Chapter X
The Desert's Frown
"Stop him!—Nothing stopped him!" smiled the Colonel wanly from his bandages, as he eyed the huge skin of the Yellow Grizzly stretched between four poles and propped up where he could look at it and gloat over it. "Look at that skin—it's a regular sieve!"
The boys and Big John sat against trees around the small camp fire in front of the Colonel's stretcher bed tent. It had been a strenuous two days. First there had been, for Sid, those anxious hours of waiting and signaling until at last Big John and Scotty had poked the noses of their ponies over the ridge. Then the long trail home, with two stretchers to carry, the bulk of which labor had fallen on Sid and Big John, while Scotty led the horses. And then a feverish night in camp, when both patients needed sitting up with and constant attention. This second day had been spent in skinning out the grizzly by Big John and Scotty, and in assiduous doctoring and splint-making by Sid. And now, as sunset came, the huge pelt had been set up for the Colonel to look at, and Sid had decided to let him talk.
"Yes, sir, that was the nearest I ever came to getting my everlasting!" went on the Colonel. "With just two inches more reach he'd have taken out every rib in my body. It was in the dim light before dawn, boys, that I made him out, standing over the body of the deer. He picked that buck up like a mouse and started lumbering off with it. That gave me only a rear quartering shot, which is the very one to make him most angry and do the least immediate damage. But it was that or none, so I drew careful bead and fired.
"That started the fun, men!" said the Colonel, laughing feebly, after a pause to get his breath. "He whirled about and started for me in leaps that were twenty feet to the jump. It was the cursed wind that did it. You know how it whirls and howls around Buckskin! Never the same any two minutes. Some one of those back currents sweeping down the mountain took my scent right to him. He didn't want any better guide!
"I think I missed my second shot," went on the Colonel, "for he was bounding up and down so over those bowlders, rearing and bellowing like an express train as he came. But my third bullet took him square between the eyes and doubled him up like the punch of a battering-ram. He went over in a complete somersault, Sid. Did he stay down? Any other creature in the world, even an African lion, would have been scuppered by that shot, but that mountain of beef got up and came right on, like a ton of hate. You know something of the ferocity of that grizzly charge, Sid, and you, too, Scotty!
"The next shot was a heart shot and I was mighty careful of it, for I had only about forty yards left ——"
Big John nodded. "Shore 'twas a center shot, Colonel. That heart was shot to ribbons when I took her out. I seen whar the bullet went in, an' got her out to see what ye done to him. Oughtta hev stopped him, right thar."
"Not for a minute! He squalled like a stuck pig, but hardly slackened. I fired my last bullet at fifteen feet and then jumped back from the cleft in the bowlders where I was hidden. He cleared the distance in one bound and I saw that big right paw of his coming down on me like the trunk of a tree. It smashed the rifle out of my hands. I felt like a hot iron had ripped me from top to bottom as his claws raked down inside my guard. I went over backward and then Niltci jumped in, from God knows where, and his knife flashed up and into the bear's side. That's the last thing I know about it, for I saw stars as my head struck the rocks."
"That blow knocked you about ten feet, Father, over the rock and into a little hollow behind your hide," said Sid. "As for Niltci, a back-hand swipe from the bear splintered his leg like a straw. There wasn't a claw mark on him. The old yellow boy must have collapsed where he lay, but he bit off and broke every pinyon tree in reach before he gave up. Some charge! I'll match him against any dangerous beast the world over. I'd like to see a bunch of Masai tackle him with spears, the way they do an African lion!—There would be mighty few left after he got through."
The Colonel looked blissfully at the great yellow expanse of fur, tipped with fine white at the end of each hair. "Boys, she'll about cover the floor of the Den back home!" he exclaimed. "I've met a good many bears in my time, but our cavalry troop never got over into southern California, although we heard a good deal about those big demon grizzlies there. Even the modern .35 is not gun enough, I'll say! The old buckskin pioneers must have had their hands full with them!"
Sid now brought up the matter of Major Hinchman's letter, for it was essential to move quickly about that business.
"The thing to do, as I see it, Father, is for Scotty and Big John and myself to take the dogs over there, right now. We know where the Black Panther hangs out, which the Major doesn't. He and Big John can run him with the hounds, while Scotty and I climb up by the lariat into Lost Canyon and wait there until he comes. There must be a kiva or underground secret society cave somewhere in that pueblo. We'll drop the carcass down there, so it will disappear forever. Then Major Hinchman can fix up some sort of a yarn that will take with the Indians, and the whole affair will blow over if the Black Panther don't come any more. Niltci will be able to creep around and look after you and the camp in a day or so, and there's plenty of meat and provisions. We can get back in about a week."
The Colonel ruminated over it for some time. "Looks good, Sid. The less Niltci and I move around the better. I ought to be fairly well healed in a week, and the splints you put on the Indian boy will let him get about if you make him a pair of crutches. We'll make out! As for the Black Panther skin, it would be a wonderful trophy, but you couldn't ship it out of Arizona without the game warden examining it, and then word of it would get back to the Indians. For Hinchman's sake the only thing to do is to abolish it. Well—you might as well get organized for the trip, Sid."
He closed his eyes as if tired out with the effort. Sid and Scotty went to their tent, where lay Niltci. On being told that they were going to leave for a long trip, the Indian boy insisted on having a browse bed made for him under the Colonel's shelter, where he could attend to him. A shy and childlike adoration for the old army officer seemed to have grown up in the Navaho lad; there was nothing he could do that would repay the debt he felt he owed the Colonel for saving him from the fanaticism of his own kinsfolk. This feeling he managed to convey in expressive sign language, accompanied by what few English words he knew. So, while Big John mended horse gear and got the outfits together, the boys spent the evening in making Niltci a pair of rude crutches and moving him out where he and the Colonel could run their own hospital together.
Next morning the boys turned out, to find the Colonel and Big John talking earnestly in low tones together. Sid knew from their serious faces what they were discussing—water. The boys hovered around to listen, for both men were old desert campaigners and a long experience backed their words.
"You can't make time and take any of the pack animals, John," the Colonel was saying. "Yet that water hole may be dry, or all green scum not fit to drink, at this time of the year. Ten gallons a day is the very least the horses can make out on. If you fill up at that tank you can push along and reach Canyon Cheyo by evening of the second day. I have only two water bags. Five gallons each. You'll have to sling them to Scotty's saddle bags, for he is the lightest. You can carry two quart canteens each, using all our spare ones See that they are well-corked, for they will be half rations at the best. No use striking for the San Juan. It is really as far up there as over the desert to Red Valley."
"You leave it to me, Colonel," broke in Big John, emphatically. "I don't want no pack horse totin' water. I'll rig them bags, an' we'll roll our freight outer here an' squeeze the dern water out of that desert if we have to!"
The boys made up their own rolls and saddle bags with a sense of the seriousness of their undertaking. To cross that desert without either packing or wagoning an ample supply of water was no joke. If all went well and they kept a good pace, they could make what water they could carry do. If stopped anywhere, any way, by a sandstorm, for instance—it made them thirsty just to think of it!
As they filed out of camp Scotty rode the Colonel's big roan, for he could easily carry the boy's weight and the extra eighty pounds of water in the canvas bags. The rest of the party were loaded up with bags of oats in addition to their own outfits.
At the ferry the old-timers shook their heads when the water bags and canteens were filled for their dash. It couldn't be done—that was certain as death! But there was too much at stake to turn back. They alone could solve Major Hinchman's Indian troubles, and they weren't going back on the Colonel's old army chum, no matter what the risk.
Once across the Colorado the horses cantered off briskly, snorting and whickering with good spirits. They had been filled up with all the water they could hold and it was yet early morning, keen and cool. The steep climb up the red buttes that led over the divide to the flat country north of the mesas began. Then came sand, valleys and valleys of it, with scant vegetation, dry, arid and desolate. That loose sand was particularly hard on the dogs. Lee had been left behind in camp, for he was too long-coupled to have the needful endurance, but Pepper and Bourbon, they had felt, would be worth taking. Ruler seemed made of iron, as he rambled right along through it. He evidently appreciated his responsibilities, for if either Pepper or Bourbon attempted to lag he was behind them with ready snarl and snapping teeth that drove them flying onward. At noon the party halted and doled out their first water. It worried the boys to see how greedily the horses sucked down their allotments of half a canvas pail each and then whickered and bit for more. The dogs nearly came to a fight over theirs, and each had to be held by his collar to prevent him from flying at the drinking one.
By evening the horses had slowed to an exasperating walk and the dogs limped painfully. Down into a hideous gulch Big John led the party. It was out of the wind, but dry as the Sahara. Here they made their first dry camp. The first water bag had gone flat and the second was already alarmingly lean. Sid shook his canteen. There was but a drop or two in the one on the off hook, and again he felt the cork of the other to make sure that it had not come out. He had gotten through the day on schedule. They were all right, provided ——
That night he woke up with the cold. That was unusual, in itself, for that bag was good down to below freezing. Sid uncovered the flap and looked out. The stars were obscured, and a steady stinging sift, sift, sift of sand went on all around him. He could hear that faint, continuous hiss and ticking, and, attempting to move in his bag he was surprised to note it heavy as lead and immovable.
"Sounds like the beginning of a sandstorm to me," he murmured to himself. "I'd better wake John, so we can all turn out and look after the horses."
He crawled out of his bag and punched Big John awake. The keen wind blew steady and strong, chilling him to the bone, while blown sand gritted in his teeth. It did not take the big plainsman more than one sniff to bounce out of his mess of blankets, wide awake.
"Shore it's a reg'lar night-bloomin' swozzle a-comin', Sid! Let Scotty lie. We'll git the hosses in under the shelter of the buttes."
Out in the cold gloom they found the animals, standing patiently with their sides to the wind. Pulling up their picket pins, they herded them into a sort of shelf where a great rock wall jutted out in a weird, wind-scoured formation, like a vast top on end.
"She's goin' to hum fit to blow the shingles off a barn, pronto, an' we'll all be buried in sand," said Big John cheerfully. "You an' I gotta rig a tarp up here in these rocks, old-timer, before we hits the hay ag'in."
Sid was shivering like a leaf. He ran for his saddle roll and slipped on the fleece-lined coat, glad of its shelter. Then they unrolled the tarp, fighting it in the wind and the dark like some wild thing, until it was finally anchored and rose at a steep slant like a sort of bear den. Under it they laid their sleeping rigs and then picked up Scotty, bag and all, and carried him over. Aside from a sleepy grunt or two, he slept right through it! The dogs were glad enough to follow them in and curl up again, backed up against the sleeping bags.
"You remember how we batted the snow off the rag house walls up in Montana, Sid?" queried Big John as he crawled into his bag again. "Waal, same stunt here. Reach up an arm an' hit her a good poke when she sags too much. There won't be nawthin' but sand hyarabouts, come morning."
They dozed off to sleep. Sid awoke before dawn with a sense of some great body pressing down on him. A howling tempest was raging down the gulch; sand in sheets and clouds swirled by. Overhead the tarp sagged down on them all, and, pushing up on it, he found it immovable. His exertions wakened Big John and incidentally jammed an elbow into Scotty's face so that that exemplary sleeper arose, spluttering and spitting sand out of his mouth.
"Wh—wha—what's happenin'?" he mumbled. "I dreamed the Grand Canyon had caved in on me ——"
"Sho' has! Turn out an' shove, old settler," grunted Big John as the three put their shoulders to it. There seemed to be a ton of sand on that roof, and it would not slide off in the docile way that snow did. It lay heavy and inert, to sag back again as soon as a shoulder was withdrawn.
"Say!" grinned Big John, his dusty eyes sparkling at them from where he sat humped up under the immovable tarp, "if that Atlas feller done this fer a job, that will be about all for Atlas!—gimme them rifles, boys, we'll stick 'em up for sort of mine props."
They tugged the weapons, in their leather scabbards, up out of the bedding, and with them propped up the roof. There was a chance now to look about. A fine dust filled the tent; just out in front a smooth hummock of sand like a snowdrift had accumulated. Beyond roared the wind in a monstrous shout, in a fury awful and unending, and the dim light of dawn showed a yellow and opaque void all around them.
"Waal, we're alive, an' that's a mercy!" drawled Big John as the boys prepared to curl up in their bags again. "No water to-day, boys. We ain't doin' nawthin', and we don't drink nawthin!—See?"
The stern iron tones of his voice told them that that was an order, peremptory as death! Sid curled up and tried to forget that he was alive. An hour later he looked out. There was no change, except a greater and yellower light, showing that the sun was busy somewhere high above all this. But, off to the left, right near the lean-to, were three large, indistinct objects, all in a row, that he finally perceived were their horses. Sid's heart smote him. More than any speech was the dumb appeal of those three heads! They were asking their men for water—and not getting it! Unmoved they stood there, patient, but eager. If one whinnied, the sound was lost in the howl of the storm. Sid thought of his own canteen grimly. Not until they moved would man or beast touch water again! It was precious as dear life, now.
About eleven o'clock the storm blew out. Their first intimation of it was a dazzling yellow haze, rapidly thinning the murk of sand dust and as rapidly showing the details of rock and gulch near by in the desert. The dust thinned out, and blue sky began to develop overhead, and then the whole yellow cloud drifted off north and they could dash out of their shelter and begin digging the sand off saddles and equipment.
"Ramble, fellers!—Ramble!" whooped Big John, yanking his saddle up out of the heap of sand that buried all the horse gear. "We'll roll our freight out of here for Misery Tank, plumb pronto! We jest gotta git thar, come night, for—here goes the last of our water for the hosses!"
Their second water bag collapsed flat, as a scant half pail was drawn from it for each of the three horses. The dogs got a remnant that was left, and then it was rolled up and stowed as of no further use. With eager haste the saddles were cinched, cantle rolls made up, and rifle scabbards slung Then with a leg over and a chirrup to the dogs, they rode out of "Thirsty Gulch," as Big John had named it.
Sand, sand, sand; and miles, miles, miles! Black Mesa passed them to the south, and then came a great cliff with wavy stratified lines streaked across its face and flowering plants nearly buried in sand strewing the slopes that led up to it. The horses whinnied and started on the first real run they had made that day. They smelled water, and it did not need Big John's finger pointing to a deep rocky chasm under the cliff to tell where it lay. A rippled slope of white sand led up to it—and then the boys reined up with a cry of dismay. The tank was filled to the brim with white sand drift!