It was far into the night when, amid a matted drift, half-way up one bank of the arroyo, something stirred, faintly. Caught in a web of debris, and a tangle of mesquite roots that thrust far out from the soil, a man strove feebly to disentangle his head from a smother of something that enwrapped it. When at last he partly succeeded he looked up at the calm stars, lamping the sky in solemn splendor. Below him he could still hear the rush of water, but above all was peaceful.
Long he lay, more dead than alive, trying to remember what had happened. By the bright starlight he managed to make out that the body of the light wagon had caught upon an out-thrust web of mesquite roots. He was lying on his side in the wagon box, one arm thrust, to the shoulder, through something that he could not see. About his neck and head was a tangle of cloth which he made out to be the deputy’s coat, and a long thong of leather, probably one of the harness reins. This was wound, as well, about what remained of one of the seat braces.
Slowly, by agonizing degrees, the man began to work himself loose from the tangle. Then he discovered that the thing binding his shoulder was the strap of a horse’s nose-bag, and the bag itself. It was caught over a long, splintered fragment of the reach, which had broken through the bottom of the wagon box. The bag seemed to be about half full of oats.
Inch by inch he cleared himself, and laying hold upon the mesquite roots, rose slowly, until he stood up. Every movement was pain, but he persisted doggedly, climbing little by little up the bank, clinging now to a root of mesquite, now to a point of rock, pausing for breath, or to ease the strain upon his tortured muscles. At last he grasped the trunk of a mesquite and dragged himself out upon the desert, where he fell helpless upon the sand.
CHAPTER III
The shadowy bulk of distant mountains changed to pale blue as the purple of night slowly lightened. The stars faded, one by one, and a spectral moon slipped wearily down the sky. Beyond the scant mesquite fringing the arroyo the desert lay still and gray, like a leaden sea.
The man woke, and moved slightly, groaning as his wrenched and stiffened body protested. Consciousness strengthened, and he struggled to his knees to stare about him. The chill of early morning had him by the bones, and he shook in its grip. After a little he got to his feet and tried, painfully, to swing his arms.
Away westward a subtle hint of color crept across the pale sky, heralding a coming radiance in the east; but it brought no sense of comfort.
“There’s no one left alive but me,” the man whispered, as his gaze took in the awful solitude. “No one but me, Gabriel Gard!”
The sound of that name, spoken all unconsciously, made him start, and look furtively about. The loneliness of the plain had betrayed his jealously guarded secret. Then his mood changed.