Bransford of Rainbow Range Part 25

"Well?" Jeff turned his head. Charley was drooping visibly.

"Stop that foolish song!"

Jeff rode on in silence. This was a variable person, Gibson. They were dropping down from the mesa into the valley of the Rio Grande.

"Jeff!"

Jeff fell back beside Charley. "Tired, pardner?"

"Jeff, I'm terribly tired! I'm not used to riding so far; and I'm sleepy--so sleepy!"

"All right, pardner; we'll go slower. We'll walk. Most there now.

There's the railroad."

"Keep on trotting. I can stand it. We must get to the river before daylight. Is it far?" Charley's voice was weary. The broad sombrero drooped sympathetically.

"Two miles to the river. El Paso's seven or eight miles up the line.

Brace up, old man! You've done fine and dandy! It's just because the excitement is all over. Why should you go any farther, anyhow? There's Ysleta up the track a bit. Follow the road up there and flag the first train. That'll be best."

"No, no. I'll go all the way. I'll make out." Charley straightened himself with an effort.

They crossed the Espee tracks and came to a lane between cultivated fields.

"Jeff! I'd like to say something. It won't be breaking my promise really.... I didn't mean what I said about--you know. I was only teasing. She's a good enough girl, I guess--as girls go."

Jeff nodded. "I did not need to be told that."

"And you left her in a cruel position when you jumped out of the window. She _can't_ tell now, so long as there's any other way. What a foolish thing to do! If you'd just said at first that you were in the garden----Oh, why didn't you? But after the chances you took rather than to tell--why, Jeff, it would be terrible for her now."

"I know that, too," said Jeff. "I suppose I was a fool; but I didn't want her to get mixed up with it, and at the same time I cared less about hanging than any time I can remember. You see, I didn't know till the last minute that the garden was going to cut any figure. And do you suppose I'd have that courthouseful of fools buzzing and whispering at her? Not much! Maybe it was foolish--but I'm glad I did it."

"I'm glad of it, too. If you had to be a fool," said Charley, "I'm glad you were that kind of a fool. Are you still mad at me?"

Since Charley had recanted, and more especially since he had taken considerate thought for the girl's compulsory silence, Jeff's anger had evaporated.

"That's all right, pardner.... Only you oughtn't never to talk that way about a girl--even for a joke. That's no good kind of a joke. Men, now, that's different. See here, I'll give you an order to a fellow in El Paso--Hibler--to pay for your horses and your gun. Here's your belt, too."

Charley shook his head impatiently. "I don't want any money. Settle with Pappy for the horses. I won't take this one back. Keep the belt.

You may want it to beat me with sometime. What are you going to do, Jeff? Aren't you ever coming back?"

"Sure I'll come back--if only to see Griffith again. I'll write to John Wesley Pringle--he's my mainest side pardner--and sick him on to find out who robbed that bank--to prove it, rather. I just about almost nearly know who it was. Old Wes'll straighten things out a-flying. I'll be back in no time. I got to come back, Charley!"

The river was in sight. The stars were fading; there was a flush in the east, a smell of dawn in the air.

"Jeff, I wish you'd do something for me."

"Sure, Charley. What is it?"

"I wish you'd give me that little turquoise horse to remember you by."

Jeff was silent for a little. He had framed out another plan for the little eohippus--namely, to give him to Miss Ellinor. He sighed; but he owed a good deal to Charley.

"All right, Charley. Take good care of him--he's a lucky little horse. I think a heap of him. Here we are!"

The trees were distinct in the growing light. Jeff rode into the river; the muddy water swirled about his horse's knees. He halted for parting; Gibson rode in beside him. Jeff took the precious Alice book from his bosom, put it in the crown of his miner's cap and jammed the cap tightly on his head.

"Better change your mind, Charley. Come along. We'll rout somebody out and order a dish of stewed eggs.

"There is another sh.o.r.e, you know, upon the other side.

The farther off from England the nearer 'tis to France; Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and join the dance.

Will you--won't you----"

"'No, I won't! I told you once!'" snapped the beloved snail.

"Here's the little eohippus horse then." As Charley took it Jeff wrung his hand. "By George, I've got to change my notion of Arcadia people. If there's many like you and Griffith, Arcadia's going to crowd the map!...

Well--so long!"

"It looks awful wide, Jeff!"

"Oh, I'll be all right--swim it myself if the horse plays out--and if I don't have no cramps, as I might, of course, after this ride. Well--here goes nothin'! Take care of the little horse. I hope he brings you good luck!"

"Well--so long, then!"

Bransford rode into the muddy waters. They came to the horse's breast, his neck; he plunged in, sank, rose, and was borne away down the swift current, breasting the flood stoutly--and so went quartering across to the farther bank. It took a long time. It was quite light when the horse found footing on a sandbar half a mile below, rested, and splashed whitely through the shallows to the bank. Gibson swung his sombrero.

Jeff waved his hand, rode to the fringing bushes, and was gone.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LAND OF AFTERNOON

"Dreaming once more love's old sad dream divine."

Los Banos de Santa Eulalia Del Norte, otherwise known as Mud Springs, is a Mexican hamlet with one street of about the same length. Los Banos and Co. lies in a loop of the Rio Grande, half of a long day from El Paso, in mere miles; otherwise a contemporary of Damascus and Arpad.

Thither, mindful of the hot springs which supply the preliminaries of the name, Mr. Bransford made his way: mindful too, of st.u.r.dy old Don Francisco, a friend twice bound by ancient service given and returned.

He climbed the slow long ridges to the high _mesa_: for the river bent here in a long ox-bow, where a bold promontory shouldered far out to bar the way: weary miles were to be saved by crossing the neck of this ox-bow, and the tough horse tired and lagged.

The slow sun rose as he reached the Rim. It showed the wide expanse of desert behind him, flooded with trembling light; eastward, beyond the river, the b.u.t.tressed and fantastic peaks of Fray Cristobal; their jutting shadows streaming into the gulf beyond, athwart the silvery ribbon of gleaming water, twining in mazy loops across the valley floor: it showed the black Rim at his feet, a frowning level wall of lava cliff, where the plain broke abruptly into the chasm beneath; the iron desolation of the steep sides, boulder-strewn, savage and forbidding:

"_A land of old up-heaven from the abyss._"

Long since, there had been a flourishing Mexican town in the valley. A wagonroad had painfully climbed a long ridge to the Rim, twisting, doubling, turning, clinging hazardously to the hillside, its outer edge a wall built up with stone, till it came to the shoulder under the tremendous barrier. From there it turned northward, paralleling the Rim in mile-long curve above a deep gorge; turning, in a last desperate climb, to a solitary gateway in the black wall, torn out by flood-waters through slow centuries. Smallpox had smitten the people; the treacherous river had devastated the fertile valley, and, subsiding, left the rich fields a waste of sand. The town was long deserted; the disused road was gullied and torn by flood, the soil washed away, leaving a heaped and crumbled track of tangled stone. But it was the only practicable way as far as the sand-hills, and Jeff led his horse down the ruined path, with many a turning back and scrambling detour.

The shadows of the eastern hills drew back before him as he reached the sand-dunes. When he rode through the silent streets of what had been Alamocita, the sun peered over Fray Cristobal, gilding the crumbling walls, where love and laughter had made music, where youth and hope and happiness had been.... Silent now and deserted, given over to lizard and bat and owl, the smiling gardens choked with sand and gra.s.s, springing with _mesquite_ and _tornillo_; a few fruit trees, gnarled and tangled, drooping for days departed, when young mothers sang low lullaby beneath their branches.... Pa.s.sed away and forgotten--hopes and fears, tears and smiles, birth and death, joy and sorrow, hatred and sin and shame, falsehood and truth and courage and love. The sun shone cheerfully on these gray ruins--as it has shone on a thousand such, and will shine.