CHAPTER XIVTHE TRAIL
In after years, Scott was wont to say that he distrusted the trail recommended by Gomez from the moment his horse started to travel it.
“It was one of those trails that didn’t look right—from the first,” he would say with a reminiscent inflection. As a matter of fact, however, the trail looked innocent enough at the first glance, and Scott’s pessimism may be laid partly to the circumstances under which the trip was attempted and partly to the fact that Scott almost always hated to change his mind.
“How long will it be, do you suppose, before you can send back for the others?” queried Polly, as they rode away.
“Well, we ought to make Athens to-night,” replied Scott, thoughtfully. “Tom could start back with our wagon early in the morning. Cochise and this fellow I’m riding, Jasper, could make it.”
“They’ll have to stay at the Sorias’ all night. They’ll be very uncomfortable.”
“Oh, I don’t know. They’re neither of them tenderfeet. They’ll get along.”
“It’ll be very romantic, of course, and very exciting,” sighed Polly.
“Romantic? Why?”
“Well, people have a way of making love to widows,” said Polly, wistfully. “And anybody with half an eye can see that he likes her.”
“Shucks! Hard’s a gentleman; he won’t think he has to be rude to a woman just because he’s left alone with her overnight.”
“It isn’t being rude to ask a woman to marry you if you happen to like her, is it?” demanded Polly, with spirit.
“It is, under some circumstances,” replied Scott, shortly. “You’re pretty romantic, aren’t you, for a grown-up girl?”
“I? Not at all.” Polly flushed, indignantly. “But I’m interested when I see two people that I like falling nicely in love with each other.”
“She’s not in love with him or she’d have married him when she had the chance,” said Scott, authoritatively. “She’s an ambitious woman; what does she want of a man buried in a coal mine?”
“She may have changed. That was a long time ago,” ventured the girl. “And if she cares for him, she might forget her ambition. Women do, sometimes.”
“Yes, in books they do,” replied Scott, moodily. “But I never saw a woman in her class give up anything she really wanted just to marry a poor man. If she did, she’d probably make him miserable afterward, when she was sorry she’d done it.”
They rode a while in silence. Polly was hurt and angry. It occurred to her that Scott’s objection to her romantic imaginings was based on something deeperthan just his usual argumentativeness. Perhaps her imagination had misled her in regard to what had been in his eyes the night before. Or rather, not her imagination, but her vanity. It was a disagreeable thought for one who had promised herself to have done forever with that unpleasant trait. Also, down underneath, there was a hurt that had nothing to do with vanity.
Scott rode silently, occupied with his thoughts. He glanced now and then, however, at the slender figure of the girl who rode beside him. She was very pleasing to look upon, with her curly, reddish hair, big dark eyes, delicate features, and smooth tanned skin. Her white hat was pulled down to shade her eyes; her brown coat, trousers and boots wore a jaunty appearance; but it was not altogether of appearances that Scott was thinking.
It is possible with some of us to view the outward and the inward at the same time and to render quite unrelated verdicts. Scott had been conscious of doing this before with Polly Street, but of late somehow the verdicts had begun to agree. He was finding the inward Polly quite as attractive as the outward. Had she changed or had he learned to look deeper, he wondered? He had thought her spoiled and superficial, yet possessing undoubtedly worth-while qualities, such as pluck and honesty—things you cannot be deceived in.
Now he was finding another side to the girl; a something very sweet and lovable. Was he being led away by the eye of man which is troubled by many things, orwas the better side of the girl coming to the surface under different conditions? Was she beginning to care a little for him or was she playing with him as she probably had done with the Henderson boy? Scott set his teeth grimly.
There are after all two great classes into which humanity may be divided; those who are living purposefully, in the higher sense of the word, and those who are drifting. The purposeful people may and often do go wrong, but they have at least something to come back to when they right themselves. The drifters, on the other hand, are not only without help for themselves, but have a dreadful way of clutching at the purposeful ones and submerging them as well. The average man or woman who belongs to the former class has rather a horror of the drifter and likes to give him a wide berth. Something of this nature had passed through Scott’s head more than once when he had been attracted by a woman whose outer and inner trappings did not correspond.
It was so easy, however, to like this auburn-headed youngster, who seemed to have gotten over her anger against him and to be beginning to like him. She had such a warm, quick smile; such a caressing look in those serious eyes. She was so natural and easy with him; turned to him so quickly for his approval of what she said or did and took his uncouth criticism so sweetly. It was flattering—yes, that was just the point. Was she sincere, or was she planning to add him to the list of her victims? She would not do that. He was no boy, to be petted and thrown aside.
About this time, they came upon the trail. The little river had followed the road for about a mile and a half, when across on its other bank Scott saw a deep rut leading out of it and continuing in a narrow line or trail so faint as to be easily overlooked. It wound along, lost itself in some chaparral and doubtless became clear again beyond. The chaparral being on a little rise, one could not see beyond it.
“There we are,” he called to the girl, who had fallen a little behind. “Wait a bit till I find a place to get down the bank on this side.”
Polly waited. Scott rode up and down the bank; finally he stopped.
“We’ll have to cross here,” he called. “It’s steep but it’s all right. Follow me,” and both he and his horse disappeared in the river bed. Polly rode up and took a look at the descent.
“I won’t go so far as to say that he picked a nasty one because he’s out of temper, but it looks like it,” she grumbled. “Go on, pony, if he can do it I suppose we can.”
The pony put her two forefeet over the edge of the descent and clung to solidity and sanity with her hind two.
“I don’t blame you. It’s what I’d do if I had four legs and some fool tried to make me slide down a precipice. But we’ve got to go. That man’s got a jaw like Napoleon and there’s no use arguing with him.”
She looked down. Scott had reached the bottom and was smiling back at her. One had to admit thathe had the sort of smile which warmed up the atmosphere.
“Want me to come and lead her?” he offered.
“I do not.” Polly gave her mount a little dig with her heel, the tension on the hind legs relaxed, a series of slides and jolts and the descent was made. She found herself in the river with Scott while the horses drank thirstily.
“It was the only place to come down,” he said, penitently.
“Well, I wasn’t scared, it was the horse,” replied Polly, briefly. “You needn’t think that every time we hang back it’s my fault.”
“I’ve known times when it was a sign of good sense to be scared,” retorted Scott, as he turned his horse’s nose toward the upward climb.
“That man can use up more good gray matter trying to dodge paying one a compliment than most men use in thinking up one,” decided Polly.
The way through the chaparral was trying. The trail was very faint, the stiff brush hit one in the face and almost tore one’s clothing. It was necessary for Scott to go first in order to keep the trail, while the girl fell considerably into the rear to escape the blows from the brush which flew back after he had disturbed it. On either side of them, above the brush, rose walls formed by foothills, growing higher as they went. They were evidently going directly into the mountains.
“Of course, we crossed two ranges when we came from Athens to Casa Grande,” reasoned Polly, “and we’ve got to cross them again going back. But thisdoesn’t look as though we were going through any gaps as we did on the other trail. We’re evidently going straight up. It’s going to be hard on the horses.”
Itwashard on the horses. It was getting on in the afternoon and the sun was still very hot. They had seen no water since leaving the little river. The trail had come out of the brush and become a narrow—a very narrow ledge on the side of the mountain, while on the other side one looked down into a ravine deep enough to make one’s head swim if one looked too long. Scott ploughed along ahead, looking back whenever the trail showed a nasty place, ready to jump off and go to the girl’s rescue if necessary.
“She’s a plucky one all right,” he said to himself. “This is no trail for a tenderfoot. I hope we don’t run into anything worse before we get through. How are you coming?” he called back.
They had come to a turn in the trail. Huge boulders poised on the edge of the narrow ledge with that utter disregard for gravity displayed now and then by rocks which look big enough to know better. Scott had dismounted and stood looking into the ravine which had widened into a valley. In front of him, on the narrow turn, it seemed but a step to the tree-tops of the valley below. Further ahead, lay the next range of mountains, higher than the ones through which they were passing. Back of them, the winding trail seemed to flutter like a brown ribbon. Polly hopped down and joined him. Together they drank in the scene.
“It’s too lovely. It hurts,” said the girl, with wet eyes.
“Isn’t it? I didn’t know myself that there was anything around here like this.”
“It’s worth being raided for,” replied Polly. “Let’s stay here a while and keep on looking.”
Scott smiled. “Will it spoil it for you if I eat a sandwich?” he said.
“Not if there’s one for me, too,” laughed the girl. “But I thought you left all the lunch with the others.”
“Not all. I’m too good a woodsman to go on a strange trail with nothing to eat in my saddle-bag. Luckily I didn’t have to leave them the canteen.” They ate the sandwiches—saving a portion for dinner in case they were late reaching Athens—and washed them down with warm water from the canteen.
“Let’s look around the corner before we mount again,” suggested the girl. “I like to know what’s ahead of me.”
“Around the corner” was a slope down into the ravine, more gradual than before and green with stunted grass and mesquite. Here and there a cactus rose gauntly, some in the tall Spanish bayonet with its lovely bloom, and some in the low, dagger-like plant close to the ground. Above them, on the right side rose the rocky wall of the mountain, not altogether sheer in its ascent, but curving in and then out at the top, the upper ridge forming a shelf. Mesquite grew seemingly out of the solid rock.
“Oh, look,” exclaimed the girl. “There’s almost a little cave up there under that shelf! It could be a rustler’s cave if there were any rustlers around.”
“There are more rustlers than there are things to rustle,” remarked her companion.
Standing on the narrow trail, they looked over and down into the valley. It was lonely to look at; not a house, not a living creature, and yet so very beautiful—with a warmth of color and sunshine. Polly did not speak. Her eyes were fixed on the scene below. She did not see the look on Scott’s face as he stood beside her, gazing not at the valley but at the purity of her face so near his shoulder.
It was very still. Suddenly a bird flew from one of the bushes, flew across the rock in front of their faces. Polly, her thought broken, turned quickly and surprised the hungry look in Scott’s eyes. Her face flushed and neither spoke. Then, impulsively, he took her in his arms and kissed her passionately, Polly, sobbing, clinging to him in a silence full of meaning. As suddenly Scott put her away from him, holding her and looking into her eyes.
“Do you mean it?” he demanded almost angrily. “You’re not playing with me?”
Polly did not answer. She looked up into his eyes, her own still wet. He took her in his arms again.
“I don’t see why!” he said, softly. “There’s nothing about me for you to fall in love with. Are you sure?”
“Very sure,” she lifted her head. “I was sure last night, when you nearly told me—before those Indians came. Why didn’t you want to tell me?”
“Because I knew I’d no business to,” replied Scott, roughly. “I’ve no business to, now, but I’m humanand when you stood there with the sun on your hair, and that look on your face, I fell.”
“I’ll stand that way again,” smiled Polly, “if you’ll stop scowling and say nice things to me. It isn’t a criminal offense, Marc Scott, for an unmarried man to fall in love with me. Don’t feel so badly about it.”
“It may not be criminal, but it’s not square,” replied Scott, obstinately. “With you a rich man’s daughter, and——”
“But not an heiress, remember! That makes a difference,” she said, coaxingly.
“Perhaps—anyhow, I’m glad you’re not rich,” said Scott, soberly. “I think I’d fight with a rich wife.”
“My dear Marc, you and I would fight, no matter who had the money. We’re the scrappy kind. But, on the other hand, we’ll always make up again, and that’s what counts. That’s what Joyce Henderson and I couldn’t do. We went for months and months without a quarrel, but when we once had one we couldn’t get over it.”
“You’re sure you’ve forgotten about that chap?”
“Quite. He doesn’t exist.”
Again they were silent, the sun picking out radiant bits of Polly’s hair to light upon as she stood leaning against Scott’s arm, his rough coat rubbing her soft skin.
“It’s a nice old world,” she said, drawing a long breath.
“It’s good enough for me,” he answered as he leaned over and kissed her.
“Do you know, I’ve been wondering for a weekwhether it was me or Mrs. Van Zandt that you were in love with?” said Polly, with one of her sudden smiles.
“Me? Care for——” Scott’s voice died away in surprise.
“You behaved as though you did. You are always so gentle and pleasant with her.”
“I’m gentle and pleasant with everybody,” declared Scott, stoutly. “I have that kind of disposition.”
“I think you’d better go and get the horses,” suggested Polly. “I’d rather not begin disagreeing with you just yet.”
Scott, chuckling, went back after the horses. Polly, left alone, sat down on a stone and gave a little sigh of contentment.
“To think,” she said, incredulously, “that once I thought I was in love with Joyce Henderson!”
“Polly!” Scott’s voice was sharp. He came around the turn on a trot. “Those cussed horses have cleared out and left us high and dry. I’ve got to go after them.”
“But—I thought horses always went home when they ran off!”
“I think they’ve gone down into the canyon—there may be water down there. Will you sit here while I go after them?”
“I suppose so,” forlornly. “You won’t stay long?”
“Be back in half an hour.” Scott disappeared down the trail. Polly watched him a moment or two and then returned to her resting place. Something of thehappiness was gone from her eyes. The accident was ill-timed. It brought a feeling of foreboding most disagreeable in its contrast with her former exaltation. She jumped to her feet determined to do something to take her mind off the ugly thought.
“I’ll climb up and see if that really is a cave up there,” she thought. Fired by this ambition, she started to work her way up the cliff; no easy task and ruinous to riding boots of soft leather. By the time she had discovered this last fact she had covered about one-third of the distance and was crouching beside a protruding rock to get her breath. “It’s rather foolish to tear up a perfectly good pair of riding boots just at the psychological moment when leather is villainously high and I’m on the verge of marrying a poor man. I guess I’ll give up the cave.”
If the view had been remarkable from the trail, it was marvelous from the little eminence which she had reached. She looked and looked, her eyes full of wonder. Away in the distance, a tiny stream fluttered its way over the brown side of the mountain, which the sun seemed to polish until it shone; while on the shadowed side, the pines took on a dark, heavy green, both sombre and beautiful. Below her, on the trail—but what was that? Coming over the top of a hilly rise, a little way below, was a man on a horse—then a second and a third, and finally a line of riders, so long a line that it suggested a regiment!
Polly’s mind worked quickly. There was but one explanation; Angel Gonzales was in the neighborhood, was on his way to rendezvous with Juan Pachuca, andwithout doubt this was Angel Gonzales, and these were his men. What should she do? They were coming very rapidly, and whatever was done would have to be done instantly. Her first thought was for Scott. He would be taken unaware. If she could only get to him—warn him—so that he could hide in the brush till the men had passed! Breathlessly, she began to climb down the cliff. She was badly frightened, her nerve was shaken and her strength seemed to be leaving her. She found herself slipping and sliding on the rock.
Another look at the riders showed them very near—so near that her courage failed her. In a panic she began to climb again. She must reach the little cave before they saw her. She could not fall into the hands of Angel Gonzales. She caught her breath in little sobs, her heart seemed about to burst, every foot gained meant a desperate effort. She clutched at the tufts of mesquite that grew out of the rock and thanked Providence that her brown suit was so nearly the color of the cliff. Gasping and sobbing, she finally sank behind the mesquite bush which covered the cave.
It was not really a cave, she discovered, but merely a crevice in the cliff, made into a little shelf by the rock which protruded above it, while the bush growing thickly in front of it gave it the look of a cave. It was, however, a shelter, and Polly crouched in it thankfully, breathing with difficulty and keeping one eye on the line of men filing along below her. They were a hard looking lot, clad in all sorts of clothes from uniforms to overalls. They seemed to her inexperiencedeye innumerable; they were, perhaps, seventy-five or a hundred.
“And poor—like an army of tramps,” she thought. “Very desperate tramps—oh, why didn’t I keep on and try to warn Marc?”
She could not understand her panic, now that her own danger was over and the men had passed. Marc Scott had called her a brave girl, and she had saved her own skin and let him walk into the trap. She sobbed bitterly. If there was only anything that she could do! To sit there in that awful silence was more than she could bear. She could no longer see the riders, who had turned the curve and were out of sight and sound. Far off in the distance two buzzards circled about over something that was dead or dying. Perhaps it was a man—at the thought the girl rose unsteadily to her feet. She could not stay alone another moment in this horrible place; she would go and find Scott, if she had to brave Angel Gonzales to do it. With a recklessness born of desperation she slid and scuffled down the side of the cliff and ran blindly down the trail.
CHAPTER XVANGEL
Scott, starting breezily down the trail after the recreant horses, whistled a tune as he went, for he was happy. He did not weigh reason against happiness—it was too soon for that. He would have given you, however, if pressed, a number of very good reasons why he and Polly Street were going to be happy together, in spite of their different upbringing, and his own not very lucid reasons for not having wanted to marry her.
Just at present he was occupied with the idea of the horses. He felt that they would not be apt to go back on the trail unless it was to look for water, and water they might find at the bottom of the ravine though the underbrush was too dense for him to see it. He could follow their trail very easily in the sandy path but he walked a quarter of a mile before he found the place where they had struck out of the trail for the bottom of the ravine.
Very cautiously he started down, for the going was decidedly bad and he had no wish to risk a fall. He trailed the prints, marveling at the sure-footedness of the animal which can follow so hazardous a path.
“I wouldn’t dare put a horse down a trail like this,” he mused with a grin, “and yet the rascals will godown by themselves as smooth as silk. Hullo, I guessed right! There is water down here. There’s old Jasper filling up on it, and the mare, too. Well, I guess we don’t walk home this trip.” And just as Polly, some hundreds of feet above him was trying madly to reach the cave, Scott, quite oblivious of impending danger, started on his difficult climb, leading the two horses.
“Serve you darn well right, you fellows, if I was to make you haul me,” he said, as Jasper’s soft nose rubbed against his shoulder. “I would, too, if I didn’t think you’d slide down and break my neck just when my girl needs me. Come on, you grafters, shake a leg, will you?”
It was a bad climb. The perspiration rolled off Scott’s face and the veins stood out upon his forehead. Gasping for breath, he dug his toes into the soft earth and plugged ahead, pulling the reluctant animals after him. He had nearly gained the top, was within twenty feet, perhaps, of the end of the climb, when Jasper began to pull back. They were breaking through some brush, Scott being nearly through when Jasper began pulling. Scott gave the bridle an irritated jerk and spoke sharply to the horse. As he did so, he looked up and saw Angel Gonzales and his band coming down the trail. For a second, Scott lost his wits. He took a quick step forward, giving the bridle another jerk as he did so. Jasper, naturally aggrieved, pulled back again, and Scott, standing on a loose bit of rock, slipped, tried to right himself, slipped again, overbalanced, fell and rolled down—over boulders,through brush, falling ever faster as he tried to regain a foothold.
Both bridles had been wrenched from his hand as he fell and the horses, half scared, half inquisitive, followed him a few steps and then returned to the munching of grass, behind the clump of brush.
Angel Gonzales, a large, brutal-looking man, his face covered with a black beard, his clothes bearing the mark of many a scuffle, swung down the trail in the lead, his particular crony, one Porfirio Cortes, riding immediately after him. A little distance intervened between Cortes and the other members of the party. Even in bandit circles the line is drawn somewhere, and in Angel’s band it was drawn immediately after Porfirio Cortes.
Angel rode, one leg thrown over his pommel, which enabled him to chat comfortably with Cortes. They were talking of Juan Pachuca.
“A slippery one, that,” Cortes had remarked, keenly. “I don’t believe he means to throw in his lot with us. When I see him do it, I will believe—not before.”
“Why not? I have more men than he has. He needs men. All he has is this understanding that he brags of with the new government.”
“Lies,amigo, lies! His record with Carranza is against him.”
“Well, all men lie,” replied Angel, tersely, and with probably no intention of plagiarism. “Anyhow, we can do some good fighting together. There will be some fine pickings when we get the old man out ofMexico City. Think of the money, the fine clothes, the women!”
“Yes, I think of them,” replied Cortes, meditatively. “But I think also of Obregon. I hate that man. He hung a cousin of mine, once, for less than what you and I did to those Yaquis. Also, he has persecuted Villa.”
“Well, so will I persecute Villa if I ever get a chance,” replied Angel, cheerfully. “The fat thief! Think of the gold he has hidden in these mountains! Hold—what is that? Down in the canyon? Horses! Is it troops, do you think?”
“Troops—in a hole like that? It might be those Indians—an ambush!”
“It would be like the devils. I don’t see them now.”
“You saw Soria’s burro, most likely. Your nerves are bad, as the gringos say.” Both men grinned and rode on. Suddenly, they heard a crashing sound of scattering stones that rose even above the noise made by their horses. Angel threw up his head in alarm, very much as a horse does when he scents danger. “It is the Indians,” he said to Porfirio. “We must not be attacked in this narrow place. Forward! Ride! The Yaquis are upon us!” he cried, driving the spurs into his horse. He was followed by Cortes, who in turn was followed by the others. The entire band gave a vivid moving picture of a reckless run down a narrow trail, by a hundred men, any one of whom would have considered it utter madness had he been alone.
Marc Scott, stopped by a mesquite bush near the bottom of the canyon, lay for a few moments where he had fallen, literally too shaken to move. When he realized what had happened to him, he crawled to his feet and listened. All was still. The sounds from above had ceased, and a cloud of dust hovering over the trail was the only evidence that he had not imagined the passing of a crowd of men.
“By golly, I believe they didn’t hear me after all!” he gasped. Then the thought came to him of Polly—alone on the trail above him. A sickening fear shook him; how could she possibly have escaped those men? In a blind fury he started to climb the ravine. It had been hard going before—now, in spite of his body, stiff and shaken, he did not feel the effort. His face was purple with heat and exertion, his hands were bloody with the cactus he had clutched when falling, but his terror for the girl dwarfed all physical discomfort. Panting and choking, he forged ahead. If he could only reach Jasper he would follow that cloud of dust until he knew what had happened to the woman he loved.
Jasper and the mare, uninfluenced by motives either of fear or anger, still grazed by the clump of brush and allowed the almost exhausted Scott to lead them back to the trail. He mounted Jasper, and turned the mare loose. He started down the trail after the vanished band at a pace quite as reckless as their own.
“Marc! Marc Scott!” Polly’s voice rose desperately as she saw him disappearing down the trail. “Come back here!”
Scott turned, bewildered, to see Polly running wildly toward him. She flung herself upon him and upon Jasper before he could dismount, pouring out the story of the men who had gone down the trail.
“And the worst of it was,” she wept, stormily, “that I didn’t even try to warn you. I just made for that cave and hid myself. That’s the sort of a girl I am.”
“Did you, honey? Do you know, that strikes me as mighty sensible? I don’t hold much with girls saving men’s lives outside the movies, where they’re well paid for it. It strikes me life-saving is a man-sized job.”
“But you’re all scratched! What in the world——”
“I had to roll down the hill to dodge ’em,” chuckled Scott, as he caught the mare and helped the girl to mount her. “I’ll tell you about it after a while; just now I think we’d better be on our way.”
They rode on in silence, back over the trail and around the curve past the imitation cave which had sheltered Polly. Scott eyed the horses with inward pessimism.
“They’re never going to make it,” he thought. “They’re about all in now. Wish I knew whether to camp out and go on in the morning or to keep on pushing. If I was alone I’d bed down for the night but I hate to ask her to spend a night in the open unless I have to. Well, we’ll go on a while.”
They rode on, the tired horses going more and more slowly and responding less and less readily to urging. The trail did not go all the way down into the canyon,but met a rocky ledge which crossed it like a natural bridge. It was narrow and it was slippery with loose stones, but the girl took it silently. She was too tired and hungry to be afraid. The two sandwiches seemed things belonging to another life. She tried to smile when Scott looked back at her but it was hard work.
They came off the ledge onto the side of a hill which formed a part of the second range of mountains. The spot, green as a deer park, was directly on the side of the hill, about half-way up. Around it were trees—pines and live oaks. The trail seemed to have disappeared altogether. Scott had dismounted and was waiting for the girl to come up.
“What’s the matter?” she demanded, anxiously.
He dropped his horse’s bridle and came to her side. “I’ve a question for you, best girl,” he said, his hand on the pommel of her saddle, “These horses are hardly fit to climb this next range. They might do it and make the rest of the trip to-day if we urged them but it ain’t a square deal. Then, too, it would be dark before we got there.
“This is a place where we could stay. There’s pasture for the horses and I think that little stream that I found down in the canyon starts from up here somewhere. If we go on we may make it and again we may get tangled up in the mountains after dark, which I don’t fancy. I’m no forest ranger, you know. Shall we stay here till three or four o’clock in the morning or shall we plug ahead? It’s up to you.”
Polly turned an appalled face toward him. “But,Marc, you don’t mean to stay here—in this place—all night?” she said, faintly.
“Well, it won’t be exactly all night. It’s nearly five o’clock now and we could start at daybreak.”
“But—why, we haven’t anything to stop with! No tent and no blankets and nothing to eat! It would be rather dreadful, wouldn’t it?”
“Well, not dreadful, exactly. We’ve the blankets under our saddles, and you have your long cloak. I’ll build you a fire. Of course there’s nothing to eat except the rest of the sandwiches.”
“Well, perhaps—it would be pretty bad to get lost up here after dark. There might be mountain lions or mad skunks. They do have mad skunks out here, don’t they?”
Scott chuckled. “Search me, honey, all the skunks I ever met were mad. Come on down and we’ll have a look at the country.”
“Marc,” Polly looked down at him, her eyes soft, “I’m wondering what I would have done if those bandits had gobbled you.”
“I don’t let bandits gobble me when I’m escorting ladies,” replied Scott. Then meeting her eyes, the twinkle faded out of his. “You’d better say what would I have done if you hadn’t hidden in that cave.” His head rested for a moment against her knee.
“I don’t know. Seems as though things were being managed for us, doesn’t it?”
“I hope so.”
He lifted her to her feet and she looked around her curiously.
“It’s a pretty place,” she pronounced. “I hope you’re right about the water. I saw a little stream way up in the mountains when I climbed to the cave.”
“I’m going to let Jasper find it for me,” replied Scott. He had the saddles off the tired horses in a few seconds and they lay down and rolled happily, drying their sweaty backs in the dust. When they got to their feet again, he took the two long ropes from the saddles and fastened them around the horses’ necks.
“Are you going to tie them up?” demanded the girl.
“Not now. Going to let them drag the ropes around. I can catch ’em easy that way. Guess they’re too tired to go far.”
The horses had smelled the water and made for it. It ran in a trickling little stream down the hillside about a dozen feet away, hidden by some brush. Once refreshed, they were easily led back and began to feed on the coarse grass. Scott shook out the blankets.
“They’re a bit horsey,” he admitted, “but they’ll keep you warm. I put them under the saddles instead of the regular saddle blankets because I’ve been caught out this way before. A man learns things in this country.” He handed Polly her long coat and she slipped into it. “This isn’t exactly the time of year I’d pick for a camping trip,” he added, “but we’ll do, I reckon. Do you want to eat the sandwiches now, or do you prefer dinner at six?”
Polly eyed the two big sandwiches with a serious eye. “Let’s look at them a while first,” she said,hungrily. “Isn’t there any way of getting anything else? Can’t you shoot something?”
“I don’t see anything but you and me and the horses. What’s the matter?” For the girl had given a shriek of joy.
“In my coat pocket! A cake of chocolate that Mrs. Van put there—and the sugar. I always bring it for the horses. We’ll keep the chocolate for breakfast, shall we?”
They ate the sandwiches and topped off with the sugar. “Which,” said Polly, seriously, “is very strengthening. I’ve heard that they feed it to the Japanese army.”
“Yes, I’ve heard that, too,” assented Scott, “but I reckon that’s not all they feed ’em.”
“Well, it’s not all you’ve been fed, either, so don’t grumble,” said the lady, practically.
“I think,” said Scott, rising, “that before it grows dark I’ll investigate this trail a bit. It looks sort of blind to me. If we have to start by moonlight it’ll be just as well to have some notion of where to begin.”
Polly leaned back against a tree and watched him lazily. He looked very strong and capable. She recalled Joyce Henderson’s graceful proportions and smiled. She had had to come a long way to find the man she wanted but she was well content. It was odd, she reflected, that she and Joyce Henderson, who had known each other all their lives, were like strangers once they attempted the more intimate relation; while for this man whom she had known but a few weeks shefelt a sense of familiarity, of belongingness, that she could scarcely believe. She was trusting him now in a way that she had never imagined herself trusting any man and yet she felt at ease.
Scott, returning, threw himself down beside her. “I’ve found the trail,” he said, “but we’ve got some traveling ahead of us. Don’t look to me as if anybody’d been over it since Gomez was.”
“Didn’t those men come this way?”
“No. They must have hit the trail lower down—from some place we’ve missed. I’ll swear no crowd like that have been where I’ve just been.”
The girl looked at him gravely. “Do you think we ought to go back?”
“Back? No, I don’t. Those folks are waiting for us at Soria’s and I want to get Tom started for them as soon as I can.”
“I wonder if those men will make any trouble at Soria’s?”
“I don’t believe so. If it was Angel Gonzales, he’s heading for your gentleman friend’s place and he’ll be in a hurry.”
“Why do you go on calling him my gentleman friend?”
“Well, you think he’s some kind of a guy, don’t you?” demanded Scott, with a grin. “Pretty manners, soft voice, nice long eyelashes—all that kind of thing?”
“Yes, I do,” replied Polly, stoutly. “I like Juan Pachuca and I believe he’s been led away by bad company. I believe what he told me about that treasure,too. I only wish I’d made him tell me the name of the border town where it was.”
“Women are queer,” remarked Scott, with more truth than originality. “Well, Polly Street, I think I’ll gather the wood for your fire.”
Together they gathered the loose twigs and branches—they were not many, but eked out with pine cones would make a fire for a few hours, and Scott made Polly’s bed close by it. He put his rubber poncho on the ground and made the girl wrap herself in both blankets.
“I’ve got a heavy sweater under my coat,” he said, “and I’ll have to keep moving a good deal to look after the horses and keep the fire going.” And he refused to take a blanket, much to Polly’s dismay. “Curl up and be comfortable, girlie, and relax. It don’t matter if you don’t sleep if you can relax.”
Polly tried to comply, but she was too much interested in what was going on around her to give up either to sleep or to relaxation. The crackling of the fire and its wonderful odor, the little hushing noises of the birds going to rest, the gentle coming up of the moon and the myriads of stars, all were too fascinating to risk missing in sleep. Scott had gone after the horses and had tethered each by a long rope in a place where feeding could be attended to, and had come back to the fire and thrown on some more wood. He sat smoking with his feet nearly in the fire and his face lit by its glow.
“I suppose you’ve spent lots of glorious nights in the open?” asked Polly, wistfully.
“A good many. Some of them not so glorious, either. One night up in New Mexico——” he paused to light another cigarette.
“Go on,” demanded the girl. “When you say ‘one night up in New Mexico’ I feel just as I used to when my father used to say ‘once upon a time.’”
“Well, I don’t know why I happened to think of this special night,” grinned Scott, “except that on most of my out-of-door nights I’ve been by myself—out hunting and that kind of thing—and this one I had somebody with me. It was when I was mining in Colorado, and some fellows I knew had a big cattle ranch down in New Mexico. It was a real ranch—not a two for a cent one like Herrick’s. I went down to visit them at round-up time. I’d never seen a round-up before so I was hanging around every chance I got.
“They had a lot of cattle—some of them pretty wild—and it wasn’t easy to keep ’em together especially at night. Well, one day Jim Masters got a fall from his horse and a kick on the head from another when he was down, and he was in a pretty bad state—it looked to us like concussion of the brain but we didn’t know. We carried him into a tent we’d put up about a quarter of a mile from where the cattle were, and one of the boys rode to town for a doctor.
“We were up on a mesa, like the one we crossed yesterday, remember? We had outlaw cattle in the bunch and it took all the boys to handle them. I, being a tenderfoot and not much use with the cattle, said I’d sit with Jim and sort of watch him till the doctor came. He was out of his head so ’twasn’tany comfort to him but it made the boys feel better.”
“I’ll bet it was a comfort to him, Marc Scott! You are the sort of person it would be a comfort to have around if one was out of one’s head,” said Polly, emphatically.
“Thank you, honey; I’m afraid you’re jollying me. Anyhow, I stayed with Jim and while he lay there groaning I sat in the doorway of the tent and smoked—wasn’t anything I could do for the poor boy. Man, that was a night! The mesa just like a big green table spread under the sky—what is it that lunger poet said—‘under the wide and starry sky’? Well, that’s how she looked. Mountains all around, moon blazing away showing up the cattle at the other end of the mesa, not a sound except the river, one of those busy little rivers that keep it up night and day. If I’d known something of cattle I wouldn’t have thought that stillness was so pretty, but I didn’t. I hadn’t even noticed that the cows had stopped bellowing—it seemed like a night that ought to be still.
“When, all of a sudden, I saw a movement in that bunch of cattle. It was a stampede. That’s what they’re cooking up, you know, when they’re still like that. Before I’d realized what had happened they began to bolt—and in our direction. It was just exactly as if one of those old bulls had said to the crowd: ‘There’s a couple of stiffs in a tent down by the river, boys, let’s rush ’em.’
“They came down that mesa like all heck let loose. The electricity in their hides had made a sort of bluehaze—phosphorescent, they call it—and it gave ’em an awful look. Of course, the boys hadn’t let them start a stampede without doing anything to stop ’em. They were riding round ’em, yelling and shooting into the air, but on they came.
“Well, it was no place for me and Jim. It began to look to me as if that doctor was going to have his trip for nothing, but what could I do? I couldn’t go off and leave Jim, and when I tried to pick him up he fought me so I had to drop him. ’Twouldn’t have done much good anyhow because there was no place to go. So I said to myself: ‘Sit tight, old man, and if you can’t die game, die as game as you can.’
“On they came like a lot of mad things. Then, all at once, when I’d about given up hope, the boys got ’em to milling. You know how they do that? Get ’em started to going round and round instead of straight ahead and the fools will go till they drop in their tracks. When I saw ’em doing that I knew that Jim and I weren’t slated for Heaven that night so I sat still and enjoyed the sight.
“It was one wild sight. You can read about stampedes till your head aches but you’ve got to see one to know how she feels.”
“What an interesting life you’ve had, Marc, and all I’ve done was to drive a Red Cross ambulance around Chicago and win a few golf trophies,” murmured Polly, sleepily.
“Well, that depends. Perhaps it’s been interesting, but it ain’t been easy.”
They sat in silence for a while and then Scott sawthat the girl had fallen asleep. He smiled as he put more wood on the fire.
“Funny that she and I should find each other out of all the world,” he meditated. “Just one nice girl and one no-account chap drawn toward each other. Some folks call it Fate. I didn’t mean to do it and maybe I’m going to wish I hadn’t—but just now I’m satisfied.”