Kitabı oku: «With Hoops of Steel», sayfa 7
CHAPTER XII
Albert Wellesly never made a new investment, nor allowed any change to be made in property in which he was interested, without first making a thorough personal inspection. For that reason he spent a number of busy days at the ranch, near the close of the round-up, inspecting the range and debating with Colonel Whittaker whether it would be better to enlarge it or to run the risk of overstocking by increasing the number of cattle on the land which they already held. They decided that if they could get control of certain springs and surrounding ranges, especially Emerson Mead’s Alamo and Cienega springs and another belonging to McAlvin, which joined the range they already held, it would be exactly what they needed.
“These water holes would be worth a lot to us,” said Colonel Whittaker, “but it would be just like these contrary cusses to refuse to sell at any price, especially to us.”
“Then they’ll have to be persuaded,” Wellesly replied.
It was necessary for Colonel Whittaker to return to Las Plumas before they had quite finished their inspection, and Wellesly decided to remain a little longer and go back to town alone. Whittaker hesitated over the arrangement, for he knew that Wellesly had neither the instinct nor the training of the plainsman, and that he was unusually deficient in that sense of direction which is the traveler’s best pilot over monotonous levels and rolling hills.
“Do you think you can find your way?” he said. “One of the boys can guide you over the range, and when you start back to town, unless you are perfectly sure of yourself, you’d better have him go with you, as far as Muletown, at least.”
“Oh, I’ll have no trouble about getting back,” Wellesly replied. “It’s a perfectly plain, straight road all the way, and all I’ll have to do will be to follow the main track. I’ll stay here two days longer and I’ll take two days for the trip to town. You can expect me – this is Monday – some time Thursday afternoon.”
The misadventure of Nick Ellhorn, which landed both him and Emerson Mead in jail, was on Tuesday afternoon, and it was early the next morning that Albert Wellesly left the ranch house and rode down through the foothills. He decided that the horse knew more about the road than he did, and would do just as well if left to its own guidance. So he let the reins lie loosely on its neck and, forgetful of his surroundings, was soon absorbed in a consideration of the problems of the cattle ranch. Well down toward the plain the road forked, one branch turning sharply to the right and the other to the left. The horse which he rode had, until recently, belonged to Emerson Mead, from whom the Fillmore Company had bought it. Left to its own will, at the forks it chose the left hand branch and cantered contentedly on over rising foothills. Wellesly’s thoughts turned from the ranch to other business ventures in which he was interested. It was a long time and the horse had covered much ground before he finally looked about him to take his bearings and consider his progress. Looking at his watch he thought he ought to be well down in the plain toward Muletown, and wondered that he was still among the foothills. He had an uneasy feeling that there was something wrong, but he said to himself that he had followed the straight road all the way and that therefore it must be all right. At any rate, it would be foolish not to go straight ahead until he should meet some one from whom he could ask directions. So he rode on and on and the sun rose higher and higher, and nowhere was there sign of human being. But at last he saw in the distance a splotch of green trees through which shone whitewashed walls. And presently he was hallooing in front of Emerson Mead’s ranch house.
A thick-set, elderly man, with a round, smooth, pleasant face, out of which shrewdly looked small dark eyes, came out to see what was wanted. In his knocking around the world Billy Haney had kept fast hold of two principles. One was to find out all that he could about any stranger whom he chanced to meet, and the other, never to tell that stranger anything about himself that was true. In response to Wellesly’s question, Haney told him that he was far off the road to Las Plumas, and then by means of two or three shrewd, roundabout questions and suggestions, he brought out enough information to enable him to guess who his visitor was. He knew about Wellesly’s connection with the cattle company and his recent presence at the ranch, and the man’s personal appearance had been described to him by Mead and Ellhorn. So he felt very sure of his ground when he shortly surprised the traveler by addressing him by name. Then he told Wellesly that his own name was Mullford, which was the name of a man who owned a cattle range much farther to the south and who had not been engaged in the recent trouble over the round-up. He represented himself as the owner of the place and said that he had been engaged in the cattle business ten years, but that he was not pleased with it and intended to pull out within the next year. It was nearly noon and he insisted that Wellesly should stay to dinner. An idea was dawning in his brain and he wanted time to consider it.
A hammock hung in the shade of the cottonwoods, where the breeze blew cool and refreshing, and he invited Wellesly to stretch himself there until dinner should be ready. A vaquero took his horse to the stable and Wellesly threw himself into the hammock and looked up into the green thickets of the trees with a soul-satisfying sense of relief and comfort. His revolver in his hip pocket interfered with his ease and he took it out and laid it on a chair beside the hammock. Then he pulled his hat over his eyes and in five minutes was asleep.
There was only one vaquero at the ranch house, and he and Billy Haney and Wellesly were the only human beings within many miles. When the cow-boy had taken care of Wellesly’s horse Haney called him into the kitchen. The man was tall and sinewy, with a hatchet face, a thin-lipped mouth and a sharp chin.
“Jim,” said Haney, “I’ve got a scheme in my ’ead about that man, and I think there’ll be lots of money in it. Do you want to come in?”
“What’ll it be worth to me?”
“If there’s anything in it, there’ll be a big pile and we’ll go ’alf and ’alf, and if there isn’t – well, of course there’s chances to be took in everything.”
“What’ll it cost?”
“Some work and some nerve, and then a quick scoot.”
“All right, Billy. What’s your play?”
When they had finished their planning Haney walked softly toward the hammock. A gentle snore from beneath the hat told him that Wellesly was sleeping quietly. He took the revolver from the chair, removed the cartridges from the six chambers and put it back in the same position. Then he walked around to the other side of the sleeper and called him in a hearty tone. Wellesly rose yawning, and they started toward the house for luncheon.
“You’ve forgotten your revolver, sir,” said Billy.
“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 class 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 assured him that it was all right and chaffed him a little that he so easily lost the points of the compass. 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 assurance 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 assured 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 passed 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 damn 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 grass 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 God! 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. Haney and Jim saw that they made him nervous, and racked their memories and their imaginations for more of the same sort.
They were approaching the mountains and the country around them was broken into barren, rocky hills. The road grew rougher and the mountains towered above them in jagged peaks of seemingly solid rock. The day was nearly ended and Wellesly remembered enough of the distances along the Las Plumas road to be sure that they ought to be approaching Muletown. But in this stern wilderness of rock and sand, human habitation did not seem possible. He looked back across the desert at the Fernandez mountains, standing out sharply against the red sunset clouds, and it suddenly flashed across his mind that if the sun were setting there they must have been traveling in an easterly direction all the afternoon, which meant that they had been getting farther and farther away from Las Plumas. Enlightened by this idea, he sent a quick, seeing glance along the range of mountains standing out boldly and barrenly in front of them, and he knew it was not the Hermosa range. Haney turned with a jovial remark on his lips and met Wellesly’s eyes, two narrow strips of pale gray shining brilliantly from between half-closed lids, and saw that his game had played itself smoothly as far as it would go.
Wellesly disregarded Haney’s jest and looking him squarely in the eyes said: “I suppose, Mr. Mullford, if we keep on in this direction a matter of some twenty-five thousand miles we might reach Muletown. But don’t you think we would save time if we were to turn around and travel the other way?”
Haney laughed good-naturedly and exclaimed: “You’ve not got that notion out of your ’ead yet, ’ave you! Say, pard,” he added to Jim, “Mr. Wellesly is still turned around. ’E thinks we ought to right about face and take the back track to get to Muletown. What can we do to convince ’im’ e’s all right?”
Wellesly was watching the two men narrowly, his suspicions aroused and all his faculties alert. Haney’s calm, solicitous tone for a moment almost made him think he must be mistaken. But another glance at the rocky, precipitous mountains reassured him that they were not the Hermosas and settled the conviction in his mind that he had fallen into the trap of a pair of very smooth rogues. A still, white rage rose in his heart and mettled his nerves to his finger-tips, as he thought of the plausible pretensions of good will with which they had led him into this wilderness. He scarcely heard Jim’s reply:
“I don’t know what else he wants. We’re going to Muletown, and if he don’t want to get lost out on this desert and have the coyotes pickin’ his bones inside of a week he’d better come along with us.”
“My friends,” said Wellesly, in an even tone in which could barely be heard here and there the note of suppressed anger, “if you think you are going to Muletown in this direction, all right, go ahead. That’s your funeral. But it isn’t mine. If anybody in this crowd is turned around I’m not the man. I have been, thanks to your very ingenious efforts, but I’m not now, and I’m not going any farther in this direction. Unless you can get a little more light on which way is west I’m afraid we’ll have to part company. Good-bye, gentlemen. I’m going back.”
He turned his horse squarely around and faced the long, gray levels of the darkening desert. As his eye swept over that forbidding, waterless, almost trackless waste, a sudden fear of its horrors smote through his anger and chilled his resolution. Haney spurred his horse to Wellesly’s side, exclaiming:
“Stop, Mr. Wellesly! You can’t go back over that desert alone in the night! Why, you couldn’t follow the road two miles after dark! You know ’ow uncertain it is by day, and in the dark you simply can’t see it at all. The desert is ’ell ’erself in the daytime, and it’s worse at night.”
Wellesly did not reply, for his resolve was wavering. Jim came beside them, swearing over the delay. “See here,” he said, “we’ve got no time to fool away. If this here tenderfoot thinks he knows better than we do which way we’re going, just let him round-up by himself. I’ve been over this here road dozens of times, I reckon, and I know every inch of it, but I wouldn’t undertake to travel a mile after night and keep to the trail. Maybe he can. If he thinks he’s so darned much smarter than we are let him try it.”
“Can we make Muletown to-night?” asked Haney.
Jim swore a big oath. “Didn’t you hear me say I don’t do no travelin’ on this road at night? No, sir. I know a canyon up in the mountain a ways where there’s sweet water and I’m goin’ to camp there to-night. If you folks want to come with me and eat prospector’s grub, all right, you’re welcome.”
“Thank you, pard,” said Haney. “For my part, I’ll be glad to get it. You’d better come too, Mr. Wellesly. It will be sure death, of the sort we’ve been talking about this afternoon, for you to start back alone.”
“You’re right,” said Wellesly. “I’ll go with you.”
Jim rode into a canyon which led them into the mountains and for a mile or more their horses scrambled and stumbled over boulders and sand heaps. Then they turned into another, opening at right angles into the first, and after a time they could hear the crunching of wet sand under their horses’ feet and finally the tinkle of a little waterfall met their ears.
“Here’s the place,” said Jim, dismounting.
“Sure this isn’t h’alkali?” said Haney.
“You and the tenderfoot needn’t drink it if you don’t want to,” growled Jim. “And you needn’t stay with me if you’re afraid I’m a-going to pizen your coffee.”
“Don’t get angry, my friend,” said Wellesly. “Mr. Mullford didn’t mean anything out of the way. We are both very much obliged to you for allowing us to share your camp.”
“Yes,” assented Haney warmly, “it’s w’ite, that’s what it is, to take in two ’ungry fellows and feed us out of your grub. And we’ll see that you don’t lose by it.”
They watered their horses, which Jim hobbled and left to graze upon the vegetation of the little canyon. All three men hunted about in the dim light for wood with which to make a fire, and they soon had ready a supper of coffee, bacon, and canned baked beans, which Jim produced from his pack. Afterward, he brought out a blanket apiece and each man rolled himself up and lay down on the ground with his saddle for a pillow. Wellesly thought the matter all over as he lay on his back and stared up at the moon-lighted sky. He finally decided there was nothing to do but to wait for the next day and its developments, and in the meantime to get as much sleep as he could.
When he awakened the next morning he found that the others were already up and had prepared breakfast. The blue sky was brilliant with the morning sun, but the little canyon was still damp and cool in the black shadow of its walls and of the beetling mountains that towered beyond. Their camp was at the very head of the canyon. On two sides the walls reached high above them in almost perpendicular cliffs. At the end, the rocky barrier was more broken and was heaped with boulders, through which the clear waters of the streamlet came trickling and gurgling and finally leaped over the wall into a little pool. The floor of the canyon was barely more than two hundred feet across, and twice that distance below the pool the walls drew so near together that they formed a narrow pass. In this little oval enclosure grew several pine trees of fairly good size, some scrub pines and cedars and other bushes, and the ground was well covered with green grass and flowers.
Haney was hearty and jovial in his greeting to Wellesly, solicitous about his physical welfare and genial and talkative all through breakfast. Jim grinned at his jokes and stories and ventured some facetious remarks of his own, and Wellesly told a story or two that sent the others into peals of laughter. He searched his pockets and found three cigars, and the three men sat down on the rocks and smoked them in silence. Each side was waiting for the other to make a move. At last Wellesly said that he would start back across the plain if the others still wished to continue in the same direction. They expostulated and argued with him and reminded him of the probability that he could not find his way alone, and of the dangers from heat and thirst which he would have to face.
Wellesly guessed that they wanted money and were trying to force him into making an offer. He held to his determination and while they talked he saddled and mounted his horse. Then they tried to beat down his resolution by picturing to him the certain death he would meet on the waterless plain. In his heart he was really very much afraid of that scorching, sandy waste, but he let no sign of his fear show in his face as he curtly replied:
“I’m very much obliged to you for all your concern about my welfare, but I’ll be still more obliged if you won’t worry about me any more. I’m going back and I’m going to start now, and if you are so sure I’ll get lost and die you can come along a week or so later, hunt up my bones and collect the reward that will be offered for news of me.”
At that suggestion Jim glanced hastily at Haney and Wellesly saw the Englishman shake his head in reply.
“We don’t want to be responsible for your death, Mr. Wellesly,” Haney began, but Wellesly cut him off short:
“You won’t be. I release you from all responsibility, after I leave you. Good morning, gentlemen.” And with a cut of the quirt his horse started. They had been standing near the lower end of the head of the canyon, and as he moved forward the two men sprang in front of him, blocking the narrow pass which gave the only outlet.
“Will you let me pass?” demanded Wellesly, his lips white and his voice trembling with anger.
“We’re not ready for you to go yet,” said Haney, all the joviality gone from his face and voice. His look was that of brutal determination and his voice was harsh and guttural. Jim added an oath and both men drew their guns.
“Then, by God, we’ll shoot it out!” cried Wellesly, whipping his revolver from his pocket. The hammer fell with a flat thud, and with an angry exclamation he clicked the trigger again. With furious haste he went the round of the cylinder. Jim and Haney stood grinning at him, their guns in their hands.
“Something the matter with your pop-gun, I reckon,” said Jim.
Wellesly opened it and looked through the empty cylinder. Then he put it carefully in his hip pocket, rested his hands on the pommel of his saddle and looked the two men slowly over, first one and then the other, from head to foot. At last he spoke:
“Well, whenever you are ready to make your proposition I will listen to it.”
“We ’aven’t any proposition to make,” Haney replied. “We’re not ready to leave ’ere yet, and we’re not willing for you to risk your life alone on the desert. That’s all there is about it.”
“Oh, very well! I can stay here as long as you can,” Wellesly replied, dismounting. He unsaddled his horse, hobbled it and turned it loose to graze. Then he sat down in the shade of a tree, while the others still held guard over the narrow pass. He had made up his mind that he would not offer them money. He would watch his chance to outwit them, he would match his intelligence against their cunning, his patience against their brute force. It would be worth a week’s captivity to turn the tables on these two rogues and get back to civilization in time to set at work the police machinery of a hundred cities, so that, whatever way they might turn, there would be no escape for them. He turned several schemes over in his mind as he watched Haney preparing their noon meal of bread, coffee, beans and bacon. Jim was taking a pebble from the shoe of one of the horses. Wellesly sauntered up and watched the operation, asked some questions about the horses and gradually led Jim into conversation. After a time he broke abruptly into the talk with the question:
“What is the name of these mountains?”
“The Oro Fino,” Jim answered promptly. Then he remembered that he and Haney had been insisting that they were the Hermosas ever since the day before and he stammered a little and added:
“That is, that’s what the – the Mexicans call them. The Americans call them the Hermosas.”
“So you told me last night,” Wellesly answered calmly, “but I had forgotten.”
He remembered the name and recalled a topographical map of the region which he had looked at one day in Colonel Whittaker’s office. He remembered how the three ranges looked on the map – the Hermosas, the first range east of Las Plumas, with the wide Fernandez plain lying beyond, then the Fernandez range, more like high, grassy hills than mountains, with only their highest summits barren and rocky, and separated from the Oro Fino – the Fine Gold – mountains, by the desert they had crossed the day before. He recalled the descriptions he had heard of these Oro Fino mountains – high, barren, precipitous cliffs, separated by boulder-strewn canyons and cleft by deep gorges and chasms, a wild and almost impassable region. He remembered, too, that he had been told that these mountains were rich in minerals, that the whole rocky, jumbled, upreared, deep-cleft mass was streaked and striped and crisscrossed with veins of silver and gold, turquoise, marble, coal and iron, but that it was all practically safe from the hand of man because of the lack of wholesome water. Alkali and mineral springs and streams there were, but of so baneful nature that if a thirsty man were to drink his fill but once he would drink to his death. Recalling these things, Wellesly concluded that this trickling spring of sweet, cool water and the little green canyon must be rare exceptions to the general character of the mountains and that this must have been the objective point of his captors from the start.
Along with the awakened memories came also a sudden recollection of a tale once told him in Denver by a prospector, whom he was grubstaking for the San Juan country, of a lost mine in the Oro Fino mountains of New Mexico. He was able to recall the salient points of the story and it occurred to him that it might be useful in the present emergency. While they ate dinner Wellesly spoke again of the dangers of the desert and of the risks he knew he would be taking if he should attempt to cross it alone.
“With my deficient sense of direction,” he said, “I should probably wander all over it a dozen times before I could find my way out.”
“You’d be dead long before that time,” said Jim.
“Yes, it’s very likely I would,” Wellesly calmly assented.
“Of course,” said Haney, “our friend ’ere ’asn’t got much grub and if you and me continue to live off ’im it won’t last long. ’E knows a way to get through these mountains and go down to El Paso, but of course ’e can’t be expected to pilot you down there for nothin’. Now, if you made it worth ’is w’ile, I dare say ’e’d be willin’ to stop ’is prospecting long enough to get you safe into the town. Eh, pard?”
“Yes, I can,” Jim replied, “if the tenderfoot wants to make it enough worth while. I ain’t stuck on the trip and I don’t want to fool any more time away around here. You two have got to decide what you’re a-going to do mighty quick. I want to get to prospectin’, and if I have to tote you-all down to El Paso you’ll have to pay big for the favor.”
Wellesly did not reply and Haney, who was looking critically at a big boulder on the top of the canyon wall, burst into the conversation with an exclamation:
