They didn’t seem to be hitting the bowlder. But they were coming close to it.
I went back to the burros and strung ’em along the little trail that they’d made coming down. By the time I got into sight the firing had stopped.
The girl had the fire going and coffee ready. She was wrestling with the cooking, but campfire cooking is different from stove cooking.
I came in and helped her get the hang of it.
“You need a helper,” I said, looking at where the three men sprawled on the ground.
No one said anything.
I went to the burros and started to get on the saddles and packs. It took some little time. The girl had breakfast ready when I was about half finished. It consisted of pancakes that were burnt on the edges and raw in the center. The bacon had burnt, and the coffee was too strong.
The men grumbled about the food, looked at me.
I grinned at the girl.
“You’re doing fine, Miss Camm,” I told her.
Her eyes were red from the smoke, and her hair had straggled down around her forehead. She didn’t look happy, but she was game.
“Well,” said Fargo, “Zane won’t have to pack the burros at noon, so he can cook us a regular desert banquet.”
I waited until his eyes met mine.
“We don’t stop until to-night,” I told him.
He flushed.
“I’m running this show,” he said.
“Go ahead and run it any time you want to,” I said. “Two of these burros are mine. The rest are yours.”
He didn’t say anything. One of the men snickered.
We got started, and the sun began to do its stuff.
I rode close to the girl. “Got some cold cream handy?”
“Yes.”
“Put it on thick, and leave it on. Put lipstick on your lips. Don’t wash your face in water. Use cream.”
Then I rode away.
The sport shirts of the men left their necks exposed, places where their collars usually covered. And the desert sun, reflecting from sand, is pitiless.
After a while they covered up their necks with handkerchiefs. But the damage was done by that time. They looked like boiled lobsters. They fidgeted about in the saddles, got off and walked part of the time.
It was a day that wasn’t pleasant for them, any of them. They almost had to be pulled from the saddles and their legs straightened when we made camp.
I pushed the girl away from the fire and did the cooking. I gave them some good grub. It was wholesome, but it wasn’t any banquet. The men grumbled. They were hungry and tired.
“The thing for you to do,” I said, “is to start dividing up the work. You’d better make arrangements right now, one to get the wood, one to do the dishes, one to help the girl with the cooking.”
Fargo glared.
“I’m not accustomed to manual labor,” he said.
I nodded.
“You’re going to change. Either you’ll get accustomed to manual labor, or your stomach’ll get accustomed to going without grub.”
The girl stared at me, startled.
Fargo struggled to his feet, towered over me.
“When I say anything,” he snarled, “it goes. See?”
I motioned toward the fire with my hand.
“See if you can tell the fire to bum without wood,” I suggested.
He stood there for a while, then shifted his position. I didn’t even let on I knew he was there. The fire went down and it got cold. The girl was ready for her blankets. She rolled in. I kicked off my shoes and coat, crawled in my blankets.
“I’m cold,” said Fargo. “The blanket rolls you got were too light, Zane.”
“You’ll get used to ’em,” I said, and yawned. “Build the fire up if you get too cold.”
And I dropped off to sleep.
When I woke up the fire was crackling. One of the men had gone for wood, perhaps all three of them. They were huddled together, talking in low voices.
The next night we made Burro Springs.
The girl took out a pencil and paper. She wrote a document, read it over, frowned, scratched out a word here and there, and handed it to Fargo.
“This,” she said, “gives you your protection.”
Fargo folded it, stuck it in his pocket without reading it, grinned at the others, nodded to the girl.
“Thanks,” he said.
They got wood for the campfire without any argument. The camp was commencing to function smoothly. I drifted off to sleep. The three men talked over the campfire.
The next morning I had the usual chase after the burros. It was a long chase. I figured on turning the drifter loose and getting along with one less pack burro. He sure was a nuisance. I came on in with the string and I was sore.
The sunlight caught something white at just the right angle, and glittered. I saw that it was a piece of paper. There were others near it. The papers were rustling in the first of a morning breeze. I knew it’d spring up hard for half an hour or so, and then go down.
I got to wondering about the papers. Perhaps some one was ahead of us. I swung the burros so I went over past them. It was still a quarter of a mile from camp.
The paper looked familiar. I saw there was pencil writing on it, and that it was a woman’s writing. I picked up a piece of the paper, then got interested and went out after the others. When I had them all, I fitted them together.
It made interesting reading. It was the paper the girl had given Fargo for his “protection.”
I, Vera Camm, hereby certify that I grubstaked a man known as Panamint Kelley, a prospector. That Kelley located a valuable mining claim and died before he could record it. He mailed me a map and directions for getting there, giving the letter to a prospector he met when he started to get sick. George Fargo has financed my trip to the mine, and is to receive a one-tenth interest in the mine. He is to pay all expenses, and furnish guards to hold the claim. (Signed)
I read it over two or three times, and the more I read the funnier it all seemed. That paper evidenced the understanding between the four of them. Evidently the two men were bodyguards or mining claim guards, as you’d want to call them. They thought they were on the trail of a rich mine. The girl evidently had the directions.
She’d given Fargo this writing. Under its terms, Fargo was to have a tenth interest. Without it, he only had the girl’s word. I’d heard of people whose words were as good as their bonds, but I’d never before heard of a case where words were better.
But Fargo had taken this paper out in the desert, torn it up, deliberately and derisively, and thrown the pieces away. Why?
In one way it wasn’t my business. In another way it was. I put the pieces of paper in my pocket, and went into camp.
II. Betrayed
“This is where you wanted to go,” I said, “Burro Springs.”
They looked at the girl.
She had her answer ready.
“Go twenty miles up the valley between the two ranges. Then look for a peculiar notched peak in The Last Chance Mountains. The notch is like this.”
And she gave us a sketch.
I knew the peak, but I didn’t say so.
“Twenty miles?” I said.
“Twenty miles,” she said.
“It’s a tough country up there, up near the head of Death Valley, and the desert is none too friendly anywhere along in there.
“We go through a pass?” I asked, knowing we’d have to get to where the peak showed just that profile against the sky.
She looked confused.
“Oh, I’d forgotten about that. Yes, we go through a pass after we’ve gone three miles. We turn to the left.”
I nodded.
“Better look at your sailing directions again and make sure,” said Fargo, and he grinned, a big, friendly grin. It was the first time I’d seen him twist his lips in anything like a friendly grin. But, even then, his eyes were hard.