Bred of the Desert Part 8

With the command Pat started forward, urged to it by the aged mare--pulling more than his share of the load. Perhaps it was due to her presence; perhaps to the note of kindness in Felipe's voice. At any rate, he moved, and he moved forward, and he moved with a steady pull.

Yet he did not proceed far. Though he did not stop through rebellion. It was simply to renew his attentions to the old mare. He began to caress her as if he really recognized in this rack of an animal his own lost mother. But recognition, of course, was impossible. Long before, the only source of recognition, appeal made through digestive organs, had disappeared. Nevertheless, he lavished upon her unwonted affection until Felipe gently but firmly urged him forward again. Then again he proceeded, pulling all of the load this time, bringing about a slack in the traces of the mare and a consequent b.u.mping of her hind legs against the cart which seemed to awaken some of her dying spirit.

Up and down the trail they moved, the mare sedately, the horse actively, prancing gaily, appearing to take gleeful pleasure in his task, until Felipe, kindled with elation and pride, decided to drive on into the settlement and there become the object of covetous eyes. Therefore he urged the team forward to a point in front of the general store, where in lordly composure sat Pedro, occupying his customary seat on an empty keg on the porch. At sight of him Felipe's joy leaped to the heavens, and he pulled up the team, ostensibly to adjust a forward buckle, but in reality to afford Pedro an uninterrupted view of the beautiful black.

Moving forward to the head of the horses, he watched out of the tail of his eye Pedro's lazy survey of the team.

"Where you got thot horse?" inquired Pedro, after a long moment, as he slowly removed a cigarette from between his lips. "I mean," he added, "where you haf _steal_ thot _caballo_?"

Felipe winced. But he did not immediately retort. He carried out his bluff, unbuckling and buckling one of the straps, then mildly straightened up and faced the man.

"Pedro," he began, tensely, "you haf know--Jose, Juan, Manuel, Francisco, Carlotta--all haf know--thot eet is only one t'ief in all thees place! And thot man--thot t'ief--is Pedro Garcia!"

Pedro grunted. "Where you haf steal thot horse?" he repeated, without show of anger. "You can give me thot horse," he continued, placidly.

"You haf owe me mooch money. I take thot horse for payment--everyt'ing.

You give thot _caballo_ to me."

Felipe turned to the team. "I give you one keeck in thee belly!" he roared. Then he touched up the horses and started back toward the house.

Gone was all elation, all pride, all gleeful consciousness of possession.

Gaining the clearing, he decided to try out the other horse with the black. He realized that the aged mare was unfit, even though in the last hour she had appeared greatly to improve, and he must accordingly match up a team. So he unhitched her and swung the mate into place. He met with disagreeable surprise, however. The black would not pull with this horse. Instead, he held himself quietly at rest, gazing about sleepily over the landscape, a trick of his, as Felipe had learned, when quietly rebelling. Felipe looked at him a moment, but did not try to force him with tongue or lash. For he was coming to understand this horse, and, concluding that sooner or later, under proper treatment, he would probably accept duty with any mate, determined to abandon work for the day. Whereupon he unhitched the horses and led them all back into the corral. Then he put up the bars and set out in the direction of the settlement.

Which ended Pat's second great lesson at the hand of man. He was sore and somewhat stiff from the struggle, but he did not fret long over his condition, for he soon awoke to the presence of that beside him in the corral which caused him to forget himself completely. It was the worn-out structure of skin and bones who had befriended him in his hour of trial. He gazed at her a moment, then approached and fell to caressing her, showing in this attention his power to forget self--aches, sores, troubles--in his affection and grat.i.tude toward all things warranting affection and grat.i.tude.

CHAPTER X

THE STRANGER AGAIN

Meantime, Helen was becoming desperate over her loss. Unwilling to accept the theory of her household, which was that Pat had been stolen by a band of organized thieves and ere this was well out of the neighborhood and probably the county, she had held firmly to her original idea, _viz._, that the horse was in the possession of his rightful owners, and so could not be far out of the community.

Therefore, the morning following his disappearance, having with sober reflection lightened within her the seriousness of it all, she had set out in confident search for him, mounted on her brown saddler. But though she had combed the town and the trails around the town, quietly interviewing all such teamsters and hors.e.m.e.n as might by any chance know something about it, yet in answer to her persistent inquiries all she had received was a blank shake of the head or an earnest expression of willingness to a.s.sist her. So, because she had continued her search for three days without success, inquiring and peering into every nook and corner of the community, she finally had come to regard her quest as hopeless, and to become more than ever an image of despair.

The evening of the fourth day there was a dance. It was one of the regular monthly affairs, and because Helen was a member of the committee she felt it her duty to attend. One of the young men, accompanied by his mother and sister, drove out for her, but she left the house with reluctance and a marked predisposition not to enjoy herself. But she forgot this when she presently beheld the young man from the East whom she had encountered on the mesa. He was standing close beside a rather frail little woman, undoubtedly his mother, who with the matrons of the town was seated near a fireplace watching the dancers. He was introduced. Later they sat out one of his numbers alone together in a corner behind some potted palms. In the course of their conversation Helen informed him of the disappearance of her horse, and asked him, as she asked everybody she met now, if he knew anything or had heard anything concerning the loss. The young man knew nothing of the great disappearance, however, though he did offer it as his belief that a horse of Pat's obvious value could not long remain in obscurity. This was encouraging, and Helen felt herself become hopeful again. But when he offered his services in the search, as he did presently, she felt not only hopeful again, but somehow quite certain now that it would all be cleared up. For there was that in this young gentleman which caused confidence. What she told him, however, was that she was grateful for his offer, and should be greatly pleased to have him with her.

And thus it was that, on the morning of the fifth day, Helen Richards and Stephen Wainwright--the young man's name--together with two of Helen's close friends, were riding slowly across the mesa, alert for any combination in harness which might reveal the lost Pat. Helen and Stephen were well in the lead, and Helen had broken the silence by addressing Stephen as a native, recalling their first meeting. Whereupon the young man, smiling quietly, had wanted to know why; but after she had explained that it was because he had enlisted himself in the search for a horse, adding that in doing so he had conformed with one of the unwritten laws of the country, he still confessed himself in the dark.

This had been but a moment before, and she now settled herself to explain more fully.

"A horse is, or was, our most valued property," she began. "I reckon the past tense is better--though we'll never quite live down our interest in horses." She smiled across at him. "Long ago," she went on, "in the days of our Judge Lynch, you know, a stolen horse meant a hanged man--or two or three--as not infrequently happened. But all that is history now. Yet the feeling remains. And whenever one of our horses disappears--it is rare now--we all take it more or less as a personal loss. In your willingness to help find Pat, therefore, you declare yourself one of us--and are gladly admitted."

He rode along in silence. "Why was the feeling so intense in the old days?" he inquired, after a time.

"It was due to physical conditions," she replied--"the geography of the country. Water-holes were few and very far apart, and to get from one to another often entailed a journey impossible to a man without a horse. To steal his horse, therefore, was to deprive him of his sole means of getting to water--practically to deprive him of his life. If he didn't die of thirst, which frequently he did, at best it was a very grave offense. It isn't considered so now--not so much so, at any rate--unless in the desert wastes to the west of us. Yet the feeling still lurks within us, and a stolen horse is a matter that concerns the whole community."

He nodded thoughtfully, but remained silent. Suddenly Helen drew rein.

Before her was a horned toad, peculiarly a part of the desert, blinking up at them wickedly. He drew rein and followed her eyes.

"A horned toad, isn't it?"

Helen shook her head. "Are you interested in such things?" she inquired.

"In a way--yes," he affirmed, doubtfully. "Though I can't see good reason for their existence." His eyes twinkled. "Can you?"

Helen was thoughtful a moment. "Well, no," she admitted, finally. "Yet there must be a good reason. Reptiles must live for some good purpose.

All things do--don't you think?" Then, before he could make a rejoinder, she went on: "I sometimes feel that these creatures were originally placed here to encourage other and higher forms of life to come and locate in the desert--were placed here, in other words, to prove that life is possible in all this desolation."

He glanced at her. "Certainly it has worked out that way, at any rate,"

he ventured. "Good old Genesis!" He smiled.

"It seems to have," she agreed, thoughtfully. "Because you and I are here. But it goes a long way back--to Genesis--yes. Following the initial placing, other and higher organisms, finding in their migratory travels this evidence of life, accepted the encouragement to remain, and did remain, feeding upon the life found here in the shape of toads and lizards--to carry the theory forward a step--even as the toads and lizards--to carry it back again--fed upon the insects which they in their turn found here. Then along came other forms of life, higher in the cosmic setting, and these, finding encouragement in the presence of the earlier arrivals, fed upon them and remained. And so on up, to the forerunners of our present-day animals--coyotes and prairie-dogs. And after these, primitive man--to find encouragement in the coyotes and prairie-dogs--and to feed upon them and remain. Then after primitive man, the second type--the brown man; and after the brown man, the red man; and after the red man, the white man--all with an eye to sustenance, and finding it, and remaining."

Stephen's eyes swept around the desert absently. He knew--this young man--that he was in the presence of a personality. For he could not help but draw comparisons between the young woman beside him and the young women of his acquaintance in the East. While he had found Eastern girls vivacious, and attractive with a kind of surface charm, never had he known one to take so quiet and una.s.suming an outlook upon so broad a theme. It was the desert, he told himself. Here beside him was a type unknown to him, and one so different from any he had as yet met with, he felt himself ill at ease in her presence--a thing new to him, too--and which in itself gave him cause to marvel. Yes, it was the desert. It _must_ be the desert! In this slender girl beside him he saw a person of insight and originality, a girl a.s.suredly not more than twenty years of age, attractive, and thoroughly feminine. How ever did they do it?

He harked back in his thoughts to her theory. And he dwelt not so much upon the theory itself as upon her manner of advancing it. Running back over these things, recalling the music of her voice, together with her spoken musings, he came to understand why, with that first encounter, he had found himself almost instantly curious concerning desert folk. Not that he had known why at the time, or had given that phase of it consideration. He did remember that he had been strongly impressed by the way she had managed her bolting horse. But aside from that, there had been something in her personality, an indefinable calm and sureness, a grip upon herself, that he had felt the very first moment. Undoubtedly all this had flicked him into a novel curiosity. He pulled himself together with an effort.

"I like your theory," he answered, smiling. "And it must be true, because I am told horned toads are fast disappearing. Evidently they have served their purpose. But tell me," he concluded, "what is becoming of them? Where are they going?"

She laughed. "I can't tell you that. Perhaps they just vanish into the fourth--or maybe the fifth--dimension!"

And this was the other side of her, a side he had come to learn while with her at the dance, and which made her lovable as well as admirable.

But she was speaking again, and again was serious.

"I have yet another theory," she said--"one as to why these creatures are here, you know." She smiled across at him. "It is all my very own, too! It is that in their presence among us--among mankind--they unwittingly develop us through thought. Thinking exercises the brain, we are told, and exercising the brain makes for world-advancement--we are told." Then, suddenly, "I hope you don't think me silly--Mr. Native?"

But he remained sober. "Tell me," he asked, after a time, "what it is about this country--I mean other than friends.h.i.+ps, of course--that gets under a fellow's soul and lifts it--to the end that he wants to remain here? I know there is something, though I can't for the life of me place it. What is it, anyway?"

She turned upon him sharply. "Do you really feel that way?" she asked, evidently pleased.

"I feel that way. But why do I feel that way? What is it? You know what I mean. There is something--there must be!"

"I know what you mean--yes," she replied, thoughtfully. "Yet I doubt if I myself, even after all these years, can define it. What you 'feel'

must be our atmosphere--its rarity, its power to exhilarate. Though that really doesn't explain it. I reckon it's the same thing--only much more healthful, more soulful--that one feels in large cities after nightfall.

I mean, the glare of your incandescent lights. I honestly believe that that glare, more than any other single thing, holds throngs of people to an existence not only unnatural, but laden with a something that crushes as well." She was silent.

Again Stephen felt the strange pull on his interest, but he said nothing. After a time she went on.

"City-dwellers," she explained, "don't begin their day till the approach of dark. It's true of both levels of society, too--lower as well as upper. And I believe the reason for this lies, as I have said, in the atmosphere--their man-made atmosphere--just as the secret of your feeling the way you do lies in our atmosphere--G.o.d-made. Were this atmosphere suddenly to disappear, both out of your cities and out of my deserts, both your world and my own would lose all of their charm."

Stephen bestirred himself. "What psychology do you find in that?" he asked, dwelling upon the fact that she knew his East so well.

"Merely the effect of softening things--for the soul as well as the eye--through the eye, indeed, to the soul. Our atmosphere here does that--softens the houses, and the trees, and the cattle, and the mountains, and the distant reaches. It softens our nights, too. Perhaps you have noticed it? How everything appears shrouded in a kind of hazy, mellow, translucent something that somehow reacts upon you? I have. And I believe that is the secret of one's wanting to remain in the country, once he has exposed himself to it. It is a kind of spell--a hypnosis.

When out of it one wants to get back into it.

"I know I felt it when I was East, attending school," she went on, quietly. "Living always in this atmosphere, I somehow had forgotten its charm--as one will forget all subtle beauty unless frequently and forcibly reminded of it. But in the East I missed it, and found myself restless and anxious to get back into it. Indeed, I felt that I must get back or die! So one day, when your Eastern spirit of sudden change was upon me, I packed and came home. It was a year short of my degree, too.

But I could not remain away another day--simply had to get back--and back I came. My degree--my sheepskin"--she was smiling--"couldn't hold me!"

"Then you've spent some time in the East?" he asked, tentatively.

"Yes," she replied, "that much--three years. And I didn't like it."