It came over him all of a sudden that he had not grasped the stupendous nature of this desert setting. There was the measureless red slope, its lower ridges finally sinking into white sand dunes toward the blue sea. The cold, sparkling light, the white sun, the deep azure of sky, the feeling of boundless expanse all around him--these meant high alt.i.tude. Southward the barren red simply merged into distance. The field of craters rose in high, dark wheels toward the dominating peaks.
When Gale withdrew his gaze from the magnitude of these s.p.a.ces and heights the crater beneath him seemed dwarfed. Yet while he gazed it spread and deepened and multiplied its ragged lines. No, he could not grasp the meaning of size or distance here. There was too much to stun the sight. But the mood in which nature had created this convulsed world of lava seized hold upon him.
Meanwhile the hours pa.s.sed. As the sun climbed the clear, steely lights vanished, the blue hazes deepened, and slowly the glistening surfaces of lava turned redder. Ladd was concerned to discover that Yaqui was missing from his outlook upon the high point. Jim Lash came out of the shady crevice, and stood up to buckle on his cartridge belt.
His narrow, gray glance slowly roved from the height of lava down along the slope, paused in doubt, and then swept on to resurvey the whole vast eastern dip of the plateau.
"I reckon my eyes are pore," he said. "Mebbe it"s this d.a.m.n red glare.
Anyway, what"s them creepin" spots up there?"
"Sh.o.r.e I seen them. Mountain sheep," replied Ladd.
"Guess again, Laddy. d.i.c.k, I reckon you"d better flash the gla.s.s up the slope."
Gale adjusted the field gla.s.s and began to search the lava, beginning close at hand and working away from him. Presently the gla.s.s became stationary.
"I see half a dozen small animals, brown in color. They look like sheep. But I couldn"t distinguish mountain sheep from antelope."
"Sh.o.r.e they"re bighorn," said Laddy.
"I reckon if you"ll pull around to the east an" search under that long wall of lava--there--you"ll see what I see," added Jim.
The gla.s.s climbed and circled, wavered an instant, then fixed steady as a rock. There was a breathless silence.
"Fourteen horses--two packed--some mounted--others without riders, and lame," said Gale, slowly.
Yaqui appeared far up the trail, coming swiftly. Presently he saw the rangers and halted to wave his arms and point. Then he vanished as if the lava had opened beneath him.
"Lemme that gla.s.s," suddenly said Jim Lash. "I"m seein" red, I tell you.... Well, pore as my eyes are they had it right. Rojas an" his outfit have left the trail."
"Jim, you ain"t meanin" they"ve taken to that awful slope?" queried Ladd.
"I sure do. There they are--still comin", but goin" down, too."
"Mebbe Rojas is crazy, but it begins to look like he--"
"Laddy, I"ll be danged if the Greaser bunch hasn"t vamoosed. Gone out of sight! Right there not a half mile away, the whole caboodle--gone!"
"Sh.o.r.e they"re behind a crust or have gone down into a rut," suggested Ladd. "They"ll show again in a minute. Look sharp, boys, for I"m figgerin" Rojas "ll spread his men."
Minutes pa.s.sed, but nothing moved upon the slope. Each man crawled up to a vantage point along the crest of rotting lava. The watchers were careful to peer through little notches or from behind a spur, and the constricted nature of their hiding-place kept them close together.
Ladd"s muttering grew into a growl, then lapsed into the silence that marked his companions. From time to time the rangers looked inquiringly at Gale. The field gla.s.s, however, like the naked sight, could not catch the slightest moving object out there upon the lava. A long hour of slow, mounting suspense wore on.
"Sh.o.r.e it"s all goin" to be as queer as the Yaqui," said Ladd.
Indeed, the strange mien, the silent action, the somber character of the Indian had not been without effect upon the minds of the men. Then the weird, desolate, tragic scene added to the vague sense of mystery.
And now the disappearance of Rojas"s band, the long wait in the silence, the boding certainty of invisible foes crawling, circling closer and closer, lent to the situation a final touch that made it unreal.
"I"m reckonin" there"s a mind behind them Greasers," replied Jim. "Or mebbe we ain"t done Rojas credit... If somethin" would only come off!"
That Lash, the coolest, most provokingly nonchalant of men in times of peril, should begin to show a nervous strain was all the more indicative of a subtle pervading unreality.
"Boys, look sharp!" suddenly called Lash. "Low down to the left--mebbe three hundred yards. See, along by them seams of lava--behind the choyas. First off I thought it was a sheep. But it"s the Yaqui!...
Crawlin" swift as a lizard! Can"t you see him?"
It was a full moment before Jim"s companions could locate the Indian.
Flat as a snake Yaqui wound himself along with incredible rapidity.
His advance was all the more remarkable for the fact that he appeared to pa.s.s directly under the dreaded choyas. Sometimes he paused to lift his head and look. He was directly in line with a huge whorl of lava that rose higher than any point on the slope. This spur was a quarter of a mile from the position of the rangers.
"Sh.o.r.e he"s headin" for that high place," said Ladd. "He"s goin" slow now. There, he"s stopped behind some choyas. He"s gettin" up--no, he"s kneelin".... Now what the h.e.l.l!"
"Laddy, take a peek at the side of that lava ridge," sharply called Jim. "I guess mebbe somethin" ain"t comin" off. See! There"s Rojas an" his outfit climbin". Don"t make out no hosses.... d.i.c.k, use your gla.s.s an" tell us what"s doin". I"ll watch Yaqui an" tell you what his move means."
Clearly and distinctly, almost as if he could have touched them, Gale had Rojas and his followers in sight. They were toiling up the rough lava on foot. They were heavily armed. Spurs, chaps, jackets, scarfs were not in evidence. Gale saw the lean, swarthy faces, the black, straggly hair, the ragged, soiled garments which had once been white.
"They"re almost up now," Gale was saying. "There! They halt on top.
I see Rojas. He looks wild. By ----! fellows, an Indian!... It"s a Papago. Belding"s old herder!... The Indian points--this way--then down. He"s showing Rojas the lay of the trail."
"Boys, Yaqui"s in range of that bunch," said Jim, swiftly. "He"s raisin" his rifle slow--Lord, how slow he is!... He"s covered some one.
Which one I can"t say. But I think he"ll pick Rojas."
"The Yaqui can shoot. He"ll pick Rojas," added Gale, grimly.
"Rojas--yes--yes!" cried Thorne, in pa.s.sion of suspense.
"Not on your life!" Ladd"s voice cut in with scorn. "Gentlemen, you can gamble Yaqui "ll kill the Papago. That traitor Indian knows these sheep haunts. He"s tellin" Rojas--"
A sharp rifle shot rang out.
"Laddy"s right," called Gale. "The Papago"s. .h.i.t--his arm falls--There, he tumbles!"
More shots rang out. Yaqui was seen standing erect firing rapidly at the darting Mexicans. For all Gale could make out no second bullet took effect. Rojas and his men vanished behind the bulge of lava.
Then Yaqui deliberately backed away from his position. He made no effort to run or hide. Evidently he watched cautiously for signs of pursuers in the ruts and behind the choyas. Presently he turned and came straight toward the position of the rangers, sheered off perhaps a hundred paces below it, and disappeared in a crevice. Plainly his intention was to draw pursuers within rifle shot.
"Sh.o.r.e, Jim, you had your wish. Somethin" come off," said Ladd. "An"
I"m sayin" thank G.o.d for the Yaqui! That Papago "d have ruined us.
Even so, mebbe he"s told Rojas more"n enough to make us sweat blood."
"He had a chance to kill Rojas," cried out the drawn-faced, pa.s.sionate Thorne. "He didn"t take it!... He didn"t take it!"
Only Ladd appeared to be able to answer the cavalryman"s poignant cry.
"Listen, son," he said, and his voice rang. "We-all know how you feel.
An" if I"d had that one shot never in the world could I have picked the Papago guide. I"d have had to kill Rojas. That"s the white man of it.
But Yaqui was right. Only an Indian could have done it. You can gamble the Papago alive meant slim chance for us. Because he"d led straight to where Mercedes is hidden, an" then we"d have left cover to fight it out... When you come to think of the Yaqui"s hate for Greasers, when you just seen him pa.s.s up a shot at one--well, I don"t know how to say what I mean, but d.a.m.n me, my som-brer-ro is off to the Indian!"
"I reckon so, an" I reckon the ball"s opened," rejoined Lash, and now that former nervous impatience so unnatural to him was as if it had never been. He was smilingly cool, and his voice had almost a caressing note. He tapped the breech of his Winchester with a sinewy brown hand, and he did not appear to be addressing any one in particular. "Yaqui"s opened the ball. Look up your pardners there, gents, an" get ready to dance."
Another wait set in then, and judging by the more direct rays of the sun and a receding of the little shadows cast by the choyas, Gale was of the opinion that it was a long wait. But it seemed short. The four men were lying under the bank of a half circular hole in the lava. It was notched and cracked, and its rim was fringed by choyas. It sloped down and opened to an un.o.bstructed view of the crater. Gale had the upper position, fartherest to the right, and therefore was best shielded from possible fire from the higher ridges of the rim, some three hundred yards distant. Jim came next, well hidden in a crack.
The positions of Thorne and Ladd were most exposed. They kept sharp lookout over the uneven rampart of their hiding-place.