andy jerome came swinging down the cañon with the stride of a conquering hero, straight and strong under a burdensome pack. both charmian and shonto regarded him in admiration as he came—he was so handsome, so well fortified with the confidence of youth, so sure that his vigorous young manhood was a match for any obstacle.
charmian shouted and waved her hand. the homecomer waved back and sent the echoes cantering down the gorge after his long-drawn baritone whoop of greeting.
“what can have happened to henry?” the young widow murmured, half to herself.
shonto made no reply, but his face looked worried.
“well, for mercy’s sake!” cried the girl when andy was close enough to hear her high-pitched words. “where are you coming from? where’s the weather bureau?”
andy jerome came swinging on, slipping on the nigger-heads repeatedly, but always catching himself with the indifference that springy, always-ready muscles bequeath to youth.
“some trip!” he laughed. “i just naturally walked old marblehead off his feet. then i left him to die and made the rounds alone.”
he reached them, eased his pack to the stones with[129] a great sigh, and held out both hands to them—his right to charmian.
“golly, i’m tired!” he ejaculated; but he looked as if any weariness that he might feel would forsake him after an hour’s rest.
“where is henry?” asked shonto soberly. “and how are you back so soon?—and coming down the gorge?”
“well, last question answered first, i’m hitting her up down the gorge because i discovered an easier route back than the one henry brought us over. and henry is on his way home to write a letter to the weather bureau for a new rain gauge.”
“andy, you don’t mean it!”—from charmian reemy.
“sure do. i couldn’t hold ’im. thought i’d talked him out of shaking us, but in the night, while i was pounding my ear, he ups and beats it.”
“but his money?” said shonto.
“oh, i paid him in advance,” charmian confessed with guilty reticence.
“the old rascal!” the doctor snorted.
“but i’m not worrying,” andy continued. “he’d virtually told me how to find the valley of arcana, and it strikes me that he’s already about fulfilled his contract. i believe i can go straight to it from here. i’ll tell you later what i got out of him.
“personally, i won’t miss the old coot in the least. he’s not so much in the mountains. i walked the head off the old boy on the trip back to the cache. i let myself out—see?—which i couldn’t do in travelling[130] with you folks—if you’ll pardon me. so i took our bold mountaineer on for a regular ramble, and i had him begging for less speed three hours out of camp.”
“he’s quite a little older than you are, andy,” charmian made reminder.
she did not exactly approve of andy’s slightly boastful tone. dr. shonto caught the note in her voice, and hastened to say:
“don’t pay too much attention to our young friend’s high opinion of his own prowess. ordinarily andy isn’t the least bit boastful. but we’re living a more or less primitive life these days. our existence may depend on what we can do with our legs and arms and hands. surmounting the difficulties of this wilderness has become the most important thing in our lives. we must excuse one another for being primevally proud of our little achievements.”
“good work, doctor!” laughed andy, a trifle red of face. “was i shooting the old bazoo too hard? maybe so. thanks for your explanation to charmian. the doctor’s a wonder at keeping the serene equilibrium of camp life at par. he always understands that folks are different once they’ve shaken the dust of civilization from their feet. they’re more primitive—that’s right.
“well, to continue, old henry has been worrying ever since the bell burro made a sandwich out of his old gauge. reading that gauge and sending in his reports are the greatest things in life for him. and so—well, he just up and hit the trail, that’s all. he’s got a loose screw in his head, of course. so we were[131] camped at the cache, ready to start back in the morning. and when i found he’d gone i knew right away what had happened and struck out at dawn alone. and—boasting or no boasting—i’ve brought all that i meant to pack in and at least half of what shirttail henry had laid out for his pack. so we’re not so bad off, after all. how’s our pillar of determination and her sprain?”
the three walked down the cañon toward their camp, shonto carrying the pack. andy told the others, as they stumbled over the round, smooth stone cannon balls of the creek-bed, what shirttail henry had divulged concerning the onward trail to the valley of arcana.
when they had climbed the steep southern wall of the cañon in which they were encamped they would find themselves on a wooded plateau, none too level. for several miles they would travel across timberland, then the trees would become scarcer and patches of chaparral would make their appearance. gradually the chaparral would claim the land, and would extend for miles—how many he did not know—to the country immediately surrounding the valley of their quest. halfway through this immense stretch of prickly brush reed, the ranger, and his companions had been obliged to discontinue the trip.
“but they always tried it in summer,” said andy. “in summer or spring, when the air is hot and a fellow needs a lot of water. it’s cool now—cold—and we won’t suffer much along that line. we’ll pack every drop of water we can and nurse it religiously.[132] we won’t need much. strikes me a fellow could catch enough dew over night to last him all next day. stretch out a closely woven piece of canvas, maybe. and if it should rain or snow, we’d perhaps be mighty uncomfortable, but we’d be assured of plenty of water.”
“let’s not pray for either,” the girl suggested. “i’d rather chance a drought.”
“for my part,” said shonto, “i almost wish we could go back and give it up entirely. it’s going to be serious if winter overtakes us; and, because of the many delays we’ve been up against, it strikes me that that’s almost sure to happen.”
“can’t give up and go back now, with mary unable to travel,” andy reminded him.
“yes, that’s so,” sighed the older man. “we’re in for it now, and we may as well forge on as to twiddle our thumbs in the cañon while mary’s—er—sprain gets better. but i’ll tell you one thing: i’m never going to consent to leave that woman alone in the gorge, crippled as she is. either you or i, andy, must stay with her. of course charmian must go on, if anybody does; this is her circus. and as you are the expert mountaineer of the party, i have decided to stay with mary. but it’s going to give me grey hairs whether i go or stay. if i go, mary will be constantly on my guilty mind. if i stay with her, i won’t be able to sleep for worrying about you two.”
“shucks, doctor! you’re not like yourself at all here lately,” was andy’s complaint. “you used to be a sport—nothing was too rough for you.”
[133]“i never had a couple of women along with me before,” shonto defended himself. “and i don’t know that i’ve ever before been in quite so precarious a situation, andy. it’s no difficult matter to become food for the coyotes in a country like we’re in.”
all three were a trifle serious now and talked but little. charmian and andy agreed with dr. shonto, however, that it would be ungenerous to leave mary temple alone in this dismal gorge while they continued the adventure. andy had made no offer to stay and allow his friend to go with charmian. his heart was leaping madly at thought of braving the trail into an unknown land with her alone.
mary temple listened without a show of consternation to the story of shirttail henry’s duty-bound flight.
“well,” she observed dispassionately, “we seem destined to lose our support. first the morleys and leach threw us down, and now the good ship marblehead goes on the rocks. he was more or less of a doodunk, anyway.”
“what’s a doodunk?” andy asked.
“a doodunk,” she informed her questioner, “is something that makes a man say damn and a woman think damn. for example, a doodunk is a lumpy place in a mattress. but henry’s going knocks something galley west and crooked.”
“what’s that?” charmian wished to know.
“with henry out of it, who’s going to be the madman that leans over you and chokes you in the valley of arcana?” snapped mary. “i hope you haven’t[134] forgotten that, charmian reemy! you wait! madame destrehan knows—she saw it all!”
mary was not exactly in an amiable mood, but the others broached the subject of some one remaining with her, nevertheless. to their utter surprise, she made reply:
“well, i’ve been thinking that over myself this afternoon. i guess maybe you’re right, at that. charmian must go on—that’s settled. this is her fool party, and the rest of us are just invited guests. so either doctor shonto or andy will have to stay with me, and the other one go on with charmian and get the ridiculous thing over with while my ankle’s getting well.”
“now, neither of you two fellows want to stay with an old battleaxe like me. i know that. just the same, all alone here in this cold, dark cañon this afternoon, i changed my tune. so you’ll draw straws to see which one is elected. and as i’m the innocent party concerned, i’ll hold the straws. suit you?”
her defiant eyes coasted from shonto to the younger man.
“certainly,” both made answer. and andy added, in tones none too strong:
“nothing could be fairer.”
“all right.” mary bent over—with difficulty and pain, the doctor noted—and took up from the ground a box of safety matches. she extracted two, closed the box and dropped it, and turned herself slowly on her rocky throne until her back was toward the expectant[135] gamblers. “got a piece of money, either of you?” she asked.
andy produced a silver coin.
“toss it up,” commanded the arbiter of their fortunes. “heads, the doctor draws first; tails, andy gets first crack. and the one that draws the long match stays with me. what about it?”
“suits me,” both men said; and andy flipped the half-dollar into the air.
“tails,” he announced as the coin rang on the stones. “i draw first.”
mary wheeled slowly back and faced them. she held out one big-veined and skinny hand, above the closed fingers of which two match-heads protruded.
with a swift glance at his rival, andy took a step and stood before her, hesitated a moment, then reached out and pulled a match.
he caught his breath, turned red, and glanced confusedly at charmian.
he had drawn an entire match—the long straw. he was elected to stay with mary temple.
“i don’t care if i did cheat,” mary consoled herself as she sought her bed early that night. “they’ll never guess that neither match was broken. andy had no chance to win—and i wanted it that way.”
but at the same time that she was saying this dr. shonto sat alone over the red coals of the dying campfire. charmian and andy were strolling down the cañon together under the light of the moon, and the girl did not protest when andy’s arm stole round her waist.
