Chapter II

A few stunted poplars and cottonwoods, showing green against the desert gray, were all that marked the Poplar Springs. A deeply rutted road wended its way between Joshua Palms, commonly known as “Dancin’ Jaspers,” yucca and sage.

Far to the west stretched the Thunder Mountains, black and sinister. To the east loomed the Ophir range, beyond the desert hills. To the south there was nothing but open desert.

Up this winding road came a string of four covered wagons, four horses hitched to each wagon, creaking through the desert sand. The wind billowed the canvas covers until they appeared as small balloons, threatening to break from their moorings.

The lead team swung out of the rut and headed for the green trees. The rest of the wagons followed, swinging in a circle, until the lead team almost nosed the end-gate of the rear wagon. Teams were quickly unhitched and unharnessed. Ropes were strung from wagon to wagon, making an effectual horse corral. Fires were built and preparations were made for the evening meal. All of the men, with one exception, were strangers in the country, but most of them looked capable.

Rance Williams, a tall, gaunt, desert man, was driving the lead team, and now was inspecting the rope and wagon corral and ordering the distribution of horse-feed.

A small, white-haired man, timid of manner, came up to him and Rance Williams turned from tying a rope.

“Howdy, parson. How yuh standin’ the trip?”

“As well as could be expected,” replied the small man. “It is unpleasant at times, but a messenger of God must not complain of discomforts, Mr. Williams.”

Williams looked down at him and smiled.

“Yore packin’ a message to folks what won’t _sabe_ it, old-timer. Sunbeam ain’t receptive to yore kind of cheerfulness.”

A girl came from between the wagons near them and stood looking off across the desert. She was a tired-looking girl with a tangle of brown hair, which she brushed nervously away as the wind flung it into her eyes.

“Evenin’, miss,” said Williams kindly.

“Good evening, Mr. Williams,” she replied, turning toward them. “You also, Dr. Weston. Will we ever get out of this eternal desert?”

“Tomorrow, miss. Sunbeam is about twelve miles away, but it’s a long twelve miles. I reckon the men what measured it used a rubber tape.”

The girl smiled and went on toward the fires. The two men watched her go away and Williams turned to the minister.

“Too danged bad she’s goin’ to Sunbeam. I tried to argy her out of it, but she won’t listen to me.”

“I shall look out for her,” replied the minister.

Williams looked at the rolling storm clouds for a moment and then back at the frail-looking man beside him.

“Lemme tell yuh somethin’, old-timer; you ain’t never been in Sunbeam. You’ve done all yore sky-pilotin’ in a place where a policeman would arrest yuh if yuh yelped after nine o’clock at night. Sunbeam’s raw--raw as ----. Know what I mean? If one moral thought weighed a ton, yuh wouldn’t find enough in this country to fill a .22 ca’tridge with. Yuh mean right, parson, but Gawd help yuh both if yuh get off on the wrong foot.”

The Reverend Josiah Weston shifted his feet uneasily. He did not understand this rough, kindly man at all. What could be the danger in Sunbeam, and what did he mean by “getting off on the wrong foot?”

“What is this danger, Mr. Williams?”

“She’s a dead open-and-shut that Sunbeam don’t hanker fer gospel, but they do admire a pretty face. Bein’ hated is just about as dangerous as bein’ desired. I reckon I better anchor some of this outfit before the storm hits us. Kinda looks like she was goin’ to come a-whoopin’.”

Williams turned, ducked under a rope and disappeared. Dr. Weston walked slowly back to the camp-fires. He was an old man--old in the service of the church, possessor of a snug berth, but had given it up to carry the gospel into the dim places. This was his first pilgrimage, and his old body ached from the desert days. The country and people all seemed unreal.

He missed the respect of a silk-hatted congregation.

Men called him “Old-Timer” and cursed openly before him, without shame. When he explained his mission to Sunbeam, they laughed and advised him to get a pick and shovel and let the devil alone. One man had sent a message by him, a verbal message. It was very confidential. He asked the minister to give his love to the Honkatonk girls. The minister agreed to carry the message, and worried for fear he would forget the family name--Honkatonk. No doubt they were foreigners.

Dr. Weston walked slowly up to one of the fires, where a man was busily slicing bacon. A swirl of sand blew into the man’s face and he got to his feet, cursing profanely. Dr. Weston started to remonstrate with him over his language, but just at this moment six mounted men rode around the circle of wagons and pulled up near the fires.

* * * * *

They were a rough-looking crew, with rifles across their saddle-forks. Their restive horses sent the dust and sand flying as they milled around. Some of the men came from another fire, looking inquiringly at the riders.

A whirl of sand seemed to blot out the group for an instant, but above the hiss of it came Rance Williams’ voice--

“Look out, men!”

The man beside Dr. Weston dropped his slab of bacon and jerked his pistol, but one of the riders swung his rifle forward, fired, and the man plunged forward to the ground. From behind a wagon came the _whang!_ of a rifle, and the rider slid sidewise off his horse.

With a yell the five riders plunged forward. One of the horses struck the minister, knocking him under a wagon, where he fell, unconscious. Bullets whined above the roar of the wind. One of the riders swung down and cut a connecting rope between wagons, and with a yelp of triumph the men rode into the enclosure, cutting loose and stampeding the horses.

Out of the dust cloud loomed a rider, swinging a rope-end at a frightened horse. From the billowing top of a wagon came the snap of a gun, and the rider went down, clutching at the air. Two more men seemed to ride over him, straight for the wagon, emptying their guns into the swelling canvas as they whirled past. A riderless horse crashed into a wagon and went down.

Suddenly the storm broke in its fury, blotting out the world. A tiny light seemed to glow for an instant, as some of the campfire blew into a canvas wagon-cover. Suddenly it broke into a huge flame, as the gale caught it, and the snapping canvas seemed fairly to explode, stripping the bows like a flash and whirling away like a meteor.

A sheet of rain seemed to hurl itself at the desert, as if dashed angrily from a giant pot--a crashing downpour, a deluge. Came a blinding flash of lightning, a deafening crash of thunder--silence. The storm was over.

In a dripping wagon, the top of which had been burned away, crouching against the front end of the box, was the brown-haired girl, terrified beyond words. Under that wagon crouched Dr. Weston, groping blindly for an answer to the questions which seethed in his brain. He knew that he was alive, but the world seemed a vast, dripping void.

Just outside the wagon wheels lay Rance Williams, his old, seamed face toward the sky, a pistol clutched in his right hand. The gun was cocked, one chamber still loaded. He had done his best, but the odds were in favor of Leeds.