Chapter 22: The Desert Battle

“Last stretch,” said Jed, as they resumed the march over the gray sand. “I see Arizony Place comin’ nearer an’ nearer, but when I git thar, boys, I’m goin’ to take a long rest on the grass under the shade trees. This thing o’ bein’ sniped at by fellers that you can’t see and then plowin’ roun’ in red hot san’ is gittin’ to be like a man I knowed once that hired out to a stingy farmer. The farmer give him corn bread an’ molasses to eat every meal. At the end o’ about six months Jake, that hired man, said, ‘Corn bread an’ molasses are mighty fillin’ but ef I was to git somethin’ else to-morrow you wouldn’t hear me makin’ any kick.’”

When they had gone scarcely a mile after this speech the figure of a man hove in sight, a man walking, a strange figure on the desert.

“Now who under the sun can that be!” exclaimed Jed. “This is shorely mighty cur’ous an’ interestin’!”

The Professor took his field glasses from a pack and looked long and earnestly at the advancing figure. When he put it down his eyes snapped.

“There is something familiar about the man who is approaching us,” he said, “but I am not sure. I will say nothing until he reaches us.”

The man came directly toward the party, but they saw as he came near that he was a forlorn enough figure. The remains of a pith helmet, resembling that worn by the Professor, were jammed down upon his head, his clothing was unkempt and in rags, and his shoes were almost soleless. He was tall and thin with a hawk nose.

“Professor Cruikshank!” said Professor Longworth in no welcoming tones.

“Yes, it is I, Professor Longworth,” said Cruikshank, “and necessity compels me to come to you for help. I assure you that it is as bitter to me as it is unpleasant to you. But my guide and servant deserted me in the mountains, taking my horses with them, and leaving me to starve. I have lived on roots, nuts and a few stores that they did not take. I had expected to die alone on the desert, until I caught sight of your party to-day, and have managed to reach you, as you see. Surely, Professor Longworth, you will help a brother scholar!”

“Certainly,” said Professor Longworth, although his voice was still cold. “Jed, food and water at once.”

Cruikshank ate and drank eagerly, and the two boys were touched with pity. He carried neither baggage nor rifle, saying that his treacherous servants had stripped him of both, and he bore all the appearance of a man who had known the last stages of despair.

“You will let me go with you?” he said.

“Of course,” replied Professor Longworth, but still coldly. “We could not repel any man under such conditions. We are on the way to Phoenix.”

“That will serve me well enough,” said Cruikshank with a deep, satisfied sigh. “Professor Longworth, we have been rivals but not, I hope, enemies. Now we are not even rivals. I confess that I have failed completely in my expedition, while you to all appearances have been highly successful.’ I see your train is loaded down with specimens.”

“Yes,” said Professor Longworth dryly, “I have all these bags filled with valuable Arizona rock, but I cannot describe it to you. We are scientific men, Professor Cruikshank, and you understand. It is a secret that I must keep, until I surprise the world with it.”

Professor Cruikshank laughed gayly.

“I understand thoroughly,” he said. “It is your discovery, Professor Longworth, and I have no right to the remotest share in it. Beaten as I am and owing my life to you as I do, I should be a pretty poor specimen indeed if I tried to pry into your secret.”

Professor Longworth regarded him with more approval. Yet the situation remained embarrassing. Here was a fifth man, whom they could not drop, but who could have no share whatever in their success. He would be with them but not of them. They must make the best of it, and Jed and the two lads, taking the Professor’s hint, spoke of the bags as containing Arizona rock.

They resumed their march southward. The desert deepened again. Its glare burned their eyes and hot winds swept across it, scorching their faces. But Professor Cruikshank was cheerful, even joyous. He showed all the exhilaration natural to a man rescued from imminent death, and his flow of spirits pleased the two lads.

“It is obvious that the Professor doesn’t like him,” thought Charles, “but that may be due to scientific rivalry.”

Their progress now was much slower. The coppery sun was just overhead and the sand shimmered in the heat waves.

Back to Charles came once more the chant of Ananias Brown:

O’er the measureless range where rarely change The swart gray plains, so weird and strange, Treeless and streamless and wondrous still.

“Then that’s the place for me,” said Herbert. “Oh, weren’t those beautiful mountains that we left behind? And wasn’t that a beautiful river? And the trees and the grass on the plateau, was ever anything finer?”

The others laughed despite themselves at Herbert’s heartfelt words.

“These lads were foolish enough to venture on a prospecting tour and I picked them up last autumn,” said Professor Longworth to Professor Cruikshank.

“Fine fellows,” said Professor Cruikshank.

Toward night they reached the oasis, merely a valley or depression, sheltered by high hills of rock jutting like bare ribs from the desert. The sand had blown in ridges against the rock, but in the center of the valley was a pool of water thirty or forty feet across and nearly a foot deep formed by a little stream which flowed out of the rock at one end and into it again at the other. It was surrounded by thin but succulent grass and a few trees grew here and there.

It was a glorious sight to the scorched and thirsty travelers as they entered it. The horses, scenting water, quickened their pace. The mules lifted up their heads, emitting raucous but triumphant brays and all rushed forward. Herbert threw up his battered old hat and with a cry of joy followed horses and mules. The others came on more sedately

“Now shorely this is temptin’,” said Jed. “We’ve got springs all over Kentucky an’ they’re pure an’ cold, but I don’t know when I ever saw water that looks better than this.”

Flocks of wild fowl whirred away as the intruders dashed to the water, and Charles and Jed shot a pair of fat fellows, a species of duck, which they roasted and found very good. The water was comparatively cool and fresh, and they felt as if they had reached a very pleasant haven.

“Ours is really a very small desert as I told you boys the other day,” said the Professor, while Jed was cooking over a fire of sticks, “and in quality it is by no means so bad as those mighty deserts of the Old World, but a man can die in it of heat and thirst.”

“Which might have been my fate had I continued the attempt to cross it alone,” said Professor Cruikshank, looking afar at the sands and shuddering.

“You are familiar with the deserts of Asia and Africa, are you not, Professor Cruikshank?” said Professor Longworth.

“I have traveled in them somewhat,” replied Professor Cruikshank modestly.

“You represented some university, I suppose? I believe you told me the name, did you not?”

Professor Cruikshank shook his head and smiled.

“Let my poor little university and my modest degrees rest in obscurity,” he said. “A beaten man will say little about himself. I’ve failed so utterly, Professor Longworth, that I feel like hiding permanently somewhere here in the west.”

Professor Longworth turned away with an impatient little movement to the roast duck that Jed was handing to him. He ate with a good appetite, but for some time he had less to say than any of the others. Not so, Professor Cruikshank, who chatted agreeably about the west with which he seemed to be well acquainted.

“A wonderful country! A wonderful country!” he said. “It’s bold and picturesque in its features and infinite in its variety!”

“That’s so,” said Charles. “I was born in it, and I love it.”

“I wasn’t born in it,” said Herbert, “but I’ve learned to love it, too.”

“Youth is adaptable,” said Professor Cruikshank benevolently, stretching his long, thin figure comfortably on the grass. Herbert at that moment rather liked him. “Adaptable” seemed to be the very word for Professor Cruikshank himself. Certainly he had fallen in easily with their ways, and already he had been helpful in many details. He assisted Jed in collecting sticks for the fire, showed considerable knowledge also of cooking and behaved on the whole like an experienced desert traveler.

“Isn’t this a pretty pickle for a scientist,” he said with a faint laugh. “I started into northern Arizona with the intention of making wonderful discoveries. I was going to surpass everybody, even so experienced and famous a man as Professor Longworth here, and lo! here I am, worse stripped than the man who fell among thieves, although in one respect I am luckier than he, as he was picked up by only one good Samaritan, while four have taken me in charge.”

He smiled very agreeably, and Herbert’s heart warmed again toward him. The situation was one to promote good feeling. After the dust, heat and glare of day in the desert the little oasis was a haven, and the sight of water, real fresh water, a trickling stream of which you could drink and a wide pool in which you could bathe, was refreshing to soul and sense alike. Herbert understood now what was meant by the “shadow of a great rock in a weary land.”

All had taken a dip in the pool after supper, and now they were lying comfortably by the dying coals of the fire on which Jed had cooked their supper. The animals cropped the grass at the water’s edge and the sacks of “specimens” were heaped up only four or five feet away. The night was cool, even crisp, and Jed’s stars flamed in the blue. It was a time of rest for man and beast, a time of peace and soothing quiet.

Professor Erasmus Darwin Longworth lay near the fire, his enormous pith helmet on his head, his eyes concealed behind his great glasses. The Professor did not move or speak, but he was neither asleep nor dreaming. He was still examining his beaten rival, Professor Cruikshank, with minute care. Had he ever seen him before at any meeting of any learned society? What was his reputation? What his specialty? What letters in capitals did he have a right to write after his name? He could not recall, and he was sorely vexed and troubled in spirit. His eyes wandered again to the two lads, so like the sons, whom he did not have, but whom he could wish to have. His weight of responsibility grew heavier, because the Professor did not forget the mysterious foes who had come on nights before and who might come again.

The talk died down. The night grew colder. The Milky Way streamed a brilliant banner across the immeasurable heavens, and Jed’s stars wheeled and danced in their old places, vast cores of infinite light. Some of the wild fowl, defying man and forgetful of the slaughtered two, came back to the pool and were swimming peacefully near the farther shore.

“To bed! To bed!” said the Professor. “To-morrow’s march is likelier to be hotter and dustier than to-day’s, and we shall need all the rest that we can get.”

Professor Longworth arranged the places in a row before the bed of coals, and that of Professor Cruikshank was in the center. It was Jed’s time to take the first watch and the others, rolling themselves in their blankets and using saddles for pillows, closed their eyes. Shortly after midnight, the usual turn of the watch, Charles relieved Jed, and, in order that he might get a better view, he took a seat on the rock outcrop above the camp. There he could see everything in the glen, and also far upon the desert.