Part 47 (1/2)

”Oh, you're sure we've lost him?” implored Lucy.

”Sure as I am of death. An' we'll make surer in crossin' this bench.

It's miles to the other side where I'm to keep watch fer Joel. An' we won't leave a track all the way.”

”But this gra.s.s?” questioned Lucy. ”It'll show our tracks.”

”Look at the lanes an' trails between. All pine mats thick an' soft an'

springy. Only an Indian could follow us hyar on Wild Hoss Bench.”

Lucy gazed before her under the pines. It was a beautiful forest, with trees standing far apart, yet not so far but that their foliage intermingled. A dry fragrance, thick as a heavy perfume, blew into her face. She could not help but think of fire--how it would race through here, and that recalled Joel Creech's horrible threat. Lucy shuddered and put away the memory. ”I can't go--any farther--to-day,” she said.

Creech looked at her compa.s.sionately. Then Lucy became conscious that of late he had softened.

”You'll have to come,” he said. ”There's no water on this side, short of thet canyon-bed. An' acrost there's water close under the wall.”

So they set out into the forest. And Lucy found that after all she could go on. The horses walked and on the soft, springy ground did not jar her. Deer and wild turkey abounded there and showed little alarm at sight of the travelers. And before long Lucy felt that she would become intoxicated by the dry odor. It was so strong, so thick, so penetrating. Yet, though she felt she would reel under its influence, it revived her.

The afternoon pa.s.sed; the sun set off through the pines, a black-streaked, golden flare; twilight shortly changed to night. The trees looked spectral in the gloom, and the forest appeared to grow thicker. Wolves murmured, and there were wild cries of cat and owl.

Lucy fell asleep on her horse. At last, sometime late in the night, when Creech lifted her from the saddle and laid her down, she stretched out on the soft mat of pine needles and knew no more.

She did not awaken until the afternoon of the next day. The site where Creech had made his final camp overlooked the wildest of all that wild upland country. The pines had scattered and trooped around a beautiful park of gra.s.s that ended abruptly upon bare rock. Yellow crags towered above the rim, and under them a yawning narrow gorge, overshadowed from above, blue in its depths, split the end of the great plateau and opened out sheer into the head of the canyon, which, according to Creech, stretched away through that wilderness of red stone and green clefts. When Lucy's fascinated gaze looked afar she was stunned at the vast, billowy, bare surfaces. Every green cleft was a short canyon running parallel with this central and longer one. The dips and breaks showed how all these canyons were connected. They led the gaze away, descending gradually to the dim purple of distance--the bare, rolling desert upland.

Lucy did nothing but gaze. She was unable to walk or eat that day.

Creech hung around her with a remorse he apparently felt, yet could not put into words.

”Do you expect Joel to come up this big canyon?”

”I reckon I do--some day,” replied Creech. ”An' I wish he'd hurry.”

”Does he know the way?”

”Nope. But he's good at findin' places. An' I told him to stick to the main canyon. Would you believe you could ride offer this rim, straight down thar fer fifty miles, an' never git off your hoss?”

”No, I wouldn't believe it possible.”

”Wal, it's so. I've done it. An' I didn't want to come up thet way because I'd had to leave tracks.”

”Do you think we're safe--from Cordts now?” she asked.

”I reckon so. He's no tracker.”

”But suppose he does trail us?”

”Wal, I reckon I've a shade the best of Cordts at gun-play, any day.”

Lucy regarded the man in surprise. ”Oh, it's so--strange!” she said.

”You'd fight for me. Yet you dragged me for days over these awful rocks! ... Look at me, Creech. Do I look much like Lucy Bostil?”

Creech hung his head. ”Wal, I reckoned I wasn't a blackguard, but I AM.”