“Here’s how, Pal!” he said; “this is sure going to be one thirsty country, Les!”
CHAPTER II
ACROSS THE PAINTED DESERT
“SEE them blue an’ white striped buttes yander, Sid?” asked John, pointing across the stony desert with his quirt. “That’s limestone, in these parts, an’ it ginerally means a tank ef thar’s any water at all. Navaho Wells is in there, and we’ll camp for the night.”
“Just what I wanted—to have my first night in the desert out under the stars!” exclaimed Colonel Colvin, happily. “We stop here for the night, eh, John?”
“Shore; no more water for twenty miles, sir. Them boys ain’t growed their saddle corns yet, neither, an’ they’ll be plumb glad to get down. I know how ’tis! Thar’s a nice flat up on the buttes, Colonel. Dust off the t’rantulas and horned toads an’ rattlers off it, an’ a man’ll sleep thar peaceful as a new borned babe.”
Sid nodded approvingly. He was glad they were sleeping out, too. There couldn’t be too much of it for him! He said nothing about his aching knees, but his gait told the older men for him. He heeded no bodily aches, now, however, for a new and delicious happiness was filling his breast and a load of worry was vanishing fast. His father, he could see, was fast picking up health and strength; had been ever since they had started on this trip. Thirty years ago he had ridden these same hills, with hostile Apaches ambushed in these very buttes. Sid could imagine those blue-clad, yellow-scarfed cavalrymen with their friendly Indian scouts and the plainsmen rangers, all just like a Remington picture, painted with this place for a stage. In those days his father was one of the young lieutenants of the command. Now he could see the life-giving power of memory at work, for the strength of those rugged days seemed to be reëntering the Colonel’s body and spirit. In two more weeks he would be heavy and lean and iron-hard.
They headed the horses up a slope of the buttes. Its little flat commanded a magnificent prospect. Away to the west stretched line on line of stratified ridges, with the flat top of the Hopi mesa far on the horizon. To the east lay a silver-green flat of sage brush, bounded by jagged red peaks. Great woolly clouds rolled in rose and lavender masses over the bare rock saw-tooth ridges that filled in under the horizon. Water was there none, but of arid plant life there was abundance.
“Here!” said the Colonel, looking silently across the desert, while memories of old Indian days crowded his mind, “it was right over there beyond those buttes to the east, that we of the Fifth Cavalry came down from Fort Defiance on our southward trail after Chief Chuntz and his Apaches, boys. A bad business; but it had to be done, I suppose. I’ll tell you of that cave fight, some day. This place is good enough for us, John.”
Mesa Joe and Red Jake turned out the horses while Big John loped out into the sage to wait for the ranch wagon and get provisions and the sleeping gear from it. The boys set about cutting a quantity of sage bushes, from which they stripped a huge pile of fragrant browse. Colonel Colvin untied his cantle roll, and out of it took a six-by-nine foot light tarp, which was all the shelter he ever used. Setting it up with two stakes and its rear corners guyed to the rocky ledge back of the camp site, they had a sun shelter under which browse was spread out. The canteens were hung in a row in the shade, and out of the saddle bags of his McClellan army saddle the Colonel produced emergency rations that had been packed there in the Den, back home, before shipping the saddle out. There was bacon and corn meal, sugar and coffee, and a can of condensed cream.
Then the cowman came in and started a small fire of greasewood while Colonel Colvin produced an aluminum army mess tin with cover and folding handle, about nine by seven inches and perhaps an inch and a half deep.