Читать книгу The Untamed Ben Ide - Zane Grey - Страница 9

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Ben’s restless slumbers were disrupted at dawn by a noisy trampling of boots on the cabin porch. Nevada and Modoc had returned.

“By golly! he’s heah in bed!” declared the former, stalking in.

Sitting up abruptly, Ben surveyed the cowboy with magnificent disfavor.

“I’ve a mind to lick you,” he shouted.

“Now, pard, what’ve I done?” queried Nevada, incredulously.

“You woke me up,” yelled Ben.

“Shore. It’s time. Was you havin’ pleasant dreams?” returned the cowboy, grinning.

“Dreams? No! But I was dead to the world. You tramp in here—wake me up—bring it all back.”

“Huh! Bring what back?” flashed Nevada, stung in an instant.

“The cold hard facts,” moaned Ben. “I’m the unluckiest poor damn miserable beggar on earth. I want to get a horrible drunk, but I can’t—I can’t.”

Nevada’s keen scrutiny lost its edge and something like relief replaced it. For a long moment he gazed down upon Ben.

“Shore you can’t get drunk, you locoed fool,” he declared, shortly. “That’s past for you an’ me. What’d you do in town?”

“Aw—it was bad going in but hell coming back,” groaned Ben.

“Find your mother—well?” asked Nevada.

“Pretty well. Better than I expected. I cheered her up. Oh, Lord, the things I swore to! Nevada, I’ll never be able to live up to them. But I’ll have to!”

“Shore. I savvy. An’ how aboot Hettie?” rejoined the cowboy, eagerly.

“You could have knocked me over with a feather,” declared Ben. “She’s grown that tall. And a good-looker, too. But what struck me most was her cheerfulness and faith. Why, she seemed almost happy to see me.”

“Funny, now, ain’t it?” drawled Nevada. “Wal, did you run into the old man?”

“No, thank goodness.”

“Or anybody else who thinks you’re a low-down hoss thief?”

“No, I was lucky that way. Not even in Hammell. Met Strobel, the sheriff, and I swear I believe he’s my friend.”

“Good! Wal, then, what’s all this hollerin’ aboot? Looks to me you’ve no call to be down in the mouth.”

At that Ben dropped his head in shameful recollection. The momentary glow of hope and satisfaction faded away in a mounting tide of incredible disaster. To awaken to that awful trouble, and find that the night had only augmented it, was more than Ben could bear.

“Ben, I reckon you seen your sweetheart,” declared Nevada, as if enlightenment had come to him.

“Who—what?” stammered Ben, jerking up.

“Your kid sweetheart, as Hettie called her,” drawled Nevada, deliberately. “This young college dame who’s goin’ to be worth a million dollars. The girl them Hammell cowboys call the peach from Tule Lake Ranch.”

“Shut up, or I’ll soak you over the head with a chunk of firewood,” yelled Ben, frantically.

“Lord! you must have it bad!” ejaculated Nevada, shaking. “You’re shore full of gratitude. Say, if you go drivin’ me off, who’s goin’ to handle this heah love affair for you?”

Ben groaned and writhed. “Nevada, it’s terrible to hear you speak out—so—so—cold-blooded—as if—as if——”

“But, pard, you’re up in the air an’ I’ve got it figgered,” declared the cowboy, persuasively. “You did see Ina Blaine? Now confess up.”

“Yes. That’s what ails me,” rejoined Ben, abjectly.

“Aw, she wasn’t changed—stuck up like the rest of them Blaines? Don’t tell me Hettie made a mistake,” implored Nevada.

Ben straightened up suddenly as if goaded to expression of something that it was impossible to place credence in.

“Nevada, I did meet Ina Blaine. Twice, once at Hammell, and last night at home. She greeted me on the main street of Hammell, before her friends and lots of the other people—just as if nothing had happened. . . . Then last night when I was with Hettie in the yard Ina came. We were alone—I don’t know how long. It seems like a dream. But I’m not quite crazy. I remember facts. . . . She was sweet. Oh! she was wonderful! She set me on fire with her faith—her—her—I don’t dare think what. But she’s on my side, just as Hettie said. She’d already had a fight with her father in front of Less Setter, whom she heard call me a horse thief. . . . And, oh, she said so many things. We were interrupted before she’d said all she wanted to. My father came driving in and I had to run. . . . But I felt her hands on my shoulders—I saw her eyes in the moonlight . . . and, Nevada, I may be mad, but I believe Ina cares for me still.”

“Ahuh! An’ you fell in love with her all over again, deeper an’ a million times wuss?”

“That must be it,” whispered Ben, drawing his breath hard.

Nevada reacted to that confession in a manner totally unfamiliar to Ben. After all, Ben did not know this cowboy so very well. Nevada seemed to be accepting a responsibility that entailed grave things only he could vision.

“Get up, you big baby,” he said, coolly, with a light in his eyes not meant for Ben. “You’ve got a fight on our hands. Cut this misery stuff! You can love your girl as she deserves an’ break your heart over her. But that’ll only make you more of a man. The hunch I had grows stronger every day. We’re goin’ to gamble, Ben Ide, with all we’ve got—with love an’ life itself. I know this man Setter. He’s got some deep game, an’ blackin’ your name is part of it. Reckon I’ve a hunch why, too. Setter wouldn’t let anythin’ stand in his way, Ben.”

“Come to remember, Nevada, I’ve worse than that against him,” asserted Ben, darkly.

Nevada leaned over with quick tense action that thrilled Ben.

“Ahuh! An’ what is it?”

“I’m half afraid to tell you.”

“But you can’t hold it back now.”

“Nevada, my sister Hettie confessed that Setter had tried to get too—too familiar with her,” rejoined Ben, gravely.

Instantly Ben felt himself clutched by an iron hand and jerked upright off the bed. Nevada glared at him with eyes of black fire.

“Say, have you got that straight?” he queried, in a voice which cut.

“Sure. Hettie can be depended upon, Nevada. She’s not given to exaggeration. I didn’t ask for any details. She just said he’d tried to get too familiar with her.”

“I’ll kill him!” rasped out Nevada, letting go of Ben so suddenly that he sat back upon the bed.

“I’m pretty sore myself, Nevada, but it doesn’t call for killing. You just cool off. I don’t want you going to jail, even for my sister.”

“Wal, you’ll sing another tune when you know Less Setter as well as I do,” returned Nevada, grimly. “Let’s eat. Then we’ve got lots to figger on, pard, an’ you shore can bet on that.”

Ben found that despite the poignancy of his emotional state he was drawn into the current of Nevada’s keen energy and spirit. Always Ben had been the dominating factor in this partnership; nevertheless, at this turn of their fortunes Nevada took the upper hand.

“All this talk about buying out Sims and his neighbors, catching another string of wild horses, and Lord knows what else, yet you haven’t said a word about what you and Modoc found out,” protested Ben.

“Wal, pard, fact is I don’t want you to fork your fastest hoss an’ leave us heah with all the work,” drawled Nevada.

“You don’t trust me?”

“When a fellar’s in love he ain’t reliable.”

“See here, Nevada, I believe you’re in love, too. With my sister! That’s what has changed you from a lazy, good-humored, don’t-care cowboy to a regular devil with highfaluting hunches.”

Nevada’s face turned a dusky red and he halted at his task of packing to bend a piercing dark gaze on Ben. His lean hand shook as he held it out in a gesture of unconscious appeal.

“An’ suppose I am in love with Hettie?” he asked, with effort.

“Suppose you are! Why, it’s plain as your nose, which is pretty long. What do you mean?”

“Pard, I’m not fit to wipe the dust off Hettie’s little boots. I’m tellin’ you. But meetin’ her has changed me.”

“Nevada, I don’t believe you’ve been so darn bad,” said Ben, frankly. “Anyway, I’d trust Hettie with you. I told her so.”

“You did? My Gawd!” cried Nevada, huskily. “An’ what’d she do?”

“Hettie got as red as a rose,” laughed Ben. “And she said, ‘Why, Ben, I’m only sixteen!’ . . . If you want a hunch from me, Nevada, here it is. My sister likes you pretty well. That’s sure. We Ides are queer. But if we love anybody it’s forever. Of course my father would horsewhip you off the ranch if he caught you hanging round.”

“Reckon that’ll do. I’ll say you’re my kind of a man, Ben Ide. I owe you more’n I can ever pay.”

“We’re square, Nevada.”

“Wal, on that we’ll never agree. But lookin’ things plumb in the face heah we are two ragamuffin hoss-wranglers, outcasts if not outlaws, so all-fired crazy as to love the daughters of the richest an’ hard-headedest ranchers in northern California. Funny, ain’t it—aboot as funny as gettin’ kicked in the gizzard by a mean hoss?”

“Nevada, it’d look funny to other people, especially to guys like Mr. Sewell McAdam. But it’s not funny to us. It’s great and terrible. Maybe it’ll be the saving of us.”

“Ahuh! You’re comin’ around to sense. Cinch that tight, Ben. . . . An’ now enough of this mushy gab. Shake hands on this, Ben. We’ll make good, by Gawd, or die!”

Nevada’s ringing harsh words, his lean working white face, the passionate fire in his eyes, swayed Ben utterly. Their hands met in a grip of iron.

“Now, Ben, we’re shore goin’ to gamble,” said Nevada, his cool easy drawl returning.

“Are we?” queried Ben, ironically, yet with a thrill.

“How many hosses have you got in that river pasture?”

“Forty head. What of it?”

“How much are they worth?”

“I wouldn’t sell them.”

“You shore will. You’ll have to. What’ll they fetch, quick, at Klamath?”

“A hundred dollars a head, maybe more. Any horse dealer could see they’re worth two hundred.”

“Good! I reckoned so, but I wasn’t shore. Now, Ben, how many haid of that bunch can you let go?”

“Not a darn one!” yelled Ben.

“Boy, calm yourself. Listen. This heah card is the first you’re playin’ in the deal for Ina Blaine.”

Something shot like a bolt through Ben, a sensation that was both thrill and pang. Nevada was inexorable and irresistible. He held the mastery here and he knew it.

“All right, Nevada. How many horses do you want?” returned Ben, as if the words were wrung from him.

“Thirty haid. That’ll be three thousand dollars, enough to buy out these three homesteaders an’ to spare. I saw Sims yesterday an’ asked him if he’d sell. He thought I was razzin’ him. He’d almost give that hundred an’ sixty acres away, just to get out. He’s been there three years, an’ this is the sixth dry year. He’s ruined, an’ so are his neighbors. They can’t stick it out. Wal, we’ll not drive any hard deals, Ben. It’s a cinch Less Setter has his eye on them homesteads. He’s buyin’ up for Hart Blaine. They aim to buy for a few hundred. I heard at Hammell that Blaine had bought a dozen ranches heahaboots, ’most for nothin’.”

“Pretty tough on these little ranches, caught at the end of this long drought. I don’t think much of Hart Blaine.”

“Wal, Blaine has lost his haid. He was always poor. Then he got rich quick. Like a drunken cowboy with money! An’ don’t overlook that he’s fallen under the influence of Less Setter.”

“Heigho! it’s a great world,” sighed Ben. “Let’s get this horse deal over quick, unless you want to kill me. Thirty of my last and best horses! That leaves me ten. Ten! I wonder what ones I’ll keep.”

“Wal, let me pick out ten for you,” suggested Nevada, grinning.

“I should say not. Let’s see. Gray and Knockeye, of course, Juniper, Brushy, Modoc Black, Gander. That’s my six favorites. I’d starve to death before I’d part with them. Now to choose between Sandy and Bess, Simple Simon and Blue Boy——”

“Aw, say, Ben, you’re not hesitatin’ aboot Sandy, are you? I love that hoss. Shore you never gave him to me, but——”

“For Heaven’s sake, take Sandy now. He’s yours,” burst out Ben, wildly, stamping up and down the little cabin room. “You see for yourself how hard it is.”

“Shore it’s hard, Ben. But you mustn’t be silly. Keep the hosses you love best. So will I. That’ll be aboot a dozen haid in all. An’ that’s plenty. We’ve got to ketch another string, an’ say, if we happen—excuse me, pard—when we happen to ketch California Red, are you goin’ to get stuck on him an’ keep him?”

“I’ll never keep him. I’ll give him to Ina secretly, then sell him to her dad. That’d tickle her, I’ll bet. Oh, she’s a thoroughbred.”

“Ahuh! I’m shore anxious to get a look at that girl. . . . Wal, let’s throw these packs on a hoss an’ rustle out to the pasture an’ get the dirty deed done.”

Modoc, the Indian, had been standing outside with two pack animals. When these were ready he led them away toward the barn while Ben and Nevada mounted their horses and rode at brisk trot along the river trail to the pasture.

Ben had fenced about one hundred acres of his land, a long strip five acres deep bordering the river. It was a piece of lowland, covered with sage and grass, and near the edge of the water still fertile enough to take care of his horses.

Never had Forlorn River so deserved its name as now. It appeared to be a pale, discolored, stagnant lane of water, covered with green scum and bordered by sun-dried rushes, winding away between the gray sage hills. Every day the water lowered an inch or two.

“Dryin’ up,” said Nevada. “Another month like this an’ the river above heah will be a mudhole. Ben, it shore was lucky when you found that spring heah.”

Nevada pointed down the bank to a green spot and a little willow-shaded cove that cut somewhat into the bank. Here at the lowest stage of water ever known in the country a spring of cold running water, remarkable in volume considering the six dry years, had been discovered. Not even an Indian had ever suspected its presence, because heretofore it had been covered by the river. It belonged to Ben and was indeed a priceless possession. If both lake and river dried up he would still have that spring. Both Ben and Nevada believed the water came from the high back range to the south. They knew every foot of that country, and it was waterless. Here then must be the outlet of water stored in the mountains.

“Pard, that’s why we can afford to gamble,” asserted Nevada. “That gurglin’ little spring hole is a gold mine.”

“Nevada, guess our luck has turned,” replied Ben, soberly. “I swear I forgot about this spring.”

“Ahuh! Now, Ben, I’ll cut out these hosses. You ride on down an’ open the pasture gate. I’ll leave your favorites an’ a couple of mine.”

Ben did as he was bidden, reconciled now and strangely glad the die had been cast. Indecision, love of horses, had always kept him from concluding profitable deals. Here was an end to his vacillation. He dared not think openly of Nevada’s curt statement that the deal was the first for Ina Blaine, yet Ben could not deceive himself. The romance of it was at the back of his mind, like a muffled song, barely distinguishable. He gazed around him, with dreamy eyes of vision, at the dry waste of sage and the lonely little river, at the majestic round hills, almost yellow in the sunlight. There would always be beauty and solitude here, even in that mythical future when this wild country was settled by prosperous ranchers. Ben had a doubt that was father to his hope. It was a desert and sage country with one wandering little river to supply nourishment.

Ben assisted Nevada to drive a string of spirited horses across the gray barren, between the sage slopes, to a wide basin called Mule Deer Flat. In fertile seasons this was a beautiful and wonderful country. After six years of drought, however, it was a dusty sordid bowl with a yellow water hole in the center and gradual slopes of scant sage and grazed-off grass. A few gaunt cattle stood here and there. Bleached bones and dried carcasses were not wanting in that scene of a rancher’s failure.

The three homesteads Nevada and Ben intended to purchase comprised the whole basin and part of the higher slopes. Ben had not passed by there for a year. What a deplorable change! This lake region was one of the finest bits of ranching ground in all the country. But the lake was surface water, from snow and rain, and as there had been practically no precipitation for six years it was all gone except a patch of yellow filthy water that would soon kill any stock which drank it.

Ben and Nevada drove their horses into the pole-fenced corral and went on to the little log cabin, where Modoc had stopped with the pack horses. Sims lived there. He was a fine specimen of cowboy turned rancher, a lean rangy fellow, clear-eyed and bronze-faced. He looked worn, and his person and surroundings had the appearance of hard times.

“Get down an’ come in,” was his cordial greeting. “Whar you goin’ with all thet fine stock? Say, how on earth do you keep them hosses alive?”

“Nevada, let me do the talking,” said Ben, as Nevada assumed a very important air. “Sims, we’re here to buy you out. Do you and your partners want to sell?”

“Man alive! Do we?” ejaculated the rancher. “Ide, we come in hyar on a shoestring, an’ if we’d had rain we’d made a success of it. But this terrible drought has ruined us. I’m tellin’ you thet these three homesteads are the poorest buys in northern California. Moore’s place is as bad as this, an’ Nagel’s is burned black.”

“Will these fellows sell?”

“They’d break their necks takin’ what they could get,” replied Sims, abruptly.

“All right. What do you want?”

“But, Ide, you ain’t really serious, are you?”

“Yes, Nevada and I are going to gamble,” said Ben, frankly.

“I wish I could afford to. But I’m stone broke an’ no credit. Our mistake in the first place was homesteadin’ hyar without allowin’ for dry seasons. We knew Mule Lake was surface water. A big reservoir would have saved us. An’ there’s a canyon on Moore’s land where a good cement dam would have done the trick. It’d take money.”

“Shore we’ll build the dam,” interposed Nevada, complacently.

“What’s the lowest you’ll take?” demanded Ben.

“Wal—would, say—eight hundred dollars be too much?” hesitatingly returned Sims.

“It’s too little,” replied Ben. “I’ll make it a thousand. Get Moore and Nagel over here pronto. I’ve thirty head of fine horses out there in your corral. You can sell them to-morrow at Klamath for a hundred dollars each. And if you hang on to them a little you can get two hundred. What do you say?”

“By jiminy! I take you up,” shouted Sims, “an’ I’ll say you are a good fellar, Ben Ide.”

The deal went through, Sims’s partners proving as eager as he, if not more so; and by midday Ben had the satisfaction of seeing them ready to drive off toward Klamath Falls.

It struck him that Sims acted a little queer, now jubilant, and again preoccupied. He had something on his mind. Finally Moore arrived in a spring wagon with his family.

“Wal, look at that ragged little outfit,” declared Nevada, with sympathy. “Moore’s woman is cryin’ for very joy. Ben, you done her a good turn.”

At the last, when the horses were out of the corral, headed north, Sims called Ben aside and leaned down from his saddle.

“Ide, soon as I sell my share an’ fix up papers for you I’m headin’ for the wheat country on the Big Bend, in Washington,” he said, low-voiced. “Will you keep it under your hat?”

“Why, sure!” replied Ben, feeling a surprise, more at Sims’s manner than at his disclosure.

“You’re goin’ strong for cattle hyar?” he went on.

“Yes, some day.”

“I want to be square with you. Moore’s wife is my sister. She was dyin’ hyar. An’ I reckon you’ve saved my bacon. Now if I put you wise to somethin’ will you give me your word never to tell?”

Ben extended his hand and Sims wrung it. He was pale, tense, and his eyes glinted.

“I had to throw in with this cattle-thievin’ outfit thet hides in the mountains back of Silver Meadow. It was thet or starve. Wal, this outfit has a big cattleman backin’ it. Some one you’d never suspect. I had no use for them fellars an’ I was suspicious. So I spied on them. Now my hunch to you is this. Don’t throw in with anybody. Don’t trust any of these big dealers or ranchers. Don’t put any cattle in hyar till the thieves quit. An’ do a little spyin’ round on your own hook.”

With that Sims spurred his horse and galloped away across the dusty flat, leaving Ben standing there dumfounded. Nevada strolled up from somewhere.

“What the devil was Sims tellin’ you?” he inquired, casually, yet his keen glance scrutinized Ben.

“Nevada, I’m not at liberty to say, but it was a hell of a lot,” replied Ben, drawing his breath hard.

“Ahuh! Wal, pard, Modoc an’ I could tell you somethin’ aboot why these homesteaders was so darned glad to sell out an’ shake the dust of Tule Lake.”

“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody good,” rejoined Ben.

“Shore. An’ their loss is our gain. We’ve fallen into four hundred eighty acres of the best land in this country. But, Ben, my boy rancher, we’ll let it lay fallow for a while. Savvy?”

“You’re a cute son-of-a-gun,” retorted Ben, regarding his friend with admiration, not guessing how much Nevada knew!

“Wal, if I do say it myself I reckon I’m a pretty good pard to tie to,” said Nevada, complacently.

“Best in the world,” returned Ben, eloquently. Then he added, quizzically: “That is, the best man pard.”

“You darned fickle wild-goose chasin’ Forlorn River hermit!” ejaculated Nevada, with infinite disgust. “No woman, not even Hettie, could ever make me say that.”

“Nevada, I’ll bet Hettie could make you do anything. But we’re getting mushy again. Couple of fine industrious cowmen we’ll be, unless——”

“Ben, the cattle business is a side bet with us. We’re goin’ to ketch, breed, raise an’ sell hosses. Let’s ride over this four eighty of ours an’ see what we’re up against. Then to-morrow we’ll ride over to the lava beds and ice caves.”

Ben gave Nevada a quick interrogating look. “Holding out on me, hey?” he flashed.

“Wal, not exactly,” drawled the cowboy. “I seen your haid was full of Ina Blaine. An’ I shore didn’t want to see that sweet little girl forgot all in a minnit.”

“Nevada, I’ll biff you one right on your long jaw,” declared Ben, half in earnest.

“In that case, then I’ll have to elucidate. Day before yesterday Modoc spotted a big band of wild hosses. He was on the mountain yonder an’ saw the hosses down in the valley, makin’ straight for the ice caves.”

“By thunder!” shouted Ben, in an instant all excitement. “What we’ve laid low for all these dry years!”

“You bet. Water all gone on this range. Them wild hosses are sick of drinkin’ out of this mudhole. An’ Forlorn River about your spring is growin’ green an’ bitter. There’s cold clear water down in them ice caves. Modoc tells how his people used to trap hosses there. An’ as you say, we’ve been layin’ low for the chance.”

“Of all the luck! You knew this when you jumped on me with both spurs—driving me to sell my horses?”

“Shore. I just wanted to see how much of a sport you was.”

“Did Modoc see California Red?” asked Ben, eagerly.

“No, but I shore did,” replied Nevada, quickening to the excitement of his friend. “I was ridin’ north six or eight miles above heah, lookin’ for tracks. I climbed pretty high, an’ swingin’ round a curve I run plumb into Red. He had a small bunch with him, mostly mares. They were travelin’ north. Say, when he seen me! Whoopee! Talk aboot your red streak. Closest I ever was to him. I watched him out of sight. An’ I’m shore he was makin’ for that high black range.”

“Good! Out of the way for this summer,” exclaimed Ben, with gratification. “That leaves us time to work. We’ll catch Red when the snow drives him down out of the hills.”

“Ben, you’re gettin’ real human sense. I declare fallin’ in love all over again. . . . Hold on! Ouch!——I’ll take it back.”

“You’d better. Come on, now. Let’s ride this four eighty, as you call it.”

It required no great acumen for Ben to realize that they had secured a remarkable bargain in the homesteads. There were fully three hundred acres of level land, a gray loam very productive under normal rainfall. This did not include the area of Mule Deer Lake, which was now a ghastly yellow basin, with a small circle of muddy water left in the center. The mouth of Moore’s canyon proved an ideal site for a dam. A wall thirty feet high and two hundred in length would dam up a lake of large dimensions, storing water enough for years. Irrigation in that warm protected bowl would make it a paradise. What an oversight on the part of these homesteaders! Ben and Nevada were highly elated and talked like boys and planned like ranchers with means. Yet the evidence was there to see. Ben realized he had bought a magnificent ranch for a bunch of horses. What would his father say to that? What would Ina Blaine think when some day she saw this sage-sloped valley green and verdant? Ben’s heart beat with unwonted vigor. His luck had turned. He was on the track of something that would surprise those hard-fisted grasping ranchers back at Tule Lake. But he reflected he would never abandon his homestead on Forlorn River.

Toward sunset of the following day Ben and Nevada, with Modoc behind driving the pack animals, were approaching the wild region known as the lava beds. Miles of sage flat led to the forest of pine that rose in undulating steps to the bare gray cinder slope and black lava ridge and dome of the mountain. In the foreground the pine trees showed faintly yellow, gradually losing that hue for a healthy green.

At the edge of the forest Ben called a halt to make dry camp. One out of every three pine trees appeared to be dying. The pine-needle foliage was sear and yellow. Six years of drought had doomed many of these noble trees. The forest was extremely dry and almost suffocatingly odorous.

During the day the men had crossed the track of the band of wild horses; and while busy with the camp duties, and after supper round the fire, their sole topic of conversation related to the chase. Next morning they were on their way before sunrise, slowly climbing and working somewhat to the west.

When the sun rose to blaze into the open forest Ben thought he had never seen so beautiful, so dry, and so dead a place. Not a sound, not a living creature! The trees were yellow pines, large, stately, and widely separated. A thin bleached white grass stood above the strange volcanic soil. It was no less than gray granulated pumice stone, soft and springy, so light that clouds of white dust puffed up from every step of horse. The travel was therefore slow and tedious. Under the pines, where a mat of brown needles covered this treacherous ground, the travel was easier. On all sides there was a rain of dead pine needles falling from the starved trees, sifting, floating, glinting down in a weird silence.

Modoc, who took the lead, kept to the base of the gray slope, now working westward. Through openings in the forest a red cinder mountain stood up against the blue sky. It had a fringe of pines. The fine dust that puffed up from under the hoofs of the horses was hard on both man and beast. It clogged the nostrils. It choked. It had a smarting, constricting power, like that of alkali.

As the hunters progressed, getting higher all the time, the characteristics peculiar to this lava-bed country appeared to be magnified in every detail. The pine trees grew immense; the gray ridges of pumice sloped up, too steep for a horse to climb without effort; out of this strange medium the pines sprang; and the brown of trunks, the green and red of foliage, against that soft pearly gray background, was strikingly beautiful.

Toward noon Modoc worked down a little, coming to the parklike slope of a great canyon, across which loomed the steep red cinder cone. Here there began to be manifested harsher evidences of the volcanic power that had dominated the region in ages past. Outcroppings of bronze and black lava showed here and there under the pines. These increased in size and number, and presently it was noticeable that a thin layer of pumice covered a tremendous stratum of lava.

At length Ben reached a point where he could see down out of the forest to a vast belt of lava beds below. Miles and miles of ghastly ragged lava rolled away toward the gray expanse of sage. In color it was blue, black, red, like rusty iron, seamed and fissured, caked and broken, a rough file-surfaced place over which travel was almost impossible.

Modoc soon led into the region of the ice caves. Huge holes gaped abruptly; black vacant apertures stared from under ledges; windows of mysterious depths showed right out of the gray pumice. Each and every cavern was a blow-hole that had formed in the cooling lava. It was an uncanny region where riding a horse did not feel safe. Some of the holes were fifty feet deep and twice as long, black and jagged-walled, brush-filled, with the dark doors of caves somewhere at the bottom. Every one of them led into a cave. And down in these caves there was always supposed to be ice, from which cold crystal water flowed.

As to this latter fact, however, it transpired that Modoc had his doubts. He dismounted beside several holes and laboriously descended to seek water. At last he found one. But the water was not accessible for a horse, and must be drawn up with rope and bucket. Here camp was pitched. Modoc slipped away on foot to see if he could locate the wild horses. Along this canyon slope the bleached grass grew in sufficient quantity to furnish feed. Ben could not help but believe a lucky star was rising for him. Upon Modoc’s return he was sure. The Indian wore a smile.

“Good—most dry time—ever see,” he panted. “Find old Modoc cave—trail—water. . . . We make trap—catch plenty horse.”