The Full of the Moon/Chapter 19
CHAPTER XIX
In the Cañon
Bob now basked in the genial warmth of Hopedale's approval. Its citizens boasted of his trimnph over Spiser in no uncertain terms to those who had not been present, and tacitly agreed to overlook the fact that he changed his linen with incredible frequency and manicured his nails.
Edith was staying a few days as Nan's guest, and Ben lingered in Hopedale, though there was every reason why he should have returned to the ranch immediately after the trial.
No intelligent woman is pleased when a man neglects his work for her. Nothing so fills her with misgivings. Nan was an intelligent woman, and more, for she inherited something of her father's business acumen and instincts.
It disturbed her, irritated her, to see him linger when his vital interests were at stake—shamed her, too, because she knew that Bob was as well aware of the fact as she was that Ben should have been at the ranch.
With all Bob's apparent lack of earnestness, his careless cynicism, Nan felt that he never would have shown such weakness of character where their future was concerned.
In fact, Bob was a constant surprise to her, and in no way more than in the ease with which he adapted himself to the crude life and surroundings. She enjoyed his companionship more than ever before. There was a completeness about it which was lacking in her association with Ben, because of his entire understanding of her point of view.
His wit was subtle, his reasoning logical—all the advantages of a trained over an untrained mind stood out in glaring contrast.
Bob was arranging with a guide to take him into the mountains and purposely saw little of Nan. He felt as though the ache in his heart were passing endurance, and he wanted to get away. There was no need to thrust his wretchedness in upon Nan's happiness. Thanks to his trained self-repression he was sure she only dimly realized how much he cared, how deeply he was hurt. He was constantly on his guard when with her lest he betray himself by some look or word. She had made her choice, and the only thing which now remained for him to do was to quietly withdraw and take his medicine like a man.
Nan was quick to feel the change in him, the subtle difference left her with a feeling of helplessness, as though some important support had been taken away. She had not known how much she depended upon him until he left her to decide everything entirely for herself. She had taken his devotion and constant attention as a matter of course and his withdrawal became the troubled under-current of her thoughts.
Then, too, an imperative telegram came saying that her "furlough" had expired and she must return without delay. Altogether she was in no enviable frame of mind in spite of the success of the trial.
The stage for the railroad terminus left the next day but one, and in the interim Nan knew she must make up her bewildered mind as to what she was going to do. Edith, too, felt she could stay no longer, and it was her suggestion that Nan and Bob should travel a part of the way to the Longhorn bosque with Ben and herself the day following the receipt of Nan's telegram.
Since Edith was determined to go, Ben could do little else than accompany her on the long ride.
This ride meant as much to Edith as to Nan, for the bosque girl had found her opportunity to slip the ashes of the heart of the wild dove in the pocket of Ben's chaps, and if there was any virtue in her mother's love-charm surely she must know it before the ride was done. Nan had promised to give Ben her final answer to the one great question which he had asked her again in embarrassed eagerness.
It was not a particularly gay party that made ready to start in front of the hotel the next morning, though Bob did his best and Nan made an effort to be her vivacious self. But the clouds sagged heavy and blue over the mountains, the air was curiously still and oppressive, and altogether the occasion for any of them was not conducive to high spirits.
"You're liable to get wet around the edges," Fritz Poth said in friendly warning, and tied his "slicker" an the back of Nan's saddle.
"We'll not be able to go much beyond the box cañon, I fancy." Bob looked anxiously at the lowering clouds. He still watched them as they alternately galloped and walked over the good and bad stretches in the road which lay between them and the great crack in the low, spreading mountain which some convulsion of nature had rent asunder.
For a distance of three-quarters of a mile the road led through this gash in the mountain, the walls of which rose- in places nearly sheer for three hundred feet. The same mountain-stream which furnished Hopedale with water flowed through the bottom of the cañon, and the wagon-road was the bed of the shallow creek.
"They are sure wicked-lookin' clouds back there." Ben glanced casually over his shoulder.
"See how they sag!" Nan commented. "They look like big, dark-blue army blankets filled with water."
Bob was uneasy; he felt that they should return, but hesitated to suggest it because of Nan's and Ben's absorption in each other's conversation. He and Edith had dropped behind, making spasmodic efforts to talk, but without heart.
They had ridden for an hour or more before they entered the cool gloom which lay between the two great walls, and had splashed for some distance through the rocky creek-bed, when suddenly the horses pricked their ears, and Nan's wheeled, stretching its neck as though to listen.
"How strange!" she exclaimed. "Whoa!"
Ben jerked his horse sharply.
"What's the matter with you!"
"Something's wrong!" declared Edith. "My horse never acts like this. Steady, now!"
Nan's spirited horse tried to bolt. It took all her strength to pull him down.
"They act like they smelled bear or some varmint." Mystified, Ben threw back his head and searched the perpendicular rocks above them. His horse was quivering in every muscle.
Simultaneously the horses reared and plunged, their nostrils distended, their ears stiffly erect as though they heard or smelled some terrifying, unseen thing. Their excitement turned to frenzy as they fought for their heads.
"There's some good reason for this." Bob's horse was all but unmanageable.
"It gets me." Ben still searched the cañon walls with his eyes.
Then Edith's raw-boned cayuse squealed.
"Good God!" Ben's voice made his listeners blood run cold.
A sullen, unceasing roar reached their ears. Faint it was, but growing louder even in the second that they listened.
"It's water! A cloudburst! For God's sake, give 'em the spurs—it's comin' down the cañon!" Ben struck Nan's horse with his rein's end. "You've got to ride for your life, girl!" he said in a tense voice.
Bob looked despairingly at the towering cliffs. There was no foothold there. To reach the end of the cañon seemed their only chance.
The horses needed neither rein's end nor spur. They shook their heads free and ran like Derby winners gone stark mad with fear. The water rained in showers from the splash of their flying feet. Yet the roar of the cloudburst, the indescribable din of many waters piled in one, was growing louder with every heart-beat.
"We've got to do better!" yelled Ben. "Give 'em all the quirt!" He leaned and lashed Nan's horse.
"I can't; my horse is nearly played out!" Edith's despairing cry rose shrill.
The constant jumping of rocks and driftwood, together with the terrific pace, was beginning to tell on all the horses, but most of all on Edith's worn-out cow-pony.
He dropped behind.
Bob slackened his horse's pace and fell from it in his haste, but clung to the reins.
"Get off! Quick!"
She shook her head, but he caught the bridle when she would have passed and pulled her from the saddle. He threw her, rather than helped her, into his own.
"Don't spare him—he can make it!" He struck the quivering horse from behind and it was off with a leap.
The roar of the torrent reverberating in the long, empty cañon was now deafening. The boom of it was so close that Nan glanced over her shoulder and the sight behind her all but stopped the beating of her heart.
Under her horse's racing feet an inch or two of water flowed placidly; a hundred yards from his heels a wall of water was rushing upon them like some monstrous thing of life bent on their destruction!
The perpendicular face of it was as even as though sliced with a giant cleaver, and behind, uprooted trees, fence-rails and gates, the roof of a house, a bridge, drowned cattle, pitched and rolled in the yellow flood!
Nan grew limp and sick, for, in the swift glance over her shoulder she missed Bob, and then she saw the horse which Edith rode now running nearly even with her own!
A turn brought the end of the cañon in sight. Outside, bawling cattle with their heads and tails in air were running aimlessly from the threatening danger.
Ten seconds! Five seconds! Could they make it?
The yellow wall was all but upon them. Nan, fainting, swayed in the saddle.
"Nan! Hang on! Just one jump morel" Ben's imploring cry was lost in the roar of the flood.
Then it burst from the confining walls of the cañon with a kind of sullen boom! boom! and spread into a wide, swirling river as the three horses plunged, gasping, up the nearest knoll.