Desert Gold

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"Hey, Dick, that darned Yaqui Indian can't be driven or hired or
coaxed to leave Forlorn River. He's well enough to travel. I
offered him horse, gun, blanket, grub. But no go."

"That's funny," replied Gale, with a smile. "Let him stay--put
him to work"

"It doesn't strike me funny. But I'll tell you what I think. That
poor, homeles, heartbroken Indian has taken a liking to you, Dick.
These desert Yaquis are strange folk. I've heard strange stories
about them. I'd believe 'most anything. And that's how I figure
his case. You saved his life. That sort of thing counts big with
any Indian, even with an Apache. With a Yaqui maybe it's of deep
significance. I've heard a Yaqui say that with his tribe no debt to
friend or foe ever went unpaid. Perhaps that's what ails this fellow."

"Dick, don't laugh," said Nell. "I've noticed the Yaqui. It's
pathetic the way his great gloomy eyes follow you."

"You've made a friend," continued Belding. "A Yaqui could be a
real friend on this desert. If he gets his strength back he'll be
of service to you, don't mistake me. He's welcome here. But
you're responsible for him, and you'll have trouble keeping him
from massacring all the Greasers in Forlorn River."

The probability of a visit from the raiders, and a dash bolder
than usual on the outskirts of a ranch, led Belding to build a
new corral. It was not sightly to the eye, but it was high and
exceedingly strong. The gate was a massive affair, swinging on
huge hinges and fastening with heavy chains and padlocks. On the
outside it had been completely covered with barb wire, which would
make it a troublesome thing to work on in the dark.

At night Belding locked his white horses in this corral. The
Papago hersman slept in the adobe shed adjoining. Belding did
not imagine that any wooden fence, however substantially built,
could keep determined raiders from breaking it down. They
would have to take time, however, and make considerable noise;
and Belding relied on these facts. Belding did not believe a band
of night raiders would hold out against a hot rifle fire. So he
began to make up some of the sleep he had lost. It was noteworthy,
however, that Ladd did not share Belding's sanguine hopes.

Jim Lash rode in, reporting that all was well out along the line
toward the Sonoyta Oasis. Days passed, and Belding kept his rangers
home. Nothing was heard of raiders at hand. Many of the newcomers,
both American and Mexican, who came with wagons and pack trains
from Casita stated that property and life were cheap back in that
rebel-infested town.

One January morning Dick Gale was awakened by a shrill,
menacing cry. He leaped up bewildered and frightened.
He heard Belding's booming voice answering shouts, and rapid
steps on flagstones. But these had not awakened him. Heavy
breaths, almost sobs, seemed at his very door. In the cold and
gray dawn Dick saw something white. Gun in hand, he bounded
across the room. Just ouside his door stood Blanco Sol.

It was not unusual for Sol to come poking his head in at Dick's
door during daylight. But now in the early dawn, when he had
been locked in the corral, it meant raiders--no less. Dick called
softly to the snorting horse; and, hurriedly getting into clothes
and boots, he went out with a gun in each hand. Sol was quivering
in every muscle. Like a dog he followed Dick around the house.
Hearing shouts in the direction of the corrals, Gale bent swift
steps that way.

He caught up with Jim Lash, who was also leading a white horse.

"Hello, Jim! Guess it's all over but the fireworks," said Dick.

"I cain't say just what has come off," replied Lash. "I've got the
Bull. Found him runnin' in the yard."

They reached the corral to find Belding shaking, roaring like a
madman. The gate was open, the corral was empty. Ladd stooped
over the ground, evidently trying to find tracks.

"I reckon we might jest as well cool off an' wait for daylight,"
suggested Jim.

"Shore. They've flown the coop, you can gamble on that. Tom,
where's the Papago?" said Ladd.

"He's gone, Laddy--gone!"

"Double-crossed us, eh? I see here's a crowbar lyin' by the
gatepost. That Indian fetched it from the forge. It was used to
pry out the bolts an' steeples. Tom, I reckon there wasn't much
time lost forcin' that gate."

Belding, in shirt sleeves and barefooted, roared with rage.
He said he had heard the horses running as he leaped out of bed.

"What woke you?" asked Laddy.

"Sol. He came whistling for Dick. Didn't you hear him before I
called you?"

"Hear him! He came thunderin' right under my window. I jumped
up in bed, an' when he let out that blast Jim lit square in the
middle of the floor, an' I was scared stiff. Dick, seein' it was
your room he blew into, what did you think?"

"I couldn't think. I'm shaking yet, Laddy."

"Boys, I'll bet Sol spilled a few raiders if any got hands on him,"
said Jim. "Now, let's sit down an' wait for daylight. It's my
idea we'll find some of the hosses runnin' loose. Tom, you go
an' get some clothes on. It's freezin' cold. An' don't forget to
tell the women folks we're all right."

Daylight made clear some details of the raid. The cowboys found
tracks of eight raiders coming up from the river bed where their
horses had been left. Evidently the Papago had been false to his
trust. He few personal belongings were gone. Lash was correct
in his idea of finding more horses loose in the fields. The men
soon rounded up eleven of the whites, all more or less frightened,
and among the number were Queen and Blanca Mujer. The raiders
had been unable to handle more than one horse for each man. It
was bitter irony of fate that Belding should lose his favorite, the
one horse more dear to him than all the others. Somewhere out on
the trail a raider was fighting the iron-jawed savage Blanco Diablo.

"I reckon we're some lucky," observed Jim Lash.

"Lucky ain't enough word," replied Ladd. "You see, it was this way.
Some of the raiders piled over the fence while the others worked
on the gate. Mebbe the Papago went inside to pick out the best
hosses. But it didn't work except with Diablo, an' how they ever
got him I don't know. I'd have gambled it'd take all of eight
men to steal him. But Greasers have got us skinned on handlin'
hosses."

Belding was unconsolable. He cursed and railed, and finally
declared he was going to trail the raiders.

"Tom, you just ain't agoin' to do nothin' of the kind," said Ladd
coolly.

Belding groaned and bowed his head.

"Laddy, you're right," he replied, presently. "I've got to stand
it. I can't leave the women and my property. But it's sure tough.
I'm sore way down deep, and nothin' but blood would ever satisfy
me."

"Leave that to me an' Jim," said Ladd.

"What do you mean to do?" demanded Belding, starting up.

"Shore I don't know yet....Give me a light for my pipe. An' Dick,
go fetch out your Yaqui."

VIII

The Running of Blanco Sol

The Yaqui's strange dark glance roved over the corral, the swinging
gate with its broken fastenings, the tracks in the road, and then
rested upon Belding.

"Malo," he said, and his Spanish was clear.

"Shore Yaqui, about eight bad men, an' a traitor Indian," said Ladd.

"I think he means my herder," added Belding. "If he does, that
settles any doubt it might be decent to have--Yaqui--malo
Papago--Si?"

The Yaqui spread wide his hands. Then he bent over the tracks in
the road. They led everywhither, but gradually he worked out of
the thick net to take the trail that the cowboys had followed down
to the river. Belding and the rangers kept close at his heels.
Occasionally Dick lent a helping hand to the still feeble Indian.
He found a trampled spot where the raiders had left their horses.
From this point a deeply defined narrow trail led across the dry
river bed.

Belding asked the Yaqui where the raiders would head for in the
Sonora Desert. For answer the Indian followed the trail across
the streem of sand, through willows and mesquite, up to the level
of rock and cactus. At this point he halted. A sand-filled,
almost obliterated trail led off to the left, and evidently went
round to the east of No Name Mountains. To the right stretched
the road toward Papago Well and the Sonoyta Oasis. The trail
of the raiders took a southeasterly course over untrodden desert.
The Yaqui spoke in his own tongue, then in Spanish.

"Think he means slow march," said Belding. "Laddy, from the looks
of that trail the Greasers are having trouble with the horses."

"Tom, shore a boy could see that," replied Laddy "Ask Yaqui to tell
us where the raiders are headin', an' if there's water."

It was wonderful to see the Yaqui point. His dark hand stretched,
he sighted over his stretched finger at a low white escarpment in
the distance. Then with a stick he traced a line in the sand, and
then at the end of that another line at right angles. He made
crosses and marks and holes, and as he drew the rude map he talked
in Yaqui, in Spanish; with a word here and there in English.
Belding translated as best he could. The raiders were heading
southeast toward the railroad that ran from Nogales down into
Sonora. It was four days' travel, bad trail, good sure waterhole
one day out; then water not sure for two days. Raiders traveling
slow; bothered by too many horses, not looking for pursuit; were
never pursued, could be headed and ambushed that night at the first
waterhole, a natural trap in a valley.

The men returned to the ranch. The rangers ate and drank while
making hurried preparations for travel. Blanco Sol and the cowboys'
horses were fed, watered, and saddled. Ladd again refused to ride
one of Belding's whites. He was quick and cold.

"Get me a long-range rifle an' lots of shells. Rustle now," he
said.

"Laddy, you don't want to be weighted down?" protested Belding.

"Shore I want a gun that'll outshoot the dinky little carbines an'
muskets used by the rebels. Trot one out an' be quick."

"I've got a .405, a long-barreled heavy rifle that'll shoot a mile.
I use it for mountain sheep. But Laddy, it'll break
that bronch's back."

"His back won't break so easy....Dick, take plenty of shells for
your Remington. An' don't forget your field glass."

In less than an hour after the time of the raid the three rangers,
heavily armed and superbly mounted on fresh horses, rode out
on the trail. As Gale turned to look back from the far bank of
Forlorn River, he saw Nell waving a white scarf. He stood high
in his stirrups and waved his sombrero. Then the mesquites hid
the girl's slight figure, and Gale wheeled grim-faced to follow
the rangers.

They rode in single file with Ladd in the lead. He did not keep
to the trail of the raiders all the time. He made short cuts.
The raiders were traveling leisurely, and they evinced a liking
for the most level and least cactus-covered stretches of ground.
But the cowboy took a bee-line course for the white escarpment
pointed out by the Yaqui; and nothing save deep washes and
impassable patches of cactus or rocks made him swerve from it.
He kept the broncho at a steady walk over the rougher places and
at a swinging Indian canter over the hard and level ground. The
sun grew hot and the wind began to blow. Dust clouds rolled
along the blue horizon. Whirling columns of sand, like water spouts
at sea, circled up out of white arid basins, and swept away and
spread aloft before the wind. The escarpment began to rise, to
change color, to show breaks upon it rocky face.

Whenever the rangers rode out on the brow of a knoll or ridge
or an eminence, before starting to descend, Ladd required of
Gale a long, careful, sweeping survey of the desert ahead through
the field glass. There were streams of white dust to be seen,
streaks of yellow dust, trailing low clouds of sand over the
glistening dunes, but no steadily rising, uniformly shaped puffs
that would tell a tale of moving horses on the desert.
At noon the rangers got out of the thick cactus. Moreover, the
gravel-bottomed washes, the low weathering, rotting ledges of
yellow rock gave place to hard sandy rolls and bare clay knolls.
The desert resembled a rounded hummocky sea of color. All light
shades of blue and pink and yellow and mauve were there dominated
by the glaring white sun. Mirages glistened, wavered, faded in the
shimmering waves of heat. Dust as fine as power whiffed up from
under the tireless hoofs.

The rangers rode on and the escarpment began to loom. The desert
floor inclined perceptibly upward. When Gale got an unobstructed
view of the slope of the escarpment he located the raiders and
horses. In another hour's travel the rangers could see with naked
eyes a long, faint moving streak of black and white dots.

"They're headin' for that yellow pass," said Ladd, pointing to a
break in the eastern end of the escarpment. "When they get out of
sight we'll rustle. I'm thinkin' that waterhole the Yaqui spoke of
lays in the pass."

The rangers traveled swiftly over the remaining miles of level
desert leading to the ascent of the escarpment. When they achieved
the gateway of the pass the sun was low in the west. Dwarfed
mesquite and greasewood appeared among the rocks. Ladd gave the
word to tie up horses and go forward on foot.

The narrow neck of the pass opened and descended into a valley
half a mile wide, perhaps twice that in length. It had apparently
unscalable slopes of weathered rock leading up to beetling walls.
With floor bare and hard and white, except for a patch of green
mesquite near the far end it was a lurid and desolate spot, the
barren bottom of a desert bowl.

"Keep down, boys" said Ladd. "There's the waterhole an' hosses
have sharp eyes. Shore the Yaqui figgered this place. I never
seen its like for a trap."

Both white and black horses showed against the green,
and a thin curling column of blue smoke rose lazily from amid
the mesquites.

"I reckon we'd better wait till dark, or mebbe daylight," said
Jim Lash.

"Let me figger some. Dick, what do you make of the outlet to
this hole? Looks rough to me."

With his glass Gale studied the narrow construction of walls and
roughened rising floor.

"Laddy, it's harder to get out at that end than here," he replied.

"Shore that's hard enough. Let me have a look....Well, boys, it
don't take no figgerin' for this job. Jim, I'll want you at the
other end blockin' the pass when we're ready to start."

"When'll that be?" inquired Jim.

"Soon as it's light enough in the mornin'. That Greaser outfit
will hang till to-morrow. There's no sure water ahead for two
days, you remember."

"I reckon I can slip through to the other end after dark," said
Lash, thoughtfully. "It might get me in bad to go round."

The rangers stole back from the vantage point and returned to their
horses, which they untied and left farther round among broken
sections of cliff. For the horses it was a dry, hungry camp, but
the rangers built a fire and had their short though strengthening
meal.

The location was high, and through a break in the jumble of rocks
the great colored void of desert could be seen rolling away
endlessly to the west. The sun set, and after it had gone down
the golden tips of mountains dulled, their lower shadows creeping
upward.

Jim Lash rolled in his saddle blanket, his feet near the fire, and
went to sleep. Ladd told Gale to do likewise while he kept the
fire up and waited until it was late enough for Jim to undertake
circling round the raiders. When Gale awakened the night was
dark, cold, windy. The stars shone with white brilliance.
Jim was up saddling his horse, and Ladd was talking low.
When Gale rose to accompany them both rangers said he need not go.
But Gale wanted to go because that was the thing Ladd or Jim would have done.

With Ladd leading, they moved away into the gloom. Advance was
exceedingly slow, careful, silent. Under the walls the blackness
seemed impenetrable. The horse was as cautious as his master.
Ladd did not lose his way, nevertheless he wound between blocks
of stone and clumps of mesquite, and often tried a passage to
abandon it. Finally the trail showed pale in the gloom, and eastern
stars twinkled between the lofty ramparts of the pass.

The advance here was still as stealthily made as before, but not so
difficult or slow. When the dense gloom of the pass lightened,
and there was a wide space of sky and stars overhead, Ladd halted
and stood silent a moment.

"Luck again!" he whispered. "The wind's in your face, Jim. The
horses won't scent you. Go slow. Don't crack a stone. Keep close
under the wall. Try to get up as high as this at the other end.
Wait till daylight before riskin' a loose slope. I'll be ridin' the
job early. That's all."

Ladd's cool, easy speech was scarcely significant of the perilous
undertaking. Lash moved very slowly away, leading his horse.
The soft pads of hoofs ceased to sound about the time the gray
shape merged into the black shadows. Then Ladd touched Dick's
arm, and turned back up the trail.

But Dick tarried a moment. He wanted a fuller sense of that
ebony-bottomed abyss, with its pale encircling walls reaching
up to the dusky blue sky and the brilliant stars. There was
absolutely no sound.

He retraced his steps down, soon coming up with Ladd; and together
they picked a way back through the winding recesses of cliff. The
campfire was smoldering. Ladd replenished it and lay down to get
a few hours' sleep, while Gale kept watch. The after part of the
night wore on till the paling of stars, the thickening of gloom indicated
the dark hour before dawn. The spot was secluded from wind, but
the air grew cold as ice. Gale spent the time stripping wood from
a dead mesquite, in pacing to and fro, in listening. Blanco Sol
stamped occasionally, which sound was all that broke the stilliness.
Ladd awoke before the faintest gray appeared. The rangers ate
and drank. When the black did lighten to gray they saddled the
horses and led them out to the pass and down to the point where
they had parted with Lash. Here they awaited daylight.

To Gale it seemed long in coming. Such a delay always aggravated
the slow fire within him. He had nothing of Ladd's patience. He
wanted action. The gray shadow below thinned out, and the patch
of mesquite made a blot upon the pale valley. The day dawned.

Still Ladd waited. He grew more silent, grimmer as the time of
action approached. Gale wondered what the plan of attack would
be. Yet he did not ask. He waited ready for orders.

The valley grew clear of gray shadow except under leaning walls
on the eastern side. Then a straight column of smoke rose from
among the mesquites. Manifestly this was what Ladd had been
awaiting. He took the long .405 from its sheath and tried the
lever. Then he lifted a cartridge belt from the pommel of his
saddle. Every ring held a shell and these shells were four inches
long. He buckled the belt round him.

"Come on, Dick."

Ladd led the way down the slope until he reached a position that
commanded the rising of the trail from a level. It was the only
place a man or horse could leave the valley for the pass.

"Dick, here's your stand. If any raider rides in range take a crack
at him....Now I want the lend of your hoss."

"Blanco Sol!" exclaimed Gale, more in amazement that
Ladd should ask for the horse than in reluctance to lend him.

"Will you let me have him?" Ladd repeated, almost curtly.

"Certainly, Laddy."

A smile momentarily chased the dark cold gloom that had set upon
the ranger's lean face.

"Shore I appreciate it, Dick. I know how you care for that hoss.
I guess mebbe Charlie Ladd has loved a hoss! An' one not so
good as Sol. I was only tryin' your nerve, Dick, askin' you without
tellin' my plan. Sol won't get a scratch, you can gamble on that!
I'll ride him down into the valley an' pull the greasers out in the
open. They've got short-ranged carbines. They can't keep out of
range of the .405, an' I'll be takin' the dust of their lead. Sabe,
senor?"

"Laddy! You'll run Sol away from the raiders when they chase you?
Run him after them when they try to get away?"

"Shore. I'll run all the time. They can't gain on Sol, an' he'll
run them down when I want. Can you beat it?"

"No. It's great!...But suppose a raider comes out on Blanco
Diablo?"

"I reckon that's the one weak place in my plan. I'm figgerin'
they'll never think of that till it's too late. But if they do,
well, Sol can outrun Diablo. An' I can always kill the white
devil!"

Ladd's strange hate of the horse showed in the passion of his
last words, in his hardening jaw and grim set lips.

Gale's hand went swiftly to the ranger's shoulder.

"Laddy. Don't kill Diablo unless it's to save your life."

"All right. But, by God, if I get a chance I'll make Blanco Sol
run him off his legs!"

He spoke no more and set about changing the length of Sol's
stirrups. When he had them adjusted to suit he mounted
and rode down the trail and out upon the level. He rode
leisurely as if merely going to water his horse. The long black
rifle lying across his saddle, however, was ominous.

Gale securely tied the other horse to a mesquite at hand, and took
a position behind a low rock over which he could easily see and
shoot when necessary. He imagined Jim Lash in a similar position at
the far end of the valley blocking the outlet. Gale had grown
accustomed to danger and the hard and fierce feelings peculiar to
it. But the coming drama was so peculiarly different in promise
from all he had experienced, that he waited the moment of action
with thrilling intensity. In him stirred long, brooding wrath at
these border raiders--affection for Belding, and keen desire to
avenge the outrages he had suffered--warm admiration for the
cold, implacable Ladd and his absolute fearlessness, and a curious
throbbing interest in the old, much-discussed and never-decided
argument as to whether Blanco Sol was fleeter, stronger horse
than Blanco Diablo. Gale felt that he was to see a race between
these great rivals--the kind of race that made men and horses
terrible.

Ladd rode a quarter of a mile out upon the flat before anything
happened. Then a whistle rent the still, cold air. A horse had
seen or scented Blanco Sol. The whistle was prolonged, faint, but
clear. It made the boood thrum in Gale's ears. Sol halted. His
head shot up with the old, wild, spirited sweep. Gale leveled his
glass at the patch of mesquites. He saw the raiders running to an
open place, pointing, gesticulating. The glass brought them so
close that he saw the dark faces. Suddenly they broke and fled
back among the trees. Then he got only white and dark gleams
of moving bodies. Evidently that moment was one of boots, guns,
and saddles for the raiders.

Lowering the glass, Gale saw that Blanco Sol had started
forward again. His gait was now a canter, and he had covered
another quarter of a mile before horses and raiders appeared
upon the outskirts of the mesquites. Then Blanco Sol stopped.
His shrill, ringing whistle came distinctly to Gale's ears.
The raiders were mounted on dark horses, and they stood abreast
in a motionless line. Gale chuckled as he appreciated what
a puzzle the situation presented for them. A lone horseman in the
middle of the valley did not perhaps seem so menacing himself
as the possibilities his presence suggested.

Then Gale saw a raider gallop swiftly from the group toward the
farther outlet of the valley. This might have been owing to
characteristic cowardice; but it was more likely a move of the
raiders to make sure of retreat. Undoubtedly Ladd saw this
galloping horseman. A few waiting moments ensued. The galloping
horseman reached the slope, began to climb. With naked eyes Gale
saw a puff of white smoke spring out of the rocks. Then the raider
wheeled his plunging horse back to the level, and went racing wildly
down the valley.

The compact bunch of bays and blacks seemed to break apart and
spread rapidly from the edge of the mesquites. Puffs of white smoke
indicated firing, and showed the nature of the raiders' excitement.
They were far out of ordinary range, but they spurred toward Ladd,
shooting as they rode. Ladd held his ground; the big white horse
stood like a rock in his tracks. Gale saw little spouts of dust
rise in front of Blanco Sol and spread swift as sight to his rear.
The raiders' bullets, striking low, were skipping along the hard,
bare floor of the valley. Then Ladd raised the long rifle. There
was no smoke, but three high, spanging reports rang out. A gap
opened in the dark line of advancing horsemen; then a riderless
steed sheered off to the right. Blanco Sol seemed to turn as on
a pivot and charged back toward the lower end of the valley. He
circled over to Gale's right and stretched out into his run. There
were now five raiders in pursuit, and they came sweeping down,
yelling and shooting, evidently sure of their quarry. Ladd reserved
his fire. He kept turning from back to front in his saddle.

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