CHAPTER XIV.
THE LOST TURQUOISES
THAT night there was a whispered consultation in Mrs. Ware's tent whileLloyd was undressing in the other one. Sitting on the edge of hermother's bed, Joyce rapidly outlined a plan which she had thought of onher way home.
"You see, I haven't done anything special at all to give Lloyd a goodtime," she began. "This picnic was Phil's affair. When I was at herhouse-party, there was something new on the programme nearly every day.She's been here nearly a month now, and her visit will soon be over. I'dlike to give her one real larky day before she goes. Mrs. Lee said thatI could have Bogus to-morrow, and, as it is Saturday, the children willbe at home to help you. So I thought it would be fun for Jack and Lloydand me to ride over to the Indian school. It's so interesting, and itdoesn't cost anything to get in. Then we could go on to the ostrichfarm just outside of Phoenix. Lloyd wants to get some kodak pictures ofthe ostriches. The admission fee will only be seventy-five cents for thethree of us. I can pay that out of the money that Mrs. Link sent, andget a nice little lunch at Coffee Al's restaurant, and still have enoughleft to pay for my hive of bees. We can spend the rest of the afternoonprowling around the curio shops and picture stores. Lloyd wants to getever so many things to take home,--bead belts and moccasins, and thingsmade out of cactus and orangewood. I haven't said anything to her aboutit yet, but Phil said that if we went he would join us."
"I think that is a very good plan," said Mrs. Ware, entering intowhatever Joyce proposed with hearty interest. "You'd better not tell herto-night, or you'll lie awake talking about it too long, and you'll needto make an early start, you know."
By half-past eight next morning the little cavalcade was on its way,Jack and Lloyd riding on ahead, and Phil and Joyce following leisurely.The road they took led through irrigated lands, and green fields andblooming orchards greeted them at every turn, instead of the wastestretches of desert that they were accustomed to seeing.
"I wish you'd look!" exclaimed Lloyd, drawing rein to wait for Joyceand Phil, and then pointing to a field where a boy was ploughing a long,straight furrow. "That's an _Indian_ ploughing there! An Indian in acadet unifawm, with brass buttons on it. Doesn't it seem queah? Jacksays it's the unifawm of the school, and that they have to weah it whenthey hiah out to the fahmahs. This is paht of their education. I likethem best in tomahawks and blankets. It seems moah natural."
"This isn't Hiawatha's land," laughed Phil, "nor the Pathfinder'scountry. I was disappointed, too, to find them so tame andunromantic-looking, but they're certainly more pleasant as neighbourssince they have taken to civilization. You remember the horrible taleswe heard last night."
Lloyd had expected to see a large school-building, but she was surprisedto find in addition so many other buildings. Dormitories, workshops, apublic hall, and the fine, wide streets leading around the centralsquare gave the appearance of a thrifty little village. They lingeredlong in the kindergarten, where the bright-eyed little papooses were sointerested in watching them that they almost forgot the song they weresinging about "Baby's ball so soft and round." They went through thegreat kitchens, where Indian girls were learning to cook, and thetailoring establishment where the boys were turning out the newuniforms. Down in one of the parlours a little eagle-eyed girl, withfeatures strikingly like those of Sitting Bull, practised thefive-finger exercises at the piano. Only twice did they see anythingthat reminded them of the primitive Indians. In one of the workshops aswarthy boy sat before a loom such as the old squaws used to have,weaving patiently a Navajo blanket. And in one of the buildings wheredressmaking was taught there was a table surrounded by busybead-workers, working on chains and belts and gaily decorated trinketsthat made Lloyd wish for a bottomless purse. They were all so tempting.
So much time was occupied in watching the classes in wood-carving, andin listening to recitations in the various rooms, that it was nearlynoon when they reached the ostrich farm. It was not the ranch where thegreat birds were hatched and raised, but a large enclosure near thestreet-car line, where they were brought to be exhibited to thetourists. So, after watching the foolish-looking creatures awhile,laughing at their comical expressions as they tilted mincingly up anddown in what Lloyd called the perfection of cake-walking, and takingseveral snap-shots of them, Joyce proposed that they should leave theirhorses at a corral farther down the street, and go at once for theirlunch.
It was the first time that Jack had been inside the restaurant, and hewas glad that Phil, who often lunched there, was with them to take thelead. He felt very young and inexperienced in the ways of the world, ashe marched in behind him, and, while he secretly admired the lordly airwith which Phil gave his orders, he saw that the girls were impressed byit, too, and he inwardly resented being made to appear such aninsignificant small boy by contrast.
He had supposed that they would sit up on the stools at thelunch-counters which one could see from the street. That is where he, inhis ignorance, would have piloted the party. But Phil, passing them by,led the way up-stairs. An attractive-looking dining-room opened out fromthe upper hall, but, ignoring that also, Phil kept on to a balconyoverlooking the street, where there were several small tables.
"They serve out here in hot weather," he said, "and it's warm enoughto-day, I'm sure. Besides, we'll be all by ourselves, and can see whatis going on down below. Here, Sambo!"
He beckoned to a coloured waiter passing through the hall, and soon hadhim scurrying around in haste to fill their orders. It was the mostenjoyable little lunch Lloyd could remember. Phil, who somehow naturallyassumed the part of host, had never been so entertaining. Time slippedby so fast while they laughed and talked that the hour was finishedbefore they realized that it had fairly begun.
Then Phil, putting Lloyd's camera on an opposite table, and focussing iton the group, showed the waiter how to snap the spring, and hurried backto his chair to be included in the picture which they all wanted as asouvenir of the day's excursion.
They made arrangements for the rest of the afternoon after that. Jackwas to take the camera to a photographer's and leave it for the roll offilms to be developed, and then go to a shoestore and the grocery. Philhad an errand to attend to for Mrs. Lee and a few purchases to make.Lloyd had a long list of things she hoped to find in the Curio Building.They agreed to meet at a drug store on that street which had a cornerespecially furnished for the comfort of its out-of-town patrons. Besidesnumerous easy chairs and tables, where tired customers could be servedat any time from the soda-fountain, there were daily papers to helppass the time of waiting, and a desk provided with free stationery.
It was just four o'clock when Joyce and Lloyd, coming back to the drugstore with their arms full of packages, found Jack already there waitingfor them. He was weighing himself on the scales near the door.
"I've been knocking around here for the last half-hour," he said. "I'llgo out and look for Phil now, and tell him you are ready, and we'll getthe horses and bring them around."
"How long will it take?" asked Joyce.
"Fifteen or twenty minutes, probably. He's just up the street."
"Then I'll begin a lettah to mothah," said Lloyd, depositing her bundleson a table, and sitting down at the desk. Joyce picked up an illustratedpaper and settled herself comfortably in a rocking-chair.
The big clock over the soda-fountain slowly dropped its hands down thedial, but Joyce, absorbed in her reading, and Lloyd in her writing, paidno attention until half an hour had gone by. Then Lloyd, folding herletter and slipping it into an envelope, looked up.
"Mercy, Joyce! It's half-past foah! What do you suppose is the mattah?"
Before Joyce could answer, she caught sight of Jack, through the bigshow-window, hurrying down the street by himself. He was red in the facefrom his rapid walking when he came in, and had a queer expression abouthis mouth that he always had when disgusted or out of patience.
"Phil's busy," he announced. "He wants me to ask you if you'd mindwaiting a few minutes longer. He wouldn't ask i
t, but it's somethingquite important."
"We ought to get back as soon as we can," said Joyce, "for I've beenaway all day, and there's the ride home still ahead of us. I'm afraidmamma will start to get supper herself if I'm not there."
"I think I'll put in the time we're waiting in writing to the Waltongirls," said Lloyd, drawing a fresh sheet of paper toward her. Joycepicked up her story again, and Jack went out into the street, where hestood tapping one heel against the curbstone, and with his hands thrustinto his pockets. Then he walked to the corner and back, and peered inthrough the show-window at the clock over the soda-fountain. When he hadrepeated the performance several times, Joyce beckoned for him to comein.
"It's after five o'clock," she said. "It must be very important businessthat keeps him so long."
"It is," answered Jack. "I'll go back once more, and if I can't get himaway, I'll go around and get the horses and we'll just ride off andleave him."
"Can't get him away!" repeated Joyce. "Where is he?"
"Oh, just up the street a little way," said Jack, carelessly, pointingover his shoulder with his thumb.
Joyce looked at him steadily an instant, then, as if she had read hismind, said, with startling abruptness: "Jack Ware, you might as welltell me. Is he doing what Mr. Ellestad says all the boys out here dosooner or later, getting mixed up in some of those gambling games?"
There was no evading Joyce when she spoke in that tone. Jack had learnedthat long ago. But, with a glance toward Lloyd, who sat with her backtoward them, he only nodded his reply. Startled by the question, Lloydturned just in time to see the nod.
"I didn't intend to tell on him," blurted Jack, "but you surprised itout of me. He put some money on a roulette wheel, and lost all the firstpart of the afternoon. Now his luck has begun to change, and he sayshe's got to stick by it till he makes back at least a part of what hestarted with."
Joyce looked up at the clock. "We ought to be going," she said, drummingnervously on the arm of her chair with her fingers. Then she hesitated,a look of sisterly concern on her face. "I hate, though, to go off andleave him there. No telling when he'll come home if he feels he is freeto stay as long as he pleases. Goodness, Jack! I'm glad it isn't you.I'd be having a fit if it were, and I can't help thinking how poor Elsiewould feel if she knew it. Lloyd, what do you think we ought to do?"
"I think we ought to go straight off and leave him!" she answered,hotly. "It's perfectly horrid of him to so fah fo'get himself as agentleman as to pay no attention to his promises. He made a positiveengagement with us to meet us heah at foah o'clock, and now it's aftahfive. I nevah had a boy treat me that way befoah, and I must say Ihaven't much use for one that will act so."
Presently, after some slight discussion, the girls slowly gathered upthe bundles and walked up the street to the corral. Jack hurried onahead, so that by the time they reached it, the men there had the poniessaddled and were waiting to help them mount and tie on the packages bythe many leather thongs which fringed the saddles for that purpose.
It was a quiet ride homeward. A cloud seemed to have settled over theirgay spirits. Nobody laughed, nobody spoke much. The story of Alaka wasstill fresh in each mind, and what Mrs. Lee had said about the curse ofthe West, and the fate of the men she had known who had become possessedby the same fever.
They remembered how Jo had come in at daylight, red-eyed and sullen,after his night's losses, for the lucky feeling which seized him at thesight of his cut fingers had been a mistaken omen of success. All thathe had saved in months of service had vanished before sunrise in thesame way that Alaka's turquoises and shells and eyes had gone.
Deeper than the indignation in Lloyd's heart, deeper than her sense ofwounded pride that Phil should have been so indifferent about keepinghis engagement to meet them, was a sore feeling of disappointment inhim. He had seemed so strong and manly that she had thought him abovethe weakness of yielding to such temptations.
She recalled the expression of his face the night before when he drewback from the firelight into the shadow, and pulled his hat over hiseyes, as Mr. Ellestad began the story of Alaka. Evidently he had playedAlaka's game before.
Ah, that night before! How the whole moonlighted scene rolled back overher memory, as she rode along now, slightly in advance of Joyce andJack. Phil had been with her that night before, and, as the sweetstrains of the Bedouin love-song floated out on the stillness of thedesert, something had stirred in her girlish heart as she looked up athim. A vague wonder if it were possible that in years to come this wouldprove to be the one the stars had destined for her. And, as if in answerto her unspoken wonder, his voice had joined in, higher and sweeter thanall the others, as he smiled down into her eyes. But now--there was alittle twinge of pain when she thought that he wasn't a prince at allwhen measured by the yard-stick of old Hildgardmar and her father, muchless the one written in the stars for her. He wasn't strong, and hewasn't honourable if he gambled, and she told herself that she was gladthat she knew it. And now that she had found out how much she had beenmistaken in him, she didn't care any more for his friendship, and thatshe never intended to have anything more to do with him.
A dozen times on the way home Joyce said to herself: "Oh, what if it hadbeen Jack!" And, thinking of Elsie and the father so far away across theseas, she wished that she could do something to get him away from thesurroundings that were sure to work to his undoing if he persisted instaying there.
Supper was ready when they reached home. Afterward there were allLloyd's purchases to be unwrapped and admired. Mary had hoped for acandy-pull, as it was Saturday, and they had not had one during Lloyd'svisit; but the girls were too tired after so many miles in the saddle,and by nine o'clock all lights were out and a deep quiet reigned overWare's Wigwam and the tents.
The moonlight flooding the white canvas kept Lloyd awake for awhile. Asshe lay there, listening to the distant barking of coyotes, and goingover the events of the day, she heard the approaching sound of hoofbeats. Some lonely horseman was coming down the desert road. She raisedherself on her elbow to listen, recognizing the sound. It was Phil'shorse clattering over the little bridge. But it paused under thepepper-trees.
"I suppose Phil has come up to apologize," she said to herself, "but hemight as well save himself the trouble. No explanation could evahexplain away the fact that he was rude to us and that he _gambled_. Icould forgive the first, but I nevah can forgive being so disappointedin him."
A moment later, seeing no light, and evidently concluding that his visitwas untimely, he turned and rode back toward the ranch. Lloyd, stillleaning on her elbow, strained her ears to listen till the last footfalldied away in the distance.
"He'll be back in the mawning," she thought, as she laid her head on thepillow. "He always comes Sunday mawnings; but he'll not find us thistime, because we'll be gone befoah he gets heah."
Joyce had arranged to keep Bogus part of the next day, so that theycould ride into Phoenix to church. So it happened that when Phil came upnext morning, it was to find nobody but Mary in sight. Mrs. Ware hadgone to the seat under the willows to read to Norman and Holland.
The beehive had been brought over during Joyce's absence the day before,and placed in the shade of the bushy umbrella-tree where the hammockswung, and Mary was swinging in the hammock now, with a book in her lap.It was closed over one finger to keep the place, for she was listeningto the droning of the bees, breathing in the sweetness that floated inacross the desert from its acres of vivid bloom, and paying moreattention to the sunny, vibrant world about her than to the hymn she waslearning.
"What are you doing, Mary?" he called, as his step on the bridge madeher look around. She held up a battered old volume of poems, and movedover in the hammock to make room for him beside her.
"I'm learning a hymn. That's the way we always earned our missionarymoney back in Kansas. I'm going to Sunday school with Hazel and Georgethis afternoon in the surrey over to the schoolhouse. Her uncle has onethere. I didn't have any pennies to take, so mamma
said I could beginlearning hymns again, as I used to do back home."
As usual Mary rattled on, scarcely pausing to take breath or give herlistener a chance to make reply.
"This isn't one of the singing hymns, the kind they have in church. It'sby Isaac Watts. I like it because it's about bees, and it's so easy tosay:
"How doth the little busy bee Improve each shining hour, And gather honey all the day From every opening flower.'
"Joyce picked it out for me, and said that she guessed that Isaac Wattsmust have gone to the School of the Bees himself, and that was where helearned that 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' Thebees hate idle hands, you know, that's the drones, and, although theyare patient with them longer than you'd suppose they'd be, it alwaysends in their stinging the drones to death.
"And Lloyd said it was a pity that some other people she knew not athousand miles away couldn't go to school to the bees and learn thatabout Satan's finding mischief for idle hands to do.
"And Joyce said yes, it was, for it was too bad for such a fine fellowto get into trouble just because he was a drone, and had no ambition tomake anything of himself. And I asked them who they meant, but they justlaughed at each other and wouldn't tell me. I don't see why big girlsalways want to be so mysterious about things and act as if they hadsecrets. Do you?"
"No, indeed!" answered Phil, in his most sympathetic manner. He stoopedand picked a long blade of grass at his feet.
"And Joyce said that if Alaka had gone to school to the bees, hewouldn't have lost his eyes, and Lloyd said that if somebody kept on,he would lose at least his turquoises. When I asked her what she meant,she said, oh, she was just thinking of what Mr. Ellestad told at thepicnic, that the Indians thought the turquoises were their most preciousstones because they stole their colour from the sky, and she calledturquoise the friendship stone because it was true blue."
Phil began whistling softly, as he pulled the blade of grass back andforth between his fingers.
"So they think that somebody is like Alaka, do they?" he asked,presently, "in danger of losing his turquoises, his friendship stones.Well, I can imagine instances when that would be as bad for Alaka aslosing his eyes."
Phil had walked up to the Wigwam more buoyantly than usual that morning.He knew that he owed the girls an apology for not meeting them as he hadpromised, and he was prepared to make it so penitently and gracefullythat he was sure that they would accept his excuses without a question.The big roll of bills in his pocket, which he had won by a lucky turn ofthe wheel, did not lie heavy on his conscience at all. It rather addedto his buoyance of spirit, for it was so large that it would enable himto do several things he had long wished to do. Because of it, too, hehad come up to plan another picnic, this time an excursion to ParadiseValley on the other side of Camelback.
But Mary's report of the conversation which had puzzled her gave him anuncomfortable feeling. He could not fail to understand its meaning.Evidently the girls knew what had detained him in town and weredispleased with him.
"Oh, aren't you going to stay for dinner?" asked Mary, as he slowly roseand stretched himself. "It's Sunday, you know, and we always expect youon Sunday."
"No, thank you," he answered, yawning. "I've changed my programmeto-day."
"Aren't you coming back this afternoon?" she asked, anxiously. "They'llall be home then."
He studied the distant buttes a moment before he answered, then squaredback his shoulders in a decided way, settling his hat firmly on hishead.
"No," he answered, finally, "I promised a fellow I met in town at thehotel the other day that I'd ride over and see him soon. He has a campover on the other side of Hole-in-the-Rock, with an old duffer that'sout here for rheumatism. I took a fancy to the fellow the minute I sawhim, and it turns out that he's the cousin of a boy I knew at militaryschool. It's funny the way you run across people that way out here."
One of Phil's greatest charms to Mary was the deferential way he had oftalking to her as if she were his age, and taking the trouble to explainhis actions. Now, as he turned away, with a pleasant good morning, itwas with as polite a lifting of his hat as if she had been nineteeninstead of nine.
She watched him swing down the road with his quick, military step, neverdreaming in her unsuspecting little heart that _he_ was the mysteriousperson who, the girls wished, could learn about Satan and the work hefinds for idle hands. Nor did she dream that the words she had soinnocently repeated were still sounding in his ears: "If somebody keepson, he'll at least lose his turquoises. It's the friendship stone--trueblue!"