Tales of lonely trails by Zane Grey (free novel 24 .TXT) 📕

gleamed with a smile: "Shore thet kid's all right. He'll make a cowpuncher!" His remark pleased me. In view of Romer's determination to emulate the worst bandit I ever wrote about I was tremendously glad to think of him as a cowboy. But as for myself I was tired, and the ride had been rather unprofitable, and this camp-site, to say the least, did not inspire me. It was neither wild nor beautiful nor comfortable. I went early to bed and slept like a log.

The following morning some of our horses were lost. The men hunted from daylight till ten o'clock. Then it was that I learned more about Lee's dog Pups. At ten-thirty Lee came in with the lost horses. They had hidden in a clump of cedars and remained perfectly quiet, as cute as deer. Lee put Pups on their trail. Pups was a horse-trailing dog and he soon found them. I had a change of feeling for Pups, then and there.

The sun was high and hot when we rode off. The pleasant and dusty stretches alternated. About one o'clock we halted on the edge of a deep wooded ravine to take our usual noonday rest. I scouted along the edge in the hope of seeing game of some kind. Presently I heard the cluck-cluck of turkeys. Slipping along to an open place I peered down to be thrilled by sight of four good-sized turkeys. They were walking along the open strip of dry stream-bed at the bottom of the ravine. One was chasing grasshoppers. They were fairly close. I took aim at one, and thought I could have hit him, but suddenly I remembered Romer and R.C. So I slipped back and called them.

Hurriedly and stealthily we returned to the point where I had seen the turkeys. Romer had a pale face and wonderfully bright eyes; his actions resembled those of a stalking Indian. The turkeys were farther down, but still in plain sight. I told R.C. to take the boy and slip down, and run and hide and run till they got close enough for a shot. I would keep to the edge of the ravine.

Some moments later I saw R.C. and the boy running and stooping and creeping along the bottom of the ravine. Then I ran myself to reach a point opposite the turkeys, so in case they flew uphill I might get a shot. But I did not see them, and nothing happened. I lost sight of the turkeys. Hurrying back to where I had tied my horse I mounted him and loped ahead and came out upon the ravine some distance above. Here I hunted around for a little while. Once I heard the report of the .20 gauge, and then several rifle shots. Upon returning I found that Lee and Nielsen had wasted some shells. R.C. and Romer came wagging up the hill, both red and wet and tired. R.C. carried a small turkey, about the size of a chicken. He told me, between pants, that they chased the four large turkeys, and were just about to get a shot when up jumped a hen-turkey with a flock of young ones. They ran every way. He got one. Then he told me, between more pants and some laughs, that Romer had chased the little turkeys all over the ravine, almost catching several. Romer said for himself: "I just almost pulled feathers out of their tails. Gee! if I'd had a gun!"

We resumed our journey. About the middle of the afternoon Doyle called my attention to an opening in the forest through which I could see the yellow-walled rim of the mesa, and the great blue void below. Arizona! That explained the black forests, the red and yellow cliffs of rock, the gray cedars, the heights and depths.

Lop? ride indeed was it down off the mesa. The road was winding, rough full of loose rocks and dusty. We were all tired out trying to keep up with the wagon. Romer, however, averred time and again that he was not tired. Still I saw him often shift his seat from one side of the saddle to the other.

At last we descended to a comparative level and came to a little hamlet. Like all Mormon villages it had quaint log cabins, low stone houses, an irrigation ditch running at the side of the road, orchards, and many rosy-cheeked children. We lingered there long enough to rest a little and drink our fill of the cold granite water. I would travel out of my way to get a drink of water that came from granite rock.

About five o'clock we left for the Natural Bridge. Romer invited or rather taunted me to a race. When it ended in his victory I found that I had jolted my rifle out of its saddle sheath. I went back some distance to look for it, but did so in vain. Isbel said he would ride back in the morning and find it.

The country here appeared to be on a vast scale. But that was only because we had gotten out where we could see all around. Arizona is all on a grand, vast scale. Mountain ranges stood up to the south and east. North loomed up the lofty, steep rim of the Mogollon Mesa, with its cliffs of yellow and red, and its black line of timber. Westward lay fold on fold of low cedar-covered hills. The valley appeared a kind of magnificent bowl, rough and wild, with the distance lost in blue haze. The vegetation was dense and rather low. I saw both prickly-pear and mescal cactus, cedars, manzanita brush, scrub oak, and juniper trees. These last named were very beautiful, especially the smaller ones, with their gray-green foliage, and purple berries, and black and white checkered bark. There were no pine trees. Since we had left the rim above the character of plant life had changed.

We crossed the plateau leading to the valley where the Natural Bridge was located. A winding road descended the east side of this valley. A rancher lived down there. Green of alfalfa and orchard and walnut trees contrasted vividly with a bare, gray slope on one side, and a red, rugged mountain on the other. A deep gorge showed dark and wild. At length, just after sunset, we reached the ranch, and rode through orchards of peach and pear and apple trees, all colored with fruit, and down through grassy meadows to a walnut grove where we pitched camp. By the time we had supper it was dark. Wonderful stars, thick, dreamy hum of insects, murmur of swift water, a rosy and golden afterglow on the notch of the mountain range to the west—these were inducements to stay up, but I was so tired I had to go to bed, where my eyelids fell tight, as if pleasantly weighted.

After the long, hard rides and the barren camp-sites what delight to awaken in this beautiful valley with the morning cool and breezy and bright, with smell of new-mown hay from the green and purple alfalfa fields, and the sunlight gilding the jagged crags above! Romer made a bee-line for the peach trees. He beat his daddy only a few yards. The kind rancher had visited us the night before and he had told us to help ourselves to fruit, melons, alfalfa. Needless to state that I made my breakfast on peaches!

I trailed the swift, murmuring stream to its source on the dark green slope where there opened up a big hole bordered by water-cress, long grass, and fragrant mint. This spring was one of perfectly clear water, six feet deep, boiling up to bulge on the surface. A grass of dark color and bunches of light green plant grew under the surface. Bees and blue dragon-flies hummed around and frogs as green as the grass blinked with jewelled eyes from the wet margins. The spring had a large volume that spilled over its borders with low, hollow gurgle, with fresh, cool splash. The water was soft, tasting of limestone. Here was the secret of the verdure and fragrance and color and beauty and life of the oasis.

It was also the secret of the formation of the wonderful Natural Bridge. Part of the rancher's cultivated land, to the extent of several acres, was the level top of this strange bridge. A meadow of alfalfa and a fine vineyard, in the air, like the hanging gardens of Babylon! The natural bridge spanned a deep gorge, at the bottom of which flowed a swift stream of water. Geologically this tremendous arch of limestone cannot be so very old. In comparatively recent times an earthquake or some seismic disturbance or some other natural force caused a spring of water to burst from the slope above the gorge. It ran down, of course, over the rim. The lime salt in the water was deposited, and year by year and age by age advanced toward the opposite side until a bridge crossed the gorge. The swift stream at the bottom kept the opening clear under the bridge.

A winding trail led deep down on the lower side of this wonderful natural span. It showed the cliffs of limestone, porous, craggy, broken, chalky. At the bottom the gorge was full of tremendous boulders, water-worn ledges, sycamore and juniper trees, red and yellow flowers, and dark, beautiful green pools. I espied tiny gray frogs, reminding me of those I found in the gulches of the Grand Canyon. Many huge black beetles, some alive, but most of them dead, lined the wet borders of the pools. A species of fish that resembled mullet lay in the shadow of the rocks.

From underneath the Natural Bridge showed to advantage, and if not magnificent like the grand Nonnezoshe of Utah, it was at least striking and beautiful. It had a rounded ceiling colored gray, yellow, green, bronze, purple, white, making a crude and scalloped mosaic. Water dripped from it like a rain of heavy scattered drops. The left side was dryest and large, dark caves opened up, one above the other, the upper being so high that it was dangerous to attempt reaching it. The right side was slippery and wet. All rocks were thickly encrusted with lime salt. Doyle told us that any object left under the ceaseless drip, drip of the lime water would soon become encrusted, and heavy as stone. The upper opening of the arch was much higher and smaller