IV

“I do believe there shall be a winter yet in heaven—and in hell.”—Paradise and the Periscope.“Realism,n.The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads.”—The Devil’s Dictionary.“They sit brooding on a garbage scow and tell us how bad the world smells.”—Berton Braley.

“I do believe there shall be a winter yet in heaven—and in hell.”

—Paradise and the Periscope.

“Realism,n.The art of depicting nature as it is seen by toads.”

—The Devil’s Dictionary.

“They sit brooding on a garbage scow and tell us how bad the world smells.”

—Berton Braley.

“Just round the block” is a phrase familiar to you. To get the same effect in the open country you would say “thirty miles” or sixty; and in those miles it is likely there would be no water and no house—perhaps not any tree. Consider now: Within the borders of New Mexico might be poured New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware. Then drop in another small state and all of Chesapeake Bay, and still New Mexico would not be brimful—though it would have to be carried carefully to avoid slopping over. Scattered across this country is a population less than that of Buffalo—half of it clustered in six-mile ribbons along the Rio Grande and the Pecos. Those figures arefor to-day. Divide them by three, and then excuse the story if it steps round the block. It was long ago; Plancus was consul then.

Some two weeks after the day when Johnny Dines went to horse camp, Charlie See rode northward through the golden September; northward from Rincon, pocket of that billiard table you know of. His way was east of the Rio Grande, in the desperate twisting country where the river cuts through Caballo Mountains. His home was beyond the river, below Rincon, behind Cerro Roblado and Selden Hill; and he rode for a reason he had. Not for the first time; at every farm and clearing he was hailed with greeting and jest.

Across the river he saw the yellow walls of Colorado, of old Fort Thorne, deserted Santa Barbara. He came abreast of them, left them behind, came to Wit’s End, where the river gnaws at the long bare ridges and the wagon road clings and clambers along the brown hillside. He rode sidewise and swaying, crooning a gay little saddle song; to which Stargazer, his horse, twitched back an inquiring ear.

Oh, there was a crooked man and he rode a crooked mile——

Charlie See was as straight as his own rifle; it was the road he traveled which prompted that joyful saddle song. As will be found upon examination, that roistering ditty sorts with a joyful jog trot. It follows that Charlie See was not riding at a run, as frontiersmen do in the movies. It is a great and neglected truth that frontiersmen on the frontier never ride like the frontiersmen in films. And it may be mentioned in passing that frontiersmen on frontiers never do anything at all resembling as to motive, method or result those things which frontiersmen do in films. And that is the truth.

The actual facts are quite simple and jolly. In pursuit of wild stock, men run their horses at top speed for as short a time as may be contrived; not to make the wild stock run faster and farther, but to hold up the wild stock. Once checked, they proceed as soberly as may be to the day’s destination; eventually to a market. Horse or steer comes to market ingood shape or bad, as the handling has been reckless or tender; and the best cowman is he whose herds have been moved slowest. At exceptional times—riding with or from the sheriff, to get a doctor, or, for a young man in April, riding a fresh horse for a known and measured distance, speed is permitted. But the rule is to ride slowly and sedately, holding swiftness in reserve for need. Walk, running walk, pace, jog trot—those are the road gaits, to which horses are carefully trained, giving most mileage with least effort. Rack and single-foot are tolerated but frowningly.

The mad, glad gallop is reserved for childhood and for emergencies. Penalties, progressively suitable, are provided for the mad, glad galloper. He becomes the object of sidelong glances and meaning smiles; persistent, he becomes the theme of gibe and jest to flay the skin. If he be such a one as would neither observe nor forecast, one who will neither learn nor be taught, soon or late he finds himself set afoot with a give-out horse; say, twenty-five miles from water. It is not onrecord that wise or foolish, after one such experience, is ever partial to the sprightly gallop as a road gait. Of thirst, as of “eloquent, just and mightie Death,” it may be truly said: “Whom none could advise, thou hast perswaded.”

The road wound down to the bottom land for a little space. Then sang Charlie See:

Oh, mind you not in yonder townWhen the red wine you were fillin’,You drank a health to the ladies roundAnd slighted Barbara Allan?

Followed a merry ditty of old days:

Foot in the stirrup and a hand on the horn,Best old cowboy ever was born!Hi, yi-yippy, yippy-hi-yi-yi,Hi-yi-yippy-yippy-yay!Stray in the herd and the boss said kill it,Shot him in the ear with the handle of the skillet!Hi, yi-yippy, yippy-hi-yi-yi,Hi-yi-yippy-yippy-yay!

That rollicking chorus died away. The wagon road turned up a sandy draw for along detour, to cross the high ridges far inland. Stargazer clambered up the Drunkard’s Mile, a steep and dizzy cut-off. High on an overhang of halfway shelf, between water and sky, Stargazer paused for breathing space.

The world has no place for a dreamer of dreams,Then ’tis no place for me, it seems,Dearie!... My dearie!

Echo rang bugle-brave from cliff to cliff, pealed exulting, answered again—came back long after, faint and far:

“Dearie!... My dearie!”

He looked down, musing, at the swirling black waters far below.

For I dream of you all day long!You run through the hours like a song!Nothing’s worth while save dreams of you,And you can make every dream come true—Dearie! My dearie!

Drunkard’s Mile fell off into the valley at Redbrush and joined the wagon road there. They passed Beck’s Ferry and Beneteau’s; they came to a bridge over theacequia madre,the mother ditch, wide and deep. Beyond was a wide valley of cleared and irrigated farm lands. This was Garfield settlement.

You remember Mr. Dick and how he could not keep King Charles’ head out of his Memorial? A like unhappiness is mine. When I remember that pleasant settlement as it really was, cheerful and busy and merry, I am forced to think how gleefully the super-sophisticated Sons of Light would fall afoul of these friendly folk—how they would pounce upon them with jeering laughter, scoff at their simple joys and fears; set down, with heavy and hateful satisfaction, every lack and longing; flout at each brave makeshift, such as Little Miss Brag crowed over, jubilant, when she pointed with pride:

For little Miss Brag, she lays much stressOn the privileges of a gingham dress—A-ha-a! O-ho-o!

A lump comes to my throat, remembering; now my way is plain; if I would not be incomparably base, I must speak up for my ownpeople. Now, like Mr. Dick, I must fly my kite, with these scraps and tags of Memorial. The string is long, and if the kite flies high it may take the facts a long way; the winds must bear them as they will.

Consider now the spreading gospel of despair, and marvel at the power of words—noises in the air, marks upon paper. Let us wonder to see how little wit is needed to twist and distort truth that it may set forth a lie. A tumblebug zest, a nose pinched to sneering, a slurring tongue—with no more equipment you and I could draw a picture of Garfield as it is done in the fashion of to-day.

Be blind and deaf to help and hope, gay courage, hardship nobly borne; appeal to envy, greed, covetousness; belaud extravagance and luxury; magnify every drawback; exclaim at rude homes, simple dress, plain food, manners not copied from imitators of Europe’s idlesse; use ever the mean and mocking word—how easy to belittle! Behold Garfield—barbarous, uncouth, dreary, desolate, savage and forlorn; there misery kennels,huddled between jungle and moaning waste; there, lout and boor crouch in their wretched hovels! We have left out little; only the peace of mighty mountains far and splendid, a gallant sun and the illimitable sky, tingling and eager life, and the invincible spirit of man.

Such picture as this of Garfieldcomme il fautis, I humbly conceive, what a great man, who trod earth bravely, had in mind when he wondered at “the spectral unreality of realistic books.” It is what he forswore in his up-summing: “And the true realism is ... to find out where joy resides and give it a voice beyond singing.”

This trouble about Charles the First and our head—it started in 1645, I think—needs looking into.

There are circles where “adventurer” is a term of reproach, where “romance” is made synonym for a lie, and a silly lie at that. Curious! The very kernel and meaning of romance is the overcoming of difficulties or a manly constancy of striving; a strong play pushed home or defeat well borne. And itwould be hard to find a man but found his own life a breathless adventure, brief and hard, with ups and downs enough, strivings through all defeats.

Interesting, if true. But can we prove this? Certainly—by trying. Mr. Dick sets us all right. Put any man to talk of what he knows best—corn, coal or lumber—and hear matters throbbing with the entrancing interest born only of first-hand knowledge. Our pessimists “suspect nothing but what they do not understand, and they suspect everything”—as was said of the commission set to judge the regicides who cut off the head of Charles the Martyr—whom I may have mentioned, perhaps.

Let the dullest man tell of the thing he knows at first hand, and his speech shall tingle with battle and luck and loss, purr for small comforts of cakes and ale or sound the bell note of clean mirth; his voice shall exult with pride of work, tingle and tense to speak of hard-won steeps, the burden and heat of the day and “the bright face of danger”; it shall be soft as quiet water to tell of shadows wherewinds loiter, of moon magic and far-off suns, friendship and fire and song. There will be more, too, which he may not say, having no words. We prate of little things, each to each; but we fall silent before love and death.

It was once commonly understood that it is not good for a man to whine. Only of late has it been discovered that a thinker is superficial and shallow unless he whines; that no man is wise unless he views with alarm. Eager propaganda has disseminated the glad news that everything is going to the demnition bowwows. Willing hands pass on the word. The method is simple. They write very long books in which they set down the evil on the one side—and nothing on the other. That is “realism.” Whatsoever things are false, whatsoever things are dishonest, whatsoever things are unjust, whatsoever things are impure, whatsoever things are of ill report; if there be any vice, and if there be any shame—they think on these things. They gloat upon these things; they wallow in these things.

The next time you hanker for a gripping, stinging, roaring romance, try the story ofEddystone Lighthouse. There wasn’t a realist on the job—they couldn’t stand the gaff. For any tough lay like this of Winstanley’s dream you want a gang of idealists—the impractical kind. It is not a dismal story; it is a long record of trouble, delay, setbacks, exposure, hardship, death and danger, failure, humiliation, jeers, disaster and ruin. Crippled idealists were common in Plymouth Harbor. The sea and the wind mocked their labor; they were crushed, frozen and drowned; but they built Eddystone Light! And men in other harbors took heart again to build great lights against night and storm; the world over, realists fare safelier on the sea for Winstanley’s dream.

There is the great distinction between realism and reality: It is the business of a realist to preach how man is mastered by circumstances; it is the business of a man to prove that he will be damned first.

You may note this curious fact of dismal books—that you remember no passage to quote to your friends. Not one. And you perceive, with lively astonishment, that despairingbooks are written by the fortunate. The homespun are not so easily discouraged. When crows pull up their corn they do not quarrel with Creation. They comment on the crows, and plant more corn.

This trouble in King Charles’ head may be explained, in part, on a closer looking. As for those who announce the bankruptcy of an insolvent and wildcat universe, with no extradition, and who proclaim God the Great Absconder—they are mostly of the emerged tenth. Their lips do curl with scorn; and what they scorn most is work—and doers. For what they deign to praise—observe, sir, for yourself, what they uphold, directly or by implication. See if it be not a thing compact of graces possible only to idleness. See if it be not their great and fatal mistake that they regard culture as an end in itself, and not as a means for service. Aristocracy? Patricians? In a world which has known the tinker of Bedford, the druggist’s clerk of Edmonton, the Stratford poacher, backwoods Lincoln, a thousand others, and ten thousand—a carpenter’s son among them?

Returning to the Provisional Government: Regard its members closely, these godsad interim. The ground of their depression is that everybody is not Just like Them. They have a grievance also in the matter of death; which might have been arranged better. It saddens them to know that so much excellence as theirs should perish from the earth. The skeptic is slacker, too; excusing himself from the hardships of right living by pleading the futility of effort.

Unfair? Of course I am unfair; all this is assumption without knowledge, a malicious imputation of the worst possible motives, judgment from a part. It is their own method.

A wise word was said of late: “There are poor colonels, but no poor regiments.” It would be truer to change a word; to say that there are poor soldiers, but no poor regiments. The gloomster picks the poorest soldier he can find, and holds him up to our eyes as a sample. “This is life!” says the pessimist, proud at last. “Now you see the stuff your regiments are made of!”

If one of these pallbearers should write a treatise on pomology he would dwell lovingly on apple-tree borers, blight and pest and scale. He would say no word of spray or pruning; he would scoff at the glory of apple blossoms as the rosy illusion of romance; and he would resolutely suppress all mention of—apples. But he would feature hard cider, for all that; and he would revel in cankerworms.

These blighters and borers—figuratively speaking—when the curse of the bottle is upon them—the ink bottle—they weave ugly words to ugly phrases for ugly books about ugly things; with ugly thoughts of ugly deeds they chronicle life and men as dreary, sordid, base, squalid, paltry, tawdry, mean, dismal, dull and dull again, interminably dull—vile, flat, stale, unprofitable and insipid. No splendid folly or valiant sin—much less impracticable idealisms, such as kindness, generosity, faith, forgiveness, courage, honor, friendship, love; no charm or joy or beauty, no ardors that flame and glow. They show forth a world of beastliness and bankruptcy; they picture life as a purposeless hell.

I beg of you, sir, do not permit yourself to be alarmed. What you hear is but the backdoor gossip of the world. And these people do not get enough exercise. Their livers are torpid. Some of them, poor fellows, are quite sincere—and some are merely in the fashion. It isn’t true, you know; not of all of us, all the time. Nothing is changed; there is no shadow but proves the light; in the farthest world of any universe, in the latest eternity you choose to mention, it will still be playing the game to run out your hits; and there, as here, only the shirker will lie down on the job.

In the meantime, now and here, there are two things, and two only, that a man may do with his ideals: He may hold and shape them, or tread them under foot; ripen or rot.

What, sir, the hills are steep, the sand heavy, the mire is Despond-deep; for that reason will you choose a balky horse? Or will you follow a leader who plans surrender?

The bookshelviki have thrown away the sword before the fight. They shriek a shameful message: “All is lost! Save yourselves who can!”

The battle is sore upon us; true. But there is another war cry than this. It was born of a bitter hour; it was nobly boasted, and brave men made it good. Now, and for all time to come, as the lost and furious fight reels by, men will turn and turn again for the watchword of Verdun: “They shall not pass! They shall not pass!”

Pardon the pontifical character of these remarks. They come tardy off. For years I have kept a safe and shameful silence when I should have been shouting, “Janet! Donkeys!” and throwing things. I will be highbrow-beaten no longer. I hereby resign from the choir inaudible. Modesty may go hang and prudence be jiggered; I wear Little Miss Brag’s colors for favor; I have cut me an ellum gad, and I mean to use it on the seat of the scorner.

“Everything in Nature is engaged in writing its own history.” So says Emerson or somebody. Here is the roll call of that lonesome bit between the Rio Grande and Caballo Mountain. Salem, Garfield, Donahue’s,Derry and Shandon; those were the hamlets of the east side. Sound Irish, don’t they? They were just what they sound like, at first. A few Irish families, big families, half of them girls—Irish girls; young gentlemen with a fancy to settle down settled right there or thereabouts. That’s a quick way to start settlements. There was also a sardonic Greenhorn, to keep alive a memory of the old-time Texans, before the fences. A hundred years older than Greenhorn was the old Mexican outpost, San Ysidro; ruthlessly changed to Garfield when the Mississippi Valley moved in. Transportation was the poorest ever; this was the last-won farm land of New Mexico.

Along with snakes, centipedes, little yellow bobcats, whisky, poker, maybe a beef or two—there were other features worthy of note. Each man had to be cook, housekeeper, hunter, laundryman, shoemaker, blacksmith, bookkeeper, purchasing agent, miner, mason, nurse, doctor, gravedigger, interpreter, surveyor, tailor, jailor, judge, jury and sheriff. Having no sea handy, he was seldom a sailorman.

A man who could do these things wellenough to make them work might be illiterate, but he couldn’t be ignorant, not on a bet. It wasn’t possible. He knew too much. He had to do his own thinking. There was no one else to do it for him. And he could not be wretched. He was too busy. “We may be poor sinners, but we’re not miserable”—that was a favorite saying. When they brought in supplies or when they packed for a long trip, they learned foresight and imagination. A right good college, the frontier; there are many who are proud of that degree.

It is easy to be hospitable, kindly and free-hearted in a thinly settled country; it is your turn next, you know generosity from both sides; the Golden Rule has no chance to get rusty. So they were pleasant and friendly people. They learned coöperation by making wagon roads together, by making dams and big irrigation ditches, and from the round-ups. They lived in the open air, and their work was hard, they had health; there were endless difficulties to overcome; happiness had a long start and the pursuit was merry.

There was one other great advantage—hope.They had much to hope for. Almost everything. They wished three great wishes: Water for the fields, safety from floods, a way to the outside world. To-day the thick and tangledbosquesare cleared to smiling farms, linked by a shining network of ditches. The floods are impounded at Engle Dam, and held there for man’s uses. A great irrigation canal keeps high and wide, with just fall enough to move the water; each foot saved of high level means added miles of reclaimed land under the ditch. To a stranger’s eye the water of that ditch runs clearly uphill. To hold that high level the main ditch, which is first taken out to serve the west side, crosses the Rio Grande on a high flume to Derry; curves high and winding about the wide farm lands of Garfield valley; is siphoned under the river for Hatch and Rodey, and then is siphoned once again to the east side, to break out in the sunlight for the use of Rincon Valley. Rough and crooked is made smooth and straight; safe bridge and easy grade, a modern highway follows up the valley, with a brave firefly twinkling by night, to join the great National Trailat Engle Dam. This is what they dreamed amid sand and thorn—and their dreams have all come true. Now who can say which was better, the hoping or the having?

It was pleasant enough, at least, on this day of hoping. Stargazer shuffled by farm and farm, and turned aside at last to where, with ax and pick and team and tackle, a big man was grubbing up mesquite roots. Unheeded, for the big man wrought sturdily, Charlie rode close; elbow on saddlehorn, chin on hand, he watched the work with mingled interest and pity.

“There,” he said, and shuddered—“there, but for the grace of God, goes Charlie See!”

The big man straightened up and held a hand to his aching back. His face was brown and his hair was red, his eyes were big and blue and merry, and his big, homely, honest mouth was one broad grin.

“Why, if it ain’t Nubbins! Welcome, little stranger! Hunting saddle horses—again?”

“Why, no, Big Boy—I’m not. Not this time.”

Big Boy rubbed the bridge of his nose, disconcerted.“You always was before. Not horses? Well, well! What say we go a-visitin’, then?” He squinted at the low sun. “I’ll call this a day, and we’ll mosey right home to my little old shack, and wolf down a few eggs and such. Then we’ll wash our hands and faces right good, catch us up some fresh horses out of the pasture, and terrapin up the road a stretch. Bully big moonlight night.” He began unhooking his team.

“Fine! I just love to ride. Only came about fifty miles to-day, too.”

“I was thinkin’ some of droppin’ in on old man Fenderson. I ain’t been over there since last night. Coalie! You, Zip! Ged-dap!”

“Mr. Adam Forbes,” said Charlie, “I’ve got you by the foot!”

“Now if you was wishful of any relaxations,” said Adam after supper, “you might side me up in the feet hills to-morrow, prospectin’.”

“I might,” said Charlie; “and then again I mightn’t. Don’t you go and bet on it.”

Adam stropped his razor. “You knowthere’s three cañons headin’ off from MacCleod’s Tank Park? And the farthest one, that big, steep, rough, wide, long, high, ugly, sandy, deep gash that runs anti-gogglin’ north, splittin’ off these spindlin’ little hills from the main Caballo and Big Timber Mountain—ever been through that? ’Pache Cañon, we call it—though we got no license to.”

“Part way,” said Charlie. Then his voice lit up with animation. “Say, Big Chump, that’s it! Them warty little hills here—that’s what makes us look down on you folks the way we do. And here I thought all along it was because you was splay-foot farmers, and unfortunate, you know, that way like all nesters is. But blamed if I don’t think it was them hills, all the time. We got regular old he-mountains, we have. But these here little old squatty hills clutterin’ up your back yard—why, Adam, they ain’t respectable, them hills ain’t—squanderin’ round where a body might stub his toe on ’em, any time. You ought to pile ’em up, Adam. They look plumb shiftless.”

“That listens real good to me. You gotmore brains than people say.” Adam scraped tranquilly at cheek and chin, necessitating an occasional pause in his speech. “Now you can see for yourself how plumb foolish and futile a little runt of a man seems to a people that ain’t never been stunted.”

“‘Seems’ is a right good word,” said Charlie. He blew out a smoke ring. “You sure picked the very word you wanted, that time. I didn’t think you had sense enough.”

Adam passed an appraising finger tip over his brown cheek; he stirred up fresh lather.

“Yes,” he said musingly, “a little sawed off sliver like you sure does look right comical to a full-grown man. Like me. Or Hob Lull.” He paused, brush in air, to regard his guest benignantly. “I wonder if girls feel that way too? Miss Lyn Dyer, now? Lull, he hangs round there right smart—and he’s a fine, big, upstanding man.” He lathered his face and rubbed it in. “First off, I fixed to assassinate him quiet, from behind. You know them two girls don’t hardly know where they do live—always together, Harkey’s house or Fenderson’s. So I mistrusted, natural enough, that’twas Miss Edith he was waitin’ on. But I was mistook. Just in time to save his life from my bloody and brutal designs he began tolling Miss Lyn to one side to look at sunsets and books and such, givin’ me a chance to buzz Miss Edith alone. Good thing for him. That’s why I’m lettin’ you tag along to-night—you can entertain Pete Harkey and Ma Fenderson and the old man, so’s they won’t pester me and Hobby.”

“Like fun I will! If you fellows had any decent feeling at all you’d both of you clear out and give me a chance.”

“Now, deary, you hadn’t ought to talk like that—indeed you hadn’t!” protested Adam. “You plumb distress me. You ought to declare yourself, feller. I’d always hate it if I was to slay you, and then find out I’d been meddlin’ with Hobby Lull’s private affairs. I’d hate that—I sure would!”

“Well now, there’s no use of your askin’ me for advice.” Charlie’s eyebrows shrugged, and so did his shoulders. “You’ll have to decide these things for yourself. Say, you mangy, moth-eaten, slab-sided, long, lousy,lop-eared parallelopipedon, are you goin’ to be all night dollin’ up? Let’s ride!”

“Don’t blame you for bein’ impatient. Hob, he’s there now.” Face and voice expressed fine tolerance; Adam looked into a scrap of broken mirror for careful knotting of a gay necktie.

“I won’t be sorry to see Hob once more, at that,” observed Charlie. “Always liked Lull. Took to him first time I ever saw him. That was seven years ago, when I was only a kid.”

“Only a kid! Only—Great Cæsar’s ghost, what are you now?”

“I’m twenty-five years old in my stocking feet. And here’s how I met up with Lull. El Paso had a big ball game on with Silver City, and Hob, he wanted to be umpire. Nobody on either team would hear of it, and not one of the fifteen hundred rip-roarin’, howlin’ fans. It was sure a mean mess while it lasted. You see, there was a lot of money up on the game.”

“And who umpired?”

“Hob.”

“Money was so scarce in that country that the babies had to cut their teeth on certified checks.”—Bluebeard for Happiness.“The cauldrified and chittering truth.”—The Ettrick Shepherd.

“Money was so scarce in that country that the babies had to cut their teeth on certified checks.”

—Bluebeard for Happiness.

“The cauldrified and chittering truth.”

—The Ettrick Shepherd.

“As I was a-tellin’ you, when I got switched off,” said Adam, in the starlit road, “I found gold dust in ’Pache Cañon nigh onto a year ago. Not much—just a color—but it set me to thinkin’.”

“How queer!” said Charlie.

“Yes, ain’t it? You see, a long time ago, when the ’Paches were thick about here, they used to bring in gold to sell—coarse gold, big as rice, nearly. Never would tell where they got it; but when they wanted anything right bad they was right there with the stuff; coarse gold. All sorts of men tried all sorts of ways to find out where it came from. No go.”

“Indians are mighty curious about gold,” said Charlie. “Over in the Fort Stanton country, the Mescaleros used to bring in gold that same way—only it was fine gold, there. Along about 1880, Llewellyn, he was the agent; and Steve Utter, chief of police; andDave Easton, he was chief clerk; and Dave Pelman and Dave Sutherland—three Daves—and old Pat Coghlan—them six, they yammered away at one old buck till at last he agreed to show them. He was to get a four-horse team, harness and wagon, and his pick of stuff from the commissary to load up the wagon with. They was to go by night, and no other Indian was ever to know who told ’em, before or after—though how he proposed to account for that wagonload of plunder I don’t know. I’ll say he was a short-sighted Injun, anyway.

“Well, they started from the agency soon after midnight. They had to go downstream about a quarter, round a fishhook bend, on account of a mess of wire fence; and then they turned up through aciénagaon a corduroy road, sort of a lane cut straight through the swamp, with thetules—cat-tail flags, you know—eight or ten feet high on each side. They was going single file, mighty quiet, Mister Mescalero-man in the lead. They heard just a little faint stir in thetules, and a sound like bees humming. Mister Redskin he keelsover, shot full of arrows. Not one leaf moving in thetules; all mighty still; they could hear the Injun pumping up blood, glug—glug—glug! The white men went back home pretty punctual. Come daylight they go back, police and everything. There lays their guide with nine arrows through his midst. And that was the end of him.

“But that wasn’t the end of the gobbling gold. Fifteen years after, Pat Coghlan and Dave Sutherland—the others having passed on or away, up, down, across or between—they throwed in with a lad called Durbin or something, and between them they honey-swoggled an old Mescalero named Falling Pine, and led him astray. It took nigh two months, but they made a fetch of it. Old Falling Pine, he allowed to lead ’em to the gold.

“Now as the years passed slowly by, Lorena, the Mescaleros had got quite some civilized; this old rooster, he held out for two thousand plunks, half in his grimy clutch, half on delivery. He got it. And they left Tularosa, eighteen miles below the agency, and ten milesoff the reservation, about nine o’clock of a fine Saturday night.

“Well, sir, four miles above Tularosa the wagon road drops off the mesa down to a little swale between a sandstone cliff and Tularosa Creek. They turned a corner, and there was nine big bucks, wrapped up in blankets, heads and all! There wasn’t no arrows, and there wasn’t nothing said. Not a word. Those nine bucks moved up beside Falling Pine, real slow, one at a time. Each one leaned close, pulled up a flap of the blanket, and looked old Falling Pine in the eye, nose to nose. Then he wrapped his blanket back over his face and faded away. That was all.

“It was a great plenty. The plot thinned right there. Falling Pine, he handed back that thousand dollars advance money, like it was hot, and he beat it for Tularosa. They wanted him to try again, to tell ’em where the stuff was, anyhow; they doubled the price on him. He said no—not—nunca—nixy—neinte—he guessed not—nada—not much—never! He added that he was going to lead a betterlife from then on, and wouldn’t they please hush? And what I say unto you is this: How did them Indians know—hey?”

“Don’t ask me,” said Adam. “I’ve heard your story before, Charles—only your dead Injun had thirty-five arrows for souvenirs, ’stead of nine. The big idea was, of course, that where gold is found the white man comes along, and the Indian he has to move. But all this is neither here nor there, especially here, though heaven only knows what might have been under happier circumstances not under our control, as perhaps it was, though we are all liable to make mistakes in the best regulated families; yet perhaps I could find it in my heart to wish it were not otherwise, as the case may be.”

“Nine arrows!” said Charlie firmly.

“Young fellow!” said Adam severely. “Be I telling this story or be I not? I been tryin’ to relate about this may-be-so gold of mine, ever since you come—and dad burn it, you cut me off every time. I do wish you’d hush! Listen now! Of course there’s placer gold all round Hillsboro; most anywheres west ofthe river, for that matter. But it’s all fine dust—never coarse gold beyond the river—and it runs so seldom to the ton that no Injun would ever get it. So, thinks I, why not look in at Apache Cañon? It’s the plumb lonesomest place I know, and I don’t believe anybody ever had the heart to prospect it good. So I went up to Worden’s and worked up from the lower end.

“That was last year, and I have been prognosticatin’ round, off and on, ever since, whenever I could get away from my farmin’. I found a trace, mostly. You can always get a color round here, and no one place better than another. But when the rains begun this year, so I could find water to pan with, I tried it again, higher up. And in a little flat side draw, leadin’ from between two miserable little snubby hills off all alone, too low to send much flood water down—there I begun to find float, plumb promisin’. I started to follow it up. You know how—pan to right and left till the stuff fails to show, mark the edge of the pay dirt, go on up the hill and do the like again. If the gold you’re followin’ has been carrieddown by water the streak gets narrower as you go up a hillside, and pay dirt gets richer as it gets narrower. If the hill has been tossed about by the hell fires down below, all bets is off and no rule works, not even the exceptions. That’s why they say gold is where you find it. But any time you find a fan-shaped strip of color on a hill that looks like it might have stayed put, or nearly so, it’s worth while to follow it up. If you find the apex of that triangle you’re apt to strike a pocket that will land you right side up with the great and good. Sometimes the apex has done been washed away; these water courses have run quite elsewhere other times. Oh, quite! But there’s always a chance. Follow up a narrowing color and quit one that squanders round casual. Them’s the rules.

“Well, sir, my pay dirt took to the side of that least hill, and she was shaping right smart like a triangle. Then my water give out. I was usin’ a little tank in the rocks—no other without packing from MacCleod’s Tank, five mile. And I had to get in my last cuttin’ ofalfalfa—pesky stuff! I cached my outfit and came on home.

“So there you are. It’s been rainin’ again; and I’m goin’ out and try another whirl to-morrow, hit or miss. Go snooks with you if you’re a mind to side me. What say?”

“Why, Big Chump, you’re not such a bad old hoss thief, are you? Well, I thank you just as much, and I sure hope you’ll make a ten-strike and everything like that; but, you see, I’m busy. Tell you what, Adam—you get Hob to go along, and I’ll think about it.”

“Oh, well, maybe it’s a false alarm anyway,” said Adam lightly. “I’ve known better things to fizzle. I get my fun, whatever happens. I can’t stay cooped up on that measly old farm all the time. I need a little fresh air every so often. I’m a lot like Thompson’s colt, that swum the river to get a drink.”

“Don’t like farmin’, eh?”

“Why, yes, I do. Beats hellin’ round, same as a stack of hay beats a stack of chips. They’re right nice people here, Charlie, mighty pleasant and friendly and plumb cheerfulabout the good time coming. And every last one of ’em is here because this is the very place he wants to be, and not because he happened to be here and didn’t know how to get away. That makes a power of difference. They’re plumb animated, these folks; if so be they ain’t just satisfied any place, they rise up and depart. So we have no grand old grouches. All the same, I’m free to admit that I haven’t quite the elbowroom I need.”

“I know just how you feel,” said Charlie; “I’ve leased a township and fenced it in. That’s why I’m not at some round-up; all my bossies right at home. And dog-gone if I don’t feel like I was in jail. But you people can’t be making much real money, Adam—hauling over such roads as these. It is forty miles from place to place, in here, while out in the open it is only thirty or maybe twenty-five. That’s on account of the sand and the curly places. And then you have nothing to do in the wintertime.”

“Well, now, it ain’t so bad as you’d think—not near. We raise plenty eggs, chickens, pork and such truck, and fruit and vegetables.Lots of milk and butter, too; not like when we didn’t have anything but cows. Some of us have our little bunch of cattle in the foothills yet, and fat the steers on alfalfa, and get money for ’em when we sell. But that won’t last long, I reckon. We’re beginning to grow hogs on alfalfa and fat ’em on corn, smoke ’em and salt ’em and cross ’em with T and ship ’em to El Paso. I judge that ham, bacon and pork will be the main crops presently.

“Then we hurled up a grist mill since you was here, coöperative. Hob, he got up that. And we got a good wagon road through the mountain, to Upham. Goes up Redgate and out by MacCleod’s Tank. Steepish, but no sand; when we get a car of stuff to ship we can haul twice as much as we can take to Rincon. We can’t buy nothing at Upham, sure enough, and sometimes have to wait for our cars. But we can have stuff shipped to Upham from El Paso, and it’s downhill coming back. Also, Hobby allows this Upham project will ably assist Rincon to wake up and build us a road up the valley.”

“Hobby invented this wagon road, did he?”

“Every bit. We all chipped in to do the work. But Hob furnished the idea. That ain’t all, either. From now on, we’re going to have plenty to do, wintertimes. Mr. See, we got a factory up and ready to start. Yessir!”

“Easy, Big Chump! You’ll strain yourself.”

“Straight goods—no joking.”

“Must be a hell of a factory!”

“She’s all right, son. A home-grown factory. You go look at her to-morrow. Broom factory. Yessir! Every man jack of us raised a patch of broom corn. We sell it to ourselves or buy it of ourselves, whichever way you like it best; and anybody that wants to make brooms does that little thing. We ship from Upham and divvy up surplus. Every dollar’s worth of broom corn draws down one dollar’s share of the net profit, and every dollar’s worth of labor does just that—no more, no less. It works out—with good faith and fair play.”

“Hob?” said Johnny.

“That’s the man.” Adam Forbes let hishand rest for a moment on the younger man’s shoulder. “Charlie, you and me are all right in our place—but there ain’t goin’ to be no such place much longer. I reckon we ain’t keepin’ up with the times. So now you know why I wanted you should go prospectin’ with me. Birds of a feather gather no moss.”

“I judge maybe you’re right. We both of us favor Thompson’s colt, and that’s a fact. Well, I am glad old Hob is making good. We had as good a chance as he did, only he had more sense.”

“Always did,” said Forbes heartily. “But he ain’t makin’ no big sight of money, if that’s what you mean. Just making good. He’s not working for Hob Lull especially. He’s working for all hands and the cook. Hob always tries to get us to work together, like on a’cequia. There’s other things—a heap of ’em. We’ve bought a community threshing machine. Hob has coaxed a lot of ’em into keeping bees. And he’s ribbin’ us up to try a cannin’ factory in a year or two, for tomatoes and fruit. And a creamery, later. Hob is one long-headedyoung people. We aim to send him to represent for us sometime.”

Charlie See laughed. “Gosh! I wish you’d hurry up about it, then.”

But there was no bitterness in his mirth.

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