William Wallace Cook

“ You know the place, Chombo?”
Chombo’s nostrils dilated. He took pleasure in the thought. He regarded his bow—and the arrow, the silent messenger to carry his hate. “What she do, this La Joya?” he demanded eagerly. “Seward is a fox. Your brother Dirk could not fool him.”
“La Joya is a woman, and a woman can fool him. He will do for a woman in distress what he would not do for a man, Chombo. ”

“ The roaring wind drove the sand against the glazed “tarp” and began piling drifts about the girl, Seward, and the burro. It was difficult to breathe, and what air they did take into their lungs was gritty with sand particles and hot as fire. The señorita began to moan and to huddle closer to the burro; the burro snorted and struggled, and Seward reached out a hand to stroke his furry neck and quiet him. ”

“ And then, abruptly, the horse halted, flung backward with a frightened snort and refused to move farther.
“What’s the matter now, sport?” inquired Seward. “A ditch across the road, or some other kind of a barrier?”
The animal dropped his head and began sniffing as at some object in front of him. Seward slid stiffly from the saddle, the looped reins over his arm, and bent down with one groping hand extended. His fingers twined themselves in long, soft tresses.
“Good Lord,” he gasped, “it’s a woman!” ”

“ Forty-mile! Seward had a clew.
“From Forty-mile to Sunrise Cañon, señorita,” he suggested, “is a long ride for a woman; all of sixty miles.”
“Not for a woman who knows the deserts, señor! I am at home in the deserts.”
“You live at Forty-mile?”
“I lived with Tio Enrico,” she explained; “you must have heard of him—Enrico Silva, of the Posada del Rey Niño. Now I shall have to live there with a cousin. It is one’s fate,” she said with a sigh, “when one has no padre, no madre. ”

“ But what really aroused apprehension was the fact that Blake, the sheriff, was coming with him, and Blake was leading him by the hand. In the crook of his left arm Seward was carrying a weighted bag.
“What is the matter?” whispered Mrs. Sparling agitatedly. “What do you suppose can be the matter?”
“Nothing matters,” said Ethel calmly, “so long as he is really here. He is bringing your money, Mr. Sparling, and it is plain that he has had to fight to keep it for you. But that is like him. He will fight and fight hard to help—a friend.” ”

“ Seward had discovered all that he wanted to know. For an hour or more he plodded along in silence beside the horse.
It was the girl who roused herself at last to announce: “Dawn is breaking, señor.”
“Gracias,” said Seward; “I am sorry I cannot see the dawn, for watching the sun rise and set is one of my greatest diversions out in the desert. There is nothing more beautiful in nature, señorita. We must be drawing close to the end of our journey. ”

“ But the woman was alive, for her flesh was warm, and he could hear a faint, sibilant breathing. He groped for the canteen, uncapped it, and awkwardly pressed it to her lips. Then he poured some of the water over her face. She heaved a long, painful sigh and began to stir.
“Help me!” she begged. “Whoever you are, please help me! I have sprained my ankle and can’t walk a step.”
“Who are you?’ he asked.
There fell a silence; then, “Seward of Sacatone!” the woman cried, and struggled to free herself from his supporting arm. ”

“ This thought gave Seward a good deal of concern until at last he had resolved the hoofbeats into those of a single horse. They passed very close to him, so close that a rider could scarcely have failed to see him; but they went on, with a rustle of mesquite branches, until they halted near the drip, drip, drip of the spring. There followed a sound of disturbed water.
“A riderless horse!” Seward reasoned, getting off the tarpaulin with sudden hope rushing through him. “That would be luck, if it were true. But it seems too good to be true!” he finished. ”

“ And there, by the corral back of the hotel, with Sandy cocking his long ears to listen, Ethel’s clear, sweet voice was lifted:
“East of sunrise falls the night,
West of sundown breaks the day;
And we find our brightest light
Where the darkness paves our way!”
“There’s truth in that,” averred Seward; “it was east of Sunrise that the night fell for me, novia; and through that darkness I have found a light that, it had seemed for a long time, had gone out for me forever!”
Blake and Reeves, coming around the corner of the hotel, halted suddenly on seeing Ethel and Seward by the corral. ”

“ They halted beside the still form.
“Red Galloway!” whispered the trembling girl.
“Si! And how he come to have Seward’s burro, his sombrero, his coat?”
“I can’t understand this, Chombo! I tell you I am as amazed at this as you are.”
Chombo shrugged his shoulders. “Seward too much for us,” he growled; “too much for everybody. You stay here; bymby, I come back.”
He hoisted the bulky form in the road to his shoulders and staggered off with it. With horror growing in her eyes, Lola Sanger watched him climb the slope of the pass, a ghoulish figure in the fading daylight. ”

“ CHAPTER II. WHEN HATE OVERCAME JUDGMENT. TWANG! The six-foot bow bent nearly double with the masterful fifty-pound pull on its leathern string. The arrow, long, slender, and tipped with razor-edged steel cruelly barbed, launched itself straight upward into the eye of the midday sun, the polished head flashing like a streak of fire.
Chombo el Arquero, half-breed horse trader by profession and master bowman in his hours of leisure, lowered the bow and stepped backward to lean against one of the four-by-fours supporting the roof of his hay shed. ”

“ She started, her eyes widened. “Not—please tell me,” she breathed, “not Seward of Sacatone of whom we hear so many stories?”
He laughed again. “Well, yes,” he admitted; “I’m a prospector, and I was sampling the float on the hogback when you happened along. Chance, señorita!”
The girl fell into a dreamy state, a sort of waking trance in which she mused aloud. “In all these deserts,” her rippling voice flowed on, “where there are so few real men to be found, it has been my fate to be saved by Seward of Sacatone, the caballero whose fame for good deeds has gone everywhere! ”

“ Seward went on coolly, dispassionately: “I’ll have my sight again in a few days, and then I’ll be after you. I’ll have you, Galloway, if I have to chase you from Mexico to Central America, down through Panama and clear to Cape Horn. You’ve got my gun, and you could kill me with it; but you are yellow, clear through, and haven’t the nerve. The only way you can save your red scalp is by leaving those saddlebags, the burro, and the rest of the plunder. You can take the canteen, if you want to go; but you’ll do better by yourself if you show good sense, stay here, and lend me a helping hand. ”

“ She was a designing person, and she had taken the canteen and had abandoned him to his fate in the desert; and she must have known that he was blind as she skulked away while the sandstorm was blowing itself out. Just what her designs were was a puzzling question; but she had missed the gold. If the “bandidos” were her confederates, then undoubtedly they had picked her up; very likely they had been keeping track of her from the hills all the while she was in his camp and afterward during that futile start for the pass. ”

“ Seward was standing on the crest, at the point where the stony slope pitched downward to the spot where he had made his camp. Sandy, his burro, was browsing in the mesquite that fringed the little spring at the foot of the slope. To the south and west arose the higher hills of which the hogback was a spur. Northwest, northeast, and due north the far horizon was fretted with purple peaks, surrounding the flat desert completely and making of it the bottom of a great basin, a sort of natural amphitheater. ”

“ The grubstaker, thinking he has a half interest with the grubber in a prospective fortune, furnishes another three-months’ supply of bacon, beans, and flour. And the grubber returns to his old camp in the desert and enjoys another three months of idleness. With the same piece of rich ore, which he has stolen somewhere and which is his whole stock in trade, he will look around for another likely person whom it is possible to beguile.
This is the grubber’s method. It is the way he supports himself in idleness and keeps his wretched body and soul together. He is a flimflammer ”

“ The pack rope was uncoiled, and Seward twisted it about his hands. The sudden start of the horse flung him from his feet, but he clung to the rope. The drag of his body presently brought the horse to a halt.
“I’m sorry,” faltered the girl; “something must have startled the horse.”
“Yes,” agreed Seward; “something certainly startled him”
“You were not hurt?”
He laughed. “Hurt? You ask a desert man if he is hurt by a little tumble like that?”
Gropingly, he made a loop in the pack rope, adjusted the dangling foot in the loop, laid a firm hold on the reins and once more started the horse. ”

“ The girl’s face was white; she had clenched her hands convulsively and was staring into space with fear-filled eyes.
“I wouldn’t take it so hard, Ethel,” said Simms; “this man may be lying just to wheedle us out of some supplies.”
“Is it true, Eph Springer?” the girl demanded.
“S’ help me, ma’am, every word is gospel!” declared Springer. “D’y’u reckon,” he went on, appealing to Simms, “that I’d come here with a lie like that ag’inst Chombo? All the grubstakes in the world wouldn’t be worth the risk. I’m tryin’ to help Seward.” ”

“ La Joya pouted and tossed her head. “I shall not stir!” she declared. “Por Dios! If we were caught in a sandstorm I should perish! I do not choose to be suffocated with heat and strangled with the whirling sand.” ”

“ I am not familiar with this cross trail.”
He helped her up, then lifted her bodily into the saddle; but he kept the reins in his own hands as he walked beside the horse.
“You remember what you told me at the spring by the hogback?” Seward asked as they plodded along.
“No; I forget; what happened seems more like a dream than anything else.”
“Perhaps,” said Seward, “I can refresh your memory. The bandidos, now; as I understand it, they were your friends and not your enemies. You were merely pretending.” ”

“ The day,” answered Seward, weatherwise, “is going to be very warm and still; and it opens with promise of a sandstorm, señorita.”
“Then we must not venture across the deserts!” she exclaimed. “I know these storms. We must stay in camp.”
“Pardon me,” returned Seward, “but I think it will be noon or later before the dust storm comes. We can reach a place I know where there is water and rough country for a refuge. Of course the storm may not come; it doesn’t always come when the morning sun is like that. It is best, I think,” he added gravely, “to be on our way.” ”

“ CHAPTER XII. FINISHING A GOOD JOB. HERE’S Sparling, Walt,” said Blake, as the two entered the office. “He can’t see, Sparling,” he explained; “he has covered forty miles of desert without the use of his eyes. Some stunt, if anybody asks you!”
“No,” said Seward, smiling; “it was easy. You see, I had a Cerillos horse to bring me in.”
“Blind!” gasped Mrs. Sparling, her voice throbbing with sympathy.
“Sun-blind, Leora,” explained Seward, apprised of Mrs. Sparling’s presence by the sound of her voice. ”

“ Hat, coat, and gun had vanished; and, as that fact came home to him, he sensed the presence of some one else in the camp. It might be the girl, or the bandidos, or all of them. Ah, if he could have looked around! He would have given a year of his life for one minute’s use of his eyes. ”

“ With his back to the wind he crouched low in a growing drift of sand. Minutes dragged like hours as he panted for air under the suffocating tarp. And then, by degrees, the roar began to die down. The peak of the storm had passed. ”

“ CHAPTER X. A BIT OF STRATEGY. SOMETIMES a story of Seward of Sacatone which deals with a series of connected incidents will be broken into fragments, and each fragment will be told and retold as complete in itself and as having no bearing on other incidents that made it plausible or possible.
Perhaps this is not to be wondered at; for when a really remarkable figure, such as Seward, appears in a thinly settled, inhospitable country and plays daringly and successfully the rôle of a righter of wrongs, his deeds are sure to become a popular topic in camps or in the settlements. ”

“ Over on Dead Mule Flat Eph Springer, outfitted with the biggest grubstake he had ever toted into the deserts, waited in vain for his pardner, Red Galloway.
And above the pass east of Sunrise Cañon, vultures floated on lazy wings, dipped earthward, and soared aloft again. “The end crowns the work,” always, for good and ill. ”

“ The half-breed had the full blood’s ideas of a squaw. “What is to be done then?” he wanted to know.
“I want a fresh horse, and a fast one,” replied the girl, “and you also must have a good mount. We’ll have to start at once for the pass east of Sunrise and ride hard. La Joya knows and will delay until we have time to get there. She has help from Forty-mile, hangers-on of the posada; but they are scared to death of Seward. They will go so far in helping La Joya, but no further. You alone can turn the big trick, Chombo. ”

“ Why not let well enough alone?”
“You’re a strange man, Walt!” exclaimed the girl. “Don’t you want to play even with your enemies?”
“Somehow,” he replied with a smile, “I never do—unless my enemies make things too warm for me. If Chombo hasn’t had enough, I’ll take care of him; but if he’s had a lesson and is through, what more could I ask? Are we in the camp, Ethel?”
“Yes;, and I’m going to take you to the hotel and take care of you until you get your sight back.”
“No,” he answered; “you’re riding back to Tres Alamos with Blake and Reeves. ”

“ As she came closer, he saw that she was young, that the fluttering shawl was her only head covering, and that her hair was as black and shining as a raven’s wing. Her face, tense and strained with her physical exertions, was of a warm olive tint, and her eyes were dark. ”