The Rim of the Desert Part 5

"Two-forty-five. And say"--he slapped his knee at the sudden thought-- "that's your chance, sure. I have orders to hold them for the eastbound silk train, and they'll let you ride in the caboose up to Kitt.i.tas. That's the stop this side of Ellensburg, and there's a livery there, with a cross-road to strike the Ellensburg-Wenatchee. But, say! If you do drop off at Kitt.i.tas, ask Lighter to show you the colts. They are the star team in three counties. Took the prize at North Yakima last year for three-year-olds. They're too fly for livery work, but if you can drive, and Lighter likes your looks"--the station master gave Tisdale a careful scrutiny--"and you have his price, I shouldn't wonder if you could hire Nip and Tuck."

Tisdale laughed. "I see. If I can't hire them, I may be allowed the privilege to buy them. But," and he looked at his watch, "there's time to try that ranch."

He started down the platform then stopped to look back at the girl who had followed a few steps from the threshold. Her eyes held their expression of uncertainty whether to sparkle or to cloud, and he read the arrested question on her lips. "If there are any saddle-horses," he answered, "I will have them here before that two-forty-five freight arrives, but," and he smiled, "I am not so sure I can supply the proper riding-suit. And the most I hope for in saddles is just a small Mexican."

"A Mexican is easy riding," she said, "on a mountain road." But she stood watching him, with the uncertainty still clouding her face, while he moved down the draw.

He wore the suit of gray corduroy it was his habit to wear in open country, with leggings of russet leather, and he traveled very swiftly, with a long, easy stride, though never rapidly enough to wholly escape the dust he disturbed. Once he stopped and bent to fasten a loose strap, and then he took off his coat, which he folded to carry. The pall of dust enveloped him. In it his actions gathered mystery, and his big frame loomed indistinctly like the figure of a genii in a column of smoke. The fancy must have occurred to the watcher on the platform, for it was then the sparkles broke in her eyes, and she said aloud, softly clapping her hands: "I wish--I wish it to be Nip and Tuck."

"So do I." She started and turned, and the station master smiled. "They're beauties, you can take my word. It would be the drive of your life."

He carried his office chair around the corner of the building to place for her in the shade. Then his instrument called him, and for an interval she was left alone. The desert stretched before her, limitless, in the glare of the afternoon sun. If the Columbia flowed in that neighborhood, it was hidden by sand dunes and decomposing cliffs of granite. There was no glimpse of water anywhere, not a green blade; even the bunch gra.s.s, that grew spa.r.s.ely between the sage-brush through the draw, was dry and gray.

For a while no sound but the click of the telegraph disturbed the great silence, then a hot wind came wailing out of the solitudes and pa.s.sed into a fastness of the mountains.

Finally the station master returned. "Well," he said genially, "how are you making it? Lonesome, I guess."

"Oh," she exclaimed, "how can you, how could any human being, live in this dead, worn-out world?"

"It is desolate now," he admitted, sending a thoughtful glance over the arid waste; "it must seem like the Great Sahara to you, coming into it for the first time and directly from the Puget Sound country. I remember how I felt when I struck the Hesperides. Why, it looked like the front door of Hades to me; I said so, and I called myself all kinds of a fool. But I had sunk an even thousand dollars in a twenty-acre tract; bought it off a real estate map over in Seattle, without seeing the ground." He laughed, half in embarra.s.sment at the confession, and moved to take a more comfortable position against the wall. "I was in a railroad office in Chicago," he explained, "and my father expected me to work up to the responsible position he held with the company and take it when he was through. But the western fever caught me; I wanted to come to Washington and grow with the country. He couldn't talk me out of it; so he gave me that thousand dollars and told me to go and to stay till I made good."

"Oh," she cried, "how hard! How miserable! And you?"

"Why, I stayed. There wasn't anything else to do. And after I looked around the valley a little and saw the Peshastin ditch and what it could do, I got busy. I found work; did anything that turned up and saved like a miser, until I was able to have the land cleared of sagebrush. It has mean roots, you know, sprawling in all directions like the branches. Then I saved to make connections with the ditch and to buy trees. I set the whole twenty acres to apples--I always did like a good apple, and I had sized up the few home orchards around Wenatchee--then I put in alfalfa for a filler, and that eased things, and I settled down to office work, small pay, lots of time to plan, and waited for my trees to grow. That was four years ago, five since I struck the Wenatchee valley, and this season they came into bearing. Now, at the end of this month, I am giving up my position with the Milwaukee, cutting railroading for good, to go over and superintend the harvesting. And say"--he stood erect, the inner glow illumined his face--"I've had an offer for my crop; three hundred and fifty dollars an acre for the fruit on the trees. Three hundred and fifty dollars for a four-year-old orchard! Think of that! Seven thousand clear for re-investment."

"How splendid!" she said, and in that instant her face seemed to catch and reflect his enthusiasm. "To have waited, fought like that in the face of defeat, and to have made good."

"And it's only the beginning," his voice caught a little; "an apple orchard has bigger results every year after maturity. There's a man over there on the Wenatchee who is going to make a thousand dollar profit on each acre of his twelve-year orchard. You ought to see those trees, all braced up with scaffolding, only fourteen acres of them, but every branch loaded. But that orchard is an exception; they had to lift water from the river with buckets and a wheel, and most of the pioneers put in grain.

Their eyes are just beginning to open. But think of Hesperides Vale in another five years. And think what that High Line ditch means. Just imagine it! Water, all you can use and running to waste; water spilling over in this sage-brush desert. Doesn't it spell oasis? Think of it! Gra.s.s and flowers and shade in place of this sunbaked sand and alkali."

"It sounds like a fairy tale," she said. "I can hardly believe it."

"I'll show you." He hurried around to the office door and came back directly with a basket of fruit. "Here are a few samples from my trees.

Did you ever see pink like that in a bellflower? Isn't it pretty enough for a girl's cheek? And say," he held up an exceedingly large apple, nearer the size of a small pumpkin, "how's this for a Rome Beauty? An agent who is selling acreage for a company down the Yakima offered me five dollars for that apple yesterday. He wanted it for a window display over at his Seattle office. But look at these Jonathans." His sensitive fingers touched the fruit lingeringly with a sort of caress, and the glow deepened in his face. "They represent the main crop. And talk about color! Did you ever see wine and scarlet and gold blend and shade nicer than this?"

She shook her head. "Unless it was in a Puget Sound cloud effect at sunset. That is what it reminds me of; a handful of Puget Sound sunset."

The station master laughed softly. "That's about it, sure. Now taste one and tell me what the flavor of a Wenatchee Jonathan is like. No, that's not quite ripe; try this."

She set her small white teeth in the crimson cheek and tested the flavor deliberately, with the gravity of an epicure, while the boy watched her, his whole nervous frame keyed by her responsiveness to high pitch. "It's like nothing else in the world," she said finally. "No, wait, yes, it is.

It's like condensed wine; a blend of the best; golden Angelica, red port, amber champagne, with just enough of old-fashioned cider to remind you it is an apple."

The station master laughed again. "Say, but you've got it all in, fine."

He set the basket at her feet and stood looking down at her an uncertain moment. "I would like awfully well to send you a box," he added, and the flush of his bellflower was reflected in his cheek.

She gave him a swift upward glance and turned her face to the desert.

"Thank you, but when one is traveling, it is hard to give a certain address." In the pause that followed, she glanced again and smiled. "I would like one or two of these samples, though, if you can spare them,"

she compromised; "I shall be thirsty on that mountain road."

"I can spare all you'll take."

"Thank you," she repeated hastily. "And you may be sure I shall look for your orchard when I reach Wenatchee. The fruit on the trees must be beautiful."

"It is. It's worth the drive up from Wenatchee just to see Hesperides Vale, and that special Eden of mine is the core. You couldn't miss it; about ten miles up and right on the river road."

"I shall find it," she nodded brightly. "I am going that way to see a wild tract in a certain pocket of the valley. I wonder"--she started and turned a little to give him her direct look--"if by any possibility it could be brought under your Peshastin ditch?"

He shook his head. "Hardly. I wouldn't count on it. Most of those pockets back in the benches are too high. Some of them are cut off by ridges from one to six thousand feet. Maybe your agent will talk of pumping water from the ca.n.a.l, but don't you bite. It means an expensive electric plant and several miles of private flume. And perhaps he will show you how easy it's going to be to tap the new High Line that's building down the Wenatchee and on to the plateau across the Columbia thirty miles. But it's a big proposition to finance; in places they'll have to bore through granite cliffs; and if the day ever comes when it's finished far enough to benefit your tract, I doubt the water would reach your upper levels. And say, what is the use of letting him talk you into buying a roof garden when, for one or two hundred dollars an acre, you can still get in on the ground floor?"

She did not answer. Her eyes were turned again to the desert, and a sudden weariness clouded her face. In that moment she seemed older, and the strong light brought out two lines delicately traced at the corners of her beautiful mouth that had not been apparent before.

"But, say," the young man went on eagerly, "let me tell you a little more about the Vale. It's sheltered in there. The mountains wall it in, and you don't get the fierce winds off the Columbia desert. The snow never drifts; it lies flat as a carpet all winter. And we don't have late frosts; never have to stay up all night watching smudge pots to keep the trees warm. And those steep slopes catch the early spring sun and cast it off like big reflectors; things start to grow before winter is gone. And I don't know what makes it so, but the soil on those low Wenatchee benches is a little different from any other. It looks like the Almighty made his hot beds there, all smooth and level, and just forgot to turn the water on. And take a project like the Peshastin, run by a strong company with plenty of capital; the man along the ca.n.a.l only has to pay his water rate, so much an irrigated acre; nothing towards the plant, nothing for flume construction and repairs. And, say, I don't want to bore you, I don't want to influence you too far, but I hate to see a woman--a lady--throw her money away right in sight of a sure proposition; even if you can't go into improved orchards, any Hesperides investment is safe. It means at least double the price to you within two years. I've bonded forty acres more of wild land joining my tract, and I shall plant thirty of it in the fall.

The last ten will be cleared and reserved for speculation. The piece comes within a stone's throw of the Great Northern's tracks. There's a siding there now, and when the Vale comes into full bearing, they are bound to make it a shipping station. Then I'm going to plat that strip into town lots and put it on the market." He paused while her glance, returning from the desert, met his in a veiled side-look, and the flush of the bellflower again tinged his cheek. "I mean," he added, "I'd be mighty glad to let you in."

The blue sparkles played under her lashes. "Thank you, it sounds like riches, but--"

She stopped, leaving the excuse unsaid. The station master had turned his face suddenly towards the Columbia; he was not listening to her. Then, presently, the sound that had caught his alert ear reached her own faintly. Somewhere out in the solitudes a train had whistled. "The westbound freight!" she exclaimed softly. "Isn't it the westbound freight?"

He nodded. "She's signalling Beverley. They'll call me in a minute." And he started around to the office door.

She rose and followed to the corner to look for Tisdale. Midway the road doubled a knoll and was lost, to reappear, a paler streak, on the gray slope where the ranch house stood; and it was there, at the turn, she first noticed a cloud of dust. It advanced rapidly, but for a while she was not able to determine whether it enveloped a rider or a man on foot; she was certain there was no led horse. Then a gust of wind parted the cloud an instant, and the sparkle suffused her whole face. He was returning as she had hoped, afoot.

She stood watching the moving cloud; the man's bulk began to detach from it and gathered shape. Between pauses, the click of the telegraph reached her, then suddenly the shriek of the whistle cut the stillness. The train must have crossed the Columbia and was winding up through the dunes. She went along the platform and picked up her hat, which she had left on the suitcase with her coat. While she pinned it on and tied her veil over it, the freight signalled twice. It was so close she caught the echo of the thundering trucks from some rocky cut. When the call sounded a third time, it brought an answer from the silk special, far off in the direction of Ellensburg. She lifted her coat and turned again to watch Tisdale. He had quickened his pace, but a shade of suspense subdued the light in her face.

Since the whistle of the special, the telegraph instrument had remained silent, and presently she heard the station master's step behind her.

"Well," he said, "it's Nip and Tuck, sure. But say, he can sprint some.

Does it easy, too, like one of those cross-country fellows out of a college team. I'd back him against the freight."

"If he misses it," and the suspense crept into her voice, "I must go without him, and I suppose I can be sure of a hotel at Ellensburg?"

"You'll find fair accommodations at Kitt.i.tas. But he isn't going to miss the freight, and it will be hours saved to you if Lighter lets you have the colts."

She lifted her coat, and he held it while she slipped her arms in the sleeves. "I've 'most forgotten how to do this," he said; "it's so long since I've seen a girl--or a lady. I'm afraid I've bored you a lot, but you don't know how I've enjoyed it. It's been an epoch seeing you in this wilderness."

"It's been very interesting to me, I'm sure," she replied gravely. "I've learned so much. I wonder if, should I come this way again, I would find all this desert blossoming?"

"I shouldn't be surprised; settlement's bound to follow a new railroad.

But say, look into Hesperides Vale while you are at Wenatchee, and if my proposition seems good to you at one hundred dollars an acre, and that is what I'm paying, drop me a line. My name is Bailey. Henderson Bailey, Post-Office, Wenatchee, after the end of the month."

He waited with expectation in his frank brown eyes, but the girl stood obliviously watching Tisdale. He reached the platform and stopped, breathing deep and full, while he shook the dust from his hat. "I am sorry, madam," he said, "but their only saddle-horse pulled his rope-stake this morning and went off with the wild herd. You will have to take this freight back to Kitt.i.tas."

"How disappointing!" she exclaimed. "And you were forced to tramp back directly through this heat and dust."

"This is the lightest soil I ever stepped on"--he glanced down over his powdered leggings and shoes; the humor broke gently in his face--"and there's just one kind deeper,--the Alaska tundra."

With this he hurried by her to the office. Presently the freight whistled the siding, and Bailey picked up the baggage and went down to make arrangements with the trainmen. The girl followed, and when Tisdale came back, she stood framed in the doorway of the waiting caboose, while a brakeman dusted a chair, which he placed adroitly facing outside, so that she might forget the unmade bunks and greasy stove. "It isn't much on accommodations," he said conciliatingly, "but you can have it all to yourselves; as far as you go, it's your private car."

The other train thundered into the station and past; the freight began to move, and Tisdale swung himself aboard. Then the station master, remembering the apples at the last moment, ran with the basket, crowned still by the Rome Beauty for which he had refused five dollars, and dropped it as a parting tribute at her feet.

"Thank you! Thank you for everything!" Her soft voice fluted back to Bailey, and she leaned forward a little, raising her hand with a parting salute. "Good-by!"