Chapter IX
Helen Knew
Second only to her father's was Helen's eager interest in the worldabout her. The ride back to Desert Valley through the rich moonlightwas an experience never to be forgotten. She and Howard alone in whatappeared an enchanted and limitless garden of silence and of slumber,their horses' feet falling without noise as though upon deep carpets,the bright moon and its few attendant stars working the harsh land ofthe day over into a soft sweet country of subtle allurement--thepicture of all this was to spring up vivid and vital in many an idlehour of the days to follow. Little speech passed between them thatnight: they rode close together, they forgot the wagon which rocked andjolted along somewhere far behind them; they were content to be contentwithout analysing. And at the end of the ride, when she felt Alan'sstrong hands aiding her from her saddle, Helen sighed.
The next morning early she and her father left Desert Valley, goingstraight to the professor's destination in the Last Ridge country.They did not see Howard, who had breakfasted and ridden away beforedawn, leaving with the kitchen boy a brief note of apology. The notesaid that his business was urgent and that he would call to see them ina day or so; further that Tod Barstow and Chuck Evans had orders tohaul their goods in the wagon for them and to help them pitch camp.
Their departure was like a small procession. The wagon, carrying alltheir household goods, went ahead. Longstreet's two pack-horses weretied to the tail end of the wagon and trotted along with slacktie-ropes. Behind them rode the Longstreets upon saddle-horses, whichChuck Evans had brought to the house for them with his employer'scompliments.
'Al said you was to ride this one, miss,' said Chuck Evans.
It was the black mare on which Howard had ridden into their camp thefirst morning--Sanchia or Helen.
'What is her name?' asked Helen quite innocently when she had mounted.
Chuck Evans grinned his characteristic happy grin.
'Funny thing about that mare's name,' he conceded brightly.
'What do you mean?' queried Helen.
'Yesterday,' he explained, 'I heard Al talking to her down to thestable. He does talk to a horse more'n any man I know, and what's morethey talk back to him. 'S a fact, miss. And what he said was, "Helen,you little black devil, I wouldn't sell you for a couple milliondollars; no, not now." Calling her Helen, understand?'
'Well?' asked the other Helen.
'And,' went on Chuck Evans, 'that mare's been on the ranch six monthsand never did I hear him call her another thing than Sanchia.'
'Sanchia?' she repeated after him. 'What a pretty name!' And then,more innocently than ever, 'I don't think I ever heard the name before.She was named after somebody, I suppose?'
'Sure,' laughed Chuck. 'After a certain lady known in these parts asMrs. Murray. Her name is Sanchia.'
'Oh!' said Helen.
'And,' continued Chuck, 'that ain't all. This morning, just like heknew folks was going to ask her name, he tells me: "Say, Chuck; thishere mare's name, if anyone asks you, is Sweetheart. Don't it justsuit her?" he says. And when you come right down to it----'
'Hey, Chuck,' called Tod Barstow from his high seat. 'Get a move on.We better get started before it's hot.'
So Chuck Evans departed and Helen sat straight in the saddle, her eyesa little puzzled. When her father rode to her side she was adjusting abluebird's feather in her hatband. The feather, pointing straight up,gave a stiff, almost haughty look to the young woman's headgear.
They crossed the big meadow, wound for an hour among the little hills,and then began a slow, gradual climb along a devious dusty road. Lessand ever less fertile grew the dry earth under them, more still and hotand hostile the land into which they journeyed. In three hours,jogging along, they came to Last Ridge.
'There's only one spot up this way that's fit to live in for more'n anhour at the stretch,' Barstow told them. 'There's a spring and someshade there. We'll drive right under it, and from there up we'll haveto finish the job monkey-style.'
He stopped his horses in a little flat, just under a steep wall ofreddish cliff. Here he and Chuck Evans unhitched and here the horseswere tethered. Helen looked about her curiously, and at first herheart sank. There was nothing to greet her but rock and swelteringpatches of sand and gravelly soil, and sparse, harsh brush. She turnedand looked back toward the sweep of Desert Valley; there she saw greenfields, trees, grazing stock. It was like the Promised Land comparedwith this bleak desolate spot her father had chosen. She turned tohim, words of expostulation forming. But his eyes were bright, hislook triumphant. He had already dismounted and was poking about hereand there, examining everything at hand from a sand-storm stratum atthe cliff's foot to loose dirt in the drifts and the hardy, wiry grassgrowing where it could. Helen turned away with a sigh.
From here the two Desert Valley men went forward on foot to show themthe spot which Alan Howard had chosen as the most likely site for acamp. They walked to the end of the flat where the reddish, walls shutin; here was an angle of cliff and in the angle was a cleft some threeor four feet wide. They passed into this and found that it offered asteep, winding way upward. But the distance was not great, and in tenminutes they had come to the top. Here again was a level space, a widetableland, offering less of the desert menace and hostility andsomething more of charm and the promise of comfort. For a gentlebreeze stirred here, and off yonder were scattered pines and cedars andin a clump of trees was a ring of verdure. They went to it and saw thespring. It was but a sort of mud-hole of yellowish, thickish water.But water it was, with green grass growing about it and with the shadeof dusty trees over it. Beyond were the strange-shaped uplands,distant cliffs and peaks broken into a thousand grotesque forms, withbands of colour in horizontal strata across them as though they hadbeen painted with a mighty brush.
'What though I have never been here until this second?' criedLongstreet triumphantly. 'I know it, all of it, every inch andmillimetre of it! I could have made a map of it and laid the coloursin. I have read of it, studied it--I have written of this country!Having been right in everything else, am I to be mistaken in the matterof its minerals? I said give me three months to find gold! Why, it'sa matter to wonder at if I don't locate my mine in three days!'
The two men grinned readily. Before now they had heard men talk withthe gold fever upon them.
'There's gold pretty near everywhere,' admitted Barstow, 'if a man canmake it pay. But right now I guess me and Chuck had better startgetting your stuff up the rocks. Suit you all right here for a camp?'
Helen turned and looked toward the south. There, broad and fertilebelow her, running away across the miles, were the Howard acres. Sheeven made out the clutter of head-quarters buildings. Somehow shefancied that the sweep of homely view snatched from these bleak uplandssomething of their loneliness. When her father announced that this wasjust the spot he had longed for, Helen nodded her approval. Here for atime was to be home.
Throughout the day and until dusk the four of them laboured, makingcamp. Barstow and Evans lugged the various articles, boxes, rolls ofbedding, up through the cleft in the rocks. They had brought in thewagon-bed some loose boards of various sizes; these they made into arough floor. At the four corners of the floor they erected studding oftwo-by-four lumber. These they braced and steadied; they nailed otherlengths of two-by-four material along the tops, outlining walls; theyhacked and sawed and hammered and nailed to such advantage that in theend they had the misshapen frame of a cabin, rafters and all. Thenover the rafters and along the sides they secured the canvas destinedfor the purpose. Doors and windows were canvas flaps; the sheet-ironstove was set up on four flat stones for legs; the stovepipe was runthrough a hole in the roof. And when Chuck Evans and Tod Barstow,amateurs in the carpenter's line, stood back and wiped the sweat offtheir brown faces and looked with fond and prideful eyes at theirhandiwork, Helen and her father were no whit less delighted.
'If you want more room after a while,'
said Barstow, 'it'd be easy totack more sheds on and run canvas over them, just the same as what wedone. Me and Chuck would come up most any time and lend a hand.'
The breeze stiffened and the crazy edifice shivered.
'I don't know as I'd make it much bigger,' said Evans. 'If a real blowcome on and the wind got inside--Say, Tod, how about a few guy ropes?Huh?'
Barstow agreed, and they brought what ropes they had in the wagon and'staked her out, same as if she was a runaway horse,' as Chuck put it.In other words, they ran one rope from the rear end of the ridge of thehouse to the base of a conveniently-located pine tree; then theysecured the second rope to the other end of the ridge-pole and anchoredit to a big boulder. Meanwhile Helen opened some cans and made coffeeon the newly-adjusted stove and they sat on the grass by the spring andmade their evening meal. After which Barstow and Evans went down totheir wagon and returned to Desert Valley. And James Edward Longstreetand his daughter sat alone upon their camp-stools in front of their newabode and looked off across the valley and into the distances.
The day departed slowly, lingeringly. The soft night came little bylittle, a misty veil floating into a hollow yonder, a star shining, thebreeze strengthening and cooling. Before the twilight was gone andwhile one might look for miles across the billowing landscapes, theysaw a horseman riding down in the valley; he appeared hardly more thana vague moving dot. And yet----
'It's Mr. Howard!' cried Helen.
Longstreet withdrew his straining eyes and turned them wonderingly uponhis daughter.
'How in the world do you know?' he asked.
Helen smiled, a quiet smile of transcendent wisdom.
'Oh, I just knew he'd come over.' she said.