hung on till he hardened into a leather lunged, wire-muscled man, capable
of keeping pace with his companions.
He began his day with the dawn when he threw off the frost-coated
tarpaulin; the icy water brought him a glow of exhilaration; he drank in
the spiced cold air, and there was the spring of the deer-hunter in his
step as he went down the slope for his horse. He no longer feared that
Silvermane would run away. The gray's bell could always be heard near
camp in the mornings, and when Hare whistled there came always the
answering thump of hobbled feet. When Silvermane saw him striding
through the cedars or across the
grassy belt of the
valley he would neigh
his
gladness. Hare had come to love Silvermane and talked to him and
treated him as if he were human.
When the mustangs were brought into camp the day's work began, the same
work as that of
yesterday, and yet with endless
variety, with
ever-changing situations that called for quick wits, steel arms, stout
hearts, and unflagging energies. The darkening blue sky and the
sun-tipped crags of Vermillion Cliffs were signals to start for camp.
They ate like wolves, sat for a while around the camp-fire, a
ragged,
weary, silent group; and soon lay down, their dark faces in the shadow of
the cedars.
In the
beginning of this toil-filled time Hare had
resolutely set himself
to forget Mescal, and he had succeeded at least for a time, when he was
so sore and weary that he scarcely thought at all. But she came back to
him, and then there was seldom an hour that was not hers. The long
months which seemed years since he had seen her, the change in him
wrought by labor and peril, the deepening friendship between him and
Dave, even the love he bore Silvermane--these, instead of making dim the
memory of the dark-eyed girl, only made him tenderer in his thought of
her.
Snow drove the riders from the
canyon-camp down to Silver Cup, where they
found August Naab and Snap, who had
ridden in the day before.
"Now you couldn't guess how many cattle are back there in the
canyons,"
said Dave to his father.
"I haven't any idea," answered August, dubiously.
"Five thousand head."
"Dave!" His father's tone was incredulous.
"Yes. You know we haven't been back in there for years. The stock has
multiplied rapidly in spite of the lions and wolves. Not only that, but
they're safe from the winter, and are not likely to be found by Dene or
anybody else."
"How do you make that out?"
"The first cattle we drove in used to come back here to Silver Cup to
winter. Then they stopped coming, and we almost forgot them. Well,
they've got a trail round under the Saddle, and they go down and winter
in the
canyon. In summer they head up those rocky gullies, but they
can't get up on the mountain. So it isn't likely any one will ever
discover them. They are wild as deer and fatter than any stock on the
ranges."
"Good! That's the best news I've had in many a day. Now, boys, we'll
ride the mountain slope toward Seeping Springs, drive the cattle down,
and finish up this branding. Somebody ought to go to White Sage. I'd
like to know what's going on, what Holderness is up to, what Dene is
doing, if there's any stock being
driven to Lund."
"I told you I'd go," said Snap Naab.
"I don't want you to," replied his father."I guess it can wait till
spring, then we'll all go in. I might have thought to bring you boys out
some clothes and boots. You're pretty
ragged. Jack there, especially,
looks like a scarecrow. Has he worked as hard as he looks?"
"Father, he never lost a day," replied Dave, warmly, "and you know what
riding is in these
canyons."
August Naab looked at Hare and laughed. "It'd be funny, wouldn't it, if
Holderness tried to slap you now? I always knew you'd do, Jack, and now
you're one of us, and you'll have a share with my sons in the cattle."
But the
generous promise failed to
offset the feeling aroused by the
presence of Snap Naab. With the first sight of Snap's sharp face and
strange eyes Hare became
conscious of an
inward heat, which he had felt
before, but never as now, when there seemed to be an
actual flame within
his breast. Yet Snap seemed greatly changed; the red flush, the swollen
lines no longer showed in his face;
evidently in his
absence on the
Navajo desert he had had no
liquor; he was
good-natured,
lively, much
inclined to joking, and he seemed to have entirely forgotten his ani-
mosity toward Hare. It was easy for Hare to see that the man's evil
nature was in the ascendancy only when he was under the dominance of
drink. But he could not
forgive; he could not forget. Mescal's dark,
beautiful eyes
haunted him. Even now she might be married to this man.
Perhaps that was why Snap appeared to be in such
cheerful spirits.
Suspense added its burdensome
insistent question, but he could not bring
himself to ask August if the marriage had taken place. For a day he
fought to
resign himself to the inevitability of the Mormon custom, to
forget Mescal, and then he gave up
trying. This
surrender he felt to be
something crucial in his life, though he could not w holly understand it.
It was the darkening of his spirit; the death of
boyishgentleness; the
concluding step from youth into a forced
manhood. The desert
regeneration had not stopped at turning weak lungs, vitiated blood, and
flaccid muscles into a powerful man; it was at work on his mind, his
heart, his soul. They answered more and more to the call of some
outside, ever-present,
fiercely subtle thing.
Thenceforth he no longer vexed himself by
trying to forget Mescal; if she
came to mind he told himself the truth, that the weeks and months had
only added to his love. And though it was bitter-sweet there was relief
in
speaking the truth to himself. He no longer blinded himself by
hoping, striving to have
generous feelings toward Snap Naab; he called
the
inward fire by its real name--jealousy--and knew that in the end it
would become hatred.
On the third morning after leaving Silver Cup the riders were working
slowly along the slope of Coconina; and Hare having
driven down a bunch
of cattle, found himself on an open ridge near the
temporary camp.
Happening to glance up the
valley he saw what appeared to be smoke
hanging over Seeping Springs.
"That can't be dust," he soliloquized. "Looks blue to me."
He
studied the hazy bluish cloud for some time, but it was so many miles
away that he could not be certain whether it was smoke or not, so he
decided to ride over and make sure. None of the Naabs was in camp, and
there was no telling when they would return, so he set off alone. He
expected to get back before dark, but it was of little consequence
whether he did or not, for he had his blanket under the
saddle, and grain
for Silvermane and food for himself in the
saddle-bags.
Long before Silvermane's easy trot had covered half the distance Hare
recognized the cloud that had made him curious. It was smoke. He
thought that range-riders were camping at the springs, and he meant to
see what they were about. After three hours of brisk travel he reached
the top of a low rolling knoll that hid Seeping Springs. He remembered
the springs were up under the red wall, and that the pool where the
cattle drank was lower down in a clump of cedars. He saw smoke rising in
a
column from the cedars, and he heard the lowing of cattle.
"Something wrong here," he muttered. Following the trail, he rode
through the cedars to come upon the dry hole where the pool had once
been. There was no water in the flume. The bellowing cattle came from
beyond the cedars, down the other side of the ridge. He was not long in
reaching the open, and then one glance made all clear.
A new pool, large as a little lake, shone in the
sunlight, and round it a
jostling horned mass of cattle were pressing against a high corral. The
flume that fed water to the pool was fenced all the way up to the
springs.
Jack slowly rode down the ridge with eyes roving under the cedars and up
to the wall. Not a man was in sight.
When he got to the fire he saw that it was not many hours old and was
surrounded by fresh boot and horse tracks in the dust. Piles of slender
pine logs, trimmed flat on one side, were proof of somebody's intention
to erect a cabin. In a rage he flung himself from the
saddle. It was
not many moments' work for him to push part of the fire under the fence,
and part of it against the pile of logs. The pitch-pines went off like
rockets, driving the thirsty cattle back.
"I'm going to trail those horse-tracks," said Hare.
He tore down a
portion of the fence enclosing the flume, and gave
Silvermane a drink, then put him to a fast trot on the white trail. The
tracks he had
resolved to follow were clean-cut. A few inches of snow
had fallen in the
valley, and melting, had softened the hard ground.
Silvermane kept to his gait with the tirelessness of a desert horse.
August Naab had once said fifty miles a day would be play for the
stallion. All the afternoon Hare watched the trail speed toward him and
the end of Coconina rise above him. Long before
sunset he had reached
the slope of the mountain and had begun the
ascent. Half way up he came
to the snow and counted the tracks of three horses. At
twilight he rode
into the glade where August Naab had waited for his Navajo friends.
There, in a sheltered nook among the rocks, he un
saddled Silvermane,
covered and fed him, built a fire, ate sparingly of his meat and bread,
and rolling up in his blanket, was soon asleep.
He was up and off before
sunrise, and he came out on the
western slope of
Coconina just as the
shadowyvalley awakened from its misty sleep into
daylight. Soon the Pink Cliffs leaned out, glimmering and vast, to
change from
gloomy gray to rosy glow, and then to
brighten and to redden
in the morning sun.
The snow thinned and failed, but the iron-cut horsetracks showed plainly
in the trail. At the foot of the mountain the tracks left the White Sage
trail and led off to the north toward the cliffs. Hare searched the red
sagespotted waste for Holderness's ranch. He located it, a black patch
on the rising edge of the
valley under the wall, and turned Silvermane
into the tracks that
pointed straight toward it.
The sun cleared Cocomna and shone warm on his back; the Pink Cliffs
lifted higher and higher before him. From the ridge-tops he saw the
black patch grow into cabins and corrals. As he neared the ranch he came
into rolling pasture-land where the bleached grass shone white and the
cattle were ranging in the thousands. This range had once belonged to
Martin Cole, and Hare thought of the bitter Mormon as he noted the snug
cabins for the riders, the rambling,
picturesque ranch-house, the large
corrals, and the long flume that ran down from the cliff. There was a
corral full of
shaggy horses, and another full of steers, and two lines
of cattle, one going into a pond-corral, and one coming out. The air was
gray with dust. A bunch of yearlings were licking at huge lumps of brown
rock-salt. A wagonful of cowhides stood before the ranch-house.
Hare reined in at the door and helloed.
A red-faced ranger with sandy hair and twinkling eyes appeared.
"Hello, stranger, get down an' come in," he said.
"Is Holderness here?" asked Hare.
"No. He's been to Lund with a bunch of steers. I
reckon he'll be in
White Sage by now. I'm Snood, the
foreman. Is it a job ridin' you
want?"
"No."
"Say! thet hoss--" he exclaimed. His gaze of friendly
curiosity had
moved from Hare to Silvermane. "You can corral me if it ain't thet
Sevier range stallion!"
"Yes," said Hare.
Snood's whoop brought three riders to the door, and when he
pointed to
the horse, they stepped out with
good-natured grins and admiring eyes.
"I never seen him but onc't," said one.
"Lordy, what a boss!" Snood walked round Silvermane. "If I owned this
ranch I'd trade it for that stallion. I know Silvermane. He an' I bed
some chases over in Nevada. An', stranger, who might you be?"
"I'm one of August Naab's riders."
"Dene's spy!" Snood looked Hare over carefully, with much interest, and
without any show of ill-will." I've heerd of you. An' what might one of
Naab's riders want of Holderness?"
"I rode in to Seeping Springs
yesterday," said Hare, eying the
foreman.
"There was a new pond, fenced in. Our cattle couldn't drink. There were
a lot of trimmed logs. Somebody was going to build a cabin. I burned
the corrals and logs--and I trailed fresh tracks from Seeping Springs to
this ranch."
"The h--l you did!" shouted Snood, and his face flamed. "See here,
stranger, you're the second man to
accuse some of my riders of such dirty
tricks. That's enough for me. I was
foreman of this ranch till this