Falcon, of Squawtooth

by Arthur Preston Hankins

“I said—go to the devil; that’s what I said!” And Demarest spit out a mouthful of sand and tied his handkerchief over his nose. Spruce cupped both hands about his mouth and placed his head close to Demarest’s ear.

“I thought you said ‘liver and onions!’” he cried. Viciously, Demarest dragged his hat down to his ears, then released it, and through his hands shouted back:

“You—are—an—ass!”

To which Spruce, who had not distinguished a single word, nodded agreement and smiled complacently.

The wind roared and howled. The motor roared back at it, and the nose of the steel monster plowed on into the whirling waves of sand.

Toward noon the beleaguered motor party were fighting their way up to an immense conglomeration of vehicles, teams, and men, the living components of the mass drawn up in lee of the wagons, wheeled into position to act as a barricade against the wind. A sorrowful group they were indeed. Lips were swelled to three times their natural thickness from the sting of the alkali. Eyes were red and haggard. The teams stood with their tails between their legs, their rumps toward the wind, their heads lowered.

Now a second storm swooped down upon the blockaded caravan in the form of Philip Demarest. When every one was crestfallen and had not a volley left to shout back at this Sheridan who had raced to their revival, it was learned by the newcomers that the tank wagons of the caravan were well-nigh empty and that their commander had been innocently waiting for the storm to subside before attempting to move on to the next watering place. To conclude, twenty minutes after Demarest had ridden in the wagon train was once more fighting its way through the sand storm toward water; and now every man in the outfit had decided that it was better to forge on than to be intrenched and parleying with the relentless wind king.

Ahead of them the big car plowed on to reconnoiter. The water was ten miles from where the train had been halted, and Philip Demarest knew that the fight to reach it would be a bitter one. With all that they could take in the car they drove back to the caravan, and desert bags were replenished, thus saving what remained in the tank wagons for the laboring stock. Skinners walked so as to lighten loads to the last possible ounce. Heads down, whipped nearly off their feet occasionally, the thin-limbed mules moved slowly along, mile at a time, the wagons sometimes almost down to their hubs in the shifting sands.

Late in the afternoon the herculean task was accomplished. Worn-out men and worn-out teams rested once more, but this time at Dead Man’s Wells, with ample water for all their needs. They were still sixteen or seventeen miles from Squawtooth, and Demarest decided to drive on there in the car for the night and be ready to look over the camp site next morning.

They were just about to start when their guide, the estimable Blacky Silk, waiting beside the empty car, saw a horseman riding toward him. He had appeared miraculously, coming suddenly as he had from a heavy cloud of blowing sand.