Lahoma

by J. Breckenridge Ellis

The formless mass of inchoate debris, the result of his toilsome journeys of the night before, was left as it had fallen—there would be time enough to sort all that, a hundred times. At present, he would venture forth with the sole object of examining his surroundings. "This suits me exactly," he muttered, with a good-humored chuckle; "just doing one thing at a time, and being everlasting slow about doing that."

Fastening the rope-ladder about his waist, he scaled the boards, and on reaching the top, cast them down. First, he looked all about, but no living creature was in sight. "This is just to my hand," he said aloud, seeking a suitable hiding-place for the rope-ladder; "I always did despise company."

Stowing away the rope-ladder in a secure fissure between two giant blocks of granite, each the size of a large two-story house, he crossed to the first ridge, and looked out over the prairie, to triumph over the vacant spot where the covered wagon had stood fifteen hours before. "No telling what a man can do," he exclaimed admiringly, "that is to say, if his name is Brick Willock."

His eyes wandered to the mound of stones built over the woman's grave. His prayer recurred to his mind. "Well, God," he said, looking up at the cloudless sky, "I guess you're doing it!" After this expression of faith, he turned about and set forth to traverse the mountain range. Passing the ridge which he already looked upon as home, he crossed other ridges of varying height, and at the end of a mile reached the southern limit of the mountain. Like the northern side the southern elevation was nearly four hundred feet, as if the granite sea had dashed upward in fiercest waves, in a last futile attempt to inundate the plain. The southern wall was precipitous, and Willock, looking down the cedar-studded declivity, could gaze directly on the verdant levels that came to the very foot.

He stood at the center of an enormous horseshoe formed on the southwest by the range curving farther toward the south, and on his left hand, by the same range sweeping in a quarter-circle toward the southeast. The mouth of this granite half-circle was opened to the south, at least a quarter-mile in width; but on his left, a jutting spur almost at right angles to the main range, and some hundreds of yards closer to his position, shot across the space within the horseshoe bend, in such fashion that an observer, standing on the plain, would have half his view of the inner concave expanse shut off, except that part of the high north wall that towered above the spur.

Nor was this all. Behind the perpendicular arm, or spur, that ran out into the sea of mesquit, rose a low hill that was itself in the nature of an inner spur although, since it failed to reach the mountain, it might be regarded as a long flat island, surrounded by the calm green tide. This innermost arm, or island, was so near the mountain, that the entrance to it opened into a curved inner world of green, was narrow and strongly protected. The cove thus formed presented a level floor of ten or twelve acres, and it was directly down into this cove that Willock gazed. It looked so peaceful and secure, and its openness to the sunshine was so alluring, that Willock resolved to descend the steep wall. To do so at that point was impractical, but the ridge was unequal and not far to the right, sank to a low divide, while to the left, a deep gully thickly set with cedars, elms, scrub-oaks and thorn trees invited him with its steep but not difficult channel, to the ground.

"Here's a choice," observed Willock, as he turned toward the divide; "guess I'll go by the front, and save the back stairs for an emergency." The gully was his back stairs. He was beginning to feel himself rich in architectural possibilities. When he reached the plain he was outside of a line of hummocks that effectually hid the cove from sight, more effectually because of a dense grove of pecans that stood on either side of the grass-grown dunes. Instead of crossing the barrier, he started due south for the outer prairie, and when at last he stood midway between the wide jaws of the mountain horseshoe, he turned and looked intently toward the cove.

It was invisible, and his highest hopes were realized. From this extended mouth he could clearly see where the first spur shot out into the sand, and beyond that, he could see how, at a distance, the sheer wall of granite rose to the sky; but there was nothing to suggest that behind that scarred arm another projection parallel to it might be discovered. He walked toward the spur, always watching for a possible glimpse of the cove. When he stood on the inner side, his spirits rose higher. The long flat island that he had discerned from the mountain-top was here not to be defined because, on account of its lowness and of the abrupt wall beyond, it was mingled indistinguishably with the perspective of the range. Concealment was made easier from the fact that the ground of the cove was lower than all the surrounding land.

Willock now advanced on the cove and found himself presently in a snug retreat that would have filled with delight the heart of the most desperate highwayman, or the most timid settler. On the north was, of course, the towering mountain-wall, broken by the gully in the protection of whose trees one might creep up or down without detection. On the east, the same mountain-wall curved in high protection. In front was the wide irregular island, low, indeed, but happily high enough to shut out a view of the outside world. At the end of this barricade there was a gap, no wider than a wagon-road, along the side of which ran the dry channel of a mountain stream—the continuation of the gully that cut the mountain-wall from top to base—but even this gap was high enough to prevent observation from the plain.

No horsemen could enter the cove save by means of that low trench, cut as by the hand of man in the granite hill, and as Indian horsemen were the only enemies to be dreaded, his watchfulness need be concentrated only on that one point. "Nothing like variety," observed Willock cheerfully.