CHAPTER XV
We can all remember certain experiences that fill us with incredulity evenwhile we admit that the facts could be proved before a jury of twelve men.So Casey Ryan, having lost his outfit and come so near to death that hecould barely keep his feet under him, walked into a tent and stood therethinking it couldn't be true.
A folding camp chair stood near the opening, and Casey sat down from sheerweakness while he looked about him. The tent was a twelve-by-fourteen,which is a bit larger than one usually carries in a pack outfit. It had acanvas floor soiled in strips where the most walking had been done, butwhite under table and beds, which proved its newness. Casey was notaccustomed to seeing tents floored with canvas, and he stared at it for afull half-minute before his eyes went to other things.
There was a folding camp table of the kind shown in the window display ofsporting-goods stores, but which seasoned campers find too wobbly foractual comfort. The varnish still shone on legs and braces, which helpedto prove its newness. There was a two-burner oil stove with anenamel-rimmed oven that was distinctly out of place in that country andyet harmonized perfectly with the tent and furnishings. The dishes werewhite enamel of aluminum, and there were boxes piled upon boxes, thelabels proclaiming canned things too expensive for ordinary eating. Twospring cots with new blankets and white-cased pillows stood against thetent wall, and beneath each cot sat two yellow pigskin suitcases withstraps and brass buckles. They would have been perfectly natural in aPullman sleeper, but even in his present stress Casey snorted disdainfullyat sight of them here.
Things were tumbled about in the disorder of inexperienced campers, buteverything was very new and clean except an array of dishes on the table,which told Casey that one man had eaten at least three meals withoutwashing his dishes or putting away his surplus of food. Casey had eatennothing at all after that one toasted rabbit which he had choked down onthe evening when he gave up hope of finding the burros. He got up andstaggered stiffly to the table and picked up a piece of burned biscuit,hard as flint.
While he mumbled a fragment of that he looked into various half-filledcans, setting them one by one in a compact group on the table corner;which was habit rather than conscious thought. Poisonous ptomaine lurkedin every one of them, which was a shame, since he had to discard half acan of preserved peaches, half a can of roast beef, half a can ofasparagus tips, a can of chicken soup scarcely touched and two thirds of acan of sweet potatoes. He salvaged a can of ripe olives which he thoughtwas good, a can of India relish and a can of sweet gherkins (both of thefifty-seven varieties). You will see what I meant when I spoke ofexpensive camp food.
There was cold coffee in a nickel percolater, and Casey poured himself acup, knowing well the risk of eating much just at first. It was while hewas unscrewing the top of the glass jar that held the sugar that he firstnoticed the paper. It was folded and thrust into the sugar jar, and Caseypulled it out and held it crumpled in his hand while he sweetened anddrank the coffee, forcing himself to take it slowly. When the cup wasempty to the last drop he went over and sat down on the edge of a springcot and unfolded the note. What he read surprised him a great deal andpuzzled him more. I leave it to you to judge why.
"I saw it again last night in a different place. The last horse died yesterday down the canyon. You can have the outfit. I'm going to beat it out of here while the going's good. Fred."
"That's mighty damn funny," Casey muttered thickly. "You can--ask--" Helay back luxuriously, with his head on the white pillow and closed hiseyes. The reaction from struggling to live had set in with the assuranceof his safety. He slept heavily, refreshingly.
He awoke to the craving for food, and immediately started a small fireoutside and boiled coffee in a nice new aluminum pail that held two quartsand had an ornamental cover. The oil stove he dismissed from his mind witha snort of contempt. And because nearly everything he saw was cataloguedin his mind as a luxury, he opened cans somewhat extravagantly and dinedoff strange, delectable foods to which his palate was unaccustomed. Hestill thought it was mighty queer, but that did not impair his appetite.
Afterwards he went out to look after William, remembering that horses weresaid to have died in this place. William was almost within kickingdistance of the spring, as if he meant to keep an eye upon the watersupply even though that involved browsing off brush instead of wanderingdown to good grass below the camp.
Casey knelt stiffly and drank from the spring, laving his face and headafterward as if he never would get enough of the luxury of being wet andcool. He rose and stood looking at William for a few minutes, then tookthe lead rope and tied him to a juniper that stood near the spring. Thenote had said that the last horse died down the canyon, the implication ofmystery lying heavy behind the words.
Casey went back to the tent and read the note through again twice,studying each word as if he hoped to twist some added information out ofit. It sounded as though the writer had expected his partner back fromsome trip and had left the note for him, since he had not considered itnecessary to explain what it was that he had seen again in a differentplace. Casey wondered if it might not have been that strange light whichhe himself had followed. Whatever it was, the fellow had not liked it. Hisgoing had all the earmarks of flight.
Well, then, why had the last horse died down the canyon? Casey decidedthat he would go and see, though he was not hankering for exercise thatday. He took a long drink of water, somewhat shamefacedly filled a newcanteen that lay on a pile of odds and ends near the tent door, andstarted down the canyon. It couldn't be far, but he might want a drinkbefore he got back, and Casey had had enough of thirst.
He was not long in finding the horse that had died, and in fact all thehorses that had died. There had been four, and the manner of their deathwas not in the least mysterious. They had been staked out to graze in aluxurious patch of loco weed, which is reason enough why any horse shoulddie.
Of course, no man save an unmitigated tenderfoot would picket a horse onloco, which looks very much like wild peavine and is known the West overas the deadliest weed that grows. A little of it mixed with a diet ofgrass will drive horses and cattle insane, and there is no authentic caseof recovery, that I ever heard, once the infection is complete. A lot ofit will kill,--and these poor beasts had actually been staked out to grazeupon it, I suppose because it looked nice and green, and the horsesliked it.
The performance matched very well the enamel-trimmed oil stove and thetinned dainties and the expensive suitcases. Casey went back to campfeeling as though he had stumbled upon a picnic of feeble-minded persons.He wondered what in hell two men of such a type could be doing out there,a hundred miles and more from an ice-cream soda and a barber's chair. Hewondered too how "Fred" had expected to get himself across that hundredmiles and more of dry desert country. He must certainly be afoot, and thecamp itself showed no sign of an emergency outfit having been assembledfrom its furnishings.
Casey made sure of that, inspecting first the bedding and food and thenthe cooking utensils. Everything was complete--lavishly so--for two menwho loved comfort. Even their sweaters were there; and Casey knew theymust have discovered that the nights can be cool even though the days arehot, in that altitude. And there were two canteens of the size usuallycarried by hikers.
Casey was so worried that he could not properly enjoy his supper of patede foi gras and crackers, with pork and beans, plum pudding--eaten ascake--and spiced figs and coffee. That night he turned over on hisspring-cot bed as often as if he had been lying on nettles, and when hedid sleep he dreamed horribly.
Next morning he set out with William and an emergency camp outfit to traceif he could the missing men. The great outdoors of Nevada is not kind tosuch as these, and Casey had too lately suffered to think with easy-goingoptimism that they would manage somehow. They would die if they were leftto shift for themselves, and Casey could not pretend that he did not knowit.
But there was a difficulty in rescuing them, just as there had been inrescuing the burros. C
asey could not find their tracks, and so could notfollow them. He and William hunted the canyon from top to bottom andranged far out on the valley floor without discovering anything that couldbe called the track of a man. Which was strange, too, in a country wherefootprints are held for a long, long while by the soil,--as souvenirs ofman's passing, perhaps.
So it transpired that Casey at length returned to the new tent just belowthe spring in the nameless canyon beyond Crazy Woman Lake. Chipmunks hadinvaded the place and feasted upon an opened package of sweet crackers,but otherwise the tent had been left inviolate. Neither Fred nor hispartner had returned. Wherefore Casey opened more cans and "made himselfto home," as he naively put it.
He was impatient to continue his journey, but since he had nothing of hisown except William, he meant to beg or buy a few things from this camp, ifeither of the owners showed up. Meantime he could be comfortable, since itis tacitly understood in the open land that a wayfarer may claimhospitality of any man, with or without that man's knowledge. He isexpected to keep the camp clean, to leave firewood and to take nothingaway with him except what is absolutely necessary to insure his gettingsafely to the next stopping place. Casey knew well the law, and he busiedhimself in setting the camp in order while he waited.
But when five days and nights had slipped into history and he and Williamwere still in sole possession, Casey began to take another viewpoint. Fredmight possibly have left in a flying machine. The partner might havedecamped permanently before Fred lost his nerve. Several things might havehappened which would leave this particular camp and contents without aclaimant. Casey studied the matter for awhile and then pulled the foursuitcases from beneath the cots and proceeded to investigate. The firstone that he opened had a note folded and addressed to Fred. Casey read itthrough without the slightest compunction. The handwriting was differentfrom that of the first note, hurried and scrawly, the words connected withfaint lines. Here is what Fred's partner had written:
"Dear Fred: Don't blame me for leaving you. A man that carries thegrouch you do don't need company. I'm fed up on solitude, and I don't likethe feel of things here. My staying won't help your lung a damn bit and ifyou want anything you can hunt up the men that carry the light. Maybe theyare the ones that are killing off the horses. Any way, you can wash yourown dishes from now on. It will do you good. If I had of known you werethe crab you are I'll say I would never have come. You are welcome to myshare of the outfit. I hope some one shoots me and puts me out of mymisery quick if I ever show symptoms of wanting to camp out again. I amgoing now because if I stayed I'd change your map for you so your ownlooking glass wouldn't know you. I'll say you are some nut. Art."
Casey had to take a fresh chew of tobacco before his brain would settledown and he could think clearly. Then he observed that it was a damn funnycombination and you could ask anybody. After that he began to realize thathe was heir to a fine assortment of canned delicacies and an oil stove andfour suitcases filled, he hoped, with good clothes. Not omittingpossession of two spring cots and several pairs of high-grade blankets,and two sweaters and Lord knows what all.
Those suitcases were enough to make any man sit and bite his nails,wondering if he were crazy. Fred and Art had evidently fitted theirwardrobe to their ideas of a summer camp with dancing pavilion and plentyof hammocks in the immediate neighborhood. There were white flanneltrousers and white canvas shoes and white silk socks, and fine ties andhandkerchiefs and things. There were striped silk shirts which made Caseygrin and think how tickled Injun Jim would be with them,--or one or two ofthem; Casey had no intention of laying them all on the altar of diplomacy.There was an assortment of apparel in those suitcases that would qualifyany man as porch hound at Del Monte. And Casey Ryan, if you please, hadfallen heir to the lot!
He dressed himself in white flannels with a silk shirt of delf blue andpale green stripes, and wished that there was a looking-glass in camplarge enough to reflect all of him at once. Then, because his beardstubble did not harmonize, he shaved with one of the safety razors hefound.
After that he sorted and packed a careful wardrobe, and stored strangefood into two canvas kyacks. And the next evening he tied the tent flapscarefully and fared forth with William to find the camp of Injun Jim andsee if his dream would come true.