The moon appeared at last and suddenly all the desert lay before them
like molten silver. They rose, stiffly, and Charley helped Roger to
replace the little pack on Peter. Roger led, Peter followed and Charley
brought up in the rear. For hours, they toiled slowly up into the range,
flashing their "bugs" into the shadows, stopping now and again to go
over rock heap or cactus clump carefully, then on again, neither of them
speaking, even to Peter, except to call at irregular intervals Felicia's
name.
Dawn found them high in the range, in a little canyon, sweet with a tiny
spring about which grew mesquite and bear grass. The black ashes of old
fires were there, but nothing else. Roger broke the silence of hours:
"We're both going to get a sleep here, then I'm going to take you home.
We're way out of the reach of gun sound. They might have found her, you
know."
They stood staring about them for a moment and listening. The
unutterable silence of the desert was about them. Roger, eyes bloodshot,
face unshaven, lips cracked, turned to Charley whose great eyes were
sunk in her head, her lip colorless and drawn.
"Come," he said. "I'll cook the bacon and you unpack the rest of the
grub. We simply haven't strength to get home without rest and food."
Charley had the remainder of the food ready for Roger when the bacon was
cooked. They ate in silence, then Charley lay down on the pack blanket
while Roger stretched out in a drift of sand beyond the spring. In utter
weariness they both slept, unmindful of danger from snakes or vermin.
It was mid-morning when Roger woke. He sat up with a start and a sudden
clear picture in his eyes of a spot in the desert where he had not
searched. About a mile from the ranch and perhaps an eighth of a mile
west of the trail at the base of the range was a little stone monument.
Roger had observed it but it was too small to shelter even Felicia's
small frame in its shadows, so he had not troubled to make a close
observation of the flat desert round about it. The picture which had
awakened him was an extraordinarily vivid one of this monument. He
resolved to examine it thoroughly on his way home.
Roger rose stiffly. Charley was lying on her face, her head pillowed on
her arm. He moved over and touched her on the shoulder.
"Sorry, Charley," he said, "but we'd better start back."
The girl sat up, slowly. "I wasn't asleep," she said. "I've just been
napping off and on. I can't sleep until I know."
"Perhaps we'll find her safe at home," Roger even managed a smile with
his broken lips.
"Let's not stop to eat again!" exclaimed Charley.
Roger nodded. They reloaded Peter who was well gorged on spring water
and the uncertain looking herbage that grew about its brim.
The trail back was nearly all downward and they had covered it by noon.
Roger told Charley of his strange awakening dream of which he made
light, but when they sighted the little monument in the distance, they
both hurried toward it.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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