The Long Chance Part 27

He discovered that it was not. In fact, in all San Pasqual the only interested person was Mrs. Pennycook, who heaved a sigh of relief at the thought that her Dan was, for the nonce, outside the sphere of Donna's influence.

In the meantime Donna and Bob, in the beautiful Yosemite, rode and tramped through ten glorious, blissful days. It would be impossible to attempt to describe in adequate fas.h.i.+on the delights of that honeymoon.

To Donna, so suddenly transported from the glaring drab lifeless desert to this great natural park, the first sight of the valley had been a glimpse into Paradise. She was awed by the sublimity of nature, and all that first day she hardly spoke, even to Bob. Such happiness was unbelievable. She was almost afraid to speak, lest she awaken and find herself back in San Pasqual. As for Bob, he had resolutely set himself to the task of forgetting the future--at least during their honeymoon.

He forgot about the thirty-nine thousand dollars he required, he forgot about Donnaville; and had even the most lowly of his Pagans interfered with his happiness for one single fleeting second, Mr. McGraw would a.s.suredly have slain him instanter and then laughed at the tragedy.

It was very late in the season and the vivid green which, comes with spring had departed from the valley. But if it had, so also had the majority of tourists, and Bob and Donna had the hotel largely to themselves. Each day they journeyed to some distant portion of the valley, carrying their luncheon, and returning at nightfall to the hotel. After dinner they would sit together on the veranda, watching the moon rise over the rim of that wonderful valley, listening to the tree-toads in noisy convention or hearkening to the "plunk" of a trout leaping in the river below. Hardly a breath of air stirred in the valley. All was peace. It was an Eden.

On the last night of their stay, Bob broached for the first time the subject of their future.

"We must start for--for home to-morrow, Donna" he said. "At least you must. You have a home to go to. As for me, I've got to go into the desert and strike one final blow for Donnaville. I've got to take one more long chance for a quick little fortune before I give up and sell my Pagans into bondage."

"Yes" she replied heedlessly. She had him with her now; the shadow of impending separation had not yet fallen upon her.

"What are your plans, Donna?" he asked.

"My plans?"

"Yes. Is it still your intention to keep on working?"

"Why not? I must do something. I must await you somewhere, so why not at San Pasqual? It is cheaper there and it will help if I can be self-supporting until you come back. Besides, I'd rather work than sit idle around the Hat Ranch."

He made no reply to this. He had already threshed the matter over in his mind and there was no answer.

"I'll accompany you as far as San Pasqual, Donna. We'll go south to-morrow and arrive at San Pasqual, shortly after dark. I'll escort you to the Hat Ranch, change into my desert togs, saddle Friar Tuck and light out. I'll ride to Keeler and sell horse and saddle and spurs there. At Keeler I'll buy two burros and outfit for my trip; then strike east, via Darwin or Coso Springs."

"How long will you be in the desert?"

"About six months, I think. I'll come out late in the spring when it begins to get real hot. Do you think you can wait that long?"

"I think so. Will it be possible for me to write to you in the meantime?"

"Perhaps. I'll leave word in the miners' outfitting store at Danby and you can address me there. Then, if some prospector should be heading out my way they'll send out my letters. My claims are forty miles from Danby, over near Old Woman mountain. If I meet any prospectors going out toward the railroad, I'll write you."

"The days will be very long until you come back, dear, but I'll be patient. I realize what it means to you, and Donnaville is worth the sacrifice. You know I told you I wanted to help."

"You are helping--more than you realize. You'll be safe until I get back?"

"I've always been safe at the Hat Ranch, but if I should need a friend I can call on Harley P. He isn't one of the presuming kind"--Donna smiled--"but he will stand the acid."

"And you will not worry if you do not receive any letters from me all the time I am away?"

"I shall know what to expect, Bob, so I shall not worry--very much."

They left the Yosemite early next morning, staging down to El Portal, and shortly after dusk the same evening they arrived at San Pasqual.

There were few people at the station when the train pulled in, and none that Donna knew, except the station agent and his a.s.sistants; and as these worthies were busy up at the baggage car, Bob and Donna alighted at the rear end and under the friendly cover of darkness made their way down to the Hat Ranch.

Sam Singer and Soft Wind had not yet retired, and after seeing his bride safe in her home once more, Bob McGraw prepared to leave her.

She was sorely tempted, at that final test of separation, to plead with him to abandon his journey, to stay with her and their new-found happiness and leave to another the gigantic task of reclaiming the valley. It was such a forlorn hope, after all; she began to question his right to stake their future against that of persons to whom he owed no allegiance, until she remembered that a great work must ever require great sacrifice; that her share in this sacrifice was little, indeed, compared with his. Moreover, he had set his face to this task before he had met her--she would not be worthy of him if she asked him to abandon it now.

"I must go" he said huskily. "The moon will be up by ten o'clock and I can make better time traveling by moonlight than I can after sun-up."

She clung to him for one breathless second; then, with a final caress she sent him forth to battle for his Pagans.

She was back at the cas.h.i.+er's counter in the eating-house the next morning when Harley P. Hennage came in for his breakfast.

"h.e.l.lo, Miss Donna" the una.s.suming one greeted her cordially. "Where've you been an' when did you get back to San Pasqual? Why, I like to 'a died o' grief. Thought you'd run away an' got married an' left us for good."

He watched her narrowly and noted the little blush that marked the landing of his apparently random shot.

"I've been away on my first vacation, went up to Yosemite Valley. I got back last night."

"Glad of it" replied Mr. Hennage heartily. "Enjoy yourself?"

"It was glorious."

He talked with her for a few minutes, then waddled to his favorite seat and ordered his ham and eggs.

"Well, she didn't fib to me, at any rate, even if she didn't tell the whole truth" he soliloquized. "But what's chewin' the soul out o' me is this: 'How in Sam Hill did they make fifty dollars go that far?' If I was gettin' married, fifty dollars wouldn't begin to pay for the first round o' drinks."

It had not escaped the gambler's observing eye that Donna had been crying, so immediately after breakfast Mr. Hennage strolled over to the feed corral, leaned his arms on the top rail and carefully scanned the herd of horses within.

Bob McGraw's little roan cayuse was gone!

"Well, if that don't beat the Dutch!" exclaimed Mr. Hennage disgustedly.

"If that young feller ain't one fool of a bridegroom, a-runnin'

away from his bride like this! For quick moves that feller's got the California flea faded to a whisper. Two weeks ago he was a-practicin'

law in Sacramento, a-puttin' through a deal in lieu lands; then he jumps to Stockton an' wires me for fifty dollars; then he hops to Bakersfield an' gits married, after which he lands in the Yosemite Valley on his honeymoon. From there he jumps to San Pasqual, an' from San Pasqual he fades away into the desert an' leaves his bride at home a-weepin' an'

a-cryin'. I don't understand this business nohow, an' I'll be dog-goned if I'm a-goin' to try. It's too big an order."

Three days later Harley P. Hennage wished that he had not been so inquisitive. That glance into the feed corral was to cost him many a pang and many a dollar; for, with rare exceptions, there is no saying so true as this: that a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

CHAPTER XV

The once prosperous mining camp of Garlock is a name and a memory now.

Were it not that the railroad has been built in from San Pasqual a hundred and fifty miles up country through the Mojave, Garlock would be a memory only. But some official of the road, imbued, perhaps, with a remnant of sentimental regret for the fast-vanis.h.i.+ng glories of the past, has caused to be erected beside the track a white sign carrying the word Garlock in black letters; otherwise one would scarcely realize that once a thriving camp stood in the sands back of this sign-board of the past. Even in the days when the stage line operated between San Pasqual and Keeler, Garlock had run its race and the Argonauts had moved on, leaving the rusty wreck of an old stamp-mill, the decayed fragments of half a dozen pine shanties and a few adobe _casas_ with the sod roofs fallen in.

There are a few deep uncovered wells in this deserted camp, filthy with the rotting carca.s.ses of desert animals which have crawled down these wells for life--and remained for death. But no human being resides in Garlock. It is a sad and lonely place. The hills that rise back of the ruins are scarlet with oxide of iron; in the sheen of the westering sun they loom harsh and repellent, provocative of the thought that from the very inception of Garlock their crests have been the arena of murder--spattered with the blood of the hardy men who made the camp and then deserted it.

Therefore, one would not be surprised at anything happening in Garlock--where it would seem a wanton waste of imagination to look forward to anything happening--yet at about noon of the day that Harley P. Hennage looked over the rail fence into the feed corral at San Pasqual and discovered that Bob McGraw's horse was gone, a man on a tired horse rode up from the south, turned in through the ruined doorway of one of the roofless tumble-down adobe houses, and concealed himself and his horse in the area formed by the four crumbling walls.

He dismounted, unsaddled and rubbed down his dripping horse with handfuls of the withered gra.s.ses that grew within the ruins. Next, the man hunted through Garlock until he found an old rusty kerosene can with a wire handle fitted through it, and to this he fastened a long horsehair hitching rope and drew water from one of the filthy wells. The horse drank greedily and nickered reproachfully when the man informed him that he must cool off before being allowed to drink his fill.

For an hour the man sat on his saddle and smoked; then, after drawing several cans of water for the horse, he spread the saddle-blanket on the ground and poured thereon a feed of oats from a meager supply cached on the saddle. From the saddle-bags he produced a small can of roast beef and some dry bread, which he "washed down" with water from his canteen while the horse munched at the oats.