False dawn in the Lava Beds of Arizona. The faint tinge on the eastern horizon fades, and the stars shine the more brilliantly in the brief, darkest hour before the true daybreak. An icy wind sweeps down canons and over mesas, stinging the marrow of the wayfarer's bones. In the heavens, the innumerable stars burn steadily in crystal coldness. Shadows lie in Stygian blackness at foot of rock and valley. Soft and clear the lights of night swathe the uplands. An awesome silence hangs over the desert. Hushed and humbled by the immensity of space, one expects to hear the rush of worlds through the universe. At times the bosom swells with a wild desire to sing and shout in the glory of pure living.
The day comes quickly; the sun, leaping edge of the world, floods mesa and canon, withering, sparing no living thing, lavishing reds and purples, blues and violets upon canon walls and wind-sculptured rocks. But a remorseful glare, blinding, sight-destroying, is thrown back from the sand and alkali of the desert. Shriveled sage-brush and shrunken cactus bravely fight for life.
A narrow pathway leads from the mesa down the canon's wall, twisting and doubling on itself to Apache Spring. The trail then moves southward between towering cliffs, a lane through which is caught a far-distant glimpse of the mountains. Little whirlwinds of dust spring up, ever and anon, twirling wildly across the sandy wastes. The air suffocates, like the breath of a furnace. Ever the pitiless sun searches and scorches, as conscience sears and stings a stricken soul.
Down the narrow trail, past the spring, ride in single file the Apaches, slowly, on tired horses, for the pursuing soldiers have given them no halting space. Naked, save for a breech-clout, with a narrow red band of dyed buckskin about his forehead, in which sticks a feather, each rides silent, grim, cruel, a hideous human reptile, as native to the desert as is the Gila monster. The horse is saddleless. For a bridle, the warrior uses a piece of grass rope twisted about the pony's lower jaw. His legs droop laxly by the horse's sides. In his right hand he grasps his rifle, resting the butt on the knee. The only sound to break the stillness of the day is the rattle of stones, slipping and sliding down the pathway when loosened by hoofs of the ponies.
Creeping down the canon wall, they cross the bottom, pass the spring, and disappear at a turn in the canon walls. Nature and Indian meet and merge in a world of torture and despair.
Dick had fared badly in the Lava Beds. One spring after the other he found dry. His horse fell from exhaustion and thirst; he ended the sufferings of his pack-mule with a revolver-bullet.
Dick staggered on afoot across the desert, hoping to find water at Apache Spring. His blue shirt was torn and faded to a dingy purple. Hat and shoulders were gray with alkali dust. Contact with the rocks and cactus had rent trousers and leggings. His shoes, cut by sharply pointed stones, and with thread rotted by the dust of the deserts, were worn to shreds. Unshaven and unshorn, with sunken cheeks and eyes bright with the delirium of thirst, he dragged his weary way across the desert. He reached Apache Spring shortly after the passage of the Indians, but craving for water was so great that he did not observe their trail.
Reeling toward the spring, he cast aside his hat and flung down his rifle in his eagerness to drink. Throwing himself on his face before the hollow in the rock from which the water trickled, he first saw that the waters had dried up. With his bony fingers he dug into the dry sand, crying aloud in despair. Stiffly he arose and blundered blindly to a rock, upon which he sank in his weakness.
"Another day like this and I'll give up the fight," he moaned. "Apache Spring dry—the first time in years; Little Squaw Spring, nothing but dust and alkali; it is twenty miles to Clearwater Spring—twenty miles—if I can make it."
Dick trembled with weakness. His swollen tongue clove to the roof of his mouth. His lips were cracked and blackened. Bits of foam flickered about the corners of his mouth. The glare blinded his eyes, which were half-closed. At times fever-waves swept over him; again he shuddered with cold.
Sounds of falling waters filled his ears. The sighing of the wind through the canon walls suggested the trickling of fountains. Rivers flowed before his eyes through green meadows, only to fade into the desert as he gazed.
"What a land! what a land! It is the abode of the god of thirst! He tempts men into his valley with the lure of gold, and saps the life-blood from their bodies—drop by drop. Drop by drop I hear it falling. No, it is water I hear! There it is! How cool it looks!"
Dick rose and staggered toward the cliff. In his delirium of thirst he saw streams of water gush down the mountainside. Holding out his arms, he cried: "Saved, saved!"
His hands fell limply by his sides as the illusion faded. He then doubled them into fists, and shook them at the cliff in a last defiance of despair. "You sha'n't drive me mad!"
He seized his empty canteen, pressing it to his lips.
"No, I drained that two days ago—or was it three?" he whispered in panic, as he threw it aside.
Picking up his gun, he falteringly attempted the ascent. "I won't give up—I won't," he shouted huskily. "I've fought the desert before and conquered. I'll conquer again—I'll—"
His will-power ebbed with his failing strength. Blindness fell upon him. Oblivion swept over him. He sank, dying of thirst, in the sands of the desert.
As the buzzard finds the dead, so an Apache crept upon Dick as he lay prostrate. But as the Indian aimed, he heard footsteps from a draw. He saw a man approaching the spring. Silently he fled behind the rocks.
It was Jack. He had entered the Lava Beds from the east, closely following the man for whom he had searched for so many weary months. Others of the Apaches had marked him already. Knowing he would go to the spring, they waited warily to learn if he were alone. The band had scattered to surround him at the water-hole.
Jack's horse and burro, which he had left at the head of the canon, were already in the Indians' possession. With him he carried his rifle and a Colt revolver. A canteen of water was slung over his shoulder. The desert had placed its stamp upon him, turning his clothes to gray. The tan of his face was deepened. Lines about the eyes and mouth showed how much he had suffered physically and mentally in his search for the man he believed was his successful rival in love. Reaching the spring, he looked about cautiously before he laid down his Winchester. He tugged at the butt of his revolver to make certain that it could be pulled quickly from the holster. Taking off his hat, he knelt to drink. He smiled, and confidently tapped his canteen when he found the spring dry. He was raising his canteen to his lips when he spied Dick's body.
Jumping behind a rock, he pulled his revolver, covering the insensible man. It might be a trap. He scanned the trail, the cliff, the canon. Hearing and seeing nothing, he slipped his revolver into his holster and hurried to Dick's side. At first he did not recognize him. The desert and thirst had wrought many changes in his friend's face.
When recognition came, he threw his arms about the prostrate form, crying: "Dick, at last, at last!"
His voice was broken with emotion. The search had been so long, so weary, and the ending so sudden. He had found Dick, but it looked as if he came too late.
Gathering Dick up in his arms, he raised him until his head rested on his knees. Forcing open his mouth, he poured a little water down his throat.
Then with a moistened handkerchief he wetted temples and wrists. Slowly Dick struggled back to life.
"Water—water—it's water!" he gasped, struggling for more of the precious fluid.
"Easy," cautioned Jack. "Only a little now—more when you're stronger."
"Who is it?" cried Dick. Not waiting for Jack to enlighten him, he continued: "No matter—you came in time. I couldn't have held out any longer. All the springs are dry—I figured on reaching Clearwater."
Jack helped Dick to his feet. Taking his stricken friend's right arm, he drew it across his shoulders. With his left arm about his waist, Jack led him to a seat upon a convenient rock.
"I came by Clearwater yesterday," explained Jack. "It is nothing but mud and alkali."
"My horse dropped three days ago. I had to shoot the pack-mule. I—" Dick opened his eyes under the ministrations of Jack. Gazing upward into his face, he shouted joyfully:
"Why—it's Jack—Jack Payson."
"Didn't you know me, Dick?" asked Jack sympathetically.
"Not at first—my eyes went to the bad out yonder in the glare."
The effort had been too much for Dick. He sat weakly over Jack's knees. Jack turned him partly on his back, and let more water trickle down his throat.
Dick clutched madly at the canteen, but Jack drew it back out of his reach. With his handkerchief he moistened lips and neck. When Dick's strength returned, Jack helped him to sit up.
"I've been hunting you for months," he told him.
"Hunting for me?" echoed Dick.
"Yes," answered Jack. "I traced you through the Lost Cities, then to Cooney, then up in the Tularosas. At Fort Grant they put me on the right trail."
As the clouds break, revealing the blue of the heavens, so Dick's memory came back to him. He shrank from the man at his side.
"Well?" he asked, as he stared at his betrayer.
Jack gazed fixedly ahead. He dared not look in the face of him he had wronged so bitterly.
"She wants you," he said, in a voice void of all emotion.
"Who wants me?" asked Dick, after a pause.
"Echo."
"Your wife?" gritted Dick. He fingered his gun as he spoke.
Huskily Jack replied: "Yes."
Bitter thoughts filled the mind of one; the other had schooled himself to make atonement. For the wrong he had done, Jack was ready to offer his life. He had endured the full measure of his sufferings. The hour of his delivery was at hand. Hard as it was to die in the midglory of manhood, it was easier to end it all here and now, than to live unloved by Echo, hated by Dick, despised by himself.
"She sent me to find you. 'Bring him back to me.' That's what she said," Jack cried, in his agony.
"Your wife—she said that?" faltered Dick.
Fiercely in his torture Jack answered: "Yes—my wife—my wife said it. 'Bring him back to me.'"
"Back?" Dick paused. "Back to what?" he asked himself. "She's your wife, isn't she?" he demanded.
"That's what the law says," answered Jack.
With the thought of the evening in the garden when he heard Jack and Echo pronounced man and wife surging over him, Dick murmured: "What God hath joined together, let no man put asunder."
"That's what the Book says," answered Jack. "But when hands alone are joined and hearts are asunder, it can't go on record as the work of God."
Dick bowed his head in his hands. "I don't understand."
Stubbornly Jack pursued his message to Dick. "She doesn't love me. I thought I had won her, but she married me with your image in her heart. She married me, yet all the while you were the man she loved—you—you—and in the end I found it out."
Jack's voice sank almost into a whisper as he finished his revelation to Dick, who raised his head and cried: "And yet she broke her faith with me—"
Jack arose in his misery. His task was harder than he expected. Dick was forcing him to tell all without concealing even the smallest trifle of his shame.
"She thought—you were dead. I never told her otherwise. I lied to her—I lied to her."
"She never knew?" asked Dick joyfully. "The letter—?"
"I never gave it to her," answered Jack simply.
Dick leaped to his feet, pulling his revolver from his holster. "And I thought her false to her trust!" He aimed his gun at Payson's heart. "I ought to kill you for this!"
Jack spread out his arms and calmly replied: "I'm ready."
Dick dropped his gun and slipped it into the holster with a gesture of despair. "But it's too late now, too late!"
In his eagerness to tell Dick the way he had solved the problem, Jack spoke nervously and quickly. "No, it isn't too late. There's one way out of this—one way in which I can atone for the wrong I've done you both, and I stand ready to make that atonement. It is your right to kill me, but it is better that you go back to her without my blood on your hands—"
"Go—back—to her?" questioned Dick, as the meaning of the phrase slowly dawned upon him.
"Yes," said Jack, holding out his hands. "Go back with clean hands to Echo Allen. It is you she loves. There's my horse up yonder. Beyond, there're the pack-mule loaded with water and grub. Plenty of water. We'll just change places, that's all. You take them and go back to her and I'll stay here."
Dick walked toward the spring, but, a spell of weakness came over him and he almost sank to the ground. Jack caught him and held him up.
"It would be justice," muttered Dick, as if apologizing for his acceptance of Jack's renunciation.
Leaning over his shoulder, Jack said: "Sure, that's it, justice. Just tell her I tried to work it out according to my lights—ask her to—forgive, to forgive, that's all."
Jack took off his canteen and threw the strap around Dick's neck. As Lane weakly staggered toward the mouth of the canon, where the horse had been staked out, Jack halted him with a request:
"There's another thing; I left home under a cloud. Buck McKee charged me with holding up and killing 'Ole Man' Terrill for three thousand dollars. Tell Slim Hoover how you paid me just that sum of money."
"I will, and I'll fix the murder where it belongs, and then fix the real murderer."
Jack stepped to Lane's side and, holding out his hand, said: "Thank you. I don't allow you can forgive me?"
"I don't know that I could," coldly answered Dick.
"You'd better be going."
Again Dick started for the horse, but a new thought came to him. Pausing, he said. "She can't marry again until—"
"Well?" asked Jack; his voice was full of sinister meaning, and he fingered his gun as he spoke.
Dick realized at once that Jack's plan was to end his life in the desert with a revolver-shot.
"You mean to—" he shuddered.
Jack drew his gun. "Do you want me to do it here and now?" he cried.
Staggering over to him the weakened man grappled with his old friend, trying to disarm him. "No, no, you sha'n't!" he shouted, as Jack shook him free.
"Why not?" demanded Jack. "Go. There's my horse—he's yours—go! When you get to the head of the canon, you'll hear and know—know that she is free and I have made atonement."
"Why should I hesitate?" argued Dick with himself. "I wanted to die. I came here in the desert to make an end of it all, but when I met death face to face, the old spirit of battle came over me, and fought it back, step by step. Now—now you come and offer me more than life—you offer to restore to me all that made life dear, all that you have stolen from me by treachery and fraud. Why should I hesitate? She is mine, mine in heart, mine by all the ties of love—mine by all its vows—I will go back, I will take your place and leave you here—here in this land of dead things, to make your peace with God!"
Beads of sweat broke out on Jack's forehead as he listened. He bit his lips until they bled. Clenching his fingers until the nails sank into the palms of his hands, he cried warningly in his agony: "I wouldn't say no more, if I was you. Go—for God's sake, go!"
Dick slowly moved toward the mouth of the canon, still hesitating.
From the hillside a rifle-shot rang out. The ball struck Dick in the leg. He fell, and lay motionless.
Pulling his revolver, Jack stooped and ran under the overhanging ledge, peering about to see where the shot had come from. He raised his gun to fire, when a volley of rifle-shots rang through the canon, the bullets kicking up little spurts of dust about him and chipping edges off the rocks. Jack dropped on his knees and crept to his rifle, clipping his revolver back into his holster.
Crouching behind a rock with his rifle to his shoulder, he waited for the attackers to show themselves.
Experience on the plains taught them that the fight would be a slow one, unless the Apaches sought only to divert attention for the time being to cover their flight southward. After the one shot, which struck Dick, and the volley directed at Jack, not a rifle had been fired. Peering over the boulder, Jack could see nothing.
The Lava Beds danced before his eyes in the swelter of the glaring sunshine. Far off the snow-capped mountains mockingly reared their peaks into the intense blue of the heavens. Since the attackers were covered with alkali-dust from the long ride, a color which would merge into the desert floor when a man lay prone, detection of any movement was doubly difficult. Behind any rock and in any clump of sage-brush might lie an assailant.
Dick had fallen near the spring. He struggled back to consciousness, to find his left leg numb and useless. When the ball struck him he felt only a sharp pinch. His fainting was caused by a shock to his weakened body, but not from fear or pain. With the return to his senses came a horrible, burning thirst, and a horrible sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. He lay breathing heavily until he got a grip on himself. Then he tore the bandanna handkerchief from his neck and bound up the wound, winding the bandage as tightly as his strength permitted to check the blood-flow.
"What is it?" asked Jack, over his shoulder.
"Indians—the 'Paches are out. I'm hit," gasped Dick. He crawled painfully and slowly to Jack's side, dragging his leg after him. He pulled with him his rifle, which he picked up as he passed from the spot where it had fallen in his first wild rush for water.
"The soldiers told me at Fort Grant about the 'Paches being out," Jack whispered hoarsely. "I thought they'd crossed the border into Mexico."
Seeing a spasm of pain sweep over Dick's face, he asked: "Are you hurt bad?"
"I don't know. My left leg is numb."
Both men spoke scarcely above a whisper, fearing to betray their positions by the sound of their voices. Dick lay on his back gathering strength to ward off with rifle and revolver the rush which would come sooner or later.
Jack caught the sound of a falling stone. Peering cautiously over the rock, he saw an Indian creep up a draw toward them. Throwing his rifle to his shoulder, he took quick aim and fired. The Apache jumped to his feet, ran a few steps forward, and fell sprawling. A convulsive shudder shook him, and he lay still.
"I got him!" cried Jack exultantly, as he saw the result of the shot.
But the exposure of his head and shoulders above their barricade had drawn forth more shots from other members of the band.
The bullets struck near the two men, showing that the Apaches had the range.
Dick's wound was bleeding freely, but the shock of the blow had passed away, and his strength returned. Drawing his revolver, he crept closer to Jack, crying: "I can shoot some."
"I reckon you haven't more than a flesh-wound," encouraged Jack. "Can you crawl to the horse?"
"I think I can," answered Dick.
"Then go. Take the trail home. I'll keep these fellows busy while you get away."
The Apaches were showing themselves more as they darted from rock to rock, drawing closer to the entrapped men down the boulder-strewn draws or ravines leading into the canon. An Apache had crawled to the head of a draw, and crossed the butte into a second ravine, which led to the trail down the cliffside. On his belly he had wormed his way up the pathway until he overlooked the rear of the defensive position the two men occupied. Screened by a hedge he awaited a favorable shot.
Jack again cautiously raised his head and peered over the barricade. Still not an enemy was in sight. As the Apaches had ceased to fire, he knew they were gathering for another simultaneous rush. The purpose of these dashes was twofold: While one or two men might be killed in the advance, the whole party was nearer the object of attack at the finish, and the defenders were demoralized by the hopelessness of all resistance. For the silent rising of naked, paint-daubed Indians from out of the ground, the quick closing in of the cordon, similar to the turn of a lariat around a snubbing-post when a pony weakens for a moment, is calculated to shake the nerves of the strongest of Indian-fighters.
In the breathing-space which the Apaches had given them Jack, who had resigned himself to die, took a new grip on life. His dream of atonement had worked out better than he had planned. Selling his life bravely fighting in a good cause was far, far better than ending it by his own hand. It was a man's death. Fate had befriended him in the end.
Reaching his hand out to Dick, he touched his shoulder, rousing him from a stupor into which he was sinking.
"Quick, Dick, they're coming closer. Go," he ordered. "Don't be a fool, only one of us can escape. One of us alone. Let it be you, Dick, go back to her, back to home and happiness."
Dick struggled to a sitting posture, offering a fair target for the Indian hidden behind the ledge on the cliff trail. The Apache took full advantage and fired, but missed. Dick returned the shot with his revolver before the warrior could sink back behind the rock. The Apache lurched forward in his death-blindness, with the last convulsive obedience of the muscles ere the will flees. Then his legs crumpled up beneath him and he toppled forward off the ledge. His breech-clout caught in a rocky projection, causing the body to hang headlong against the side of the cliff. His rifle fell from his nerveless hands, clattering and breaking on the rocks below.
The sight served as a tonic to Dick. His success braced his strength and will. The old battle-spirit surged over him. Only with an effort did he suppress the desire to laugh and shout. He would have left Jack to fight it out alone but a minute before, but the one shot drove all such ideas from his mind.
"No. I'll be damned if I'll go!" he shouted. "I'll stay and fight with you," and, seizing his rifle joined Jack in stopping a rush of the Apaches.
"We stopped them that time," Jack cried, with satisfaction. In the lull he again urged his comrade to escape to the horse and return to Echo. "Take the horse," he insisted. "Go while there's a chance."
"No," shouted Dick determinedly. It was as much his fight as Jack's now.
Jack thought more for Echo in that moment than he did for himself. Here was the man she loved. He must go back to her. The woman's happiness depended upon it. But Jack realized that while he was alive, Dick would stay. One supreme sacrifice was necessary.
"Go," he cried, "or I'll stand up and let 'em get me."
"No, we can hold them off," begged Dick, firing as he spoke.
Jack's hour had struck. It was all so supremely simple. There were no waving flags, no cheering comrades. He was only one of two men in the desert, dirty, grimy, and sweaty; his mouth dry and parched, his eyes stinging from powder-fumes, his hands numb from the effects of rapid firing. His mind worked automatically; he seemed to be only an onlooker. The man who first fought off the Apaches and who was now to offer himself as a sacrifice was only one of two Jack Paysons, a replica of his conscious self.
Swiftly Jack Payson arose and faced the Indians.
"Good-bye!" he cried to his comrade.
Dick struggled to his feet and threw himself on Jack to force him down behind the barricade. For a moment both men were in full view of the Apaches. A volley crashed up and across the canon. Both men fell locked in each other's arms, then lay still.
The Indians awaited the result of the shots. The strange actions of the men might be only a ruse. Silence would mean they were victorious.
Both Jack and Dick had been struck. Jack was the first to recover. Reviving, he struggled out of the clasp of his unconscious comrade. "He's hit bad," he said to himself, "and so am I. I'll fight it out to the last, and if they charge they won't get us alive."
Dick groaned and opened his eyes.
"I'm hit hard," he whispered, "you'd better go."
Jack was on his hands and knees crawling toward his rifle when his comrade spoke.
"Listen," he replied. "We're both fixed to stay now, so lie close. I'll hold 'em off as long as I can, but if they rush, save one shot for yourself—you understand?"
"Yes, not alive!" answered Dick weakly, his voice thin and his face ashen white with pain.
Jack reached the boulder, and with an effort raised himself and peered over the edge.
"They're getting ready. Will you take my hand now?" he asked, as he held it out to Dick.
"I sure will," his wounded comrade cried, grasping it with all the strength he possessed.
Jack smiled in his happiness. He felt he had made his peace with all men and at last was ready to meet death with a clear conscience.
"It looks like the end. But we'll fight for it."
The shrill war-whoops of the Indians, the first sound they had made in the fight, showed they felt confident of overcoming the men in the next rush.
Jack and Dick had abandoned the rifles and were now fighting the Indians off with their revolvers as they closed in on them.
Hardie had halted the night before at Clearwater Spring. Finding it but mud and alkali, he had merely rested his men and horses for a few hours, and then pushed on for Apache Spring, where he hoped to strike water. The troop rode through the early morning hours, full of grit, and keen to overtake the Apaches, traces of whose flight were becoming more evident every mile. All weariness had vanished. Even the horses felt there was something in the air and answered the bugle-call with fresh vigor and go.
A scout first heard the firing at the spring. He did not wait to investigate, knowing he could do nothing alone. The volleys, the difference in the reports of the rifles, proved to him that one party was firing Springfields and the other Winchesters. He knew that the Apaches were being held off. Galloping back to the troop, he reported the fight to its commander.
The bugles sounded. The horses were forced into a gallop. With clashing accouterments and jingling spurs and bits, they dashed across the mesa to the head of the trail. Here they met Slim Hoover and his posse coming from an opposite direction.
The firing in the canon was more intermittent now. Dick and Jack were saving their revolver-shots. The Indians were closing in for the last rush.
Hardie dismounted his men and threw his troops as groups of skirmishers down the draws leading into one side of the canon. Slim and his posse were on the left flank, armed with revolvers. Hardie, with a section, dashed down the trail.
They came upon the Apaches with the rush of a mountain torrent, striking them in the front and on the flank. The cavalrymen fired at will, each plunging from one cover to another as he picked out his man.
The Indians, for a few moments, replied shot for shot. Their stand was a short one, however, and they began to fall back.
Slim entered the canon at the head of the scouts, driving the Apaches before him. Both Jack and Dick had fallen. Across the bodies a wave of the battle flowed.
Once the Indians rallied, but so sudden was the attack, so irresistible the forward dash of the cavalrymen, that they became discouraged, and broke and fled toward their horses, with the soldiers in pursuit.
Slim hurried to Dick's side, seeing he was the worst hurt. As he knelt beside him, the dying man opened his eyes and smiled. Leaning over him, Slim heard him gently whisper: "Tell her I know she was true, and not to mind."
With a deep sigh, his eyelids fluttered, and all was still.
The scouts had taken charge of Jack, who was unconscious, and bleeding freely.
From the spring the fighting had drifted southward. Few of the Indians reached the horses, and fewer still got away. Scattering shots showed the hunt for those who fled on foot was still on.
Then soft and mellow over canon and mesa and butte floated the bugle-call, recalling the cavalrymen to the guidon. Back they came, cheering and tumultuous, only to be silenced by the presence of their dead.
They buried Dick's body near the spring, and carved his name with a cavalry saber on a boulder near-by.
At dawn the next day they began the long march back to Fort Grant.
Slim took charge of Jack, nursing him back to life.
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