21 On the Hot Sand

They marched two more days through said and cactus, but were not troubled again by the mysterious pursuers, and their supplies of water sank rather lower than the Professor liked.

“There is plenty for the four of us who are human beings,” he said, “but eight horses and mules require a great deal of water. We would not want to abandon the animals under any circumstances, and certainly we cannot dream of it, now that they alone can take our gold to civilization.”

“Camels could take us across the desert without water, I suppose,” said Herbert. “I’ve heard that they can go eight or ten days without a drink. Now if we only had some camels! Why have they never been introduced in the southwest, Professor?”

“It may be because our genuine desert area is too small, and that consequently they have not received the attention necessary in breeding,” replied the Professor. “We have no really great deserts on the scale of those of Africa, Asia and Australia. It may be, too, that our cold winter climate does not suit them. The camel has been transplanted to Australia, and has improved there. Already the Australian camel is superior to his Asiatic and African brethren. Before our great Civil War Jefferson Davis, then Secretary of War, imported a herd of camels, and sent them into the southwest for the use of the army on the desert. But they were not a success, and they were turned loose to roam as they pleased.”

“What became of them?” asked Herbert with much interest.

“Members of the herd were seen now and then for a long time afterward, but I don’t suppose they had a fair chance. They offered too tempting a bait for hunters, and most of the camels were shot by them. A few descendants may be roaming yet about the foothills. There are stories now and then that one is seen, but I cannot vouch for their truth.”

“I think the stories are true,” said Herbert, always anxious to believe in the romantic and remarkable.

But the conversation ceased there. It was too hot, and they were too tired and dusty to waste energy in talk.

“Our deserts may not be as big as them that deface the maps o’ Afriky, Asia an’ Australier,” said Jedediah Simpson, “but they’re big enough to hold a heap o’ onpleasantness. See that vulture flyin’ aroun’ up thar. He thinks I’m to be his in the course o’ time, an’ he worries me.”

“He won’t get you, Jedediah,” said the Professor, comfortingly. “I can’t spare you; I’ll need you for a long time yet.”

“I hope so,” said Jed, and then he added with energy:

“Now, what under the sun is that?”

He pointed to a distant sand hill where two dark figure’s could be seen against the horizon.

“It may be one o’ them mirages,” he said, “or may be I’m just seein’ one o’ them grains o’ sand which are so thick in my eye, but anyway it’s mighty cur’ous an’ in-terestin’.”

The Professor’s glance followed Jed’s long pointing finger, and instantly his little figure became taut with excitement.

“Animals!” he exclaimed, “and large ones. They can’t be buffalo, because the buffalo is extinct save for the few in the mountains. The elk and deer do not roam on these sand plains, and they are too big for antelope. Having eliminated all these possibilities only one conclusion is left, and I must prove that to be true. Jed, my field glasses at once!”

Jed promptly brought the powerful glasses and the Professor took a long look through them. Then he leaped up and down in his joy.

“It is true! It is true!” he exclaimed. “They are camels, a pair of them, descendants, perhaps the sole surviving descendants of the herd that Jefferson Davis imported. What a lucky discovery, a fact that I must report to our geographical and faunal societies. I can see them distinctly, hoofs, body, head, tail and all, evidently a male and female. So, survivors do exist down here after all. What a stir this will create among the learned men when I get back to civilization. But I must have trustworthy witnesses. Here, Charles, take the glasses and look!”

Charles distinctly saw the camels. It was not possible to mistake such shapes as theirs, which those of no other beasts resemble. They stood there, motionless, side by side, apparently looking out over the desert sands. Charles wondered if they felt themselves the last of a lost race, or if, by some dim intuition, they knew that their brethren swarmed on other continents beyond their reach.

Herbert and Jed also took long looks, and the three witnesses were ready for the Professor, should any presumptuous learned body ever choose to dispute his word.

“I wish I had time to follow them up, and perhaps to lasso one,” said the Professor, “I might discover a number of vastly interesting details, such as the effect of a new climate and region upon the camel. Now, I wonder if an important variation from the original type could have occurred here. But we must go on. This troublesome gold claims our attention.”

“Yes, we must get our Spanish gold safe to civilization,” said Charles.

“Spanish gold it may have been once,” said Professor Longworth, “but a better name for it now is Apache gold. It is the Apaches that we have had to fight for it, and if the Apaches had not caused you two boys to flee into the canyon, and then up to the cliff village it probably never would have been found.”

“That’s right. Apache gold it is and Apache gold it shall be,” said the other three in unison.

And so they always spoke of it as Apache gold, despite what came after.

The Professor sighing deeply after another look at the camels gave the word to resume the advance, and they marched on through the deep sand. But everyone looked back and the camels still stood motionless on the sand hills, until they passed out of sight under the horizon.

It was late afternoon now, and it seemed to the two boys that it was hotter than ever. The sun, apparently, was only a mile or two away and it was bent upon burning them up. Puffs of wind arose and the whirling “dust devils” trod the plain, a swift procession. The sand, when it was blown in their faces, scorched like coals. The boys looked longingly at the water bags. The animals neighed and became uneasy.

The Professor, walking now, marched at the head and, as the afternoon waned and they came into rougher country, a look of relief appeared in the shrewd eyes behind the great glasses. Here were hills rather high, but like all the rest of that country bare and hideous.

“It will be three hours or more until darkness,” said Professor Longworth, “but we will stop here and renew our supplies of fresh water.”

“Renew our water!” exclaimed Charles. “Why, there cannot be any within at least twenty miles of us.”

“I don’t believe thar’s any within a million,” said Jed.

“As I said, we’ll stop here and renew our supplies of fresh water,” said the Professor quietly. “It is not a hundred yards away and there is plenty of it. Will all of you help me to take the packs off the animals as quickly as possible? They’ve had a long, hot march, and they need rest.”

The Professor spoke with decision, and they did not think of questioning his statement any further. The packs, including the bags of gold, were removed and several of the animals neighed with relief. At the Professor’s order a shovel and two spades were taken from the packs.

“Now follow me,” he said.

He led them between two of the bare hills into a little valley or dip, which was as dry and bare as the hills.

“Now dig, Jed,” he said, pointing to the center of the dip.

Jed, without a word, dug—his faith in the Professor was sublime—and the two boys helped with all their power. They threw up sand and dirt very fast, forming a conical pit, so the walls would not fall in on them, and when they had gone about ten feet Charles suddenly felt his feet grow wet.

“Why, there is water here!” he exclaimed.

“Certainly,” replied Professor Longworth. “What else did you suppose we were digging for?”

They threw out dirt and sand for four or five minutes more, and then the water, fairly cool, ran in quite freely. The diggers ceased their labors and climbed out, Jed murmuring on the way:

“He is shorely the greatest man in the world. Thar can’t be a doubt o’ it. He looks down at the san’, an’ the livin’ water comes up at his call.”

“It is perfectly simple,” said Professor Longworth. “Science accounts for everything. Man does not create something out of nothing. He merely discovers something that has existed always, and now and then by uniting several of these somethings he creates a new effect or at least one that he had not observed before. All our inventions are really discoveries. This matter of the water, however useful it may be to us, was a mere trifle in observation. All desert countries contain much water, though it may lie underground. Having that initial knowledge the question is how to reach it. That also is simple. I had observed that we were proceeding into a low part of the plain, despite the presence of hills. This dip seemed to me to be the lowest spot in all the country about, and naturally it would be a focus for underground water. As soon as we dug down far enough it began to soak and seep in in abundance. It is mere child’s play, provided you have the tools with which to dig. Many a man has died of thirst, when he could have easily reached water in an hour.”

“We certainly do live and learn,” said Charles.

“Learn,” said the Professor with emphasis. “Why the wisest of men are but in the infancy of knowledge. Ah, if I could only get a glimpse of the things that men will know ten thousand years from now!”

They filled their camp kettles, and gave the horses and mules an abundance. Then they replenished their own supply, and stayed by the “soak” until morning. But they resumed the march at earliest dawn, greatly refreshed and strengthened. Three at least had renewed confidence, knowing now that if one could not find water on the desert he might find it beneath it.

Their journey that day led into country not quite so bad. The giant cactus was abundant, and now and then they passed one or two little marshy pools, with a spear or two of grass growing about the margins. But the water was invariably alkaline, too bitter for the taste, and Jedediah Simpson expressed great disgust.

“’Pears to me,” he said, “that the right place for salt water is right in the middle o’ the ocean. Thar’s enough out thar to last the whole world always, without sprinklin’ a lot o’ it ’round on the land, whar it ain’t needed an’ whar fresh water is needed.”

Late in the afternoon they camped for the night by a sand hill, and Herbert strolled forward a little to explore. He passed around the sand hill, leaving his comrades and the animals out of sight and then, in the first faint shades of the twilight, he saw a beautiful lake surrounded by green grass and green trees, the clearest and most silvery water and the greenest grass and trees that he had ever seen, the most welcome of all sights to eyes seared with days of hot sand.

Herbert knew very well that it was a mirage, but it pleased him to look at this mystic creation as long as it would endure. Only about three minutes were allowed him, and then it floated away. There were the sand and cactus again, and, in addition, a marsh that sent forth a misty exhalation.

Herbert wondered if this marsh might not be an exception to the others, and contain fresh water instead of salt. Inspired by such a hope he walked rapidly toward it, but it proved to be further away than he had expected. It was almost a quarter of a mile across the sand before he reached the edge of the marsh and then, when he stepped forward, his feet sank suddenly. He started to turn back but his feet went down deeper.

It was not until he had made two or three efforts to leave this dismal place that looked like a marsh that Herbert realized what had happened to him. He was imbedded in a quicksand, and the more he struggled the deeper he sank. Even then fear did not strike him until he had gone far beyond his knees. But when fear did come it turned his heart as cold as ice. The twilight was spreading over the lonely world. A blood red streak in the west marked where the sun was setting. The east was already in darkness and the desolate night wind was beginning to moan. His comrades were hidden from him by the hill and the terrible sand was pulling at his legs like some subterranean monster that wished to devour him whole.

Herbert had good lungs, but at first he had been so nearly paralyzed by the suddenness and imminence of his danger that he forgot the use of his tongue. When the memory of it returned to him he shouted as few boys have ever shouted. He tried the white man’s shout and then the long whining Indian cry, uncertain which would carry the further. No response came to either.

He was now down almost to the hips, and he felt as if he were held in a vise. The last strip of blood red sun was gone, and darkness was sweeping fast from east to west. He must die there in the night and alone by the most horrible of deaths. An icy perspiration broke out all over him. Then raising his voice, in one last despairing effort, he uttered a tremendous, piercing cry.

In the twilight he dimly saw a figure appear on the sand hill, and hope fluttered, but it was gone in an instant, and then hope was still. Some one of his comrades had heard vaguely, but, believing it a mere echo, had turned back.

The boy could not keep down a great groan, and then hope that had seemed dead forever fluttered once more. The dim figure reappeared upon the hill and ran rapidly toward him. Herbert began to shout again, and never ceased shouting. The figure came on swiftly, running with extraordinary speed, but would it arrive in time? Could it possibly be in time? Could anything drag him out of that terrible grasp?

The twilight was deepening, but as it came nearer Herbert saw that the running figure was that of the Professor who held in his hand some strange object that he whirled now and then about his head.

The Professor came to the edge of the marsh and stopped abruptly about twenty feet away from Herbert. Despair seized the boy again. The Professor could not reach him and save him!

“Throw up your arms!” shouted Professor Longworth in a tone so sharp that it had to be obeyed. Up went Herbert’s arms until they were thrust up straight on either side of his head.

Professor Longworth’s own right arm shot back, and then shot forward. Something black uncoiled itself and hissed through the air. A loop fell over Herbert’s head and arms, slipped down his body and lay upon the quicksand.

“Now drop your arms!” shouted the Professor in the same tone.

Herbert involuntarily did so, and felt his waist suddenly compressed. The Professor, a little man of tempered steel, set his feet in the sand and pulled with mighty force on the lariat. Herbert ceased to sink, but he did not begin to rise. The underground dragon was still fighting for him. He felt as if he were about to be pulled into two halves, but his body still held itself together in one piece.

Another figure came running out of the dark, seized the lariat also, and, as the two made a mighty pull together, Herbert was dragged out of the dragon’s mouth, across the quicksand and then upon firm ground. There he fainted.

Professor Longworth raised up the boy gently and poured some whiskey between his teeth from a little flask that he carried.

“Poor lad!” he said, “that was a terrible experience. If I hadn’t heard his cry, divined the trouble at the first glimpse from the hill and gone back for the lariat he never could have been saved. Nor would he have been saved then, Jedediah, if you had not come so quickly. I don’t think I could have pulled him out alone.”

“This is mighty cur’ous an’ interestin’,” said Jed. “but I don’t want it to happen to any of us ag’in.”

Charles also came running up at this moment, and, at the same rime, Herbert opened his eyes once more. He sat up and rubbed his waist.

“Am I all in one piece?” he asked weakly.

“Safe and sound,” said the Professor cheerily. “You’ll have a sore body for several days, but it won’t interfere with your eating and sleeping. But I would advise you not to walk into a quicksand again.”

“Not if I can help it,” said Herbert with so much emphasis that the others were compelled to laugh.

In a quarter of an hour he was able to limp back to camp, and Jed, on the way, said in a low tone to Charles:

“Never get into danger until you are sure the Purfessor is somewhar near. He saves us all, every time.”

“Your advice is the best in the world,” Charles whispered back in deep conviction.

Herbert was much shaken by his adventure. He had passed through many dangers, but none like this, which was so mysterious, almost invisible, merely the silent, deadly sucking of the sand, from which he had been rescued only by the promptness and skill of Professor Longworth, the man of infinite resource. He was also so sore around the waist that he could scarcely walk.

He was helped back to the little camp by Charles and there he sank down exhausted against a saddle.

“About done up for the time, I suppose, Herbert,” said the Professor sympathetically. “It was certainly an experience that nobody would ever want to undergo a second time, and I suppose that lariat of mine nearly cut you in two. But we had to pull, Herbert, we had to pull! If we couldn’t save all of you we meant to save the top half.”

“An’, ef it wuz me,” said Jed, “I’d rather have the top half o’ me saved than no half at all. Then I could eat an’ talk an’ cuss, an’ enjoy the beauties o’ the landscape, an’ maybe I could hire somebody to haul me ’roun’.”

Herbert smiled wanly. He knew that their jokes were intended to cheer him up, and he did feel a great joy and relief, after having achieved such a narrow escape, but his body was very tired and sore.

“You must excuse me, fellows,” he said, “for making such a sour face, but I haven’t had the habit yet of going down quicksands. Perhaps after I’ve had a lot of practice I can take it easy.”

Professor Longworth smiled sympathetically.

“That was an experience sufficient to shake the strongest man that ever lived,” he said. “What you need, Herbert, is complete rest to-night and you shall have it.”

All the horses and mules had been tethered for the sake of safety. It was not likely that they would wander away in such a country, but, in view of the double stake of the gold and their own lives, they took no chances.

The night, as usual, after a day in the burning desert, came on dark and chill. There was but little twilight, the sun sinking suddenly followed by complete darkness, and a rising wind that was edged with cold. The abrupt transition made them all shiver, and the Professor looked rather apprehensively at Herbert.

“In his weakened state this cold may strike into his system,” he said in a whisper to Charles, not wishing Herbert to hear.

“Then we must build a fire,” said Charles; “I saw a lot of the dried stalks of the cactus lying about not far away, and you know how they burn.”

The Professor, after a little hesitation that Charles did not notice, said:

“You are right. We must have that fire, it will save Herbert from an attack which he cannot afford at this moment to have and it will comfort and cheer all of us.”

Out on the desert the chill winds moaned, as if to prove the truth of the Professor’s words, and Charles and Jed hurried away for the cactus. But Professor Longworth murmured to himself, and this was the cause of that little hesitation: “I would rather not build the fire if we could do without it. It will tell where we are to those who follow us—and I am sure that we are followed.”

With all this sand, darkness and moaning wind it was like a haunted desert, even to the stout soul of Professor Longworth. But Charles and Jed came quickly with an abundance of cactus stalks, light and dry. They piled them in a heap, and the Professor set fire to them with one of the precious matches. “I don’t feel like working with the fire stick to-night,” he said.

The blaze leaped up. Fire on the desert, where the darkness and the cold and the loneliness have been before its lighting, is a wonderful thing. It brings not heat and light alone but life itself. The four, dark and depressed before, became at once bright and joyous. Herbert, who had been resting his sore body against a saddle, rose up and spread out his fingers to the blaze.

“It’s splendid,” he said. “It’s like a great tonic.”

“I’ve seen many a good fire,” said Jed, who hovered very near, “but I believe this beats ’em all. Jest look at the color o’ them blazes, Herb! I kin see yeller an’ red an’ blue an’ white, an’ green an’ purple an’ some eighty or a hundred more mixed colors, the names o’ which I don’t know.”

“So can I, Jed, every one of them,” said Herbert with emphasis.

Professor Longworth laughed cheerily.

“It’s your fancy,” he said, “fancy induced by your feelings, but sometimes fancy is more real than fact. Did you ever hear of the great English painter of misty sunsets? A countess looking at one of the greatest of them all in his studio said, ‘I never saw a sunset like that,’ and he promptly replied, ‘No, Madame, but don’t you wish you could.’ Some of us, my boys, have eyes to see and some of us have not, some of us see the colors and the brightness, but others see only the ugliness. All of which is apropos only of a little fire in the desert, and I have preached enough.”

The cactus burned with a light flame, and fast, but Charles and Jed brought plenty more, and for a long time the joyous blaze of many colors was not suffered to diminish. The four human beings were not the only ones who appreciated it. The horses and mules neighed or brayed their appreciation, and drew as near as their lariats would allow, staring with great, mild, sleepy eyes at the red and yellow of the flames. The dismal wind still blew across the desert, varying its note, but always dismal, as it dipped down in the hollows or rose on the sandy crests. Now it troubled three of them not at all. Only Professor Longworth listened to its note.

They let the fire sink after a while, although a flaming bed remained much longer, and then wrapping themselves closely in their blankets they fell asleep—all save one.

Charles stretched himself at length on the sand with his elbow under his head as a pillow, and, as he slept, he dreamed. He dreamed that he saw some strange animal which was nevertheless very gentle and which came close to him, and he reached out his hand to stroke it. But the touch of its body was cold, sending a deadly chill to the heart, and he awoke as an ominous hiss sounded in his ears.

His head was still raised by the supporting elbow and coiled at his side was the cold body that he had touched, the great rattlesnake of the desert, the venomous head uplifted and ready to strike.

The paralysis of the sudden awakening, and of the terror that came with it, kept Charles still. For a few moments he could not have moved if he had wished to do so. The coals had not yet gone entirely out, and there was light enough for him to see the rattlesnake, coil on coil, and the swaying head.

Reason followed paralysis. He knew that if he moved the snake would strike and he saw no way to escape. He glanced about him in a wild, but voiceless, appeal for help, and there on the other side of the fire Professor Erasmus Darwin Longworth was propped upon his left elbow, while his right hand slowly raised a revolver to a level. It seemed to Charles that he could see the eyes speaking behind the great glasses, and they said to him so plainly that anyone might hear, “Lie still! I will save you!”

Not a nerve in Charles’ body moved as he lay upon the sand. Then a pistol cracked across the fire, and the swaying head of the serpent, shot off as cleanly as if it had been cut with a knife, flew entirely over the boy, and fell three feet beyond. The coils relaxed and lay still.

Charles did not yet move. Although he knew that he was now safe the tension had been so great that he collapsed completely, body and mind.

The Professor leaped across the fire, raised his head higher and poured into his mouth fiery liquid from a little flask that he always carried in a pocket of his Norfolk jacket.

“It’s all right, Charles, my lad,” he said. “Mr. Rattler is in two pieces now, and cannot possibly do harm to anything. Undoubtedly he crept here for warmth, lay by your side and would not have harmed you had you not touched him as you slept. But on the whole it was well that I was awake, and that I am a good shot.”

“It certainly was!” said Charles now coughing from the liquor, but revived, “but, Professor, you’ve saved both Herbert and me within the space of a few hours.”

“Didn’t I tell you,” said Jedediah Simpson o’ Lexin’-ton, K—y, in the tone of admiration and awe that he so often used when he spoke of Professor Longworth. “He saves us all every time.”

They beat up the sand about them for more rattlesnakes, but found none, and all gradually went to sleep again, all save one.

Professor Longworth was still uneasy, but it was not about quicksands or rattlesnakes. He had liked little those attempts upon them, as they left the mountains, and he did not believe that they were immune, merely because they were now in the desert. He had always the sense of being followed. The mystery of these attacks would be explained some time or other, and perhaps it would be an explanation little to their taste.

Professor Longworth did not sleep all that night. The darkness decreased after a while before a late moon and stars. It was about three hours after midnight, when he saw what he took to be a light on the desert. But it was so faint that he was not sure. It was merely a pin point under the dusky northern horizon, but he had eyes of uncommon keenness, and he believed that it was a light.

He rose to his feet and gently took his powerful glasses from their place in a pack. He was careful not to disturb any of the sleepers. This was a worry that he alone must carry for the present. The glasses by the moonlight, now brilliant, distinctly showed that the bright pin point was a light. It was being moved back and forth, and, searching the horizon with the glasses, the Professor found further to the west and further away from their camp another light being moved back and forth in the same manner.

“Men signaling with torches,” said he to himself, “and I believe that those who swing them are those who follow us.”

Both lights went out presently, and the Professor, watching until daylight, saw nothing more. He did not speak of them to the others, nor did they know that he had not slept at all that night.

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