On the Trail to Cow Camps

On the Trail to Cow Camps By David Horatio Morgan Through the rough and crevice-like gap, high up in the dense pine and cedar covered divide, through a parting between the granite walls of Mescal and St. Matthews mountains, Elva Stanley rode cautiously, reining the big black with the skill of one who knows a mountain bridle trail. In and out among the trees and rocks she led a trail-horse packing several sacks of mail and express. H^ere Elva made a halt for a few minutes — she considered the divide the half-way point between Junction and Cow-Camps on the Rio Verde, dividing the twenty-four miles of her trip. Dismounting she loosened the cinches on both tired and sweaty horses, and walked out to a little opening between the trees to where the mountain side dropped abruptly several hun- dred feet to the gradual slope that drained towards the river. It was a place to which she always went to marvel, and to ad- mire the vista of a sunken world where lived barely an hundred people in all; here days and days one might ride off the trail and never see a person, only infrequently did the cow-punchers ride this part of the range, and often she would say to herself as she sat and looked out upon the great expanse before her, "I wonder if there is any one down in there now?" It was sixty miles across the great depression to where the valley again rose up to the level of the pass in a blue jagged mountain range. The descent was a thousand feet to the river, through rocky canyons, and dense wooded ridges. And the river, although she could not see the water from where she sat, she could mark the course of the stream by the occasional glimpses of the great walled canyon through which it flowed, and again other places where it ran through rich fertile stretches of valley land dotted with the ranches of Cow-Camps. She was a part of this vast void, blue-eyed and rugged al- though alert to every feminine instinct. She had inherited from her mother the finer sensibilities of a lady of the South, a lady who had followed an ambitious husband into the wilds of Arizona. She had inherited a daring recklessness and a love of adventure which were curbed by a dominant will and re- fined susceptibilities. She knew of no honest endeavor too

500 IMPROVEMENT ERA severe, nor of no restraint too harsh — a child of the wilds with refined and educated instincts; an orchid in the atmosphere of the wilderness. There could be no danger ordinarily to any one making the trip alone from the station to the river, for the country had been cleared of renegades, outlaws, and bad Indians, and a Military Post was established at Del Rio. Elva literally had been forced into her present position of carrying the mail on account of a shortage of help at the Camps. The position, however, was not that of a United States mail carrier, for a route had never been established — she simply got the mail and express at the office each week by order for the people of the Camps and they paid her for her services. It was an arduous task, but she enjoyed the work, for, as she said, "On mail days I go to school to Nature; and I just love to study and plan when nothing but the music and the beauty of the wild things offer a detraction." While the girl sat looking, spellbound, at even the familiar view, searching out the more prominent places within the rugged and unclaimed wild, enraptured with the vastness — the bigness of the hole at her feet — the stillness, the quietude of it all except the tunings of the nature things, she was startled by the scrambling of horse's feet. Quickly she ran back, and just in time to see a horseman slash the tie-rope of the trail- horse and make away. Elva did not halloo — that was useless, she had never learned the habit, for people of the wilderness seldom have compan- ions to whom they may cry for help — they must think and act alone. At first she reflected, "It is some of the cowpunchers from the Camps who has happened along and wishing to have some fun at my expense has done the trick!" But she did not hesi- tate, like a flash she caught the horn of her saddle and sprang to the seat, wheeling the big black upon his hind feet, and disappeared after the horseman like a streak of light. For a mile she followed, brushing and tearing recklessly through the trees and rocks, directed only by the clattering of loose stones and the breaking of limbs by the thief trying des- perately to lose her among the trees, but she was equally as good rider as he and the extra trail-horse necessarily impeded his haste. She was gaining on him, and they were running down along the side of a rough and rocky wooded ridge. "Oh, I see!" she mused, "he is making for that dry sand wash! He thinks I can't hear him then; but he will leave tracks to follow."

ON THE TRAIL TO COW CAMPS 501 She did not go directly into the wash but rode along the ridge watching to see, if possible, where he might come out on the other side: she carried a service pistol in her right hand but she would not use it except in protection of herself. At the point of the ridge she waited, but nowhere could she see the man. "Where could he have gone?" she asked in dismay; and riding down turned back up the wash. She did this at her own peril. "What if I should meet him; he could easily ambush himself behind any of that brush?" but she went bravely on, expecting any moment to see or to hear the thief. Then she came to where the tracks left the main wash and turned up a little draw. "He saw me pass and waited, then turned off!" she reasoned. The draw terminated abruptly in the face of a steep and rocky cliff, where the ascent was over an old game trail. With- out hesitation Elva followed, but she did not go far. Between two cliffs where there was barely room for a horse to go, the thief had rolled several large boulders into the pass — stones too large for the girl to move, and she could not pass. For a moment she stood perplexed, looking for some other way out, when, to her surprise, not more than fifty feet above her, from a projecting ledge, there came the mocking laugh of the man. He could have easily dropped a boulder down, and she could have as easily shot, for he was fully exposed, except that he wore a handkerchief mask. Elva could not recognize the man, but she said, "If you know what you are doing you will return that horse and the mail before you are reported. What made you do it anyhow, there is nothing of any value in the sacks?" She was still will- ing to compromise if the man would be fair, for, as she had said, "What is the good in this life if it is not the satisfaction wie get out of it in trying to be of some service in helping others?" At the man's side hung a heavy weapon, and dropping his hand to it, said, "If you know the shortest way home, you'd better be taking it!" This came like a threat to the girl, and it stung her sense of fairness. All the wild determination in her nature arose to compel him to return the property he had taken. She did not think of danger, she thought of duty and justice only, and she said, "You'd better turn that stuff back to me, for you know what will happen if you are caught, and I will never leave your trail!" He looked at the girl with approval of her courage, but he said, "What do you suppose could happen to you now if I

502 IMPROVEMENT ERA should take a notion?" half drawing the gun from its holster. Elva answered without a moment's hesitation, "Nothing! You would not hurt a girl — you would protect her just as you are doing now!" The man said something under his breath, and was gone. Elva turned Raven into the wash again, "If I can't get up there I can some other place, and pick up his tracks; he needn't think that I am that easily stopped!" She began climbing out of the wash at the nearest place of ascent, but there was no trail, and the rocks offered an almost impassable barrier. She knew the mettle of her horse and urged him to his best. "Come, Raven, hurry; we must not let him get away!" and she touched the big fellow with her spurs. The horse responded with a bound, and a ringing metallic jingle smote her ears. "Oh, Raven!" she cried in alarm, "Have you kicked a shoe?" and she leaned far over to see the black's feet. "Oh, dear, you have, and a hind one at that!" The horse was naturally tenderfooted, and without a shoe he would not travel over the rocks, so Elva turned again into the sand wash, and headed for Cow-Camps on the river, de- termined to get another horse. She was ashamed and humiliated, and Raven would not hurry; she could offer little excuse for having lost the mail and the horse. She really did not know what value there might have been in the express, she thought it little, but she had been trusted for its safe arrival. The more she thought of the situa- tion, the more she blamed herself for carelessness, and the more determined it made her to recover the property. The trail never seemed longer than it did now, and Raven could scarcely be gotten out of a walk — he hobbled and stumbled over every little rock in the way. Worried and anx- ious Elva finally reached the river at the upper ford — a mile above Cow-Camps — she had lost this distance by following the man. The river was up, she could tell that by the loud booming of the water in the box canyon above the ford, and she won- dered if she would be able to cross. Just as she came into sight of the road where it drops over the bluff into the water, she saw a team and wagon disappear. "It must be fordable," she said, "for there are women and children in the wagon!" and she naturally hastened to see that they made the crossing safely. As she rode out upon the bank the team was just splash- ing into the main channel where the current was swiftest, and to her surprise she saw Barney, her trail-horse, tied to the

ON THE TRAIL TO COW CAMPS 503 hame of one of the horses of the team, but the mail sacks were gone. "Oh, that mean man has cut open the sacks, and turned Barney loose, and he had come home — those people have picked him up here at the ford." Then the man in the wagon driving the team stood up to lash the horses for they were beginning to flounder, and she thought she recognized him by his hat and coat — a broad-brimmed dirty hat that lopped down over his eyes and ears — but the mask was gone. "Oh, that's he!" she cried excitedly to herself, "He beat me to the ford — he thought I would take the other one!" and she started in pursuit, to take her horse and demand the mail. Before she could reach the water she stopped in horror — the horses were hopelessly in the current, and were trying to turn back; the wagon box, a tight and new one, floated off the standards, and down the stream like a boat. The women and children screamed in terror, for the box would surely turn over and their fate was inevitable. Down the stream, not more than a hundred yards, an old tree had lodged, and the box was floating swiftly for it. The man tried to stear past with his hands; for, if the box should hit the log, the people would be drowned. But he could not turn aside, and they struck the tree with a thud that almost spilled every one. The woman fortunately caught hold of a limb and held fast; the box swung around against the log, threatening every moment to capsize. Rescue seemed hopeless, and the people would be drowned before Elva could ride to the Camps for help. "I must try to do something!" she said, spurring Raven towards the ford. The man was now signalling to her, but she could not make out what it was he said. In the meantime the team had turned around and was coming out, the lines trailing out behind floated upon the water. This gave Elva an idea, and tying the horses to a tree, she took down the lines, fastening them in a long string. To the end of these she tied her lariat, and rode out into the water. She threw the lines out into the current, as far as she was able, but the end floating down fell short of the people. Again she coiled up the rope in feverish haste, and rode farther into the surging water. There was a deafening swish and roar about her, and the water crept up to her waist. Could she trust Raven to take another step and hold his feet? She did, but it was too much, and horse and rider plunged head- long down the boiling river; she, too, would be drowned. She had but just a moment to think, and as they glided past the man in the box, she gave the rope a toss, and cried, "Catch it; tie it fast!"

504 IMPROVEMENT ERA The rope from the saddle horn to the wagon box tightened with a jerk, and Raven was dragged completely under the water. Elva slid from the saddle into the rushing water foaming at her waist— her weight off would let him up— she worked her way back and caught the black's tail, while the force of the current against the tight rope began to swing them in towards the bank. At length the horse touched bottom and walked out, weak and exhausted with his struggle. Elva then led him up the bank again to where the rope would pull the wagon box free of the tree. "Come, Raven; steady, boy; give a little pull!" and the rope tightened, the box came clear of its anchorage, and swung, none to safely, in to the bank. Elva looked anxiously into the wagon box, and there, sure enough lay the four sacks of mail and express unopened, to- gether with piles of bedding and clothing. She saw at a glance, however, that there was a shortage of provisions, and the woman and the children were thin and pale. There was also a girl about Elva's own age, faint and weak, and she was moved to compassion, and she thought of the shame she herself would feel if she should know of her father doing a wrong even when food became a necessity. She looked at the man, his head hung in shame; but the woman showed no knowledge of the theft. Elva was the first to speak, "I am glad I got here in time to help you folks out; didn't you know that the ford is deep?" The woman, through tears of joy showed her gratitude. "Oh, dear, you did come just in time, but I thought you too would surely be drowned. We are strangers here, just going through the country." Elva seized the opportunity, "Oh, I see that you have found my horse and mail; I am so glad, I thought they would be lost. I left him standing and when I came back he — he — was gone — the old rascal, he never would stand without being tied." She looked at the man, a cloud seemed to lift from his face, and she added, directing her words straight to him, "You folks must come with me to the Camps and stop a while, for the children look all worn out, and papa has lots of work to be done." The man looked the relief he felt, and he understood that Elva meant to put him under probation, and he said, "Certainly; I am only too glad to return your horse and things; and I need the work, for we have nothing to eat!" Elva looked at the girl who smiled faintly back, and re- solved, "She shall never know; the man is punished enough!" Sawtelle, Calif.