“Wansfell, I was not meaning you,” said Virey. “There are things I hate you for, but laziness is certainly not included in them.... I never worked in my life. I had money left me. It was a curse. I thought I could buy everything. I bought a wife—the big-eyed woman to whom you devote your services—and your attentions.... And I bought for myself the sweetness of the deadly nightshade flower—a statue of marble, chiseled in the beautiful curves of mocking love—a woman of chain lightning and hate.... If I had lived by industry, as live those red ants you’re watching, I might not now have one foot in my grave in Death Valley.”
Thus there were rare instances when Virey appeared a man with the human virtues of regret, of comprehension, of intolerance, but never a word issued from his lips that was not tinged with bitterness. Had the divinity in him been blasted forever? Or was it a submerged spark that could quicken only to a touch of the woman lost to him? Adam wondered. Sometimes a feeling of pity for Virey stole over him, but it never lasted long. Adam had more respect for these red ants than for some men, despite the alleged divinity. He abhorred the drones of life. The desert taught how useless were the idlers—how nature ruthlessly cut them off.
The red ants had a hill some few paces from the shelter where Adam lay. One train of ants, empty handed, as it were, traveled rapidly from the ant hill toward the camp litter; and another train staggered under tremendous burdens in the other direction. At first Adam thought these last were carrying bits of bread, then he thought they were carrying grains of gravel, and then he discovered, by moving closer to watch, that they were carrying round black-and-white globules, several times as large as their own bodies. Presently he concluded that these round objects were ant eggs which the tribe was moving from one hill to another. It was exceedingly interesting to watch them. He recognized them as the species of desert ant that could bite almost as fiercely as a scorpion. Their labor was prodigious. The great difficulty appeared to be in keeping the eggs in their jaws. These burdens were continually falling out and rolling away. Some ants tried many times and in many ways to grasp the hard little globules. Then, when this was accomplished, came the work compared with which the labor of man seemed insignificant. After getting a start the loaded ants made fair progress over smooth, hard ground, but when they ran into a crust of earth or a pebble or a chip they began the toil of a giant. The ant never essayed to go round the obstacle. He surmounted it. He pushed and lifted and heaved, and sometimes backed over, dragging his precious burden behind him. Others would meet a little pitfall and, instead of circling it to get to the ant hill, they would roll down, over and over, with their eggs, until they reached the bottom. Then it was uphill work on the other side, indefatigible, ceaseless, patient, wonderful.
Adam presently had to forego his little sentiment about the toil of the ants over their eggs. The black-and-white globules were seeds of maize. On the night before, Adam’s burro Jennie had persisted around camp until he gave her the last of some maize left in one of his packs. Jennie had spilled generous quantities of the maize in the sand, and the ants were carrying home the seeds.
How powerful they were! How endowed with tireless endurance and a persistence beyond human understanding! The thing that struck Adam so singularly was that these ants did not recognize defeat. They could not give up. Failure was a state unknown to their instincts. And so they performed marvelous feats. What was the spirit that actuated them? The mighty life of nature was infinitely strong in them. It was the same as the tenacity of the lichen that lived on the desert rocks, or the eyesight of the condor that could see its prey from the invisible heights of the sky, or the age-long destructive movements of the mountain tops wearing down to the valleys.
When Adam got up from his pleasant task and meditation he was surprised to find Mrs. Virey standing near with eyes intent on him. Then it became incumbent upon him to show her the toils of the red ants. She watched them attentively for a while.
“Wonderful little creatures!” she exclaimed. “So this watching is one of the secrets of your desert knowledge. Wansfell, I can’t compare these ants to men. They are far superior. They have order, purpose. They are passionless, perfect organizations to carry on their lives. They will work and live—the descendants of this very tribe of ants—long after the race of men has disappeared off the face of the earth.... But wonderful as they are, and interesting as are their labors, I’d prefer to watch you chop wood, or, better, to climb the slope with your giant stride.”
* * * * *
That night, some time late, Adam was awakened by a gale that swooped up through the gateway from the valley. It blew away the cool mountain air which had settled down from the heights. It was a warmer wind than any Adam had ever before experienced at night. It worried him. Forerunner, it must be, of the midnight furnace winds that had added to the fame of Death Valley! It brought a strange, low, hollow roar, unlike any other sound in nature. It was a voice. Adam harkened to the warning. On the morrow he would again talk to Virey. Soon it might be too late to save Magdalene Virey. She had obstructed his will. She would not leave without her husband. She had bidden Adam stay there in Death Valley to serve her, but she seemed to have placed her husband beyond Adam’s reach. The ferocity in Adam had never found itself in relation to Virey. Adam had persuaded and argued with the persistence of the toiling ant, but to work his way with Virey seemed to demand the swoop of the desert hawk.
This strange warm wind, on its first occurrence during Adam’s stay in the valley, rose to a gale and then gradually subsided until it moaned away mournfully. Its advent had robbed Adam of sleep; its going seemed to leave a deader silence, fraught with the meaning of its visit.