by Zane Grey
VI
THE YAQUI
TOWARD evening of a lowering December day, some fifty miles west ofForlorn River, a horseman rode along an old, dimly defined trail. Fromtime to time he halted to study the lay of the land ahead. It was bare,somber, ridgy desert, covered with dun-colored greasewood and stuntedprickly pear. Distant mountains hemmed in the valley, raising blackspurs above the round lomas and the square-walled mesas.
This lonely horseman bestrode a steed of magnificent build, perfectlywhite except for a dark bar of color running down the noble head fromears to nose. Sweatcaked dust stained the long flanks. The horse hadbeen running. His mane and tail were laced and knotted to keep theirlength out of reach of grasping cactus and brush. Clumsy home-madeleather shields covered the front of his forelegs and ran up well tohis wide breast. What otherwise would have been muscular symmetry oflimb was marred by many a scar and many a lump. He was lean, gaunt,worn, a huge machine of muscle and bone, beautiful only in head andmane, a weight-carrier, a horse strong and fierce like the desert thathad bred him.
The rider fitted the horse as he fitted the saddle. He was a young manof exceedingly powerful physique, wide-shouldered, long-armed,big-legged. His lean face, where it was not red, blistered andpeeling, was the hue of bronze. He had a dark eye, a falcon gaze,roving and keen. His jaw was prominent and set, mastiff-like; his lipswere stern. It was youth with its softness not yet quite burned andhardened away that kept the whole cast of his face from being ruthless.
This young man was Dick Gale, but not the listless traveler, nor thelounging wanderer who, two months before, had by chance dropped intoCasita. Friendship, chivalry, love--the deep-seated, unplumbedemotions that had been stirred into being with all their incalculablepower for spiritual change, had rendered different the meaning of life.In the moment almost of their realization the desert had claimed Gale,and had drawn him into its crucible. The desert had multiplied weeksinto years. Heat, thirst, hunger, loneliness, toil, fear, ferocity,pain--he knew them all. He had felt them all--the white sun, with itsglazed, coalescing, lurid fire; the caked split lips and rasping,dry-puffed tongue; the sickening ache in the pit of his stomach; theinsupportable silence, the empty space, the utter desolation, thecontempt of life; the weary ride, the long climb, the plod in sand, thesearch, search, search for water; the sleepless night alone, the watchand wait, the dread of ambush, the swift flight; the fierce pursuit ofmen wild as Bedouins and as fleet, the willingness to deal suddendeath, the pain of poison thorn, the stinging tear of lead throughflesh; and that strange paradox of the burning desert, the cold atnight, the piercing icy wind, the dew that penetrated to the marrow,the numbing desert cold of the dawn.
Beyond any dream of adventure he had ever had, beyond any wild story hehad ever read, had been his experience with those hard-riding rangers,Ladd and Lash. Then he had traveled alone the hundred miles of desertbetween Forlorn River and the Sonoyta Oasis. Ladd's prophecy oftrouble on the border had been mild compared to what had become theactuality. With rebel occupancy of the garrison at Casita, outlaws,bandits, raiders in rioting bands had spread westward. Like troops ofArabs, magnificently mounted, they were here, there, everywhere alongthe line; and if murder and worse were confined to the Mexican side,pillage and raiding were perpetrated across the border. Many adark-skinned raider bestrode one of Belding's fast horses, and indeedall except his selected white thoroughbreds had been stolen. So thejob of the rangers had become more than a patrolling of the boundaryline to keep Japanese and Chinese from being smuggled into the UnitedStates. Belding kept close at home to protect his family and to holdhis property. But the three rangers, in fulfilling their duty hadincurred risks on their own side of the line, had been outraged,robbed, pursued, and injured on the other. Some of the few waterholesthat had to be reached lay far across the border in Mexican territory.Horses had to drink, men had to drink; and Ladd and Lash were not ofthe stripe that forsook a task because of danger. Slow to wrath atfirst, as became men who had long lived peaceful lives, they had atlength revolted; and desert vultures could have told a gruesome story.Made a comrade and ally of these bordermen, Dick Gale had leaped at thedesert action and strife with an intensity of heart and a rare physicalability which accounted for the remarkable fact that he had not yetfallen by the way.
On this December afternoon the three rangers, as often, were separated.Lash was far to the westward of Sonoyta, somewhere along Camino delDiablo, that terrible Devil's Road, where many desert wayfarers hadperished. Ladd had long been overdue in a prearranged meeting withGale. The fact that Ladd had not shown up miles west of the PapagoWell was significant.
The sun had hidden behind clouds all the latter part of that day, anunusual occurrence for that region even in winter. And now, as thelight waned suddenly, telling of the hidden sunset, a cold dry,penetrating wind sprang up and blew in Gale's face. Not at first, butby imperceptible degrees it chilled him. He untied his coat from theback of the saddle and put it on. A few cold drops of rain touched hischeek.
He halted upon the edge of a low escarpment. Below him the narrowingvalley showed bare, black ribs of rock, long, winding gray linesleading down to a central floor where mesquite and cactus dotted thebarren landscape. Moving objects, diminutive in size, gray and whitein color, arrested Gale's roving sight. They bobbed away for a while,then stopped. They were antelope, and they had seen his horse. Whenhe rode on they started once more, keeping to the lowest level. Thesewary animals were often desert watchdogs for the ranger, they wouldbetray the proximity of horse or man. With them trotting forward, hemade better time for some miles across the valley. When he lost them,caution once more slowed his advance.
The valley sloped up and narrowed, to head into an arroyo where grassbegan to show gray between the clumps of mesquite. Shadows formedahead in the hollows, along the walls of the arroyo, under the trees,and they seemed to creep, to rise, to float into a veil cast by thebackground of bold mountains, at last to claim the skyline. Night wasnot close at hand, but it was there in the east, lifting upward,drooping downward, encroaching upon the west.
Gale dismounted to lead his horse, to go forward more slowly. He hadridden sixty miles since morning, and he was tired, and a not entirelyhealed wound in his hip made one leg drag a little. A mile up thearroyo, near its head, lay the Papago Well. The need of water for hishorse entailed a risk that otherwise he could have avoided. The wellwas on Mexican soil. Gale distinguished a faint light flickeringthrough the thin, sharp foliage. Campers were at the well, and,whoever they were, no doubt they had prevented Ladd from meeting Gale.Ladd had gone back to the next waterhole, or maybe he was hiding in anarroyo to the eastward, awaiting developments.
Gale turned his horse, not without urge of iron arm and persuasivespeech, for the desert steed scented water, and plodded back to theedge of the arroyo, where in a secluded circle of mesquite he halted.The horse snorted his relief at the removal of the heavy, burdenedsaddle and accoutrements, and sagging, bent his knees, lowered himselfwith slow heave, and plunged down to roll in the sand. Gale poured thecontents of his larger canteen into his hat and held it to the horse'snose.
"Drink, Sol," he said.
It was but a drop for a thirsty horse. However, Blanco Sol rubbed awet muzzle against Gale's hand in appreciation. Gale loved the horse,and was loved in return. They had saved each other's lives, and hadspent long days and nights of desert solitude together. Sol had knownother masters, though none so kind as this new one; but it was certainthat Gale had never before known a horse.
The spot of secluded ground was covered with bunches of galleta grassupon which Sol began to graze. Gale made a long halter of his lariatto keep the horse from wandering in search of water. Next Gale kickedoff the cumbersome chapparejos, with their flapping, tripping folds ofleather over his feet, and drawing a long rifle from its leathersheath, he slipped away into the shadows.
The coyotes were howling, not here and there, but in concerted volumeat the head o
f the arroyo. To Dick this was no more reassuring thanhad been the flickering light of the campfire. The wild desert dogs,with their characteristic insolent curiosity, were baying men round acampfire. Gale proceeded slowly, halting every few steps, careful notto brush against the stiff greasewood. In the soft sand his steps madeno sound. The twinkling light vanished occasionally, like aJack-o'lantern, and when it did show it seemed still a long way off.Gale was not seeking trouble or inviting danger. Water was the thingthat drove him. He must see who these campers were, and then decidehow to give Blanco Sol a drink.
A rabbit rustled out of brush at Gale's feet and thumped away over thesand. The wind pattered among dry, broken stalks of dead ocatilla.Every little sound brought Gale to a listening pause. The gloom wasthickening fast into darkness. It would be a night without starlight.He moved forward up the pale, zigzag aisles between the mesquite. Helost the light for a while, but the coyotes' chorus told him he wasapproaching the campfire. Presently the light danced through the blackbranches, and soon grew into a flame. Stooping low, with bushymesquites between him and the fire, Gale advanced. The coyotes were infull cry. Gale heard the tramping, stamping thumps of many hoofs. Thesound worried him. Foot by foot he advanced, and finally began tocrawl. The wind favored his position, so that neither coyotes norhorses could scent him. The nearer he approached the head of thearroyo, where the well was located, the thicker grew the desertvegetation. At length a dead palo verde, with huge black clumps of itsparasite mistletoe thick in the branches, marked a distance from thewell that Gale considered close enough. Noiselessly he crawled hereand there until he secured a favorable position, and then rose to peepfrom behind his covert.
He saw a bright fire, not a cooking-fire, for that would have been lowand red, but a crackling blaze of mesquite. Three men were in sight,all close to the burning sticks. They were Mexicans and of the coarsetype of raiders, rebels, bandits that Gale expected to see. One stoodup, his back to the fire; another sat with shoulders enveloped in ablanket, and the third lounged in the sand, his feet almost in theblaze. They had cast off belts and weapons. A glint of steel caughtGale's eye. Three short, shiny carbines leaned against a rock. Alittle to the left, within the circle of light, stood a square housemade of adobe bricks. Several untrimmed poles upheld a roof of brush,which was partly fallen in. This house was a Papago Indian habitation,and a month before had been occupied by a family that had been murderedor driven off by a roving band of outlaws. A rude corral showed dimlyin the edge of firelight, and from a black mass within came the snortand stamp and whinney of horses.
Gale took in the scene in one quick glance, then sank down at the footof the mesquite. He had naturally expected to see more men. But thesituation was by no means new. This was one, or part of one, of theraider bands harrying the border. They were stealing horses, ordriving a herd already stolen. These bands were more numerous than thewaterholes of northern Sonora; they never camped long at one place;like Arabs, they roamed over the desert all the way from Nogales toCasita. If Gale had gone peaceably up to this campfire there were ahundred chances that the raiders would kill and rob him to one chancethat they might not. If they recognized him as a ranger comrade ofLadd and Lash, if they got a glimpse of Blanco Sol, then Gale wouldhave no chance.
These Mexicans had evidently been at the well some time. Their horsesbeing in the corral meant that grazing had been done by day. Galerevolved questions in mind. Had this trio of outlaws run across Ladd?It was not likely, for in that event they might not have been socomfortable and care-free in camp. Were they waiting for more membersof their gang? That was very probable. With Gale, however, the mostimportant consideration was how to get his horse to water. Sol musthave a drink if it cost a fight. There was stern reason for Gale tohurry eastward along the trail. He thought it best to go back to wherehe had left his horse and not make any decisive move until daylight.
With the same noiseless care he had exercised in the advance, Galeretreated until it was safe for him to rise and walk on down thearroyo. He found Blanco Sol contentedly grazing. A heavy dew wasfalling, and, as the grass was abundant, the horse did not show theusual restlessness and distress after a dry and exhausting day. Galecarried his saddle blankets and bags into the lee of a littlegreasewood-covered mound, from around which the wind had cut the soil,and here, in a wash, he risked building a small fire. By this time thewind was piercingly cold. Gale's hands were numb and he moved them toand fro in the little blaze. Then he made coffee in a cup, cooked someslices of bacon on the end of a stick, and took a couple of hardbiscuits from a saddlebag. Of these his meal consisted. After that heremoved the halter from Blanco Sol, intending to leave him free tograze for a while.
Then Gale returned to his little fire, replenished it with short sticksof dead greasewood and mesquite, and, wrapping his blanket round hisshoulders he sat down to warm himself and to wait till it was time tobring in the horse and tie him up.
The fire was inadequate and Gale was cold and wet with dew. Hunger andthirst were with him. His bones ached, and there was a dull,deep-seated pain throbbing in his unhealed wound. For days unshaven,his beard seemed like a million pricking needles in his blistered skin.He was so tired that once having settled himself, he did not move handor foot. The night was dark, dismal, cloudy, windy, growing colder. Amoan of wind in the mesquite was occasionally pierced by the high-keyedyelp of a coyote. There were lulls in which the silence seemed to be athing of stifling, encroaching substance--a thing that enveloped,buried the desert.
Judged by the great average of ideals and conventional standards oflife, Dick Gale was a starved, lonely, suffering, miserable wretch.But in his case the judgment would have hit only externals, would havemissed the vital inner truth. For Gale was happy with a kind ofstrange, wild glory in the privations, the pains, the perils, and thesilence and solitude to be endured on this desert land. In the past hehad not been of any use to himself or others; and he had never knowwhat it meant to be hungry, cold, tired, lonely. He had never workedfor anything. The needs of the day had been provided, and to-morrowand the future looked the same. Danger, peril, toil--these had beenwords read in books and papers.
In the present he used his hands, his senses, and his wits. He had aduty to a man who relied on his services. He was a comrade, a friend,a valuable ally to riding, fighting rangers. He had spent endlessdays, weeks that seemed years, alone with a horse, trailing over,climbing over, hunting over a desert that was harsh and hostile bynature, and perilous by the invasion of savage men. That horse hadbecome human to Gale. And with him Gale had learned to know the simpleneeds of existence. Like dead scales the superficialities, thefalsities, the habits that had once meant all of life dropped off,useless things in this stern waste of rock and sand.
Gale's happiness, as far as it concerned the toil and strife, wasperhaps a grim and stoical one. But love abided with him, and it hadengendered and fostered other undeveloped traits--romance and a feelingfor beauty, and a keen observation of nature. He felt pain, but he wasnever miserable. He felt the solitude, but he was never lonely.
As he rode across the desert, even though keen eyes searched for themoving black dots, the rising puffs of white dust that were warnings,he saw Nell's face in every cloud. The clean-cut mesas took on theshape of her straight profile, with its strong chin and lips, its finenose and forehead. There was always a glint of gold or touch of red orgraceful line or gleam of blue to remind him of her. Then at night herface shone warm and glowing, flushing and paling, in the campfire.
To-night, as usual, with a keen ear to the wind, Gale listened as oneon guard; yet he watched the changing phantom of a sweet face in theembers, and as he watched he thought. The desert developed andmultiplied thought. A thousand sweet faces glowed in the pink andwhite ashes of his campfire, the faces of other sweethearts or wivesthat had gleamed for other men. Gale was happy in his thought of Nell,for Nell, for something, when he was alone this way in the wilderness,told him she
was near him, she thought of him, she loved him. Butthere were many men alone on that vast southwestern plateau, and whenthey saw dream faces, surely for some it was a fleeting flash, a gleamsoon gone, like the hope and the name and the happiness that had beenand was now no more. Often Gale thought of those hundreds of deserttravelers, prospectors, wanderers who had ventured down the Camino delDiablo, never to be heard of again. Belding had told him of that mostterrible of all desert trails--a trail of shifting sands. Lash hadtraversed it, and brought back stories of buried waterholes, of bonesbleaching white in the sun, of gold mines as lost as were theprospectors who had sought them, of the merciless Yaqui and his hatredfor the Mexican. Gale thought of this trail and the men who had campedalong it. For many there had been one night, one campfire that hadbeen the last. This idea seemed to creep in out of the darkness, theloneliness, the silence, and to find a place in Gale's mind, so that ithad strange fascination for him. He knew now as he had never dreamedbefore how men drifted into the desert, leaving behind graves, wreckedhomes, ruined lives, lost wives and sweethearts. And for everywanderer every campfire had a phantom face. Gale measured the agony ofthese men at their last campfire by the joy and promise he traced inthe ruddy heart of his own.
By and by Gale remembered what he was waiting for; and, getting up, hetook the halter and went out to find Blanco Sol. It was pitch-darknow, and Gale could not see a rod ahead. He felt his way, andpresently as he rounded a mesquite he saw Sol's white shape outlinedagainst the blackness. The horse jumped and wheeled, ready to run. Itwas doubtful if any one unknown to Sol could ever have caught him.Gale's low call reassured him, and he went on grazing. Gale halteredhim in the likeliest patch of grass and returned to his camp. There helifted his saddle into a protected spot under a low wall of the mound,and, laying one blanket on the sand, he covered himself with the otherand stretched himself for the night.
Here he was out of reach of the wind; but he heard its melancholy moanin the mesquite. There was no other sound. The coyotes had ceasedtheir hungry cries. Gale dropped to sleep, and slept soundly duringthe first half of the night; and after that he seemed always to bepartially awake, aware of increasing cold and damp. The dark mantleturned gray, and then daylight came quickly. The morning was clear andnipping cold. He threw off the wet blanket and got up cramped and halffrozen. A little brisk action was all that was necessary to warm hisblood and loosen his muscles, and then he was fresh, tingling, eager.The sun rose in a golden blaze, and the descending valley took onwondrous changing hues. Then he fetched up Blanco Sol, saddled him,and tied him to the thickest clump of mesquite.
"Sol, we'll have a drink pretty soon," he said, patting the splendidneck.
Gale meant it. He would not eat till he had watered his horse. Sol hadgone nearly forty-eight hours without a sufficient drink, and that waslong enough, even for a desert-bred beast. No three raiders could keepGale away from that well. Taking his rifle in hand, he faced up thearroyo. Rabbits were frisking in the short willows, and some were sotame he could have kicked them. Gale walked swiftly for a goodly partof the distance, and then, when he saw blue smoke curling up above thetrees, he proceeded slowly, with alert eye and ear. From the lay ofthe land and position of trees seen by daylight, he found an easier andsafer course that the one he had taken in the dark. And by carefulwork he was enabled to get closer to the well, and somewhat above it.
The Mexicans were leisurely cooking their morning meal. They had twofires, one for warmth, the other to cook over. Gale had an idea theseraiders were familiar to him. It seemed all these border hawksresembled one another--being mostly small of build, wiry, angular,swarthy-faced, and black-haired, and they wore the oddly styled Mexicanclothes and sombreros. A slow wrath stirred in Gale as he watched thetrio. They showed not the slightest indication of breaking camp. Onefellow, evidently the leader, packed a gun at his hip, the only weaponin sight. Gale noted this with speculative eyes. The raiders hadslept inside the little adobe house, and had not yet brought out thecarbines. Next Gale swept his gaze to the corral, in which he saw morethan a dozen horses, some of them fine animals. They were stamping andwhistling, fighting one another, and pawing the dirt. This wasentirely natural behavior for desert horses penned in when they wantedto get at water and grass.
But suddenly one of the blacks, a big, shaggy fellow, shot up his earsand pointed his nose over the top of the fence. He whistled. Otherhorses looked in the same direction, and their ears went up, and they,too, whistled. Gale knew that other horses or men, very likely both,were approaching. But the Mexicans did not hear the alarm, or show anyinterest if they did. These mescal-drinking raiders were not scouts.It was notorious how easily they could be surprised or ambushed.Mostly they were ignorant, thick-skulled peons. They were wonderfulhorsemen, and could go long without food or water; but they had notother accomplishments or attributes calculated to help them in desertwarfare. They had poor sight, poor hearing, poor judgment, and whenexcited they resembled crazed ants running wild.
Gale saw two Indians on burros come riding up the other side of theknoll upon which the adobe house stood; and apparently they were notaware of the presence of the Mexicans, for they came on up the path.One Indian was a Papago. The other, striking in appearance for otherreasons than that he seemed to be about to fall from the burro, Galetook to be a Yaqui. These travelers had absolutely nothing for anoutfit except a blanket and a half-empty bag. They came over the knolland down the path toward the well, turned a corner of the house, andcompletely surprised the raiders.
Gale heard a short, shrill cry, strangely high and wild, and this camefrom one of the Indians. It was answered by hoarse shouts. Then theleader of the trio, the Mexican who packed a gun, pulled it and firedpoint-blank. He missed once--and again. At the third shot the Papagoshrieked and tumbled off his burro to fall in a heap. The other Indianswayed, as if the taking away of the support lent by his comrade hadbrought collapse, and with the fourth shot he, too, slipped to theground.
The reports had frightened the horses in the corral; and the viciousblack, crowding the rickety bars, broke them down. He came plungingout. Two of the Mexicans ran for him, catching him by nose and mane,and the third ran to block the gateway.
Then, with a splendid vaulting mount, the Mexican with the gun leapedto the back of the horse. He yelled and waved his gun, and urged theblack forward. The manner of all three was savagely jocose. They werehaving sport. The two on the ground began to dance and jabber. Themounted leader shot again, and then stuck like a leech upon the bareback of the rearing black. It was a vain show of horsemanship. Thenthis Mexican, by some strange grip, brought the horse down, plungingalmost upon the body of the Indian that had fallen last.
Gale stood aghast with his rifle clutched tight. He could not divinethe intention of the raider, but suspected something brutal. The horseanswered to that cruel, guiding hand, yet he swerved and bucked. Hereared aloft, pawing the air, wildly snorting, then he plunged downupon the prostrate Indian. Even in the act the intelligent animaltried to keep from striking the body with his hoofs. But that was notpossible. A yell, hideous in its passion, signaled this feat ofhorsemanship.
The Mexican made no move to trample the body of the Papago. He turnedthe black to ride again over the other Indian. That brought intoGale's mind what he had heard of a Mexican's hate for a Yaqui. Itrecalled the barbarism of these savage peons, and the war ofextermination being waged upon the Yaquis.
Suddenly Gale was horrified to see the Yaqui writhe and raise a feeblehand. The action brought renewed and more savage cries from theMexicans. The horse snorted in terror.
Gale could bear no more. He took a quick shot at the rider. He missedthe moving figure, but hit the horse. There was a bound, a horridscream, a mighty plunge, then the horse went down, giving the Mexican astunning fall. Both beast and man lay still.
Gale rushed from his cover to intercept the other raiders before theycould reach the house and their weapons. One fel
low yelled and ranwildly in the opposite direction; the other stood stricken in histracks. Gale ran in close and picked up the gun that had dropped fromthe raider leader's hand. This fellow had begun to stir, to come outof his stunned condition. Then the frightened horses burst the corralbars, and in a thundering, dust-mantled stream fled up the arroyo.
The fallen raider sat up, mumbling to his saints in one breath, cursingin his next. The other Mexican kept his stand, intimidated by thethreatening rifle.
"Go, Greasers! Run!" yelled Gale. Then he yelled it in Spanish. Atthe point of his rifle he drove the two raiders out of the camp. Hisnext move was to run into the house and fetch out the carbines. With aheavy stone he dismantled each weapon. That done, he set out on a runfor his horse. He took the shortest cut down the arroyo, with noconcern as to whether or not he would encounter the raiders. Probablysuch a meeting would be all the worse for them, and they knew it.Blanco Sol heard him coming and whistled a welcome, and when Gale ranup the horse was snorting war. Mounting, Gale rode rapidly back to thescene of the action, and his first thought, when he arrived at thewell, was to give Sol a drink and to fill his canteens.
Then Gale led his horse up out of the waterhole, and decided beforeremounting to have a look at the Indians. The Papago had been shotthrough the heart, but the Yaqui was still alive. Moreover, he wasconscious and staring up at Gale with great, strange, somber eyes,black as volcanic slag.
"Gringo good--no kill," he said, in husky whisper.
His speech was not affirmative so much as questioning.
"Yaqui, you're done for," said Gale, and his words were positive. Hewas simply speaking aloud his mind.
"Yaqui--no hurt--much," replied the Indian, and then he spoke a strangeword--repeated it again and again.
An instinct of Gale's, or perhaps some suggestion in the husky, thickwhisper or dark face, told Gale to reach for his canteen. He lifted theIndian and gave him a drink, and if ever in all his life he sawgratitude in human eyes he saw it then. Then he examined the injuredYaqui, not forgetting for an instant to send wary, fugitive glances onall sides. Gale was not surprised. The Indian had three wounds--abullet hole in his shoulder, a crushed arm, and a badly lacerated leg.What had been the matter with him before being set upon by the raiderGale could not be certain.
The ranger thought rapidly. This Yaqui would live unless left there todie or be murdered by the Mexicans when they found courage to sneakback to the well. It never occurred to Gale to abandon the poorfellow. That was where his old training, the higher order of humanfeeling, made impossible the following of any elemental instinct ofself-preservation. All the same, Gale knew he multiplied his perils ahundredfold by burdening himself with a crippled Indian. Swiftly he setto work, and with rifle ever under his hand, and shifting glance sparedfrom his task, he bound up the Yaqui's wounds. At the same time hekept keen watch.
The Indians' burros and the horses of the raiders were all out ofsight. Time was too valuable for Gale to use any in what might be avain search. Therefore, he lifted the Yaqui upon Sol's broad shouldersand climbed into the saddle. At a word Sol dropped his head andstarted eastward up the trail, walking swiftly, without resentment forhis double burden.
Far ahead, between two huge mesas where the trail mounted over a pass,a long line of dust clouds marked the position of the horses that hadescaped from the corral. Those that had been stolen would travelstraight and true for home, and perhaps would lead the others withthem. The raiders were left on the desert without guns or mounts.
Blanco Sol walked or jog-trotted six miles to the hour. At that gaitfifty miles would not have wet or turned a hair of his dazzling whitecoat. Gale, bearing in mind the ever-present possibility ofencountering more raiders and of being pursued, saved the strength ofthe horse. Once out of sight of Papago Well, Gale dismounted andwalked beside the horse, steadying with one firm hand the helpless,dangling Yaqui.
The sun cleared the eastern ramparts, and the coolness of morning fledas if before a magic foe. The whole desert changed. The grays worebright; the mesquites glistened; the cactus took the silver hue offrost, and the rocks gleamed gold and red. Then, as the heatincreased, a wind rushed up out of the valley behind Gale, and thehotter the sun blazed down the swifter rushed the wind. The wonderfultransparent haze of distance lost its bluish hue for one with tinge ofyellow. Flying sand made the peaks dimly outlined.
Gale kept pace with his horse. He bore the twinge of pain that dartedthrough his injured hip at every stride. His eye roved over the wide,smoky prospect seeking the landmarks he knew. When the wild and boldspurs of No Name Mountains loomed through a rent in flying clouds ofsand he felt nearer home. Another hour brought him abreast of a dark,straight shaft rising clear from a beetling escarpment. This was amonument marking the international boundary line. When he had passedit he had his own country under foot. In the heat of midday he haltedin the shade of a rock, and, lifting the Yaqui down, gave him a drink.Then, after a long, sweeping survey of the surrounding desert, heremoved Sol's saddle and let him roll, and took for himself a welcomerest and a bite to eat.
The Yaqui was tenacious of life. He was still holding his own. For thefirst time Gale really looked at the Indian to study him. He had alarge head nobly cast, and a face that resembled a shrunken mask. Itseemed chiseled in the dark-red, volcanic lava of his Soonerwilderness. The Indian's eyes were always black and mystic, but thisYaqui's encompassed all the tragic desolation of the desert. They werefixed on Gale, moved only when he moved. The Indian was short andbroad, and his body showed unusual muscular development, although heseemed greatly emaciated from starvation or illness.
Gale resumed his homeward journey. When he got through the pass hefaced a great depression, as rough as if millions of gigantic spikeshad been driven by the hammer of Thor into a seamed and cracked floor.This was Altar Valley. It was a chaos of arroyo's, canyons, rocks, andridges all mantled with cactus, and at its eastern end it claimed thedry bed of Forlorn River and water when there was any.
With a wounded, helpless man across the saddle, this stretch of thornyand contorted desert was practically impassable. Yet Gale headed intoit unflinchingly. He would carry the Yaqui as far as possible, oruntil death make the burden no longer a duty. Blanco Sol plodded onover the dragging sand, up and down the steep, loose banks of washes,out on the rocks, and through the rows of white-toothed _choyas_.
The sun sloped westward, bending fiercer heat in vengeful, partingreluctance. The wind slackened. The dust settled. And the bold,forbidding front of No Name Mountains changed to red and gold. Galeheld grimly by the side of the tireless, implacable horse, holding theYaqui on the saddle, taking the brunt of the merciless thorns. In theend it became heartrending toil. His heavy chaps dragged him down; buthe dared not go on without them, for, thick and stiff as they were, theterrible, steel-bayoneted spikes of the choyas pierced through to stinghis legs.
To the last mile Gale held to Blanco Sol's gait and kept ever-watchfulgaze ahead on the trail. Then, with the low, flat houses of ForlornRiver shining red in the sunset, Gale flagged and rapidly weakened.The Yaqui slipped out of the saddle and dropped limp in the sand. Galecould not mount his horse. He clutched Sol's long tail and twisted hishand in it and staggered on.
Blanco Sol whistled a piercing blast. He scented cool water and sweetalfalfa hay. Twinkling lights ahead meant rest. The melancholy deserttwilight rapidly succeeded the sunset. It accentuated the forlornloneliness of the gray, winding river of sand and its grayer shores.Night shadows trooped down from the black and looming mountains.