The Forbidden Trail, Honoré Willsie [digital e reader TXT] 📗

girl—eh?"

Qui-tha looked up in honest surprise. "Tell what 'bout little girl?"

Roger turned to Rabbit Tail. "You haven't heard about what Qui-tha did to little girl?"

"Me no touch little girl," exclaimed Qui-tha, indignantly. "Have fight with Dick', no touch little girl. Like little girl, bring her home when she get lost up here."

"You know how Dick is a devil when he gets drunk?"

Qui-tha nodded.

"You knew that, yet you brought him a bottle of whiskey and got drunk with him and shot him in the leg when you fought."

The old chief turned inquiringly toward Qui-tha. Again Qui-tha nodded grimly.

"And you knew that the infernal drunken row you kicked up that night frightened the little girl so that she ran away into the desert where a rattle snake bit her and she died—died all alone at night, in the desert."

A look of complete horror rose in Qui-tha's eyes. "No!" he gasped.

"Ai! Ai! Ai!" cried the squaw who had given Felicia the pottery. "Poor little papoose! She was sweet, like her," pointing to Charley.

Then there was silence in the camp, all eyes turned on the old chief. Indians are great lovers of children. Their tenderness to them never fails, be they white or red or black.

"Dick heap sick?" asked old Rabbit Tail, finally.

"Yes, but he'll get well. He's at Doc Evans's house in Archer's."

"Did you tell the sheriff?" continued the chief.

"No," replied Roger. "Charley wouldn't let me."

Rabbit Tail turned to Charley. "Why?" he queried, laconically

Charley bit her lip. "The whites brought whiskey to the Indians in the first place," she said.

There was another silence. Then Roger began again. "Dick has been sick a long time now and he can't work much when he gets back. You know his alfalfa field?"

"Yes," said the chief.

"Well, Dick has been away and his water pump is no good and the alfalfa is dying. If we don't get water on it it will die. If it dies, then Charley will have much trouble, bad trouble. They owe Hackett much money because of Dick's drinking. So they can't get food unless they pay that money. They can't pay that money unless they sell much alfalfa. See?"

Qui-tha and Rabbit Tail both nodded.

"Now, I know you Indians don't believe in work. But if I can dig a big well for Charley and move my engine up to the adobe, I can get plenty of water on the alfalfa. It would take twenty Indians one week to move my plant. Rabbit Tail, you supply gangs sometimes for government work. Get Charley a gang for one week."

"You whites," said Rabbit Tail, "work heap hard for what you get—huh? If you live like Injun, no worry 'bout food, go out shoot 'em. No worry 'bout bed. Sleep in sand, huh?"

Roger nodded. "I think many times you're right, Rabbit Tail. But it's too late now. Whites have lived like this too many hundreds of years. They can't change to your ways any more than Indians can change to white ways."

Again there was a long pause before Rabbit Tail began once more.

"You know you whites kill many Injuns. Give Injun dirty sickness—kill Injun babies. Me—I see white take Injun baby by feet, smash head against rock. See Injun squaw belly cut out by white man. You know all that?"

Roger nodded. "The whites have been rotten to the Indians. I don't blame you for hating us. But how about Charley and the little girl?"

One of Qui-tha's squaws spoke. She had been educated at an Indian school.

"Charley showed me how to cure my baby of sore scalp and how to take care of him when he had croup. She lets me stay with her when he is sick or I am."

"She lets me use her sewing machine whenever I want it," spoke up a pretty young squaw in a red gingham dress.

"When old Chachee die," an elderly Indian woman looked from Charley to Rabbit Tail, "she die in Charley's house. Charley help sickness in her chest better'n medicine man."

Roger looked at Charley. He knew that she liked the Indians but she never had mentioned her good works to them.

The educated squaw spoke again. "I hate most white women. They treat us as if we were servants. But Charley treats us as if we were human beings like herself. And Felicia was a beautiful child."

"It's queer some of you have never been near Charley then, in her trouble," said Roger.

"The men have been working for months on the government dam at Bitter Peak. We were with them and just got here three days ago. Of course, Qui-tha didn't tell what little he knew. If the men won't help Charley, we women will. We could carry water to the field."

Qui-tha rose and walked over to Charley. "Qui-tha heap sorry. You give Qui-tha to sheriff."

Charley shook her head. "What good would that do?"

"All right then, Qui-tha go help one week, fix the alfalfa."

Old Rabbit Tail lighted another cigarette. "We come Monday, bring fifteen men, one week," he said.

"You know neither Roger nor I have any money, Rabbit Tail," explained Charley.

"Money no pay for blood. You good to Injuns. Now Injuns good to you."

Roger rose. "Thank you," he said simply. But Charley was too moved for words and as if she understood, one of the squaws put one hand on the girl's shoulder while she patted her cheek.

They clambered back to the top of the trail, without a word until the camp was out of sight, then Roger said with a half smile,

"You are some girl, Charley dear."

"And you are some boy, Roger."

"I? Why Charley, I'm just beginning to realize that I have gone through life with my eyes shut. The man with one idea misses most of life. I went up there with the intention of threatening a lot of savages. I've come away feeling as if I'd met a group of intelligent and kind hearted fellow humans."

"It was wonderful of them, wasn't it!" exclaimed Charley. "I had no idea they felt under obligations, to me. I certainly didn't want them to."

Roger nodded and looked at his watch. "It's only nine o'clock now. If it wasn't so frightfully hot and there were any place to go, I'd say let's continue our spree."

"Just beyond that strip of desert there," Charley pointed into the valley to the east, "there are some wonderful Indian inscriptions on some rocks around a spring. I've never seen them, but I've always wanted to and I know the trail. Dick has shown it to me."

"Let's try it," said Roger. "Peter, come on, you're getting fat and lazy. I believe it's about ten degrees hotter than usual."

It was an hour's climb down into the valley. It lost its level look on near inspection. In every direction a fine, powderlike sand lay in long undulating ridges. Neither rock nor cactus was to be seen. A faint wind was stirring and tiny eddies of sand rose against the sky.

"You see that peak, due east?" asked Charley. "Well, the spring is just at the foot of that in a little canyon. There's never any trail here at all, the sand drifts so."

"I'm glad we're heading for a spring," exclaimed Roger. "I know I can empty the gallon canteen by myself."

They started ahead, Roger leading, Peter following behind Charley. It was heavy slow walking. After perhaps an hour of it, during which conversation languished more and more, Charley said,

"I don't feel as eager minded as I did about Indian writings, do you?"

"Well," replied Roger, stopping to wipe the sand from his face and to grin at Charley. "I wasn't eager about the hieroglyphics to begin with. I haven't taken a girl for a walk for years and I thought this was my chance!"

"How is your enthusiasm for that standing up?" chuckled Charley.

Roger cleared his throat. "You see, it's like this—" he began, his eyes twinkling.

Charley interrupted by catching his arm. "Look, Roger! There's a sand storm coming!"

Roger looked up the desert to the north. The familiar gray veil of sand was plainly visible. "Lord!" he exclaimed. "We'd better start back at once."

"No, we're within a mile of the spring, now," said Charley. "We'd better get there as fast as we can. I do hope Gustav and Elsa will be all right. That poor new field of alfalfa!"

"Perhaps it won't be so bad in the other valley. Certainly this sand is going to try its best to suffocate us. Whew, there she comes!" as a cloud of sand enveloped them.

They paused long enough to adjust their bandannas across their faces, then started hurriedly on, Roger holding Charley by the hand and catching Peter's lead rope firmly. In ten minutes the peak toward which they were heading was obscured.

"Shall we stop or press on?" shouted Roger.

"Let Peter lead!" cried Charley. "If he stops, we'll stop."

Peter, shoved ahead of the little procession, did not hesitate. He dropped his head between his knees and moved very slowly, but none the less surely onward. The walking was almost incredibly difficult. The very desert underfoot seemed in motion. New ridges rose before their burning, half blinded eyes. The uproar was that of a hurricane roaring through a forest. Now Roger would stagger to his knees: now Charley. But Peter, lifting and planting his little feet gingerly and exactly, never stumbled. Panting, sweating, Roger after what seemed hours of this going halted Peter with some difficulty and putting his lips close to Charley's ear called, "Having a pleasant walk to the county fair, my dear?"

"Of its kind, it's perfect!" shrieked Charley in return and not to be outdone.

As if thoroughly disgusted by such persiflage, Peter brayed and started on without waiting to be urged. A moment later the footing became firmer and Peter led the way around a rock heap and buried his nose in a tiny pool that seemed thick with sand. Roger sighed with deep relief. He had seen the desert strike too often now to face her ugly moods with full equanimity.

There was no real shelter from the storm here. But it was vastly better than the open desert. They found a hollowed rock facing the spring, just big enough for the two of them to crouch with their backs against it. Although the sand sifted in on them constantly, they were at least away from the fury of the wind. There was water a-plenty at hand and they could bide their time. Peter established himself with his forefeet in the water, his tail to the storm and appeared to go to sleep.

For a time, Roger and Charley were glad to sit in silence, recovering their breath. But finally Roger stretched his cramped legs with a sigh.

"Charley, I find desert life just a bit strenuous," he said.

Charley wiped her face vigorously with her bandanna and nodded.

"So do I. But I like it. I think I must like the constant fight and the awful beauty. There's nothing else here."

"Have you anything in you but Anglo-Saxon blood?" asked Roger.

"No," replied Charley.

"That accounts for your loving it, I believe. The Anglo-Saxons are the trail makers for civilization. And by Jove, if any two people on earth are making trails it's you and Dick."

"You're Anglo-Saxon yourself. What is your work but trail making?"

"We aren't all trail makers!" Roger gave a half cynical chuckle. "You know I'm solving the labor question."

"With old Rabbit Tail's gang?"

"Hardly! Yet, by golly, Charley, I don't know but what I'm developing a typical labor situation down here. The Indian gang is working as a favor, you understand, and not from any necessity."

Charley laughed. "If it weren't for you inventors, we all could revert comfortably to Rabbit Tail's philosophy."

"It was to make that philosophy workable that started me inventing. That is, to give every man food and shelter with a minimum of work."

Once fairly launched, Roger gave Charley a rapid picture of the strike and the burning of the factory. When he had finished the