XV. The Mountain Trail
As Stewart departed from one door Florence knocked upon another; andMadeline, far shaken out of her usual serenity, admitted the coolWestern girl with more than gladness. Just to have her near helpedMadeline to get back her balance. She was conscious of Florence's sharpscrutiny, then of a sweet, deliberate change of manner. Florence mighthave been burning with curiosity to know more about the bandits hiddenin the house, the plans of the cowboys, the reason for Madeline'ssuppressed emotion; but instead of asking Madeline questions sheintroduced the important subject of what to take on the camping trip.For an hour they discussed the need of this and that article,selected those things most needful, and then packed them in Madeline'sduffle-bags.
That done, they decided to lie down, fully dressed as they were inriding-costume, and sleep, or at least rest, the little remaining timeleft before the call to saddle. Madeline turned out the light and,peeping through her window, saw dark forms standing sentinel-like in thegloom. When she lay down she heard soft steps on the path. This fidelityto her swelled her heart, while the need of it presaged that fearfulsomething which, since Stewart's passionate appeal to her, haunted heras inevitable.
Madeline did not expect to sleep, yet she did sleep, and it seemed tohave been only a moment until Florence called her. She followed Florenceoutside. It was the dark hour before dawn. She could discern saddledhorses being held by cowboys. There was an air of hurry and mysteryabout the departure. Helen, who came tip-toeing out with Madeline'sother guests, whispered that it was like an escape. She was delighted.The others were amused. To Madeline it was indeed an escape.
In the darkness Madeline could not see how many escorts her party was tohave. She heard low voices, the champing of bits and thumping of hoofs,and she recognized Stewart when he led up Majesty for her to mount.Then came a pattering of soft feet and the whining of dogs. Cold nosestouched her hands, and she saw the long, gray, shaggy shapes of her packof Russian wolf-hounds. That Stewart meant to let them go with her wasindicative of how he studied her pleasure. She loved to be out with thehounds and her horse.
Stewart led Majesty out into the darkness past a line of mounted horses.
"Guess we're ready?" he said. "I'll make the count." He went back alongthe line, and on the return Madeline heard him say several times,"Now, everybody ride close to the horse in front, and keep quiet tilldaylight." Then the snorting and pounding of the big black horse infront of her told Madeline that Stewart had mounted.
"All right, we're off," he called.
Madeline lifted Majesty's bridle and let the roan go. There was a crackand crunch of gravel, fire struck from stone, a low whinny, a snort,and then steady, short, clip-clop of iron hoofs on hard ground. Madelinecould just discern Stewart and his black outlined in shadowy gray beforeher. Yet they were almost within touching distance. Once or twice one ofthe huge stag-hounds leaped up at her and whined joyously. A thick beltof darkness lay low, and seemed to thin out above to a gray fog, throughwhich a few wan stars showed. It was altogether an unusual departurefrom the ranch; and Madeline, always susceptible even to ordinaryincident that promised well, now found herself thrillingly sensitive tothe soft beat of hoofs, the feel of cool, moist air, the dim sight ofStewart's dark figure. The caution, the early start before dawn, theenforced silence--these lent the occasion all that was needful to makeit stirring.
Majesty plunged into a gully, where sand and rough going made Madelinestop romancing to attend to riding. In the darkness Stewart was notso easy to keep close to even on smooth trails, and now she had tobe watchfully attentive to do it. Then followed a long march throughdragging sand. Meantime the blackness gradually changed to gray. Atlength Majesty climbed out of the wash, and once more his iron shoesrang on stone. He began to climb. The figure of Stewart and his horseloomed more distinctly in Madeline's sight. Bending over, she tried tosee the trail, but could not. She wondered how Stewart could followa trail in the dark. His eyes must be as piercing as they sometimeslooked. Over her shoulder Madeline could not see the horse behind her,but she heard him.
As Majesty climbed steadily Madeline saw the gray darkness grow opaque,change and lighten, lose its substance, and yield the grotesque shapesof yucca and ocotillo. Dawn was about to break. Madeline imagined shewas facing east, still she saw no brightening of sky. All at once, toher surprise, Stewart and his powerful horse stood clear in her sight.She saw the characteristic rock and cactus and brush that covered thefoothills. The trail was old and seldom used, and it zigzagged andturned and twisted. Looking back, she saw the short, squat figure ofMonty Price humped over his saddle. Monty's face was hidden under hissombrero. Behind him rode Dorothy Coombs, and next loomed up the loftyform of Nick Steele. Madeline and the members of her party were ridingbetween cowboy escorts.
Bright daylight came, and Madeline saw the trail was leading up throughfoothills. It led in a round-about way through shallow gullies fullof stone and brush washed down by floods. At every turn now Madelineexpected to come upon water and the waiting pack-train. But time passed,and miles of climbing, and no water or horses were met. Expectation inMadeline gave place to desire; she was hungry.
Presently Stewart's horse went splashing into a shallow pool. Beyondthat damp places in the sand showed here and there, and again more waterin rocky pockets. Stewart kept on. It was eight o'clock by Madeline'swatch when, upon turning into a wide hollow, she saw horses grazing onspare grass, a great pile of canvas-covered bundles, and a fire roundwhich cowboys and two Mexican women were busy.
Madeline sat her horse and reviewed her followers as they rode up singlefile. Her guests were in merry mood, and they all talked at once.
"Breakfast--and rustle," called out Stewart, without ceremony.
"No need to tell me to rustle," said Helen. "I am simply ravenous. Thisair makes me hungry."
For that matter, Madeline observed Helen did not show any markedcontrast to the others. The hurry order, however, did not interfere withthe meal being somewhat in the nature of a picnic. While they ateand talked and laughed the cowboys were packing horses and burros andthrowing the diamond-hitch, a procedure so interesting to Castleton thathe got up with coffee-cup in hand and tramped from one place to another.
"Heard of that diamond-hitch-up," he observed to a cowboy. "Bally nicelittle job!"
As soon as the pack-train was in readiness Stewart started it off in thelead to break trail. A heavy growth of shrub interspersed with rock andcactus covered the slopes; and now all the trail appeared to be uphill.It was not a question of comfort for Madeline and her party, for comfortwas impossible; it was a matter of making the travel possible for him.Florence wore corduroy breeches and high-top boots, and the advantageof this masculine garb was at once in evidence. The riding-habits of theother ladies suffered considerably from the sharp spikes. It took allMadeline's watchfulness to save her horse's legs, to pick the best bitsof open ground, to make cut-offs from the trail, and to protect herselffrom outreaching thorny branches, so that the time sped by without herknowing it. The pack-train forged ahead, and the trailing couples grewfarther apart. At noon they got out of the foothills to face the realascent of the mountains. The sun beat down hot. There was little breeze,and the dust rose thick and hung in a pall. The view was restricted, andwhat scenery lay open to the eye was dreary and drab, a barren monotonyof slow-mounting slopes ridged by rocky canyons.
Once Stewart waited for Madeline, and as she came up he said:
"We're going to have a storm."
"That will be a relief. It's so hot and dusty," replied Madeline.
"Shall I call a halt and make camp?"
"Here? Oh no! What do you think best?"
"Well, if we have a good healthy thunder-storm it will be something newfor your friends. I think we'd be wise to keep on the go. There's noplace to make a good camp. The wind would blow us off this slope ifthe rain didn't wash us off. It'll take all-day travel to reach a goodcamp-site, and I don't promise that. We're making slow time. If itrains, let it
rain. The pack outfit is well covered. We will have to getwet."
"Surely," replied Madeline; and she smiled at his inference. She knewwhat a storm was in that country, and her guests had yet to experienceone. "If it rains, let it rain."
Stewart rode on, and Madeline followed. Up the slope toiled and noddedthe pack-animals, the little burros going easily where the horseslabored. Their packs, like the humps of camels, bobbed from side toside. Stones rattled down; the heat-waves wavered black; the dust puffedup and sailed. The sky was a pale blue, like heated steel, except wheredark clouds peeped over the mountain crests. A heavy, sultry atmospheremade breathing difficult. Down the slope the trailing party stretchedout in twos and threes, and it was easy to distinguish the weary riders.
Half a mile farther up Madeline could see over the foothills to thenorth and west and a little south, and she forgot the heat andweariness and discomfort for her guests in wide, unlimited prospects ofsun-scorched earth. She marked the gray valley and the black mountainsand the wide, red gateway of the desert, and the dim, shadowy peaks,blue as the sky they pierced. She was sorry when the bleak, gnarledcedar-trees shut off her view.
Then there came a respite from the steep climb, and the way led in awinding course through a matted, storm-wrenched forest of stunted trees.Even up to this elevation the desert reached with its gaunt hand. Theclouds overspreading the sky, hiding the sun, made a welcome change. Thepack-train rested, and Stewart and Madeline waited for the party to comeup. Here he briefly explained to her that Don Carlos and his bandits hadleft the ranch some time in the night. Thunder rumbled in the distance,and a faint wind rustled the scant foliage of the cedars. The air grewoppressive; the horses panted.
"Sure it'll be a hummer," said Stewart. "The first storm almost alwaysis bad. I can feel it in the air."
The air, indeed, seemed to be charged with a heavy force that waswaiting to be liberated.
One by one the couples mounted to the cedar forest, and the femininecontingent declaimed eloquently for rest. But there was to be nopermanent rest until night and then that depended upon reaching thecrags. The pack-train wagged onward, and Stewart fell in behind. Thestorm-center gathered slowly around the peaks; low rumble and howl ofthunder increased in frequence; slowly the light shaded as smoky cloudsrolled up; the air grew sultrier, and the exasperating breeze puffed afew times and then failed.
An hour later the party had climbed high and was rounding the side of agreat bare ridge that long had hidden the crags. The last burro of thepack-train plodded over the ridge out of Madeline's sight. She lookedbackward down the slope, amused to see her guests change wearily fromside to side in their saddles. Far below lay the cedar flat and thefoothills. Far to the west the sky was still clear, with shafts ofsunlight shooting down from behind the encroaching clouds.
Stewart reached the summit of the ridge and, though only a few rodsahead, he waved to her, sweeping his hand round to what he saw beyond.It was an impressive gesture, and Madeline, never having climbed as highas this, anticipated much.
Majesty surmounted the last few steps and, snorting, halted besideStewart's black. To Madeline the scene was as if the world had changed.The ridge was a mountain-top. It dropped before her into a black,stone-ridged, shrub-patched, many-canyoned gulf. Eastward, beyond thegulf, round, bare mountain-heads loomed up. Upward, on the right, ledgiant steps of cliff and bench and weathered slope to the fir-borderedand pine-fringed crags standing dark and bare against the stormy sky.Massed inky clouds were piling across the peaks, obscuring the highestones. A fork of white lightning flashed, and, like the booming of anavalanche, thunder followed.
That bold world of broken rock under the slow mustering of storm-cloudswas a grim, awe-inspiring spectacle. It had beauty, but beauty of thesublime and majestic kind. The fierce desert had reached up to meet themagnetic heights where heat and wind and frost and lightning and floodcontended in everlasting strife. And before their onslaught this mightyupflung world of rugged stone was crumbling, splitting, wearing to ruin.
Madeline glanced at Stewart. He had forgotten her presence. Immovableas stone, he sat his horse, dark-faced, dark-eyed, and, like an Indianunconscious of thought, he watched and watched. To see him thus,to divine the strange affinity between the soul of this man, becomeprimitive, and the savage environment that had developed him, werepowerful helps to Madeline Hammond in her strange desire to understandhis nature.
A cracking of iron-shod hoofs behind her broke the spell. Monty hadreached the summit.
"Gene, what it won't all be doin' in a minnut Moses hisself couldn'ttell," observed Monty.
Then Dorothy climbed to his side and looked.
"Oh, isn't it just perfectly lovely!" she exclaimed. "But I wish itwouldn't storm. We'll all get wet."
Once more Stewart faced the ascent, keeping to the slow heave of theridge as it rose southward toward the looming spires of rock. Soon hewas off smooth ground, and Madeline, some rods behind him, looked backwith concern at her friends. Here the real toil, the real climb began,and a mountain storm was about to burst in all its fury.
The slope that Stewart entered upon was a magnificent monument to theruined crags above. It was a southerly slope, and therefore semi-arid,covered with cercocarpus and yucca and some shrub that Madeline believedwas manzanita. Every foot of the trail seemed to slide under Majesty.What hard ground there was could not be traveled upon, owing to thespiny covering or masses of shattered rocks. Gullies lined the slope.
Then the sky grew blacker; the slow-gathering clouds appeared to besuddenly agitated; they piled and rolled and mushroomed and obscuredthe crags. The air moved heavily and seemed to be laden with sulphuroussmoke, and sharp lightning flashes began to play. A distant roar of windcould be heard between the peals of thunder.
Stewart waited for Madeline under the lee of a shelving cliff, where thecowboys had halted the pack-train. Majesty was sensitive to the flashesof lightning. Madeline patted his neck and softly called to him. Theweary burros nodded; the Mexican women covered their heads with theirmantles. Stewart untied the slicker at the back of Madeline's saddleand helped her on with it. Then he put on his own. The other cowboysfollowed suit. Presently Madeline saw Monty and Dorothy rounding thecliff, and hoped the others would come soon.
A blue-white, knotted rope of lightning burned down out of the clouds,and instantly a thunder-clap crashed, seeming to shake the foundationsof the earth. Then it rolled, as if banging from cloud to cloud, andboomed along the peaks, and reverberated from deep to low, at last torumble away into silence. Madeline felt the electricity in Majesty'smane, and it seemed to tingle through her nerves. The air had a weird,bright cast. The ponderous clouds swallowed more and more of the easterndomes. This moment of the breaking of the storm, with the strangegrowing roar of wind, like a moaning monster, was pregnant with aheart-disturbing emotion for Madeline Hammond. Glorious it was to befree, healthy, out in the open, under the shadow of the mountain andcloud, in the teeth of the wind and rain and storm.
Another dazzling blue blaze showed the bold mountain-side and thestorm-driven clouds. In the flare of light Madeline saw Stewart's face.
"Are you afraid?" she asked.
"Yes," he replied, simply.
Then the thunderbolt racked the heavens, and as it boomed away inlessening power Madeline reflected with surprise upon Stewart's answer.Something in his face had made her ask him what she considered a foolishquestion. His reply amazed her. She loved a storm. Why should he fearit--he, with whom she could not associate fear?
"How strange! Have you not been out in many storms?"
A smile that was only a gleam flitted over his dark face.
"In hundreds of them. By day, with the cattle stampeding. At night,alone on the mountain, with the pines crashing and the rocks rolling--inflood on the desert."
"It's not only the lightning, then?" she asked.
"No. All the storm."
Madeline felt that henceforth she would have less faith in what she hadimagined was her love of
the elements. What little she knew! If thisiron-nerved man feared a storm, then there was something about a stormto fear.
And suddenly, as the ground quaked under her horse's feet, and allthe sky grew black and crisscrossed by flaming streaks, and betweenthunderous reports there was a strange hollow roar sweeping down uponher, she realized how small was her knowledge and experience of themighty forces of nature. Then, with that perversity of character ofwhich she was wholly conscious, she was humble, submissive, reverent,and fearful even while she gloried in the grandeur of the dark,cloud-shadowed crags and canyons, the stupendous strife of sound, thewonderful driving lances of white fire.
With blacker gloom and deafening roar came the torrent of rain. It wasa cloud-burst. It was like solid water tumbling down. For long Madelinesat her horse, head bent to the pelting rain. When its force lessenedand she heard Stewart call for all to follow, she looked up to see thathe was starting once more. She shot a glimpse at Dorothy and as quicklyglanced away. Dorothy, who would not wear a hat suitable for inclementweather, nor one of the horrid yellow, sticky slickers, was a drenchedand disheveled spectacle. Madeline did not trust herself to look at theother girls. It was enough to hear their lament. So she turned her horseinto Stewart's trail.
Rain fell steadily. The fury of the storm, however, had passed, and theroll of thunder diminished in volume. The air had wonderfully clearedand was growing cool. Madeline began to feel uncomfortably cold and wet.Stewart was climbing faster than formerly, and she noted that Monty keptat her heels, pressing her on. Time had been lost, and the camp-site wasa long way off. The stag-hounds began to lag and get footsore. The sharprocks of the trail were cruel to their feet. Then, as Madeline began totire, she noticed less and less around her. The ascent grew rougher andsteeper--slow toil for panting horses. The thinning rain grew colder,and sometimes a stronger whip of wind lashed stingingly in Madeline'sface. Her horse climbed and climbed, and brush and sharp corners ofstone everlastingly pulled and tore at her wet garments. A gray gloomsettled down around her. Night was approaching. Majesty heaved upwardwith a snort, the wet saddle creaked, and an even motion told Madelineshe was on level ground. She looked up to see looming crags and spires,like huge pipe-organs, dark at the base and growing light upward.The rain had ceased, but the branches of fir-trees and juniper werewater-soaked arms reaching out for her. Through an opening between cragsMadeline caught a momentary glimpse of the west. Red sun-shafts shonethrough the murky, broken clouds. The sun had set.
Stewart's horse was on a jog-trot now, and Madeline left the trail moreto Majesty than to her own choosing. The shadows deepened, and the cragsgrew gloomy and spectral. A cool wind moaned through the dark trees.Coyotes, scenting the hounds, kept apace of them, and barked and howledoff in the gloom. But the tired hounds did not appear to notice.
As black night began to envelop her surroundings, Madeline marked thatthe fir-trees had given place to pine forest. Suddenly a pin-point oflight pierced the ebony blackness. Like a solitary star in dark skyit twinkled and blinked. She lost sight of it--found it again. It grewlarger. Black tree-trunks crossed her line of vision. The light was afire. She heard a cowboy song and the wild chorus of a pack of coyotes.Drops of rain on the branches of trees glittered in the rays of thefire. Stewart's tall figure, with sombrero slouched down, was now andthen outlined against a growing circle of light. And by the aid of thatlight she saw him turn every moment or so to look back, probably toassure himself that she was close behind.
With a prospect of fire and warmth, and food and rest, Madeline'senthusiasm revived. What a climb! There was promise in this wild rideand lonely trail and hidden craggy height, not only in the adventure herfriends yearned for, but in some nameless joy and spirit for herself.