Arizona -- Fiction; Grand Canyon (Ariz.) -- Fiction; Western stories
"Get busy, Just!" Curly would roar. "Come out of your trance!" and
Enoch would ride Pablo after the impish Mamie with a skill that
developed remarkably as the afternoon wore on. Enoch could not recall
ever having been so wretchedly uncomfortable in his life. He was
sodden to the skin, aching with weariness, shivering with cold. But he
made no murmur of protest. It was Curly who, about five o'clock,
called:
"Hey, Mack! I've gone my limit!"
Mack pulled up and seemed to hesitate. As he did so, the storm, with a
suddenness that was unbelievable, stopped. A last flare of lightning
seemed to blast the clouds from the sky. The rain ceased and the sun
enveloped mesas, gorges, trail in a hundred rainbows.
"How about a fire?" asked Mack, grinning, with chattering teeth.
"It must be done somehow," replied Curly. "Come on, Just, shake it up!"
"Look here, Curly," exclaimed Mack, pausing in the act of throwing his
leg over the saddle, "I think you ought to treat Mr. Smith with more
respect. He ain't your hired help."
"The dickens he isn't!" grinned Curly.
"It's all right, Mack! I enjoy it," said Enoch, dismounting stiffly.
"If you do," Mack gave him a keen look, "you aren't enjoying it the way
Curly thinks you do."
Enoch returned Mack's gaze, smiled, but said nothing further. Mack,
however, continued to grumble.
"I'm as good as the next fellow, but I don't believe in giving
everybody a slap on the back or a kick in the pants to prove it. You
may be a lawyer, all right, Mr. Smith, but I'll bet you're on the
bench. You've got that way with you. Not that it's any of my
business!"
He was leading the way, as he spoke, toward the face of a mesa that
abutted almost on the trail. Curly apparently had not paid the
slightest attention to the reproof. He was already hobbling his horse.
They made no attempt to look for a spring. The hollows of the rocks
were filled with rain water. But the search for wood was long and
arduous. In fact, it was nearly dusk before they had gathered enough
to last out the evening. But here and there a tiny cedar or mesquite
yielded itself up and at last a good blaze flared up before the mesa.
The men shifted to dry underwear, wrung out their outer clothing and
put it on again, and drank copiously of the hot coffee. In spite of
damp clothing and blankets Enoch slept deeply and dreamlessly, and rose
the next day none the worse for the wetting. Even in this short time
his physical tone was improving and he felt sure that his mind must
follow.
CHAPTER VIII
THE COLORADO
"We had a particularly vile place to raid to-day, and as I listened
with sick heart to the report of it, suddenly I saw the Canyon and F.'s
broad back on his mule and the glorious line of the rim lifting from
opalescent mists."--_Enoch's Diary_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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