Pay Dirt and Other Whispering Sands Stories of Gold Fever and the Western Desert

I. Dreams

I rubbed my eyes the first time I saw him, because he didn’t have any business being where he was. Not that some strange people didn’t come out of Bessie Crayton’s place. We get used to that in the desert. Bess ran a lunch counter restaurant, looked the world in the eyes, and served it meals. She didn’t talk. She was a good listener, though.

Lots of people couldn’t figure Bessie at all; but I could. She had a heart as big as the desert, steady eyes the color of moonlit sand, and an abiding faith in human nature. Girls from the dance hall would walk across the stretch of sandy street to have dinner at Bessie’s place, and Bessie would treat ’em like sisters. She’d listen to their troubles, give ’em a word of encouragement, and throw in an extra cup of coffee.

Gamblers from the joint a couple of hundred yards down toward the mill would come strolling in for a late cup of coffee, and tell Bess about their hopes and secret ambitions. As for the mining men, they just worshipped her.

She was straight as a string, steady-eyed and calm, with a natural talent for mothering people, even if she was only twenty-five. “We’re all just people,” she used to say, “livin’ here together, and not quite sure what it’s all about. Just because some of ’em make their livin’ in funny ways, don’t be so sure they ain’t just as good as you are.”

Which was all right; but when I saw this man walking out of Bessie’s place I rubbed my eyes, looked again, and rubbed ’em some more. For this man was a Navajo, and his clothes were of buckskin, with silver coins for buttons. You could see where he’s had hard luck and had pulled the dimes off, here and there, to use for cash.

I waited until he’d gone down the sandy street, and then I sauntered over to Bess’s place. I needed a little Mocha anyhow, and I was curious.

She handed me the coffee, looked at me with steady eyes, and smiled. “Curious, Bob?” she asked.

She’d called the turn. I grinned at her and nodded.

“I saw him go out,” I said. “He’s ’way off the reservation. He should have been out in the Painted Desert, not over here in the Mojave.”

She let the smile light die out of her eyes. “Did I ever tell you about Hoste-Ne-Bega?” she asked.

“Don’t be funny,” I told her. “You never told anybody about anything. You’re the champion listener.”

The smile light was back in her eyes. “I’m going to tell you something, Bob Zane, because you’ve got to be in on it. I want somebody I can trust; a man who can point a six-gun if he has to.”

“What’s the matter with Ed Kaplin?” I asked her.

She nodded her head slowly. “Yes. I think Ed Kaplin, too. I need you both.”

I stirred my coffee, and waited.

“Hoste-Ne-Bega was a Navajo who had troubles,” she said, “and he told me about them. — He wasn’t the same Indian that you saw coming out of here a little while ago, but he sent that man to me as a messenger.”

I nodded, wise as a tree full of owls. A girl who could make gamblers confide in her could make an Indian open up without any trouble at all.

“He got to dreaming dreams,” she continued, and her own eyes were dreamy.

She drew up a stool back of the counter, and started to talk. Outside was the desert, the sun beating against the walls of the little shack as though it was trying to dissolve it in sunlight. Flies droned around the screens outside. The heat was like a blanket that had folded itself around everything in a suffocating pall.

“His name was Hoste-Ne-Bega, and he had been banished from the tribe,” said Bess in a dreamy voice. “He didn’t have anything to eat. They’d put him out of the Navajo country, and he came to me, tired, hungry, almost ready to fall. He didn’t have any money. The silver coins that they use for buttons were gone from his clothes. He’d held the buckskin together with bits of wire and old nails. He was too proud to beg, and he was Indian, and wouldn’t work for his food. He preferred to starve if he had to — which was what he was doing.

“When I heard about him he was camped outside the mining camp, sitting down with his face to the west, waiting for the end. I went out to him with some hot soup, but he was too proud to eat. I had to talk to him. I made him understand that I wanted him to eat.

“After a while he took the soup. It was cold by that time, but it had nourishment that gave him new strength. The next morning I took him more food, and finally he came into the place here and let me feed him.

“He’d been here for three days before he began to talk, then he told me of his dreams. Always he’d dream of an old life before the coming of the white man. The Indians were plentiful then, and strong, but the tribe had sickness, and then came the warriors of the other tribes, and there was a big battle, and the Indians were almost all killed.

“An eagle flew overhead, and a feather came drifting down from its wing.

“The medicine men decided it was an omen that the tribe should move to a new ground. They were to begin all over, entirely anew.

“The tribe was not like the Hopis. They lived chiefly by hunting. But they had some crops, and they took enough seed to plant. The other things they left behind. There were big earthenware water pots and cooking pots and a great store of treasure. He told me particularly of the treasure. It was made from a deposit of yellow metal which had been discovered many years before by one of the braves. They made their ornaments from it, and at first the gold had made them prosperous. Then it had proven to be a curse. It had attracted other tribes, who had come in search of the source of the treasure, had come to do battle over the ornaments of yellow metal.

“So the high priests of the tribe decided that all of the misfortunes of the Indians came from this yellow metal. They closed up the place where the mine had been, a place that had been so cunningly hidden that no one had ever found it, and they took just the bare necessities of life, their bows and their arrows, their stock and their little store of seed, and they migrated to a new dwelling place.”

She stopped and looked at me with her level gray eyes. She was so convincing that the Indian’s dreams almost sounded logical.

I lit a cigarette and finished the cup of coffee. “This was all a dream?” I said. “The dream of an old Indian who had suffered the pangs of hunger, and whose mind had probably become affected?”

She nodded her head.

I was impatient. I’d have liked it better if she’d argued that maybe it wasn’t a dream after all, or that it might have been founded on fact.

“That was a dream of something that must have happened, not when he was a little boy, but something that happened long before he was born.” I went on. “I know something of the Navajos. They had trouble with other tribes. But what this man tells about must have been years and years before he was born. There was a great invasion...”

She nodded. “Yes,” she said, “he admits that. You see, he remembers his childhood perfectly. It was always spent in the one place. What I’m telling you about was a dream. He’s had that dream again and again, ever since he can remember. And in it he lives over the old days of his tribe.”

“Probably something that his father told him when he was a very little boy. His memory played tricks on him when he got old and hungry, and he got to remembering those stories vaguely, and thought they were dreams. He’s absorbed the legends of the tribe.”

“Probably,” she agreed.

“It couldn’t be anything else,” I told her, impatient at her docile acquiescence.

“Certainly,” she said. “It couldn’t have been anything else — but I grubstaked him.”

“You what? — Grubstaked him for what, in heaven’s name?”

“To go to this land of his dreams. It was to the south and east. He said he’d know the place when he came to it. It wasn’t far — only a three or four weeks’ march.”

I stared at her. “You grubstaked a man to go and find a dream?” I demanded. “What chance did you think you stood?”

“I didn’t think I stood any. It was purely for his sake. He was old, and those dreams had been haunting him. Since he got older and had been banished from the tribe, those dreams had become more vivid. I got him a couple of burros and gave him some of the surplus provisions from the restaurant. He started out with those, and was happy.”

“How long ago?” I asked her.

“Two years.”

“Ever heard from him? — No, you wouldn’t. Two years — grubstake a dream... No, you wouldn’t hear.”

She reached under the counter, took out something and slid it across to me. “Yes,” she said. “I got that from the other Indian who was just in here. It was sent to me with a message to come to Cameron and wait.”

I picked the object up. It was virgin gold, a bracelet that had been hammered and carved with the cunning of the Indian craftsman. It was studded with turquoises, and there were a couple of stones in it that looked like rubies. I had never seen anything quite like it. It was old, I could swear to that.

“Cameron?” I said, fingering the heavy bracelet. “That’s in Arizona, over in the Painted Desert.”

She nodded.

“He could have made this himself, of course,” was my comment. “Does he want any more money?”

She shook her head impatiently. “He simply sent this with the message that I should come to Cameron, and that I should bring my young man with me.”

I thought of Ed Kaplin, a quiet, softspoken man of the desert. He was young, about her own age, maybe a year or two older. He’d lived in the desert and knew its moods. He and Bessie were interested in each other — the sort of an interest that’s quiet and deep-founded.

“Well?” I said.

“And somehow or other, I wanted you to go along, too, Bob Zane,” she said, softly.

“Why, Bess?”

“Because you know the desert.”

“What’s that got to do with it?”

“I don’t know. I feel funny about it all. It’s weird and uncanny. I grubstaked this man because I thought he was hitting the last trail. I never expected to see him again. I didn’t think he’d last out the grub I gave him. It was just because he was an old Indian who had been banished from the tribe... But it’s got me guessing.”

She busied herself with the dishes.

I sat and thought. The flies droned about the sun-swept shack, attracted by the odor of the food. The glare of the light on the sandy street was so intense that it made the eyes ache. — And, in the background was the desert, a great expanse of sweeping sand and cacti, of Joshua palm and greasewood, sage and rock.

“I’ll go,” I told her abruptly.

She looked up then. “We start at midnight,” she said. “I’ve already hired some one to run the place for a week or two.”

I nodded. Then I got up and walked out. I’d have work to do — getting my flivver ready with provisions, sleeping bags, shoulder packs, and canteens would take some time. Then I’d have to get some sleep.

II. Strangers in the Night

At midnight I swung the car around to the lunch shack. Kaplin was there, waiting with Bess.

“You’re tired,” I told them. “Try and get some sleep while I drive.”

They crawled into the car. The engine roared, and the desert miles began to unreel. The stars marched in silent procession; the headlights showed the same monotonous ribbon of winding, sandy road. The flivver rattled and swayed. Bess sat dozing on the front seat, at my side. Ed Kaplin was over on the roped-in pile of dunnage.

Toward dawn we struck the main road running to Needles. The sun came up over the desert, illuminating the barren mountains, plunging the gray sand almost at once into torturing heat that started the horizon to dancing. We stopped by the side of the road, got out some of the camp stuff and had grub.

We crossed the Colorado below Needles, crossed some level country, and then started climbing. Bess took a trick at the wheel, then I relieved her in the afternoon. We got into Flagstaff — up where it was cold, in the high, dry air, with the pines giving tang to the atmosphere and the jagged silhouettes blotting out star segments.

Then we swung off the main highway and headed for the Painted Desert. I heaved a sigh of relief. No more civilization, no more tourist cars, no more roadside hot dog stands, no more fool questions. Just the night — silence — and the desert.

We camped for the night out where the big pines gave way to the stunted cedars, out where the desert began to reach out with an arid hand and claim its own. The wind began to make the sand whisper against the stunted trees. I fell asleep listening to those sand whispers, indescribably soft and seductive, the crooning lullaby of the desert — to the men who sleep on her bosom.

Daylight found us astir. Shortly after the sun was up, we dropped down to the Painted Desert and to Cameron. It was just a little trading post with a few Indians about, and a man who had hard, twinkling eyes — eyes that saw a lot. He looked us over. The Indians looked us over. We camped and waited. Hoste-Ne-Bega was to have met us, or if not, to have left a message.

We didn’t ask any questions, and no one asked questions of us. We were in the real desert now, where a man may do as he pleases.

Toward afternoon we moved camp. All around us were the vivid reds and blues of the Painted Desert, rock walls with brilliant colored strata, stretching above the sea of sand like petrified rainbows, held there by some secret process of nature.

We didn’t talk much. The desert doesn’t make for lengthy conversation. We camped and waited.

At night the sand whispered again. This time we heard the most subtle sand whisperings of all, the sound of sand slithering along on sand, or hissing against some jutting promontory of sand-carved rock.

In the morning we rolled up the things, lashed them into place, and went back to Cameron. We sat around. The sun crawled up in the hot blue of the cloudless sky. About the time the shadows shortened into almost nothing, Ed Kaplin came over toward me.

He had a piece of paper and a strange story. He’d taken a little walk, and a Navajo had appeared from behind a rock, standing very erect and dignified, as though he’d sent some mental messenger for Kaplin, and had just been waiting for him.

Ed had pieced together the story from what the Indian had said, and from signs.

The man was a friend of Hoste-Ne-Bega. He knew we were coming. But Hoste-Ne-Bega had expected to meet us in person. In the event something happened so that he couldn’t, he had commissioned this Indian to give us a map. The Indian had seen us yesterday. He’d waited, however, expecting Hoste-Ne-Bega to show up. Then, when nothing happened, he’d delivered his message, and then gone.

We studied over the map, checked it with that knowledge we had of the Painted Desert. We figured that some of the way we could go in the car. The rest would be with shoulder packs.

We started out, following the map. The car had to be abandoned after the first ten miles. We stripped the very bare essentials out of the pack stuff, and made shoulder packs. Then we started out on the long hike.

Every section of the desert has an individuality of its own. Sometimes you’ll find one section that’s something like another section, but the resemblance is more or less superficial. A man who really knows the desert can be put down in any section of it, walk for a few miles, and come pretty close to telling where he is.

The Painted Desert runs to color, of course, but, more than that, it runs to weird rock formations. Little outcroppings of rock thrust out from the main formations, standing up to a height of from ten to a hundred feet, have had the sand whipped against them for thousands of years, until the sand has carved them into freakish designs.

These rocks are formed of strata of different hardness. Some of them the sand wears away in a few hundred years, some last three or four times that long; and the rock finally takes on a peculiar appearance, as though big pancakes of different sizes had been plunked down, one on the other, all of different color. Then the profiles show up in strange shapes against the blue black of the desert sky.

At nightfall, we had a few swigs of water, stretched out our blankets and slept.

The next day was a tiresome repetition of the first. The water was low in our canteens, despite the fact that we were trained to disregard the “mouth-thirst” of the tenderfoot. A little water at morning, a few sips at night, and we could travel all day.

It wasn’t until late afternoon of the next day that we came to the end of the mapped road. It was a little spring of clear water that trickled out of a rock fissure. We filled the canteens.

There was no one to meet us, no sign of any one. But we knew something of the Indians. We looked around.

Fifteen feet from the water, we found a little forked stick, apparently dropped carelessly on the ground. It pointed northeast. We followed the direction of the stick.

Toward dark we found another stick, just a little forked branch of desert plant, dry and brittle. It pointed northeast. We kept on until it got pretty dark. Then we made camp on a little rise of ground.

There was a little crescent of moon, in the west, a moon that was a couple of days old. We watched it slide down below the horizon. Then I noticed a pin-prick of red light, off to the east and north. I looked at it and it disappeared. I didn’t say anything about it, but I kept watching.

A coyote yap-yapped-yippety-yapped a few preliminaries, and then burst into a full-throated screaming of hysterical discord that sounded like a dozen brazen throats getting into play at once.

I kept watching the place where I’d seen the red pin-prick of light. Then I saw it again. This time it was brighter. I lined it up with one of the low stars, and then told my companions about it.

“Somebody’s got a little campfire over there,” I said.

They both saw it when I pointed.

“We can come back later on and get the packs,” I said. “It may be our man, and it may not.”

I could hear them getting to their feet. They didn’t say anything at all. That’s the nice part about desert-bred companionship. People aren’t always babbling half-formed ideas, valueless reminiscences and meaningless words. There’s a dignity about the desert that impresses itself upon the people who live in it and love it. After a while it does things to their natures. Notice any one who’s spent a lot of time in the desert. He’ll have sun-bleached eyes, a voice that has something of the stinging of drifting sand in it, and he won’t talk much. The desert leaves its imprint upon all of them.

We trudged along toward that speck of red light. The starlight reflected from the sand showed something of the surface of the desert, enough to enable us to keep from floundering over ridges, slamming into sagebrush, or dropping into ravines.

Walking in a dim light that’s almost no light at all is a strain, however. The eyes keep trying to focus, as though they could stare more light into the surroundings.

The campfire got brighter as we got nearer. At that, it was quite a distance. It wasn’t an Indian fire. I could tell that when we were a quarter of a mile away.

We reached the illumination after a while and we could see four black shadows between us and the firelight.

I called, “Halloo!”

The four black silhouettes scrambled into motion that was as abrupt as though I’d dropped a bombshell into their midst. I could see hands tugging weapons from holsters.

“They aren’t desert men,” I said.

I heard Ed Kaplin grunt assent.

Then, abruptly, the figures scattered into the darkness on either side of the fire.

“But they’ve got a desert man with them,” I went on.

And again I heard Kaplin’s grunt of assent. It was a cinch that a desert man, surprised when he was near his campfire, would never have remained outlined against the light of the fire — not if he’d been suspicious enough to go for a gun when he heard the hail. The fact that those men tugged out their guns, and then remained against the light of the fire showed that they were city bred; just as the fact that they moved with a swift unison which showed that some word of command had been spoken, indicated that some desert-wise man in the shadows had given an order.

That would mean five men in all.

I wondered if the one who had given the order might be Hoste-Ne-Bega.

“We’re friends,” I called.

“Well,” said a voice from the blackness, “come on in by the fire, and let’s have a look at you.”

I didn’t like the sound of that voice.

“They’ve heard my voice,” I whispered to Kaplin. “But they don’t know that you’re here. I’ll go on in with Bess. You stick around and wait until you’re sure that everything’s all right before you come in. If anything happens, you’ll have the drop on ’em from out here.”

He hissed a whisper that showed he understood, and Bess and I walked into the circle of firelight.

After a while the men began to ooze in out of the darkness. They were a sorry looking lot. From the minute I saw them, I didn’t like them. They were of the city all right, but they’d been in the desert a while — long enough to allow their skins to become brown and to get over the first angry red which comes to the city born when they tackle the desert.

There were four of them, right enough. But there was another man who stuck out in the darkness. He must have been there, because it had certainly been a desert dweller who had sent them tumbling out of the firelight, and these four men were city men — definitely. I could tell it from their hands, from the way they stood around the fire, from the guns they used — automatics that gave lots of shots fast, but weren’t the guns a desert man would have used as holster weapons.

Not that we pack guns around in the open, when we’re around our fellow man. The old prospector may have a gun in a slick holster, worn black and smooth by years of use — when he’s out on the desert. If he’s going on a trip, when he thinks he may run into a claim jumper, he’ll have it with him pretty steadily. But for the most part the desert man will have his gun in his war bag, when he’s around his fellow mortals. A desert man would never make the mistake of going for his iron, and then remaining outlined against a campfire.

I had my own gun at my hip because I’d rather expected some sort of trouble, following the hunch Bess had. And she had stuck a gun down the front of her blouse. But neither of us were making any false motions toward the guns. When we pulled ’em there’d be action, and we wouldn’t stick around a campfire, either.

The men sat down on the sand, and they sat awkwardly. Bess dropped to a sitting position, light as a feather. I sat on my heels, the way of the desert man who’s making himself comfortable for a short visit.

“Looking for an Indian who’s supposed to be in these parts,” I said.

“Yeah?” asked one of the men swiftly. “What’s his name?” Bess told him the name. I wouldn’t have done it, not just then — not until the other man showed up, at any rate.

“Hoste-Ne-Bega,” she said.

The men exchanged glances.

“He’s got one of those little timber-and-mud houses up here a half mile or so. It’s hard to find at night, but you won’t have any trouble at all in the morning.”

“We can find it,” I said, confidently.

“Better wait until morning. Then we can show you right where it is. He used to come over and visit with us at night some, but we haven’t seen him for a couple of days.”

I lit a cigarette.

A voice, hard, dry, and brittle with menace sounded from the darkness. “Well, friend, suppose we both walk in — together.”

It was the fifth man, the one who had been wise to the desert. He’d evidently circled around until he’d got behind Ed Kaplin, and had got the drop on him.

I heard Ed’s voice, closer than it should have been. “Sure,” he said. “I was sort of lookin’ for you.”

The words made the men around the fire go for their guns again. Bess and I, however, sat motionless. Kaplin was a nice chap and he knew something of the desert, but there are some things a man learns only after he’d had a flock of years in the open spaces.

For instance, when he saw but four men in there he should have gone ’way back, so that it would have been impossible for a prowler to circle him. Then he should have lain down back of a bush and listened. The way it was, he’d probably crowded on in to hear what the men near the fire were saying. Then again, he was in love with Bess, and he wanted to be where he wouldn’t miss if he had to do any shooting.

Anyhow, he’d been discovered. We could hear the sound of the feet crunching the loose sand of the Painted Desert, and then they came in near the campfire together, two shadows looming up out of the night.

I sized up the man who brought him in, and I didn’t like that man any more than I liked the city chaps. He was part Mexican, I guess, for his skin was bronze, and his eyes were a smoky, restless black. He had a gun at his hip; and something about the way the right hand flicked around the top of the holster made me feel that he might be able to use that gun to advantage if he ever started for it. He’d probably snake it into action without wasting any time.

I merely grunted a greeting and sat motionless, puffing out smoke.

“He’s looking for Hoste-Ne-Bega,” said one of the men. “Think they could find him at night, Pete?”

And the desert man grunted an affirmative. “Sure,” he said, “this man here, squatting down by the fire, is Bob Zane. He could find anything in the desert.”

I looked at him sharply, but I couldn’t remember where I’d seen him before. The name didn’t mean much to the city men, evidently. They looked me over with a placid curiosity. Now that this Pete had come in by the fire, he seemed to be the dominant spirit.

“Maybe, if you’d sort of give me the direction, we’d find the place,” I said.

He grinned, and his teeth were white against the bronze of his leathery skin. The light from the campfire glinted from the matched rows. I didn’t like him any better when he grinned.

“It’s over there to the east and north,” he said. “You’ll find a little draw running in that direction. He’s made his hogan just over the little ridge, where the draw heads. He’s been here for some time, I guess.”

I watched the smoke from my cigarette. “Here when you came here, then?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Been here long?” I wanted to know, realizing that I was violating the etiquette of the desert in asking so many questions, but feeling vaguely uneasy, knowing that there was going to be trouble anyway.

“So-so,” he said.

I watched the night wind take a little eddy of smoke from my cigarette. Glancing over at the light of the campfire, I turned so that I could see something of their outfit. It was an outfit that had been packed in by manpower — light and compact.

“One of the boys said it had been a couple of days since they’d seen the Indian,” I said.

“Did he?” asked Pete.

“Yes,” I said.

“I see,” he remarked.

That finished the conversation. I finished the cigarette, and then straightened.

“We’ll be moseying along, I guess,” I said.

“Good luck. See you later — maybe,” observed Pete.

“So-long,” I told him.

I motioned to Ed and Bess to go ahead; I stayed a little behind. After they’d got off into the desert a short distance, I moved over to one side. The men we’d left behind were spreading out, too. They were moving in unison, as though there’d been another order. They shifted around on the other side of the blaze, so that the fire was between them and us. It made them almost invisible. I hurried up to catch Bess and Ed.

III. Six-guns Versus Rifles

“Think we’ll find the hogan here?” asked Ed as I caught up with them.

“Can’t tell,” I answered. “We’ll push right on toward it, and if there’s a little ridge there, we’ll wait on the other side of it. If we see anything silhouetted against the stars we’ll ask it to get its hands up.”

I could tell from his grunt of assent that he didn’t like the outfit any better than I did. Bess wasn’t saying anything, which was one of the things I liked about Bess. She took things as they came. I knew that her eyes would be steady, her hand ready, and that if she had to get her gun, her aim would be true.

We found the draw and worked up along it. There was a little ridge, all right, and we dropped over that and waited. I thought I could hear motion, but I couldn’t see anything. Down the slope was a blotch of blackness that was probably the hogan we wanted.

I pushed on down toward it, saw that it really was the hogan, and called for the others. Then I walked around to the east. There wasn’t any entrance to the place. I looked it over as well as I could in the starlight, then I leaned forward and felt the side of it with the tips of my fingers. There’d been an entrance there, all right, and it had been moved.

I walked around the structure. There was a low entrance to the west, then the little tunnel that ran into the cone-shaped structure. I whistled, a little whistle of surprise.

“Something fishy here, all right,” I said, pausing to listen.

A rock rattled somewhere on the slope.

“Quick, Bess!” I said, pulling her back. “Get out of there. Don’t go in that place!”

“Why not?” she asked.

“The entrance,” I told her. “That’s one thing about the Navajo. He’d never go into a hogan that had an entrance to the west. They build them with the entrance to the east. You can even feel where this entrance has been on the east side, then was changed to the west. That’s a warning to us that there’s something wrong.”

I led her out, away from the hogan. Ed Kaplin was right with us, pushing through the sand with swift strides. We covered distance as fast as we could, going toward the west.

I heard another rock, and I thought I caught a glimpse of a shadow, moving across the blurred reflection of desert light. Then there was the spurt of flame from a rifle, the roar of an explosion, and I could hear the thunk of the bullet.

Other rifles joined in the chorus. I could pick them out from the location of the flashes. They had the hogan surrounded on three sides, and were pouring lead into it. One man was standing with his back to us, rattling a fusillade down the entrance to that hogan.

I grunted permission to Ed, and cut loose with my six-gun. It was shooting in the dark, and the work had to be done by the feel of the weapon rather than the alignment of the sights. But a man who knows his gun can sometimes do quite a bit of execution, shooting just by a sense of touch.

They’d figured that we were trapped inside that hogan, and when they found out that we weren’t it was something of a shock to ’em. Their bullets had been tearing through the mud-and-timber structure, and if we’d been inside, it’d have been just too bad. However, we weren’t there. The first hail of lead that came from our guns, toppled over the man who had been shooting through the entrance to the hogan.

But that first volley was all the advantage we had. After that, they whirled and concentrated their fire on us. They had rifles — we had six-guns.

I saw that things were getting too hot for us to stick it out, and so I told Ed and Bess to separate and start working back. I dropped down to the ground and reloaded my six-shooter to guard the rear.

When our fire stopped, the others began to draw together. That was a poor move. They were huddling together like sheep, and from that I figured the one we’d knocked down was the man who had been the brains of the thing, the one who had circled out into the darkness and picked up Ed Kaplin.

But I didn’t do any more shooting. Most of my surplus cartridges were in my shoulder pack, and I’d left that pretty far back. Having shown their hands, I didn’t know but what they might be foolish enough to try and make a rush. If they’d done that, I’d have needed every shell in the gun to protect the two who were retreating.

They didn’t rush. Evidently they figured we might be trying to circle around them.

They got nervous, and after a while they went away.

I got up and walked to the west, whistling like a whippoorwill to attract Ed’s attention. He’d heard me give that call on previous occasions; and after a while he answered me. I worked over and joined Bess and him.

About that time a rifle cracked from over by the hogan — just a single shot. I listened. There weren’t any more shots, and there was not anything to indicate the cause of that one shot.

“They got the Indian,” I said. “Somehow or other they got wise to what he had, and they followed him in here. But the Indian was wise. He knew they intended to kill him. He couldn’t leave us any other message, warning us of danger, except to change the entrance on his hogan.

“The man who knew the desert better than any of the others knew it pretty well, but he didn’t know this section of it. That is, he didn’t know the Indians. Otherwise he’d have known that that switched entrance was a danger signal. No Navajo ever lived in a hogan with the entrance to the west.

“So Hoste-Ne-Bega left us a warning — that was all he could do.”

“The Indian must have discovered the cache of treasure, and maybe the mine itself,” said Ed.

“Sure. That’s why they followed him in here. But they didn’t find the mine; otherwise they’d have lifted the treasure and gone. And they probably didn’t know we were coming, or they’d have ambushed us somewhere along the trail in.”

Bess sighed. “Anyway you’ve a mind to look at it now, we’re in an awful pickle!”

I nodded silent agreement to that. We’d expected that there might be a little trouble of some sort, and we’d packed six-guns and a few shells. But we certainly hadn’t expected that we’d run into a band of desperate criminals who were armed with rifles as well as revolvers, and who would shoot to kill, without warning.

“The first thing to do is to go get our sleeping bags and provisions,” I said. “Then we’ll try and locate what the Indian found.”

“But they’ll be waiting for us to find it, and then they’ll open up on us with rifles,” said Bess.

“Sure,” I told her; “that’s part of the fortunes of war. We’ve just got to take that as it comes.”

She sighed. That sigh sounded tremulous in the darkness. I knew how she felt. Personally, I’d rather take a chance on being killed than on backing up. It was different with her. She was young and she had a lot to live for.

We trudged on through the darkness.

Of a sudden an idea hit me. It was an explanation for that lone rifle shot that I’d heard.

“Wait a minute,” I told them. “I’m going to go on a little look-see trip before I make any sudden moves. I’ve just had an idea. — The night’s young yet. You folks wait here.”

So I got them located in the shelter of a little greasebush, and started feeling my way back toward the hogan. There was a possibility that those bandits had been hard, and that their very greed had trapped them.

I worked pretty cautiously, getting in toward the hogan. But the men seemed to have gone. I figured they’d worked back toward their campfire.

After I got within fifteen or twenty yards of the hogan I could see a figure sprawled out on the sand. I went up to it cautiously. It was the man who had been firing through the entranceway, into the hogan.

He was dead. We had wounded him with a bullet.

As near as I could tell in the dim light which came from the stars, we’d fired a shot through his leg that had brought him down. The others had done the rest. They’d fired a rifle shell through his heart, at point blank. He had his hands up, as though he’d been trying to ward off a blow or stop a bullet or something. The quiet clay was more eloquent than words of the futility of the gesture.

I saw the situation now. This man had stumbled on to the Indian’s secret. He’d known that Hoste-Ne-Bega had found a treasure. He’d known the general direction in which the Indian was going, and he’d enlisted his band of city cutthroats to help him. They’d followed the Indian, and had probably killed him. Then when we happened along, they decided to wipe us out. But we’d managed to get free, and they’d found themselves with a fight on their hands. The leader had been wounded, and they’d decided that there was no use bothering with a wounded man; so they’d killed him off, which made one man less to share in the treasure. — But in killing him, they’d lost their only man who knew the desert.

I ran my hands over the figure. They’d stripped him of everything of value. Rifle, revolver and even his jackknife were gone.

I moved on past him and took a chance on going inside the hogan. It was as bare as only an Indian’s hogan can be. There was a little parched com in a buckskin sack, and that was all.

I struck matches, once I was inside, knowing I was taking a chance, but realizing I was in a tough spot. Then I mentally kicked myself for being a fool. The entrance pointing toward the west was more than a signal of danger; it gave a direction. To make sure that we would get the direction, Hoste-Ne-Bega had left another of the little forked sticks on the sandy floor of the place. It was just a dead branch of desert shrub, and it was pointing to the west, the same direction as the entrance to the hogan pointed.

I went back and found the others, telling them of what I’d found. Then I led the way in a long half circle back to the place where we’d dropped our blankets. I got out some of the concentrated provisions, and we had a bite to eat, washing it down with water from the canteens.

Then Ed and I took turns standing watch, and Bess crawled into her blankets and slept.

With the first faint suggestion of dawn in the east, we were up. I didn’t dare to chance a fire, no matter how much we screened it. We munched on some more cold rations, and then rolled up the blankets and cached them as best we could.

Filling our canteens back at the spring, by the time the sun was up, we were ready for a day of fighting.

It didn’t take us long to see what we were up against.

Bess pushed her head over a ridge to take a look at the country. There was the sound of something plumping into the sand, and a shower of little sand particles flung up in a stinging spray.

The noise of a rifle was swallowed up in the hot silence of the desert. Bess ducked back behind the ridge. The shot had been fairly close.

“How far, Bess?” I asked her.

She rubbed some of the sand out of her eyes. “Couple of hundred yards, I guess.”

I got out my gun and wormed my way to the top of the ridge. I figured the other two were working somewhere close, and that they’d probably charge. I cocked my gun and slid over the ridge.

They weren’t charging, however. They were still two hundred yards away, waving signals to another pair that were away over on another ridge.

They saw me, and both rifles cracked. The bullets were too close for comfort. It was close shooting, all right. These men knew how to handle their weapons. What was more, they’d worked out a pretty slick strategy. They weren’t going to charge. They were going to separate, keep out of range as far as they could, and gun us out as though we’d been coyotes.

“We’ve got to move,” I told Bess and Ed, sliding back down the slope of the sand ridge. “And we’ve got to keep pretty much out of sight while we’re moving!”

I knew then how a wild animal feels.

IV. Indian Trail

There was a draw which ran along for fifty or seventy-five yards, inclining upward steadily. Then there was a little saddle, running down into some broken country. We kept pretty well doubled up so that our heads wouldn’t show, and ran up the draw.

We were at the top of it when one of the men from the second couple swung around so he could see us. He opened up.

Whoever was first over had the best chance, so I sent Bess over the top on the run. Guns roared and little geysers of sand whipped up. Ed Kaplin made a running dive. The bullets were coming closer now. One of them actually whipped dust from his coat, but he wasn’t scratched.

I was between two fires. The man who had swung around, so he could see me, was working the pump on his gun at a distance of three hundred and fifty yards. There was a cross fire over the saddle, and the men who had seen Bess and Ed go knew I’d have to go over, too.

I ran a few steps back down the draw, then charged the side hill and went over the ridge fifteen or twenty yards down from the low saddle where the others had gone over. That saved my life. They’d concentrated their fire on the saddle. The necessity for shifting their aim threw them off on the first shots. I was going like a plummet on the second shot.

I dropped into the other little cañon and joined the others. We ran for the lower level, crossed a wash, and scrambled along a curving cañon that ran up on the other side. We managed to cross the next ridge before they could get to a spot where they could even see us. It was hot work. Perspiration was streaming from us, and we were breathless.

Bess looked at me, and her eyes were glittering with rage. “They’re hunting us down like dogs!” she flared.

I knew that my own feelings weren’t any too calm and tranquil. “When night comes,” I said grimly, “it’ll be our turn. Our guns will give us an advantage at ranges that are short enough. We’ll keep in touch with them, and close in when it gets dark.”

Ed Kaplin nodded. Bess clamped her lips in a thin line.

“Our problem,” I told them, “is going to be to keep going until it does get dark. They’re tracking us, and they’re going to keep us on the move, constantly. If they can guess where we’re heading and get us cut off they’ll have us between two fires. Those are high-power rifles. They’ll be effective at enormous ranges.”

We swung in a great circle, getting up on the high places from time to time to see what the others were doing. They were pushing on at speed. Two of them were following our tracks. The other two had swung far out, one on either side, and were pushing forward at top speed, trying to get us where we’d be outflanked.

We kept trotting wherever we could, and it was pretty evident that we couldn’t stand the pace for any great length of time. On the other hand, the pursuers were also showing signs of slowing.

I contemplated a scheme of getting over to the side and ambushing one of the men who was trying to flank us. But that would have split us up, and with a woman along it was better to keep together.

Obviously, our game was to make the men walk twice as far as we did, if we could. And so I swung our party over to the east; put them to it to use their last remaining strength. Then I swung them back to the south, in a little cañon, told them to sit down and rest. I crawled up to look things over.

The man who was trying to gain the east flank went past me, within a hundred yards of the place where I was concealed. He was gasping, almost staggering, but he kept on going. The man on the west flank was keeping pace with him. But they were out of contact with each other because the country was more broken here.

I slid down the ridge, moved back along our tracks. The two who were tracking us were behind. They came into sight, running shoulder to shoulder down a slope, toiling slowly upward again.

I rested the barrel of my gun on a rock, got a good aim down the sights, allowed for elevation, and pulled the trigger. The shot was just a couple of inches high. It caught the crown of one of the hats, whipped it off. I pulled the trigger again. The bullet went between the two. The third shot I put to one side. But the fusillade sent them running for cover, trying to locate me. I remained motionless.

I could see the men who had tried to flank us, now some two or three hundred yards on ahead, turn at the sound of the firing, and give every ounce of strength they had to a last desperate run.

I slid down the side of my ridge, ran back to the others, and called on them for another sprint. We sneaked around, got to the cañon up which the men who had tried to flank us had come, and started on his back tracks.

The country was rough here. We slowed somewhat. A rocky ledge gave us a chance to lose our tracks. I didn’t figure these men, being city men, were much on tracking. We crossed over a couple of ridges.

Once I caught a glimpse of the men. They were closing in, cautiously, concentrating on the ridge where I had been when I fired the shots; and they were going cautiously, too. I’d opened their eyes a bit to what a long-barrelled revolver can do at a distance.

We were to the west of the hogan now, and our tracks were pretty well covered. But is wasn’t yet noon, and there was a long hot day ahead of us.

The desert was merciless. The sun glared with eye-aching brilliance down upon the varicolored sand. There wasn’t a breath of wind. The hot air came radiating up off the rocks as though it had been blasted from an oven.

But we three knew the desert. She was cruel, and yet her cruelty was kindness. The price of a mistake is pain. Therefore, one learns not to make mistakes.

Which is why I love the desert. It is a place where character is tempered in a furnace heat. It is the cruelest mother a man ever had, and therefore the kindest.

Bess was following me. Ed Kaplin brought up the rear. Our guns were ready in our hands, and the hot metal would have raised a blister had we held our hands on the barrels.

Of a sudden I stopped. There was a twig on the ground, a broken branch of sage, with a fork at one end. It was like the others. To the uninitiated it was merely a twig, a desert-dried bit of branch.

I stopped and looked at it, and then I bent closer. There was something on it, a little blotch of red that had turned to a brown rust.

“Hoste-Ne-Bega came this way, and he was wounded,” I said.

We stared at each other. We had been going on the theory that the Indian had been killed. But if he had been merely wounded we had another responsibility. We must find him, hoping that our help would not be too late.

I lined up the direction in which the twig pointed. We walked in that direction, scrutinizing every inch of the ground. Yet there seemed to be no more twigs.

We climbed up the slope of a huge mesa or butte with sharp sandy sides, when another bit of brush caught my eye. It was just a clump of sage, but the topmost branches were bent. They were not broken off entirely, but bent over at right angles, in a direction almost at right angles to the direction in which the twig had been pointed.

Then I saw what I should have seen before. At the top of the mesa was a rimrock, and there was a little hole in that rimrock. Had it not been for the eye-aching brilliance of the sand, the glittering refractions of hot air from the rimrock itself, I would have seen it. It was barely more than two feet in diameter, and it was nestled in against the folds of rock in such a way that a person might have walked past it without seeing it.

I motioned to the rock. “This way,” I told them.

They didn’t see the little opening until they were almost upon it. I dropped to my stomach, started to crawl into the hole, on my guard against snakes.

The hole was just a little opening into a chamber which had evidently been hollowed out of the rock by hand. A foot or two beyond the entrance, the chamber opened up. I straightened up inside, and found that I could stand erect, but I could see little, as yet, after the glare of the outer world.

“Okay,” I said to the others.

They pushed their way in, momentarily blotting out the light as they filled the passageway. Then, when Kaplin was in and the girl was also standing at my side, the daylight filtered through once more, and I could see the vague outlines of the chamber, my eyes gradually becoming accustomed to the half darkness.

I saw a human form, stretched out at one side of the rock. I went toward it, extended my hand. When I felt the firm, quiet body, I knew what had happened. Hoste-Ne-Bega had been wounded, and had dragged himself to the secret cave where he had died — Indian fashion — alone, proud.

I turned to Bess. “It’s too late,” I said.

She dropped to her knees beside the figure. I struck a match. Apparently he had died only a few minutes after he had gained his sanctuary.

She straightened again as the match burned down to my fingers and I dropped it on the floor of the cavern.

That floor was thick with the dust of ages. The cavern had a dry, dusty smell. The fine sediment rose as a dust to our nostrils as we moved about, stirring it up. It was far finer than flour — a dust that was like a mist.

“He never dreamt of this place,” I said. “It was old when he was born.”

“How did he find it then?” asked Bess.

I shrugged my shoulders.

We looked about us. There were little niches cut into the wall, and in these niches were bags of what had evidently been buckskin. Now they were but shreds of dusty ruin. But back of these dusty curtains gleamed yellow metal. There were niches filled with gold nuggets, other niches that were filled with cunningly wrought gold jewelry, turquoise-studded works of Indian art and craftsmanship that far surpassed any examples of workmanship by the modem Indian.

I picked up several objects and examined them.

Then my ears heard the sound of a rock falling. Bess gave a little gasp.

“We’ve forgotten about those men!” she said.

I grinned. Forgotten nothing! We were in exactly the right sort of place. Let them find us here and try to get in. Let them try to stand off and pepper us with their rifles! The opening faced upon a ridge of rock not more than twenty yards away. We were on the inside, safe from attack save in one direction. Let them come!

But they had lost our trail, and they were worried and cautious, mindful of my previous accurate shooting which had almost proven fatal.

I could hear their voices as they called to one another. Then they stumbled on, keeping below the rimrock. The opening into the rock chamber was out of their sight.

I made an examination of the dead Indian.

He had been shot twice, once in the shoulder and once through the side. The shots had come from rifles, and probably he had been shot down, without a chance to defend himself or to flee.

The glint of tears was on Bess’s cheeks as the light from the cave opening showed the side of her face.

“He was old,” I said. “He couldn’t have lived long in any event.”

She nodded, choked.

“I know. It’s the cowardice of it! Think of it! Ambushing a lone Indian, murdering him this way!”

I shared her indignation, but I wasn’t showing it. There was work to be done, and there was some thinking to do. These men had killed Hoste-Ne-Bega; but they would never have killed him unless they had been satisfied he had led the way to the cache which they sought. Nor had he been shot very far from the cave. The nature of his wounds was such that he couldn’t have gone far.

It was fair to suppose then that these men were pretty hot on the scent. Within a few hundred yards, they knew where the cache was located. They must have been satisfied they had learned from Hoste-Ne-Bega all that they could learn.

Emerging from the rock cave, the Indian had found himself ringed around by the enemy. It had probably been night, or dusk. He had marked the way to the cave, hoping that ours were eyes that were wise in Indian lore to follow. Then he had been trapped.

There was a shooting. Perhaps the Indian had shot in his own defense, but probably his bullets were unavailing. And just before the end he had crawled into the cave.

The men had become convinced that the Indian had either escaped, or else hidden himself so cunningly he could not be found. They had devoted their attention to locating the treasure. So far they had failed, but that failure would not be for long. Inch by inch, they would comb the desert.

I thought somewhat of letting them know where the treasure was, so forcing them to come and fight it out. I was hungry, and the prospect of getting food didn’t seem very favorable. Then an idea gripped me. I’d been overlooking the best ally we had.

V. The Desert Speaks

The sounds which indicated the passing of our hunters died in the distance.

“We’re safe here,” said Bess.

“Safe,” I said, “except that we’re going to run out of food and water. If those men get wise, they’ll go back to the spring and hold it against us. We’ll have to have water. We’ve got one chance. You remember, we brought along a little dynamite. It’s in our blankets. Also there’s a little food there. Now, I suggest that we go to the place where we left our blankets, and get that dynamite. Then we’ll blow up the spring, which will put us all on an equal footing.”

“But they’ll still have the rifles,” said Bess.

“They can’t drink rifles,” I reminded her.

“But we’ll be suffering, too,” said Ed. “Our canteens are just little ones.”

“Sure,” I told him, “but we know the desert, and the desert is kind to those who know her.”

Bess took a deep breath. “Come on,” she said. “It’s going to be a nightmare. Let’s get it over with, and let’s get to that spring before they think of holding it.”

We wormed our way out of the treasure cave, sliding down the rocky ledge, keeping up where the chunks of rimrock had broken off, so that we wouldn’t leave too plain a trail. Then we headed for the spring.

We hadn’t been going very long when we saw that the others had also got the idea of concentrating at the spring. We could see them, although they hadn’t seen us. They were pretty well to the north of us, and we were between them and the spring. They were coming right along, hitting the ridges and keeping an eye out for us, heading toward the water.

Which meant that we had to run again. We got down behind the ridge and broke into a jog trot. We were pretty well up to the place where we’d left our blankets when they saw us, and by that time the distance was too great for accurate shooting. Bullets whizzed around us, striking the sand, humming overhead, but they weren’t very close.

I got out the dynamite and some of the concentrated food. We didn’t have time to salvage anything else, and we couldn’t be burdened with weight. We had to leave the packs and run for the spring.

We got there, filled the canteens, put in the dynamite.

The country around the spring was too open to enable us to hold the place. It would have been easy for them, with their rifles, to have held it against us, but it would have been suicide for us to try it.

I lit the fuse, and we started away on the run. When they saw the trickle of smoke going up from the fuse, they got the idea. They started to run toward the spring, and they quit shooting at us. But they saw they couldn’t make it. Then they tried to shoot out the fuse. They couldn’t shoot well enough for that, at the distance.

The blast went off. There was a lifting column of smoke, dust and crushed rock. The hot air of the desert expanded with the roar of the explosion, then settled back like a blanket.

I couldn’t see whether or not the shot had killed the spring, but I could see the four black figures. They’d reached the spot now, and the way they ran around and waved their hands told me all I needed to know.

Time was precious. I got out some of the concentrated rations. We sat down and ate, washing the food down with water. Our canteens were small. Unfortunately we’d left the big ones back in the car. The enemy had larger canteens, but in all probability they had little more water left than we had in our three small canteens.

Then the shooting started again. We retreated, and the four men followed us. But we could play that game as long as they could. They could hold us to the rocky country until it got dark. After that, they couldn’t hold us at all.

The sun beat down with merciless fury. Little mirages appeared here and there. The rimrock showed up in the mirages in weird, shimmering shapes.

The enemy kept pressing us. They were desperate now. If they’d only had more sense they’d have realized that killing us wouldn’t have helped matters any. They were fighting something far more menacing than any human enemy, but they didn’t realize that until the shadows began to lengthen. Then they huddled together in a conference.

I gathered that they were thirsty; I could see them passing around a large canteen. From the way they tilted it, I gathered that it was about half full. Then they struck out to the south.

“Well,” I said, “they’ve come down to earth now. They know what they’re up against. Here’s where we start.”

So we filed out of the rocky country and started to follow them. At first they fired a few long distance shots back at us. But they’d lost their enthusiasm. The bullets went wild, and they didn’t bother to correct their aim and try again.

They were murderers, these men, yet I couldn’t help feeling sorry for them. Nor was I any too certain that I shouldn’t start to feel sorry for ourselves. We knew the desert, but it was going to be a battle. We’d had a day and a night of exhausting toil and fighting. We’d been running over the sand in the hot sunlight. We’d been living on insufficient water and rations.

All around us shimmered the Painted Desert, beautiful as a tiger, and as cruel. We were in her grip now. She seemed to be leering at us, reminding us of the price of a mistake, the doom of failure.

There was a brief period of dusk, and then night blotted out everything except the outlines shown by the moon that was now riding higher in the heavens. We lost sight of the men with rifles.

We were walking slowly now, our legs swinging in the stride of the desert dweller, a stride that pushes through the sand without wasting too much energy. Sand is funny stuff. You can fight it, but it requires more than twice as much energy as is required by those who know how to take it easy. You can’t fight the desert; you’ve got to humor it.

The moon went down, and it was slow work feeling our way along, avoiding pitfalls and sagebrush. After an hour or two of it my nerves were on edge.

“Far enough,” I said. “We’re not gaining anything now. We’ve got to rest and save ourselves for to-morrow.”

Bess staggered as she came up to me, gave a little gasp, and sank on the sand.

Ed Kaplin was breathing hard. I could sense his taut nerves, his clenched fists, his quivering legs.

We dropped down to the sand. It was cool now, but not cold. We had a sip of water each, pillowed our heads on the sand, and dropped off to instant sleep.

I woke up an hour or so before the first streaks of light. The wind was blowing and out in the dark the desert was rustling to life. There were whispers, hissing sand whispers. It seemed as though the desert was trying to tell us something. Yet there was a menace about those rustling noises, too. It was a sound such as a rattlesnake makes when he starts to twist his body into a striking coil, when the dry scales slither along against the dry scales of writhing coils.

Nothing ever remains the same in the desert. The restless sand, the beating sun, all take their toll. Man does not remain the same in the desert. Bit by bit, the desert changes and hardens him.

Then I quit thinking about the desert and deliberately willed myself to sleep.

The desert was hushed when I again awoke. The first faint streaks of light in the east showed outlines of the mountains which were thrust up from the floor of the desert.

The other two were sleeping on the sand, mere lumps of dark shadow against the half-lighted gray of the desert. They heard the sound of my stirring. Wordlessly they rolled over, sat up, got to their feet, flexed their tortured muscles.

“All aboard,” said Bess, and laughed. It wasn’t a care-free laugh. It was a grim laugh, the laugh of one who goes out to face death — unafraid.

We had some water. There was a little powdered soup left, and one of the canteens had a bottom that slid over the canteen and could be used as a little cooking pot. I started a tiny fire of twigs of sage. We poured a little of the precious water into the pan, then added the powdered soup. We did not heat the liquid too much, because heating makes for evaporation; we merely warmed the soup enough so that it felt warm to our stomachs as we swallowed it.

Then we started.

We had been freshened by the few hours’ rest — and we had an automobile which would save us the last ten miles. The others didn’t have any machine cached. When we got to Cameron we could brand them as outlaws, and they would have to flee the desert. Yet every step of flight would take them into hostile country.

They had probably pressed on during the night, and continuous progress in the desert exacts a fearful toll.

We walked steadily. The east flared to crimson, then gold, then the sun leapt up over the rim of the desert and the weird colors became vividly apparent. The heat began to sway the outlines of objects.

Crossing a sandy stretch, Ed Kaplin paused to stare and to point. There were tracks crossing that bit of sand, and the tracks were single, those of a lone man.

“It may be one of the four,” he husked.

I nodded. We had nothing to fear from him now. We were three to one, and the country was open enough so that he couldn’t ambush us. We pushed on, following his tracks.

The tracks showed that the man was running at times, staggering at others. Twice I found where he had sat down, only to get up and start to run. That was a bad sign. Panic can strip a man of strength and vitality quicker than any known agency. Panic accounts for many deaths, even in the forest, where man has firewood and water, and usually a supply of game. In the desert panic is fatal.

Presently I saw something gleam on the sand. We walked to it. It was a rifle. There were some cartridges in the magazine. I stooped and felt of the barrel. It was so hot that the hand couldn’t be held against the metal.

“Been here over an hour, anyhow,” I said.

I looked ahead. There were some brass shells, fully loaded, glittering where they had been flung into the desert.

“We won’t need it now, and we can’t carry any surplus weight,” I said.

We left the rifle, loaded, lying there in the sun, and pressed forward. The painted rocks rose on either side now, and seemed to dance some weird devil-dance against the blue of the sky. I could see where the man we followed was running again. He veered now to the east, then, after a while, his tracks crossed ours again, this time going west.

Farther on something white appeared on the surface of the sand. It was a shirt. I knew the meaning of that. When a man finally feels the last agony approaching in the desert, he starts to tear off his clothing and begins to run. Then, at the last, he stoops and starts to dig at the desert with his bare hands, shredding the flesh away from the bone. It is a horrible death — even for a murderer.

We pushed straight ahead. We did not try to follow the tracks that had wobbled across our path. Nor did we see them again.

The shadows lengthened. Our feet were tortured by the hot sands. There were blisters which had formed and broken, and every step was an agony. My mouth was dry and my stomach was clamoring for food.

Bess and Ed Kaplin trudged along, single file, saying nothing, chins up, eyes steady.

The sun set. The moon, riding constantly higher, gave more light. We dared not rest now. Our tortured feet would have stiffened. Yet we dared not hurry. Every step was made with a stride that would consume the least energy, yet keep us moving.

The canteens had long been empty, and we had thrown them away. Our mouths were dry. But worst of all was the constant quivering of the tortured muscles, the demand of our tortured, fatigued bodies for nourishment.

I saw a weird butte against the moonlit sky, and recognized it. Our car would be at the foot of that butte. It seemed to be a haven of refuge, that battered flivver. Yet we walked and walked, and the butte might have been a mirage. It retreated step for step, apparently.

Then the moon slid down and darkness blotted out even the outline of the butte. Still we dared not rest. We trudged on, stumbling and falling once in a while, when our fatigued muscles refused to coordinate in time to enable us to avoid pitfalls or rough places.

It seemed endless hours that we had been upon a treadmill of sand. Then something loomed directly ahead of us. It was the butte again, this time high against the stars. As we walked, it blotted out more and more stars. Then a shape showed slightly to one side. It was the battered flivver, covered with dust, but ready, waiting.

We fell upon it. I opened a door and rummaged in among the provisions. There were two cans of tomatoes, priceless in the desert. I found them, but I couldn’t wait to use a can opener or knife. I tugged out my six-gun and shot holes in both cans. We took turns passing them around, letting the cool liquid trickle down our parched throats. Then I cut the cans open and we ate the tomatoes.

We sat down on the sand, and almost at once my muscles began to stiffen into pain. I could hardly move when I crawled up, half an hour later, to drag provisions from the car and make a little fire.

We had coffee, canned beans, even some half-stale camp bread that had been left in the car, beneath the blankets. Then we slept, on the bare sand. I got up some time after midnight and dragged out some blankets. Every step was torture. I flung blankets over the others, wrapped myself up and dropped off to sleep again.

Wind came up before dawn, and the desert began to talk. I lay, half dozing, listening to the song of the drifting sand.

At last day dawned, and I lay there as the first rays of the sun brought out the varied colors of the rimrocks on the big butte. I looked about me. Everywhere was the riot of color which marks the Painted Desert. It well deserved its name. The rocks were painted, and they were cruel.

I let my bloodshot eyes stare out over the desert to the north, straining them to see if there should be moving specks — if any of the four men had survived that terrible ordeal. Nothing moved.

The desert is kind to its own, cruel to strangers. The painted rocks were placid in their calm indifference to what had happened out there in the waste spaces.

Bess stirred in her blankets, caught her breath as her aching muscles started to function. Sitting up, she stared out into the desert. Then Kaplin flung aside the blanket, groaned, grinned, got to his feet. He also stared out into the desert.

But still there was no sign of life. “It’s a judgment of the desert,” I said. “They have been tried and executed.”

Now that we had won to safety, those painted rocks above us seemed softer in their coloring, somehow seemed to tower over us protectingly, almost maternal.

The desert is cruel, but it protects those who love it.

Those four men out there had violated the laws of God and Man. They had been flung upon the mercy of the desert, and the voice of the painted rocks had spoken. At night the sand would scurry hither and thither, bearing the message of that which had happened in the hot silence of the Painted Desert, telling each bit of sage, each outcropping of wind-carved rock.