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Page 53
"Did you shoot?" called the guide, pulling his pony down sharply.
Both pony and rider were gray from the desert dust, and the
guide's face was lined with perspiration streaks. It was plain
that he had ridden hard and long.
"Yes. Did you find water?" cried Emma.
"I did, twenty miles or nigh that, from here. What's that?" he
demanded, pointing to the water hole.
"We have water, Mr. Lang," Grace told him, "Mr. Wingate fell
through a crust and discovered a tank. There is water in plenty.
We are so sorry that you had all that journey for nothing. Ping!
Water for Mr. Lang and a bucketful for his pony. How long since
did you hear our signal shots?"
"More'n an hour ago. I wasn't certain, but I thought I heard three
shots. My journey was not for nothing, for I have found a tank and
there we will make our next camping place." The guide paused to
lift the bucket that Ping had fetched, and to drink deeply from
it.
"Who's been here?"
"What makes you think anyone has?" teased Emma.
"Plain as daylight. I followed a pony's trail in for more than two
miles. There's the tracks where he went away," answered the guide
quickly.
"You surely have sharp eyes," nodded Elfreda.
"He was one of those sphinxes, like some other deserts have. This
one was not stuck fast to the ground like a regular sphinx, but
his tongue must have been stuck to the roof of his mouth, for he
couldn't say any more words than a ten-month-old baby," declared
Hippy Wingate.
"Tell me about him," urged Hi, turning to Grace.
The guide nodded understandingly after Grace had told him in
detail of the arrival of the stranger, choking for a drink, and
half famished from hunger.
"That's like him."
"Like whom?" questioned Hippy.
"Like the desert traveler. He is just one of those brainless
fellows like myself, who would rather be out here, suffering,
choking, dying by inches, than be at home surrounded by all the
comforts that a home gives a man. Didn't say what his name is, did
he?"
"No, sir. Let me see," reflected Grace. "He said, 'Water!' Then,
later, after asking where we were going, and being informed that
we expected to visit the Specter Range and perhaps the Shoshones,
he replied, 'Bad gang there. Drove me out. Will drive you out.' As
he left he said, 'Thankee, folks.' To the best of my recollection
he opened his mouth at no other time, except to eat and drink."
"Hm--m--m--m," mused the guide. "In the Specters, eh?"
"I don't know whether he referred to them or to the Shoshones,"
answered Grace.
"Didn't say where he was going?"
"No, sir. Can you tell us, Mr. Lang, why it is that desert lovers
like yourself, and like the stranger who was here, as a more
extreme case are so silent, so taciturn and ever listening for
something? What is it they are listening for?"
"I reckon they take after nature herself out here. When a man is
alone on this big desert he feels very small, and speaking out or
raising a fellow's voice seems as much of a sacrilege as speaking
out loud in church when the preacher's praying. As for listening,
I don't know, but maybe we listen for the sounds that we are so
used to hearing at home, the rustle of leaves, the song of a bird,
but all we ever hear out here in the daytime is now and then the
buzz of a rattler's tail. We don't always shoot 'em because we
sort of hate to make so much noise. I reckon that isn't much of an
explanation, but---"
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