CHAPTER III
THE SPANISH SINKS
From a car window at Sleepy Cat may be seen, stretching far down intothe southwest a chain of towering peaks, usually snow-clad, thatdominate the desert in every direction for almost a hundred miles. Intwo extended groups, separated by a narrow but well-defined break,they constitute a magnificent rampart, named by Spaniards theSuperstition Mountains, and they stretch beyond the horizon to thesouth, along the vast depression known locally as the Spanish Sinks.The break on the eastern side of the chain comes about twenty milessouthwest of Sleepy Cat, and is marked on the north by the moststriking, and in some respects most majestic peak in the range--MusicMountain; the break itself has taken the name of its earliest whitesettlers, and is called Morgan's Gap. No railroad has ever yetpenetrated this southern country, despite the fact that rich mineshave been opened along these mountains, and are still being opened;but it lies to-day in much of the condition of primitive savagery,and lawlessness, as the word is conventionally accepted, that obtainedwhen the first rush was made for the Thief River gold-fields.
It is not to be understood that law is an unknown equation betweenCalabasas and Thief River, or even between Calabasas and Sleepy Cat.But as statute law it suffers so many infractions as to be hardlyrecognizable in the ordinary sense. Business is done in this country;but business must halt everywhere with its means of communication, andin the Music Mountain country it still rests on the facilities of astage line. The stage line is a big and vigorous affair, a perfectlyorganized railroad adjunct with the best horses, the best wagons, thebest freighting outfits that money can supply.
But this is by no means, in its civilizing effect, a railroad. Arailroad drives lawlessness before it--the Music Mountain countrystill leans on stage-line law. The bullion wagons still travel thedifficult roads. They look for safety to their armed horsemen; thefour and six horse stages look to the armed guard, the wayfarer mustlook to his horse--and it should be a good one; the mountain rancherto his rifle, the cattle thief to the moonless night, the bandit tohis wits, the gunman to his holster: these include practically all ofthe people that travel the Spanish Sinks, except the Morgans and theMormons. The Mormons looked to the Morgans for safety; the Morgans tothemselves.
For many a year the Morgans have been almost overlords of the MusicMountain country. They own, or have laid claim to, an extendedterritory in the mountains, a Spanish grant. One of the first mountainMorgans married a Spanish girl, and during the early days, when theMorgans were not fighting some one out of court, they were fightingsome one in court on their endless and involved titles.
But whether they won domain in lawsuit or lost it, one pearl of theirholdings they never submitted to the jurisdiction of any tribunalother than their own arms. Morgan's Gap opens south of Music Mountain,less than ten miles west of Calabasas. It is a narrow valley wherevalleys are more precious than water--for the mountain valley meanswater--and this in a country where water is much more precious thanlife. And some of the best of this land at the foot of Music Mountainwas the maternal inheritance of Nan Morgan.
At Calabasas the Thief River stage line maintains completely equippedrelay barns. They are over twenty miles from Sleepy Cat, but nearlyfifty the other way from Thief River. The unequal division is not dueto what was desirable when the route was laid out, but to the limit ofwhat man could do in the never-conquered desert. This supplies atCalabasas a spring, to tempt the unwary traveller still farther withinits clutches. A large number of horses are kept at Calabasas, and thebarn crews are quartered there in a company barrack. Along the lowridges and in the shallow depressions about Calabasas Spring there area very few widely separated shacks, once built by freighters andoccupied by squatter outlaws to be within reach of water. This givesthe vicinity something of the appearance of a poorly sustainedprairie-dog town. And except these shacks, there is nothing betweenCalabasas, Thief River, and the mountains except sunshine and alkali.I say nothing, meaning especially nothing, in the way of a humanhabitation.
But there is a queer inn at Calabasas. A pioneer Thief Riverprospector, mad with thirst, fought his way across the Sinks to theCalabasas Spring, and wandered thence one day into Sleepy Cat. In adelirium of gratitude he ordered built at Calabasas what he termed ahotel, to provide at that forbidden oasis for the luxurious comfort offuture thirst-mad wanderers. It was built of lumber hauled a thousandmiles, and equipped with luxuries brought three thousand--a fearsome,rambling structure, big enough for all the prospectors in the RockyMountains.
Having built this monument, creditable to his good-will rather thanhis good sense, the unfortunate man went really mad, and had the sorrydistinction of being the first person to be put in the insane asylumat Bear Dance. It had never occurred to him that any one had any titleto, or that any madder man would lay any claim to, so accursed a spotas Calabasas. But old Duke Morgan announced in due time that the hotelwas built on Morgan land, and belonged to the Morgans. Nobody outsidea madhouse could be found to dispute with Duke Morgan a title to landwithin ten miles of Morgan's Gap, and none but a lunatic would attemptto run a hotel at Calabasas, anyway. However, a solution of thedifficulty was found: Duke's colorable title gave the cue to hisretainers in the Gap, and in time they carted away piecemeal most ofthe main building, leaving for years the kitchen and the servants'quarters adjoining it to owls, lizards, scorpions, and spiders.
Meantime, to tap the fast-developing gold-fields, the freight routeand stages had been put in, and the barns built at Calabasas. A neednaturally developed for at least one feature of a hotel--a barroom. Anewer lunatic answered the call of civilization--a man only mildlyinsane stocked the kitchen range with liquors, and fitted up in acrude way the ice-boxes--where there never was ice--serving pantries,and other odd nooks for sleeping quarters. Here the thirsty stagepassenger, little suspecting the origin of the facilities offered himfor a drink, may choose strong drink instead of water--or rather, heis restricted to strong drink where water might once have beenhad--the spring being piped now half a mile to the barns for thehorses. And this shack, as it is locally called, run by a Mexican, isstill the inn at Calabasas. And it continues to contribute, throughits stirring annals, to the tragic history of the continental divide.
It need hardly be said that Duke Morgan laid claim also to theCalabasas Spring. But on this the company, being a corporation, foughthim. And after somewhat less of argument and somewhat more of siegeand shooting, a compromise was reached whereby the company boughtannually at an exorbitant price all of Duke, Satterlee, and VanceMorgan's hay, and as the Morgans had small rivers of water in themountains, and never, except when crowded, drank water, a _modusvivendi_ was arranged between the claimants. The only sufferer throughthis was the Mexican publican, who found every Morgan his landlord,and demanding from him tithes over the bar. But force is usually metwith cunning, and such Morgans as would not pay in advance atCalabasas, when thirsty, often found the half-mad publican out ofgoods.
The Calabasas Inn stood in one of the loneliest canyons of the wholeseventy miles between Sleepy Cat and Thief River; it looked in itsdepletion to be what it was, a sombre, mysterious, sun, wind, andalkali beaten pile, around which no one by any chance ever saw a signof life. It was a ruin like those pretentious deserted structuressometimes seen in frontier towns--relics of the wide-open days, whichstand afterward, stark and sombre, to serve as bats' nests orblind-pigs. The inn at Calabasas looked its part--a haunt of rustlers,a haven of nameless men, a refuge of road-agents.
The very first time de Spain made an inspection trip over the stageline with Lefever, he was conscious of the sinister air of this lonelybuilding. He and Lefever had ridden down from the barn, while theirhorses were being changed, to look at the place. De Spain wanted tolook over everything connected in any way, however remotely, with theoperation of his wagons, and this joint, Lefever had told him, waswhere the freighters and drivers were not infrequently robbed oftheir money. It was here that one of their own men, Bill McCarty, once"scratched a man's neck" with a
knife--which, Bill explained, he just"happened" to have in his hand--for cheating at cards. Lefever pointedout the unlucky gambler's grave as he and de Spain rode into thecanyon toward the inn.
Not a sign of any sort was displayed about the habitation. No man wasinvited to enter, no man warned to keep out, none was anywhere insight. The stage men dismounted, threw their lines, pushed open thefront door of the house and entered a room of perhaps sixteen bytwenty feet. It had been the original barroom. A long, high,elaborately carved mahogany bar, as much out of keeping as it possiblycould be with its surroundings, stretched across the farther side ofthe room. The left end, as they faced the bar, was brought around toescape a small window opening on a court or patio to the rear of theroom. Back of the bar itself, about midway, a low door in the barewall gave entrance to a rear room. Aside from this big, queer-lookingpiece of mahogany, the low window at the left end of it, and the lowdoor at the back, the room presented nothing but walls. Two windowsflanking the front door helped to light it, but not a mirror, picture,chair, table, bottle, or glass was to be seen. De Spain covered everyfeature of the interior at a glance. "Quiet around here, John," heremarked casually.
"This is the quietest place in the Rocky Mountains most of thetime. But when it is noisy, believe me, it is noisy. Look at thebullet-holes in the walls."
"The old story," remarked de Spain, inspecting with mild-manneredinterest the punctured plastering, "they always shoot high."
He walked over to the left end of the bar, noting the hard usage shownby the ornate mahogany, and spreading his hands wide open, palms down,on the face of it, glanced at the low window on his left, opening onthe gravelled patio. He peered, in the semidarkness, at the battereddoor behind the bar.
"Henry," observed Lefever, "if you are looking for a drink, it wouldonly be fair, as well as politic, to call the Mexican."
"Thank you, John, I'm not looking for one. And I know you don'tdrink."
"You want to know, then, where the Mexican keeps his gun?" hazardedLefever.
"Not especially. I just want to know----"
"Everything."
"What's behind the bar. That's natural, isn't it?"
Very complete fittings and compartments told of the labor spent inpreparing this inner side for the convenience of the bartender and therequirements of exacting patrons, but nothing in the way of equipment,not so much as a pewter spoon, lay anywhere visible.
De Spain, turning, looked all around the room again. "You wouldn'tthink," he said slowly, "from looking at the place there was aroad-agent within a thousand miles."
"You wouldn't think, from riding through the Superstition Mountainsthere was a lion within a thousand miles. I've hunted them for elevenyears, and I never saw one except when the dogs drove 'em out; but foreleven years they saw me. If we haven't been seen coming in here bysome of this Calabasas bunch, I miss my guess," declared Lefevercheerfully.
The batten door behind the bar now began to open slowly andnoiselessly. Lefever peered through it. "Come in, Pedro," he criedreassuringly, "come in, man. This is no officer, no revenue agentlooking for your license. Meet a friend, Pedro," he continuedencouragingly, as the swarthy publican, low-browed and sullen, emergedvery deliberately from the inner darkness into the obscurity of thebarroom, and bent his one good eye searchingly on de Spain. "This,"Lefever's left hand lay familiarly on the back of de Spain'sshoulder, "is our new manager, Mr. Henry de Spain. Henry, shake handswith Mexico."
This invitation to shake hands seemed an empty formality. De Spainnever shook hands with anybody; at least if he did so, he extended,through habit long inured, his left hand, with an excuse for thesoreness of his right. Pedro did not even bat his remaining eye at theinvitation. The situation, as Lefever facetiously remarked, remainedabout where it was before he spoke, and nothing daunted, he asked deSpain what he would drink. De Spain sidestepped again by asking for acigar. Lefever, professing he would not drink alone, called forcigarettes. While Pedro produced them, from nowhere apparently, as aconjurer picks cards out of the air, the sound of galloping horsescame through the open door. A moment later three men walked, singlefile, into the room. De Spain stood at the left end of the bar, andLefever introduced him to Gale Morgan, to David Sassoon, and toSassoon's crony, Deaf Sandusky, as the new stage-line manager. Thelater arrivals lined up before the bar, Sandusky next to Lefever andde Spain, so he could hear what was said. Pedro from his den producedtwo queer-looking bottles and a supply of glasses.
"De Spain," Gale Morgan began bluntly, "one of our men was put off astage of yours last week by Frank Elpaso." He spoke without anypreliminary compliments, and his heavy voice was bellicose.
De Spain, regarding him undisturbed, answered after a little pause:"Elpaso told me he put a man off his stage last week for fighting."
"No," contradicted Morgan loudly, "not for fighting. Elpaso wasdrunk."
"What's the name of the man Elpaso put off, John?" asked de Spain,looking at Lefever.
Morgan hooked his thumb toward the man standing at his side. "Here'sthe man right here, Dave Sassoon."
Sassoon never looked a man in the face when the man looked at him,except by implication; it was almost impossible, without surprisinghim, to catch his eyes with your eyes. He seemed now to regard deSpain keenly, as the latter, still attending to Morgan's statement,replied: "Elpaso tells a pretty straight story."
"Elpaso couldn't tell a straight story if he tried," interjectedSassoon.
"I have the statement of three other passengers; they confirm Elpaso.According to them, Sassoon--" de Spain looked straight at the accused,"was drunk and abusive, and kept trying to put some of the otherpassengers off. Finally he put his feet in the lap of Pumperwasser,our tank and windmill man, and Pumperwasser hit him."
Morgan, stepping back from the bar, waved his hand with an air offinality toward his inoffensive companion: "Here is Sassoon, righthere--he can tell the whole story."
"Those fellows were miners," muttered Sassoon. His utterance wasbroken, but he spoke fast. "They'll side with the guards every timeagainst a cattleman."
"There's only one fair thing to do, de Spain," declared Morgan. Helooked severely at de Spain: "Discharge Elpaso."
De Spain, his hands resting on the bar, drew one foot slowly back."Not on the showing I have now," he said. "One of the passengers whojoined in the statement is Jeffries, the railroad superintendent atSleepy Cat."
"Expect a railroad superintendent to tell the truth about a Calabasasman?" demanded Sassoon.
"I should expect him at least to be sober," retorted de Spain.
"Sassoon," interposed Morgan belligerently, "is a man whose word canalways be depended on."
"To convey his meaning," intervened Lefever cryptically. "Of course,I know," he asserted, earnest to the point of vehemence. "Every one inCalabasas has the highest respect for Sassoon. That is understood.And," he added with as much impressiveness as if he were talkingsense, "everybody in Calabasas would be sorry to see Sassoon put off astage. But Sassoon is off: that is the situation. We are sorry. If itoccurs again----"
"What do you mean?" thundered Morgan, resenting the interference. "DeSpain is the manager, isn't he? What we want to know is, what you aregoing to do about it?" he demanded, addressing de Spain again.
"There is nothing more to be done," returned de Spain composedly."I've already told Elpaso if Sassoon starts another fight on a stageto put him off again."
Morgan's fist came down on the bar. "Look here, de Spain! You comefrom Medicine Bend, don't you? Well, you can't bully Music Mountainmen--understand that."
"Any time you have a real grievance, Morgan, I'll be glad to considerit," said de Spain. "When one of your men is drunk and quarrelsome hewill be put off like any other disturber. That we can't avoid. Publicstages can't be run any other way."
"All right," retorted Morgan. "If you take that tack for your newmanagement, we'll see how you get along running stages down in thiscountry."
"We will run them peaceably, just as long as w
e can," smiled de Spain."We will get on with everybody that gives us a chance."
Morgan pointed a finger at him. "I give you a chance, de Spain, rightnow. Will you discharge Elpaso?"
"No."
Morgan almost caught his breath at the refusal. But de Spain could beextremely blunt, and in the parting shots between the two he gave noground.
"Jeffries put me here to stop this kind of rowdyism on the stages," hesaid to Lefever on their way back to the barn. "This is a good time tobegin. And Sassoon and Gale Morgan are good men to begin with," headded.
As the horses of the two men emerged from the canyon they saw aslender horsewoman riding in toward the barn from the Music Mountaintrail. She stopped in front of McAlpin, the barn boss, who stoodoutside the office door. McAlpin, the old Medicine Bend barnman, hadbeen promoted from Sleepy Cat by the new manager. De Spain recognizedthe roan pony, but, aside from that, a glance at the figure of therider, as she sat with her back to him, was enough to assure him ofNan Morgan. He spurred ahead fast enough to overhear a request she wasmaking of McAlpin to mail a letter for her. She also asked McAlpin,just as de Spain drew up, whether the down stage had passed. McAlpintold her it had. De Spain, touching his hat, spoke: "I am going rightup to Sleepy Cat. I'll mail your letter if you wish."
She looked at him in some surprise, and then glanced toward Lefever,who now rode up. De Spain was holding out his hand for the letter. Hiseyes met Nan's, and each felt the moment was a sort of challenge. DeSpain, a little self-conscious under her inspection, was aware only ofher rather fearless eyes and the dark hair under her fawn cowboy hat.
"Thank you," she responded evenly. "If the stage is gone I will holdit to add something." So saying, she tucked the letter inside herblouse and spoke to her pony, which turned leisurely down the road.
"I'm trying to get acquainted with your country to-day," returned deSpain, managing with his knee to keep his own horse moving alongsideNan as she edged away.
She seemed disinclined to answer, but the silence and the awkwardnessof his presence drew at length a dry disclaimer: "This is not mycountry."
"I understood," exclaimed de Spain, following his doubtful advantage,"you lived out this way."
"I live near Music Mountain," returned Nan somewhat ungraciously,using her own skill at the same time to walk her horse away from herunwelcome companion.
"I've heard of Music Mountain," continued de Spain, urging his laggingsteed. "I've often wanted to get over there to hunt."
Nan, without speaking, ruthlessly widened the distance between thetwo. De Spain unobtrusively spurred his steed to greater activity."You must have a great deal of game around you. Do you hunt?" heasked.
He knew she was famed as a huntress, but he could make no headwaywhatever against her studied reserve. He watched her hands, gracefuleven in heavy gloves; he noticed the neck-piece of her tan blouse, andliked the brown throat and the chin set so resolutely against him. Hesurmised that she perhaps felt some contempt for him because she hadoutshot him, and he continued to ask about game, hoping for a chancein some far-off time to redeem his marksmanship before her and givingher every possible chance to invite him to try the hunting aroundMusic Mountain.
She was deaf to the broadest hints; and when at length she excusedherself and turned her pony from the Sleepy Cat road into the MorganGap trail, de Spain had been defeated in every attempt to arouse theslightest interest in anything he had said. But, watching with regret,at the parting, the trim lines of her figure as she dashed away on thedesert trail, seated as if a part of her spirited horse, he felt onlya fast-rising resolution to attempt again to break through herstubborn reticence and know her better.