Our burros walked along at a good pace, steady and monotonous, but a pace that put the miles behind. I saw George Ringley sway several times in the saddle, and knew that he was dropping off to sleep. I could also tell from the way he sat his saddle that he was getting pretty sore. But he hadn’t complained.
Around midnight we dropped down into a little cañon, and I built a fire and brewed a cup of strong tea apiece, which was better than drinking the lukewarm water from the canteens, which had sloshed around until it commenced to taste strongly of the metal.
Ringley dropped to sleep by the campfire, and I could see that Sally Ehlers was getting pretty near the point of exhaustion.
“Another five miles,” I told them, “and we’ll camp and get a little sleep while it’s cool.”
The burros pushed on for that last five miles. I got the packs off, hobbled a couple of the burros, let the others run loose and pillowed my head on a saddle.
“You’re not keeping a lookout?” asked Sally Ehlers.
I shook my head.
“No,” I said, “we don’t need to. Just drop off to sleep and get a good sleep. We may have a hard day to-morrow.”
George Ringley was too tired to argue; too tired even to get into his blankets or undress. He simply flopped on the sand, pillowed his head on his saddle and dropped off to sleep. Sally Ehlers covered him with a blanket, because the desert would get cold just before dawn. I kicked off my boots, rolled myself in a blanket and was almost instantly asleep.
That night the desert talked again, but George Ringley didn’t hear it. The little sand swirls scurried around over the country, rustling against the sage and greasewood, whispering strange secrets of the desert. But George Ringley slept on. And yet I knew that he was hearing the noises of the desert, despite the fact that he was sleeping. One may shut his ears to the sound of the desert, but the desert stamps itself upon one’s soul just the same. George Ringley might not have consciously heard the noises of the drifting sand, but those sand whispers were doing things to his soul, nevertheless.
A professor of psychology camped with me for a while. He was out on the desert getting rid of a spot on his left lung. He told me that the subconscious mind was always receptive; that man’s environment stamped itself indelibly upon his character, because of the innumerable little things that were soaked up by the subconscious mind, without the consciousness being aware of it.
I didn’t get it in just the terms that he expressed it, but I got the idea all right, and I knew that it was the truth. I’d seen men in the desert before. The drifting sand blasts through the veneer of their character, just the same as the sand blast ripped the surface off of the wood in that house of Pete Ringley. Sometimes, when the sand got done, there was honest, sound wood down underneath, and sometimes it was just a rotten heart that had been covered with a veneer of highly polished wood. I’ve seen both kinds in the desert, but I’ve never seen a man in the desert who didn’t get stripped of his veneer and get right down to the stuff that was underneath.
George Ringley slept until about an hour after sunup. Then the gnats and flies got to bothering him and the heat of the desert started doing its stuff.
He sat up and rubbed his eyes.
I had breakfast almost ready, gave him some coffee and flapjacks. Sally Ehlers looked as fresh as she had the day we started.
“What’s the program?” asked Ringley.
“Feel that you can ride a little today?” I asked.
When I mentioned riding, I noticed his face twist in an involuntary grimace, but he nodded his head.
“Sure I can ride,” he said.
“We’ll work on for an hour or two,” I said. “When it commences to get hot we’ll stop again. We’re going to try short trips from now on. The burros will stand up better, and it will be a lot easier on you.”
“Never mind me,” he said.
Sally Ehlers flashed me a glance.
I didn’t say anything.
We finished breakfast, got the burros up and got another nine miles behind us. Then we slept until late afternoon, had another meal, got the burros up, and about seven thirty came down a long slope and looked over toward the Chocolate Mountains.
Sally Ehlers rode up beside me.
“Aren’t those the Chuckwalla claims?” she asked, nodding her head to the left.
“Those are the ones,” I told her. “You ride on with George for a piece. I’ll catch up with you later.”
She nodded and said something to George. They went on.
It was a full moon, and the sun had set just a few minutes ago in the west. The big moon was climbing over the eastern horizon, not red like some huge pumpkin, as it is in the impure air of the cities, but showing a pure delicate silver from the minute it climbed into view.
I made certain that Bill Ordway wasn’t crowding us too closely, and then I took a shovel from the pack and buried a rifle, a pair of six-shooters and plenty of shells. I smoothed the ground over and made certain that a tracker wouldn’t spot the place, particularly in the moonlight. Then I threw the pack rope back into place, got on my burro and urged him to speed. I caught up with the others within about a mile and a half. After we’d gone another half mile I said, “This is the place, Sally, over here to the right.”
“You mean this is our camp?” asked George Ringley.
“This is close enough to it,” I said.
He heaved a big sigh of relief, got from the saddle, tried to walk and fell flat. His legs were too stiff to function. After a minute or two he got up and grinned.
“I hope we stay here for a day or two,” he said.
I took some provisions and a little extra water, backtracked for a ways, and buried the stuff. Then I swung back so I could watch our back trail. Not that I expected to gain anything by it, but I knew that Bill Ordway would be suspicious if I made things too easy for him.
Bill was playing his hand pretty close to his chest. I knew that he was following along the trail. I knew that he knew we’d camped. The moonlight was almost as bright as day, but I did not see any trace of him or his men.
The next morning I took some location notices and started locating claims. George Ringley watched me with big eyes. Sally Ehlers seemed nervous and tense.
“Now,” I told them, “I’m going to leave you here with these claims. You can prowl around and do a little prospecting. It would probably be a good thing if you did. I’m going to go on back and record the claims. I’ll make a quick trip, then I’ll pick up some more provisions and come back to you just as soon as I can. I shouldn’t be gone over four or five days. I’ll take a fast-traveling burro and one of the packs, and I’ll shuffle right along.”
George Ringley looked around at the hot surface of the desert.
“Shucks!” he said. “There isn’t a human being within a million miles of us. We could leave the government mint exposed right here, and there wouldn’t be any trouble.”
Sally Ehlers didn’t say anything.
“Well,” I told him, “it will give you a good rest anyway.”
I put some provisions on the pack, not too many. I took a rifle and strapped a six-shooter around my waist.
I nodded to Sally Ehlers and shook hands with George Ringley.
I had the samples of high-grade ore in my saddle bags, and took care to see that the flap of one saddle bag was open so that a corner of the canvas sack was visible.
V
The Hold-Up