The Forbidden Trail Part 46

By sun down he had covered several miles on either side of the ranch. He was covered with dust and his lips were cracking in spite of his free use of the canteen. He was tired to the very bones of him. The hot sand had blistered his feet. The cholla had torn his hands. When the sudden blackness of night descended, he determined to rest once more until the moon rose. He did not think that he was more than a mile from the ranch, but as there was still plenty of food and water, and as he was within ear-reach of possible gun-shots, there was no point in going home for the few hours' rest. He removed Peter's pack, gave him some oats and a mouthful of water, then started a tiny fire of greasewood twigs. It was very hot but Roger had seen several rattlers during the day and the idea of lying down in utter darkness did not appeal to him.

Yet, he did not sleep after all. He sat, wide-eyed, feeding the tiny blaze, trying to develop some new theory on the little girl's sudden disappearance. He had been pondering this for an hour when there came the sound of footsteps stumbling through the sand. He jumped trembling to his feet.

"Felicia! Oh, Felicia!" he cried.

"No! No! It's Charley!" a hoa.r.s.e voice answered and in a moment Charley appeared within the tiny circle of firelight. She was disheveled and pale, and evidently very, very tired, but still outwardly composed.

"Sit down and rest," said Roger. "Here, I've been sitting on Peter's pack blanket. There's room for us both, I guess."

Charley sank down with a grateful sigh and Roger, recalling his pipe, took it out, filled it and essayed several puffs, then established himself beside Charley.

"I couldn't stay indoors," she said. "d.i.c.k made us all lie down for a few hours' sleep, but I couldn't sleep. I thought perhaps she might have gone up the trail that she took when she went to find the Indians. If the Indian went down toward your camp, she would try to go in the opposite direction. And then, I got to wondering if she stole down to the camp, while we were all occupied with d.i.c.k, and finding it all dark, she got confused and--And then I wonder--"

Roger laid a quiet hand on the interlaced fingers with which Charley was clasping her knee.

"Easy now, Charley, easy. Have you had your supper?" Charley turned to look at him. His own eyes filled at the glimpse he got of the misery in her deep eyes--Felicia's eyes.

"Yes, I think I did," she answered.

"That's fine! Now is any one staying down at the camp in case she wanders in there?"

"Gustav's there."

"All right! Good old Gustav. It seems to me your idea about the Indian trail is a good one. How did you come clear up here, when you were headed into the range."

"My 'bug' went out and I'd lost my matches, so I wandered off the trail, I guess, till I saw your light."

"My heavens, Charley. But it was a horrible risk you ran! You might have--"

"Don't scold," said Charley drearily. "What does it matter?"

"I won't scold," replied Roger with a gentle note in his voice that no one but Felicia had ever heard. "Now, I tell you what we'll do. We'll just rest here until the moon comes up. Then we'll try the Indian trail.

Let's spread this blanket so you can lie down."

"I don't want to lie down. I just want to sit here by you. She loved you so."

"All right, Charley. I'll smoke and we'll buck each other up. How's d.i.c.k?"

"I don't really know. He won't let any of us touch him. He must be in great pain."

"I hope so," said Roger bitterly.

Charley made no reply. The process of bucking each other up did not proceed with much enthusiasm. The two sat brooding over the tiny blaze.

Now and again Peter returned from a short foraging expedition and thrusting a soft nose over one of their shoulders waited to have his forehead rubbed, then started off again.

Roger noted that Charley's pallor had given way to flushed cheeks, and suddenly he was aware that he too was parched and feverish; that try as he would to think, clearly, he could do nothing but wonder, impatiently, when the moon would rise and to fight down the picture that rose constantly of tiny Felicia wandering in an endless desert. Measuring the depth of his love for the child by the immensity of his fear, he was astounded by its greatness.

CHAPTER XIII

THE GREAT DIVIDE

The moon appeared at last and suddenly all the desert lay before them like molten silver. They rose, stiffly, and Charley helped Roger to replace the little pack on Peter. Roger led, Peter followed and Charley brought up in the rear. For hours, they toiled slowly up into the range, flashing their "bugs" into the shadows, stopping now and again to go over rock heap or cactus clump carefully, then on again, neither of them speaking, even to Peter, except to call at irregular intervals Felicia's name.

Dawn found them high in the range, in a little canyon, sweet with a tiny spring about which grew mesquite and bear gra.s.s. The black ashes of old fires were there, but nothing else. Roger broke the silence of hours:

"We're both going to get a sleep here, then I'm going to take you home.

We're way out of the reach of gun sound. They might have found her, you know."

They stood staring about them for a moment and listening. The unutterable silence of the desert was about them. Roger, eyes bloodshot, face unshaven, lips cracked, turned to Charley whose great eyes were sunk in her head, her lip colorless and drawn.

"Come," he said. "I'll cook the bacon and you unpack the rest of the grub. We simply haven't strength to get home without rest and food."

Charley had the remainder of the food ready for Roger when the bacon was cooked. They ate in silence, then Charley lay down on the pack blanket while Roger stretched out in a drift of sand beyond the spring. In utter weariness they both slept, unmindful of danger from snakes or vermin.

It was mid-morning when Roger woke. He sat up with a start and a sudden clear picture in his eyes of a spot in the desert where he had not searched. About a mile from the ranch and perhaps an eighth of a mile west of the trail at the base of the range was a little stone monument.

Roger had observed it but it was too small to shelter even Felicia's small frame in its shadows, so he had not troubled to make a close observation of the flat desert round about it. The picture which had awakened him was an extraordinarily vivid one of this monument. He resolved to examine it thoroughly on his way home.

Roger rose stiffly. Charley was lying on her face, her head pillowed on her arm. He moved over and touched her on the shoulder.

"Sorry, Charley," he said, "but we'd better start back."

The girl sat up, slowly. "I wasn't asleep," she said. "I've just been napping off and on. I can't sleep until I know."

"Perhaps we'll find her safe at home," Roger even managed a smile with his broken lips.

"Let's not stop to eat again!" exclaimed Charley.

Roger nodded. They reloaded Peter who was well gorged on spring water and the uncertain looking herbage that grew about its brim.

The trail back was nearly all downward and they had covered it by noon.

Roger told Charley of his strange awakening dream of which he made light, but when they sighted the little monument in the distance, they both hurried toward it.

It was there that they found Felicia. On the west side of the monument the prospector had begun a hole and left it. It was not over a foot in depth nor over three feet square. Too small to show in the vast levels of the desert until one was upon it and protected from view from the mountain because of the monument, tiny as it was, it was not too small to hold her little body, huddled face downward, arms and legs cramped.

Roger lifted her out and Charley, without a word, fainted. Roger groaned and covered his eyes for a moment, then he took the pack blanket and rolled the little body in it and left it while he turned to Charley. A part of the canteen of water poured gently over her face revived her. As soon as Roger saw that she was looking at him intelligently he said, sternly:

"Charley, you've got to brace up until we can get home. You must help me get you and her back by keeping as much of a grip on yourself as you can. Remember this is desert noon and we can't temporize. You mount Peter. We'll leave the pack here. I'll carry Felicia."

He took the shot gun from the pack and fired three shots into the air, followed by two more; the code that Ernest had suggested after the first night's hunt had led them to fear the worst. Then he lifted the little blanketed form across his breast and slowly led the way back to the ranch. He could not weep. He could not curse. He could only hope, blindly, that the volcano within him would not burst forth until his work was done.

Ernest met him a short distance from the ranch house, and took the little body from his arms, without a word. Roger turned back to Charley.

"I'm not coming up to the house just now," he said gruffly. "I'm afraid to see d.i.c.k."

Elsa, hurrying up to help her friend, tears streaming down her tired, pretty face, heard this: