Bransford of Rainbow Range

“How on earth did you manage it? Didn’t they know you?” demanded Gibson as the pace slackened.

“It wasn’t me! It was Tobe Long! ‘You may not have lived much under the sea, and perhaps you were never even introduced to a lobster,’” quoted Jeff. Rocking in the saddle, he gave a mirthful résumé of his little evanishment. “And, oh, just think of that candle burning away in that quiet, empty tent! If I could have seen Griffith’s face!” he gloated. “Oh me! Oh my!.. And he was so sure!.. Say, Gibson, how do you come in this galley?” As a lone prospector his speech had been fittingly coarse; now, with every mile, he shook off the debasing influence of Mr. Long. “Kettle-washing makes black hands. Aren’t you afraid you’ll get into trouble?”

“Nobody knows I’m kettle-washing, except Pappy Sanders and you,” said Gibson. “I was careful not to let your friend see me at the fire.”

“I’ll do you a good turn sometime,” said Jeff. He rode on in silence for a while and presently was lost in his own thoughts, leaning over with his hands folded on his horse’s neck. In a low and thoughtful voice he half repeated, half chanted to himself:

“Illilleo Legardi, in the garden there alone,There came to me no murmur of the fountain’s undertoneSo mystically, magically mellow as your own!”

Another silence. Then Jeff roused himself, with a start.

“I’ll tell you what, Gibson, you’d better cut loose from me. So far as I can see, you are only a kid. You don’t want to get mixed up in a murder scrape. This would go pretty hard with you if they can prove it on you. Of course, I’m awfully obliged to you and all that; but you’d better quit me while the quitting’s good.”

“Oh, no; I’ll see you through,” said Gibson lightly. “Besides, I know you had nothing to do with the murder.”

“Oh, the hell you do!” said Jeff. “That’s kind of you, I’m sure. See here, who’d sold you your chips, anyway? How’d you get in this game?”

“I got in this game, as you put it, because I jolly well wanted to,” replied Charley, with becoming spirit. “That ought to be reason enough for anything in this country. Nothing against it in the rules – and I don’t use the rules, anyhow. If you must have it all spelled out for you – I knew, or at least I’d heard, that your friends were away from Rainbow; so I judged you wouldn’t go up there. Then I knew those four amateur Sherlocks – they’re in my set in Arcadia. When two of the deerhunters, after starting at two A.M., came back to Arcadia the same morning they left, looking all wise and important, and slipped off on the train to Escondido, saying nothing to any one – and when the other two didn’t come home at all – I began to think; went down to the depot, found they had gone to Escondido, and I came on the next train. I found out Pappy was your friend; and when he got your little hurry-up call I volunteered my services, seeing Pappy was too old and not footloose anyhow – with a wife and property. That’s the how of it.”

“Oh, yes, that’s all right; but what makes you think I’m innocent?”

“I know Mr. White, you see. And Mr. White seems to think that at about the time the bank was robbed you were – in a garden!” Charley’s voice was edged with faint mockery.

“Huh!” said Jeff, startled. “Who in hell is Mr. White?”

“Mr. White – in hell – is the devil!” said Charley.

At this unexpected disclosure Jeff lashed his horse to a gallop – his spurs, you remember, being certain feet under the Ophir dump – and strove to bring his thoughts to bear upon this new situation. He slowed down and Charley drew up beside him.

“You seem to have stayed quite a while – in a garden,” suggested Charley.

“That tongue of yours is going to get you into trouble yet,” said Jeff. “You’ll never live to be grayheaded.”

Charley was not to be daunted.

“Say, Jeff, she’s pretty easy to get acquainted with, what? And those eyes of hers – a little on the see-you-later style, aren’t they?”

Jeff turned in his saddle.

“Now you look here, Mr. Charley Gibson! I’m under obligations to you, and so on – but I’ve heard all of that kind of talk that’s good —sabe?”

“Oh, I know her,” persisted Charley. “Know her by heart – know her like a book. She made a fool of me, too. She drives ’em single, double, tandem, random and four abreast!”

“You little beast!” Jeff launched his horse at the traducer, but Gibson spurred aside.

“Stop now, Jeffy! Easy does it! I’ve got a gun!”

“Shut your damn head then! Gun or no gun, don’t you take that girl’s name in your mouth again, or – Hark! What’s that?”

It was a clatter far behind – a ringing of swift hoofs on hard ground.

“By George, they’re coming! Griffith will be a man yet!” said Jeff approvingly. “Come on, kid; we’ve got to burn the breeze! I suppose that talk of yours is only your damn fool idea of fun, but I don’t like it. Cut it out, now, and ride like a drunk Indian!” He laughed loud and long. “Think o’ that candle, will you? – burning away with a clear, bright, steady flame, and nobody within ten miles of it!”

They raced side by side; but Gibson, heedless of their perilous situation, or perhaps taking advantage of it, took a malicious delight in goading Jeff to madness; and he refused either to be silent or to talk about candles, notwithstanding Jeff’s preference for that topic.

“I’m not joking! I’m telling you for your own good.” Here the tormentor prudently fell back half a length and raised his voice so as to be heard above the flying feet. “Hasn’t she gone back to New York, I’d like to know, and left you to get out of it the best way you can? She could ’a’ stayed if she’d wanted to. Don’t tell me! Haven’t I seen how she bosses her mother round? No, sir! She’s willing to let you hang to save herself a little slander – or, more likely, a little talk!”

Jeff whirled his horse to his haunches, but once more Gibson was too quick for him. Gibson’s horse was naturally the nimbler of the two, even without the advantage of spurs.

“That’s a lie! She was going to tell – she was bound to tell; I made her keep silent. After I jumped out she couldn’t well say anything. That’s why I jumped. Was I going to make her a target for such vile tongues as yours – for me? Oh! You ought to be shot out of a red-hot cannon, through a barbed-wire fence, into hell! You lie, you coward, you know you lie! I’ll cram it down your throat if you’ll get off and throw that gun down!”

“Yah! It’s likely I’ll put the gun down!” scoffed Gibson. “Ride on, you fool! Do you want to hang? Ride on and keep ahead! Remember, I’ve got the gun!”

“Hanging’s not so bad,” snarled Jeff. “I’d rather be hung decently than be such a thing as you! Oh, if I just had a gun!”

The sound of pursuit was clearer now; and, of course, the pursuers could hear the pursued as well and fought for every inch.

Jeff rode on, furious at his helplessness. For several miles his tormentor raced behind in silence, fearing, if he persisted longer in his evil course, that Jeff would actually stop and give himself up. They gained now on their pursuers, who had pressed their horses overhard to make up the five-mile handicap.

As they came to a patch of sandy ground they eased the pace somewhat. Charley drew a little closer to Jeff.

“Now don’t get mad. I had no idea you thought so much of the girl – ”

“Shut up, will you?”

“ – or I wouldn’t have deviled you so. I’ll quit. How was I to know you’d stop to fight for her with the very rope round your neck? It’s a pity she’ll never know about it… You can’t have seen her more than two or three times – and Heaven only knows where that was! On that camping trip, I reckon. What kind of a girl is she, anyhow, to hold clandestine interviews with a stranger?.. She’ll write to you by and by – a little scented note, with a little stilted, meaningless word of thanks. No, she won’t. It’ll be gushy: ‘Oh, my hero! How can I ever repay you?’ She won’t let you out of her clutches – anybody, so long as it’s a man! Here! None o’ that!.. Go on, now, if you want to live!”

“Who the hell wants to live?”

A noose flew back from the darkness. Jeff’s horse darted aside and Gibson was jerked sprawling to the sand at a rope’s end – hat flew one way, gun another. Jeff ran to the six-shooter.

“Who’s got the gun now?” he jeered, as he loosened the rope. “I only wish we had two of ’em!”

“You harebrained idiot!” Charley grabbed up his hat and spit sand from his mouth. “Get your horse and ride, you unthinkable donkey!”

“Pleasure first, business afterward!” Jeff unbuckled Gibson’s gunbelt and transferred it to his own waist, jerking Gibson to his feet in the violent process. “Now, you little blackguard, you either take back all that or you’ll get the lickin’ o’ your life! You’re too small; but all the same – ”

“Oh, I’ll take it back, you big bully – all I said and a lot more I only thought!” said Charley spitefully. He was almost crying with rage as he limped to his horse. “She’s an angel on earth! Sure she is! Ride, you maniac – ride! Oh, you ought to be hung! I hope you do hang – you miserable ruffian!”

The following hoofs no longer rang sharply; they took on a muffled beat – they were in the sand’s edge not a mile behind.

“Ride ahead, you! I’ve got the gun, remember!” observed Jeff significantly; “but if you slur that girl again I’ll not shoot you – I’ll naturally wear you out with this belt.”

CHAPTER XV

GOOD-BY

“They have ridden the low moon out of the sky; their hoofs drum up the dawn.” —Two Strong Men, Kipling.

“I’m not speaking of her and I’m not going to,” protested Gibson, in a changed tone. “I’ll promise! My horse is failing, Jeff. I rode hard and fast from Escondido. Your horse carried nothing much but a saddle – that pack was mostly bluff, you know. And those fellows’ horses have come twenty miles less than either of ours.”

No answer.

“I don’t believe we’re going to make it, Jeff!” There was a forlorn little quaver in Charley’s voice.

Jeff grunted. “Uh! Maybe not. Griffith’ll be real pleased.”

Gibson rode closer. “Can’t we turn off the road and hide?”

“Till daylight,” said Jeff. “Then they’ll get us. No way out of this desert except across the edges somewhere. You go if you want to. They won’t bother to hunt for you, maybe, if they get me.”

“No. It’s my fault… I’ll see it out… I’m sorry, Jeff – but it was so funny!” Here, rather to Jeff’s surprise, Charley’s dejection gave place to laughter.

They rode up a sandy slope where mesquites grew black along the road. Blown sand had lodged to hummocks in their thick and matted growth; the road was a sunken way.

“How far is it from here, Jeff?”

“Ten miles – maybe only eight – to the river. We’re in Texas now – have been for an hour.”

“Think we can make it?”

“Quien sabe?”

Gibson drew rein. “You go on. Your horse isn’t so tired.”

“Oh, I guess not!” said Jeff. “Come on.”

The sound of pursuit came clear through the quiet night. There was silence for a little.

“What’ll you do, Jeff? Fight?”

“I can’t!” said Jeff. “Hurt those boys? I couldn’t fight, the way it is – hardly, even if ’twas the sheriff. I’ll just hang, I reckon.”

They reached the top of the little slope and turned down the other side.

“I don’t altogether like this hanging idea,” said Gibson. “I got you into this, Jeff; so I’ll just get you out again – like the man in our town who was so wondrous wise. Going to use bramble bushes, too.” Volatile Gibson, in the stress of danger, had forgotten his wrath. He was light-hearted and happy, frivolously gay. “Give me your rope and your gun, Jeff. Quick now! No, I won’t mention your girl – not once! Hurry!”

“What you going to do?” asked Jeff, thoroughly mystified.

“Ever read the ‘Fool’s Errand’?” Charley chuckled. “No? Well, I have. Jump off and tie the end of your rope to that mesquite root. Quick!”

He sprang down, snatched one end of the coil from Jeff’s hand and stretched it taut across the road, a foot from the ground. “Now your gun! Quick!”

He snatched the gun, tied an end of his own saddle-rope to the stretched one, near the middle, plunged through the mesquite, over a hummock, paying out his rope as he went; wedged the gun firmly in the springing crotch of a mesquite tree, cocked it and tied the loose end of the trailing rope to the trigger. He ran back and sprang on his horse.

“Now ride! It’s our last chance!”

“Kid, you’re a wonder!” said Jeff. “You’ll do to take along! They’ll lope up when they turn down that slope, hit that rope and pile in a heap!”

“And my rope will fire the gun off!” shrilled joyous Charley. “They’ll think it’s us – an ambuscade – ”

“They’ll take to the sand-hills,” Jeff broke in. “They’ll shoot into the bushes – they’ll think it’s us firing back, half the time… They’ll scatter out and surround that lonesome, harmless motte and watch it till daylight. You bet they won’t go projecting round it any till daylight, either!” He looked up at the sky. “There’s the morning star. See it? ‘They have ridden the low moon out of the sky’ – only there isn’t any moon – ‘their hoofs drum up the dawn.’ Then they’ll find our tracks – and if I only could see the captain’s face! ‘Oh, my threshings, and the corn of my floor!’… And by then we’ll be in Mexico and asleep… When Griffith finds that gun – oh, he’ll never show his head in Arcadia again!.. Say, Charley, I hope none of ’em get hurt when they strike your skip-rope.”

“Huh! It’s sandy! A heap you cared about me getting hurt when you dragged me from my horse!” said Gibson, rather snappishly. “You did hurt me, too. You nearly broke my neck and you cut my arms. And I got full of mesquite thorns when I set that gun. You don’t care! I’m only the man that came to save your neck. That’s the thanks I get! But the men that are trying to hang you – that’s different! You’d better go back. They might get hurt. You’ll be sorry sometime for the way you’ve treated me. There – it’s too late now!”

A shot rang behind them. There was a brief silence. Then came a sharp fusillade, followed by scattering shots, dwindling to longer intervals.

Jeff clung to his saddle-horn.

“I guess they ain’t hurt much,” he laughed. “Wish I could see ’em when they find out! Slow down, kid. We’ve got lots of time now.”

“We haven’t,” protested Charley. “Keep moving. It’s hard on the horses, but they’ll have a lifetime to rest in. They’ve telegraphed all over the country. You want to cross the river before daylight. It would be too bad for you to be caught now! Is there any ford, do you know?”

“Not this time of year. River’s up.”

“Cross in a boat then?”

“Guess we’d better. That horse of yours is pretty well used up. Don’t believe he could swim it.”

“Oh, I’m not going over. I’ll get up to El Paso. I’ve got friends there.”

“You’ll get caught.”

“No, I won’t. I’m not going across, I tell you, and that’s all there is to it! I guess I’ll have something to say about things. I’m going to see you safely over, and that’s the last you’ll ever see of Charley Gibson.”

“Oh, well!” Jeff reflected a little. “If you’re sure you won’t come along, I’d rather swim. My horse is strong yet. You see, it takes time to find a boat, and a boat means a house and dogs; and I’ll need my horse on the other side. How’ll you get to El Paso? Griffith’ll likely come down here about an hour by sun, ’cross lots, a-cryin’.”

“I’ll manage that,” said Gibson curtly enough. “You tend to your own affair.”

“Oh, all right!” Jeff rode ahead. He whistled; then he chanted his war song:

“Said the little Eohippus:‘I’m going to be a horse!And on my middle fingernailsTo run my earthly course!’The Coryphodon was horrified;The Dinoceras was shocked;And they chased young Eohippus,But he skipped away and mocked.“Said they: ‘You always were as smallAnd mean as now we see,And that’s conclusive evidenceThat you’re always going to be.What! Be a great, tall, handsome beast,With hoofs to gallop on?Why! You’d have to change your nature!’Said the Loxolophodon.”

“Jeff!”

“Well?” Jeff turned his head. Charley was drooping visibly.

“Stop that foolish song!”

Jeff rode on in silence. This was a variable person, Gibson. They were dropping down from the mesa into the valley of the Rio Grande.

“Jeff!”

Jeff fell back beside Charley. “Tired, pardner?”

“Jeff, I’m terribly tired! I’m not used to riding so far; and I’m sleepy – so sleepy!”

“All right, pardner; we’ll go slower. We’ll walk. Most there now. There’s the railroad.”

“Keep on trotting. I can stand it. We must get to the river before daylight. Is it far?” Charley’s voice was weary. The broad sombrero drooped sympathetically.

“Two miles to the river. El Paso’s seven or eight miles up the line. Brace up, old man! You’ve done fine and dandy! It’s just because the excitement is all over. Why should you go any farther, anyhow? There’s Ysleta up the track a bit. Follow the road up there and flag the first train. That’ll be best.”

“No, no. I’ll go all the way. I’ll make out.” Charley straightened himself with an effort.

They crossed the Espee tracks and came to a lane between cultivated fields.

“Jeff! I’d like to say something. It won’t be breaking my promise really… I didn’t mean what I said about – you know. I was only teasing. She’s a good enough girl, I guess – as girls go.”

Jeff nodded. “I did not need to be told that.”

“And you left her in a cruel position when you jumped out of the window. She can’t tell now, so long as there’s any other way. What a foolish thing to do! If you’d just said at first that you were in the garden – Oh, why didn’t you? But after the chances you took rather than to tell – why, Jeff, it would be terrible for her now.”

“I know that, too,” said Jeff. “I suppose I was a fool; but I didn’t want her to get mixed up with it, and at the same time I cared less about hanging than any time I can remember. You see, I didn’t know till the last minute that the garden was going to cut any figure. And do you suppose I’d have that courthouseful of fools buzzing and whispering at her? Not much! Maybe it was foolish – but I’m glad I did it.”

“I’m glad of it, too. If you had to be a fool,” said Charley, “I’m glad you were that kind of a fool. Are you still mad at me?”

Since Charley had recanted, and more especially since he had taken considerate thought for the girl’s compulsory silence, Jeff’s anger had evaporated.

“That’s all right, pardner… Only you oughtn’t never to talk that way about a girl – even for a joke. That’s no good kind of a joke. Men, now, that’s different. See here, I’ll give you an order to a fellow in El Paso – Hibler – to pay for your horses and your gun. Here’s your belt, too.”

Charley shook his head impatiently. “I don’t want any money. Settle with Pappy for the horses. I won’t take this one back. Keep the belt. You may want it to beat me with sometime. What are you going to do, Jeff? Aren’t you ever coming back?”

“Sure I’ll come back – if only to see Griffith again. I’ll write to John Wesley Pringle – he’s my mainest side pardner – and sick him on to find out who robbed that bank – to prove it, rather. I just about almost nearly know who it was. Old Wes’ll straighten things out a-flying. I’ll be back in no time. I got to come back, Charley!”

The river was in sight. The stars were fading; there was a flush in the east, a smell of dawn in the air.

“Jeff, I wish you’d do something for me.”

“Sure, Charley. What is it?”

“I wish you’d give me that little turquoise horse to remember you by.”

Jeff was silent for a little. He had framed out another plan for the little eohippus – namely, to give him to Miss Ellinor. He sighed; but he owed a good deal to Charley.

“All right, Charley. Take good care of him – he’s a lucky little horse. I think a heap of him. Here we are!”

The trees were distinct in the growing light. Jeff rode into the river; the muddy water swirled about his horse’s knees. He halted for parting; Gibson rode in beside him. Jeff took the precious Alice book from his bosom, put it in the crown of his miner’s cap and jammed the cap tightly on his head.

“Better change your mind, Charley. Come along. We’ll rout somebody out and order a dish of stewed eggs.

“There is another shore, you know, upon the other side.

The farther off from England the nearer ’tis to France;Then turn not pale, beloved snail, but come and jointhe dance.Will you – won’t you – ”

“‘No, I won’t! I told you once!’” snapped the beloved snail.

“Here’s the little eohippus horse then.” As Charley took it Jeff wrung his hand. “By George, I’ve got to change my notion of Arcadia people. If there’s many like you and Griffith, Arcadia’s going to crowd the map!.. Well – so long!”

“It looks awful wide, Jeff!”

“Oh, I’ll be all right – swim it myself if the horse plays out – and if I don’t have no cramps, as I might, of course, after this ride. Well – here goes nothin’! Take care of the little horse. I hope he brings you good luck!”

“Well – so long, then!”

Bransford rode into the muddy waters. They came to the horse’s breast, his neck; he plunged in, sank, rose, and was borne away down the swift current, breasting the flood stoutly – and so went quartering across to the farther bank. It took a long time. It was quite light when the horse found footing on a sandbar half a mile below, rested, and splashed whitely through the shallows to the bank. Gibson swung his sombrero. Jeff waved his hand, rode to the fringing bushes, and was gone.

CHAPTER XVI

THE LAND OF AFTERNOON

“Dreaming once more love’s old sad dream divine.”

Los Baños de Santa Eulalia Del Norte, otherwise known as Mud Springs, is a Mexican hamlet with one street of about the same length. Los Baños and Co. lies in a loop of the Rio Grande, half of a long day from El Paso, in mere miles; otherwise a contemporary of Damascus and Arpad.

Thither, mindful of the hot springs which supply the preliminaries of the name, Mr. Bransford made his way: mindful too, of sturdy old Don Francisco, a friend twice bound by ancient service given and returned.

He climbed the slow long ridges to the high mesa: for the river bent here in a long ox-bow, where a bold promontory shouldered far out to bar the way: weary miles were to be saved by crossing the neck of this ox-bow, and the tough horse tired and lagged.

The slow sun rose as he reached the Rim. It showed the wide expanse of desert behind him, flooded with trembling light; eastward, beyond the river, the buttressed and fantastic peaks of Fray Cristobal; their jutting shadows streaming into the gulf beyond, athwart the silvery ribbon of gleaming water, twining in mazy loops across the valley floor: it showed the black Rim at his feet, a frowning level wall of lava cliff, where the plain broke abruptly into the chasm beneath; the iron desolation of the steep sides, boulder-strewn, savage and forbidding:

“A land of old up-heaven from the abyss.”

Long since, there had been a flourishing Mexican town in the valley. A wagonroad had painfully climbed a long ridge to the Rim, twisting, doubling, turning, clinging hazardously to the hillside, its outer edge a wall built up with stone, till it came to the shoulder under the tremendous barrier. From there it turned northward, paralleling the Rim in mile-long curve above a deep gorge; turning, in a last desperate climb, to a solitary gateway in the black wall, torn out by flood-waters through slow centuries. Smallpox had smitten the people; the treacherous river had devastated the fertile valley, and, subsiding, left the rich fields a waste of sand. The town was long deserted; the disused road was gullied and torn by flood, the soil washed away, leaving a heaped and crumbled track of tangled stone. But it was the only practicable way as far as the sand-hills, and Jeff led his horse down the ruined path, with many a turning back and scrambling détour.

The shadows of the eastern hills drew back before him as he reached the sand-dunes. When he rode through the silent streets of what had been Alamocita, the sun peered over Fray Cristobal, gilding the crumbling walls, where love and laughter had made music, where youth and hope and happiness had been… Silent now and deserted, given over to lizard and bat and owl, the smiling gardens choked with sand and grass, springing with mesquite and tornillo; a few fruit trees, gnarled and tangled, drooping for days departed, when young mothers sang low lullaby beneath their branches… Passed away and forgotten – hopes and fears, tears and smiles, birth and death, joy and sorrow, hatred and sin and shame, falsehood and truth and courage and love. The sun shone cheerfully on these gray ruins – as it has shone on a thousand such, and will shine.