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

disappeared. "The living tent, by Jove!" Heedless of the blinding torrent, he dashed to the tent where all the morning he had been sorting and checking drawings and notes. He stopped in the doorway appalled. Everything in the tent was dripping. Drawings, instruments, camera, open trunks and bedding were flooded. The patient work of months must be done over.

"Hang this infernal desert!" roared Roger. "This is the last straw!"

He stood glowering at the wreckage, water pouring over his head and shoulders, when, as suddenly as it had begun, the rain ceased. Roger looked out the door. Every grain of sand, every cactus spine bore a tiny rainbow. The whole desert floor was a mosaic of opals. The sky was of a blue too deep, too brilliant for the eye to endure. As Roger stood with mouth agape he was thrilled by a sensation he had not before experienced. The desert, ordinarily entirely odorless, gave forth a scent. Just for a moment a pungent perfume for which he could find no adjectives swept softly to his nostrils and was gone. Roger stood a moment longer as if transfixed. Then he smiled and turning into the tent, he began to repair the damage done.

Promptly at eight o'clock on Monday morning, Roger and Dick, at work on the Lemon, were greeted by a pleasant

"How! Boss!"

Standing by the corral in various attitudes of ease, all of them smoking cigarettes, were the members of Rabbit Tail's gang. They were lean, powerful fellows, most of them young. They were dressed almost with the similarity of a uniform, black trousers, blue flannel shirts, girdled with a twist of bright colored silk, a bandanna twisted and tied filet wise about the head. Most of them wore their black hair waist long, but there were four men with short hair and Roger wondered if these were not the machinists of whom Dick had spoken.

"Any of you men ever drill a well?" asked Roger. Two of the older men promptly nodded. "All right, Dick, here you are. Rabbit Tail, how many burros did you bring? Thirty. By Jove, that's fine! Now three of you must start clearing this space between the corral and pump house. See, I have it all pegged out. But, Rabbit Tail, I want all the mechanics down at the Plant."

The old Indian nodded, then said, "Where's Charley? You tell her come out here."

"She's up at the house," said Dick. "There she is, on the porch with the squaw. Oh, Charley! Come here!"

Charley came rapidly down the trail. Old Rabbit Tail shook hands with her solemnly. "Here is the gang. Old Rabbit Tail keep promise, see? I tell all these men why we come. See? They glad do this for white squaw good to Injuns. You say 'How' to them."

Charley's fine eyes deepened with unshed tears. "I am so grateful to all of you!" she exclaimed. "I want to shake hands with each of you," and she went down the line, the strangers among the Indians looking at her with frank curiosity and interest.

This little ceremony having been completed to Rabbit Tail's obvious satisfaction, the old chief set his men at the tasks designated at the Ranch and then with the rest of the gang and the string of burros, he followed Roger down to the Plant.

That was a mad week. The Indians showed a willingness to work that Roger had never seen equaled by white men. They were as curious about the Sun Plant as children and deeply interested in Roger's explanation of it. Their general intelligence Roger found to be high above that of the average gang of whites. He never before had had the thrill of working with a crowd of mechanics who combined skill, intelligence and interest to this degree. The four machinists proved to be all that Dick had said and more. In all his life, Roger had never had so deeply satisfying a seven days. This, in spite of the fact that he worked like his men from daylight until dark, stopping only to eat the bountiful meals that the girls, with the Indian women, prepared at the ranch. This, in spite of ferocious heat and almost insuperable mechanical difficulties owing to the lack of lifting and trucking facilities.

For the first four days of the week, Dick was quite despondent about the water problem. But on Friday afternoon, as Roger was superintending the reerection of the condenser, he heard a wild shout and beheld Dick and his four helpers laughing and slapping each other's backs, knee deep all of them in a stream that gushed into the ditch from the new well.

"My luck has turned!" roared Dick. "My luck has turned! Look at it! Look at it! It will water fifty acres. I'll bet there won't be an inch of water left in the range. Wow!" and he plunged full length into the little crystal stream, his helpers following suit with a shout.

It was the signal for a general recess. And the men, including Roger, took a ducking and returned to work steaming but unspeakably rejuvenated. The sudden appearance of the water seemed to Roger like a happy omen for the whole endeavor and it would have been difficult to tell who was the most enthusiastic for the rest of the day, Roger or Dick.

Rabbit Tail's week was a full seven days. At five o'clock Sunday afternoon, the absorber was finished. The old tool shed stood remade, roughly to be sure, but securely, into an engine house. The condenser was half finished, the engine was standing in its new home, dismantled in parts but quite ready for Roger to adjust when the new parts should arrive.

When the old iron triangle called supper, Rabbit Tail sauntered up to Roger.

"Good job, Boss, huh?"

"Fine! The best ever! Rabbit Tail, the country is missing some wonderful mechanics and engineers in not getting you Indians interested in civilization."

The old chief grinned and shrugged his shoulders. "To-night, we go," he said.

"Let me keep Jo and the other three machinists," pleaded Roger. "I'm sure they'll be interested in finishing the condenser for me."

"Ask 'em," grunted Rabbit Tail.

"Come along," said Roger and he strode over to the bench where the four Indians were fitting together the condenser pipe. They looked up and grinned affably at Roger.

"Rabbit Tail says you fellows may stay and help me finish this condenser, if you will. I know I can find the money to pay you for it. How about it?"

Jo, the spokesman, was a tall thin Indian, with a fine brow and intelligent eyes.

"No, I guess we'll go on back to camp, Mr. Moore," he said.

"But I thought you were interested in what I am trying to put over," exclaimed Roger.

"So we are. It's always interesting to learn what you whites are trying to do. You work so fearfully hard that we Indians are always curious to find out the idea back of the work. But as for helping you do the work—well, it's like this, you folks are always mighty interested in what we Indians do—making blankets or pottery or building hogans or making ceremonial altars. But I don't notice any of you really wanting to help us."

Roger cast a bewildered look about him but the other bronzed faces betokened full acquiescence with Jo's words.

"But why did you learn your trades so well?" he asked, finally.

"Interested in the idea—and it helps us compete with the whites, when necessary!"

"Then you really don't care about my finishing the plant?"

"Why should we?" returned Jo.

Roger sighed and scratched his head. "Then why did you come at all?"

"The chief asked us and we knew Charley. She's been kind to me and I wanted to help her out."

"If the whole gang of you would give me just two more days we could finish in good shape," pleaded Roger.

"You can get along," replied Jo. "We've done what we promised."

"Yes, you have, and a bully job. But—well, I'm floored. I just can't get your point of view." Roger's voice was rueful.

Jo laughed. "And we can't get yours."

There was an extra good supper that night and formal thanks on the part of Charley. Then, in the moonlight, the whole picturesque caravan moved off up the mountain trail.

Charley, returning to the living room, said, "Well, children, I'm cheerful in spite of the fact that there's not two days' food left in the house."

"I've got a little credit still at Hackett's," said Roger. "I think Gustav had better go in to Archer's in the morning. I think my freight must be there from the Dean and we should be hearing from Ernest."

Dick, smoking in the doorway, nodded, then repeated the remark that he had made on the average of once an hour ever since Friday. "There isn't a well like mine in a radius of a hundred miles."

Gustav brought back two weeks' food supply, the freight from the Dean and letters from Ernest. They were very noncommittal but cheerful. He had cleared up the misunderstanding with the Smithsonian Institution, but as yet had no money and did not know when he could get back.

"Well," said Roger, "we've got grub for a week or so. I'm not quite sure whose grub it is. These two camps seem to me to have become helplessly entangled."

"Who cares!" said Elsa.

"Not you, young woman," returned Charley, dryly. She still seemed indifferent to Dick but there was no mistaking her warm enthusiasm over Elsa as a sister.

"I'm going to cut the first five acres to-morrow," said Dick. "That will solve the most pressing problems. The second field is dead. I'm going to plow it under. But I should worry. That's the best well in a radius of a hundred miles."

"Well, I'll assemble my engine." Roger tamped down the tobacco in his pipe. "The Lord send that it goes together right."

"Amen to that," said Charley, while the others nodded.

Another two weeks passed in unremitting industry, but by the second Saturday night, Roger with a sigh of unutterable satisfaction announced himself ready for a test of the plant on Monday. It was mid-September now, and it seemed as if the heat were a little less intense. The nights, at any rate, were not so parching. In spite of the sadness that would not lift, the little community was experiencing some of the contentment that comes from hard work and sympathetic companionship.

Roger was finding that the regular, well cooked meals and the home life of the adobe was making a great difference in his mental as well as his physical condition. In spite of the nerve strain of the past months, he was beginning to feel that life never had been so much worth while as now.

On the Sunday afternoon before the test of the rebuilt plant, Ernest, driven by Hackett, jogged up to the corral.

After the noisy and excited greetings and after Ernest's delight over the moving of the plant had been expressed, Ernest slapped Roger on the back. They all were talking at once, on the adobe porch.

"Here, put your eye on that, you emaciated desert blister!"

Ernest pulled a bill case carefully from his inner breast pocket and carefully extracted a check which he handed to Roger. It was for five thousand dollars. Roger stared at it stupidly.

"Browning! Who on earth is he?" he ejaculated.

"Smithsonian! I had the check made out to me. It was simpler. But I'm going to make it payable to you, right now."

He sat down at the table, pulled out his fountain pen and, signing the check, handed it over to Roger. The room was silent for a moment then, "Ernest," faltered Roger, his thin tanned face working. "I can't tell you—why old man, if I'd had a brother he couldn't have done for me what you have done. It's wonderful! How did you do it, Ern?"

Ernest beamed. "There's more where that came from. They're crazy about your whole scheme."

Roger stood staring