The Light of Western Stars

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"I'm going to drive Don Carlos and his gang out of the house,"
declared Stewart. "I think I may promise you to do it without a
fight. But if it takes a fight, off he goes!"

XV The Mountain Trail

As Stewart departed from one door Florence knocked upon another;
and Madeline, far shaken out of her usual serenity, admitted the
cool Western girl with more than gladness. Just to have her near
helped Madeline to get back her balance. She was conscious of
Florence's sharp scrutiny, then of a sweet, deliberate change of
manner. Florence might have been burning with curiosity to know
more about the bandits hidden in the house, the plans of the
cowboys, the reason for Madeline's suppressed emotion; but
instead of asking Madeline questions she introduced 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's
duffle-bags.

That done, they decided to lie down, fully dressed as they were
in riding-costume, and sleep, or at least rest, the little
remaining time left before the call to saddle. Madeline turned
out the light and, peeping through her window, saw dark forms
standing sentinel-like in the gloom. When she lay down she heard
soft steps on the path. This fidelity to her swelled her heart,
while the need of it presaged that fearful something which, since
Stewart's passionate appeal to her, haunted her as inevitable.

Madeline did not expect to sleep, yet she did sleep, and it
seemed to have been only a moment until Florence called her. She
followed Florence outside. It was the dark hour before dawn.
She could discern saddled horses being held by cowboys. There
was an air of hurry and mystery about the departure. Helen, who
came tip-toeing out with Madeline's other 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 to have. 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 noses touched her hands, and she saw
the long, gray, shaggy shapes of her pack of Russian wolf-hounds.
That Stewart meant to let them go with her was indicative of how
he studied her pleasure. She loved to be out with the hounds 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 along the line, and on the return Madeline heard him say
several times, "Now, everybody ride close to the horse in front,
and keep quiet till daylight." Then the snorting and pounding of
the big black horse in front 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
crack and crunch of gravel, fire struck from stone, a low whinny,
a snort, and then steady, short, clip-clop of iron hoofs on hard
ground. Madeline could just discern Stewart and his black
outlined in shadowy gray before her. Yet they were almost within
touching distance. Once or twice one of the huge stag-hounds
leaped up at her and whined joyously. A thick belt of darkness
lay low, and seemed to thin out above to a gray fog, through
which a few wan stars showed. It was altogether an unusual
departure from the ranch; and Madeline, always susceptible even
to ordinary incident that promised well, now found herself
thrillingly sensitive to the soft beat of hoofs, the feel of
cool, moist air, the dim sight of Stewart's dark figure. The
caution, the early start before dawn, the enforced silence--these
lent the occasion all that was needful to make it stirring.

Majesty plunged into a gully, where sand and rough going made
Madeline stop romancing to attend to riding. In the darkness
Stewart was not so easy to keep close to even on smooth trails,
and now she had to be watchfully attentive to do it. Then
followed a long march through dragging sand. Meantime the
blackness gradually changed to gray. At length Majesty climbed
out of the wash, and once more his iron shoes rang on stone. He
began to climb. The figure of Stewart and his horse loomed more
distinctly in Madeline's sight. Bending over, she tried to see
the trail, but could not. She wondered how Stewart could follow
a trail in the dark. His eyes must be as piercing as they
sometimes looked. 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 shapes of yucca and ocotillo. Dawn was about to break.
Madeline imagined she was facing east, still she saw no
brightening of sky. All at once, to her surprise, Stewart and
his powerful horse stood clear in her sight. She saw the
characteristic rock and cactus and brush that covered the
foothills. The trail was old and seldom used, and it zigzagged
and turned and twisted. Looking back, she saw the short, squat
figure of Monty Price humped over his saddle. Monty's face was
hidden under his sombrero. Behind him rode Dorothy Coombs, and
next loomed up the lofty form of Nick Steele. Madeline and the
members of her party were riding between cowboy escorts.

Bright daylight came, and Madeline saw the trail was leading up
through foothills. It led in a round-about way through shallow
gullies full of stone and brush washed down by floods. At every
turn now Madeline expected to come upon water and the waiting
pack-train. But time passed, and miles of climbing, and no water
or horses were met. Expectation in Madeline gave place to
desire; she was hungry.

Presently Stewart's horse went splashing into a shallow pool.
Beyond that damp places in the sand showed here and there, and
again more water in rocky pockets. Stewart kept on. It was eight
o'clock by Madeline's watch when, upon turning into a wide
hollow, she saw horses grazing on spare grass, a great pile of
canvas-covered bundles, and a fire round which cowboys and two
Mexican women were busy.

Madeline sat her horse and reviewed her followers as they rode up
single file. 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. This air makes me hungry."

For that matter, Madeline observed Helen did not show any marked
contrast to the others. The hurry order, however, did not
interfere with the meal being somewhat in the nature of a picnic.
While they ate and talked and laughed the cowboys were packing
horses and burros and throwing the diamond-hitch, a procedure so
interesting to Castleton that he 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 nice little job!"

As soon as the pack-train was in readiness Stewart started it off
in the lead to break trail. A heavy growth of shrub interspersed
with rock and cactus 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 comfort was impossible; it was a
matter of making the travel possible for him. Florence wore
corduroy breeches and high-top boots, and the advantage of this
masculine garb was at once in evidence. The riding-habits of the
other ladies suffered considerably from the sharp spikes. It
took all Madeline's watchfulness to save her horse's legs, to
pick the best bits of open ground, to make cut-offs from the
trail, and to protect herself from outreaching thorny branches,
so that the time sped by without her knowing it. The pack-train
forged ahead, and the trailing couples grew farther apart. At
noon they got out of the foothills to face the real ascent 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,
and what scenery lay open to the eye was dreary and drab, a
barren monotony of 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 new for your friends. I think we'd be wise to keep on
the go. There's no place to make a good camp. The wind would
blow us off this slope if the rain didn't wash us off. It'll
take all-day travel to reach a good camp-site, and I don't
promise that. We're making slow time. If it rains, let it rain.
The pack outfit is well covered. We will have to get wet."

"Surely," replied Madeline; and she smiled at his inference. She
knew what a storm was in that country, and her guests had yet to
experience one. "If it rains, let it rain."

Stewart rode on, and Madeline followed. Up the slope toiled and
nodded the pack-animals, the little burros going easily where the
horses labored. Their packs, like the humps of camels, bobbed
from side to side. Stones rattled down; the heat-waves wavered
black; the dust puffed up and sailed. The sky was a pale blue,
like heated steel, except where dark clouds peeped over the
mountain crests. A heavy, sultry atmosphere made breathing
difficult. Down the slope the trailing party stretched out 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
the north and west and a little south, and she forgot the heat
and weariness and discomfort for her guests in wide, unlimited
prospects of sun-scorched earth. She marked the gray valley and
the black mountains and the wide, red gateway of the desert, and
the dim, shadowy peaks, blue as the sky they pierced. She was
sorry when the bleak, gnarled cedar-trees shut off her view.

Then there came a respite from the steep climb, and the way led
in a winding course through a matted, storm-wrenched forest of
stunted trees. Even up to this elevation the desert reached with
its gaunt hand. The clouds overspreading the sky, hiding the
sun, made a welcome change. The pack-train rested, and Stewart
and Madeline waited for the party to come up. Here he briefly
explained to her that Don Carlos and his bandits had left 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 grew oppressive; the horses panted.

"Sure it'll be a hummer," said Stewart. "The first storm almost
always is bad. I can feel it in the air."

The air, indeed, seemed to be charged with a heavy force that was
waiting to be liberated.

One by one the couples mounted to the cedar forest, and the
feminine contingent declaimed eloquently for rest. But there was
to be no permanent rest until night and then that depended upon
reaching the crags. The pack-train wagged onward, and Stewart
fell in behind. The storm-center gathered slowly around the
peaks; low rumble and howl of thunder increased in frequence;
slowly the light shaded as smoky clouds rolled up; the air grew
sultrier, and the exasperating breeze puffed a few times and then
failed.

An hour later the party had climbed high and was rounding the
side of a great bare ridge that long had hidden the crags. The
last burro of the pack-train plodded over the ridge out of
Madeline's sight. She looked backward down the slope, amused to
see her guests change wearily from side to side in their saddles.
Far below lay the cedar flat and the foothills. Far to the west
the sky was still clear, with shafts of sunlight shooting down
from behind the encroaching clouds.

Stewart reached the summit of the ridge and, though only a few
rods ahead, he waved to her, sweeping his hand round to what he
saw beyond. It was an impressive gesture, and Madeline, never
having climbed as high as this, anticipated much.

Majesty surmounted the last few steps and, snorting, halted
beside Stewart'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 the gulf, round, bare
mountain-heads loomed up. Upward, on the right, led giant steps
of cliff and bench and weathered slope to the fir-bordered and
pine-fringed crags standing dark and bare against the stormy sky.
Massed inky clouds were piling across the peaks, obscuring the
highest ones. A fork of white lightning flashed, and, like the
booming of an avalanche, thunder followed.

That bold world of broken rock under the slow mustering of
storm-clouds was a grim, awe-inspiring spectacle. It had beauty,
but beauty of the sublime and majestic kind. The fierce desert
had reached up to meet the magnetic heights where heat and wind
and frost and lightning and flood contended in everlasting
strife. And before their onslaught this mighty upflung world of
rugged stone was crumbling, splitting, wearing to ruin.

Madeline glanced at Stewart. He had forgotten her presence.
Immovable as stone, he sat his horse, dark-faced, dark-eyed, and,
like an Indian unconscious of thought, he watched and watched.
To see him thus, to divine the strange affinity between the soul
of this man, become primitive, and the savage environment that
had developed him, were powerful helps to Madeline Hammond in her
strange desire to understand his nature.

A cracking of iron-shod hoofs behind her broke the spell. Monty
had reached the summit.

"Gene, what it won't all be doin' in a minnut Moses hisself
couldn't tell," observed Monty.

Then Dorothy climbed to his side and looked.

"Oh, isn't it just perfectly lovely!" she exclaimed. "But I wish
it wouldn't storm. We'll all get wet."

Once more Stewart faced the ascent, keeping to the slow heave of
the ridge as it rose southward toward the looming spires of rock.
Soon he was off smooth ground, and Madeline, some rods behind
him, looked back with 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
the ruined crags above. It was a southerly slope, and therefore
semi-arid, covered with cercocarpus and yucca and some shrub that
Madeline believed was manzanita. Every foot of the trail seemed
to slide under Majesty. What hard ground there was could not be
traveled upon, owing to the spiny covering or masses of shattered
rocks. Gullies lined the slope.

Then the sky grew blacker; the slow-gathering clouds appeared to
be suddenly agitated; they piled and rolled and mushroomed and
obscured the crags. The air moved heavily and seemed to be laden
with sulphurous smoke, and sharp lightning flashes began to play.
A distant roar of wind could be heard between the peals of
thunder.

Stewart waited for Madeline under the lee of a shelving cliff,
where the cowboys had halted the pack-train. Majesty was
sensitive to the flashes of lightning. Madeline patted his neck
and softly called to him. The weary burros nodded; the Mexican
women covered their heads with their mantles. Stewart untied the
slicker at the back of Madeline's saddle and helped her on with
it. Then he put on his own. The other cowboys followed suit.
Presently Madeline saw Monty and Dorothy rounding the cliff, 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 foundations of the earth. Then it rolled, as if banging from
cloud to cloud, and boomed along the peaks, and reverberated from
deep to low, at last to rumble away into silence. Madeline felt
the electricity in Majesty's mane, and it seemed to tingle
through her nerves. The air had a weird, bright cast. The
ponderous clouds swallowed more and more of the eastern domes.
This moment of the breaking of the storm, with the strange
growing roar of wind, like a moaning monster, was pregnant with a
heart-disturbing emotion for Madeline Hammond. Glorious it was
to be free, healthy, out in the open, under the shadow of the
mountain and cloud, in the teeth of the wind and rain and storm.

Another dazzling blue blaze showed the bold mountain-side and the
storm-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 in
lessening power Madeline reflected with surprise upon Stewart's
answer. Something in his face had made her ask him what she
considered a foolish question. His reply amazed her. She loved
a storm. Why should he fear it--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--in flood 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 had imagined was her love of the elements. What little she
knew! If this iron-nerved man feared a storm, then there was
something about a storm to fear.

And suddenly, as the ground quaked under her horse's feet, and
all the sky grew black and crisscrossed by flaming streaks, and
between thunderous reports there was a strange hollow roar
sweeping down upon her, she realized how small was her knowledge
and experience of the mighty forces of nature. Then, with that
perversity of character of which 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, the wonderful driving
lances of white fire.

With blacker gloom and deafening roar came the torrent of rain.
It was a cloud-burst. It was like solid water tumbling down.
For long Madeline sat her horse, head bent to the pelting rain.
When its force lessened and she heard Stewart call for all to
follow, she looked up to see that he was starting once more. She
shot a glimpse at Dorothy and as quickly glanced away. Dorothy,
who would not wear a hat suitable for inclement weather, nor one
of the horrid yellow, sticky slickers, was a drenched and
disheveled spectacle. Madeline did not trust herself to look at
the other girls. It was enough to hear their lament. So she
turned her horse into Stewart's trail.

Rain fell steadily. The fury of the storm, however, had passed,
and the roll of thunder diminished in volume. The air had
wonderfully cleared and was growing cool. Madeline began to feel
uncomfortably cold and wet. Stewart was climbing faster than
formerly, and she noted that Monty kept at her heels, pressing
her on. Time had been lost, and the camp-site was a long way
off. The stag-hounds began to lag and get footsore. The sharp
rocks of the trail were cruel to their feet. Then, as Madeline
began to tire, she noticed less and less around her. The ascent
grew rougher and steeper--slow toil for panting horses. The
thinning rain grew colder, and sometimes a stronger whip of wind
lashed stingingly in Madeline's face. Her horse climbed and
climbed, and brush and sharp corners of stone everlastingly
pulled and tore at her wet garments. A gray gloom settled down
around her. Night was approaching. Majesty heaved upward with a
snort, the wet saddle creaked, and an even motion told Madeline
she 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 were water-soaked arms reaching out for her. Through an
opening between crags Madeline caught a momentary glimpse of the
west. Red sun-shafts shone through the murky, broken clouds.
The sun had set.

Stewart's horse was on a jog-trot now, and Madeline left the
trail more to Majesty than to her own choosing. The shadows
deepened, and the crags grew gloomy and spectral. A cool wind
moaned through the dark trees. Coyotes, scenting the hounds,
kept apace of them, and barked and howled off in the gloom. But
the tired hounds did not appear to notice.

As black night began to envelop her surroundings, Madeline marked
that the fir-trees had given place to pine forest. Suddenly a
pin-point of light pierced the ebony blackness. Like a solitary
star in dark sky it twinkled and blinked. She lost sight of it--
found it again. It grew larger. Black tree-trunks crossed her
line of vision. The light was a fire. 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 the fire. Stewart's
tall figure, with sombrero slouched down, was now and then
outlined against a growing circle of light. And by the aid of
that light she saw him turn every moment or so to look back,
probably to assure himself that she was close behind.

With a prospect of fire and warmth, and food and rest, Madeline's
enthusiasm revived. What a climb! There was promise in this
wild ride and lonely trail and hidden craggy height, not only in
the adventure her friends yearned for, but in some nameless joy
and spirit for herself.

XVI The Crags

Glad indeed was Madeline to be lifted off her horse beside a
roaring fire--to see steaming pots upon red-hot coals. Except
about her shoulders, which had been protected by the slicker, she
was wringing wet. The Mexican women came quickly to help her
change in a tent near by; but Madeline preferred for the moment
to warm her numb feet and hands and to watch the spectacle of her
arriving friends.

Dorothy plumped off her saddle into the arms of several waiting
cowboys. She could scarcely walk. Far removed in appearance was
she from her usual stylish self. Her face was hidden by a limp
and lopsided hat. From under the disheveled brim came a
plaintive moan: "O-h-h! what a-an a-awful ride!" Mrs. Beck was
in worse condition; she had to be taken off her horse. "I'm
paralyzed--I'm a wreck. Bobby, get a roller-chair." Bobby was
solicitous and willing, but there were no roller-chairs.
Florence dismounted easily, and but for her mass of hair, wet and
tumbling, would have been taken for a handsome cowboy. Edith
Wayne had stood the physical strain of the ride better than
Dorothy; however, as her mount was rather small, she had been
more at the mercy of cactus and brush. Her habit hung in
tatters. Helen had preserved a remnant of style, as well as of
pride, and perhaps a little strength. But her face was white,
her eyes were big, and she limped. "Majesty!" she exclaimed.
"What did you want to do to us? Kill us outright or make us
homesick?" Of all of them, however, Ambrose's wife, Christine,
the little French maid, had suffered the most in that long ride.
She was unaccustomed to horses. Ambrose had to carry her into the
big tent. Florence persuaded Madeline to leave the fire, and
when they went in with the others Dorothy was wailing because her
wet boots would not come off, Mrs. Beck was weeping and trying to
direct a Mexican woman to unfasten her bedraggled dress, and
there was general pandemonium.

"Warm clothes--hot drinks and grub--warm blankets," rang out
Stewart's sharp order.

Then, with Florence helping the Mexican women, it was not long
until Madeline and the feminine side of the party were
comfortable, except for the weariness and aches that only rest
and sleep could alleviate.

Neither fatigue nor pains, however, nor the strangeness of being
packed sardine-like under canvas, nor the howls of coyotes, kept
Madeline's guests from stretching out with long, grateful sighs,
and one by one dropping into deep slumber. Madeline whispered a
little to Florence, and laughed with her once or twice, and then
the light flickering on the canvas faded and her eyelids closed.
Darkness and roar of camp life, low voices of men, thump of
horses' hoofs, coyote serenade, the sense of warmth and sweet
rest--all drifted away.

* * *

When she awakened shadows of swaying branches moved on the sunlit
canvas above her. She heard the ringing strokes of an ax, but no
other sound from outside. Slow, regular breathing attested to
the deep slumbers of her tent comrades. She observed presently
that Florence was missing from the number. Madeline rose and
peeped out between the flaps.

An exquisitely beautiful scene surprised and enthralled her gaze.
She saw a level space, green with long grass, bright with
flowers, dotted with groves of graceful firs and pines and
spruces, reaching to superb crags, rosy and golden in the
sunlight. Eager to get out where she could enjoy an unrestricted
view, she searched for her pack, found it in a corner, and then
hurriedly and quietly dressed.

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