CHAPTER IX.
LLOYD'S DUCK HUNT
MEANWHILE, Lloyd and Jack, riding along toward the river, were enjoyingevery moment of the sunny afternoon. Leaving the road at the WhiteBachelor's, they followed the trail across a strip of desert.
"ENJOYING EVERY MOMENT OF THE SUNNY AFTERNOON"]
"Look out for gopher holes," called Jack. "If your horse should happento stumble into one, you'll be over his head before you can say 'scat.'The little pests burrow everywhere."
As he spoke, his pony sprang to one side of the road with a suddennessthat nearly threw him from the saddle.
"You old goose!" he exclaimed. "That was nothing but a stick you shiedat. But it does look remarkably like a snake, doesn't it, Lloyd? That'sthe way with all these ponies. They're always on the watch for rattlers,and they'll shy at anything that looks the least bit like one."
"I didn't know that we'd find snakes out heah in this dry sand," saidLloyd, in surprise.
"Yes, you'll find almost anything if you know just where to look,--awhole menagerie. There are owls and snakes living together in the sameholes. Wait! It looks as if there might be a nest of them yonder. I'llstir it up and see."
Leaving the trail, he rode up between a clump of sage-brush andgreasewood bushes, and threw his hat with all his force toward a holebeneath them. A great, sleepy owl fluttered out, and sailed off with aslow flapping of wings to the shelter of a stubby mesquit farther on.
"If we had time to dig into the nest, we'd find a snake in there,"declared Jack, hanging down from his saddle, cowboy fashion, to pick uphis hat from the ground as he rode along. He could feel that Lloydadmired the easy grace with which he did it, and that she was interestedin the strange things he had to tell about the desert. He was glad thatPhil was not along, for Phil, with his three years' advantage in age andsix inches in height, had a way of monopolizing attention that made Jackappear very young and insignificant. He resented being made to feel likea little boy when he was almost a year older than Lloyd and severalinches taller.
This was the first time he had been out alone with her, and the firsttime that he had had a chance to show her that he could be entertainingwhen he tried. Joyce and Mary and Phil had always had so much to saythat he had kept in the background.
The sun on Lloyd's hair made it gleam like sunshine itself, tucked upunder her jaunty little hunting-cap. The exercise was bringing a deepercolour to the delicate wild-rose pink of her cheeks, and, as her eyessmiled mischievously up at him whenever he told some tale that seemedalmost too big to believe, he decided that she was quite the nicest girlhe had ever known, except Joyce, and fully as agreeable to go huntingwith as any boy.
In that short trip he pointed out more strange things than she couldhave seen in a whole afternoon in the streets of Paris or London. Therewere the wonderful tiny trap-doors leading down into the silk-linedtunnels of the cunning trap-door spiders; the hairy tarantulas; thelizards; the burrows of the jack-rabbits; a trail made by the feet ofcoyotes on their way to the White Bachelor's poultry-yard.
Then he pointed out a great cactus, sixty feet high, branched like acandelabrum, and told her that the thorny trunk is like a great sealedcup, full of the purest water, and that more than one traveller hassaved his life by boring into one of these desert wells when he wasperishing of thirst.
He told her how the Navajo Indians hunt the prairie-dogs, sticking up apiece of mirror at the entrance to the mound, and lying in wait for thelittle creature to come out. When it meets its own reflection, and seeswhat it supposes to be a strange prairie-dog mocking it at its own frontdoor, it hurries out to fight, and the Indian pins it to the ground withhis arrow.
"Now, we'll have to go faster and make up for lost time," he exclaimed,as they left the desert and turned into a road leading to Tempe, alittle town several miles away on Salt River. "There is an old ruin nearthis road, where the Indians had a fort of some kind, that I'd like toshow you, but it's getting late, and we'd better hurry on to the river.Let's gallop."
Lloyd had enjoyed many a swift ride, but none that had been soexhilarating as this. The pure, fresh air blowing over the desert wasunlike any she had ever breathed before, it seemed so much purer andmore life-giving. It was a joy just to be alive on such a day and insuch a place. She felt that she knew some of the delight a bird mustfeel winging its wild, free way through the trackless sky.
"I'd like to show you the town, too," Jack said, as they came to theford in the river leading over to Tempe. "The Mexican quarter is soforeign-looking. But, as we're out to kill, we'll just keep on thisside, and follow the river up-stream a piece. Chris said that is wherehe saw the ducks."
"Oh, I'd be the proudest thing that evah walked," she exclaimed, "if Icould only shoot one. A peacock couldn't hold a candle to me. It wouldbe worth the trip to Arizona just to do that, if I nevah did anothahthing. How I could crow ovah Malcolm and Rob. Oh, Jack, you haven't anyidea how much I want to!"
"You shall have first pop at them," Jack answered. "You don't stand asgood a show with that little rifle as I do. You'll have to wait till youget up just as close as possible."
Compared to the broad Ohio, which Lloyd was accustomed to seeing, SaltRiver did not look much wider than a creek. She was in a quiver ofexcitement when they turned the bend, and suddenly came in sight of thebeautiful water-fowl. The ponies, trained to stand perfectly stillwherever they were left, came to a sudden halt as the two excitedhunters sprang off, and crept stealthily along the bank.
"They'll see your white sweater," cautioned Jack. "Stoop down, and sneakin behind the bushes."
"Then I'd bettah wait heah," returned Lloyd, "and you go on. I don'tbelieve I could hit a bahn doah now, I'm in such a shake. I must havethe 'buck ague.' If I bang into them, I'll just frighten them all away,and you won't get a shot."
It was a temptation to Jack to do as she urged. This was the first sighthe had had of a duck since he had owned a gun, and the glint of theiridescent feathers as the pretty creatures circled and dived in thewater made him tingle with the hunters' thrill.
"No," he exclaimed, as she insisted. "I brought you out here to shoot aduck, and I don't want to take you back without one."
"Then I'll get down and wiggle along in the sand so they can't see me,"said Lloyd, "just like 'Lawless Dick, the Half-breed Huntah.' Isn't thisfun!"
Crawling stealthily through the greasewood bushes, they crept inch byinch nearer the water, fairly holding their breath with excitement.Then Lloyd, rising to her knees, levelled her rifle to take aim. But herhands shook, and, lowering it, she turned to Jack, whispering, "I'm suahI'll miss, and spoil yoah chance. You shoot!"
"Aw, go on!" said Jack, roughly, forgetting, in his excitement, that hewas not speaking to a boy. "Don't be a goose! You can hit one if youtry!"
The commanding tone irritated Lloyd, but it seemed to steady her nerves,for, flashing an indignant glance at him, she raised her rifle again,and aimed it with deliberate coolness. _Bang!_
Jack, who knelt just beside her, prepared to fire the instant her shotshould send a whir of wings into the air, gave a wild whoop, and droppedhis gun.
"Hi!" he yelled. "You've hit it! See it floating over there! Wait aminute. I'll get it for you!"
Crashing through the bushes he ran back to where Washington stoodwaiting, and, swinging himself into the saddle, spurred him down thebank. But the pony, who had never balked before with him at any ford,seemed unwilling to go in.
"Hurry up, you old slow-poke!" called Jack. "Don't you see it's gettingaway?"
He succeeded in urging him into the middle of the river, where the waterwas almost up to the pony's body, but half-way across, the pony began toplunge, and turned abruptly about. Then his hind feet seemed to giveway, and he went suddenly back on his haunches. At the same instant agruff voice called from the bank, "Come out of that, you little fool!Don't you know there's quicksand there? Head your cayuse down the river!Quick! Spur him up! Do you want to drown yourself?"
With a desperate plunge
and a flounder or two, the pony freed himself,and struggled back to safe ground, past the treacherous quicksand. AsJack reached the bank he saw the White Bachelor peering at him from theback of his white horse. He was evidently on the same mission, for hewore a hunting-coat, as brown and weather-beaten as his swarthy face,and carried an old gun on his shoulder.
"You'd have been sucked clean through to China, if you'd gone muchfarther over," he said, crossly. "That's one of the worst places in theriver." Although his tone was savage, there was a pleasant gleam in hiseyes as he added: "Too bad you've lost your duck."
"Haven't lost it yet," said Jack, with a glance toward the dark objectfloating rapidly down-stream. He kicked off his boots as he spoke.
"Oh, Jack, please don't go in after it!" begged Lloyd. "It isn't worthsuch a risk." The word quicksand had frightened her, for she had heardmuch of the dangerous spots in the rivers of this region.
"Bound to have it!" called Jack, "for you might not get another shot,and I'm bound not to take you back home without one."
Striking out into the water regardless of his sweater and heavy corduroytrousers, he paddled after it. By this time the entire flock was out ofsight, and when Jack emerged from the river dripping like a water-dog,the man remarked, coolly: "Well, your hunt's up for this day, Buddy.Better skip home and hang yourself up to dry, or you'll be havingpneumonia. Aren't you one of the kids that lives at that place wherethey've got Ware's Wigwam painted on the post, and all sorts ofoutlandish figgers on the tents?"
"Yes," acknowledged Jack, in a surly tone, resenting the name kid. Then,remembering the fate that the man's warning had saved him from, headded, gratefully: "It was lucky for me you yelled out quicksand justwhen you did, for I was so bent on getting that duck that I'd have kepton trying, no matter how the pony cut up. I thought he had taken astubborn spell, and wanted to balk at the water. I'm a thousand timesobliged. Here, Lloyd," he added. "Here's your trophy. We'll hang it onyour saddle."
He held out the fowl, a beautifully marked drake, but she drew back witha little shrug of the shoulders.
"Oh, mercy, no!" she answered. "I wouldn't touch it for the world!"
"Haw! Haw!" roared the White Bachelor, who had watched her shrinkinggesture with a grin. "Afraid of a dead duck!"
"I'm not!" she declared, turning on him, indignantly. "I'm not afraid ofanything! But I just can't beah to touch dead things, especially withfu'h or feathahs on them. Ugh! It neahly makes me sick to think aboutit!"
"Well, if that don't beat the Dutch," said the man, in an amused tone,after a long stare. She seemed to be a strange species of womankind,with which he was unacquainted. Then, after another prolonged stare, heswung his heels against the sides of his old white horse as a signal tomove, and ambled slowly off, talking to himself as he went.
"Meddlesome old thing!" muttered Lloyd, casting an indignant glanceafter him. "It's none of his business. I don't see what he wanted topoke in for."
"It was lucky for me that he did," answered Jack. "I never once thoughtof quicksand. Queer that I didn't, too, when I've heard so much about itever since I came. It's all through Southern Arizona, and more than oneman has lost his life blundering into it."
Lloyd grew serious as she realized the danger he had escaped. "It wasmighty brave of you to go back into the rivah aftah you came so neahbeing drowned, and just fo' my pleasuah--just because you knew I wantedthat duck. I'll remembah it always of you, Jack."
"Oh, that's nothing," he answered, carelessly, blushing to the roots ofhis wet hair. "When I once start out to get a thing, I hate to bebeaten. I'd have swam all the way to Jericho rather than let it getaway. But I hope you won't always think of me as sloshing around in thewater, though I suppose you can't help that, for you know the firsttime you saw me I was over my elbows in a washtub."
"That's so," laughed Lloyd. "But you weren't quite as wet then as youare now. It's a pity you can't wring yourself as dry as you did thosetowels."
While Jack was tugging into his boots, she went back to the bushes forthe gun he had dropped. Then she stood drawing out the loads while hetied the duck to his saddle.
"Poah thing," said Lloyd. "It looked so beautiful swimming around in thewatah a few minutes ago. Now it's mate will be so lonesome. Papa Jacksays wild ducks nevah mate again. Of co'se," she went on, slowly, "I'mproud to think that I hit it, but now that it's dead and I took it'slife, I feel like a murdahah. Jack, I'm nevah going to kill anothah oneas long as I live."
"But it isn't as if you'd done it just for sport," protested Jack. "Theywere meant for food. Wait till Joyce serves it for dinner, and you'llchange your mind."
"No," she said, resolutely, "I'll keep my rifle for rattlesnakes andcoyotes, in case I see any, and for tah'get practice, but I'm not goingto do any moah killing of this kind. I'm glad that I got this one,though," she added, as she swung herself into the saddle. "I'll sendgrandfathah a feathah, and one to Mom Beck. They'll both be so proud.And I'll send one to Malcolm and one to Rob, and they'll both be soenvious, to think that I got ahead of them."
"May I have one?" asked Jack, "just to keep to remember my first duckhunt?"
"Yes, of co'se!" cried Lloyd. "I wouldn't have had any myself, if ithadn't been for you. You have given me one of the greatest pleasuahs Ievah had. This has been a lovely aftahnoon."
"Then I can count that quite a 'feather in my cap,' can't I," said Jack,laughingly. Reaching down, he selected the prettiest feather he couldfind, and thrust the long quill through his hatband. Lloyd glancedquickly at him. She would have expected such a complimentary speech fromMalcolm or Phil, but coming from the quiet, matter-of-fact Jack, such agraceful bit of gallantry was a surprise.
"You can save the down for a sofa-cushion, you know," he added. "Even ifyou have sworn off shooting any more yourself, you can levy on all thatPhil and I get, to finish it."
"Oh, thank you," she called back over her shoulder. Her pony, findingthat he was turned homeward, was setting off at his best gait. Slappinghis hat firmly on his head, Jack hurried to overtake her, and the tworaced along neck to neck.
"This is how they brought the good news from Ghent to Aix," he called."I recited it once at school!
"'Not a word to each other; we kept the great pace,-- Neck by neck, stride by stride, never changing our place.'"
"Isn't it glorious?" called back Lloyd. Her cheeks dimpled withpleasure, and were growing red as a sun-ripened peach from the exercise.Her hat-pin began slipping out. Snatching at the little cap, she caughtit just in time to save it from sailing off into the desert, but herhair came slipping down over her shoulders to her waist, in soft,shining waves. Jack thought that he had never seen anything prettierthan the little golden ripples in it, as it floated back behind her inthe sunshine.
"You look like Goldilocks when the three bears chased her," he laughed."Don't try to put it up again. That's squaw fashion. You ought to wearit that way all the time you're out here, if you want to be in style."
Across the road from the Wigwam, Mary and Norman were waiting for thereturn of the hunters. They had rolled a barrel from the back yard overto the edge of the desert, where they could watch the road, and, turningit on its side, had laid a plank across it, left from flooring thetents. On this they were seesawing up and down, taking turns atoccupying the end which faced in the direction Jack and Lloyd wouldcome. Mary happened to have the coveted seat when they came in sight.
"Gay go up, and gay go down," she chanted, as the seesaw rose and fellwith delightful springiness. "All the way to London town." Norman washigh in the air when she began again, "Gay go up," but it was anythingbut gay go down for Norman. With an unexpectedness that he was whollyunprepared for, Mary's chant ended with a whoop of "Here they come!" Shesprang off, and ran to meet them, regardless of the other end of theplank. It fell with such a thud that Norman felt that his spinal columnmust certainly have become unjointed in the jolt, and his little whiteteeth shut down violently on his little red tongue.
His cries and Mary's shout of
"Here they come" brought Joyce to thedoor. Mr. Ellestad was just leaving. She had prevailed upon him to readthe legend to her mother, and then he had stayed on till sundown,discussing the different things that a girl might do on the desert toearn money. The story of Shapur had inspired her with a hope that madeall things possible. She was glad that Lloyd's triumph gave her anoutlet for her enthusiasm.
As soon as Mr. Ellestad left, she hustled Jack off to his mother's tentto change his wet clothes, and then started to build the fire forsupper. "It's a pity that it's too dark for me to take a snap shot ofyou with that duck," she said. "But the first one that Jack or Philkills we'll have a picture of it. It will do just as well. Then if Iwere you I'd make some little blotting-pads of white blotting-paper, puta blue-print on the top sheet, of you and your rifle and the duck, andat the top fasten one of the feathers made into a pen. You can split theend of the quill, you know, just as they used to make the old-fashionedgoose-quill pens."
"So I can!" cried Lloyd. "I'm so glad you thought of it. Oh, Joyce, I'vehad the best time this aftahnoon! I had no idea the desert could be sointeresting!"
"Nor I, either," began Joyce. "I'll tell you about it some other time,"she added, as Holland burst in, demanding to see the duck that Lloyd hadkilled. Mary had run down the road to meet him with the news, but hestoutly declined to believe that a girl could have accomplished such afeat, until he had the proof of it in his hands. Then to Lloyd'sdelight he claimed the honour of picking it. She felt that she wouldrather throw it away than go through the ordeal herself, yet she couldnot impose such a task on any one else at such a late hour on a busySaturday.
"Oh, if you only will," she cried, "I'll let you use my rifle all nextSaturday. I didn't see how I could possibly touch it! That down is sothick undah the long outside feathahs, that it would be as bad aspicking a--a _cat_!"
Holland ripped out a handful with a look of fine scorn. "Well, if youaren't the funniest!" he exclaimed. "Girls are awful finicky," heconfided to Mary later. "I'm glad that I'm not one."
The Little Colonel in Arizona Page 9