Chapter 6: Marooned

Herbert said nothing of the night’s event, of the coming of the lion and of his going, driven by the fear of human kind, but he felt a pride in himself and his primitive qualities were strengthened by the test, through which he had gone with such success. The mountains and the gorgeous sunlight made a more powerful appeal than ever to him, and through every vein he felt flowing a stronger and more sparkling tide of blood than any that had ever throbbed in his body before.

He had been afraid at first that he would show badly under wild and savage conditions, that he might feel fear, or that he might not know what to do. He wanted to appear well in the eyes of this new comrade of his, who was such an expert in the wilderness, and now that he passed the test his joy was great.

“I think I ought to go down and look for the horse—and the mule,” Charles said. “They must be somewhere in the canyon, as they would not have wandered far in a day or two, and without them we can never get across the desert. Besides, life will not be always so easy here. Winter will be coming, and it is often very severe on the Arizona mountains.”

It seemed impossible to Herbert, with the memory of the hot desert through which they had come, and the knowledge that the heat, too, could gather in the canyon, to associate winter with the serene sunshine of the scene about him, but he said nothing, and when Charles suggested that he stay and guard the house he consented. He also knew a lot of things that he could do while his comrade was gone, and he was quite content to remain.

Charles was not greatly worried about the horse and mule. He might not find them now, but they would certainly remain in the canyon because there alone were grass and water to be found in plenty. Meanwhile he would look for the lost gold, and in good time he would initiate his comrade into the secret. That the gold existed somewhere he did not doubt.

He reached the bottom of the canyon and then glanced upward. On either side the mountains seemed to rise, almost a sheer wall, pathless and grim. The cliff dwellers had chosen well because, from the point at which he stood, their village was almost invisible, and even if the houses were seen it would require more than common boldness to scale the steep cliff in the face of defenders.

But the narrow floor of the canyon itself had a beauty of its own. In the center ran the little stream, clear and cold from the melting snows of the highest mountains, and the pink wild plum trees were numerous. A red tanager now and then darted from bough to bough. Charles thought of trout. They must be found in a mountain river like this, and they would be a delicacy for the table of the two comrades.

Once he came upon traces in the grass which he knew to have been made by hoofs, and he followed them until they stopped at the edge of a wide place in the brook, but he could not find them again. Either the animals had gone a long distance in the stream or had emerged on ground too hard to leave a print visible to his eye.

But he clung to the search, continuing up the canyon until it narrowed perceptibly. The mighty walls moved closer together, sheer cliffs now of black basalt, carved into a thousand fantastic shapes by wind and weather. Charles looked up, and in the light that had grown perceptibly dimmer he saw twisted pine trees, clinging in the crevices of the cliffs, but so far away that they looked like mere bushes. The floor of the canyon, too, was rising, and he surmised that it would soon come to an end, but it went deeper into the mountains than he had supposed. It was a full two hours before he reached the end, where the cliffs came so close together that there was hardly room for the little river, plunging over a fall of two or three hundred feet, to enter it. He might have climbed up beside the fall and have gone deeper among the peaks and ridges, but it was obviously impossible for the horses to have escaped him in such a way, and he had done his full duty so far as that end of the canyon was concerned.

He turned back on his path, and in time passed by the slope that led to the cliff village. He went on down the canyon toward the opening into the desert, and he had no doubt that he should find the horses before he came to the sandy plain. As the great gash in the mountains broadened, and the rays of the sun had a better chance, the heat grew intense. Bushes and trees were thick here, and now and then there were little grassy openings. It was in the latter that he looked for the horses, and at last he caught a glimpse of a dark figure and heard the sound of an animal moving.

He advanced through the bushes, and at that moment the wind shifted a little. The animal threw up his head, he caught the flash of a horn, and then the swift beat of hoofs. A deer! He went on, still intent upon his search, and he became so engrossed in it that he forgot that midday had come. The afternoon advanced and he forgot that, too, but at last he came to the end of the great gorge, and before him stretched the desert, gray and lone, the stretch of it that intervened between these ranges and Old Thundergust. Far out upon it he could see the dancing “dust devils” whirling over the swells and then passing out of sight. But he had not found the horse and mule.

He looked once more at the gray desert, the white gleam of the alkali and the dancing “dust devils” that still troubled the horizon, and then he turned back to the great canyon, and the vast line of purple mountains beyond. How green and fresh the foliage seemed, and how the waters of the stream, when he came once more to it, sparkled in the sunlight! The scene before him, affer the scene behind him, invited with all the intimate delight of home. There was majesty in the great line of purple mountains and the dim white crests beyond, but no terror, and he began with ardor the return journey to the safe alcove in the cliff.

He was surprised to see long shadows falling on the slopes. The pine trees burned yellow in the intense gold of the setting sun, and in the far west the dusk was growing. Absorbed in the search, he forgot that he had spent a whole day without food or rest. Herbert would wonder what had become of him; his good comrade might fear that he had fallen a prey to wild beast or savage, and he doubled his speed. But it was long after the moonlight came out when he reached the path leading to the village. Familiar now with all its windings and inequalities, he ran nearly all the way to the ledge, and presently he beheld Herbert standing there, gazing into the vast gulf of the canyon, now black with the darkness. He was not quite sure how his comrade would take the news of the failure to find the animals. Doubtless one reared as softly as Herbert would want to hurry back to civilization, and now he must wait.

“I must tell you,” he said when he reached the terrace, “that I have failed to discover the horse and mule. I have searched the canyon from end to end, and they are not here. At the north it is shut in by the peaks, and on the south by the desert. Where those horses have gone I do not know, but I do know that we are shipwrecked, and that, for the present, we cannot escape from our isle.” Herbert actually laughed.

“If we cannot go we must stay, which I think is good logic,” he said.

“It certainly is. It would be unwise for us to attempt the trip through the desert on foot. We should almost surely perish, but if we remain here a party seeking you will undoubtedly come in time. When your people are missed the government will send an expedition.”

“Then the safest, as well as the easiest, thing for us to do is to wait. I think it is settled, is it not?”

“Those whom it most concerns seem to agree on the subject.”

“Then will you come to your supper? It has been long waiting for you, and I’m hungry as a bear.”

The two lads went to the place that they had made their dining-room. A cheerful fire was burning, and now that the chill dusk had come its glow was very pleasant. The aroma of cooking food and of good coffee saluted Charles’ nostrils, and he began to feel how very hungry he was.

“It’s fine to come back to this,” he said. “It was a vain journey I took, but at least we know that we did our best.”

“That’s so,” Herbert said, “and don’t you think we should now begin to gather supplies? Suppose we try for the wild turkeys again in the morning?”

“It’s a good idea,” replied Charles. “There’s nothing like being forehanded.”

Much more they talked as they sat there through the supper, and for a while afterward, and their talk was wholly of the present, never of the past, which seemed to have slid so far away. The fire sank down and only the glowing coals remained. The moonlight had gone and it was dark on the mountains. From the great canyon the blackness seemed to roll up in waves. All the cliff houses had sunk long since into the shadows, and in the thick night showed only a single point of fire, on either side of which sat a human figure. They were lost in the immensity of the black void, and the wind moaned like a dirge among the peaks, but they felt neither despair nor fear.

From a point far above them rose a faint, weird cry, inexpressibly mournful and chilling, as it came in the thick darkness down the great gorge.

“Now, what under the sun was that?” exclaimed Herbert.

“The howl of a wolf,” replied Charles.

Then they returned to silence and their steady gazing into the coals, which crumbled and broke apart, and sent up little sparks as they fell. The wind rose and moaned in the canyon, but it conveyed no sense of loneliness or desolation to either. Behind them in the glow of the fire showed faintly the doors of the cliff houses, like openings into the ancient caves of primitive man. On all the continent a more ghostly and uncanny place could scarcely have been found. It was not alone in the wilderness, it was out of the world, mystic and unreal. Here time had not only stood still, the years were rolled back by the tens of thousands. In the sky far above a few stars twinkled, but in the canyon itself there was no ray of light. It was like the vast still world before life came.

As they agreed, the two went early the next morning in search of the wild turkeys, starting when the dawn had not yet fully come on the mountains, and the air was yet chill with the night In addition to a revolver each carried a rifle.

It was only the trace of a path that led from the village to the summit of the hill, but Charles had marked it well on his former journey, and the two climbed boldly, assisted by jutting rocks and dwarf pines. The chill was still in the air, and the west was yet dusky, but in the east great waves of light were rolling up from the gulf behind the mountains.

They hastened, because the day would soon be fully come, and it was important to find their turkeys, while they were yet in the trees, somewhat stiff with the night’s cold. Presently they came out on top of the cliff, and stood there a moment, looking at the mountains, rising terrace on terrace to the north, while, to the south, the earth was lost in a dim gray mist that was the desert. Here as in the gorge there was nothing human but the two lads.

It was a solitary world in the light as well as in the darkness.

“The pine forest in which the turkeys roost is not more than a quarter of a mile ahead,” said Charles, “and I feel sure that we shall find them there. My single shot the other day would not be sufficient to frighten them away permanently.”

Herbert was stepping very gently, and he began to understand the eagerness of the chase. He was breathing the rarefied air of the mountain crest, and he would justify his comrade’s confidence, proving that he could handle a rifle like a veteran.

Before them lay the pine forest, dark green, and yet dusky in the morning shadows, and perched among the branches Charles saw their game, a score or more, their glossy dark blue feathers, showing but faintly among the pines, which looked dark blue, too, in the early half light. He pointed them out to Herbert, and they crept a little nearer.

“Do you think you could hit the fat one in the nearest tree?” he asked.

“I’d like to try.” Herbert replied, his eyes sparkling.

Herbert raised his rifle and fired. The bird fell to the ground, and he uttered a little cry of triumph. Charles quickly fired also, and, as the confused turkeys fluttered among the trees, they secured three more. Then they went forward and picked up their prizes, which were more than trophies, being, in truth, a part of the treasure upon which their lives depended.

“Can’t I shoot?” asked Herbert triumphantly.

“These turkeys say so,” replied Charles.

They were fine, fat birds, and they would last some time. They could dry the meat in the sun, after the manner of jerking buffalo or deer, and add it to their store.

“I think while we’re here together we might explore a little,” said Charles. “We can hang these turkeys to a bough of a tree with a strip of bark, and they’ll be safe until we return.”

Herbert agreed with great readiness. The prospect of exploring new country appealed to him, and the scene about them was grand and romantic to the last degree. From the crest, where they were, their canyon was invisible, and the purple mountain beyond seemed but a continuation of that on which they stood. The white peaks, in a line to the north, were clearer and whiter now, and seemed to stand there, solemn and silent, a part of eternity itself. To the south, Thundergust now being to their left, there was nothing, only the gray swells of the desert rolling ceaselessly away, and from the great height on which they stood, hidden mostly in mists. The country around them had all the aspects of an island, surrounded by an ocean, on which no one ever sailed. But they gave no thought to it then, secure in themselves and their strength.

“I’m thinking that the pines stretch away for miles,” said Charles. “You know, or you don’t know, that the largest forest now standing in the United States is one of pine in Northern Arizona, and we must be in it, or somewhere on the fringe of it.”

It was in many respects a beautiful region that they trod. The pines rose before them in endless vistas, often in avenues, as if they had been planted by man. More than once they came to a cool little pool, or a tiny brook that trickled away, to fall down the steep sides of some gorge or canyon. There was little undergrowth, and the soil was dry beneath their feet. As they walked along, they breathed a wonderful perfume of pine and cedar, and it seemed to them that they could feel their strength grow.

“This would have been a splendid site for the village of the people whose houses we inhabit,” said Herbert.

“So it would have been,” said Charles, “but for one thing, and that was safety—among those old peoples safety came first of all, before comfort, beauty or anything else.”

“Yes, I know. I have felt it, too. Beautiful as it is here, I like the cliff best, at least at times.”

Charles understood—it was the feeling of security that the cliff gave—but he said nothing, and they continued their pleasant journey among the cathedral pines. The ground began to slope a little, and suddenly Charles stopped, seizing Herbert by the arm.

“Look!” he exclaimed.

The earth had opened at their feet, scarcely a foot before them, cleft to an interminable depth, as if by the slash of a mighty sword blade. Holding to a slender pine that grew at the very brink, they looked down, but the gorge was so narrow that they could see no bottom.

“It cannot be more than fifty feet from cliff to cliff at the top here,” said Charles, “but it might as well be a mile. We are absolutely cut off on this side.”

“It seems then that this may be a peninsula,” said Charles, “which merely heightens the wisdom of the cliff dwellers.”

“Yes, they lived in a bird’s nest.”

They turned to the westward and continued their explorations, both as eager and interested as if they had come into the Arizona mountains for that purpose, and no other. They had gone perhaps two miles when Charles stopped suddenly. Herbert, with marvelous quickness and without awaiting any other signal, did the same. His instinct had taken warning at once from his action, and it was his first belief that Charles had seen some foe, perhaps a wandering Apache who had scaled these heights. But he awaited the result with confidence.

“A deer,” whispered Charles. “Lo and behold! Rations on the hoof for many days.”

The deer, a fine buck, was standing among the pines some distance away. It was a long shot, but Charles was afraid to risk creeping closer lest the wind should carry the human odor and with it the alarm. But he wanted this deer, foreseeing that they must provide well against a possible lean time. All the primal instincts of precaution were alive in him, too. It seemed to him a matter of course that they should spend months in the canyon, the remainder of the hot season, the winter and whatever followed, and it was their duty to arrange for it. Hence he stole forward with the skill in trailing that he was now rapidly acquiring, and, with a good shot, slew the deer.

They now ceased their explorations in order to dress the body, and both were exultant. Their provisions had experienced a great increase, and since they had found one deer on the mountain they were likely to find more. Here was a splendid source of food supply, and, castaways as they were, they had ample cause for joy.

The day was waning when the task was finished, and then, bearing the body of the deer between them, they returned through the pine woods toward the canyon. It was a matter of extreme difficulty to carry their venison down the steep path to the shelf in the canyon, but Herbert, agile of body and sure of foot, and learning fast, gave much help. At last they reached home in triumph with their great prize. There they hung it securely to a bough of one of the trees that grew in the clefts, and then they lighted their fire, happy in the day’s good work.

That night the mountain lion, drawn by a tempting odor, that tickled his nostrils and that made him terribly hungry, again crept down the mountainside to the cliff dwellings. There he saw the rich food hanging from the tree, but that other and strange odor, the odor of human beings that he dreaded, came to his nostrils also, and, with longing looks backward at the body of the deer, he retreated once more from the shelf, climbing to the plateau and hiding himself in the pine forest. A troublesome equation had come lately into the life of this mountain lion who had long made free of an entire village, and he felt a puzzled sense of injustice. But the new occupants of the village slept peacefully. Affairs were going well with them. Now came days of work and absorption, work to develop their home, and absorption in the details. Herbert, the eastern lad, continually found new resources within himself. His mind became more acute, and his fingers understood how to achieve. He learned in a few hours to do physical tasks of which he had not thought himself capable, and he found every day a fresh interest and zest in the singular life that he and his comrade were leading. His very youth was in a way a help to him, as it made him forget. The dreadful scene in the valley was fading fast from his mind. George Carleton had been a harsh and unloved relative, and the pain of his death could not endure.

One day while his comrade was down in the canyon it occurred to Herbert to climb the plateau in search of wild turkeys. The turkey, whether wild or domestic, had been an important factor in the life of the cliff dweller, and in a wild state this great bird was now of equal value to them.

Herbert ascended the path now become familiar to the top of the cliff, and stood once more at the edge, where he could look upon the vast panorama of mountain, forest and turquoise sky, with the gray mist of the desert, hanging like a threat, low down on the horizon in the south. He had become very strong and very agile, but after the climb he was shorter of breath than usual, and he remained for a while at the crest, taking deep inhalations. He did not know that his weariness was due chiefly to an increasing warmth, of a close, suffocating quality that made the air lay very heavy upon the lungs. Yet there was a conspiracy against him, a conspiracy of mountains and sky and the spirit of the wilderness, and it was already at work. Far down the gray desert, so lone and bare, waves of burning air were rolling northward against the black basaltic wall of the mountain. Some broke there, but others surmounted the heights, to roll on over the plateau against the line of white peaks farther to the north where the cold air and the hot air met. Amid the deepest of the gorges and canyons a little wind was making a faint moan, but it did not reach the ears of the lad, whose mind was set only upon the task for which he had come.

Herbert entered the pine forest, but the turkeys were gone from the cluster of trees in which they were in the habit of taking their rest, frightened at last perhaps by the ravages of the marksmen, and he went on farther and farther in search of them. He was chagrined that his search had been fruitless; it hurt his pride to return empty-handed, and he persevered. Absorbed thus in the chase he did not notice that he had gone a long distance upon the plateau, leaving all landmarks behind, and coming into strange, new, broken country, covered with a tangled growth of dwarfed bushes. Here he paused, and for the first time began to look about him with some apprehension. There was a distinctly alien feeling in the atmosphere. The restless winds, which blew usually among the pine trees and the bushes, were quiet on the mountains. The hot, close air enveloped him, and there was a tinge of duskiness in the skies.

The spirit of the wilderness was abroad in a new phase. The conspiracy of earth, air and sky against him was well developed, and he was to be subjected to the last test. The moan of the wind among the far northern gorges grew, and rose now and then to a whistle, the hot air from the desert still rose up in waves, and met the chill air from the white peaks, great clouds formed and floated back from the peaks over the plateau.

But the winds that moaned in the gorges did not yet reach the summit, upon which Herbert stood. The bushes and scant grass were still lifeless, the heavy air remained breathless and still. He was stricken with an impending sense of danger. The primal instincts which had served to strengthen him also served now to warn him. For a moment or two he shivered instinctively with dread. The spirit of the wilderness, with its silence, its growing darkness and its hot, vaporous breath, like a dragon’s, made a formidable threat which he understood. The conspiracy against him was well advanced.

He looked about with a full apprehension of his peril, and while the primal instinct that gave warning remained, the primal strength that would defend was there, too.