The Heart of the Desert Part 41

THE END OF THE TRAIL

The canon was sandy and rough. Rhoda could see the monastery set among olive-trees. Beyond this where the canon opened to the desert she knew that the white men's camp lay, though she could not see it.

She had no fear of losing her way, with the canon walls hemming her in.

She still was sobbing softly to herself as she started along the foot of the wall. She tramped steadily for a time, then she stopped abruptly. She would not go on! The sacrifice was too much! She looked back to the canon top. Kut-le had disappeared. Already he must be only a memory to her!

Then of a sudden Rhoda felt a sense of shame that her strength of purpose should be so much less than the Indian's. At least, she could carry in her heart forever the example of his fort.i.tude. It would be like his warm hand guiding and lifting her through the hard days and years to come. Strangely comforted and strengthened by this thought, Rhoda started on through the familiar wilderness of the desert.

This, she thought, was her last moment alone in the desert, for without Kut-le she would never return to it. She watched the gray-green cactus against the painted rock heaps. She watched the brown, tortured crest of the canon against the violet sky. She watched the melting haze above the monastery, the buzzards sliding through the motionless air, the far multi-colored ranges, as if she would etch forever on her memory the world that Kut-le loved. And she knew that, let her body wander where it must, her spirit would forever belong to the desert.

Rhoda pa.s.sed the monastery, where she thought she saw men among the olive-trees. But she did not stop. She gradually worked out into an easy trail that led toward the open desert.

The little camp at the canon's mouth was preparing to move when Jack Newman jumped excitedly to his feet. Coming toward them through the sand was a boyish figure that moved with a beautiful stride, tireless and swift. As the newcomer drew nearer they saw that she was erect and lithe, slender but full-chested and that her face--

"Rhoda!" shouted John DeWitt.

In a moment, Jack was grasping one of her hands and John DeWitt the other, while Billy Porter and Carlos shook each other's hands excitedly.

"Gee whiz!" cried Jack. "John said you were in superb condition, but I didn't realize that it meant this! Why, Rhoda, if it wasn't for your hair and eyes and the dimple in your chin, I wouldn't know you!"

"Are you all right?" asked DeWitt anxiously. "Where in the world did you come from? Where have you been?"

"Were you hurt much in the fight?" cried Rhoda. "Oh!" looking about at the eager listeners, "that was the most awful thing I ever saw, that fight! And Billy Porter, you are all right, I see. How shall I ever repay you all for what you have done for me!"

"Gosh!" exclaimed Porter. "I'm repaid just by looking at you! If that pison Piute hasn't made monkeys of us all, I'd like to know who has!

How did you get away from him?"

"He let me go," answered Rhoda simply.

The men gasped.

"What was the matter with him!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Porter, "Was he sick or dying?"

"No," said Rhoda mechanically; "I guess he saw that it was useless."

"And he dropped you in the desert without water or food or horse!"

cried DeWitt. "Oh, that Apache cur!"

"No! No!" exclaimed Rhoda. "He dropped me not far from here. We saw the camp and he sent me to it."

The men looked at each other incredulously. Jack Newman's face was puzzled. He knew Kut-le and it was hard to believe that he would give up what he already had won. DeWitt spoke excitedly.

"Then he's still within our reach! Hurry up, friends!"

Rhoda turned swiftly to the gaunt-faced man. Then she spoke very distinctly, with that in her deep gray eyes that stirred each listener with a vague sense of loss and yearning.

"I don't want Kut-le harmed! I shan't tell you anything that will help you locate him. He did me no harm. On the contrary, he made me a well woman, physically and mentally. If I can forgive his effrontery in stealing me, surely you all will grant me this favor to top all that you have done for me."

Porter's under lip protruded with the old obstinate look.

"That fellow's got to be made an example of, Miss Rhoda," he said. "No white that's a man can stand for what he's done. He's bound to be hunted down, you know. If we don't, others will!"

Rhoda turned impatiently to DeWitt.

"John, after all our talk, you must understand! You know what good Kut-le has done me and how big it was of him to let me go. Make them promise to let him alone!"

But there was no answering look of understanding in DeWitt's worn face.

"Rhoda, you haven't any idea what you're asking! It isn't a question of forgiveness! You don't get the point of view that you ought! Why, the whole country is worked up over this thing! The newspapers are full of it. Just as Porter says, the Apache's got to be made an example of. We will hunt him down, if it takes a year!"

So far Jack Newman had said nothing. Rhoda looked at him as if he were her last hope.

"Oh, Jack!" she cried. "He was your friend, your dearest friend! And he sent me back! Why, you never would have got me if he hadn't voluntarily let me go! He is wonderful on the trail!"

"So we found!" said DeWitt grimly.

But Rhoda was watching Jack.

"Rhoda," Jack said at last, "I know how you feel. I know what a bully chap Kut-le is. This just about does me up. But what he's done can't be let go. We've got to punish him!"

"'Punish him!'" repeated Rhoda. "Just what do you mean by that?"

"We mean," answered DeWitt, "that when we find him, I'll shoot him!"

"No!" cried Rhoda. "No! Why he _sent me back_!"

The three men looked at Rhoda uncomfortably and at each other wonderingly. A woman's magnanimity is never to be understood by a man!

"Are you tired, Rhoda?" asked DeWitt abruptly. "Do you feel able to take to the saddle at once?"

"I'm all right!" exclaimed Rhoda impatiently. "What are your plans?"

DeWitt pointed out across the sand to the canon wall. A line of slender footprints led through the level wastes as plainly as if on new-fallen snow.

"We will follow your trail," he said.

There was silence for an instant in the little camp while the men eyed the girlish face, flushed and vivid beneath the tan. As it had come when DeWitt had rescued her, the old sense of the appalling nature of her experience was returning to her again. With sickening clarity she was getting the men's view-point. The old Rhoda would have protested, would have fought desperately and blindly. The new Rhoda had lived through hours of hopeless battle with circ.u.mstance. She had learned the desert's lesson of patience.

"I have thought," she said slowly, "so much of the joy of my return to you! G.o.d only knows how the picture of it has kept me alive from day to day. All _your_ joy seems swallowed up in your thirst for revenge.

All right, my friends. Only, wherever you go, I go too!"

Billy Porter shook his head with a muttered "Gosh!" as if the ways of women were quite beyond him.

"I think you had better ride on to the ranch with Carlos," said DeWitt, "while we take up Kut-le's trail. This will be no trip for a woman."

"You're foolish!" exclaimed Jack. "We'll not let her out of our sight again. You can't tell what stunt Kut-le is up to!"

"That's right!" said Porter. "It'll be hard on her, but she'd better come with us."