by Zane Grey
“Walk round a little,” she said. “You must be cramped from sitting still so long. I’ll get lunch ready.”
Madeline got down, glad to stretch her limbs, and began to stroll about. She heard Stillwell throw the harness on the ground and slap his horses. “Roll, you sons-of-guns!” he said. Both horses bent their fore legs, heaved down on their sides, and tried to roll over. One horse succeeded on the fourth try, and then heaved up with a satisfied snort and shook off the dust and gravel. The other one failed to roll over, and gave it up, half rose to his feet, and then lay down on the other side.
“He’s sure going to feel the ground,” said Florence, smiling at Madeline. “Miss Hammond, I suppose that prize horse of yours — White Stockings — would spoil his coat if he were heah to roll in this greasewood and cactus.”
During lunch-time Madeline observed that she was an object of manifestly great interest to the three cowboys. She returned the compliment, and was amused to see that a glance their way caused them painful embarrassment. They were grown men — one of whom had white hair — yet they acted like boys caught in the act of stealing a forbidden look at a pretty girl.
“Cowboys are sure all flirts,” said Florence, as if stating an uninteresting fact. But Madeline detected a merry twinkle in her clear eyes. The cowboys heard, and the effect upon them was magical. They fell to shamed confusion and to hurried useless tasks. Madeline found it difficult to see where they had been bold, though evidently they were stricken with conscious guilt. She recalled appraising looks of critical English eyes, impudent French stares, burning Spanish glances — gantlets which any American girl had to run abroad. Compared with foreign eyes the eyes of these cowboys were those of smiling, eager babies.
“Haw, haw!” roared Stillwell. “Florence, you jest hit the nail on the haid. Cowboys are all plumb flirts. I was wonderin’ why them boys nooned hyar. This ain’t no place to noon. Ain’t no grazin’ or wood wuth burnin’ or nuthin’. Them boys jest held up, throwed the packs, an’ waited fer us. It ain’t so surprisin’ fer Booly an’ Ned — they’re young an’ coltish — but Nels there, why, he’s old enough to be the paw of both you girls. It sure is amazin’ strange.”
A silence ensued. The white-haired cowboy, Nels, fussed aimlessly over the camp-fire, and then straightened up with a very red face.
“Bill, you’re a dog-gone liar,” he said. “I reckon I won’t stand to be classed with Booly an’ Ned. There ain’t no cowboy on this range thet’s more appreciatin’ of the ladies than me, but I shore ain’t ridin’ out of my way. I reckon I hev enough ridin’ to do. Now, Bill, if you’ve sich dog-gone good eyes mebbe you seen somethin’ on the way out?”
“Nels, I hevn’t seen nothin’,” he replied, bluntly. His levity disappeared, and the red wrinkles narrowed round his searching eyes.
“Jest take a squint at these hoss tracks,” said Nels, and he drew Stillwell a few paces aside and pointed to large hoofprints in the dust. “I reckon you know the hoss thet made them?”
“Gene Stewart’s roan, or I’m a son-of-a-gun!” exclaimed Stillwell, and he dropped heavily to his knees and began to scrutinize the tracks. “My eyes are sure pore; but, Nels, they ain’t fresh.”
“I reckon them tracks was made early yesterday mornin’.”
“Wal, what if they was?” Stillwell looked at his cowboy. “It’s sure as thet red nose of yourn Gene wasn’t ridin’ the roan.”
“Who’s sayin’ he was? Bill, its more ‘n your eyes thet’s gettin’ old. Jest foller them tracks. Come on.”
Stillwell walked slowly, with his head bent, muttering to himself. Some thirty paces or more from the camp-fire he stopped short and again flopped to his knees. Then he crawled about, evidently examining horse tracks.
“Nels, whoever was straddlin’ Stewart’s hoss met somebody. An’ they hauled up a bit, but didn’t git down.”
“Tolerable good for you, Bill, thet reasonin’,” replied the cowboy.
Stillwell presently got up and walked swiftly to the left for some rods, halted, and faced toward the southwest, then retraced his steps. He looked at the imperturbable cowboy.
“Nels, I don’t like this a little,” he growled. “Them tracks make straight fer the Peloncillo trail.”
“Shore,” replied Nels.
“Wal?” went on Stillwell, impatiently.
“I reckon you know what hoss made the other tracks?”
“I’m thinkin’ hard, but I ain’t sure.”
“It was Danny Mains’s bronc.”
“How do you know thet?” demanded Stillwell, sharply. “Bill, the left front foot of thet little hoss always wears a shoe thet sets crooked. Any of the boys can tell you. I’d know thet track if I was blind.”
Stillwell’s ruddy face clouded and he kicked at a cactus plant.
“Was Danny comin’ or goin’?” he asked.
“I reckon he was hittin’ across country fer the Peloncillo trail. But I ain’t shore of thet without back-trailin’ him a ways. I was jest waitin’ fer you to come up.”
“Nels, you don’t think the boy’s sloped with thet little hussy, Bonita?”
“Bill, he shore was sweet on Bonita, same as Gene was, an’ Ed Linton before he got engaged, an’ all the boys. She’s shore chain-lightnin’, that little black-eyed devil. Danny might hev sloped with her all right. Danny was held up on the way to town, an’ then in the shame of it he got drunk. But he’ll shew up soon.”
“Wal, mebbe you an’ the boys are right. I believe you are. Nels, there ain’t no doubt on earth about who was ridin’ Stewart’s hoss?”
“Thet’s as plain as the hoss’s tracks.”
“Wal, it’s all amazin’ strange. It beats me. I wish the boys would ease up on drinkin’. I was pretty fond of Danny an’ Gene. I’m afraid Gene’s done fer, sure. If he crosses the border where he can fight it won’t take long fer him to get plugged. I guess I’m gettin’ old. I don’t stand things like I used to.”
“Bill, I reckon I’d better hit the Peloncillo trail. Mebbe I can find Danny.”
“I reckon you had, Nels,” replied Stillwell. “But don’t take more ‘n a couple of days. We can’t do much on the round-up without you. I’m short of boys.”
That ended the conversation. Stillwell immediately began to hitch up his team, and the cowboys went out to fetch their strayed horses. Madeline had been curiously interested, and she saw that Florence knew it.
“Things happen, Miss Hammond,” she said, soberly, almost sadly.
Madeline thought. And then straightway Florence began brightly to hum a tune and to busy herself repacking what was left of the lunch. Madeline conceived a strong liking and respect for this Western girl. She admired the consideration or delicacy or wisdom — what-ever it was — which kept Florence from asking her what she knew or thought or felt about the events that had taken place.
Soon they were once more bowling along the road down a gradual incline, and then they began to climb a long ridge that had for hours hidden what lay beyond. That climb was rather tiresome, owing to the sun and the dust and the restricted view.
When they reached the summit Madeline gave a little gasp of pleasure. A deep, gray, smooth valley opened below and sloped up on the other side in little ridges like waves, and these led to the foothills, dotted with clumps of brush or trees, and beyond rose dark mountains, pine-fringed and crag-spired.
“Wal, Miss Majesty, now we’re gettin’ somewhere,” said Stillwell, cracking his whip. “Ten miles across this valley an’ we’ll be in the foothills where the Apaches used to run.”
“Ten miles!” exclaimed Madeline. “It looks no more than half a mile to me.”
“Wal, young woman, before you go to ridin’ off alone you want to get your eyes corrected to Western distance. Now, what’d you call them black things off there on the slope?”
“Horsemen. No, cattle,” replied Madeline, doubtfully.
“Nope. Jest plain, every-day cactus. An’ over hyar — look down the valley. Someth
in’ of a pretty forest, ain’t thet?” he asked, pointing.
Madeline saw a beautiful forest in the center of the valley toward the south.
“Wal, Miss Majesty, thet’s jest this deceivin’ air. There’s no forest. It’s a mirage.”
“Indeed! How beautiful it is!” Madeline strained her gaze on the dark blot, and it seemed to float in the atmosphere, to have no clearly defined margins, to waver and shimmer, and then it faded and vanished.
The mountains dropped down again behind the horizon, and presently the road began once more to slope up. The horses slowed to a walk. There was a mile of rolling ridge, and then came the foothills. The road ascended through winding valleys. Trees and brush and rocks began to appear in the dry ravines. There was no water, yet all along the sandy washes were indications of floods at some periods. The heat and the dust stifled Madeline, and she had already become tired. Still she looked with all her eyes and saw birds, and beautiful quail with crests, and rabbits, and once she saw a deer.
“Miss Majesty,” said Stillwell, “in the early days the Indians made this country a bad one to live in. I reckon you never heerd much about them times. Surely you was hardly born then. I’ll hev to tell you some day how I fought Comanches in the Panhandle — thet was northern Texas — an’ I had some mighty hair-raisin’ scares in this country with Apaches.”
He told her about Cochise, chief of the Chiricahua Apaches, the most savage and bloodthirsty tribe that ever made life a horror for the pioneer. Cochise befriended the whites once; but he was the victim of that friendliness, and he became the most implacable of foes. Then, Geronimo, another Apache chief, had, as late as 1885, gone on the war-path, and had left a bloody trail down the New Mexico and Arizona line almost to the border. Lone ranchmen and cowboys had been killed, and mothers had shot their children and then themselves at the approach of the Apache. The name Apache curdled the blood of any woman of the Southwest in those days.
Madeline shuddered, and was glad when the old frontiersman changed the subject and began to talk of the settling of that country by the Spaniards, the legends of lost gold-mines handed down to the Mexicans, and strange stories of heroism and mystery and religion. The Mexicans had not advanced much in spite of the spread of civilization to the Southwest. They were still superstitious, and believed the legends of treasures hidden in the walls of their missions, and that unseen hands rolled rocks down the gullies upon the heads of prospectors who dared to hunt for the lost mines of the padres.
“Up in the mountains back of my ranch there’s a lost mine,” said Stillwell. “Mebbe it’s only a legend. But somehow I believe it’s there. Other lost mines hev been found. An’ as fer’ the rollin’ stones, I sure know thet’s true, as any one can find out if he goes trailin’ up the gulch. Mebbe thet’s only the weatherin’ of the cliffs. It’s a sleepy, strange country, this Southwest, an’, Miss Majesty, you’re a-goin’ to love it. You’ll call it ro-mantic, Wal, I reckon ro-mantic is correct. A feller gets lazy out hyar an’ dreamy, an’ he wants to put off work till to-morrow. Some folks say it’s a land of manana — a land of to-morrow. Thet’s the Mexican of it.
“But I like best to think of what a lady said to me onct — an eddicated lady like you, Miss Majesty. Wal, she said it’s a land where it’s always afternoon. I liked thet. I always get up sore in the mawnin’s, an’ don’t feel good till noon. But in the afternoon I get sorta warm an’ like things. An’ sunset is my time. I reckon I don’t want nothin’ any finer than sunset from my ranch. You look out over a valley that spreads wide between Guadalupe Mountains an’ the Chiricahuas, down across the red Arizona desert clear to the Sierra Madres in Mexico. Two hundred miles, Miss Majesty! An’ all as clear as print! An’ the sun sets behind all thet! When my time comes to die I’d like it to be on my porch smokin’ my pipe an’ facin’ the west.”
So the old cattleman talked on while Madeline listened, and Florence dozed in her seat, and the sun began to wane, and the horses climbed steadily. Presently, at the foot of the steep ascent, Stillwell got out and walked, leading the team. During this long climb fatigue claimed Madeline, and she drowsily closed her eyes, to find when she opened them again that the glaring white sky had changed to a steel-blue. The sun had sunk behind the foothills and the air was growing chilly. Stillwell had returned to the driving-seat and was chuckling to the horses. Shadows crept up out of the hollows.
“Wal, Flo,” said Stillwell, “I reckon we’d better hev the rest of thet there lunch before dark.”
“You didn’t leave much of it,” laughed Florence, as she produced the basket from under the seat.
While they ate, the short twilight shaded and gloom filled the hollows. Madeline saw the first star, a faint, winking point of light. The sky had now changed to a hazy gray. Madeline saw it gradually clear and darken, to show other faint stars. After that there was perceptible deepening of the gray and an enlarging of the stars and a brightening of new-born ones. Night seemed to come on the cold wind. Madeline was glad to have the robes close around her and to lean against Florence. The hollows were now black, but the tops of the foothills gleamed pale in a soft light. The steady tramp of the horses went on, and the creak of wheels and crunching of gravel. Madeline grew so sleepy that she could not keep her weary eyelids from falling. There were drowsier spells in which she lost a feeling of where she was, and these were disturbed by the jolt of wheels over a rough place. Then came a blank interval, short or long, which ended in a more violent lurch of the buckboard. Madeline awoke to find her head on Florence’s shoulder. She sat up laughing and apologizing for her laziness. Florence assured her they would soon reach the ranch.
Madeline observed then that the horses were once more trotting. The wind was colder, the night darker, the foot-hills flatter. And the sky was now a wonderful deep velvet-blue blazing with millions of stars. Some of them were magnificent. How strangely white and alive! Again Madeline felt the insistence of familiar yet baffling associations. These white stars called strangely to her or haunted her.
V. The Round-Up
IT WAS A crackling and roaring of fire that awakened Madeline next morning, and the first thing she saw was a huge stone fireplace in which lay a bundle of blazing sticks. Some one had kindled a fire while she slept. For a moment the curious sensation of being lost returned to her. She just dimly remembered reaching the ranch and being taken into a huge house and a huge, dimly lighted room. And it seemed to her that she had gone to sleep at once, and had awakened without remembering how she had gotten to bed.
But she was wide awake in an instant. The bed stood near one end of an enormous chamber. The adobe walls resembled a hall in an ancient feudal castle, stone-floored, stone-walled, with great darkened rafters running across the ceiling. The few articles of furniture were worn out and sadly dilapidated. Light flooded into the room from two windows on the right of the fireplace and two on the left, and another large window near the bedstead. Looking out from where she lay, Madeline saw a dark, slow up-sweep of mountain. Her eyes returned to the cheery, snapping fire, and she watched it while gathering courage to get up. The room was cold. When she did slip her bare feet out upon the stone floor she very quickly put them back under the warm blankets. And she was still in bed trying to pluck up her courage when, with a knock on the door and a cheerful greeting, Florence entered, carrying steaming hot water.
“Good mawnin’, Miss Hammond. Hope you slept well. You sure were tired last night. I imagine you’ll find this old rancho house as cold as a barn. It’ll warm up directly. Al’s gone with the boys and Bill. We’re to ride down on the range after a while when your baggage comes.”
Florence wore a woolen blouse with a scarf round her neck, a short corduroy divided skirt, and boots; and while she talked she energetically heaped up the burning wood in the fireplace, and laid Madeline’s clothes at the foot of the bed, and heated a rug and put that on the floor by the bedside. And lastly, with a sweet, direct smile, she said:
“Al told me — and I sure saw
myself — that you weren’t used to being without your maid. Will you let me help you?”
“Thank you, I am going to be my own maid for a while. I expect I do appear a very helpless individual, but really I do not feel so. Perhaps I have had just a little too much waiting on.”
“All right. Breakfast will be ready soon, and after that we’ll look about the place.”
Madeline was charmed with the old Spanish house, and the more she saw of it the more she thought what a delightful home it could be made. All the doors opened into a courtyard, or patio, as Florence called it. The house was low, in the shape of a rectangle, and so immense in size that Madeline wondered if it had been a Spanish barracks. Many of the rooms were dark, without windows, and they were empty. Others were full of ranchers’ implements and sacks of grain and bales of hay. Florence called these last alfalfa. The house itself appeared strong and well preserved, and it was very picturesque. But in the living-rooms were only the barest necessities, and these were worn out and comfortless.
However, when Madeline went outdoors she forgot the cheerless, bare interior. Florence led the way out on a porch and waved a hand at a vast, colored void. “That’s what Bill likes,” she said.
At first Madeline could not tell what was sky and what was land. The immensity of the scene stunned her faculties of conception. She sat down in one of the old rocking-chairs and looked and looked, and knew that she was not grasping the reality of what stretched wondrously before her.
“We’re up at the edge of the foothills,” Florence said. “You remember we rode around the northern end of the mountain range? Well, that’s behind us now, and you look down across the line into Arizona and Mexico. That long slope of gray is the head of the San Bernardino Valley. Straight across you see the black Chiricahua Mountains, and away down to the south the Guadalupe Mountains. That awful red gulf between is the desert, and far, far beyond the dim, blue peaks are the Sierra Madres in Mexico.”
Madeline listened and gazed with straining eyes, and wondered if this was only a stupendous mirage, and why it seemed so different from all else that she had seen, and so endless, so baffling, so grand.