The Heart of the Desert Part 31

"I hate to stop. One can't tell what Kut-le is up to!"

DeWitt squared his broad shoulders.

"Don't you worry, little girl. If he does find us he'll have to take us both! We'll just have to rest here for a moment. There's no use starting till we have our sense of direction again."

Rhoda raised her eyebrows. After all the fearful lessons, DeWitt had not yet come to a full realization of the skill and resourcefulness of Kut-le. The girl said nothing, however, but left the leadership to DeWitt. The sun was setting, turning to clear red and pale lavender a distant peak that then merged with the dusk, one could not tell when nor how. Rhoda and DeWitt sat at the foot of an inhospitable crag whose distant top, baring itself to the heavens, was a fearful climb above them.

Rhoda watched the sunset a little wistfully. She must impress on her memory every one that she saw now. She felt that her days in the desert were numbered.

DeWitt shook his empty canteen.

"It was mighty clever of you to bring a canteen. We've got to be careful of the water question. Of course, I'm confident we will reach camp this evening, but you can't be too careful of water anyhow. Lord!

Think of Jack Newman's face when we come strolling in! We ought to be back at the ranch in five days."

"Do you know it's going to be strange to talk with Katherine!"

exclaimed Rhoda. "She's a white woman, you know!"

DeWitt took both of Rhoda's brown little hands in his.

"I'm not appearing very sympathetic, sweetheart," he said. "But I'm so crazy with joy at having you again and of finding you so well that I don't know what I'm saying."

"John," said Rhoda slowly, "I don't need any sympathy! I tell you that this has been the most wonderful experience that ever came into my life. I have suffered!" Her voice trembled and John's hold on her hands tightened. "G.o.d only knows how I have suffered! But I have learned things that were worth the misery!"

DeWitt looked at her wide-eyed.

"You're a wonder!" he exclaimed.

Rhoda laughed softly.

"You ought to hear the Indians' opinion of me! Do you know what I've thought of lots of times lately? You know that place on the Hudson where men go when they are nervous wrecks and the doctor cures them by grilling them mentally and physically clear beyond endurance? Well, that's the sort of cure I've had, except that I've had two doctors, the Indian and the desert!"

DeWitt answered slowly.

"I don't quite see it! But I know one thing. You are about the gamest little thoroughbred I ever heard of!"

The moon was rising and DeWitt watched Rhoda as she sat with her hands clasping her knee in the boyish att.i.tude that had become a habit.

"You are simply fascinating in those clothes, Rhoda. You are like a beautiful slender boy in them."

"They are very comfortable," said Rhoda, in such a sedate matter-of-fact tone despite her blush that DeWitt chuckled. He threw his arm across her shoulder and hugged her to him ecstatically.

"Rhoda! Rhoda! You are the finest ever! I can't believe that this terrible nightmare is over! And to think that instead of finding you all but dead, you are a thousand times more fit than I am myself.

Rhoda, just think! You are going to live! To live! You will not be my wife just for a few months, as we thought, but for years and years!"

They stood in silence for a time, each one busy with the picture DeWitt's words had conjured. Then DeWitt emptied the pipe he had been smoking.

"Yonder is our peak, by Jove! It looked just so in the moonlight last night. I didn't recognize it by daylight. If you're rested, we'll start now. You must be dead hungry! I know I am!"

Refreshed and hopeful, they swung out into the wonder of the moonlit desert. They soon settled to each other's pace and with the full moon glowing in their faces they made for the distant peak.

"Now," said John, "tell me the whole story!"

So Rhoda, beginning with the moment of her abduction, told the story of her wanderings, told it simply though omitting no detail. Nothing could have been more dramatic than the quiet voice that now rose, now fell with intensity of feeling. DeWitt did not interrupt her except with a muttered exclamation now and again.

"And the actual sickness was not the worst," Rhoda continued after describing her experiences up to her sickness at Chira; "it was the delirium of fear and anger. Kut-le forced me beyond the limit of my strength. Night after night I was tied to the saddle and kept there till I fainted. Then I was rested only enough to start again. And it angered and frightened me so! I was so sick! I loathed them all so--except Molly. But after Chira a change came. I got stronger than I ever dreamed of being. And I began to understand Kut-le's methods.

He had realized that physically and mentally I was at the lowest ebb and that only heroic measures could save me. He had the courage to apply the measures."

"G.o.d!" muttered John.

Rhoda scarcely heeded him.

"It was then that I began to see things that I could not see before and to think thoughts that I could not have thought before. It was as if I had climbed a mental peak that made my old highest ideals seem like mere foothills!"

The quiet voice led on and on, stopping at last with Porter's advent that afternoon. Then Rhoda looked up into DeWitt's face. It was drawn and tense. His eyes were black with feeling and his close-pressed lips twitched.

"Rhoda," he said at last, "I thought most of the savage had been civilized out of me. But I tell you now that if ever I get a chance I shall kill that Apache with my bare hands!"

Rhoda laid her hand on DeWitt's arm.

"Kut-le, after all, has done me only a great good, John!"

"But think how he did it! The devil risked killing you! Think what you and we all have suffered! G.o.d, Rhoda, think!" And DeWitt threw his arm across his face with a sob that wrenched his shoulders.

Inexpressibly touched, Rhoda stopped and drew John's face down to hers, rubbing it softly with her velvet cheek.

"There, dear, there! I can't bear to see you so! My poor tired boy!

You have all but killed yourself for me!"

DeWitt lifted the slender little figure and held it tensely in his arms a moment, then set her gently down.

"A woman's magnanimity is a strange thing," he said.

"Kut-le will suffer," said Rhoda. "He risked everything and has lost.

He has neither friends nor country now."

"Much he cares," retorted DeWitt, "except for losing you!"

Rhoda made no answer. She realized that it would take careful pleading on her part to win freedom for Kut-le if ever he were caught. She changed the subject.

"Have you found living off the desert hard? I mean as far as food was concerned?"

"Food hasn't bothered us," answered John. "We've kept well supplied."

Rhoda chuckled.

"Then I can't tempt you to stop and have some roast mice with me?"

"Thank you," answered DeWitt. "Try and control your yearning for them, honey girl. We shall be at camp shortly and have some white man's grub."