Chapter XXV
The Mal-Pais
Billie Prince laughed. The joke was on him, but he was glad of it. Assheriff of Washington County it had been his duty to accept any aid thatmight come from the treachery of Sanders; but as a friend of Jim Clantonhe did not want to win over him by using such weapons.
"Tickled to death, ain't you?" snapped the ex-foreman sourly. "Looks tome like you didn't want to make this arrest, Mr. Sheriff. Looks to melike some one else has been doin' some double-crossin' besides me."
"Naturally _you'd_ think that," cut in Goodheart dryly. "The factsprobably are that Go-Get-'Em Jim, knowin' his friends pretty well, hadyou watched, found out you called on the sheriff, an' guessed the rest.He's not a fool, you know."
"That's right. Git ready an alibi," Sanders snarled.
Casually Goodheart picked up the piece of wrapping-paper upon which thenote had been written. He read aloud the last sentence.
"'Crack Sanders one on the bean with your six-gun on account for me.'Seems to me if I was you, Buck, I'd alibi myself down the river intoTexas as quick as I could jog a bronco along. But, of course, I don'tknow yore friend Go-Get-'Em as well as you do. Mebbe you'll be able toexplain it to him. Tell him you were hard up an' needed the money."
The eyes of the rustler flashed from Goodheart to the sheriff. They werefull of sinister suspicion. Had these men arranged to deliver him intothe hands of Clanton? Was he himself going to fall into the pit he haddug?
"Gimme back my gun an' I'm not afraid of him or any of you," he bluffed.
"You'll get yore gun when we reach Los Portales," Prince told him. "Ileft it in my office."
"I ain't goin' to Los Portales."
"All right. Leave yore address and I'll send the gun by the buckboarddriver."
All the baffled hate and cupidity of Sanders glared out of his wolfishface. "I'll let you know later where I'm at."
He straddled out of the house, pulled himself astride the waiting horse,and rode up the hill. Presently he disappeared over the crest.
"Much obliged, Jack," said Prince, smiling. "Exit Mr. Buck Sanders fromNew Mexico. Our loss is Texas's gain. Chalk up one bad man emigratedfrom Washington County."
"He's sure goin' to take my advice," agreed the lank deputy. A littlechuckle of amusement escaped from his throat. "To the day of his deathhe'll think we sent word to Go-Get-'Em Jim. I'll bet my next pay-checkagainst a dollar Mex that he forgets to send you that address."
Billie availed himself of the invitation of Clanton to make himself athome. He and his posse spent the night in the dug-out and returned to LosPortales next day. For the better part of a week he was detained there onbusiness, after which he took the stage to Live-Oaks.
News was waiting for Prince at the county seat that led him for a time toforget the existence of Clanton. The buckboard driver from El Pasoreported the worst sand-storm he had ever encountered. It had struck hima mile or two this side of the Mal-Pais, as the great lava beds in theTularosa Basin are commonly called. He had unhitched the horses,overturned the buckboard, and huddled in the shelter of the bed. There hehad lain crouched for ten hours while the drifting sand, fine as powder,blotted out the world and buried him in drifts. He was an old plainsman,tough as leather, and he had weathered the storm safely. A full day latehe staggered into Live-Oaks a sorry sight.
The news that shook Live-Oaks into swift activity had to do with LeeSnaith. Just before the storm hit him the buckboard driver had met herriding toward the Mal-Pais.
Prince arrived to find the town upside down with the confusion ofpreparation. Swiftly he brought order out of the turmoil. He organizedthe rescue party, assigned leaders to the divisions, saw that each manwas properly outfitted, and mapped off the territory to be covered byeach posse. Outwardly he was cool, efficient, full of hopeful energy. Butat his heart Billie felt an icy clutch of despair. What chance was therefor Lee, caught unsheltered in the open, when the wiry, old Indianfighter, protected by his wagon, had barely won through alive?
Every horse in Live-Oaks that could be ridden was in the group thatmelted into the night to find Lee Snaith. Every living soul left in thelittle town was on the street to cheer the rescuers.
The sheriff divided his men. Most of them were to spend the night, and ifnecessary the next day and night, in combing the sand desert east of theMal-Pais. Here Lee had last been seen, and here probably she had wanderedround and round until the storm had beaten her down. It took littleimagination to vision the girl, flailed by the sweeping sand, bewilderedby it, choked at every gasping breath, hopelessly lost in the tempest.
Yet some bell of hope rang in Billie's breast. She might have reached thelava. If so, there was a chance that she might be alive. For though thewind had sweep enough here, the fine dust-sand of the alluvial plaincould not be carried so densely into this rock-sea. Perhaps she hadslipped into a fissure and found safety.
For fifty miles this great igneous bed stretches, a rough and broken seaof stone, across the thirsty desert. Its texture is like that of slagfrom a furnace. Once, in the morning of the world, it flowed from thecrater along the line of least resistance, a vitreous river of fire. In agreat molten mass it swept into the valleys, crawling like a great snakehere and there, pushing fiery tongues into every crevice of the hills.
The margin of its flow is a cliff or steep slope varying in height from afew feet to that of a good-sized tree. Between the silt plain and thegeneral level of its bed rises a terrace. In front of it Prince stoppedand distributed the men he had reserved to search the lava bed. He gavedefinite, peremptory orders.
"We'll keep about two hundred yards apart. Every twenty minutes each ofyou will fire his revolver. If any of you find Miss Snaith or anyevidence of her, shoot three times in rapid succession. Each of you passthe signal down the line by firing four shots. Those who hear the threeshots go in as fast as you can to the rescue. The others--those fartheraway, who hear the four shots only--will turn an' work back to the plain,continuing to fire once every twenty minutes. Do exactly as I tell you,boys. If you don't, some one will be lost an' may never get out alive. Ifany one of you gets out of touch with the rest of us, stay right whereyou are till mornin', then come out by the sun."
The horses were left in charge of a Mexican boy. The surface of thedeposit is so broken that even a man on foot has difficulty in traversingit. Prince crawled forward from the terrace up the rough slope of thecliff which at this point bounded it. At the top of the rim he rose andcame face to face with another man.
"A good deal like frozen hell, Billie," the other said casually.
"Where did you come from?" demanded the sheriff, amazed.
Jim Clanton laughed grimly. "I've been with yore party half an hour. Whyshouldn't I be here when Lee Snaith is lost?"
"You were hiding in Live-Oaks?"
"Mebbeso. Anyway, I'm here. I'll take the right flank, Billie."
"Do you think there's a chance, Jim?" The voice of Prince shook withemotion. It was the first sign of distress he had given.
Clanton reflected just a moment before he answered. "I think there's justa chance. She saved our lives once, Billie. If she's alive we'll findher, you an' me."
"By God, yes." Prince turned away. He could not talk about it withoutbreaking down.
In the stress of a great shock Billie had made a vital discovery. Themost important thing that would ever come to him in life was to find LeeSnaith alive. How blind he had been! He could see her now in imagination,as in reality he had seen her a hundred times, moving in the sun-pourwith elastic tread, full-throated and deep-chested, athrob with life inevery generous vein. How passionately she had loved things brave andtrue! How anger had flamed up in her like fire among tow at meanness andhypocrisy. Surely all the beauty of her person, the fineness of hercharacter, could not be blotted out so wantonly. If there was any economyin his world God would never permit waste like that.
He wanted her. His soul cried out for her. and stormily he prayed that hemight find her alive and well,
that the chance might still be given himto tell her how much he loved her.
Sometimes he covered small distances where the flow structure wascomparatively smooth, broken only by minor irregularities. Again he cameto abrupt pits, deep caverns, tumbled heaps of broken slabs, or jaggedchunks of lava twisted into strange shapes. No doubt the volcanic flowhad hardened to a crust on top, cracked, and sunk into the furnace below.This process must have gone on indefinitely.
He crept from slab to slab, pulled himself across chasms, worked slowlyforward in the darkness. At intervals he fired and listened for ananswer. Occasionally there drifted to him the sound of a shot from one ofthe other searchers. As the hours passed and brought to him no signalthat the girl had been found, his hopes ebbed. It was very unlikely thatshe could have wandered so far into the bad lands as this.
He shuddered to think of her alone in this vast tomb of death. Supposeshe were here and they never found her. Suppose she were asleep when hepassed, worn out by terror and exhaustion. His voice grew hoarse fromshouting. Sometimes, when the thought of her fate would become an agonyto him, he could hardly keep his shout from rising to a scream.
Billie struck a match and looked at his watch. It was five minutes pastthree. A faint gray was beginning to sift into the sky. He had beennearly seven hours in the Mal-Pais. Out in God's country the world wouldsoon be shaking sleep from its eyes. In this death zone there was neitherwaking nor sleeping. "Frozen hell," Clanton had called it. Princeshuddered.
The flare of the match had showed him that he was standing close to theedge of a fissure. In the darkness he could not see to the bottom of it.
A faint breath of a whimper floated to him. He grew rigid, every nervetaut. He dared not let himself believe it could be real. Of course he wasimagining sounds. Presently, no doubt, he would hear voices. In thisdevil's caldron a man could not stay quite sane.
Again, as if from below his feet, was lifted a strangled, little sob.
"Lee!" he called huskily with what was left of his voice.
Something in the cavern moved. By means of outcropping spars of rock helowered himself swiftly.
The darkness was Stygian. He struck another match.
From the gloom beyond the space lit by the small flame came the rustle ofsomething stirring. The match burned out. He lit another and gropedforward. His foot struck an impediment.
He looked down into the startled eyes and white face of Lee Snaith.