Chapter II
Reading edition
TODD'S PONY BRINGS BACK THE NEWS.
Carried away by the enthusiasm and excitement of the moment, Todd did not in the least realize what he was doing, or remember that he was disobeying his brother's clearly expressed orders. He only knew that the first deer he had ever seen alive and in their native haunts were scampering away from him, and that it seemed just then as though nothing in the world could compare in importance with getting one of them.
So, bending low in the saddle and firing as he rode, he spurred his broncho pony to frantic exertions, and dashed away up the ravine after the flying animals. Several others of the party spurred after the boy as though to join in the exciting chase; but after a short run, either because they remembered their chief's orders or because they found themselves hopelessly left behind, they returned to the train, and its slow line of march was resumed.
More than five minutes elapsed after Todd was lost to view behind a sharp bend of the ravine before Mortimer Chalmers, attracted by the sound of firing, hastened back to learn the cause of disturbance. When it was explained his face darkened, though more with anxiety than anger, and he ordered the party to go into camp where they were, there to await his return. Then calling to one of the best mounted of his assistants to see that his canteen was full of water and to follow him, the chief of the party clapped spurs to his own horse, and set off up the ravine in the direction taken by his impetuous young brother.
Until nearly sunset of the following day did the party in camp await, with ever-increasing anxiety, the return of those who had thus left them. Then their leader and his companion rode wearily back into the valley. They were haggard, covered almost beyond recognition with the dust of desert sands, and utterly exhausted, while their steeds were ready to drop with thirst and fatigue.
Mortimer Chalmers's first words announced the failure of his search, for as he entered camp he asked, "Has the boy come back?" Upon being answered in the negative, a look of utter despair settled over the man's face, though he turned away to hide it from the pitying gaze of his men.
From his companion it was learned that when, on the preceding day, they had emerged from the ravine, they found themselves on a vast plain of shifting sands, void of vegetation and dotted with great fortresslike mesas or lofty bluffs of the most vivid and varied coloring. In the distance they had descried a rider whom they believed to be Todd, but though they fired their rifles and waved sombreros to attract his attention, he failed either to see them or took no notice of their signals, and a few seconds later disappeared behind a distant butte. Hastening to that point, they found and followed his trail until it was lost in the wind-blown sands. Even then they kept on in the same general direction, firing their rifles at short intervals, until darkness compelled a halt. During the long cheerless night, without fire or food, and comforted by only a few mouthfuls of water from their canteens, they still fired occasional shots, but without receiving any answer.
At daybreak they were again in the saddle and moving in a great sweeping arc that embraced many miles of the terrible desert, back toward the river. Until reaching it they had hoped against hope that the missing lad might in some way have been led back to the point from which he had started. Now, however, there was no doubt that he was indeed lost in that fearful wilderness of sand and towering rocks.
This was the opinion of the whole party; but though it was fully shared by Mortimer Chalmers, he was off again before daylight of the following morning, accompanied by five of his most experienced men. These were to explore the desert by twos in different directions, as far as their strength and that of their animals would allow them to penetrate, though on no account were they to remain from camp longer than two days.
This expedition was as fruitless as the first, and when on the second evening the six searchers returned to camp empty-handed there was no longer a doubt but that poor Todd, lost and bewildered, had wandered beyond recovery, and met his death amid the horrors of the Painted Desert.
Although there was no longer any hope that he would ever again be seen alive, the party remained encamped at that place another day before moving on, and scouts were kept constantly posted along the edge of the plateau, whence they could command a great sweep of the interior country in case any tidings of the lost one should be miraculously wafted in that direction.
Even when the sad little camp was finally broken and the expedition resumed its melancholy march down the valley of the muddy river, these same scouts followed the edge of the bluffs, though often being obliged to make long and fatiguing detours to head precipitous cañons.
In this manner the party had proceeded but a few miles when Mortimer Chalmers, who, alone with his grief and self-accusing reflections, rode in advance, was seen to suddenly clap spurs to his horse and dash off down the valley. He had discovered a riderless pony grazing on the coarse herbage of the bottom, and was filled with a momentary hope that by some means his dearly loved brother might after all have found his way back to the river.
When the others overtook him they at once recognized the animal which was cropping the tough grasses with starving avidity as the broncho that had borne Todd Chalmers from their sight six days before. Its belly was bloated with water, of which it had evidently drunk a prodigious quantity, but it was otherwise gaunt from hunger. It still wore a broken bridle, and the saddle was found at no great distance away. To this were still attached the rifle, now broken, the roll of blankets, soiled and torn, and the empty canteen, that had belonged to the poor lad, of whose fate they brought melancholy tidings. A fragment of picket-rope still remained attached to the pony's neck, but its frayed end, worn with long dragging through sand and over rocks, showed that the animal must have traversed many miles of desert since the time when last he bore his young master.
The broncho's trail was discovered and followed to the distant brow of the bluffs, but beyond that it had been obliterated by wind-swept sands, and offered no further clew.
As no one of the party would ever care to use that broken saddle, and as it was all that was left to them of the merry lad who was lost, they buried it where they found it, with all its accoutrements. When they turned silently from the little mound of earth that covered it, all felt with Mortimer Chalmers as though they were leaving the grave of his light-hearted, hot-headed, affectionate, and impetuous young brother.
And now let us see what had really become of the lad whom his recent comrades mourned so sincerely, and who we left sometime since gazing anxiously at the gaudily decked monuments of the Painted Desert.
When in his thoughtless race after the coveted prize of a black-tailed deer, Todd emerged from the ravine that led to the plateau, and gained a wide range of vision, he was sorely disappointed to see the animals he was pursuing skimming across the sands more than a mile away and approaching a tall mesa, behind which he knew they would in another moment disappear. He was about to give over the chase with a sigh of disappointment, when, to his surprise, one of the fleeing deer seemed to fall, though it almost immediately regained its feet and followed after its companions.
"Hurrah!" shouted Todd, again urging his pony to the chase. "One of them is wounded, and I'll have it yet. Mort will forgive me when I bring fresh venison into camp."
Just before reaching a rocky buttress of the mesa the lad heard shots behind him and, with a backward glance, saw two horsemen in hot pursuit. One of them he knew to be his brother, and both of them were waving to him to come back.
"I won't go without something to show for my hunt if I can help it," muttered the boy to himself, as he dashed around a corner of the rocky wall, and also disappeared from view. He had hoped to find his wounded deer there, but neither it nor the others were in sight, though he could still distinguish their tracks. Following these, he was led through a narrow and crooked valley that finally divided into several branches. The deer had taken one of these that led sharply to the right amid a confused mass of rocks.
"They are making a circuit back toward the river," thought the young hunter, "and that suits me exactly, for I shall be able to reach it and regain camp without being caught by Mort like a naughty child. That I couldn't stand, and I would rather stay out all night than submit to anything so humiliating."
Thus thinking, the lad continued to ride in the direction he thought the deer had taken, though he could no longer distinguish their tracks. Nor did he discover any sign of the wounded one, which for more than an hour he expected to do with each moment. By this time he was beginning to feel a little uneasy at not coming to the river toward which he was confident he was circling. The speed of his pony was now reduced to a walk, and Todd was greatly bewildered by the labyrinth of walls, columns, and fantastic rock forms into which he had wandered.
With the waning day the sky became overcast, and a strong wind, blowing in gusts, so shifted the desert sands, piling them into ridges and whirling their eddies, that when the boy finally determined to retrace his own trail he found, to his dismay, that even a few paces behind him it had wholly disappeared. At this discovery the terrible knowledge that he was lost came into his mind like a flash, and for a full minute he sat stunned and motionless.
Then he pulled himself together, laughed huskily, and said aloud: "Don't lose your head, old man. Keep cool. Camp right where you are until daylight, and then climb the highest point you can find. From it you will surely be able to get your bearings, for the river can't be more than a mile away."