CHAPTER XXVII

ON THE TRAIL

What madness to think that Natachee could ever find them in that seemingly infinite space.

The trail, left by Sonora Jack, led Edwards and Natachee down the creek and out of the cañon by the old road. But a mile or two beyond the crossing, the outlaw had left the road for a course more to the west through the foothills. And here, in the soft ground where there were no other tracks, the marks of the horse’s iron-shod feet were very clear, even to the white man. But when Edwards would have urged his mount forward, the Indian checked him.

“There are many miles of desert ahead of us, my friend,” said Natachee. “I must not permit your impatience to rob us of our horses before our journey is half finished.”

Reluctantly Edwards restrained himself, and the Indian, riding a little in advance, set the pace.

They had not gone far when Natachee pulled up his horse, and springing from his saddle, held up his hand for his companion to stop.

“What is it?” asked Edwards. “What is the matter?”

The Indian, who was moving here and there as he studied the ground, did not answer until he was apparently satisfied with his examination of the tracks.

As he came back to his waiting horse, he said:

“They stopped here and the men dismounted to tighten the cinches. I was right about the Lizard. Those tracks there are his, and there are the tracks of his horse. Sonora Jack and his horse are over there. When the men had attended to their saddles, the Lizard went to look after the pack mule over there, while Jack went to the horse that stood there, which must have been the pinto. Now that we have identified the horses with their riders, we can follow the movements of each in case they should separate--unless, of course, they should change horses.”

Again the Indian was in his saddle and they went on. At times they rode at a fast walk, again their sturdy mounts put mile after mile behind them with the easy swinging lope of the cow horse. Occasionally Natachee reined in his mount and, bending low from the saddle, studied the trail carefully, but he never hesitated for more than a moment or two.

At first, after leaving the old road, the trail led them straight west, but just before they crossed the Bankhead Highway they turned a little to the south, so as to pass the southern end of the Tortollita range. And here in the harder ground, and among the rocks, the trail became more difficult. Also, as Natachee had foreseen, the outlaw had separated his party; sending the Lizard with the pack mule one way while he with Marta went another. The Indian, explaining to Edwards what had happened, held to Nugget’s tracks.

And now, as he proceeded, the outlaw had taken every precaution to throw any possible pursuer off his trail. Choosing the hardest ground, he had turned and twisted, doubled back and forth, riding over ledges of rock, avoiding soft spots of ground, and taking advantage of everything in his course that would be an obstacle in the way of any one attempting to follow. At the same time, he had moved steadily toward the west and south.

Edwards, in dismay, felt that all hope of rescuing Marta was lost. To his eyes there was no mark to show which way they had gone. But Natachee smiled.

Dismounting, and giving his bridle rein to his companion, the Indian went ahead, stooping low at times and moving slowly, again running confidently at a dog trot. Three times he caused Edwards to wait while he drew a wide circle and picked up the trail at some point further on. Where Hugh could see not the slightest mark to show that a living thing had passed that way, the Indian moved forward with a certainty that was, to the white man, almost supernatural. A tiny scratch on a rock, a pebble brushed from its resting place, was enough to mark the way for the Indian as clearly as if it were a paved street. It was late in the afternoon when the trail finally drew away from the Tortollitas and again lay clearly marked in the softer ground of the desert. And here, presently, Natachee pointed out to Edwards that the tracks of the Lizard’s horse and the pack mule had again merged with those of the animals ridden by Sonora Jack and his captive.

The sun had set when Natachee stopped his horse. There was still light to see the trail but it would last but a few minutes longer. For some time the Indian seemed lost in contemplation of the scene. Slowly his eyes swept the vast reaches of desert and the mountain ranges that lay before them. His companion waited.

At last Natachee said:

“Sonora Jack is going to Mexico. If he were not, he would have gone to the north of the Tortollitas back there. But Mexico lies there to the south and this trail is leading almost due west.”

“What can we do?” cried Edwards. “It will be dark in twenty minutes, we cannot follow the trail in the night.”

“Patience,” returned the Indian, “and listen. The ways by which one may go through these deserts and mountains are more or less fixed.” Pointing to the southwest where the ragged sky-line of the Tucson range was sharp against the glowing sky, he continued:

“The outlaw would not risk going straight south on this side of those hills because that is the thickly settled valley of the Santa Cruz with the city of Tucson to bar his way. Do you see, through that gap in the Tucson range, a domelike peak of another range beyond?”

“Yes.”

“Well, that is Baboquivari. The Baboquivari, the Coyote, the Roskruge, and the Waterman Mountains are in a line north and south with the Pozo Verdes at the southern end of the line extending into Mexico. On this side of those ranges the country is rather well covered by cattle ranches and the main road to San Fernando, Sasabe and Mexico, and there is a custom house on the line. I do not think Sonora Jack would go that way.

“On the other side of that line of mountains lies the thinly settled Papago Indian Reservation. If this trail here continues its course to the west, it will pass north of those Waterman Mountains which are at the northern end of that line of ranges which mark the eastern boundary of the reservation. The Vaca Hills in the Papago country lie just beyond. They are surrounded by barren desert. There are no ranches--no roads. There is no place in all this country more lonely, and there is a little water there. Sonora Jack could have reached the Vaca Hills by daybreak this morning. If he spent this day there, he will turn south from that point and will be making his way to-night through the Papago Reservation to the Mexican line. I have heard that his old headquarters were in Mexico, south of the Nariz and Santa Rosa Mountains, which are on the border.

“But if I am wrong, and he went south on this side of the Baboquivaris, then he has gone through the Tucson range by the pass at Picture Rocks and we will find his trail there. Come!”

By midnight, they were at Picture Rocks--a narrow cut through the Tucson Mountains where the rock walls of the pass are covered with the strange picture writings of a prehistoric people. At places, the winding passageway is scarcely wider than the tracks of a wagon, so that it was not difficult for the Indian, by the light of an improvised torch, to assure himself that Sonora Jack had not gone that way.

With his customary exclamation, “Good!” the Indian swung into his saddle and, leaving the Tucson Mountains behind, pushed out into the desert with the sureness of a sailor steering toward a harbor light. And now, through the darkness of the night, he set a pace that taxed the endurance of the horses. The white man followed blindly.

Before they were out of the pass, Hugh had lost all sense of direction. In the desert, the darkness seemed to close in about them like a wall. The shadowy form of the Indian, the ghostly shapes of the desert vegetation, and the weird emptiness of those wide houseless spaces, gave him a feeling of unreality. Vainly he strained his eyes to glimpse a light. There was no light. Save for the soft thud of the horses’ feet, the squeaking of the saddle leathers and the jingle of the bridle chains, there was no sound. He felt that it must all be a dream from which presently he would awake. And somewhere under those same cold stars that looked down with such indifference, Marta, too, was riding--riding. Where was the outlaw leading her and to what end? Where was she at that moment? What madness to think that Natachee could ever find them in that seemingly infinite space.

After a time, which to Hugh seemed an age, they were again riding among the lower hills of a small desert range. Another half hour and Natachee stopped. Slipping to the ground and giving his bridle rein to Edwards, he said:

“We are at the northern end of the Waterman range. If they went to the Vaca Hills, they came this way. We will pick up their trail at daylight. There is water not far from here. Wait until I return.”

As noiseless as a shadow, the Indian disappeared.

Hugh Edwards, peering into the darkness, tried to guess which way the Indian had gone. He listened. On every side the mysteries of the desert night drew close. The shadowy bulk of the hills against the stars assumed the shapes of gigantic and awful creatures of some other world. The smell of the desert--the low sigh of a passing breath of air--the stillness--the feel of the wide empty spaces touched him with a strange dread. The wild, weird call of a coyote startled him. Faint and far away, the call was answered. The lonesome cry of an owl was followed by the soft swish of unseen wings. Suddenly, as if he had risen from the ground, Natachee again stood at his horse’s shoulder.

“It is all right,” said the Indian as he mounted, “there is no one at the water hole. We will camp there until daylight.”

After watering their horses and giving them a feed of grain, the two men ate a cold lunch and lay down to rest until the morning. Natachee slept, but his white companion lay with wide-open eyes waiting for the light.

With the first touch of gray in the sky behind the distant Catalinas, the Indian awoke. By the time there was light enough to see, they were in the saddle.

They had not gone far when Natachee reined his horse toward the west and pointing to the ground said:

“They went here, see? And yonder are the Vaca Hills.”

They were nearing the group of low hills that on every side is surrounded by unbroken desert when Natachee, with a low exclamation, suddenly stopped, and, standing in his stirrups, gazed intently ahead.

“What is it?” asked Hugh, trying in vain to see what it was that had attracted the red man’s attention.

“A horse.”

As he spoke, the Indian slipped from his saddle and motioned the white man to dismount.

Leading the animals behind a large greasewood bush, Natachee said to his companion:

“Stay here with the horses and watch.”

Before Hugh could answer, the Indian had slipped away through the gray-green desert vegetation.

A half hour passed. Hugh Edwards watched until his eyes ached. From horizon to horizon there was no sign of life. The desert was as still as a tomb. Then he saw Natachee standing on one of the hills against the sky. The Indian was signaling Hugh to come.

When the white man joined his companion, the Indian did not reply to his eager questions, and Hugh wondered at the red man’s grim and scowling face. Silently, Natachee mounted and started his horse forward.

Presently they rode into a low depression between the hills and Natachee called Hugh’s attention to the water hole and the place where the outlaw had made camp. Pointing out that the trail from this camping place led south, the Indian said:

“They left here as soon as it was dark last night. They are now close to the border. Sonora Jack will not camp another day on this side of the line but will push on this morning into Mexico. We will make much better time to-day than they could have made last night.”

“But that horse--what about that horse you saw?” demanded Hugh.

For a moment, although he stopped, Natachee did not answer. Then, as if against his will, he said curtly:

“Ride to the top of that ridge there and you will see.”

Wonderingly, Hugh obeyed.

On the farther side of the ridge lay the body of the Lizard.

Not until the following day did Hugh Edwards understand why the red man’s face was so grim, and why he would not speak of the Lizard’s death.

Hour after hour the Indian and the white man followed the trail that led southward through the Papago country. Natachee set the pace, nor did he once stop or hesitate, for the tracks of the two horses and the pack mule were clear in the soft ground, and the outlaw had made no attempt to confuse possible pursuers.

Skirting the northern end of the Comobabi range, and leaving Indian Oasis well to the east, the trail avoided two small Indian villages that lie at the foot of the Quijotoas and then swung more to the west. Natachee, who for three hours had not spoken, pointed to a group of mountains miles ahead.

“The Santa Rosa and the Nariz Mountains on the Mexican line. Sonora Jack is making for the headquarters of his old outlaw band.”

As mile after mile passed in steady, relentless succession, and the hours went by with no relief from the monotonous pound and swing of the horses’ feet, Hugh Edwards found reason to be grateful for the past months of heavy labor that had toughened his muscles and hardened his body for this test of physical endurance. The sun rode in a sky that held no relieving cloud. In the wide basin, rimmed by desert mountains where no trees grew, there was not a shadow to rest his aching eyes. The smell of the sweating horses and the odor of warm, wet saddle leather was in every breath he drew. His lips were parched and cracked, his eyes smarted, his skin was grimy with dust, his clothing damp and sticky with perspiration. He felt that he had been riding for ages. He grimly set his will to ride on and on and on.

It was late in the afternoon when Natachee turned aside from the trail and rode toward a little desert hill near-by. When Edwards, following, asked the reason, Natachee answered:

“We are not far from the border. Sonora Jack must have friends in this neighborhood or he would not have come so far west before crossing into Mexico.”

Dismounting, the two men climbed to the top of the hill, and from that elevation scanned the surrounding country. When Natachee was satisfied, they returned to their horses and rode on. But now the Indian held to the trail only at the intervals necessary to assure himself of the general bearing of the outlaw’s course. At every opportunity he ascended some high point from which he could survey the country into which the trail was leading them. After two hours of this they were rewarded by the sight of a small adobe house and corral, a mile, perhaps, from where they stood.

As Natachee pointed to the place he said:

“That is not Indian. The Papago Reservation line, which follows the international boundary for so many miles, turns north at the foot of the Nariz Hills yonder and then after a few miles turns west again to the Santa Rosa Mountains over there. That little ranch is not on the Indian Reservation. It cannot be far from the border. It looks Mexican, and the outlaw’s trail leads directly toward it.”

At the possibility suggested by the Indian’s words, Hugh Edwards cried:

“Do you think--are they--is Marta there?”

Natachee shook his head.

“No, I think the outlaw would take her into Mexico, but whoever lives there, they are Sonora Jack’s friends or he would avoid the place.”

Then with his eyes on his white companion’s face, the Indian said slowly:

“Don’t you remember the story you told me--how the old prospectors found the little girl?”

“Yes,” said Edwards, not at first seeing the connection.

“Well,” continued Natachee, “have you forgotten that Thad and Bob were coming in from the Santa Rosa Mountains, and that they found the child at a Mexican Ranch near the border?”

Hugh Edwards, fully aroused now, was trembling with emotion. He gazed at the little ranch house in the distance as if fascinated. Then, without a word, he went hurriedly down the hill to his horse.

Natachee was beside him, and, as they mounted, the Indian spoke.

“We must be careful, friend, it will not do to show ourselves here. If I am not mistaken, we will pick up the trail again beyond that ranch on the south.”

Riding into the nearest opening between the hills of the Nariz range, the Indian again turned westward, thus leaving the ranch well to the north. At the western end of the range they found the outlaw’s trail leading straight south into Mexico.

When the sun went down, Natachee and Edwards, lying in the greasewood and mesquite on top of a low ridge a few miles south of the international boundary line, looked down upon the buildings and corrals of a Mexican Ranch.

The nearest corral was not more than a quarter of a mile distant. The fence of a small pasture which lay between them and the corrals was less than a hundred yards away. In this pasture, within a stone’s throw of where the white man and the Indian lay, the pinto horse Nugget was feeding quietly with another horse and a mule.