The Road Builders Part 11

Then the sun came up and beat upon them, and the sand began to radiate heat by way of an earnest of the day to follow; and then the wheels sank so deeply that the chief and Young Van tossed their reins to the guide and walked by the wagons to lend a hand now and then at the spokes. All the crazy energy of the evening was gone; men and mules were alike sullen and dispirited. Of the latter, many gave out and fell, and these were cut out and left there to die. So it went all through that blazing forenoon. They halted at twelve for lunch; but the dry bread and salt pork were hardly stimulating.

Carhart again sought the guide. "Do you know yourself where the pool is?"

The guide shaded his eyes and searched the horizon. "It was in a spot that looked something like this here," he said in a weak, confidential sort of way.

Carhart answered sharply, "Why don't you say you are lost, and be done with it!"

"Well, I ain't lost exactly. I wouldn't like to say that."

"But you haven't the least idea where the pool is."

"Well, now, you see--"

"Is there any other water on ahead?"

"Oh, yes."

"Where?"

"The Palos River can't be more than a dozen miles beyond the place where we found the pool."

He had unconsciously raised his voice. A laborer overheard the remark, whipped out his knife, hacked at the harness of the nearest mule,--it would have been simpler to loosen the braces, but he was past all thinking,--threw himself on the animal's back, and rode off, las.h.i.+ng behind him with the end of the reins. The panic broke loose again. Man after man, the guide among them, followed after, until only the wagons and about half the animals remained.

"Come, Gus," called the chief, "let them go."

Young Van turned wearily, mounted his panting horse, and the two followed the men. But Carhart turned in his saddle to look back at the property abandoned there in the sand.

Half an hour later, Young Van's horse stumbled and fell, barely giving his rider time to spring clear.

"Is he done for?" asked Carhart, reining up.

"It looks like it."

"What's the matter--done up yourself?"

"A little. I'll sit here a minute. You go ahead. I'll follow on foot."

"Not a bit of it. Here--can you swing up behind me?"

"That won't do. Texas can't carry double. Go ahead; I'm all right."

But Carhart dismounted, lifted his a.s.sistant, protesting, into the saddle, and pushed on, himself on foot, leading the horse.

They went on in this way for nearly an hour. Young Van found it all he could do to hold himself in the saddle. Then the horse took to staggering, and finally came to his knees.

Carhart helped his a.s.sistant to the ground, pulled his hat brim down to shade his eyes, and looked ahead. A cloud of dust on the horizon, a beaten trail through the sand, here and there a gray-brown heap where a mule had fallen,--these marked the flight of his drivers and laborers.

His eyes came back to the fainting man at his feet. Young Van had lost all sense of the world about him. Carhart saw that his lips were moving, and knelt beside him. Then he smiled, a curious, unhumorous smile; for the young engineer was muttering those words which had of late been his brother's favorites among all the words in our rich language: "D--n Peet!"

The chief stood up again to think. And as he gazed off eastward in the general direction of Sherman, toward the place where the arch enemy of the Sherman and Western sat in his office, perhaps devising new excuses to send to the front, those same two expressive words might have been used to sum up his own thoughts. What could the man be thinking of, who had brought the work practically to a stop, who was now in the coolest imaginable fas.h.i.+on leaving a thousand men to mingle their bones with the bones of the buffalo--that grim, broadcast expression of the spirit of the desert.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "They went on in this way for nearly an hour."]

But these were unsafe thoughts. His own head was none too clear. It was reeling with heat and thirst and with the monotony of this desolate land. He drew a flask from his pocket,--an almost empty flask,--and placed it against Young Van's hand. With their two hats propped together he shaded his face. Then, a canteen slung over each shoulder, he pushed ahead, on foot.

"The Palos River can't be more than a dozen miles--" had said the guide, pointing southward. That was all. Somewhere off there in the desert it lay, flowing yellow and aimless. Perhaps it was a lie.

Perhaps the guide was mistaken, as he had been in the search for the pool. But the last feeble tie that bound these outcasts to reason had snapped at the sight of that unsteady, pointing finger, and only the original sin in them was left. The words of the guide had been heard by one man, and he was off at the instant, his only remark a curse as he knocked a boy out of his way. But others had seen the pointing finger. And still others were moved by the impulse which spurs men, in frantic moments, to any sort of action.

In the rush for mounts two men, a half-breed from the Territory and a Mexican, plunged at the same animal. The half-breed was hacking at the nigh trace and the Mexican at the off rein when their eyes met. The mule both had chosen was the nigh leader in a double team. But instead of turning to one of the other three, the men, each with a knife in his hand, fell to fighting; and while they struggled and fell and rolled over and over in the sand, a third man mounted their prize and galloped away.

But it was the boys who suffered most. None but hardy youngsters had been chosen for the drive, but their young endurance could not help them in personal combat with these grown men; and personal combat was what it came to wherever a boy stood or sat near a desirable mule. The odd thing was that every man and boy succeeded in getting away. Hats were lost. s.h.i.+rts were torn to shreds, exposing skins, white and brown, to the merciless sun. Even the half-breed and the Mexican, dropping their quarrel as unreasonably as they had begun it, each bleeding from half-a-dozen small wounds, finally galloped off after the others. And when these last were gone, and the dust was billowing up behind them, something less than two minutes had pa.s.sed since the guide had pointed southward.

The Palos River is probably the most uninviting stream in the Southwest. It was at this time sluggish and shallow. The water was so rich with silt that a pailful of it, after standing an hour, would deposit three inches of mud. The banks were low and of the same gray sand as the desert, excepting that a narrow fringe of green announced the river to the eye. It was into and through this fringe that the first rider plunged. It had been a long two-hour ride, and the line straggled out for more than a mile behind him. But he was not interested in his companions. His eyes were fixed on the broad yellow river-bed with the narrow yellow current winding through it. Drinking could not satisfy him. He wanted to get into the water, and feel his wet clothes clinging about him, and duck his face and head under, and splash it about with his hands. His mount needed no lash to slip and scramble down the bank and spurt over the sand. The animal was so crazily eager that he stumbled in the soft footing and went to his knees. But the rider sailed on over his head, and with a great shout, arms and legs spread wide, he fell with a splash and a gurgle into the water. The mule regained his feet and staggered after him, and then the two of them, man and beast, rolled and wallowed and splashed, and drank copiously.

The second man reached the bank on foot, for his mule had fallen within sight of the promised land. He paused there, apparently bewildered, watching his fortunate comrade in the water. Then, with dazed deliberation, he removed his clothes, piled them neatly under a bush, and walked out naked, stepping gingerly on the heated sand. But halfway to the channel a glimmer of intelligence sparkled in his eyes, and he suddenly dashed forward and threw himself into the water.

One by one the others came cras.h.i.+ng through the bushes, and rode or ran down the bank, swearing, laughing, shouting, sobbing. And not one of them could have told afterward whether he drank on the upstream or the downstream side of the mules.

When Paul Carhart, a long while later, parted the bushes and stood out in relief on the bank, leaning on a shrub for support, he saw a strange spectacle. For a quarter of a mile, up and down the channel, were mules, some drinking, some rolling and kicking some lying out flat and motionless. Near at hand, hanging from every bush, were s.h.i.+rts and trousers and stockings; at the edge of the bank was a long, irregular line of boots and shoes. And below, on the broad reach of sand, laughing, and bantering, and screaming like schoolboys, half a hundred naked men stood in a row, stooping with hands on knees, while a dozen others went dancing and high-stepping and vaulting over them.

They were playing leap-frog.

Carhart walked across to the upstream side of the mules and drank.

Then, after filling two canteens, he returned to the bank and sat down in such small shade as he could find. It was at this moment that the men caught sight of him. The game stopped abruptly, and for a moment the players stood awkwardly about, as schoolboys would at the appearance of the teacher. Then, first one, and another, and a group of two or three more, and finally, all of them, resumed their simple clothing, and sat down along the bank to await orders. The panic was over.

Now the chief roused himself. "Here, you two!" he cried. "Take these canteens and the freshest mules you can find, and go back to Mr.

Vandervelt. Ride hard."

And almost at the word, eager, responsive, the men he had addressed were off.

As soon as the worst of the shakiness pa.s.sed out of his legs, Carhart rose. His next task was to get the mules back to the wagons, and bring them on to the river in order to fill the barrels, and this promised a greater expenditure of time and strength than he liked to face. But there was no alternative, it seemed, so he caught a mule, mounted it, and rode back. And the men trailed after him, riding and walking, in a line half a mile long.

Carhart found Young Van sitting up, too weak to talk, supported by the two men whom he had sent back.

"How is he?" asked the chief.

"It's hard to say, Mr. Carhart," replied one of the men. "He don't seem quite himself."

Carhart dismounted, felt the pulse of the young man, and then bathed his temples with the warmish water. "Carry him over into the shade of that wagon, boys," he said. "Here, I'll give you a hand."

The earth, even beneath the wagon, was warm, and Carhart and the two laborers spread out their coats before they laid him down. The chief poured a little water on his handkerchief, and laid it on Young Van's forehead.

And then, when Carhart had got to his feet and was looking about, holding down his hat-brim to shade his eyes, an expression of inquiry, which had come into his face some little time before, slowly deepened.