Gard had not been wrong in his reading of the mirage. It was Helen whose presentment that marvel of the desert had set like a bow of promise in the sky. A mood of restlessness had sent the girl forth seeking refuge in the sunlit candor of the plain from the fear that was upon her, of hidden chambers in her own soul, which she shrank from entering.
She was very quiet. From time to time Dickens, the pony, turned to nip playfully first one then the other of her hooded stirrups, inviting her to a frolic. Once, when a parcel of gaunt Indian dogs went vociferating along a stretch of mesa, within sight and hearing, he broke into a sympathetic scamper, Patsy joining him ecstatically. The rise from a walk to a run was sudden and unexpected, but the girl adapted herself to it indifferently, with the instinctive adjustment of perfect horsemanship.
The pony ran gallantly for a little distance, waiting all the while, expectantly, for the thrill of answering pleasure in motion that failed to come along the rein. One inquiring eye rolled back at his mistress, one fine, pointed ear slanted to catch her least word of command, but Helen was far away and he watched and listened in vain for some hint that she realized his coaxing. Dickens could not understand it. He stretched his graceful neck as he ran, still seeking that answering touch of the bit. Helen’s ready hand gave lightly to his thrust, her muscles responding with trained certainty to his every movement, but Dickens wanted her conscious attention. When that was not forthcoming his pace slackened under the retarding weight of her laden spirit. He drooped his head and went half-heartedly, following Patsy, whose vagabond whim had led him from the road.
A feeling of oppression was on the girl. Not even the cleansing touch of the north-west wind, blowing from the far mountains, seemed potent to ease it. Somehow, the desert solitude had grown all at once more complex than ever the busy, active city life had been. The well-loved plain lay all about her as of old, fraught with all its remembered delight, yet imminent with a new mystery. Some message, luring yet baffling, quivered through it. The far blue hills, the golden-roseate sky, the shimmering, wind-stirred air, breathed of life; but the grim waste, yellow, seared, ancient, the scant, spectral trees, the uncouth cacti, warned, rather, to thoughts of death; and something deep within her was subtly aware of another summons still, which her soul half shrank from heeding, half yearned to understand.
She drew rein presently, as she realized that they were off the trail. At the base of a mass of rock Patsy was scratching frantically at a hole in the earth where a burrowing owl had just disappeared. A carrion crow, disturbed in its tentative investigation of something that lay on the ground, rose complainingly and flapped itself darkly away.
Looking about her Helen came to slow realization of the spot. There were the rocks round which she had come that marvelous morning. Here Gard had lain, Patsy just where she and Dickens stood. Yonder slender thread of pearly vertebra that the raven had been turning over was all that was left of the menace that had lifted itself just there that day.
Second by second she went over the scene, seeing again the spell-bound dog, the flat-headed, venomous snake, the prostrate man, with his serene gaze, his dark eyes telegraphing reassurance to her from the heart of his own deadly peril.
“Oh,” she shuddered, feeling again the sense of horror and faintness that had been hers on that morning, “What if no one had come! What if I could not have saved him!”
She buried her face in her hands, shutting out the scene, but she could not shut out the memory of those haunting eyes. She saw them still, but now they were troubled, and eloquent of struggle, as they had seemed while he was saying good-by, that morning at the Palo Verde. The girl had wondered, more than once, over that look, so quickly withdrawn. Now she suddenly understood it through the quick response which, at the memory, leaped from her own heart; and she knew, deep down in those recesses which she had shrunk from looking upon, that she had understood all the time.
The mantling crimson swept her face as she sat there, startled, still keeping her hands up, as though to hide it from her own thoughts. She went over in her mind all those days at the rancho, measuring every look, every gesture, weighing every word of Gard’s that seemed to afford comfort to her shamed heart.
“He went away without a word,” she finally whispered, raising her head. “But I know I can trust him. There was some good reason why he had to go away; but he will come back! Oh, he will come back to me!”
The glory of the skies became all at once part of the brightness that filled her spirit. The girl’s heart was suddenly lifted on mysterious wings into the wider spaces of womanhood. She had heard the message, and was aware.
Yet there was visible as she turned away, but a slender figure in khaki, browned as to cheek and brow, touched to warmth by the desert wind, guiding a dun pony among the rocks and cacti back to the trail.
The dusty thread of its way picked up once more, Helen suddenly awoke to outward things; to the challenge of the north-west wind, and the eager outstretch of the horse she rode. The least imperceptible lift of her bridle arm conveyed to Dickens the welcome news that his mistress answered him. Something of her soul’s exultation thrilled through the pony and set his twinkling feet to dancing, and on the instant they were racing pell-mell across the desert, Patsy, wild with joy, careering beside them.
Helen laughed aloud for sheer delight as they sped forward. She stood in her stirrups and sent Dickens ahead, holding him steady but making no effort to check the wild pace, the wind bearing all care from her brain, all doubt from her heart, as they swept on toward the Palo Verde.
“Well!” Sandy Larch said, coming to take the pony’s rein as Helen swung down beside the corrals, “You sure was goin’ some. I kind o’ thought for a minute Dickens was runnin’ with you.”
“No,” laughed Helen, still breathless and exultant with the excitement of the race, “I was running with Dickens.”
Sandy loosened the cincha and eased the saddle.
“We’ll leave it that a’way till his back cools out,” said he, “You’ve sure warmed him up.”
He turned an approving glance upon the girl as she stood rubbing Dickens’ dun-colored nose.
“You look good Miss Helen,” he said. “I’d begun to be afraid they’d educated all the life an’ brightness out’n you back there to your eastern college. I guess, though, you’ll get over it in time.”
“Get over the education, Sandy?” she suggested, mischievously; she and Sandy had been pals since her babyhood.
“I’d be sorry if I should,” she added. “Think what a loss it would be.”
“Yes,” he assented, gravely, “It sure would. They’s the prices of a right smart o’ good polo ponies gone into polishin’ you off like you be.”
“I was comin’ to think,” he went on, his face awakening genially, “that you was most likely pinin’ for them shiny pursuits more’n you allowed for when you first come back.”
“Not a bit of it, Sandy!” Helen’s tone was emphatic, “I enjoyed every moment at college; but I came back to the desert knowing perfectly well that this is the best place in the world.”
Her hearty tone satisfied even his jealous ears. The girl had stooped to caress Patsy, who lay panting on the sand, his tongue fluttering like a little red signal-flag. Her eyes were bright and happy, her cheeks touched to a brilliant glow by her run with Dickens. Sandy nodded again.
“Yes,” he said, “I guess it ain’t hurt you none.”
“What?” Helen had forgotten what they had been talking about. She looked up absently, still rubbing Patsy’s sides.
“Education,” the foreman said, “I was afraid mebby it had.”
“Nonsense, Sandy, Education doesn’t hurt people.”
“N-o-,” Sandy’s acquiescence was deliberative. “Not people o’ intellectooals, that has savez naturally,” he said, “but the critter that gets it fed to him regular wants to be kind o’ wide between the ears allee samee.”
“Didn’t you enjoy going to school when you were a boy, Sandy?” Helen asked; she loved to draw the cow-puncher out.
“Me?” he questioned, unsuspectingly, “Sure: I’d a liked it first rate if I’d ever a’ went.
“I never did go none till I was growed,” he went on. “Then we started a night-school, back to Michigan, where I was raised. They was a bunch of us set out to see it through, all young fellers that worked the farms day-times. We was plum in love with the idee o’ that night-school.”
“It must have been interesting,” Helen suggested, “You would all have a strong purpose at that age.”
“Sure,” Sandy grew reminiscent. “We went the first night,” he said, “An’ we’d forgot to bring any candles. We went the next night an’ the teacher’d forgot to come.”
He gazed across the plain, lost in memory of those far, fond days. “Then we went the third night,” he resumed, dreamily, “an’ reviewed what we’d learned the two previous evenin’s, and’ I cal’late that finished my schoolin’.”
Helen laughed, tweaking Patsy’s ears, but the foreman regarded her with mild inquiry, unheeding her mirth.
“Now with you it’s different Miss Helen,” he continued, still considering his views on education. “Gettin’ learnin’ ’s all right for you. First place you’re smart.”
“Thank you,” Helen bowed over Patsy.
“You’re sure welcome,” gravely.
“Furthermore,” Sandy proceeded categorically, “You bein’ a girl, you don’t have to get your livin’. A man now, a practical man that’s gotter rustle his grub, don’t wanter pack no extry outfit.”
He turned toward Dickens, who all this time had been standing half asleep, his bridle reins on the ground.
“Dick, he’s gettin’ on, ain’t he,” the foreman said, critically, “but he stands up to it mighty well, yet.”
“Now there’s a case where education’s o’ value,” added Sandy in a tone of pride, “I educated that there horse myself, purpose for you, little gal, an’ they ain’t no question but Dick’s lived up to his light. I’ll have Manuel give ’im a rub-down.”
“Dickens is a treasure,” declared Helen, emphatically. “He’s as good as ever; aren’t you, Dickens?”
She patted the pony’s glossy neck. “Have you found another Manuel already, Sandy,” she queried, “I thought Manuel Gordo had been discharged. Father said he would have to be.”
“Same old Manuel,” was Sandy’s reply. “But he’s kind o’ got some new notions in his headpiece lately, along of our sin-bustin’ friend Mister Gard gettin’ after ’im last time he started onto a spree.”
“Yes?” His hearer was deeply interested in examining Dickens’ sound little knees, and did not look up.
“Why do you call Mr. Gard your sin-busting friend, Sandy?” she asked, still intent upon the pony. Nothing loth, the foreman plunged into an enthusiastic account of his first meeting with Gard. Helen listened, her cheeks still glowing from exercise.
“I never got the rights o’ how he took hold o’ Manuel,” Sandy said, when the story was finished, “Manuel, he ain’t talkin’ none about it; but he started out on one o’ his regular imbibin’ bees, which same the patron’d give out was n’t to be overlooked again, an’ all I know is he comes home all right next mornin’ an’ gets on his job, just as I’m supposin’ it’s me to be rustlin’ another puncher. I’m mighty glad just then, for Manuel’s sure a first-class man on cows. He allows Gard made him come, an’ I know nobody else ever was able to gentle ’im in when he was up against the impulses for a tussle with booze.”
“Gard, he’s got me,” the foreman went on. “He ain’t none o’ your hymn-tune kind Miss Helen; but he ’s a right kind all right; just plain good man; which the same ain’t common now’days.”
Helen, with Patsy beside her, was starting for the casa.
“I guess you’re right Sandy,” she called back, absently, without turning around, and Sandy looked after her with scant approval.
“There you’ve got it,” he muttered discontentedly, to the pony, “Old an’ young they’re all alike, the women, when it comes to sizin’ up a real man. If it ain’t the shine an’ the pretty manners for them, why it’s the high forehead, an’ the big idees. I’m disappointed she don’t see that more clearly, an’ she ridin’ herd on a college education for four years!”
He led Dickens away toward the sheds and turned him over to one of the men.
“I suppose now”—he went on with his meditations—“She’s fooled into thinkin’ that there side-winder of an Ash Westcott’s the real thing. Lord! If the right brand was on him I know what it’d look like!” and the foreman went about his duties with a heavy heart.