CHAPTER IX
THE DANGER LINE
Though Champ Lee had business in Mesa next day that would not be denied, he was singularly loath to leave the ranch. He wanted to stay close to Melissy until the dénouement of the hunt for the stage robber. On the other hand, it was well known that his contest with Morse for the Monte Cristo was up for a hearing. To stay at home would have been a confession of his anxiety that he did not want to make. But it was only after repeated charges to his daughter to call him up by telephone immediately if anything happened that he could bring himself to ride away.
He was scarcely out of sight when a Mexican vaquero rode in with the information that old Antonio, on his way to the post at Three Pines with a second drove of sheep, had twisted his ankle badly about fifteen miles from the ranch. After trying in vain to pick up a herder at Mesa by telephone, Melissy was driven to the only feasible course left her, to make the drive herself in place of Antonio. There were fifteen hundred sheep in the bunch, and 122 they must be taken care of at once by somebody competent for the task. She knew she could handle them, for it had amused her to take charge of a herd often for an hour or two at a time. The long stretch over the desert would be wearisome and monotonous, but she had the slim, muscular tenacity of a half-grown boy. It did not matter what she wanted to do. The thing to which she came back always was that the sheep must be taken care of.
She left directions with Jim for taking care of the place, changed to a khaki skirt and jacket, slapped a saddle on her bronco, and disappeared across country among the undulations of the sandhills. A tenderfoot would have been hopelessly lost in the sameness of these hills and washes, but Melissy knew them as a city dweller does his streets. Straight as an arrow she went to her mark. The tinkle of distant sheep-bells greeted her after some hours’ travel, and soon the low, ceaseless bleating of the herd.
The girl found Antonio propped against a piñon tree, solacing himself philosophically with cigarettes. He was surprised to see her, but made only a slight objection to her taking his place. His ankle was paining him a good deal, and he was very glad to get the chance to pull himself to her saddle and ride back to the ranch.
A few quick words sent the dog Colin out among 123 the sheep, by now scattered far and wide over the hill. They presently came pouring toward her, diverged westward, and massed at the base of a butte rising from a dry arroyo. The journey had begun, and hour after hour it continued through the hot day, always in a cloud of dust flung up by the sheep, sometimes through the heavy sand of a wash, often over slopes of shale, not seldom through thick cactus beds that shredded her skirt and tore like fierce, sharp fingers at her legging-protected ankles. The great gray desert still stretched before her to the horizon’s edge, and still she flung the miles behind her with the long, rhythmic stride that was her birthright from the hills. A strong man, unused to it, would have been staggering with stiff fatigue, but this slender girl held the trail with light grace, her weight still carried springily on her small ankles.
Once she rested for a few minutes, flinging herself down into the sand at length, her head thrown back from the full brown throat so that she could gaze into the unstained sky of blue. Presently the claims of this planet made themselves heard, for she, too, was elemental and a creature of instinct. The earth was awake and palpitating with life, the low, indefatigable life of creeping things and vegetation persisting even in this waste of rock and sand.
But she could not rest long, for Diablo Cañon must be reached before dark. The sheep would be 124 very thirsty by the time they arrived, and she could not risk letting them tear down the precipitous edge among the sharp rocks in the dark. Already over the sand stretches a peculiar liquid glow was flooding, so that the whole desert seemed afire. The burning sun had slipped behind a saddle of the purple peaks, leaving a brilliant horizon of many mingled shades.