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Out of the Depths: A Romance of Reclamation, a novel by Robert Ames Bennet |
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Chapter 21. Madonna Dolorosa |
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_ CHAPTER XXI. MADONNA DOLOROSA Blake was cooking supper when, shortly before sunset, Gowan drove up to the waterhole, with a pony in lead behind the heavy wagon. Leaving the wagon with the rope and other articles of his load on the far side of the creek bed, he watered and picketed the horses, and came across to the tent with his rifle and a roll of blankets. "Howdy, Mr. Blake. Got here in time for supper, I see," he remarked as he unburdened himself. "Met Mr. Knowles and the ladies down near the ranch. They told me about the shooting." He faced about to stare at Ashton's bandaged head. "They told me you came mighty near getting yours. You shore are a lucky tenderfoot." Ashton shrugged superciliously. "The worst of it is the additional hole in my hat. I see you have a new one. Is that the latest style on the range?" "Stetson, brand A-1.," replied the puncher. "How does it strike you, Mr. Blake?--and my new shirt? Having a dude puncher on our range kind of stirred up my emulosity. They don't have real cowboy attire like his at an ordinary shorthorn cow town like Stockchute--but I did the best I could." Blake made no response to this heavy badinage. He set the supper on the chuck-box, and laconically said: "Come and get it." "Might have known you've been on round-up," remarked Gowan, with an insistent sociability oddly at variance with his usual taciturn reserve. "According to Miss Chuckie, you're some rider, and according to Mr. Knowles, you can shoot. I wouldn't mind hearing from you direct about that shooting this morning." Blake recounted the affair still more briefly than he had told it to Knowles. "That shore was a mighty close shave," commented the puncher. "But you haven't said what the fellow looked like." "He wore ordinary range clothes," replied Blake. "I couldn't see him behind the rocks, and caught only a glimpse of him as he went around the ridge. His horse was much the same build and color as Rocket." The puncher stared at Ashton with his cold unblinking eyes. "You shore picked out a Jim Dandy guide, Mr. Tenderfoot. According to this, it looks mighty like he's gone and turned hawss thief. Mr. Knowles says your Rocket hawss has vamoosed. If he's moving to Utah under your ex-guide, it'll take some lively posse to head him. What d'you say, Mr. Blake?" "I think the man is apt soon to come to the end of his rope--after dropping through a trap door," said the engineer. Gowan looked at him between narrowed eyelids, and paused with upraised coffee cup to reply: "A man that has shown the nerve this one has won't let anyone get close enough to rope him." "It will be either that or a bullet, before long," predicted Blake. "The badman is getting to be rather out of date." "Maybe a bullet," admitted Gowan. "Never any rope, though, for his kind.--Guess I'll turn in. It's something of a drive over to Stockchute and back with the wagon, and I got up early. You and Ashton might go on watch until midnight, and turn me out for the rest of the night." "Very well," agreed Blake. The puncher stretched out on his blankets under a tree, a few yards from the tent. Ashton took the dishes down to sand-scour them at the pool, while Blake saw that everything damageable was disposed safe from the knife-like fangs of the coyotes. "How about keeping watch?" asked Ashton, when he returned with the cleansed dishes. "Shall I take first or second?" "Neither," answered Blake. "You will need all the sleep and rest you can get. Tomorrow may be a hard day. Turn in at once." "If you insist," acquiesced Ashton. "I still am rather weak and dizzy." He went to the tent and disappeared. Blake took the lantern and strolled across to the wagon, to look at the numerous articles brought by Gowan. He set the lantern over in the wagon bed on top of what seemed to be a heap of empty oat sacks, while he overhauled the load. It included three coils of rope of a hundred feet each, a keg of railroad spikes, two dozen picket-pins, two heavy hammers, a pick and shovel, and a crowbar. The last three articles had not been ordered by Blake. The puncher had brought them along, apparently with a hazy idea that the descent of the canyon would be something on the order of mining. There were also in the wagon two five-gallon kerosene cans to use in carrying water up the mountain, a sack of oats, Gowan's saddle, and two packsaddles. In shifting one of the packsaddles to get at the hammers, Blake knocked it against the sack on which the lantern had been set. The lantern suddenly fell over on its side. Blake reached in to pick it up, and perceived that the sack was rising in a mound. He caught up one of the hammers, and held it poised for a stroke. From the sack came a muffled rattle. The hammer descended in a smashing blow. The sack rose and fell as if something under it was squirming about convulsively. But to Blake's surprise it did not fall aside and disclose that which was making the violent movement. The squirming lessened. He grasped an outer corner of the sack and jerked it upward. It failed to flip into the air. The lower part sagged heavily. The squirmer was inside and--the mouth of the sack was tied fast. Blake looked at it thoughtfully. After some moments, he placed the sack where it had lain at first, and upset the keg of spikes on top of it. He then carefully examined Gowan's saddle; but it told him nothing. He shook his head doubtfully, and returned to camp. Going quietly around to Gowan, he set down the lantern close before the puncher's face and stopped to light a cigar. Gowan stirred restlessly and rolled half over, but did not open his eyes. Blake smoked his cigar, extinguished the lantern, and quietly stretched out on the edge of the sleeper's blankets. In a few moments he, too, was asleep. About two o'clock Gowan stirred and rolled over, pulling at his blankets. Instantly Blake was wide awake. The puncher mumbled, drew the blankets closer about him, and lay quiet. Blake went into the tent and dozed on his own blankets until roused by the chill of dawn. He went down for a plunge in the pool, and was dressed and back at the fireplace, cooking breakfast, when Gowan started up out of his heavy slumber. "Yes, it's getting along about that time," Blake called to him cheerfully. "You might turn out Ashton. He has made as good a night of it as you have." Gowan had been staring at the dawn, his lean jaw slack. As Blake spoke, he snapped his mouth shut and came over to confront the engineer. "You agreed to call me at midnight," he said. "My apology!" politely replied Blake. "I know how you must feel about it. But I hope you will excuse me. I saw that you, like Ashton, needed a full night's sleep, and so did not disturb you." The puncher looked away and muttered: "I'm responsible for you to Mr. Knowles. He sent me here to guard you." "That is true. Of course you will say it's owing to no fault of mine that we have come through the night safely. Well, we have a big day's work before us. May I ask you to call Ashton? Breakfast is ready." At this the puncher sullenly went to rouse the sleeper. Ashton came out rubbing his eyes; but after a dip in the pool, he declared himself restored by his long sleep and ready for a day's work. During the night his bandage had come loose. He would have tossed it away, but Blake insisted upon re-dressing the wound. He did so with as much skill and almost as much gentleness as had his wife. When Blake and Ashton left the camp, the puncher was leading the horses across to load their first packs. The two levelmen walked briskly up the valley, carrying only enough food and water to last themselves until evening, when Gowan was to have the camp moved to the top of High Mesa. Beginning from his bench-mark at the foot of the mountain, Blake carried the level line slantingly up the ridge side. The work was slow and tedious, since the telescope of the level could never be on a horizontal line either higher or lower respectively than the top and bottom of the thirteen-foot rod. This necessitated setting-up the instrument every few feet during the steepest part of the ascent. They saw nothing of Gowan, who had chosen a more roundabout but easier trail. At midmorning, however, they were overtaken by Genevieve and Isobel and Thomas Herbert Vincent Leslie Blake. Knowles had started for Stockchute to seek the aid of the sheriff and his Indian prisoners. The ladies divided the ascent into several stages, riding ahead of the surveyors and resting in the shade of a rock or pine until the men had passed them. Near noon, when the levels had been carried up close to the top of High Mesa, Gowan rode down to the party to inquire where the new camp was to be pitched. "I've brought up a lot this trip," he stated. "I can fetch the rest by sundown, if I don't have to meander all over the mesa with these first packs." "Where did you leave the packhorses?" asked Blake. "Up along the canyon where Ashton shot his yearling deer," answered the puncher. "It's about half way between that gulch where you say you're going down and the bend across from the head of Dry Fork Gulch." "We'll camp there," decided Blake. "It is on the shortest trail to that gulch, and you'll not have time to get your second load farther before dark." The puncher started back. But Isobel, who had come riding up with Genevieve, called out to stop him: "Wait, Kid. It is almost noon. You must take lunch with us." "Can't leave those hawsses standing with the packs, Miss Chuckie, if they're to make another trip today," he replied. "Suppose you unload them and come back along the edge of the canyon?" suggested Blake. "We shall knock off soon and all go over to give my wife her first look at the canyon. We can eat lunch there together." To this Gowan nodded a willing assent, and he jogged away, with a half smile on his thin lips. But that which pleased him had precisely the opposite effect on Ashton. He did not fancy sharing the companionship and attention of Miss Knowles with the puncher. As this interference with his happiness was due to Blake, he showed a petulant resentment towards the engineer that won him the girl's sympathetic concern. She attributed his fretfulness to his wound. Blake made the same mistake. "You've done quite enough for the morning, Ashton, with that head of yours," he said. "We're over the worst now, and can easily run on up to the camp this afternoon. We shall knock off for a siesta." "Needn't try to make out I'm a baby!" snapped Ashton. "Leave your rod here," went on Blake, disregarding the other's irascibility. "I'll take the level. It may enable us to see the bottom of the canyon." He started on up the slope beside his wife's pony. Ashton was somewhat mollified when he saw Isobel linger for him to walk beside her horse. She was carrying the baby, who, regardless of scenic attractions, had fallen asleep during the long climb from the lower mesa. The sight of the child clasped to her bosom awakened all that was highest in his nature. Concern over his wound had sobered her usual gay vivacity to a look of motherly tenderness. "Do you know," he murmured during a pause in their conversation, "you make me think of pictures of the Madonna!" "Lafe!" she protested, blushing and as quickly paling. "You should not say such a thing. It is lovely--a beautiful thing to tell me; but--but I do not deserve it!" "Madonna!--my Madonna!" he murmured in ardent adoration. "Oh, please! when I've asked you not to!" she implored. "It is not right! I--I am not!--" Tears glistened in her soft eyes. She bent over to suppress a sob that might have awakened the sleeping infant. Ashton gazed up at her, wonder and contrition mingling with his deepening adoration. "Forgive me, Miss Chuckie! But I meant it--I feel it! I never before felt this way towards any girl!... I know I have no right to say anything now. I am a pennyless adventurer, a disgraced, disinherited son, a mere cowpuncher apprentice; but if, by next spring, I shall have--" "Oh, see. They're getting such a long way ahead of us!" exclaimed the girl, urging her pony to a faster gait. The animal started forward with a suddenness that left Ashton behind. He made no effort to regain his position beside the girl's stirrup. Instead, he lagged farther and farther in the rear, his face crimson with mortification and anger. As his chagrin deepened, his flush became almost feverish and there was a suggestion of wildness in his flashing eyes. It was as though his passion was intensifying some injury to his brain caused by the concussion of the bullet on his skull. _ |
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