The Forbidden Trail Part 51

"You are some girl, Charley dear."

"And you are some boy, Roger."

"I? Why Charley, I'm just beginning to realize that I have gone through life with my eyes shut. The man with one idea misses most of life. I went up there with the intention of threatening a lot of savages. I've come away feeling as if I'd met a group of intelligent and kind hearted fellow humans."

"It was wonderful of them, wasn't it!" exclaimed Charley. "I had no idea they felt under obligations, to me. I certainly didn't want them to."

Roger nodded and looked at his watch. "It's only nine o'clock now. If it wasn't so frightfully hot and there were any place to go, I'd say let's continue our spree."

"Just beyond that strip of desert there," Charley pointed into the valley to the east, "there are some wonderful Indian inscriptions on some rocks around a spring. I've never seen them, but I've always wanted to and I know the trail. d.i.c.k has shown it to me."

"Let's try it," said Roger. "Peter, come on, you're getting fat and lazy. I believe it's about ten degrees hotter than usual."

It was an hour's climb down into the valley. It lost its level look on near inspection. In every direction a fine, powderlike sand lay in long undulating ridges. Neither rock nor cactus was to be seen. A faint wind was stirring and tiny eddies of sand rose against the sky.

"You see that peak, due east?" asked Charley. "Well, the spring is just at the foot of that in a little canyon. There's never any trail here at all, the sand drifts so."

"I'm glad we're heading for a spring," exclaimed Roger. "I know I can empty the gallon canteen by myself."

They started ahead, Roger leading, Peter following behind Charley. It was heavy slow walking. After perhaps an hour of it, during which conversation languished more and more, Charley said,

"I don't feel as eager minded as I did about Indian writings, do you?"

"Well," replied Roger, stopping to wipe the sand from his face and to grin at Charley. "I wasn't eager about the hieroglyphics to begin with.

I haven't taken a girl for a walk for years and I thought this was my chance!"

"How is your enthusiasm for that standing up?" chuckled Charley.

Roger cleared his throat. "You see, it's like this--" he began, his eyes twinkling.

Charley interrupted by catching his arm. "Look, Roger! There's a sand storm coming!"

Roger looked up the desert to the north. The familiar gray veil of sand was plainly visible. "Lord!" he exclaimed. "We'd better start back at once."

"No, we're within a mile of the spring, now," said Charley. "We'd better get there as fast as we can. I do hope Gustav and Elsa will be all right. That poor new field of alfalfa!"

"Perhaps it won't be so bad in the other valley. Certainly this sand is going to try its best to suffocate us. Whew, there she comes!" as a cloud of sand enveloped them.

They paused long enough to adjust their bandannas across their faces, then started hurriedly on, Roger holding Charley by the hand and catching Peter's lead rope firmly. In ten minutes the peak toward which they were heading was obscured.

"Shall we stop or press on?" shouted Roger.

"Let Peter lead!" cried Charley. "If he stops, we'll stop."

Peter, shoved ahead of the little procession, did not hesitate. He dropped his head between his knees and moved very slowly, but none the less surely onward. The walking was almost incredibly difficult. The very desert underfoot seemed in motion. New ridges rose before their burning, half blinded eyes. The uproar was that of a hurricane roaring through a forest. Now Roger would stagger to his knees: now Charley. But Peter, lifting and planting his little feet gingerly and exactly, never stumbled. Panting, sweating, Roger after what seemed hours of this going halted Peter with some difficulty and putting his lips close to Charley's ear called, "Having a pleasant walk to the county fair, my dear?"

"Of its kind, it's perfect!" shrieked Charley in return and not to be outdone.

As if thoroughly disgusted by such persiflage, Peter brayed and started on without waiting to be urged. A moment later the footing became firmer and Peter led the way around a rock heap and buried his nose in a tiny pool that seemed thick with sand. Roger sighed with deep relief. He had seen the desert strike too often now to face her ugly moods with full equanimity.

There was no real shelter from the storm here. But it was vastly better than the open desert. They found a hollowed rock facing the spring, just big enough for the two of them to crouch with their backs against it.

Although the sand sifted in on them constantly, they were at least away from the fury of the wind. There was water a-plenty at hand and they could bide their time. Peter established himself with his forefeet in the water, his tail to the storm and appeared to go to sleep.

For a time, Roger and Charley were glad to sit in silence, recovering their breath. But finally Roger stretched his cramped legs with a sigh.

"Charley, I find desert life just a bit strenuous," he said.

Charley wiped her face vigorously with her bandanna and nodded.

"So do I. But I like it. I think I must like the constant fight and the awful beauty. There's nothing else here."

"Have you anything in you but Anglo-Saxon blood?" asked Roger.

"No," replied Charley.

"That accounts for your loving it, I believe. The Anglo-Saxons are the trail makers for civilization. And by Jove, if any two people on earth are making trails it's you and d.i.c.k."

"You're Anglo-Saxon yourself. What is your work but trail making?"

"We aren't all trail makers!" Roger gave a half cynical chuckle. "You know I'm solving the labor question."

"With old Rabbit Tail's gang?"

"Hardly! Yet, by golly, Charley, I don't know but what I'm developing a typical labor situation down here. The Indian gang is working as a favor, you understand, and not from any necessity."

Charley laughed. "If it weren't for you inventors, we all could revert comfortably to Rabbit Tail's philosophy."

"It was to make that philosophy workable that started me inventing. That is, to give every man food and shelter with a minimum of work."

Once fairly launched, Roger gave Charley a rapid picture of the strike and the burning of the factory. When he had finished the two sat long in silence watching the gray veil that roared before them.

At last Charley shook her head. "It's a long trail from the old plow factory to the hieroglyphic spring, Roger."

"A long way," agreed Roger, "and I have no idea whether I'm helping or hindering labor. I only know now that my job is to make deserts bloom.

Let labor go hang!"

Charley did not answer. She sat with her brown hands clasping her khaki knees, her hat pulled low over her eyes. Roger eyed her affectionately.

It occurred to him that since Felicia's death, she had seemed more than ever like a fine intelligent boy. And yet he was honest enough to tell himself that there was infinitely more satisfaction in sitting in a hollowed rock with Charley than with any boy he had ever known.

Suddenly Roger put his long arm across Charley's fine shoulders.

"Charley, you old dear!" he said. "I am mighty fond of you! You're the best man I know."

Charley said nothing for a moment. She reached up to clasp the hand that hung over her shoulder, then she turned to look into Roger's face and there was that in her eyes that held him speechless. There was in them Felicia's innocence and Felicia's eternal query. There was Charley's own sweetness and wistfulness, but back of these were burning depths of which Roger as yet had no understanding but they stirred him so profoundly that he paled beneath his tan.

"I'm glad you're fond of me, Roger. I'm fond of you." Charley's voice was gentle.

Roger's hand tightened on the girl's. "You are very beautiful," he said, a little breathlessly. "Even with your face all dust, and in khaki, you are beautiful."