Part 11 (1/2)
”So I have! I'm not accustomed to carrying the thing, and if you had not reminded me I probably wouldn't have thought of it again for a week. I don't believe it is necessary to carry one, anyway, but my friend, Colonel Whittaker, insisted that I should do so.”
”You never know when you'll need one down in this country,” Haney replied, with a sad shake of the head. ”It's pretty tough, I can tell you. There's that Emerson Mead outfit. They're the worst in the southwest. You'd need your gun if you should meet any of them.”
”Yes, our company has had very serious and very sad experience with them.”
”Ah, yes! Poor young Whittaker! I 'eard about 'is death. That was the wickedest thing they've ever dared to do. Most everybody in this country 'as lost cattle by them and we'd all be glad to see 'em driven out.”
”They belong to that cla.s.s of cattlemen,” Wellesly replied, ”who start in the business with one old steer and a branding iron, and then let nature take its course.”
Haney laughed uproariously and when he could speak added: ”Yes, and in three years they 'ave bigger 'erds than any of their neighbors.
You're right, sir, and the sooner the country gets rid of such men the better. I don't think, Mr. Wellesly, it's safe for you to ride alone where you are likely to meet any of that outfit. You know the feeling they 'ave for your company, and what they did for young Will, poor boy, they'd do for you if they got the chance. I've got business out your way, over at Muletown, and if you don't mind I'll ride along with you that far. That will put you on the right road and if we should meet any of the Mead outfit they wouldn't be so likely to shoot as if you were alone.”
”All right, Mr. Mullford, I'll be very glad of your company. I'm no plainsman, and it is the easiest thing in the world for me to get lost out here among the mesquite and sagebrush, where the country all looks alike. I suppose I have about the least sense of direction of any man who ever tried to find his way across a plain alone.”
”You needn't worry about that now. Just leave it to me and I'll get you to Muletown by the shortest route. I know all this country thoroughly, every cow-path and water 'ole in it, and you couldn't lose me if you tried. You needn't think about the road again this afternoon.”
Haney buckled on a full cartridge belt and a revolver, put a pair of saddle bags with a big canteen of water in each side over his horse, slung a rifle on one side of his saddle, and they started off along a slightly beaten road straight toward the southeast. Wellesly asked Haney if he were sure they were going in the right direction, and Haney a.s.sured him that it was all right and chaffed him a little that he so easily lost the points of the compa.s.s. In the distance, a mile or so ahead of them, they saw a man on horseback leading another horse which carried a pack. When Wellesly again said that he did not understand how he could be so entirely at sea, Haney suggested that they overtake this traveler and get his a.s.surance in the matter. They galloped up beside him and called out a friendly hail. It was Jim, the _vaquero_ from Mead's ranch, but he and Haney looked at each other as if they had never met before. He a.s.sured Wellesly that they were certainly on the road which led to Las Plumas by the way of Muletown, that he knew it perfectly well, having traveled it many times, and that he himself was going past Muletown to the Hermosa mountains.
”You see,” he explained, ”Muletown ain't on the straight line between here and Las Plumas. It's away off to one side and you have to go quite a ways around to get there. That's what has mixed you up so, stranger. The road has to go past Muletown, because it's the only place on the plain where there's water.”
”Well,” said Wellesly, ”since you both say so, it must be all right.
The joke is on me, gentlemen.” He took a flask from his breast pocket.
”There isn't much left in this bottle, but as far as it will go, I acknowledge the corn.”
The men each took a drink, Wellesly finished the liquor and threw the empty flask on a sandheap beside the road. Light clouds had risen, so that the sun and all the western sky were obscured and there were no shadows to suggest to him that they were going east instead of west.
They were nearing a depression in the Fernandez mountains. Haney pointed to it, saying:
”When we get there we can show you just the lay of the land.”
They pa.s.sed through the break and a barren plain lay spread out before them bounded by precipitous mountains which swerved on either hand toward the range in which they were riding.
”That,” said Haney, ”is the Fernandez plain. You remember crossing that, surely?” Wellesly nodded. ”And the mountains over there,” Haney went on, ”are the 'Ermosas.”
”The range just this side of Las Plumas,” said Wellesly. ”Yes, I am getting my bearings now.”
”I'm going prospecting in them mountains,” said Jim. ”I'm satisfied there's heaps of gold there. I'm going up into that canyon you see at the foot of that big peak. I was in there two weeks ago and I found quartz that was just lousy with gold. You fellows better break away and come along with me. I'll bet you can't make more money anywhere else.”
”I don't care to go prospecting,” said Wellesly, ”but if you make a good strike, and develop it enough to show what it is, I'll engage to sell it for you.”
”Good enough! It's a bargain!” Jim cried. ”Just give me your address, stranger, so I'll know where to dig you up when I need you.”
Wellesly handed his card and Jim carefully put it away in his pocketbook.
Haney laughed jovially. ”You may count me out, pard, on any of that sort of business. I've blowed all the money into this d.a.m.n country that I want to. You'll never get anything out of it but 'orned toads and rattlesnakes and 'bad men' as long as it lasts. If I can pull out 'alf I've planted 'ere I'll skip, and think I'm lucky to get out with a whole skin.”
They trotted across the dry, hot, barren levels of the desert into which they had descended, seeing nowhere the least sign of human life.
The faintly beaten track of the road stretched out in front of them in an almost straight line across the gray sand between interminable clumps of cactus and frowsy, wilted sagebrush. Bunches of yellow, withered gra.s.s cropped out of the earth here and there. But even these forlorn caricatures of vegetation gave up and stayed their feet on the edges of frequent alkali flats, where the white, powdery dust covered the sand and dealt death to any herbage that ventured within its domain. Hot, parched, forbidding, the desert grew more and more desolate as they proceeded. To Wellesly there was an awe-inspiring menace in its dry, bleaching, monotonous levels. He felt more keenly than ever his own helplessness in such a situation and congratulated himself on having fallen in with his two guides. He wondered that the plain had not impressed him more deeply with its desolation and barrenness when he came out to the ranch. But he had no doubt of the ability and good faith of his two companions and he drew his horse a little nearer to them and said:
”My G.o.d! What a place this desert would be for a man to be lost in!”
Then they told him stories of men who had been lost in it, who had wandered for days without water and had been found raving maniacs or bleaching skeletons--the sort of stories that make the blood of any but a plainsman seem to dry in his veins and his tongue to cleave to the roof of his mouth. Told in all their details and surrounded by the very scenes in which their agonies had been suffered, they brought the perspiration to Wellesly's brow and a look of horror to his eyes.