Title Page
The Author
Amber’s Mirage
The Ranger
Don: The Story Of A Lion Dog
The Wolf Tracker
Lure of the River
A Missouri Schoolmarm
Monty Price’s Nightingale
About the Publisher
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The son of a successful dentist, Grey enjoyed a happy and solid upper-middle-class childhood, marred only by occasional fistfights with boys who teased him about his unusual first name, Pearl. (Grey later replaced it with his mother’s maiden name, Zane.) A talented baseball player as teen, Grey caught the eye of a scout for the University of Pennsylvania college team, who convinced him to study there. In 1886, he graduated with a degree in dentistry and moved to New York to begin his practice.
Grey’s interest in dentistry was half-hearted at best, and he did not relish the idea of replicating his father’s safe but unexciting career path. Searching for an alternative, Grey decided to try his hand at writing; his first attempt was an uninspiring historical novel about a family ancestress. At that point, Grey might well have been doomed to a life of dentistry, had he not met Colonel C. J. “Buffalo” Jones in 1908, who convinced Grey to write Jones’ biography. More importantly, Jones took him out West to gather material for the book, and Grey became deeply fascinated with the people and landscape of the region.
Though Riders of the Purple Sage was Grey’s most popular novel, he wrote 78 other books during his prolific career, most of them Westerns. He died in 1939, but Grey’s work continued to be extraordinarily popular for decades to come.
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Now that it was spring again, old Jim Crawford slowly responded to the call of the desert. He marked this fact with something of melancholy. Every winter took a little more out of him. Presently he would forget it, when he was once more out on the lonely and peaceful wasteland, hunting for the gold he had never found and for which he had given the best years of his life.
Still, Jim seemed a little more loath to bring in his burros and pack for the long trail. He sat on the sunny side of the shack and pondered. The peaks were glistening snow-white, the lower slopes showed patches and streaks of snow under the black pines, but the foothills were clean and gray, just beginning to green and purple over. High time that he be up and doing, if he were ever to find that treasure at the foot of the rainbow.
"Reckon I've grown fond of this lad, Al Shade," soliloquized the old prospector, as he refilled his pipe. "An' I just don't want to leave for the desert with things the way they are for him."
Jim Crawford's shack stood at the edge of the pinewoods on the slope opposite the lumber mill and was the last habitation on the outskirts of Pine, a small town devoted to lumbering and cattle raising. The next house toward town was a picturesque log cabin, just up in the pines and within plain view, as Jim had found to his sorrow. Jim's neighbor, Seth Low, was a millhand, a genial and likable fellow with only one fault—an over-fondness for drink, which had kept him poor. He had a complaining wife and five children, the eldest of whom, Ruby Low, seventeen years old, red- haired and red-lipped, with eyes of dark wicked fire, had been the cause of no little contention in the community.
Jim had seen Ruby carrying on with cowboys and lumberjacks in a way that amused him, even thrilled him a little for his pulses were not yet dead to the charm of beauty and youth. But when Ruby attached Al Shade to her list of admirers, the circumstances had grown serious for Jim. And he was thinking of that now, while he listened to the melodious hum of the great saw, and watched the yellow smoke arise from the mill stack, and felt the old call of the desert in the spring, something he had not resisted for thirty years.
Long ago, in a past slowly growing clear again in memory, he had been father to a little boy who might have grown into such a fine lad as Alvin Shade. That was one reason why he had taken such a liking to Al. But there were other reasons, which were always vivid in mind when Al appeared.
A cowboy galloped by, bright face shining, with scarf flying in the wind. Jim did not need to be told he would stop at the Low cabin. His whistle, just audible to Jim, brought the little slim Ruby out, her hair matching the boy's scarf. He was a bold fellow, unfamiliar to Jim, and without a glance at the open cabin door or the children playing under the trees, he snatched Ruby off the ground, her heels kicking up, and, bending, he gave her a great hug. Jim watched with the grim thought that this spectacle would not have been a happy one for Al Shade to see.
The cowboy let the girl down, and, sliding out of his saddle, they found a seat on a fallen pine, and then presently slipped down to sit against the tree, on the side hidden from the cabin. They did not seem to care that Jim's shack was in sight, not so very far away. Most cowboys were lover-like and masterful, not to say bold, but this fellow either embodied more of these qualities than any others Jim had seen with Ruby, or else he had received more encouragement. After a few moments of keen observation Jim established that both possibilities were facts. He saw enough not to want to see more, and he went into his shack sorrowing for the dream of his young friend Alvin.
Straightway Jim grew thoughtful. He had more on his hands than the problem of getting ready for his annual prospecting trip. If a decision had not been wrung from him, it certainly was in the making. Dragging his packsaddles and camp equipment out on the porch, he set morosely to going over them. He wasted no more glances in the direction of the Low cabin.
Eventually the mill whistle blew. The day was Saturday, and the millhands got off at an early hour. Not many minutes afterward the old prospector heard a familiar quick step, and he looked up gladly.
"Howdy, old-timer," came a gay voice. "What you-all doin' with this camp truck?"
"Al, I'm gettin' ready to hit the trail," replied the prospector.
"Aw, no, Jim. Not so early! Why, it's only May, an' the snow isn't off yet," protested the young man, in surprise and regret.
"Set down a while. Then I'll walk to town with you. I'm goin' to buy supplies."
Al threw down his dinner pail and then his old black hat, and stood a moment looking at Crawford. He was a tall, rangy young man, about twenty-one, dressed in overalls redolent of fresh sawdust. He had a frank, handsome face, keen blue eyes just now shaded with regret, and a square chin covered by a faint silky down as fair as his hair. Then he plumped down on the porch.
"I'm sorry," he said.
"It's good of you, Al, if you mean you'll miss me," replied the prospector.
"I sure mean that. But there's somethin' else. Jim, you're not growin' any younger, an' you... well, these eight-month trips on the desert must be tough, even for an old desert rat like you. Forgive me, old-timer. But I've seen you come back... four, five times now, an' each time you seemed more done up. Jim, you might die out there."
"'Course, I might. It's what I want when my time comes."
"Aw! But that should be a long while yet, if you've got any sense. Jim, you've taken the place of my dad."
"Glad to hear it, son," replied Crawford warmly.
"Suppose you come live with mother an' me," suggested Al eagerly.
"An' let you take care of me?"
"No, I don't mean that. Jim, you can work. We've got a little land, even if it is mortgaged. But if we cultivate it... if we had a couple of horses ... the two of us..."
"Al, it's not a bad idea. I've thought of that before. There's plenty of work left in me yet. But I'd only want to tackle that after I'd made a strike. Then we could pay off your debts, stock the place, an' farm right."
"Jim, you've thought of that?" asked Al.
"Lots of times."
"I didn't know you thought so much of me. Gosh, wouldn't it be grand!" Then his face fell, and he added ruefully: "But you old prospectors never make a strike."
"Sometimes we do," replied Jim, vehemently nodding.
"Aw, your hopes are like the mirages you tell about."
"Al, I've never told you about Amber's mirage."
"Nope. That's a new one. Come on, old-timer... if it isn't too long."
"Not today, son. Tomorrow, if you come over."
"Well, I'll come. Ruby has flagged me again for that Raston cowpuncher," rejoined Shade with a touch of pathos.
"Raston. Who's he?" queried Jim, looking up.
"Oh, he's a new one. A flash cowboy, good-lookin' an' the son of a rich cattleman who has taken over the Babcock ranches."
"Uhn-huh. Reckon I remember hearin' about Raston. But he hasn't paid for those big range interests yet. Al, is young Raston sweet on Ruby?"
"Sure. Same as all those other galoots. Only he's the latest. An' Ruby is powerful set up about him."
"Humph. Does she encourage him?" asked Jim, bending to pick up a saddle cinch.
"She sure does," burst out Al in disgust. "We've had rows over that often enough."
"Al, you're deep in love with Ruby?" asked Crawford suddenly.
"Head over heels. I'm drownin'," replied the lad, with his frank laugh.
"Are you engaged to her?"
"Well, I am to her, but I guess she isn't to me... at least, not all the time. Jim, it's this way... I just know Ruby likes me better than any of them. I don't know why. She's sure been thicker with other fellows than with me. But that's not so much. Ruby likes conquest. She loves to ride an' dance an' eat. She's full of the devil. There's been more than one fellow like Raston come along to take her away from me. But she always comes back. She just can't help herself."
"Uhn-huh. What does your mother think of Ruby?"
The boy hesitated, then replied: "Ruby often comes over to our house. Mother doesn't exactly approve of her. She says Ruby is half good an' half bad. But she believes if I could give Ruby what she craves... why, she'd marry me, an' turn out all right. Jim, it's my only hope."
"But you can't afford that on your wages," protested Jim.
"I sure can't. But I save all the money possible, Jim. I haven't even a horse. Me... who was born on a horse! But I'll get ahead somehow... unless somethin' awful happens. Jim, now an' then I'm blue."
"I shouldn't wonder. Al, do you think Ruby is worth this... this love an' constancy of yours?"
"Sure she is. But what's that got to do with it? You don't love somebody because she or he is so an' so. You do it because you can't help yourself."
"Reckon you're right at that," replied Jim slowly. "But suppose a... a girl is just plain no good?"
"Jim, you're not insinuatin'... ?" ejaculated Al, aghast at the thought.
"No, I'm just askin' on general principles, since you make a general statement."
Al's face seemed to take on an older and yet gentler expression than Jim had ever observed there.
"Jim," he said, "it oughtn't to make no difference."
"Humph. Mebbe it oughtn't, but it sure does with most men. Son, there's only one way for you to fulfill your dream... if it's at all possible."
"An' how's that?" queried Al sharply.
"You've got to get money quick."
"Lord! Don't I know that? Haven't I lain awake at nights thinkin' about it. But, Jim, I can't rustle cattle or hold up the mill on pay day."
"Reckon you can't. But, Al Shade, I'll tell you what... you can go with me!"
"Jim Crawford! On your next prospectin' trip?"
"You bet. The idee just came to me. Al, I swear I never thought of it before."
"Gosh almighty!" stammered Al.
"Isn't it a stunnin' idee?" queried Jim, elated.
"I should smile... if I only dared!"
"Wal, you can dare. Between us, we can leave enough money with your mother to take care of her while we're gone. An' what else is there?"
"Jim... you ask that!" burst out Al violently. "There's Ruby Low, you dreamin' old rainbow chaser! Leave her for eight months? It can't be did!"
"Better that than forever," retorted Crawford ruthlessly. He was being impelled by a motive he had not yet defined.
"Jim!" cried the young man.
"Al, it's you who's the rainbow chaser. You've only one chance in a million to get Ruby. Be a good gambler an' take it. Ruby's a kid yet. She'll think more of fun than marriage yet a while. You've just about got time. What do you say, son?"
"Say! Man, you take my breath."
"You don't need any breath to think," responded the old prospector, strangely thrilled by a subtle conviction that he would be successful. "Come, I'll walk to town with you."
On the way the sober young man scarcely opened his lips, and Jim was content to let the magnitude of his suggestion sink deeply.
"Gosh. I wonder what Ruby would say," murmured Al to himself.
"Wal, here's where I stop," said Jim heartily, as they reached the store. "Al, shall I buy grub an' outfit for two?"
"Aw... give me time," implored Al.
"Better break it to your mother tonight an' come over tomorrow," returned Jim, and left Al standing there, his mouth open, his eyes dark and startled.
Seldom did the old prospector answer to unconsidered impulse. But he seemed driven here by something beyond his immediate understanding. Through it flashed the last glimpse he had taken of Ruby Low and the lover whom Jim took to be young Raston. Jim felt that he was answering to an inspiration. One way or another—a successful quest for gold or failure—he would make Al Shade's fortune or spare him inevitable heartbreak. Some vague portent of Amber's mirage ran like a stream through Jim's thought.
He bought supplies and outfits for two, and generously, for he had never been careful of his meager funds. Leaving orders for the purchase to be sent to his place, Jim started back with quickened step.
It was a great project. It had a flourish and allurement that never before had attended his prospecting trips, although they all had fascination enough. He tried to evade queries and rest content with the present, well knowing that, when once more he had been claimed by the lonely desert, all his curiosity and doubt would vanish. Then came a rush of impatient sensation —a nostalgia for sight of the long leagues of lonely land, the bleak rocks, the solemn cañons, the dim hazy purple distances, ever calling —smell of the cedar smoke, the sifting sand, the dry sage, the marvelous fresh fragrance after rain—sound of the mournful wind, the wailing coyote, the silence that was appalling, the cry of the nighthawk.
These passed over him like a magic spell. A rapture pervaded his soul. How could he have lingered so long?
A gay voice calling disrupted Jim's meditation. Already he had reached the outskirts of town, and he was opposite the Low cabin with Ruby waylaying him at the gate. Her red hair flamed, and her lips were like cherries. She transfixed him with a dazzling smile.
"Uncle Jim, I was layin' for you," she said archly. "I hate to ask you, but I've got to have some money."
Ruby sometimes borrowed, and on at least two occasions Jim remembered she had paid back.
"Wal, lass, I'm about broke myself," he replied. "But I can rake up five wagon wheels. Will that help?"
"Thanks, Uncle Jim. It'll sure do. I just want to buy somethin' for tonight. I'm goin' to a party," she said, as she took the silver, and then ran her arm through his. "I'll walk over to your house with you."
Jim could not reproach Ruby for any indifference to him, that was certain. She liked him and often told him her troubles, especially with the boys.
"Another party, huh? I reckon this time you're goin' with Al," rejoined Jim.
"No. He didn't ask me, an' Joe Raston did. Besides, Al an' I have fought like cat an' dog lately. Al's jealous."
"Wal, hasn't he cause?" asked Jim mildly.
"I s'pose he has, Uncle," she admitted. "But I'm not... quite... altogether engaged to Al. An' I do like the other boys, 'specially Joe."
"I see. It's pretty hard on you an' Al. Say, Ruby, do you really care about the boy? Tell me straight."
"Uncle Jim!" she exclaimed, amazed.
"Wal, I just wondered. I seen you today over back of that pine log, an' it looked to me..."
"You saw me... with Joe?" she interrupted confusedly.
"I don't know Joe. But the cowboy wore a scarf as red as your head."
"That was Joe. An' you watched us! I told the big fool..."
"Ruby, I didn't mean to spy on you. I just happened to be lookin'. An' when you slipped off that log, I sure didn't look long."
She had no reply for this. Ruby was nervously clinking the silver coins in her hand. They reached Jim's shack, and Ruby sat down on the porch steps.
"Uncle, did you give me away to Al?" she asked, and a tinge of scarlet showed under her clear skin. She was ashamed, yet no coward.
Jim gazed down upon her, somehow seeing her as never before. He realized that he had reason to despise her, but he did not. At least he could not when she was actually present in the flesh. Ruby had seen only seventeen summers, but she did not seem a child. Her slim form had the contours of a woman. And like a flaming wildflower she was beautiful to look at.
"No, Ruby, I didn't give you away to Al," replied Jim presently.
"You're not going to, Uncle?"
"Wal, as to that..."
"Please don't. It'll only hurt Al, an' not do a bit of good. He has been told things before. But he didn't believe them. An' he thrashed Harry Goddard. Of course, he'd believe you, Uncle Jim. But it wouldn't make no difference. An'... an' what's the sense?"
"Ruby, I reckon there wouldn't be much sense in it. Not now, anyway, when I'm takin' Al with me on a long prospectin' trip."
"What?"
Jim motioned to the packsaddles and harness strewn upon the floor, the tools and utensils.
"Oh, no! Don't take him, Uncle," she cried, and now her cheeks were pale as pearl. She caught her breath. The sloe-black eyes lost their wicked darts. They softened and shadowed with pain. "Oh, Uncle, I... I couldn't let Al go."
"Wal, lass, I'm afraid you'll not have anythin' to do with it."
"But Al would never go... if I begged him to stay."
Jim believed that was true, although he did not betray it. He felt gladness at a proof that Ruby cared genuinely for Al, although no doubt her motives were selfish.
"Mebbe not, lass. But you won't beg him."
"I sure will. I'll crawl at his feet."
"Ruby, you wouldn't stand in the way of Al's coming back home with a big lot of gold."
"Gold!" she echoed, and a light leaped up in her eyes. "But, Uncle, isn't prospectin' dangerous? Mightn't Al get killed or starve on the desert?"
"He might, sure, but he's a husky lad, an' here I've been wanderin' the desert for thirty years."
"How long would you be gone?"
"Till winter comes again."
"Seven... eight months! I... I don't... believe I could bear it," she faltered weakly.
"Ruby, you'll make a deal with me not to coax him off... or I'll tell him what I saw today."
"Oh, Uncle Jim," she retorted, although she winced. "That'd be mean. I really love Al."
"Uhn-huh. You acted like it today," replied Jim dryly. "Reckon you're tryin' to tell me you love two fellows at once."
"I'm not tryin' to tell you that," she flushed hotly. "If you want to know the truth, I love only Al. But I like Joe... an' the other boys. I'd quit them in a minute, if Al had anythin'. But he's poor. An' I don't see why I should give up havin' fun while I wait for Al."
"Did Al ever try to make you give them up?" queried Jim curiously.
"No. He's pretty decent, even if he is jealous. But he doesn't like me to go with Joe."
"Wal, do we make a bargain, Ruby?"
Her red lips quivered. "You mean you won't give me away, if I don't try to keep Al home?"
"That's it."
"Wh-when are you leavin'?"
"Wal, I reckon tomorrow sometime... late afternoon."
"All right, Uncle, it's a deal," she replied soberly, and with slow reluctance she laid the five silver dollars on the porch. "I won't go to the party tonight. I'll send for Al."
"Wal, Ruby, that's good of you," said Jim warmly. "I'm goin' over to Al's after supper to see his mother, an' I'll fetch him back."
"She'll be glad to have Al go," rejoined Ruby bitterly. "She doesn't approve of me."
Jim watched the girl walk slowly down the path, her bright head bent, and her hands locked behind her. What a forlorn little creature. Suddenly Jim pitied her. After all, vain and shallow as she was, he found some excuse for her. Under happier circumstances the good in her might have dominated.
The old prospector's mind was active, revolving phases of the situation he had developed, while he prepared a hasty supper. It was dark when he started out for town. The lights were flickering, and the wind from the peaks carried a touch of snow. Al lived on the other side of town, just outside the limits, on a hundred-and- sixty-acre farm his father had homesteaded, and which, freed from debt, would be valuable some day. Jim vowed the prospecting trip would clear that land, if it did no more. A light in the kitchen of the cottage guided him, and, when he knocked, the door appeared to fly open, disclosing Al, flushed and excited, with the bright light of adventure in his blue eyes. Jim needed no more than that to set his slow heart beating high.
"Come in, old-timer," shouted Al boisterously. "No need to tell you I've knuckled. An' mother thinks it's a good idea."
Al's mother corroborated this, with reservations. She seemed keenly alive to the perils of desert treasure seeking, but she had great confidence in Jim, and ambition for her son.
"What's this Amber's mirage my boy raves about?" asked Mrs. Shade presently.
"Wal, it's somethin' I want to tell Al," replied Jim, serious because he could never think of Amber in any other way. "I knew a wonderful prospector once. An' for twenty years I've looked for his mirage on the desert."
"Gracious, is that all? How funny you gold hunters are. Please don't graft any of those queer ideas on Al."
"Say, Jim, haven't you seen this Amber's mirage?" asked Al.
"Not yet, son. But I will this trip. Wal, good night an' good bye, Missus Shade. Don't worry about Al. He'll come back, an' mebbe rich."
"Alas! I wonder if that is not the mirage you mean," returned the mother, and sighed.
Al accompanied Jim back to town and talked so fast that Jim could not get a word in, until finally they reached the store.
"No, don't come in with me," said Jim. "You run out to see Ruby."
"Ruby! Aw, what'd you want to make me think of her for? She's goin' out with Joe Raston tonight."
"Al, she's stayin' home to be with you this last night."
"Gosh!" ejaculated Al rapturously, yet incredulously. "Did you tell her?"
"Yes. An' she sure got riled. Swore she'd never let you go. I reckon she cares a heap for you, Al. An' I'm bound to confess I didn't believe it. But I talked her into seein' the chance for you, an' she's goin' to let you go."
"Let... me go," stammered Al, and he rushed away down the street.
The old prospector lingered to watch the lithe, vanishing form, and, while he stroked his beard, he thought sorrowfully of these two young people, caught in the toils of love and fate. Jim saw no happy outcome of their love, but he clung to a glimmering hope for them both.
An hour later, when he trudged homeward, thoughts of Al and Ruby magnified. It was youth that suffered most acutely. Age had philosophy and resignation. Al was in the throes of sweet, wild passion, fiercer for its immaturity. He would be constant, too. Ruby, considered apart from her bewildering presence, was not much good. She would fail Al and, failing, save him from ruin, if not heartbreak. Yet she, too, had infinite capacity for pain. Poor pretty little moth. Yet she seemed more than a weak, fluttering moth—just what, Jim could not define. But they were both facing an illusion as tragic, if not so beautiful, as Amber's mirage.
Jim felt tired when he reached his shack and was glad to sink upon the porch. The excitement and rushing around during the day had worn upon him. He bared his head to the cold, pine-scented wind. The pines were roaring. The pale peaks stood up into the dark blue, star-studded sky. To the south opened the impenetrable gloom of the desert. A voiceless call seemed to come up out of the vast windy space, and that night it made him wakeful.
But he was up at dawn, and, when it was light enough to see, he went out to hunt up his burros. They never strayed far. With the familiar task at hand again there returned the nameless pleasurable sensations of the trail. High up on the slope he found the four burros, sleek and fat and lazy, and, when he drove them, the first time for months, he had strange, dark, boding appreciation of the brevity of life. That succumbed to the exhilaration of the near approach of the solemn days and silent nights on the desert. In a few hours he would be headed down the road.
The supplies he had ordered came promptly after breakfast, and Jim was packing when Al bounded in from the porch, so marvelous in his ecstasy of flamboyant youth that Jim's heart almost failed him.
"Howdy, son," he managed to get out. And then: "I see you come light in heart as well as in pack."
"Old-timer, I could fly this mornin'!" exclaimed Al fervidly.
"Uhn-huh. Ruby must have sprouted wings on you last night," ventured Jim.
"Gosh, she was sweet. I'm ashamed to death of the things I felt an' thought. We said good bye nine hundred times... an' I sure hope it was enough."
"Wal, she'll be over before we leave, you can bet on that."
"Aw, no. I stayed late last night... gosh, it was late. Mother waited up for me. Jim, old-timer, that red-headed kid was hangin' on to me at one o'clock this mornin'." Al delivered that amazing statement with a vast elation.
"You ought to have spanked her."
"Spank Ruby? Gosh! It would be like startin' an avalanche or somethin'. Now, Jim, you start me packin', an' you'll think an avalanche hit this shack."
Jim did not require many moments to grasp that Al would be a helpful comrade. He was, indeed, no stranger to packing. But they had just gotten fairly well started when Ruby entered like an apparition in distress. She wore her white Sunday dress and looked lovely, despite her woeful face and tearful eyes.
"Aw... now Ruby," ejaculated Al, overwhelmed.
"Oh, Al!" she wailed, and, throwing her arms around his neck, she buried her face on his breast. "I didn't know I loved you so... or I'd been different."
Jim turned his back on them and packed as hurriedly and noisily as possible. But they had forgotten his very existence. And presently he proceeded with his work almost as if these young firebrands were not present. But they were there, dynamic, breath- arresting with the significance of their words and actions. Jim was glad. Al would have this poignant parting to remember. He sensed, and presently saw, a remorse in Ruby. What had she done? Or did her woman's intuition read a future alien to her hopes and longings? Perhaps, like Al, she lived only in the pangs of the hour.
Nevertheless, in time he wooed her out of her inconsistent mood and kissed away her tears and by some magic not in the old prospector's ken restored her smiles. She was adorable then. The Ruby that Jim had seen did not obtrude here. She entered into Al's thrilling expectancy, helped with the packing, although she took occasion now and then to peck at Al's cheek with her cherry lips, and asked a hundred questions.
"You'll fetch me a bucketful of gold?"
"I sure will, sweetheart," promised Al with fire and pride.
"A whole bucketful, like that bucket I have to lug full of water from the spring. Al, how much would a bucketful of gold buy?"
"I haven't any idea," returned Al, bewildered at the enchanting prospect. The light in his eyes, as it shone upon her, hurt the old prospector so sharply that he turned away. "Hey, old-timer, what could I buy Ruby with a bucketful of gold?"
"Wal, a heap of things an' that's no lie," replied Jim profoundly. "A house an' lot in town, or a ranch. Hosses, cattle, a wagonload of pretty clothes, an' then have some left for trinkets, not to forget a diamond ring."
Ruby screamed her rapture and swung around Al's neck.
It went on this way until at last the burros were packed and ready. Jim took up his canteen and the long walking stick, and shut the door of the shack with a strange finality.
"Son, I'll go on ahead," he said thickly. "You can catch up. But don't let me get out of sight down the road. Ruby, you have my blessin' an' my prayers. Good bye."
She kissed him, although still clinging to Al, but she could not speak.
"Get up, you burros!" called Jim, and he drove them down the road.
After a while he looked back. The young couple had disappeared and were very likely in the shack, saying good bye all over again. Jim strode on for half a mile before he turned once more. Ruby's white form gleamed on the little porch. Al had started. He was running and looking back. Jim found himself the victim of unaccountable emotions, one of which seemed a mingling of remorse and reproach. Would it have been possible to have done better by Al? He did not see how. After a while he gained confidence again, although the complexity of the situation did not clear. All might yet be well for Al, and Ruby, too, if the goddess who guarded the treasure of gold in the desert smiled quickly.
At the turn of the road Al caught up, panting from his run. "Gosh, but... that was... tough!"
He did not glance back, and neither did Jim. Soon they turned a bend between the foothills. The sun was still high enough to shed warmth, although the air was cooling. They were leaving the mountains and descending into the desert, glimpses of which could be seen through the passes. Piñons and cedars took the place of pines, and the sage and bleached grama grass thickened.
Al regained his breath and kept pace with Jim, but he did not have anything to say.
Jim wanted to reach Cedar Tanks before dark, a campsite that was well situated for the initiative, for it regulated succeeding stops just about right. This first water was down on the flat still some four or five miles distant. Jim found a spring in his stride that had been missing for months. He was on the heels of the burros, occasionally giving one a slap.
The last foothill, rather more of a mound than a hill, was bare of cedars and had a lone piñon on top, and the sides were flush with a weed that took on a tinge of pink. When this obstruction had been rounded, the desert lay below.
No doubt Al had seen it before from that vantage point, but never with the significance of this moment, which halted him stockstill.
The sun was setting red and gold over the western confines, where the lights were brilliant. Just below the travelers there were flats of grass, and belts of cedars, and, farther on, bare plains of rock, all in the ruddy shadow. Leagues away buttes and mesas stood up, sunset-flushed, and, between them and farther on, wild, broken outlines of desert showed darkly purple. A bold and open space it was, not yet forbidding, but with a hint of obscure and unknown limits.
One long gaze filled Jim Crawford with sustaining strength. His eye swept like that of an eagle. This was a possession of his soul, and whatever it was that had clamped him in perplexity and doubt faded away.
It was dark when they reached Cedar Tanks, which consisted of a water hole at the head of a rocky ravine. Here Al found his tongue. The strain of parting gave precedence to the actuality of adventure. While they unpacked the burros, he volleyed questions, which Jim answered when it was possible. He remembered the stops all the way across the border. Turkey Creek was the next, then Blackstone, then Green Water, Dry Camp, Greasewood, and on to Coyote Wells, Papago Springs, Mesquite, and then a nameless trail that had as its objective the volcanic peak of Pinacate.
Al packed up water and wood, and built a fire while Jim prepared their first meal, a somewhat elaborate one, he said, to celebrate the start of their expedition. Not in many years had Jim Crawford had a companion in camp. He had been a lone prospector, but he found this change a pleasure. He would not have to talk to the burros or himself. After all, the start had been auspicious.
"Jim, have you ever been to Pinacate?" asked Al.
"Yes. It's an infernal region in midsummer. But I've never been to the place we're headin' for."
"An' where's that?"
"Wal, I know an' I don't know. I call it Three Round Hills. They lay somewhere in from the Gulf of California, a couple of hundred miles below the mouth of the Colorado. It's in Sonora. We get through Yaqui country an' then right into the land of the Seris."
"An' who are the Seris?"
"Wal, they're about the lowest order of humans I know anythin' about. A disappearin' Indian tribe. Cannibals, accordin' to some prospectors I've met. They live in the Gulf durin' the dry season. But when it rains an' the water holes are full, they range far up an' down the coast an' inland. So we've got to dodge them."
"Gosh! You didn't tell mother or Ruby that," remarked Al.
"No, I didn't. An' I reckon I haven't told you a great deal yet."
"Then there's gold in this Seri country," asserted Al, thrilled.
"There sure is. All over Sonora for that matter. But somewhere close under Three Round Hills a wash starts an' runs six miles or so down to the Gulf. I met a prospector who dry-panned gold all along this wash. So rich, he never tried to find the lead from which the gold came. An' he never dug down. Gold settles, you know. He was afraid the Seris would locate him an' poison his water hole. So he didn't stay in long, an' after that he couldn't find the Three Round Hills again."
"An' you're goin' to find them?"
"Reckon we are, son. I feel it in my bones. I believe I can locate them from Pinacate. I brought a powerful field glass, somethin' I never had with me before. If I can locate them, we'll travel across country from Pinacate, instead of workin' down to the Gulf. That would take weeks. We'd have to travel at night along the beach, at low tide, so the water would wash out our tracks. An' then we couldn't find those hills from the shore. I've been savin' this trip for ten years, Al."
"Gosh! An' where does Amber's mirage come in?" went on Al, who had forgotten his supper for the moment.
"Wal, it won't come in at all unless we see it."
"Who was Amber, anyhow?"
"I don't know, except he was a prospector like myself. Queer character. I always wondered if he was right in his mind. But he knew all about the desert."
"Jim, what was the difference between his mirage an' any other?"
"Son, did you ever see a mirage?" asked Jim.
"Sure. Lots of them. All alike, though. Just sheets of blue water on flat ground. Pretty, an' sort of wonderful."
"Wal, you really never saw a mirage, such as I have in mind. The great an' rare mirages are in the sky. Not on the ground. An' mostly they're upside down."
"Jim, I never heard of such a thing."
"Wal, it's true. I've seen some. Beautiful lakes an' white cities. An' once I saw a full-rigged ship."
"No!" exclaimed Al incredulously.
"Sure did. An' they were sights to behold."
"Gosh! Come, old-timer, tell me now about Amber's mirage!" cried the young man impetuously, as if lured on against his will.
The old prospector laid aside his cup, as if likewise impelled, and, wiping his beard, he bent solemn gaze on the young man, and told his story.
Al stared. His square jaw dropped a little, and his eyes reflected the opal lights of the cedar fire.
"An' Amber died after seein' that mirage!" gasped Al.
"Yes, son. There's two men livin' besides me who heard him tell about it an' who saw him die."
"But, old-timer," expostulated Al, sweeping his hand through his yellow locks, "all that might have been his imagination. What's a mirage but an illusion?"
"Sure. Perhaps it's more of a lyin' trick of the mind than a sight. But the strange fact, an' the hard one to get around, is that soon after Amber's death a great gold strike was made there. Right on the spot!"
"Jim, you old prospectors must get superstitious," returned Al.
"Reckon so. But there's no explainin' or understandin' what comes to a man from years on the desert."
"If that's true of the desert, it's true of the mountains, or any other place," argued Al.
"No. The desert is like the earth in the beginnin'," replied the old prospector sagely. "After a while it takes a man back to what he was when he first evolved from some lower organism. He gets closer to the origin of life an' the end of life."
"Gosh, old-timer, you're too deep for me," said Al with a laugh. "But if it's all the same to you, I'd just as lief you didn't see Amber's mirage this trip."
It was June, and Jim Crawford had been lost in the desert for more than a week. At first he had endeavored to conceal the fact from his young companion, but Al had evidently known from the hour of the calamity.
One morning from the black slope of desolate Pinacate the old prospector had located the dim blue Gulf, and the mountain, San Pedro del Martir, and then, away to the southward, three round hills. He had grown tremendously excited, and nothing could have held him back. These colorful hills seemed far away to the younger man, who ventured a suggestion that it might be wise to make for the cool altitudes instead of taking a risk of being caught in that dark and terrific empire of the sun. Even now at midday the naked hand could not bear contact with the hot rocks.
They went on down into the labyrinth of black craters and red cañons, and across fields of cactus, ablaze with their varied and vivid blossoms. The palo verde shone gold in the sun, the ocotillo scarlet, and the dead palo christi like soft clouds of blue smoke in the glaring sand washes. The magnificent luxuriance of the desert growths deceived the eye, but at every end of a maze of verdure there loomed the appalling desolation and decay of the rock fastnesses of the earth.
From time to time the gold seekers caught a glimpse of the three round hills that began to partake of the deceitfulness of desert distance. They grew no closer apparently, but higher, larger, changing as if by magic into mountains. These glimpses spurred Crawford on, and the young prospector, knowing that they were lost, grew indifferent to the peril and gave himself fully to the adventure.
They had been marvelously fortunate about locating water holes. Crawford had all the desert rat's keenness of sight and the judgment of experience. Added to this was the fact that one of his burros, Jenester, could scent water at incredible distances. But one night they had to make dry camp. The next day was hot. It took all of it to find water. And that day Three Round Hills, as they had come to call them, disappeared as if the desert had swallowed them. Cool, sweet desert dawn, with a menacing red in the east, found the adventurers doubly lost, for now they did not even have a landmark to strive for. All points of the compass appeared about the same— barren mountains, dark cones, stark and naked shining ridges, blue ranges in the distance.
But Crawford pushed on south, more bowed every day, and lame. The burros became troublesome to drive. Jenester wanted to turn back, and the others were dominated by her instinct. Crawford, however, was ruthless and unquenchable. Al watched him, no longer with blind faith, but with the perturbation of one who saw a man guided by some sixth sense.
Nevertheless, soon he changed their order of travel, in that they slept in the daytime and went on at night. The early dawns, soft and gray and exquisite, the glorious burst of sunrise, seemed to hold the younger man enthralled, as did the gorgeous sunsets, and the marvelous creeping twilights. As for the other hours, he slept in the shade of an ironwood tree, bathed in sweat and tortured by nightmares, or he stalked silently after the implacable prospector.
They talked but little. Once Crawford asked how many days were left in June, and Al replied that he guessed about half.
"August is the hot month. We can still get out," said the prospector, rolling the pebble in his mouth. And by that he probably meant they could find gold and still escape from the fiery furnace of the desert. But he had ceased to pan sand in the washes or pick at the rocks.
The days multiplied. But try as Crawford might he could not drive the burros in a straight line. Jenester edged away to the east, which fact was not manifest until daylight.
Another dry camp, with the last of the water in their canteens used up, brought the wanderers to extremity. Crawford had pitted his judgment against the instinct of Jenester, and catastrophe faced them.
Darkness brought relief from the sun, if not from overwhelming dread. The moon came up from behind black hills, and the desert became a silvered chaos, silent as death, unreal and enchanting in its beauty.
This night Crawford gave Jenester her head, and with ears up she led to the east. The others followed eagerly. They went so fast that the men had to exert themselves to keep up. At midnight Al was lending a hand to the older man, and, when dawn broke, the young man was half supporting the old prospector. But sight of a jack rabbit and the sound of a mocking bird in melodious song saved him from collapse. Where these living creatures were, it could not be far to water.
Crawford sank less weightily upon Al's strong arm. They climbed, trailing the tracks through the aisles between the cactus thickets, around the corners of cliffs, up a slow rising ridge above the top of which three round peaks peeped, and rose, and loomed. Crawford pointed with a shaking hand and cried out unintelligibly. His spirit was greater than his strength; it was Al's sturdy arm that gained the summit for him.
"Look, old-timer," panted Al hoarsely.
Three symmetrical mountains, singular in their sameness of size and contour and magnifying all the mystery and glory of reflected sunrise, dominated a wild and majestic reach of desert. But the exceeding surprise of this sudden and totally unexpected discovery of the three peaks that had lured and betrayed the prospectors instantly gave way to an infinitely more beautiful sensation—the murmur of running water. A little below them ran a swift, shallow stream.
Crawford staggered to the shade of a shelving rock and fell with a groan that was not all thanksgiving. Al, with a thick whoop, raced down the gentle declivity.
The water was cold and sweet. It flowed out of granite or lava somewhere not far away. Al filled his canteen and hurried back to his comrade, who lay with closed eyes and pallid, moist face.
"Sit up, Jim. Here's water, an' it's good," said Al, kneeling. But he had to lift Jim's head and hold the canteen to his lips. After a long drink the old prospector smiled wanly.
"Reckon... we didn't... find it any... too soon," he said in a weak, but clear, voice. "Another day would have cooked us."
"Old-timer, we're all right now, thanks to Jenester," replied Al heartily. "Even if we are lost."
"We're not lost now, son. We've found our Three Round Hills."
"Is that so? Well, it's sure great to know. But if my eyes aren't deceivin' me, they're sure darned big for hills," rejoined Al, gazing up at the three peaks.
"Make camp here... we'll rest," said Crawford.
"You take it easy, Jim. I'll unpack."