Chapter 23: The Last Fight

As they marched Professor Longworth reverted to the subject of Gray Wolf and the Apaches. “As I said before,” he remarked, “Gray Wolf is sure to leave us alone, nor is it likely that we will suffer anything from the warriors of his band. As I take it, he will lead them further north deep into the mountains, but, unfortunately, there are different divisions or tribes of the Apaches. Young as you boys are, you are veterans in danger now, and I need not conceal from you that all of the Apaches are in a highly disturbed and restless state. I wish that we were entirely clear of their country.”

“An’ we can’t march so fast, havin’ our gold,” said Jed, “nor could we leave it ef we was in danger.”

“That is so,” said the Professor. “Riches bring responsibilities in the desert as well as in the city.”

Charles saw very clearly that their leader was troubled, but he did not share the Professor’s anxiety. It seemed to him that they had triumphed over so much that they could not fail now. They had escaped the first attack of the Apaches, they had found a home in the canyon, they had discovered the lost gold, they had beaten off the Indian invasion, and finally they had repelled and annihilated Earp and his band.

Charles did not now believe failure possible, and he hummed happily to himself as they rode on over the plain. He was building castles in the air and Herbert, his comrade, was doing the same. They had left the oasis and were upon the sand once more, but all their water bottles were filled and animals and human beings alike felt strong and fresh.

It was remarkable how quickly the oasis disappeared from sight. After riding a half hour they could not see a trace. The swells shut it out and on all sides of them waved the desert, bleak and bare, save for a lonesome cactus now and then. No wind blew that morning and the sand was at rest, but the sun grew very hot, and tongues and throats became parched again. The still close air enveloped them like a steaming blanket, but Charles was not anxious for the wind to rise as he knew that it would cut with a burning edge.

They saw some piñons in a little hollow shortly after the noon hour and they camped in their partial shade. The trees were of fairly good growth, but there was not a drop of water in the hollow.

“We could probably get water by digging,” said Professor Longworth. “It seeps into this depression and nourishes the roots of the trees. It is amazing how far trees will send down their roots in the desert in search of the fluid which is life to all things. I confess that I should like to see water myself, but we do not have time to dig for it.”

They gave a part of the precious store of water to the horses and mules, and they would have spent all the remainder of the day among the piñons, traveling in the coolness of the night, but Professor Longworth was uneasy. He was anxious to be once more on the road to Phoenix, and he hurried them away.

They were aided in the afternoon by faint, drifting clouds, not clouds that promised rain, but clouds that mitigated somewhat the fierceness of the sun. It was a wonderful thing to have a sky which by a stretch of the imagination could be called gray, and the spirits of the boys rose again.

“I know it isn’t going to rain,” said Charles, “but I like to imagine it raining. It just couldn’t rain too hard for me. I’d like to turn my face up to it and let it beat on it with forty horsepower. I’d like to feel it going right through my clothes and wetting every inch of me.”

“What’s the use of thinkin’ of things that ain’t goin’ to happen?” said Jed. “It makes you like the feller in the old story who was burnin’ up with thirst, who always saw water just before him, but who could never quite reach it.”

“Guess you’re right, Jed,” said Charles with a laugh, “and I won’t think any more about rain.”

The Professor took out his powerful glasses and examined the whole circle of the horizon with minute care. He saw nothing but the ridges of sand, the lonesome cactus, and now and then the ragged and ugly yucca. He felt relief, but his apprehension would not disappear wholly, and he still urged forward the little troop. When night came on they were in the open desert, and they traveled over two hours after dark before they made camp.

The night was cold and after eating supper they wrapped themselves in their blankets. The horses and mules were tied together, and the sacks of treasure lay-on the ground in the center of the group. They did not arrange any watch as they were sure that the animals would give an alarm if the enemy attempted to approach.

Charles was very tired from the long hours of riding over the monotonous desert, but he did not go to sleep. He was lying on the southern edge of the little camp. The night was very still. The weary horses and mules did not stir. The boy was warm and snug in his blankets, but the anxiety of the Professor, so obvious in the day, had been communicated to him now. He told himself that he was foolish, but after all the others were asleep he saw a faint light in the south.

The light was so tiny that he lost it two or three times, and only by following the line of the horizon could he find it again. Then he thought it was some manifestation of nature, something with which man had nothing to do, but the light increased and glowed. He gently awoke the Professor and the two watched the light.

It seemed to be two or three miles away, and while at first it was apparently level with the earth it gradually rose and stood out clear of the desert, burning now with a steady radiance. Then Charles knew that human hands were at work.

“Apaches?” he said in a whisper.

“I fear so,” said Professor Longworth.

“Look!” said Charles.

The light suddenly began to whirl swiftly. Charles and the Professor watched it intently for a full minute, and then when the boy’s eyes shifted away he uttered a deep:

“Ah!”

He saw on the western horizon another light whirling in a manner exactly like that of the first. The Professor also looked.

“Apaches!” he said. “There cannot be any doubt of it. They are signaling to one another, and it is safe to say that their signals are about us. I feared this, my lad, I feared it!”

“It seems that they are across our path,” said Charles.

“Yes, they are between us and Phoenix. We might try to steal past them in the night, but in the morning they would surely see us on the open plain. It is likely, too, that their numbers are too great for us to face. It is some band or division of the tribe to which Gray Wolf does not belong.”

“Then what are we to do?”

“We must go north again. I have not seen all of Arizona, but I have studied it thoroughly from maps, and we ought to find low mountains or at least hills, about fifty miles due north. We might get away from the Apaches there, or if we were cornered we should have a far better chance for a successful defense.”

“Then it would be wise to start at once?”

“Undoubtedly. Neither we nor our animals have had the rest that we need, but we cannot linger here with the Apaches advancing upon us. It is likely that some wandering warrior has seen us or our trail, and has taken the word to the bands.”

They awoke Herbert and Jed, saddled or loaded their animals and started due north. They saw the signals once more from the crest of a swell, but after that came complete darkness and silence. All four were anxious. They recognized the full danger to be expected from a band of mounted Apaches, and they urged on the tired animals in every possible way. For a long time no one spoke, and then it was Jed giving utterance to his woe.

“I can’t see what fun it is to the Apaches to drive us back toward the mountains,” he said.

“That is not what they seek,” said the Professor grimly. “It’s scalps that they are after and they enjoy the taking of them.”

Jed took off his hat and felt uneasily of the top of his head.

“An’ my hair is long an’ thick, too,” he said. “I used to be proud of it.”

“Just think what a fine scalp you can furnish, Jed,” said Herbert.

But it was rather grim jesting, and they went no further. The horses were beginning to stumble through weariness and they stopped a while. The wind had risen and was sending the fine sand in their faces. But they did not mind it. Rather they rejoiced. The wind would blow their trail away, and the Apaches must depend upon their sight. Their chance of escape increased with the rising of the wind.

They rested an hour. Then the cold began to have an effect upon their relaxed frames and they started anew. They did not stop again before dawn, which came on swiftly, bright and hot.

As the clear light poured down, the boys saw the loom of the hills in the north and it was a grateful sight, but when they reached the crest of a swell, the Professor took forth his glasses and turned his whole attention to the south. Finally he closed the glasses and uttered an impatient little exclamation. The boy understood.

“They are there?” he said.

“Yes,” replied the Professor. “I had hoped that we had shaken them off in the darkness, but I can make out indistinctly the figures of a group, twenty-five or thirty in number and yet many miles away. Nevertheless they are coming toward us.”

The four looked anxiously at one another. The blown sand had hid their trail, but the Apaches, the most cruel of all Indians, had followed nevertheless. The four did not now have their strong cliff dwelling, from which they could fight as from a fort. They stood only in an open plain among the shifting sands and under a merciless sun. Yet there was one possible avenue. They still saw the faint outline of hills in the north, and there they might find shelter. Professor Longworth had reckoned well, when he changed their course in the night.

“We must continue our flight toward the north,” said the Professor earnestly. “We have a long lead and although our animals are tired we may reach a refuge, some vantage point that will reduce the odds against us.”

Jedediah Simpson said nothing. Without the aid of the powerful glasses he could not see the Apaches, but he knew well enough from what the Professor had said that they were there, and a great rage mounted in his brain. A patient and enduring man, his limit had been reached. He wanted to be let alone. He could not see why so many men sought his life. At last it had flicked his nerves on the raw and he was growing very dangerous. He ran his hand along the steel barrel of his rifle and felt lovingly of the trigger. Since these Apaches were so anxious to overtake them let them do it. He and his comrades would make them regret it. He stared-back at the horizon of sand and saw nothing there, but his anger continued to mount just as if he had seen.

They sought to urge the animals to greater speed, but the mules rebelled so vigorously that they dropped into a walk again. Charles thought it was just as well, as they were bound in any event to save their strength, and perhaps they would need it most for a final spurt.

The two boys looked anxiously toward the hills. They wished to see them come nearer. They wished to see their outlines appear. They were like shipwrecked sailors pulling desperately in an open boat for land. But the hills seemed to be as far away as ever. Only the experienced eye could have told them from banks of clouds lying low. The fugitive four fell now into silence. Again the sun poured down dazzling beams, every one tipped with fire. The earth swam in a red glare, and they pulled their hats low to protect their eyes from the blaze. Some of the horses began to pant, and, at times, the riders leaped down and ran by the side of them. The light wind powdered them all, human beings and animals alike, with the dust of the desert.

Charles looked back again and again, but saw nothing. An ordinary traveler would have said that there was no danger, he would have said that the desert was empty of everything save themselves, but Charles knew better. Professor Longworth was not one who would make a mistake. His mind always worked with scientific accuracy, and when he said that he saw the Apaches, he saw them.

They toiled on for an hour. Higher and higher went the sun and deeper and deeper grew the glare. They were wet with perspiration, and the flame seemed to burn into their brains. Their pace sank to a walk. The animals could do no more. At last when they reached the summit of a swell higher than the rest they perceived tiny figures like jumping- jacks on the southern horizon. These figures—and they now saw that the Professor’s higher estimate of thirty was none too great—moved ludicrously, like manikins directed by a human hand. But it was only the effect of the great distance. They were Apaches, and they were coming with their minds full of the most terrible purpose that can animate human beings. The four looked at one another and every one read the minds of all the rest.

“They will overtake us before we can reach the hills,” said Charles.

“They will,” said Professor Longworth, who was feeling in the breast pocket of his Norfolk jacket, “but if my memory is right something else will serve us. As I have told you before I have very complete small-scale maps of Arizona, and I always carry them next to me in an inside pocket.”

He drew forth a map, looked at it, and cried aloud exultingly.

“My memory was right,” he said. “Pardon me if I claim that it always is. Directly ahead of us and about five miles away is a most remarkable water-hole, one that has been used from time immemorial by Indians, and later also by settlers and gold hunters. Its formation is peculiar, and it may make a better fort for us than any that we could find in the hills. It is queer that I did not recall it earlier.”

“About five miles did you say?” asked Charles.

“Well,” replied the Professor, speaking with scientific caution, “it might be near six or just a little over four, but I think that five is a better and, in fact, a just approximation.”

“Then,” said Charles, “the Apaches cannot possibly overtake us before we get there.”

“No, they are yet several miles behind. We will even have time to make certain useful dispositions before they come up.”

“An’ then,” said Jedediah Simpson, a triumphant note appearing in his voice, “we’ll give ‘em Hail Columby, happy lan’. Let ‘em come on. I’m tired of bein’ chased, Purfessor! I tell you I’m tired of it, an’ I feel as if I could lay down on the sand in some snug, sheltered place, an’ be jest as happy as a mockin’ bird, shootin’ at Apaches all day long.”

“Jedediah,” reproved the Professor, “I’m sorry to see you showing such sanguinary instincts. Have I been teaching you the beauties of science and learning all these years to see you show under pressure only the instincts of a man-killer? To fight well in self-defense is a good and great thing, but to revel in battle merely for its own sake is a reversal to the primeval. I fear greatly, Jedediah, that in spite of all my teaching you are a throw-back.”

“But these Apaches have made me mad, Purfessor,” said Jed in a tone of apology. “How can you love them that chase you, hot fur your scalps?”

“I will overlook it this time, Jedediah,” said Professor Longworth forgivingly. “I will admit that the Apaches act in a most irritating manner, and perhaps you also suffered from a touch of the sun. But do not make another such sanguinary display.”

Jedediah made no further protest, but his blood nevertheless was yet hot. Once more he lovingly stroked the steel barrel of his rifle, which was hot also from that touch of sun, and meditated over what he would do when the chance came. The Professor consulted his map a second time, put it back in his pocket with a sigh of satisfaction, and they quickened their pace. When they mounted the next crest he used his glasses again, but now he looked toward the north instead of the south. When he returned them to their case, he uttered a second sigh of satisfaction.

“I see the water-hole,” he said. “I can mark it by the trees about it. It is not more than three miles ahead, and now we shall have time to take the precautions that I had in mind before the Apaches arrive.”

A mile further and they saw with the naked eye the clump of trees standing out like a dot on the plain, but in a slight hollow. Charles inferred that the upshoot of water there was seepage from the distant hills or mountains.

The animals presently scented the water, neighed with pleasure and hastened their pace. Jedediah Simpson also felt pleasure, but his martial instincts were yet strong. He hoped that the Apaches would not cease coming, and that they would attack. He looked back to see if he might not get a shot at long range. But the distance was far too great. He, too, sighed. But the emotion was far different from that which had caused the sigh of Professor Longworth.

Charles was carefully examining the oasis as they rode up. It was unlike the one from which they had fought the Earps. He saw a circular valley or dip, several hundred yards across. Here the sands of the desert gave way to rocks, and in the center of the valley grew a close ring of oaks and aspens, perhaps thirty yards across. The boy knew that the water was within the ring of trees, and the animals knew it, too, as despite their weariness they broke into a trot, headed straight for the oaks and aspens.

The riders sprang down and halted the animals at the trees. Charles, pressing forward, passed among the trees and looked down at the water- hole. The ground dropped away gradually for a descent of eight or ten feet to a tiny circular plain covered with deep, rich and very green grass. In the very center of this was a well-like, conical opening a dozen feet deep, at the bottom of which flowed a strong stream of clear, cold water.

“It is all that I had heard,” said Professor Longworth with deep satisfaction. “Here we have water, grass for our horses, breastworks of solid rock, and it will be strange if four good shots like ourselves, armed with such improved rifles as ours cannot hold back thirty Apaches.”

They quickly led the horses among the trees which grew so closely that they were compelled to push through, and then down the incline upon the grass where they turned them loose, having previously unloaded the sacks of treasure and put them near the well. All this did not consume five minutes, and then the Professor and Jed turned back to the trees, rifle in hand.

“Charles,” called back Professor Longworth, “you go down to the water, but be sure you do not drink much at first. Just a little for yourself and Herbert. Then take the two tin pails from the pack and bring it up for the horses and mules, just the same. Don’t give them much for a while. No matter how strong the temptation, do exactly what I say.”

Charles promised faithfully, but already he was feeling the temptation. He and his comrade were looking over the edge of the natural well at the flowing water below. The trees, of unusual height and size for that region, made a deep shade within the little green glen. The water, ten feet below, gurgled a cool invitation and dancing shadows from the trees fell across its surface.

Charles took a tin cup and climbed down. The sloping walls were of solid rock with many projections and it was an easy task. The nearer he came to it the better the water looked. It was absolutely clear and he knew that it was cold. He dipped with the cup, and his hand went under at the same time. The water, so cool after the burning heat of the desert, sent a delicious thrill through every vein. He would take a little drink, and then hand another up to his waiting comrade.

But he put away that temptation also. He did not touch the water to his lips, but climbing a little way up the side, extended the cup to Herbert.

“No, you drink first,” said the younger boy who was lying down with his head over the edge of the well.

“Your time, Herbert! No foolishness! Hurry up or I’ll drop it, and we can’t afford to waste time!” said Charles.

Herbert drank, draining the cup to the last drop, and sighing because there was no more. When he passed the cup back to Charles he said:

“A little more of that, old fellow, after you’ve had your drink. It’s certainly the finest water that ever flowed.”

“Not another drop do you get for a long time,” said Charles sternly. “It’s not good for you, young man, and I’m going to teach you self- control.”

He drank his own cup of water slowly, and then had a fierce desire for more. The first seemed only a taste, and it would be so easy to take a second cup. But with a fierce effort he triumphed over self, and calling loudly for a pail, began to pass water to the animals which were now crowding so closely to the well that it was all Herbert could do to keep one or another of them from falling in. They allowed a pail for each, and then taking another small drink for themselves hurried with a filled pail to the oaks, where the Professor and Jed sat watching, rifles across their knees.

“Have you obeyed my instructions?” asked Professor Longworth severely.

“I have,” replied Charles. “We have not had much more than a taste. I could drink every drop in that pail without stopping.”

“But you have been tempted?”

“Terribly.”

The Professor laughed.

“I believe you,” he said, “and, after Jedediah and I have each taken a drink, you and Herbert can have another. Now, Jedediah, you drink first and I will tell you when to stop.”

Jed took the pail and drank eagerly. As the cold fluid trickled deliciously down his throat and sent a pleasant thrill through every nerve and sinew much of his sanguinary impulse departed. He had a more kindly feeling toward the whole human race, and he would have been glad for the sake of peace and good will if the Apaches had gone away. It was wonderful water, and the more he drank of it the better he liked it. He lifted the pail higher and higher.

“Jedediah, how dare you! And you a man of mature age! After the years of careful training that I have given you to show so little self- restraint! If you drink more of that water you will swell up and die miserably!”

He snatched the pail from the man’s hand and faced him sternly. Jed quailed before those flashing eyes.

“I did fergit, Purfessor,” he said humbly. “I was tempted an’ I was fallin’.”

“I will forgive you this time,” said Professor Longworth, “but see that you are always a man hereafter. Look at me and imitate my example.”

He drank moderately and allowed Charles and Herbert another small drink apiece. Then he set the pail, still half full, between two trees and said sternly:

“It will remain there until I say when it can be touched again. Now we will devote our attention to the Apaches, a factor with whom we must reckon.”

The Indians were now within a mile of the water-hole, although they looked much nearer in the clear sunlight. They were coming on rather slowly, in a loose line that extended for a hundred yards or more across the plain. Professor Longworth handed his glasses to Charles, and when the boy studied the Apaches through them, he shuddered.

The powerful glasses brought the Indians close up to him. He saw their horribly painted cheeks, their cruel eyes, their long, coarse, black hair, and their naked bodies, covered with strange designs. He knew that they would be absolutely merciless. There was no Gray Wolf among them. He thanked God for the natural fortification of the water hole, and for the improved weapons they carried.