Chapter 3: In the Desert

The lad slept long. He had been keyed to high tension, both physical and mental, and nature now demanded the price of many hours from youth and health. The night sank away, and the day flooded the earth with a great light of white and yellow, in which the yellow gradually gained upon the white. The sun, in time, turned to glowing brass, and the desert quivered under the hot and pitiless glare. A single vulture of the southwest wheeled slowly in the blue.

Charles Wayne awoke at last, and found, to his surprise, that the noon hour had passed. Yet he was not sorry, knowing that, in his case at least, the maxim of more haste less speed was true. Moreover, he had all the time there was.

He rebuilt his fire, ate a little dinner, and again he was ready for the trail, but he advanced slowly, resolving that he would do most of his traveling by night, and rest in the day to escape the heat and glare.

He came after a while to the bed of a creek in which flowed a slender rill, and he followed it steadily to the north. By and by the bed of the creek widened out, the living stream disappeared, but here and there were tiny pools of surface water, with green grass around them, a fortunate thing for the animals, and better than he had hoped. He arrived at a pool larger than the rest, and in its muddy edge he distinctly saw the traces of horses’ feet. How many had passed he could not tell, but he reckoned at least six or eight, and the fact set him to wondering. Who were they? He followed the traces to the hard plain, but there, being no experienced trailer, he quickly lost them. He concluded, however, that they were only cowboys, not worth the trouble of another thought, and he went on.

Weird night came again, black and vast, enfolding the earth. Charles still clung to the friendly creek bed, for the sake of the water to be found there, and continued his course. He did not stop until nearly midnight, and, once more, fell asleep, as soon as his preparations for bed were complete. But his slumber that night was troubled. He dreamed again the bad dream that he had dreamed at Phoenix. Someone, whose face he could not see, was in the tent, searching minutely through all his belongings. He saw the man dimly, from eyes heavy with slumber, which at last overpowered him, and he did not awaken until the day. Then he remembered his dream, and again he found evidences of another presence than his own. His goods were moved about, but, as before, nothing was missing.

In the sand of the creek bed in front of his tent he saw traces of footsteps, evidently those of only one man. The horse and the mule had not been disturbed. The boy, western born and bred, was not superstitious, but he felt a chill. If he had seen the stranger twice, in what then looked like a dream, how often had the man come when he was not seen at all? What did he want? That was the strangest part of it. This constant search, and the taking away of nothing was beyond explanation.

But with his breakfast before him, Charles forced himself to believe that it was, after all, a dream, and that the footsteps in the sand had been made by some wandering cowboy. He drew comfort, too, from the fact that he was always left unharmed, if it should prove to be other than a dream. Nevertheless, the circumstance induced him to hasten, and, after eating, he left the bed of the creek and struck out across the desert.

Now he was amid the desolation of sand and cactus, a burned, dreary, God-forsaken land, hot sand under a hotter sky, in which every scanty little shrub seemed to say wearily, “I thirst.” Now and then a “dust devil” whirled on the horizon, but nothing else that moved met his eyes. Once he passed bleaching bones, but he would not stop to see whether they were those of man or beast, and rode on, not looking back.

The dust, picked up by stray gusts of wind, powdered the boy and his beasts until they were a ghastly whitish-gray. Fine and stinging, it crept, too, into his eyes and ears and down his back. But he pushed steadily on. His lips parched, and his throat grew hot and husky. He moistened both with a little water from the Indian bottles that he carried—how cool and glorious it was to the taste!—and he craved more, but he resisted the temptation; he knew how precious water might become.

Charles had only a general idea of the country, but he believed that he could pass this portion of the desert before nightfall, and he was both brave and hardy. In fact, he felt less fear for himself than for his animals, which were very necessary to him.

Toward noon he stopped once on the crest of a bare hill and examining all the horizon still saw nothing but desolation. The desert stretched away on every side, bare and endless. He was gripped for the first time by a sudden fear. How could he, a mere dot in the wilderness, succeed in such a quest as his?

He crushed down the fear and rode on, not so fast as before, but with a strong heart. The sun passed the zenith, but was hotter than ever. He felt himself grow dizzy in the fiery rays and the desert danced before him. Blue peaks, with green slopes beneath, rose out of the sand, but he knew that it was only a trick of his heated fancy, and he permitted himself no such false cheer. Again he spared a little of the water, and poured a portion of it down the throats of the animals at the imminent risk of losing it all, and then went doggedly on. The wind rose and clouds of dust and alkali swept over him, filling eyes and nostrils, and scorching like hot ashes. The horse neighed wearily, but the mule plodded along with his head down. The sun shone through the haze like a great globe of molten fire.

The horse began to stumble and at last Charles got down and walked, finding some relief in the physical exertion. He sought vainly through the clouds of dust for the blue of the mountains, but he refused to despair. He was well aware that his life was in danger, although he resolutely shoved the fact aside, drawing instead upon those deep wells of tenacity that were in his nature. He had the invaluable quality that causes one to grip all the harder when defeat seems certain, and with head bent and hat well down over his eyes, he plodded resolutely forward in the way that his compass told him to go.

The afternoon touched the zenith of glare and heat, and then began to decline. The sun faded into the west and night came, where the burning day had been. The dark and the coolness were grateful, but the boy was still on the sands, where naught lived but the cactus. The water in the bottles was low, none to spare for the beasts now, although they neighed pathetically, and he slept at last, wrapped in his blanket.

He rose in the morning, with a clearer and stronger head, but with a dry throat and aching limbs, and resumed his flight over the gray desert. Presently the sun shot high again, and glowed with living fire, but from the deeps of Charles Wayne’s tenacity fresh courage rose. The spirit of combat flamed out, he would match himself against the desert, and he would conquer, his victory all the greater because of his foe’s greatness. He knew that he was lost, but he was resolved to find himself.

The hours passed and the little dot that was a human being still struggled over the immensity of the plain, the head bent lower perhaps, and the steps somewhat slower, but the spirit as firm and high as ever. Behind followed the two animals, the horse first, and then the mule.

Noon came and passed, and again the heat and glare were at the extreme point. Charles once more saw a mirage, a mountain slope with pine trees on the side and the hope of green grass and water. But when he rubbed the sand from his eyes, he knew that it was reality and no false hope; the mountains were there, they refused to move away, but stood immovable, awaiting his coming. The animals raised their heads and hastened their steps, and if he had doubted himself, here was the proof of keener instincts than his own.

Charles felt all the joy of victory, all the surge of a strong spirit that has triumphed over a great enemy, and new strength created itself in him. To his sanguine courage it was also an omen of other and greater success yet to come.

Although he increased his speed the mountains did not seem to come nearer, they were before him, solid and blue, a fortress, but the thin, clear air was deceptive, and he knew that where one mile seemed to be, there were ten. The ground grew rougher, running away in waves, and his feet sank in the sand. He shifted his stores to the horse, and tried riding the surer-footed mule, but the animal, exhausted by the heat and lack of water, stumbled so badly that he dismounted and took his place again at the head of the dusty and weary little procession. Then as the sun began to wane, a storm of dust and sand came out of the south, and clothed him about in darkness and suffocation. He struggled through it a long time, fiercely resolving that he would not yield, but staggering more and more, and beating the air with his hands like a blind man. His senses wavered. Again and again, with the force of his will, he called them back to their duty, but at last they wandered away into infinity, and he fell unconscious upon the earth.

When Charles returned from the vague country to which he had gone so suddenly, he was lying comfortably upon his back, with his head upon something soft, and he looked up at a clear sky, in which a peaceful moon and peaceful stars swam in the same old placid way.

“Ha! our young friend is taking notice at last!” said a jerky, merry voice. “That canteen again, if you please, Jedediah, and we’ll see how he likes a draught of the pure and beautiful. This is not the vintage of Flora, ‘cooled in the deep-delved earth,’ but it is something a good deal better for you, namely, fresh water.”

The boy sat up abruptly. Before him was the short figure of Professor Longworth, merry and perky, beneath his huge helmet, the canteen of water in his outstretched right hand, and the long figure of Jedediah Simpson just behind him.

“You may drink deep, my son,” said the Professor, “because as you have already imbibed while in your unconscious condition the stage of approach has been passed.”

Charles needed no urging, but promptly drank deep, and the fire of life coursed anew through his veins.

“It was a lucky thing for you,” said the Professor, “that my scientific investigations led me in this direction. You fell almost in sight of the promised land, scarcely a mile from trees and water. In fact, the instinct of your two animals caused them to continue, and when we brought you here, we found them drinking peacefully along the slope, not fifty feet from where you are now lying.”

“Professor,” said Charles gratefully, “you have saved my life, and, of course, I can never repay you, unless I find a chance to save yours.”

The Professor chuckled merrily.

“Say no more about it,” he said; “but it proves that we scientists are sometimes better plainsmen than you who do nothing but roam the plains. Exact knowledge, founded upon mathematics and an observation of nature’s processes for thousands of years, is not to be beaten.”

“I yield, Professor,” said Charles humbly.

Professor Longworth, M.A., Ph.D., etc., sat down upon a fallen pine stem, adjusted his glasses, and regarded the boy critically.

“It strikes me, my young friend,” he said, “that you have not taken the direct route to San Francisco, where you told me you were going. There is a railroad from Phoenix to that city, but the way that you have chosen is long, hot, tedious, and, as you now know, not without dangers.”

Charles flushed. He was truthful, not liking to tell even an innocent falsehood under the stress of circumstances, and liking still less, if he should have to tell one, to be caught in it. He hesitated a little, and then he decided that it would be best to come somewhere near the truth.

“I fibbed a little there, Professor,” he said. “As a matter of fact, having a great deal of time and very little of anything else, I decided to prospect a while through the mountains. Whenever a fellow does that he grows secretive, with or without reason, and here I am. That’s all there is to it.”

“It’s enough,” said the Professor with irony. “I was young once myself, but young men remain a cause of wonder. You risk your life in a search for what you have not one chance in a thousand to find. Moreover, it would be a bald, uninteresting accident if you found it, while I am armed with knowledge and all the exactitude of science, which, with mathematical and absolute certainty, is bound to lead to a result: the only doubt is about the nature of that result, and in that very doubt lie the charm and mystery of my expedition.”