Foy twisted a bullet from a cartridge. There was no powder. The four men on the floor looked unhappy under his thoughtful eye.

"Nice little plant--what? Do we kill 'em?" said Pringle cheerfully. "I don't know the rules well enough to break them. What was the big idea?

Was they vexed at you, son?"

"It would seem so," said Foy, smiling. "We had a little war here a spell back. I suspect they wanted to stir it up again for political effect. Election this fall."

"And you were not in their party? I see!" said Pringle, nodding intelligently, "Well, they sure had it fixed to make your side lose one vote--fixed good and proper. The Ben-boy was to let your right hand loose and the Joe-boy was to shoot you as you pulled your gun.

Why, if you had lived to make a statement your own story woulda mighty near let them out."

"I believe that I am greatly obliged to you, sir."

"I believe you are," said Pringle. "And--but, also, I know the two gentlemen you were drinking with should be very grateful to you. They had just half a second more to live--and you beat me to it. Too bad!

Well, what next?"

Foy pondered a little.

"I guess I'll go up to the Bar Cross wagon, as I intended, till things simmer down. The Las Uvas warriors seldom ever bother the Bar Cross Range. My horse is. .h.i.tched up the street. How'd you like to go along with me, stranger? You and me would make a fair-sized crowd."

"I'd like it fine and dandy," said Pringle. "But I got a little visit to make to-morrow. Maybe I'll join you later. I like Las Uvas," stated John Wesley, beaming. "Nice, lively little place! I think I'll settle down here after a bit. Some of the young fellows are shy on good manners. But I can teach 'em. I'd enjoy it.... Now, let's see: If you'll hold these lads a few minutes I'll get my boots and saddle up and bring my horse to the door; then I'll pay Max my hotel bill and talk to them while you get your horse; and we'll ride together till we get out in the open. How's that for a lay?"

That was a good lay, it seemed; and it was carried out--with one addition: After Foy brought his horse he rang Central and called up the sheriff.

"h.e.l.lo! That you, Mr. Lisner? This is Kitty Foy," he said sweetly.

"Sheriff, I hate to bother you, but old Nueces River, your chief of police, is out of town. And I thought you ought to know that the police force is all balled up. They're here at the Gadsden Purchase.

Bell Applegate is sick--seems to be indigestion; Espalin is having a nervous spell; and Ben Creagan is bleeding from his happiest vein.

You'd better come see to 'em. Good-by!"

Pringle smiled benevolently from the door.

"There! I almost forgot to tell you boys. We disapprove of your actions oh-very-much! You know you were doing what was very, very wrong--like three little mice that were playing in the barn though the old mouse said: 'Little mice, beware! When the owl comes singing "Too-whoo" take care!' If you do it again we shall consider it deliberately unfriendly of you.... Well, I'll toddle my decrepit old bones out of this. Eleven o'clock! How time has flown, to be sure!

Thank you for a pleasant evening. Good-by, George. Good-by, all! Be good little boys--go nighty-nighty!"

They raced to the corner, scurried down the first side street, turned again, and slowed to a gallop. Pringle was in high feather; he caroled blithesome as he rode:

_"So those three little owls flew back up in the barn-- Inky, d.i.n.ky, doodum, day!

And they said, 'Those little mice make us feel so nice and warm!'

Inky, d.i.n.ky, doodum, day!

Then they all began to sing, 'Too-whit! Too-who!'

I don't think much of this song, do you?

But there's one thing about it--'tis certainly true-- Inky, d.i.n.ky, doodum, day!"_

They reached the open; the gallop became a trot.

"I go north here," said Foy at the cross-roads above the town. "Which way for you?"

"North too," said Pringle. "I don't know just where, but you can tell me. I go to a railroad station first--Aden. Then to the Vorhis place?"

"Vorhis? I'm going there myself?" said Foy. "You didn't tell me your name yet."

"Pringle."

"What? Not John Wesley Pringle? Great Scott, man! I've heard Stella talk about you a thousand times. Say, I'm sure glad to meet you! My name's Foy--Christopher Foy."

"Why, yes," said Pringle. "I think I've heard Stella speak of you, too."

Chapter III

Being a child must have been great fun--once. Nowadays one would as lief be a Strasburg goose. When you and I went to school it was not quite so bad. True, neither of us could now extract a cube root with a stump puller, and it is sad to reflect how little call life has made for duodecimals. Sometimes it seems that all our struggle with moody verbs and insubordinate conjunctions was a wicked waste--poor little sleepy puzzleheads! But there were certain joyous facts which we remember yet. Lake Erie was very like a whale; Lake Ontario was a seal; and Italy was a boot.

The great Chihuahuan desert is a boot too; a larger boot than Italy.

The leg of it is in Mexico, the toe is in Arizona, the heel in New Mexico; and the Jornado is in the boot-heel.

El Jornado del Muerto--the Journey of the Dead Man! From what dim old legend has the name come down? No one knows. The name has outlived the story.

Perhaps some grim, hard-riding Spaniard made his last ride here; weary at last of war, turned his dead face back to Spain and the pleasant valleys of his childhood. We have a glimpse of him, small in the mighty silence; his faithful few about him, with fearful backward glances; a gray sea of waving grama breaking at their feet; the great mountains looking down on them. Plymouth Rock is unnamed yet.--Then the mist shuts down.

The Santa Fe Trail reaches across the Jornado; tradition tells of vague, wild battles with Apache and Navajo; there are grave-cairns on lone dim ridges, whereon each pa.s.ser casts a stone. Young mothers dreamed over the cradles of those who now sleep here, undreaming; here is the end of all dreams.

Doniphan pa.s.sed this way; Kit Carson rode here; the Texans journeyed north along that old road in '62--to return no more.

These were but pa.s.sers-by. The history of the Jornado, of indwellers named and known, begins with six Americans, as follows: Sandoval, a Mexican; Toussaint, a Frenchman; Fest, a German; Martin, a German; Roullier, a Swiss; and Teagardner, a Welshman.

You might have thought the Jornado a vast and savage waste or a pleasant place and a various. That depended upon you. Materials for either opinion were plenty; lava flow, saccaton flats, rolling sand hills sage-brush, mesquite and yucca, bunch gra.s.s and shallow lakes, bench and hill, ridge and groundswell and wandering draw; always the great mountains round about; the mountains and the warm sun over all.

A certain rich man desired to be President--to please his wife, perhaps. He was a favorite son sure of his home-state vote in any grand old national convention. He gave largely to charities and campaign funds, and his left hand would have been justly astonished to know what his right hand was about.

Those were bargain-counter days. Fumbling the wares, our candidate saw, among other things, that New Mexico had six conventional votes: He sent after them.

So the Bar Cross Cattle Company was founded; range, the Jornado. Our candidate provided the money and a manager, also ambidextrous with instructions to get those votes and incidentally to double the money, as a good and faithful manager should.

He got the six votes, but our candidate never became president.

Poor fellow, his millions could not bring him happiness. He died, an embittered and disappointed man, in the obscurity of the United States Senate.

The Bar Cross brand was the sole fruit of that ambition. Other ranches had dwindled or vanished; favored by environment the Bar Cross, almost alone, withstood the devastating march of progress. It was still a mark of distinction to be a Bar Cross man. The good old customs--and certain bad old customs, too--still held on the Bar Cross Range, fifty miles by one hundred, on the Jornado. Scattered here and there were smaller ranches: among them the V H--the Vorhis Ranch.

Stella Vorhis and John Wesley, far out on the plain, rode through the pleasant afternoon. The V H. Ranch was in sight now, huddled low before them; beyond, a cl.u.s.ter of low hills rose from the plain, visible center of a world fresh, eager, and boundless.

The girl's eye kindled with delight as it sought the far horizons, the misty parapets gleaming up through the golden air; she was one who found dear and beautiful this gray land, silent and ensunned. She flung up her hand exultingly.

"Isn't it wonderful, John Wesley? Do you know what it makes me think of? This:

_"'... Magic cas.e.m.e.nts, opening on the foam Of perilous seas, in faery lands forlorn!'_

"Think, John! This country hasn't changed a bit since the day Columbus set out from Spain."