On the Cowboy's Trail: Western Boxed-Set. Coolidge Dane

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ when I tell him what you are doing, just sits and twists his mustache and listens; but I could tell by the way he said good-bye that he was glad I was coming. I am sorry you can’t agree –– isn’t there something you could do to make him happier?”

      Hardy looked up from his dish-washing with a slow smile.

      “Which do you think is more important?” he asked, “for a man to please his father or his best friend?”

      Lucy suspected a trap and she made no reply.

      “Did you ever quote any of my poetry to father?” inquired Hardy casually. “No? Then please don’t. But I’ll bet if you told him I was catching wild horses, or talking reason to these Mexican herders, you’d have the old man coming. He’s a fighter, my father, and if you want to make him happy when you go back, tell him his son has just about given up literature and is the champion bronco-twister of the Four Peaks range.”

      “But Rufus –– would that be the truth?”

      Hardy laughed. “Well, pretty near it –– but I’m trying to please my best friend now.”

      “Oh,” said Lucy, blushing. “Will –– will that make much difference?” she asked.

      “All the difference in the world,” declared Hardy warmly. “You want me to become a poet –– he wants me to become a fighter. Well now, since I haven’t been able to please him, I’m going to try to please you for a while.”

      “Oh, Rufus,” cried Lucy, “am I really –– your best friend?”

      “Why sure! Didn’t you know that?” He spoke the words with a bluff good-fellowship which pleased her, in a way, but at the same time left her silent. And he, too, realized that there was a false note, a rift such as often creeps in between friends and if not perceived and checked widens into a breach.

      “You know,” he said, quietly making his amends, “when I was a boy my father always told me I talked too much; and after mother died I –– well, I didn’t talk so much. I was intended for a soldier, you know, and good officers have to keep their own counsel. But –– well, I guess the habit struck in –– so if I don’t always thank you, or tell you things, you will understand, won’t you? I wasn’t raised to please folks, you know, but just to fight Indians, and all that. How would you like to be a soldier’s wife?”

      “Not very well, I am afraid,” she said. “All the fear and anxiety, and –– well, I’m afraid I couldn’t love my husband if he killed anybody.” She paused and glanced up at him, but he was deep in thought.

      “My mother was a soldier’s wife,” he said, at last; and Lucy, seeing where his thoughts had strayed, respected his silence. It was something she had learned long before, for while Rufus would sometimes mention his mother he would never talk about her, even to Lucy Ware. So they finished their housework, deep in their own thoughts. But when at last they stepped out into the sunshine Lucy touched him on the arm.

      “Wouldn’t you like to bring your poems with you?” she suggested. “We can read them when we have found the spring. Is it very beautiful up there?”

      “Yes,” answered Hardy, “I often go there to write, when nobody is around. You know Jeff and all these cowboys around here don’t know that I write verse. They just think I’m a little fellow from somewhere up in California that can ride horses pretty good. But if I had handed it out to them that I was a poet, or even a college man, they would have gone to tucking snakes into my blankets and dropping chili bravos into my beans until they got a rise out of me, sure. I learned that much before I ever came up here. But I’ve got a little place I call my garden –– up in the cañon, above Hidden Water –– and sometimes I sneak off up there, and write. Would you like to see a poem I wrote up there? All right, you can have the rest some other time.” He stepped into the storeroom, extracted a little bundle from his war bag, and then they passed on up the valley together.

      The cañon of the Alamo is like most Arizona stream beds, a strait-jacket of rocky walls, opening out at intervals into pocket-like valleys, such as the broad and fertile flat which lay below Hidden Water. On either side of the stream the banks rise in benches, each a little higher and broader and more heavily covered: the first pure sand, laid on by the last freshet; the next grown over with grass and weeds; the next bushed up with baby willows and arrow weed; and then, the high bench, studded with mesquite and palo verdes; and at the base of the solid rim perhaps a higher level, strewn with the rocks which time and the elements have hurled down from the cliff, and crested with ancient trees. Upon such a high bench stood the Dos S ranch house, with trails leading off up and down the flat or plunging down the bank, the striated cliff behind it and the water-torn valley below.

      Up the cañon a deep-worn path led along the base of the bluff; and as the two best friends followed along its windings Hardy pointed out the mysteries of the land: strange trees and shrubs, bristling with thorns; cactus in its myriad forms; the birds which flashed past them or sang in the wild gladness of springtime; lizards, slipping about in the sands or pouring from cracks in the rocks –– all the curious things which his eyes had seen and his mind taken note of in the long days of solitary riding, and which his poet’s soul now interpreted into a higher meaning for the woman who could understand. So intent were they upon the wonders of that great display that Lucy hardly noticed where they were, until the trail swung abruptly in toward the cliff and they seemed to be entering a cleft in the solid rock.

      “Where do we go now?” she asked, and Hardy laughed at her confusion.

      “This is the gate to Hidden Water,” he said, lowering his voice to its old-time poetic cadence. “And strait is the way thereof,” he added, as he led her through the narrow pass, “but within are tall trees and running water, and the eagle nests undisturbed among the crags.”

      “What are you quoting?” exclaimed Miss Lucy, and for an answer Rufus beckoned her in and pointed with his hand. Before them stood the tall trees with running water at their feet, and a great nest of sticks among the crags.

      “Hidden Water!” he said, and smiled again mysteriously.

      Then he led the way along the side of the stream, which slipped softly over the water-worn bowlders, dimpling in pool after pool, until at the very gate of the valley it sank into the sand and was lost. Higher and higher mounted the path; and then, at the foot of a smooth ledge which rose like a bulwark across the gorge, it ended suddenly by the side of a cattle-tracked pool.

      “This is the wall to my garden,” said Hardy, pointing to the huge granite dyke, “beyond which only the elect may pass.” He paused, and glanced over at her quizzically. “The path was not made for ladies, I am afraid,” he added, pointing to a series of foot holes which ran up the face of the ledge. “Do you think you can climb it?”

      Lucy Ware studied his face for a moment; then, turning to the Indian stairway, she measured it with a practised eye.

      “You go up first,” she suggested, and when he had scaled the slippery height and turned he found her close behind, following carefully in his steps.

      “Well, you are a climber!” he cried admiringly. “Here, give me your hand.” And when he had helped her up he still held it –– or perhaps she clung to his.

      Before them lay a little glade, shut in by painted rocks, upon whose black sides were engraved many curious pictures, the mystic symbols of the Indians; and as they stood gazing at it an eagle with pointed wings wheeled slowly above them, gazing with clear eyes down into the sunlit СКАЧАТЬ