Hidden Water

If the ladies had taken hold a little strong in the first spasms of house-cleaning, Jeff and Rufus were far too polite to mention it; and while the dishes were being washed they quietly gathered up their belongings, and moved them into the storeroom. Their beds being already spread beneath the ramada, it was not difficult to persuade the girls to accept Hardy’s room, which for a man’s, was clean, and the judge fell heir to Jeff’s well-littered den. All being quickly arranged and the beds made, Creede threw an armful of ironwood upon the fire and they sat down to watch it burn.

Three hours before, Hidden Water had been the hangout of two sheep-harrying barbarians, bushy-headed and short of speech; now it was as bright and cheerful as any home and the barbarians were changed to lovers. Yet, as they basked in the warmth of the fireside there was one absent from his accustomed place–a creature so fierce and shy that his wild spirit could never become reconciled to the change. At the first sound of women’s voices little Tommy had dashed through his cat-hole and fled to the bowlder pile at the foot of the cliff, from whose dank recesses he peered forth with blank and staring eyes.

But now, as the strange voices grew quiet and night settled down over the valley, he crept forth and skulked back to the house, sniffing about the barred windows, peeking in through his hole in the door; and at last, drawing well away into the darkness, he raised his voice in an appealing cry for Jeff.

As the first awful, raucous outburst broke the outer silence Kitty Bonnair jumped, and Lucy and her father turned pale.

“What’s that?” cried Kitty, in a hushed voice, “a mountain lion?”

“Not yet,” answered Creede enigmatically. “He will be though, if he grows. Aw, say, that’s just my cat. Here, pussy, pussy, pussy! D’ye hear that, now? Sure, he knows me! Wait a minute and I’ll try an’ ketch ’im.”

He returned a few minutes later, with Tommy held firmly against his breast, blacker, wilder, and scrawnier than ever, but purring and working his claws.

“How’s this for a mountain lion?” said Creede, stopping just inside the door and soothing down his pet. “D’ye see that hook?” he inquired, holding up the end of Tommy’s crooked tail and laughing at Kitty’s dismay. “He uses that to climb cliffs with. That’s right–he’s a new kind of cat. Sure, they used to be lots of ’em around here, but the coyotes got all the rest. Tom is the only one left. Want to pet him? Well–whoa, pussy,–come up careful, then; he’s never–ouch!”

At the first whisk of skirts, Tommy’s yellow eyes turned green and he sank every available hook and claw into his master’s arm; but when Kitty reached out a hand he exploded in a storm of spits and hisses and dashed out through the door.

“Well, look at that, now,” said Creede, grinning and rubbing his arm. “D’ye know what’s the matter with him? You’re the first woman he ever saw in his life. W’y, sure! They ain’t no women around here. I got him off a cowman over on the Verde. He had a whole litter of ’em–used to pinch Tom’s tail to make him fight–so when I come away I jest quietly slipped Mr. Tommy into my shaps.”

“Oh, the poor little thing,” said Kitty; and then she added, puckering up her lips, “but I don’t like cats.”

“Oh, I do!” exclaimed Lucy Ware quickly, as Creede’s face changed, and for a moment the big cowboy stood looking at them gravely.

“That’s good,” he said, smiling approvingly at Lucy; and then, turning to Kitty Bonnair, he said: “You want to learn, then.”

But Kitty was not amenable to the suggestion.

“No!” she cried, stamping her foot. “I don’t! They’re such stealthy, treacherous creatures–and they never have any affection for people.”

“Ump-um!” denied Creede, shaking his head slowly. “You don’t know cats–jest think you do, maybe. W’y, Tommy was the only friend I had here for two years. D’ye think he could fool me all that time? Rufe here will tell you how he follows after me for miles–and cryin’, too–when the coyotes might git ’im anytime. And he sleeps with me every night,” he added, lowering his voice.

“Well, you can have him,” said Kitty lightly. “Do they have any real mountain lions here?”

“Huh?” inquired Creede, still big-eyed with his emotions. “Oh, yes; Bill Johnson over in Hell’s Hip Pocket makes a business of huntin’ ’em. Twenty dollars bounty, you know.”

“Oh, oh!” cried Kitty. “Will he take me with him? Tell me all about it!”

Jefferson Creede moved over toward the door with a far-away look in his eyes.

“That’s all,” he said indifferently. “He runs ’em with hounds. Well, I’ll have to bid you good-night.”

He ducked his head, and stepped majestically out the door; and Hardy, who was listening, could hear him softly calling to his cat.

“Oh, Rufus!” cried Kitty appealingly, as he rose to follow, “do stop and tell me about Bill Johnson, and, yes–Hell’s Hip Pocket!”

“Why, Kitty!” exclaimed Lucy Ware innocently, and while they were discussing the morals of geographical swearing Hardy made his bow, and passed out into the night.

The bitter-sweet of love was upon him again, making the stars more beautiful, the night more mysterious and dreamy; but as he crept into his blankets he sighed. In the adjoining cot he could hear Jeff stripping slivers from a length of jerked beef, and Tommy mewing for his share.

“Want some jerky, Rufe?” asked Creede, and then, commenting upon their late supper, he remarked:

“A picnic dinner is all right for canary birds, but it takes good hard grub to feed a man. I’m goin’ to start the rodér camp in the mornin’ and cook me up some beans.” He lay for a while in silence, industriously feeding himself on the dry meat, and gazing at the sky.

“Say, Rufe,” he said, at last, “ain’t you been holdin’ out on me a little?”

“Um-huh,” assented Hardy.

“Been gettin’ letters from Miss Lucy all the time, eh?”

“Sure.”

“Well,” remarked Creede, “you’re a hell of a feller! But I reckon I learned somethin’,” he added philosophically, “and when I want somebody to tell my troubles to, I’ll know where to go. Say, she’s all right, ain’t she?”

“Yeah.”

“Who’re you talkin’ about?”

“Who’re you?”

“Oh, you know, all right, all right–but, say!”

“Well?”

“It’s a pity she don’t like cats.”

CHAPTER XII

THE GARDEN IN THE DESERT

The sun was well up over the cañon rim when the tired visitors awoke from their dreams. Kitty Bonnair was the first to open her eyes and peep forth upon the fairy world which promised so much of mystery and delight. The iron bars of their window, deep set in the adobe walls, suggested the dungeon of some strong prison where Spanish maidens languished for sight of their lovers; a rifle in the corner, overlooked in the hurried moving, spoke eloquently of the armed brutality of the times; the hewn logs which supported the lintels completed the picture of primitive life; and a soft breeze, breathing in through the unglazed sills, whispered of dark cañons and the wild, free out-of-doors.

As she lay there drinking it all in a murmur of voices came to her ears; and, peering out, she saw Creede and Rufus Hardy squatting by a fire out by the giant mesquite tree which stood near the bank of the creek. Creede was stirring the contents of a frying-pan with a huge iron spoon, and Rufus was cooking strips of meat on a stick which he turned above a bed of coals. There was no sign of hurry or anxiety about their preparations; they seemed to be conversing amiably of other things. Presently Hardy picked up a hooked stick, lifted the cover from the Dutch oven, and dumped a pile of white biscuits upon a greasy cloth. Then, still deep in their talk, they filled their plates from the fry-pan, helped themselves to meat, wrapped the rest of the bread in the cloth, and sat comfortably back on their heels, eating with their fingers and knives.

It was all very simple and natural, but somehow she had never thought of men in that light before. They were so free, so untrammelled and self-sufficient; yes, and so barbarous, too. Rufus Hardy, the poet, she had known–quiet, soft-spoken, gentle, with dreamy eyes and a doglike eagerness to please–but, lo! here was another Rufus, still gentle, but with a stern look in his eyes which left her almost afraid–and those two lost years lay between. How he must have changed in all that time! The early morning was Kitty’s time for meditation and good resolutions, and she resolved then and there to be nice to Rufus, for he was a man and could not understand.

As the sound of voices came from the house Jefferson Creede rose up from his place and stalked across the open, rolling and swaying in his high-heeled boots like a huge, woolly bear.

“Well, Judge,” he said, after throwing a mountain of wood on the fire as a preliminary to cooking breakfast for his guests, “I suppose now you’re here you’d like to ride around a little and take stock of what you’ve got. The boys will begin comin’ in for the rodér to-day, and after to-morrow I’ll be pretty busy; but if you say so I’ll jest ketch up a gentle horse, and show you the upper range before the work begins.”

“Oh, won’t you take me, too?” cried Kitty, skipping in eagerly. “I’ve got the nicest saddle–and I bet I can ride any horse you’ve got.”

She assumed a cowboy-like strut as she made this assertion, shaking her head in a bronco gesture which dashed the dark hair from her eyes and made her look like an unbroken thoroughbred. Never in all his life, even in the magazine pictures of stage beauties which form a conspicuous mural decoration in those parts, had Creede seen a woman half so charming, but even in his love blindness he was modest.

“We’ll have to leave that to the judge,” he said deferentially, “but they’s horses for everybody.” He glanced inquiringly at Lucy, who was busily unpacking her sketching kit; but she only smiled, and shook her head.

“The home is going to be my sphere for some time,” she remarked, glancing about at the half-cleaned room, “and then,” she added, with decision, “I’m going to make some of the loveliest water colors in the world. I think that big giant cactus standing on that red-and-gray cliff over there is simply wonderful.”

“Um, pretty good,” observed Creede judicially. “But you jest ought to see ’em in the gorge where Hidden Water comes out! Are ye goin’ along, Rufe?” he inquired, bending his eyes upon Hardy with a knowing twinkle. “No? Well, you can show her where it is! Didn’t you never hear why they call this Hidden Water?” he asked, gazing benignly upon the young ladies. “Well, listen.

“They’s a big spring of water right up here, not half a mile. It’s an old landmark–the Mexicans call it Agua Escondida–but I bet neither one of you can find it and I’ll take you right by the gulch where it comes out. They can’t nobody find it, unless they’re wise enough to follow cow tracks–and of course, we don’t expect that of strangers. But if you ever git lost and you’re within ten miles of home jest take the first cow trail you see and follow it downhill and you’ll go into one end or the other of Hidden Water cañon. Sure, it’s what you might call the Hello-Central of the whole Four Peaks country, with cow paths instead of wires. The only thing lackin’ is the girls, to talk back, and call you down for your ungentlemanly language, and–well, this country is comin’ up every day!”

He grinned broadly, wiping his floury hands on his overalls in defiance of Miss Kitty’s most rudimentary principles; and yet even she, for all her hygiene, was compelled to laugh. There was something about Creede that invited confidence and feminine badgering, he was so like a big, good-natured boy. The entire meal was enlivened by her efforts, in the person of a hello girl, to expurgate his language, and she ended by trying to get him to swear–politely.

But in this the noble cowboy was inexorable. “No, ma’am,” he said, with an excess of moral conviction. “I never swear except for cause–and then I always regret it. But if you want to git some of the real thing to put in your phonygraft jest come down to the pasture to-morrow when the boys are breakin’ horses. Your hair’s kind of wavy, I notice, but it will put crimps in it to hear Bill Lightfoot or some of them Sunflower stiffs when they git bucked onto a rock pile. And say, if you call yourself a rider I can give you a snake for to-day.”

“Oh, thank you, Mr. Creede,” answered Miss Kitty, bowing low as she left the table. “Its tail, if it chanced to be a rattler, would be most acceptable, I am sure, and I might make a belt out of its skin. But for riding purposes I prefer a real, gentle little horse. Now hurry up, and I’ll be dressed in half an hour.”

Ten minutes later Creede rode up to the house, leading a sober gray for the judge, but for Kitty Bonnair he had the prettiest little calico-horse in the bunch, a pony painted up with red and yellow and white until he looked like a three-color chromo. Even his eye was variegated, being of a mild, pet-rabbit blue, with a white circle around the orbit; and his name, of course, was Pinto. To be sure, his face was a little dished in and he showed other signs of his scrub Indian blood, but after Creede had cinched on the new stamped-leather saddle and adjusted the ornate hackamore and martingale, Pinto was the sportiest-looking horse outside of a Wild West show.

There was a long wait then, while Diana completed her preparations for the hunt; but when Kitty Bonnair, fully apparelled, finally stepped through the door Creede reeled in the saddle, and even Rufus Hardy gasped. There was nothing immodest about her garb–in fact, it was very correct and proper–but not since the Winship girls rode forth in overalls had Hidden Water seen its like. Looking very trim and boyish in her khaki riding breeches, Kitty strode forth unabashed, rejoicing in her freedom. A little scream of delight escaped her as she caught sight of the calico-pony; she patted his nose a moment, inquired his name, and then, scorning all assistance, swung lightly up into the saddle. No prettier picture had ever been offered to the eye; so young, so supple and strong, with such a wealth of dark, wavy hair, and, withal, so modest and honestly happy. But, somehow, Jefferson Creede took the lead and rode with his eyes cast down, lest they should be dazzled by the vision. Besides, Jeff had been raised old-fashioned, and Golden Gate Park is a long, long ways, chronologically, from Hidden Water.

As the procession passed away up the cañon, with Creede in sober converse with the judge and Kitty scampering about like an Indian on her pinto horse, Hardy and Lucy Ware glanced at each other, and laughed.

“Did you ever see any one like her?” exclaimed Lucy, and Hardy admitted with a sigh that he never had.

“And I am afraid,” observed Miss Lucy frankly, “you were not altogether pleased to see her–at first. But really, Rufus, what can any one hope to do with Kitty? When she has set her heart on anything she will have it, and from the very moment she read your first letter she was determined to come down here. Of course father thinks he came down to look into this matter of the sheep, and I think that I came down to look after him, but in reality I have no doubt we are both here because Kitty Bonnair so wills it.”

“Very likely,” replied Hardy, with a doubtful smile. “But since you are in her counsels perhaps you can tell what her intentions are toward me. I used to be one of her gentlemen-in-waiting, you know, and this visit looks rather ominous for me.”

“Well, just exactly what are you talking about, Rufus?”

“I guess you know, all right,” replied Hardy. “Have I got to ride a bucking bronco, or kill a sheep-herder or two–or is it just another case of ‘move on’?”

He paused and smiled bitterly to himself, but Lucy was not in a mood to humor him in his misanthropy.

“I must confess,” she said, “that you may be called upon to do a few chivalrous feats of horsemanship, but as for the sheep-herder part of it, I hope you will try to please me by leaving them alone. It worries me, Rufus,” she continued soberly, “to see you becoming so strong-willed and silent. There was a whole year, when none of us heard a word from you–and then it was quite by accident. And father thinks you stopped writing to him with the deliberate intention of driving the sheep away by violence.”

“Well, I’m glad he understands so well,” replied Hardy naively. “Of course I wouldn’t embarrass him by asking for orders, but–”

“Oh, Rufus!” exclaimed Miss Lucy impatiently, “do try to be natural again and take your mind off those sheep. Do you know what I am thinking of doing?” she demanded seriously. “I am thinking of asking father to give me this ranch–he said he would if I wanted it–and then I’ll discharge you! You shall not be such a brutal, ugly man! But come, now, I want you to help clear the table, and then we will go up to Hidden Water and read your poems. But tell me, have you had any trouble with the sheepmen?”

“Why, no!” answered Hardy innocently. “What made you ask?”

“Well, you wrote father you expected trouble–and–and you had that big, long pistol when you came in yesterday. Now you can’t deny that!”

“I’m afraid you’ve had some Western ideas implanted in your bosom by Kitty, Miss Lucy,” protested Hardy. “We never shoot each other down here. I carry that pistol for the moral effect–and it’s necessary, too, to protect these sheepmen against their own baser natures. You see they’re all armed, and if I should ride into their camp without a gun and ask them to move they might be tempted to do something overt. But as it is now, when Jeff and I begin to talk reason with them they understand. No, we’re all right; it’s the sheep-herders that have all the trouble.”

“Rufus Hardy,” cried Miss Lucy indignantly, “if you mention those sheep again until you are asked about them, I’ll have you attended to. Do you realize how far I have come to see your poems and hear you talk the way you used to talk? And then to hear you go on in this way! I thought at first that Mr. Creede was a nice man, but I am beginning to change my opinion of him. But you have just got to be nice to me and Kitty while we are here. I had so many things to tell you about your father, and Tupper Browne, and The Circle, but you just sit around so kind of close-mouthed and silent and never ask a question! Wouldn’t you like to know how your father is?” she asked.

“Why, yes,” responded Hardy meekly. “Have you seen him lately?”

“I saw him just before we came away. He is dreadfully lonely, I know, but he wouldn’t send any message. He never says anything when I tell him what you are doing, just sits and twists his mustache and listens; but I could tell by the way he said good-bye that he was glad I was coming. I am sorry you can’t agree–isn’t there something you could do to make him happier?”

Hardy looked up from his dish-washing with a slow smile.

“Which do you think is more important?” he asked, “for a man to please his father or his best friend?”

Lucy suspected a trap and she made no reply.

“Did you ever quote any of my poetry to father?” inquired Hardy casually. “No? Then please don’t. But I’ll bet if you told him I was catching wild horses, or talking reason to these Mexican herders, you’d have the old man coming. He’s a fighter, my father, and if you want to make him happy when you go back, tell him his son has just about given up literature and is the champion bronco-twister of the Four Peaks range.”

“But Rufus–would that be the truth?”

Hardy laughed. “Well, pretty near it–but I’m trying to please my best friend now.”

“Oh,” said Lucy, blushing. “Will–will that make much difference?” she asked.

“All the difference in the world,” declared Hardy warmly. “You want me to become a poet–he wants me to become a fighter. Well now, since I haven’t been able to please him, I’m going to try to please you for a while.”

“Oh, Rufus,” cried Lucy, “am I really–your best friend?”

“Why sure! Didn’t you know that?” He spoke the words with a bluff good-fellowship which pleased her, in a way, but at the same time left her silent. And he, too, realized that there was a false note, a rift such as often creeps in between friends and if not perceived and checked widens into a breach.

“You know,” he said, quietly making his amends, “when I was a boy my father always told me I talked too much; and after mother died I–well, I didn’t talk so much. I was intended for a soldier, you know, and good officers have to keep their own counsel. But–well, I guess the habit struck in–so if I don’t always thank you, or tell you things, you will understand, won’t you? I wasn’t raised to please folks, you know, but just to fight Indians, and all that. How would you like to be a soldier’s wife?”

“Not very well, I am afraid,” she said. “All the fear and anxiety, and–well, I’m afraid I couldn’t love my husband if he killed anybody.” She paused and glanced up at him, but he was deep in thought.

“My mother was a soldier’s wife,” he said, at last; and Lucy, seeing where his thoughts had strayed, respected his silence. It was something she had learned long before, for while Rufus would sometimes mention his mother he would never talk about her, even to Lucy Ware. So they finished their housework, deep in their own thoughts. But when at last they stepped out into the sunshine Lucy touched him on the arm.

“Wouldn’t you like to bring your poems with you?” she suggested. “We can read them when we have found the spring. Is it very beautiful up there?”

“Yes,” answered Hardy, “I often go there to write, when nobody is around. You know Jeff and all these cowboys around here don’t know that I write verse. They just think I’m a little fellow from somewhere up in California that can ride horses pretty good. But if I had handed it out to them that I was a poet, or even a college man, they would have gone to tucking snakes into my blankets and dropping chili bravos into my beans until they got a rise out of me, sure. I learned that much before I ever came up here. But I’ve got a little place I call my garden–up in the cañon, above Hidden Water–and sometimes I sneak off up there, and write. Would you like to see a poem I wrote up there? All right, you can have the rest some other time.” He stepped into the storeroom, extracted a little bundle from his war bag, and then they passed on up the valley together.

The cañon of the Alamo is like most Arizona stream beds, a strait-jacket of rocky walls, opening out at intervals into pocket-like valleys, such as the broad and fertile flat which lay below Hidden Water. On either side of the stream the banks rise in benches, each a little higher and broader and more heavily covered: the first pure sand, laid on by the last freshet; the next grown over with grass and weeds; the next bushed up with baby willows and arrow weed; and then, the high bench, studded with mesquite and palo verdes; and at the base of the solid rim perhaps a higher level, strewn with the rocks which time and the elements have hurled down from the cliff, and crested with ancient trees. Upon such a high bench stood the Dos S ranch house, with trails leading off up and down the flat or plunging down the bank, the striated cliff behind it and the water-torn valley below.

Up the cañon a deep-worn path led along the base of the bluff; and as the two best friends followed along its windings Hardy pointed out the mysteries of the land: strange trees and shrubs, bristling with thorns; cactus in its myriad forms; the birds which flashed past them or sang in the wild gladness of springtime; lizards, slipping about in the sands or pouring from cracks in the rocks–all the curious things which his eyes had seen and his mind taken note of in the long days of solitary riding, and which his poet’s soul now interpreted into a higher meaning for the woman who could understand. So intent were they upon the wonders of that great display that Lucy hardly noticed where they were, until the trail swung abruptly in toward the cliff and they seemed to be entering a cleft in the solid rock.

“Where do we go now?” she asked, and Hardy laughed at her confusion.

“This is the gate to Hidden Water,” he said, lowering his voice to its old-time poetic cadence. “And strait is the way thereof,” he added, as he led her through the narrow pass, “but within are tall trees and running water, and the eagle nests undisturbed among the crags.”

“What are you quoting?” exclaimed Miss Lucy, and for an answer Rufus beckoned her in and pointed with his hand. Before them stood the tall trees with running water at their feet, and a great nest of sticks among the crags.