第 27 页

The latter probably.

The afternoon dragged on and for a long time neither man moved. At last Rios, if Rios it was, withdrew a little, slipped behind a tree, passed to another and disappeared. Kendric did not see him again though he kept alert every instant. At last came the time when the sun slipped down behind the ridge and the dusk thickened and the stars came out. Kendric rose, stiff and weary, and began his slow, tedious way down into the cañon. His long enforced stillness during which he had not dared doze a second, had served to bring a full realization of bodily fatigue and need of sleep. No rest last night; today many hard miles and little nourishment; now every nerve yearned for a safe return to camp for a sight of Betty, for the opportunity to throw himself down on a bed of boughs and rest.

Though it was dark when he started to climb the steep toward camp he relaxed nothing of his guarded precautions. Urged by impatience as he was, eager to know if all was well with Betty, his uneasiness for her growing with every step toward her, he crawled slowly and silently through bushes and among boulders, he stopped frequently and listened, he forced himself to a round about way rather than take the direct. All this in spite of his keen realization that for Betty the time must be dragging even as it dragged for him. Betty hungry, frightened and lonely was, above all, uncertain.

But at last he came to the opening in the rocks. He squeezed through, his heart suddenly heavy within him as the stillness of the place smote him like a positive assurance that Betty was gone. He went on, his teeth set hard. If Betty were gone, by high heaven, there would be a rendering of accounts! And then, even before the first glimmer of her little fire reached him, he heard her glad cry. She came running to meet him, her two hands out, groping for his. And he dropped rifle and provision bag and in the half dark his hands found hers and gripped hard in mighty rejoicing.

"Thank God!" said Betty.

And Jim Kendric's words were like a deep, fervent echo: "Thank God."

CHAPTER XX

IN WHICH A ROCK MOVES, A DISCOVERY IS MADE

AND MORE THAN ONE AVENUE IS OPENED

In the light of Betty's fire Jim hastily poured forth the contents of his bag and never did a child's eyes at Christmas time shine like Betty's. She had hungered until she was weak and trembling and now such articles as Jim displayed were amply sufficient to elicit from her that little cry of delight. Tortillas and beans, meat and coffee and sugar and milk—it was a banquet fit for a king and a queen!

"The only thing," cautioned Kendric, "is to go slow. It's a course dinner, Miss Betty. And first comes a bit of milk."

He ripped open a can with his pocket knife, poured out half of the thick contents into the silk-water bag and diluted the remainder with water. Thereafter he watched Betty while she forced herself, at his bidding, to eat and drink sparingly. And he noted that during his absence she had been busy working on her wardrobe. Using both the red garment and the cloak, employing in her task the obsidian knife and strips of green fiber, she had made for herself a garment which it would have been hard to classify and yet which was astonishingly becoming. As much as anything Kendric had ever seen it resembled a stylish and therefore outlandish riding habit. She wore Zoraida's shoes and stockings.

"I washed them with sand and water first," said Betty around a corner of her sandwich. "And I let them air all day."

"No visitors?" said Kendric. "No sign of anyone on our trail?"

Betty assured him that she had been unmolested, that the terrible stillness of the mountain had been unbroken. And she sought to tell him how long the day had been.

"I know," he said. "It was long enough for me, and I was out in the open and stirring. It must have been a slice of torment for you here alone all day, not even knowing if I'd ever get back or have any food when I came."

"I knew you'd come," said Betty. "But it was lonesome and shivery."

He told her of his day and finally of the man he had seen across the cañon. Further, of his suspicion that it was Ruiz Rios. Betty shuddered.

"He is a terrible creature," she said. "I'd rather it was anyone else. Do you think he has an idea we're here?"

He stretched out by the fire, helped himself to a bit of the dried beef and told her his thoughts.

"I know just about how Rios would reason things out. And, oddly enough, it strikes me that though he began with a false premise he has come pretty close to reaching the right conclusion. You see, he knows that I came down here with Barlow looking for treasure. He knew Captain Escobar was ahead of him on the same trail and when he could get nothing further out of Escobar he killed him. But he did know in a general way where we expected to find the stuff. So, when you and I skip out and don't head straight back to the gulf, he's pretty sure I'm still making a stab at getting the treasure. And it has happened that you and I, blundering along in the dark, have hit on this spot which is not far from the place where the treasure is supposed to be. So Rios hides in the brush with a pair of glasses and keeps his eye peeled for us. I think that's the whole explanation of his being out yonder. And I think that's all he knows."

"It's enough." Betty shook her head dubiously.

"Of course," he admitted, "this is just a guess on my part. He may know more than I think.—During the day," he added, "and just now while I lay out yonder waiting for dark, I've had a lot of time to think things out. First, it strikes me as best to hide out here one more day and then, tomorrow night, to make a break for the outside. Personally, I don't know that I'd be fit for much tonight; it's a good stiff hike to where we left the Half Moon and I won't be able to keep awake much longer. Then by tomorrow night, even if Zoraida is as keen as ever to get us back, I doubt if her men's enthusiasm for vigilance will have lasted at the first heat. There'll be a better chance for us to slip through."

Here, again, the responsibility in Betty's way of thinking was his and she accepted his plan without challenge.

"Another thing I've been thinking of," he went on, "is that queer, smooth hole in that boulder; where we've our water stored. What have you made of it?"

"A reservoir," she answered lightly, her spirits risen swiftly with his coming and a taste of food. "What else?"

"Rios is hard set in his belief that there's ancient treasure nearby. So is Barlow. So, evidently, was Escobar. If so, what more likely place than where we are? That hole didn't make itself after that regular fashion. I don't see just what it has to do with the case, I'll admit. But somebody made it a long time ago and didn't do it just for the fun of the job. I've a notion that it has its bearing on the thing. Somehow."

"It isn't big enough to hold much treasure," said Betty. "Maybe they didn't finish it?"

But from this they went to other matters. Kendric merely decided that while they spent a long tomorrow of inaction he would look into the matter. There was no great temptation to tarry for treasure and the incentive to be on the way, traveling light, was sufficiently emphasized. But there was a quiet day to be put in tomorrow, if all went right, and he was not the man to forget what had brought him southward.

"We'll both go to sleep," he said presently, "and not do any worrying about what the other fellow may be doing. With our fire out and a lot of dead limbs scattered about the entrance to crack under a man's foot, they'll not surprise us tonight, even if they should know where we are. Tomorrow we'll keep a watch over the ravine. And tomorrow night I hope we'll be on the trail toward the gulf. Now do you want to slip out with me for a goodnight drink of water? Or would you rather wait here for me?"

Betty was on her feet in a flash.

"I've done enough waiting today to last me the rest of my life!" she cried emphatically. "I'll go with you."

So again, and as cautious as they had been last night, they made their way down the steep slope and drank in the starlight. They tarried a little by the trickle of water, heeding the silence, breathing deep of the soft night, lifting their eyes to the stars. The world seemed young and sweet about them, clean and tender, a place of infinite peace and kindness rather than of a pursuing hate. They stood close together; their shoulders brushed companionably. Together they hearkened to a tiny voice thrilling through the emptiness, the monotonous vibrating cadences of some happy insect. The heat of the day had passed with the day, the perfect hour had come. It was one of those moments which Jim Kendric found to his liking. Many such still hours had he known under many skies and out of the night had always come something vague and mighty to speak to something no less mighty which lay within his soul. But always before, when he drank the fill of a time like this, he had been alone. He had thought that a man must be alone to know the ineffable content of the solitudes. Tonight he was not alone. And yet more perfect than those other hours in other lands was this hour slipping by now as the tiny voice out yonder slipped through the silence without shattering it. Certain words of his own little song crept into his mind.

"Where it's only you

And the mountainside."

That "you" had always been just Jim Kendric. After this, if ever again he sang it, the "you" would be Betty.

"Shall we go back?" he asked quietly.

He saw Betty start. Her eyes came back from the stars and sought his. He could see them only dimly in the shadow of her hair, but he knew they were shining with the gush of her own night-thoughts. They scooped up their water then and went back up the mountain. Their fire was almost down and they did not replenish it. They went to their beds of boughs and lay down in silence. Presently Jim said "Good night." And Betty, the hush of the outside in her voice as she answered, said softly "Good night."

They were astir before dawn. Fresh water must be brought before daylight brightened in the cañons. This time Jim went alone to the creek and when he got back Betty had their fire blazing. Betty made the breakfast, insisting on having her free unhampered way with it.

"There are some things I can do," said Betty, "and a great many I can't. It happens that I know what things are beyond me and those that are within the scope of my powers. One thing that I can do is cook. And I have camped before now, if you please."

So, when Jim had brought her firewood and had placed the various articles of their larder handy for her and had offered his services with jack-knife to open a can or hack through a bit of beef, he stood back and fully enjoyed the sight of Betty making breakfast. He enjoyed the prettiness of her in her odd costume of blouse, scarlet sash and knickerbockers, silk stockings and high heeled slippers; the atmosphere of intimacy which hovered over them, distilled in a measure from the magic of a camp fire, certainly aided and abetted by the homey arrangement of Betty's brown hair; the aroma of coffee beginning to bubble in a milk tin; the fragrance of an inviting stew in the other tin wherein were mingled frijoles and "jerky." Ruiz Rios might lurk around the next spur of the mountain; Zoraida might be inciting her hirelings to fresh endeavor; much danger might be watching by the trail which in time they would have to follow—but here and now, for the few minutes at least, there was more of quiet enjoyment in their retreat than of discomfort or of fear of the future.

"Let's go camping some time," said Jim abruptly. "Just you and me. We'll take a pack horse; we'll load him to the guards with the proper sort of rations; we'll strike out into the heart of the California sierra—where there are fine forests and little lakes and lonely trails and peace over all of it."

Betty looked at him curiously, then away swiftly.

"Breakfast is ready," she announced.

He sipped at his coffee absently; his eyes, looking past Betty, saw into a hidden, cliff-rimmed valley in those other, fresher mountains further north, glimpsed vistas down narrow trails between tall pines and cedars and firs, fancied a lodge made of boughs on the shore of a little blue lake. He'd like to show Betty this camping spot; he'd like to bring in for her a string of gleaming trout; he'd like to lie on his side under the cliffs and just watch her. He had whittled two sticks for spoons; he ate his stew with his and forgot to talk.

And Betty, watching him covertly, wondered astutely if over the first meal she had cooked for him Jim Kendric wasn't readjusting his ancient ideas of woman. For some hidden reason, or for no reason at all, her silence was as deep as his.

After breakfast, however, it was Betty who started talk. They sought to plan definitely for tonight. Kendric told her of the way he and Barlow had come, of the Half Moon awaiting his and Barlow's return, of his determination to make use of the schooner if they could come to it. Barlow's plans were not at Kendric's disposal; the sailor might be counting on the vessel and he might not. At any rate he and Betty could slip down the gulf in it and either take ship at La Paz, sending it back up the gulf then, or steer on to San Diego. Of course he would seek to get in touch with Barlow; he could send a message of some sort. But after all Barlow had taken the game into his own hands and had said that it was now each man for himself.

"We can make the trip during the night, if we can make the get-away," he told her. "We'll have to take a roundabout way at first, edging the valley along the foothills on this side until we're well past the ranch house, then cut across the shortest way and pick up the trail on the other side. We can take enough water in our milk tins to last us, especially since we're traveling in the cool."

"And if," suggested Betty, "the Half Moon isn't there? Or if Zoraida has set some of her men to watch for us there?"

Naturally he had thought of that. If they came to the gulf and a new problem of this sort offered itself, then it would be time to consider it.

"We'll just hope for the best," he answered, "and try to be ready for what comes."

Carefully they conserved each tiny fragment of food, using the flour sack for cupboard. They went cautiously to the entrance of their hiding place and for a long time crouched behind the bushes, watching the cañon sides, seeking for a sign of Rios as they fancied Rios was seeking them. And during the quiet hours they explored the place in which they were.