by Zane Grey
bronze
skin, but in the bird-of-prey cast of his features and the wildness of
his glittering eyes. Naab gave him a bag from one of the packs, spoke a
few words in Navajo, and then slapped the burros into the trail.
The climb thenceforth was more rapid because less steep, and the trail
now led among broken fragments of cliff. The color of the stones had
changed from red to yellow, and small cedars grew in protected places.
Hare's judgment of height had such frequent cause for correction that he
gave up trying to estimate the altitude. The ride had begun to tell on
his strength, and toward the end he thought he could not manage to stay
longer upon Noddle. The air had grown thin and cold, and though the sun
was yet an hour high, his fingers were numb.
"Hang on, Jack," cheered August. "We're almost up."
At last Black Bolly disappeared, likewise the bobbing burros, one by
one, then Noddle, wagging his ears, reached a level. Then Hare saw a
gray-green cedar forest, with yellow crags rising in the background, and
a rush of cold wind smote his face. For a moment he choked; he could not
get his breath. The air was thin and rare, and he inhaled deeply trying
to overcome the suffocation. Presently he realized that the trouble was
not with the rarity of the atmosphere, but with the bitter-sweet
penetrating odor it carried. He was almost stifled. It was not like the
smell of pine, though it made him think of pine-trees.
"Ha! that's good!" said Naab, expanding his great chest. "That's air for
you, my lad. Can you taste it? Well, here's camp, your home for many a
day, Jack. There's Piute--how do? how're the sheep?"
A short, squat Indian, good-humored of face, shook his black head till
the silver rings danced in his ears, and replied: "Bad--damn coyotee!"
"Piute--shake with Jack. Him shoot coyote--got big gun," said Naab.
"How-do-Jack?" replied Piute, extending his hand, and then straightway
began examining the new rifle. "Damn--heap big gun!"
"Jack, you'll find this Indian one you can trust, for all he's a Piute
outcast," went on August. "I've had him with me ever since Mescal found
him on the Coconina Trail five years ago. What Piute doesn't know about
this side of Coconina isn't worth learning."
In a depression sheltered from the wind lay the camp. A fire burned in
the centre; a conical tent, like a tepee in shape, hung suspended from a
cedar branch and was staked at its four points; a leaning slab of rock
furnished shelter for camp supplies and for the Indian, and at one end a
spring gushed out. A gray-sheathed cedar-tree marked the entrance to
this hollow glade, and under it August began preparing Hare's bed.
"Here's the place you're to sleep, rain or shine or snow," he said. "Now
I've spent my life sleeping on the ground, and mother earth makes the
best bed. I'll dig out a little pit in this soft mat of needles; that's
for your hips. Then the tarpaulin so; a blanket so. Now the other
blankets. Your feet must be a little higher than your head; you really
sleep down hill, which breaks the wind. So you never catch cold. All you
need do is to change your position according to the direction of the
wind. Pull up the blankets, and then the long end of the tarpaulin. If
it rains or snows cover your head, and sleep, my lad, sleep to the song
of the wind!"
From where Hare lay, resting a weary body, he could see down into the
depression which his position guarded. Naab built up the fire; Piute
peeled potatoes with deliberate care; Mescal, on her knees, her brown
arms bare, kneaded dough in a basin; Wolf crouched on the ground, and
watched his mistress; Black Bolly tossed her head, elevating the bag on
her nose so as to get all the grain.
Naab called him to supper, and when Hare set to with a will on the bacon
and eggs, and hot biscuits, he nodded approvingly. "That's what I want
to see," he said approvingly. "You must eat. Piute will get deer, or you
may shoot them yourself; eat all the venison you can. Remember what
Scarbreast said. Then rest. That's the secret. If you eat and rest you
will gain strength."
The edge of the wall was not a hundred paces from the camp; and when
Hare strolled out to it after supper, the sun had dipped the under side
of its red disc behind the desert. He watched it sink, while the golden-
red flood of light grew darker and darker. Thought seemed remote from
him then; he watched, and watched, until he saw the last spark of fire
die from the snow-slopes of Coconina. The desert became dimmer and
dimmer; the oasis lost its outline in a bottomless purple pit, except
for a faint light, like a star.
The bleating of sheep aroused him and he returned to camp. The fire was
still bright. Wolf slept close to Mescal's tent; Piute was not in sight;
and Naab had rolled himself in blankets. Crawling into his bed, Hare
stretched aching legs and lay still, as if he would never move again.
Tired as he was, the bleating of the sheep, the clear ring of the bell
on Black Bolly, and the faint tinkle of lighter bells on some of the
rams, drove away sleep for a while. Accompanied by the sough of the wind
through the cedars the music of the bells was sweet, and he listened
till he heard no more.
A thin coating of frost crackled on his bed when he awakened; and out
from under the shelter of the cedar all the ground was hoar-white. As he
slipped from his blankets the same strong smell of black sage and
juniper smote him, almost like a blow. His nostrils seemed glued
together by some rich piny pitch; and when he opened his lips to breathe
a sudden pain, as of a knife-thrust, pierced his lungs. The thought
following was as sharp as the pain. Pneumonia! What he had long
expected! He sank against the cedar, overcome by the shock. But he
rallied presently, for with the reestablishment of the old settled
bitterness, which had been forgotten in the interest of his situation,
he remembered that he had given up hope. Still, he could not get back at
once to his former resignation. He hated to acknowledge that the
wildness of this desert canyon country, and the spirit it sought to
instil in him, had wakened a desire to live. For it meant only more to
give up. And after one short instant of battle he was himself again. He
put his hand under his flannel shirt and felt of the soreness of his
lungs. He found it not at the apex of the right lung, always the one
sensitive spot, but all through his breast. Little panting breaths did
not hurt; but the deep inhalation, which alone satisfied him filled his
whole chest with thousands of pricking needles. In the depth of his
breast was a hollow that burned.
When he had pulled on his boots and coat, and had washed himself in the
runway of the spring, his hands were so numb with cold they refused to
hold his comb and brush; and he presented himself at the roaring fire
half-frozen, dishevelled, trembling, but cheerful. He would not tell
Naab. If he had to die to-day, to-morrow or next week, he would lie down
under a cedar and die; he could not whine about it to this m
an.
"Up with the sun!" was Naab's greeting. His cheerfulness was as
impelling as his splendid virility. Following the wave of his hand Hare
saw the sun, a pale-pink globe through a misty blue, rising between the
golden crags of the eastern wall.
Mescal had a shy "good-morning" for him, and Piute a broad smile, and
familiar "how-do"; the peon slave, who had finished breakfast and was
about to depart, moved his lips in friendly greeting that had no sound.
"Did you hear the coyotes last night?" inquired August. "No! Well, of
all the choruses I ever heard. There must be a thousand on the bench.
Jack, I wish I could spare the time to stay up here with you and shoot
some. You'll have practice with the rifle, but don't neglect the Colt.
Practice particularly the draw I taught you. Piute has a carbine, and he
shoots at the coyotes, but who ever saw an Indian that could hit
anything?"
"Damn--gun no good!" growled Piute, who evidently understood English
pretty well. Naab laughed, and while Hare ate breakfast he talked of the
sheep. The flock he had numbered three thousand. They were a goodly part
of them Navajo stock: small, hardy sheep that could live on anything but
cactus, and needed little water. This flock had grown from a small
number to its present size in a few years. Being remarkably free from
the diseases and pests which retard increase in low countries, the sheep
had multiplied almost one for one for every year. But for the ravages of
wild beasts Naab believed he could raise a flock of many thousands and
in a brief time be rich in sheep alone. In the winter he drove them down
into the oasis; the other seasons he herded them on the high ranges
where the cattle could not climb. There was grass enough on this plateau
for a million sheep. After the spring thaw in early March, occasional
snows fell till the end of May, and frost hung on until early summer;
then the July rains made the plateau a garden.
"Get the forty-four," concluded Naab, "and we'll go out and break it
in."
With the long rifle in the hollow of his arm Jack forgot that he was a
sick man. When he came within gunshot of the flock the smell of sheep
effectually smothered the keen, tasty odor of black sage and juniper.
Sheep ranged everywhere under the low cedars. They browsed with noses in
the frost, and from all around came the tinkle of tiny bells on the
curly-horned rams, and an endless variety of bleats.
"They're spread now," said August. "Mescal drives them on every little
while and Piute goes ahead to pick out the best browse. Watch the dog,
Jack; he's all but human. His mother was a big shepherd dog that I got
in Lund. She must have had a strain of wild blood. Once while I was
hunting deer on Coconina she ran off with timber wolves and we thought
she was killed. But she came back, and had a litter of three puppies.
Two were white, the other black. I think she killed the black one. And
she neglected the others. One died, and Mescal raised the other. We
called him Wolf. He loves Mescal, and loves the sheep, and hates a wolf.
Mescal puts a bell on him when she is driving, and the sheep know the
bell. I think it would be a good plan for her to tie something red round
his neck--a scarf, so as to keep you from shooting him for a wolf."
Nimble, alert, the big white dog was not still a moment. His duty was to
keep the flock compact, to head the stragglers and turn them back; and
he knew his part perfectly. There was dash and fire in his work. He
never barked. As he circled the flock the small Navajo sheep, edging
ever toward forbidden ground, bleated their way back to the fold, the
larger ones wheeled reluctantly, and the old belled rams squared
themselves, lowering their massive horns as if to butt him. Never,
however, did they stand their ground when he reached them, for there was
a decision about Wolf which brooked no opposition. At times when he was
working on one side a crafty sheep on the other would steal out into the
thicket. Then Mescal called and Wolf flashed back to her, lifting his
proud head, eager, spirited, ready to take his order. A word, a wave of
her whip sufficed for the dog to rout out the recalcitrant sheep and
send him bleating to his fellows.
"He manages them easily now," said Naab, "but when the lambs come they
can't be kept in. The coyotes and wolves hang out in the thickets and
pick up the stragglers. The worst enemy of sheep, though, is the old
grizzly bear. Usually he is grouchy, and dangerous to hunt. He comes
into the herd, kills the mother sheep, and eats the milk-bag--no more!
He will kill forty sheep in a night. Piute saw the tracks of one up on
the high range, and believes this bear is following the flock. Let's get
off into the woods some little way, into the edge of the thickets--for
Piute always keeps to the glades--and see if we can pick off a few
coyotes."
August cautioned Jack to step stealthily, and slip from cedar to cedar,
to use every bunch of sage and juniper to hide his advance.
"Watch sharp, Jack. I've seen two already. Look for moving things. Don't
try to see one quiet, for you can't till after your eye catches him
moving. They are gray, gray as the cedars, the grass, the ground. Good!
Yes, I see him, but don't shoot. That's too far. Wait. They sneak away,
but they return. You can afford to make sure. Here now, by that stone--
aim low and be quick."
In the course of a mile, without keeping the sheep near at hand, they
saw upward of twenty coyotes, five of which Jack killed in as many
shots.
"You've got the hang of it," said Naab, rubbing his hands. "You'll kill
the varmints. Piute will skin and salt the pelts. Now I'm going up on
the high range to look for bear sign. Go ahead, on your own hook."
Hare was regardless of time while he stole under the cedars and through
the thickets, spying out the cunning coyotes. Then Naab's yell pealing
out claimed his attention; he answered and returned. When they met he
recounted his adventures in mingled excitement and disappointment.
"Are you tired?" asked Naab.
"Tired? No," replied Jack.
"Well, you mustn't overdo the very first day. I've news for you. There
are some wild horses on the high range. I didn't see them, but found
tracks everywhere. If they come down here you send Piute to close the
trail at the upper end of the bench, and you close the one where we came
up. There are only two trails where even a deer can get off this
plateau, and both are narrow splits in the wall, which can be barred by
the gates. We made the gates to keep the sheep in, and they'll serve a
turn. If you get the wild horses on the bench send Piute for me at
once."
They passed the Indian herding the sheep into a corral built against an
uprising ridge of stone. Naab dispatched him to look for the dead
coyotes. The three burros were in camp, two wearing empty pack-saddles,
and Noddle, for once not asleep, was eating from Mescal's hand.
"Mescal, hadn't I better take Black Bolly home?" asked August.
"
Mayn't I keep her?"
"She's yours. But you run a risk. There are wild horses on the range.
Will you keep her hobbled?"
"Yes," replied Mescal, reluctantly. "Though I don't believe Bolly would
run off from me."
"Look out she doesn't go, hobbles and all. Jack, here's the other bit of
news I have for you. There's a big grizzly camping on the trail of our
sheep. Now what I want to know is--shall I leave him to you, or put off
work and come up here to wait for him myself?"
"Why--" said Jack, slowly, "whatever you say. If you think you can
safely leave him to me--I'm willing."
"A grizzly won't be pleasant to face. I never knew one of those sheep-
killers that wouldn't run at a man, if wounded."
"Tell me what to do."
"If he comes down it's more than likely to be after dark. Don't risk
hunting him then. Wait till morning, and put Wolf on his trail. He'll be
up in the rocks, and by holding in the dog you may find him asleep in a
cave. However, if you happen to meet him by day do this. Don't waste any
shots. Climb a ledge or tree if one be handy. If not, stand your ground.
Get down on your knee and shoot and let him come. Mind you, he'll grunt
when he's hit, and start for you, and keep coming till he's dead. Have
confidence in yourself and your gun, for you can kill him. Aim low, and
shoot steady. If he keeps on coming there's always a fatal shot, and
that is when he rises. You'll see a bare spot on his breast. Put a
forty-four into that, and he'll go down."
August had spoken so easily, quite as if he were explaining how to shear
a yearling sheep, that Jack's feelings fluctuated between amazement and
laughter. Verily this desert man was stripped of all the false fears of
civilization.
"Now, Jack, I'm off. Good-bye and good luck. Mescal, look out for
him....
