Chapter I
The Wonderland of the Southwest
Colonel Colvin sat in a great roomy armchair in the Colvin Trophy Den, puffing reminiscently at a short black pipe and gazing abstractedly into the flickering flames of glowing logs in the rugged stone fireplace that was the heart of the Den. Sid, his son, and Sid's chum, Scotty, were patching their cruiser moccasins with hand sewing-awls, the former now and then glancing over at his father anxiously.
The Colonel looked peaked and worn,—a thin, gray ghost of his former robust self,—for his duty during the War had been onerous in the extreme, as head of the Army Detail Office at Washington. Sid feared a total collapse of the old Indian fighter, for nothing is harder on the system of a man raised to years of violent outdoor life than a long period of desk work. Sid knew the only road back to health. His father knew it too, but, so far, he had not made the first move toward hitting the trail again. However, a certain expectant look in the Colonel's eyes, certain mysterious telegrams which the boy had been detailed to send, addressed to an old Army friend out in Arkansas, had distilled the air of big events to come which hovered persistently in the atmosphere of the Den.
Sid himself was heavier and even more bronzed than when we saw him last, on his hunt for the Ring-Necked Grizzly out in Montana. The War, he realized, had been but an episode,—a tremendous episode, it is true—but still only an episode in his life. For some mysterious reason both he and Scotty had been transferred to the artillery, where he had risen to sergeant and had been the little king over two six-inch howitzers. His memories of the War had been of miles and miles of muddy roads and ceaseless rain; of tractors and tanks that had hauled his howitzers always forward behind the Front; of dog-tired days and weeks when they had crept toward the Vesle, ditched for passing staff cars and corduroyed out of mud sinks around shell holes. And then there had been glorious, stunning, vivid moments when he had stood between his two guns, telephone receivers over ears, shaken off his feet by the blinding yellow flashes all around him, watching the timing, correcting the ranges and deflections coming in from his spotter, or rushing to the gun shields when a Boche H. E. seemed about to register a direct hit. It was a man's job, while it lasted; almost unnoticed, Nature had put on his upper lip a fine black fuzz that told the world that Sid was no longer a boy.
To Scotty the War had been more than an episode. It had introduced a great change in the red-haired boy's life, for he now wore a black bandage on his arm, and the Henderson service flag bore a gold star. Of them all, the good old Doctor had not returned. A Fokker 'plane bomb had found out the first-aid dressing station where the grizzled old physician had stood, bathed to his shoulders in gore, working without rest or sleep for the thirty-six hours of a major engagement. That was all; there was nothing left of the dugout after that shell had crashed through its roof and exploded. But there were aching hearts in the Henderson home because of it, and Scotty looked older and sadder. The worry of measuring his earning power against this new and hectic America that had emerged from the War had cast a settled sternness on his youthful face. Days in the open would now be a matter of precarious vacations for him!
As the boys mended camp gear the rumble of a big automobile express sounded out in the street, its brake shrieking as it stopped before the house. Colonel Colvin moved in his chair and listened expectantly. They heard the grunt of men struggling under some heavy load, and then the stamp of their feet as they came around the yard path and stopped before the outside door of the Den. A thunderous knock brought all inside to their feet.
"Come in!" shouted the Colonel, springing up to open the door. Two expressmen stood grinning out in the snow, holding between them a long, heavy crate. The leader proffered a thumbed and dog-eared book for the Colonel to sign.
"Bring 'em right in and set her down, men," ordered the Colonel, after paying out a bill and some change. The expressmen crowded into the Den, setting down the crate with a big sigh of relief.
"I think you'll find 'em all right, sir," grinned the man of the official cap. "Nice pups, eh?"
Sid jumped for the crate, and a tingle of joy thrilled through him. Pups, eh! Why, then—
"Beauties!" chortled the Colonel, replying to the man, "Three Redbone pups, by Ruler out of Music, sir. Reg'lar old-fashioned Southern cold-trailers from Arkansas."
The expressman evidently owned some rabbit beagles himself, for he looked over the dogs with renewed interest. "What breed of houn' dogs might these be, Colonel, if I might ask?"
"Coon hounds, man! The old pioneer's hound—best bear and lion dogs in the world," explained the Colonel enthusiastically, while Sid winked blissfully over at Scotty.
The very smell of their lithe, active bodies seemed to bring the tang of mighty mountain ranges into the Den again. Watching the dogs, the Colonel's age fell away from him as a mantle; his eyes sparkled, he moved about the crate, eying the pups like a boy, and then sent Sid into the main house for tools. The log-walled Den, hung with game heads, rifles and saddles, was a replica of the Colonel's western log cabin of his younger days.
Built as a wing on to their great town house, there was an entrance direct into the house from it. The expressmen departed, with many a comradely grin, while the Colonel and Scotty waited impatiently for Sid to return with his hammer and cold chisel. Then two upper slats of the crate were lifted, and out jumped the pups, one after another, to range about the room on long, skinny legs. Never were such long-eared, rat-tailed smell-dogs, it seemed to Sid and Scotty, as they watched them delightedly, while the Colonel dug up a set of new collars and chains out of a drawer in his desk. Evidently he had known all about those dogs in advance, reasoned Sid, as he watched this proceeding. And, as they could not possibly be used anywhere in the eastern states, there was more to this than appeared on the surface!
They took them out into the snow for a brief airing. Once back in the Den again, Sid nailed the Colonel imperatively.
"You've got something up your sleeve, Father,—don't tell me!" he laughed, "Where are we going, and when is it coming off?"
The Colonel grinned indulgently. "I tried my level best to buy Ruler, the father of these pups; but Judge Hawkes would rather part with his own right hand than with Ruler!" he remarked, irrelevantly.
"Answer me, sir—please!" begged Sid. "When—oh, when, Father?—and where?"
"The big problem is how to give them a bit of training," grinned the Colonel, imperturbably. "None of the states around here allow deer running with hounds ——"
"Scats cats! —That means the West, anyhow!" whooped Sid, triumphantly. "How about it, Scotty, eh?"
"Fraid it lets me out," remarked the sandy-haired boy, quietly. "I've got to be looking for a job these days."
Sid looked his sympathy and put his arm about Scotty's shoulders. "We'll manage it, somehow, old bunkie—never fear!" he said, consolingly. "It may be your last,—but we just got to have this one together!"
The Colonel smiled enigmatically. "Sure you're going, Lester—job and all!" he assured him. "And how about training these pups, boys?"
Scotty couldn't see it, but at least he would be glad to help train the dogs, anyhow, he reflected.
It would give him some precious days in the mountains under tent cloth. How such vacations were to be treasured—now!
The Colonel took three pedigree certificates out of his desk drawer. "Pepper, Bourbon and Lee," he read, naming the pups, "the markings will tell which is which." Then he looked toward the house door of the Den like a guilty boy. "Boys—how will we—how dare we lead 'em in?" he whispered. "Your mother, Sid, knows nothing of this—and you know how she hates dogs!"
The boy chuckled. The Colonel was in a worse fix than he ever had been facing Apache Geronimo! "Looks like they would have to live right here, sir!" laughed Sid, looking up from making friends with the first puppy. "Couldn't wish for better den mates I'll say!"
The Colonel knew more than either of the boys about the trouble he was getting into. That haunting, houndy look in the pups' eyes, as their long, silken ears drooped from high, pointed crowns, told him of a diabolical persistence and a wild, ineradicable thievishness that would play havoc with Mrs. Colvin's domestic arrangements! You could feed them with a shovel and still there would be room for more. And, as to the neighbors' cats and chickens—he shuddered at the thought.
"Well—we might as well have it out now!" he remarked, grimly, seizing the chains and pushing open the house door.
A feminine shriek greeted him. "Where did you get those horrid dogs?—Send them away at once—I won't have them!" came Mrs. Colvin's indignant protest. Pepper, the biggest of the trio, jumped and broke away at that moment, darting for the pantry door with the boys in hot pursuit. A wild African yell came from the kitchen where Aunty Sally was preparing supper. Then there was a crash of broken china, another war whoop, and Pepper came yelping, booted through the door to dash under the dining-table legs.
Aunty Sally charged wheezily after him. "He done broke de Dresden china bowl!—Dat ornery houn' dawg he done broke de Missus' china oyster dish!" she yelled.—"Whar he at!—Let me beat him black an' blue!"
A wail of anguish went up from Mrs. Colvin. The Colonel stood, thunderstruck and unhappy, yanking back on the chains of his other two leaping pups. Just then Pepper darted kiyi-ing from under the table and raced for the upstairs stairway. Aunty couldn't reach him with her broom, but she whipped off a huge boot and hurled it after him, just missing a Vernis-Martin glass cabinet by inches as Pep bolted up the stairs to hide under a bed, where the boys followed, howling with glee, to recapture him.
Aunty Sally stopped and glared at the Colonel reprovingly.
"Marse Colvin, you done got three of them thievin', potlicker smell-dawgs?" she accused,—"I'se shore 'shamed of you-all!—There, there, honey, don't cry!" she soothed, taking Mrs. Colvin in her arms while the boys came back with Pepper, yelling with ungodly joy.
"He's gwine take them right out'n yeah, Missus,—or I don't cook him another waffle—so there, Kuhnnel, 'deed I isn't!" she flared at him.
Colonel Colvin's jaw dropped as he stood irresolutely, with the pups winding their chains about and about his legs. Aunty Sally was an ancient institution in the Colvin household. She had raised Sid from a baby, and had grown up with the Colvins since they had settled east. A power in the household, he could not conceive how they were to get along without her, for no one else could cook any such waffles!
Then he beat a masterly and strategic retreat. "I guess it's outdoors for them!" he surrendered, at discretion. "We'll build a kennel for them, right away—look out, Scotty!—there goes Bourbon!—Catch him, boys!"
Scotty had volunteered to hold Bourbon, the second pup, but somehow his fingers had become relaxed and Bourbon was off like a flash, darting for the pantry door where his nose told him there were eats. The boys followed on the run. They found the kitchen empty, save for an atmosphere of appetizing odors. No sign of the pup anywhere!
They stood still and listened. Then a cold draft from somewhere led them to the back door of the kitchen. It stood partly ajar, and from outside came a swift lapping as of a dog's tongue. Dashing out, there was Bourbon, standing in the snow, his nose deep in a huge tureen of chicken gumbo for the whole family, put out there to cool off! It was red hot, but Bourbon was transferring it, as fast as he could make his tongue go.
"Yeow!" whooped Sid, leaning up against Scotty, who leaned against him, weak from laughter.
"Come on—bring 'em out, Father—they might as well all finish it up, now!"
"Coming—what's the matter now?" called the Colonel's voice as they heard him striding through the kitchen, accompanied by the hard click of horny hound nails. He opened the door, Pepper and Lee nearly yanking him off his feet as they both leaped for the tureen. The Colonel roared with Gargantuan laughter—the wild and woolly Outdoors had surely come again to Colvin House! There were feminine sniffs behind him, and another uproar from Aunty Sally, but the mischief was done. No question about Ruler's pups getting theirs first, that night!
Be that as it may, they could get nothing further out of the Colonel but quizzical grins concerning the proposed hunting trip. Spring came and ripened into summer, finding him still sphinxlike. But every evening he kept them at mending tents and duffel and hunting clothes, while Pepper, Bourbon and Lee put weight on their black and tan bodies until they were great hulking things of over fifty pounds, lacking only hardening to make them full-grown dogs. Occasionally, when Scotty could get off from the job that he had taken in the bank, they went up into the mountains for a brief camp and a run for the dogs. Pepper saw his first deer. After that hunt the pups had to be chased, rounded up and chained in camp until it got to be a plaguy nuisance, no less!
Then came a letter from Big John that gave the Colonel's secret away. The boys found it lying open on the cedar log table in the Den, probably forgotten during some call into the house.
"Got your letter telling how Jedge Hawkes is sending out Ruler and am sharpening up the camp axe," began the letter, as the boys giggled over this cryptic sentence. "Will be in Santa Fe Oct. I, and go on to Hinchman's Ranch to see about hosses," they read on with joyful eyes. Then they skipped away from the table, for the Colonel was coming back through the house door. He eyed them suspiciously as his glance fell on the open letter. Then Sid burst into a whoop and threw his arms around him boyishly.
"Oh, Dad!—is it the Southwest? Are we really and truly going to the Southwest ?" he caroled.
"Who said anything about the Southwest?" growled the Colonel, trying to twist down his lips under his white mustache. "You been reading my letters?"
"Couldn't help it, Dad! Gee, I can see those big hen-tracks of John's 'way from here! And he's going to meet us in Santa Fe, too—with Ruler!"
"Who's 'us,' young man?" queried the Colonel. "Well! I might as well tell you, now; and I'll begin with Scotty. You wanted to go into mining, didn't you, Scotty?" inquired the Colonel.
"Yes, sir—but I can't afford a technical college course, now," said the boy, sadly. "Mother has nothing but her pension——"
"Yes; but that will take care of her alone, son," said Colonel Colvin kindly. "I don't know but the best way to learn mining is the same as the way you learned soldiering, from the ranks up. I'm taking you to the best mining state in the Union, where you can handle the stuff right on the ground, find your own lodes, study mineralogy with the minerals in your own hands,—so you will know carbonate ore when you see it. That's half the battle; the technology of process work you can pick up right at the mines and mills. There's lots of room for the young mineralogist who can go right along with his own saddle horse and outfit, take care of himself in a dry country, and know real lodes when he sees them. We're going up through the eastern part of the Navaho reservation, where there's pine forests. Big John used to punch cows down in that country; it's an old story to him. We'll explore some ancient cliff dwellings up in the Canyon Cheyo and then cross over to the Colorado and get up on the north rim of the Grand Canyon. That's the best cougar, bear and deer country in the Southwest. How'd you like to camp in a rainless land, boys? Where there's no snow, no dreary northeasters, lots of queer new plants and trees that you never saw before, and where a man can ride like thunder on a hot cougar trail under great western pines! Where a brush sunshade is all the camp you need for weeks on end, and where you can loaf or explore or shoot or weave blankets or do anything you darn please, anyhow, any time! Something new,—eh?"
"You said it, Dad! Gee, I've just longed to camp out in that country, for once!" sighed Sid. "How about you, Les?"
"'Fraid I can't," returned his chum. "Gorry, but I'd love to, though!" he added, wistfully.
"But you shall, my boy!" came back the Colonel, positively. "Your mother and I have talked it over. She has enough to live on with you away, and it will be a practical opening in mining for you. I know some big people down there in Prescott, and I know what I am talking about!" he insisted.
Scotty leaped at Sid with glad enthusiasm. "Whee—yow!" he yelled. "Am I really going?—Thanks, Colonel, ever so much!" he gasped out, wringing his hand. "What do we take for outfit, sir?"
"The little five-by-six-foot paraffined muslin wall tent for you two. Just a light tarp and my Army bedroll for me"—grinned the Colonel. "Otherwise your Montana outfits will do, just as they stand —"
"What—in that hot country, Dad?" inquired Sid, incredulously.
"She's cold enough, at night, son," laughed the Colonel. "Those stag shirts and the canvas fleece-lined coats will come in mighty handy. Sid, you'll take the .30 Government carbine, and Scotty the Doctor's .405, while I'll pack the old meat gun, the .35 Model '95. Big John's attending to the horse outfit."
"Cracky!—Won't it be some pickles to hunt with the old iron-man again, though! They say he did wonders in France," cried Sid, all happy excitement over the prospects of going West again.
"Sure did!" chuckled the Colonel. "There was a good story going around his regiment that they tell on Big John, boys. It seems they were in the middle of a charge, when someone yelled out—'Hey—Big John!—shake off your bayonet—there's three Boches dangling on it!'"
"Reminds me of a dare-devil I had in my battery," grinned Sid. "That fellow, a big, red-haired Maine man, was afraid of nothing! During our Argonne advance we had a battery assignment with one gun to go right under a tree. The Boches had left a bomb there dangling from a branch by a rope, so that if you took it down it would surely go off. Up comes Mike, as we all stood looking at it, figuring out how to get rid of the thing. 'Lave me at ut!' says he, brushing the rest aside, and before I could yell out a word he had ripped it loose—every one scattering right and left—and then he hurled it,—and the thing went off in mid-air and liked to have blown down our tree!"
"Great times you boys must have had!" sighed the Colonel, "but fighting was not so damn devilish in my day. Glad it's all over, and we can get back to the clean joys of hunting again! We'll get our hats in Albuquerque—wait till you see 'em! A big Mex sombrero, with a sugar-loaf crown and a brim a yard wide—unless things have changed from my old Apache days. And they don't change, much, down there. New Mexico's still half Spanish."
The boys realized that when, two weeks later, their transcontinental bade good-by to Colorado at Spanish Peaks and dropped down the old Santa Fe trail into New Mexico. Mesas, Indian pueblos still inhabited, and little Mexican 'dobe villages greeted them on every hand, keeping the boys continually crossing to opposite windows of their Pullman to stare out. This was not the old U. S. at all! It just couldn't be! As the train climbed the grade toward Arizona, the country grew wilder and more desolate. Navaho and Zuni Indians came down to the stations to trade baskets and pottery; the pueblo of Laguna rose close at hand; the high rock of Acoma, whose pueblo has defied the conqueror for centuries, was to be seen, dim and misty, down a bare valley. They saw a great natural bridge carved by water out of the solid cliff, and then, high above, the train passed those remarkable carved and pinnacled buttes called Navaho Church, as the tracks dipped down-grade again, to follow the winding valley of the Puercos into Arizona. Bare and desolate and empty and dry was that stream bed, with frightful bad lands rising across the river to the rim of a high plateau, fringed with scraggy timber.
Shortly after dinner of that last day, the train slowed down to stop at a little water tank station. Hinchman's Ranch could be reached, forty-five miles north from here. The boys searched avidly the little flat, back of the station, with eager eyes. It seemed a mile or so wide and was backed by rock-ribbed bad lands that ascended to the plateau. Whirling clouds of red dust, each the storm center of a cowboy on a cayuse, smoked through the sparse greasewood that dotted the plain, banging out a welcome with fanning revolvers. Alongside the track they spied Big John, mounted on a restive white wild mustang that had evidently only recently been "gentled," for he seemed inclined to hop right over their locomotive. With him were two saddled ponies, evidently for them, and a big roan horse for the Colonel. Barking at the train was the largest and boniest hound the boys had ever seen.
"That must be Ruler, Les—and there's Big John with the horses—Gee-roo! I want to yell!—Can't we get this window open?" cried Sid excitedly.
"C'mon, boys, grab your rifles and let's vamoose," called the Colonel, hustling out of the smoking compartment with the stump of a black cigar smoldering under his white mustache. "Here, Sambo, fall on this duffel, boy."
They tumbled out of the vestibule and the Colonel, after a hearty handshake with Big John, hurried forward to see about their crate of dogs in the baggage car.
"Hi, Sergeant Sid!—Gosh-all, but you do look nattral!" yelled Big John from the white horse, as Sid rushed across the cinder platform of the station. "Down, Ruler, down!—you ol' pisen houn' dawg!" he roared.—"An' dam'f thar ain't that ornery little shavetail Looie, Scotty! Put 'er here, you li'l rooster!—Put 'er here!" chortled Big John, leaning far out of his saddle as the white horse braced against his weight on the stirrup.
The boys fell all over one another shaking Big John's huge paw. Except for a frightful shrapnel scar that seamed his face, he had not changed much since Montana days. The same big hawk nose, the same piercing black eyes and long, twirling mustache, the same intense black hair, under—yes,—the same old Stetson that he had worn in the Rockies! Evidently the giant Montanan scorned the "greaser" hat of the Southwest.
"Them black eyes and black hair of yourn, Sid, make you look like a reg'lar greaser under that dome;—an', gosh, ef he ain't raisin' a mustache," guffawed Big John. "Scotty, you look like a red candle what's hed a extinguisher set on to it," observed the irrepressible cowman. "Otherwise the Colonel ain't made no mistakes," he added, sizing up their outfit critically.
Just then that gentleman himself came down the platform, followed by two of the ranch teamsters carrying a huge dog crate.
"Here, John, take a look at these pups!" called the Colonel, as the crate was set down and he fumbled for his keys. Unlocking its door, Pepper, Bourbon and Lee climbed out and shook themselves all over. At sight of them Ruler bared fangs and flew at them. He didn't know his own of offspring! A furious dog fight ensued. They booted the dogs apart, and a growly peace was enforced;—in the midst of which there was a rapid clatter of hoofs and the two cowboys the boys had seen from the car window came loping in, to be introduced by Big John.
"This here's Red Jake, an' t'other's Mesa Joe, Colonel," explained Big John, introducing them.
"Up at Hinchman's they just natchelly lives hearty on fried t'rantulas an' centipedes, reg'lar; but they ain't nohow averse to eatin' a baked Apache if they kin ketch one. The Colonel here, fellows, is one of the old original Geronimo hunters,—an' these is his cubs," concluded Big John, introducing the boys with a final wave of his hand.
Red Jake and Joe grinned, but said nothing, as they shook hands all around.
"Wait till we gets you out behind the bunk house, John!" muttered the red-haired one behind his hand, as they looked the Colonel over respectfully, glad to meet an old Indian fighter. Both were typical Arizonans, leathery and lean and sunburned, with hard, gray eyes all puckered from the constant desert glare.
"Well, Sid, climb this here twister and we'll get up the bad lands to the rim," said Big John, as the ranch teamsters finished piling their duffel into the wagon. "All ready, sir?"—this to the Colonel—"we gotta make Navaho Wells by sundown."
Sid found that his pony was trained to start as soon as his foot touched the stirrup. His pinto bolted off with him, with the rest of the outfit strung after in hot pursuit. Presently the two Arizonans passed him like the wind, their horses thundering by in a cloud of dust. All Sid had ever dreamed about riding was nothing to this! He yelled and waved his hat, whereat the "twister" rose and bucked and sunfished, requiring an iron knee grip and a yank on his Mexican curb to bring him to earth again.
With Ruler and the pups leaping around the horses' heads, it was a furious race for a while, but then came the steep ascent through bare and hideous clayey ravines. Arrived at the top, the party stopped to rest the horses and there was a chance to look around. This was a mighty red and purple land, thought Sid, as his eyes rested, now on the snowy cones of the San Francisco peaks, a hundred miles to the west, now on the endless jumble of flat mesas to the north of him. It was a land of great horizontal ridges, yellow and red and blue and black; sloping up, sloping down, always in immensely long, gentle slants. And between them there were rocky talus beds strewn with pebbles and bowlders. Of vegetation there was almost none.
Later the sage and greasewood became more abundant, and then, forty miles to the north, a ridge of pink layer-cake buttes jutted up into the clear air, with a faint tinge of green at their bases, along what was evidently a river bed. Here would be Hinchman's Ranch. Sid reached for the cavalry canteen on his saddle hook, and turning, saw Scotty doing the same thing.
"Here's how, Pal!" he said; "this is sure going to be one thirsty country, Les!"