The High Calling Part 23

"All right," said Bauer gravely. "I don't believe anything ails me.

Haven't had another since the last one."

"No? Well, what you want to do is to get right out to the painted desert. Why don't you start?"

"The walking is poor, and I never did enjoy the hot, dusty cars."

"Letters!" said one of the boys who roomed on the next floor. He opened the door as he spoke and threw Walter two letters and seeing Bauer, he said, "One for you!" threw it at him and went on.

Walter opened his letters, which were from his mother and Louis. When he looked up from his reading and glanced at Bauer he saw that something had happened.

"From him," said Bauer briefly.

He handed his letter over to Walter. It was dated and postmarked at Monte Carlo and contained a draft on New York for four hundred dollars.

"I don't ask you to do anything or forgive or anything like that. But as proof that h.e.l.l is better than this place, I am sending you the last dollar I have after losing the rest of it at the table. Perhaps, even in h.e.l.l where I am going, there will be some respite granted me for not being totally depraved."

That was all, not even an initial signed.

"It means------" Walter stammered.

"That he has committed suicide--yes--I suppose--"

"But there's been no newspaper account item in the New York journals."

Bauer shook his head. "The cases at Monte Carlo don't get into the newspapers." And then to Walter's embarra.s.sment, Bauer broke down and sobbed as if he would never stop. But after all, his father, in spite of his sins, had really loved the boy, and Bauer was of a very affectionate nature which had never in all his lifetime been satisfied.

Before Walter could offer a word of sympathy Bauer got up and bolted for his room. Walter suspected what was coming and before Bauer could lock his door he had gone in after him. The hemorrhage was severe. When Bauer was through with it and on his couch, Walter rapidly outlined a plan for Bauer. He must get out to the painted desert at once.

"I wanted to wait until you could go, but it isn't fair to ask you before term closes and that won't be for six weeks. Oh, yes, I can make it alone all right. Don't worry over that. And now I've got this money, that settles it."

Walter wondered if he ought to tell him about the money from home.

Finally he did tell him frankly and was pleased at the way Bauer took it. When Walter suggested that in case he had to stay out there any length of time, the money would be held in trust for him, Bauer did not object, simply saying that by that time he would either be well or dead.

Two days after this, Paul wrote that Mr. Masters at Tolchaco had written cordially, saying Bauer would be welcome at the mission and could have the old Council Hogan. He thought if his case was like a number of others he had known, that it would be perfectly possible for him in a year or two to be of real service about the mission.

Walter gave out all this information as he helped Bauer pack up. He had misgivings about letting him start alone, but after consulting the doctor, concluded there was no special risk for Bauer and when the day came for him to leave, he was much pleased to note Bauer's good spirits in spite of the shock of his father's act and his own dubious future.

Masters had sent word that Bauer was to go to Canyon Diablo where a wagon would be waiting to drive him the twenty-four miles to Tolchaco. Walter went down and saw him comfortably started and then went back to his room, feeling relieved to know that matters were going so well, after promising Bauer that if possible he would come and see him during the summer. It would depend on the financial outlook.

At Chicago, Bauer changed to a tourist car and found as companions, two other young men, both going to Flagstaff to live in tents at the base of the San Francisco Mountains. Before reaching Albuquerque the three young men had become well acquainted and had good naturedly exchanged joking statements about their "cases," and Bauer, who had suffered from a slight flow just after leaving Kansas city, boasted that he was able to control his lungs by pressing his tongue hard against the roof of his mouth and resting his chest on the back of the car seat in front.

When the train reached Hardy, a few miles north of the Little Colorado, there was a long stop, explained by the conductor as caused by a cloudburst at Winslow. The train made several attempts to start on to Colfax, but finally backed slowly down into Hardy, where it was stalled for the night. In the morning the information slowly reached the pa.s.sengers that there were fifteen miles of washouts east of Winslow and it would be an indefinite time before repairs could be made.

A few cowboys, Mexicans and Indians were evidently chronic and constant loafers about the little station. Among them was a teamster loading stuff on a wagon. Bauer noticed two boxes marked Tolchaco and asked the man about them.

"I'm taking them over by Mr. Masters's orders. Usually go to Canyon Diablo, but no telling how long it'll be to get there with number two.

Mr. Masters wants the stuff bad. Truck for them Injuns at the mission."

"But aren't we on the north side of the river here? How will you get over to the mission? Isn't that on the other side?" asked Bauer.

"Sure. We can ford it there, if the water ain't too fierce."

Bauer thought awhile and then asked if he might go with the teamster.

There was room in the wagon for his trunk and bag, and after securing his effects from the train he transferred to the wagon, and bidding a cheery farewell to his travelling companions, who he said might have to stay on the train two or three days, the teamster drove off with Bauer across the s.h.i.+mmering desert.

They reached the river the next day about noon, after a glorious night which Bauer will never forget, as he slept with his face upturned to the diamond stars of that desert expanse, breathing that pure air of G.o.d's all out of doors.

The river was high from the recent heavy rains in the mountains but the teamster said he could make the ford all right. This was at a point nearly a mile above the mission which was not visible owing to a bend in the stream.

Bauer, who was totally unfamiliar with the country, the river, the customs, the entire situation, calmly sat in his place as the driver started his team down the shelving bank into the chocolate coloured stream.

The water was a little over the hubs of the wheels at first and it seemed to be of that uniform depth as the horses slowly walked along.

But suddenly without warning the off horse sank down clear over his back. The next minute the wagon wheels tipped down as if they had run over the edge of a precipice a mile high.

The driver yelled and swore in several languages, but the nigh horse plunged and then sank over his back. The current caught the entire outfit and turned it completely over, tumbling horses, wagon and stuff over and over like a roller. As Bauer felt the water closing over him he had a momentary glimpse of two figures on the south bank of the river running and gesticulating, one a man, the other a woman. He felt himself struggling in a confused tangle of wagon wheels, floundering horses, yelling driver, boxes and muddy water. Then something struck him on the head. He struggled to help himself, throwing his arms out blindly, was aware that someone had hold of his hair and was striking him in the face, of a great roaring and rus.h.i.+ng sound, and then he lost all consciousness as the river bore him and his would-be rescuers down the stream together.

CHAPTER XII

THE penetrating light of the desert came into the east opening of the Council Hogan at Tolchaco, and bathed in its enveloping flood the strip of sand that lay in the opening, up to a white and black Navajo rug on which was lying a quiet figure over which had been thrown a bright coloured Mexican serape.

An old Indian was sitting outside the hogan close by the entrance, and within an arm's length just inside sat a white man gravely watching the rec.u.mbent figure on the rug.

Across the figure on the rug, opposite the white man, sat a young woman, also quietly and gravely watching.

Outside, the 'dobe flats stretched brown and bare until they melted into the confused and fantastic rock piles of twisted and pictured desert stone. In the other direction an irregular streak of light green trailed along, marking the winding of the river bound by twisted cottonwoods and vivid patches of corn fields. Through the s.h.i.+mmer of the heat far off, fifty miles distant, were flung up against a turquoise sky the peaks of the San Francisco mountains, across the front of which a trailing cloud had begun to form. On a slightly rising ledge of rock stood the mission buildings, and through the clear still air, children's voices came floating down to the hogan, where the white man and the young woman were silently watching. A group of Navajos was gathered at the trader's store, some little distance away, their faces turned in the direction of the hogan, their ponies standing near by or tethered to the cottonwood, by the river.

Suddenly the figure on the rug stirred, its right arm rose slowly and the hand made an effort to touch the fringe of the serape.

The white man stooped forward, gently took the hand and held it a moment in his own. As he laid it down, he smiled at the other watcher and said:

"I believe he's coming on all right. The Father is good to him."

The young woman put her hands over her face and her fingers were trembling. A tear was on her cheek when she took her hands away and clasped them over her knees. Then she rose and went out of the eastern doorway, when she stood a moment, her clear gaze resting on the old Indian sitting there with his back against the hogan. He raised his head and asked her a question.

"Yes, the Father is good. He will live, Mr. Clifford says."

She went back into the hogan and to her surprise the figure on the rug was sitting up. It was Bauer, and he was saying in his slow, deliberate fas.h.i.+on:

"I'm not certain, I seem to be confused, but this is Tolchaco, isn't it?

When did I arrive? I don't seem to remember well."

"You arrived rather unexpectedly yesterday," said Clifford, with a smile that had a good day's nursing in it. "In fact, you arrived in a hurry.

Don't talk. You don't have to."

"My head," said Bauer, and he laid down again.