Haney laughed jovially. “You may count me out, pard, on any of that sort of business. I’ve blowed all the money into this damn country that I want to. You’ll never get anything out of it but ’orned toads and rattlesnakes and ‘bad men’ as long as it lasts. If I can pull out ’alf I’ve planted ’ere I’ll skip, and think I’m lucky to get out with a whole skin.”
They trotted across the dry, hot, barren levels of the desert into which they had descended, seeing nowhere the least sign of human life. The faintly beaten track of the road stretched out in front of them in an almost straight line across the gray sand between interminable clumps of cactus and frowsy, wilted sagebrush. Bunches of yellow, withered grass cropped out of the earth here and there. But even these forlorn caricatures of vegetation gave up and stayed their feet on the edges of frequent alkali flats, where the white, powdery dust covered the sand and dealt death to any herbage that ventured within its domain. Hot, parched, forbidding, the desert grew more and more desolate as they proceeded. To Wellesly there was an awe-inspiring menace in its dry, bleaching, monotonous levels. He felt more keenly than ever his own helplessness in such a situation and congratulated himself on having fallen in with his two guides. He wondered that the plain had not impressed him more deeply with its desolation and barrenness when he came out to the ranch. But he had no doubt of the ability and good faith of his two companions and he drew his horse a little nearer to them and said:
“My God! What a place this desert would be for a man to be lost in!”
Then they told him stories of men who had been lost in it, who had wandered for days without water and had been found raving maniacs or bleaching skeletons—the sort of stories that make the blood of any but a plainsman seem to dry in his veins and his tongue to cleave to the roof of his mouth. Told in all their details and surrounded by the very scenes in which their agonies had been suffered, they brought the perspiration to Wellesly’s brow and a look of horror to his eyes. Haney and Jim saw that they made him nervous, and racked their memories and their imaginations for more of the same sort.
They were approaching the mountains and the country around them was broken into barren, rocky hills. The road grew rougher and the mountains towered above them in jagged peaks of seemingly solid rock. The day was nearly ended and Wellesly remembered enough of the distances along the Las Plumas road to be sure that they ought to be approaching Muletown. But in this stern wilderness of rock and sand, human habitation did not seem possible. He looked back across the desert at the Fernandez mountains, standing out sharply against the red sunset clouds, and it suddenly flashed across his mind that if the sun were setting there they must have been traveling in an easterly direction all the afternoon, which meant that they had been getting farther and farther away from Las Plumas. Enlightened by this idea, he sent a quick, seeing glance along the range of mountains standing out boldly and barrenly in front of them, and he knew it was not the Hermosa range. Haney turned with a jovial remark on his lips and met Wellesly’s eyes, two narrow strips of pale gray shining brilliantly from between half-closed lids, and saw that his game had played itself smoothly as far as it would go.
Wellesly disregarded Haney’s jest and looking him squarely in the eyes said: “I suppose, Mr. Mullford, if we keep on in this direction a matter of some twenty-five thousand miles we might reach Muletown. But don’t you think we would save time if we were to turn around and travel the other way?”
Haney laughed good-naturedly and exclaimed: “You’ve not got that notion out of your ’ead yet, ’ave you! Say, pard,” he added to Jim, “Mr. Wellesly is still turned around. ’E thinks we ought to right about face and take the back track to get to Muletown. What can we do to convince ’im’ e’s all right?”
Wellesly was watching the two men narrowly, his suspicions aroused and all his faculties alert. Haney’s calm, solicitous tone for a moment almost made him think he must be mistaken. But another glance at the rocky, precipitous mountains reassured him that they were not the Hermosas and settled the conviction in his mind that he had fallen into the trap of a pair of very smooth rogues. A still, white rage rose in his heart and mettled his nerves to his finger-tips, as he thought of the plausible pretensions of good will with which they had led him into this wilderness. He scarcely heard Jim’s reply:
“I don’t know what else he wants. We’re going to Muletown, and if he don’t want to get lost out on this desert and have the coyotes pickin’ his bones inside of a week he’d better come along with us.”
“My friends,” said Wellesly, in an even tone in which could barely be heard here and there the note of suppressed anger, “if you think you are going to Muletown in this direction, all right, go ahead. That’s your funeral. But it isn’t mine. If anybody in this crowd is turned around I’m not the man. I have been, thanks to your very ingenious efforts, but I’m not now, and I’m not going any farther in this direction. Unless you can get a little more light on which way is west I’m afraid we’ll have to part company. Good-bye, gentlemen. I’m going back.”