The Little Colonel in Arizona

"How long will it take?" asked Joyce.

"Fifteen or twenty minutes, probably. He's just up the street."

"Then I'll begin a lettah to mothah," said Lloyd, depositing her bundles on a table, and sitting down at the desk. Joyce picked up an illustrated paper and settled herself comfortably in a rocking-chair.

The big clock over the soda-fountain slowly dropped its hands down the dial, but Joyce, absorbed in her reading, and Lloyd in her writing, paid no attention until half an hour had gone by. Then Lloyd, folding her letter and slipping it into an envelope, looked up.

"Mercy, Joyce! It's half-past foah! What do you suppose is the mattah?"

Before Joyce could answer, she caught sight of Jack, through the big show-window, hurrying down the street by himself. He was red in the face from his rapid walking when he came in, and had a queer expression about his mouth that he always had when disgusted or out of patience.

"Phil's busy," he announced. "He wants me to ask you if you'd mind waiting a few minutes longer. He wouldn't ask it, but it's something quite important."

"We ought to get back as soon as we can," said Joyce, "for I've been away all day, and there's the ride home still ahead of us. I'm afraid mamma will start to get supper herself if I'm not there."

"I think I'll put in the time we're waiting in writing to the Walton girls," said Lloyd, drawing a fresh sheet of paper toward her. Joyce picked up her story again, and Jack went out into the street, where he stood tapping one heel against the curbstone, and with his hands thrust into his pockets. Then he walked to the corner and back, and peered in through the show-window at the clock over the soda-fountain. When he had repeated the performance several times, Joyce beckoned for him to come in.

"It's after five o'clock," she said. "It must be very important business that keeps him so long."

"It is," answered Jack. "I'll go back once more, and if I can't get him away, I'll go around and get the horses and we'll just ride off and leave him."

"Can't get him away!" repeated Joyce. "Where is he?"

"Oh, just up the street a little way," said Jack, carelessly, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb.

Joyce looked at him steadily an instant, then, as if she had read his mind, said, with startling abruptness: "Jack Ware, you might as well tell me. Is he doing what Mr. Ellestad says all the boys out here do sooner or later, getting mixed up in some of those gambling games?"

There was no evading Joyce when she spoke in that tone. Jack had learned that long ago. But, with a glance toward Lloyd, who sat with her back toward them, he only nodded his reply. Startled by the question, Lloyd turned just in time to see the nod.

"I didn't intend to tell on him," blurted Jack, "but you surprised it out of me. He put some money on a roulette wheel, and lost all the first part of the afternoon. Now his luck has begun to change, and he says he's got to stick by it till he makes back at least a part of what he started with."

Joyce looked up at the clock. "We ought to be going," she said, drumming nervously on the arm of her chair with her fingers. Then she hesitated, a look of sisterly concern on her face. "I hate, though, to go off and leave him there. No telling when he'll come home if he feels he is free to stay as long as he pleases. Goodness, Jack! I'm glad it isn't you. I'd be having a fit if it were, and I can't help thinking how poor Elsie would feel if she knew it. Lloyd, what do you think we ought to do?"

"I think we ought to go straight off and leave him!" she answered, hotly. "It's perfectly horrid of him to so fah fo'get himself as a gentleman as to pay no attention to his promises. He made a positive engagement with us to meet us heah at foah o'clock, and now it's aftah five. I nevah had a boy treat me that way befoah, and I must say I haven't much use for one that will act so."

Presently, after some slight discussion, the girls slowly gathered up the bundles and walked up the street to the corral. Jack hurried on ahead, so that by the time they reached it, the men there had the ponies saddled and were waiting to help them mount and tie on the packages by the many leather thongs which fringed the saddles for that purpose.

It was a quiet ride homeward. A cloud seemed to have settled over their gay spirits. Nobody laughed, nobody spoke much. The story of Alaka was still fresh in each mind, and what Mrs. Lee had said about the curse of the West, and the fate of the men she had known who had become possessed by the same fever.

They remembered how Jo had come in at daylight, red-eyed and sullen, after his night's losses, for the lucky feeling which seized him at the sight of his cut fingers had been a mistaken omen of success. All that he had saved in months of service had vanished before sunrise in the same way that Alaka's turquoises and shells and eyes had gone.

Deeper than the indignation in Lloyd's heart, deeper than her sense of wounded pride that Phil should have been so indifferent about keeping his engagement to meet them, was a sore feeling of disappointment in him. He had seemed so strong and manly that she had thought him above the weakness of yielding to such temptations.

She recalled the expression of his face the night before when he drew back from the firelight into the shadow, and pulled his hat over his eyes, as Mr. Ellestad began the story of Alaka. Evidently he had played Alaka's game before.

Ah, that night before! How the whole moonlighted scene rolled back over her memory, as she rode along now, slightly in advance of Joyce and Jack. Phil had been with her that night before, and, as the sweet strains of the Bedouin love-song floated out on the stillness of the desert, something had stirred in her girlish heart as she looked up at him. A vague wonder if it were possible that in years to come this would prove to be the one the stars had destined for her. And, as if in answer to her unspoken wonder, his voice had joined in, higher and sweeter than all the others, as he smiled down into her eyes. But now – there was a little twinge of pain when she thought that he wasn't a prince at all when measured by the yard-stick of old Hildgardmar and her father, much less the one written in the stars for her. He wasn't strong, and he wasn't honourable if he gambled, and she told herself that she was glad that she knew it. And now that she had found out how much she had been mistaken in him, she didn't care any more for his friendship, and that she never intended to have anything more to do with him.

A dozen times on the way home Joyce said to herself: "Oh, what if it had been Jack!" And, thinking of Elsie and the father so far away across the seas, she wished that she could do something to get him away from the surroundings that were sure to work to his undoing if he persisted in staying there.

Supper was ready when they reached home. Afterward there were all Lloyd's purchases to be unwrapped and admired. Mary had hoped for a candy-pull, as it was Saturday, and they had not had one during Lloyd's visit; but the girls were too tired after so many miles in the saddle, and by nine o'clock all lights were out and a deep quiet reigned over Ware's Wigwam and the tents.

The moonlight flooding the white canvas kept Lloyd awake for awhile. As she lay there, listening to the distant barking of coyotes, and going over the events of the day, she heard the approaching sound of hoof beats. Some lonely horseman was coming down the desert road. She raised herself on her elbow to listen, recognizing the sound. It was Phil's horse clattering over the little bridge. But it paused under the pepper-trees.

"I suppose Phil has come up to apologize," she said to herself, "but he might as well save himself the trouble. No explanation could evah explain away the fact that he was rude to us and that he gambled. I could forgive the first, but I nevah can forgive being so disappointed in him."

A moment later, seeing no light, and evidently concluding that his visit was untimely, he turned and rode back toward the ranch. Lloyd, still leaning on her elbow, strained her ears to listen till the last footfall died away in the distance.

"He'll be back in the mawning," she thought, as she laid her head on the pillow. "He always comes Sunday mawnings; but he'll not find us this time, because we'll be gone befoah he gets heah."

Joyce had arranged to keep Bogus part of the next day, so that they could ride into Phœnix to church. So it happened that when Phil came up next morning, it was to find nobody but Mary in sight. Mrs. Ware had gone to the seat under the willows to read to Norman and Holland.

The beehive had been brought over during Joyce's absence the day before, and placed in the shade of the bushy umbrella-tree where the hammock swung, and Mary was swinging in the hammock now, with a book in her lap. It was closed over one finger to keep the place, for she was listening to the droning of the bees, breathing in the sweetness that floated in across the desert from its acres of vivid bloom, and paying more attention to the sunny, vibrant world about her than to the hymn she was learning.

"What are you doing, Mary?" he called, as his step on the bridge made her look around. She held up a battered old volume of poems, and moved over in the hammock to make room for him beside her.

"I'm learning a hymn. That's the way we always earned our missionary money back in Kansas. I'm going to Sunday school with Hazel and George this afternoon in the surrey over to the schoolhouse. Her uncle has one there. I didn't have any pennies to take, so mamma said I could begin learning hymns again, as I used to do back home."

As usual Mary rattled on, scarcely pausing to take breath or give her listener a chance to make reply.

"This isn't one of the singing hymns, the kind they have in church. It's by Isaac Watts. I like it because it's about bees, and it's so easy to say:

"How doth the little busy beeImprove each shining hour,And gather honey all the dayFrom every opening flower.'

"Joyce picked it out for me, and said that she guessed that Isaac Watts must have gone to the School of the Bees himself, and that was where he learned that 'Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do.' The bees hate idle hands, you know, that's the drones, and, although they are patient with them longer than you'd suppose they'd be, it always ends in their stinging the drones to death.

"And Lloyd said it was a pity that some other people she knew not a thousand miles away couldn't go to school to the bees and learn that about Satan's finding mischief for idle hands to do.

"And Joyce said yes, it was, for it was too bad for such a fine fellow to get into trouble just because he was a drone, and had no ambition to make anything of himself. And I asked them who they meant, but they just laughed at each other and wouldn't tell me. I don't see why big girls always want to be so mysterious about things and act as if they had secrets. Do you?"

"No, indeed!" answered Phil, in his most sympathetic manner. He stooped and picked a long blade of grass at his feet.

"And Joyce said that if Alaka had gone to school to the bees, he wouldn't have lost his eyes, and Lloyd said that if somebody kept on, he would lose at least his turquoises. When I asked her what she meant, she said, oh, she was just thinking of what Mr. Ellestad told at the picnic, that the Indians thought the turquoises were their most precious stones because they stole their colour from the sky, and she called turquoise the friendship stone because it was true blue."

Phil began whistling softly, as he pulled the blade of grass back and forth between his fingers.

"So they think that somebody is like Alaka, do they?" he asked, presently, "in danger of losing his turquoises, his friendship stones. Well, I can imagine instances when that would be as bad for Alaka as losing his eyes."

Phil had walked up to the Wigwam more buoyantly than usual that morning. He knew that he owed the girls an apology for not meeting them as he had promised, and he was prepared to make it so penitently and gracefully that he was sure that they would accept his excuses without a question. The big roll of bills in his pocket, which he had won by a lucky turn of the wheel, did not lie heavy on his conscience at all. It rather added to his buoyance of spirit, for it was so large that it would enable him to do several things he had long wished to do. Because of it, too, he had come up to plan another picnic, this time an excursion to Paradise Valley on the other side of Camelback.

But Mary's report of the conversation which had puzzled her gave him an uncomfortable feeling. He could not fail to understand its meaning. Evidently the girls knew what had detained him in town and were displeased with him.

"Oh, aren't you going to stay for dinner?" asked Mary, as he slowly rose and stretched himself. "It's Sunday, you know, and we always expect you on Sunday."

"No, thank you," he answered, yawning. "I've changed my programme to-day."

"Aren't you coming back this afternoon?" she asked, anxiously. "They'll all be home then."

He studied the distant buttes a moment before he answered, then squared back his shoulders in a decided way, settling his hat firmly on his head.

"No," he answered, finally, "I promised a fellow I met in town at the hotel the other day that I'd ride over and see him soon. He has a camp over on the other side of Hole-in-the-Rock, with an old duffer that's out here for rheumatism. I took a fancy to the fellow the minute I saw him, and it turns out that he's the cousin of a boy I knew at military school. It's funny the way you run across people that way out here."

One of Phil's greatest charms to Mary was the deferential way he had of talking to her as if she were his age, and taking the trouble to explain his actions. Now, as he turned away, with a pleasant good morning, it was with as polite a lifting of his hat as if she had been nineteen instead of nine.

She watched him swing down the road with his quick, military step, never dreaming in her unsuspecting little heart that he was the mysterious person who, the girls wished, could learn about Satan and the work he finds for idle hands. Nor did she dream that the words she had so innocently repeated were still sounding in his ears: "If somebody keeps on, he'll at least lose his turquoises. It's the friendship stone – true blue!"

CHAPTER XV.

LOST ON THE DESERT

If Washington had not lost a shoe on the way home from church, and if Joyce had not been seized with a violent headache that sent her to bed with a bandage over her eyes, the day would have ended far differently for Lloyd.

The afternoon went by quickly, for, lulled by the drowsy hum of the bees, she had fallen asleep in the hammock under the umbrella-tree, and slept a long time. Then supper was earlier than usual, as Jack wanted his before starting to the ranch. Chris, the Mexican, was taking a holiday, and had offered Jack a quarter to do the milking for him that evening. Holland strolled down the road with him, since the lost horseshoe prevented him taking the ride he had expected to enjoy.

Scarcely were they out of sight when an old buggy rattled up from the other direction, bringing a woman and her two little girls from a neighbouring ranch for an evening visit. Lloyd, who was on her way to the tent to see if she could do anything for Joyce's comfort, heard a voice which she recognized as Mrs. Shaw's, as the woman introduced herself to Mrs. Ware.

"I've been planning to get over here ever since you came," she began, "and specially since I got acquainted with your daughter over them bees, but 'pears like there's nothing in life on week-days but work; so this evening, when my little girls begged to come over and see your little girl, says I to myself, it's now or never, and I just hitched up and came."

"Oh, deah!" sighed Lloyd. "I don't want to spend the whole evening listening to that tiahsome woman. The boys are gone, and Joyce's head aches too bad for her to talk. I don't know what to do."

She stepped softly into the tent, insisting on rubbing Joyce's head, or doing something to make her more comfortable, but Joyce sent her away, saying that the pain was growing less, and that she didn't want her to stay shut up in the tent that smelled so strongly of the camphor she had spilled.

Lloyd turned away and wandered down to the pasture bars, where she stood looking over toward the west. The sun was dropping out of sight. For the first time since she had come to the Wigwam she felt lonesome. She was so full of life after her long sleep, so fresh and wide-awake, that she looked around her restlessly, wishing that something exciting would happen. She was in the mood to enjoy an adventure of some kind, no matter what.

While she stood there, her pony, who had often been coaxed up to the bars for sugar, now came up through curiosity, evidently wondering at her silence. "Come on, old boy," she said, reaching through the bars to grasp the rope that trailed from his neck. "You've settled it. We'll go off and have a ride togethah."

With some difficulty, she saddled him herself, and then because she did not want to disturb Joyce by going back to the tent to change her white dress for her divided skirt, she mounted as if the cross-saddle were a side-saddle, and rode slowly out of the yard bareheaded.

Mrs. Ware fluttered her handkerchief in response to the wave of Lloyd's hand, and looked after her as she took the road to the ranch. "She's going to see Mrs. Lee," she thought, and then turned her attention to her talkative visitor.

It was merely from force of habit that Lloyd had taken the ranch road. She was in sight of the camp before she became aware of where the pony was carrying her.

Then she turned abruptly, hardly knowing why she did so. Phil was at the ranch. She would not have him think that she had gone down with the hope of seeing him. She did not put the thought into words, but that is what influenced her to turn. In front of her Camelback Mountain loomed up, looking larger and more lifelike than usual, with the reflected light of the sunset lying rosy red on its summit. She knew that there is something extremely deceptive in the clear Arizona atmosphere, and had been told that the distance to the mountain was over five miles. But it was hard to believe. It looked so near that she was sure that she could reach it in a few minutes' brisk ride, – that she could easily go that far and back before daylight was entirely gone.

An old game that she had played at the Cuckoos' Nest sent a verse floating idly through her memory:

"How many miles to Barley-bright?""Three score and ten!""Can I get there by candle light?""Yes, if your legs are long and light —There and back again!Look out! The witches will catch you!"

With somewhat of the same eerie feeling that had affected her when she joined in the game with Betty and the little Appletons, she turned the pony into the narrow trail that led across the sand in and out among the sage-brush. Later, those same gray bushes might look startlingly like witches reaching up out of the gloaming.

"It's a good thing that yoah legs are long and light," she said to the pony, as he started off with a long, rabbit-like lope. "And it's a good thing that you seem as much at home heah as Br'er Rabbit was in the brush-pile when Br'er Fox threw him in for stealing his buttah. I'm glad it isn't old Tar Baby that I'm on. He wouldn't be used to these gophah holes, and would stumble into the first one we came to. Oh, this is glorious!"

She shook back her hair as the soft, orange-perfumed breeze blew it about her face. Her full white sleeves fluttered out from her arms. Again she had that delightful sense of birdlike motion, of free, wild swinging through space. On and on they went, never noticing how far they had travelled or how dark it was growing, till suddenly she saw that she was not on any trail. A thick growth of stubby mesquit bushes made almost a thicket in front of her. An enormous cactus, thirty feet high, stood in her way like one of the Barley-bright witches. From its thorny trunk stretched two great arms, thrown up as if to ward off her coming. Its resemblance to a human figure was uncanny, and she stood staring at it with a fascinated gaze.

"It's big enough to be the camel-drivah of the camel in the mountain," she said in a half-whisper to the pony. Then looking on toward the mountain, she realized that she had to strain her eyes to see it through the rapidly gathering gloom. Night had fallen suddenly, and the mountain seemed farther away than when she started.

"Oh, it will be black night befoah we get home," she thought, turning in nervous haste. Then a new trouble confronted her. She was facing a dim, trackless wilderness, and she did not know how to get home. She had kept the mountain steadily in view as she rode toward it, but now she realized that it was so large that she could easily do that, and still at the same time go far out of her course.

"You'll have to find the way home," she said, helplessly, to the pony, failing to remember that the Wigwam pasture had been his home for only a few weeks, and that, left to himself, he would go directly to his native ranch.

In a few minutes Lloyd found herself carried along a narrow road, not more than a wagon track. While she knew that she had never been over it before, it was some comfort to find that she was on a human thoroughfare, and not lost among the tracks of wandering coyotes and jack-rabbits.

The pony, feeling that he was headed toward his own home, went willingly enough, and Lloyd began to enjoy her adventure.

"How exciting it will sound back in that tame little Valley," she thought, "lost in the desert! I'll give the girls such a thrilling description of it that they'll feel cold chills running up and down their spines. It's a wondah that the cold chills don't run up and down me! But I'm not one bit afraid now. This road is bound to lead to somebody's house, and everybody is so friendly out heah in the West that whoevah finds me will take me home."

The pony swung along a few rods farther, then, startled by an owl rising suddenly out of the wayside bushes with a heavy flopping of wings, jumped sideways with such a start that Lloyd was almost thrown from her seat. It was an insecure one at best, and she was about to throw her foot over into the other stirrup when a forward plunge sent the pony into a gopher hole, and Lloyd over his head.

When she picked herself up from the road and looked dizzily around, she gave a little gasp of horror. The pony, freed of his burden and spurred on by his fright, was clattering down the road as fast as his feet could carry him, and she was left helpless in what seemed to her the very heart of the great, desolate desert. She stood motionless till the last faint thud of the pony's hoofs died away down the road. Then she looked around her and shivered. The possibility of the pony's not going straight to the Wigwam had not yet occurred to her, but she felt that under any circumstances she was doomed to stay in the desert until morning. They would be badly frightened at the Wigwam, and would rouse the ranch to send out a searching-party, but they might as well look for a needle in a haystack as to make an attempt to find her in the darkness. She did not know where she was herself. She was within a stone's throw of one of the buttes, out which one she could not tell. She stood peering around her through the twilight with eager, dilated eyes. A twig crackled near her, trampled underfoot by some little wild creature as startled as she. The desert had seemed so still before, but now it was full of strange whisperings and rustlings. Remembering what Jack had told her when he showed her the nest shared by snakes and owls, she dared not sit down for fear some snake should come crawling out of the hole from which the owl had flown. She felt that it would be useless to walk on, since every step might be carrying her farther away from the Wigwam.

How long she stood there in the road she could not tell, but presently it seemed to her that it was growing lighter. She could see the outlines of the butte more distinctly, and the sky behind it was growing gradually luminous. Then she remembered that the moon would be up in a little while, and her courage came back as she stood and waited. When its round, familiar face came peeping up over the horizon, she felt as if an old friend were smiling at her.