Читать книгу The Mine with the Iron Door - Harold Bell Wright - Страница 8

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Night skies are kind to those who love the stars; to others they are heavy with brooding fears.

THE man who was following the old road up the Cañon of Gold had made his way a mile or more from the point where he was last seen by the Indian, when the deepening twilight warned him of the nearness of the night. It was evident, from the pedestrian’s irresolute movements and from his manner of nervous doubt in selecting a spot for his camp, that not only was he a stranger in the Cañada del Oro, but as well that he was unaccustomed to such surroundings.

He was a young man of about twenty-two or twenty-three years—tall, but rather slender, with a face habitually clean shaven but covered, just now, with a stubby beard of several days’ growth. His skin, where it was exposed, was sunburned rather than tanned that deep color so marked in the out-of-doors men of the West. On the whole, he gave the impression, somehow, of one but recently recovered from a serious illness; and yet he did not appear overfatigued, though the pack which he carried was not light and he had evidently been many hours on the road. In spite of his rude dress and unkempt appearance due to his mode of traveling there was, in his bearing, the unmistakable air of a man of business. But he was that type of business man that knows something more than the daily grind of money-making machines. His world, apparently, was not wholly a world of factories and banks and institutions of commerce.

Forced, at last, by the approaching darkness, to decide upon some place to spend the night, the traveler selected a spot beside the cañon creek, a hundred yards from the road. But even after he had lowered his heavy pack to the ground, he stood for some minutes looking anxiously about, as if still uncertain as to the wisdom of his selection.

Nor was the man’s manner wholly that of inexperience. Suddenly, without thought of his evening meal, or any preparation for his comfort until the morning, he climbed again up the steep bank to the road, where he gazed back along the way he had come and studied the mountain sides with eyes of dread. The man was in an agony of fear. Not until it was too dark to distinguish objects at any distance did he return to the place where he had left his pack and set about the necessary work of preparing his supper and making his bed.

Hurriedly, as best he could in the failing light, he gathered a supply of wood and, after several awkward failures, succeeded in kindling a fire. From his pack he took a small frying pan, a coffeepot, a tin cup, and a meager supply of food. With these, and with water from the creek, he made shift to prepare an unaccustomed meal. Several times he paused, to stand gazing into the fire as if lost in thought. Again and again he turned his head quickly to listen. Often with a shuddering start he whirled to search the darkness beyond the flickering shadows, as if in fear of what the light of his fire might bring upon him. When he had eaten his poorly prepared supper, he spread his blankets and lay down.

There was something pitiful in the trivial and puny details of this lone stranger’s camp in the wild Cañada del Oro. There was something sinister in the night life that crept and crawled in the darkness about him. There was something pathetic in the man’s lying down to sleep, unprotected, amid such surroundings.

The mountains are very friendly to those who know them; to those who know them not, they are grim and dreadful—when the day is gone. Night skies are kind to those who love the stars; to others they are heavy with brooding fears. The timid life of the wild places is good company for those who know each voice and sound; to others every movement is a menace, every call a voice of danger—when the sun is down.

Cowering in his blankets the man listened for a while to the strange and fearful things that stirred in the near-by bushes, on the rocky ledges, and on the mountain sides above. He heard the cañon voices whispering, murmuring, moaning. The night deepened. The boisterous song of the creek became a sullen growl. The mountain walls seemed to close in. The stars above the peaks and ridges were lonely and far away. The camp fire, so tiny in the gloom, burned low.

The sleeping man groaned and stirred uneasily as if in pain, and a fox that had crept too close slipped away in startled flight. The man cried out in his sleep, and a coyote that was following the scent of the camp up the wind turned aside to slink into the thicket of mesquite. The man awoke and springing to his feet stood as if at bay, and a buck that was feeding not far away lifted his antlered head to listen with wary alertness. From somewhere on the heights came the cry of a mountain lion, and at the sound the night was suddenly as still as death. The man shuddered and quickly threw more wood on the dying fire. Again he lay down to cower in his blankets—to sleep restlessly—and to dream his troubled dreams.

In the first faint light of the morning, a dark form might have been seen moving stealthily down the mountain above the stranger’s camp. The buck, with a snort of fear, leaped away, crashing through the brush. The prowling coyote fled down the cañon. On every side the wild creatures of the night slunk into the dense covers of manzanita and buckthorn and cat-claw.

Silently, as the gray shadows through which he crept, Natachee the Indian drew near the place where the white man lay. From behind a near-by bush the Indian observed every detail of the camp. When the form wrapped in the blanket did not stir, the Indian stole from his sheltering screen and with soft-footed, noiseless movements, inspected the stranger’s outfit. He even bent over the sleeping man to see his face. The man moved—tossing an arm and muttering. Swift as a fox the Indian slipped away; silent as a ghost he disappeared among the bushes.

The gray of the morning sky changed to saffron and rose and flaming red. The shadowy trees and bushes assumed definite shapes. The detail of the rocks emerged from the gloom. The man awoke.

He had just finished breakfast when he heard the sound of horse’s hoofs on the road. With a startled cry he leaped to his feet. The Lizard was riding toward him.

Like a hunted creature the man drew back, half crouching, as if to escape. But it was too late. Pale and trembling he stood waiting as the horseman drew up beside the road, on the bank above the creek, and sat looking down upon him and his camp.