CHAPTER XV.
LOST ON THE DESERT
IF Washington had not lost a shoe on the way home from church, and ifJoyce had not been seized with a violent headache that sent her to bedwith a bandage over her eyes, the day would have ended far differentlyfor Lloyd.
The afternoon went by quickly, for, lulled by the drowsy hum of thebees, she had fallen asleep in the hammock under the umbrella-tree, andslept a long time. Then supper was earlier than usual, as Jack wantedhis before starting to the ranch. Chris, the Mexican, was taking aholiday, and had offered Jack a quarter to do the milking for him thatevening. Holland strolled down the road with him, since the losthorseshoe prevented him taking the ride he had expected to enjoy.
Scarcely were they out of sight when an old buggy rattled up from theother direction, bringing a woman and her two little girls from aneighbouring ranch for an evening visit. Lloyd, who was on her way tothe tent to see if she could do anything for Joyce's comfort, heard avoice which she recognized as Mrs. Shaw's, as the woman introducedherself to Mrs. Ware.
"I've been planning to get over here ever since you came," she began,"and specially since I got acquainted with your daughter over them bees,but 'pears like there's nothing in life on week-days but work; so thisevening, when my little girls begged to come over and see your littlegirl, says I to myself, it's now or never, and I just hitched up andcame."
"Oh, deah!" sighed Lloyd. "I don't want to spend the whole eveninglistening to that tiahsome woman. The boys are gone, and Joyce's headaches too bad for her to talk. I don't know what to do."
She stepped softly into the tent, insisting on rubbing Joyce's head, ordoing something to make her more comfortable, but Joyce sent her away,saying that the pain was growing less, and that she didn't want her tostay shut up in the tent that smelled so strongly of the camphor she hadspilled.
Lloyd turned away and wandered down to the pasture bars, where she stoodlooking over toward the west. The sun was dropping out of sight. Forthe first time since she had come to the Wigwam she felt lonesome. Shewas so full of life after her long sleep, so fresh and wide-awake, thatshe looked around her restlessly, wishing that something exciting wouldhappen. She was in the mood to enjoy an adventure of some kind, nomatter what.
While she stood there, her pony, who had often been coaxed up to thebars for sugar, now came up through curiosity, evidently wondering ather silence. "Come on, old boy," she said, reaching through the bars tograsp the rope that trailed from his neck. "You've settled it. We'll gooff and have a ride togethah."
With some difficulty, she saddled him herself, and then because she didnot want to disturb Joyce by going back to the tent to change her whitedress for her divided skirt, she mounted as if the cross-saddle were aside-saddle, and rode slowly out of the yard bareheaded.
Mrs. Ware fluttered her handkerchief in response to the wave of Lloyd'shand, and looked after her as she took the road to the ranch. "She'sgoing to see Mrs. Lee," she thought, and then turned her attention toher talkative visitor.
It was merely from force of habit that Lloyd had taken the ranch road.She was in sight of the camp before she became aware of where the ponywas carrying her.
Then she turned abruptly, hardly knowing why she did so. Phil was at theranch. She would not have him think that she had gone down with the hopeof seeing him. She did not put the thought into words, but that is whatinfluenced her to turn. In front of her Camelback Mountain loomed up,looking larger and more lifelike than usual, with the reflected light ofthe sunset lying rosy red on its summit. She knew that there issomething extremely deceptive in the clear Arizona atmosphere, and hadbeen told that the distance to the mountain was over five miles. But itwas hard to believe. It looked so near that she was sure that she couldreach it in a few minutes' brisk ride,--that she could easily go thatfar and back before daylight was entirely gone.
An old game that she had played at the Cuckoos' Nest sent a versefloating idly through her memory:
"How many miles to Barley-bright?" "_Three score and ten!_" "Can I get there by candle light?" "_Yes, if your legs are long and light-- There and back again!_ _Look out! The witches will catch you!_"
With somewhat of the same eerie feeling that had affected her when shejoined in the game with Betty and the little Appletons, she turned thepony into the narrow trail that led across the sand in and out among thesage-brush. Later, those same gray bushes might look startlingly likewitches reaching up out of the gloaming.
"It's a good thing that yoah legs _are_ long and light," she said to thepony, as he started off with a long, rabbit-like lope. "And it's a goodthing that you seem as much at home heah as Br'er Rabbit was in thebrush-pile when Br'er Fox threw him in for stealing his buttah. I'm gladit isn't old Tar Baby that I'm on. He wouldn't be used to these gophahholes, and would stumble into the first one we came to. Oh, this isglorious!"
She shook back her hair as the soft, orange-perfumed breeze blew itabout her face. Her full white sleeves fluttered out from her arms.Again she had that delightful sense of birdlike motion, of free, wildswinging through space. On and on they went, never noticing how far theyhad travelled or how dark it was growing, till suddenly she saw that shewas not on any trail. A thick growth of stubby mesquit bushes madealmost a thicket in front of her. An enormous cactus, thirty feet high,stood in her way like one of the Barley-bright witches. From its thornytrunk stretched two great arms, thrown up as if to ward off her coming.Its resemblance to a human figure was uncanny, and she stood staring atit with a fascinated gaze.
"It's big enough to be the camel-drivah of the camel in the mountain,"she said in a half-whisper to the pony. Then looking on toward themountain, she realized that she had to strain her eyes to see it throughthe rapidly gathering gloom. Night had fallen suddenly, and the mountainseemed farther away than when she started.
"Oh, it will be black night befoah we get home," she thought, turning innervous haste. Then a new trouble confronted her. She was facing a dim,trackless wilderness, and she did not know how to get home. She had keptthe mountain steadily in view as she rode toward it, but now sherealized that it was so large that she could easily do that, and stillat the same time go far out of her course.
"You'll have to find the way home," she said, helplessly, to the pony,failing to remember that the Wigwam pasture had been his home for only afew weeks, and that, left to himself, he would go directly to his nativeranch.
"CLATTERING DOWN THE ROAD AS FAST AS HIS FEET COULD CARRYHIM"]
In a few minutes Lloyd found herself carried along a narrow road, notmore than a wagon track. While she knew that she had never been over itbefore, it was some comfort to find that she was on a humanthoroughfare, and not lost among the tracks of wandering coyotes andjack-rabbits.
The pony, feeling that he was headed toward his own home, went willinglyenough, and Lloyd began to enjoy her adventure.
"How exciting it will sound back in that tame little Valley," shethought, "lost in the desert! I'll give the girls such a thrillingdescription of it that they'll feel cold chills running up and downtheir spines. It's a wondah that the cold chills don't run up and downme! But I'm not one bit afraid now. This road is bound to lead tosomebody's house, and everybody is so friendly out heah in the West thatwhoevah finds me will take me home."
The pony swung along a few rods farther, then, startled by an owl risingsuddenly out of the wayside bushes with a heavy flopping of wings,jumped sideways with such a start that Lloyd was almost thrown from herseat. It was an insecure one at best, and she was about to throw herfoot over into the other stirrup when a forward plunge sent the ponyinto a gopher hole, and Lloyd over his head.
When she picked herself up from the road and looked dizzily around, shegave a little gasp of horror. The pony, freed of his burden and spurredon by his fright, was clattering down the road as fast as his feet couldcarry him, and she was left helpless in what seemed to her the veryheart of the great, desolate desert. She stood motionless till the lastf
aint thud of the pony's hoofs died away down the road. Then she lookedaround her and shivered. The possibility of the pony's not goingstraight to the Wigwam had not yet occurred to her, but she felt thatunder any circumstances she was doomed to stay in the desert untilmorning. They would be badly frightened at the Wigwam, and would rousethe ranch to send out a searching-party, but they might as well look fora needle in a haystack as to make an attempt to find her in thedarkness. She did not know where she was herself. She was within astone's throw of one of the buttes, out which one she could not tell.She stood peering around her through the twilight with eager, dilatedeyes. A twig crackled near her, trampled underfoot by some little wildcreature as startled as she. The desert had seemed so still before, butnow it was full of strange whisperings and rustlings. Remembering whatJack had told her when he showed her the nest shared by snakes and owls,she dared not sit down for fear some snake should come crawling out ofthe hole from which the owl had flown. She felt that it would be uselessto walk on, since every step might be carrying her farther away from theWigwam.
How long she stood there in the road she could not tell, but presentlyit seemed to her that it was growing lighter. She could see the outlinesof the butte more distinctly, and the sky behind it was growinggradually luminous. Then she remembered that the moon would be up in alittle while, and her courage came back as she stood and waited. Whenits round, familiar face came peeping up over the horizon, she felt asif an old friend were smiling at her.
"I'm neahly as glad to see you as if you were one of the family," shesaid, aloud, with a little sob in her throat. The feeling that this wasthe same moon that had looked down on her through the locusts, all herlife, and had even peeped through the windows and seen Mom Beck rockingher to sleep in her baby days, gave her a sense of companionship thatwas wonderfully comforting.
It was tiresome standing in the road, and, as she dared not sit down andrisk finding snakes, she decided to climb up the side of the butte andlook out over the country. Maybe she might see the light from some ranchhouse. At least on its rocky slope she would be freer from snakes thandown among the bushes and the owls' nests.
Scrambling over a ledge of rock she stumbled upon a pile of tin cans andbroken bottles, which told of many past picnic parties near that spot. Alittle higher up she clasped her hands with a cry of pleasedrecognition. She was at the beginning of the great hole that led throughthe rock. Only two nights before she had sat on that very boulder, andspeared olives out of a bottle with a hat-pin. There were their ownsardine cans, and the fragments of the teacup Hazel had dropped. A moundof ashes and some charred sticks marked the spot where the camp-fire hadblazed.
She looked around, wondering if by some happy chance Jo could have leftany matches. A brilliant idea had come to her of lighting a bonfire. Sheknew that it could be seen from the ranch, and would draw attention toher at once. A long search failed to show any stray matches, and shewondered if she could find flint among the rocks, or how long it wouldtake to get fire by rubbing two sticks together.
Some of the gruesome tales of Apache warfare that had been told aroundthe fire came back to her as she stood looking at the ashes, but sheresolutely turned her thoughts away from them, to the Indian school shehad seen the day before. It was wonderfully comforting to think of thatlittle Indian girl at the piano, patiently practising her five-fingerexercises, and of the Indian boy in the brass-buttoned uniform ploughingin the fields. It made them seem so civilized and tame. The time oftomahawks and tortures was long past, she assured herself, and there wasnot nearly so much to fear from the peaceful Pimas and Maricopas asthere was sometimes from the negroes at home.
So, quieting herself with such assurances, she climbed up to acomfortable seat on a rock, where she could lean back against thecavelike wall, and sat looking out through the great hole, as the moonrose higher and higher in the heavens. Half an hour slipped by inintense silence. Then her heart gave a thump of terror, so loud that sheheard the beating distinctly. There was a fierce, hot roaring in herears.
Down at the foot of the butte, going swiftly along with moccasinedtread, was a stalwart Indian. Not one of the peaceful Pimas she had beenaccustomed to seeing, but a cruel-mouthed, eagle-eyed Apache. At leasthe looked like the pictures she had seen of Apaches.
He had a lariat in his hand, and he stooped several times to examine thetracks ahead of him, as if following a trail. Instantly there flashedinto Lloyd's mind what Mrs. Lee had told them about the Indians allowingtheir ponies to run loose on the desert. Sometimes the settlers'children used to catch them, and keep them all day to ride. But woe beit, she said, if the owner tracked his pony to a settler's house beforeit was turned loose. He always took his revenge. Lloyd was sure thatthis was what the Indian was after, as she noticed the lariat, and theway his keen eyes followed the trail. She almost held her breath as shewaited for him to pass on. But he did not pass.
Throwing up his head he looked all around, and then, leaving the trail,started swiftly up the butte toward her. Almost frozen with fear, Lloyddrew back into the shadow, and, rolling over the ledge, drew herselfinto as small a space as possible, crouching down to hide her whitedress. Through a crevice between the rocks she watched his approach withwide, terrified gaze, sure that some savage instinct, like abloodhound's sense of smell, had warned him of her presence.
For an instant, as he reached the remains of the camp-fire, he stoodmotionless, looking out across the country, silhouetted darkly againstthe sky, like the head on the leather cushion she was taking home to hergrandfather, she thought, or rather that she had intended to take. Maybeshe would never live to see her home again.
She crouched still closer against the rock, rigid, tense, scarcelybreathing. With a grunt the Indian stooped, and began poking aroundamong the scraps left by the picnickers. He turned the blackened brandswith his foot, then moved farther along, attracted by the gleam of a bitof broken bottle. Evidently the coyotes had been there before him, fornot a scrap was left of sandwiches or chicken bones; but, like thecoyotes, he knew from past experiences that it was profitable to prowlwhere picnics were almost weekly occurrences.
The gleam of something steely and bright caught his eye. Lloyd saw theobject flash in the moonlight as he picked it up. It was thecarving-knife Jo had dropped in his excitement, when he found the "luckycuts" on his forefingers. With another grunt he turned it this way andthat, examined the handle and tried the edge, and then looked stealthilyaround. Lloyd closed her eyes lest the very intensity of their gazeshould draw him to her hiding-place. She knew that another step or twowould bring him to higher ground, where he could look over the ledge andsee her.
How she ever lived through the moments that followed, she never knew. Itseemed to her that her heart had stopped beating, and she was growingclammy and faint. It could not have been more than a few minutes, but itseemed hours to her, when, the suspense growing unbearable, she openedher eyes, and peered fearfully through the crack again.
He had disappeared. Trembling so that she could scarcely stand, sheventured, little by little, to raise herself until she could look overthe rock. Then she saw him moving leisurely down the path at the foot ofthe butte. In a moment more he had reached the road, and, stridingalong, he grew smaller and smaller to her sight till he disappearedamong the dark patches of sage-brush.
Lloyd sank limply down among the rocks again, so exhausted by thenervous strain that the tears began to come. The night was passing likea hideous dream. Half an hour went by. She could hear the distantbarking of coyotes, and a nervous dread took possession of her, a fearthat their long, gaunt forms might come sneaking up the path afterawhile in search of other picnic leavings. She eyed the swaying shadowsapprehensively.
Presently, as she sat and watched, tense and alert, she saw some onecoming along the wagon track far below. He was on horseback, and ridingslowly, as if enjoying the calm beauty of the night. She could hear himwhistling. As he reached the foot of the butte the whistling changed tosinging. The full, strong voice that rang out
on the deathlike stillnesswas wonderfully rich and sweet:
"From the desert I come to thee!"
It was the Bedouin song. Lloyd listened wonderingly, her lips half-open.Was this part of the dream? she asked herself. Part of the strange,unreal night? That was certainly Phil's voice, and yet it was pastbelief that he should be riding by this out-of-the-way place at such anhour of the night. But there was no mistaking the voice, nor the songthat had been haunting her memory for the last two days:
"Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old."
Lloyd hesitated no longer. Scrambling up from the rocks, she wentrunning down the steep path, calling at the top of her voice, "Phil! Oh,Phil! Wait!"
It was Phil's turn to think he was dreaming. Flying down the path withher white dress fluttering behind her in the moonlight, and her long,fair hair streaming loosely over her shoulder, Lloyd looked morewraithlike than human, and to be confronted by such a figure in theheart of a lonely desert was such a surprise that Phil could scarcelybelieve that he saw aright.
A moment more, and with both her cold, trembling little hands in his bigwarm ones, Lloyd was sobbing out the story of her fright. The reactionwas so great when she found herself in his protecting presence, that shecould not keep back the tears.
He swung her up into his saddle in the same brotherly way he had liftedMary into the cart, the day he found her running home from school, andproceeded to comfort her in the same joking fashion.
"This is the second time that I have been called on to play the boldrescuer act. I'll begin to think soon that my mission in life is tosnatch fair maidens from the bloody scalpers of the plains." Then moregently, as he saw how hard it was for her to control herself, he spokeas he often spoke to Mary:
"There, never mind, Lloyd. Don't cry. It's all right, little girl. We'llsoon be home. It's only a few miles from here. It isn't as late as youthink--only half-past eight."
Slipping his watch back into his pocket, he began to explain how hehappened to be passing. He had stayed to supper at the camp where he hadgone to call on his new acquaintance, and had purposely waited for themoon to come up before starting home.
He had put the rein into her hands at first, but now, taking it himself,he walked along beside her, leading the horse slowly homeward. With thegreatest tact, feeling that Lloyd would gain her self-possession soonerif he did not talk to her, he began to sing again, half to himself, asif unmindful of her presence, and of the little dabs she was making ather eyes with a wet handkerchief.
"Maid Elsie roams by lane and lea." It was the song that his old Englishnurse had sung:
"Kling! lang! ling! She hears her bonny bride-bells ring."
When he had sung it through, Lloyd's handkerchief was no longer makinghasty passes at her eyes.
"I wonder what my little sister Elsie is doing to-night," he said. "Thatsong always makes me think of her."
"Tell me about her," said Lloyd, who wanted a little more time to regainher composure. He understood why she asked, and began to talk, simply todivert her mind from her recent fright. But presently her eagerquestions showed that she was interested, and he talked on, feeling thatit was good to have such an appreciative listener. He began to enjoy thereminiscences himself, and as he talked, the old days seemed to drawvery near, till they gave him a homesick feeling for the old place thatwould never welcome him again. It had gone to strangers, he told her,and Aunt Patricia was dead.
"Poor old Aunt Patricia," he added, after laughing over one of thepranks they had played on her. "She never did understand boys. We triedher patience terribly. She did the best she could for us, but I'veoften thought how different it would have been if my mother had lived. Ihad a letter from Daddy to-day, in answer to the one I wrote aboutleaving school. It broke me all up. Made me think of the time when I wasa little fellow, and he rocked me to sleep one night when I had beennaughty, and explained why I ought to be a good boy. It almost made mewish I could be a little kid again, and curl up in his arms, and tellhim I was sorry, and would turn over a new leaf."
Lloyd liked the affectionate, almost wistful way in which he spoke ofhis father as Daddy. Whatever indignation she had felt toward him waswiped away by those confidences. And when he apologized presently, inhis most winning way, for not keeping his engagement, and told herfrankly what had prevented, she liked him better than she had donebefore. She wondered how it could be so, but she felt now that she knewhim as well as Malcolm or Rob, and that their friendship was not thegrowth of a few weeks, but that it reached back to the very beginning ofthings.
"You can't imagine what a fascination there is in seeing that roulettewheel whirl around," he said, "but I'm done with that now. Daddy'sletter settled the question. And even if that hadn't come, I would havestopped. I don't want to lose my precious turquoises--my friendshipstones," he added, meaningly. "I know how you and Joyce feel about it.Look at old Alaka's eyes, twinkling up there over Camelback. They seemto know that I have heeded their warning."
Presently, as they went along, he glanced up at her with a smile. "Doyou know," he said, "you look just as you did the first time I saw you,as you rode up to the gate at Locust, all in white, and on a blackhorse. Maybe having your hair hanging loose as you did then makes methink so. I never imagined then that I'd ever see you again, much lessfind you away out here on the desert."
"It is queah," answered Lloyd. "I thought I must be dreaming when Iheard you sing 'From the desert I come to thee.'"
"And I certainly thought I was dreaming," answered Phil, "when, inanswer to my call, you appeared all in white. You could have knocked medown with a feather, for an instant. I was startled. Then I thanked mylucky stars that led me your way."
He began again humming the Bedouin song. Lloyd, looking out across thewide, moonlighted desert and up at the twinkling stars, wondered if itwas fate that had brought him to her rescue; if it could be possiblethat through him was to come the happiness written for her in the stars.
"There's the Wigwam light," said Phil, presently, pausing in his song topoint it out to her. "We're almost there. I'll never forget thisadventure--till--" He took up the refrain again, smiling into her eyesas he hummed it. The refrain that was to ring through Lloyd's memory formany a year to come, whenever she thought of this ride across themoonlighted desert:
"_Till the sun grows cold, And the stars are old, And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!_"
The Little Colonel in Arizona Page 15