by Zane Grey
Sterl, with his arm through Red’s, dragged the hesitant cowboy to the small circle of which Beryl was the center. She had color in her cheeks. Apparently she was all right. The cowboys found seats. Dann boomed out his admonition for her not to let herself become excited again. Mrs. Slyter insisted that Beryl sip the cup of tea proffered her. Leslie hovered over her, wide-eyed and loving. And the strain passed. Sterl tried to ease it away with reference to the beautiful campsite, and to turn Beryl’s mind away from its evident channel of poignant memories. It developed that he failed to do that.
“Red, perhaps I fainted because sight of you brought you back…as you looked when I last saw you…how long ago? Ages ago?”
“I forget. It shore was an orful long time,” drawled Red. “An’ about thet faintin’. I knowed a girl once who could faint…or let on…whenever she wanted to knock the daylights out of a feller. So you see, Beryl, I been educated.”
“Did this girl faint in your arms?” asked Beryl, her speaking eyes on him.
“Wal, thet was one way she had of gettin’ into ’em. An’ once she got there, she’d come to orful quick.”
Presently Beryl’s nurses fed her sparingly, then, despite her protests, they led her away to her wagon and bed. The look she gave Red as she bade him good night was not lost upon Sterl. Beryl’s eyes were always dark and proud, because that was their peculiar property, but Sterl thought, if he had been Red, he could never have resisted that look.
At this juncture Eric Dann entered the shelter, greeted the cowboys, and drank with Stanley. The younger brother had never recovered from the shock of being beaten by Ormiston. Physically he had mended, but he never seemed the same mentally. He had one bad livid scar on his forehead, a gun butt mark that he would carry to his grave.
Sterl took advantage of the opportunity to question the drover.
“Dann, if I remember correctly, we lost the Gulf road halfway or more down the Diamantina from the Forks?” queried Sterl.
“Somewhere back there. It didn’t concern me then, because I expected to come across it any day,” returned Dann.
“We haven’t crossed it. Roads and trails, as well as horse tracks, have been a specialty of mine. I kept a sharp lookout for wheel tracks, such as our wagons make. On level ground half a dozen wagons would leave a rut that would last for years.”
“Surely. We have just missed them, unless, of course, they have washed out.”
“Eric, it was less than two years ago when you returned from the Gulf,” interposed Stanley. “Hazelton’s contention is plausible.”
“Did you return on your back track?” went on Sterl.
“Part way. I don’t recall just where we made short cuts.”
“Some of these landmarks along here, if you ever saw them, you couldn’t forget.”
“That depends on the angle from which we saw them. For my part, all landmarks meant very little to me.”
“Hmm, it’s unfortunate you did not have an instinct for such things,” said his brother. “You said you knew the way, Eric.”
“I’ve told you a thousand times that I thought I did,” Eric replied impatiently.
Sterl made note of the shifty eyes and the beads of sweat coming out on Dann’s brow under the livid scar. Sterl’s dubious conjectures about this man became definite doubts. Sterl could never swallow Dann’s relation to Ormiston. It had not been open to the light.
“Mister Dann,” drawled Red, lifting his drooping head behind a puff of cigarette smoke, “if you come back along heah a-tall, you had to cross this middle fork somewhere in the hundred-odd miles we’ve traveled it. Cain’t you remember crossin’ it somewhere?”
“No. We crossed several strong streams as big as this.”
“Eric! It was in the dry season you got back,” expostulated the leader. “I’ve never forgotten one single reference of yours to this trek. Some of your statements are inconsistent.”
Red fixed his piercing eyes upon the drover. “Dann, we’re all in the dark. If you don’t know this country a-tall, you oughta tell us damn’ pronto.”
“But I do know it, in general. I’ve recognized a good many places we passed at a distance from this trek. I’d like it understood that I’ll not be put on the carpet by you Americans,” declared Dann with signs of nervous ness and heat.
“Wal, we Americans ain’t puttin’ you on nothin’, except yore word,” rejoined Red coolly. Then he asked Dann bluntly: “Have you ever been through this Diamantina country?”
“Stanley, will you allow this…this blighter to insult me?” demanded Dann.
“But, my brother, no insult is intended,” Stanley remonstrated, perturbed.
“No insult meant, Dann,” spoke up Red for himself. “We jest gotta get somewhere.”
Dann made what appeared to be a powerful effort to control unstable nerves and fight down some fear or doubt that the cowboy had stirred. Nevertheless, he did not reply to Red’s query, giving the impression of offended dignity.
“Wal, heah’s one you can answer, Mister Dann, onless…?” Red did not complete his dubious inference. “This heah range we’ve come to an’ have seen for so many days, makes a cross-section of this country. A fair estimate could be thet it runs fifty miles or so to the east and some more than that to the west. There’s a pass that nobody could miss seein’. If yore trek or any other trek climbin’ a little all the time, travelin’ north from Cooper Creek up the Diamantina, you or they’d have to go through this pass. Ain’t that figgerin’ reasonable?”
“Yes, it is, Krehl. They’d have to,” replied Dann readily.
“All right. Then what kind of country will we find on the other side of this range?”
“It will be practically the same as this.”
“Thanks, Dann. We’ll remember thet,” returned Red caustically. It was plain he had not the slightest faith in Stanley Dann’s brother as a guide, or for that matter as a man. Then he addressed Sterl: “Pard, do you reckon I oughta shet up now or relieve my mind to the boss?”
“Speak out, Red,” advised Sterl.
“By all means, Krehl,” boomed Stanley. “I’d be a poor leader, if I did not want my drovers, especially such capable and experienced men as you and Hazelton, to give their opinions, and advice, too, when asked for it.”
“Wal, I wouldn’t presume to advise you heah. I’m no Australian. But I’ve known open wilderness country since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. This heah country has been changin’. It’s altogether different from the Forks. Grass shorter an’ not so rich. Trees fewer an’ smaller an’ different, too, except the gums an’ wattles. Bare patches aplenty, when back aways there wasn’t any. These foothills air covered with ferns an’ palms an’ vines, an’ stuff I never seen. Wal, back of these foothills is a pretty high range for this country. It won’t be a cinch to cross. An’ when you do cross it, if you ever do, you’ll find the stream runnin’ the wrong way for us. Thet’s my hunch, boss. Take it or leave it.”
Turning on a jangling heel, Red stalked away from the Danns with a mien that left little to the imagination. Dann, so seldom perturbed, was bewildered and excited by what was evidently a new aspect to him.
“Incredible!” he ejaculated. “We should be still hundreds of miles from the watershed that sends its streams into the Gulf. Eric, you substantiate this, do you not?”
“Absolutely. We’ll find rivers on the other side as scarce as they are on this,” answered Eric Dann with no hint of uncertainty. “Northeast of this range, when we pass it, we will reach the headwaters of the Warburton River. That runs westward. Beyond that, we will come to the headwaters of rivers emptying into the Gulf.”
“That agrees with our map. I am sure Krehl has miscalculated. What do you think, Hazelton?
“It’d be only natural, if he did miscalculate. And wonderful if he didn’t. All I say is, I’m sorry we are not trekking west.”
“If we should make a blunder now…and go the wrong way…,” boomed the leader, halting before he allowed hi
mself to predict dire disaster. But he trusted his brother. He was too great in hope. Sterl, in his old hard, bitter skepticism, heard the leader’s voice ring and break, but he made it his business to be watching Eric Dann at that critical moment, and either he was prejudiced against this man’s vacillation and incompetence, or he saw through him with Red Krehl’s lynx eyes.
Chapter Twenty-three
Wellspring Camp multiplied all the properties that the trekkers had found on the way up the middle fork, to make in the sum of them a place of extraordinary comfort and pleasure. But after that conference with the Danns a premonition of evil took possession of Sterl, and he could not shake it. That Red Krehl shared it, probably more somberly, intensified the haunting significance. That neither of them reopened the subject while there argued for a sinister dread they wanted to forget.
On the morning of the third day Sterl sat his horse and indulged in something he seldom if ever yielded to. The trek was under way again, on the upgrade, making for that pass. He looked back. Wellspring shone dazzlingly colorful under the early morning sun, a lonely and beautiful place where only the aborigines would gather. If Sterl could have stayed there to settle on a ranch—a station, these Australians called it—he would have been content. Long he gazed and then turned reluctantly away, somberly sure he was seeing the last of something clearly defined in its beauty, richness, and solitude, and as well something vague, fading to its close. But Sterl was destined to forget that place and its portent in the immediate toil and difficulty of the trek.
At a break in the foothills, apparently leading to the pass through the range, Eric Dann asserted that he was sure he had been through there, going or coming, and the mob was driven into narrow defiles between the foothills. Larry had reported dubious ground ahead; Slyter broke his rule to ask their leader to investigate before proceeding. Red Krehl had climbed to a hilltop to reconnoiter. Upon his return he said to Dann in no uncertain terms: “Cain’t see far. But no country to drive cattle, let alone wagons.”
Stanley showed his usual thoughtful consideration. He held up the trek for the purpose of a conference.
“No hurry, friends, we’ll climb to look the ground over. Krehl should know where, and where not, to drove a mob.”
But Eric Dann leaped from his wagon seat to confront his brother in a terrific fury.
“First it was Hazelton! Now it’s Krehl…Krehl…Krehl! I’m sick and tired of having my judgments ruled aside by these blighters. I won’t stand it any longer.”
“Eric, you’ve lost your temper,” replied Stanley severely. “Calm yourself before you say something you might regret. These cowboys have been a help to me, not a detriment…as Ormiston, Woolcott, Hathaway, and you have been.”
Eric Dann’s visage grew purple, and the cords of his neck bulged. He appeared a victim of insane and unjustified rage. “By God, I’ll turn back!” he shouted.
“Eric! Are you mad? You couldn’t turn back alone.”
“Henry will go with me. He’s my man, not yours.”
“But that wagon and team are mine,” rejoined Dann, controlling evident heat.
“I don’t care. I’ll take them. I’ve earned that much on this infernal trek.”
“Out of the question!” boomed the leader.
“I tell you I’ll go back!” yelled his brother.
Red Krehl slid off his horse and entered the scene. Sterl’s impulse was to halt him, until he saw that it would be impossible.
“Bah! It’s a bluff, boss. He hasn’t got the nerve.”
“Wait, Krehl,” ordered Dann, suddenly apprehensive. He sensed something about this cowboy, if his brother did not. “Eric, I cannot allow you to do any such foolhardy thing. Control yourself. What is it you want?”
“You brought me on this trek as partner and guide,” Eric shouted hoarsely.
“Yes, I did.”
“Then hold to that contract, or I’ll leave you!”
“Eric, I was not aware that I had broken it…. Very well, I will hold to it…come what may,” returned the leader, with a finality that asserted his honor if not his heartfelt assurance.
“It’s understood that I am the guide?”
“Yes. But you must guide us.”
“I’ll brook no further interference from these meddling cowboys.”
“Brother, I don’t agree with you about them. But let that pass. We must preserve amity. Let Bligh drive your wagon. You take to your saddle, and get us somewhere. Once more, for the last time, do you know this country?”
“Yes, I do,” rasped Eric passionately, yet haltingly, and he gulped as if something had stuck in his throat. “In a general way, I mean. I can’t recognize every river and gum tree and anthill we see, as those intolerant cowboys expect. This is not a pasture land, such as they must be used to riding. It’s an enormously vast country.”
“Yeah, an’ you know it?” interrupted Red with stinging scorn.
“Yes, I know it, you…you…!” burst out the goaded drover.
“Dann, you’re a…a…liar!”
“Wha-at? Insolent rowdy! Stanley….”
“Shut up! Stop bellerin’ for yore brother! Go for yore gun…if you got the guts!”
“Krehl!” thundered the leader.
“Too late, boss. Stay where you air. Buttin’ in heah might be risky. Come on, Mister Eric Dann…. Gawd only knows all you really air! But it’s a cinch you’re a fool, an’ a two-faced double-crossin’ liar! Come on, throw yore gun!”
Eric Dann revolted from that challenge. Pale-faced instead of red now, gasping and speechless, he turned to spread wide his hands, appealing to the leader.
“Let this end here!” commanded Dann.
“All right, boss, it’s ended,” replied Red curtly. “But I’ll bet you live to see the day you wish it’d ended my way. I won’t open my trap to him again. Thet’s all. We better be movin’,’ cause you’re shore gonna need a coupla months to get through.”
Days without end before what seemed to be the pass; Sterl lost track of days. By now, Slyter, beating down the opposition of Eric Dann, had insisted that the wagons go ahead—for in places they had actually to improvise roads. Sometimes three miles a day were good going. The cattle found little grass and took to browsing. Many of them strayed. The drovers rode hard at night in five-hour shifts. Slyter’s second wagon, with Roland driving, went over a steep bank. He escaped, but the horses had to be shot. Often at night Sterl and Red could find no level place to pitch their tent. They would drop on the ground, cover their heads against mosquitoes, and sleep like logs nevertheless. More and more, Sterl inclined to the truth of Red’s caustic forecast.
They came to a V-shaped valley, which led up to the deceiving pass. It was short as actual miles went, but long on labor to progress up it. The wagons had to follow a rocky streambed where stone bridges needed to be laid over deep channels. The mob split to follow the rough slopes where it required hours to drive them a mile. Rounding up cattle in Arizona cañons had been easier than this. Slyter loomed ahead of all the others in this toil of getting wagons and mob through rough going. He had been used to that in the hills back of Downsville. His judgment stood the trek to good stead here. This keen ability of his matched the leader’s resistless passion to go on, and the magnificent horsemanship of the drovers. This was driving cattle and wagons through country where no cowboys would have ventured, because it was country no herd of horses should have been put to.
Ten nightmare days up this V-shaped valley. And then the trek seemed halted for good. Eric and Larry and Slyter returned in defeat from their scouting. But Friday, last to get back, galvanized their low spirits and energies.
“Go alonga me,” he said, and the black had never failed them yet.
They hitched six horses to a wagon, and with a drover on each side, pulling with a lasso and whipping the teams, they hauled that wagon over the saddle. It took all the rest of that day to get the other wagons over. The mob had to be left behind in the valley until the morrow.
Riding across that saddle, Sterl, seeing the lay of the land ahead, groaned his disappointment at the apparently impenetrable labyrinth of jungle and rock-ribbed confines ahead. And he cursed in his bitterness the man accountable for this. Ten miles or more of incredibly tough going stretched ahead—a distance that might as well have been ten times that—and then a gap and a blue void.
“We will go on,” declared Stanley Dann.
“We can’t get through,” averred Slyter.
“I’ve missed the way,” added Eric Dann, aghast and faltering.
No one paid any attention to him.
“Larry, Bligh, what do you say?” queried the leader.
They replied practically in unison that it looked very bad, well nigh impossible.
“Hazelton?” he boomed.
“Boss, we can’t go back,” said Sterl.
“Krehl!”
“Yes, sir,” retorted the cowboy.
“What do you think?”
“Me? Wal, I ain’t thinkin’ a-tall,” drawled the cowboy.
“Don’t bandy your ridicule with me!” roared the leader. “If I’m still the leader of this trek…if you have any respect for me as such…think!”
“All right, boss. Excoose me. I ain’t no mule-haid…I think we must find a way out thet we cain’t see from heah.”
“Right-o! Men, look for a place we can camp.”
Sterl detained Friday on the ridge. “Friday, you’ve been looking all alonga here. What say?”
“Bad, boss,” replied the black, shaking his ragged head.
“Can we get through?”
“Might be. Bimeby me go see.”
They camped on the right side of the saddle at the base of a rugged slope. Firewood and water had to be picked up—a job Red and Sterl took upon themselves. There were not any idle hands any more. Even Beryl helped Mrs. Slyter at tasks to assist Bill. The other cook had been incapacitated.
