CHAPTER XIV
Other things, however, were not so funny to Casey as he stood staring downover the vast emptiness. There was no sign of his pack train, and withoutit he would be in sorry case indeed. He thought of the manner in which thetornado had whirled him round and round. Caught in a different set ofgyrations and then borne out from the center--flung out would come nearerit--the burros and William might have been carried in any direction savehis own. Into that gruesome Crevice, for instance. They had not been morethan a mile from the Crevice when the storm struck.
He glanced across to Barren Butte, rising steeply from the farther end ofthe lake. But he did not think of going to the mine up there, except totell himself that he'd rot on the desert before he ever asked there forhelp. He had his reasons, you remember. A man like Casey can facehumiliation from men much easier than he can face a woman who hadmisjudged him and scorned him. Unless, of course, he has a million dollarsin his pocket and knows that she knows it.
Having discarded Barren Butte from his plans--rather, having declined toconsider it at all--he knew that he must find his supplies, or he mustfind water somewhere in the Crazy Woman hills. The prospect was notbright, for he had never heard any one mention water there.
He rested where he was for awhile and watched the slope for the packanimals; more particularly for William and the water cans. He could shootrabbits and live for days, if he had a little water, but he had once triedliving on rabbit meat broiled without salt, and he called it dry eating,even with water to wash it down. Without water he would as soon fast andlet the rabbits live.
A dark speck moving in the sage far down the slope caught his eyes, and hegot up and peered that way eagerly. He started down to meet it hopefully,feeling certain that his present plight would soon merge into a mereincident of the trail. Sure enough, when he had walked for half an hour hesaw that it was William, browsing toward him and limping when he moved.
But William was bare as the back of Casey's hand. There was no pack, nocoal-oil cans of water; only the halter and lead rope, that dangled andcaught on brush and impeded William's limping progress. I suppose evenmiserable mules like company, for William permitted Casey to walk up andtake him by the halter rope. William had a badly skinned knee which gavehim the limp, and his right ear was broken close to his head so that thestructure which had been his pride dropped over his eye like a wetsunbonnet.
Casey swore a little and started back along William's tracks to find thewater cans. He followed a winding, purposeless trail that never showed thetrack of burros, and after an hour or so he came upon the pack and thecans. Evidently the water supply had suffered in the wind, for only fourcans were with the blankets and pack saddle.
William had felt his pack slipping, Casey surmised, and had proceeded todivest himself of the incumbrance in the manner best known to mules.Having kicked himself out of it, he had undoubtedly discovered a leakingcan--supposing the cans had escaped thus far--and had battered them withhis heels until they were all leaking copiously. William had saved what hecould.
Casey read the whole story in the sand. The four cans were bent withgaping seams, and their sides were scored with the prints of William'shoofs. In a corner of one of them Casey found a scant half-cup of water,which he drank greedily. It could no more than ease for a moment hisparched throat; it could not satisfy his thirst.
After that he led William back along the trail until the mounting sunwarned him that he was making no headway on his journey to the Tippipahs,and that with no tracks in sight he had small hope of tracing the burros.
It was sundown again before he gave up hope, and Casey's thirst was ademon within him. He had wasted a day, he told himself grimly. Now it wasgoing to be a fight.
Through the day he had mechanically studied the geologic formation ofthose hills before him, and he had decided that the chance for water therewas too slight to make a search worth while. He would push on toward theTippipahs. _Pah_, he knew, meant water in the Indian tongue. He did notknow what _Tippi_ signified, but since Indians lived in the Tippipah rangehe was assured that the water was drinkable. So he got stiffly to hisfeet, studied again the darkling skyline, sent a glance up at the firststars, and turned his face and William's resolutely toward the Tippipahs.
He had applied first aid to William's knee in the form of chewed tobacco,which if it did no more at least discouraged the pestering flies. Now hecollected a ride for his pay. He had reasoned that William was probablysubdued to the point of permitting the liberty, and that he had otherthings to think of more important than protecting his mulish dignity.Casey guessed right. William merely switched his tail pettishly, as muleswill, and went on picking his way through brush and rocks along the ridge.
It was perhaps nine o'clock when Casey saw the light. William also spiedit and stopped still, his long left ear pointed that way, his broken rightear dropping over his eye. William lifted his nose and brayed as if hewere tearing loose all his vitals and the operation hurt like themischief. Casey kicked him in the flanks and urged him on. It must be acamp fire, Casey thought. He did not connect it with that moving light hehad seen the night before; that phantom car was a mystery which he wouldprobably never solve, and in Casey's opinion it had nothing to do with acamp fire that twinkled upon a distant hilltop.
From the look of it, Casey judged that it was perhaps eight miles off,--possibly less. But there was a rocky canyon or two between them, andWilliam was lame and Casey was too exhausted to walk more than half a milebefore he must lie down and own himself whipped. Casey Ryan had never donethat for a man, and he did not propose to do it for Nature. He thoughtthat William ought to have enough stamina to make the trip if he weregiven time enough. And at the last, if William gave out, then Casey wouldmanage somehow to walk the rest of the way. It all depended upon givingWilliam time enough.
You know, mules are the greatest mind readers in the world. I have alwaysheard that, and now Casey swears that it is so. William immediately begantaking his time. Casey told me that a turtle starting nose to nose withWilliam would have had to pull in his feet and wait for him every halfmile or so. William must have been very thirsty, too.
The light burned steadily, hearteningly. Whenever they crawled to highground where a view was possible, Casey saw it there, just under a certainstar which he had used for a marker at first. And whenever William saw thelight he brayed and tried to swing around and go the other way. But Caseywould not permit that, naturally. Nor did he wonder why William acted soqueerly. You never wonder why a mule does things; you just fight it outand are satisfied if you win, and let it go at that.
Casey does not remember clearly the details of that night. He knows thatduring the long hours William balked at a particularly steep climb, andthat Casey was finally obliged to get off and lead the Way. It establishedan unfortunate precedent, for William refused to let Casey on again, andCasey was too weak to mount in spite of William. They compromised at last;that is, they both walked.
The light went out. Moreover, Casey's star that he had used to mark thespot moved over to the west and finally slid out of sight altogether. ButCasey felt sure of the direction and he kept going doggedly toward thepoint where the light had been. He says there wasn't a rod where a snailcouldn't have outrun him, and when the sky streaked red and orange and thesun came up, he stood still and looked for a camp, and when he saw nothingat all but bare rock and bushes of the kind that love barrenness, hecrawled under the nearest shade, tied William fast to the bush and slept.You don't realize your thirst so much when you are asleep, and you aresaving your strength instead of wearing it out in the hot sun. He remainedthere until the sun was almost out of sight behind a high peak. Then hegot up, untied William, mounted him without argument from either, and wenton, keeping to the direction in which he had seen the light.
Even the little brown mule was having trouble now. He wavered, he pickedhis footing with great care when a declivity dipped before him; he stoppedevery few yards and rested when he was making a climb. As for Casey, hem
anaged to hold himself on the narrow back of William, but that was all.He understood perfectly that the next twenty-four hours would tell thestory for him and for William. He had a sturdy body however and a sturdybrain that had never weakened its hold on facts. So he clung to his reasonand pushed fear away from him and said doggedly that he would go forwardas long as he could crawl or William could carry him, and he would die orhe would not die, as Fate decided for him. He wondered, too, about thecamp whose fire he had seen.
Then he saw the light. This time it burned suddenly clear and large andvery bright, away off to the left of him where he had by daylight noticeda bare shale slide. The light seemed to stand in the very center of theslide, no more than a mile away.
William stopped when Casey pulled on the reins he had fashioned from thelead rope, and turned stiffly so that he faced the light. Casey kicked himgently with his heels to urge him forward, for in spite of what his reasontold him about the shale slide his instinct was to go straight to thelight. But William began to shiver and tremble, and to swing slowly away.Casey tried to prevent it, but the mule came out in William. He laid hisgood ear flat along his neck as far as it would go, and took little,nipping steps until he had turned with his tail to the light. Then hethrust his fawn-colored muzzle to the stars and brayed and brayed, hisgood ear working like a pump handle as he tore the sounds loose from hisvitals.
Casey cursed him in a whisper, having no voice left. He kicked William inthe flanks, having no other means of coercion at hand. But kicking neveryet altered the determination of a mule, and cursing a mule in a whisperis like blowing your breath against the sail of a becalmed sloop. Williamkept his tail toward the light, and furthermore he momentarily drew histail farther and farther from that spot. Now and then he would turn hishead and glance back, and immediately increase his pace a little. He waslong past the point where he had strength to trot, but he could walk, andhe did walk and carry Casey on his back, still whispering condemnation.
They did not travel all night. Casey looked at the Big Dipper and judgedit was midnight when they stopped on the brink of a deep canyon, haltedthere in William's sheer despair because the light appeared suddenly onthe high point of a hill directly ahead of them. William's voice was gonelike Casey's, so that he, too, cursed in a whisper with a spasmodicindrawing of ribs and a wheezing in his throat.
When it was plain that the mule had stopped permanently, Casey slid offWilliam's back and lay down without knowing or caring much whether hewould ever get up again. He said he wasn't hungry--much; but his mouth wastoo full of tongue, he added grimly.
He lay and watched through half-closed, staring eyes the light that mockedhim so. His dulling senses told him that it was no camp fire, nor anylight made by human hands. He did not know what it was. He didn't care anymore. William crumpled up and lay down beside him, breathing heavily. Itwas getting close to the end of things. Casey knew it, and he thinksWilliam knew it too.
The sun found them there and forced Casey to move. He sat up painfully,the fight to live not yet burned out of him, and gazed dully at theforbidding hills that closed around him like great, naked rock demonswatching to see him die for want of the things they withheld. Where heremembered the light to have been when last he saw it was bleak, barerock. It was a devil's light and there was nothing friendly or human aboutit.
He looked down into the canyon which William had refused to enter. A faintinterest revived within him because of a patch of green. Trees,--but theymight easily be junipers which will grow in dry canyons as readily, itwould seem, as in any other. He kept looking, because green was a greatrelief from the monotonous gray and black and brown of the hills. Itseemed to him after awhile that he saw a small splotch of dead white.
In the barren lands two things will show white in the distance; a whitehorse and a tent of white canvas. Casey shifted his position and squintedlong at the spot, then got up slowly with the help of a bush and tookWilliam by the rope. William was on his feet, standing with head dropped,apparently half asleep. Casey knew that William was simply waiting untilhe could no longer stand.
Together they wabbled down the sloping canyon side and over a grassybottom to the trees, which were indeed juniper trees, but thriftierlooking than their brethren of the dry places. There was water, forWilliam smelled it at last and hurried forward with more briskness thanCasey could muster, eager though he was to reach the tent he saw standingthere under the biggest juniper.
Beside the tent was a water bucket of bright, new tin. A white granitedipper stood in it. Casey drank sparingly and stopped when he would havegiven all he ever possessed in the world to have gone on drinking until hecould hold no more. But he was not yet crazy with the thirst. So hestopped drinking, filled a white granite basin and soused his head againand again, sighing with sheer ecstasy at the drip of water down his backand chest. After a little he drank two swallows more, put down the dipperand went into the tent.