The Silver Canyon: A Tale of the Western Plains

by George Manville Fenn

  CHAPTER TWENTY.

  THE THIRSTY DESERT.

  The journey was without adventure. Signs of Indians were seen, and thismade those of the train more watchful, but there was no encounter withthe red men of the desert, till an alarm was spread one morning of aparty of about twenty well-mounted Indians being seen approaching thecamp, just as it was being broken up for a farther advance towards themountains.

  The alarm spread; men seized their rifles, and they were preparing tofire upon the swiftly approaching troop, when Bart and Joses set spur totheir horses, and went off at full gallop, apparently to encounter theenemy.

  But they had not been deceived. Even at a distance Bart knew his friendthe Beaver at a glance, and the would-be defenders of the camp saw themeeting, and the hearty handshaking that took place.

  This was a relief, and the men of the expedition gazed curiously at thebronzed, well-armed horsemen of the plains, who sat their wiry, swiftlittle steeds as if they were part and parcel of themselves, when theyrode up to exchange greetings with the Doctor.

  From that hour the Beaver's followers took the place of the lancers,leading the van and closing up the rear, as well as constantly hoveringalong the sides of the long waggon-train, which they guarded watchfullyas if it were their own particular charge.

  The Doctor placed implicit reliance in the chief, who guided them by alonger route, but which proved to be one which took them round the baseof the two mountainous ridges they had to pass, and thus saved theadventurers a long and arduous amount of toil with the waggons in therugged ground.

  At last, when they were well in sight of the flat-topped mountain, andthe Doctor was constantly reining in his horse to sweep the horizon withhis glass in search of the Apaches, the chief rode up to say that he andhis men were about to advance on a scouting expedition to sweep thecountry between them and the canyon, while the train was to press on,always keeping a watchful look-out until their Indian escort returned.

  The Beaver and his men scoured off like the wind, and were soon lost toview, while that night and the next day the long train moved slowly overthe plain to avoid the dense clumps of prickly cactus and agaves,suffering terribly from thirst, for what had been verdant when Bart wasthere last was now one vast expanse of dust, which rose thickly inclouds at the tramp of horse or mule.

  The want of water was beginning to be severely felt; and as they wentsluggishly on, towards the second evening horses and mules with droopingheads, and the cattle lowing piteously, Bart, as he kept cantering fromplace to place to say a few encouraging words, knew that he could holdout no hope of water being reached till well on in the next day, and hewould have urged a halt for rest, only that the Doctor was eager forthem to get as well on their way as possible.

  Night at last, a wretched, weary night of intense heat, and man andbeast suffering horribly from thirst. The clouds had gathered duringthe night, and the thunder rolled in the distance, while vivid flashesof lightning illumined the plains, but no rain fell, and when morningbroke, after the most painful time Bart had ever passed, he found theDoctor looking ghastly, his eyes bloodshot, his lips cracked, and thateven hardy Joses was suffering to as great an extent.

  The people were almost in a state of mutiny, and ready to ask the Doctorif he had dragged them to this terrible blinding waste to perish fromthirst; while it was evident that if water was not soon reached half thebeasts must fall down by the way.

  As it was, numbers of the poor animals were bleeding from the mouth andnostrils from the pricks received as they eagerly champed the variousplants of the cactus family.

  "Let us push on," said the Doctor; "everything depends upon our gettingon to that shallow lake, for there is no water in the way;" but withevery desire to push on, the task became more laborious every hour,--thecattle were constantly striving to stray off to right or left in searchof something to quench their maddening thirst, while, go where he would,the Doctor was met by fierce, angry looks and muttered threats.

  It would have been easy enough for the men to ride on to find water, butthere was always the fear that if they did, the Indians would selectjust that moment for marching down and driving off their cattle andplundering the waggons. Such an attack would have been ruin, perhapsdeath to all, so there was nothing for it but to ride sullenly on incompany with the now plodding cattle, hour after hour.

  "Why don't the Beaver come back, Joses?" cried Bart, pettishly. "If hewere here, his men could take care of the cattle and waggons, while wewent on for water. The lake can't be many miles ahead."

  "A good ways yet," said Joses. "That mountain looks close when it'smiles away. Beaver's watching the Injuns somewheres, or he'd have beenback before now. Say, Master Bart, I'm glad we haven't got much fartherto go. If we had, we shouldn't do it."

  "I'm afraid not," replied Bart, and then they both had to join in thetask of driving back the suffering cattle into the main body, for theywould keep straying away.

  And so the journey went on all that day through the blinding, chokingdust and scorching heat, which seemed to blister and sting till it wasalmost unbearable.

  "Keep it up, my lads," Bart kept on saying. "There's water ahead. Notmuch farther now."

  "That mountain gets farther away," said one of the newcomers. "I don'tbelieve we shall ever get there."

  This was a specimen of the incessant complaining of the people, whom theheat and thirst seemed to rob of every scrap of patience and endurancethat they might have originally possessed.

  But somehow, in spite of all their troubles, the day wore on, and Bartkept hopefully looking out for a glimpse of the water ahead.

  They ought to have reached it long before, but the pace of the wearyoxen had been most painfully slow. Then the wind, what little therewas, had been behind them, seeming as out of the mouth of some furnace,and bringing back upon them the finely pulverised dust that the cattleraised.

  At last, towards evening, the sky began again to cloud over, and themountain that had appeared distant seemed, by the change in theatmosphere, to be brought nearer to them. Almost by magic, too, thewind fell. There was a perfect calm, and then it began to blow from theopposite quarter, at first in soft puffs, then as a steady, refreshingbreeze, and instantly there was a commotion in the camp,--the cattle setoff at a lumbering gallop; the mules, heedless of their burdens,followed suit; the horses snorted and strained at their bridles, andJoses galloped about, shouting to the teamsters in charge of thewaggons, who were striving with all their might to restrain theirhorses.

  "Let them go, my lads; unhitch and let them go, or they'll have thewaggons over."

  "Stampede! stampede!" some of the men kept shouting, and all at once itseemed that the whole of the quadrupeds were in motion; for, acting uponJoses' orders, the teams were unhitched, and away the whole body sweptin a thundering gallop onward towards the mountain, leaving the waggonssolitary in the dusty plain.

  Every now and then a mule freed itself of its pack, and began kickingand squealing in delight at its freedom, while the cattle tossed theirhorns and went on in headlong gallop.

  For once the wind had turned, the poor suffering beasts had sniffed thesoft moist air that had passed over the shallow lake, and their unerringinstinct set them off in search of relief.

  There was no pause, and all the mounted men could do was to let theirhorses keep pace with the mules and cattle, only guiding them clear ofthe thickest part of the drove. And so they thundered on till the dustyplain was left behind, and green rank herbage and thickly growingwater-plants reached, through which the cattle rushed to the shallowwater at the edge of the lake.

  But still they did not stop to drink, but rushed on and on, plashing asthey went, till they were in right up to their flanks. Then, and thenonly, did they begin to drink, snorting and breathing hard, and drawingin the pure fresh water.

  Some bellowed with pleasure as they seemed to satisfy their ragingthirst; others began to swim or waded out till their nostrils only wereabove the surface; while the mule
s, as soon as they had drunk theirfill, started to squeal and kick and splash to the endangerment of theirloads. The horses behaved the most soberly, contenting themselves withwading in to a respectable distance, and then drinking when the waterwas undisturbed and pure, as did their masters; the Doctor, Joses, andBart bending down and filling the little metal cups they carried againand again.

  It was growing dark as they turned from the shallow water of the lake,the mules following the horses placidly enough, and the lumbering cattlecontentedly obeying the call of their masters, and settling themselvesdown directly to crop the rich rank grasses upon the marshy shores.

  A short consultation was held now, and the question arose whether theyhad been observed by Indians, who might come down and try to stampedethe cattle.

  The matter was settled by one-half the men staying to guard them, whilethe other half went back to fetch up the waggons, the mule-drivershaving plenty to do in collecting the burdens that had been kicked off,but which the mules submitted patiently enough to have replaced.

  Still it was long on towards midnight before the waggons had all beendrawn up to the shores of the lake, whose soft moist grasses seemed likeparadise to the weary travellers over the desolate, dusty plains; and nosooner had Bart tethered Black Boy, and seen him contentedly croppingthe grass, than, forgetful of Indians, hunger, everything but the factthat he was wearied out, he threw himself down, and in less than aminute he was fast asleep.