the papers had been signed. andy jerome and dr. inman shonto had wired to los angeles to explain that they probably would not be home for a month. smith morley’s wife had arrived in san francisco, since the adventurers’ trip to the city had necessitated a change in their route to the shinbone country. several days were spent in outfitting the expedition. and just a week after dr. shonto had told charmian reemy of the prospectors they set off early in the morning, with charmian, andy, and mr. and mrs. morley in the leading car.
two days later, having driven leisurely and stopped at hotels en route, they negotiated a steep, wooded pass and saw the yellow desert stretched out before them, three thousand feet above the sea. across it continued the road, straight as a carpenter’s chalk-line, until it contracted to a pinpoint in the hazy distance and disappeared with the curvature of the earth.
the big cars wallowed into the sandy ruts and continued on. weird growths were on either side of the road—great flat-palmed cacti, whispering yucca palms, scattering greasewood bushes. the wind was strong, and the sand was driven into the travellers’ faces in waves. now and then the cars crossed dry lakes, which, before they reached them, had looked deceptively[55] wet. these were smooth, like hardened plaster of paris, except that now and then the mud, in drying, had cracked and peeled, leaving a sea of shards that extended for many miles. nothing at all grew on the dark surface of these dry lakes.
in the dim distance a hazy line of calico buttes appeared after an hour of fast travel over the desert. as the machines neared them a long line of mountains showed behind the buttes, and the uninitiated of the party were told that between the buttes and the range of wooded mountains lay another stretch of desert as barren as the one they then were crossing. the buttes marked the beginning of the shinbone country, which extended into the higher altitudes. in the buttes were the opal claims.
they came to an oasis, green with alfalfa. here for forty years a family had lived because of the artesian water that spurted up from the level land. the cottonwood trees, though they had shed their leaves for the coming winter, looked inviting to the sand-blistered pilgrims. the place was called diamond h ranch, and the owner herded his cattle on the desert during winter months, when bunchgrass grew, and drove them to the distant mountains for the summer grazing.
not until they reached the ranch did smith morley inform his prospective buyers that here their journey by automobile would end. there was a huge stable, and in it there was plenty of room to store the cars. also, morley told them, they would meet with no difficulty in buying or hiring saddle horses and pack[56] animals from the ranchman. furthermore, he conducted a tiny store in connection with his ranch, and if it should become necessary to do so, they could return to the ranch at any time and purchase such staple articles of food as might be needed.
roger furlong was the rancher’s name. he and his family made the guests welcome and treated them hospitably. the afternoon was spent in the selection of saddle stock, and the rancher’s boy was sent scouring the desert for a herd of burros, which were at large and living off the sage. it was late in the afternoon before the herd was rounded up and driven in to the corrals. here furlong picked out twelve animals that were old-time packers. the outfit’s supplies and paraphernalia were transferred from the tonneaus and running-boards of the machines to the pack-bags. when darkness came everything was ready for an early start for the calico buttes the following morning.
all of which caused mary temple to register a look of high disapproval.
mary had roughed it considerably in alaska, so the trip in the saddle had no terrors for her. neither did she shrink from their proposed sojourn in a wild, waterless, and unfriendly country. but she was amazed and resentful over the whole proceedings.
in san francisco, while they were outfitting, she had done her utmost to dissuade charmian from continuing her erratic undertaking. but that young lady had a mind of her own and was not to be led astray from her life’s great adventure. every plan for preventing her from going having failed, mary had recourse[57] to a recital of what madame destrehan’s second sight had revealed to her. at this charmian had scoffed disdainfully and laughed hilariously, for charmian was well aware that mary often consulted people who claimed to have occult powers. so mary perforce carried out her original intention and made one of the party, for only death could separate her from charmian reemy. but as preparations for the final lap of their journey went forward she continued to glare her displeasure and to shake her greying head with misgivings.
they left diamond h ranch at sunup next morning, driving the laden burros ahead of them. their course took them at right angles to the road over which they had reached the oasis, and extended in a northeasterly direction through the trackless sage and greasewood.
the sand grew heavier as they progressed. the wind came up and drove clouds of it into their faces, sometimes with stinging force. laden with alkali as it was, their lips and eyelids soon began to swell, and their throats grew parched. they drank heavily of the water in the desert bags on the burros’ backs, for morley assured the party that there would probably be sufficient water near the claims at that time of year. there was an intermittent spring in the buttes, he explained, that went dry during the hot months through evaporation. but with the approach of winter, even though no rain had fallen, the water rose again in the spring because the evaporation was lessened by the coolness in the air.
[58]they camped at noon, halfway to the buttes. the morning had been cool and bracing, and the temperature of the noontide was moderate. morley informed the newcomers that in less than a month the weather would be cool enough to suit any of them, and that snow, even, might sweep down from the mountains and lie on the ground for several hours.
it was a long, hard trip, for none of them, with the exception of the young widow, had been in the saddle to any great extent for many months. charmian rode just behind the waddling burros, with andy at her side. shonto rode beside mary temple, who for the most part made an uncommunicative companion. the prospectors rode with morley’s wife in the rear, and the trio had very little to say to the others.
dr. shonto watched andy and charmian and could not help but admire them. physically they were well suited to each other, and both were young and handsome. since their first meeting shonto had taken note of the gradual drawing together of the two. he realized that, on the surface of things, this was as it should be. they were equals socially and intellectually, and few there were who would not have called it a fine match.
still, dr. shonto knew in his heart that he could not allow this thing to go on and culminate in the age-old life partnership between man and woman. he sincerely believed that he himself was the man for charmian reemy. never before had he met a woman who appealed to him as she did, both physically and mentally. despite the difference in their ages, he felt[59] that he, rather than andy, was the one to satisfy her and round out her life to a point as near completeness as humanity can achieve. she was far older than andy mentally. andy was only a strong, handsome boy. he—the doctor—was a man of experience, of achievement, of broad ideals. but all that aside, dr. shonto knew that he was falling in love with charmian, and that, if necessary, he would sacrifice andy’s friendship to win her. for love is primitive; and when a man of the doctor’s age and experience falls in love for the first time he makes a rival that will brook no interference. in shorter phraseology, the doctor wanted this girl—and he meant to have her.
as the long evening shadows crawled over the yucca- and cactus-studded wastes the party entered the buttes. here they found relief from the monotonous desolation they had left, for huge rocks squatted on either side of their course, and the yuccas were larger and seemed more friendly. the buttes themselves showed a variety to which the level land could not lay claim, and here and there was a juniper tree, alone and unwatered, but displaying a greenery that made it in a way companionable.
darkness had overtaken them when smith morley called a halt. they were far within the chain of buttes, in an enfilade with walls of stone towering high above them on either side. they had reached the spring, and, after an examination of it, the prospector made the welcome announcement that there was considerable water in the natural stone basin beneath the drip. for some time, however, the water supply would[60] be short, and it would possibly prove necessary to take the saddle horses into the mountains, the foothills of which were about five miles distant, and leave them there in a certain well-watered meadow of which the opal miners knew. the burros, camel-like, could live on very little water; and the spring perhaps would drip enough for them and the domestic use of the party. the claims were two miles farther on, in the direction of the mountains.
they pitched camp at once. leach and mrs. morley went on a search for petrified yucca with which to build a fire. the others unpacked the burros, hobbled the horses, and pitched the tents.
mary temple, because of her superior culinary knowledge—which no one disputed—constituted herself camp cook; and the first thing she had not condemned since leaving el trono de tolerancia was the excellent fire that the petrified yucca made. her appetizing supper was ready before the last tent had been pitched, and they all gathered around it under the cold desert stars and ate as enjoyably as their cracked and swollen lips would permit.
all were excessively weary, and, though the meal revived their spirits in a measure, no one would have been averse to seeking his roll of blankets at an early hour. this, however, was forestalled by the sound of a voice that came suddenly from the night about them—a strange, cracked voice that startled them.
“hello!” it said. “i hope and trust ye ain’t used up all the water in the spring, ’cause i ain’t had a[61] drop since noon, an’ lot’s wife ain’t had none since yistiddy mornin’.”
omar leach, who was reclining on one elbow placidly smoking a short briar pipe, flipped himself to a sitting posture and stared at morley. morley’s face twitched, and his close-set eyes seemed to narrow perceptibly as he gazed back at his partner.
then leach gave himself another flip and was on his feet. “get outa here!” he bawled. “go on home, and you’ll find plenty of water. we’re tired and want to go to bed and can’t be bothered with you.”
“oh, it’s you, is it, omar?” called the voice. “an’ ye’d send me on to the mountains without a drink, would ye? it’s like ye, by gum! well, i’m comin’ in for water for me an’ lot’s wife. maybe the rest o’ yer gang ain’t so all-fired selfish. c’m’ere, ye pillar o’ salt! wait a min-ut, can’t ye!”
this last apparently was addressed to lot’s wife, who, when she dashed into camp and buried her muzzle in the spring basin, proved to be a slant-eared, knock-kneed female burro as shaggy as the trunk of a shell-bark hickory. after her plodded a man, who had lost his hold on her lead-rope.
smith morley darted toward the burro and gave her a kick in the belly that brought a grunt of pain from her. he drew back his leg for another, but found himself facing charmian reemy’s flashing eyes.
“you kick that burro again,” she said, “and i start for home to-morrow morning. so that’s the kind of man you are, is it? you would keep a fellow traveller[62] in this forsaken land and his burro from drinking water, would you? well, mr. morley, i don’t know whether it is safe to trust in a business deal a man who has such selfishness in his heart as you have shown. i may decide to go back anyway.”
smith morley looked foolish and embarrassed.
“but you don’t understand, mrs. reemy,” he defended himself. “this water is mighty precious. we’ll have to let it drip twelve hours to get enough for ourselves and the pack animals for a day; and i can see right now that the horses will have to go to the mountains in the morning. and this fellow here—i know him well. he’s the recognized nuisance of the shinbone country. a burro can go for days without water—they’re like a camel, mrs. reemy. and this old desert rat can do it, too. he’s less than ten miles from his home. why don’t he go there for his water? we were here first. it’s first come first served in the shinbone country, when it comes to water.”
“ten miles is a long trip when one hasn’t had a drink in about seven hours,” said charmian. then she wheeled upon the comical figure that had followed the burro into camp.
“your burro shall have all the water she needs,” she promised him. “and you may fill up your bags, if you have any. i’m mrs. charmian reemy, of san francisco, and this lady is my companion, miss mary temple. these two gentlemen are doctor shonto and mr. jerome, of los angeles. you know the others, it seems. we’re here to investigate their opal claims.”
the man was tall, and his bronzed face was covered[63] with ragged brown whiskers. his eyes were large and blue and innocent-looking. his clothes were far too large for him, enormous though his body was. quaintness stood out all over him.
“i’m reg’lar glad to meet ye, ma’am,” he grinned, bowing profoundly. “and, lady”—he made another impressive bow to mary—“the same to you.” he turned to dr. shonto and andy. “gentle-men,” he said, and bent nearly double again. “i am shirttail henry. they call me shirttail because i live at shirttail bend, which is a hairpin curve in th’ trail that leads from these here buttes here to the meadows up on top o’ the mountains. my right name’s henry richkirk, an’ i ain’t a nuisance in these parts, if i do say it myself. but i could name some that are, though i wouldn’t. you,” he continued, swinging back toward charmian as if the wind had caught his fluttery garments and whisked him about, “are a gorgeous pretty girl, an’ seein’ ye stood up for lot’s wife, i guess ye’re perfect. if ye wanta make shirttail henry your friend, stand up f’r lot’s wife. ye done it, an’ i’ll tell ye somethin’ about opals before ye go any furder. shirttail henry knows th’ stones that’ve caught the colours o’ the rainbow. an’ he knows how they get them colours. ye stood up f’r lot’s wife, an’ shirttail henry’s gonta stand up f’r you. nuisance, eh! well—”
but here smith morley and omar leach leaped upon the man, and together they bore him, fighting, to the ground.
“he’s crazy, mrs. reemy,” puffed leach, struggling[64] to keep the big man on his back. “crazy as a roadrunner. dangerous, too! he’s lived in this country all alone too long—and he’s—”
at this point dr. inman shonto and andy jerome took a hand in the rough proceedings.
