North Carolina Newspapers

CHAPTER XVI 16 Mountain eneep. What Gale might have thought an appalling situation, If considered from a safe and comfortable home away from the desert, became, now that he was shut In by the red-ribbed lava walls and great dry wastes, a matter "calmly accepted as Inevitable. So he Imagined It was accepted by the oth ers. Not even Mercedes uttered a regret No word was spoken of home. If there was thought of loved ones, It was locked deep In their minus. By tacit agreement Ladd again be' came the leader of the party. The first thing he asked was to have the store of food that remained spread out upon a tarpaulin. Assuredly, it was a slender enough supply. It was Impossible to read the gravity of Ladd's face, for he still looked like a 'dead man, but the slow shake of his head told Gale much. There was a grain of hope, however, In the signifi cance with which he touched the bags of salt and said, "Shore It was sense packln' all that salt !" Then he turned to face, his com rades. "That's 'little grub for six starvln' people corralled In the desert. But the grub end ain't worryln' me. YaquI can get sheep up the slopes. Water! That's the beglnnln' an' middle an' end of our case." "Laddy, I reckon the waterhole here 'never goes dry," replied Jim. "Ask the Indian." Upon being questioned, YaquI spoke of the dreaded ano seco of the Mexl-, cans. In a dry year this waterhole failed. j "Dick, take a rope an' see how much water's in the hole." Gale could not find bottom with a thirty-foot lasso. The water was as ool, clear, sweet as If It had been kept In a shaded Iron receptacle. Ladd welcomed this Information with surprise and gladness. "Let's see. Last year was shore pretty dry. Mebbe this summer won't te. Mebbe our wonderful good luck'll hold. Ask YaquI if he thinks it'll rain." Mercedes questioned the Indian. "He says no man, can tell surely. But he thinks the rain will come," she replied. ' "Shore It'll rain, you can gnmble on that now," continued Ladd. "If there's only grass for the hosses I We can't get out of here without hosses. Dick, take the Indian an scout down the arroyo. Today I seen the hosses were gettin' fat. Gettin' fat in this x desert ! But mebbe they've about grazed up all the grass. Go an' see, DJck. An' may you eome back With more good news!" . Gale found that the arroyo widened as It opened. Near the head, where It was narrow, patches of gray grass grew everywhere. Gale began to won der where the horses were. Finally the trees and brush thinned out, and a mile-wldegray plain stretched down to reddish sand dunes. Over to one side were the white horses, and here was grass enough for many; the ar royo was Indeed an oasis. Ladd and the others were awaiting Gale's report, and they received It with calmness, yet with a Joy no less evident because It was restrained. Gale, In his keen observation at the I moment, found that he and his com rades turned with glad eyes to the woman of the party. "Senor Laddy, you think you be lieve we shall " she faltered, and her voice failed. "Mercedes, no white man can tell wbat'll come to pass out here," said Ladd, earnestly. "Shore I have hopes- now I never dreamed of. I was pretty near a dead man. The Indian saved me. Beldin' s had It right. Yaqui's our godsend. Now, las to the future, I'd like to know mebbe as well as you if we're ever to get home. Only beln what I am, I say, Qulen sabe? But somethln' tells me YaquI knows. Ask him, Mercedes. Make him tell. He's a silent Indian, but make him tell." - , "V'V A-f . Mercedes called to YaquI. At her bidding there, was always a suggestion of hurry, which otherwise was never manifest in his actions. She put a hand on his bared muscnlar arm and began to speak In Spanish. Her voice thrilled Gale, though he understood scarcely a word she said. : He did not need translation to know that here spoke the longing of a woman for life. love, borne, the heritage of a woman's heart' s : "SI !" rolled out the Indian's reply, full of power and depth. Mercedes drew a long breath, and her hand sought Thome's, ; , "He says yes," she whispered. "He answers he'll save us; he'U rfake us all back he knows!" ; Tne Indian tnrnea away to nis tasks, and the silence that held the ' little group was finally broken by . "Shore I said so. ' Now all we've got to do Is use sense. Friends, I'm the commissary . department of this outfit, an what I say gees. ,, You all won't eat except when I tell yout Mebbe It'll not he so hard to keep our health. Starved beggars don't get sick. But there's the heat cqmln, an' we can all go loco, you know. To pass the time I Lord, that's our problem. Now, if you all only had a hankerln' for checkers. Shore I'll make a board an' make you piny. Thome, you're the luckiest You've got your girl, an' t"n ctiti be a honeymoon. Now with a f t ? nn' i::: material see what 7 r -, t i r x 1"! f?r your - : . : . Xri PTT By ZANE GREY 1 Author of . The Riders of the Purple Satfe, Wildfire, Etc. Copyrlfht by Harpr Brothers,' llke to hunt, an up' there' you'll find the finest bighorn huntln' In the West. Take YaquI and the .405. We need the meat, but while you're gettin' it have your sport. Bustle now, son. Get some enthusiasm. For shore you'll need it for yourself an' us." .Gale climbed the lava slope, away round to the right of the arroyo, along an old trail that YaquI said the I'apagos had made before his own peophj hunted there. y From the crests Yaqui's searching falcon gaze roved near and far for signs of sheep. Suddenly he grasped Gale and pointed across a deep, wide gully. With the aid of his glass Gale saw five sheep. They were looking in his direction. Bememberlng what he had heard about the wonderful eyesight of these mountain animals, Gale could only conclude that they had seen the hunters. . Then Yaqui's movements attracted and Interested him.. The Indian had brought with him a red scarf and a mesqulte branch. He tied the scarf on the stick, and propped this .up In a crack of the lava. The scarf waved In the wind. That done, the Indian bade Gale watch. Once again he leteled the glass at the sheep. AH five now were motion less, standing Ilk statues, heads pointed across the jrully. They were more than a mite distant. When Gale looked without his Klass they merged into the roughness of the lava. He was intensely In t rested. Did the sheep see the red carf? It seemed Incredible, but nothing else could ac count for that statuesque alertness. The sheep held this rigid position for perhaps fifteen minutes. Then the leading ram started to approach. The others followed. He took a few steps, then halted. Always he held his bead up, nose pointed. . ! . "By George, they're coming!" ex claimed Gale. "They see that flag. They're hunting us. They're curious. If this doesn't beat me!" Evidently the Indian understood, for he grunted. Gale found difficulty in curbing his Impatience. The approach of the sheep was slow. The big ram led on with regular persistence, and In half an hour's time he was In the bottom of the great gulf, and soon he was facing up the slope. Gale knew then that the alluring scarf had fascinated him. The animals disappeared behind another ridge. Gale kept watching, sure they would come out farther on. A tense period of waiting passed. :5w Suddenly He Grasped Gale and Point ed Across a Deep, Wide Gully. then a sudden electrifying pressure of Yaqui's hand made Gale trembto with excitement ' : v Very cautiously 'he shifted his po sition. There, not fifty feet distant upon a high mound of lava, stood the leader of the sheep. As Gale watched, the second ram "leaped lightly upon the mound, and presently the three others did likewise. '.- ;, The splendid leader stepped closer, his round, protruding amber eyes, which Gale could now plainly see, in tent upon that fatal, red flag. Like automatons the other four crowded Into his tracks. A few little slow steps, then the leader halted. ,- : - At this Instant Gale's absorbed at tention was directed by YaquI to the rifle, and so' to the purpose of the climb. .He reached for the .406, -and as he threw the shell Into the chamber the alight metallic click made the sheep jump. 'Then he rose quickly to his feet - The noble ram and his band simply stared at GlK They had never seen a man. They showed not the slightest Indication of Instinctive fear. Gale imagined that they were going to step still closer. He did not choose to wait to see If this were true. Cer tainly It already took, a grim resolu tion to raise the heavy .405, ' IVJt . tt:!ed the tig lea-r. T"if c " to-' l awar r ;- able nlmbleness. Gale used up the remaining four shells to drop the sec ond ram, and by the time be had re loaded the others were out of range. The Yaqui's method of huntlrg was sure and deadly and saving In energy, but Gale never would try It again. He chose to stalk the game. After being hunted a few times and shot at the sheep became exceedingly difficult to approach. He failed often. The stalk called forth all that was In. him of endurance, cunning, speed. And like a shadowy the faithful YaquI tried ever to keep at his neeis. One morning YaquI spied a flock of sheep far under the curved, broken rim of the main crater. Then began the etatk. Hiding, slipping, creeping, crawling. Gale closed In upon his quarry until the long rifle grew like stone In his grip, and the whipping "spang" ripped the silence, and the strange echo boomed deep In the era' ter, and rolled around, as If In hollow mockery at the hopelessness of escape. He waited beside his quarry, and breathed deep, and swept the long slopes with searching eyes of habit When YaquI came up they set about the hardest task of all, to pack the best of that heavy sheep down miles of steep, ragged, choya-covered lava. The torrid summer heat came Im perceptibly, or It could never have been borne by white men. It changed the lives of the fugitives, making them partly nocturnal In habit The nights had the balmy coolness of spring, and would have been delight ful for sleep, but that would have made the blazing days unendurable. As Ladd had said, one of their greatest problems was the passing of time. The nlgfcts were Interminably long, but tbey had to be passed In work or play or dream anything ex cept sleep. That was Ladd's most In flexible command. He gave no rea son. But not Improbably the ranger thought that the terrific heat of the day spent in slumber lessened a wear and strain, If not a real danger of madness. Accordingly, at first the occupations of this little group were many and various. They worked If they had something to do, or could Invent a pretext. They told and retold stories until all were wearisome. They sang songs. Mercedes taught Spanish: They played every game they knew. They Invented others that were so trivial children would scarcely have been Interested, and these they played seriously. In a word, with Intelli gence and passion, with all that was clvjllzed and human, they fought the ever-Infringing loneliness, the savage solitude of their environment ' Gale believed himself the keenest of the party, the one who thought most, and he watched the effect of the desert, upon his companions. For hours, It seemed, Ladd would bend over his checkerboard . and, never make a move. It mattered not now whether or not he had a partner. Jim Lash, the calmest,! coolest, most non chalant, best-humored westerner Gale had ever met had by slow degrees, lost that cheerful character which would have been of such lnflnlto good to his-companlons, and always he sat brooding, silently brooding. Jim had no ties, few memories, and the desert was claiming him. ' Thorne and Mercedes, however, wer.e living, wonderful proof that spir it, mind, and heart were free free to soar In scorn of the colossal barren ness and silence and space of that L terrible hedging prison of lava. They were young; they JoVed; they were together; and the oasts was almost a. paradise. Thorne and Mercedes had forgotten the outside world. If they had been existing oa the burned-out desolate moon they could hardly have been In a harsher, grimmer, lonelier spot than this red-walled arroya. ; Although the YaquI was ; as his shadow, Gale reached a point whet he seeemed to wander alone at twl- dlght in the night at dawn. At night he had formed a habit of climbing up the lava slope as far as the smooth trail extended, nd there on a promon tory he paced to and fro, and watched the stars, and sat stone-still for hours looking down at the vast void with Its moving, changing shadows. He came at length to realize that the desert was a teacher. He did not realize all that he had learned, but he was a different man. And -when he decided upon that, he was not thinking of the slow, sure call to the primal Instincts of man; he was-thinking that the desert, as much as he had experienced and no more, would absolutely over turn the -whole scale of a man's val ues, break old habits, form new ones, remake him. More of desert experi ence. Gale believed, would be too much for Intellect. The desert did not breed civilized man. Thus the nights passed, endlessly long, with Gale fighting for his old or der of thought fighting the fascina tion of , that Infinite sky, and the gloomy Insulating whirl of the w'.le shadows, fEhtlng for belief, hrr e, prayer, f. -t:.-e aR.ilnst the ten'Me ever-reetirr'rj I.' -n of be'.rg loft. 1 t. l-st in V f "-t. f V t rnrc? -t ' l 1U was coming between him and his mem ory. He felt he was losing the battle, losing his hold on tangible things, los ing his power to stand up under this ponderous, merciless weight of desert space and silence. At the moment he was alone on the promontory. The night was far spent. A ghastly moon haunted the black volcanic spurt. The winds blew si lently. Was he alone? No, he did not seem to be alone. The YaquI was there. Suddenly a strange, cold sensa tion crept over Gale. It was new. He felt a presence. Turning, he ex pected to see the Indian, but Instead, a slight shadow, pale, almost white, stood there, not close nor yet distant. It seemed to brighten. Then be saw a woman who resembled a gtrl he had seemed to know long ago. She was white-faced, golden-haired, and her Hps were sweet nd her eyes were turning "black. Nell ! He had forgot ten her. Over him flooded a torrent of memory. There was tragic woe In this sweet face. Nell was holding out her arms she was crying aloud to him across the sand and the cactus and the lava.' She was in trouble, and he had been forgetting. That night he climbed the lava to He Came at Length to Realize That the Desert Was a Teacher. the topmost, cone, and never slipped on a ragged crust nor touched, a choya thorn. A voice had called to him. He saw Nell's eyes In thenars, in the velvet blue of sky. In the blackness of the engulfing, shadows. She was with hlra, a slender shape, a spirit, keeping step with him, and memory was strong, sweet, beating, beautiful. Fur down In the west, faintly golden with light of the sinking moon, he saw a cloud that resembled her face. A' cloud on the desert horizon ! He gazed and gazed. Was that a spirit face like the one by his aide? No he did not dream. In the hot sultry morning Yaqul appeared a camp, after long hours of absence, and he pointed with a long, dark arm toward the west. . A hank of clouds was rising above the mountain barrier. . v "Rain!" he cried; arid his sonorous voice rolled down the arroyo. Those who heard him were as ship wrecked mariners at sight of a dis tant sail. Dick Gale, silent, grateful to the depths of his soul, stood with arm over Blanco Sol and watched the transforming wefet, where clouds of wondrous size and hue piled over one another, rushing, darkening, spreading; sweeping upward toward that white and glowing sun. 1 ; -' '; "Oh I I felt a drot f rain on my face!" cried Mercedes; and, whisper ing the name .of a saint she kissed hei husband. . Ladd, gaunt old, bent looked up at the maelstrom of clouds, and he said, softly, "Shore we'll get In the hosses, an' pack light an' hit the trail, an make night marches I" . ' Then up out of the gulf of the west swept a bellowing wind and a black pall and terrible flashes of lightning and thunder like the end of the world fury, blackness, chaos, the desert storm. . CHAPTER XVII , v The Whistle of a Ho'rse. ' At the ranch-house it Forlorn River Beldlng stood alone. He took up the gun belt from his table and with slow hands buckled Jt around his waist. He seemed to feel something familiar and comfortable and Inspiring in the weight of the big gun against his hip. He faced the door as If to go out, but hesitated, and then began a slow, plodding walk up and down the -length of the room. "Presently be halted at the table, and with reluctant hands he unbuckled the gun belt and laid It down. ' - v The action did not have an air of finality, and Beldlng knew it He had been a sheriff when the law in the West depended on a quickness of wrist; he had seen many a man lay down his gun for good and , all. His own action was not final. ' Of late he had done the same t'.!? many times, end this Inat time It stmed a little -'t to d, a l"'"a rr. ;e Li "ratlve v " ' " -. T' v ? r -'i s j i i -. - t . IS The Chases, those grasping and eo scienceless agents of a new force 1b the development of the West, were bent upon Beldlng's ruin, and, so far as his fortunes at Forlorn BJver were concerned, had almost accomplished It. One by one he lost ' points for which he contended with them. He carried Into the Tucson courts the matter of the staked claims, and min ing claims, and water claims, and he lost. all. Following that he lost his government position as Inspector of Immigration; and this fact because of what he considered Us Injustice, had been a hard blow. He had been made to suffer a humiliation equally as great It came about that he ac tually had to pay the Chases for water to Irrigate his alfalfa ' fields. The never-falling spring upon his land an swered for the needs of household and horses, but no more. These matters were unfortunate for Beldlng, but not by any means wholly accountable for his worry and unhap plness and brooding bate. He be lieved Dick Gale and -the rest of the party taken Into the desert by the Yaqul had been killed or lost Two months before S string of ; Mexican horses, riderless, saddled, starved for grass and wild for water, had come tof Forlorn River. Tftey were a part of the horses belonging to Rojas and his band. Their arrival complicated the mystery and strengthened convic tions of the loss of both pursuers and pursued. v Beldlng's unhapplness could hardly be laid to material loss. He had been rich and was now poor, but change of fortune such as that could not have made him unhappy. Something more somber and mysterious and sad than the loss of Dick Gale and their friends had come Into the Uvea of 4ils wife and Nell. He dated the time of this change back to a certain day when Mrs. Beldlng recognized In the elder Chase an old schoolmate and a re jected suitor. It took time for slow thinking Beldlng to discover anything wrong In his household, but gradually he had forced on him the fact of some secret cause for grief other than Gale's loss. He was sure of It when his wife signified her desire to make a visit to her old home back In Peoria. A letter she bad received contained news that may or may not have been authentic ; but It was enough, Beldlng thought to interest bis wife. An old prospector had returned to Peoria, and be had told relatives of meeting Robert Burton- at the Sonoyta oasis fifteen years before, and that Burton had gone Into the desert never to re turn. To Beldlng this was no sur prise, for he had heard that before his marriage. There appeared to have been no doubts as to the death of his wife's first husband. The singular thing was that both Nell's father and grandfather had been lost somewhere In the Sonora desert . " Beldlng did not oppose his wife's desire to visit her old home. He thought it would be a wholesome trip for her, and did all In his power to persuade Nell to accompany her. But Nell would not go. It was after Mrs.' Beldlng's depa ture that Beldlng discovered in Nell a condition of, mind that amazed and distressed him. She had suddenly be came strangely wretched. She would tell him nothing. But after a while, when he had thought It eut he dated this deplorable change in Nell back to a day on which he had met Nell with Radford Chase. This Indefatiga ble wooer bad not In the least abair doned his suit A slow surprise gath ered upon Tom Beldlng when he saf that Nell, apparently, was accepting young Chase's attentions. At least, she no longer hid from him. Beldlng could not account for this, because he was sure Nell cordially despised the fellow. And toward the end he di vined, If he did not actually know, that : these Chases possessed soma strange power over Nell, and were us ing It That stirred a hate In Beldlng a hate he bad felt at the first and had manfully striven against which now gave him over to dark brooding thoughts. A'y Mld8ummerpassejL and the storms came late. But , when they 'arrived they N made up for tardiness. Beld lng did not remember so terrible a storm of wind and rain as that which broke the summer's drought. i. The Chases had extended a main Irrigation ditch down to Beldlng's farm, skipped the width of his ground, then had gone on down through Altar valley. They had exerted every influ ence to obtain right to connect these ditches by digging through his land, but Beldlng had remained obdurate. He refused to have any dealiags with them. It was therefore with some curiosity and suspicion that' be saw a gang of Mexicans once more at work upon, these ditches. " ' t At daylight next morning a tre mendous blast almost threw Beldlng out of his bed. It cracked the adoba walls of his house and broke windows and sent pans and crockery to the floor with a crash. Beldlng's Idea was that the store of dynamite kept by the Chases for blasting had lown up, Hurriedly getting Into his clothes, ha went to Nell's room to reassure her; and, telling her to have- a thought for their guests, he went out to see what had happened. t . ' yr A great yellow cloud, like amoks, hung over the river. This appeared to be at the upper end of Beldlng's plot and close to the river. When ha reached his fence the smoke and dust were bo thick he could scarcely breathe, and for a little while he was unable to see what 'had happened. Presently he made out a huge hole In the sand just about where the Irriga tion ditch had stopped near his l!na i For some reason or other, not clear ta I' ' "- . the J'exlcnns find set ol ii -i t:; "! : j heavy fast tl t , ranuoes -con COMPLETE WRECK . i 1 TeE How Sho Was Mada Well by Lydia C PSnkham'a Vegetable Compound sjasawsaaiasssassaaMSBSweai Indianapolis, Indiana. "Tow I want to tell you jiiat what induced me to take seemed that 1 bad soma kind of weak ness so that I could not carry a child its full time. The last tfme I was troubled out breakdown and was a compieta wreck. The doctor thought I would not ' uve, ana u i aiauac going to get well, that I was not going . & die Just then. My husband got ma ' Lydia E. Pinkham's Vegetable Com pound and I took six bottles of it I soon got strong again and had three more children. I nave recommended the Vegetable Compound aver since, in d if yon could see me now yon would think I hH always been well." Mrs. Makt F. Kerrtck, 234 Detroit St, Indian pt-l. Ind. . . LycTa C Tb V m Vegetable Cora- pound Is an ex. ..ont me..!Wne for ; frertafa mo'J,-s e-1 '-. 1 te taken dinwthe rr,' a i- J. i.l s a "". era! effect tost, !..;. enure reproduce i.. . , may work in every jretU v as nature intends. nnnns .1 . i - . . . t w UUIII1U' Lift Off with Fingers Doesn't hurt a bit! Drop a little "Freezone" on an aching corn, Instant ly that corn stops hurting, then short ly you lift It right off with fingers. Truly I ' ' Your druggist sells a tiny bottle of "Freezone" for a few cents, sufficient to remove every hard corn, soft corn, or corn between the toes, and the cal luses, without soreness or Irritation. A Freak. .. From a story "She had an exqui sitely molded fuce,.of which two dark brown eyes were the central feature." Usually the nose occupies that posi tion. Boston Transcript - , Baby Was Pale andHcDidNot Seem to Grow If the baby's stomach Is out of order he does not assimilate his food and stops growing. This was the trouble with Mrs. A. L. Williams' baby. . Mrs, Williams lives at Racepond, Ua.,' and writes:.-.' :t "My baby never seemed to grow and was pale and sallow. My sister told me to give him Teethlna, as she gave it to her baby, who 'Is as fat as a pig. I took her advice, and in a week my baby was completely changed. His complexion cleared up and he started growing." . ., v Teethlna corrected her baby's stom ach, trouble so he could' digest and assimilate his food which Is abso, lutely essential to baby's health and, growth.'-:'.."; v ,.;- v'.v,,-- Teethlna Is sold by all druggists, or send 30c to the Moffet Laborato ries and get a package of Teethlna and a wonderful free booklet about Baby. Advertisement v Flavoring Roquefort Cheese. Holes In Roquefort . cheese are placed there by machinery to admit air and enable the mold to grow, thus giving the desired flavor. Losing Weight In Butter. '"You don't look as fat as you were." "Well," I lost two pounds the other day." ' " ' ; "Dear, dear I" - ' "Yes, it was dear. I left a parcel of butter on the train rack." London Tlt-Blts. fi I jut . 2; " r. '.r "'r- J , . y