On A Donkey's Hurricane Deck Part 41

Very good; well kissed! an excellent courtesy.--_Oth.e.l.lo._

By the time our caravan reached St. Johns, Pye Pod was bewailing his failure to discover the key to his typewriter's character, the non-production of his newspaper letter, and the forfeiture of the check it would have brought him; besides, he was borrowing trouble by deploring his prospective desert journey ere it had begun.

"What a sleepy old hamlet in which to bid farewell to earth!" he muttered dejectedly, as we pa.s.sed the first house. "I'll bet 13 to 1 that there isn't a soul in the whole settlement to welcome us.

The great and only Pythagoras Pod, D. D. (donkey driver), pa.s.seth through with his stately train and entereth the seared and th.o.r.n.y purgatory of the desert without the perfume of a single rose to waft to him its balm of comforting sympathy."

Suddenly a happy cheer greeted our ears in the distance. The sound was sweetly feminine, and Pod said that to his sensitive ear the angelic chimes swelled and died and softly returned, like the tender notes of the nightingale in an echo vale. (Pod is often swelled by the divine inflatus). At this time not a soul beyond our outfit was visible, but soon we discovered in the foreground of a kennel-shaped schoolhouse a bevy of girls, all clad in white and garnished with flowers and delicate vines. As we drove near, the whole band of pretty maidens, led by the tallest of them, approached and surrounded us. I knew not whether Pod was frightened or elated; he fell off my back in an effort to dismount gracefully.

The pretty chieftess made a bow, and looked at the sky, and played nervously with her skirt, and turned side-ways, and finally began to intone her "Him of the Asinine Pilgrimage."

"n.o.ble and valorous courtier," she began softly--and a donk of the party brayed, "Speak louder!"--"we daughters of St. Johns, Queen of the Desert, come to greet you with kind and admiring hearts."

(c.o.xey brayed boisterously, "Here, Here!") "We hail your brilliant achievement, as the planets hail the sun"--("What a Venus that middle one," I confided to Pod)--"Your courage, your fort.i.tude, your manly sacrifice of the a.s.sociations of your nativity and of the affectionate kisses of dear ones left behind you. These, we deem, should be recognized. Therefore, having learned that you and your stately caravan were coming by this highway and that your trusty charger, Mac A'Rony, was still standing faithfully by you"

(I bowed at the compliment)--"and your poultroon of long-eared cavalry"--"For Balaam's sake! What's that she calls us?" I questioned my mute master. "She means 'Platoon,' not 'poultroon,'"

he explained--"St. Johns has befittingly chosen the flowers of her desert garden--thirteen comely virgins--to be presented to you on this momentous occasion. And so, in honor of your famous exploits," continued the chieftess, composedly, "we now come to meet the lion fearlessly in his desert haunts. Here, take these flowers" (she handed Pod a bunch) "and wear them. They will prove a talisman to conduct you and your party in safety to the farther desert sh.o.r.e." And with the most exalted, sweet-scented nerve Pod accepted the bokay. He smelled of it, and examined it, and then disappointedly yet courageously replied: "I see no tulips among the flowers, and I love two-lips so much."

"Indeed? Well, then you shall not be disappointed," said the pretty speaker; and, s'help me Balaam! If that girl didn't step forward and give my surprised master her two lips. And every one of the dozen others, except the last one, gave hers too, or drown me in an alkali pond. The last girl sensibly boxed his ears. Pod just kissed every mouth of them, from the eldest to the youngest, save the one. The touching ceremonies over, I rather expected my master to respond eloquently in a few well-chosen words, but he was speechless. "Speech!" cried Cheese, and every donkey of us repeated, "Speech, Speech!" Then Pod found his tongue and began:

"Beautiful and spicy sage-flowers," he bungled; and the maidens'

sweet faces colored,--"I am completely overcome with this splendid ovation. As frogs dive into a crystal pool, you have disturbed the morbid surface of my present feelings with radiating ripples which shall widen and cease to fade into oblivion only when I shall have reached the desert's opposite strand. The honey you have left on my lips shall sweeten my ertswhile bitter hours, and the milk of your human kindness will quench my thirst when the last drop in my canteen has evaporated. Now I must bid you all a fond and affectionate farewell."

At once the silver-tongued orator went down the line again, kissing each and every one of the dozen he had sampled before; then he got into my saddle. The thirteen foolish virgins backed sorrowfully against the barbed wire fence with handkerchiefs to their eyes; the blushing, crimson sun hid his phiz behind the distant mountains; a dumb weatherc.o.c.k tried to crow as he tucked himself to roost on a neighboring barn; and our caravan moved on toward the desert waste.

"A complete triumph," remarked the Professor, swelled with pride; "but for that eldest prude who slapped my face."

"The incident points a moral," I returned. "Don't attempt to pet every cat that purrs."

CHAPTER XLVIII.

BY PYE POD.

The lottery of my destiny Bars me the right of voluntary choosing.

--_Shakespeare._

Rocky Mountain canaries were singing their lullabys and Bridget (the clock) had just called eleven o'clock when the house of St.

Joer loomed in the darkness. A hush was upon it and all the out-buildings. Though n.o.body greeted me, still I knew where I was by the odd-looking arch over the corral gate. Mr. St. Joer was at the soiree in Tooele, and had made me promise to tarry with him a night before braving the desert; so we camped in the corral. We were awakened early by the genial ranchman, and escorted in to breakfast with him and a guest, a young man from Salt Lake City, who had just ridden horseback from Granite Mountain, where he had been inspecting some lead mines.

It was a treat for me to sit again at a meal not cooked by myself; all four of us ate with genuine relish. The stranger was about thirty, of light complexion, tall and slender, and was dressed in a n.o.bby riding-suit, with leather leggings and spurs.

"If you take the Granite Mt. trail to Redding Springs," suggested my host, turning to the young engineer for his indors.e.m.e.nt--"but no, that's too risky," he corrected.

"Save forty miles and more," commented the engineer. "I can give the Professor a diagram of the desert and all the trails to Fedora Spring in Granite Mt.; the trail from there to Redding is not confusing, I understand."

I said I would take the risk to save forty miles, a two days'

journey. My first intention had been to go south of the desert by Fish Springs, the route generally traveled by emigrant schooners.

Three hours later, we were climbing the rocky summit of the range that hid the great desert beyond, and threading the jagged causeway called the Devil's Gate.

They rose sheer and craggy high above us--immutable witnesses of that sundering catastrophe of nature when the earth's mighty convulsions of a prehistoric age converted an obstacle into a convenient pa.s.s. When out on the western side and I beheld the broad expanse of sun-tanned desert reaching from that sage mottled slope to the parallel-stretch of mesa, some twenty miles away, the intervening Skull Valley lost for me its legendary terrors. But it was a forlorn-looking prospect; only two things made up the perfect picture of a despised Nature--alkali and sage.

About noon, when we had proceeded some distance into the Skull Valley desert, we stopped to feed and rest an hour before resuming the march. As we seemed to have abundance of water and provisions, this glaring solitude with such a lugubrious name caused me no dread sensations, for when supplied with the necessities of life, it is difficult for one to realize the dying man's agonies of starvation or thirst.

By six we had crossed Skull Valley. The last mile of trail wound up a slight grade to a gra.s.sy bench, where stood a low-roofed, log shack; it was the deserted Scribner's Ranch. A few moment's reconnoitering resulted in our finding the spring.

Then we unpacked and picketed the animals, excepting Mac A'Rony, who was usually allowed to roam at will; for when tied, he was forever tangling himself in a snarl that required time and patience to unravel.

Our tent was pitched a hundred feet from the shack, whose dusky contour, wrapped in the sombre veil of night, on the mesa above us and against the sparkling firmament, looked cold and repelling indeed.

Day had advanced two hours when we awoke. The broad desert to the west gleamed at white heat. While I cooked breakfast, c.o.o.nskin saddled the animals, to save time; then, the meal over, we quickly packed and started for the scorching sands. The trail was as hot and level as a fire-brick floor. As far as the eye could reach in three directions, the blue, curved dome of heaven and the glistening desert met in a gaseous haze, hiding the horizon, but in time, far to the west, as we proceeded gradually, rose a bluish-gray pyramid, which we know to be Granite Mountain; while, to the rear, the distant hills, where stood the deserted cabin, looked to be mere dust-heaps at the base of Nature's architecture--the towering rocks of the Cedar Mountains through which we trailed the morning before.

Every few minutes we had to tap our canteens; the powdered alkali dust rose in our faces and swelled our eyes and tongues; no amount of water would alleviate our pangs of thirst. Besides, the evaporation of the water in our cloth-wrapped canteens and basket-covered demijohn was frightfully great; I feared lest the supply would not last us through to Fedora Spring. I gave Don frequent drinks, yet his eyes were blood-shot and his tongue hung out foaming and swollen. As a precaution against any sudden freak of madness on his part, I held my revolver in readiness to dispatch the dear fellow should it become necessary.

On the other hand, my donkeys strode along quietly, without complaint or seeming discomfort, as if in their native element.

Not a living thing could we see beyond our caravan. No jack-rabbits ventured into the desert; no more would a water-spaniel breast a scalding sea. The only living thing we met with in that gigantic kiln was a horned toad, which was existing as a hermit and was apparently content. We captured it, and c.o.o.nskin named it Job, because the horns which covered it looked like the extinct craters of once boiling boils. Our water was vanishing so rapidly by noon that I decided not to tarry for lunch and rest, but to hasten to the spring; but at five, when the sun was nearer the horizon and evaporation less, I ordered a dry camp, and the donkeys were unpacked and grained with the last of the barley generously presented by St. Joer. We men lunched on cold meat and crackers and canned fruit, and sparing draughts of warm water; after which we reclined and smoked until the sun set. Then we repacked before darkness set in to confuse us. How the donkeys did enjoy rolling in the alkali! When they had finished their dry ablutions they looked like negroes who had been hit with a bag of flour.

Just before resuming the march, we men poured a few drops of citric acid into our two quart canteens, whose tepid water was only an aggravation of our thirst; the acid made it palatable.

Soon afterward I discovered our great error. The acid so worked on the tin that the water became, in time, unfit to drink; fearing lest it would poison us, we both had to throw the precious liquid away.

About mid-way that afternoon I saw my first mirage. It was simply magnificent, wonderful! A snow-crowned mountain rose out of the desert, and on top of it, turned bottom-side up, rested its counterpart, both phantom peaks remaining a while immovable; then they appeared to crush into each other and dissolve. The spectacle was bewildering. Like mammoth icebergs in a glistening sea, they seemed to melt and leave on the arid waste a great lake of crystal water. At sundown they reappeared with still grander effect.

The sun threw a crimson, fiery mantle over the under mountain, which produced the effect of flowing lava down its snow-white slope to a flame-red lake on the desert, while above, on the upper mountain, reflected and danced shadows of rose-color and pink, as if reflected from flames within the crater of a volcano underneath. Then, as the sun sank below the horizon, the upper mountain gradually rose toward the zenith and opened wider, like a great fan, tinted with all the colors of a rainbow, until it faded into radiating webs of gossamer, and disappeared.

One other time we saw plainly the skeletons of a man and a horse glistening several hundred feet from the trail, but I was too incredulous to put faith in the old proverb, "Seeing is believing," and pa.s.sed on. Just before dark the huge Granite Mountain looked to be only a couple of miles away. Still we traveled till midnight before we pa.s.sed the edge of the dusky pile, so deceiving are distances in that rarified air.

The evening in that cooling oven of baked sand and alkali was oppressively long, dull and wearisome. Every trail branching toward Granite Mountain had to be checked off my diagram, for we had seen no sign-board. True, the heavens lent a little cheer with their sparkling lights, but the temperature fell from far above the 100 degree mark to 70 degrees by eight o'clock, and to 48 degrees before we pitched camp. We had pa.s.sed three trails not on the diagram, and I began nervously to speculate whether the sign-board had been taken by some overland voyager for fuel and we had pa.s.sed the trail to Fedora Spring.

The clock pointed to one. A few moments later a well-beaten trail curved southward toward the towering pyramid of rock. I called a halt to reason with my man on the advisability of following it.

"We'll chance it," I said; and we trailed toward the mountain.

Narrower, rockier and steeper grew the trail for two miles, before I discerned the sloping sides of the canyon we were in, when I ordered camp. The donkeys were securely picketed to the roots of giant sage with our longest ropes, to enable them to find sleeping places among the rocks; I knew they must be very thirsty, and would try to break away in search of water. Then we made our bed in the trail, and with lantern went to find the spring; but we searched in vain and returned to our camp-fire discouraged.

Evidently we had taken a wood-trail into a dry canyon.

Only half a two-quart canteen of water was left us. We ate a cold lunch, and drank sparingly; after which I took charge of the canteen for the night. c.o.o.nskin remonstrated at once, saying he was thirsty. I said I was, too, and that when I should drink, he could, but not otherwise. We were in desperate circ.u.mstances, and I must exercise my authority. So we crawled into our blankets, on the hard and narrow trail under the glittering canopy of heaven, and were soon asleep. But, before lying down, with a realizing sense that we were lost and without the water to keep us alive half the distance either to Skull Valley or to Redding Springs, I knelt in fervent prayer to G.o.d to guide us out of that awful wilderness to water in time to save us from the death that seemed to be in store for us on the morrow. The beaming planets, also voyagers on a limitless sea of mystery and doubt, looked down, cold and unsympathetic. c.o.o.nskin was first asleep; when I was sure, by his breathing, I quietly rose and gave my faithful dog a few drops of water in the wash basin. He was grateful indeed, and tried to be content; he seemed to realize the situation, and licking my cheek, lay down close to my side.

The sun shone over the walls of the canyon and awoke us frightfully late. We stretched and yawned. Now, I thought, if I had only taken Mac's suggestion to lay in a store of carrots and turnips, the water in the vegetables would have sufficed in emergency, and the donkeys had feed.

As my hopeful outfit tramped and slipped and tumbled down to the shining plain, I almost felt I could see my finish on that sun-scorched lime-hued gridiron which faded away into a gaseous nothingness in three directions. When we came to the main desert trail, I halted my caravan to debate with my despondent valet as to what would be the wisest move. Should we go east or west?

"Flip a penny," said c.o.o.nskin, "Heads, west; tails, east!" and he at once threw the coin whirling in the air, and caught it, tails up.

"West we have been traveling, and west we shall continue to go," I said positively; and gave the command to move on, adding: "If we fail to discover the sign-board after pa.s.sing beyond the mountain, then we'll come back and search to the east."

We had proceeded a mile and a half when c.o.o.nskin went crazy, or had a fit, and I emptied the canteen in his mouth. This revived him. He had partially undressed and was trying his best to frighten me and the dog. The sun beat down furiously; the sky wasn't the only thing that looked blue. I raised the canteen to my lips and drained it of the last and only drop. My tongue hung out swollen, and my palate and throat burned. Another half mile, and I should have despaired, when, suddenly, a small white board, nailed to a short stake, loomed up ahead of us. I knew intuitively it marked the branch trail to the coveted spring. No two happier mortals ever lived than c.o.o.nskin and I. We threw our hats in the air; we shouted, and hurrahed, and sang; and turned handsprings and somersaults on the white, dusty floor of the desert. An hour later my little caravan had climbed the canyon to its fountain, and there we men fell on our stomachs with my dog, under the heels of the five donkeys which crowded about the cool, delicious waters, and drank until seized by the collar and dragged away from the spring by a man and boy.