by B. M. Bower
CHAPTER XIII. SET AFOOT
The tracks of the six horses led down into a rock-bottomed arroyo sodeep in most places that all view of the surrounding mesa was shut offcompletely, save where the ragged tops of a distant line of hills pushedup into the dazzling blue of the sky. The heat, down here among therocks, was all but unbearable; and when they discovered that no tracksled out of the arroyo on the farther side, the Happy Family dismountedand walked to save their horses while they divided into two parties andhunted up and down the arroyo for the best trail.
It was just such vexatious delays as this which had kept them always aday's ride or more behind their quarry, and Luck's hand trembled withnervous irritability when he turned back and banded Applehead one ofthose small, shrill police whistles whose sound carries so far, andwhich are much used by motion-picture producers for the long-distancedirection of scenes.
"I happened to have a couple in my pocket," he explained hurriedly. "Youknow the signals, don't you? One long, two short will mean you've pickedup the trail. Three or more short, quick ones is an emergency call, forall hands to come running."
"Well, they's one thing you want to keep in mind, Luck," Applehead urgedfrom his superior trail craft. "They might be sharp enough to ride inhere a ways and come out the same side they rode in at. Yuh want to huntboth sides as yuh go up."
"Sure," said Luck, and hurried away up the arroyo with Pink, BigMedicine, Andy and the Native Son at his heels, leading the twopack-horses that belonged to their party. In the opposite direction wentApplehead and the others, their eyes upon the ground watching for thefaintest sign of hoofprints.
That blazing ball of torment, the sun, slid farther and farther down tothe skyline, tempering its heat with the cool promise of dusk. Away upthe arroyo, Luck stopped for breath after a sharp climb up through anarrow gash in the sheer wall of what was now a small canon, and sawthat to search any farther in that direction would be useless. Acrossthe arroyo--that had narrowed and deepened until it was a canon--AndyGreen was mopping his face with his handkerchief and studying a boldhump of jumbled bowlders and ledges, evidently considering whether itwas worth while toiling up to the top. A little below him, the NativeSon was flinging rocks at a rattlesnake with the vicious precision offrank abhorrence. Down in the canon bottom Big Medicine and Pink wereholding the horses on the shady side of the gorge, and the smoke oftheir cigarettes floated lazily upward with the jumbled monotone oftheir voices.
Andy, glancing across at Luck, waved his hand and sat down on arock that was shaded by a high bowlder; reached mechanically for his"makings" and with his feet far apart and his elbows on his thighs,wearily rolled a cigarette.
"How about it, boss?" he asked, scarcely raising his voice above theordinary conversational tone, though a hard fifteen-minutes' climb upand down separated the two; "they never came up the arroyo, if you askME. My side don't show a hoof track from where we left the boys downbelow."
"Mine either," Luck replied, by the power of suggestion seating himselfand reaching for his own tobacco and papers. "We might as well work backdown and connect with Applehead. Wish there was some sign of water inthis darn gulch. By the time we get down where we started from, it'll besundown." He glanced down at Bud and Pink. "Hey! You can start back any,time," he called. "Nothing up this way."
"Here's the grandfather of all rattlers," Miguel called across to Luck,and held up by the tail a great snake that had not ceased its muscularwrithings. "Twelve rattles and a button. Have I got time to skin him? Hetried to bite me on the leg--but I beard him and got outa reach."
"We've got to be moving," Luck answered. "It's a long ways back wherewe started from, and we've got to locate water, if we can." He rose withthe deliberateness that indicated tired muscles, and started back; andto himself he muttered exasperatedly: "A good three hours all shot topieces--and not a mile gained on that bunch!"
The Native Son, calmly pinching the rattles of the snake he had not timeto skin, climbed down into the Canon and took his horse by the bridlereins. Behind him Andy Green came scrambling; but Luck, still faintlyhoping for a clue, kept to the upper rim of the arroyo, scanning everybit of soft ground where it seemed possible for a horse to climb up frombelow. He had always recognized the native cunning of Ramon, but he hadnever dreamed him as cunning as this latest ruse would seem to provehim.
As for Bill Holmes, Luck dismissed him with a shrug of contempt. BillHolmes had been stranded in Albuquerque when the cold weather was comingon; he had been hungry and shelterless and ill-clad--one of those bitsof flotsam which drift into our towns and stand dejectedly upon ourstreet-corners when they do not prowl down alleys to the back doors ofour restaurants in the hope of being permitted to wash the soiled dishesof more fortunate men for the food which diners have left beside theirplates. Luck had fed Bill Holmes, and he had given him work to do andthe best food and shelter he could afford; and for thanks, Bill had--asLuck believed--made sly, dishonest love to Annie-Many-Ponies, for whosephysical and moral welfare Luck would be held responsible. Bill haddeliberately chosen to steal rather than work for honest wages, and hadpreferred the unstable friendship of Ramon Chavez to the cleaner lifein Luck's company. He did not credit Bill Holmes with anything strongerthan a weak-souled treachery. Ramon, he told himself while he made hisway down the arroyo side, was at least working out a clever scheme ofhis own, and it rested with Luck and his posse to see that Ramon wascheated of success.
So deeply was he engrossed that before he realized it he was down wherethey had left Applehead's party. There was no sign of them anywhere, soLuck went down and mounted his horse and led the way down the arroyo.
Already the heat was lessening and the land was taking on thosetranslucent opal tints which make of New Mexico a land of enchantment.The far hills enveloped themselves in a faint, purplish haze throughwhich they seemed to blush unwittingly. The mesa, no longer showingitself an and waste of heat and untracked wilderness, lay soft under athin veil of many ethereal tints. Away off to the northeast they heardthe thin, vague clamor of a band of sheep and the staccato barking of adog.
Luck rode for some distance, his uneasiness growing as the shadowsdeepened with the setting of the sun. They had gone too far to hearany whistled signal, but it seemed to him reasonable to suppose thatApplehead would return to their starting point, whether he found thetrail or not; or at least send a man back. Luck began to think moreseriously of Applehead's numerous warnings about the Indians--and yet,there had been no sound of shooting, which is the first sign of troublein this country. Rifle shots can be heard a long way in this clear air;so Luck presently dismissed that worry and gave his mind to the veryreal one which assailed them all; which was water for their horses.
The boys were riding along in silence, sitting over to one side with afoot dangling free of its stirrup; except Andy, who had hooked oneleg over the saddle-horn and was riding sidewise, smoking a meditativecigarette and staring out between the ears of his horse. They weretired; horses and men, they were tired to the middle of their bones.But they went ahead without making any complaints whatever or raspingoneanother's tempers with ill-chosen remarks; and for that Luck's eyesbrightened with appreciation.
Presently, when they had ridden at least a mile down the arroyo, a grayhat-crown came bobbing into sight over a low tongue of rocky groundthat cut the channel almost in two. The horses threw up their heads andperked cars forward inquiringly, and in a moment Happy Tack came intoview, his gloomy, sunburned face wearing a reluctant grin.
"Well, we got on the trail," he announced as soon as he was closeenough. "And we follered it to water. Applehead says fer you to come onand make camp. Tracks are fresher around that' water-hole'n what theyhave been, an' Applehead, he's all enthused. I betche we land themfellers t'morrow."
Out of the arroyo in a place where the scant grassland lapped down overthe edge, Happy Jack led the way and the rest followed eagerly. Toooften had they made dry camp not to feel jubilant over the prospect evenof a brackish water-hole. Even the horses seemed
to know and to step outmore briskly. Straight across the mesa with its deceptive lights thatconcealed distance behind a glamor of intimate nearness, they rode intothe deepening dusk that had a glow all through it. After a while theydipped into a grassy draw so shallow that they hardly realized thedescent until they dismounted at the bottom, where Applehead was alreadystarting a fire and the others were laying out their beds and doing thehundred little things that make for comfort in camp.
A few bushes and a stunted tree or two marked the spring that seepeddown and fed a shallow water-hole where the horses drank thirstily.Applehead grinned and pointed to the now familiar hoofprints which theyhad followed so far.
"I calc'late Ramon done a heap uh millin' around back there in thatrocky arroyo," he observed, "'fore he struck off over here. Er else theywas held up fer some reason, 'cause them tracks is fresher a hull lotthan what them was that passed the Injun ranch. Musta laid over herelas' night, by the looks. But I figgered that we'd best camp whilst wehad water, 'n' take up the trail agin at daybreak. Ain't that about theway you see it, Luck?"
"Why, certainly," Luck assured him with as much heartiness as his utterweariness would permit. "Men and horses, we're about all in. If Ramonwas just over the next ridge, I don't know but it would pay to take ourrest before we overhaul them."
"They's grass here, yuh notice," Applehead pointed out. "I'll put thebell on Johnny, and if Pink'll bobble that buckskin that's allus wantin'to wander off by hisself, I calc'late we kin settle down an' rest ourbones quite awhile b'fore anybody needs to go on guard. Them poniesain't goin' to stray fur off if they don't have to, after the groun'they covered t'day--now I'm tellin' yuh! They'll save their steps."
There is a superstition about prophesying too boastfully that a certainthing will or will not happen; you will remember that there is also aprovision that the rash prophet may avert disaster by knocking wood.Applehead should, if there is any grain of sense in the rite, haveknocked wood with his fingers crossed as an extra precaution, againstevil fortune.
For after they had eaten and methodically packed away the food, andwhile they were lying around the cheerful glow of their little campfire,misfortune stole up out of the darkness unaware. They talked desultorilyas tired men will, their alertness dulled by the contented tinkle-tinkleof the little bell strapped around the neck of big, bay Johnny,Applehead's companion of many a desert wandering. That brilliantconstellation which seems to hang just over one's head in the highaltitude of our sagebrush states, held hypnotically the sleepy gaze ofPink, whose duty it was to go on guard when the others turned in for thenight. He lay with his locked fingers under his head, staring up at oneparticularly bright group of stars, and listened to the droning voiceof Applehead telling of a trip he had made out into this country five orsix years before; and soaking in the peace and the comfort which was allthe more precious because he knew that soon he must drag his weary bodyinto the saddle and ride out to stand guard over the horses. Once hehalf rose, every movement showing his reluctance.
Whereupon Weary, who sprawled next to him, reached out a languid footand gave him a poke. "Aw, lay down," he advised. "They're all right outthere for another hour. Don't yuh hear the bell?"
They all listened for a minute. The intermittent tinkle of the cheaplittle sheep bell came plainly to them from farther down the draw asthough Johnny was eating contentedly with his mates, thankful for theleisure and the short, sweet grass that was better than hay. Pink layback with a sigh of relief, and Luck told him to sleep a little if hewanted to, because everything was all right and he would call him if thehorses got to straying too far off.
Down the draw--where there were no horses feeding--an Indian in dirtyoveralls and gingham shirt and moccasins, and with his hair bobbed tohis collar, stood up and peered toward the vague figures grouped in thefire-glow. He lifted his hand and moved it slightly, so that the bell hewas holding tinkled exactly as it had done when it was strapped aroundJohnny's neck; Johnny, who was at that moment trailing disgustedly overa ridge half a mile away with his mates, driven by two horsemen who rodevery carefully, so as to make no noise.
The figures settled back reassured, and the Indian grinned sourly andtinkled the little bell painstakingly, with the matchless patience ofthe Indian. It was an hour before he dimly saw Pink get up from thedying coals and mount his horse. Then, still tinkling the bell as afeeding horse would have made it ring, he moved slowly down the draw;slowly, so that Pink did not at first suspect that the bell soundedfarther off than before; slowly yet surely, leading Pink farther andfarther in the hope of speedily overtaking the horses that he cursed fortheir wandering.
Pink wondered, after a little, what was the matter with the darnedthings, wandering off like that by themselves, and with no possibleexcuse that he could see. For some time he was not uneasy; he expectedto overtake them within the next five or ten minutes. They would stop tofeed, surely, or to look back and listen--in a strange country like thisit was against horse-nature that they should wander far away at nightunless they were thirsty and on the scent of water. These horses haddrunk their fill at the little pool below the spring. They shouldbe feeding now, or they should lie down and sleep, or stand up andsleep--anything but travel like this, deliberately away from camp.
Pink tried loping, but the ground was too treacherous and his horse tooleg-weary to handle its feet properly in the dark. It stumbled severaltimes, so he pulled down again to a fast walk. For a few minutes hedid not hear the bell at all, and when he did it was not where he hadexpected to hear it, but away off to one side. So he had gained nothingsave in anger and uneasiness.
There was no use going back to camp and rousing the boys, for he was nowa mile or so away; and they would be afoot, since their custom was tokeep but one horse saddled. When he went in to call the next guard hewould be expected to bring that man's horse back with him, and wouldturn his own loose before he went to sleep. Certainly there was nothingto be gained by rousing the camp.
He did not suspect the trick being played upon him, though he did wonderif someone was leading the horses away. Still, in that case whoeverdid it would surely have sense enough to muffle the bell. Besides, itsounded exactly like a horse feeding and moving away at random--which,to those familiar with the sound, can never be mistaken for the tinkleof an animal traveling steadily to some definite point.
It was an extremely puzzled young man who rode and rode that night inpursuit of that evasive, nagging, altogether maddening tinkle. Alwaysjust over the next little rise he would hear it, or down in the nextlittle draw; never close enough for him to discover the trick; never farenough away for him to give up the chase. The stars he had been watchingin camp swam through the purple immensity above him and slid behindthe skyline. Other stars as brilliant appeared and began their slow,swimming journey. Pink rode, and stopped to listen, and rode on againuntil it seemed to him that he must be dreaming some terribly realisticnightmare.
He was sitting on his horse on a lava-crusted ridge, straining bloodshoteyes into the mesa that stretched dimly before him, when dawn camestreaking the sky with blood orange and purple and crimson. The starswere quenched in that flood of light; and Pink, looking now with clearervision, saw that there was no living thing in sight save a coyotetrotting home from his night's hunting. He turned short around and,getting his bearings from his memory of certain stars and from the sunthat was peering at him from the top of a bare peak, and from that senseof direction which becomes second nature to a man who had lived long onthe range, started for camp with his ill news.