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diff --git a/12570-0.txt b/12570-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..dfd2718 --- /dev/null +++ b/12570-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7057 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12570 *** + + STARR, OF THE DESERT + + BY B.M. BOWER + + AUTHOR OF CHIP OF THE FLYING U, ETC. + + 1917 + + + + +CONTENTS + +CHAPTER + + + I A COMMONPLACE MAN WAS PETER + + II IN WHICH PETER DISCOVERS A WAY OUT + + III VIC SHOULD WORRY + + IV STARR WOULD LIKE TO KNOW + + V A GREASE SPOT IN THE SAND + + VI "DARN SUCH A COUNTRY!" + + VII MOONLIGHT, A MAN AND A SONG + + VIII HOLMAN SOMMERS, SCIENTIST + + IX PAT, A NICE DOGGUMS + + X THE TRAIL OF SILVERTOWN CORDS + + XI THE WIND BLOWS MANY STRAWS + + XII STARR FINDS SOMETHING IN A SECRET ROOM + + XIII HELEN MAY SIGHS FOR ROMANCE + + XIV A SHOT FROM THE PINNACLE + + XV HELEN MAY UNDERSTANDS + + XVI STARR SEES TOO LITTLE OR TOO MUCH + + XVII "IS HE THEN DEAD--MY SON?" + + XVIII A PAGE OF WRITING + + XIX HOLMAN SOMMERS TURNS PROPHET + + XX STARR DISCOVERS THINGS + + XXI THROUGH THE OPEN SKYLIGHT + + XXII STARR TAKES ANOTHER PRISONER + + + + +STARR, OF THE DESERT + + + + +CHAPTER ONE + +A COMMONPLACE MAN WAS PETER + + +Daffodils were selling at two bits a dozen in the flower stand beside the +New Era Drug Store. Therefore Peter Stevenson knew that winter was over, +and that the weather would probably "settle." There would be the spring +fogs, of course--and fog did not agree with Helen May since that last +spell of grippe. Peter decided that he would stop and see the doctor +again, and ask him what he thought of a bungalow out against the hills +behind Hollywood; something cheap, of course--and within the five-cent +limit on the street cars; something with a sleeping porch that opened +upon a pleasanter outlook than your neighbor's back yard. If Helen May +would then form the habit of riding to and from town on the open end of +the cars, that would help considerably; in fact, the longer the ride the +better it would be for Helen May. The air was sweet and clean out there +toward the hills. It would be better for Vic, too. It would break up +that daily habit of going out to see "the boys" as soon as he had +swallowed his dinner. + +Peter finished refilling the prescription on which he was working, and +went out to see if he were needed in front. He sold a lip-stick to a +pert miss who from sheer instinct made eyes at him, and he wished that +Helen May had such plump cheeks--though he thanked God she had not the +girl's sophisticated eyes. (Yes, a bungalow out there against the hills +ought to do a lot for Helen May.) He glanced up at the great clock and +unconsciously compared his cheap watch with it, saw that in ten minutes +he would be free for the day, and bethought him to telephone the doctor +and make sure of the appointment. He knew that Helen May had seen the +doctor at noon, since she had given Peter her word that she would go, +and since she never broke a promise. He would find out just what the +doctor thought. + +When he returned from the 'phone, a fat woman wanted peroxide, and she +was quite sure the bottle he offered was smaller than the last two-bit +bottle she had bought. Peter very kindly and patiently discussed the +matter with her, and smiled and bowed politely when she finally decided +to try another place. His kidneys were hurting him again. He wondered if +Helen May would remember that he must not eat heavy meats, and would get +something else for their dinner. + +He glanced again at the clock. He had four minutes yet to serve. He +wondered why the doctor had seemed so eager to see him. He had a vague +feeling of uneasiness, though the doctor had not spoken more than a dozen +words. At six he went behind the mirrored partition and got his topcoat +and hat; said good night to such clerks as came in his way, and went out +and bought a dozen daffodils from the Greek flower-vendor. All day he had +been arguing with himself because of this small extravagance which +tempted him, but now that it was settled and the flowers were in his +hand, he was glad that he had bought them. Helen May loved all growing +things. He set off briskly in spite of his aching back, thinking how +Helen May would hover over the flowers rapturously even while she scolded +him for his extravagance. + +Half an hour later, when he turned to leave the doctor's office, he left +the daffodils lying forgotten on a chair until the doctor called him +back and gave them to him with a keen glance that had in it a good deal +of sympathy. + +"You're almost as bad off yourself, old man," he said bluntly. "I want +to watch those kidneys of yours. Come in to-morrow or next day and let +me look you over. Or Sunday will do, if you aren't working then. I +don't like your color. Here, wait a minute. I'll give you a +prescription. You'd better stop and fill it before you go home. Take the +first dose before you eat--and come in Sunday. Man, you don't want to +neglect yourself. You--" + +"Then you don't think Hollywood--?" Peter took the daffodils and began +absently crumpling the waxed paper around them. His eyes, when he looked +into the doctor's face, were very wistful and very, very tired. + +"Hollywood!" The doctor snorted. "One lung's already badly affected, I +tell you. What she's got to have is high, dry air--like Arizona or New +Mexico or Colorado. And right out in the open--live like an Injun for +a year or two. Radical change of climate--change of living. Another +year of office work will kill her." He stopped and eyed Peter +pityingly. "Predisposition--and then the grippe--her mother went that +way, didn't she?" + +"Yes," Peter replied, flat-toned and patient. "Yes, she went--that way." + +"Well, you know what it means. Get her out of here just as quick as +possible, and you'll probably save her. Helen May's a girl worth saving." + +"Yes," Peter replied flatly, as before. "Yes--she's worth saving." + +"You bet! Well, you do that. And don't put off coming here Sunday. And +don't forget to fill that prescription and take it till I see you again." + +Peter smiled politely, and went down the hall to the elevator, and laid +his finger on the bell, and waited until the steel cage paused to let +him in. He walked out and up Third Street and waited on the corner of +Hill until the car he wanted stopped on the corner to let a few more +passengers squeeze on. Peter found a foothold on the back platform and +something to hang to, and adapted himself to the press of people around +him, protecting as best he could the daffodils with the fine, green +stuff that went with them and that straggled out and away from the +paper. Whenever human eyes met his with a light of recognition, Peter +would smile and bow, and the eyes would smile back. But he never knew +who owned the eyes, or even that he was performing one of the little +courtesies of life. + +All he knew was that Helen May was going the way her mother had gone, and +that the only way to prevent her going that way was to take her to New +Mexico or Colorado or Arizona; and she was worth saving--even the doctor +had been struck with her worth; and a bungalow out against the hills +wouldn't do at all, not even with a sleeping porch and the open-air ride +back and forth every day. Radical change she must have. Arizona or New +Mexico or--the moon, which seemed not much more remote or inaccessible. + +When his street was called he edged out to the steps and climbed down, +wondering how the doctor expected a man with Peter's salary to act upon +his advice. "You do that!" said the doctor, and left Peter to discover, +if he could, how it was to be done without money; in other words, had +blandly required Peter to perform a modern miracle. + +Helen May was listlessly setting the table when he arrived. He went up to +her for the customary little peck on the cheek which passes for a kiss +among relatives, and Helen May waved him off with a half smile that was +unlike her customary cheerfulness. + +"I've quit kissing," she said. "It's unsanitary." + +"What did the doctor tell you, Babe? You went to see him, didn't you?" +Peter managed a smile--business policy had made smiling a habit--while he +unwound the paper from around the daffodils. + +"Dad, I've told you and _told_ you not to buy flowers! Oh, golly, aren't +they beautiful! But you mustn't. I'm going to get my salary cut, on the +first. They say business doesn't warrant my present plutocratic income. +Five a week less, Bob said it would be. That'll pull the company back to +a profit-sharing basis, of course!" + +"Lots of folks are losing their jobs altogether," Peter reminded her +apathetically. "What did the doctor say about your cough, Babe?" + +"Oh, he told me to quit working. Why is it doctors never have any brains +about such things? Charge a person two dollars or so for telling him to +do what's impossible. What does he think I am--a movie queen?" + +She turned away from his faded, anxious eyes that hurt her with their +realization of his helplessness. There was a red spot on either +cheek--the rose of dread which her father had watched heart-sinkingly. "I +know what he _thinks_ is the matter," she added defiantly. "But that +doesn't make it so. It's just the grippe hanging on. I've felt a lot +better since the weather cleared up. It's those raw winds--and half the +time they haven't had the steam on at all in the mornings, and the office +is like an ice-box till the sun warms it." + +"Vic home yet?" Peter abandoned the subject for one not much more +cheerful. Vic, fifteen and fully absorbed in his own activities, was more +and more becoming a sore subject between the two. + +"No. I called up Ed's mother just before you came, but he hadn't +been there. She thought Ed was over here with Vic. I don't know +where else to ask." + +"Did you try the gym?" + +"No. He won't go there any more. They got after him for something he +did--broke a window somehow. There's no use fussing, dad. He'll come when +he's hungry enough. He's broke, so he can't eat down town." + +Peter sighed and went away to brush his thin, graying hair carefully over +his bald spot, while Helen May brewed the tea and made final preparations +for dinner. The daffodils she arranged with little caressing pulls and +pats in a tall, slim vase of plain glass, and placed the vase in the +center of the table, just as Peter knew she would do. + +"Oh, but you're sweet!" she said, and stooped with her face close above +them. "I wish I could lie down in a whole big patch of you and just look +at the sky and at you nodding and perking all around me--and not do a +living thing all day but just lie there and soak in blue and gold and +sweet smells and silence." + +Peter, coming to the open doorway, turned and tiptoed back as though he +had intruded upon some secret, and stood irresolutely smoothing his hair +down with the flat of his hand until she called him to come and eat. She +was cheerful as ever while she served him scrupulously. She smiled at him +now and then, tilting her head because the daffodils stood between them. +She said no more about the doctor's advice, or the problem of poverty. +She did not cough, and the movements of her thin, well-shaped hands were +sure and swift. More than once she made a pause while she pulled a +daffodil toward her and gazed adoringly into its yellow cup. + +Peter might have been reassured, were it not for the telltale flush on +her cheeks and the unnatural shine in her eyes. As it was, every +fascinating little whimsy of hers stabbed him afresh with the pain of her +need and of his helplessness. Arizona or New Mexico or Colorado, the +doctor had said; and Peter knew that it must be so. And he with his +druggist's salary and his pitiful two hundred dollars in the savings +bank! And with the druggist's salary stopping automatically the moment he +stopped reporting for duty! Peter was neither an atheist nor a socialist, +yet he was close to cursing his God and his country whenever Helen May +smiled at him around the dozen daffodils. + +"Your insurance is due the tenth, dad," she remarked irrelevantly when +they had reached the dessert stage of cream puffs from the delicatessen +nearest Helen May's work. "Why don't you cut it down? It's sinful, the +amount of money we've paid out for insurance. You need a new suit this +spring. And the difference--" + +"I don't see what's wrong with this suit," Peter objected, throwing out +his scrawny chest and glancing down his front with a prejudiced eye, +refusing to see any shabbiness. "A little cleaning and pressing, maybe--" + +"A little suit of that new gray everybody's wearing these days, you +mean," she amended relentlessly. "Don't argue, dad. You've _got_ to have +a suit. And that old insurance--" + +"Jitneys are getting thicker every day," Peter contended in feeble jest. +"A man needs to be well insured in this town. There's Vic--if anything +happened, he's got to be educated just the same. And by the endowment +plan, in twelve years more I'll have a nice little lump. It's--on account +of the endowment, Babe. I don't want to sell drugs all my life." + +"Just the same, you're going to have a new suit." Helen May retrenched +herself behind the declaration. "And it's going to be gray. And a gray +hat with a dove-colored band and the bow in the back. And tan shoes," she +added implacably, daintily lifting the roof off her cream puff to see how +generous had been the filling. + +"Who? Me?" Vic launched himself in among them and slid spinelessly into +his chair as only a lanky boy can slide. "Happy thought! Only I'll have +bottle green for mine. A fellow stepped on my roof this afternoon, so--" + +"You'll wear a cap then--or go bareheaded and claim it's to make your +hair grow." Helen May regarded him coldly. "Lots of fellows do. You don't +get a single new dud before the fourth, Vic Stevenson." + +"Oh, don't I?" Vic drawled with much sarcasm, and pulled two dollars from +his trousers pocket, displaying them with lofty triumph. "I get a new hat +to-morrow, Miss Stingy." + +"Vic, where did you get that money?" Helen May's eyes flamed to the +battle. "Have you been staying out of school and hanging around those +picture studios?" + +"Yup--at two dollars per hang," Vic mouthed, spearing a stuffed green +pepper dexterously. "Fifty rehearsals for two one-minute scenes of +honorable college gangs honorably hailing the hee-ro. Waugh! Where'd you +get these things--or did the cat bring it in? Stuffed with laundry soap, +if you ask me. Why don't you try that new place on Spring?" + +"Vic Stevenson!" Helen May began in true sisterly disapprobation. "Is +that getting you anywhere in your studies? A few more days out of +school, and--" + +Peter's thoughts turned inward. He did not even hear the half playful, +half angry dispute between these two. Vic was a heady youth, much given +to rebelling against the authority of Helen May who bullied or wheedled +as her mood and the emergency might impel, as sisters do the world over. +Peter was thinking of his two hundred dollars saved against disaster; and +a third of that to go for life insurance on the tenth, which was just one +row down on the calendar; and Helen May going the way her mother had +gone--unless she lived out of doors "like an Indian" in Arizona +or--Peter's mind refused to name again the remote, inaccessible places +where Helen May might evade the penalty of being the child of her mother +and of poverty. + +Gray hat for Peter or bottle-green hat for Vic--what did it matter if +neither of them ever again owned a hat, if Helen May must stay here in +the city and face the doom that had been pronounced upon her? What did +anything matter, if Babe died and left him plodding along alone? Vic did +not occur to him consolingly. Vic was a responsibility; a comfort he was +not. Like many men, Peter could not seem to understand his son half as +well as he understood his daughter. He could not see why Vic should +frivol away his time; why he should have all those funny little conceits +and airs of youth; why he should lord it over Helen May who was every day +proving her efficiency and her strength of character anew. If Helen May +went the way her mother had gone, Peter felt that he would be alone, and +that life would be quite bare and bleak and empty of every incentive +toward bearing the little daily burdens of existence. + +He got up with his hand going instinctively to his back to ease the ache +there, and went out upon the porch and stood looking drearily down upon +the asphalted street, where the white paths of speeding automobiles +slashed the dusk like runaway sunbeams on a frolic. Then the street +lights winked and sputtered and began to glow with white brilliance. + +Arizona or New Mexico or Colorado! Peter knew what the doctor had in +mind. Vast plains, unpeopled, pure, immutable in their calm; stars that +came down at night and hung just over your head, making the darkness +alive with their bright presence; a little cottage hunched against a +hill, a candle winking cheerily through the window at the stars; the +cries of night birds, the drone of insects, the distant howling of a +coyote; far away on the boundary of your possessions, a fence of barbed +wire stretching through a hollow and up over a hill; distance and quiet +and calm, be it day or night. And Helen May coming through the sunlight, +riding a gentle-eyed pony; Helen May with her deep-gold hair tousled in +the wind, and with health dancing in her eyes that were the color of a +ripe chestnut, odd contrast to her hair; Helen May with the little red +spots gone from her cheek bones, and with tanned skin and freckles on her +nose and a laugh on her lips, coming up at a gallop with the sun behind +her, and something more; with sickness behind her and the drudgery of +eight hours in an office, and poverty and unhappiness. And Vic--yes, Vic +in overalls and a straw hat, growing up to be the strong man he never +would be in the city. + +Like many another commonplace man of the towns, for all his colorless +ways and his thinning hair and his struggle against poverty, Peter was +something of a dreamer. And like all the rest of us who build our dreams +out of wishes and hopes and maybes, Peter had not a single fact to use in +his foundation. Arizona, New Mexico or Colorado--to Peter they were but +symbols of all those dear unattainable things he longed for. And that he +longed for them, not for himself but for another who was very dear to +him, only made the longing keener and more tragic. + + + + +CHAPTER TWO + +IN WHICH PETER DISCOVERS A WAY OUT + + +We are always exclaiming over the strange way in which events link +themselves together in chains; and when the chains bind us to a certain +condition or environment, we are in the habit of blandly declaring +ourselves victims of the force of circumstances. By that rule, Peter +found himself being swept into a certain channel of thought about which +events began at once to link themselves into a chain which drew him +perforce into a certain path that he must follow. Or it may have been his +peculiar single-mindedness that forced him to follow the path; however +that may be, circumstances made it easy. + +If Helen May worried about her cough and her failing energy, she did not +mention the fact again; but that was Helen May's way, and Peter was not +comforted by her apparent dismissal of the subject. So far as he could +see she was a great deal more inclined to worry over Vic, who refused to +stay in school when he could now and then earn a dollar or two acting in +"mob scenes" for some photoplay company out in Hollywood. He did not +spend the money wisely; Helen May declared that he was better off with +empty pockets. + +Ordinarily Peter would have taken Vic's rebellion seriously enough to put +a stop to it. He did half promise Helen May that he would notify all the +directors he could get hold of not to employ Vic in any capacity; even to +"chase him off the studio grounds", as Helen May put it. But he did not, +because chance threw him a bit of solid material on which to rebuild his +air castle for Helen May. + +He was edging his way down the long food counter, collecting his lunch of +rice pudding, milk and whole-wheat bread in a cafeteria on Hill Street. +He was late, and there was no unoccupied table to be had, so he finally +set his tray down where a haggard-featured woman clerk had just eaten +hastily her salad and pie. A brown-skinned young fellow with country +manners and a range-fostered disposition to talk with any one who tarried +within talking distance, was just unloading his tray load of provender on +the opposite side of the table. He looked across at Peter's tray, grinned +at the meager luncheon, and then looked up into Peter's face with +friendliness chasing the amusement from his eyes. + +"Golly gee! There's a heap of difference in our appetites, from the looks +of our layouts," he began amiably. "I'm hungry as a she-wolf, myself. +Hope they don't make me wash the dishes when I'm through; I'm always +kinda scared of these grab-it-and-go joints. I always feel like making a +sneak when nobody's looking, for fear I'll be called back to clean up." + +Peter smiled and handed his tray to a waiter. "I wish I could eat a meal +like that," he confessed politely. + +"Well, you could if you lived out more in the open. Town kinda gits a +person's appetite. Why, first time I come in here and went down the chute +past the feed troughs, why it took two trays to pack away the grub I seen +and wanted. Lookout lady on the high stool, she give me two +tickets--thought there was two of, me, I reckon. But I ain't eatin' the +way I was then. Town's kinda gittin' me like it's got the rest of you. +Last night I come pretty near makin' up my mind to go back. Little old +shack back there in the greasewood didn't look so bad, after all. Only I +do hate like sin to bach, and a fellow couldn't take a woman out there in +the desert to live, unless he had money to make her comfortable. So I'm +going to give up my homestead--if I can find some easy mark to buy out my +relinquishment. Don't want to let it slide, yuh see, 'cause the +improvements is worth a little something, and the money'd come handy +right now, helpin' me into something here. There's a chance to buy into +a nice little service station, fellow calls it--where automobiles stop to +git pumped up with air and gasoline and stuff. If I can sell my +improvements, I'll buy in there. Looks foolish to go back, once I made up +my mind to quit." + +He ate while he talked, and he talked because he had the simple mind of +a child and must think out loud in order to be perfectly at ease. He +had that hunger for speech which comes sometimes to men who have lived +far from their kind. Peter listened to him vaguely at first; then +avidly, with an inner excitement which his mild, expressionless face +hid like a mask. + +"I was getting kinda discouraged when my horse up 'n died," the eater +went on. "And then when some durn greaser went 'n stole my burro, I jest +up 'n sold my saddle and a few head uh sheep I had, and pulled out. New +Mexico ranching is all right for them that likes it, but excuse me! I +want to live where I can see a movie once in a while, anyhow." He stopped +for the simple, primitive reason that he had filled his mouth to +overflowing with food, so that speech was for the moment a physical +impossibility. + +Peter sipped his glass of milk, and his thoughts raced back and forth +between the door of opportunity that stood ajar, and the mountain of +difficulty which he must somehow move by his mental strength alone +before he and his might pass through that door. + +"Ah--how much do you value your improvements at?" he asked. His emotion +was so great that his voice refused to carry it, and so was flat and as +expressionless as his commonplace face. + +"Well," gurgled the young man, sluicing down his food with coffee, "it's +pretty hard to figure exactly. I've got a good little shack, you see, and +there's a spring right close handy by. Springs is sure worth money in +that country, water being scurse as it is. There's a plenty for the house +and a few head of stock; well, in a good wet year a person could raise a +little garden, maybe; few radishes and beans, and things like that. But +uh course, that can't hardly be called an improvement, 'cause it was +there when I took the place. A greaser, he had the land fenced and was +usin' the spring 'n' range like it was his own, and most folks, they was +scared to file on it. But she's sure filed on now, and I've got six weeks +yet before it can be jumped. + +"Well, there's a shed for stock, and a pretty fair brush corral, and I +built me a pretty fair road in to the place--about a mile off the main +road, it is. I done that odd times the year I was on the place. The +sheep I sold; sheep's a good price now. I only had seventeen--coyotes +and greasers, they kep' stealin' 'em on me, or I'd 'n' had more. I'd +'a' lost 'em all, I guess, if it hadn't been for Loma--dog I got with +me. Them--" + +Peter looked at his watch in that furtive way which polite persons employ +when time presses and a companion is garrulous. He had finished his rice +pudding and his milk, and in five minutes he would be expected to hang up +his hat behind the mirrored partition of the New Era Drug Store and walk +out smilingly to serve the New Era customers, patrons, the New Era called +them. In five minutes he must be on duty, yet Peter felt that his very +life depended upon bringing this wordy young man to a point in his +monologue. + +"If you will come to the New Era Drug Store, at six o'clock," said Peter, +"I shall be glad to talk with you further about this homestead of yours. +I--ah--have a friend who has an idea of--ah--locating somewhere in +Arizona or New Mexico or Colorado--" Peter could name them now without +that sick feeling of despair "--and he might be interested. But," he +added hastily, "he could not afford to pay very much for a place. Still, +if your price is low enough--" + +"Oh, I reckon we can git together on the price," the young man said +cheerfully, as Peter rose and picked up his check. "I'll be there at six, +sure as shootin' cats in a bag. I know where the New Era's at. I went in +there last night and got something to stop my tooth achin'. Ached like +the very devil for a while, but that stuff sure fixed her." + +Peter smiled and bowed and went his way hurriedly, his pale lips working +nervously with the excitement that filled him. The mountain of difficulty +was there, implacably blocking the way. But beyond was the door of +opportunity, and the door was ajar. There must, thought Peter, be some +way to pass the mountain and reach the door. + +Helen May telephoned that she meant to pick out that gray suit for him +that evening. Since it was Saturday, the stores would be open, and there +was a sale on at Hecheimer's. She had seen some stunning grays in the +window, one-third off. And would he.... + +Peter's voice was almost irritable when he told her that he had a +business engagement and could not meet her. And he added the information +that he would probably eat down town, as he did not know how long he +would be detained. Helen May was positively forbidden to do anything at +all about the suit until he had a chance to talk with her. After which +unprecedented firmness Peter left the 'phone hurriedly, lest Helen May +should laugh at his authority and lay down a law of her own, which she +was perfectly capable of doing. + +At five minutes to six the young man presented himself at the New Era, +and waited for Peter at the soda fountain, with a lemon soda and a pretty +girl to smile at his naïve remarks. Peter's heart had given a jump and a +flutter when the young man walked in, fearing some one else might snap at +the chance to buy a relinquishment of a homestead in New Mexico. And yet, +how did Peter expect to buy anything of the sort? If Peter knew, he kept +the knowledge in the back of his mind, telling himself that there would +be some way out. + +He went with the young man, whose name he learned was Johnny Calvert, and +had dinner with him at the cafeteria where they had met at noon. Johnny +talked a great deal, ate a great deal, and unconsciously convinced Peter +that he was an honest young man who was exactly what he represented +himself to be. He had papers which proved his claim upon three hundred +and twenty acres of land in Dona Ana County, New Mexico. He also had a +map upon which the location of his claim was marked with a pencil. +Malpais, he said, was the nearest railroad point; not much of a point, +but you could ride there and back in a day, if you got up early enough in +the morning. + +Peter asked about the climate and the altitude. Johnny was a bit hazy +about the latter, but it was close to mountains, he said, and it was as +high as El Paso, anyway, maybe higher. The climate was like all the +rest of the country, coming in streaks of good and bad. Peter, gaining +confidence as Johnny talked, spoke of his daughter and her impending +doom, and Johnny, instantly grasping the situation, waxed eloquent. Why, +that would be just the place, he declared. Dry as a bone, the weather +was most of the year; hot--the lungers liked it hot and dry, he knew. +And when it was cold, it was sure bracing, too. Why, the country was +alive with health-seekers. At that, most of 'em got well--them that +didn't come too late. + +That last sentence threw Peter into a panic. What if he dawdled along and +kept Helen May waiting until it was too late? By that time I think Peter +had pretty clearly decided how he was to remove the mountain of +difficulty. He must have, or he would not have had the courage to drive +the bargain to a conclusion in so short a time. + +Drive it he did, for at nine o'clock he let himself into the place he +called home and startled Helen May with the announcement that he had +bought her a claim in New Mexico, where she was to live out of doors like +an Indian and get over that cough, and grow strong as any peasant woman; +and where Vic was going to keep out of mischief and learn to amount to +something. He did not say what the effect would be upon himself; Peter +was not accustomed to considering himself except as a provider of +comfort for others. + +Helen May did not notice the omission. "_Bought_ a claim?" she repeated +and added grimly: "What with?" + +"With two hundred dollars cash," Peter replied, smiling queerly. "It's +all settled, Babe, and the claim is to stand in your name. Everything is +attended to but the legal signatures before a notary. I was glad my money +was in the all-night bank, because I was not compelled to wait until +Monday to get it for young Calvert. You will have the relinquishment of +his right to the claim, Babe, and a small adobe house with sheds and +yards and a good spring of living water. In building up the place into a +profitable investment you will be building up your health, which is the +first and greatest consideration. I--you must not go the way your mother +went. You will not, because you will live in the open and throw off +the--ah--incipient--" + +"Dad--_Stevenson_!" Helen May was sitting with her arms lying loose in +her lap, palms upward. Her lips had been loose and parted a little with +the slackness of blank amazement. In those first awful minutes she really +believed that her father had suddenly lost his mind; that he was joking +never occurred to her. Peter was not gifted with any sense of humor +whatsoever, and Helen May knew it as she knew the color of his hair. + +"You will no longer be a wage slave, doomed to spend eight hours of every +day before a typewriter in that insurance office. You will be +independent--a property owner who can see that property grow under your +thought and labor. You will see Vic growing up among clean, healthful +surroundings. He will be able to bear much of the burden--the brunt of +the work. The boy is in a fair way to be ruined if he stays here any +longer. There will be six weeks of grace before the claim can be +seized--ah--jumped, the young man called it. In that time you must be +located upon the place. But you should make all possible haste in any +case, on account of your health. Monday morning we will go together with +young Calvert and attend to the legal papers, and then I should advise +you to devote your time to making preparations--" + +"Dad--_Stevenson_!" Helen May's voice ended in an exasperated, frightened +kind of wail. "I and Vic! Are you crazy?" + +"Not at all. It is sudden, of course. But you will find, when you stop to +think it over, that many of the wisest things we ever do are done without +dawdling,--suddenly, one may say. No, Babe, I--" + +"But two hundred dollars just for the rights to the claim! Dad, look at +it calmly! To build up a ranch takes money. I don't know a thing about +ranching, and neither do you; but we both know that much. One has to eat, +even on a ranch. I wouldn't have my ten a week, remember, and you +wouldn't have your salary, unless you mean to stay here and keep on at +the New Era. And that wouldn't work, dad. You know it wouldn't work. Your +salary would barely keep you, let alone sending money to us. You can't +expect to keep yourself and furnish us money; and you've paid out all you +had in the bank. The thing's impossible on the face of it!" + +"Yes, planning from that basis, it would be impossible." Peter's eyes +were wistful. "I tried to plan that way at first; but I saw it wouldn't +do. The expense of getting there, even, would be quite an item in itself. +No, it couldn't be done that way, Babe." + +"Then will you tell me how else it is to be done?" Helen May's voice was +tired and exasperated. "You say you have paid the two hundred. That +leaves us just the furniture in this flat; and it wouldn't bring enough +to take us to the place, let alone having anything to live on when we got +there. And my wages would stop, and so would yours. Dad, do you realize +what you've done?" She tilted her head forward and stared at him intently +through her lashes, which was a trick she had. + +"Yes, Babe, I realize perfectly. I'm--not counting on just the +furniture. I--think it would pay to ship the stuff on to the claim." + +"For heaven's sake, dad! What are you counting on?" Helen May gave a +hysterical laugh that set her coughing in a way to make the veins stand +out on forehead and throat. (Peter's hands blenched into fighting fists +while he waited for the spasm to wear itself out. She should not go the +way her mother had gone, he was thinking fiercely.) "What--are--you +counting on?" she repeated, when she could speak again. + +"Well, I'm counting on--a source that is sure," Peter replied vaguely. +"The way will be provided, when the time comes. I--I have thought it all +out calmly, Babe. The money will be ready when you need it." + +"Dad, don't borrow money! It would be a load that would keep us +staggering for years. We are going along all right, better than hundreds +of people all around us. I'm feeling better than I was; now the weather +is settled, I feel lots better. You can sell whatever you bought; maybe +you can make a profit on the sale. Try and do that, dad. Get enough +profit to pay for that gray suit I saw in the window!" She was smiling at +him now, the whimsical smile that was perhaps her greatest charm. + +"Never mind about the gray suit." Peter spoke sharply. "I won't need +it." He got up irritably and began pacing back and forth across the +little sitting room. "You're not better," he declared petulantly. "That's +the way your mother used to talk--even up to the very last. A year in +that office would kill you. I know. The doctor said so. Your only chance +is to get into a high, dry place where you can live out of doors. He told +me so. This young man with the homestead claim was a godsend--a godsend, +I tell you! It would be a crime--it would be murder to let the chance +slip by for lack of money. I'd steal the money, if I knew of any way to +get by with it, and if there was no other way open. But there is a way. +I'm taking it. + +"I don't want to hear any more argument," he exclaimed, facing her quite +suddenly. His eyes had a light she had never seen in them before. "Monday +you will go with me and attend to the necessary legal papers. After that, +I'll attend to the means of getting there." + +He stood looking down at her where she sat with her hands clasped in her +lap, staring up at him steadfastly from under her eyebrows. His face +softened, quivered until she thought he was going to cry like a woman. +But he only came and laid a shaking hand on her head and smoothed her +hair as one caresses a child. + +"Don't oppose me in this, Babe," he said wearily. "I've thought it all +out, and it's best for all of us. I can't see you dying here by +inches--in the harness. And think of Vic, if that happened. He's just at +the age where he needs you. I couldn't do anything much with him alone. +It's the best thing to do, the only thing to do. Don't say anything more +against it, don't argue. When the time comes, you'll do your part +bravely, as I shall do mine. And if you feel that it isn't worth while +for yourself, think of Vic." + +Peter turned abruptly and went into his room, and Helen May dropped her +head down upon her arms and cried awhile, though she did not clearly +understand why, except that life seemed very cruel, like some formless +monster that caught and squeezed the very soul out of one. Soon she heard +Vic coming, and pulled herself together for the lecture he had earned by +going out without permission and staying later than he should. On one +point dad was right, she told herself wearily, while she was locking up +for the night. Town certainly was no place for Vic. + +The next day, urged by her father, Helen May met Johnny Calvert, and +cooked him a nice dinner, and heard a great deal about her new claim. And +Monday, furthermore, the three attended to certain legal details. She had +many moments of panic when she believed her father was out of his mind, +and when she feared that he would do some desperate thing like stealing +money to carry out this strange plan. But she did as he wished. There was +a certain inflexible quality in Peter's mild voice, a certain +determination in his insignificant face that required obedience to his +wishes. Even Vic noticed it, and eyed Peter curiously, and asked Helen +May what ailed the old man. + +An old man Peter was when he went to his room that night, leaving Helen +May dazed and exhausted after another evening spent in absorbing queer +bits of information from the garrulous Johnny Calvert. She would be able +to manage all right, now, Peter told her relievedly when Johnny left. She +knew as much about the place as she could possibly know without having +been there. + +He said good night and left her wondering bewilderedly what strange thing +her dad would do next. In the morning she knew. + +Peter did not answer when Helen May rapped on his door and said that +breakfast would be ready in five minutes. Never before had he failed to +call out: "All right, Babe!" more or less cheerfully. She waited a +minute, listening, and then rapped again and repeated her customary +announcement. Another wait, and she turned the knob and looked in. + +She did not scream at what she found there. Vic, sleeping on the couch +behind a screen in the living room, yawned himself awake and proceeded +reluctantly to set his feet upon the floor and grope, sleepy-eyed, for +his clothes, absolutely unconscious that in the night sometime Peter had +passed a certain mountain of difficulty and had reached out unafraid and +pulled wide open the door of opportunity for his children. + +Beyond the door, Helen May was standing rigidly beside the bed where +Peter lay, and was reading for the second time the letter which Peter had +held in his hand. At first her mind had refused to grasp its meaning. +Now, reading slowly, she knew ... + +Dear Babe, (said the letter). + +Don't be horrified at what I have done. I have thought the whole matter +over calmly, and I am satisfied that this is the best way. My life could +not go on very long, anyway. The doctor made that plain enough to me +Sunday. I saw him. I was in a bad way with kidney trouble, he said. I +knew it before he told me. I knew I was only good for a few months more +at the most, and I would soon be a helpless burden. Besides, I have heart +trouble that will account for this sudden taking off, so you can escape +any unpleasant gossip. + +Take the life insurance and use it on that claim, for you and Vic. Live +out in the open and get well, and make a man of Vic. Three thousand +dollars ought to be ample to put the ranch on a paying basis. And don't +blame your dad for collecting it now, when it will do the most good. I +could see no benefit in waiting and suffering, and letting you get +farther downhill all the while, making it that much harder to climb back. +Go at once to your claim, and do your best--that is what will make your +dad happiest. You will get well, and you will make a home for you and +Vic, and be independent and happy. In doing this you will fulfill the +last, loving wish of your father. + +PETER STEVENSON. + +P.S. Better stock the place with goats. Johnny Calvert thinks they would +be better than sheep. + + + + +CHAPTER THREE + +VIC SHOULD WORRY + + +Wise man or fool, Peter had taken the one way to impress obedience upon +Helen May. Had he urged and argued and kept on living, Helen May could +have brought forth reasons and arguments, eloquence even, to combat him. +But Peter had taken the simple, unanswerable way of stating his wishes, +opening the way to their accomplishment, and then quietly lying back upon +his pillow and letting death take him beyond reach of protest. + +For days Helen May was numb with the sudden dropping of Life's big +responsibilities upon her shoulders. She could not even summon energy +enough to call Vic to an accounting of his absences from the house. Until +after the funeral Vic had been subdued, going around on his toes and +looking at Helen May with wide, solemn eyes and lips prone to trembling. +But fifteen years is the resilient age, and two days after Peter was +buried, Vic asked her embarrassedly if she thought it would look right +for him to go to the ball game. He had to do _something_, he added +defensively. + +"Oh, I guess so; run along," Helen May had told him absently, without in +the least realizing what it was he had wanted to do. After that Vic went +his way without going through the ceremony of asking her consent, secure +in the knowledge of her indifference. + +The insurance company for which she had worked set in motion the wheels +that would eventually place in her hands the three thousand dollars for +which Peter had calmly given his life. She hated the money. She wanted to +tell her dad how impossible it was for her to use a cent of it. Yet she +must use it. She must use it as he had directed, because he had died to +open the way for her obedience. She must take Vic, against his violent +young will, she suspected, and she must go to that claim away off there +somewhere in the desert, and she must live in the open--and raise goats! +For there was a certain strain of Peter's simplicity in the nature of his +daughter. His last scrawled advice was to her a command which she must +obey as soon as she could muster the physical energy for obedience. + +"What do I know about goats!" she impatiently asked her empty room one +morning after a night of fantastic dreams. "They eat tin cans and paper, +and Masonic candidates ride them, and they stand on high banks and look +silly, and have long chin whiskers and horns worn back from their +foreheads. But as to _raising_ them--what are they good for, for +heaven's sake?" + +"Huh? Say, what are you mumbling about?" Vic, it happened, was awake, and +Helen May's door was ajar. + +"Oh, nothing." Then the impulse of speech being strong in her, Helen May +pulled on a kimono and went out to where Vic lay curled up in the +blankets on the couch. "We've got to go to New Mexico, Vic, and, live on +that land dad bought the rights to, and raise goats!" + +"Yes, we have--not!" + +"We have. Dad said so. We've got to do it, Vic. I expect we'd better +start as soon as the insurance is paid, and that ought to be next week. +Malpais is the name of the darned place. Inez Garcia says Malpais means +bad country. I asked her when she was here yesterday. I expect it does, +though you can't tell about Inez. She's tricky about translating stuff; +she thinks it's funny to fake the meaning of things. But I expect it's +true; it sounds like that." + +"I should worry," Vic yawned, with the bland triteness of a boy who +speaks mostly in current catch phrases. "I've got a good chance for a +juvenile part in that big five-reeler Walt's going to put on. Fat chance +anybody's got putting _me_ to herding goats! That New Mexico dope got my +number the first time dad sprung it. Not for mine!" + +Helen May sat down on the arm of a Mission chair, wrapped her kimono +around her thin figure, and looked at Vic from under her lashes. Besides +raising goats and living out in the open, she was to make a man of Vic. +She did not know which duty appalled her most, or which animal seemed to +her the more intractable. + +"We've got to do it," she said simply. "I don't like it either, but that +doesn't matter. Dad planned that way for us." + +Vic sat up crossly, groping for the top button of his pajama coat. His +long hair was tousled in front and stood straight up at the back, and his +lids were heavy yet with sleep. He looked very young and very unruly, and +as though several years of grace were still left to Helen May before she +need trouble herself about his manhood. + +"Not for mine," he repeated stubbornly. "You can go if you want to, but +I'm going to stay in pictures." No film star in the city could have +surpassed Vic's tone of careless assurance. "Listen! Dad was queer along +towards the last. You know that yourself. And just because he had a nutty +idea of a ranch somewhere, is no reason why we should drop everything--" + +"We've got to do it, and you needn't fuss, because you've got to go +along. I expect we can study up--on goats." Her voice shook a little, for +she was close to tears. + +"Well, I'm darned if you ain't as nutty as dad was! Of course, he was +old and sick, and there was plenty of excuse for him to slop down along +towards the last. Now, listen! My idea is to get a nifty bungalow out +there handy to the studios, and both of us to go into pictures. We can +get a car; what I want is a speedy, sassy little boat that can _travel_. +Well, and listen. We'll have plenty to live on till we both land in +stock. I've got a good chance right now to work into a comedy company; +they say my grin screens like a million dollars, and when it comes to +making a comedy getaway I'm just geared right, somehow, to pull a laugh. +That college picture we made got me a lot of notice in the projection +room, and I was only doing mob stuff, at that. But I stood out. And +Walt's promised me a fat little bit in this five-reeler. I'll land in +stock before the summer's half over! + +"And you can land with some good company if you just make a stab at it. +Your eyes and that trick of looking up under your eyebrows are just the +type for these sob leads, and you've got a good photographic face: a +_good_ face for it," he emphasized generously. "And your figure couldn't +be beat. Believe me, I know. You ought to see some of them Janes--and at +that, they manage to get by with their stuff. A little camera experience, +under a good director that would bring out your good points--I was going +to spring the idea before, but I knew dad wouldn't stand for it." + +"But we've got to go and live on that claim. We've _got_ to." + +Vic's face purpled. "Say, are you plumb _bugs_? Why--" Vic gulped and +stuttered. "Say, where do you get that stuff? You better tie a can to it, +sis; it don't get over with me. I'm for screen fame, and I'm going to get +it too. Why, by the time I'm twenty, I'll betcha I can pull down a salary +that'll make Charlie Chaplin look like an extra! Why, my grin--" + +"Your grin you can use on the goats," Helen May quelled unfeelingly. "I +only hope it won't scare the poor things to death. You needn't argue +about it--as if I was crazy to go! Do you think I want to leave Los +Angeles, and everybody I know, and everything I care about, and go to New +Mexico and live like a savage, and raise goats? I'd rather go to jail, if +you ask me. I hate the very thought of a ranch, Vic Stevenson, and you +know I do. But that doesn't matter a particle. Dad--" + +"I told you dad was crazy!" Vic's tone was too violent for grief. His +young ambitions were in jeopardy, and even his dad's death must look +unimportant alongside the greater catastrophe that threatened. "Do you +think, for gosh sake, the whole family's got to be nutty just because he +was sick and got a queer streak?" + +"You've no right to say that. Dad--knew what he was doing." + +"Aw, where do you get that dope?" Vic eyed her disgustedly, and with a +good deal of condescension. "If you had any sense, you'd knew he was +queer for days before it happened. _I_ noticed it, all right, and if +you didn't--" + +Helen May did not say anything at all. She got up and went to her room +and came back with Peter's last, pitiful letter. She gave it to Vic and +sat down again on the arm of the Mission chair and waited, looking at him +from, under her lashes, her head tilted forward. + +Vic was impressed, impressed to a round-eyed silence. He knew his dad's +handwriting, and he unfolded the sheet and read what Peter had written. + +"I found that letter in--his hand--that morning." Helen May tried to +keep her voice steady. "You mustn't tell any one about it, Vic. They +mustn't know. But you see, he--after doing that to get the money for me, +why--you see, Vic, we've _got_ to go there. And we've got to make good. +We've got to." + +There must have been a little of Peter's disposition in Vic, too. He +lay for several minutes staring hard at a patch of sunlight on the +farther wall. I suppose when one is fifteen the ambition to be a movie +star dies just as hard as does later the ambition to be president of +the United States. + +"You see, don't you, Vic?" Helen May watched him nervously. + +"Well, what do you think I am?" Vic turned upon her with a scowl. "You +might have said it was for your health. You wasn't playing fair. You--you +kept saying it was to raise goats!" + + + + +CHAPTER FOUR + +STARR WOULD LIKE TO KNOW + + +Properly speaking Starr did not belong to New Mexico. He was a Texas man, +and, until a certain high official asked him to perform a certain mission +for the Secret Service, he had been a ranger. Puns were made upon his +name when he was Ranger Starr, but he was a ranger no longer, and the +puns had ceased to trouble him. His given name was Chauncy DeWitt; +perhaps that is why even his closest friends called him Starr, it was so +much easier to say, and it seemed to fit him so much better. + +Ostensibly, and for a buffer to public curiosity, Starr was acting in the +modest capacity of cattle buyer for a big El Paso meat company. +Incidentally he bought young sheep in season, and chickens from the +Mexican ranchers, and even a bear that had been shot up in the mountains +very early in the spring, before the fat had given place to leanness. +Whatever else Starr did he kept carefully to himself, but his meat buying +was perfectly authentic and satisfactory. And if those who knew his past +record wondered at his occupation, Starr had plenty of reasons for the +change, and plenty of time in which to explain those reasons. + +As to his personal appearance, there is not a great deal to say. I'm +afraid Starr would not have attracted any notice in a crowd. He was a +trifle above average height, perhaps, and he had nice eyes whose color +might be a matter of dispute; because they were a bit too dark for gray, +a bit too light for real hazel, with tiny flecks of green in certain +lights. His lashes were almost heavy enough to be called a mark of +beauty, and when he took off his hat, which was not often except at +mealtime and when he slept in a real bed, there was something very +attractive about his forehead and the way his hair grew on his temples. +His mouth was pleasant when his mood was pleasant, but that was not +always. One front tooth had been gold-crowned, which made his smile a +trifle conspicuous, but could not be called a disfigurement. For the +rest, he was tanned to a real desert copper, and riding kept him +healthily lean. But as I said before, you would never pick him out of a +crowd as the hero of this story or of any other. + +Like most of us, Starr did not dazzle at the first sight. One must come +into close contact with him to find him different from any other passably +attractive, intelligent man of the open. Oh, if you must have his age, I +think he gave it at thirty-one, the last time he was asked, but he might +have said twenty-five and been believed. He was bashful, and he got on +better with men than he did with women; but if you will stop to think, +most decent men do if they have lived under their hats since they grew to +the long-trouser age. And if they have spent their working days astride a +stock saddle, you may be sure they are bashful unless they are overbold +and impossible. Well, Starr was of the bashful, easily stampeded type. As +to his morals, he smoked and he swore a good deal upon occasion, and he +drank, and he played pool, and now and then a little poker, and he would +lie for a friend any time it was necessary and think nothing of it. Also, +he would fight whenever the occasion seemed to warrant it. He had not +been to church since he wore square collars starched and spread across +his shoulders, and the shine of soap on his cheeks. And a pretty girl +would better not make eyes too boldly if she objected to being kissed, +although Starr had never in his life asked a girl to marry him. + +It doesn't sound very promising for a hero. He really was just a human +being and no saint. Saint? You wouldn't think so if you had heard what +he said to his horse, Rabbit, just about an hour before you were +introduced to him. + +Rabbit, it seems had been pacing along, half asleep in the blistering +heat of midday, among the cactus and the greasewood and those +depressing, yellowish weeds that pretend to be clothing the desert with +verdure, when they are merely emphasizing its barrenness. Starr had +been half asleep too, riding with one leg over the saddle horn to rest +his muscles, and with his hat brim pulled down over his eyebrows to +shade his eyes from the pitiless glare of New Mexico sunlight. Rabbit +might be depended upon to dodge the prairie dog holes and rocks and +dirt hummocks, day or night, waking or sleeping; and since they were +riding cross-country anyway, miles from a trail, and since they were +headed for water, and Rabbit knew as well as Starr just where it was to +be found, Starr held the reins slack in his thumb and finger and let +the horse alone. + +That was all right, up to a certain point. Rabbit was a perfectly +dependable little range horse, and sensible beyond most horses. He was +ambling along at his easy little fox-trot that would carry Starr many a +mile in a day, and he had his eyes half shut against the sun glare, and +his nose almost at a level with his knees. I suppose he was dreaming of +cool pastures or something like that, when a rattlesnake, coiled in the +scant shade of a weed, lifted his tail and buzzed as stridently, as +abruptly as thirteen rattles and a button can buzz. + +Rabbit had been bitten once when he was a colt and had gone around with +his head swollen up like a barrel for days. He gave a great, horrified +snort, heaved himself straight up in the air, whirled on his hind feet +and went bucking across the scenery like a rodeo outlaw. + +Starr did not accompany him any part of the distance. Starr had gone off +backward and lit on his neck, which I assure you is painful and +disturbing to one's whole physical and moral framework. I'll say this +much for Starr: The first thing he did when he got up was to shoot the +head off the snake, whose tail continued to buzz in a dreary, aimless way +when there was absolutely nothing to buzz about. Snakes are like that. + +Starr was a little like that, also. He continued to cuss in a fretful, +objectless way, even after Rabbit had stopped and waited for him with +apology written in the very droop of his ears. When he had remounted, and +the horse had settled again to his straight-backed, shuffling fox-trot, +Starr would frequently think of something else to say upon the subject of +fool horses and snakes and long, dry miles and the interminable desert; +but since none of the things would bear repeating, we will let it go at +that. The point is that Starr was no saint. + +He knew of a spring where the water was sweet and cold, and where a +lonesome young fellow lived by himself and was always glad to see some +one ride up to his door. The young fellow was what is called a good +feeder, and might be depended upon to have a pot of frijoles cooked, and +sourdough bread, and stewed fruit of some kind even in his leanest times, +and call himself next door to starvation. And if he happened to be in +funds, there was no telling; Starr, for instance, had eaten canned plum +pudding and potted chicken and maraschino cherries and ginger snaps, all +at one sitting, when he happened to strike the fellow just after selling +a few sheep. Thinking of these things, Starr clucked to Rabbit and told +him for gosh sake to pick his feet off the ground and not to take root +and grow there in the desert like a several-kinds of a so-and-so cactus. + +Rabbit twitched back his ears to catch the drift of Starr's remarks, +rattled his teeth in a bored yawn, and shuffled on. Starr laughed. + +"Durn it, why is it you never take me serious?" he complained. "I can +name over all the mean things you are, and you just waggle one ear, much +as to say, 'Aw, hell! Same ole tune, and nothing to it but noise.' Some +of these days you're going to get your pedigree read to you--and read +right!" He leaned forward and lovingly lifted Rabbit's mane, holding it +for a minute or two away from the sweaty neck. "Sure's hot out here +to-day, ain't it, pardner?" he murmured, and let the mane fall again into +place. "Kinda fries out the grease, don't it? If young Calvert's got any +hoss-feed in camp, I'm going to beg some off him. Get along, the faster +you go, the quicker you'll get there." + +The desert gave place to scattered, brown cobblestones of granite. Rabbit +picked his way carefully among these, setting his feet down daintily in +the interstices of the rocks. He climbed a long slope that proved itself +to be a considerable hill when one looked back at the desert below. The +farther side was more abrupt, and he took it in patient zigzags where the +footing promised some measure of security. At the bottom he turned short +off to the right and made his way briskly along a rough wagon trail that +hugged the hillside. + +"Fresh tracks going in--and then out again," Starr announced musingly +to Rabbit. "Maybe young Calvert hired a load of grub brought out; that, +or he's had a visitor in the last day or two--maybe a week back, +though; this dry ground holds tracks a long while. Go on, it's only a +mile or so now." + +The trail took a sudden turn toward the bottom of the wide depression as +though it wearied of dodging rocks and preferred the loose sand below. Of +his own accord Rabbit broke into a steady lope, flinging his head +sidewise now and then to discourage the pestiferous gnats that swarmed +about his ears. Starr, also driven to action of some kind, began to fling +his hands in long sweeping gestures past his face. He hoped that the +cabin, being on a higher bit of ground, would be free from the pests. + +Bounding a sharp turn, Starr glimpsed the cabin and frowned as something +unfamiliar in its appearance caught his attention. For just a minute he +could not name the change, and then "Curtains at the windows!" he +snorted. "Now, has the dub gone and got married, wonder?" He hoped not, +and his hope was born not so much from sympathy with any woman who must +live in such a place, but from a very humanly, selfish regard for his own +passing comfort. With a woman in the cabin, Starr would not feel so free +to break his journey there with a rest and a meal or two. + +He went on, however, sitting passively in the saddle while Rabbit headed +straight for the spring. The bit of white curtain at the one small, +square window facing that way troubled Starr, though it could not turn +him back thirsty into the desert. + +It was Rabbit who, ignorant of the significance of that flapping bit of +white, was taken unawares and ducked sidewise when Helen May, standing +precariously on a rock beside the spring, cupped her hands around her +sun-cracked lips and shouted "Vic!" at the top of her voice. She nearly +fell off the rock when she saw the horse and rider so close. They had +come on her from behind, round another sharp nose of the rock-strewn +hillside, so that she did not see them until they had discovered her. + +"Oh!" said Helen May quite flatly, dropping her hands from her sunburned +face and looking Starr over with the self-possessed, inquiring eyes of +one who is accustomed to gazing upon strange faces by the thousands. + +"How do you do?" said Starr, lifting his hat and foregoing instinctively +the easy "Howdy" of the plains. "Is--Mr. Calvert at home?" + +"That depends," said Helen May, "on where he calls home. He isn't +here, however." + +Rabbit, not in the least confused by the presence of a girl in this +out-of-the-way place, pushed forward and thrust his nose deep into the +lower pool of the spring where the water was warmed a little by the sun +on the rocks. Starr could not think of anything much to say, so he sat +leaning forward with a hand on Rabbit's mane, and watched the muscles +working along the neck, when the horse swallowed. + +"Oh--would you mind killing that beast down there in that little hollow?" +Helen May had decided that it would be silly to keep on shouting for Vic +when this man was here. "It's what they call a young Gila Monster, I +think. And the bite is said to be fatal. I don't like the way he keeps +looking at me. I believe he's getting ready to jump at me." + +Starr glanced quickly at her face, which was perfectly serious and even a +trifle anxious, and then down in the direction indicated by a +broken-nailed, pointing finger. He did not smile, though he felt like it. +He looked again at Helen May. + +"It's a horned toad," he informed her gravely. "The one Johnny Calvert +kept around for a pet, I reckon. He won't bite--but I'll kill it if you +say so." He dismounted and picked up a stone, and then looked at her +again inquiringly. + +Helen May eyed the toad askance. "Of course, if it's accustomed to being +a pet--but it looks perfectly diabolical. It--came after me." + +"It thought you would feed it, maybe." + +"Well, I won't. It can think again," said Helen May positively. "You +needn't kill it, but if you'd chase it off somewhere out of sight--it +gives me shivers. I don't like the way it stares at a person and blinks." + +Starr went over and picked up the toad, holding it cupped between his +palms. He carried it a hundred feet away, set it down gently on the +farther side of a rock, and came back. "Lots of folks keep them for +pets," he said. "They're harmless, innocent things." + +He washed his hands in the pool where Rabbit had drunk, took the tin +can that had stood on a ledge in the shade when Starr first came to the +spring a year ago, and dipped it full from the inner pool that was +always cool under the rocks. He turned his back to Helen May and drank +satisfyingly. The can was rusted and it leaked a swift succession of +drops that was almost a stream. Helen May decided that she would bring a +white granite cup to the spring and throw the can away. It was +unsanitary, and it leaked frightfully, and it was a disgrace to +civilized thirst. + +"Pretty hot, to-day," Starr observed, when he had emptied the can and put +it back. He turned and pulled the reins up along Rabbit's neck and took +the stirrup in his hand. + +"Oh, won't you stop--for lunch? It's a long way to town." Helen May +flushed behind her sunburn, but she felt that the law of the desert +demanded some show of hospitality. + +"Thanks, I must be getting on," said Starr, touched his hat brim and +rode away. He had a couple of fried-ham sandwiches in his pocket, and +he ought to make the Medina ranch by two o'clock, he reminded himself +philosophically. A woman on Johnny Calvert's claim was disconcerting. +What was she there for, anyway? From the way she spoke about Johnny, +she couldn't be his wife, or if she were, she had a grudge against +him. She didn't look like the kind of a girl that would marry the +Johnny Calvert kind of a man. Maybe she was just stopping there for a +day or so, with her folks. Still, that white curtain at the window +looked permanent, somehow. + +Starr studied the puzzle from all angles. He might have stayed and had +his curiosity satisfied, but it was second nature with Starr to hide any +curiosity he might feel; his riding matter-of-factly away, as though the +girl were a logical part of the place, was not all bashfulness. Partly it +was habit. He wondered who Vic was--man, woman or child? Man, he guessed, +since she was probably calling for help with the horned toad, Starr +grinned when he thought of her naming it a Gila Monster. If she had ever +seen one of those babies! She must certainly be new to the country, if +she didn't even know a horned toad when she saw one! What was she doing +there, anyway? Starr meant to find out. It was his business to find out, +and besides, he wanted to know. + + + + +CHAPTER FIVE + +A GREASE SPOT IN THE SAND + + +Starr, took his cigarette from his lips, sent an oblique glance of mental +measurement towards his host, and shifted his saddle-weary person to a +more comfortable position on the rawhide covered couch. He had eaten his +fill of frijoles and tortillas and a chili stew hot enough to crisp the +tongue. He had discussed the price of sheep and had with much dickering +bought fifty dry ewes at so much on foot delivered at the nearest +shipping point. He had given what news was public talk, of the great war +and the supposedly present whereabouts of Villa, and what was guessed +would happen if Mexican money went any lower. + +On his own part, Estancio Medina, called Estan for short, had talked very +freely of these things. Villa, he was a bad one, sure. He would yet make +trouble if some_body_ didn't catch him, yes. For himself, Estan Medina, +he was glad to be on this side the border, yes. The American government +would let a poor man alone, yes. He could have his little home and his +few sheep, and no_body_ would take them away. Villa, he was a bad one! +All Mexicans must sure hate Villa--even the men who did his fighting for +him, yes. Burros, that's what they are. Burros, that have no mind for +thinking, only to do what is tol'. And if troubles come, all Mexicans in +these country should fight for their homes, you bet. All these Mexicans +ought to know what's good for them. They got no business to fight gainst +these American gov'ment, not much, they don't. They come here because +they don't like it no more in Mexico where no poor man can have a home +like here. You bet. + +Estan Medina was willing to talk a long while on that subject. His +mother, sitting just inside the doorway, nodded her head now and then and +smiled just as though she knew what her son was saying; proud of his high +learning, she was. He could talk with the Americanos, and they listened +with respect. Their language he could speak, better than they could speak +it themselves. Did she not know? She herself could now and then +understand what he was talking about, he spoke so plainly. + +"You've got new neighbors, I see," Starr observed irrelevantly, when +Estan paused to relight his cigarette. "Over at Johnny Calvert's," he +added, when Estan looked at him inquiringly. + +"Oh-h, yes! That poor boy and girl! You seen them?" + +"I just came from there," Starr informed him easily. "What brought them +away out here?" + +"They not tell, then? That man Calvert, he's a bad one, sure! He don' +stay no more--too lazy, I think, to watch his sheeps from the coyotes, +and says they're stole. He comes here telling me I got his sheeps--yes. +We quarrel a little bit, maybe. I don' like to be called thief, you bet. +He's big mouth, that feller--no brains, aitre. Then he goes some_where_, +and he tells what fine rancho he's got in Sunlight Basin. These boy and +girl, they buy. That's too bad. They don' belong on these desert, sure. +W'at they know about hard life? Pretty soon they get tired, I think, and +go back where comes from. That boy--what for help he be to that girl? +Jus' boy--not so old my brother Luis. Can't ride horse; goes up and down, +up an' down like he's back goes through he's hat. What that girl do? Jus' +slim, big-eye girl with soft hand and sickness of lungs. Babes, them boy +and girl. Whan Calvert he should be shot dead for let such inocentes be +fool like that." + +"Where is Johnny Calvert?" + +"Him? He's gone, sure! Not come back, I bet you! He's got money--them +babes got rancho--" Estan lifted his shoulders eloquently. + +"What are they going to do, now they're here?" Starr abstractedly wiped +off the ash collar of his cigarette against the edge of the couch. + +"_Quien sabe_?" countered Estan, and lifted his shoulders again. "I think +pretty quick they go." + +Starr looked at his watch, yawned, and rose with much evident reluctance. +"Same here," he said. "I've got to make San Bonito in time for that +Eastbound. You have the sheep in the stockyards by Saturday, will you? If +I'm not there myself, I'll leave the money with Johnson at the express +office. Soon as the sheep's inspected, you can go there and get it. +_Addios. Mucho gracias, Señora_." + +"She likes you fine--my mother," Estan observed, as the two sauntered to +the corral where Rabbit was stowing away as much _secate_ as he could +against future hunger. "Sometimes you come and stay longer. We not see so +many peoples here. Nobody likes to cross desert when she's hot like this. +Too bad you must go now." + +Starr agreed with him and talked the usual small talk of the desert +Places while he placed the saddle on Rabbit's still sweaty back. He went +away down the rocky trail with the sun shining full on his right cheek, +and was presently swallowed up by the blank immensity of the land that +looked level as a floor from a distance, but which was a network of small +ridges and shallow draws and "dry washes" when one came to ride over it. + +The trail was narrow and had many inconsequential twists and turns in it, +as though the first man to travel that way had gone blind or dizzy and +could not hold a straight line across the level. When an automobile, for +instance, traveled that road, it was with many skiddings in the sand on +the turns, which it must take circumspectly if the driver did not care +for the rocky, uneven floor of the desert itself. + +Just lately some one had actually preferred to make his own trail, if +tracks told anything. Within half a mile of the Medina rancho Starr saw +where an automobile had swerved sharply off the trail and had taken to +the hard-packed sand of a dry arroyo that meandered barrenly off to the +southeast. He turned and examined the trail over which he had traveled, +saw that it offered no more discouragement to an automobile than any +other bit of trail in that part of the country, and with another glance +at the yellow ribbon of road before him, he also swerved to the +southeast. + +For a mile the machine had labored, twisting this way and that to avoid +rocky patches or deep cuts where the spring freshets had dug out the +looser soil. So far as Starr could discover there was nothing to bring a +machine up here. The arroyo was as thousands of other arroyos in that +country. The sides sloped up steeply, or were worn into perpendicular +banks. It led nowhere in particular; it was not a short cut to any place +that he knew of. The trail to Medina's ranch was shorter and smoother, +supposing Medina's ranch were the objective point of the trip. + +Starr could not see any sense in it, and that is why he followed the +tortuous track to where the machine had stopped. That it had stood there +for some time he knew by the amount of oil that had leaked down into the +sand. He did not know for certain, since he did not know the oil-leaking +habits of that particular car, but he guessed that it had stood there for +a couple of hours at least before the driver had backed and turned around +to retrace his way to the trail. + +In these days of gasoline travel one need not be greatly surprised to +meet a car, or see the traces of one, in almost any out-of-the-way spot +where four wheels can possibly be made to travel. On the other hand, the +man at the wheel is not likely to send his machine over rocks and through +sand where the traction is poor, and across dry ditches and among +greasewood, just for the fun of driving. There is sport with rod or gun +to lure, or there is necessity to impel, or the driver is lost and wants +to reach some point that looks familiar, or he is trying to dodge +something or somebody. + +Starr sat beside that grease spot in the sand and smoked a cigarette +and studied the surrounding hills and tried to decide what had brought +the car up here. Not sport, unless it was hunting of jack rabbits; and +there were more jack rabbits out on the flat than here. There was no +trout stream near, at least, none that was not more accessible from +another point. To be sure, some tenderfoot tourist might have been told +some yarn that brought him up here on a wild-goose chase. You can, +thought Starr, expect any fool thing of a tourist. He remembered running +across one that was trying between trains to walk across the mesa from +Albuquerque to the Sandia mountains. It had been hard to convince that +particular specimen that he was not within a mile or so of his goal, and +that he would do well to reach the mountains in another three hours or +so of steady walking. Compared with that, driving a car up this arroyo +did not look so foolish. + +But tourists did not invade this particular locality with their +overconfident inexperience, and Starr did not give that explanation much +serious thought. Instead he followed on up the narrowed gulch to higher +ground, to see where men would be most likely to go from there. At the +top he looked out upon further knobs and hollows and aimless +depressions, just as he had expected. Half a mile or so away there +drifted a thin spiral of smoke, from the kitchen stove of the Señora +Medina, he guessed. But there was no other sign of human life anywhere +within the radius of many miles, or, to be explicit, within the field of +Starr's vision. + +He looked for footprints, but in a few minutes he gave up in disgust. +The ridge he stood on stretched for miles, up beyond Medina's home +ranch and down past the Sommers' ranch, five or six miles nearer town, +and on to the railroad. And it was a rocky ridge if ever there was one; +granite outcroppings, cobblestones, boulders, anything but good loose +soil where tracks might be followed. A dog might have followed a trail +there before the scent was baked out by blistering heat; but Starr +certainly could not. + +He stood looking across to where the smoke curled up into the intense +Blue of the sky. If a man wanted to reach the Medina ranch by the most +obscure route, he thought, this would be one way to get there. He went +back to where the automobile had stood and searched there for some sign +of those who had ridden this far. But if any man left that machine, he +had stepped from the running board upon rock, and so had left no telltale +print of his foot. + +"And that looks mighty darn queer," said Starr, "if it was just +accidental. But if a fellow _wanted_ to take to the rocks to cover his +trail, why, he couldn't pick a better place than this. She's a dandy +ridge and a dandy way to get up on her, if that's what's wanted." Starr +looked at his watch and gave up all hope of catching the next eastbound +train, if that had really been his purpose. He lifted his hat and drew +his fingers across his forehead where the perspiration stood in beads, +resettled the hat at an angle to shade his face from the glare of the +sun, ran two fingers cursorily between the cinch and Rabbit's sweaty +body, picked up the stirrup, thrust in his toe and eased himself up into +the saddle; and his mind had not consciously directed a single movement. + +"Well, they've left one mark behind 'em that fair hollers," he stated, in +so satisfied a tone that Rabbit turned his head and looked back at him +inquiringly. Starr, you must know, was not given to satisfied tones when +he and Rabbit were enduring the burden of heat and long miles. "And you +needn't give me that kinda look, neither. Take a look at them tire +tracks, you ole knot-head. Them's Silvertown cords, and they ain't +equipping jitneys with cord tires--not yet. Why, yo're whole carcass +ain't worth the price uh one tire, let alone four, you old sheep. You +show me the car in this country that's sportin' Silvertowns all around, +and I'll show you--" + +Just what he would show, Starr did not say, because he did not know. But +there was something there which might be called a mystery, and where +there was mystery there was Starr, working tirelessly on the solution. +This might be a trivial thing; but until he knew beyond all doubt that it +was trivial, Starr pushed other matters, such as a young woman afraid of +a horned toad, out of his mind that he might study the puzzle from all +possible angles. + + + + +CHAPTER SIX + +"DARN SUCH A COUNTRY!" + + +Helen May stood on the knobby, brown rock pinnacle that formed the head +of Sunlight Basin and stared resentfully out over the baked desert and +the forbidding hills and the occasional grassy hollows that stretched +away and away to the skyline. So clear was the air that every slope, +every hollow, every acarpous hilltop lay pitilessly revealed to her +unfriendly eyes, until the sheer immensity of distance veiled its +barrenness in a haze of tender violet. The sky was blue; deeply, +intensely blue, with little clouds like flakes of bleached cotton +floating aimlessly here and there. In a big, wild, unearthly way it was +beautiful beyond any words which human beings have coined. + +Helen May felt its bigness, its wildness, perhaps also its beauty, though +the beauties of the desert land do not always appeal to alien eyes. She +felt its bigness and its wildness; and she who had lived the cramped life +of the town resented both, because she had no previous experience by +which to measure any part of it. Also, she summed up all her resentment +and her complete sense of bafflement at its bigness in one vehement +sentence that lacked only one word of being a curse. + +"Darn such a country!" is what she said, gritting the words between +her teeth. + +"See anything of 'em?" bellowed Vic from the spring below, where he was +engaged in dipping up water with a tomato can and pouring it over his +head, shivering ecstatically as the cold trickles ran down his neck. + +Helen May glanced down at him with no softening of her eyes. Vic had lost +nine goats out of the flock he had been set to herd, and he failed to +manifest any great concern over the loss. On the contrary, he had told +Helen May that he wished he could lose the whole bunch, and that he hoped +coyotes had eaten them up, if they didn't have sense enough to stay with +the rest. There had been a heated argument, and Helen May had not felt +sure of coming out of it a victor. + +"No, I didn't, and you'd better get back to work or the rest will be +gone, too," she called down to him petulantly. "It's bad enough to lose +nine, without letting the rest go." + +"Aw, 's matter with yuh, anyway?" Vic retorted in a tone he thought would +not reach her ears. "By gosh, you don't want a feller to cool off, even! +By gosh, you'd make a feller _sleep_ with them darned goats if you could +get away with it! Bu-lieve _me_, anybody can have my job that wants it. +'S hot enough to fry eggs in the shade, and she thinks, by hen, that I +oughta stay out there--" + +"Yes, I do. And if you want anything to eat to-night, Vic Stevenson, you +get right back there with those goats! They're going over the hill this +minute. Hurry, Vic! For heaven's sake, are you trying to take a _bath_ in +that can? Climb up that ridge and cut across and head them off! That old +Billy's headed for town again--hurry!" + +"Aw for gosh sake!" grumbled Vic, stooping reluctantly to pick up the old +hoe-handle he used for a staff. "What ridge?" He paused to thunder up at +her, his voice unexpectedly changing to a shrill falsetto on the last +word, as frequently happens to rob a mancub of his dignity just when he +needs it most. + +"That ridge before your face, chump," Helen May informed him crossly. "If +it comes to choosing between goats and a boy, I'll take the goats! And if +there's any spot on the face of the earth worse than this, I'd like to +know where it is. The idea of expecting people to live in such a country! +It looks for all the world like magnified pictures of the moon's surface. +And," she added with a dreary kind of vindictiveness, "it's here, and I'm +here. I can't get away from it--that's the dickens of it." Then, because +Helen May had a certain impish sense of humor, she sat down and laughed +at the incongruity of it all. "Me--me, here in the desert trying to +raise goats! Can you beat that?" + +She watched Vic toiling up the ridge, using the hoe-handle with a slavish +dependence upon its support that tickled Helen May again. "You'd think," +she told the scenery for want of other companionship, "you'd think Vic +was seventy-nine years old at the very least. Makes a difference whether +he's after a bunch of tame goats or hiking with a bunch of boy scouts to +the top of Mount Wilson! I don't believe that kid ever did wear his legs +out having fun, and it's a sure thing he'll never wear them out working! +Say goats to him and he actually gets round-shouldered and limps." + +Vic disappeared over the ridge beyond the spring. Lower down, where the +ridge merged into the Basin itself, the big curly-horned Billy that had +cost Helen May more than any half dozen of his followers stepped out +briskly at the head of the band. Helen May wondered what new depravity +was in his mind, and whether Vic would cross the gully he was in and +confront Billy in time to change the one idea that seemed always to +possess that animal. + +Helen May did not know how vitally important it is to have a good dog at +such work. She did not know that Billy and his band felt exactly like +boys who have successfully eluded a too lax teacher, and that they would +have yielded without argument to the bark of a trained sheep dog. She had +set Vic a harder task than she realized; a task from which any +experienced herder would have shrunk. In her ignorance she blamed Vic, +and called him lazy and careless and a few other sisterly epithets which +he did not altogether deserve. + +She watched now, impatient because he was so long in crossing the gully; +telling herself that he was trying to see how slow he could be, and that +he did it just to be disagreeable and to irritate her--as if she were +there of her own desire, and had bought those two hundred miserable +goats to spite him. Harmony, as you must see, did not always dwell in +Sunlight Basin. + +Eventually Vic toiled up the far side of the gully, which was deep and as +hot as an oven, and followed it down within rock-throwing distance of the +goats. A well-aimed pebble struck Billy on the curve of one horn and +halted him, the band huddling vacant-eyed behind him. Vic aimed and threw +another, and Billy, turning his whiskered face upward, stared with +resentful head-tossings and a defiant blat or two before he swerved back +into the Basin, his band and Vic plodding after. + +"Well, for a wonder!" Helen May ejaculated ungraciously, grudging Vic +the small tribute of praise that was due him. But she was immediately +ashamed of that, and told herself that it was pretty hard on the poor +kid, and that after all he must hate the country worse than she did, +even, which would certainly mean a good deal; and that she supposed he +missed his boy chums just as much as she missed her friends, and found it +just as hard to fit himself comfortably into a life for which he had no +liking. Besides, it wasn't his health that had shunted them both out here +into the desert, and she ought to be ashamed of herself for treating him +the way she did. + +After that she decided that it was her business to find the nine goats +that were lost. Vic certainly could not do both at once; and deep down in +her heart Helen May knew that she was terribly afraid of Billy and would +rather trudge the desert for hours under the hot sun than stay in the +Basin watching the main flock. She wished that she could afford to hire a +herder, but she shrunk from the expense. It seemed to her that she and +Vic should be able to herd that one band, especially since there was +nothing else for them to do out there except cook food and eat it. + +Speaking of food, it seemed to take an enormous quantity to satisfy the +hunger of two persons. Helen May was appalled at the insatiable appetite +of Vic, who seemed never to have enough in his stomach. As for +herself--well, she recalled the meal she had just eaten, and wondered how +it could be possible for hunger to seize upon her so soon again. But even +so, food could not occupy all of their time, and a two-room cabin does +not take much keeping in order. They would simply be throwing away money +if they hired a herder, and yet, how they both did loathe those goats! + +She climbed back down the pinnacle, watching nervously for snakes and +lizards and horned toads and such denizens of the desert. With a +certain instinct for preparing against the worst, she took a two-quart +canteen, such as soldiers carry, to the spring, and filled it and slung +it over her shoulder. She went to the cabin and made a couple of +sandwiches, and because she was not altogether inhuman she cut two +thick slices of bread, spread them lavishly with jam, and carried them +to Vic as a peace offering. + +"I'm going to hunt those nasty brutes, Vic," she cried from a safe +distance. "Come here and get this jam sandwich, and lend me that stick +you've got. And if I don't get back by five, you start a fire." + +"Where you going to look? If you couldn't see 'em from up there, I don't +see the use of hunting." Vic was taking long steps towards the sandwich, +and he stretched his sunburned face in that grin which might have made +him famous in comedy had fate not set him down before his present ignoble +task. "Yuh don't want to go far," he advised her perfunctorily. "We ought +to have a couple of saddle horses. Why don't yuh--" + +"What would we feed them on? Besides we've got to save what money we've +got, Vic. We can walk till these insects grow wool enough to pay for +something to ride on." + +"Hair, you mean. I can get a gentle horse from that Mexican kid, Luis. He +good as offered us the one--that I borrowed--" Vic was giving too much +attention to the jam sandwich to argue very coherently. + +"There's that old Billy starting off again; you watch him, Vic. Don't let +him get a start, or goodness knows where he'll head for next. We can't +keep a horse, I tell you. We need all this grass for the goats." + +"Oh, darn the goats!" + +In her heart Helen May quite agreed with the sentiment, but she could not +consistently betray that fact to Vic. She therefore turned her back upon +him, walking down the trail that led out of the Basin to the main trail a +mile away, the trail which was the link connecting them with civilization +of a sort. + +Here passed the depressed, dust-covered stage three times a week. Here, +in a macaroni box mounted on a post, they received and posted their +mail. Helen May had indulged herself in a subscription to the Los +Angeles daily paper that had always been left at their door every +morning, the paper which Peter had read hastily over his morning mush. +Every paper brought a pang of homesickness for the flower-decked city of +her birth, but she felt as though she could not have kept her sanity +without it. The full-page bargain ads she read hungrily. The weekly +announcements of the movie shows, the news, the want columns--these were +at once her solace and her torment; and if you have ever been exiled, +you know what that means. + +Here, too, she left her shopping list and money for the stage driver, who +bought what she needed and left the goods at the foot of the post, and +what money remained in a buckskin bag in the macaroni box. + +An obliging stage driver was he, a tobacco chewing, red-faced, +red-whiskered stage driver who nagged at his four horses incessantly and +never was known to beat one of them; a garrulous, soft-hearted stage +driver who understood very well how lonely these two young folks must be, +and who therefore had some moth-eaten joke ready for whoever might be +waiting for him at the macaroni box. Whenever Helen May apologized for +the favor she must ask of him--which was every time she handed him a +list--the stage driver invariably a nasal kind of snort, spat far out +over the wheel, and declared pettishly: + +"It ain't a mite uh trouble in the world. That's what I'm _fur_--to help +folks out along my rowt. Don't you worry a mite about that." Often as he +said it, he yet gave it the tone of sincerity and of convincing +freshness, as though he had never before given the matter a thought. +Helen May did not know what she would have done without that stage driver +to bridge the gulf between Sunlight Basin and the world. + +But this was not stage day. That is to say, the stage had passed to the +far side of its orbit, and would not return until to-morrow. From San +Bonito it swung in a day-long journey across the desert to Malpais, +thence by a different route to San Bonito again, so that Helen May never +saw it returning whence it had come. + +A cloud of desert dust always heralded its approach from the east. +Sometimes after the first dust signal, it took him nearly an hour to top +the low ridge which was really one rim of the Basin. Then Helen May would +know that he carried passengers or freight that straightened the backs of +the straining four horses in the long stretch of sand beyond the ridge +and made their progress slow. + +But to-day there was no dust signal, and the macaroni box was but a +dismal reminder of her exile. The world was very far away, behind the +violet rim of mountains, and she was just a speck in the desert. Her high +laced boots were heavy, and the dust settled in the creases around her +slim ankles, that could be perfectly fascinating in silken hose and +dainty slippers. Her khaki skirt, of the divided kind much affected by +tourists, had lost two big, pearl buttons, and she had no others to +replace them. Her shirt-waist had its collar turned inside for coolness, +and the hollow of her neck was sun-blistered and beginning to peel. Also +her nose and her neck at the sides were showing a disposition to grow new +skin for old. So much had the desert sun done for her. + +But there was something else which the desert had done, something which +Helen May did not fully realize. It had put a clear, steady look into her +eyes in place of the glassy shine of fever. It was beginning to fill out +that hollow in her neck, so that it no longer showed the angular ends of +her collar bones. It had put a resilient quality into her walk, firmness +into the poise of her head. It had made it physically possible, for +instance, for Helen May to trudge out into the wild to hunt nine goats +that had strayed from the main band. + +Though she did not know it, a certain dream of Peter's had very nearly +come true. For here were the vast plains, unpeopled, pure, immutable in +their magnificent calm. At night the stars seemed to come down and hang +just over Helen May's head. There was the little cottage of which Peter +had dreamed--only Helen May called it a miserable little shack--hunched +against a hill; sometimes a light winked through the window at the stars; +sometimes Helen May was startled at the nearness and the shrill +insistence of the coyotes. Here as Peter had dreamed so longingly and so +hopelessly, were distance and quiet and calm. And here was Helen May +coming through the sunlight--Peter never dreamed how hot it would +be!--with her deep-gold hair tousled in the wind and with the little red +spots gone from her cheeks and with health in her eyes that were the +color of ripe chestnuts. When her skin had adjusted itself to the rigors +of the climate, she would no doubt have freckles on her nose, just as +Peter had dreamed she might have. And if she were walking, instead of +riding the gentle-eyed pony which Peter had pictured, that was not +Peter's fault, nor the fault of the dream. There was no laugh on her +lips, however. Dreams are always pulling a veil of idealism over the face +of reality, and so Helen May's face was not happy, as Peter had dreamed +it might be, but petulant and grimly determined; her ripe-red lips were +moving in anathemas directed at nine detested goats. + +Peter could never have dreamed just that, but all the same it is a pity +that, in order to make the dream a reality, Peter had been forced to deny +himself the joy of seeing Helen May growing strong in "Arizona, New +Mexico, or Colorado." It would have made the price he paid seem less +terrible, less tragic. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVEN + +MOONLIGHT, A MAN AND A SONG + + +Just out from the entrance to a deep, broad-bottomed arroyo where an +automobile had been, Starr came upon something that surprised him very +much, and it was not at all easy to surprise Starr. Here, in the first +glory of a flaming sunset that turned the desert to a sea of unearthly, +opal-tinted beauty, he came upon Helen May, trudging painfully along with +an old hoe-handle for a staff, and driving nine reluctant nanny goats +that alternately trotted and stood still to stare at the girl with +foolish, amber-colored eyes. + +Starr was trained to long desert distances, but his training had made it +second nature to consider a horse the logical means of covering those +distances. To find Helen May away out here, eight miles and more from +Sunlight Basin, and to find her walking, shocked Starr unspeakably; +shocked him out of his shyness and into free speech with her, as though +he had known her a long while. + +"Y' _lost_?" was his first greeting, while he instinctively swung Rabbit +to head off a goat that suddenly "broke back" from the others. + +Helen May looked up at him with relief struggling through the apathy of +utter weariness. "No, but I might as well be. I'll never be able to get +home alive, anyhow." She shook the hoe-handle menacingly at a hesitating +goat and quite suddenly collapsed upon the nearest rock, and began to +cry; not sentimentally or weakly or in any other feminine manner known to +Starr, but with an angry recklessness that was like opening a safety +valve. Helen May herself did not understand why she should go along for +half a day calmly enough, and then, the minute this man rode up and spoke +to her sympathetically, she should want to sit down and cry. + +"I just--I've been walking since one o'clock! If I had a gun, I'd shoot +every one of them. I just--I think goats are simply _damnable_ things!" + +Starr turned and looked at the animals disapprovingly. "They sure are," +he assented comfortingly. "Where you trying to take 'em--or ain't you?" +he asked, with the confidence-inviting tone that made him so valuable to +those who paid for his services. + +"Home, if you can call it that!" Helen May found her handkerchief and +proceeded to wipe the tears and the dust off her cheeks. She looked at +Starr more attentively than at first when he had been just a human being +who seemed friendly. "Oh, you're the man that stopped at the spring. +Well, you know where I live, then. I was hunting these; they wandered off +and Vic couldn't find them yesterday, so I--it was just accident that I +came across them. I followed some tracks, and it looked to me as if +they'd been driven off. There were horse tracks. That's what made me keep +going--I was so mad. And now they won't go home or anywhere else. They +just want to run around every which way." + +Starr looked up the arroyo, hesitating. On the edge of San Bonito he had +picked up the track of Silvertown cord tires, and he had followed it to +the mouth of this arroyo. From certain signs easy for an experienced man +to read, he had known the track was fairly fresh, fresh enough to make it +worth his while to follow. And now here was a girl all tired out and a +long way from home. + +"Here, you climb onto Rabbit. He's gentle when he knows it's all right, +and I won't stand for him acting up." Starr swung off beside her. "I'll +help get the goats home. Where's your dog?" + +"I haven't any dog. The man we bought the goats from wanted to sell me +one, to help herd them, he said. But he asked twenty-five dollars for +it--I suppose he thought because I looked green I'd stand for that!--and +I wouldn't be held up that way. Vic and I have nothing to do but watch +them. You--you mustn't bother," she added half-heartedly. "I can get them +home all right. I'm rested now, and there's a moon, you know. Really, I +can't let you bother about it. I know the way." + +"Put your foot in the stirrup and climb on. You, Rabbit, you stand still, +or I'll beat the--" + +"Really, you mustn't think, because I cried a little bit--" + +"Pile on to him now, while I hold him still. Or shall I pick you up and +_put_ you on?" Starr smiled while he said it, but there was a look in his +eyes and around his mouth that made Helen May yield suddenly. + +By her awkwardness Starr and Rabbit both knew that she had probably never +before attempted to mount a horse. By the set of her lips Starr knew that +she was afraid, but that she would break her neck before she would +confess her fear. He liked her for that, and he was glad to see that +Rabbit understood the case and drew upon his reserve of patience and good +nature, standing like a rock until Helen May was settled in the saddle +and Starr had turned the stirrups on their sides in the leather so that +they would come nearer being the right length for her. Starr's hand +sliding affectionately up Rabbit's neck and resting a moment on his jaw +was all the assurance Rabbit needed that everything was all right. + +"Now, just leave the reins loose, and let Rabbit come along to please +himself," Starr instructed her quietly. "He'll follow me, and he'll pick +his own trail. You don't have to do a thing but sit there and take it +easy. He'll do the rest." + +Helen May looked at him doubtfully, but she did not say anything. She +braced herself in the stirrups, took a firm grip of the saddlehorn with +one hand, and waited for what might befall. She had no fear of Starr, no +further uneasiness over the coming night, the loneliness, the goats, or +anything else. She felt as irresponsible, as safe, as any sheltered woman +in her own home. I did not say she felt serene; she did not know yet how +the horse would perform; but she seemed to lay that responsibility also +on Starr's capable shoulders. + +They moved off quietly enough, Starr afoot and driving the goats, Rabbit +picking his way after him in leisurely fashion. So they crossed the +arroyo mouth and climbed the ragged lip of its western side and traveled +straight toward the flaming eye of the sun that seemed now to have winked +itself nearly shut. The goats for some inexplicable reason showed no +further disposition to go in nine different directions at once. Helen +May relaxed from her stiff-muscled posture and began to experiment a +little with the reins. + +"Why, he steers easier than an automobile!" she exclaimed suddenly. "You +just think which way you want to go, almost, and he does it. And you +don't have to pull the lines the least bit, do you?" + +Starr delayed his answer until he had made sure that she was not +irritating Rabbit with a too-officious guidance. When he saw that she +was holding the reins loosely as he had told her to do, and was merely +laying the weight of a rein on one side of the neck and then on the +other, he smiled. + +"I guess you've rode before," he hazarded. "The way you neck-rein--" + +"No, honest. But my chum's brother had a big six, and Sundays he used to +let me fuss with it, away out where the road was clear. It steered just +like this horse; just as easy, I mean. I--why, see! I just _wondered_ if +he'd go to the right of that bush, and he turned that way just as if I'd +told him to. Can you beat that?" + +Starr did not say. Naturally, since she was a girl, and pretty, and since +he was human, he was busy wondering what her chum's brother was like. He +picked up a small rock and shied it at a goat that was not doing a thing +that it shouldn't do, and felt better. He remembered then that at any +rate her chum's brother was a long way off, and that he himself had +nothing much to complain of right now. Then Helen May spoke again and +shifted his thoughts to another subject. + +"I believe I'd rather have a horse like this," she said, "than own that +big, lovely take-me-to-glory car that was pathfinding around like a +million dollars, a little while ago. I'll own up now that I was weeping +partly because four great big porky men could ride around on cushions a +foot thick, while a perfectly nice girl had to plough through the sand +afoot. The way they skidded past me and buried me in a cloud of dust made +me mad enough to throw rocks after them. Pigs! They never even stopped to +ask if I wanted a ride or anything. They all glared at me through their +goggles as if I hadn't any business walking on their desert." + +"Did you know them?" Starr came and walked beside her, glancing +frequently at her face. + +"No, of course I didn't. I don't know anybody but the stage driver. I +wouldn't have ridden with them, anyway. From what I saw of them they +looked like Mexicans. But you'd think they might have shown some +interest, wouldn't you?" + +"I sure would," Starr stated with emphasis. "What kinda car was it, did +you notice? Maybe I know who they are." + +"Oh, it was a great big black car. They went by so fast and I was so +tired and hot and--and pretty near swearing mad, I didn't notice the +number at all. And they were glaring at me, and I was glaring at them, +and then the driver stepped on the accelerator just at a little crook in +the road, and the hind wheels skidded about a ton of sand into my face +and they were gone, like they were running from a speed cop. I'd much +rather have a nice little automatic pony like this one," she added +feelingly. "You don't have to bundle yourself up in dusters and goggles +and things when you take a ride, do you? It--it makes the bigness of the +country, and the barrenness of it, somehow fit together and take you into +the pattern, when you ride a horse over it, don't you think?" + +"I guess so," Starr assented, with an odd little slurring accent on the +last word which gave the trite sentence an individual touch that +appealed to Helen May. "It don't seem natural, somehow, to walk in a +country like this." + +"Oh, and you've got to, while I ride your horse! Or, have you got to? Is +it just movie stuff, where a man rides behind on a horse, and lets the +girl ride in front? I mean, is it feasible, or just a stunt for +pictures?" + +"Depends on the horse," Starr evaded. "It's got the say-so, mostly, +whether it'll pack one person or two. Rabbit will, and when I get tired +walking, I'll ride." + +"Oh, that makes it better. I wasn't feeling comfortable riding, but men +are so queer about thinking they must give a woman all the choice bits of +comfort, and a woman has to give in or row about it. If you'll climb up +and ride when you feel like it, I'll just settle down and enjoy myself." + +Settling down and enjoying herself seemed to consist of gazing out over +the desert and the hills and up at the sky that was showing the deep +purple of dusk. It was what Starr wanted most of all, just then, for it +left him free to study what she had told him of the big black automobile +with four coated and goggled men who had looked like Mexicans; four men +who had glared at her and then had speeded up to get away from her +possible scrutiny. + +For the first time since she had seen it from the spring seat of a +jolting wagon from the one livery stable in Malpais, Helen May discovered +that this wild, strange land was beautiful. For the first time she +gloried in its bigness and its wildness, and did not resent its +barrenness. The little brown birds that fluttered close to the ground and +cheeped wistfully to one another in the dusk gave her an odd, sweet +thrill of companionship. Jack rabbits sitting up on their hind legs for +a brief scrutiny before they scurried away made her laugh to herself. The +reddened clouds that rimmed the purple were the radiant shores of a +wonderful, bottomless sea, where the stars were the mast lights on ships +hull down in the distance. She lifted her chest and drew in long breaths +of clean, sweet air that is like no other air, and she remembered all at +once that she had not coughed since daylight. She breathed again, deep +and long, and felt that she was drawing some wonderful, healing ether +into her lungs. + +She looked at Starr, walking steadily along before her, swinging the +hoe-handle lightly in his right hand, setting his feet down in the +smoothest spots always and leaving nearly always a clear imprint of his +foot in the sandy soil. There was a certain fascination in watching the +lines of footprints he left behind him. She would know those footprints +anywhere, she told herself. Small for a man, they were, and well-shaped, +with the toes pointing out the least little bit, and with no blurring +drag when he lifted his feet. She did not know that Starr wore riding +boots made to his measure and costing close to twenty dollars a pair; if +she had she would not have wondered at the fine shape of them, or at the +individuality of the imprint they made. She conceived the belief that +Rabbit knew those footprints also. She amused herself by watching how +carefully the horse followed wherever they led. If Starr stepped to the +right to avoid a rock, Rabbit stepped to the right to avoid that rock; +never to the left, though the way might be as smooth and open. If Starr +crossed a gully at a certain place, Rabbit followed scrupulously the +tracks he made. Helen May considered that this little gray horse showed +really human intelligence. + +She realized the deepening dusk only when Starr's form grew vague and +she could no longer see the prints his boots made. They were nearing the +brown, lumpy ridge which hid Sunlight Basin from the plain, but Helen +May was not particularly eager to reach it. For the first time she +forgot the gnawing heart-hunger of homesickness, and was content with +her present surroundings; content even with the goats that trotted +submisively ahead of Starr. + +When a soft radiance drifted into the darkness and made it a luminous, +thin veil, Helen May gave a little cry and looked back. Since her hands +moved with the swing of her shoulders, Rabbit turned sharply and faced +the way she was looking, startled, displeased, but obedient. Starr +stopped abruptly and turned back, coming close up beside her. + +"What's wrong?" he asked in an undertone. "See anything?" + +"The moon," Helen May gave a hushed little laugh. "I'd +forgotten--forgotten I was alive, almost. I was just soaking in the +beauty of it through every pore. And then it got dark so I couldn't see +your footprints any more, and then such a queer, beautiful look came on +everything. I turned to look, and this little automatic pony turned to +look, too. But--isn't it wonderful? Everything, I mean. Just +everything--the whole world and the stars and the sky--" + +Starr lifted an arm and laid it over Rabbit's neck, fingering the +silver-white mane absently. It brought him quite close to Helen May, so +that she could have put her hand on his shoulder. + +"Yes. It's wonderful--when it ain't terrible," he said, his voice low. + +After a silent minute she answered him, in the hushed tone that seemed +most in harmony with the tremendous sweep of sky and that great stretch +of plain and bare mountain. "I see what you mean. It is terrible even +when it's most wonderful. But one little human alone with it would be--" + +"Sh-sh." he whispered. "Listen a minute. Did you ever _hear_ a big +silence like this?" + +"No," she breathed eagerly. "Sh-sh--" + +At first there was nothing save the whisper of a breeze that stirred the +greasewood and then was still. Full in their faces the moon swung clear +of the mountains behind San Bonito and hung there, a luminous yellow ball +in the deep, star-sprinkled purple. Across the desert it flung a faint, +straight pathway in the sand. Rabbit gave a long sigh, turned his head to +look back at his master, and then stood motionless again. Far on a +hilltop a coyote pointed his nose to the moon and yap-yap-yapped, with a +shrill, long-drawn tremolo wail that made the girl catch her breath. +Behind them the nine goats moved closer together and huddled afraid +beside a clump of bushes. The little breeze whispered again. A night bird +called in a hurried, frightened way, and upon the last notes came the +eerie cry of a little night owl. + +The girl's face was uplifted, delicately lighted by the moon. Her eyes +shone dark with those fluttering, sweet wraiths of thoughts which we may +not prison in speech, which words only deaden and crush into vapid +sentimentalism. Life, held in a great unutterable calm, seemed to lie out +there in the radiant, vague distance, asleep and smiling cryptically +while it slept. + +Her eyes turned to Starr, whose name she did not know; who had twice come +riding out of the distance to do her some slight service before he rode +on into the distance that seemed so vast. Who was he? What petty round of +duties and pleasures made up his daily, intimate life? She did not know. +She did not feel the need of knowing. + +Standing there with his thin face turned to the moon so that she saw, +clean-cut against the night, his strong profile; with one arm thrown +across the neck of his horse and his big hat tilted back so that she +could see the heavy, brown hair that framed his fine forehead; with the +look of a dreamer in his eyes and the wistfulness of the lonely on his +lips, all at once he seemed to be a part of the desert and its mysteries. + +She could picture him living alone somewhere in its wild fastness, aloof +from the little things of life. He seemed to epitomize vividly the +meaning of a song she had often sung unmeaningly: + +"From the desert I come to thee, +On my Arab shod with fire; +And the winds are left behind +In the speed of my desire." + +While she looked--while the words of that old _Bedouin Love Song_ +thrummed through her memory, quite suddenly Starr began to sing, taking +up the song where her memory had brought her: + +"Till the sun grows cold, +And the stars are old, +And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold!" + +Softly he sang, as though he had forgotten that she was there. Softly, +but with a resonant, vibrating quality that made the words alive and +quivering with meaning. + +Helen May caught her breath. How did he know she was thinking that song? +How did he chance to take it up just at the point where her memory had +carried it? Had he read her mind? She stared at him, her lips parted; +wondering, a little awed, but listening and thrilling to the human +sweetness of his tones. And when he had sung the last yearning note of +primitive desire, Starr turned his head and looked into her eyes. + +Helen May felt as though he had taken her in his arms and kissed her +lingeringly. Yet he had not moved except to turn his face toward her. She +could not look away, could not even try to pull her eyes from his. It was +as though she yielded. She felt suffocated, though her breath came +quickly, a little unevenly. + +Starr looked away, across the desert where the moon lighted it whitely. +It was as though he had released her. She felt flustered, disconcerted. +She could not understand herself or him, or the primary forces that had +moved them both. And why had he sung that _Bedouin Love Song_ just as she +was thinking it as something that explained him and identified him? It +was mysterious as the desert itself lying there so quiet under the moon. +It was weird as the cry of the coyote. It was uncanny as spirit rappings. +But she could not feel any resentment; only a thrill that was part +pleasure and part pain. She wondered if he had felt the same; if he knew. +But she could not bring herself to face even the thought of asking him. +It was like the night silence around them: speech would dwarf and cheapen +and distort. + +Rabbit lifted his head again, perking his ears forward toward a new sound +that had nothing weird or mysterious about it; a sound that was +essentially earthly, material, modern, the distant purr of a high-powered +automobile on the trail away to their right. Starr turned his face that +way, listening as the horse listened. It seemed to Helen May as though he +had become again earthy and material and modern, with the desert love +song but the fading memory of a dream. He listened, and she received the +impression that something more than idle curiosity held him intent upon +the sound. + +The purring persisted, lessened, grew louder again. Starr still looked +that way, listening intently. The machine swept nearer, so that the clear +night air carried the sounds distinctly to where they stood. Starr even +caught the humming of the rear gears and knew that only now and then does +a machine have that peculiar, droning hum; Starr studied it, tried to +impress the sound upon his memory. + +The trail looped around the head of a sandy draw and wound over the crest +of a low ridge before it straightened out for a three-mile level run in +the direction of San Bonito, miles away. In walking, Starr had cut +straight across that gully and the loop, so that they had crossed the +trail twice in their journey thus far, and were still within half a mile +of the head of the loop. They should have been able to see the lights, or +at least the reflection of them on the ridge when they came to the draw. +But there was no bright path on sky or earth. + +They heard the car ease down the hill, heard the grind of the gears as +the driver shifted to the intermediate for the climb that came after. +They heard the chug of the engine taking the steep grade. Then they +should have caught the white glare of the headlights as the car topped +the ridge. Starr knew that nothing obstructed the view, that in daylight +they could have seen the yellow-brown ribbon of trail where it curved +over the ridge. The machine was coming directly toward them for a short +distance, but there was no light whatever. Starr knew then that whoever +they were, they were running without lights. + +"Well, I guess we'd better be ambling along," he said casually, when the +automobile had purred its way beyond hearing. "It's three or four miles +yet, and you're tired." + +"Not so much." Helen May's voice was a little lower than usual, but that +was the only sign she gave of any recent deep emotion. "I'd as soon walk +awhile and let you ride." She shrank now from the thought of both riding. + +"When you've ridden as far as I have," said Starr, "you'll know it's a +rest to get down and travel afoot for a few miles." He might have added +that it would have been a rest had he not been hampered by those +high-heeled riding boots, but consideration for her mental ease did not +permit him to mention it. He said no more, but started the goats ahead of +him and kept them moving in a straight line for Sunlight Basin. As +before, Rabbit followed slavishly in his footsteps, nose dropped to the +angle of placid acceptance, ears twitching forward and back so that he +would lose no slightest sound. + +Helen May fell again under the spell of the desert and the moon. Starr, +walking steadily through the white-lighted barrenness with his shadow +always moving like a ghost before him, fitted once more into the desert. +Again she repeated mentally the words of the song: + +Let the night-winds touch thy brow +With the breath of my burning sigh, +And melt thee to hear the vow +Of a love that shall not die! + +Till the sun grows cold, +And the stars are old, +And the leaves of the Judgment Book unfold! + +And now the lines sung themselves through her brain with the memory of +Starr's voice. But Starr did not sing again, though Helen May, curious to +know if her thoughts held any power over him, gazed intently at his back +and willed him to sing. He did not look back at her, even when she +finally descended weakly to the more direct influence of humming the air +softly--but not too softly for him to hear. + +Starr paid no attention whatever. He seemed to be thinking deeply--but he +did not seem to be thinking of Helen May, nor of desert love songs. Helen +May continued to watch him, but she was piqued at his calm indifference. +Why, she told herself petulantly, he paid more attention to those goats +than he did to her--and one would think, after that song and that +look.... But there she stopped, precipitately retreating from the thought +of that look. + +He was a queer fellow, she told herself with careful tolerance and a +little condescension. A true product of the desert; as changeable and as +sphynxlike and as impossible from any personal, human standpoint. Look +how beautiful the desert could be, how terribly uplifting and calm +and--and big. Yet to-morrow it might be either a burning waste of heat +and sand and bare rock, or it might be a howling waste of wind and sand +(if one of those sand storms came up). To herself she called him the Man +of the Desert, and she added the word mysterious, and she also added two +lines of the song because they fitted exactly her conception of him as +she knew him. The lines were these: + +From the desert I come to thee, +On my Arab shod with fire. + +This, in spite of the fact that Rabbit had none of the fiery traits of an +Arabian steed; nor could he by any stretch of the imagination be accused +of being shod with fire, he who planted his hoofs so sedately! Shod with +velvet would have come nearer describing him. + +So Helen May, who was something of a dreamer when Life let her alone long +enough, rode home through the moonlight and wove cloth-of-gold from the +magic of the night, and with the fairy fabric she clothed Starr--who was, +as we know, just an ordinary human being--so that he walked before her, +not as a plain, ungrammatical, sometimes profane young man who was +helping her home with her goats, but a mysterious, romantic figure +evolved somehow out of the vastness in which she lived; who would +presently recede again into the mysterious wild whence he had come. + +It was foolish. She knew that it was foolish. But she had been living +rather harshly and rather materially for some time, and she hungered for +the romance of youth. Starr was the only person who had come to her +untagged by the sordid, everyday petty details of life. It did not hurt +him to be idealized, but it might have hurt Helen May a little to know +that he was pondering so earthly a subject as a big, black automobile +careering without lights across the desert and carrying four men who +looked like Mexicans. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHT + +HOLMAN SOMMEKS, SCIENTIST + + +Helen May, under a last year's parasol of pink silk from which the sun +had drawn much of its pinkness and the wind and dust its freshness, sat +beside the road with her back against the post that held the macaroni +box, and waited for the stage. Her face did not need the pink light of +the parasol, for it was red enough after that broiling walk of yesterday. +The desert did not look so romantic by the garish light of midday, but +she stared out over it and saw, as with eyes newly opened to +appreciation, that there was a certain charm even in its garishness. She +had lost a good deal of moodiness and a good deal of discontent, +somewhere along the moonlight trail of last night, and she hummed a tune +while she waited. No need to tell you that it was: "_Till the sun grows +cold, till the stars are old_--" No need to tell you, either, of whom she +was thinking while she sang. + +But part of the time she was wondering what mail she would get. Her chum +would write, of course; being a good, faithful chum, she would probably +continue to write two or three letters a week for the next three months. +After that she would drop to one long letter a month for awhile; and +after that--well, she was a faithful chum, but life persists in bearing +one past the eddy that holds friendship circling round and round in a +pool of memories. The chum's brother had written twice, however; +exuberant letters full of current comedy and full-blooded cheerfulness +and safely vague sentiment which he had partly felt at the time he wrote. +He had "joshed" Helen May a good deal about the goats, even to the extent +of addressing her as "Dear Goat-Lady" in the last letter, with the word +"Lady" underscored and scrawled the whole width of the page. Helen May +had puzzled over the obscure meaning of that, and had decided that it +would have sounded funny, perhaps, if he had said it that way, but that +it "didn't get over" on paper. + +She wondered if he would write again, or if his correspondence would +prove as spasmodic, as easily interrupted as his attentions had been when +they were both in the same town. Chum's brother was a nice, big, comfy +kind of young man; the trouble was that he was too popular to give all +his interest to one girl. You know how it is when a man stands six feet +tall and has wavy hair and a misleading smile and a great, big, +deep-cushioned roadster built for two. Helen May appreciated his writing +two letters to her, he who hated so to write letters, but her faith in +the future was small. Still, he might write. It seemed worth while to +wait for the stage. + +Just when she was telling herself that the stage was late, far over the +ridge rose the dust signal. Her pulse quickened expectantly; so much had +loneliness done for her. She watched it, and she tried not to admit to +herself that it did not look like the cloud kicked up by the four +trotting stage horses. She tried not to believe that the cloud was much +too small to have been made by their clattering progress. It must be the +stage. It was past time for it to arrive at the post. And it had not gone +by, for she had sent for a can of baking powder and a dozen lemons and +fifty cents worth of canned milk (the delicatessen habit of buying in +small quantities still hampered her) and, even if the stage had passed +earlier than usual, the stuff would have been left at the post for her, +even though there was no mail. But it could not have passed. She would +have seen the dust, that always hung low over the trail like the drooping +tail of a comet, and when the day was still took half an hour at least to +settle again for the next passer-by. And besides, she had come to know +the tracks the stage left in the trail. It _could not_ have passed. And +it had to come; it carried the government mail. And yet, that dust did +not look like the stage dust. (Trivial worries, you say? Then try living +forty miles from a post office, ten from the nearest neighbor, and +fifteen hundred from your dearly beloved Home Town. Try living there, not +because you want to but because you must; hating it, hungering for human +companionship. Try it with heat and wind and sand and great, arid +stretches of a land that is strange to you. Honestly, I think you would +have been out there just after sunrise to wait for that stage, and if it +were late you would have walked down the trail to meet it!) + +Helen May remained by the post, but she got up and stood on a rock that +protruded six inches or so above the sand. Of course she could not see +over the ridge--she could not have done that if she had climbed a +telegraph pole; only there was no pole to climb--but she felt a little +closer to seeing. That dust did not look like stage dust! + +You would be surprised to know how much Helen May had learned about dust +clouds. She could tell an automobile ten miles away, just by the swift +gathering of the gray cloud. She could tell where bands of sheep or herds +of cattle were being driven across the plain. She even knew when a saddle +horse was coming, or a freight team or--the stage. + +She suddenly owned to herself that she was disappointed and rather +worried. For behind this cloud that troubled her there was no second one +building up over the skyline and growing more dense as the disturber +approached. She could not imagine what had happened to that +red-whiskered, tobacco-chewing stage driver. She looked at her wrist +watch and saw that he was exactly twenty minutes later than his very +latest arrival, and she felt personally slighted and aggrieved. + +For that reason she sat under her pink silk parasol and stared crossly +under her eyebrows at the horse and man and the dust-grimed +rattle-wheeled buggy that eventually emerged from the gray cloud. The +horse was a pudgy bay that set his feet stolidly down in the trail, and +dragged his toes through it as though he delighted in kicking up all the +dust he could. By that trick he had puzzled Helen May a little, just at +first, though he had not been able to simulate the passing of four +horses. The buggy was such as improvident farmers used to drive (before +they bought Fords) near harvest time; scaly as to paint, warped and +loose-spoked as to wheels, making more noise than progress along the +country roads. + +The man held the lines so loosely that they sagged under the wire-mended +traces of sunburned leather. He leaned a little forward, as though it was +not worth while sitting straight on so hot a day. He wore an old Panama +hat that had cost him a good deal when it was new and had saved him a +good deal since in straw hats which he had not been compelled to buy so +long as this one held together. It was pulled down in front so that it +shaded his face--a face lean and lined and dark, with thin lips that +could be tender and humorous in certain moods. His eyes were hazel, like +the eyes of Starr, yet one never thought of them as being at all like +Starr's eyes. They burned always with some inner fire of life; they +laughed at life, and yet they did not seem to express mirth. They seemed +to say that life was a joke, a damnable joke on mankind; that they saw +the joke and resented it even while they laughed at it. For the rest, the +man was more than fifty years old, but his hair was thick and black as a +crow, and his eyebrows were inclined to bushiness, inclined also to slant +upward. A strong face; an unusual face, but a likeable one, it was. And +that is a fair description of Holman Sommers as Helen May first saw him. + +He drove up to where she sat, and she tilted her pink silk parasol +between them as though to keep the dust from settling thick upon her +stained khaki skirt and her desert-dingy high-laced boots. She was not +interested in him, and her manner of expressing indifference could not +have misled a horned toad. She was too fresh from city life to have +fallen into the habit of speaking to strangers easily and as a matter of +country courtesy. Even when the buggy stopped beside her, she did not +show any eagerness to move the pink screen so that they might look at +each other. + +"How do you do?" said he, quite as though he were greeting her in her own +home. "You are Miss Stevenson, I feel sure. I am Holman Sommers, at your +service. I am under the impression that I have with me a few articles +which may be of some interest to you, Miss Stevenson. I chanced to come +upon the stage several miles farther down the road. A wheel had given +away, and there was every indication that the delay would prove serious, +so when the driver mentioned the fact that he had mail and merchandise +for you, I volunteered to act as his substitute and deliver them safely +into your hands. I hope therefore that the service will in some slight +measure atone for my presumption in forcing my acquaintance upon you." + +At the second sentence the pink parasol became violently agitated. At the +third Helen May was staring at him, mentally if not actually +open-mouthed. At the last she was standing up and reaching for her mail, +and she had not yet decided in her mind whether he was joking or whether +he expected to be taken seriously. Even when he laughed, with that odd, +dancing light in his eyes, she could not be sure. But because his voice +was warm with human sympathy and the cordiality of a man who is very +sure of himself and can afford to be cordial, she smiled back at him. + +"That's awfully good of you, Mr. Sommers," she said, shuffling her +handful of letters eagerly to see who had written them; more particularly +to see if Chum's brother had written one of them. "I hope you didn't +drive out of your way to bring them" (there _was_ one; a big, fat one +that had taken two stamps! And one from Chum herself, and--but she went +back gloatingly to the thick, heavy envelope with the bold, black +handwriting that needed the whole face of the envelope for her name and +address), "because I know that miles are awfully long in this country." + +"Yes? You have discovered that incontrovertible fact, have you? Then I +hope you will permit me to drive you home, especially since these +packages are much too numerous and too weighty for you to carry in your +arms. As a matter of fact, I have been hoping for an opportunity to meet +our new neighbors. Neighbors are precious in our sight, I assure you, +Miss Stevenson, and only the misfortune of illness in the household has +prevented my sister from looking you up long ago. How long have you been +here? Three weeks, or four?" His tone added: "You poor child," or +something equally sympathetic, and he smiled while he cramped the old +buggy so that she could get into it without rubbing her skirt against the +dustladen wheel. + +Helen May certainly had never seen any one just like Holman Sommers, +though she had met hundreds of men in a business way. She had met men who +ran to polysyllables and pompousness, but she had never known the +polysyllables to accompany so simple a manner. She had seen men slouching +around in old straw hats-and shoddy gray trousers and negligée shirts +with the tie askew, and the clothes had spelled poverty or shiftlessness. +Whereas they made Holman Sommers look like a great man indulging himself +in the luxury of old clothes on a holiday. + +He seemed absolutely unconscious that he and his rattly buggy and the +harness on the horse were all very shabby, and that the horse was fat and +pudgy and scrawny of mane; and for that she admired him. + +Before they reached the low adobe cabin, she felt that she was much +better acquainted with Holman Sommers than with Starr, whose name she +still did not know, although he had stayed an hour talking to Vic and +praising her cooking the night before. She did not, for all the time +she had spent with him, know anything definite about Starr, whereas +she presently knew a great deal about Holman Sommers, and approved of +all she knew. + +He had a past which, she sensed vaguely, had been rather brilliant. He +must have been a war correspondent, because he compared the present great +war with the Japanese-Russian War and with the South African War, and he +seemed to have been right in the middle of both, or he could not have +spoken so intimately of them. He seemed to know all about the real, +underlying causes of them and knew just where it would all end, and what +nations would be drawn into it before they were through. He did not say +that he knew all about the war, but after he had spoken a few casual +sentences upon the subject Helen May felt that he knew a great deal more +than he said. + +He also knew all about raising goats. He slid very easily, too, from the +war to goat-raising. He had about four hundred, and he gave her a lot of +valuable advice about the most profitable way in which to handle them. + +When he saw Vic legging it along the slope behind the Basin to head off +Billy and his slavish nannies, he shook his head commiseratingly. "There +is not a scintilla of doubt in my mind," he told her gently, "that a +trained dog would be of immeasurable benefit to you. I fear you made a +grave mistake, Miss Stevenson, when you failed to possess yourself of a +good dog. I might go so far as to say that a dog is absolutely +indispensable to the successful handling of goats, or, for that matter, +of sheep, either." (He pronounced the last word eyether.) + +"That's what my desert man told me," said Helen May demurely, "only he +didn't tell me that way, exactly." + +"Yes? Then I have no hesitation whatever in assuring you that your desert +man was unqualifiedly accurate in his statement of your need." + +Helen May bit her lip. "Then I'll tell him," she said, still more +demurely. + +Secretly she hoped that he would rise to the bait, but he apparently +accepted her words in good faith and went on telling her just how to +range goats far afield in good weather so that the grazing in the Basin +itself would be held in reserve for storms. It was a very grave error, +said Holman Sommers, to exhaust the pasturage immediately contiguous to +the home corral. It might almost be defined as downright improvidence. +Then he forestalled any resentment she might feel by apologizing for his +seeming presumption. But he apprehended the fact that she and her brother +were both inexperienced, and he would be sorry indeed to see them suffer +any loss because of that inexperience. His practical knowledge of the +business was at her service, he said, and he should feel that he was +culpably negligent of his duty as a neighbor if he failed to point out to +her any glaring fault in their method. + +Helen May had felt just a little resentful of the words downright +improvidence. Had she not walked rather than spend money and grass on a +horse? Had she not daily denied herself things which she considered +necessities, that she might husband the precious balance of Peter's +insurance money? But she swallowed her resentment and thanked him quite +humbly for his kindness in telling her how to manage. She owned to her +inexperience, and she said that she would greatly appreciate any advice +which he might care to give. + +Her Man of the Desert, she remembered, had not given her advice, though +he must have seen how badly she needed it. He had asked her where her dog +was, taking it for granted, apparently, that she would have one. But when +she had told him about not buying the dog, he had not said another word +about it. And he had not said anything about their letting the goats eat +up all the grass in the Basin, first thing, instead of saving it for bad +weather. This Holman Sommers, she decided, was awfully kind, even if he +did talk like a professor or something; kinder than her desert man. No, +not kinder, but perhaps more truly helpful. + +At the house he told her just how to fix a "coolereupboard" under the +lone mesquite tree which stood at one end of the adobe cabin. It was +really very simple, as he explained it, and he assured her, in his +scientific terminology, that it would be cool. He went to the spring and +showed her where she could have Vic dig out the bank and fit in a rock +shelf for butter. He assured her that she was fortunate in having a +living spring so near the house. It was, he said, of incalculable +importance in that country to have cold, pure water always at hand. + +When he discovered that she was a stenographer, and that she had her +typewriter with her, he was immensely pleased, so pleased that his eyes +shone with delight. + +"Ah! now I see why the fates drove me forth upon the highway this +morning," said he. "Do you know that I have a large volume of work for an +expert typist, and that I have thus far felt that my present isolation in +the desert wastes was an almost unsurmountable obstacle to having the +work done in a satisfactory manner? I have been engaged upon a certain +work on sociological problems and how they have developed with the growth +of civilization. You will readily apprehend that great care must be +exercised in making the copy practically letter perfect. Furthermore, I +find myself constantly revising the manuscript. I should want to +supervise the work rather closely, and for that reason I have not as yet +arranged for the final typing. + +"Now if you care to assume the task, I can assure you that I shall feel +tremendously grateful, besides making adequate remuneration for the labor +involved." + +That is the way he put it, and that is how it happened that Helen May let +herself in for the hardest piece of work she had ever attempted since she +sold gloves at Bullocks' all day and attended night school all the +evening, learning shorthand and typewriting and bookkeeping, and +permitting the white plague to fasten itself upon her while she bent to +her studies. + +She let herself in for it because she believed she had plenty of time, +and because Holman Sommers was in no hurry for the manuscript, which he +did not expect to see completed for a year or so, since a work so erudite +required much time and thought, being altogether different from current +fiction, which requires none at all. + +Helen May was secretly aghast at the pile of scrawled writing interlined +and crossed out, with marginal notes and footnotes and references and +what not; but she let herself in for the job of typing his book for +him--which is enough for the present. + + + + +CHAPTER NINE + +PAT, A NICE DOGGUMS + + +"'The human polyp incessantly builds upon a coral reef. They become +lithified as it were and constitute the strata of the psychozoic +stage'--I told you the butter's at the spring. Will you leave me alone? +That's the third page I've spoiled over psycho-what-you-call-it. Go on +back and herd your goats, and for gracious sake, can that tulip-and-rose +song! I hate it." Helen May ripped a page with two carbon copies out of +the machine, pulled out the carbons and crumpled three sheets of paper +into a ball which she threw into a far corner. + +"Gee, but you're pecky to-day! You act like an extra slammed into a sob +lead and gettin' up stage about it. I wish that long-worded hide had +never showed up with his soiled package of nut science. A feller can't +_live_ with you, by gosh, since you--" + +"Well, listen to this, Vic! 'There is a radical difference between +organic and social evolution, the formula most easily expressing this +distinction being that environment transforms the animal, while man +transforms the environment. This transformation--'" + +"Hel-up! Hel-up!" Vic went staggering out of the door with his palm +pressed against his forehead in the gesture meant to register great +mental agony, while his face was split with that nearly famous comedy +grin of his. "Serves you right," he flung hack at her in his normal tone +of brotherly condescension. "The way you fell for that nut, like you was +a starved squirrel shut up in a peanut wagon, by gosh! Hope you're bogged +down in jawbreakers the rest of the summer. Serves yuh right, but you +needn't think you can take it out on me. And," he draped himself around +the door jamb to add pointedly, "you should worry about the tulip song. +If I'm willing to stand for you yawping day and night about the sun +growin' co-old, and all that bunk--" + +"Oh, beat it, and shut up!" Helen May looked up from evening the edges of +fresh paper and carbon to say sharply: "You better take a look and see +where Billy is. And I'll tell you one thing: If you go and lose any more +goats, you needn't think for a minute that I'll walk my head off getting +them for you." + +"Aw, where do you get that line--walk your head off? I seem to remember a +close-up of you riding home on horseback with moonlight atmosphere and a +fellow to drive your goats. And you giving him the baby-eyed stare like +he was a screen idol and you was an extra that was strong for him. +Bu-lieve me, Helen Blazes, I'm wise. You're wishing a goat would get +lost--now, while the moon's workin' steady!" + +"Oh, beat it, Vic! I've got work to do, if you haven't." And to prove it, +Helen May began to type at her best speed. + +Vic languidly removed himself from the door jamb and with a parting "I +should bibble," started back to his goats, which he had refused to graze +outside the Basin as Holman Sommers advised. Helen May began valiantly to +struggle with the fine, symmetrical, but almost unreadable chirography of +the man of many words. She succeeded in transcribing the human polyp +properly lithified and correctly constituting the strata of the +psychozoic age, when Vic stuck his head in at the door again. + +"From the des-urt he comes to thee-ee-ee, +And he's got a dog for thee to see-ee." + +He paraphrased mockingly, going down to that terrifically deep-sea bass +note of a boy whose voice is changing. + +Helen May threw her eraser at him and missed. It went hurtling out into +the yard and struck Starr on the point of the jaw, as he was riding up to +the cabin. + +Whereat Vic gave a brazenly exultant whoop and rushed off to his goats, +bellowing raucously: + +"When you wore a too-lup, a sweet yellow too-lup +'N I wore a big red ro-o-ose--" + +and looking back frequently in a half curious, half wistful way. Vic, if +you will stop to think of it, had been transplanted rather suddenly from +the midst of many happy-go-lucky companions to an isolation lightened +only by a mere sister's vicarious comradeship. If he yearned secretly for +a share of Starr's interest, surely no one can blame him; but that he +should voluntarily remove himself from Starr's presence in the belief +that he had come to see Helen May exclusively, proves that Vic had the +makings of a hero. + +Starr dismounted and picked up the eraser from under the investigative +nose of a coarse-haired, ugly, brown and black dog that had been +following Rabbit's heels. He took the eraser to Helen May, standing +embarrassed in the doorway, and the dog followed and sniffed first her +slipper toes and then her hands, which she held out to it ingratiatingly; +after which appraisement the dog waggled its stub of a tail in token of +his friendliness. + +"If you was a Mexican he'd a showed you his teeth," Starr observed +pridefully. "How are you, after your jaunt the other night?" + +"Just fine," Helen May testified graciously. It just happened (or had it +just happened?) that she was dressed that day in a white crêpe de chine +blouse and a white corduroy skirt, and had on white slippers and white +stockings. At the top button of her blouse (she could not have touched +that button with her chin if she had tried) was a brown velvet bow the +exact shade of her eyes. Her hair was done low and loose with a negligent +wave where it turned back from her left eyebrow. Peter had worshipped +dumbly his Babe in that particular dress, and had considered her +beautiful. One cannot wonder then that Starr's eyes paid tribute with a +second long glance. + +Starr had ridden a good many miles out of his way and had argued for a +good while, and had finally paid a good many dollars to get the dog that +sniffed and wagged at Helen May. The dog was a thoroughbred Airedale and +had been taught from its puppyhood to herd goats and fight all intruders +upon his flock and to hate Mexicans wherever he met them. He had learned +to do both very thoroughly, hence the argument and the dollars necessary +before Starr could gain possession of him. + +Starr did not need a dog; certainly not that dog. He had no goats to +herd, and he could hate Mexicana without any help or encouragement when +they needed hating. But he had not grudged the trouble and expense, +because Helen May needed it. He might have earned more gratitude had he +told her the truth instead of hiding it like guilt. This was his way of +going at the subject, and he waited, mind you, until he had announced +nonchalantly that he must be getting along, and that he had just stopped +to get a drink and to see how they were making out! + +"Blame dog's taken a notion to you. Followed me out from town. I throwed +rocks at him till my arm ached--" + +"Why, you mean thing! You might have hit him and hurt him, and he's a +nice dog. Poor old purp! Did he throw rocks, honest? He _did_? Well, just +for that, I've got a nice ham bone that you can have to gnaw on, and he +can't have a snippy bit of it. All he can do is eat a piece of lemon pie +that will probably make him sick. We hope so, don't we? Throwing rocks at +a nice, ugly, stubby dog that wanted to follow!" + +Starr accepted the pie gratefully and looked properly ashamed of himself. +The dog accepted the ham bone and immediately stretched himself out with +his nose and front paws hugging it close, and growling threats at +imaginary vandals. Now and then he glanced up gratefully at Helen May, +who continued to speak of him in a commiserating tone. + +"He sure has taken a notion to you," Starr persisted between mouthfuls. +"You can have him, for all of me. I don't want the blame cur tagging me +around. I'm liable to take a shot at him if I get peeved over +something--" + +"You dare!" Helen May regarded him sternly from under her lashes, her +chin tilted downward. "Do you always take a shot at something when you +get peeved?" + +"Well, I'm liable to," Starr admitted darkly. "A dog especially. You +better keep him if you don't want him hurt or anything." He took a bite +of pie. (It was not very good pie. The crust was soggy because Johnny +Calvert's cook stove was not a good baker, and the frosting had gone +watery, because the eggs were stale, and Helen May had made a mistake and +used too much sugar in the filling; but Starr liked it, anyway, just +because she had made it.) "Maybe you can learn him to herd goats," he +suggested, as though the idea had just occurred to him. + +"Oh, I wonder if he would! Would you, doggums?" + +"We'll try him a whirl and see," Starr offered cheerfully. He finished +the pie in one more swallow, handed back the plate, and wiped his +fingers, man-fashion, on his trousers. + +"Come on, Pat. He likes Pat for a name," he explained carefully to Helen +May. "I called him about every name I could think of, and that's the one +he seems to sabe most." + +"I should say he does! Why, he left his bone when you called Pat. Now +that's a shame, doggums!" + +"Oh, well, we'll let him polish off his bone first." Starr made the offer +with praiseworthy cheerfulness, and sat down on his heels with his back +against the adobe wall to wait the dog's pleasure. + +"Well, that makes up for some of the rocks," Helen May approved +generously, "and for some of the names you say you called him. And that +reminds me, Man of the Desert, I suppose you have a name of some sort. I +never heard what it was. Is it--Smith, perhaps?" + +"My name's Starr," he told her, with a little glow under the tan of his +cheeks. "S, t, a, double r, Starr. I forgot I never told you. I've got a +couple of given names, but I'd want to shoot a man that called me by +'em. Folks always call me just Starr, and maybe a few other things +behind my back." + +Helen May dropped her chin and looked at him steadily from under her +eyebrows. "If there's anything that drives me perfectly wild," she said +finally, "it's a mystery. I've just simply got to know what those names +are. I'll never mention them, honest. But--" + +"Chauncy DeWitt," Starr confessed. "Forget 'em. They was wished onto me +when I wasn't able to defend myself." + +"Given names are horrid things, aren't they?" Helen May sympathized. +"I think mine is perfectly imbecile. Fathers and mothers shouldn't be +allowed to choose names for their children. They ought to wait till +the kids are big enough to choose for themselves. If I ever have any, +I'll call them It. When they grow up they can name themselves anything +they like." + +"You've got no right to kick," Starr declared bluntly. "Your name suits +you fine." + +His eyes said more than that, so that Helen May gave her attention to the +dog. "There, now, you've licked it and polished it and left teeth marks +all over it," she said, meaning the bone. "Come on, Pat, and let's see if +you're a trained doggums." She looked up at Starr and smiled. "Suppose he +starts running after them; he might chase them clear off the ranch, and +then what?" + +"I guess the supply of rocks'll hold out," Starr hinted, and snapped his +fingers at the dog, which went to heel as a matter of course. + +"If you throw rocks at that dog, I'll throw rocks at you," Helen May +threatened viciously. + +"And I'll hit, and you'll miss," Starr added placidly. "Come on, let's +get busy and see if you deserved that bone." + +Helen May had learned from uncomfortable experience that high-heeled +slippers are not made for tramping over rocks and sand. She said that she +would come as soon as she put on some shoes; but Starr chose to wait for +her, though he pretended, to himself as much as to her, that he must take +the bridle off Rabbit and let him pick a few mouthfuls of grass while he +had the chance. Also he loosened the cinch and killed a fly or two on +Rabbit's neck, and so managed to put in the time until Helen May appeared +in her khaki skirt and her high boots. + +"That's the sensible outfit for this work," Starr plucked up courage to +comment as they started off. "That kid brother of yours must get pretty +lonesome too, out here," he added. "If you had some one to stay with you, +I'd take him out on a trip with me once in a while and show him the +country and let him learn to handle himself with a horse and gun. A +fellow's got to learn, in this country. So have you. How about it? Ever +shoot a gun, either of you?" + +"Vic used to keep me broke, begging money for the shooting gallery down +near our place," said Helen May. "I used to shoot there a little." + +"Popgun stuff, but good practice," said Starr succinctly. "Got a gun on +the ranch?" + +"No, only Vic's little single-shot twenty-two. That's good enough for +jack rabbits. What would we want a gun for?" + +Starr laughed. "Season's always open for coyotes, and you could pick up a +little money in bounties now and then, if you had a gun," he said. "That +would keep you out in the open, too. I dunno but what I've got a rifle I +could let you have. I did have one, a little too light a calibre for me, +but it would be just about right for you. It's a 25-35 carbine. I'm right +sure I've got that gun on hand yet. I'll bring it over to you. You sure +ought to have a gun." + +They were nearing the goats scattered over the slope that was shadiest, +chosen for Vic's comfort and not because of any thought for his charges. +Vic himself was sprawled in the shade of a huge rock, and for pastime he +was throwing rocks at every ground squirrel that poked its nose out of a +hole. The two hundred goats were scattered far and wide, but as long as +Billy was nibbling a bush within sight, Vic did not worry about the rest. +He lifted himself to a sitting posture and grinned when the two came up. + +"Didn't think to bring any pie, I s'pose?" he hinted broadly, and grinned +companionably at Starr. + +"You've had two handouts since lunch. I guess you'll last another hour," +Helen May retorted unfeelingly. "See the dog that followed Mr. Starr out +from town, Vic! We're going to see if he can herd goats." + +"Well, if he can, he's got my permission, that's a cinch." + +"I do believe he can; see him look at them! His name's Pat, and he likes +me awfully well." + +"Now, where does he get that idea?" taunted Vic, and winked openly at +Starr, who was good enough to smile over what he considered a very +poor joke. + +"Well, let's see you bunch 'em, Pat." Starr made a wide, sweeping gesture +with his left arm, his eyes darting a quick look at the girl. + +Pat looked up at him, waggled his stub of a tail, and darted down the +slope to the left, now and then uttering a yelp. Scattered goats lifted +heads to look, their jaws working comically sidewise as though they felt +they must dispose of that particular mouthful before something happened +to prevent. As Pat neared them, they scrambled away from him, running to +the right, which was toward the bulk of the band. + +Down into the Basin itself the dog ran, after a couple of goats that had +strayed out into the level. These he drove back in a panic of haste, +dodging this way and that, nipping, yelping now and then, until they had +joined the others. Then he went on to the further fringes of the hand, +which evened like the edge of a pie crust under the practised fingers of +a good cook. + +"Well, would you look at that!" Helen May never having watched a good +sheep-dog at work, spoke in an awed tone. "Vic, please write!" + +Vic, watching open-mouthed, actually forgot to resent the implication +that Pat had left him hopelessly behind in the art of handling goats. + +"Seems to have the savvy, all right," Starr observed, just as though he +had not paid all those dollars for the "savvy" that made Pat one of the +best goat dogs in the State. + +"Savvy? Why, that dog's human. Now, I suppose he's stopping over there to +see what he must do next, is he?" + +"Wants to know whether I want 'em all rounded up, or just edged up outa +the Basin. G' round 'em, Pat," he called, and made a wide, circular sweep +with his right arm. + +Pat gave a yelp, dropped his head, and scurried up the ridge, driving all +stragglers back toward the center of the flock. He went to every crest +and sniffed into the wind to satisfy himself that none had strayed beyond +his sight; returned and evened up the ragged edges of the hand, and then +came trotting back to Starr with six inches of pink tongue draped over +his lower jaw and a smile in his eyes and a waggle of satisfaction at +loved work well done. The goats, with a meek Billy in the foreground, +huddled in a compact mass on the slope and eyed the dog as they had never +eyed Vic, for all his hoe-handle and his accuracy with rocks. + +Helen May dropped her hand on Pat's head and looked soberly into his +upturned eyes. "You're a perfect miracle of a dog, so you can't be my +dog, after all," she said. "Your owner will be riding day and night to +find you. I know I should, if you got lost from me." Then she looked at +Starr. "Don't you think you really ought to take him back with you? +It--somehow it doesn't seem quite right to keep a dog that knows so +much. Why, the man I bought the goats from had a dog that could herd +them, and he wanted twenty-five dollars for it, and at that, he claimed +he was putting the price awfully low for me, just because I was a lady, +you know." + +Starr, was (as he put it) kicking himself for having lied himself +into this dilemma. Also he was wondering how best he might lie +himself out of it. + +"You want to look out for these marks that say they're giving you the big +end of a bargain just because you're a lady," he said. "Chances are +they're figuring right then on doing you. If that fellow had got +twenty-five dollars for his dog, take it from me, he wouldn't have lost +anything." + +"Well, but do you think it would he right to keep this dog?" + +Since she put it that way, Starr felt better. "I sure do. Keep him anyway +till he's called for. When I go back, I'll find out where he comes from; +and when I've located the owner, maybe I'll be able to fix it up with him +somehow. You sure ought to have a dog. So let it stand that way. I'll +tell yuh when to give him up." + +Helen May opened her lips, and Starr, to forestall argument and to save +his soul from further sin, turned toward the dog. "Bring 'em home, Pat," +he said, and then started toward the corral, which was down below the +spring. "Watch him drive," he said to Helen May and so managed to +distract her attention from the ethics of the case. + +Without any assistance, Pat drove the goats to the corral. More than +that, at Starr's command, he split the band and held half of them aloof +while the rest went in. He sent these straight down the Basin until Starr +recalled him, when he swung back and corralled them with the others. He +came then toward the three for further orders, whereupon Vic, who had +been silent from sheer amazement, gave a sudden whoop. + +"Hey, Pat! You forgot something. Go back and put up the bars!" he +yelled. Then he heaved his hoe-handle far from him and stretched his arms +high over his head like one released from an onerous task. "I'll walk out +and let Pat have my job," he said. "Herding goats is dog's work anyhow, +and I told you so the first day, Helen Blazes. Hadn't herded 'em five +minutes before I knew I wasn't cut out for a farmer." + +"Go on, Pat; you stay with your goats," Starr commanded gently. And Pat, +because he had suckled a nanny goat when he was a pup, and had grown up +with her kid, and had lived with goats all his life, trotted into the +corral, found himself a likeable spot near the gate, snuffed it all over, +turned around twice, and curled himself down upon it in perfect content. + +"He'll stay there all night," Starr told them, laying the bars in their +sockets. "It's a little early to corral 'em, sundown is about the regular +time, but it's a good scheme to give him plenty of time to get acquainted +with the layout. You get up early, Vic, and let 'em out on the far side +of the ridge. Pat'll do the rest. I'll have to jog along now." + +"Well, say," Vic objected, rubbing his tousled blond hair into a +distracted, upstanding condition, "I wish you'd show me just how +you shift his gears. How the dickens do you do it? He don't know +what you say." + +Before he left, Starr showed him the gestures, and Vic that evening +practised them so enthusiastically that he nearly drove Helen May wild. +Perhaps that is why, when she was copying a sentence where Holman Sommers +had mentioned the stars of the universe, Helen May spelled stars, +"Starr's" and did not notice the mistake at all. + + + + +CHAPTER TEN + +THE TRAIL OF SILVERTOWN CORDS + + +Having wasted a couple of hours more than he intended to spend in +delivering the dog, Starr called upon Rabbit to make up those two hours +for him. And, being an extremely misleading little gray horse, with a +surprising amount of speed and endurance stored away under his hide, +Rabbit did not fall far short of doing so. + +Starr had planned an unexpected visit to the Medina ranch. In the guise +of stock-buyer his unexpectedness would be perfectly plausible, and he +would be well pleased to arrive there late, so long as he did not arrive +after dark. Just before sundown would do very well, he decided. He would +catch Estan Medina off his guard, and he would have the evening before +him, in case he wanted to scout amongst the arroyos on the way home. + +Starr very much wanted to know who drove an automobile without lights +into isolated arroyos and over the desert trails at night. He had not, +strange to say, seen any machine with Silvertown cord tires in San Bonito +or in Malpais, though he had given every car he saw the second glance to +make sure. He knew that such tires were something new and expensive, so +much so that they were not in general use in that locality. Even in El +Paso they were rarely seen at that time, and only the fact that the great +man who gave him his orders had happened to be using them on his machine, +and had mentioned the fact to Starr, who was honored with his friendship, +had caused Starr to be familiar with them and to recognize instantly the +impress they left in soft soil. It was a clue, and that was the best he +could say for it. It was just a little better than nothing, he decided. +What he wanted most was to see the machine itself at close range, and to +see the men who rode in it--and I am going to tell you why. + +There was a secret political movement afoot in the Southwest; a movement +hidden so far underground as to be practically unnoticed on the surface; +but a movement, nevertheless, that had been felt and recorded by that +political seismograph, the Secret Service of our Government. It had been +learned, no mere citizen may know just how, that the movement was called +the Mexican Alliance. It was suspected that the object was the +restoration of three of our States to Mexico, their original owner. +Suspected, mind you; and when even the Secret Service can do no more than +suspect, you will see how well hidden was the plot. Its extent and its +ramifications they could only guess at. Its leaders no man could name, +nor even those who might be suspected more than others. + +But a general uprising in three States, in conjunction with, and under +the control of, a concerted, far-sweeping revolution across the border, +would not be a thing to laugh over. Uncle Sam smiled tolerantly when some +would have had him chastise. Uncle Sam smiled, and watched, and waited +and drummed his fingers while he read secret reports from men away out +somewhere in Arizona, and New Mexico, and Texas, and urged them to burrow +deeper and deeper underground, and to follow at any cost the molelike +twistings and blind turnings of this plot to steal away three whole +States in a lump. + +Now you see, perhaps, why Starr was so curious about that automobile, and +why he was interested in Estancio Medina, Mexican-American rancher who +owned much land and many herds, and who was counted a power among his +countrymen; who spoke English with what passed for fluency, and who had +very decided and intelligent opinions upon political matters, and who +boldly proclaimed his enthusiasm for the advancement of his own race. + +But he did not go to the Medina ranch that evening, for the very good +reason that he met his man fair in the trail as it looped around the head +of the draw where he had heard the automobile running without lights. As +on that other evening, Starr had cut straight across the loop, going east +instead of west. And where the trail forked on the farther side he met +Estan Medina driving a big, lathery bay horse hitched to a shiny, new +covered buggy. He seemed in a hurry, but he pulled up nevertheless to +have a word with Starr. And Starr, always observant of details, saw that +he had three or four packages in the bottom of the buggy, which seemed to +bear out Estan's statement that he had been to town, meaning San Bonito. + +Starr rolled a cigarette, and smoked it while he gossiped with Estan of +politics, pretty girls, and the price of mutton. He had been eyeing the +new buggy speculatively, and at last he spoke of it in that admiring tone +which warms the heart of the listener. + +"Some turnout, Estan," he summed up. "But you ought to be driving an +automobile. All your friends are getting them." + +Estan lifted his shoulders in true Spanish fashion and smiled. "No, +amigo. Me, I can take pleasure yet from horses. And the madre, she's so +'fraid of them automobiles. She cries yet when she knows I ride in one a +little bit. Now she's so proud, when I drive the new buggy home! She +folds so pretty her best mantilla over her head and rides with me to +church, and she bows so polite--to all the señoras from the new buggy! +And her face shines with the happiness in her heart. Oh, no, not me for +the big automobile!" He smiled and shrugged and threw out his hands. "I +like best to see my money walking around with wool on the back! Excuse, +señor. I go now to bring the new buggy home and to see the smile of my +mother." Then he bethought him of the tradition of his house. "You come +and have a soft bed and the comfort of my house," he urged. "It is far to +San Bonito, and it is not so far to my house." + +Starr explained plausibly his haste, sent a friendly message to the +mother and Luis, and rode on thoughtfully. Now and then he turned to +glance behind him at the dust cloud rolling rapidly around the head +of the draw. + +Since Estan had been to town himself that day, Starr reasoned that +there would not be much gained by scouting through the arroyos that led +near the Medina ranch. Estan would have seen in town the men he wanted +to see. He could do so easily enough and without exciting the least +suspicion; for San Bonito had plenty of saloons that were popular, and +yet unobtrusive, meeting places. No need for the mysterious automobile +to make the long journey through the sand to-day, if Estan Medina were +the object of the visit, and Starr knew of no other Mexican out that +way who would be important enough to have a hand in the mixing of +political intrigue. + +He rode on, letting Rabbit drop into his poco-poco trail trot. He carried +his head bent forward a little, and his eyebrows were pulled into a scowl +of concentrated thought. It was all very well to suspect Estan Medina and +to keep an eye upon him, but there were others who came nearer to the +heart of the plot. He wanted to know who these were, and he believed that +if he could once identify the four Mexicans whom Helen May had seen, he +would be a long step ahead. He considered the simple expedient of asking +her to describe them as closely as she could. But since secrecy was the +keynote of his quest, he did not want to rouse her curiosity, and for +purely personal reasons he did want to shield her as far as possible from +any uneasiness or any entanglement in the affair. + +Thinking of Helen May in that light forced him to consider what would be +her plight if he and his co-workers failed, if the plan went on to actual +fulfillment, and the Mexican element actually did revolt. Babes, they +were, those two alone there in Sunlight Basin, with a single-shot +"twenty-two" for defense, when every American rancher in three States +considered high-power rifles and plenty of ammunition as necessary in his +home as flour and bacon! + +Starr shivered a little and tried to pull his mind away from Helen May +and her helplessness. At any rate, he comforted himself, they had the dog +for protection, the dog who had been trained to jump the corral fence at +any hour of the night if a stranger, and especially a Mexican came +prowling near. + +But he and his co-workers must not fail. If intrigue burrowed deep, then +they must burrow deeper. + +So thinking, he came just after sundown to where the trail branched in +three directions. One was the direct road to San Bonito, another took a +roundabout way through a Mexican settlement on the river and so came to +the town from another angle, and the third branch wound over the granite +ridge to Malpais. Studying the problem as a whole, picturing the havoc +which an uprising would wreak upon those vast grazing grounds of the +southwest, and how two nations would be embroiled in spite of themselves, +he was hoping that his collaborators, scattered here and there through +the country, men whose names even he did not know, were making more +headway than he seemed to be making here. + +He would not know, of course, unless he were needed to assist or to +supplement their work in some way. But he hoped they had found out +something definite, something which the War Department could take hold +of; a lever, as it were, to pry up the whole scheme. He was thinking of +these things, but his mind was nevertheless alert to the little trail +signs which it had become second nature to read. So he saw, there in the +dust of the trail, where a buggy had turned around and gone back whence +it had come. He saw that it had been traveling toward town but had turned +and come back. And looking more closely, he saw that one horse had pulled +the buggy. + +He stopped to make sure of that and to search for footprints. But those +he found were indistinct, blurred partly by the looseness of the sand and +partly by the sparse grass that grew along the trail there, because the +buggy had turned in a hollow. He went on a couple of rods, and he saw +where an automobile had also come to this point and had turned and gone +back toward town, or rather, it had swung sharply around and taken the +trail which led through the Mexican settlement; but he guessed that it +had gone back to town, for all that. And the tire marks were made by +Silvertown cords. + +Starr stopped and looked back to where the buggy tracks were faintly +outlined in the dust of the hollow, and he spoke aloud his thought: +"You'd think, just to see him and talk to him, that Estan Medina +assays one hundred per cent, satisfied farmer. He's sure some +fox--that same greaser!" After that he shook Rabbit into a long, +distance-eating lope for town. + +Night came with its flaring forerunners of purple and crimson and all the +gorgeous blendings of the two. By the time he reached San Bonito, the +stars were out, and the electric lights were sputtering on certain street +corners. Starr had rented a small adobe cabin and a corral with a shed on +the outskirts of town where his movements might be unobserved. He did not +always use these, but stopped frequently at a hotel with a garrulous +landlord, and stabled his horse at a certain livery which he knew to be a +hotbed of the town's gossip. In both places he was a privileged patron +and was the recipient of many choice bits of scandal whispered behind a +prudent palm, with a wink now and then to supply the finer shades of +meaning. But to-night he chose the cabin and the corral sandwiched +between +a transfer company's warehouse and a steam laundry that had been closed +by the sheriff. The cabin fronted on a street that was seldom used, and +the corral ran back to a dry arroyo that was used mainly as a dump for +the town's tin cans and dead cats and such; not a particularly attractive +place but secluded. + +He turned Rabbit into the corral and fed him, went in and cooked himself +some supper, and afterwards, in a different suit and shoes and a hat that +spoke loudly of the latest El Paso fad in men's headgear, he strolled +down to the corner and up the next street to the nearest garage. +Ostensibly he was looking for one Pedro Miera, who had a large sheep +ranch out east of San Bonito, and who always had fat sheep for sale. +Starr considered it safe to look for Miera, whom he had seen two or three +days before in El Paso just nicely started on a ten-day spree that never +stopped short of the city jail. + +Since it was the dull hour between the day's business and the evening's +pleasure, Starr strolled the full length of the garage and back again +before any man spoke to him. He made sure that no car there had the kind +of tires he sought, so he asked if Miera and his machine had showed up +there that day, and left as soon as the man said no. + +San Bonito was no city and it did not take long to make the round of the +garages. No one had seen Miera that day, and Starr's disappointment was +quite noticeable, though misunderstood. Not a car in any of the four +garages sported Silvertown cords. + +At the last garage an arc light flared over the wide doorway. Starr, +feeling pretty well disgusted, was leaving when he saw a tire track +alongside the red, gasoline filling-pump. He stopped and, under cover of +lighting his cigarette, he studied the tread. Beyond all doubt the car he +wanted had stopped there for gas. But the garage man was a Mexican, so +Starr dared not risk a question or show any interest whatever in the car +whose tires left those long-lined imprints to tell of its passing. He +puffed at his cigarette until he had studied the angle of the front-wheel +track and decided that the car must have been headed south, and that it +had made a rather short turn away from the pump. + +This was puzzling for a while. The driver might have been turning around +to go back the way he had come. But it was more likely that he had driven +into the cross street to the west. He strolled over that way, but the +light was too dim to trace automobile tracks in the dust of the street so +he went back to the adobe cabin and put in the next hour oiling and +cleaning and polishing a 25-35 carbine which he meant to give Helen May, +and in filling a cartridge belt with shells. + +He sat for some time turning two six-shooters over in his hands, trying +to decide which would please her most. One was lighter than the other, +with an easier trigger action; almost too easy for a novice, he told +himself. But it had a pearl handle with a bulldog carved on the side that +would show when the gun was in its holster. She'd like that fancy stuff, +he supposed. Also he could teach her to shoot straighter with that light +"pull." But the other was what Starr called a sure-enough go-getter. + +He finally decided, of course, to give her the fancy one. For Vic he +would have to buy a gun; an automatic, maybe. He'd have to talk coyotes +pretty strong, in order to impress it upon them that they must never go +away anywhere without a gun. Good thing there was a bounty on coyotes; +the money would look big to the kid, anyway. It occurred to him further +that he could tell them there was danger of running into a rabid coyote. +Rabies had caused a good deal of trouble in the State, so he could make +the danger plausible enough. + +He did not worry much over frightening the girl. She had nerve enough. +Think of her tackling that ranch proposition, with just that cub brother +to help! When Starr thought of that slim, big-eyed, smiling girl in white +fighting poverty and the white plague together out there on the rim of +the desert, a lump came up in his throat. She had nerve enough--that +plucky little lady with the dull-gold hair, and the brown velvet +eyes!--more nerve than he had where she was concerned. + +He went to bed and lay for a long time thinking of Helen May out there +in that two-roomed adobe cabin, with a fifteen-year-old boy for +protection and miles of wilderness between her and any other human +habitation. It was small comfort then to Starr that she had the dog. One +bullet can settle a dog, and then--Starr could not look calmly at the +possibility of what might happen then. + +"They've no business out there like that, alone!" he muttered, rising to +an elbow and thumping his hard pillow viciously. "Good Lord! Haven't they +got any folks?" + + + + +CHAPTER ELEVEN + +THE WIND BLOWS MANY STRAWS + + +Soon after daylight, Rabbit snorted and ran a little way down the corral +toward the cabin. Starr, trained to light sleeping and instant waking, +was up and standing back from the little window with his six-shooter in +his hand before Rabbit had stopped to whirl and look for what had scared +him. So Starr was in time to see a "big four" Stetson hat with a +horsehair hatband sink from sight behind the high board fence at the rear +of the corral. + +Starr waited. Rabbit shook his head as though he were disgusted with +himself, and began nosing the ground for the wisps of hay which a high +wind had blown there. Starr retreated to a point in the room where he +could see without risk of being seen, and watched. In a few minutes, when +the horse had forgotten all about the incident and was feeding again, the +Stetson hat very cautiously rose once more. Under its gray brim Starr saw +a pair of black eyes peer over the fence. He watched them glancing here +and there, coming finally to rest upon the cabin itself. They watched +Rabbit, and Starr knew that they watched for some sign of alarm rather +than from any great interest in the horse: Rabbit lifted his head and +looked that way boredly for a moment before he went back to his feeding, +and the eyes lifted a little, so that the upper part of the owner's face +came into view. A young Mexican, Starr judged him, because of his smooth +skin around the eyes. He waited. The fellow rose now so that the fence +came just below his lips, which were full and curved in the pleasant +lines of youth. His eyes kept moving this way and that, so that the +whites showed with each turn of the eyeball. Starr studied what he could +see of the face. Thick eyebrows well formed except that the left one took +a whimsical turn upward; heavy lashes, the high, thin nose of the Mexican +who is part Indian--as are practically all of the lower, or peon +class--that much he had plenty of time to note. Then there was the mouth, +which Starr knew might be utterly changed in appearance when one saw the +chin that went with it. + +A hundred young fellows in San Bonito might answer equally well a +description of those features. And the full-crowned gray Stetson may be +seen by the thousand in at least four States; and horsehair hatbands may +be bought in any saddlery for two or three dollars--perhaps for less, if +one does not demand too long a pair of tassels--and are loved by Indians +and those who think they are thus living up to the picturesque Old West. +So far as he could see, there was nothing much to identify the fellow, +unless he could get a better look at him. + +The Mexican gave another long look at the cabin, studying every point, +even to the roof. Then he tried to see into the shed where Starr kept his +saddle and where Rabbit could shelter himself from the cold winds. There +was no door, no front, even, on the side toward the house. But the end of +the shed was built out into the corral so that the fellow could not see +around its corner. + +He moved along the fence, which gave Starr a very good idea of his +height, and down to the very corner of the vacant laundry building. There +he stopped and looked again. He was eyeing Starr's saddle, apparently +taking in every detail of its workmanship. He looked again at Rabbit, who +was turned then so that his brand, the double Turkey-track, stood out +plainly on both thighs. Then, with another slant-eyed inspection of the +cabin, he ducked down behind the fence and disappeared, his going +betrayed by his hat crown which was taller than he imagined and showed a +good four inches above the fence. + +Starr had edged along the dark wall of the room so that he had kept the +man in sight. Now, when the hat crown moved away down the trail that +skirted the garbage-filled arroyo, he snorted, threw his gun down on the +bed, and began to dress himself, rummaging in his "warbag" for a gray +checked cap and taking down from the wall a gray suit that he had never +liked and had never worn since the day it came from the mail, looking +altogether different from the four-inch square he had chosen from a +tailor agent's sample book. He snorted again when he had the suit on, and +surveyed it with a dissatisfied, downward glance. In his opinion he +looked like a preacher trying to disguise himself as a sport, but to +complete the combination he unearthed a pair of tan shoes and put them +on. After that he stood for a minute staring down the fresh-creased gray +trousers to his toes. + +"Looks like the very devil!" he snorted again. "But anyway, it's +different." He dusted the cap by the simple expedient of slapping it +several times against his leg. When he had hung it on the back of his +head and pulled it well down in front--as nine out of ten men always put +on a cap--he did indeed look different, though he did not look at all +like the demon he named. Helen May, for instance, would have needed a +second close glance before she recognized him, but that glance would +probably have carried with it a smile for his improved appearance. + +He surveyed as much of the neighborhood as he could see through the +windows, looked at his watch, and saw that it was late enough for him to +appear down town without exciting comment from the early birds, and went +out into the corral and fed Rabbit. He looked over the fence where the +Mexican had stood, but the faint imprints of the man's boots were not +definite enough to tell him anything. He surveyed the neighborhood from +different angles and could see no trace of any one watching the place, so +he felt fairly satisfied that the fellow had gone for the present, though +he believed it very likely that he might return later. + +As he saw the incident, he was not yet considered worth shadowing, but +had in some way excited a certain degree of curiosity about himself. +Starr did not like that at all. He had hoped to impress every one with +his perfect harmlessness, and to pass for a stock buyer and nothing else. + +He could not imagine how he had possibly excited suspicion, and he wanted +to lull it immediately and permanently. The obvious way to do that would +be to rise late, saddle Rabbit and ride around town a little--to the post +office and a saloon, for instance--get his breakfast at the +best-patronized place in town, and then go about his legitimate +business. On the other hand, he wanted to try and trace those cord tires +down the cross street, if he could, and he could not well do that on +horseback without betraying himself. + +The shed was built out flush with the arroyo edge, so that at the rear of +the corral one could only go as far as the gate, which closed against the +end of the shed. It occurred to Starr that if the young Mexican had been +looking for something to steal, he would probably have come in at the +gate, which was fastened only with a stout hook on the inside. The arroyo +bank had caved under the farther corner of the shed, so that a hole the +size of a large barrel showed at that end of the manger. Cats and dogs, +and perhaps boys, had gone in and out there until a crude kind of trail +was worn down the bank to the arroyo bottom. At some risk to his tan +shoes and his new gray suit, Starr climbed into the manger and let +himself down that hole. The trail was firm and dry and so steep he had to +dig his heels in to keep from tobogganing to the bottom, but once down he +had only to follow the arroyo bottom to a place where he could climb out. +Before he found such a place he came to a deep, dry gully that angled +back toward the business part of town. A footpath in the bottom of it +encouraged him to follow it, and a couple of hundred yards farther along +he emerged upon the level end of a street given over to secondhand +stores, junk shops and a plumber's establishment. From there to the main +street was easy enough. + +As he had expected, only a few citizens were abroad and Starr strolled +over to the cross street he wanted to inspect. He found the long-lined +tread of the tires he sought plainly marked where they had turned into +this street. After that he lost them where they had been blotted out by +the broad tires of a truck. When he was sure that he could trace them no +farther, he turned back, meaning to have breakfast at his favorite +restaurant. And as he turned, he met face to face a tall young Mexican in +a full-crowned Stetson banded with horsehair. + +Now, as I have said before, San Bonito was full of young Mexicans who +wore Stetson hats and favored horsehair bands around them. Starr +glanced at the fellow sharply, got the uninterested, impersonal look +of the perfect stranger who neither knows nor cares who you are, and +who has troubles of his own to occupy his mind; the look which +nineteen persons out of twenty give to a stranger on the street. Starr +went on unconcernedly whistling under his breath, but at the corner he +turned sharply to the left, and in turning he flicked a glance back at +the fellow. The Mexican was not giving him any attention whatever, as +far as he could see; on the contrary, he was staring down at the +ground as though he, too, were looking for something. Starr gave him +another stealthy look, gained nothing from it, and shrugged his +shoulders and went on. + +He ate his breakfast while he turned the matter over in his mind. What +had he done to rouse suspicion against himself? He could not remember +anything, for he had not yet found anything much to work on; nothing, in +fact, except that slight clue of the automobile, and he did not even know +who had been in it. He suspected that they had gone to meet Estan Medina, +but as long as that suspicion was tucked away in the back of his mind, +how was any one going to know that he suspected Estan? He had not been +near the chief of police or the sheriff or any other officer. He had not +talked with any man about the Mexican Alliance, nor had he asked any man +about it. Instead, he had bought sheep and cattle and goats and hogs from +the ranchers, and he had paid a fair price for them and had shipped them +openly, under the eye of the stock inspector, to the El Paso Meat +Company. So far he had kept his eyes open and his mouth shut, and had +waited until some ripple on the surface betrayed the disturbance +underneath. + +He was not sure that the young man he met on the street was the one who +had been spying over the fence, but he did not mean to take it for +granted that he was not the same, and perhaps be sorry afterwards for his +carelessness. He strolled around town, bought an automatic gun and a lot +of cartridges for Vic, went into a barber shop on a corner and had a +shave and a haircut, and kept his eyes open for a tall young Mexican who +might be unduly interested in his movements. + +He met various acquaintances who expressed surprise at not having seen +him around the hotel. To these he explained that he had rented a corral +for his horse, where he could be sure of the feed Rabbit was getting, and +to save the expense of a livery stable. Rabbit had been kinda off his +feed, he said, and he wanted to look after him himself. So he had been +sleeping in the cabin that went with the corral. + +His friends thought that was a sensible move, and praised his judgment, +and Starr felt better. He did not, however, tell them just where the +corral was located. He had some notion of moving to another place, so he +considered that it would be just as well not to go into details. + +So thinking, he took his packages and started across to the gully which +led into the arroyo that let him into his place by the back way. He meant +to return as he had come; and if any one happened to be spying, he would +think Starr had chosen that route as a short cut to town, which it was. + +A block away from the little side street that opened to the gully, Starr +stopped short, shocked into a keener attention to his surroundings. He +had just stepped over an automobile track on the walk, where a machine +had crossed it to enter a gateway which was now closed. And the track had +been made by a cord tire. He looked up at the gate of unpainted planks, +heavy-hinged and set into a high adobe wall such as one sees so often in +New Mexico. The gate was locked, as he speedily discovered; locked on the +inside, he guessed, with bars or great hooks or something. + +He went on to the building that seemed to belong to the place; a long +two-story adobe building with the conventional two-story gallery running +along the entire front, and with the deep-set, barred windows that are +also typically Mexican. Every town in the adobe section of the southwest +has a dozen or so buildings almost exactly like this one. The door was +blue-painted, with the paint scaling off. Over it was a plain lettered +sign: LAS NUEVAS. + +Starr had seen copies of that paper at the Mexican ranches he visited, +and as far as he knew, it was an ordinary newspaper of the country-town +style, printed in Mexican for the benefit of a large percentage of +Mexican-Americans whose knowledge of English print is extremely hazy. + +He walked on slowly to the corner, puzzling over this new twist in the +faint clue he followed. It had not occurred to him that so innocuous a +sheet as _Las Nuevas_ should be implicated, and yet, why not? He turned +at the corner and went back to the nearest newstand, where he bought an +El Paso paper for a blind and laid it down on a pile of _Las Nuevas_ +while he lighted his cigarette. He talked with the little, pock-marked +Mexican who kept the shop, and when the fellow's back was turned toward +him for a minute, he stole a copy of _Las Nuevas_ off the pile and +strolled out of the shop with it wrapped in his El Paso paper. + +He stole it because he knew that not many Americans ever bought the +paper, and he feared that the hombre in charge might wonder why an +American should pay a nickel for a copy of _Las Nuevas_. As it happened, +the hombre in charge was looking into a mirror cunningly placed for the +guarding of stock from pilferers, and he saw Starr steal the paper. Also +he saw Starr slip a dime under a stack of magazines where it would be +found later on. So he wondered a great deal more than he would have done +if Starr had bought the paper, but Starr did not know that. + +Starr went back to his cabin by way of the arroyo and the hole in the +manger. When he unlocked the door and went in, he had an odd feeling that +some one had been there in his absence. He stood still just inside the +door and inspected everything, trying to remember just where his clothes +had been scattered, where he had left his hat, just how his blankets had +been flung back on the bed when he jumped up to see what had startled +Rabbit; every detail, in fact, that helps to make up the general look of +a room left in disorder. + +He did remember, for his memory had been well trained for details. He +knew that his hat had been on the table with the front toward the wall. +It was there now, just as he had flung it down. He knew that his pillow +had been dented with the shape of his head, and that it had lain askew on +the bed; it was just as it had been. Everything--his boots, his dark coat +spread over the back of the chair, his trousers across the foot of the +bed--everything was the same, yet the feeling persisted. + +Starr was no more imaginative than he needed to be for the work he had +to do. He was not in the least degree nervous over that work. Yet he was +sure some one had been in the room during his absence, and he could not +tell why he was sure. At least, for ten minutes and more he could not +tell why. Then his eyes lighted upon a cigarette stub lying on the +hearth of the little cookstove in one corner of the room. Starr always +used "wheat straw" papers, which were brown. This cigarette had been +rolled in white paper. He picked it up and discovered that one end was +still moist from the lips of the smoker, and the other end was still +warm from the fire that had half consumed it. Starr gave an enlightened +sniff and knew it was his olfactory nerves that had warned him of an +alien presence there; for the tobacco in this cigarette was not the +brand he smoked. + +He stood thinking it over; puzzling again over the mystery of their +suspicion of him. He tried to recall some careless act, some imprudent +question, an ill-considered remark. He was giving up the riddle again +when that trained memory of his flashed before him a picture that, +trivial as it was in itself, yet was as enlightening as the white paper +of the cigarette on the stove hearth. + +Two days before, just after his last arrival in San Bonito, he had sent a +wire to a certain man in El Paso. The message itself had not been of very +great importance, but the man to whom he had sent it had no connection +whatever with the Meat Company. He was, in fact, the go-between in the +investigation of the Secret Service. Through him the War Department +issued commands to Starr and his fellows, and through him it kept in +touch with the situation. Starr had used two code words and a number in +that message. + +And, he now distinctly remembered, the girl who had waited upon him was +dark, with a Spanish cast of features. When she had counted the words and +checked the charge and pushed his change across to him, she had given him +a keen, appraising look from under her lashes, though the smile she sent +with it had given the glance a feminine and wholly flattering +interpretation. Starr remembered that look now and saw in it something +more than coquetry. He remembered, too, that he had glanced back from the +doorway and caught her still looking after him; and that he had smiled, +and she had smiled swiftly in return and had then turned away abruptly to +her work. To her work? Starr remembered now that she had turned and +spoken to a sulky-faced messenger boy who was sitting slumped down on the +curve of his back with his tightly buttoned tunic folded up to his +armpits so that his hands could burrow to the very bottom of his pockets. +He had looked up, muttered something, reluctantly removed himself from +the chair, and started away. The boy, too, had the Mexican look. + +Well, at any rate, he knew now how the thing had started. He heaved a +sigh of relief and threw himself down on the bed, wadding the pillow +into a hard ball under the nape of his neck and unfolding the Mexican +newspaper. He had intended to move camp; but now that they had begun to +trail him, he decided to stay where he was and give them a run for their +money, as he put it. + +Starr could read Spanish well enough for ordinary purposes. He went +carefully through _Las Nuevas_, from war news to the local +advertisements. There was nothing that could even be twisted into a +message of hidden meaning to the initiated. _Las Nuevas_ was what it +called itself: _The News_. It was exactly as innocuous as he had believed +it to be. Its editorial page, even, was absolutely banal in its servility +to the city, county, state and national policy. + +"That's a hell of a thing to steal!" grumbled Starr, and threw the paper +disgustedly from him. + + + + +CHAPTER TWELVE + +STARR FINDS SOMETHING IN A SECRET ROOM + +That day Starr rode out into the country and looked at a few head of cows +and steers that a sickly American wanted to sell so he could go East for +his health (there being in most of us some peculiar psychological leaning +toward seeking health afar). Starr went back to town afterwards and made +Rabbit comfortable in the corral, reasoning that if he were going to be +watched, he would be watched no matter where he went; but he ate his +supper in the dining room of the Plaza Hotel, and sat in the lobby +talking with a couple of facetious drummers until the mechanical piano in +the movie show across the street began to play. + +He went to the show, sat through it patiently, strolled out when it was +over, and visited a saloon or two. Then, when he thought his evening +might be considered well rounded out with harmless diversions, he went +out to his cabin, following the main street but keeping well in the +shadow as though he wished to avoid observation. + +He had reason to believe that some one followed him out there, which did +not displease him much. He lighted his lamp and fussed around for half an +hour or so before he blew out the light and went to bed. + +At three o'clock in the morning, with a wind howling in from the +mountains, Starr got up and dressed in the dark, fumbling for a pair of +"sneakers" he had placed beside his bed. He let himself out into the +corral, being careful to keep close to the wall of the house until he +reached the high board fence. Here, too, he had to feel his way because +of the pitchy blackness of the night; and if the rattling wind prevented +him from hearing any footsteps that might be behind him, it also covered +the slight sound of his own progress down the fence to the shed. But he +did not think he would be seen or followed, for he had been careful to +oil the latch and hinges of his door before he went to bed; and he would +be a faithful spy indeed who shivered through the whole night, watching a +man who apparently slept unsuspectingly and at peace. + +Down the hole from the manger Starr slid, and into the arroyo bottom. He +stumbled over a can of some sort, but the wind was rattling everything +movable, so he merely swore under his breath and went on. He was not a +range man for nothing, and he found his way easily to the adobe house +with LAS NUEVAS over the door, and the adobe wall with the plank gate +that had been closed. + +It was closed now, and the house itself was black and silent. Starr +stooped and gave a jump, caught the top of the wall with his hooked +fingers, went up and straddled the top where it was pitch black against +the building. For that matter, it was nearly pitch black whichever way +one looked, that night. He sat there for five minutes, listening and +straining his eyes into the enclosure. Somewhere a piece of corrugated +iron banged against a board. Once he heard a cat meow, away back at the +rear of the lot. He waited through a comparative lull, and when the wind +whooped again and struck the building with a fresh blast, Starr jumped to +the ground within the yard. + +He crouched for a minute, a shot-loaded quirt held butt forward in his +hand. He did not want to use a gun unless he had to, and the loaded end +of a good quirt makes a very efficient substitute for a blackjack. But +there was no movement save the wind, so presently he followed the wall of +the house down to the corner, stood there listening for awhile and went +on, feeling his way rapidly around the entire yard as a blind man feels +out a room that is strange to him. + +He found the garage, with a door that kept swinging to and fro in the +wind, banging shut with a slam and then squealing the hinges as it +opened again with the suction. He drew a breath of relief when he came to +that door, for he knew that any man who happened to be on guard would +have fastened it for the sake of his nerves if for nothing else. + +When he was sure that the place was deserted for the night, Starr went +back to the garage and went inside. He fastened the door shut behind him +and switched on his pocket searchlight to examine the place. If he had +expected to see the mysterious black car there he was disappointed, for +the garage was empty--which perhaps explained the swinging door, that had +been left open in the evening when there was no wind. Small comfort in +that for Starr, for it immediately occurred to him that the car would +probably return before daylight if it had gone after dark. + +He turned his hand slowly, painting the walls with a brush of brilliant +light. "Huh!" he grunted under his breath. For there in a far corner were +four Silvertown cord tires with the dust of the desert still clinging to +the creases of the lined tread. Near-by, where they had been torn off in +haste and flung aside, were the paper wrappings of four other tires, +supposedly new. + +So they--he had no more definite term by which to call them--they had +sensed the risk of those unusual tires, and had changed for others of a +more commonly-used brand! Starr wondered if some one had seen him looking +at tire-tracks, the young Mexican he had met on the side street, perhaps. +Or the Mexican garage man may have caught him studying that track by the +filling-pump. + +"Well," Starr summed up the significance of the discovery, "the game's +open; now we'll get action." + +He glanced down to make sure that he had not left any tracks on the floor +and was glad he had not worn his boots. Then he snapped off the light, +went out, and left the door swinging and banging as it had been before. +If he learned no more, at least he was paid for the trip. + +He went straight to the rear door of the building, taking no pains to +conceal his footsteps. The wind, he knew, would brush them out completely +with the sand and dust it sent swirling around the yard with every gust. +As he had hoped, the door was not bolted but locked with a key, so he let +himself in with one of the pass keys he carried for just such work as +this. He felt at the windows and saw that the blinds were down, and +turned on his light. + +The place had all the greasy dinginess of the ordinary print shop. The +presses were here, and the motor that operated them. Being a bi-weekly +and not having much job printing to do, it was evident that _Las Nuevas_ +did not work overtime. Things were cleaned up for the night and ready for +the next day's work. It all looked very commonplace and as innocent as +the paper it produced. + +Starr went on slowly, examining the forms, the imperfect first proofs of +circulars and placards that had been placed on hook files. AVISO! stared +up at him in big, black type from the top of many small sheets, with the +following notices of sales, penalties attached for violations of certain +ordinances, and what not. But there was nothing that should not be there, +nothing that could be construed as seditionary in any sense of the word. + +Still, some person or persons connected with this place had found it +expedient to change four perfectly good and quite expensive tires for +four new and perfectly commonplace ones, and the only explanation +possible was that the distinctive tread of the expensive ones had been +observed. There must, Starr reasoned, be something else in this place +which it would be worth his while to discover. He therefore went +carefully up the grimy stairway to the rooms above. + +These were offices of the comfortless type to be found in small towns. +Bare floors, stained with tobacco juice and the dust of the street. +Bare desks and tables, some of them unpainted, homemade affairs, all +of them cheap and old. A stove in the larger office, a few +wooden-seated armchairs. Starr took in the details with a flick here +and there of his flashlight that he kept carefully turned away from the +green-shaded windows. + +News items, used and unused, he found impaled on desk files. Bills paid +and unpaid he found also. But in the first search he found nothing +else, nothing that might not be found in any third-rate newspaper +establishment. He stood in the middle room--there were three in a row, +with an empty, loft-like room behind--and considered where else he +could search. + +He went again to a closet that had been built in with boards behind the +chimney. At first glance this held nothing but decrepit brooms, a +battered spittoon, and a small pile of greasewood cut to fit the heater +in the larger room; but Starr went in and flashed his light around the +wall. He found a door at the farther end, and he knew it for a door +only when he passed his hands over the wall and felt it yield. He +pushed it open and went into another room evidently built across one +end of the loft, a room cunningly concealed and therefore a room likely +to hold secrets. + +He hitched his gun forward a little, pushed the door shut behind him, and +began to search that room. Here, as in the outer offices, the first +superficial examination revealed nothing out of the way. But Starr did +not go at things superficially. First the desk came under close scrutiny. +There were no letters; they were too cautious for that, evidently. He +looked in the little stove that stood near the wall where the chimney +went up in the closet, and saw that the ashes consisted mostly of charred +paper. But the last ones deposited therein had not yet been lighted, or, +more exactly, they had been lighted hastily and had not burned except +around the edges. He lifted out the one on top and the one beneath it. +They were two sheets of copy paper scribbled closely in pencil. The first +was entitled, with heavy underscoring that signified capitals, "Souls in +Bondage." This sounded interesting, and Starr put the papers in his +pocket. The others were envelopes addressed to _Las Nuevas_; there was no +more than a handful of papers in all. + +In a drawer of the desk, which he opened with a skeleton key, he found +many small leaflets printed in Mexican. Since they were headed ALMAS DE +CAUTIVERO, he took one and hoped that it would not be missed. There were +other piles of leaflets in other drawers, and he helped himself to a +sample of each, and relocked the drawers carefully. But search as he +might, he could find nothing that identified any individual, or even +pointed to any individual as being concerned in this propaganda work; nor +could he find any mention of the Mexican Alliance. + +He went out finally, let the door swing behind him as it seemed +accustomed to do, climbed through a window to the veranda that bordered +all these rooms like a jutting eyebrow, and slid down a corner post to +the street. It was close to dawn, and Starr had no wish to be found near +the place; indeed, he had no wish to be found away from his cabin if any +one came there with the breaking of day to watch him. + +As he had left the cabin, so he returned to it. He went back to bed and +lay there until sunrise, piecing together the scraps of information he +had gleaned. So far, he felt that he was ahead of the game; that he had +learned more about the Alliance than the Alliance had learned about him. + +As soon as the light was strong enough for him to read without a lamp, he +took from his pocket the papers he had gleaned from the stove, spread out +the first and began to decipher the handwriting. And this is what he +finally made out: + +"Souls in Bondage: + +"The plundering plutocrats who suck the very life blood of your mother +country under the guise of the development of her resources, are working +in harmony with the rich brigands north of the border to plunder you +further, and to despoil the fair land you have helped to win from the +wilderness. + +"Shall strong men be content in their slavery to the greed of others? +Rise up and help us show the plunderers that we are men, not slaves. Let +this shameless persecution of your mother country cease! + +"American bandits would subjugate and annex the richest portion of +Mexico. Why should not Mexico therefore reclaim her own? Why not turn the +tables and annex a part of the vast territory stolen from her by the +octopus arms of our capitalist class? + +"We are a proud people and we never forget. Are we a cowardly people who +would cringe and yield when submission means infamy? + +"Awake! Strike one swift, successful blow for freedom and your bleeding +mother land. + +"Texas, New Mexico, California and Arizona were stolen from Mexico, just +as the riches of her mines are being stolen from her to-day. Sons of +Mexico, you can help her reclaim her own. Will you stand by and see her +further despoiled? Let your voices rise in a mighty cry for justice! Let +your arms be strong to strike a blow for the right! + +"Souls in bondage, wake up and strike off your shackles! Be not slaves +but free men! + +"Texas, New Mexico and Arizona for Mexico, to whom they rightfully +belong!" + +"They sure do make it strong enough," Starr commented, feeling for a +match with which to relight his cigarette that had gone out. He laid down +the written pages and took up the leaflet entitled, "ALMAS DE CAUTIVERO." +The text that followed was like the heading, simply a translation into +Spanish of the exhortation he had just read in English. But he read it +through and noted the places where the Spanish version was even more +inflammatory than the English--which, in Starr's opinion, was going some. +The other pamphlets were much the same, citing well-known instances of +the revolution across the border which seemed to prove conclusively that +justice was no more than a jest, and that the proletariat of Mexico was +getting the worst of the bargain, no matter who happened to be in power. + +Starr frowned thoughtfully over the reading. To him the thing was +treason, and it was his business to help stamp it out. For the powers +that be cannot afford to tolerate the planting of such seeds of +dissatisfaction amongst the untrained minds of the masses. + +But, and Starr admitted it to himself with his mouth pulled down at the +corners, the worst of it was that under the bombast, under the +vituperative utterances, the catch phrases of radicalism, there remained +the grains of truth. Starr knew that the masses of Mexico _were_ +suffering, broken under the tramplings of revolution and +counter-revolution that swept back and forth from gulf to gulf. Still, it +was not his business to sift out the plump grains of truth and justice, +but to keep the chaff from lighting and spreading a wildfire of sedition +through three States. + +"'Souls in bondage' is right," he said, setting his feet to the floor +and reaching for his boots. "In bondage to their own helplessness, and +helpless because they're so damned ignorant. But," he added grimly while +he stamped his right foot into its boot, "they ain't going at it the +right way. They're tryin' to tear down, when they ain't ready to build +anything on the wreck. They're right about the wrong; but they're wrong +as the devil about the way to mend it. Them pamphlets will sure raise +hell amongst the Mexicans, if the thing ain't stopped pronto." + +He dressed for riding, and went out and fed Rabbit before he went +thoughtfully up to the hotel for his breakfast. + + + + +CHAPTER THIRTEEN + +HELEN MAY SIGHS FOR ROMANCE + + +Helen May was toiling over the ridgy upland which in New Mexico is called +a mesa, when it is not a desert--and sometimes when it is one--taking her +turn with the goats while Vic nursed a strained ankle and a grouch under +the mesquite tree by the house. With Pat to help, the herding resolved +itself into the exercise of human intelligence over the dog's skill. Pat, +for instance, would not of his own accord choose the best grazing for his +band, but he could drive them to good grazing once it was chosen for him. +So, theoretically, Helen May was exercising her human intelligence; +actually she was exercising her muscles mostly. And having an abundance +of brain energy that refused to lie dormant, she had plenty of time to +think her own thoughts while Pat carried out her occasional orders. + +For one thing, Helen May was undergoing the transition from a mild +satisfaction with her education and mentality, to a shamed consciousness +of an appalling ignorance and mental crudity. Holman Sommers was +unwittingly the cause of that. There was nothing patronizing or +condescending in the attitude of Holman Sommers, even if he did run to +long words and scientifically accurate descriptions of the smallest +subjects. It was the work he placed before her that held Helen May +abashed before his vast knowledge. She could not understand half of what +she deciphered and typed for him, and because she could not understand +she realized the depth of her benightedness. + +She was awed by the breadth and the scope which she sensed more or less +vaguely in _The Evolution of Sociology_. Holman Sommers quoted freely, +and discussed boldly and frankly, such abstruse authors as Descartes, +Spinoza, Schopenhauer, Comte, Gumplowicz, some of them names she had +never heard of and could not even spell without following her copy +letter by letter. Holman Sommers seemed to have read all of them and to +have weighed all of them and to be able to quote all of them offhand; +whereas Schopenhauer was the only name in the lot that sounded in the +least familiar to Helen May, and she had a guilty feeling that she had +always connected the name with music instead of the sort of things +Holman Sommers quoted him as having said or written, she could not make +out which. + +Helen May, therefore, was suffering from mental growing pains. She +struggled with new ideas which she had swallowed whole, without any +previous elementary knowledge of the subject. Her brain was hungry, her +life was stagnant, and she seized upon these sociological problems which +Holman Sommers had placed before her, and worried over them, and wondered +where Holman Sommers had learned so much about things she had never heard +of. Save his vocabulary, which wearied her, he was the simplest, the +kindest of men, though not kind as her Man of the Desert was kind. + +Just here in her thoughts Holman Sommers faded, and Starr's lean, +whimsical face came out sharply defined before her mental vision. Starr +certainly was different! Ordinary, and not educated much beyond the three +Rs, she suspected. Just a desert man with a nice voice and a gift for +provocative little silences. Two men could not well be farther apart in +personality, she thought, and she amused herself by comparing them. + +For instance, take the case of Pat. Sommers had told her just why and +just how desperately she needed a dog for the goats, and had urged her by +all means to get one at the first opportunity. Starr had not said +anything about it; he had simply brought the dog. Helen May appreciated +the different quality of the kindness that does things. + +Privately, she suspected that Starr had stolen that dog, he had seemed so +embarrassed while he explained how he came by Pat; especially, she +remembered, when she had urged him to take the dog back. She would not, +of course, dare hint it even to Vic; and theoretically she was of course +shocked at the possibility. But, oh, she was human! That a nice man +should swipe a dog for her secretly touched a little, responsive +tenderness in Helen May. (She used the word "swipe," which somehow made +the suspected deed sound less a crime and more an amusing peccadillo than +the word "steal" would have done. Have you ever noticed how adroitly we +tone down or magnify certain misdeeds simply by using slang or dictionary +words as the case may be?) + +Oh, she saw it quite plainly, as she trudged over to the shady side of a +rock ridge and sat down where she could keep an eye on Pat and the goats. +She told herself that she would ask her Man of the Desert, the next time +he happened along, whether he had found out who the dog belonged to. If +he acted confused and dodged the issue, then she would know for sure. +Just what she would do when she knew for sure, Helen May had not decided. + +The goats were browsing docilely upon the slope, eating stuff which only +a goat would attempt to eat. Helen May was not afraid of Billy since Pat +had taken charge. Pat had a way of keeping Billy cowed and as harmless +as the nannies themselves. Just now Pat was standing at a little distance +with his tongue slavering down over his white teeth, gazing over the band +as a general looks at his army drawn up in review. + +He turned his head and glanced at Helen May inquiringly, then trotted +over to where she sat in the shade. His tongue still drooped quiveringly +over his lower jaw; and now and then he drew it back and licked his lips +as though they were dry. Helen May found a rock that was hollowed like a +crude saucer, and poured water into the hollow from her canteen. Pat +lapped it up thirstily, gave his stubby tail a wag of gratitude, lay down +with his front paws on the edge of her skirt with his head dropped down +upon them, and took a nap--with one eye opening now and then to see that +the goats were all right, and with his ears lifting to catch the meaning +of every stray bleat from a garrulous nanny. + +Helen May had changed a good deal in the past two or three weeks. Now +when she stared away and away over the desert and barren slope and ridges +and mountain, she did not feel that she hated them. Instead, she saw that +the yellow of the desert, the brown of the slopes, and the black of the +distant granite ledges basseting from bleak hills were more beautiful +than the tidy little plots of tilled ground she used to think so lovely. +There was something hypnotic in these bald distances. She could not read, +when she was out like this; she could only look and think and dream. + +She wished that she might ride out over it sometime, away over to the +mountains, perhaps, as far as she could see. She fell to dreaming of the +old days when this was Spanish territory, and the king gave royal grants +of land to his favorites: for instance, all the country lying between two +mountain ranges, to where a river cut across and formed a natural +boundary. Holman Sommers had told her about the old Spanish grants, and +how many of the vast estates of Mexican "cattle kings" and "sheep kings" +were still preserved almost intact, just as they had been when this was a +part of Mexico. + +She wished that she might have lived here then, when the dons held sway +and when señoritas were all beautiful and when señoras were every one of +them imposing in many jewels and in rich mantillas, and when vaqueros +wore red sashes and beautiful serapes and big, gold-laced sombreros, and +rode prancing steeds that curveted away from jingling, silver-rowelled +spurs. Helen May, you must remember, knew her moving-picture romance. She +could easily vision these things exactly as they had been presented to +her on the screen. That is why she peopled this empty land so gorgeously. + +It was different now, of course. All the Mexicans she had seen were +like the Mexicans around the old Plaza in Los Angeles. All the señoritas +she had met--they had not been many--powdered and painted abominably to +the point of their jaws and left their necks dirty. And their petticoats +were draggled and their hats looked as though they had been trimmed from +the ten-cent counter of a cheap store. All the señoras were smoky +looking with snakish eyes, and the dresses under their heavy-fringed +black mantillas were more frowsy than those of their daughters. They +certainly were not imposing; and if they wore jewelry at all it looked +brassy and cheap. + +There was no romance, nothing like adventure here nowadays, said Helen +May to herself, while she watched the little geysers of dust go dancing +like whirling dervishes across the sand. A person lived on canned stuff +and kept goats and was abjectly pleased to see any kind of human being. +There certainly was no romance left in the country, though it had seemed +almost as though there might be, when her Man of the Desert sang and all +the little night-sounds hushed to listen, and the moon-trail across the +sand of the desert lay like a ribbon of silver. It had seemed then as +though there might be romance yet alive in the wide spaces. + +So she had swung back again to Starr, just as she was always doing +lately. She began to wonder when he would come again, and what he would +have to say next time, and whether he had really annexed some poor sheep +man's perfectly good dog, just because he knew she needed one. It would +never do to let on that she guessed; but all the same, it was mighty nice +of him to think of her, even if he did go about it in a queer way. And +when Pat, who had seemed to be asleep, lifted his head and looked up into +her eyes adoringly, Helen May laid her hand upon his smooth skull and +smiled oddly. + +No more romance, said Helen May--and here was Starr, a man of mystery, a +man feared and distrusted by the sons of those passionate dons of whom +she dreamed! Here was Starr, Secret Service man (there is ever a glamor +in the very name of it), the very essence and forefront of such romance +and such adventure as she had gasped over, when she had seen it pictured +on the screen! She was living right in the middle of intrigue that was +stirring the rulers of two nations; she was coming close to real +adventure, and there she sat, with Pat lying on the hem of her skirt, and +mourned that she was fifty or a hundred years too late for even a glimpse +at romance! And fretted because she was helping Pat herd goats, and +because life was dull and commonplace. + +"Honestly," she told Pat, "I've got to the point where I catch myself, +looking forward to the chance visits of a wandering cowboy who is +perfectly commonplace. Why, he'd be absolutely lost on the screen; you +wouldn't know he was in the picture unless his horse bucked or fell down +or something! And I don't suppose he ever has a thought beyond his work +and his little five-cent celebrations in San Bonito, maybe. Most likely +he flirts with those grimy-necked Mexican girls, too. You can't tell-- + +"And think of me being so hard up for excitement that I've got to play +he's some mysterious creature of the desert! Honest to goodness, Pat, +it's got so bad that the mere sight of a real, live man is thrilling. +When Holman Sommers comes and lifts that old Panama like a crown prince, +and smiles at me and talks about all the different periods of the human +race, and gems and tribal laws and all that highbrow dope, I just sit and +drink it in and wish he'd keep on for hours! Can you beat that? And if by +any chance a common, ordinary specimen of desert man should ride by, I +might be desperate enough--" + +Her gaze, wandering always out over the tremendous sweep of plateau which +from that point looked illimitable as the ocean, settled upon a whirlwind +that displayed method and a slow sedateness not at all in keeping with +the erratic gyrations of those gone before. Watching it wistfully with a +half-formed hope that it might not be just a dry-weather whirlwind, her +droning voice trailed off into silence. A faint beating in her throat +betrayed what it was she half hoped. She was so desperately lonesome! + +Pat tilted his head and looked up at her and licked her hand until she +drew it away impatiently. + +"Good gracious, Pat! Do you want to plaster me with germs?" she reproved. +And Pat dropped his head down upon his paws and eyed her furtively from +under his brown lids, waiting for her to repent her harshness and smooth +his head caressingly, as was her wont. + +But Helen May was watching that slow-moving column of dust, just as +she had watched the cloud which had heralded the coming into her life +of Holman Sommers. It might be--but it couldn't, for this was away +off the road. No one would be cutting straight across that hummocky +flat, unless-- + +From the desert I come to thee, +On my Arab shod with fire-- + +"Oh, I'm getting absolutely mushy!" she muttered angrily. "If I've +reached the point where I can't see a spot of dust without getting +heart-failure over it, why it's time I was shut up somewhere. What are +you lolling around me for, Pat? Go on and tend to your goats, why don't +you? And do get off my skirt!" + +Pat sprang up as though she had struck him; gave her an injured glance +that was perfectly maddening to Helen May, whose conscience was +sufficient punishment, and went slinking off down the slope. Half-way to +the band he stopped and sat down on his haunches in the hot sun, as +dejected a dog as ever was made to suffer because his mistress was +displeased with herself. + +Helen May sat there scowling out across the wide spaces, while romance +and adventure, and something more, rode steadily nearer, heralded by the +small gray cloud. When she was sure that a horseman was coming, she +perversely removed herself to another spot where she would not be seen. +And there she sat, out of sight from below and thus fancying herself +undiscovered, refusing so much as a sly glance around her granite shield. + +For if there was anything which Helen May hated more than another it was +the possibility of being thought cheaply sentimental, mushy, as the +present generation vividly puts it. Also she was trying to break herself +of humming that old desert love-song all the while. Vic was beginning to +"kid" her unmercifully about it, for one thing. To think that she should +sing it without thinking a word about it, just because she happened to +see a little dust! She would not look. She would not! + +Starr might have passed her by and gone on to the cabin if he had not, +through a pair of powerful binoculars, been observing her when she sent +Pat off, and when she got up and went over to the other ledge and sat +down. Through the glasses he had seen her feet crossed, toes up, just +past the nose of the rock, and he could see the spread of her skirt. +Luckily, he could not read her mind. He therefore gave a yank at the +lead-rope in his hand and addressed a few biting remarks to a +white-lashed, blue-eyed pinto trailing reluctantly behind Rabbit; and +rode forward with some eagerness toward the ridge. + +"'Sleep?" he greeted cheerfully, when he had forced the two horses to +scramble up to the shade of the ledge, and had received no attention +whatever from the person just beyond. The tan boots were still crossed, +and not so much as a toe of them moved to show that the owner heard him. +Starr knew that he had made noise enough, so far as that went. + +"Why, no, I'm not asleep. What is it?" came crisply, after a +perceptible pause. + +"It ain't anything at all," Starr retorted, and swung Rabbit into the +shade which Helen May had left. He dismounted, sat himself down with his +back against a rock, and proceeded to roll a cigarette. By no means +would he intrude upon the privacy of a lady, though the quiet, crossed +feet and the placid folds of the khaki skirt told him that she was +sitting there quietly--pouting about something, most likely, he diagnosed +her silence shrewdly. Well, it was early, and so long as he reached a +certain point by full dark, he was not neglecting anything. As a matter +of fact, he told himself philosophically, he really wanted to kill half a +day in a perfectly plausible manner. There was no hurry, no hurry at all. + +Pat looked back at him ingratiatingly, and Starr called. Pat came running +in long leaps, nearly wagging himself in two because someone he liked was +going to be nice to him. Starr petted him and talked to him and pulled +his ears and slapped him on the ribs, and Pat in his joy persisted in +trying to lick Starr's cheek. + +"Quit it! Lay down and be a doormat, then. You've got welcome wrote all +over you. And much as I like welcome, I hate to be licked." + +Pat lay down, and Starr eyed the tan boot toes. They moved impatiently, +but they did not uncross. Starr smiled to himself and proceeded to carry +on a one-sided conversation with Pat, and to smoke his cigarette. + +"Sick, over there?" he inquired casually after perhaps five minutes; +either of them would have sworn it ten or fifteen. + +"Why, no," chirped the crisp voice. "Why?" + +"Seemed polite to ask, is all," Starr confessed. "I didn't think you +was." He finished his smoke in the silence that followed. Then, because +he himself owned a perverse streak, he took his binoculars from their +case and began to study the low-lying ridge in the distance, in a pocket +of which nestled the Medina ranch buildings. He was glad this ridge +commanded all but the "draws" and hollows lying transversely between here +and Medina's place. It was Medina whom he had been advised by his chief +to watch particularly, when Starr had found a means of laying his clues +before that astute gentleman. If he could sit within ten feet of Helen +May while he kept an eye on that country over there, all the better. + +He saw a horseman ride up out of a hollow and disappear almost +immediately into another. The man seemed to be coming over in this +direction, though Starr could not be sure. He watched for a reappearance +of the rider on high ground, but he saw no more of the fellow. So after a +little he took down the glasses to scan the country as a whole. + +It was then that he glanced toward the other rock and saw that the tan +boots had moved out of sight. He believed that he would have heard her if +she moved away, and so he kept his eyes turned upon the corner of the +rock where her feet had shown a few minutes before. + + + + +CHAPTER FOURTEEN + +A SHOT FROM THE PINNACLE + + +"Why--did some one come with you, Mr. Starr? I thought you were alone." + +Starr turned his head and saw Helen May standing quite close, on the +other side of him. She was glancing inquiringly from him to the pinto +pony, and she was smiling the least little bit, though her eyes had a +shamed, self-conscious look. Starr eyed her keenly, a bit reproachfully, +and she blushed. + +"I thought maybe you'd come around where I was," she defended herself +lamely. "It--seemed cooler there--" + +"Yes, I noticed it was pretty cool, from the tone of your voice." + +"Well--oh, I was just nursing a grouch, and I couldn't stop all at once," +Helen May surrendered suddenly, sitting down beside him and crossing her +feet. "I've read in stories how sheepherders go crazy, and I know now +just why that is. They see so few people that they don't know how to act +when some one does come along. They get so they hate themselves and +everybody else. I had just finished abusing poor old Pat till he went +off and sulked too." + +"I thought probably you and Pat had just had a run-in, the way he acted." +Starr went back to scanning that part of the mesa where he had glimpsed +the rider. He could not afford to forget business in the pleasure of +talking aimless, trivial things with Helen May. + +"What are you looking for?" + +"Stock," said Starr, falling back on the standard excuse of the +range man. + +"And _what's_ the idea of two saddle-horses and two saddles and two +bridles?" Helen May's voice was as simply curious as a child's. + +"The idea is that you're going to ride instead of walk from now on. It's +an outfit I got from a fellow that was leaving. He borrowed money from me +and left his horse and saddle, for a kind of security. I didn't want it, +but he had to leave 'em somewhere. So I thought you might as well keep +the horse and use it till he comes back, or something." Starr did very +well with this explanation; much better than he had done in explaining +Pat. The truth was that he had bought the horse for the express purpose +of giving it to Helen May; just as he had bought the dog. + +Helen May studied his face while he studied the distant plain. She +thought he acted as though he didn't care much whether she kept the +horse or not, and for that reason, and because his explanation had +sounded like truth, she hesitated over refusing the offer, though she +felt that she ought to refuse. + +"It ain't right for you to be out here afoot," said Starr, as though he +had read her thoughts. "It's bad enough for you to be here at all. What +ever possessed you to do such a crazy thing, anyhow?" + +"Well, sometimes people can't choose. Dad got the notion first. And +then--when he died--Vic and I just went ahead with it." + +"Did he know anything about this country? Did he know--what chances you'd +be taking?" Starr was trying to choose his words so that they would +impress her without alarming her. It angered him to have to worry over +the girl's welfare and to keep that worry to himself. + +"What chances, for gracious sake? I never saw such a mild, perfectly +monotonous life. Why, there are more chances in Los Angeles every time a +person goes down town. It's deadly dull here, and it's too lonesome for +words, and I hate it. But as for taking chances--" Her voice was frankly +contemptuous of the idea. + +"Chances of going broke. It takes experience--" + +"Oh, as to that, it's partly a matter of health," said Helen May +lightly. "I have to live where the climate--" + +"You could live in Albuquerque, or some other live town; close to it, +anyway. You don't have to stick away down here, where--" + +"I don't see as it matters. So long as it isn't Los Angeles, no place +appeals to me. And dad had bought the improvements here, so--" + +"I'll pay you for the improvements, if that's all," Starr said shortly. + +Helen May laughed. "That sounds exactly as though you want to get me out +of the country," she challenged. + +Starr did not rise to the bait. He took another long look for the +horseman, saw not so much as a flurry of dust, and slid the glasses into +their case. + +"I brought out that carbine I was speaking about. And the shells that go +with it. I'm kind of a gun fiend, I guess. I'm always accumulating a lot +of shooting irons I never use. I run across a six-shooter and belt, too. +Come here, Rabbit!" + +Rabbit came, and Starr untied the weapons, smiling boyishly. "You may as +well be using 'em; they'll only rust, kicking around in the shack. Buckle +this around you. I punched another hole or two, so the belt would come +within a mile or so of fitting. You want to wear that every time you go +out on the range. The time you leave it home is the very time when you'll +see a coyote or something. + +"And if you expect to get rich in the goat business, you never want to +pass up a coyote. There's a bounty on 'em, for one thing, because they do +lots of damage among sheep and goats. And for another," he added +impressively, "the rabies that's been epidemic on the Coast is spreading. +You've maybe read about it. A rabid coyote would come right at you, and +you know the consequences. Or it would bite Pat, and then Pat would +tackle you." + +"Oh!" Helen May had turned a sickly shade. Her eyes went anxiously over +the slope as though she half expected something of the sort to happen +then and there. + +"That's why," said Starr solemnly, looking down into her face, "I'm kinda +worried about you ranging around afoot and without a gun--" + +"But nobody else has even mentioned--" + +"Everybody else goes prepared, and they're inclined to take chances as a +matter of course. I reckon they think you know all about rabies being in +the country. This has always been a scrappy kinda place, remember, and +folks are used to packing guns and using 'em when the case demands it. +You wear this six-gun, lady, and keep your eyes open from now on. I've +got another one for Vic; an automatic. Now we'll go down here in the +shade and practice shooting. I brought plenty of shells, and I want to +learn you how to handle a gun." + +Silently she followed him down the slope on the side toward the Basin. He +stopped beside the pinto, took it by the bridle-reins and, whipping out +his gun, fired it once to test the horse. The pinto twitched its ears at +the sound and looked at Starr. Starr laughed. + +"I'll learn you to shoot from horseback," he called back to Helen May. +"He's broke to it, I can see now." + +"Oh, I wonder if I could! Don't tell Vic, will you? I'd like to take +him by surprise. Boys are so conceited and self-sufficient! You'd +think Vic was my grandfather, the way he lords it over me. First of +all, what is the right way to get on a horse? I wish you'd teach me +about riding, too." + +This sort of instruction grew absorbing to both. Before either guessed +how the time had flown, the sun stood straight overhead; and Pat, +standing in front of her with an expectant look in his eyes and an +occasional wag of his stubby tail, reminded Helen May that it was time +for lunch. They had used almost a full box of shells, and Helen May had +succeeded in shooting from the back of the pinto and in hitting a certain +small hummock of pure sand twice in six shots. She was tremendously +proud of the feat, and she took no pains to conceal her pride. She wanted +to start in on another box of shells, but Pat's eyes were so reproachful, +and her sense of hospitality was so urgent that she decided to wait until +they had eaten the lunch she had brought with her. + +The rocks which had cast a shadow were now baking in the glare, and the +sand where Helen May and Starr had sat was radiating heat waves. Starr +took another long look down toward Medina's ranch through his field +glasses, while Helen May went to find a comfortable bit of shade. + +"If you'll come over this way, Mr. Starr," she called abruptly, "I'll +give you a sandwich. It's hot everywhere to-day, but this is a little +better than out in the sun." + +Starr took the glasses down from his eyes and let them dangle by their +cord while he walked over the nose of the ridge to where she was +waiting for him. + +Half-way there, a streak of fire seemed to sear his arm near his +shoulder. Starr knew the feeling well enough. He staggered and went +down headlong in a clump of greasewood, and at the same instant the +report of a rifle came clearly from the high pinnacle at the head of +Sunlight Basin. + +Helen May came running, her face white with horror, for she had seen +Starr fall just as the sound of the shot came to tell her why. She did +not cry out, but she rushed to where he lay half concealed in the bushes. +When she came near him, she stopped short. For Starr was lying on his +stomach with his head up and elbows in the sand, steadying the glasses to +his eyes that he might search that pinnacle. + +"W-what made you fall down like that?" Helen May cried exasperatedly. +"I--I thought you were shot!" + +"I am, to a certain extent," Starr told her unconcernedly. "Kneel down +here beside me and act scared, will you? And in a minute I want you to +climb on the pinto and ride around behind them rocks and wait for me. +Take Rabbit with you. Act like you was going for help, or was scared +and running away from a corpse. You get me? I'll crawl over there after +a little." + +"W-why? Are you hurt so you can't walk?" + +Helen May did not have to act; she was scared quite enough for +Starr's purpose. + +"Oh, I could walk, but walking ain't healthy right now. Jump up now and +climb your horse like you was expecting to ride him down to a whisper. Go +on--beat it. And when you get outa sight of the pinnacle, stay outa +sight. Run!" + +There were several questions which Helen May wanted to ask, but she only +gave him a hasty, imploring glance which Starr did not see at all, since +his eyes were focussed on the pinnacle. She ran to the pinto and scared +him so that he jumped away from her. Starr heard and glanced impatiently +back at her. He saw that she had managed to get the reins and was +mounting with all the haste and all the awkwardness he could possibly +expect of her, and he grinned and returned to his scrutiny of the peak. + +Whatever he saw he kept to himself; but presently he began to wriggle +backward, keeping the greasewood clump, and afterwards certain rocks and +little ridges, between himself and a view of the point he had fixed upon +as the spot where the shooter had stood. + +When he had rounded the first rock ledge he got up and looked for Helen +May, and found her standing a couple of rods off, watching him anxiously. +He smiled reassuringly at her while he dusted his trousers with the flat +of his hands. + +"Fine and dandy," he said. "Whoever took a pot-shot at me thinks he got +me first crack. See? Now listen, lady. That maybe was some herder out +gunning for coyotes, and maybe he was gunning for me. I licked a herder +that ranges over that way, and he maybe thought he'd play even. But +anyway, don't say anything about it to anybody, will you. I kinda--" + +"Why not? If he shot at you, he wanted to kill you. And that's murder; he +ought to be--" + +"Now, you know you said yourself that herders go crazy. I don't want to +get the poor boob into trouble. Let's not say anything about it. I've got +to go now; I've stayed longer than I meant to, as it is. Have Vic put +that halter that's on the saddle on the pinto, and tie the rope to it and +let it drag. He won't go away, and you can catch him without any bother. +If Vic don't know how to set the saddle, you take notice just how it's +fixed when you take it off. I meant to show you how, but I can't stop +now. And don't go anywhere, not even to the mail box, without Pat or your +six-gun, or both. Come here, Rabbit, you old scoundrel! + +"I wish I could stay," he added, swinging up to the saddle and looking +down at her anxiously. "Don't let Vic monkey with that automatic till I +come and show him how to use it. I--" + +"You said you were shot," said Helen May, staring at him enigmatically +from under her lashes. "Are you?" + +"Not much; burnt a streak on my arm, nothing to bother about. Now +remember and don't leave your gun--" + +"I don't believe it was because you licked a herder. What made somebody +shoot at you? Was it--on account of Pat?" + +"Pat? No, I don't see what the dog would have to do with it. It was some +half-baked herder, shooting maybe because he heard us shoot and thought +we was using him for a target. You can't," Starr declared firmly, "tell +what fool idea they'll get into their heads. It was our shooting, most +likely. Now I must go. Adios, I'll see yuh before long." + +"Well, but what--" + +Helen May found herself speaking to the scenery. Starr was gone with +Rabbit at a sliding trot down the slope that kept the ridge between him +and the pinnacle. She stood staring after him blankly, her hat askew on +the back of her head, and her lips parted in futile astonishment. She did +not in the least realize just what Starr's extreme caution had meant. She +had no inkling of the real gravity of the situation, for her ignorance of +the lawless possibilities of that big, bare country insulated her against +understanding. + +What struck her most forcibly was the cool manner in which he had ordered +her to act a part, and the unhesitating manner in which she had obeyed +him. He ordered her about, she thought, as though he had a right; and she +obeyed as though she recognized that right. + +She watched him as long as he was in sight, and tried to guess where he +was going and what he meant to do, and what was his business--what he did +for a living. He must be a rancher, since he had said he was looking for +stock; but it was queer he had never told her where his ranch lay, or how +far off it was, or anything about it. + +After a little it occurred to her that Starr would want the man who had +shot at him to think she had left that neighborhood, so she called to +Pat and had him drive the goats around where they could not be seen from +the pinnacle. + +Then she sat down and ate her sandwiches thoughtfully, with long, +meditative intervals between bites. She regarded the pinto curiously, +wondering if Starr had really taken him as security for a debt, and +wishing that she had asked him what its name was. It was queer, the way +he rode up unexpectedly every few days, always bringing something he +thought she needed, and seeming to take it for granted that she would +accept everything he offered. It was much queerer that she did accept +everything without argument or hesitation. For that matter, everything +that concerned Starr was queer, from Helen May's point of view. + + + + +CHAPTER FIFTEEN + +HELEN MAY UNDERSTANDS + + +Pat, lying at her feet and licking his lips contentedly after his bone +and the crusts of her sandwich, raised his head suddenly and rumbled a +growl somewhere deep in his chest. His upper lip lifted and showed his +teeth wickedly, and the hair on the back of his neck stood out in a ruff +that made him look a different dog. + +Helen May felt a cold shiver all up and down her spine. She had never +seen Pat, nor any other dog for that matter, look like that. It was much +more terrifying than that mysterious shot which had effected Starr so +strangely. Pat was staring directly behind her, and his eyes had a +greenish tinge in the iris, and the white part was all pink and +bloodshot. Helen May thought he must have rabies or something; or else a +rabid coyote was up on the ridge behind her. She wanted to scream, but +she was afraid; she was afraid to look behind her, even. + +Pat got up and stood digging his toe nails into the earth in the most +horribly suggestive way imaginable. The green light in his eyes +terrified her. His ruff bristled bigger on his neck. He looked ready to +spring at something. Helen May was too scared to move so much as a +finger. She waited, and her heart began beating so hard in her throat +that it nearly suffocated her. She never once thought of the six-shooter +which Starr had given her. She did not think of anything, except that a +rabid coyote was right behind her, and in a minute Pat would jump at it, +if it did not first jump at her! And then Pat would be bitten, and would +go mad and bite her and Vic, and they'd all die horribly of hydrophobia. + +"Ah--is this a modern, dramatic version of Beauty and the Beast? If so, +it is a masterpiece in depicting perfect repose on the part of Beauty, +while the Beast vivifies the protective instinct of the stronger toward +the weaker. Speaking in the common parlance, if you will call off your +dog, Miss Stevenson, I might be persuaded to venture within hand-shaking +distance." A little laugh, that was much more humorous than the words, +followed the speech. + +Helen May felt as though she were going to faint. "Pat!" she tried to say +admonishingly; but her voice was a weak whisper that did not carry ten +feet. She pulled herself together and tried again. "Pat, lie down!" + +Pat turned his bead a trifle and sent her a tolerant glance, but the +hair did not lie down on his neck, and the growl did not cease to rumble +in his throat. + +"Pat!" Helen May began to recover a little from the reaction. "Come here +to me! I--don't think he'll bite you, Mr. Sommers. It's--it's only +Mexicans that he's supposed to hate. I--I didn't know it was you." + +Holman Sommers, being careful to keep a safe distance between himself and +Pat, came around to where he could see her face. "As a matter of fact," +he began, "it's really my sister who came to visit you. Your brother +informed us that you were out here, and I came to tell you. Why, did I +frighten you so badly, Miss Stevenson? Your face is absolutely colorless. +What did I do to so terrify you? I surely never intended--" His eyes were +remorseful as he stood and looked at her. + +"It was just the way Pat acted. I--I'd been hearing about rabid coyotes, +and I thought one was behind me, Pat acted so queer. Lie down, Pat!" + +Holman Sommers spoke to the dog ingratiatingly, but Pat did not exhibit +any tail-wagging desire for friendly acquaintance. He slunk over to +Helen May and flattened himself on his belly with his nose on his paws, +and his eyes, that still showed greenish lights and bloodshot whites, +fixed on the man. + +"It may be," said Sommers judgmatically, "that he has been taught to +resent strangers coming in close proximity to the animals he has in +charge. A great many dogs are so trained, and are therefore in no wise to +blame for exhibiting a certain degree of ferocity. The canine mind is +wholly lacking in the power of deduction, its intelligence consisting +rather of a highly developed instinctive faculty for retaining +impressions which invariably express themselves in some concrete form +such as hate, fear, joy, affection and like primitive emotions. Pat, for +instance, has been taught to regard strangers as interlopers. He +therefore resents the presence of all strangers, and has no mental +faculty for distinguishing between strangers, as such, and actual +intruders whose presence is essentially undesirable." + +Helen May gave a little, half-hysterical laugh, and Holman Sommers looked +at her keenly, as a doctor sometimes looks at a patient. + +"I am intensely sorry that my coming frightened you," he said gently. +Then he laughed. "I am also deeply humiliated at the idea of being +mistaken, in the broad light of midday, for a rabid coyote. May I ask +just wherein lies the resemblance?" + +Helen May looked at him, saw the dancing light in his eyes and a mirthful +quirk of his lips, and blushed while she smiled. + +"It's just that I happened to be thinking about them," she said, +instinctively belittling her fear. "And then I never saw Pat act the way +he's acting now." + +Holman Sommers regarded the dog with the same keen, studying look he had +given Helen May. Pat did not take it as calmly, however, as Helen May had +done. Pat lifted his upper lip again and snarled with an extremely +concrete depiction of the primitive emotion, hate. + +"There _are_ such things as rabid coyotes, aren't there? Just--do you +know how they act, and how a person could tell when something has caught +the disease from them?" + +"I think I may safely assert that there undoubtedly are rabid coyotes in +the country. As a matter of fact, and speaking relatively, they have +been, and probably still are, somewhat of a menace to stock running +abroad without a herder amply provided with the means of protecting his +charge. At the same time I may point with pardonable pride to the +concerted action of both State and Stock Association to rid the country +of these pests. So far we feel highly gratified at the success which has +attended our efforts. I gravely doubt whether you would now find, in this +whole county, a single case of infection. But on the other hand, I could +not, of course, venture to state unqualifiedly that there may not be +certain isolated cases--" + +"Pat! Do stop that growling! What ails you, anyway? I never saw him act +that way before. I wonder if he could possibly be--" She looked at +Sommers questioningly. + +"Infected?" he finished for her understandingly. "As a matter of fact, +that may be possible, though I should not consider it altogether +probable. Since the period of incubation varies from three weeks to six +months, as in man, the dog may possibly have been infected before coming +into your possession. If that were true, you would have no means of +discovering the fact until he exhibits certain premonitory symptoms, +which may or may not form in themselves conclusive evidence of the +presence of the disease." + +Helen May got up from the rock and moved away, eyeing Pat suspiciously. +Pat got up and followed her, keeping a watchful eye on Sommers. + +"What are the symptoms, for gracious sake?" she demanded fretfully, +worried beyond caring how she chose her words for Holman Sommers. "His +eyes look queer, don't you think?" + +"Since you ask me, and since the subject is not one to be dismissed +lightly, I will say that I have been studying the dog's attitude with +some slight measure of concern," Holman Sommers admitted guardedly. "The +suffused eyeball is sometimes found in the premonitory stage of the +disease, after incubation has progressed to a certain degree. Also +irritability, nervousness, and depression are apt to be present. Has the +dog exhibited any tendency toward sluggishness, Miss Stevenson?" + +"Well, he's been lying around most of the time to-day," Helen May +confessed, staring at Pat apprehensively. "Of course, there hasn't been +anything much for him to do. But he certainly does act queer, just since +you came." + +Holman Sommers spoke with the prim decision of a teacher instructing a +class, but that seemed to be only his way, and Helen May was growing used +to it. "His evidencing a tendency toward sluggishness to-day, and his +subsequent irritability, may or may not be significant of an abnormality. +If, however, the dog progresses to the stage of hyperaesthesia, and the +muscles of deglutition become extremely rigid, so that he cannot swallow, +convulsions will certainly follow. There will also appear in the mouth +and throat a secretion of thick, viscid mucus, with thickened saliva, +which will be an undubitable proof of rabies." + +Having thus innocently damned poor Pat with the suspicion of a dreadful +malady, Sommers made a scientific attempt to soothe Helen May's fears. +He advised, with many words and much kind intent, that Pat be muzzled +until the "hyperaesthesia" did or did not develop. Helen May thought that +the terribly-termed symptoms might develop before they could get a muzzle +from town, but she did not like to say so. + +Partly to be hospitable, and partly to get away from Pat, she mounted the +pinto, told Pat to watch the goats, and rode down to the house to see +Martha Sommers. She did not anticipate any pleasure in the visit, much as +she had longed for the sound of a woman's voice. She was really worried +half to death over Starr, and the rabies, and Pat, and the nagging +consciousness that she had not accomplished as much copying of manuscript +as Holman Sommers probably expected. + +She did not hear half of what Sommers was saying on the way to the cabin. +His very amiability jarred upon her nervous depression. She had always +liked him, and respected his vast learning, but to-day she certainly did +not get much comfort out of his converse. She wondered why she had been +so light-hearted while Starr was with her showing her how to shoot, and +lecturing her about the danger of going gunless abroad; and why she was +so perfectly dejected when Holman Sommers talked to her about the very +same thing. Starr had certainly painted things blacker than Holman had +done, but it did not seem to have the same effect. + +"I don't see what we're going to do for a muzzle," she launched suddenly +into the middle of Holman Sommers' scientific explanation of mirages. + +"Vic can undoubtedly construct one out of an old strap," Holman Sommers +retorted impatiently, and went on discoursing about refraction and +reflection and the like. + +Helen May tried to follow him, and gave it up. When they were +almost to the spring she again unwittingly jarred Holman Sommers +out of his subject. + +"Did all those words you used mean that Pat will foam at the mouth like +mad dogs you read about?" she asked abruptly. + +Holman Sommers, tramping along beside the pinto, looked at her queerly. +"If Pat does not, I strongly suspect that I shall," he told her +weightily, but with a twinkle in his eyes. "I have been endeavoring, Miss +Stevenson, to wean your thoughts away from so unhappy a subject. Why +permit yourself to be worried? The thing will happen, or it will not +happen. If it does happen, you will be powerless to prevent. If it does +not, you will have been anxious over a chimera of the imagination." + +"Chimera of the imagination is a good line," laughed Helen May +flippantly. "All the same, if Pat is going to gallop all over the +scenery, foaming at the mouth and throwing fits at the sight of water--" + +"As a matter of fact," Holman Sommers was beginning again in his most +instructive tone, when a whoop from the spring interrupted him. + +Vic had hobbled obligingly down there to get cool water for the plump +lady who was Holman Sommers' sister, and he had nearly stepped on a +sleepy rattler stretched out in the sun. Vic was making a collection of +rattles. He had one set, so far, of five rattles and a "button." He +wanted to get these which were buzzing stridently enough for three +snakes, it seemed to Vic. He was hopping around on his good foot and +throwing rocks; and the snake, having retreated to a small heap of loose +cobblestones, was thrusting his head out in vicious little striking +gestures, and keeping the scaly length of him bidden. + +"Wait a minute, I'll get him, Vic," called Helen May, suddenly anxious to +show off her newly acquired skill with firearms. Starr had told her that +lots of people killed rattlesnakes by shooting their heads off. She +wanted to try it, anyway, and show Vic a thing or two. So she rode up as +close as she dared, though the pinto shied away from the ominous sound; +pulled her pearl-handled six-shooter from its holster, aimed, and fired +at the snake's head. + +You have heard, no doubt, of "fool's luck." Helen May actually tore the +whole top off that rattlesnake's head (though I may as well say right +here that she never succeeded in shooting another snake) and rode +nonchalantly on to the cabin as though she had done nothing at all +unusual, but smiling to herself at Vic's slack-jawed amazement at seeing +her on horseback, with a gun and such uncanny skill in the use of it. + +She felt better after that, and she rather enjoyed the plump sister of +Holman Sommers. The plump sister called him Holly, and seemed to be +inordinately proud of his learning and inordinately fond of nagging at +him over little things. She was what Helen May called a vegetable type of +woman. She did not seem to have any great emotions in her make-up. She +sat in the one rocking-chair under the mesquite tree and crocheted lace +and talked comfortably about Holly and her chickens in the same breath, +and frankly admired Helen May's "spunk" in living out alone like that. + +"Don't overlook Vic, though," Helen May put in generously. "I honestly +don't believe I could stand it without Vic." + +The plump sister seemed unimpressed. "In this country," she said with a +certain snug positiveness that was the keynote of her personality, "it's +the women that have the courage. They wouldn't be here if they didn't +have. Think how close we are to the Mexican border, for instance. +Anything that is horrible to woman can come out of Mexico. Not that I +look down on them over there," she added, with a complacent tolerance in +her tone. "They are victims of the System that has kept them degraded and +ignorant. But until they are lifted up and educated and raised to our +standards they are bad. + +"You can't get around it, Holly, those ignorant Mexicans are _bad_!" She +had lifted her eyes accusingly to where Holman Sommers sat on the ground +with his knees drawn up and his old Panama hat hung upon them. He was +smoking a pipe, and he did not remove it from his mouth; but Helen May +saw that amused quirk of the lips just the same. + +"You can't get around it. You know it as well as I do," she reiterated. +"Cannibals are worth saving, but before they are saved they are liable to +eat the missionary. And it's the same thing with your Mexicans. You want +to educate them and raise them to your standards, and that's all right as +far as it goes. But in the meantime they're bad. And if Miss Stevenson +wasn't such a good shot, I wouldn't be able to sleep nights, thinking of +her living up here alone, with just a boy for protection." + +"Why, I never heard of such a thing as any danger from Mexicans!" Helen +May looked inquiringly from plump sister to cynical brother. + +"Well, you needn't wonder at Holly not telling you," said the plump +sister,--her name was Maggie. "Holly's a fool about some things. Holly +is trying the Uplift, and he shuts his eyes to things that don't fit in +with his theories. If you've copied much of that stuff he's been +writing, you ought to know how impractical he is. Holly's got his head +in the clouds, and he won't look at what's right under his feet." Again +she looked reproof at Holly, and again Holly's lips quirked around the +stem end of his pipe. + +"You just keep your eyes open, Miss Stevenson," she admonished, in a +purring, comfortable voice. "I ain't afraid, myself, because I've got +Holly and my cousin Todd, when he's at home. And besides, Holly's always +doing missionary stunts, and the Mexicans like him because he'll let them +rob him right and left and come back and take what they forgot the first +time, and Holly won't do a thing to them. But you don't want to take any +chances, away off here like you are. You lock your door good at night, +and you sleep with a gun under your pillow. And don't go off anywhere +alone. My, even with a gun you ain't any too safe!" + +Helen May gave a gasp. But Holman Sommers laughed outright--an easy, +chuckling laugh that partly reassured her. "Danger is Maggie's favorite +joke," he said tolerantly. "As a matter of fact, and speaking from a +close, personal knowledge of the people hereabouts, I can assure you, +Miss Stevenson, that you are in no danger whatever from the source my +sister indicates." + +"Well, but Holly, I've said it, and I'll say it again; you can't tell +_what_ may come up out of Mexico." Plump Maggie rolled up her lace and +jabbed the ball decisively with the crochet hook, "We'll have to go now, +or the chickens will be wondering where their supper is coming from. You +do what I say, and lock your doors at night, and have your gun handy, +Miss Stevenson. Things may look calm enough on the surface, but they +ain't, I can tell you that!" + +"Woman, cease!" cried Holly banteringly, while he dusted his baggy +trousers with his palms. "Miss Stevenson will be haunted by nightmares if +you keep on." + +Once they were gone, Helen May surrendered weakly to one fear, to the +extent that she let Vic take the carbine and the pinto and ride over to +where she had left Pat and the goats, for the simple reason that she +dreaded to face alone that much maligned dog. Vic, to be sure, would have +quarreled with her if necessary, to get a ride on the pinto, and he was a +good deal astonished at Helen May's sweet consideration of a boy's +hunger for a horse. But she tempered his joy a bit by urging him to keep +an eye on Pat, who had been acting very queer. + +"He kept ruining up his back and showing his teeth at Mr. Sommers," she +explained nervously. "If he does it when you go, Vic, and if he foams at +the mouth, you'd better shoot him before he bites something. If a mad dog +bites you, you'll get hydrophobia, and bark and growl like a dog, and +have fits and die." + +"G-oo-d _night_!" Vic ejaculated fervently, and went loping awkwardly +down the trail past the spring. + +That left Helen May alone and free to think about the horrors that might +come up out of Mexico, and about the ignorant Mexicans who, until they +are uplifted, are bad. It seemed strange that, if this were true, Starr +had never mentioned the danger. And yet-- + +"I'll bet anything that's just what Starr-of-the-Desert did mean!" she +exclaimed aloud, her eyes fixed intently on the toes of her scuffed +boots. "He just didn't want to scare me too much and make me suspicious +of everybody that came along, and so he talked mad coyotes at me. But it +was Mexicans he meant; I'll bet anything it was!" + +If that was what Starr meant, then the shot from the pinnacle, and +Starr's crafty, Indian-like method of getting away unseen, took on a +new and sinister meaning. Helen May shivered at the thought of Starr +riding away in search of the man who had tried to kill him, and of the +risk he must be taking. And what if the fellow came back, sneaking back +in the dark, and tried to get in the house, or something? It surely was +lucky that Starr-of-the-Desert had just happened to bring those guns. + +But had he just _happened_ to bring them? Helen May was not stupid, even +if she were ignorant of certain things she ought to know, living out +alone in the wild. She began to see very clearly just what Starr had +meant; just how far he had _happened_ to have extra guns in his shack, +and had just _happened_ to get hold of a horse that she and Vic could +use; and the dog, too, that hated Mexicans! + +"That's why he hates to have me stay on the claim!" she deduced at last. +"Only he just wouldn't tell me right out that it isn't safe. That's what +he meant by asking if dad knew the chances I'd have to take. Well, dad +didn't know, but after the price dad paid, why--I've got to stay, and +make good. There's no sense in being a coward about it. Starr wouldn't +want me to be a coward. He's just scheming around to make it as safe as +he can, without making me cowardly." + +A slow, half-tender smile lit her chestnut-tinted eyes, and tilted her +lips at the corners. "Oh, you desert man o' mine, I see through you +now!" she said under her breath, and kept on smiling afterwards, since +there was not a soul near to guess her thoughts. "Desert man o' mine" +was going pretty strong, if you stop to think of it; but Helen May would +have died--would have lied--would have gone to any lengths to keep Starr +from guessing she had ever thought such a thing about him. That was the +woman of her. + +The woman of her it was too that kept her dwelling pleasedly on Starr's +shy, protective regard for her, instead of watching the peaks in fear and +trembling lest another bad, un-uplifted Mexican should be watching a +chance to send another bullet zipping down into the Basin on its mission +of wanton wickedness. + + + + +CHAPTER SIXTEEN + +STARR SEES TOO LITTLE OR TOO MUCH + + +Carefully skirting the ridge where Helen May had her goats; keeping +always in the gulches and never once showing himself on high ground, +Starr came after a while to a point where he could look up to the +pinnacle behind Sunlight Basin, from the side opposite the point where +he had wriggled away behind a bush. He left Rabbit hidden in a +brush-choked arroyo that meandered away to the southwest, and began +cautiously to climb. + +Starr did not expect to come upon his man on the peak; indeed he would +have been surprised to find the fellow still there. But that peak was as +good as any for reconnoitering the surrounding country, was higher than +any other within several miles, in fact. What he did hope was to pick up +with his glasses the man's line of retreat after a deed he must believe +successfully accomplished. And there might be some betraying sign there +that would give him a clue. + +There was always the possibility, however, that the fellow had lingered +to see what took place after the supposed killing. He must believe that +the girl who had been with Starr would take some action, and he might +want to know to a certainty what that action was. So Starr went +carefully, keeping behind boulders and rugged outcroppings and in the +bottom of deep, water-worn washes when nothing else served. He did not +think the fellow, even if he stayed on the peak, would be watching behind +him, but Starr did not take any chances, and climbed rather slowly. + +He reached the summit at the left of where the man had stood when he +shot; very close to the spot where Helen May had stood and looked upon +Vic and the goats and the country she abhorred. Starr saw her tracks +there in a sheltered place beside a rock and knew that she had been up +there, though in that dry soil he could not, of course, tell when. When +that baked soil takes an imprint, it is apt to hold it for a long while +unless rain or a real sand-storm blots it out. + +He hid there for a few minutes, craning as much as he dared to see if +there were any sign of the man he wanted. In a little he left that spot +and crept, foot by foot, over to the cairn, the "sheepherder's monument," +behind which the fellow had stood. There again he found the prints of +Helen May's small, mountain boots, prints which he had come to know very +well. And close to them, looking as though the two had stood together, +were the larger, deeper tracks of a man. + +Starr dared not rise and stand upright. He must keep always under cover +from any chance spying from below. He could not, therefore, trace the +footprints down the peak. But he got some idea of the man's direction +when he left, and he knew, of course, where to find Helen May. He did not +connect the two in his mind, beyond registering clearly in his memory the +two sets of tracks. + +He crept closer to the Basin side of the peak and looked down, following +an impulse he did not try to analyze. Certainly he did not expect to see +any one, unless it were Vic, so he had a little shock of surprise when he +saw Helen May riding the pinto up past the spring, with a man walking +beside her and glancing up frequently into her face. Starr was human; I +have reminded you several times how perfectly human he was. He +immediately disliked that man. When he heard faintly the tones of Helen +May's laugh, he disliked the man more. + +He got down, with his head and his arms--the left one was lame in +the biceps--above a rock. He made sure that the sun had swung around +so it would not shine on the lenses and betray him by any +heliographic reflection, and focussed his glasses upon the two. He +saw as well as heard Helen May laugh, and he scowled over it. But +mostly he studied the man. + +"All right for you, old boy," he muttered. "I don't know who the devil +you are, but I don't like your looks." Which shows how human jealousy +will prejudice a man. + +He saw Vic throwing rocks at something which he judged was a snake, and +he saw Helen May rein the pinto awkwardly around, "square herself for +action," as Starr would have styled it, and fire. By her elation; +artfully suppressed, by the very carelessness with which she shoved the +gun in its holster, he knew that she had hit whatever she shot at. He +caught the tones of Holman Sommers' voice praising her, and he hated the +tones. He watched them come on up to the little house, where they +disappeared at the end where the mesquite tree grew. Sitting in the shade +there, talking, he guessed they were doing, and for some reason he +resented it. He saw Vic lift a rattlesnake up by its tail, and heard him +yell that it had six rattles, and the button was missing. + +After that Starr turned his hack on the Basin and began to search +scowlingly the plain. He tried to pull his mind away from Helen May and +her visitor and to fix it upon the would-be assassin. He believed that +the horseman he had seen earlier in the day might be the one, and he +looked for him painstakingly, picking out all the draws, all the dry +washes and arroyos of that vicinity. The man would keep under cover, of +course, in making his getaway. He would not ride across a ridge if he +could help it, any more than would Starr. + +Even so, from that height Starr could look down into many of the deep +places. In one of them he caught sight of a horseman picking his way +carefully along the boulder-strewn bottom. The man's back was toward him, +but the general look of him was Mexican. The horse was bay with a rusty +black tail, but there were in New Mexico thousands of bay horses with +black tails, so there was nothing gained there. The rider seemed to be +making toward Medina's ranch, though that was only a guess, since the +arroyo he was following led in that direction at that particular place. +Later it took a sharp turn to the south, and the rider went out of sight +before Starr got so much as a glimpse at his features. + +He watched for a few minutes longer, sweeping his glasses slowly to +right and left. He took another look down into the Basin and saw no one +stirring, that being about the time when the plump sister was rolling +up her fancy work and tapering off her conversation to the point of +making her adieu. Starr did not watch long enough for his own peace of +mind. Five more minutes would have brought the plump one into plain +view with her brother and Helen May, and would have identified Holman +Sommers as the escort of a lady caller. But those five minutes Starr +spent in crawling back down the peak on the side farthest from the +Basin, leaving Holman Sommers sticking in his mind with the unpleasant +flavor of mystery. + +He mounted Rabbit again and made a detour of several miles so that he +might come up on the ridge behind Medina's without running any risk of +crossing the trail of the men he wanted to watch. About two o'clock he +stopped at a shallow, brackish stream and let Rabbit rest and feed for an +hour while Starr himself climbed another rocky pinnacle and scanned the +country between there and Medina's. + +The gate that let one off the main road and into the winding trail which +led to the house stood out in plain view at the mouth of a shallow draw. +This was not the trail which led out from the home ranch toward San +Bonito, where Starr had been going when he saw the track of the +mysterious automobile, but the trail one would take in going from +Medina's to Malpais. The ranch house itself stood back where the draw +narrowed, but the yellow-brown trail ribboned back from the gate in +plain view. + +Here again Starr was fated to get a glimpse and no more. He focussed his +glasses on the main road first; picked up the Medina branch to the gate, +followed the trail on up the draw, and again he picked up a man riding a +bay horse. And just as he was adjusting his lenses for a sharper clarity +of vision, the horse trotted around a bend and disappeared from sight. + +Starr swore, but that did not bring the man back down the trail. Starr +was not at all sure that this was the same man he had seen in the draw, +and he was not sure that either was the man who had shot at him. But +roosting on that heat-blistered pinnacle swearing about the things he +didn't know struck him as a profitless performance, so he climbed down, +got into the saddle again, and rode on. + +He reached the granite ridge back of Medina's about four o'clock in the +afternoon. He was tired, for he had been going since daylight, and for a +part of the time at least he had been going on foot, climbing the steep, +rocky sides of peaks for the sake of what he might see from the top, and +then climbing down again for sake of what some one else might see if he +stayed too long. His high-heeled riding boots that Helen May so greatly +admired were very good-looking and very comfortable when he had them +stuck into stirrups to the heel. But they had never been built for +walking. Therefore his feet ached abominably. And there was the heat, the +searing, dry heat of midsummer in the desert country. He was dog tired, +and he was depressed because he had not seemed able to accomplish +anything with all his riding and all his scanning of the country. + +He climbed slowly the last, brown granite ridge, the ridge behind Estan +Medina's house. He would watch the place and see what was going on there. +Then, he supposed he should go back and watch _Las Nuevas_, though his +chief seemed to think that he had discovered enough there for their +purposes. He had sent on the pamphlets, and he knew that when the time +was right, _Las Nuevas_ would be muzzled with a postal law and, he +hazarded, a seizure of their mail. + +What he had to do now was to find the men who were working in conjunction +with _Las Nuevas_; who were taking the active part in organizing and in +controlling the Mexican Alliance. So far he had not hit upon the real +leaders, and he knew it, and in his weariness was oppressed with a sense +of failure. They might better have left him in Texas, he told himself +glumly. They sure had drawn a blank when they drew him into the Secret +Service, because he had accomplished about as much as a pup trying to run +down a coyote. + +A lizard scuttled out of his way, when he crawled between two boulders +that would shield him from sight unless a man walked right up on him +where he lay--and Starr did not fear that, because there were too many +loose cobbles to roll and rattle; he knew, because he had been twice as +long as he liked in getting to this point quietly. He took off his hat, +telling himself morosely that you couldn't tell his head from a lump of +granite anyway, when he had his hat off, and lifted his glasses to his +aching eyes. + +The Medina ranch was just showing signs of awakening after a siesta. +Estan himself was pottering about the corral, and Luis, a boy about +eighteen years old, was fooling with a colt in a small enclosure that had +evidently been intended for a garden and had been permitted to grow up in +weeds and grass instead. + +After a while a peona came out and fed the chickens, and hunted through +the sheds for eggs, which she carried in her apron. She stopped to watch +Luis and the colt, and Luis coaxed her to give him an egg, which he was +feeding to the colt when his mother saw and called to him shrilly from +the house. The peona ducked guiltily and ran, stooping, beside a stone +wall that hid her from sight until she had slipped into the kitchen. The +señora searched for her, scolding volubly in high-keyed Mexican, so that +Estan came lounging up to see what was the matter. + +Afterwards they all went to the house, and Starr knew that there would be +real, Mexican tortillas crisp and hot from the baking, and chili con +carne and beans, and perhaps another savory dish or two which the señora +herself had prepared for her sons. + +Starr was hungry. He imagined that he could smell those tortillas from +where he lay. He could have gone down, and the Medinas would have greeted +him with lavish welcome and would have urged him to eat his fill. They +would not question him, he knew. If they suspected his mission, they +would cover their suspicion with much amiable talk, and their +protestations of welcome would be the greater because of their +insincerity. But he did not go down. He made himself more comfortable +between the boulders and settled himself to wait and see what the night +would bring. + +First it brought the gorgeous sunset, that made him think of Helen May +just because it was beautiful and because she would probably be gazing up +at the crimson and gold and all the other elusive, swift-changing shades +that go to make a barbaric sunset. Sure, she would be looking at it, +unless she was still talking to that man, he thought jealously. It +fretted him that he did not know who the fellow was. So he turned his +thoughts away from the two of them. + +Next came the dusk, and after that the stars. There was no moon to taunt +him with memories, or more practically, to light for him the near +country. With the stars came voices from the porch of the adobe house +below him. Estan's voice he made out easily, calling out to Luis inside, +to ask if he had shut the colt in the corral. The señora's high voice +spoke swiftly, admonishing Luis. And presently Luis could be seen dimly +as he moved down toward the corrals. + +Starr hated this spying upon a home, but he held himself doggedly to the +task. Too many homes were involved, too many sons were in danger, too +many mothers would mourn if he did not play the spy to some purpose now. +This very home he was watching would be the happier when he and his +fellows had completed their work and the snake of intrigue was beheaded +just as Helen May had beheaded the rattler that afternoon. This home was +happy now, under the very conditions that were being deplored so +bombastically in the circulars he had read. Why, then, should its peace +be despoiled because of political agitators? + +Luis put the colt up for the night and returned, whistling, to the house. +The tune he whistled was one he had learned at some movie show, and in a +minute he broke into singing, "Hearts seem light, and life seems bright +in dreamy Chinatown." Starr, brooding up there above the boy, wished that +Luis might never be heavier of heart than now, when he went singing up +the path to the thick-walled adobe. He liked Luis. + +The murmur of voices continued, and after awhile there came plaintively +up to Starr the sound of a guitar, and mingling with it the voice of Luis +singing a Spanish song. _La Golondrina_, it was, that melancholy song of +exile which Mexicans so love. Starr listened gloomily, following the +words easily enough in that still night air. + +Away to the northwest there gleamed a brighter, more intimate star than +the constellation above. While Luis sang, the watcher in the rocks fixed +his eyes wistfully on that gleaming pin point of light, and wondered what +Helen May was doing. Her lighted window it was; her window that looked +down through the mouth of the Basin and out over the broken mesa land +that was half desert. Until then he had not known that her window saw so +far; though it was not strange that he could see her light, since he was +on the crest of a ridge higher than any other until one reached the bluff +that held Sunlight Basin like a pocket within its folds. + +Luis finished the song, strummed a while, sang a popular rag-time, +strummed again and, so Starr explained his silence, went to bed. Estan +began again to talk, now and then lifting his voice, speaking earnestly, +as though he was arguing or protesting, or perhaps expounding a theory of +some sort. Starr could not catch the words, though he knew in a general +way the meaning of the tones Estan was using. + +A new sound brought him to his knees, listening: the sound of a +high-powered engine being thrown into low gear and buzzing like angry +hornets because the wheels did not at once grip and thrust the car +forward. Sand would do that. While Starr listened, he heard the chuckle +of the car getting under way, and a subdued purring so faint that, had +there not been a slow, quiet breeze from that direction, the sound would +never have reached his ears at all. Even so, he had no more than +identified it when the silence flowed in and covered it as a lazy tide +covers a pebble in the moist sand. + +Starr glanced down at the house, heard Estan still talking, and got +carefully to his feet. He thought he knew where the car had slipped in +the sand, and he made toward the place as quickly as he could go in the +dark and still keep his movements quiet. It was back in that arroyo where +he had first discovered traces of the car he now felt sure had come from +the yard of _Las Nuevas_. + +He remembered that on the side next him the arroyo had deep-cut banks +that might get him a nasty fall if he attempted them in the dark, so he +took a little more time for the trip and kept to the rougher, yet safer, +granite-covered ridge. Once, just once, he caught the glow of dimmed +headlights falling on the slope farthest from him. He hurried faster, +after that, and so he climbed down into the arroyo at last, near the +point where he had climbed out of it that other day. + +He went, as straight as he could go in the dark, to the place where he +had first seen the tracks of the Silvertown cords. He listened, straining +his ears to catch the smallest sound. A cricket fiddled stridently, but +there was nothing else. + +Starr took a chance and searched the ground with a pocket flashlight. He +did not find any fresh tracks, however. And while he was standing in the +dark considering how the hills might have carried the sound deceptively +to his ear, and how he may have been mistaken, from somewhere on the +other side of the ridge came the abrupt report of a gun. The sound was +muffled by the distance, yet it was unmistakable. Starr listened, heard +no second shot, and ran back up the rocky gulch that led to the ridge he +had just left, behind Medina's house. + +He was puffing when he reached the place where he had lain between the +two boulders, and he stopped there to listen again. It came,--the sound +he instinctively expected, yet dreaded to hear; the sound of a woman's +high-keyed wailing. + + + + +CHAPTER SEVENTEEN + +"IS HE THEN DEAD--MY SON?" + + +Starr hurried down the bluff, slipping, sliding, running where the way +was clear of rocks. So presently he came to the stone wall, vaulted over +it, and stopped beside the tragic little group dimly outlined in the +house yard just off the porch. + +"My son--my son!" the old woman was wailing, on her knees beside a long, +inert figure lying on its back on the hard-packed earth. Back of her the +peona hovered, hysterical, useless. Luis, half dressed and a good deal +dazed yet from sleep and the suddenness of his waking, knelt beside his +mother, patting her shoulder in futile affection, staring down +bewilderedly at Estan. + +So Starr found them. Scenes like this were not so unusual in his life, +which had been lived largely among unruly passions. He spoke quietly to +Luis and knelt to see if the man lived. The señora took comfort from his +calm presence and with dumb misery watched his deft movements while he +felt for heartbeats and for the wound. + +"But is he then dead, my son?" she wailed in Spanish, when Starr gently +laid down upon Estan's breast the hand he had been holding. "But so +little while ago he lived and to me he talked. Ah, my son!" + +Starr looked at her quietingly. "How, then, did it happen? Tell me, +señora, that I may assist," he said, speaking easily the Spanish which +she spoke. + +"Ah, the good friend that thou art! Ah, my son that I loved! How can I +tell what is mystery? Who would harm my son--my little Estan that was so +good? Yet a voice called softly from the dark--and me, I heard, though to +my bed I had but gone. 'Estan!' called the voice, so low. And my son--ah, +my son!--to the door he went swiftly, the _lampara_ in his hand, holding +it high--so--that the light may shine into the dark. + +"'Who calls?' Me, I heard my son ask--ah, never again will I hear his +voice! Out of the door he went--to see the man who called. To the +porch-end he came--I heard his steps. Ah, my son! Never again thy dear +footsteps will I hear!" And she fell to weeping over him. + +"And then? Tell me, señora. What happened next?" + +"Ah--the shot that took from me my son! Then feet running away--then I +came out--Ah, _querido mio_, that thou shouldst be torn from thy +mother thus!" + +"And you don't know--?" + +"No, no--no--ah, that my heart should break with sorrow--" + +"Hush, mother! 'Twas Apodaca! He is powerful--and Estan would not come +into the Alliance. I told him it would be--" Luis, kneeling there, +beating his hands together in the dark, spoke with the heedless +passion of youth. + +"Which Apodaca? Juan?" Starr's voice was low, with the sympathetic tone +that pulls open the floodgates of speech when one is stricken hard. + +"Not Juan; Juan is a fool. Elfigo Apodaca it was--or some one obeying his +order. Estan they feared--Estan would not come in, and the time was +coming so close--and Estan held out and talked against it. I told him his +life would pay for his holding out. I _told_ him! And now I shall kill +Apodaca--and my life also will pay--" + +"What is this thou sayest?" The mother, roused from her lamentations by +the boy's vehemence, plucked at his sleeve. "But thou must not kill, my +little son. Thou art--" + +"Why not? They'll all be killing in a month!" flashed Luis unguardedly. + +Starr, kneeling on one knee, looked at the boy across Estan's chilling +body. A guarded glance it was, but a searching glance that questioned and +weighed and sat in judgment upon the truth of the startling assertion. +Yet younger boys than Luis are commanding troops in Mexico, for the +warlike spirit develops early in a land where war is the chief business +of the populace. It was not strange then that eighteen-year-old Luis +should be actively interested in the building of a revolution on this +side the border. It was less strange because of his youth; for Luis would +have all the fiery attributes of the warrior, unhindered by the cool +judgment of maturity. He would see the excitement, the glory of it. Estan +would see the terrible cost of it, in lives and in patrimony. Luis loved +action. Estan loved his big flocks and his acres upon acres of land, and +his quiet home; had loved too his foster country, if he had spoken his +true sentiments. So Starr took his cue and thanked his good fortune that +he had come upon this tragedy while it was fresh, and while the shock of +it was loosening the tongue of Luis. + +"A month from now is another time, Luis," he said quietly. "This is +murder, and the man who did it can be punished." + +"You can't puneesh Apodaca," Luis retorted, speaking English, since Starr +had used the language, which put their talk beyond the mother's +understanding. "He is too--too high up--But I can kill," he added +vindictively. + +"The law can get him better than you can," Starr pointed out cannily. +"Can you think of anybody else that might be in on the deal?" + +"N-o--" Luis was plainly getting a hold on himself, and would not tell +all he knew. "I don't know notheeng about it." + +"Well, what you'd better do now is saddle a horse and ride in to town and +tell the coroner--and the sheriff. If you don't," he added, when he +caught a stiffening of opposition in the attitude of Luis, "if you don't, +you will find yourself in all kinds of trouble. It will look bad. You +have to notify the coroner, anyway, you know. That's the law. And the +coroner will see right away that Estan was shot. So the sheriff will be +bound to get on the job, and it will be a heap better for you, Luis, if +you tell him yourself. And if you try to kill Apodaca, that will rob your +mother of both her sons. You must think of her. Estan would never bring +trouble to her that way. You stand in his place now. So you ride in and +tell the sheriff and tell the coroner. Say that you suspect Elfigo +Apodaca. The sheriff will do the rest." + +"What does the señor advise, my son?" murmured the mother, plucking at +the sleeve of Luis. "The good friend he was to my poor Estan--my son! Do +thou what he tells thee, for he is wise and good, and he would not guide +thee wrong." + +Luis hesitated, staring down at the dead body of Estan. "I will go," he +said, breaking in upon the sound of the peona's reasonless weeping. "I +will do that. The sheriff is not Mexican, or--" He checked himself +abruptly and peered across at Starr. "I go," he repeated hastily. + +He stood up, and Starr rose also and assisted the old lady to her feet. +She seemed inclined to cling to him. Her Estan had liked Starr, and for +that her faith in him never faltered now. He laid his arm protectively +around her shaking shoulders. + +"Señora, go you in and rest," he commanded gently, in Spanish. "Have the +girl bring a blanket to cover Estan--for here he must remain until he is +viewed by the coroner--you understand? Your son would be grieved if you +do not rest. You still have Luis, your little son. You must be brave and +help Luis to be a man. Then will Estan be proud of you both." So he +suited his speech to the gentle ways of the old señora, and led her back +to the shelter of the porch as tenderly as Estan could have done. + +He sent the peona for a lamp to replace the one that had broken when +Estan fell with it in his hand. He settled the señora upon the +cowhide-covered couch where her frail body could be comfortable and she +still could feel that she was watching beside her son. He placed a pillow +under her head, and spread a gay-striped serape over her, and tucked it +carefully around her slippered feet. The señora wept more quietly, and +called him the son of her heart, and brokenly thanked God for the +tenderness of all good men. + +He explained to her briefly that he had been riding to town by a +short-cut over the ridge when he heard the shot and hurried down; and +that, having left his horse up there, he must go up after it and bring it +around to the corral. He would not be gone longer than was absolutely +necessary, he told her, and he promised to come back and stay with her +while the officers were there. Then he hurried away, the señora's broken +thanks lingering painfully in his memory. + +At the top of the bluff, where he had climbed as fast as he could, he +stood for a minute to get his breath back. He heard the muffled +pluckety-pluck of a horse galloping down the sandy trail, and he knew +that there went Luis on his bitter mission to San Bonito. His eyes turned +involuntarily toward Sunlight Basin. There twinkled still the light from +Helen May's window, though it was well past midnight. Starr wondered at +that, and hoped she was not sick. Then immediately his face grew +lowering. For between him and the clear, twinkling light of her window he +saw a faint glow that moved swiftly across the darkness; an automobile +running that way with dimmed headlights. + +"Now what in thunder does that mean?" he asked himself uneasily. He had +not in the least expected that move. He had believed that the automobile +he had heard, which very likely had carried the murderer, would hurry +straight to town, or at least in that direction. But those dimmed lights, +and in that the machine surely betrayed a furtiveness in its flight, +seemed to be heading for Sunlight Basin, though it might merely be making +the big loop on its way to Malpais or beyond. He stared again at the +twinkling light of Helen May's lamp. What in the world was she doing up +at that hour of the night? "Oh, well, maybe she sleeps with a light +burning." He dismissed the unusual incident, and went on about his more +urgent business. + +Rabbit greeted him with a subdued nicker of relief, telling plainly as a +horse can speak that he had been seriously considering foraging for his +supper and not waiting any longer for Starr. There he had stood for six +or seven hours, just where Starr had dismounted and dropped the reins. He +was a patient little horse, and he knew his business, but there is a +limit to patience, and Rabbit had almost reached it. + +Starr led him up over the rocky ridge into the arroyo where the +automobile had been, and from there he rode down to the trail and back to +the Medina ranch. He watered Rabbit at the ditch, pulled off the saddle, +and turned him into the corral, throwing him an armful of secate from a +half-used stack. Then he went up to the house and sat on the edge of the +porch beside the señora, who was still weeping and murmuring yearning +endearments to the ears that could not hear. + +He did not know how long he would have to wait, but he knew that Luis +would not spare his horse. He smoked, and studied the things which Luis +had let drop; every word of immense value to him now. Elfigo Apodaca he +knew slightly, and he wondered a little that he would be the Alliance +leader in this section of the State. + +Elfigo Apodaca seemed so thoroughly Americanized that only his swarthy +skin and black hair and eyes reminded one that he was after all a son of +the south. He did a desultory business in real estate, and owned an +immense tract of land, the remnant of an old Spanish grant, and went in +for fancy cattle and horses. He seemed more a sportsman than a +politician--a broadminded, easy-going man of much money. Starr had still +a surprised sensation that the trail should lead to Elfigo. Juan, the +brother of Elfigo, he could find it much easier to see in the role of +conspirator. But horror does not stop to weigh words, and Starr knew that +Luis had spoken the truth in that unguarded moment. + +He pondered that other bit of information that had slipped out: "In a +month they'll all be killing." That was a point which he and his +colleagues had not been able to settle in their own minds, the proposed +date of the uprising. In a month! The time was indeed short, but now that +they had something definite to work on, a good deal might be done in a +month; so on the whole Starr felt surprisingly cheerful. And if Elfigo +found himself involved in a murder trial, it would help to hamper his +activities with the Alliance. Starr regretted the death of Estan, but he +kept thinking of the good that would come of it. He kept telling himself +that the shooting of Estan Medina would surely put a crimp in the +revolution. Also it would mark Luis for a mate to the bullet that reached +Estan, if that hotheaded youth did not hold his tongue. + +He was considering the feasibility of sending Luis and his mother out of +the country for awhile, when the sheriff and coroner and Luis came +rocking down the narrow trail in a roadster built for speed where speed +was no pleasure but a necessity. + +The sheriff was an ex-cattleman, with a desert-baked face and hard eyes +and a disconcerting habit of chewing gum and listening and saying nothing +himself. For the sake of secrecy, Starr had avoided any acquaintance with +him and his brother officers, so the sheriff gave him several sharp +glances while he was viewing the body and the immediate surroundings. +Luis had told him, coming out, the meager details of the murder, and he +had again accused Elfigo Apodaca, though he had done some real thinking +on the way to town, and had cooled to the point where he chose his words +more carefully. The sheriff's name was O'Malley, which is reason enough +why Luis was chary of confiding Mexican secrets to his keeping. + +Elfigo Apodaca had quarreled with Estan, said Luis. He had come to the +ranch, and Luis had heard them quarreling over water rights. Elfigo had +threatened to "get" Estan, and to "fix" him, and Luis had been afraid +that Estan would be shot before the quarrel was over. He had heard the +voice that called Estan out of the house that night, and he told the +sheriff that he had recognized Elfigo's voice. Luis surely did all he +could to settle any doubt in the mind of the sheriff, and he felt that he +had been very smart to say they quarreled over water rights; a lawsuit +two years ago over that very water-right business lent convincingness to +the statement. + +The sheriff had not said anything at all after Luis had finished his +story of the shooting. He had chewed gum with the slow, deliberate jaw of +a cow meditating over her cud, and he had juggled the wheel of his +machine and shifted his gears on hills and in sandy stretches with the +same matter-of-fact deliberation. Sheriff O'Malley might be called one of +the old school of rail-roosting, stick-whittling thinkers. He took his +time, and he did not commit himself too impulsively to any cause. But he +could act with surprising suddenness, and that made him always an +uncertain factor, so that lawbreakers feared him as they feared +nightmares. + +The sheriff, then, stood around with his hands in his pockets and his +feet planted squarely under him, squeezing a generous quid of gum +between his teeth and very slightly teetering on heels and toes, while +the coroner made a cursory examination and observed, since it was coming +gray daylight, how the lamp lay shattered just where it had fallen with +Estan. He asked, in bad Spanish, a few questions of the grief-worn +señora, who answered him dully as she had answered Starr. She had heard +the call, yes. + +"You know Elfigo Apodaca?" the sheriff asked suddenly, and watched how +the eyes of the señora went questioningly, uneasily, to Luis; watched how +she hesitated before she admitted that she knew him. + +"You know his voice?" + +But the señora closed her thin lips and shook her head, and in a minute +she laid her head back on the pillow and closed her eyes also, and would +talk no more. + +The sheriff chewed and teetered meditatively, his eyes on the ground. +From the tail of his eye Starr watched him, secretly willing to bet that +he knew what the sheriff was thinking. When O'Malley turned and strolled +back to the porch, his hands still in his pockets and his eyes still on +the ground as though he were weighing the matter carefully, Starr stood +where he was, apparently unaware that the sheriff had moved. Starr seemed +to be watching the coroner curiously, but he knew just when the sheriff +passed cat-footedly behind him, and he grinned to himself. + +The sheriff made one of his sudden moves, and jerked the six-shooter from +its holster at Starr's hip, pulled out the cylinder pin and released the +cylinder with its customary five loaded chambers and an empty one under +the hammer. He tilted the gun, muzzle to him, toward the rising sun and +squinted into its barrel that shone with the care it got, save where +particles of dust had lodged in the bore. He held the gun close under his +red nose and sniffed for the smell of oil that would betray a fresh +cleaning. And Starr watched him interestedly, smiling approval. + +"All right, far as you've gone," he said casually, when the sheriff was +replacing the cylinder in the gun. "If you want to go a step farther, I +reckon maybe I can show you where I come down off the bluff when I +heard the shot, and where I went back again after my horse. And you'll +see, maybe, that I couldn't shoot from the bluff and get a man around +on the far side of the house. Won't take but a minute to show yuh." He +gave the slight head tilt and the slight wink of one eye which, the +world over, asks for a secret conference, and started off around the +corner of the house. + +The sheriff followed noncommittally but he kept close at Starr's heels as +though he suspected that Starr meant to disappear somehow. So they +reached the bluff, which Starr knew would be out of hearing from the +house so long as they did not speak loudly. He pointed down at the prints +of his boots where he had left the rocks of the steep hillside for the +sand of the level; and he even made a print beside the clearest track to +show the sheriff that he had really come down there as he climbed. But it +was plain that Starr's mind was not on the matter of footprints. + +"Keep on looking around here, like you was tracing up my trail," he said +in a low voice, pointing downward. "I've got something I want to tell +yuh, and I want you to listen close and get what I say, because I ain't +apt to repeat it. And I don't want that coroner to get the notion we're +talking anything over. That little play you made with my gun showed that +you've got hoss sense and ain't overlooking any bets, and it may be that +I'll have use for yuh before long. Now listen." + +The sheriff listened, chewing industriously and wandering about while +Starr talked. His hard eyes changed a little, and twice he nodded his +head in assent. + +"Now you do that," said Starr at last, with an air of one giving orders. +"And see to it that you get a hearing as soon as possible. I can't appear +except as a witness, of course, but I want a chance to size up the +fellows that take the biggest interest in the trial. And keep it all on +the basis of a straight quarrel, if you can. You'll have to fix that up +with the prosecuting attorney, if you can trust him that far." + +"I can, Mr. Starr. He's my brother-in-law, and he's the best man we could +pick in the county for what you want. I get you, all right. There won't +be anything drop about what you just told me." + +"There better hadn't be anything drop!" Starr told him dryly. "You're +into something deeper than county work now, ole-timer. This is Federal +business, remember. Come on back and stall around some more, and let me +go on about my own business. You can get word to me at the Palacia if you +want me at the inquest, but don't get friendly. I'm just a stock-buyer +that happened along. Keep it that way." + +"I sure will, Mr. Starr. I'll do my part." The sheriff relapsed into his +ruminative manner as he led the way back to the house. One may guess that +Starr had given him something worth ruminating about. + +In a few minutes, he told Starr curtly that he could go if he wanted to; +and he bettered that by muttering to the coroner that he had a notion to +hold the fellow, but that he seemed to have a pretty clear alibi, and +they could get him later if they wanted him. To which the coroner agreed +in neighborly fashion. + +Starr was saddling Rabbit for another long ride, and he was scowling +thoughtfully while he did it. + + + + +CHAPTER EIGHTEEN + +A PAGE OF WRITING + + +Wind came with the sun and went shrieking across the high levels, taking +with it clouds of sand and bouncing tumbleweeds that rolled and lodged +for a minute against some rock or bush and then went whirling on again in +a fresh gust. Starr had not ridden two miles before his face began to +feel the sting of gravel in the sand clouds. His eyes, already aching +with a day's hard usage and a night of no sleep, smarted with the impact +of the wind. He fumbled at the band of his big, Texas hat and pulled down +a pair of motor goggles and put them on distastefully. Like blinders on a +horse they were, but he could not afford to face that wind with +unprotected eyes--not when so very much depended upon his eyes and his +ears and the keenest, coolest faculties of his mind. + +Still worry nagged at him. He wanted to know who was the man that had +visited Helen May so soon after he had left, and he wanted to know why a +light had shone from her window at one o'clock last night; and whether +the automobile had been going to Sunlight Basin, or merely in that +direction. + +He hurried, for he had no patience with worries that concerned Helen May. +Besides, he meant to beg a breakfast from her, and he was afraid that if +he waited too late she might be out with Pat and the goats, and he would +have to waste time on the kid (Vic would have resented that term as +applied to himself) who might be still laid up with his sprained ankle. + +He was not thinking so much this morning about the knowledge he had +gained in the night. He had given several quiet hours to thought upon +that subject, and he had his course pretty clearly defined in his mind. +He also had Sheriff O'Malley thoroughly coached and prepared to do his +part. The matter of Elfigo Apodaca, then, he laid aside for the present, +and concerned himself chiefly with what on the surface were trifles, but +which, taken together, formed a chain of disquieting incidents. Rabbit +felt his master's desire for haste, and loped steadily along the trail, +dropping now and then into his smooth fox-trot, that was almost as fast a +gait; so it was still early morning when he dropped reins outside and +rapped on the closed door. + +Helen May opened the door cautiously, it seemed to him; a scant six +inches until she saw who he was, when she cried "Oh!" in a surprised, +slightly confused tone, and let him in. Starr noticed two things at the +first glance he gave her. The first was the blue crocheted cap which she +wore; he did not know that it was called a breakfast-cap and that it was +very stylish, for Starr, you must remember, lived apart from any intimate +home life that would familiarize him with such fripperies. The cap +surprised him, but he liked the look of it even though he kept that +liking to himself. + +The second thing he noticed was that Helen May was hiding something in +her right hand which was dropped to her side. When she had let him in and +turned away to offer him a chair, he saw that she had the pearl-handled +six-shooter. + +She disappeared behind a screen, and came out with her right hand empty, +evidently believing he had not seen how she had prepared herself for an +emergency. She had only yesterday told him emphatically how harmless she +considered the country; and he had been careful to warn her only about +rabid coyotes, so that without being alarmed, she would not go unarmed +away from home. It seemed queer to Starr that she should act as though +she expected rabid coyotes to come a-knocking at her door in broad +daylight. Had she, he thought swiftly, been only pretending that she +considered the country perfectly safe? + +He could not help it; that six-shooter hidden in the folds of her skirt +stuck in his mind. It was just a trifle, like her lighted window at one +o'clock in the morning; like that strange man who had called on her just +after Starr had left her, and with whom she had seemed to be on such +friendly terms. He had warned her of coyotes. She was not supposed to +know that it was wise to arm herself before she opened her door to a +daylight caller. At night, yes. But at seven o'clock in the morning? +Starr did not suspect Helen May of anything, but he had been trained to +suspect mysterious trifles. In spite of himself, this trifle nagged at +him unpleasantly. + +He fancied that Helen May was just a shade flustered in her welcome; just +a shade nervous in her movements, in her laughter, in the very tones of +her voice. + +"You're out early," she said. "Vic isn't up yet; I suppose the goats +ought to be let out, too. You couldn't have had your breakfast--or have +you? One can expect almost anything of a man who just rides out of +nowhere at all hours, and disappears into nowhere." + +"I shore wish that was so," Starr retorted banteringly. "I wish I had to +ride nowhere to-day." + +"Oh, I meant the mystery of the unknown," she hurried to correct herself. +"You come out of the desert just any old time. And you go off into the +desert just as unexpectedly; by the way, did you--" + +"Nope. I did not." She might forget that Vic was in the house, but Starr +never forgot things of that sort, and he wilfully forestalled her +intention to ask about the shooting. "I didn't have any supper, either, +beyond a sandwich or two that was mostly sand after I'd packed 'em around +all day. I just naturally had to turn tramp and come ask for a handout, +when I found out at daylight how close I was to breakfast." + +"Why, of course. You know you won't have to beg very hard. I was just +going to put on the coffee. So you make yourself at home, and I'll have +breakfast in a few minutes. Vic, for gracious sake, get up! Here's +company already. And you'll have to let out the goats. Pat can keep them +together awhile, but he can't open the gate, and I'm busy." + +Starr heard the prodigious yawn of the awakening Vic, who slept +behind a screen in the kitchen, bedrooms being a superfluous luxury +in which Johnny Calvert had not indulged himself. Starr followed her +to the doorway. + +"I'll go let out the goats," he offered. "I want to take off the bridle +anyway, so Rabbit can feed around a little." He let himself out into the +whooping wind, feeling, for some inexplicable reason, depressed when he +had expected to feel only relief. + +"Lord! I'm getting to the point where anything that ain't accompanied by +a chart and diagrams looks suspicious to me. She's got more hawse sense +than I gave her credit for, that's all. She musta seen through my yarnin' +about them mad coyotes. She's pretty cute, coming to the door with her +six-gun just like a real one! And never letting on to me that she had it +right handy. I must be getting off my feed or something, the way I take +things wrong. Now her being up late--I'm just going to mention how far +off I saw her light burning--and how late it was. I'll see what she says +about it." + +But he did nothing of the kind, and for what he considered a very good +reason. The wind was blowing in eddying gusts, of the kind that seizes +and whirls things; such a gust swooped into the room when he opened the +door, seized upon some papers which lay on her writing desk, and sent +them clear across the room. + +Starr hastily closed the door and rescued the papers where they had +flattened against the wall; and he wished he had gone blind before he saw +what they were. A glance was all he gave, at first--the involuntary +glance which one gives to a bit of writing picked up in an odd place--but +that was enough to chill his blood with the shock of damning +enlightenment. A page of writing, it was, fine, symmetrical, hard to +decipher--a page of Holly Sommers' manuscript; you know that, of course. + +But Starr did not know. He only knew the writing matched the pages of +revolutionary stuff he had found in the office of _Las Nuevas._ There was +no need of comparing the two; the writing was unmistakable. And he +believed that Helen May was the writer. He believed it when he glanced up +and saw her coming in from the kitchen, and saw her eyes go to what he +had in his hand, and saw the start she gave before she hurried to take +the paper away. + +"My gracious! My work--" she said agitatedly, when she had the papers in +her hand. She went to her desk, looking perturbed, and gave a quick, +seeking glance at the scattered papers there; then at Starr. + +"Did any more--?" + +"That's all," Starr said gravely. "It was the wind when I opened the +door, caught them." + +"My own carelessness. I don't know why I left my desk open," she said. +And while he stood looking at her, she pulled down the roll-top with a +slam, still visibly perturbed. + +It was strange, he thought, that she should have a roll-top desk out +here, anyway. He had seen it the other time he was at the house, and it +had struck him then as queer, though he had not given it more than a +passing thought. + +As a matter of fact, it was not queer. Johnny Calvert had dilated on the +destructiveness of rats, "pack rats" he called them. They would chew +paper all to bits, he said. So Helen May, being finicky about having her +papers chewed, had brought along this mouse-proof desk with her other +furniture from Los Angeles. + +Her perturbed manner, too, was the result of a finicky distaste for +having any disorder in her papers, especially when it was work intrusted +to her professionally. She never talked about the work she did for +people, and she always kept it away from the eyes of those not concerned +in it. That, she considered, was professional etiquette. She had strained +a point when she had read a little of the manuscript to Vic. Vic was just +a kid, and he was her brother, and he wouldn't understand what she read +any more than would the horned toad down by the spring. But Starr was +different, and she felt that she had been terribly careless and +unprofessional, leaving the manuscript where pages could blow around the +room. What if a page had blown outside and got lost! + +Starr had turned his back and was staring out of the window. He might +have been staring at a blank wall, for all he saw through the glass. He +was as pale as though he had just received some great physical shock, and +he had his hands doubled up into fists, so that his knuckles were white. +His eyes were almost gray instead of hazel, and they were hard and +hurt-looking. + +Something in the set of his head and in the way his shoulders had +stiffened told Helen May that things had gone wrong just in the last +few minutes. She gave him a second questioning glance, felt her +heart go heavy while her brain seemed suddenly blank, and retreated +to the kitchen. + +Helen May, influenced it may be by Starr's anxious thoughts of her, had +dreamed of him; one of those vivid, intimate dreams that color our moods +and our thoughts long after we awaken. She had dreamed of being with him +in the moonlight again; and Starr had sung again the love song of the +desert, and had afterwards taken her in his arms and held her close, and +kissed her twice lingeringly, looking deep into her eyes afterwards. + +She had awakened with the thrill of those kisses still tingling her lips, +so that she had covered her face with both hands in a sort of shamed joy +that dreams could be so terribly real--so terribly sweet, too. And then, +not fifteen minutes after she awoke, and while the dream yet clogged her +reason, Starr himself had confronted her when she opened the door. She +would have been a remarkable young woman if she had not been flustered +and nervous and inclined toward incoherent speech. + +And now, it was perfectly idiotic to judge a man's temper by the back of +his neck, she told herself fiercely in the kitchen; perfectly idiotic, +yet she did it. She was impressed with his displeasure, his bitterness, +with some change in him which she could not define to herself. She wanted +to cry, and she did not in the least know what there could possibly be to +cry about. + +Vic appeared, tousled and yawning and stupid as an owl in the sun. He +growled because the water bucket was empty and he must go to the spring, +and he irritated Helen May to the point of wanting to shake him, when he +went limping down the path. She even called out sharply that he was +limping with the wrong foot, and that he ought to tie a string around his +lame ankle so he could remember which one it was. Which made her feel +more disagreeable than ever, because Vic really did have a bad ankle, as +the swelling had proven when he went to bed last night. + +Nothing seemed to go right, after that. She scorched the bacon, and she +caught her sleeve on the handle of the coffee pot and spilled about half +the coffee, besides burning her wrist to a blister. She broke a cup, but +that had been cracked when she came, and at any other time she would not +have been surprised at all, or jarred out of her calm. She took out the +muffins she had hurried to make for Starr, and they stuck to the tins and +came out in ragged pieces, which is enough to drive any woman desperate, +I suppose. Vic slopped water on the floor when he came back with the +bucket full, and the wind swooped a lot of sand into the kitchen, and +she was certain the bacon would be gritty as well as burned. + +Of Starr she had not heard a sound, and she went to the door nervously to +call him when breakfast was at last on the table. He was standing exactly +as he had stood when she left the room. So far as she could see, he had +not moved a muscle or turned his head or winked an eyelid. His stoniness +chilled her so that it was an effort to form words to tell him that +breakfast was ready. + +There was an instant's pause before he turned, and Helen May felt that he +had almost decided not to eat. But he followed her to the kitchen and +spoke to Vic quite humanly, as he took the chair she offered, and +unfolded the napkin that struck an odd note of refinement among its +makeshift surroundings; for the stove had only two real legs, the other +two corners being propped up on rocks; the dish cupboard was of boxes, +and everything in the way of food supplies stood scantily hidden behind +thin curtains of white dotted swiss that Helen May had brought with her. + +An hour ago Starr would have dwelt gloatingly upon these graceful +evidences of Helen May's brave fight against the crudities of her +surroundings. Now they gave him a keener thrust of pain. So did the +tremble of her hand when Helen May poured his coffee; it betrayed to +Starr her guilty fear that he had seen what was on those two papers. He +glanced up at her face, and caught her own troubled glance just flicking +away from him. She was scared, then! he told himself. She was watching to +see if he had read anything that seemed suspicious. Well, he'd have to +calm her down a little, just as a matter of policy. He couldn't let her +tip him off to the bunch, whatever happened. + +Starr smiled. "I sure feel like I'm imposing on good nature," he said, +looking at her again with careful friendliness. "Coming here begging for +breakfast, and now when you've gone to the trouble of cooking it, I've +got one of my pet headaches that won't let me enjoy anything. Hits me +that way sometimes when I've had an extra long ride. But I sure wish it +had waited awhile." + +Helen May gave him a quick, hopeful smile. "I have some awfully good +tablets," she said. "Wait till I give you one, before you eat. My doctor +gave me a supply before I left home, because I have headache so much--or +did have. I'm getting much better, out here! I've hardly felt like the +same person, the last two or three weeks." + +"You have got to show me where you're any better _acting_," Vic pointed +out, with the merciless candor of beauty's young brother. "It sure ain't +your disposition that's improved, I can tell you those." + +"And with those few remarks you can close," Helen May retorted gleefully, +hurrying off to get the headache tablet. It was just a headache, poor +fellow! He wasn't peeved at all, and nothing was wrong! + +It was astonishing how her mood had lightened in the past two minutes. +She got him a glass of water to help the tablet down his throat, and +stood close beside him while he swallowed it and thanked her, and began +to make some show of eating his breakfast. She was, in fact, the same +whimsically charming Helen May he had come to care a great deal for. + +That made things harder than ever for Starr. If the tablet had been +prescribed for heartache rather than headache, Starr would have swallowed +thankfully the dose. The murder, over against the other line of hills, +had not seemed to him so terrible as those sheets of scribbled paper +locked away inside Helen May's desk. The grief of Estan's mother over her +dead son was no more bitter than was Starr's grief at what he believed +was true of Helen May. Indeed, Starr's trouble was greater, because he +must mask it with a smile. + +All through breakfast he talked with her, looked into her eyes, smiled at +her across the table. But he was white under his tan. She thought that +was from his headache, and was kinder than she meant to be because of +it; perhaps because of her dream too, though she was not conscious of any +change in her manner. + +Starr could have cursed her for that change, which he believed was a sly +attempt to win him over and make him forget anything he may have read on +those pages. He would not think of it then; time enough when he was away +and need not pretend or set a guard over his features and his tongue. The +hurt was there, the great, incredible, soul-searing hurt; but he would +not dwell upon what had caused that hurt. He forced himself to talk and +to laugh now and then, but afterwards he could not remember what they had +talked about. + +As soon as he decently could, he went away again into the howling wind +that had done him so ill a turn. He did not know what he should do; this +discovery that Helen May was implicated had set him all at sea, but he +felt that he must get away somewhere and think the whole thing out before +he went crazy. + +He left the Basin, rode around behind it and, leaving Rabbit in the +thicket where he had left him the day before, he toiled up the pinnacle +and sat down in the shelter of a boulder pile where he would be out of +the wind as well as out of sight, and where he could still stare somberly +down at the cabin. + +And there he faced his trouble bravely, and at the same time he +fulfilled his duty toward his government by keeping a watch over the +place that seemed to him then the most suspicious place in the country. +The office of _Las Nuevas_, even, was not more so, as Starr saw things +then. For if _Las Nuevas_ were the distributing point for the propaganda +literature, this cabin of Helen May's seemed to be the fountain head. + +First of all, and going back to the beginning, how did he really _know_ +that her story was true? How, for instance, did he know that her father +had not been one of the heads of the conspiracy? How did he know that her +father--it might even be her husband!--was dead? He had simply accepted +her word, as a matter of course, because she was a young woman, and more +attractive than the average young woman. Starr was terribly bitter, at +that point in his reasoning, and even felt certain that he hated all +women. Well, then, her reason for being in the neighborhood would bear a +lot of looking into. + +Then there was that automobile that had passed where he had found her and +her goats, that evening. Was it plausible, he asked himself, that she had +actually walked over there? The machine had returned along the same +trail, running by moonlight with its lights out. Might it not have been +coming to pick her up? Only he had happened along, and she had let him +walk home with her, probably to keep him where she could watch him! + +There was that shot at him from the pinnacle behind her cabin. There was +her evident familiarity with firearms, though she professed not to own a +gun. There was the man who had been down there with her, not more than an +hour after he had left her with a bullet burn across his arm. Starr saw +now how that close conversation might easily have been a conference +between her and the man who had shot at him. + +There was the light in her window at one o'clock in the morning, and the +machine with dimmed headlights making toward her place. There was her +evident caution against undesirable callers, her coming to the door with +a six-shooter hidden against her skirt. There was that handwriting, to +which Starr would unhesitatingly have sworn as being the same as on the +pages he had found in the office of _Las Nuevas_. The writing was +unmistakable: fine, even, symmetrical as print, yet hard to decipher; +slanting a little to the left instead of the right. He had studied too +often the pages in his pocket not to recognize it at a glance. + +Most damning evidence of all the evidence against her were two or three +words which his eyes had picked from the context on the page uppermost in +his hand. He had become familiar with those words, written in that +peculiar chirography. "Justice... submission ... ruling ..." He had +caught them at a glance, though he did not know how they were connected, +or what relation they bore to the general theme. Political bunk, his mind +tagged it therefore, and had no doubt whatever that he was right. + +"She's got brown eyes and blond hair, and that looks like mixed blood," +he reminded himself suddenly, after he had sat for a long while staring +down at the house. "How do I know her folks aren't Spanish or something? +How do I know anything about her? I just swallowed what she handed +out--like a damn' fool!" + +Just after noon, when the wind had shown some sign of dying down to a +more reasonable blow, Helen May came forth in her riding skirt and a +Tam o' Shanter cap and a sweater, with a package under her arm--a +package of manuscript which she had worked late to finish and was now +going to deliver. + +She got the pinto pony which Vic had just ridden sulkily down to the +corral and left for her, and she rode away down the trail, jolting a good +deal in the saddle when the pinto trotted a few steps, but apparently +well pleased with herself. + +Starr watched until she turned into the main trail that led toward San +Bonito. Then, when he was reasonably sure of the direction she meant to +take, he hurried down to where Rabbit waited, mounted that long-suffering +animal and followed, using short cuts and deep washes that would hide him +from sight, but keeping Helen May in view most of the time for all that. + + + + +CHAPTER NINETEEN + +HOLMAN SOMMERS TURNS PROPHET + + +Holman Sommers, clad outwardly in old wool trousers of a dingy gray, a +faded brown smoking jacket that had shrunk in many washings until it was +three inches too short in the sleeves, and old brown slippers, sat tilted +back in a kitchen chair against the wall of his house and smoked a +beautifully colored meerschaum with solid gold bands and a fine amber +mouthpiece, while he conferred comfortably with one Elfigo Apodaca. + +There was no quizzical twinkle in the eyes of Holman Sommers, vividly +alive though they were always. With his low slipper heels hooked over +the rung of his chair and his right hand nursing the bowl of his pipe +and his black hair rumpled in the wind, he was staring at the granite +ridge somberly. + +"I am indeed sorry to hear that Estan Medina was shot," he said after a +pause. "Even in the interests of the Cause it was absolutely +unjustifiable. The man could do no harm; indeed, he served to divert +suspicion from others. Only crass stupidity would resort to brute +violence in the effort to further propaganda. Laying aside the human--" + +"Of course," Elfigo interrupted sarcastically, "there's nothing violent +in a revolution! Where do you get your argument for gentleness, Holly? +That's what bothers me. You can stir up a bunch of Mexicans quicker than +a barrel of mezcal with your revolution talks." + +"Ah, but you do not take into account the great, fundamental truth that +cooperative effort, on the part of the proletariat, is wholly +justifiable, in that it furthers the good of all humanity. Whereas +violence on the part of the individual merely retards the final result +for which we are striving. The murder of Estan Medina, for instance, may +be the one display of individual violence which will nullify all our +efforts toward a common good. + +"For myself, I am bending every energy toward the formation of a +cooperative colony which will demonstrate the feasibility of a +cooperative form of government for the whole nation--the whole world, in +fact. Your Junta has pledged itself to the assistance of this colony, the +incalculable benefits of which will, I verily believe, be the very +salvation of Mexico as a nation. Mexico, now in the throes of national +parturition, is logically the pioneer in the true socialistic form of +government. From Mexico the seed will be carried overseas to drop upon +soil made fertile by the bones of those sacrificed to the blood-lust of +the war mad lords of Europe. + +"Here, in this little corner of the world, is where the first tiny plant +must be grown. Can you not grasp, then, the tremendous significance of +what, on the face of it, is the pitifully small attempt of a pitifully +weak people to strike a feeble blow for the freedom of labor? To +frustrate that feeble blow now, by the irresponsible, lawless murder +of a good citizen, merely because he failed at first to grasp the meaning +of the lesson placed before him to learn, is, to my way of thinking, not +only unjustifiable but damnably weak and reprehensible." + +Elfigo Apodaca, in another kitchen chair tilted back against an angle of +the wall so that he half faced Holman Sommers, stretched out his legs and +smiled tolerantly. A big, good-looking, thoroughly Americanized Mexican +was Elfigo; the type of man who may be found at sunrise whipping the best +stream in the State, the first morning of the trout season; the type of +man whose machine noses in the closest to the judge's stand when a big +race is on; the type of man who dances most, collects the most picture +postals of pretty girls, laughs most at after-dinner speeches; the type +of man who either does not marry at all, or attains much notoriety when +the question of alimony is being fought out to the last cipher; the last +man you would point out as a possible conspirator against anything save +the peace and dignity of some other man's home. But it takes money to be +all of these things, and Elfigo could see a million or two ahead of him +along the revolution trail. That is why he smiled tolerantly upon his +colleague who talked of humanity instead of dollars. + +Then Elfigo harked back frowningly to what Holman Sommers had said about +feebleness. He rolled his cigar from the right corner of his mouth to the +left corner and spoke his thought. + +"Speaking of feeble blow, and all that bunk," he said irreverently, "how +do we stand, Holly? Just between you and me as men--cut out any interest +we may have in the game--what's your honest opinion? Do we win?" + +Holman Sommers raised one hand and hid the amused twitching of his lips. +He could have put that question far more clearly, he believed, and he +could have expressed much better the thought that was in Elfigo's mind. +He had deliberately baited Elfigo, and it amused him to see how blindly +the bait had been taken. He regarded Elfigo through half closed lids. + +"As a matter of fact, and speaking relatively, every concerted revolt on +the part of the proletariat is a victory. Though every leader in the +movement be placed with his back against a stone wall, there to stand +until he falls to the earth riddled with bullets, yet have the people +won; a step nearer the goal, one more page writ in the glowing history of +the advancement of the human race toward a true brotherhood of man. There +can be no end save ultimate victory. That the victory may not be apparent +for fifty years, or a hundred, cannot in any sense alter the immutable +law of evolution. Posterity will point back to this present uprising as +the first real blow struck for the freedom of the laboring classes of +Mexico, and, indirectly, of the whole world." + +Elfigo, his thumbs hooked in the armholes of his vest, mark of the +dominant note in the human male since clothes were invented to furnish +armholes for egotistic thumbs, contemplated his polished tan shoes +dissatisfiedly. + +"Oh, to hell with posterity!" he blurted impatiently. "What about us poor +devils that's furnishing the time and money and brains to put it over? Do +we get lined up against a wall?" + +Holly Sommers chuckled. "Not if your car can put you across the line soon +enough. Then, even though Mexico might be called upon to execute one +Elfigo Apodaca as an example to the souls in bondage, some other +bullet-riddled cadaver with your name and physical likeness would do as +well as your own carcass." He chuckled again. + +"Cheerful prospect," grinned Elfigo ruefully. "But I like a sporting +chance, myself. The real point I'm trying to get at is, what chance do +you think the Alliance has got of winning? Come down outa the clouds, +Holly, and never mind about humanity for a minute. You've helped organize +the Alliance, you've talked to the hombres, you've been the god in the +machine in this part of the country, and all that. Now be a prophet in +words of one syllable and tell me what you think of the outlook." + +With his fingers Holly Sommers packed the tobacco down into the bowl of +his pipe. His whole expression changed from the philosopher to the +cunning leader of what might well be called a forlorn hope. + +"Speaking in words of one syllable, we have a damn better chance than you +may think," he said, in a tone as changed as his looks. "This country +lies wide open to any attack that is sudden and unexpected. Labor is in a +state of ferment. I predict that within a year we shall find ourselves +upon the brink of a civil war, with labor and capital lined up against +each other. Unless the government takes some definite step toward +placating organized labor, the whole standing army will not be +sufficient to keep the peace. That is the present internal condition, +and that condition will grow worse until we face the real crisis of +a national strike of some sort--I believe of the railroad employees, +since that is the most far-reaching and would prove the most +disastrous--therefore the most terrifying to the ruling class. + +"On the other hand, and turning our faces outward, we are not much better +prepared for an emergency. We are a conceited nation, but insufferable +national conceit never yet won a battle. We are given to shouting rather +than shooting. Americanism to-day consists chiefly of standing up while +the Star Spangled Banner is being played by a brass band, and of shooting +off rockets on our national holiday. Were I of the capitalist class, I +should consider the situation desperate. But being allied with the +workers, I can laugh. + +"Speaking still in words of one syllable, Elfigo, I can safely prophesy +what will happen first when the Alliance begins its active campaign. +Scarehead news in extra editions will be printed. The uprising will be +greatly exaggerated, I have no doubt. Women and children will be reported +massacred, whereas the Alliance has no intention of being more barbarous +than any warfare necessitates. Then there will be a buzzing of leagues +and clubs; and the citizens will march up and down the business section +of every town, bearing banners and shouting for the 'dear old flag.' +Women will rise up and sell sofa pillows and doilies to raise money to +buy chewing gum for our soldier boys. That, Elfigo, will sufficiently +occupy the masses for a week or two. + +"Going higher, red tape will begin to unroll and entwine the heads of +departments, and every man who has any authority whatever will wait for +orders from some one higher up. Therefore, while the whole nation cheers +the street parades and the flags and the soldier boys and everything else +in sight, the Alliance will be getting under way--" + +"We'll throw her into high and step on her!" Elfigo contributed, being a +motor enthusiast. + +"Something like that, yes. When you consider that the transportation of +troops to quell the uprising will require anywhere from three days to +three weeks, I am counting red tape and all, you will readily apprehend +how much may be accomplished before they are in a position to handle the +situation. + +"On the other hand, Mexico is filled with fighters. So much has +oppression done for the peon; it has taught him the business of fighting. +Now, I grant you, she is a nation composed of warring factions topped by +a lamentably weak provisional government. _But_ with practically every +Spanish-American over here actually participating in a movement for +Mexico, all those various factions will coalesce, as tiny brooklets flow +together to form the mighty torrent." + +"Still, she's a big country to lick," Elfigo pointed out, chiefly to see +what Holly would say. + +"Ah, but Mexico does not comprehend that fact! And, in the same +breath, neither does this country, as a whole, comprehend how big a +country is Mexico to lick! Give a Mexican soldado a handful of beans a +day and something to shout _Viva_ for, and he can and will fight +indefinitely. If I mistake not, it will shortly behoove this country +to temporize, to make certain concessions. Whether those concessions +extend so far as to cede these three States back to Mexico, I cannot +hazard a prediction. I can see, however, where it is not at all +improbable that New Mexico and Arizona may be considered too costly to +hold. Texas," he smiled, "Texas remembers too vividly her Alamo. +Mexico, if she is wise, does not want Texas." + +"I heard yesterday there's some talk amongst the Americans about +organizing home guards. We can't stand another postponement, Holly; it +might give them time to pull off something like that. Little Luis Medina +told me he heard a target marker for the San Bonito rifle club say +something about it. He heard the members talking. You know they're using +government rifles and ammunition. It would be a hell of a note to put +things off till every town had a home guard organized." + +"I can see no necessity for putting things off," said Holly calmly. "So +far as I can learn, we are practically ready, over here. Ah! Here comes +our charming neighbor from Sunlight Basin. Perhaps, Elfigo, it would be +as well for you to disappear from the premises." + +"Oh, I want to meet her," Elfigo smiled easily. "It'll be all right; +I just came after water for my radiator, anyway. She's dry as a bone. +I opened the drain cock and let her drain off and stood a fine chance +of freezing my engine too, before I got on past the puddle far enough +to be safe!" + +"It was, as a matter of fact, a very grave mistake to come here at all," +Holly told him with a courteous kind of severity. "I fear you greatly +underestimate the absolute necessity for extreme caution. The mere fact +that we have thus far elicited nothing more than a vague curiosity on the +part of the government, does not excuse any imprudence now. Rather, it +intensifies the need for caution. For myself--" + +"Oh, anybody is liable to run dry, out here on the desert, Holly. If all +the Secret Service men in the country, and I know of one or two that's +been nosing around, were to come and find me here, they couldn't say I +hadn't a good, legitimate reason for coming. I had to come. I didn't want +to run on to any one from that inquest, and I had to see you. I wanted to +put you wise to the stand we're taking on the Estan Medina affair. We +can't help if that somebody bumped him off, but--" + +"You can fill your water bag at the well, since that is what you came +for; and I should strongly advise you to terminate your visit as soon as +it is consistent with your errand to do so." + +"Oh, don't crab my meeting a pretty girl, Holly! Introduce me, and I'll +take the water and go. Be a sport!" Elfigo had picked up his +five-gallon desert bag, but he was obviously waiting for Helen May to +ride up to the house. + +To Starr, crouched behind on a rock on the ridge that divided the +Sommers place from the hidden arroyo where he had first seen trace of +the automobile, Elfigo's attitude of waiting for Helen May was too +obvious to question. A little, weakling offspring of Hope died then in +his heart. He had tried so hard to find some excuse for Helen May, and +he had almost succeeded. But his glasses were too strong; they +identified Elfigo Apodaca too clearly for any doubt. They were too +merciless in showing Starr that beside Elfigo stood the man who had +visited Helen May the day before. + +Recognition of the man came with something of a shock to Starr. He had +heard of Holman Sommers often enough, though he had never seen him. He +had heard him described as a "highbrow" who wrote scientific articles, +sometimes published in obscure magazines, read by few and understood by +none. A recluse student, he had been described to Starr, who knew Todd +Sommers by sight, and who had tagged the family as being too American for +any suspicion to point their way. + +As often happens, Starr had formed a mental picture of Holman Sommers +which was really the picture of a type made familiar to us mostly by our +humorists. He had imagined that Holman Sommers, being a "highbrow," was a +little, dried-up man with a bald head and weak eyes that made spectacles +a part of his face; an insignificant little man well past middle life, +with a gray beard, Starr saw him mentally. He should have known better +than to let his imagination paint him a portrait of any man, in those +ticklish times. But they were Americans, which was disarming in itself. +And the plump sister, who had talked for ten minutes with Starr when he +called at the ranch one day to see if they had any stock they wanted to +sell, had further helped to ward off any suspicion. + +Now that he knew, by the smoking jacket and the slippers and the +uncovered thatch of jet-black hair, that this man must be Holman Sommers; +when he saw Elfigo Apodaca there, seated and talking earnestly with him, +as he could tell by the gestures with which they elaborated their speech; +when he saw Helen May riding in to the ranch, he had before him all the +outward, visible evidence of a conference. The only false note, to +Starr's way of thinking, was the brazenness of it. They must, he told +himself, be so sure of themselves that they could snap their fingers at +risk, or else they were so desperately in need of conferring together +that they overlooked the risk. And that second explanation might easily +be the true one, in view of Estan Medina's death and the possible +consequence to the Alliance. + +Starr was hampered by not hearing anything that was being said down there +at that homey-looking ranch house, where everything was clearly visible +to him through his field glasses. But even so it did not require speech +to tell him that Elfigo Apodaca had never before met Helen May Stevenson, +and that Holman Sommers was not overeager to introduce him to her. Starr, +watching every movement of the three when they came together, frowned +with puzzlement. Why had they been strangers until just now? + +He saw the three stand and talk for perhaps two minutes; commonplace, +early-acquaintance nothings, he judged from their faces and actions. He +saw Helen May offer Holman Sommers the package she carried; saw Holman +take it negligently and tuck it under his arm while he went on talking. +He saw Helen May turn then and go around to the door, which was opened +effusively by the plump sister whom he knew. He saw the two men go to the +well, and watched Elfigo fill the water bag and go away down the uneven +trail to where his automobile stood, perhaps a quarter of a mile nearer +the main road. When he turned his glasses from Elfigo to the house, +Holman had gone inside, and the two women were out beyond the house +admiring a flock of chickens which Maggie called to her with a few +handfuls of grain. + +There seemed no further profit in watching the Sommers house, and Starr +was about to leave his post when he saw the dingy, high-powered roadster +of the sheriff come careening up the trail. He came near upsetting his +machine in getting around Apodaca's big car, but he negotiated the +passing with some skill and came on to where he met Elfigo himself +sweating down the trail with his full five-gallon water bag. + +Here again Starr wished that he could hear as well as he could see. That +the sheriff had seized the opportunity to place Elfigo under arrest, he +knew well enough, by faces and gestures, just as he had known of Elfigo's +introduction to Helen May. But here were no polite nothings being +mouthed. Elfigo was talking angrily, and Starr would have given a great +deal to hear what he was saying; calling it an outrage, he supposed, and +heaping maledictions on the stupidity of the law. + +The sheriff did not seem to pay much attention to what Elfigo was saying +beyond pulling a pair of handcuffs from his coat pocket, and tossing +them to his prisoner--with the invitation to put them on, Starr knew +very well, having himself done the same thing more than once. Still +talking furiously, Elfigo obeyed, and then was invited to climb in +beside the sheriff, who stooped and did something with one of Elfigo's +stylishly trousered legs; manacled him to something in the machine, +Starr guessed. From which he also gathered that Elfigo's remarks must +have been pretty strong. + +The sheriff started on, ran to where he could turn without upsetting, and +backed the car around as though his errand were done. Quick work it had +been. Evidently Sheriff O'Malley had attended the inquest with a blank +warrant in his pocket, for fear Elfigo might take alarm and give them +the slip. He must have been on the way back when he had either seen +Elfigo's car on the Sommers trail, or else had noted where it had turned +off and had come up the trail in a purely investigative spirit. However +that might be, he had not let the chance slip. Which was characteristic +of Sheriff O'Malley, essentially a man of action. + +Starr should have been glad. Perhaps he was, though he did not look it as +he went back to where Rabbit was browsing on whatever he could get while +he waited for his master. Elfigo in jail even for a few days would be an +advantage, Starr believed. It would set the rest to buzzing, so that he +could locate them with less delay. But at the same time-- + +"If it came to a showdown right now, I'd have to take her along with the +rest," he came up squarely against his real problem. "She's got it +coming; but it's hell, all the same!" + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY + +STARR DISCOVERS THINGS + + +Starr was sitting on the side of his bed with one boot off and dangling +in his hand, and with his thoughts gone journeying out over the mesa and +the desert and the granite ridge beyond, to a squatty, two-room adobe +shack at the head of Sunlight Basin. During the days he had been too +fully occupied with the work he had to do to dwell much on the miserable +fact of Helen May's duplicity, her guilt of the crime of treason against +her native country. But at night the thought of her haunted him like the +fevered ache of a wound too deep to heal quickly. + +He swore an abrupt oath as a concrete expression of his mood, and dropped +the boot with a thump to the floor. The word and the action served to +swing his thoughts into another channel not much more pleasant, but a +great deal more impersonal. + +"He's shore foxy--that hombre!" he said, thinking of Elfigo Apodaca. + +As matters stood that evening, Starr felt that Elfigo had the right to +laugh at him and the whole Secret Service. Elfigo was in jail, yes. +Only that day he had been given his preliminary hearing on the charge +of murdering Estan Medina, and he had been remanded without bail to +await trial. + +On the face of it, that looked as though Starr had gained a point. In +reality he felt that he had in some manner played into Elfigo's hands. +Certainly he had not gained anything in the way of producing any buzzing +of the Alliance leaders. Not a Mexican had shown his face at the hearing, +save Luis Medina and his mother, who had been called as witnesses. + +Luis had been badly scared but stubborn, insisting that he had heard +Elfigo call Estan from the house just before the shot was fired. The +mother also had been badly frightened, but not at all stubborn. Indeed, +she was not even certain of anything beyond the drear fact that her son +was dead, and that he had fallen with the lamp in his hand, unarmed and +unsuspecting. She was frightened at the unknown, terrible Law that had +brought her there before the judge, and not at anything tangible. + +But Luis knew exactly what it was he feared. Starr read that in his eyes +whenever they turned toward the calm, inscrutably smiling Elfigo. Hate +was in the eyes of Luis, but the hate was almost submerged by the terror +that filled him. He shook when he stood up to take the oath. His voice +trembled in spite of him when he spoke; but he spoke boldly for all +that--falsely, too. He had lied when he told of the quarrel over the old +water right. It was not a water right which the two had discussed, and +Starr knew it. + +But it was Elfigo that puzzled Starr most. Elfigo had smiled, as though +the whole thing amused him even though it annoyed him to be under arrest. +He denied, of course, that he had known anything at all about the murder +until it was common news about town. He had been somewhere else at the +time Estan was shot, and he could and would prove, when the time came, +that it would have been physically impossible for him to have shot Estan +Medina. He preferred not to produce any witnesses now, however. Let it go +to a jury trial, and then he would clear himself of the charge. All +through his lawyer, of course, while Elfigo sat back with his hands in +his pockets and his feet thrust out before him, whimsically contemplating +his tan shoes. + +He had seemed confident that bail would be accepted, and he was +unmistakably crestfallen when the judge, who acted under certain +instructions from those above him, refused to accept bail. But Elfigo had +scored, nevertheless; he had not permitted any of his friends to become +identified in any manner whatsoever with his movements, and he had +withheld his side of the case altogether. + +So Starr was left in the dark where he had expected to find the light he +needed to direct him. He had also permitted Luis to mark himself for +another murder in the Medina family. Well, Luis was a conspirator, for +that matter; but he was a boy, and his judgment had not ripened. It +seemed a shame that a youngster like that should be drawn into such a +mess. Starr, determined to do what he could to protect Luis, had seen to +it that Luis was locked up, for the purely technical reason that he was +an important witness and they wanted to be sure of him; but really to +protect him from the wrath of Elfigo. + +"And now," Starr's thoughts ran on, "I stand just where I stood before, +except that I know a whole heap more than I wish I knew. And if the thing +breaks loose before the trial, Elfigo will be in jail where he's got a +cast-iron alibi. The rest of the bunch must be strong enough to go on +without him, but I shore did hope they'd be stirred up some over this +shooting. They'll likely get together right away, hold a meeting and make +arrangements to do without Elfigo. If I knew where..." + +He lifted the other foot to remove its boot, hesitated, and set it down +again. Surely the Alliance would have to adjust itself to the loss of +Elfigo. They would get together, and what buzzing they did would be +behind barred doors, since they had been too cunning to show themselves +at the hearing; that night, probably, since they knew now that Elfigo had +been bound over to the grand jury, and that he was held without bail. +Where would they meet? That was what Starr wished he knew. + +He sat there rumpling his hair and studying the question. He could not +fix upon any particular place, unless it was the Sommers ranch; and that +was too far from town for any urgent business, and travelers to and from +the place would be taking too great a risk. For he was sure there would +be a dozen or more who would make up the Junta, and for so many men to be +traveling in one direction would excite curiosity from any one who saw +them leave town or return. + +There was another possible meeting place--the office of _Las Nuevas_. +Starr thought of that rather hopelessly. Just as a common precaution, +they would guard the doors if the Junta met there, or they would have men +stationed on the stairs; that he would not be able to get up without +giving the alarm he knew as well as though he had tried and failed. + +His thoughts went to that hidden, inner office where he had found the +pamphlets and the writing that pointed to Helen May as one of the band. +There, where there were no outside windows to betray a midnight +conference by any showing of light within; where eavesdropping was +absolutely impossible; where the men who met there might gain the yard by +various means, since it faced on three streets, and be practically safe +from observation, he became convinced would be the logical meeting place. + +To be sure, he was only guessing. He had no evidence whatever save his +own reason that there would be a meeting, much less that it would be held +in the secret office room of _Las Nuevas_. But he put on the boot he had +taken off and reached for his coat. A half hour or so ought to prove him +right or wrong in his deductions, and Starr would not have grudged a full +night to satisfy himself on that point. + +It was late, nearly midnight, to be exact, when he slipped out to the +shed, and watched from its shadow until he was sure that no one had seen +him, before he let himself down through the hole in the manger to the +arroyo bottom. He went hurriedly, but he was very careful not to show +himself without first making sure that the way was clear. + +For that reason he escaped being seen by a tall young Mexican whom he +caught sight of lounging at the corner opposite the building that held +_Las Nuevas_. Ostensibly the fellow had merely stopped to light a +cigarette, but while Starr watched him he struck three matches in +succession, and immediately afterwards a shadow glided from the shelter +of a plumber's shop opposite, slipped down to the gate that was always +barred, and disappeared. + +Starr circled warily to the rear of the yard to see what chance there +might be of getting over the wall unseen. He did not know what good it +would do him to get into the yard, but he hoped that he might be lucky +enough to see any one who entered the back door, which would be the +logical means of ingress. + +He was standing back of the garage where he had found the cord tires, +when the quiet of the night was split with the shrill, nerve-racking +shriek of the fire whistle, four or five blocks away. In spite of +himself, he was startled with its suddenness, and he stood tensed and +waiting for the dismal hoots that would tell what ward the fire was +in. One--two--three, croaked the siren like a giant hoot-owl calling +in the night. + +"Third ward--down around the depot, probably," he heard a voice say +guardedly on the other side of the fence. Another voice, more guarded +even than the first, muttered a reply which Starr could not catch. +Neither voice was recognizable, and the sentence he heard was so obvious +a remark as to be practically meaningless; probably a hundred persons in +town had said "Third ward," when the siren had tooted the number. + +At any rate some one was there in the yard of _Las Nuevas_, and it would +not be wise for Starr to attempt getting over the wall. He waited +therefore until he heard careful footsteps moving away; whereupon he +himself stole quietly to the corner, thence down the side wall to the +front of the building, so that he could look across the street to where +the Mexican had revealed himself for a moment in the light of a distant +street lamp. + +If the Mexican had been on watch there, he had left his post. In a minute +Starr saw him hurrying down the unused side street, toward the angry glow +that told where the fire had started. Too much temptation, Starr +interpreted the fellow's desertion of his post; or else no more men were +expected at _Las Nuevas_, and the outpost was no longer needed. Taking it +for granted that a meeting had been called here, Starr reasoned from that +assumption. + +He waited another minute or two, watching and listening. There was +nothing at the front to break the quiet or spoil the air of desertion +that surrounds an empty office building at midnight. He went cautiously +to the rear corner and turned there to look back at the building, +watchful for any stray beam of light or any movement. + +The upper story was dark as the rest of the yard and building, and Starr +could almost believe that he was on the wrong track entirely, and that +nothing was going on here. But he continued to stand there, loath to give +up and go home with nothing accomplished. + +Close beside the building and back perhaps twenty feet from the front +corner, a telephone and electric light pole stood with outstretched arms, +holding aloft its faintly humming wires. Starr stood looking that way for +some time before it occurred to him that there was no street light near +enough to send that warm, yellow glow across the second bar from the +bottom. The rest of the pole was vague and shadowy, like everything else +in the immediate neighborhood. The bottom of the pole he could not see at +all from where he stood, it was so dark alongside the building. But that +second cross-arm was lighted as from a near-by window. Yet there was no +lighted window anywhere in the place. + +Starr was puzzled. Being puzzled, he went slowly toward the pole, his +face turned upward. The nearest street lamp was a full block away, and it +would have lighted up the whole top of the pole evenly, if at all. At the +foot of the pole Starr stood for a minute, still staring upward. Then he +reached up, gripped the metal steps and began carefully to climb. + +Before he had reached the lighted cross-arm he knew that the glow must +come from a skylight; and that the skylight must be the one that had +saved that hidden little office room from being dark. He was no lineman, +but he knew enough to be careful about the wires, so it took him several +minutes to work his way to where he could straddle a crosstree that had +few wires. + +Just below him and no more than twelve or fifteen feet distant was the +skylight he had suspected, but before he gave that much attention, he +looked across to where the fire was sending up a column of crimson smoke +and bright, eddying sparks, four blocks or so away. The man left on guard +would find it difficult to tear himself away from all that excitement, +Starr thought satisfiedly; though if he came back he could scarcely help +seeing Starr on that lighted perch, and he would undoubtedly take a shot +at him if he were any man at all and had a spark of loyalty to his +fellows. For Starr's business up there could not be mistaken by the +stupidest greaser in the town. + +With the fire to help his cause, Starr craned toward the building and +looked down through the skylight. It had been partly raised for +ventilation, which was needed in that little, inside room, especially +since twelve men were foregathered there, and since every man in the lot +was burning tobacco in some form. + +Sommers was there, seated at the end of a table that had been moved +into the center of the room, which brought it directly under the +skylight. He sat facing Starr, and he was reading something to himself +while the others waited in silence until he had finished. His strong, +dark face was grave, his high forehead creased with the wrinkles of +deep thinking. He had a cigar in one corner of his mouth, and he was +absentmindedly chewing it rather than smoking. He looked the leader, +though his clothes were inclined to shabbiness and he sat slouched +forward in his chair. He looked the leader, and their leader those +others proclaimed him by their very silence, and by the way their faces +turned toward him while they waited. + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE + +THROUGH THE OPEN SKYLIGHT + + +Sommers took his cigar from his mouth and laid it carefully down upon the +edge of the table, although he was plainly unconscious of the movement. +He lifted his head with a little toss that threw back a heavy lock of his +jet-black hair. He glanced around the table, and his eyes dominated those +others hypnotically. + +"I have here," he began in the sonorous voice and the measured +enunciation of the trained orator, "a letter from our esteemed--and +unfortunate--comrade and fellow worker, Elfigo Apodaca. Without taking +your valuable time by reading the letter through from salutation to +signature, I may say briefly that its context is devoted to our cause and +to the inconvenience which may be entailed because of our comrade's +present incarceration, the duration of which is as yet undetermined. + +"Comrade Apodaca expresses great confidence in his ultimate release. He +maintains that young Medina is essentially a traitor, and that his +evidence at the preliminary hearing was given purely in the spirit of +revenge. That Comrade Apodaca will be exonerated fully of the charge of +murder, I myself can entertain no scintilla of doubt. We may therefore +dismiss from our minds any uneasiness we may, some of us, have +entertained on that score. + +"The question we are foregathered here to decide to-night is whether the +date set for our public demonstration shall remain as it stands; whether +we shall seek permission to postpone that date, or whether it shall be +deemed expedient to set it forward to the earliest possible moment. As +you all are doubtless aware, our esteemed compatriots in Mexico are ready +and waiting our pleasure, like hounds straining at the leash. The work of +organization on this side of the line has of necessity been slow, because +of various adverse influences and a slothful desire for present ease and +safety, which we have been constrained to combat. Also the accumulation +of arms and ammunition in a sufficient quantity for our purpose without +exciting suspicion has required much tactful manipulation. + +"But we have here assembled the trusted representatives from our twelve +districts in the State, and I trust that each one of you has come +prepared to furnish this Junta with the data necessary for an +intelligent action upon the question we have to decide to-night. Am I +right, gentlemen, in that assumption?" + +Eleven men nodded assent and looked down at the slips of paper they had +produced from inner pockets and held ready in their hands. + +"Then I shall ask you, compadres, to listen carefully to the report from +each district, so that you may judge the wisdom of foreshortening the +interval between to-night and the date set for the uprising. + +"Each representative will give the number, in his district, of armed +members of the Alliance; the amount of ammunition at hand; the number of +agents secretly occupying positions of trust where they can give the most +aid to the movement; the number of Spanish-Americans who, like our +unfortunate neighbor, Estancio Medina, have refused thus far to come into +the Alliance; the number, in his district, who may be counted upon to +come in, once they see that the cause is not hopeless; who may be +expected to take the purely American side, and who may be safely depended +upon to remain neutral. I shall ask each of you to tell us also the +extent and nature of such opposition as your district must be prepared to +meet. There has been a rumor of some preparation for resistance to our +movement, and we shall want to know all that you can tell us of that +phase of the situation as observed in your district. + +"These seemingly unimportant details are absolutely essential, gentlemen +of the Junta. For in this revolutionary movement you must bear in mind +that brother will rise up against brother, as it were. You will be called +upon, perchance, to slay the dearest friend of your school days; your +neighbor, if so be he is allied against you when the great day comes. We +must not weaken; we must keep our eyes fixed upon the ultimate good that +will come out of the turmoil. But we must know! We must not make the +irretrievable error of taking anything for granted. Keeping that in mind, +gentlemen, we will hear first the report from Bernalillo district." + +A man at the right of Sommers unfolded his little slip of paper, cleared +his throat and began, in strongly accented English, to read. The eleven +who listened leaned forward, elbows on the table, and drank in the +terrible figures avidly. Sommers set down the figures in columns and made +notes on the pad before him, his lips pressed together in a straight line +that twisted now and then with a sinister kind of satisfaction. + +"That, gentlemen, is how the Cause stands in the county that has the +largest population and approximately the smallest area of any county in +the State. While this report is not altogether new to me, yet I am +struck anew with the great showing that has been made in that county. +With the extensive yards and shops of the Santa Fe at Albuquerque seized +and held by our forces, together with the junction points and--" + +Starr did not wait to hear any more, but edged hastily back to the pole +and began to climb down as though a disturbed hornets' nest hung above +him. The report that had so elated Sommers sent a chill down Starr's +back. If one county could show so appalling an insurrectory force, what +of the whole State? Yes, and the other States involved! And the thing +might be turned loose at any time! + +He dropped to the ground, sending a scared glance for the watchman who +had gone to the fire. He was nowhere to be seen, and Starr, running to +the rear of the lot, skirted the high wall at a trot; crossed a narrow, +black alley, hurried down behind the next lots to the cross street, +walked as fast as he dared to the next corner, turned into the main +street, and made for the nearest public telephone booth. + +He sweated there in the glass cage for a long ten minutes before he had +managed to get in touch with Sheriff O'Malley and the chief of police, +and to tell each in turn what he wanted and where they must meet him, and +how many minutes they might have to do it in. He came out feeling as +though he had been in there an hour, and went straight to the rendezvous +he had named, which was a shed near the building of _Las Nuevas_, only on +another street. + +They came, puffing a little and a good deal mystified. Starr, not +daring to state his real business with them, had asked for men to +surround and take a holdup gang. All told, there were six of them when +all had arrived, and they must have been astounded at what Starr told +them in a prudent undertone and speaking swiftly. They did not say +anything much, but slipped away after him and came to the high wall +that hid so much menace. + +"There was a hombre on guard across the street," Starr told the sheriff. +"He went off to the fire, but he's liable to come back. Put a man over +there in the shade of that junk shop to watch out for him and nab him +before he can give the alarm. This is ticklish work, remember. Any +Mexican in town would knife you if he knew what you're up to. + +"Johnson, you can climb the pole and pull down on 'em through the +skylight, but wait till you see by their actions that they've got the tip +something's wrong, and don't shoot if you can help it. Remember this is +Secret Service work, and the quieter it's done, the better pleased +they'll be in Washington. There can't be any hullabaloo at all. You two +fellows watch the front and back gates, and the no-shooting rule goes +with you, too. If there's anything else you can do, don't shoot. But it's +better to fire a cannon than let a man get away. Sabe? Now, Chief, you +and the sheriff can come with me, and we'll bust up the meetin' for 'em." + +He went up on the shoulder of the man who was to watch outside the rear +wall, and straddled the wall for a brief reconnoiter. Evidently the Junta +felt safe in their hidden little room, for no guard had been left in the +yard. The back door was locked, and Starr opened it as silently as he +could with his pass key. Close behind him came Sheriff O'Malley and the +chief of police, whose name was Whittier. They had left their shoes +beside the doorstep and walked in their socks, making no noise at all. + +Starr did not dare use his searchlight, but felt his way down past the +press and the forms, to where the stairs went up to the second floor. On +the third step from the bottom, Starr, feeling his way with his hands, +touched a dozing watchman and choked him into submission before the +fellow had emitted more than a sleepy grunt of surprise. They left him +gagged and tied to the iron leg of some heavy piece of machinery, and +went on up the stairs, treading as stealthily as a prowling cat. + +Starr turned to the right, found the door locked, and patiently turned +his key a hair's breadth at a time in the lock, until he slid the bolt +back. Behind him the repressed breathing of O'Malley fanned warmly the +back of his neck. He pushed the door open a half inch at a time, found +the outer office dark and silent, and crossed it stealthily to the closet +behind the stove. O'Malley and Whittier were so close behind that he +could feel them as they entered the closet and crept along its length. + +Starr was reaching out before him with his hands, feeling for the door +into the secret office, when Sheriff O'Malley struck his foot against the +old tin spittoon, tried to cover the sound, and ran afoul of the brooms, +which tripped him and sent him lurching against Starr. There in that +small space where everything had been so deathly still the racket was +appalling. O'Malley was not much given to secret work; he forgot himself +now and swore just as full-toned and just as fluently as though be had +tripped in the dark over his own wheelbarrow in his own back yard. + +Starr threw himself against the end of the closet where he knew the door +was hidden in the wall, felt the yielding of a board, and heaved against +it with his shoulder. He landed almost on top of a fat-jowled +representative from Santa Fé, but he landed muzzle foremost, as it were, +and he was telling the twelve to put up their hands even before he had +his feet solidly planted on the floor. + +Holman Sommers sat facing him. He had been writing, and he still held his +pencil in his hand. He slowly crumpled the sheet of paper, his vivid eyes +lifted to Starr's face. Tragic eyes they were then, for beyond Starr they +looked into the stern face of the government he would have defied. They +looked upon the wreck of his dearest dream; upon the tightening chains of +the wage slaves he would have freed--or so he dreamed. + +Starr stared back, his own mind visioning swiftly the havoc he had +wrought in the dream of this leader of men. He saw, not a political +outlaw caught before he could do harm to his country, but a man fated to +bear in his great brain an idea born generations too soon into a brawling +world of ideas that warred always with sordid circumstance. A hundred +years hence this man might be called great. Now he was nothing more than +a political outlaw chief, trapped with his band of lesser outlaws. + +Sommers' eyes lightened impishly. His thin lips twisted in a smile at the +damnable joke which Life was playing there in that room. + +"Gentlemen of the Junta," he said in his sonorous, public-platform +voice, "I find it expedient, because of untoward circumstances, to +advise that you make no resistance. From the unceremonious and +unheralded entry of our esteemed opponents, these political prostitutes +who have had the effrontery to come here in the employ of a damnable +system of political tyranny and frustrate our plans for the liberation +of our comrades in slavery, I apprehend the fact that we have been +basely betrayed by some foul Judas among us. I am left with no +alternative but to advise that you surrender your bodies to these +minions of what they please to call the law. + +"Whether we part now, to spend the remaining years of our life in some +foul dungeon; whether to die a martyr's death on the scaffold, or whether +the workers of the land awake to their power and, under some wiser, +stronger leadership, liberate us to enjoy the fruits of the harvest we +have but sown, I cannot attempt to prophesy. We have done what we could +for our fellowmen. We have not failed, for though we perish, yet our +blood shall fructify what we have sown, that our sons and our sons' sons +may reap the garnered grain. Gentlemen, of the Junta, I declare our +meeting adjourned!" + +Starr's eyes were troubled, but his gun did not waver. It pointed +straight at the breast of Holman Sommers, who looked at him measuringly +when he had finished speaking. + +"I can't argue about the idea back of this business," Starr said gravely. +"All I can do is my duty. Put on these handcuffs, Mr. Sommers. They stand +for something you ain't big enough to lick--yet." + +"Certainly," said Holman Sommers composedly. "You put the case like a +philosopher. Like a philosopher I yield to the power which, I grant you, +we are not big enough to lick--yet. In behalf of our Cause, however, +permit me to call your attention to the fact that we might have come +nearer to victory, had you not discovered and interrupted this meeting +to-night." Though his face was paler than was natural, he slipped on the +manacles as matter-of-factly as he would have put on clean cuffs, and +rose from his chair prepared to go where Starr directed. + +"No, sit down again," said Starr brusquely. "Sheriff, gather up all those +pieces of paper for evidence against these men, and give them to me. Give +me a receipt for the men--I'll wait for it. I want you and Chief Whittier +to hold them here in this room till I come back. I won't be long--half an +hour, maybe." He took the slips of paper which the sheriff folded and +handed to him, and slipped them into his pocket. + +He was gone a little longer than he said, for he had some trouble in +locating the railroad official he wanted, and in convincing that sleepy +official that he was speaking for the government when he demanded an +engine and day coach to be placed on a certain dark siding he mentioned, +ready for a swift night run to El Paso and a little beyond--to Fort +Bliss, in fact. + +He got it, trust Starr for that! And he was only twenty minutes behind +the time he had named, though the sheriff and the chief of police +betrayed a nervous relief when he walked in upon them and announced that +he was ready now to move the prisoners. + +They untied the terrified watchman and added him to the group. In the +dark, and by way of vacant lots and unlighted streets, he took them to a +certain point where an engine had just backed a single, unlighted day +coach on to a siding and stood there with air-pump wheezing and the +engineer crawling around beneath with his oil can. By the rear steps of +the coach a mystified conductor stood waiting with his lantern hidden +under his coat. A big man was the conductor; once a policeman and +therefore with a keen nose--don't laugh!--for mysteries. + +He wore a satisfied look when he saw the men that were being hustled into +the car. His uniform tightened as he swelled with the importance of his +mission. He nodded to Sheriff O'Malley and the chief of police, cast an +obliquely curious glance at Starr, who stayed on the ground, and when +Starr gave the word he swung his lantern to the watching fireman, and +caught the handrail beside the steps. + +"Fort Bliss it is; and there won't nothing stop us, buh-lieve me!" he +muttered confidentially to Starr, whom he recognized only as the man who +stood behind the mystery. The engine began to creep forward, and he swung +up to the lower step. "We may go in the ditch or something; but we'll get +there, you listen to me!" + +"Go to it, and good luck," said Starr, but there was no heartiness in his +voice. He stood with his thumbs hooked inside his gun-belt and watched +the coach that held the peace of the country within its varnished walls +go sliding out of the yard, its green tail lights the only illumination +anywhere behind the engine. When it had clicked over the switch and was +picking up speed for its careening flight south through the cool hours of +early morning, he gave a sigh that had no triumph in it, and turned away +toward his cabin. + +"Well, there goes the revolution," he said somberly to himself. "And here +I go to do the rest of the job; and alongside what I've got to do, hell +would be a picnic!" + + + + +CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO + +STARR TAKES ANOTHER PRISONER + + +With a slip of paper in his pocket that would have gone a long way toward +clearing Helen May, had he only taken the trouble to look at it, Starr +rode out in the cool early morning to Sunlight Basin. He looked white and +worn, and his eyes were sunken and circled with the purple of too little +sleep and too much worry, for in the three days since he had seen her, +Starr had not been able to forget his misery once in merciful sleep. Only +when he was busy with capturing the Junta had he lost for a time the keen +pain of his hurt. + +Now it was back like an aching tooth set going again with cold water or +sweets. He tried to make himself think that he hated Helen May, and that +a girl of that type--a girl who could lend herself to such +treachery--could not possibly win from him anything but a pitying +contempt. He told himself over and over again that he was merely sore +because a girl had "put something over on him"; that a man hated to have +a woman make a fool of him. + +He tried to gloat over the fact that he had found her out before she had +any inkling of how he felt toward her; he actually believed that! He +tried not to wince at the thought of her at Fort Bliss, a Federal +prisoner, charged with conspiring against the government. She must have +known the risk she took, he kept telling himself. The girl was no fool, +was way above the average in intelligence. That was why she had appealed +to him; he had felt the force of her personality, the underlying strength +of her character that had not harshened her outward charm, as strength so +often does for a woman. + +That was the worst of it. Had she been weak she would never have mixed +with any political conspiracy; they would not have wanted her, for +intrigue has no place for weaklings. But had she been weak she would +never have attracted Starr so deeply, however innocent she might have +been. So his reasoning went round and round in a circle, until he was +utterly heartsick with no hope of finding peace. + +There was one thing he could do: it would be tightening the screws of his +torture, but he meant to do it for her sake. He would take her to Fort +Bliss himself, shielding her from publicity and humiliation; and he would +take charge of Vic, and see that the kid did not suffer too much on +account of his sister. + +He would make a man of Vic; he never guessed that he was taking up +mentally the burden which Peter had laid upon Helen May. He believed +there was good stuff in that kid, and with the right handling he would +come out all right. He would put in a plea to his chief for leniency +toward the girl too. He would say that she was young and inexperienced +and that Holman Sommers had probably drawn her into his scheme--Starr +could see how that might easily be--and that her health was absolutely +dependent upon open air. They couldn't keep her shut up long; a girl +could not do much harm, if the rest of the bunch was convicted. Maybe +the lesson and the scare would be all she needed to pull her back into +lawful living. She was not a hardened adventuress; why, she couldn't be +much over twenty-one or two! After a while, when she had straightened +up, maybe ... + +So Starr thought and thought, fighting to keep a little hope alive, to +see a little gleam of light in the blackness of his soul. His head bent, +his eyes staring unseeingly at the yellow-brown dust of the trail, he +rode along unconscious of everything save the battle raging fiercely +within. He did not know what pace Rabbit was taking; he even forgot that +he was on Rabbit's back. He did not know that his duty as a man and his +man's love were fighting the fiercest battle of his life, or if he did, +he never thought to call it a battle. + +There had been one black night in the cabin--the night before this last +one, it was--when he had considered for a while how he might smuggle +Helen May out of the country, suppressing the fact of her complicity. He +planned just how he could put her on a train and "shoot her to Los +Angeles," as he worded it to himself. How she could take a boat there for +Vancouver, and how he could hold back developments here until he knew she +was safe. He figured the approximate cost and the hole it would make in +his little savings account. He thought of everything, even to marrying +her before she left, so that he could not be compelled to testify against +her, in case she was caught. + +He had dozed afterwards, and had dreamed that he put his plan to the test +of reality. He had married Helen May and taken her himself to Los +Angeles. But there had not been money enough for him to go any farther, +and his chief had wired him peremptorily to return and arrest the leaders +of the Alliance and all connected with it. So he had bought a steerage +ticket for Helen May and put her aboard the boat, where she must herd +with a lot of leering Chinamen. He had stood on the pier and watched the +boat swing out and nose its way to the open sea, and a submarine had +torpedoed it when it had sailed beyond the three-mile limit off the +coast, so he could not go after her. He was just taking off his coat to +try it, anyway, when he awoke. + +That was all the good his sleep had done him: set him upright in bed with +a cold sweat on his face and his hands shaking. But the reaction from +that nightmare had been complete, and Starr had not again planned how he +might dodge his plain duty. But he kept thinking around and around the +subject for all that, as though he could not give up entirely the hope of +being able to save her somehow. + +He did not know, until he passed the corral, that he was already in +Sunlight Basin, and that the house stood just up the slope before him. +Rabbit must have taken it for granted that Starr was bound for this place +and so had kept the trail of his own accord, for Starr could not remember +turning from the main road. He did not even know that he had passed not +more than a hundred yards from Vic and the goats, and that Vic had +shouted "hello" to him. + +He took a long breath when he glanced up and saw the house so close, but +he did not attempt to dodge or even delay the final tragedy of his +mission. He let Rabbit keep straight on. And when the horse stopped +before the closed front door, Starr slid off and walked, like a tired old +man, to the door and knocked. + +Helen May had been washing the breakfast dishes, and Starr heard the +muffled sound of her high-heeled slippers clicking over the bare floor +for a minute before she came into the front room and opened the door. She +had a dish towel over her right arm, opening the door with her left. +Starr knew that the dish towel was merely a covering for her six-shooter, +and his heart hardened a little at that fresh reminder of her +preparedness and her guile. + +"Why, good morning, desert man," she said brightly, after the first +little start of surprise. "Come on in. The coffee's fine this morning; +and I just had a hunch I'd better not throw it out for a while yet. +There's a little waffle batter left, too." + +Starr had choked down a cup of coffee and a sandwich at the station lunch +counter before he left San Bonito, and he was glad now that he was not +hungry. He stepped inside, but he did not smile back at Helen May; nor +could he have accepted her hospitality to save himself from starvation. +He felt enough like Judas as it was. + +"Don't put down your gun yet," he said abruptly, standing beside the door +with his hat in his hand, as though his visit would be very short. "You +can shoot me if you want to, but that's about all the leeway I can give +you. I rounded up the revolution leaders last night. They're likely at +Fort Bliss by now, so you can take your choice between handing me a +bullet, or going along with me to Fort Bliss. Because if I live, that's +where I'll have to take you. And," he added as an afterthought, "I don't +care much which it is." + +Helen May stood with her chin tilted down, and stared at him from under +her eyebrows. She did not speak for a minute, and Starr leaned back +against the closed door with his arms folded negligently and his hat +dangling from one hand, waiting her decision. He stared back at her, +somberly apathetic. He had spoken the simple truth when he said he did +not care which she decided to do. He had come to the limit of suffering, +it seemed to him. He could look into her tawny brown eyes now without any +emotion whatever. + +"You don't smell drunk," said Helen May suddenly and very bluntly, "and +you don't look crazy. What is the matter with you, Starr of the desert? +Is this a joke, or what?" + +"It didn't strike me as any joke," Starr told her passionlessly. +"Thirteen of them I rounded up. Holman Sommers was the head of the whole +thing. Elfigo Apodaca is in jail, held for the shooting of Estan Medina. +Luis Medina is in jail too, held as a witness and to keep Apodaca's men +from killing him before he can testify in court. I hated to see the kid +tangled up with it--and I hate to see you in it. But that don't give me +any license to let you off. You're under arrest. I'm a Secret Service +man, sent here to prevent the revolution that's been brewing all spring +and summer. I guess I've done it, all right." He stared at her with +growing bitterness in his eyes. His hurt began dully to ache again. +"Helen May, what in God's name did you tangle up with 'em for?" he +flashed in a sudden passion of grief and reproach. + +Helen May's chin squared a little; but she who had not screamed when she +found her father dead in his bed; she who had read his letter without +whimpering held her voice quiet now, though womanlike she answered +Starr's question with another. + +"What makes you think I am tangled up with it? What reason have you got +for connecting me with such a thing?" + +A stain of anger reddened Starr's cheek bones, that had been pale. "What +reason? Well, I'll tell you. In the office of _Las Nuevas_, in that +little, inside room with the door opening out of a closet to hide it, +where I got my first real clue, I found two sheets of paper with some +strong revolutionary stuff written in English. Also I found a pamphlet +where the same stuff had been printed in Spanish. I kept that writing, +and I kept the pamphlet. I've got it now. I'd know the writing anywhere +I saw it, and I saw a sample of it here in this very room, when the wind +blew those papers off your desk." + +"You--in this room!" Helen May caught her breath. "Why--why, you couldn't +have! I never wrote any revolution stuff in my life! Why--I don't know +the first thing about _Las Nuevas_, as you call it. How could my +writing--?" She caught her breath again, for she remembered. + +"Why, Starr of the desert, that was Holman Sommers' writing you saw! I +remember now. Some pages of his manuscript blew off the desk when you +were here. See, I can show you a whole pile of it!" She ran to the desk, +Starr following her mechanically. "See? All kinds of scientific junk that +he wanted typed. Isn't that the writing you meant? Isn't it?" Her hands +trembled so that the papers she held close to Starr's face shook, but +Starr recognized the same symmetrical, hard-to-read chirography. + +"Yes, that's it." His voice was so husky that she could hardly hear him. +He moistened his lips, that had gone dry. Was it possible? His mind kept +asking over and over. + +"And here! I don't ask you to take my word for it--I know that just those +pages don't prove anything, because I might have written that stuff +myself--if I knew enough! But here's a lot that he sent over by the +stage driver yesterday. I haven't even opened it yet. You can see the +same handwriting in the address, can't you? And if he has written a +note--he does sometimes--and signed it--he always signs his name in +full--why, that will be proof, won't it?" Her eyes burned into his and +steadied a little his whirling thoughts. + +"Open it, desert man! Open it, and see if there's a note! And you can ask +the stage driver, if you don't believe me; here, break the string!" + +She was now more eager than he to see what was inside the wrapping of +newspaper. "See? That's an El Paso paper--and I don't take anything but +the _Times_ from Los Angeles! Oh, goody! There is a note! You read it, +Starr. Read it out loud. If that doesn't convince you, why--why I can +prove by Vic--" + +Starr had unfolded the sheet of tablet paper, and Helen May interrupted +herself to listen. Starr's voice was uneven, husky when he tried to +control the quiver in it. And this he read, in the handwriting of which +he had such bitter knowledge: + +"My Dear Miss Stevenson: + +"I am enclosing herewith a part of Chapter Two, which I have revised +considerably and beg you to retype for me. If you have no asterisk sign +upon your machine, will you be so kind as to make use of the period sign +to indicate a break in the context of the quotations from the various +authors whom I have cited? + +"I wish to inform you that I am deeply sorry to place this extra burden +of work upon you, and also assure you that I am more than delighted with +the care you have exercised in deciphering correctly my most abominable +chirography. + +"May I also suggest, with all due respect to your intelligence and with a +keen appreciation of the potent influences of youth and romance upon even +the drudgery of an amanuensis, that in writing "stars of the universe" in +a scientific document, the connotation is marred somewhat when stars is +spelled "Starr's." + +"Very apologetically your friend, + +"HOLMAN SOMMERS." + +It took several seconds for the full significance of that last +paragraph to sink into minds so absorbed with another matter. But when +it did sink in-- + +"Oh-h!" gasped Helen May, and backed a step, her face the color of a red +hollyhock. + +Starr looked up from reading those pregnant words a second time to +himself. He reached out and caught Helen May by her two shoulders. + +"Did you do that?" he whispered impellingly. "Did you spell my name into +that man's manuscript?" + +"No, I didn't! I don't believe I did--I never noticed--well, even if I +did, that doesn't mean--anything." I hope the printers will set that +_anything_ in their very smallest type, just to show you how weak and +futile and scarcely audible and absolutely unconvincing the word sounded. +For one reason, Helen May did not have much breath to say it with; and +for another reason, she knew there was not much use in saying it. + + * * * * * + +Helen May, sitting unabashed on Starr's lap, with an arm around his +neck and her head on his shoulder, with her dish towel and gun lying +just where she had dropped them on the floor some time before, took +Peter's last letter from Starr's fingers and drew it tenderly down +along her cheek. + +"I only wish you could have known dad," she said with a gentle melancholy +that was a great deal lightened by her present happiness. "He wasn't at +all striking on the surface; he was so quiet and so unassuming. But he +was just the dearest and the bravest man--and when I think what he did +for me..." + +"I know he was dear and brave; I can judge by his daughter." Starr +reached up and prisoned hand and letter together and held them against +his lips. "Seems like a nightmare now that I ever thought--And to think I +headed out here to..." + +"Well, I _am_ your prisoner." Helen May answered that part of the +sentence which Starr had left unspoken. "Listen, desert man o' mine. +I--I want to be your prisoner forever and ever and ever!" + +"You won't get anything less than a life sentence, lady! And--" + +"Hully gosh!" Vic, bursting open the door just in the middle of a kiss, +skidded precipitately through to the kitchen. "Fade out!" he advised +himself as he went. "But say! When you get around to it, I'd like +something to eat, Helen Blazes!" + + +THE END + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Starr, of the Desert, by B. M Bower + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 12570 *** |