Part 6

Patton gave her a warning glance. “_I_ know he’s tired,” he answered. “But we won’t have to rush. We can take it easy, and only travel at night. If we wait around here, people’re sure to begin trying to find out where you’ve been and what you’ve been doing. The whole town knows you’ve been on a long prospecting trip--I heard it when I came. So (just as you said yourself a while ago) first thing you know, we’ll have a regular gang on our trail.”

Blandy nodded, more than half-convinced.

“And when we’ve got our ore,” went on Patton, “I’ll go to Los Angeles with you. I’m the man that can advise you when it comes to a lease.”

In the end Blandy agreed to an immediate trip to the mine.

But next morning it was he who set to work preparing for the journey. Patton made off down the street almost immediately after breakfast, and disappeared into one of the half-dozen drinking-places of the town. When he did not return at noontime, Blandy consulted Polly.

“Don’t you think I’d better go find him?” he asked. “You see he might take a glass or two and git to blabbin’.”

Patton was found at Rourke’s. Outside the resort, Blandy turned upon him. “Say! You’re up to your old game, ain’t you, Patton?” he demanded curtly.

Patton tried to laugh the matter off. “Oh, you don’t understand,” he declared confidentially. He started homeward beside the other man.

The leather of Blandy’s face was pale. Out of the paleness burned his wrathful eyes. “Don’t try to soft-soap me,” he went on. “I know now where that remittance of your’n goes. But you got to cut it _out_! I ain’t a-helpin’ you to a fortune so’s you can hurt Polly by slatherin’ money on some other woman.”

Patton gave a loud laugh. “Don’t think I’m a fool,” he answered. As they entered the front room of the restaurant, he gave Blandy a look of hate. “You aren’t giving me a claim because you like _me_. You’re doing it on Polly’s account.”

“That’s right,” declared Blandy. “What in thunderation is there about _you_ that’d make any man hand you over half a million?”

“So! You admit it! Oh, I’m on to your game! This is some more of your tattle. You want to make trouble between me and my wife!”

Blandy took a long step forward. “That’s a lie,” he said. “It’s just what I _don’t_ aim to do. You and me had a talk on this question the night you got married. Have you forgot that? Wal, when you cash in on the claim, I’m a-goin’ to see that you cut that friend----”

The swinging door opened, and Polly came in from the kitchen. “Harv!” she faltered. “Jeff!” Then, she fell silent, watching them with troubled eyes.

Blandy’s face broke into a reassuring grin. “Say! we’re excited over nothin’,” he declared. “Don’t you worry, Polly. Patton, I hired the only two burros in town this mornin’, and bought some grub and feed.”

There were no further words between the two men, only a coldness that was barely noticeable. After the midday meal, Patton even helped with the packing. Polly, entering their bedroom hastily, found him standing on a bench looking at the labels of some bottles on the medicine-shelf.

“Be careful what you take,” she cautioned. “That bottle of mercury tablets is up there, and it’s the same size as the one that’s got stuff in it for rattlesnake bites.”

“It’s the rattlesnake medicine that I’m hunting,” answered Patton tartly.

Polly went back into the kitchen, where Blandy was busy packing the raisins, crackers and canned beef. She looked frightened. “Oh, I’m so sorry you and Harvey quarrelled,” she half-whispered. “Please, _please_ don’t have any more trouble with him.”

From the standpoint of beauty there was little to recommend Jeff Blandy save his eyes. Now, as he smiled down at her, his eyes made up for all the deficiencies of his rugged face. “We was hungry,” he declared. “That was all.”

“Jeff,” she said, “I never knew how good you were. Oh, if girls only realised that the men that keep dressed up aren’t always the best men.”

“And on the other hand,” he observed, “I’ve saw some pretty bad men in bum clothes.”

Late that night, the burros were packed, one with provisions and feed, and enough heavy sacking for a small sun shelter; the other with the large, flat-sided water canteens. When the start was made, Polly told the two men a whispered good-bye from the front porch. And as the burros were headed northward, Blandy leading one and Patton the other, she watched the little pack-train leave the town. The light of the stars, reflected on the grey of the sage and the yellow-grey of the desert floor, made the departure plain for a long distance, though only as so many moving black specks. She waited until the specks dropped from sight into a far-off swale.

Then she ran through the dining-room to her bedroom, struck a match, dragged a bench under the medicine-shelf, climbed upon it and let her light shine in turn upon each of the bottles standing in a row.

The match went out. With a murmured exclamation she got down, searched for her hat in the dark room, found it and put it on, caught up a yellow sun umbrella, and locked both entrances to the house. A moment later, she was hurrying across the street, over the track and into the desert.

She soon came up to the men and the burros, travelling silently forward. But at first she kept a little way behind, like a scared child, for she shrank from letting Patton know that she was there. Presently, however, summoning courage, she went forward to his side. “H-Harvey,” she stammered. Her face was white in the dimness.

He came short; Blandy, too. Both stared at her in wonderment.

“What do you want?” Patton demanded, resentment in his tone. “It’s too late for you to be gadding around alone.”

“Harv, I’m going with you. Walking isn’t hard work--not any harder than the work in the kitchen was. Jeff, you don’t care if I come along, do you?”

“You bet I don’t,” Blandy answered heartily. “You’ll be fine comp’ny.”

“Nonsense!” scolded Patton.

“Wal, she’s the third pardner,” reminded Blandy. “When you come to think of it, she’s got a right to look over her claim. If she gits tired, she can ride a donk. But a-course”--his tone became more serious--“there’s one thing _agin_ your goin’: We three is the only people that know where that strike is; if anything was to happen to the bunch of us, there’d be a lost mine for shore.” He clucked to his burro and walked on.

His words produced a curious effect upon Patton, who stayed where he was, silently looking after Blandy until the latter was well beyond earshot.

“Harvey!” Polly’s voice was tremulous with appeal, “I don’t want to be left behind alone.”

Patton gave her a quick, sidewise glance. “All right,” he said brusquely. “You can come.”

To show that she was equal to the journey, Polly kept in the lead all the remainder of that night, flitting light-footed, like the spirit of some good guiding angel.

Shortly after dawn, Blandy called a halt and prepared for a rest of several hours. He fixed the square of sacking to the ground by two of its corners. The other two corners he fastened to mesquite stakes. The result was an improvised tent which faced the north. This shelter was for Patton and Polly. When it was ready, Blandy took the yellow umbrella, raised it, went aside to where were the canteens, and lay down.

By noon, it was impossible to sleep because of the heat, which was so intense that the grey, incrusted ground burned the hand that touched it. The travellers did not set forth at once. Seated under their shelters, they looked out upon a round lake that glimmered in a near-by hollow of the desert--a lake encircled with a beach of amethyst.

With that sheet of water glistening before him, Patton drank often and deep. And when, at four, he rose with the others to continue on, he slung one of the large canteens over a shoulder. The glimmering lake moved as the pack-train moved, occupying one hollow, then dissolving to appear in another, and still another. Patton lifted his canteen to his lips every half mile.

Blandy noted it. “Say! You’ll have to learn to be careful about your drinkin’ if you go out much on the desert,” he warned. “More’n one tenderfoot has gone luny for water and took to follerin’ them spook lakes. Chaw on a raisin for a change.”

No halt was made for supper. The three ate as they travelled. The sun declined. The last shining sheet of water disappeared. Twilight came, and with twilight, the stars, which burned large and white in the cloudless expanse of the heavens. Through the starlight, through the late moonlight, and through the dawn of a second day, they trudged on.

It was shortly after sunrise that a giant yucca came into sight ahead. It was branched on either side; and from a distance looked like some huge figure that had been caught in action and suddenly trans-fixed.

“Hello!” cried Blandy. “My friend John Jenkins! We’re half-way.”

“Half-way?” repeated Patton. “Why, that spur doesn’t look twenty miles off.”

“It just happens that you’re a-rubberin’ in the wrong direction,” said Blandy. “The spur we’re a-goin’ to ain’t over that way: It’s off where them little, puffy clouds is. Say, you’d better never try to navigate this desert alone.”

Arrived at the yucca, Polly was glad enough to pause, and before the two men had finished erecting the shelter of sacking, she had crawled under it.

“Tuckered, ain’t you?” questioned Blandy kindly. “Wal, we been makin’ fine time, that’s why. We’ll be drinkin’ outen that bowl in the rock at sun-up day after to-morrow.”

He made a cache of feed and provisions, and buried two of the large canteens; then stretched himself with his head in the shade of the yellow umbrella, and was soon snoring.

Patton did not lie down, but sat, brooding, a canteen in his hand. And, presently, after making certain that Polly’s breathing was deep and regular, he rose cautiously. Some distance away were the burros, standing with lowered heads and long ears flopped to either side. Patton stole in their direction. And when he reached the animals, set to packing one. He was soon done. With a last glance toward shelter and umbrella, he set off northward at a good gait.

The atmosphere was unusually clear. It was this that had made the mountains seem such a short distance away. Patton had carefully marked the position of the right spur. He tramped forward determinedly, though by noon the ground under his feet fairly scorched his shoes. The afternoon dragged its length in moments that seemed, each more unendurably hot than the last, and with lakes glimmering from near-by hollows, he drank at every rod. Sunset came at last, bringing a welcome coolness. Now half of his journey alone was done. He stopped to feed the burro and satisfy his own hunger, after which he hurried on.

The sun was standing high over the mountains the next day when, fagged, but triumphant, Patton began the ascent of the gentle, beach-like slope that stretched between him and the base of the spur he sought. The range that rose ahead of him showed not even a growth of stunted sage upon its ruffled side. For here the massive barrier was like a burned-out kiln, brick-red, cinder-black and ashen-grey. He skirted it for an hour or more, the donkey at a trot. Suddenly, ahead of him, a great, black bird rose from the ground with a harsh cry and an awkward flapping of its wings. Patton ran forward.

There was the bowl, as round as if it had been fashioned by deft hands, and nearly full of water. Patton had swallowed the last mouthful of his canteen supply early that morning. Now, he sank to his knees, bent his head and almost buried his face in the pool.

His thirst satisfied, he climbed the slope beyond. Ten minutes of hot toiling, and he came upon Blandy’s location-notice, scrawled on a soiled scrap of paper, and tacked to a crooked mesquite stake. He tore up the notice, and jerked the stake loose. Then, white, for all the effort of climbing, he stooped and pressed both palms against the outcropping of quartz at his feet, his fingers into its crevices. It was as if he were clutching prey.

“It’s all here!--all here!” he said aloud, huskily.

Back at the bowl once more, he filled a canteen and hung it to the pack-saddle, took another long drink himself, and let the donkey have all that remained. Then, reaching into an inside pocket of his shirt, he brought out something that was wrapped in a piece of newspaper. He unwound the paper, disclosing a small bottle, which he uncorked. And having measured the size of the bowl with his eye, he dropped three round, white tablets into it. This done, he dampened a handkerchief from the canteen and laid it, folded, upon his hair. For the long miles in the sun had told on him, and there was a feeling of heat and pressure at the top of his skull.

A few minutes later, he set off once more, due west, completely avoiding the Searles route to the southward.

* * * * *

When Polly awoke, the sun was already down, and twilight was settling. Fearing that she had delayed the departure, she sprang to her feet. But Blandy was still snoring. And close at hand was a saddleless burro, head lowered and fast asleep.

She began to call: “Harvey! Oh, Harv!”

The snoring ceased. The yellow umbrella toppled. Blandy’s tall figure rose. “Gosh! but ain’t I snoozed!” he exclaimed.

She called again: “Harvey! Where are you? Jeff! One of the burros is gone!”

“Oh, I guess he’s there, all right,” answered Blandy. “You know, a donk’s the same colour as the ground.”

“But he _isn’t_ there,” persisted Polly. “Or Harvey, either.” And as Blandy hastened by, she joined him.

When they halted, each scanned the desert. Then, “You’re right,” Blandy admitted gravely. “That blamed burro must a-strayed. I never _did_ like the little cuss. He had a bad look in one eye.”

She raised an anxious face to his. “The donkey isn’t to blame,” she declared. “Harvey’s left us.”

“No! Why? Sore about your comin’?”

“He _told_ me to come.”

Blandy strode over to the packs. And a first glimpse told him that Polly was right. Feed and provisions were missing, and all but one of the uncached canteens.

“Jeff!” Polly had followed him, and she spoke in a frightened whisper. “Don’t drink any of this water till you’ve given the donkey some.”

Blandy stared down at her. “Why not?” he asked, perplexed.

“Don’t--don’t ask me, Jeff.”

His face went grim with understanding. “I guess I understand,” he said.

The canteen that Patton had left behind him was thoroughly shaken and the donkey was given a generous drink. Then Blandy left the camp to gather mesquite roots. When he returned, a half-hour later, the little animal was resting, head swagged low. But while Blandy was watching him, the shaggy head came up and the donkey brayed--loud and long, after which he fell to yawning, ears flopped to either side lazily. Plainly the water had done him no harm.

Blandy set to work to build a fire. “You see,” he said, “Patton might change his mind about leavin’ us.”

By now, twilight had merged into night. On every side stretched the desert, as level, dark and melancholy as a sea. The mountain range to the northward, with its charred front one great inky shadow, was a dead island, rising out of a black waste of water. Blandy lighted the beacon, and it flamed up like the signal of someone shipwrecked.

They kept the fire burning steadily. They listened for far-off cries. But they heard no cries, only constant movements in the blackness about the camp. Heretofore, the desert had withheld nearly all evidence of animate things. Now, sitting and waiting, they caught the soft _pad, pad_ of dog-like feet, the flutter of small wings.

At dawn, Blandy set off on a hunt for tracks. He first circled the camp. The only outgoing trail he found ended near by in the dry bed of a stream. He followed the stream-bed toward Searles. When he had gone several miles, he retraced his steps and passed the camp on his way toward the mountains.

It was late afternoon when he returned, tired out. But he came into sight waving his hat cheerily. “It’s all right,” he announced. “He went toward the mine.”

While they were preparing to break camp and follow Patton, Polly saw that Blandy was digging up one of the two canteens he had cached.

“On the way home, Jeff, can we make it from here to Searles on one?” she asked.

“Easy.”

“And from the mine to here, Jeff?”

“We’ll ketch a canteenful where it drips into that bowl in the rock.”

When they started forward, they were compelled to go slowly, not only because of Blandy’s weariness, but because Polly was foot-sore, though at first she strove to conceal the fact by keeping in the rear. At the end of five or six miles, however, she found herself unable to go farther.

“Oh, I thought I’d be all right after so much rest,” she declared, out of patience with her own weakness.

Blandy was all gentle consideration. “I don’t wonder your feet hurt you,” he answered. “You ain’t used to so much walkin’. Now, just you wait.”

Off came pack-saddle, load and all. Then the saddle-blanket was replaced, with the shelter sacking on top of it, folded to make a comfortable seat. And soon Polly was mounted on the donkey. Behind her, balanced carefully, were two large canteens, a flour sack of provisions, and feed for the burro. She held the yellow umbrella over her head.

They travelled until darkness made it impossible to follow Patton’s tracks, when camp was made again.

“But if Harvey went straight to the mine,” argued Polly, “What’s the use of trailing him? Why not just go ahead?”

“For the reason that yesterday Patton had the mine located thirty mile left of where it is. S’pose he was to git the same idear again?”

Once more Blandy hunted mesquite roots. And far into the night his signal-fire lit the swells and hollows of the desert.

At break of day they took up their journey once more, with Polly riding again, and drowsing now and then as the donkey picked his way along.

It was the middle of the morning when a low cry from Blandy suddenly startled her into wakefulness. He had come short, halting the donkey, and was examining the ground.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Here’s a man’s tracks and a burro’s, crossin’ this trail at right angles, and goin’ west. They’re fresher’n the ones we been follerin’.”

“Harvey’s?”

“Shore.”

“What’ll we do, Jeff?”

“Strike out after him. He’s makin’ for that wrong spur!”

They turned aside, and started off in the new direction.

During the remainder of the morning, they were headed almost due west. But at noon Patton’s footprints led him toward the north-west, then toward the north--directly away from Searles.

Shortly after noon, they made an alarming discovery. It was Patton’s donkey, stretched lifeless on the baked ground. Away from the carcass a grey wolf-form raced, and was lost in the grey of sand and sage.

“Short of water,” said Blandy, and shook his head.

Polly covered her eyes. “Oh, poor little thing!” she whispered. “Jeff, give mine a good drink.”

He came to stand beside her. “Polly,” he said, “I can’t. And if we’re goin’ to keep follerin’ this trail and locate Patton, this little animal”--he laid a hand on the donkey’s neck--“has got to go.”

“Are _we_ short of water?”

“There’s a good deal left. But I ain’t give the donkey a swaller since yesterday noon. We got to be savin’. It’s likely that Patton’ll need water bad.”

Soon the tracks they were following turned due east.

“He run outen water,” Blandy explained gravely. “He’s headed back to the bowl.”

But when they, too, turned about to start back, their burro abruptly stopped, and refused to be coaxed or urged forward.

“Yas, git down,” said Blandy as Polly prepared to dismount. “And go on for about a quarter of a mile. I’ll bring the things.”

She obeyed, fairly running to escape the sound of the dreaded pistol-shot. When he came trudging up to her, carrying a canteen and the provisions sack, she was seated in a heap, her face hid in her hands.

“There! There!” he said consolingly. “We _had_ to leave him.”

They hurried forward as fast as they were able, Blandy compelling Polly to take a swallow of water every little while, but drinking none himself. Before long Patton’s trail was giving them much concern. It veered to the right for a few rods, then it veered to the left, winding crazily.

“’Fraid he was just a little off his head,” said Blandy. “Nothin’ to worry about, though. We’ll find him.”

But their concern steadily increased as they travelled. For by late afternoon, with the bowl still at some distance, they found no more footprints to follow--only two winding marks. Patton was dragging himself forward on his knees!

They came upon his hat next. An hour later, the sun glittered on something a short way in advance. It was a canteen. Its woolen covering had been torn from it in ragged bits that strewed the ground. And about the round opening were the marks of teeth.

“Hurry!” breathed Blandy.

After that, neither one spoke, but stumbled on, Blandy half-supporting Polly, both watching eagerly for a moving speck in the narrowing stretch between them and the base of the spur ahead.

At sundown, they neared the bowl. Blandy began to call: “Patton! Oh, _Patton_! Are you there?”

A few steps farther, he came short, putting out an arm to stop Polly.

For Patton was there, stretched flat upon his back, his arms thrown wide to either side. And beside him, with its black wings outspread, lay a great bird, claws up and feathers ruffled.

BUENAS NOCHES

Scarlet fuchsias on a swaying branch freckled the ’dobe wall behind Loretta’s perch. The parrot, her claws wide apart, her brilliant rudder tilting to balance her grey body, industriously snapped at the blossoms. One secured at last, she turned slowly about and, with infinite care, let it drop upon the open pages of Padre Alonzo’s book.

The padre brushed the flower away and glanced up. “_Buenos días, señor!_” clacked Loretta; “_buenos días! buenos días! buenos días!_”

“Good-day to thyself,” retorted the padre. He spoke in Spanish, shaking a stout finger. “And tear not the flowers again. They be the last of the kind till after the New Year. So take warning, I say, lest thou find thyself thrust without the garden.”

Loretta recognised displeasure in his voice. She mumbled an inquiring “_Ga-a-wk! ga-a-wk!_” and shifted thoughtfully from foot to foot. But, presently, the padre having resumed his reading, she turned once more to catch at the swaying branch.

When a second fuchsia came fluttering down to his hand, Padre Alonzo uncrossed his sandals and rose. “Oh! oh! oh!” he cried, wagging his close-cropped head so vigorously that the very beads of his rosary tinkled together. “Thou art the naughtiest bird in all of California! What if Padre Anzar finds thee despoiling his plant? He will put thee again where thou must fight to keep thy feathers--in the kitchen with the cats!”

At the mention of cats a startling change came over the parrot. Her plumage ruffled, her eyes began to roll, she straightened on the perch, uttering hoarse cries of fear and defiance.

“Then be good,” he counselled, “be good. Or off thou’lt likely go. Me-e-ow! me-e-ow!”

And now Loretta moved nearer, anxious for friendly terms. “_Dame la mano_,” she suggested; “_a-a-aw, dame la mano. A-a-aw! a-a-aw!_” She balanced tremblingly on one leg, curling the other under her.

Padre Alonzo put the stout finger into the proffered claw. “So, so,” he said. “And I shall not tattle. But tell me: What wouldst make thee forget to use thy sharp pruning shears? An apple? or seeds? or one of Gabrielda’s sweet bis--”

Loretta perked her head to one side. “_To-o-ny, To-o-ny, To-o-ny_,” she droned coaxingly.