Chapter VIII: On Desert Sands

Though the story you have had from the lips of the Hypochondriacal Painter is one of a weight of woe that was accumulated in the course of twenty-three long, wasted years, I doubt whether the mental anguish it has excited in the mind of its narrator is greater than that which, coming to me in a single hour, has blighted all that remains to me in life.

My vocation is one of the most unfortunate that a man may follow, for it leads me among unpleasant places in my search for unpleasant men. In short, then, I am a member of the United States Secret Service. In that service, a specific order is as immutable as one of the laws of nature, and this is one reason why its members are chosen so carefully. It is because I, a graduate of West Point, and for many years an army officer, have always regarded an order of my chief as superior to any law of man or State that my position in the service is second only to that of the chief himself.

My connection with this wonderful series of adventures, which have been described to you by guests here present, began with an order which came to me from my chief immediately after I disembarked from a vessel which had brought me from Japan, where I had been engaged on a secret and highly important mission.

This order directed me to proceed without delay to Arizona, and there assume charge of a party of our men who had traced to that State one William Farnley, whose beautiful wife had been identified as a member of one of the most clever and desperate gangs of counterfeiters that this country had ever known. While Farnley was not suspected of being able to produce a counterfeit note himself, there was little doubt that his wife, who was thoroughly infatuated with him, had found him an apt pupil, and that it was on these two persons that the other members of the gang relied for the exchange of bogus notes for good notes in a manner that would not subject them to suspicion.

Both Farnley and his wife had been arrested in Chicago, but the man, who was an exceptionally powerful fellow, killed two of his guards with a jack-knife, and escaped. He was traced to Omaha, and thence the trail--a pretty well-defined one, for Farnley was a chap whose striking physical characteristics would attract attention anywhere--led to Arizona. There one of our men had overtaken the fugitive on the edge of a desert, and was shot, living only long enough to write and pin to his breast a note telling how and at whose hands he had come to his death.

The man thus stricken had been an old comrade of mine, and as, a week later, I stood on the edge of that arid plain on which no tree or watercourse offered itself to view, I had a double motive in running down the man I sought. Not only would I be carrying out the orders of the department, but I would be avenging the death of my friend.

I set out with a half-breed Indian. Beside the mules we rode, we had three pack animals which carried a light tent, forage and large skins filled with enough water to supply us for the next twenty hours. Our destination was Spirit River, a stream that runs through the heart of the desert, and which could be reached only by a thirty-five mile ride across the blistering sands. It was to that river that I now had to follow Farnley’s trail. The trail was fresh, for he had set out from this very point only a few hours before.

The start was made at four o’clock in the afternoon. It was two o’clock when I had engaged Jim, the half-breed, for the journey. He was sober then, but, as he mounted now, I saw that he had been drinking--how heavily I did not know, but when a man has a hot desert ride before him, every gill of whisky in his stomach constitutes a serious handicap. However, it was too late to protest, and too early to excite the ill will of the only man who was available for the purpose for which this one had been employed.

Owing to the intense heat that prevailed, our pace was moderate. I had allowed twelve hours for the journey. In order that it might be successful, it was essential that we arrive at Spirit River while it was dark, otherwise our approach over the desert scarcely could fail to be observed by the man whom I was planning to surprise.

By eight o’clock we had covered sixteen miles of our journey, having proceeded at the rate of only four miles an hour. The sun had gone down and the air, while far from cool, was now becoming more endurable. I decided, therefore, to make a halt and feed and water the mules, giving to the animals a half an hour’s rest before calling on them for the increased efforts that would be required of them when our journey should be resumed.

For the last hour, Jim, the half-breed, had been muttering incoherently. When I addressed him, however, he spoke rationally enough, and I thought that, by the time we were in our saddles again, the rest and decreasing heat would enable him to work off the ill effects of the liquor he had taken.

I now directed him to picket the mules, and aid me in relieving them of their packs. He accomplished this task in sullen silence, but, while we were feeding and watering the animals, he began to address me in an Indian jargon which I was unable to understand. As I watched him, he gesticulated violently, and several times pointed in the direction of the unseen river.

All my efforts to get the man to speak rationally were vain, so, with one hand on my holster, I shrugged my shoulders resignedly and continued to keep him under observation.

At length, when the packs were replaced on the mules, and we were ready to mount again, I saw his hand move to his revolver. I quickly drew mine--aimed and pulled the trigger.

The hammer fell on an empty chamber. The half-breed, with his weapon pointed at my breast, laughed tauntingly, but held his fire.

Again I pressed my trigger, and again the hammer clicked.

“One mule--you; four mule--Jim.”

As the half-breed spoke, I knew that, while we had been making preparation for our journey, he had withdrawn the shells from my revolver. To offer resistance to his will now meant certain death to me. Crazed as he might be, he still was sufficiently master of himself to shoot straight, for the hand that held his weapon was as steady as a boulder on a valley bottom.

He bade me cast off my belt and move away two hundred paces, and I did so. I felt no fear of death, but it was not death the Service had sent me out here to find; it was a man. I saw I must bide my time.

True to his threat, the mongrel devil left my mule and rode off with the others. When he was gone, I mounted. I was unarmed now, so I saw that nothing could be gained by riding off after the half-breed, who, doubtless, had friends near. Accordingly, unarmed as I was, I turned the head of my mule toward the distant, unseen river, and, guided by the little compass which I always carry with me, I resumed my quest alone.

I found the going easier than I had expected, and was fortunate in having under me one of the sturdiest animals it ever had fallen to my lot to ride. The moon was three-quarters full, and, though a haze overhung the desert, the light was fairly good. Shortly after midnight a faint, silvery line ahead of me gave me to understand that a few minutes more would find me at Spirit River.

At length, I slipped from my saddle and stood on the bank of a broad, shallow stream that was filled with rocks around which the sluggish tide made scarcely a ripple. Along each bank extended a fringe of dwarf trees. It was to one of these trees that I hitched my mule, after I and the beast had drunk our fill from the river.

Near the spot at which I had dismounted was a curious burrow which consisted of a hole scooped in the sandy bank and roofed with the trunk and branches of small trees over which had been spread a layer of stones and river mud. Near the door of this little dug-out I saw a pick and shovel and a prospector’s pan. But there was something more, and, as I looked at it, a slight feeling of creepiness stole over me.

A few feet distant from the entrance to the burrow, and lying at full length on the ground, was the body of a man.

A mere glance at the swollen face convinced me that this was not the fugitive I sought. It was the body of a man of middle age, and there was little doubt in my mind that he was the prospector who had occupied this rudely constructed dwelling. On his breast was pinned a piece of soiled paper. Removing this, I entered the hut and struck a match. Then I saw that on the paper were written the following words:

Dide on or bout 5 August Ime Jack Cline and my wife an kids is Mary
Cline, Conedale Ohio broke leg in shaf and it swel offul. Mule croked
las week so will I. Bury me desent if you kin. Looks like theres dust
hereabut but I aint struck mutch yet. So long.

As I examined the body, I was convinced that the poor fellow had died of gangrene the day before. Picking up a shovel that was near the entrance to the hut, I dug a shallow grave. To this I was dragging the body when a sudden, rattling sound near me caused me to step quickly aside. I was too late, however. Before I was able to see the thing that threatened me, a rattlesnake had buried its fangs in the outer side of the calf of my left leg.

I killed the reptile, then, glancing at the grave I had dug, I muttered:

“Well, I suppose I’d better make it big enough for two.”

With my handkerchief and a stick I made a tourniquet above the wound. I was tightening this when I heard a voice ask, quickly:

“What are you doing there?”

I turned deliberately, and I gave no start or other sign of recognition as I saw that he who stood near me, with a revolver in his hand, was the man I had gone out to the desert to take, dead or alive.

“A rattler has just bitten me,” I explained, as quietly as the other had asked the question.

“The devil!” Farnley muttered, in a sympathetic voice. “What are you doing for it?”

“Holding off the end a little while,” I replied. “That’s all a fellow can do under the circumstances.”

“You fool, why don’t you suck out the poison?” Farnley asked, impatiently, as he returned his revolver to his belt.

“I can’t reach it,” I answered.

“Who’s that man--the dead one?” Farnley demanded, suddenly.

“My partner--Jack Cline. We were prospecting here. His mule fell in the desert, and he broke his leg. Gangrene got him and he’s all in now. I brought him here on my mule, and was burying him when I was bitten.”

“You were prospecting for gold?”

“Yes,” I answered.

Farnley was now on his knees beside me. In a few moments he had rolled up the left leg of my trousers and was pressing his lips to the wound.

For five minutes he worked zealously, sucking out the poison. From one of his pockets he took a large flask of whisky and placed it in my hands.

“Drink it all,” he said, as he tightened the tourniquet.

As I gulped down the liquor, he added, cheerfully:

“You’ll be all right now, my man. Have you any coffee in your shack?”

“I’ll see,” I said, and started to rise.

“Stop!” he exclaimed. “I’ll go.”

He found it, too, and, while he was preparing the steaming draught, I watched him moodily. I had been told that the fugitive I had been assigned to find was characterized by remarkable personal attractions, but, despite this information, I was astonished by the man I saw. Never had I gazed on human features that were so splendidly moulded or which expressed such a degree of intelligence and self-possession. Though his figure was that of a magnificently developed athlete, his movements were as graceful as those of a girl. Nature had endowed me well with strength, but, as I watched Farnley now, I knew that in a struggle I would be little more than a child in his hands.

Never before had I been racked by so many conflicting emotions. In the aspect of the man was something that made me shudder. While he was speaking to me, a peculiar charm seemed to invest his speech and movements, but, as he bent over the fire that he kindled, there crept over his features a gloomy, sinister expression, and once he frowned darkly as he glanced in my direction.

At the time this handsome murderer had come upon me, undoubtedly I was in the grip of death. Though he had given my life back to me, that life belonged, as it had done for twenty years, to the Service, and, as I sat there, I knew that when the Service once gets after a man it is bound to land him sooner or later. I knew, too, that this man’s crimes meant death to him. I might let him go now, but he would be a fugitive until the inevitable end when he would expiate on the gallows the death of my old comrade.

At length, absorbed in his preparations for supper, Farnley laid aside the belt to which his revolver was attached. I watched it with fascinated eyes. Once more he went into the hut--to get forks and sugar. When he came out I was looking at him from over the barrel of his revolver.

His handsome face grew as dark as a thunder cloud.

“What the devil is all this?” he growled.

“It means that I, Roger Canbeck, am a Secret Service officer, and that I hereby arrest you, William Farnley, on three charges of murder,” I replied.

For several moments he gazed at me steadily, then he looked thoughtfully at the ground.

“Well, what is it you want me to do?” he asked.

“You must ride with me to-night across the desert.”

He broke into a laugh--so light and boyish that it startled me.

“No, no--not that,” he said. “It is only in his own way that Rayon Demain now plays the fool. The time is passed when others may direct him.”

As he finished speaking, he leaped toward me. My finger trembled on the trigger, but I felt I could not press it. A moment later, a fork in the hand of my adversary was thrust into one of my eyes. I staggered back, and as he reached to seize the revolver from my grasp, I drew the trigger. Groping at his bosom, he slowly retreated a couple of paces, then, with a groan, he fell.

Racked with pain, I looked down on him with the single eye that remained to me. I saw him as through a mist. He was lying very still, but, by the movements of his eyelids, I knew that the strange, warped soul had not yet forsaken its splendid tenement. As I gazed across the moonlighted desert, the revolver fell from my nerveless, trembling hand. The venom which those fast-whitening lips had sucked from my flesh was far less deadly than that which my stern sense of duty had injected into my soul. The honor of the service had been vindicated, the death of my comrade had been avenged, but I knew that from that hour I would be unable to wash the stain of ingratitude from the life which this dying man had given to me.

As my gaze fell to him again, I saw he was looking at me, and was smiling feebly.

“All things do not happen in the manner that the prophets have written,” he said, “and so you have come too late to keep from Rayon Demain the knowledge that it is better to be a sinful man than a proud, arrogant and unloving god. There was a time when an old man deceived me by causing me to believe that one day I would possess the attributes of divinity--I, who would never win the mastery of my own soul. But the love of woman I have won--that is all, and it has been enough. And so, you see, wisdom came to Rayon Demain at last, for, like the butterflies, he lived his season among Life’s flowers, and you shall know that when he died he had learned that even evil women are not devils, and that, despite old men’s teachings, there is good in everything.”

Scarcely conscious of the action, I knelt beside him. With a little laugh, he held out a hand to me. Sobbing like a child, I took it.

“You are sorry,” he said, speaking now with an effort. “But--it is all right, after all. The desert was all that was left to me; there is more for you, and, sometimes, when a woman’s eyes grow bright while you are speaking to her, think kindly of him who gave back your life beside that grave in which you will lay me now.”

“Why did you resist me?” I whispered, hoarsely.

“Because, like all other men I have ever known, you stood in my light. It was only by resistance that I earned my brief day of sunshine. I am content.”

With a little sigh, he turned his head. His eyes closed, and I knew that all was ended--that for Rayon Demain the bright sun would rise no more.

It was not until twilight fell again that I left the little green belt in the desert. I buried the two bodies side by side, but, as I set out on my return journey, there seemed to ride beside me one whose glorious eyes, black curling hair and lordly figure have haunted me from the hour I felt a cold hand fall from mine as I knelt on one of the dark banks of Spirit River.

* * * * *

As the one-eyed Duckhunter finished speaking, a low groan escaped the lips of the Hypochondriacal Painter, and the Aeronaut hid her face in her hands. For several moments the silence was unbroken. Then, in rasping accents, the Nervous Physician said, abruptly:

“We will hear from the Gargoyle now, I suppose.”

Westfall nodded gloomily.

“Yes, my friends, if that is your pleasure,” he answered, with a sigh.

The Sentimental Gargoyle lowered the hand on which he had been leaning, and which had concealed his eyes while the Duckhunter was speaking. Then, in a soft, penetrating voice he began: