Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1923-02-16

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imagined that they were going to step
still closer. He did not choose to
wait to see If this were true. Ger
tainly It already took a grim resolu-
ton to raise the heavy .405.
His shot killed the big leader. The
others bounded away with remark
able nimbleness. Gale used up the
remaining four shells to drop the sec
ond ram, and by the time he had re-
loaded the others were out of range.
The Yaqui's method of hunting was
sure and deadly and saving in energy.
but Gale never would try 1t again. He
chose to stalk the game. After being
hunted a few times and shot at, the
sheep became exceedingly difficult to
approach. He failed often. The stalk
called forth all that was in him Of
endurance, cunning, speed. And like
a shadow the faithful Yaqui tried
ever to keep at his heels.
One morning Yaqui spied a flock of
sheep far under the curved, broken
rim of the main crater. Then began
the stalk. Hiding, slipping, creeping,
crawling, Gale closed in upon his
quarry until the long rifle grew like
stone in his grip, and the whipping
"spang" ripped the silence, and the
strange echo doomed deep in the era
ter, and rolled around, as if in hollow
mockery at the hopelessness of escape.
He waited beside his quarry, and
breathed deep. and swept the long
slopes with searching eyes of habit
When YaQui came up they set about
the hardest task of all. to pacH the
best of that heavy sheep down miles
of steep, ragged, c-hoya-cOvered ava.
The torrid summer heat came i'm.
perceptibly, or it could have
been borne by white men. 1t changed
the lives of the fugitives, making
them partly nocturnal in habit. The
nights had the balmy GOODNESS of
spring. and would have been delight
full for sleep, but that would have
made the blazing days uncomfortable.
AS Ladd had said, one of their
greatest problems was the passing OF
time. The nights were Unfortunately
long, but they had to be passed in
work or play or demonstrating eX-
cept sleep. That was Ladd's most in
flexible command. He gave no rea-
son. But not ~improbably the ranger
thought that the terrific heat of the
day spent in slumber lessened a wear
and strain, If not q real danger of
madness.
Accordingly, at first the occupations
Of this little group were many and
various. They worked if they had
something to do, or could invent a
preteXt. They told and retold stories
until all were wearisome. They sang
songs. Mercedes taught Spanish.
They played every game they knew.
They invented others that were Sc
trivial children would scarcely have
been interested, and these they played
seriously. In a word, with intelli-
gence and passion, with all that was
civilized and human, they fought the
ever-infringing loneliness, the savage
solitude of their environment.
Gale believed himself the k~eenest
of the party, the one who thought
most, and he watched the effect of the
desert upon his companions. For
hours, it seemed, Laid would bend
over his checkerboard and never
make a move 1t mattered not now
whether or not he had a partner. jim
Lash, the ealmest, coolest, most non.
chalant, best-humored westerner Gale
had ever met, had by slow degrees
lost that cheerful character which
would have been of such infinite good
to his companions, and always he sat
%brooding, silently brooding. Jim had
nc ties, few memories, and the desert
was claiming him.
Thorne and Mercedes, however
were living, wonderful proof that spir
it, mind, and heart were free-free to
soar in scorn of the colossal barren.
ness and silence and space of thai
terrible hedging prison of lava. They
were young; they loved they were
together; and the oasis was almost
paradise. Thorne and Mercedes haG
forgotten the outside world. If they
had been existing on the burned-oui
desolate moon they could hardly have
been in a harsher, grlmmer, lonelieI
spot than this red-walled arroyo.
Although the Yaqui was as his
shadow, Gale reached a point wher
he seemed to wander alone at twi
light, in the night, at dawn. At nigh
he had formed a habit of climbing III
the lava slope as far as the smooth
trail extended, and there On a prOmon
tory he paced to and fro, and watched