidly crooked at elbows and fingers splayed. The great +moon face was contorted into a lolling mask. He sweat with fear. + +Twice the lightning-like bobbing out and back of the imprisoned cock’s +head as Quelele approached. “Ai-ie!” a squaw screamed in a frenzy. + +The leader touched the kettle, held up his blackened finger for those +in line behind him to see, then broke from line and stood at a little +distance from Benicia and the two white men. + +Second in line was the ancient with the yucca rattles on his legs. +Coming to the kettle, he stood rigid, tilted his old eyes to the +blinding sun. A shiver ran down his body which caused every dry pod +of his anklets to emit a whisper. He whirled once, dipped and swept a +finger through the soot. “_Njo oovik_ (Bird speaking),” he cried, and +there was foam on his lips. + +But the bird did not speak, and the line came slowly on. The spell of +the weird had Grant bound. The rational in him tried to prompt that +all this was but a shrewd application of the new psychological method +of crime detection as utilized by primitive peoples before ever the +science of the mind was thought of; but his imagination strained to +hear the crowing of the cock when the finger of guilt was laid upon +the iron shell. Mutter of the drums, shuffle of dancing feet, guttural +calls and imprecations: these things had swept away all prim gauds and +dressings of a mind counting itself superior and he was swept back to +kinship with the wild, its children. Again the desert moved to bring +him under its subjection. + +“Lookit that fellah!” It was Bim who gripped Grant’s arm and pointed +to the advancing line. One of the younger bucks had dodged out of his +place and fallen back three numbers. + +On came the men facing trial by ordeal. Now and again the imprisoned +cock thrust his head out with snake-like darting, and the individual +who was poised over the kettle hiccoughed fear. The young man who had +dodged back tried the trick again when he was near the kettle; but the +one behind him held him by the shoulders and forced him on. + +The dodger came to the place of test, hesitated, made a downward sweep +of his hand and stumbled past. Big Quelele suddenly leaped at him and +gripped his right hand. No smudge of soot on the fingers. + +“Hai--ee!” Quelele called, and the line stood still. He wrenched the +young man’s hand high above his head and showed the fingers clean. +“Hai--ee!” chorused fifty voices. Quelele started to drag the wretch +back to the kettle. + +Then his victim went to his knees--to his face in the dust. He rolled +and kicked, screaming. Still Quelele dragged him nearer the kettle, +his right hand firmly gripped in the vise of his own two, forefinger +extended to take the print of soot and draw the cock’s crow. + +“I did it! I did it!” the wretched creature blubbered. Quelele dropped +him as if he were a poisonous lizard. The crowd pushed forward +menacingly. The murderer fumbled in his trousers pocket and brought +out a shining silver peso, which he threw from him with a gesture of +horror. Quelele picked it up and turned it over in his palm, his brow +heavily knotted. He passed it to Benicia. + +The girl turned the coin over to the reverse, whereon the spread eagle +grips a snake and a cactus branch in his talons. A deep knife cut was +scored through the neck of the eagle. + +The wretch in the dust saw she had noted the mutilation and cried out +to her in pleading, “The sign, mistress! The sign! The soldier-señor +Urgo tells me many months ago when I receive the sign I shall kill or +my brother, who is in his prison, will be shot!” + +“And he gave you this--” the girl began. + +“Yesterday, mistress. He passes me in his thunder-wagon and tosses me +this peso. ‘Find the knife in the room of the wounded gringo señor,’ he +commands. ‘Use no other.’” + +Benicia nodded to Quelele, who made a sign to others. They brought a +hair rope and trussed the murderer hands to feet. His lips were mute. +Stamp of fate was on his grey features. He knew his punishment: to be +taken to the burning lava fields of Pinacate, where the dead volcanoes +are, there to be left without gun or canteen; no man would see him +again. Such was the Papago custom decreed for murderers from beforetime. + +She who had ordained this trial by ordeal had turned away, once the +wretch’s confession had been heard. The soul of the girl now stood +its own trial in turn; faced by the guilt of false suspicion, by the +wounds wrought of bitter accusation, it must needs purge itself. Yes, +even though the spirit of Benicia O’Donoju was not one easily to humble +itself. A long minute she fought with herself and finally turned +gropingly to make her hard penance before Grant. + +Then she saw the figure of the man whose debtor in honour she was +striding with his companion towards the avenue of palms leading to the +house. The distance between them seemed suddenly the breadth of the +world. + + + + +CHAPTER XVIII + +THE DESERT INTERVENES + + +That day omniscient will of the desert moved to point a murderer’s +guilt the same inscrutable power flexed a finger to mould events some +seventy miles away from the Garden of Solitude where the worthy doctor +from Arizora and his Papago had been nibbling at a mystery. Though Doc +Stooder moved in a haze of strong waters, though he looked upon the +face of the desert through a golden veil of his own weaving, yet was he +not the least immune from the law of the waste places. The Doc walked +with God, even as did the pioneer fathers of the Church; the fact that +he did not admit the companionship had no influence on the operations +of destiny. + +We left Stooder on his knees before the uncovered bell with its +inscription carrying identification. His excitements, his hysterical +grubbings, soundings and prospectings of the ensuing twenty-four hours +were heroic. After the uncovering of the bell he had paced off a +square through the scrub thirty or forty feet each way and with the +corroded cone of metal for a centre; then the Indian and he had gone on +their hands and knees over every inch of this square. Result, a single +stick of hewn timber whose fire-blackened end had projected but an inch +above the sand; digging revealed a twenty-foot beam, dry as a puff-ball +and almost ready to disintegrate. + +That was all: the bell and the uncovered beam. But that was enough. +Doc Stooder knew that beneath him lay the mission site; how deeply the +blown sands of more than a century had buried it he could not guess. +But it was here! Here lay the rich core of a legend that had sent +many a man out into the desert to chase rainbow ends. His--Stooder’s! +A’mighty God! how he’d riffle those pearls through his fingers--lay +’em all out on a piece of velvet under some secret lamp and match ’em, +pearl with pearl. + +But twenty-four hours in the desert exact their price; and that price +is in measure of water. The Doc did not drink water so long as his +store of contraband liquor held out; but the Papago did. Great was the +Doc’s rage and disgust when his companion called him away from sinking +a prospect shaft to point the single remaining water container, now +much lighter than it should be. He tested the little car’s radiator +to find that evaporation had left almost none of the necessary fluid +therein. No use buckin’ fate; if he wanted to get back to the village +of the Sand People on four wheels he’d have to give the radiator a +drink and that would leave none for himself and the Papago. + +It was near noon of their second day at the treasure site when the +Doc whipped his reluctance into acceptance of the inevitable. He made +certain preparations. First he copied into a prescription book the +inscription on the bell; that would do to convince somebody whose +financing of the excavation operations might have to be invoked. Then +he sketched a map of the vicinity with meticulous care, marking in the +jagged spurs of the nearby mountains for bearing points and indicating +the position of the bell in reference to a dry wash which was traced +down from a gash in the mountain wall. + +“Guadalupe, old son, your old friend Stooder’s goin’ rustle back here +with an outfit right soon an’ dig himself right down to them pearls. So +he’s just a mite p’ticular about this map.” + +Access of caution prompted the Doc to dismount from the car after he’d +set the engine to humming. He ran back with a shovel and covered the +bell with sand; the haggled bush above it would be a sufficient guide +for him and no significant landmark for the possible prying stranger. +The beam he hid in the wash. Then they trundled down their own track +and back to the Road of the Dead Men. Doc Stooder cursed the necessity +of automobiles leaving tracks. Some snoozer amblin’ along the main road +would just’s like as not turn out to follow these two lines out into +nowhere to see what he could see. Then perhaps-- + +Summer had come miraculously to the desert overnight, as the seasons +in Altar have a way of doing. Yesterday the pink convolvulus of spring +lay in scattered coral patches amid the scrub and the greasewood +was showing its midget spots of yellow. Now every glistening clump +of _cholla_ was aglow with the blood-red flowers of its kind; the +occasional pillars of the giant cactus were wreathed each at its top by +fillets of creamy blossoms--grotesque masquerading of these withered +old men of the wastes. First hint of summer’s heat was abroad. It came +from the west on puffy little winds like the back-draught from an +oil-burning boiler. + +The Doc found himself in a frolicsome mood, for his night’s potations, +predicated on a dwindling supply, had recklessly drained that supply +but availed to carry him over to another day with the stars of his +dream world still burning. Hunched low in his seat so that the +tip of his goatee waggled against the rim of the wheel, with his +flopping black hat all grease streaked pulled low against the sun +glare, the tramp physician chewed tobacco with all the unction of a +care-free conscience and indulged himself in wandering monologue. +Guadalupe’s meagre stock of Spanish made him anything but a lively +conversationalist, so the Doc was constrained to carry on a vivid +conversation with himself. + +Into what penetralia of reminiscence this auto-dialogue carried him! +Back through the years--through countless dim valleys of a Never-Never +Land of alcoholic fantasies where his spirit had been wont to pitch its +tent. Scraps of jest and shreds of song stirred the ghosts along the +Road of the Dead Men. + +No such exuberance from Guadalupe, slave of the desert. They had not +been an hour on the road when the Papago began to feel a crawling +of the nerves along the spine and the pressure of invisible fingers +across the brow--evil signs! No less than the mountain sheep or the +road-runner in the scrub could the Papago interpret the desert’s +forerunners of portent. A feel in the air--hue of the mountain +rims--colour of sunlight against a rock: these things had their meaning. + +Away off to the northward where a patch of gypsum showed white as film +ice the Indian’s eye caught the first tangible evidence of trouble +ahead. A dust whirlwind like a gigantic leg in baggy trousers was +wavering across the flats; the thing possessed volition of its own so +surely did it map its course across a five-mile span in less than five +minutes. Guadalupe nudged his companion timidly and pointed to it. + +“Uh-huh, old Peg-legged Grandpap,” chuckled the Doc. “Seen him lots +times. Gotta hole in his peg-leg you can drive a car through slick’s a +whistle--allowin’ you can find the hole.” + +A half hour later the sun changed colour. Like the passing of a +shutter across a calcium light: now blinding white, now blood-orange. +Instantaneous. + +Three gusts of sand-laden wind came sweeping toward them from the west. +A long lull, then the storm. + +It pounced upon them with a sibilant whistle growing momentarily to a +roar which was engulfing. The little desert skimmer bucked like a wild +colt against the onslaught of the wind; but when the Doc dropped the +engine into low the car wallowed on in the face of the gale. The air +was thick as flour. Wind-driven sand had the bite of an emery wheel at +high revolution; it rasped the skin and drove eyelids tight shut. The +two in the car buttoned jackets above their noses to breathe. + +All the space of the desert was a poisonous yellow glare. Minute by +minute density thickened until the car’s radiator was hardly visible. + +Then the sturdy engine quit. First a tortured grinding of clogged +cylinders, puny explosions from the exhaust, a bucking and quivering. +After that sudden stoppage of movement as if the car had plumped into a +stone wall. + +The Doc and Guadalupe tumbled out of the seat and crawled beneath +the car for protection. A stab of fear shot down through Stooder’s +disordered thoughts--the water! None in the canteens, for they had +drained the last into the radiator before starting from the treasure +ground. Was there--could the sand have--? + +He inched himself through a new sand drift below the front axle to +where the drain cock projected below the radiator base. Like a suckling +kid he lifted his lips to the steel teat and turned the cock. A +trickle of heavy mud filled his mouth with grit, then stopped. + +Radiator a mess of mud--cylinders clogged--feed pipes all choked and +water--gone! + +Doc Stooder pulled his floppy hat over his face and whimpered the name +of God. + +And on the back trail where the bell of the Lost Mission had +been found; over that site which the Doc had so carefully mapped +and measured the wind scoured and builded--scoured and builded. +Obliterating, changing, re-creating. + + + + +CHAPTER XIX + +THIRST + + +The sun went down before the sand storm abated. Two men, the one called +civilized, the other a savage, crouched like rabbits in a covert +beneath the body of the little car with a high sand drift piled up to +windward even over the radiator top. Two mites in the wind-scourged +wilderness of Altar with love o’ life the leveller that made them kin. + +When the last vagrant wind fury had passed fell silence almost terrific +by contrast with the uproar of the storm. In place of the slithering +and whistling of driven sand an oppressive stillness, which seemed +dropped from the void of the stars, now showing. Occasionally the dry +rustle of sand dropping in rivulets from some desert bush lifting its +head after the scourging; that was all. + +When the two crawled out from beneath their shelter Guadalupe was for +an immediate start afoot in the direction of the faint pencilings of +red marking the west. But Doc Stooder possessed an abiding glimmer +of faith in the soundness of the car and insisted on taking stock +of its motive possibilities. A cursory examination convinced him of +the hopelessness of his trust, for the sand was heaped entirely over +the unprotected engine--desert cars dispense with a hood because it +blankets the engine’s heat--and he knew that even with water in the +radiator he couldn’t get a kick out of the thing before a thorough +overhauling. This was out of the question. They must achieve their +escape from the desert’s trap afoot. + +The Papago started on a swinging walk a little north of west, the Doc +following. They had not gone far when the white man discovered they +were not following the road; each step was through loose sand which +received the foot with a viscous hold and reluctantly released it. The +Doc snarled a query at his companion: why in the name of deletion had +he quit the Road of the Dead Men? + +“Not quit--finding him,” came Guadalupe’s grudging answer. Then Stooder +admitted to himself the possibility that during the time the little car +had pushed on into the storm he had tooled it off the road. How far he +had driven away from the single track which spans Altar he could not +hazard a guess. Anyway, he knew one thing: he was dog tired, and if +this mangy black coyote thought A. Stooder, M.D., was going to wallow +through sand all night without a sleep he had another think coming. + +Reaction from the excitements of the past two days added extra +weight to the Doc’s already none-too-light handicap of alcoholic +repercussions. The storm had torn his nerves to tatters; his mouth was +as dry as an old church pew cushion; each of his legs felt as if they +were dragging an Oregon boot. Stooder’s mind was too dulled to probe +down below these afflictions and read the real seriousness of his +situation; it dealt only with cogent aches and reluctances. + +“Hey, Guadalupe! We take a sleep right here.” The Doc halted. Great was +his surprise when he saw the Papago striding on. Hot rage bubbled to +his lips in an explosive Mexican oath. + +“Hey, you lizard-eatin’ mozo, hear me? We stop here for the big +shut-eye!” The Doc spurred his long legs into a gangling run to +overtake the Indian, who had plodded on unheeding. All the arrogance of +the white man in his fancied superiority fell with the doctor’s hand on +the Indian’s shoulder. Guadalupe wrenched free and turned to face him +sulkily. + +“Sleep here--to-morrow much sun--no water. Maybe to-morrow we die here. +Walk!” Guadalupe’s sparse vocabulary of Spanish words was drained; but +the manner of his resuming the forward hike was sufficiently eloquent. +Guadalupe, born to the desert code and grown to manhood under the +inexorable desert law, had in mind but a single impulse--to survive. +His mind plumped through the bog of discomforts wherein Stooder’s +was mired to read clearly the tablets of the desert’s decalogue: ten +commandments in one--live! In extremity throw over loyalty, discard +obligations of oath or of blood, strip the soul to its elemental +selfishness; but live! + +Guadalupe strode on, still bearing to the north and the west, and still +no road. Stooder, growing more weary each step, spent his strength in +blind rage at the stubbornness of the Papago. He conned over various +capital operations he would like to perform with Guadalupe for a +subject. His brain tired of that and began to nurture the germ of a new +thought. Why strain himself keeping up with that ring-tailed kangaroo +rat who skipped on and on without rest? Guadalupe left the print of +his foot every step he took; those footprints would point to wherever +Guadalupe might go--and the Papago, of course, knew the shortest way +out of this hellhole--so why break his own neck? The old Doc would +take a little snooze and then just follow the footprints when he felt +good and ready to do so. + +The gangling form crumpled up as if cut off at the knees. Guadalupe +heard a thud, turned for a half-glance over his shoulder and pushed +steadily on under the stars. It was not in the Papago’s code to add +one ounce to the weight of circumstance obtruding between himself and +water. In a dozen steps his figure was swallowed up in the dark. + +Stooder may have allotted to himself only that minimum of sleep +designated as a snooze. But a high sun pried open his reluctant +eyelids. He sat up and sent a dazed glance around an unfamiliar world. +Mountains tawny and black with knife-edge water scores down their +flanks; a sea of scrub stretching interminably from their bases; +patches of gypsum and _salitre_ showing dull white as scars of leprosy +here and there amid the grey-green of the _camisa_. The sky already was +taking on the yellow-white glaze indicative of imminent heat. + +The Doc arose and shook the sand out of the creases of his clothing. +First definite impression coming to him was the need of a drink: his +favourite tequila if might be, water in a pinch. All the nerves in +his body twittered “Hear--hear!” to the first of the alternatives. +Then, his mind beginning to function along the line of the night’s +impressions, Doc Stooder read the story of the footprints leading off +to the north and west. There they were: good li’l signposts; they’d +take him to a drink just as easy! + +Stooder’s renewed strength carried him easily along the trail the +Papago had left. For an hour, that is; then trouble. For the sand +disappeared under a broad apron of _caliche_--a hardpan of baked +mineral salts and earth almost impervious even to the shod hoof of a +horse. It was like a door swung shut on the trailer--the locked door +to some labyrinth beyond. Here the last firm print of a boot in the +sand, there nothingness. The Doc paused, looked back over the cup-like +shadows marking the footprint trail he had been following to take its +line of direction, then he pushed ahead along that line. + +Another hour, and he still was on the _caliche_ outcrop. He stopped to +consider. Where in the name of all the angels was that road--the Road +of the Dead Men? If he’d driven the car a little south of it during the +sand storm, surely Guadalupe must have cut tangent to it by this time. +And if the road passed over the _caliche_ flat there’d be wheel marks; +that was sure. Miss that road and miss the Papago’s trail both--why +then old Doc Stooder’d be a goner! + +He tried to follow his own back trail by such small signs as the +scratch of a hobnail against an embedded rock and a thin print of a +sole in a pocket of dust. A while and he had lost even that. He stopped +and swabbed his streaming face with a shirtsleeve--he now was carrying +his coat. + +“By the eternal, Stooder, you gotta do something--and do it dam’d +pronto!” + +Once more he turned on his own tracks. Better go back and find that +putrid Papago’s trail and let the road go to the devil. Whole half hour +wasted a’ready--good half hour, by criminy! with a drink just that much +farther off. + +It was not so easy finding the scored rocks and the stamp of a heel +in pools of dust; not so easy as the first essay. For the sun was at +meridian now and foreshortened little shadows to nothingness. Plump! +he came to the edge of the hardpan and into the sandy soil. No tracks +there. Should he bear to right or left in circling the edge of the +_caliche_ on his hunt for the footprints? If he guessed wrong where’d +he be? “Oh, dear God!” + +He turned to the left and resumed his tramp. Furnace light refracted +from the sand seared into his eyes, which must be always kept downward +peering--spying. His mouth now was dry as rotted wood. Something +alien there kept bothering him by pressing against the roof of it. He +explored with his fingers and discovered the alien object to be his +tongue, which was swelling. + +“But my mind’s clear--clear as a bell. Got a steady mind anyway. Gotta +hold onto that or I’m a gone coon.” + +A slight breeze struck his right arm more penetratingly than it should. +Stooder shifted his glance to his arm, held crooked. + +“Good God! Coat’s gone!” Dropped somewhere--that coat in whose pocket +was a prescription book; among its pages the map of the treasure site. +The precious map showing where lay the bell and the beam! The man +whirled and started on a staggering run along the rim of the _caliche_ +he had been travelling. + +“Must find that coat! Don’t find the coat an’ I lose the pearls an’ the +gold--the pearls an’ the gold!” + +He halted as if shot. Down the wind came to him the faint tolling of +a bell. _Dong--dong._ Silvery throb of a swinging bell. Measured, +unhurried; like the sounding of a bell for mass of a Sunday morning. +The Doc had heard the bell of San Xavier sending its call across the +alfalfa fields of a Sunday morning, just like that. + +Even as he strained his ears to drink in the full miracle of it the +sound faded, ceased. + +“I heard it! A bell! No illusion. Mind’s still clear--still clear!” +On he went, his gaunt legs weaving in wide circles. He came to a dark +patch on the hardpan and strided over it, unheeding. It was his missing +coat, in the pocket the precious map of the treasure site. The Doc did +not see the coat because again his ears were drinking in the maddening +tolling of the bell; this time a little clearer down the wind in his +face. An animal cry, half articulate, burst from his swollen lips: + +“The mission bell! Bell of the Four Evangelists which I found t’other +day! Callin’ me back!” + +Right over yonder where the mountains cracked apart to let that arroyo +down onto the plain: that’s where the bell sounded. Yes, sir, no +mistake about it. ’Bout four-five mile, judgin’ from the sound. Hear +what that bell’s a-callin’? “Gol-l-ld! Gol-l-ld!” + +Doc Stooder, coatless, hatless, the high roach of his streaked hair +fanning in the hot winds, was stumbling and falling--stumbling and +falling ever forward toward the crack in the mountains. Light of +madness flamed in his eyes; his great arms clawed forward as if to +catch invisible supports to pull him the faster. Gol-l-ld--Gol-l-ld! + +“Old mind’s still clear, else couldn’t hear that mission bell so +plain-- Gotta keep old mind clear--” + + * * * * * + +The way of the desert god, always beyond man’s comprehending, +nevertheless sometimes approaches so close to the human scheme of +thought and motive as to permit of analogy with it. When the director +of destinies in the dry wastes seems to make a travesty of such a +sacrosanct quality as human justice we may be moved to call the impulse +satiric for want of a better name. Satiric, then, that reversal of the +decree of death passed upon the Papago youth who confessed to murder +before the overturned kettle at the Casa O’Donoju; more than satiric +the moving finger now directing his path through the dead lands up to a +union with the crazed doctor’s. + +According to ancient custom the Indian retainers of the O’Donoju had +taken the youth--his baptismal name was Ygnacio--down to the crater +land of the Pinacate and there turned him loose without water to wander +for a while and finally to die miserably. Other murderers had been so +treated and never had been seen of men again. But the desert god who +slays so peremptorily knew that Ygnacio had done the bidding to murder +to save his brother from death--had killed without malice and only as +the price of redemption for one of his blood. Wherefore the arbiter of +life and death flung life at Ygnacio. + +When he was athirst almost to the point of exhaustion he found a +knob-like growth a scant two inches above the surface of the ground, +recognized it for a promise of succour and with the last ounce of his +strength dug the deep sand all about it. The end of his effort gave to +him a strange and rare vegetable reservoir like an elongated radish, +which miraculously holds scant moisture of summer rains the year round. +“Root-of-the-sands” the Sonorans have named it. In the desolation +between the Pinacate and the Gulf even the coyotes have the wisdom to +dig for this precious sustainer of life. + +Ygnacio devoured the whole of the root and was revived. He found +others, which he tied into a bundle to carry over his shoulders. Food +and drink had come to him from the hand of Elder Brother himself +when it was decreed by man he should have neither. Wherefore love o’ +life once more burned strong in the man. He set his course northward, +travelling only by night when the heat had given place to the biting +desert chill, keeping his precious roots buried in the sand while he +slept by day so that evaporation would not rob him of the promise of +escape from inferno. Straight as an arrow northward where, beyond +the Line, lay tribes of Papagoes who never had heard of Don Padraic +O’Donoju nor of a murderer named Ygnacio. + +So it happened that on the third night of his march, when Ygnacio had +paused to munch a segment of the sustaining root, came to his ears +the sound of a voice, faintly and from a great distance. It might be +a human voice, though there was a burred and thickened quality to it +almost like a burro’s bray. + +The Indian boldly followed where his ears gave direction. +“Gol’--gol’--gol’” was the monotonous iteration, sounding almost like +the muffled tapping of a clapper against metal. He walked a mile--so +clearly do sounds carry in the desert night--and suddenly came upon the +figure of a white man. Naked above the waist, wisp of a goatee tilted +at the stars, arms rigid at sides and with fingers widespread, the +spectre of a white man chanted the single word, “Gold.” + + + + +CHAPTER XX + +THE COMING OF EL DOCTOR + + +The sandstorm that overwhelmed Stooder and his guide on the Road of +the Dead Men brought the mighty voice of the desert to the Garden of +Solitude in requiem for the soul of Don Padraic O’Donoju. Savage elegy +of a life lived in communion with the spirit of the wild. + +There was no priest to order the funeral rites of the Church. Though a +day’s journey in Quelele’s car to Caborca and back would have fetched +a minister of religion, Benicia was determined word of her father’s +death should not reach the man who provoked it sooner than the courses +of rumour allowed. The Caborca priest posting out to the Casa O’Donoju +would set tongues wagging instantly and the seal of silence imposed by +miles of unpeopled space between the casa and the nearest community +would be broken. “The service of the heart will be just as acceptable +to my father’s spirit,” was Benicia’s simple justification to herself +of breach of custom. + +So in the heat haze preceding the storm six Indians bore the body of +their master through fields of alfalfa behind the white house down to a +grove of shimmering alamo trees which fringed a reservoir of the oasis’ +precious water. Here beneath the white and silver-green tent of the +trees was sanctified ground. Here lay the dust of lords and ladies of a +desert principality who, for their spans of years, had been inheritors +of the desert’s cruelties and benefices. + +Grant fell in with the file of dark-skinned mourners that followed +behind the body of Don Padraic, with him Bagley. They did this unbidden +of Benicia. Neither had seen her since the dramatic climax of the +ordeal of the kettle the day before; no word had come from her. Yet +each had felt the need to succour the bereaved girl in her great +loneliness, forgetting unhappy events of the dawn in the patio. + +For Grant there had been a brief struggle with pride and outraged +sensibilities--blessedly brief because a broader tolerance and finer +manhood had rallied to overthrow the narrower view of selfishness. +In the light of the terrific blow that had been dealt the girl he +loved--all the more crushing because of its suddenness--the savage +reaction of a high spirit seemed to him not so to be wondered at. Nor +Benicia’s silence since. In these dark hours there was no place in her +heart for aught but unassuaged grief. + +Arrived at the alamo grove, all the Indians of the village and +household massed themselves a little way apart from freshly turned sod, +their glistening black heads dappled by the silhouettes of the leaves, +their eyes restless and awestruck. Benicia, garbed in dull black which +made the whiteness of her face and uncovered glory of her hair the +more striking, stood at the head of the rude housing fashioned by the +Papagoes for her beloved clay; her calm was absolute as that of the +iron peaks beyond the oasis green. In her hand was a wreath the Indian +women had woven--scarlet flowers of the cactus with feathery acacia +intertwined. + +In a steady voice the girl read a Latin prayer while the Indians knelt. +Then with a lingering touch she laid the scarlet and olive-green wreath +upon the pall and watched the glowing spot of colour slowly sink from +sight. + +Suddenly the recessional: the sand storm with its clamour of incoherent +desert tongues crying hidden tragedies, its blinding sheets of sand. +When the first blast struck the group turning away from the grave +Grant stepped quickly to Benicia’s side, drew her arm protectingly +through his and bent his body to shield her from the myriad chisels of +the driven sand. He fought for footing for them both. + +At his touch Benicia turned dry eyes to his. Swiftly she read the love +there--love triumphing over the hurt she had so lately given him. On +the instant tears filmed the hard brightness of the orbs Grant looked +down upon. Her lips moved in some halting speech of contrition, but the +savage blast snatched away the sound of her words. In the softening +of those eyes and the weight of her body clinging nervelessly to him +the man was told the whole story of a girl’s amends for hasty and +unconsidered action. All her iron will which had carried her head high +through hours of grief suddenly had sped from her, leaving her groping +and dependent. + +An exalted sense of guardianship came to Grant--swept over him like a +cool breeze to a fever patient. Almost it was a feeling of holy trust +bestowed. At last--at last the woman he loved had battled against +bitter fate beyond the limit of her endurance and was turning to him to +fend for her. Unheeding the twinges his wound gave him, he bent to the +blast with his precious burden. Oh, if only he could be given liberty +to sweep her into his arms, to call her name in the piety of supreme +love, snatch her away from the incubus of dread which had settled upon +her so relentlessly. + +He would not wait for such opportunity--so the thought came lancing at +him in a lightning flash of resolution; he would create it! No longer +stand idly by with footless compassion while the girl of his heart +remained in chains of a fixed idea too strong for her to break. He +himself would free her of those shackles even if he had to fight her +fiery will to do it! + +While the storm furiously grappled with the palms outside, Bim and +Grant sat in the dark music room of the great-house. With hushed voices +the two friends conned over the situation facing them and the girl now +left alone in the immensity of Altar. Not a simple exigency. On the one +hand promptings of delicacy and the dictates of custom ruled against +their remaining longer in the Casa O’Donoju. Opposed to this was the +alternative of leaving Benicia to become a prey to the schemes of +Colonel Urgo--a girl fighting single-handed the craft of an implacable +enemy. Without a protector other than the Indians of the oasis--and +they had the minds of children--the girl could not combat this +unscrupulous wooer for long. What then? + +Bim finally summed the situation: “It comes down to this, old +side-pardner; either you’ve got to persuade her to come back to Arizona +with us mighty pronto or to marry you, putting it bald-headed like.” + +Grant’s mind leaped to grapple with the flash of an idea--the one that +had come to him when he and the girl breasted the sandstorm. Resolution +crystallized on the instant. He silently quizzed his friend with an +appraising eye. + +“And if I can’t persuade her?” he queried softly. + +“Then you simply trundle yourself away from here and up across the +Line, knowing that, sure as shootin’, this wolf Urgo’ll be down on +her just as soon as he makes up his mind to move.” The big fellow in +the firelight stressed inevitability in his dictum. Grant gave him a +cryptic smile. + +“Suppose I take her anyway if she will not be persuaded?” Bim jerked +back his head and surveyed his friend with startlement which speedily +softened to a wide grin. Out went his hand to clap Grant’s knee. + +“Now you’re tootin’!” + +Once he had put his resolution into words, the idea back-fired to +scorch Grant with sudden comprehension of what would be involved in +such a cavalierly course of action. Actually to steal Benicia O’Donoju! +Take her by force from the home which now was hers to rule. Play the +very part which he feared Colonel Urgo would pursue if left alone. He +scarcely heard Bim rumbling his enthusiasms. + +“That’s the pure quill!” the desert man was saying. “That’s the Grant +Hickman who brought me in on his back from a section of Heinie’s first +line trench with H.E.’s droppin’ round like gumdrops from a baby’s torn +candy bag.” He checked himself to launch the question, “Have you got a +line on the girl yet? I mean, do you think she fancies you enough to be +glad--after you’ve run away with her?” + +“I think so,” was Grant’s simple answer. + +“Fine business! The sooner the quicker, young fellah. You an’ her +an’ me in the li’l old desert skimmer. ’Cause I gotta get back to +Arizora. The old Doc’ll think I’ve thrown him down an’, besides, my own +business--” + +“You mean you’ll go ahead with Stooder on his scheme for finding the +Lost Mission?” Grant cut in impetuously. The big love he bore Bagley +jealously demanded an answer. The other reached over to lay a hand on +Grant’s shoulder. + +“No. That’s all off, old son. I couldn’t go prying around after lost +treasure that belongs to the girl’s family--more particular not after +what you’ve told me I couldn’t. I promise you I’ll head off the Doc if +I have to get him thrown in the _carcel_ for boot-legging.” + +The storm wore itself to a final sibilant whisper among the tortured +palms and the two continued to sit in the room of shadows with the +complexities of the daring plan of kidnapping still bulking large. +’Cepcion tip-toed in to announce to Bim in an awed whisper, “El Doctor +Coyote Belly from Babinioqui has come through the storm. Shall I +disturb the mistress?” + +Bim translated to Grant with a questioning tilt of the eyebrows. Grant +started at the name of the medicine man who had been his rescuer and +to whom he owed his life. What could have brought this old Indian away +across the expanse of Altar to drop out of the storm upon the house of +mourning? + +“Tell her we will see him first,” Grant directed, moved as he was by +some half-sensed instinct of protection for Benicia; evil tidings--if +such the Indian bore--must be kept from her. The two rose and followed +the waddling Indian woman through the halls to the servants’ quarters +in the rear. Under a pepper tree in the fading dusk they found the +squat figure of Coyote Belly. The Indian doffed his hat at the approach +of the white men and stood smiling; there was in his pose something of +quiet dignity which bent little before the centuries-old convention +of the white man’s superiority. His beady eyes, well larded in creasy +folds, possessed intelligence beyond the ordinary. + +Grant impulsively took El Doctor’s hand in a strong grip carrying the +thanks he could not speak. El Doctor’s eyes mirrored recognition and he +bobbed his head with a broadening smile. + +“Tell him, Bim, I could not thank him for all he did for me. He is the +chap that found me on the Hermosillo road, you know, and pulled me +through.” Bim put the words in Spanish and El Doctor bobbed his head +again. Then the Indian began haltingly in the same tongue. Bim’s eyes +narrowed to a quizzical pucker as he progressed. Grant could read a +spreading wonder in his friend’s features. + +“The old bird says he came here because he knew Don Padraic had been +killed,” Bim repeated. “Says he knew it the night of the murder because +a star fell in the west and he saw the picture of the old Don with a +knife in his heart--saw it in the water of his medicine _olla_. So he’s +been on the trail ever since because he’s got to tell Señorita Benicia +something.” + +“But,” Grant began incredulously. Bim caught him up with, “Sure, I know +it sounds phoney. But I know, too, the old boy’s telling the truth. +These desert people have a way of seeing across space--reading signs +and such--which leaves us white folks gasping-- How’s that?” He turned +an ear to El Doctor, who had begun to speak again. + +“Standing-White-in-the-Sun was my father and my brother,” the medicine +man gravely intoned. “He gave me _pinole_ when I was starving. He came +to my house at the festival of the _sahuaro_ wine and drank with me as +a brother. His child, Lightning Hair, is as my own child.” + +Depth of feeling was sweeping El Doctor like a storm. His grey head +trembled and drops of moisture stood in his eyes. Bim gently checked +him with, “The señorita is oppressed with grief. If we could take your +message to her--” But El Doctor shook his head. + +“She will see me. She will hear what El Doctor Coyote Belly has come +through the storm to tell.” + +“Yes, she will hear,” came an unexpected voice from the direction of +the doorway, and Benicia walked up to the Indian. El Doctor made a +step forward to meet her; with a gesture of reverence he took the hand +stretched out to him and placed it first on his brow then over his +heart. His old eyes shone. The two white men turned and walked beyond +earshot. From a distance Grant saw the girl lead the medicine man to +a rustic seat beneath the pepper tree; snatches of barbarous Papago +speech came to his ears. + +The glory of sunset, more glorious because of the dust held in +suspension in the air, came and passed and still Benicia and the +medicine man talked beneath the pepper tree. The evening meal was a +mournful affair, with only Grant and Bim at the candle-lit table. +Grant, unable to contain his restlessness, quit the house alone +when supper was finished; he walked down the avenue of palms in the +direction of the red fires marking the Indian village. The night was +luminous with that sheen which covers the desert heavens like a bloom. +Thin rind of a moon hung low in the west, a cold glow of nacre. + +He had crossed the bridge and was about to turn off into an adjacent +field when he heard a footstep in the shadowed aisle below palm tops +ahead of him. A figure scarce discernible in its black garb came upon +him. + +“Benicia!” + +She stopped, startled. “Ah, it is you,” was her murmured greeting as +Grant stepped to her side. + +“Alone and in the dark,” he chided, but the girl tossed off his fears +with a gesture of the hands. “I have been with El Doctor down to the +village to find a place for him to lodge.” Grant imprisoned her arm +and gently persuaded her steps back down the aisle of darkness toward +the village. For a minute they walked in silence. Each knew there +were things to be spoken, yet each was reluctant to break the silent +communion their nearness wrought. + +“And El Doctor gave you the message he came to bring?” finally from +Grant. Her head nodded assent. + +“Not bad news, I hope,” he hazarded. A tightening of fingers on his arm +as she answered, “The best--and the worst.” Grant drew a long breath. + +“And may I share with you--the worst?” he managed to murmur. Now once +more that dragging weight on his arm as when he guided Benicia through +the storm--mute signal of surrender from one spent in the fight. + +“El Doctor says--oh, my friend, you must not stay here in the Garden +longer. The rurales are gathering at Babinioqui, El Doctor tells +me--with Urgo. That means but one thing: Urgo is bringing them here, +and you--” + +“But you!” Grant interrupted almost fiercely. “What of you? Must I run +away and leave you unprotected from that man?” The girl drew away from +him as if in very defiance of some mastering impulse which would push +her into his arms. + +“I--my people will fight for me if need be. Urgo comes for you this +time, and I cannot be sure these children”--a vague sweep of her hand +toward the winking village fires--“that these children would fight +for you, whom they scarcely know.” There was that brave yet pitiful +resolution in her tone when she spoke of the hazard of Urgo’s probable +sally upon her own person which crashed through all a lover’s carefully +built barriers of restraint. Unmindful of the events of recent hours, +of the girl’s fresh bereavement, Grant crushed her to him hotly. + +“Oh, ’Nicia--’Nicia, can’t you understand! I must go--yes, to-morrow! +Not because Urgo is coming to get me but because your being here alone +forces me away from you. Yet I cannot think of leaving you to fight +that man single-handed. ’Nicia--precious!--you will come--you must come +with me up over the Line where--” + +“Oh, please--please stop!” Hands were feebly pressing him away. Glint +of starlight revealed tears a-tremble on her lashes. “Grant--great +heart--I understand. I cry for you. See! My eyes tell you what is in my +heart. But I cannot give myself to you when that--that terrible thing +of misfortune and death goes with me. I--the mark I bear brought death +to my dear father!” + +He looked down into her eyes, appalled at this last speech. Before he +could hush her she faltered on: + +“But El Doctor brought me also good news--wonderful news! It is that +I can lift this evil from me if--if”--she seemed to falter before a +possibility scarce credible--“if the finding of the gold and jewels El +Rojo stained with his sacrilege and their restoration to a sanctuary of +the Church will be acceptable in God’s sight.” + +The hint of purpose in Benicia’s voice revealed the edge of the truth. +“Do you mean El Doctor knows where the Lost Mission lies and that you +intend to find it?” Grant pressed her. The girl gave answer: + +“He knows where the gold and pearls of the Lost Mission are. He knows, +too, the story of El Rojo and how I bear the weight of his guilt. +Because he loved my father he says he loves me too much to have me go +on and on under an evil spell. Father’s death opens his lips and--” + +“You are going with El Doctor to find those things?” breathlessly from +Grant. She nodded. “Then I will go with you. At once! To-morrow!” + +Decision came on the wings of inspiration. Better this flight into +the desert on treasure quest, with its promise of exorcism of all the +devils that plagued the girl--better this venture than that other he +had determined: to play the strong hand willy-nilly. + + + + +CHAPTER XXI + +TREASURE QUEST + + +Colonel Hamilcar Urgo was not addicted to introspection. He took +himself as he found himself and as a rule was well pleased with the +find. Had any non-partisan voice of conscience told him cruelty played +a large part in his make-up undoubtedly the little Colonel would +have denied the charge with hot indignation. Cruelty, to his way of +thinking, was exclusively a feminine defect; a woman was guilty of +cruelty, for example, when she spurned the honourable advances of so +honourable a suitor as Hamilcar Urgo. Benicia O’Donoju was the cruelest +creature he knew; wherefore like a fractious horse she must be broken. + +No, Señor Urgo found nothing reprehensible in his orders to Ygnacio, +the Papago, that Don Padraic must be put out of the way. The same +impulse had prompted him to strip the bandage of ignorance from +Benicia’s eyes during that interview in the patio without the least +compunction. These headstrong women! There was a way to handle them +just as there was a way to break the heart of a high-spirited mount: +curb bits that tear and spurs that gouge. Let him have possession of a +spirit-broken woman for a little while, to play with and then discard; +possession was not nearly so diverting as the game of spirit breaking. +At that Urgo considered himself rather a master hand. + +He had not hated the master of the Casa O’Donoju. Aside from the +necessity of clearing the field of a possible objector to his suit and +bringing pain to the haughty desert girl, Urgo’s murder impulse was +prompted by no personal bias. But with all the deadly spleen compacted +into his wispy body the little man hated the gringo Grant Hickman. +Hated him because the American was in the lists against him; hated him, +especially, because twice Hickman had humiliated him before the eyes of +Benicia: once in the Pullman out of El Paso and a second time--searing +scar in memory--when the man, though weakened by a bullet wound, had +hustled him out the door of the desert manor. + +If whole-heartedness gives any palliation to hatred then was Hamilcar +Urgo’s passion almost to be forgiven him. For very dynamic force no +impulse in his twisted career matched it. The vision of this gringo’s +impudently smiling face went to bed with him at night and abided with +him all day--a veritable ache. Come what might, he would destroy Grant +Hickman and in a manner such as to entail the most refined tortures. + +So this was his single purpose--possession of the girl would be a mere +by-product--when he used his power with the police arm of the Sonora +state government to assemble ten ruffians of the rurales force at a +point on the railroad within striking distance of the Road of the +Dead Men. Desert cars were at his disposal but he preferred to head a +mounted force because his plans looked to an excursion into country +where autos could not go, once Hickman was his prisoner. A complaisant +spirit of justice at Hermosillo would accept in lieu of the escaped +convict’s person some token symbolical of a justice already wrought +through the instrument of the state’s worthy servant, Urgo. + +The day after the sand storm Urgo and his rurales set out from the +railroad for the west and the Garden of Solitude at the end of a long +road. They were superbly mounted; two pack animals trotted behind the +file of horsemen. Revolutions had been squelched by a less imposing +force. + +After the cleansing storm the desert was bland and tolerant. Air clear +as quartz, sun tempered by fresh winds from the west, on every club and +spike of cactus fresh flowers born overnight to replace those destroyed +by the driving sands. One of the rurales unslung a guitar from a mule’s +pack and strummed minor chords to the accompaniment of a song in which +the rest joined. The ballad was gentle as a butterfly’s wing, telling +of roses over a lady-love’s window. + +Urgo, lulled by the immensity of the desert peace, perhaps even by +the tenderness of the song his murderers sang, pleasured himself by +building pictures in prospect. He saw himself riding alone up to +the door of the Casa O’Donoju--the rurales would be disposed beyond +sight of the door but within call; saw the courteous bow he would +make to Señorita Benicia; heard himself inquiring in polite phrase +concerning her health and that of her respected father. Ah, Don Padraic +dead--murdered! Grace of God, but that was sad news. But the American +gentleman who was a guest at the Casa O’Donoju; did his unfortunate +wound still keep him under the beneficence of the casa’s hospitality--? + +Five hours of the second day out on the Road of the Dead Men the rurale +who was riding at the head of the file reined in with a shout. His +arm stretched to point a tiny black beetle away off to the westward: +a beetle skittering down the long slope of a divide and in their +direction. In ten minutes the beetle showed again, but it had grown to +the dimensions of an auto. It was upon them almost before the horsemen +had spread themselves in a fan across the road. Quelele, whom Urgo +instantly recognized, accepted the implied hint to halt; in the seat +beside him was a strange white man--a gringo by his looks. This man +let a bland, incurious eye range over the band of horsemen until it +settled upon Urgo; there it rested with a dispassionate stare somehow +affronting to the Spaniard’s dignity. + +Urgo stiffly bowed and waited for the gringo to speak. Instead of +returning his salutation the white man searched the pockets of his vest +for tobacco bag and papers and bent all his attention upon rolling a +cigarette. + +“You have come from the Casa O’Donoju, señor?” Urgo asked in English. +Bim Bagley gave the clipped Spanish “Si” of assent and drew his rolled +cigarette across his lips with a languid air. Urgo in a growing rage +wondered if this boorishness were the stranger’s typically American +manner or assumed to provoke hostility. His voice was silken as he put +his next question in Spanish: + +“The Señorita O’Donoju and Don Padraic, her father, they enjoy the best +health, I hope.” + +“I hope so, too,” was Bim’s short reply as he put a match to his smoke. +Urgo’s brows knitted. Here was no boor but a wise gringo with a chuckle +behind every word. + +“I am doing myself the honour to call upon Don Padraic and his charming +daughter,” his temper pushed him to volunteer. Bim swept the company of +horsemen with a lack-lustre eye and then let his glance return to the +dapper figure of the Colonel. + +“Do tell,” he drawled in broadest Border dialect. “See you brought all +the boys with you. Well, so long!” He nudged the Indian a signal to +go ahead. Urgo would have liked to detain this impudent gringo for a +lesson in manners did not more pressing pleasure lie ahead. He gave an +imperceptible nod and the horsemen who blocked the road moved aside. +The little car shot back a pungent cloud of smoke for a parting insult +as it took the road in high. Urgo watched it rise to the low crest of +a divide and disappear. Insufferable gringo! What had he been doing at +Casa O’Donoju? What did he know of recent events there? + +A shrug dismissed Bagley, and the file of horsemen resumed leisurely +progress along the desert road. A night’s dry camp, and early morning +would see them in the oasis green at journey’s end. + +Colonel Urgo miscalculated when he dismissed Bim Bagley with a shrug. +Did the little Spaniard but know it, this meeting in the wastes was +the objective point in the gringo’s strategy. Even under certain heavy +handicaps ten gallons of gasoline in the desert can achieve more than +ten horses with rurales on their backs. It all depends upon the hand +that nurses precious jets of this gasoline across the path of the +spark. And Quelele’s was a master hand. Wherefore the second phase in +Bim’s strategy was entered upon. + +Bim and the Indian had made perhaps five miles along the +eastward-bearing road beyond the point of the meeting with Urgo’s +ruffians when the Papago turned off the single wheel track and into +the sparse scrub. A low range separated them from the rurales; the +crumbling of that range into desert flatness lay a good ten miles to +southward. Once around that, the little car could be tooled behind a +screen of hillocks back onto the Road of the Dead Men and ahead of the +rurales, but only by exercise of the most delicate driving judgment. +“Smack through the country--without roads?” whiffles the incredulous +driver of limousines along sedate highways in Pennsylvania and New +York. Exactly that. It is done in Arizona and Sonora--thirty or fifty +miles of unfenced desert; compass to pick up direction and shovel to +dig out of arroyos. Johnny Cameron, of Ajo, even herds wild horses on a +motorcycle. + +Quelele stopped to let air out of his tires that they might better +grip the sand and pad through soft places. Then began a jackrabbit +skittering and twisting ’cross country, with every hundred yards +offering the hazard of a broken axle and the little desert skimmer +standing on its nose at the brink of a dry wash while its passengers +flattened the descent by hasty shovel work. Like a rowboat in +mid-Atlantic the puny contraption of tin and steel took the long waves, +snarling and grumbling over sand-traps, boggling through thickets +of _cholla_ which rigged its tires with festoons of prickly stubs. +Quelele’s hands possessed magic. They knew just when to give a twist to +the wheel, when to shoot the spark ahead. Every hummock and pitfall was +read by them surely and swiftly. + +The little car rounded the end of the mountain range and shot back on a +tangent for the road where Urgo and his rurales were travelling. With +a grunt Quelele suddenly let the car trundle to a halt; he clambered +out and knelt by the radiator. Drip-drip of precious water from some +stab of brush through the honeycomb of cells there. Bim sacrificed +his tobacco in the emergency. The flaky mass was poured into the +radiator with fresh water from a canteen; the stuff found the leak and, +swelling, stopped it. + +Then on and on, around the flanks of the little hills and across wide +flats where the brush was scattered. Always Quelele was sure to keep +a height of land between the car and the Road of the Dead Men until +finally he brought his gas mustang to a stop on the crest of a lava +ridge and pointed back. Against the eastern horizon showed a crawling +inch-worm in the desert’s immensity--Urgo and the rurales. Below the +lava crest and near at hand was the objective of their detour, the +road that led to the Casa O’Donoju and those who must be warned. + +It was after sunset when the little car hiccoughed up under the avenue +of palms. An hour later in the first dark of night a file of horsemen +quit the perfumed precincts of alfalfa fields behind the Casa O’Donoju. +At the head, driving a pack-mule, was El Doctor Coyote Belly, big +Quelele riding beside him. Behind were Benicia and Grant. Bim Bagley +was file closer. In scabbards at the saddle of each hung carbines. + +El Doctor, the guide, set the course away from the Road of the Dead Men +which, passing through the Garden of Solitude, buries itself in the +Yuma Desert. His direction was south and west toward the Gulf and the +labyrinth of volcano craters on its hither shore called Pinacate. + + + + +CHAPTER XXII + +ALTAR TAKES ITS TOLL + + +Dawn marched over the mountains like a phalanx of Alexander: spear +points of light on long hafts, which drove at the zenith in solid +bundles. Then the mercenaries of the sun trooped across the vacant +desert floor wave on wave and strength following strength. All the dead +world of Altar stirred and set itself for the ordeal of a new day. + +The figure of a man that had been Doc Stooder, cynical tinker of life’s +rusts and corrodings, stirred under the trampling of the light--stirred +and stretched its members in dull protest of unconsciousness. Finally +when the arrows of the new day drove at his eyelids the man opened them +and lay staring up into the sky’s opalescence. For a long minute they +probed the marbled colour depths uncomprehendingly, then turned to find +the rim of the iron mountains to the east. Comprehension came at last; +with it a distorted memory image of hours of madness and wandering, +agony of thirst, despair pressing upon footsteps that carried nowhere. +Sleep which had put a period to all this nightmare had also mercifully +rallied the man’s nervous forces to a new effort of self-saving. Men +die hard because the instinct locked up in their sub-conscious minds +always prevails over surrender of the conscious will. + +The Doc lifted an arm to shield his eyes and felt something sinuous +slide off his body. An instant his heart was chilled, for the feeling +was of a desert serpent trailing over his form. He dared lift his head +ever so little and let his eyes rove down his body. A queer something, +not snake, lay in a curve by his side; a pallid, root-like thing the +size of a man’s wrist at one end and tapering to a stringy point. He +raised himself on his elbow and drew the vegetable serpent to him. Just +as he did so his eyes discovered the prints of a man’s feet in the sand +by where he lay. + +“Glory be!” came the croak from stiffened lips, and the Doc +concentrated all his scattered wits on an examination of the prodigy. +Yes, footprints. They came from behind him; they were printed in a +semi-circle about him to mark where one had stood hesitantly looking +down at him while he slept; they marched off in line with their +approach straight toward the tawny mountains ringing the northern +horizon. + +Guadalupe’s footprints--the trail he had followed and lost the day +before! So Stooder thought. + +A great sense of security pushed through the daze in his brain. Here, +at last, lay the way to salvation. That thought having been duly +relished, he turned his attention once more to the mysterious vegetable +whip by his side. He never had seen its like. How it came to be there +he had no notion. The thing was unlike any desert growth in his +experienced observation, wherefore it seemed to represent some prodigy +of the desert god dropped by him for a purpose. + +He gripped the heavier end of the root between his hands and gave it +a twist. The thing broke like an over-ripe radish and a thin spurt of +water shot from the severed ends. Greedily he thrust one stump into +his mouth and clamped his jaws upon it. Gracious fluid, mildly acrid, +drenched the parchment-like membranes of his throat. The Doc sighed +once, then wolfed the whole stub of the root he had broken off. As the +pulp was swallowed he felt immediate access of strength and sanity. + +From somewhere deep in the corroded heart of him welled an emotion +whose like he had not known during all the years of his warped and +weathered manhood. As if a child prompted him the gaunt, half-naked +creature on the sands lifted his eyes to the glowing blue. + +“Thanks, dear God!” + +So the sardonic genius of the waste places permitted the cloak of +divinity to fall upon Ygnacio, fugitive and murderer, for that a +surprising charity had prompted him to pause in the night by a raving +man, divide with him his slender store of insurance against death, then +pass on. + +The root-of-the-sands which Stooder half devoured quickly restored him +to something like the normal. Gone were the deliriums that had dogged +him those hours of horror. He heard no longer the ghost bells of the +Lost Mission summoning him to treasure buried in the bleak mountains +yonder. Rational thought was his after all the wanderings in Bedlam. He +mapped his strategy against the ever-present menace of the desert. + +Here were Guadalupe’s tracks--the Papago hound; wait till he could get +hands on the devil! Of course they would lead to the village of the +Sand People on the edge of El Infiernillo. Well and good; but that +might still be a long way ahead. Could he make it just on what was +left of this mysterious root? About one chance in ten; and the old Doc +wasn’t taking any more chances. What then? + +Why, follow the tracks back to the stalled auto. Water might be there. +Surely were cans of tomatoes--about a dozen of ’em. A dozen tomato cans +would carry him a hundred miles on foot; he knew because he’d drunk +uncooked canned tomatoes many a time--food and drink in small compass. +All right; follow the tracks back to the auto, rest up a bit and then +get a fresh start back over those same tracks and straight into the +Sand People’s rancheria. + +Stooder wrapped the precious remains of his giant radish in a strip of +his shirt and started back over the line of blue shadow cups in the +sand. As he laboured through the heavy going he reviewed all he could +remember of yesterday’s terrors, and a great fear began to build in +the back of his mind. Fear of the leagues upon leagues of blank space +about him--land unchanged by time since the waters of a great sea were +withdrawn into a shallow cup now called the Gulf. Fear of latent forces +which lurked in the naked mountains all about, in the ghostly mirage +which stretched vain beauties before his eyes. Over-mastering all was a +corroding fear of his own body. + +The Doc’s trained intelligence was functioning with deadly precision. +It separated his mind from the rest of his being, counting the mind as +a rider and the body the beast it rode. The rider willed that the beast +carry it to a certain destination; did that beast stumble and fall the +rider could cry out never so furiously but it would be lost. And that +burden-bearer of the mind was capable of just so much. Its tissues +and sinews were kept functioning by water and food. So much water and +so much food gave so many foot-pounds of energy; no more. Inexorable +mathematics! + +When sweat began to trickle down into his eyes Stooder could not +repress a shudder. Lost! Water lost from his body. The desert +greasewood is wise enough to coat all its leaves and little stems with +creosote to trick evaporation; the big _sahuaro_ shows only the edges +of its accordion flutings to the sun and greases them with paraffin; +man yields water like a stranded jellyfish. + +Better take another chew on that water-root dingus to make up for sweat +lost. Better give the old pulse a feel to see how it’s runnin’. + +The sun swam dizzily at meridian so that the footprints the Doc +followed were hard to see--mere shallow spoon marks. On and on towards +the south! + +What was that thing moving over yonder in that bunch of saltbush? Yes, +sir, moving!--A coyote, by th’ eternal!--Naw, coyotes weren’t white +like this animal; coyotes were a mangy yellow.--But, by criminy! this +thing had the looks of a coyote--sharp nose and baggy tail half way +’tween its hind legs, skulkin’ like.--An albino coyote! Lookit! Eyes +pinky like a white rabbit.--Whoever heard of an albino coyote? + +No phantom of the imagination that slinking, dirty-white creature which +matched its pace to the Doc’s on parallel course through the low lying +scrub. The desert Ishmael trotted along with a foolish air of being +strictly about its own business, as if no other creature were in sight. +When Stooder stopped to bawl curses at it the albino thing halted and +made a great pretence of snouting at a flea bite, utterly oblivious +to his presence. A fragment of dead bush-stock was hurled at it; the +coyote lifted a corner of his lip in a deprecatory smile but did not +abate his casual trot. + +“Huh, you mangy bag o’ bones! Think you’re goin’ have a feed off’n me, +do you? Well, I’m tellin’ you, you got a mighty long tromp ahead!” + +On through the desert slogged the man and on trotted the freaky animal +whose colour made him outcast even from his own kind. These twain alone +under the hot sky: two mites of life in a land of death, each blindly +following the call of every life cell in him to live--live! + +What had been a piled-up cloud of blue and faint rose to the south +when the Doc started his hike had unfolded hour by hour into definite +form. Little by little pinnacles sharp as ice splinters lifted from a +mountain mass and detached mountains with their tops blown off stood +against the horizon like truncated columns of an acropolis. Here were +the mazes of the Pinacate, raw shards of volcanoes and wilderness of +lava flows down by the Gulf sandhills; country so fire-scarred and +forbidding that even the Indian nomads give it wide berth. Only the +big-horn sheep possess it, living no man knows how. + +The undeviating trend of the trail southward towards this ragged mass +had perplexed Stooder when first he became conscious of it. The auto +should be lying somewhere off to eastward if he didn’t miss his guess; +those mountains ahead were strange to him. But he could not know how +far nor where he had wandered the day before; even though he thought +long since he should have come upon a second line of footprints--his +own--running along with those of the Papago, yet there was no denying +he was following the right trail back to the auto and the cached +tomatoes. There sure could not be two lines of footprints here in this +least-travelled part of Altar. + +So ran the mind of him whom the mocking Gog and Magog of the desert’s +diarchy had put on a false trail to desolation. Deeper and deeper into +a waterless scrap-heap of forgotten ages his steps took him. And the +albino coyote was his aloof companion. + + + + +CHAPTER XXIII + +INTO THE FURNACE + + +Meanwhile from another direction adventurers were moving through the +night upon the slag mountains of Pinacate. Empty space of Altar’s +ultimate sweep was become almost populous. A strange company this, +which passed ghostily under the great lights of the near stars with +only the clink of bridle metal and pack mule’s canteens to give tempo +to the march; Benicia O’Donoju, the desert girl, moved to this risky +hazard by compulsion of an incubus of fate visited upon her through +inheritance down the generations of her people; Grant Hickman, man +of cities and crowds, whom destiny had whirled out into a country of +the world’s dawn; Bagley the Arizonan, taker of chances, seeker after +rainbow ends; and the two Papagoes, Quelele and El Doctor Coyote Belly, +on whom was spread thin the veneer of so-called civilization. + +It had been Benicia’s mastering purpose that had moved the cavalcade +away from the Casa O’Donoju and out onto the desert immediately upon +the return of Bim and Quelele reporting the leisurely approach of +Colonel Urgo and his rurales. This was not flight, she told Bim; +they would go in search of the treasure of the Lost Mission whose +hiding place the old medicine man was willing to reveal, and if Urgo +followed--well, eventualities could be met as they arose. In this +resolve Grant had strongly seconded her. The girl’s slavery under the +obsession of the bane of El Rojo, especially following the slaying of +her father, had laid an impenetrable barrier between her and him; he +had seized upon this possibility promising her emancipation from this +horror. This chance failing, he had but the last desperate recourse. + +The first hour of their pilgrimage away from the desert oasis Grant +rode by Benicia’s side. He essayed to distract her thoughts from the +tragedy that lay behind by questioning her on the revelations El Doctor +had made: how had the old Indian come by knowledge of the buried gold +and pearls; what impulse had led him to promise their restoration? But +the girl was not to be drawn. She answered his queries by evasions +or meaningless monosyllables. It was as if Grant were a stranger, +impudently prying. + +At first the man was stung by this treatment. His self-pride rebelled +against so arbitrary a closing of the door of confidence against him. +Why should he be treated thus cavalierly when the girl had surely read +the great love he bore her and his single desire to place himself +between her and the menace of one who had prompted murder? But these +hurts did not continue long. Riding by Benicia’s side in the starshine, +the man began to feel the emanations of a mastering will which poured +from her as the pungent prickles of ozone surround a high-power dynamo. +Her consciousness was frozen into a mould of purpose, locked against +any distractions. Benicia was alive only to the single resolve to free +herself from the curse of the Red One. Man nor spirit could invade that +preoccupation. + +There under the steady-burning desert lamps the man of the cities +began to feel again that spell of the infinite which had chained him +the night of Don Padraic’s passing. Here was he, lately denizen of a +hive of stone and steel, tiny integer in that man-made machine called +a metropolis, moving through the darkness over a land unsullied by +hand of man since the floods of melting glaciers drove a shadowy +race of stone-axe people back to the highlands. The loves and hates, +the battles and deaths of these stone-axe folk occurred but yesterday +in the time-sheet of the waste places. The to-morrow of ten thousand +years would find the desert still untouched, supine under the stars. +What then of hidden baubles of gold; what then of the love of a Grant +Hickman for a Benicia O’Donoju? A fossil snail shell by the shore of +the gulf left a more enduring record. + +“The thing that’s sorta got me fussed is how I’m goin’ explain all +this to the old Doc.” Bim’s voice broke through Grant’s contemplation +of shadowy frontiers; he noted with a start that his horse had dropped +behind Benicia’s and was ambling head-and-head with his friend’s. Bim +drawled on: + +“It sure will look like a double-cross to Stooder--my sailin’ off down +into Sonora on the search for you an’ then hooking up with an outfit to +go get all the plunder the old Doc thinks he’s as good as got his hands +on. Me, I guess I’m queered all right,” was the man’s whimsical finish +to his lament. Grant, who had been too preoccupied with the sweep of +affairs to give any thought to his pal’s perplexities, could not now +offer much consolation. A point of honour involving the grotesque +creature who had elected to receive him as a book agent did not greatly +move Grant. + +“A’ course,” Bim continued his monologue, “the way things lie with the +girl, her bein’ hipped on gettin’ back this swag somebody in her family +lifted from the mission, I’m more’n willing to see her get it. But the +old Doc hasn’t got a large store of what you might call sentiment, an’ +I sure got my work cut out for me when I try to show him the light.” + +“Too bad I got you into a tangle, old man,” Grant heartily commiserated; +then with a hopeless little laugh, “My own affairs aren’t set on any +straight and beautiful road to happiness either.” + +Bim chuckled deep in his throat. “Me, I was all for your first idea +to rope the señorita right outa the home corral an’ put your brand on +her, fighting. But like’s not we’ll get _mucho_ plenty excitement along +this trail before we’re through.” He gave a short laugh. “Say, Cap’n +Hickman, I brought you out from the East on a whale of a proposition. +You’re sure getting it. A girl who assays higher’n any pearls an’ old +gold junk you could find in a church cellar--the feel and savvy of a +man’s country--a larrupin’ fight with old Urgo and his rurales bunch. +That last you can back right down to your last white chip.” + +“But how can Urgo follow us from the O’Donoju house?” incredulously +from Grant. “Not one of the servants or other Indians there knows what +our destination is--we don’t ourselves except in a general way.” + +The man of the big country chuckled at metropolitan innocence. “Horses +don’t leave tracks on your Fifth Avenoo because they’s no horses left +there for one thing, I reckon. But in this country they do. Five horses +make a trail a blind man could follow. I or anybody else could track +this outfit of ours in the dark. I look to see our li’l friend Urgo +drop in on us some time to-morrow. He’ll travel fast with fresh horses +his men round up at the O’Donoju corrals.” + +They rode some time in silence, Grant turning over in his mind this +unthought-of possibility. Tenderfoot that he was--so he accused +himself--he had noted the carbines slung in scabbards at each +saddlehorn; noted with an unreading eye. So Benicia and all the others +had provided against a contingency he had not even suspected. + +“Only thing I’m figgerin’ in this proposition,” he heard Bim saying, +“is, will the Papagoes stick under fire? Papagoes are not strong for +the knock-down-an’-drag-out stuff. An’, besides, you’re not a whole man +yet.” + +“Whole enough to keep my end up,” Grant said shortly, knowing not why +he resented any imputation of disability against him. + +“Oh, sure--sure!” the other hurriedly amended, and the subject died. + +Dawn spread a ghostly panorama before them. In the greeny-white light +that heralds the sun’s first ruddiness the whole western horizon bulked +with black masses of slag heaped in fantastic shapes. High above the +lesser masses towered the two peaks of Pinacate, their summits yawning +in wide craters. The horses’ hoofs struck sparks from lava aprons; the +beasts had to pick their way carefully over traps and crevices. Ever +and again grey arms of cactus struck out to rake the riders’ legs with +claws of thorns. + +Waxing light filled in details of a phantom land, terrific in stark +brutalities of scarp and battlement--a world just set aside from the +baking-oven of the Potter and unadorned by a single brush stroke. The +little company of horsemen threaded single file up a narrow gorge +between the main peaks of the range. Walls of porphyry and slag the +colour of furnace clinkers leaped to heights on either side which +dwarfed the riders to the stature of weevils. The trail they followed +was the path cut by the rushing waters of summer cloudbursts, which +pack into the downpour of minutes’ duration all the water denied +during months of drought; great blocks of fused glass and conglomerate +wrenched from the canyon’s eaves by the fingers of these storms choked +the way. Where capfuls of soil had been caught and held in some pocket +the gaunt sticks of the _ocatilla_ splayed out against raw rock like +cat’s whiskers. Low-lying _cholla_, that spined and vicious vegetable +tarantula of the desert, seemed to grow from the very rock; all its +nodules were frosty with close-set thorns. Over all dropped the veil of +mystical morning radiance. + +The horses groaned as they had to choose, minute by minute, between +barking their hocks on the knife-like corners of obsidian or taking +the barbs of the _cholla_. The higher the ascent the savager grew +the way. Grant, awed by this penetration into the very laboratory of +earth, almost leaped from his saddle when a sharp clatter of small +pebbles to his right broke the silence. His eyes jumped up the canyon +wall to follow three dots of bounding dun-white against its sheer +side--bighorn sheep skipping surely along no visible foothold. + +When the sun was well in the sky--though naught but its reflected +radiance penetrated the gorge--El Doctor, in the lead, signalled a +halt. The place was a constricted apron or shelf in the cleft between +rock walls whereon sparse galetta grass was growing. Reason for this +tiny oasis of vegetation lay just beyond in the fact of a water-worn +cistern in the lava--such a natural reservoir as the desert folk +called a “tank,” a godsend when it still contains the wash from a last +cloudburst. This one was bone-dry. + +The party breakfasted meagrely, wood for their coffee fire being +grubbed by the Indians painfully and after long search. There was +little speech between them for they were tired; the night’s ride had +been wearing. Moreover, even the Indians appeared to feel a malign +presence bearing down upon them and forbidding desecration of the +silence. For them, in especial for Coyote Belly, there was a very real +and fear-compelling presence abroad. These mountains of Tjuktoak housed +Iitoi, Elder Brother himself; the god of all things who, with a coyote +and a black beetle, drifted four times round the earth in the time of +the Flood and came to anchorage in this place. El Doctor Coyote Belly, +driven by a great love to commit sacrilege, might well have heard the +voice of Iitoi in the wind and felt his heart turn to water. + +In truth, the aged Papago was having a battle with himself. Before +he had gulped his coffee and tortillas the medicine man’s eyes were +roaming fearsomely and he whimpered snatches of sacerdotal songs as +he rummaged in the pack for a wicker basket. From it he took a wand +stained red and with an eagle’s feather bound to one end, an arrow very +handsomely feathered from the same bird, a string of glass beads and a +bundle of cigarettes--presents for Elder Brother, who must be beguiled +before being robbed. + +The old man’s hands wavered to return the presents to the basket when +Benicia hurried to him, sat down by his side and earnestly pleaded with +him in his own tongue. Finally his resolution seemed to be brought to +the sticking point. He started up the gorge alone and with his basket +of trifles. + +“Coyote Belly says he must go and sing to the god Iitoi before we are +permitted to visit his house,” Benicia gravely explained to her white +companions. “The poor man is desperately scared because we have come +to rob Elder Brother.” + +Seeing the look of puzzlement on the men’s faces she continued with +that same grave respect as if speaking of a real presence. “This old +man through the love he bore my father has consented to betray a secret +the medicine men of his people have handed down for more than a hundred +years. The treasure of the Lost Mission, he tells me, was dug up by +Papago medicine men not long after the Mission was destroyed by the +Apaches and brought to these mountains--to the cave of Elder Brother--” + +“And it’s all here now?” Bim put in excitedly. The girl nodded. + +“It has been as well hidden from those who sought it as if it were +under the buried ruins of the mission,” she said; then simply: “While +El Doctor is gone it is best that we get some sleep.” + +Benicia stretched herself under the shade of a rock with a saddle +blanket for pillow and slept. But neither of the white men could follow +her precept; both were too sensible of the prickling of some unnameable +essence of the strange and the unworldly--perhaps that very savagery of +atmosphere which had prompted primitive Indians to designate Pinacate +as the residence of their god. They were alone; big Quelele had quietly +slipped away shortly after El Doctor without saying where he was going. + +The men sat smoking while their eyes roved the prospect of burnt cliff +and ragged parapet. The heat had whips; it drove them to burrow for +lessening shade wherever angles of the rocks offered. A curious cast to +the slice of sky visible above the cañon walls first caught Bagley’s +attention. He squinted up at it for a long moment of speculation. + +“If it wasn’t so early in the summer I’d say a thunderhead was fixin’ +up to give us a big razoo,” he ventured. Grant looked up and noted that +the blue had turned to a heavy saffron tint as if the sun were shining +through a stratum of light sand; such a tint he’d seen before the great +windstorm on the day of Don Padraic’s burial. + +“If I could only look over the top of the wall yonder to west’ard,” Bim +grumbled uneasily. “These cloudbursts always come from direction of the +Gulf. We’re not very well put right here in the channel of all the wash +down from up top-side. Those horses now--” + +He walked uneasily about the narrow confines of the shelf, scanning +the upshoots of rock for possible ways out. Then he seemed to dismiss +possibility of trouble from his mind and returned to where Grant was +sitting. + +An hour passed. Perhaps they were dozing when the rattle of a shower +of rock down the cañon side galvanized both. Up there they saw the +figure of big Quelele. Like a wild goat he was leaping from foothold to +foothold downward; he was in mad haste. + +The big Indian risked his neck a dozen times before he came panting up +to the watchers. He waved to the brink of the cliff. + +“I been on top--watching--I see long way off--Urgo--rurales. They +come--fast!” + + + + +CHAPTER XXIV + +STORM + + +Bim translated Quelele’s intelligence for Grant. “Our li’l friend +Urgo’s been burnin’ the wind,” was his dry comment. Grant sent a quick +glance around the cul-de-sac of rock which encompassed them. + +“Not the best place in the world to stand off ten men,” he gave his +opinion. “We ought to get our backs up against something that can’t be +surrounded.” + +Quelele read the white man’s thoughts, for he pointed farther up the +cañon beyond the lava cistern. There the gorge narrowed to a veritable +doorway and the steps thereto were so precipitous that one ascending +would have to scramble and claw a way on hands and knees; no possible +chance for a rush en masse. Bim surveyed the natural citadel with the +eye of a trained Border man who occasionally has to reckon with such +elementals as the killing power of a rifle bullet and the protective +quality of a ’dobe wall. Finally he screwed one eye at the crack of +sky showing between the escarpments and shook his head dubiously at +what he saw there. Quelele, who had had the superior advantage of a +wider view from his aerie on the cliff top, bowed his arms in the shape +of a ball and waved a hand to the west. + +“Papago says it’s a big storm brewing over yonder,” Bim explained. +“When these thunderheads finally get all boiled into one and come +a-runnin’ it’s a case of take to cover. If this thing is the regulation +rim-fire sock-dollager they’s goin’ be a sight of water pass over where +we’re standin’ before long. Me, I’d rather be somewhere else than in +this dry channel.” + +Grant did not linger to discuss strategy longer. He went to where +Benicia was sleeping in the shade of a boulder and gently touched her +on the shoulder. The girl sat up, startled. + +“We have to be moving,” Grant told her. “Quelele has just reported Urgo +and his rurales out on the desert and coming our way.” + +“And El Doctor?” she quickly interposed. “He has returned from the +cave?” + +Grant shook his head. Bitter disappointment flashed into her eyes at +the realization of how fate had played to interpose the grim business +of a fight just on the minute of realization of her great hopes. Grant, +stooping beside her and watching the play of emotions on her features, +saw quick remorse chase away the frown. Impulsively a brown hand +reached out to play upon the back of his. + +“Grant, beloved”--how like the overtones from her own golden harp +the contralto richness of her voice!--“I am desperately selfish and +you will not understand.--Thinking only of my own purpose--bringing +you with your wound still unhealed out to this place to face--death +perhaps.--And you do this for me--” + +“’Nicia, little girl--” He could go no farther than those words, for +the song in his heart was overwhelming. At last--at last the trammels +of the girl’s heart were shaken off and the call he’d waited for so +long had come! Call of the heart of her to his. + +She was on her feet, vibrant with energy, alive to the exigencies of +impending action. Bim was saddling the horses and Quelele had the pack +on the mule when they joined them. Bim briefly explained to the girl +his survey of the gorge for strategical strength; at any cost they must +move up until they could find some sheep trail or other practicable +ledge giving escape from the flood water channel. “If that doddering +old medicine man would only quit his sing-song business and come back +for a rifle we’d be that much better off,” the big fellow grumbled. + +When all was in readiness Quelele led the way up the tortuous +watercourse and through the mighty gates of porphyry nearly blocking +the farther reaches. They were forced to lead the animals, whose +sure-footedness was put to the test every yard of the advance. Beyond +the great pillars the gorge opened to a rough amphitheatre with less +steeply sloping sides. A narrow upward-springing ledge of rock led +away from the dry watercourse to a rock pulpit some seventy-five or a +hundred feet above. This they followed, to discover there was space for +their horses to stand behind the horn of malapais and still be screened +from observation from below. Quelele made some mysterious passes with +a tether rope which yoked all the animals to a single line that was +anchored at both ends. + +“Look,” Benicia cried as Bim was taking the carbines from the saddle +scabbards. They followed her pointing hand and saw a dark spot against +the opposite wall of the gorge and higher than their level. A midget +figure was outlined against the opening of a cave. It was El Doctor +at his business of propitiating Elder Brother--El Doctor, much needed +behind the stock of a carbine. The men hallooed to him but he did not +turn. + +“Go over and get that crazy fool,” Bim commanded Quelele. But the big +Indian, instead of obeying immediately, turned up the ledge and made +for a high point on the shoulder of the rock bastion constituting one +of the portals of the upper gorge. They watched him as he scaled the +almost perpendicular face of black lava. From the top Quelele had a +view of the cañon’s far-away exit onto the desert floor several miles +from the niche where the treasure seekers had refuge. The watchers saw +him lift himself cautiously over the top of his lookout and peer to +westward. Then he came scrambling and sliding down. + +“They come into the valley,” the Papago reported. “Too late to get El +Doctor.” + +It was Bim with his desert craft who made disposition of the little +force of defence. Quelele he sent back to the aerie with orders not to +shoot until he heard shots from the whites; the Indian’s fire from the +rear, once Urgo and his men had passed the rocky portals, would throw +the rurales into confusion. Grant and Benicia he disposed behind an +outcrop of porphyry a little behind and above the protected animals. + +“Pick ’em off as they come through the Gate,” he suggested. “An’ don’t +try any fancy shooting; we haven’t got any too many cartridges.” + +“But you--?” Benicia began. The Arizonan grinned broadly. + +“Me, I always fancy a little solo game in this sort of rukus. I’m going +on t’other side of the gulch. Cross-fire, you sabe?” He left them with +a smile on his lips, and they watched him jumping lightly down from +rock to rock. Almost before he had begun to clamber up the opposite +wall he was lost to view amid the maze of fissure and castellated +boulder. Grant and the girl were stretched out behind their primitive +breastwork alone in this unfinished world of fire. They could see +neither Quelele nor Bagley. Came to their ears the faint drone of +barbaric song: El Doctor Coyote Belly at his traitorous devotions. + +The whole gorge was filled with a saffron glare like the reflection +from oil fires under a boiler, unworldly, portentous. + +They waited, these two, in the immensity of earth’s disgorged bowels. +Side by side, elbows touching, they counted the slow drag of minutes as +naught in the balance against the deep joy of love militant. + +A stir in the bed of the dry wash below them. Up went their carbines +with cheeks laid against wood and eyes sighting along the lances of +light. Again the stir down there. A gaunt figure rose from hand and +knees to its feet, stood swaying for an instant, then pitched forward +against the support of a slab of rock. + +A very leprechaun of the rocks was it: ribs creasing burned skin about +the naked torso; whity-grey hair streaming down to mingle with a beard; +bare arms like a spider’s legs and all cracked by the sun. The husk of +Doc Stooder, plaything of the desert god, was come here, following the +still living spark of instinct prompting a water search in a canyon. +Come, too, to the secret hiding place of the treasure whose glitter had +so mercilessly befooled him. + +Grant, stupefied by the apparition of death and failing in any +recognition of the skeleton thing as the bibulous doctor of Arizora, +suspected a trick of Urgo. Again he laid his eye along his rifle sight, +vigilant for what might ensue. The creature spread-eagled against the +rock slowly pushed itself upright with its hands; its shaggy head +turned wearily as thirsting eyes scanned the dry chasm. + +Then a shout from across the gorge. Bagley had leaped from his hiding +place and was rushing precariously down to succour the ghost. Just as +he reached Stooder and had thrown an arm about him to heave his wasted +form onto a shoulder the crack of a rifle shivered the gorge’s silence. +Rock dust spurted within a foot of the rescuer. + +The sun went out that second--instantly, like a powerful incandescent +switched off. A yellow penumbra tinged the darkness. + +Almost as one the rifles of Grant and Benicia jetted lead. Two more +shots from the dry wash. The giant figure of Bagley with Stooder limp +over one shoulder never faltered in its leaping and scrambling up the +declivity to the shelter he had quitted. The two who had been following +his flight with stilled hearts saw him disappear behind a great rock; +an instant and a jet of fire lanced down thence at the attackers by the +Gate. + +A blob of rain large as a Mexican dollar smacked on Benicia’s hand +as she pumped the ejector--another and a third. Then the gorge was +blasted by a thunder shock amid the peaks, and a stab of lightning +painted the whole pit sulphurous blue. By its flash the defenders saw +scurrying figures leaping from rock to rock in the stream bed. Quelele, +the quick of eye, fired his first shot by the light of storm fire; one +of the rurales went down like a wet sack. + +A second stunning burst of thunder which knocked out the underpinning +of the sky. Then deluge. + +It was not rain that fell; it was solid water in sheets and cones which +hissed with the speed of its descent. Water so compacted that it was +like a river on edge, engulfing. With it the almost continuous quiver +and jerk of electrical flame. The gorge was become a watery hell. More +than that, for Urgo and his men in the wash it threatened momentarily +to be their tomb. Already a white streak of foam in the lightning +flashes marked where the once bone-dry watercourse was changing +character. + +The rurales and their leader found the odds all of a sudden snatched +from their hands by this frenzied ally of the hunted girl and her +supporters. They had come eleven against five, with their quarry caught +in a hole in the Pinacate sierra; before the cloudburst had endured +three minutes Urgo realized he had let himself and his men into a fatal +trap. Their horses, confidently left behind them in the lower reaches +of the gorge, must already have stampeded under the lash of the storm. +Spiteful rifle flashes from both sides came with each baleful flicker +of fire from the sky to deny escape from the rising waters up either +wall of the chasm. + +Now a dull roaring above the waterfall of the rain began to fill the +gash in the sierra. Away back at the head of the gorge and where the +slope from the twin volcano peaks shed water as from steep roofs +into this common trough, a solid wall, capped dull white, came with +the speed of a meteor down and down through the channel in the +living rock. It rolled boulders the size of box-cars in its flood; a +chevaux-de-frise of barbed cactus and scrub trees tumbled at its crest. + +Even above the tumult of the deluge sounded the shrill alarm of the +rurales as they broke position and turned to flee through the Gate. But +already the flood was there, choking egress. They must scramble up the +sides of the gorge like rats from a flooded hold; they must grope and +cling by every illuminating flash of blue fire, waiting to see where +the next handhold lay, how near the hungry yellow waters rushed. + +With Grant and the girl was nothing but security. Unprotected, they +had bent their heads to the pounding mallets of water. When the firing +abruptly ceased at the rush of their attackers for safety Grant heard +the scream of a horse near at hand and remembered their tethered +animals. Should they break away in their fright the plight of all five +would be a desperate one. + +“Stay here!” he shouted in Benicia’s ear. “Going to the horses!” + +Grant crawled and groped his way over the slippery rocks, each seeming +to be alive with the film of rushing water across it. He clambered down +and to the right until he came to the pulpit rock behind which the +beasts had been tethered by Quelele. The mule he found down, hopelessly +noosed in his hobble rope and slowly strangling; the horses were +huddled, tails to the storm, dripping and dejected. + +It took several minutes’ precarious work to get the pack-animal to +his feet and freshly tethered. Then Grant began the retreat to the +breastwork where he had left the girl. It was largely a matter of +guesswork. Once he found himself against an unscalable wall and had to +retrace his steps. Another time one foot slipped and he caught himself +with his body halfway over the brink. + +A flash of lightning showed him two rifles lying side by side on a +ledge below him--his rifle and Benicia’s; but the girl was gone. The +fist of fear smote him terrifically. + +He screamed her name above the bellowing of the flood in the wash. No +answer. He ran along the ledge that had been theirs until he came to a +downward terrace; to that he leaped and along its blind way he fumbled. +Came the ghost of a scream, thin above the diapason all about. His +name--“Grant!” + +Then merciful lightning blazed blue and he saw. Below him on a broad +shelf which overhung the whiteness of the torrent two figures, +glistening like seals, were locked--they swayed. + +The man launched himself blindly out and down. He rolled; he slipped +and wallowed against and under great boulders. At the end of seconds +seeming æons he came to the rock apron where he had seen the struggling +shapes. Sound of stertorous breathing guided him. He rose from his +knees before Benicia and another, who was trying to drag her along the +ledge. A revealing flash of fire gave him just a glimpse of a weasel +face--Colonel Urgo. + +Not so much rage as loathly horror of an unclean thing sped furious +summons to every muscle spring in his body. With his shoulder planted +against the Spaniard’s chest for a leverage Grant tore loose the man’s +grip from Benicia. Before he could whirl to shift his attack Urgo +had screamed an oath and was on the American’s back, legs twining to +cumber Grant’s thighs, both hands clamped about his throat. It was the +catamount’s attack. + +The first impact of his antagonist’s weight nearly over-balanced Grant +and precipitated both into the maelstrom of waters not six feet below +their ledge. But, steadying himself, the American suddenly launched +backward, pinning the lighter body on his back against a wall of rock. +It was a terrific smash. Urgo’s breath came in a whistle from it. His +hands sank deeper into the muscles about Grant’s throat, closing his +windpipe. Deliberately the standing man took a few forward steps, +then swiftly back against the wall again. An elbow of rock found the +Spaniard’s ribs and cracked two. He shrieked. + +Now Grant’s hands went up to lock behind the head that sagged over his +right shoulder. Strength of desperation flooded into his arms, for the +weaker man had him throttled. Urgo must release his hold on Grant’s +throat or suffer a broken neck. The constricting hands slackened their +grip ever so little. Grant bowed his shoulders, gave a mighty heave +and swept the Colonel’s body over his shoulder in a wide arc. The man +sprawled, arms wide, through the air, struck the edge of the rocky +apron. He clawed--slipped--clawed again, and disappeared. + + + + +CHAPTER XXV + +TREASURE TROVE + + +The storm ceased with the same suddenness as it began. Hardly an hour +had torrential waters lashed the cinder wastes of Pinacate when the +black pall over the heavens broke away and the sun came out to suck +hungrily at pools in the rocks. There was a headiness of wine in the +air, a smell of wet soil mingled with spicy emanations from greasewood +and _palo verde_. The desert’s sparse growing things exulted in the +breaking of long drought. + +For a long time Grant and Benicia on their side of the gorge and Bim +in his retreat opposite lay hidden, awaiting possible renewal of the +attack which the storm had scattered. But the torrent that still raged +down the bottom of the gorge had washed clean every vestige of an +enemy. Quelele on his high post saw four scattered horsemen rushing +pell-mell for the gateway onto the desert--last vestige of Urgo’s +rurales force, each man of which gave thanks to his patron saint that +he had come out of the hell in the mountain cul-de-sac with a whole +skin. + +Quelele also saw several specks dropping earthward from the clear +blue; specks which rapidly grew from the size of gnats to the spread +of small aeroplanes. King condors they, who had smelled a feast from +afar--loathsome birds with a wing spread covering the span of thirteen +feet. The coming of one of these foul creatures to his particular +banquet even the sharp eye of a Papago watcher could not discern, for +the scene was hidden from him by a shoulder of the cañon wall. + +A stunted _palo verde_ tree nearly stripped of its verdure by the whips +of the rain hung half-uprooted over the rapidly diminishing stream in +the wash. One branch had caught and held some flotsam from the high +flood, now clear of the water. Just a shapeless bundle of clothes, +lolling head, arms askew where broken bones had let inert flesh sag to +the current. Just a grim caricature of something which so recently had +walked in the pride of his imaginings. + +The condor flopped clumsily to a branch stub six feet distant from +the bundle of clothes, folded his great wings with a dry rustling of +feathers, blinked the red lids of his eyes to focus his vision for +expert inspection and studied the hank of cloth and flesh suspended +in the tree crotch. The thing which flood waters had brought stirred +slightly; eyes opened with a flutter. They met the critical gaze of the +feathered pariah on the stub. The condor acknowledged this unexpected +show of life on his banquet table by disturbed bobbings of the naked +yellow head--the skin on his poll was wrinkled as an old man’s--and +a bringing of his off eye to bear around his sabre beak with the +skew-like movement of a hen sighting a worm. + +The wreck in the bundle of clothes opened his lips to scream but the +ghost of a groan came instead. It tried to lift a fending arm against +the abomination so near; the muscles tugged at broken bones. + +The condor appraised these manifestations of life carefully, weighed +them by contrast with his experiences with crippled sheep and helpless +calves. His talons stirred restlessly on the branch. First one, then +the other lifted from the bark, stretched and flexed. The king of the +higher airs was impatient. He spread his wings to balance him and +clumsily hopped a few feet nearer, craning his wattled neck anxiously. + +A shadow passed swiftly over the _palo verde_ tree. A quick upward +twist of the head gave the condor view of a putative and too-anxious +fellow guest at the bounty spread there. Greediness pushed him. He +spread his wings and hopped again-- + +Then the desert exacted with cruelty recompense for the cruelties +of Colonel Hamilcar Urgo. Abomination of his passing was meted him +according to the abominations of his own devising. + +An hour after the last rain drop the flood waters in the gorge had +dropped to permit of reunion between the erstwhile defenders of the +pass. Grant waded waist deep with Benicia in his arms; Bim, all smiles, +was stretching out a hand from the off-side rocks. + +“Well, folks all, looks like a pleasant time was enjoyed by all and +one!” The big Arizonan’s spirits would permit of no more concrete +thanksgiving for a crisis passed. It was his way to find laughter +the only vehicle for suppressed emotions and whimsicalities the best +conveyance for thoughts which might sound “high-falutin’.” The three +stood mute, their eyes telling one another things which might have come +flattened and blunted in speech. + +“See me welcome an old visitor just before the curtain went up on the +first act?” Bim turned to Grant, his eyes shining excitement. “Who +d’you think? Ole Doc Stooder!” Grant gasped in surprise. His pal’s grin +faded as he added seriously: + +“Just about the end of his string, too. The rain sure saved +him--couldn’t have lasted another hour--one chance in a thousand +brought him here where they’s folks to look out for him--a friend, +even, to coddle him back to health.” + +“No, not one chance in a thousand,” Benicia caught him up with deep +seriousness in her voice. “It is the desert way--to play with destiny, +I mean, and seem to cause miracles.--But let me go to him if he needs +attention.” She started forward, but Bim put out a staying hand. + +“I wouldn’t, ma’am. The Doc’s not a purty sight right now. His body’s +just drinkin’ in all the water that landed on him an’ he’s sorta +in a daze--doesn’t say much of anything that makes sense. A little +food which I’m goin’ to brew if I can find some dry sticks of wood +anywhere’s round--” Simple charity dictated that Bim say no word of +conjecture as to what brought Stooder to the desert. He guessed full +well. + +El Doctor Coyote Belly seemed to be materialized from the rocks so +noiselessly had he approached the group. The old man’s face was ashen; +unguessable terrors he had fought with and hardly conquered since last +the three had seen him standing in the yellow storm glare before the +cave of Elder Brother. + +“If my daughter will come now to the house of Iitoi,” he said to the +girl in his native tongue, “she may take what Iitoi gives. The god has +expressed his displeasure by the storm--but he will give.” + +Benicia turned and put a wordless question to Grant. They started +together to climb the precipitous rock ladder up the side of the gorge +wall, El Doctor leading. Thirty minutes’ exhaustive effort brought them +to the approach of a high-roofed cavern into which the westering sun +laid a broad carpet of light. There in the shale before the cave mouth +were El Doctor’s pitiful presents to the god--the arrow and prayer +stick wedged upright, the beads and tobacco in a small basket. The +whole ground about was littered with the shards of sacrificial pottery +and scraps of basketry. + +Benicia motioned to El Doctor to lead the way into the cave, but he +shook his head in emphatic negative. Then she gave Grant a strange +smile, almost that of a child who awaits revelation of a mystery. He +saw in deep pools of her eyes a transcendent joy made almost pain by +this moment of hope achieved. She held out her hand for him to take and +they entered the cave. + +When their eyes had become accustomed to the sudden transition from +glaring sunlight into gloom a faint glimmering at the far end of the +sunlight path guided them. Ankle-deep in the dust of ages they groped. +The glimmer waxed stronger. Suddenly Benicia stopped with a catching +of the breath. Grant stooped and lifted a heavy object from a niche of +rock, bringing it into the filtered stream of radiance. + +It was a golden monstrance, dust coated. Faint twinkles of light glowed +like firefly lamps from jewels set in the radii of a glory. A great +diamond above the crystal box caught fire from the sun. + +As Grant hastily bent to replace the sacred vessel his hand tipped the +edge of a shallow basket. From it rolled a stream of moonbeam fire out +into the zone of sunshine. Liquid globules of moon-glow, round and +pellucid as ice crystals, seductive as the shadowed whiteness of a +woman’s throat: the green pearls of the Virgin stripped by the impiety +of El Rojo from the shrine of the Four Evangelists! + +Benicia slowly sank to her knees, words of prayer whispered from her +lips. Prayer of thankfulness and dedication of the lost treasure to the +sanctity of the Church. + +Grant felt his presence in this solemn moment was an intrusion. He +tip-toed back to the mouth of the cave and stood looking out. All the +wildness and the savagery of Altar’s secret fane of the desert god lay +burning and glistening with wetness in the westering sun. The waning +torrent, sardonic gesture of plenty in this ultimate citadel of thirst, +splashed jewels against the lancing light. Here was a world of the +primordial--Creation arrested in its first hour. + +A hand touched his arm lightly. He turned to find Benicia standing +beside him. The sun wove an aura of vivid fire about her head. Her eyes +raised to his were swimming. + +“Now, heart of my heart,” she whispered. And all the love fire in her +flamed from her lips. + + +THE END + + + + + Transcriber’s Notes: + + --Text in italics is enclosed by underscores (_italics_). + + --A Table of Contents has been provided for the convenience of the + reader. + + --Punctuation and spelling inaccuracies were silently corrected. + + --Archaic and variable spelling has been preserved. + + --Variations in hyphenation and compound words have been preserved. + + --The author’s em-dash and punctuation/endquote styles have been + retained. + + + + + + +End of Project Gutenberg's Dust of the Desert, by Robert Welles Ritchie + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 44691 *** |