Chapter 19

THE TRAIL AGAIN

For a long time Rhoda sat silently considering her problem and John watched her soberly. Finally she turned to speak. As she did so, she caught on the young man's face a look so weary, so puzzled, so altogether wretched that the girl's heart smote her. This was indeed a poor return for what he had endured for her! Rhoda jumped to her feet with resolution in her eyes. "Are you too tired to explore the ruins?" she asked. DeWitt rose languidly. Rhoda had responded at once to rest and food but John would need a month of care and quiet in which to regain his strength.

"I'll do anything you want me to--in that line!"

Rhoda carefully ignored the last phrase.

"Even if we're half dead, it's too bad to miss the opportunity to examine such a wonderful thing as this. You couldn't find as glorious a setting for a ruin anywhere in Europe."

"Oh, yes, you could; lots of 'em," answered DeWitt. "You can't compare a ruin like this with anything in Europe. What makes European ruins appeal to us is not only their intrinsic beauty but the association of big ideas with them. We know that big thoughts built them and perhaps destroyed them."

"What do you call big thoughts?" asked Rhoda. "Wasn't it just as great for these Pueblo Indians to perform such terrible labor in building this for their families as it was for some old king to work thousands of slaves to death to build him a monument?"

DeWitt laughed.

"Rhoda, you can love the desert, its Indians and its ruins all you want to, if you won't ask me to! I've had all I want of the three of them! Lord, how I hate it all!"

Rhoda looked at him wistfully. If only he could understand the spiritual change in her that was even greater than the physical! If only he could see the beauty of those far lavender hazes! If only he could understand how even now she was heartsick for the night trail where one looked up into the sky as into a shadowy opal! If only he knew the peace that had dwelt with her on the holiday ledge where there were tints and beauties too deep for words! And yet with the wistfulness came a strange sense of satisfaction that all this new part of her must belong forever to Kut-le.

John led the way into the dwelling. All was emptiness and ruin. All that remained of the old life within its walls were wonderful bits of pottery. Only once did DeWitt give evidence of pleasure. He was examining the carefully finished walls of one of the rooms when he called:

"I say, Rhoda, just look at this bit of humanness!"

Rhoda came to him quickly and he pointed low down on the adobe wall where was the perfect imprint of a baby's hand.

"The little rascal got spanked, I'll bet, for putting his hand on the 'dobe before it was dry!" commented John.

Rhoda smiled but said nothing. These departed peoples had become very real and very pitiable to her.

As soon as he could drag Rhoda from the ancient pots, John led the way to the top of the ruin. He was anxious to find if there were more than the one trail leading from the desert. To his great satisfaction he found that the mesa was unscalable except at the point that Rhoda had found as she staggered up from the desert.

"I'm going to guard that trail tonight," he said. "It's just possible, you know, that Kut-le escaped from Porter, though I think if he had he would have been upon us long before this. I've been mighty careless. But my brain is so tired it seems to have been off duty. I could hold that trail single-handed from the upper terrace for a week."

"Just remember," said Rhoda quickly, "that I've asked you not to shoot to kill!"

Again the hard light gleamed in DeWitt's eyes.

"I shall have a few words with him first, then I shall shoot to kill. There is that between that Indian and me which a woman evidently can't understand. I just can't see why you take the stand you do!"

"John dear," cried Rhoda, "put yourself in his place. With all the race prejudice against you that he had, wouldn't you have done as he has?"

"Probably," answered Dewitt calmly. "I also would have expected what he is going to get."

A sudden sense of the bizarre nature of their conversation caused Rhoda to say comically:

"I never knew that you could have such _bloody_ ideas, John!"

DeWitt was glad to turn the conversation.

"I am so only occasionally," he said. "For instance, instead of shooting the rabbit for supper, I'm going to try a figure-four trap."

They returned to their little camp on the upper terrace and Rhoda sat with wistful gray eyes fastened on the desert while John busied himself with the trap-making. He worked with the skill of his country boyhood and the trap was cleverly finished.

"It's evident that I'm not the leader of the expedition any more," said Rhoda, looking at the trap admiringly.

John shook his head.

"I've lost my faith in myself as a hero. It's one thing to read of the desert and think how well you could have managed there, and another thing to be on the spot!"

The day passed slowly. As night drew on the two on the mesa top grew more and more anxious. There was little doubt but that they could live for a number of days at the old pueblo, yet it was evident that the ruin was far from any traveled trail and that chances of discovery were slight except by Kut-le. On the other hand, they were absolutely unprepared for a walking trip across the desert. Troubled and uncertain what to do, they watched the wonder of the sunset. Deeper, richer, more divine grew the colors of the desert, and in one supreme, flaming glory the sun sank from view.

DeWitt with his arm across Rhoda's shoulders spoke anxiously.

"Don't you still think we'd better start tomorrow?"

"Yes," she answered, "I suppose so. What direction shall we take?"

"East," replied DeWitt. "We're bound to strike help if we can keep going long enough in one direction. We'll cook a good supply of rabbits and I'll fix up one of those bowl-like ollas with my handkerchief, so we can carry water in it as well as in the two canteens. I think you had better sleep in the little room there tonight and I'll lie across the end of the trail here."

Rhoda sighed.

"I've nothing better to suggest. As you say, it's all guesswork!"

They set the rabbit trap by the spring, then Rhoda, quite recovered from her nervousness of the night before, entered her little sleeping-room and made ready for the night. The front of the room had so crumbled away that she could see John's dark form by the trail, and she lay down with a sense of security and fell asleep at once.

John paced the terrace for a long hour after Rhoda was asleep, trying to plan every detail for the morrow. He dared not confess even to himself how utterly disheartened he felt in the face of this terrible adversary, the desert. Finally, realizing that he must have rest if Rhoda was not to repeat her previous experience in leading him across the desert he stretched himself on the ground across the head of the trail. He must trust to his nervousness to make him sleep lightly.

How long she had slept Rhoda did not know when she was wakened by a half-muffled oath from DeWitt. She jumped to her feet and ran out to the terrace. Never while life remained to her was she to forget what she saw there. DeWitt and Kut-le were wrestling in each other's grip! Rhoda stood horrified. As the two men twisted about, DeWitt saw the girl and panted:

"Don't stir, Rhoda! Don't call or you'll have his whole bunch up here!"

"Don't worry about that!" exclaimed Kut-le. "You've been wanting to get hold of me. Now we'll fight it out bare-handed and the best man wins."

Rhoda looked wildly down the trail, then ran up to the two men.

"Stop!" she screamed. "Stop!" Then as she caught the look in the men's faces as they glared at each other she cried, "I hate you both, you beasts!"

Her screams carried far in the night air, for in a moment Cesca came panting up the trail. She lunged at DeWitt with catlike fury, but at a sharp word from Kut-le she turned to Rhoda and stood guard beside the girl. Rhoda stood helplessly watching the battle as one watches the horrors of a nightmare.

Kut-le and DeWitt now were fighting as two wolves fight. Both the men were trained wrestlers, but in their fury all their scientific training was forgotten, and rolling over and over on the rocky trail each fought for a hold on the other's throat. With Kut-le was the advantage of perfect condition and superior strength. But DeWitt was fighting for his stolen mate. He was fighting like a cave man who has brooded for months on his revenge, and he was a terrible adversary. He had the sudden strength, the fearful recklessness of a madman. Now rolling on the edge of the terrace, now high against the crumbling pueblo, the savage and the civilized creature dragged each other back and forth. And Rhoda, awed by this display of passions, stood like the First Woman and waited!

Of a sudden Kut-le disentangled himself and with knees on DeWitt's shoulders he clutched at the white man's throat. At the same time, DeWitt gathered together his recumbent body and with a mighty heave he flung Kut-le over his head. Rhoda gave a little cry, thinking the fight was ended; but as Kut-le gained his feet, DeWitt sprang to meet him and the struggle was renewed. Rhoda never had dreamed of a sight so sickening as this of the two men she knew so well fighting for each other's throats with the animal's lust for killing. She did not know what would be Kut-le's course if he gained the mastery, but as she caught glimpses of DeWitt's face with its clenched teeth and terrible look of loathing she knew that if his fingers ever reached Kut-le's throat the Indian could hope for no mercy.

And then she saw DeWitt's face go white and his head drop back.

"Oh!" she screamed. "You've killed him! You've killed him!"

The Indian's voice came in jerks as he eased DeWitt to the ground.

"He's just fainted. He's put up a tremendous fight for a man in his condition!"

As he spoke he was tying DeWitt's hands and ankles with his own and DeWitt's handkerchiefs. Rhoda would have run to DeWitt's aid but Cesca's hand was tight on her arm. Before the girl could plan any action, Kut-le had turned to her and had lifted her in his arms. She fought him wildly.

"I can't leave him so, Kut-le! You will kill all I've learned to feel for you if you leave him so!"

"He'll be all right!" panted Kut-le, running down the trail. "I've got Billy Porter down here to leave with him!"

At the foot of the trail were horses. Gagged and bound to his saddle Billy Porter sat in the moonlight with Molly on guard. Kut-le put Rhoda on a horse, then quickly thrust Porter to the ground, where the man sat helplessly.

"Oh, Billy!" cried Rhoda. "John is on the terrace! Find him! Help him!"

The last words were spoken as Kut-le turned her horse and led at a trot into the desert.