Chapter II
Across the Painted Desert
"See them blue an' white striped buttes yander, Sid?" asked John, pointing across the stony desert with his quirt. "That's limestone, in these parts, an' it ginerally means a tank ef thar's any water at all. Navaho Wells is in there, and we'll camp for the night."
"Just what I wanted—to have my first night in the desert out under the stars!" exclaimed Colonel Colvin, happily. "We stop here for the night, eh, John ?"
"Shore; no more water for twenty miles, sir. Them boys ain't growed their saddle corns yet, neither, an' they'll be plumb glad to get down. I know how 'tis! Thar's a nice flat up on the buttes, Colonel. Dust off the t'rantulas and horned toads an' rattlers off it, an' a man'll sleep thar peaceful as a new borned babe."
Sid nodded approvingly. He was glad they were sleeping out, too. There couldn't be too much of it for him! He said nothing about his aching knees, but his gait told the older men for him. He heeded no bodily aches, now, however, for a new and delicious happiness was filling his breast and a load of worry was vanishing fast. His father, he could see, was fast picking up health and strength; had been ever since they had started on this trip. Thirty years ago he had ridden these same hills, with hostile Apaches ambushed in these very buttes. Sid could imagine those blue-clad, yellow-scarfed cavalrymen with their friendly Indian scouts and the plainsmen rangers, all just like a Remington picture, painted with this place for a stage. In those days his father was one of the young lieutenants of the command. Now he could see the life-giving power of memory at work, for the strength of those rugged days seemed to be reentering the Colonel's body and spirit. In two more weeks he would be heavy and lean and iron-hard.
They headed the horses up a slope of the buttes. Its little flat commanded a magnificent prospect. Away to the west stretched line on line of stratified ridges, with the flat top of the Hopi mesa far on the horizon. To the east lay a silver-green flat of sage brush, bounded by jagged red peaks. Great woolly clouds rolled in rose and lavender masses over the bare rock saw-tooth ridges that filled in under the horizon. Water was there none, but of arid plant life there was abundance.
"Here!" said the Colonel, looking silently across the desert, while memories of old Indian days crowded his mind, "it was right over there beyond those buttes to the east, that we of the Fifth Cavalry came down from Fort Defiance on our southward trail after Chief Chuntz and his Apaches, boys. A bad business; but it had to be done, I suppose. I'll tell you of that cave fight, some day. This place is good enough for us, John."
Mesa Joe and Red Jake turned out the horses while Big John loped out into the sage to wait for the ranch wagon and get provisions and the sleeping gear from it. The boys set about cutting a quantity of sage bushes, from which they stripped a huge pile of fragrant browse. Colonel Colvin untied his cantle roll, and out of it took a six-by-nine foot light tarp, which was all the shelter he ever used. Setting it up with two stakes and its rear corners guyed to the rocky ledge back of the camp site, they had a sun shelter under which browse was spread out. The canteens were hung in a row in the shade, and out of the saddle bags of his McClellan army saddle the Colonel produced emergency rations that had been packed there in the Den, back home, before shipping the saddle out. There was bacon and corn meal, sugar and coffee, and a can of condensed cream.
Then the cowman came in and started a small fire of greasewood while Colonel Colvin produced an aluminum army mess tin with cover and folding handle, about nine by seven inches and perhaps an inch and a half deep.
"Best little desert baker you ever saw, boys," he laughed. "Many a corn cake I've shaken up in her!" He made a thick batter of flour, corn meal and baking powder, and poured the pan about half full. Balancing it on two stones over a bed of coals, he heaped a pile of live coals on the cover. In about fifteen minutes he brushed them off and peered inside.
"Brown as your hand! She'd go better with an egg beaten into the batter. Here's for another one."
The boys were too tired and sore to do much beside watch the cake-making. When six of them were done, Big John came riding back from the ranch wagon that had gone into camp out on the flat. He had a bag of oats, a ham, and a sweating canvas bag of water hung to his saddle.
"Shore, fill up the crowd with hog an' hominy," Colonel," he grinned. "Ain't nothing better'n ham and corn cakes been invented since Pharaoh missed the ford, I'm settin' here to tell ye!"
He got after the ham with his bowie knife, and soon a huge slice was sizzling in the Colonel's mess kit. The boys went up on the rocks and watched the sunset, unwilling to miss a single moment of their first evening in the desert. A wild and beautiful land was this; color,—red and rose and purple and yellow,—with gleaming glories of the sunset tinting the cloud edges. Deep blue shadows crept out under the flanks of the mesas. All was still and silent; a peace passing understanding brooded over the whole world.
"Gosh, but that's wonderful!" exclaimed Scotty, fervently, as the sun plunged over the western rim of the world, striking turret and pinnacle and bastion alike brick-red in scarlet edgings of fire. "I tell you, Sid, these moments are what we live for in the open! Will we ever forget this scene?"
"Makes me feel calm, and serene, and—happy!" replied Sid, softly. "Happiness is what everybody is striving after—oh, so hard!—and few or none ever have any. This is the secret of it, to me. A simple, healthful life in the open, and plenty of the big, beautiful outdoors to look at and wonder over," concluded the youth, surprised at his own eloquence.
"You said it, Sid!" came the Colonel's deep voice behind them. "My happiest hours have all been out here, where a man can see a big enough chunk of the earth to realize his own insignificant place in the scheme of things. Back east we tend too much to magnify our own importance, and I always feel cramped and worried, and get pestered by trifles. No chance for that out here—in the presence of this!"
He waved his arm to the west. Under a roseate afterglow the grand distances of the desert were bathed in a flood of purples and lavenders, with tints of deep orange on the mesa flanks to the west, while soft, tender shadows of misty blue filled the rugged valleys. They sat in silence, drinking it in, for such wine was good for the soul. The light of a distant watch fire on Walpi shone through the dusk, a tiny point of light fifty miles away. The Hopi Indians, at this time, were performing their mystic rites of the sunset, and a subtle comradeship with them reached out across the desert in the flicker of those rays ——
"Chuck pile!—Come and get it!" rang out the mighty horn of Big John's voice, breaking in on their reverie. The Colonel arose with a sigh of blissful content. "Seems like old times again, Sid! Let's eat hearty!"
They climbed down to the little flat, where a thin wisp of gray-blue smoke rose straight up in the still air from the remnants of the cook fire. The boys fell on the ham and corn cakes and coffee ravenously, batting off the four dogs, who were most oppressively sociable, trying to gobble morsels of food right out of their masters' mouths. The stars came out while they were eating. Then Big John and the Arizonans fell over on their backs and lit indolent cigarettes; the Colonel and the boys sought their lookout rocks, to feed on the desert, shrouded in its impenetrable gloom under a glory of western stars.
After a time the sharp night chill drove them under the shelter. Huddled forms out in the sage told of the cowmen fast asleep where they lay. Rolling in their blankets, the boys voted to call it a day. Sid lay awake, listening to the rustlings of a pack rat which had come foraging into camp, and enjoying the wild howl of the coyotes barking in shrill chorus from the mesas all about them. It was all wild, lonely and beautiful—too beautiful for anyone but outers and very honest men, he decided, as he dozed off to sleep, with the sweet tang of sage in his nostrils.
Next morning before dawn the whole party was awake, the boys shivering and glad enough to warm their hands before the fire. Bacon, flapjacks and coffee were in progress, and, downing them, the horses were unpicketed and fed and the whole cavalcade started for Hinchman's. The sharp, bracing air was good for horses and men alike. They were full of oats and bacon and high spirits. Sid raced along with Scotty beside him, giving their ponies full rein to run off the first enthusiasm of a new day. Big John brought up the rear, singing a cow song at the top of his lungs, the meter chiming in with the jolt of his horse.
"Whoo—pee,—de—I—yaho! Git along lit—tle dogie,
For 'tis your misfortune an' none of—my own!
Whoo—pee,—de—I—yaho! Git along lit—tle dogie,
For I know that Wy—O—ming will be your new home,"
he sang, in a monstrous shout, bawling out the I's and O's in a blare like a foghorn. The boys giggled with joy as verse after verse of the cowman's riding song roared out.
"They sing that song to soothe the cattle when riding around the herd at night," laughed Sid. "It sure carries well! The cows are perfectly contented so long as they hear a human voice. Otherwise they are apt to get nervous about wolves, and stampede."
"What's a 'dogie,' Sid?" asked Scotty, posting as his pony changed gait to a trot.
"Oh, that's a lean little yearling that they used to drive north to Wyoming, for Government rations for the poor Indians. Listen ——"
"Oh, you'll be beef for Un-cle Sam's Injuns,
It's 'Beef,—heap Beef!' we he-ar them cry,
Git along, git along, git along lit-tle dogies,
For you'll be beef steers by and by,"
sang Big John's concluding verse, Red Jake chiming in on the chorus,—
"Whoop-ee, de—I—yaho!" etc.
Sunrise over the desert! A magnificent spectacle, a stunning spectacle, a gorgeous, overwhelming, awe-inspiring spectacle! The boys fell head over heels in love with the whole thing, and then as if to give it a touch of adventure, Pepper let out a squeak, with a funny break in it like a boy's voice changing, and streaked across the sage. After him tore Lee and Bourbon, belly down, legs flying like long broom handles.
"Hi! Hi! Yip—yip!—Coyote!" yelled Red Jake, wheeling his broncho to flash off after the dogs. "Git him, boys!"
Ruler brayed a musical volley of hound notes, taking after the pups in long bounds that closed up on them fast. A gray wolfish streak was doing some fancy steps, twisting and turning through the greasewood bushes. Sid galloped, Scotty galloped; after them thundered Big John and the Colonel. The wind whistled around Sid's ears as his pinto let out speed.
"Run him down, fellers—watch out for prairie dog holes!" snorted Big John, swerving the wild, white horse to the left to cut across the coyote's trail. The two Arizonans had fanned out in a wide bend; Sid and Scotty jounced along together, pawing at their revolvers which were tightly jammed in the saddle holsters; the horses streaked along with a rapid clatter of hoof beats on the vast level floor of the desert, which was the stage setting for their coyote run.
Sid yelled with glee. What a lot of room there was in this country! Bare mountains and mesas ringed the horizon, but for miles the flat, gray sage and green greasewood dotted the red sand. The dogs looked like little black specks, leaping and twisting through the low bushes. The whole plain was flat as a floor, and the horses under them reached out with flying hoofs in the unrestrained joy of racing. Then a jack rabbit jumped from behind a sage bush, and the three pups dropped their hot coyote trail and started after him.
"Wa—hoo! Stop them, boys!" roared the Colonel from his huge roan. "Break 'em of that!"
He kept on after the coyote and Ruler. Sid tugged out his revolver and fanned the air ahead of the jack rabbit. His bullets threw up spats of white dust, and Pepper and Bourbon, who were yipping and squealing in hot pursuit, nearly turned somersaults as a bullet threw a splash of sand right before their faces. The dogs leaped back, falling all over each other, and then the swift ponies wheeled around in front of them. Scotty leaned far out of his saddle with swinging quirt.
"Back, Pep! Out of that, Bourbon! Nix on rabbit!—Skip!—VAMOOSE!" he barked, lashing at them with his quirt. Sid thundered up on Pinto and they headed the pups and drove them back, whimpering and cringing, to where they had left the coyote track. The men were now at least a mile away across the level basin, stringing along with Big John's white horse in the lead and Ruler far ahead of them all. The coyote was evidently headed for some craggy red sawteeth where he could make his escape from the horses uphill.
The boys called off the pups and headed across the flat, hoping that the men would succeed in turning the coyote. Then little puffs of white smoke came from the Arizonans. They could not hear the rifle shots, but they saw the coyote turn, bewildered, heading down their way in what looked like an easy lope. He saw them start their ponies into a gallop and again turned like a flash, evidently intending to cross the sage between the two parties. Pepper rose on his hind legs, got a sight of the coyote, and started in long bounds over the sage, with Lee and Bourbon at his heels.
"Now!" gritted Sid. "Head him off, Scotty!" They raced across the coyote's line. He was coming like the wind. Sid hauled Pinto up abruptly on his haunches and aimed his long-barreled Officer's Model carefully. A spurt of dust sprang up just in front of the coyote Sid held the round white bead, well down in its notch, just ahead of the flying, twisting animal, swung two yards ahead and fired. The coyote slid to his haunches, snapping savagely at a wound in his side, and then Pepper, Lee and Bourbon fell on him in a riot of howls and barks.
Sid whooped with joy as they rode down. This was fine medicine for those houn'-dawg pups! It was impossible to shoot; the whirling mass of black, tan and gray was too swift and intricate to risk a shot into it. Came a rapid clatter of paws and a great, deep-voiced bray, as Ruler charged down the slope and pitched headlong into the fray. Out of it rose the coyote, borne aloft by the great bony jaws of Ruler about his throat. There was a savage shake, a worrying and growling from the pups, and then Red Jake clattered up, leaped off his pony, booted the dogs aside and finished the gasping coyote with a single revolver shot as it lay on its side.
"That's the stuff!" yelled Colonel Colvin, galloping up on the roan. "Mind the dogs—they'll be at each other next—they're wild with fight!" He had scarcely spoken before Pepper flew jealously at Ruler with bared fangs, while Bourbon turned and pitched into Lee where he was worrying gleefully at the carcass. The boys dismounted with howls of laughter and grabbed the belligerents by their collars.
"Some pups, Dad! Hang on to him, Scotty!" laughed Sid, slinging Bourbon into the sage and aiming a kick at Lee. "First trophy of the desert, fellers!"
"Nice li'l pasear," remarked Red Jake, wiping the sweat from under his sombrero. "You-all want the hide off this-yere?" he asked, looking to the Colonel for orders.
"You bet! How far is it yet to the ranch, Jake?"
The Arizonan puckered up his eyes as he scanned the far horizon where the colored buttes back of Hinchman's loomed up. "Oh, 'bout eleven miles, I reckon," he decided.
Sid and Scotty stared unbelievingly. Why, those red mountains couldn't be over five miles off! Their knees ached from the unaccustomed saddle strains, but distances were deceiving in the desert and there was an hour more of riding yet.
As they drew near the mountains, the long 'dobe walls of Hinchman's suddenly developed out of its misty background of mountain, mesquite and cottonwood. It looked more like a fort than any ranch the boys had ever seen before. Built during Apache times, its long outer walls were bare save for a few small black windows up near the eaves of the red tile roof. All around it was a bare, level space of desert, with not a single grease bush for cover. Even now the Navahos or the Apaches might tear loose again over some real or imaginary grievance, and Hinchman's was an outpost in their country.
The sharp clip-clop of their ponies' hoofs rang on the stone flagging as they rode under the 'dobe arch into the big patio within the walls of Hinchman's. A couple of Indians took their horses as the; boys dismounted and looked curiously around them. Here was a sort of square court, with a well surrounded by peach trees forming the center of the stone driving space. An inner wall, with Spanish tiled roof sloping inward all around, so as to turn the rainfall into the court drain cistern and also be protected from rifle fire, formed a side to the living rooms and stables that surrounded the patio. The windows in these were larger, but also more than man high, and each room had a door, mostly open, showing glimpses of the dark, cool depths within. In one of them stood a huge, white-haired giant waving his arms joyfully.
"Howdy, Colvin!—Howdy! Get right down! Sho' is glad to see y'u!" roared the giant, running out to take the roan's bridle reins.
"How!—Hinchy,—you old war-in-eye! Gad, but you look good to me!" chortled the Colonel, wringing Hinchman's hand. He leaped from his horse, and the two old Army comrades hugged each other in a ponderous bear dance about the patio. After an exchange of soul-satisfying punches the boys were introduced. They decided they were going to like this man. Black-eyed and long-nosed, he was all of six feet four in his boots; his smile was constant and kindly, and there was a merry twinkle in his eye that matched the Colonel's own.
"Shore you look peaked, old-timer!" exclaimed Hinchman, searching the Colonel over with solicitous eyes. "Look like you'd been dragged through a knot-hole,—Jeementley-ding if you don't!" he cried, aggrieved sympathy in his tones. "Big John told me they'd worked you to death down in Washington, but I never 'spected you'd look like this."
"Oh, I'll be all right, pronto," grinned Colonel Colvin. "There wasn't any end to it, while it lasted, but it's all over now,—thank God! Enough of me—how's everything with you, old settler? Still patriarch of all the Indians of this section?" he quizzed.
"Still am!" rumbled Hinchman, emphatically. "I'm old 'White Father Hinch' to all the Navaho north of us. They come to me with all their troubles or send in runners about it. One got in last night with a tough one for me to straighten out. It's a medicine panther, Colvin, that's been stealing old Neyani's sheep. The Indians are all plumb scared of him; heap big medicine! They swear he's black—can you beat that?"
"Black!" echoed Colonel Colvin, incredulously, while the boys listened in with flapping ears. "Freak coloration, eh? The Far East has black leopards, you know, occurring clear down into Sumatra. It's possible, Hinchy. Where did the cougar get the black on his ugly face? No one knows—nor why there are both black and spotted leopards, either. But I don't see where you should worry any, Hinchy—just say the word and we'll go up there and shoot him for you. We've got dogs, you know."
"Precisely just what you can't do, Colvin!" exclaimed Hinchman, energetically. "It would be the worst kind of a sacrilege in the Navaho's eyes. You see, Dsilyi, the Navaho demigod, he had four panthers, a white one to the north, a tawny one to the west, a blue one to the south, and a black one to the east. The Indians just know that this is Dsilyi's black panther—there's no use arguing with them! Therefore, either old Neyani or his son, Niltci, has been up to some deviltry and the panther is being sent as a punishment. Not a redskin of the lot will shoot him on a bet, nor even dare track him. You don't know how superstitious they are, Colvin! Sooner than build a fire with a single stick from a hogan in which someone has died, a Navaho would freeze to death. Sooner than touch a hair of Dsilyi's medicine panther, old Neyani and his whole family would let him take all their sheep and starve to death. Right nice mix-up fo' me to unravel, eh?"
"You're dead right!" agreed the Colonel emphatically. "Say, the worst uprising the Army ever had to deal with came from just such a freak animal as this. You remember the Arapaho row in '79, Hinchy?"
"You bet! I sure hope this isn't goin' to be any thing like that! a white buffalo, wasn't it? And now, I've got a black cougar and a mess of Indian superstitions on my hands!"