With Hoops of Steel Part 15

If they should follow me, it would be my last day on earth. That d.a.m.ned Jim would shoot me down as soon as he could get near enough."

Then he remembered that this was Thursday, and that Colonel Whittaker would expect him in Las Plumas that afternoon. "He'll send to the ranch to inquire about me when I don't show up to-morrow," Wellesly thought, "and then everybody will turn out to search for me. But, Good Lord! I needn't pin any hopes to that! I'd be dead and my bones picked and bleached long before anybody would think of looking in this h.e.l.l hole for me. There would be absolutely no way of tracing me. My only hope is to--now, where is that pa.s.s! Yes, there it is. I'm headed all right."

He walked rapidly over the low, rocky hills, still fearing possible pursuit and frequently looking back, until he reached the sandy levels of the desert. There the trail was so faint that he could scarcely follow it with his eye. He stopped, perplexed and doubtful, for he could not remember that it seemed so blind when he traveled it before.

"But there is the pa.s.s," he thought. "I'm headed all right, and this must be the road. It is just another indication of my general stupidity about everything out of doors. I never look at a road, or think about directions, or notice the lay of the land, as long as there is anybody with me upon whom I can depend. I might as well pay no more attention to this trail and strike straight across the desert.

If I keep my face toward the pa.s.s I'm all right."

As long as the road kept a straight course across the sand and alkali wastes he followed it. But when it bent away in a detour he chose the air line which he constantly drew from his objective point, and congratulated himself that he would thus save a little s.p.a.ce. He tramped along, in and out among the cactus and greasewood, and finally, near sunset, he came upon a great, field-like growth of p.r.i.c.kly-pear cactus. The big, bespined joints spread themselves in a thick carpet over the sand and climbed over one another in great hummocks and stuck out their millions upon millions of needles in every direction. The growth looked as if it might cover hundreds of acres.

"So that's the reason the trail bent like a bow," thought Wellesly as he looked at the field of cactus in dismay. "I ought to have known there was some good reason for it. If I'm lucky enough to find it again I'll know enough to stick to it. Well, I must skirt along this field of devil's fingers till I find the road again. I wonder if I'll know it when I see it."

The sun went down, a dazzling ball of yellow fire, behind the rounded, rolling outlines of the Fernandez mountains, and from out the towering crags of the Oro Fino range the moon rose, white and cool, looking like a great, round wheel of snow. Wellesly had planned to keep on with his journey through the greater part of the night, in order to take advantage of the cooler atmosphere. But the trail was so faint he feared he might not recognize it in the less certain light of the moon, and so he decided to stop where he was for the night. With his heel and a sharp-edged stone he stamped in the head of the can of baked beans and with his fingers helped himself to a goodly share of its contents. He forced himself to drink sparingly of what remained of his tea. Not more than a pint was left and he dared take no more than a few sips. To keep from pouring the whole of it down his throat in great gulps strained his will power to the utmost. His whole body clamored for drink. He would seize the coffee pot with a savage grip and carry it half way to his lips, stop it there with gritting teeth, and with conjured visions of men dying with thirst force himself to put it down again. He said to himself that of all the times in his life which had required self-control none had ever made such sweeping demands upon his will power as did this. After he had finished his supper and was ready to lie down on the sand to sleep, he carried the coffee pot some rods away, to the edge of the growth of cactus, and hid it there under the protection of the branching, needle-covered joints of the p.r.i.c.kly-pear, where he could not get it without having his hands pierced and stung by the spines. For he feared that his thirst might rouse him in the night and that, with his faculties benumbed with sleep, he might drink the whole of the precious store.

By midnight the air of the desert had cooled enough for him to sleep with comfort, save for the thirst that now and again wakened him with parched mouth and clinging tongue. In the morning, he resolutely ate his breakfast of cold baked beans, helping himself with his fingers, forcing himself to swallow the very last morsel he could choke down, before he took the coffee pot from its hiding-place. His eyelids fell, and with a gasping breath he put it to his lips. Then he summoned all his will power and took two small swallows.

As he plodded through the sand he wondered what would be the outcome of his journey, even if he should succeed in getting safely across the desert and beyond the mountain pa.s.s. He remembered that there was no sign of water and no human habitation between the desert and the ranch where his misfortunes had begun. He had seen no one there but the Englishman, and he wondered whether he would find the place deserted or whether he would run into the arms of other members of the same gang that had lured him away. No matter. He would find water there, and he was ready to face any danger or run any risk for the chance of once more having all the water he could drink.

The sun was well up in the sky and the desert glowed like an oven. Hot winds began to blow across it--light, variable winds, rus.h.i.+ng now this way and now that. They made little whirlwinds that picked up the sand, carried it some distance, and then dropped it and died away. Wellesly saw one of these sand clouds dancing across the plain not far away, and instantly the hopeful thought flashed upon him that it was the dust raised by some hors.e.m.e.n. He ran toward it, shouting and waving his hat. It turned and whirled along the sandy levels in another direction, and he turned too and ran toward a point at which he thought he could intercept it. Presently it vanished into the heated air and he stopped, bewildered, and for a moment dazed, that no hors.e.m.e.n came galloping out of the cloud. He looked helplessly about him and saw another, a high, round column that reached to mid-sky, swirling across the plain. Then he knew that he had been chasing a "dust-devil." He swore angrily at himself and started on, and when next he swept the mountain range with his eye for the pa.s.s that was his objective point he could not find it. Suddenly he stopped and shut his eyes, and a shuddering fear held his heart. Slowly he turned squarely around and looked up, afraid and trembling. There were the Fernandez mountains and there was the pa.s.s he wished to reach. He had no idea how long he had been traveling in the backward direction. A sudden panic seized him and he ran wildly about, now in one direction and now in another. Panting with the exertion he savagely grasped the coffee pot and drained it of its last drop.

"Now I have signed my death warrant," he thought, as he threw away the empty vessel. He sank down on the hot sands and buried his face in his arms. For the first time his courage was all gone. Presently he felt the effects of the tea and he stood up, ready to go on.

"It is no use trying to find the road again," he mused. "It would be just so much lost time and effort. I'll just keep my eye on the pa.s.s and go directly toward it, as nearly as I can."

He tried to eat more of the beans, but they stuck in his parched throat. The tin was so hot that it burned his fingers, and, believing they would be of no more use to him, he threw them away. The draught of tea had much refreshed him and he started across the trackless waste of sand and alkali with renewed determination.

He tramped on and on, the sun blazed down from a cloudless sky and beat upon the level plain, and the sand, filled with heat, threw back the rays into the scorching air. The heat seemed to fill the plain as if it were a deep, transparent lake of some hot, s.h.i.+mmering liquid. At a little distance every object loomed through the heat-haze distorted, elongated and wavering. The hot sand burned Wellesly's feet through his boots. The notion seized him that if he touched his body anywhere it would blister his fingers. Even the blood in his veins felt fiery hot and as if it were ready to burst through its channels. The sun seemed to follow him and blaze down upon him with the malicious persecution of a personal enemy. He shook his fist and swore at the ball of fire.

For a long time he kept his eyes resolutely upon the Fernandez pa.s.s and would look neither to left nor right. But after a while his brain grew dizzy and his determination faltered. He stopped and looked about him. Off to one side he thought he saw a lake, lying blue and limpid in a circlet of gray sand, and he ran panting toward it, reaching out his hands, and ready to plunge into its cool depths. He ran and ran, until he stumbled and fell with exhaustion. It happened that he lay in the shadow of a big clump of greasewood, and after a little he revived and sat up. Then he rose and looked all about--and knew that the longed-for lake was only the lying cheat of the desert sands. He fastened his eyes again upon the mountain pa.s.s and trudged on over the burning waste and through the burning heat, mumbling oaths of threat and anger. His tongue seemed to fill his whole mouth, and tongue and mouth and throat burned like red-hot metal.

The stories he had heard from Jim and Haney constantly haunted him. He could not drive them away. In imagination he saw himself lying on the white, hot sands with open mouth, protruding tongue, black face and sightless eyes. The picture sent a thrill of horror through him and moved his dizzy, flagging brain to fresh resolution. He stumbled on through the blazing, parching, cruel heat, sometimes falling and lying motionless for a time, then pulling himself up and going on with will newly braced by the fear that he might not rise again. Once he sank, groaning, his courage quite broken, and mumbled to himself that he could go no farther. As he fell the loud whirr of a rattlesnake sounded from the bush of greasewood beside him. Instinctive fear instantly mettled his nerves and he sprang up and leaped away from the hidden enemy. The fear of this danger, of which he had not thought before, steadied his brain once more and helped him bend his will unyieldingly to the task of going on and on and on, forever and forever, through the burning, blasting heat.

Often he turned from his course and wandered aimlessly about in wrong directions, forgetting for a time his objective point and remembering only that he must keep going. Once he came upon human bones, with shreds of clothing lying about, and stood staring at them, his eyes held by the fascination of horror. Finally he forced himself to move on, and after he had tramped through the scorching sand for a long time, he found himself staring again at the bleaching skeleton.

Through his heat-dazed brain the thought made way that the fascination of this white, nameless thing had cast a spell upon him and had drawn him back to die here, where his bones might lie beside these that had whitened this desert spot for so many months. Perhaps this poor creature's soul hovered over his death place and in its loneliness and desolation had fastened ghoulish talons into his and would pin him down to die in the same spot. The idea took instant possession of his bewildered mind and filled him with such quaking fear and horror that he turned and ran with new strength and speed, as if the clawing, clamoring ghost were really at his heels.

By mere blind luck he ran in the right direction, and when next he had conscious knowledge of his surroundings he was lying on the ground at the mouth of the Fernandez pa.s.s, well up in the mountains, with the white moonlight all about him. Dazedly he thought it would be better for him to lie still and rest, but from somewhere back in his mind came the conviction that there was something upon which he must keep his eyes fastened, some place toward which he must go, and that he must keep on going and going, until he should reach it. Determination rose spontaneously, and he got up and stumbled on, frequently falling, but always soon rising again and keeping on with his journey. After a long time he saw something that glittered in the moonlight. His first thought was "water!" and with a cry that died in his parched, swollen throat he sprang forward and seized it. But it was only a bottle, a flat, empty whisky flask. He turned it over and over in his hands with a haunting notion that in some way it was connected with his past.

Slowly the recollection shaped itself in his heat-bewildered faculties that he and the two men who were luring him away had drunk from this flask here and that then he had thrown it beside the road. Presently the idea grew out of this recollection that he was on the right road and that soon he would come to the house where there was water. The thought made him spring forward again, and he rushed on aimlessly, thinking of nothing but that somewhere ahead of him there was water.

He ran on and on, now this way and now that, falling and lying unconscious, then, revived by the cool night air of the mountains, rising and staggering on again. The sun rose and looked hotly down upon him as he dragged himself along, hatless, haggard, his skin burned to a blister, his eyes red and his swollen, blackened tongue hanging from his mouth.

After a time he caught sight of a clump of green trees with something s.h.i.+ning behind them, which he thought was the water he was looking for--water, for which every boiling drop of blood in his body was fiercely calling; water, which his blistering throat and tongue must have; water, for which the very marrow of his bones cried out--water--water--and he ran with all the speed his frenzied longing could force into his legs. Presently he could hear the rustle of green leaves, and he thought it was the purring of wavelets on the bank, the white, s.h.i.+ning bank that beckoned him on. He put out his hands to plunge into the cool, bright waves. They struck a blank, white hall, and he fell unconscious beside the doorway of Emerson Mead's ranch house.

CHAPTER XV

Three hors.e.m.e.n galloped around the curve in the road that half circled the house and the corral and the stables at Emerson Mead's ranch. One of them swung his hat and shouted a loud "Whoo-oo-oo-ee!" But there was no response from the house. Doors and windows were closed and not a soul appeared in sight.

"That's queer," said Tuttle. "What's become of Billy Haney?"

"Boys, there's a man lyin' beside the door!" exclaimed Mead. "Somebody is either drunk or dead!"

They swung off their horses and rushed to the prostrate figure, which lay almost on its face.

"Great G.o.d, boys, it's Wellesly, and he's dying of thirst!" cried Mead. "Nick, bring water, lots of it, cold from the pump! Here, Tom, help me put him in the hammock."

They laid him in the hammock, in the cool shade of the cottonwoods, where he had slept, to his own undoing, three days before. They moistened his black, protruding tongue and let a few drops of the cool liquid trickle down his parched throat. They poured water carefully over his head and neck and on his wrists, and then drenched him from head to foot with pailful after pailful of the fresh, cold water.

The patient moaned and moved his head. "He's alive, boys. We'll save him yet," said Mead.

Through dim, half-awakened consciousness Wellesly heard the swish of the water as it poured over his body, and felt the cool streams trickling down his face. He gasped and his dry, cracked lips drew back wolfishly from his teeth as he threw up his hands and seized the cup from which Mead was carefully pouring the water over his head. Mead's fingers closed tightly over the handle and his arm stiffened to iron.

"Softly, there, softly," he said in a gentle voice. "I can't let you drink any now, because it would kill you. You shall have some soon."

With a choking yell Wellesly half raised himself and clung to the cup with both hands, trying to force it to his mouth. Nick Ellhorn sprang to his side and took hold of his shoulders.

"Sure, now, Mr. Wellesly," he began, and the Irish accent was rich and strong in his coaxing, wheedling tones, "sure, now, you don't want to be killin' yourself, after you've held out this far. Just you-all do as we say and we'll bring you through all right. Sure, and you shall be after havin' all the water you want, but you must take it on the outside first. Ah, now, but isn't this shower bath nice!"

While he talked he gently forced the patient back and as Wellesly lay down again Mead poured a little water into his mouth.

"If he goes luny now that's the end of him," said Emerson in a repressed, tense voice. "We must not let him get excited. Nick, you'd better stand there and keep him quiet, if you can, and pour water over his face and head and put a little in his mouth sometimes."

Tuttle carried the water for their use, two pailsful at a time, and Mead kept his body well drenched. Ellhorn stooped over the hammock and continued his coaxing talk, drawling one sentence after another with slurred r's and soft southern accents. With one hand he patted the patient's head and shoulders and with the other he dashed water over his face or trickled it, drop by drop, into his mouth. After a while they gave the half-conscious man some weak tea, took off his wet clothes and put him to bed. There they looked after him carefully, giving him frequent but small instalments of food in liquid form and an occasional swallow of water. After some hours they decided he was out of danger and would recover without an illness. Then Nick Ellhorn mounted a horse and rode away. When he returned he carried a burden tied in a gunny sack, which he suspended from the limb of a tree and carefully drenched with water many times before he retired. The next day he anxiously watched the bag, keeping it constantly wet and shaded and free to the breezes. And in the afternoon, with a smile curling his mustache almost up to his eyes, he spread before Wellesly a big, red watermelon, cold and luscious. With delight in his face and chuckling in his voice he watched the sick man eat as much as Emerson would allow him to have, and then begged that he be given more. To get the melon Ellhorn had ridden fifteen miles and back, to the nearest ranch beyond Mead's.

"I never saw a man look happier that you-all do right now," he said as he watched Wellesly.

"And you never saw anybody who felt happier than I do with this melon slipping down my throat," Wellesly responded. "I feel now as if I should never want to do anything but swallow wet things all the rest of my life. By the way, did one of you fellows stand beside me a long time yesterday, coaxing me to lie still?"

"Yes," said Nick, "it was me. We had to make you keep quiet, or you'd have gone luny because we wouldn't give you all the water you wanted to drink. It would have killed you to drink the water, and if you had yelled and fought yourself crazy for it I reckon you'd have died anyway."

[Ill.u.s.tration: "ONCE HE CAME UPON HUMAN BONES, WITH SHREDS OF CLOTHING."--_p. 179_]

"Well, I guess you saved my life, then. For if you hadn't kept me quiet I'd have fought all creation for water. The notion took hold of me that I was a helpless baby and that my mother was beside me, turning a crank and making it rain into my mouth, and that all I had to do was to lie still and listen to her voice and hold my mouth open so that the drops could trickle down my throat. Lord! How good they did feel! That was how I happened to lie still so contentedly."

"Nick could quiet a whole insane asylum when he gets on that Blarneystone brogue of his," said Emerson.

All that day they did not allow Wellesly to do much talking, but kept him lying most of the time in the hammock, in the shade of the cottonwoods, where he slept or luxuriously spent the time slowly swallowing the cool drinks the others brought to him.

In the early evening of the next day, when he had sufficiently recovered his strength, they heard his story. He lay in the hammock, with the mountain breeze blowing across his face and a pitcher of cold tea beside him, and told them all that had happened to him from the time he started for Las Plumas until consciousness failed him, with his hands against the solid wall of Mead's house. The three tall Texans listened gravely, Mead and Tuttle sitting one on each side of the hammock and Ellhorn leaning against the tree at its foot. They said nothing, but their eyes were fastened on his with the keenest interest, and now and then they exchanged a nod or a look of appreciation. When he finished silence fell on the group for a moment.

Then Mead stretched out a sun-browned hand and shook Wellesly's.

"I've never been a friend of yours, Mr. Wellesly," he said, "or considered you one of mine. But I want to say, right now, that you've got more grit than anybody I know in the southwest, and I'm proud to have had the chance to save as brave a man as you are."

Tuttle seized Wellesly's other hand and exclaimed, "That's so! That's straight talk! I'm with you there, Emerson!"

Ellhorn walked up to Wellesly's side and put his hand in a brotherly way on the invalid's arm.

"I tell you what, Mr. Wellesly, we've fought you and the cattle company straight from the shoulder, and I reckon we're likely to keep on fightin' you as long as you fight us, but if you're goin' to give us the sort of war you showed that desert--well, I reckon Emerson will need all the help Tom and me can give him!"