CHAPTER VI

From that vantage point of exceedingly wide range Withers led away to the west, ascending one step of the bold corner of bluff, and then traveling along at the base of a shelving wall, in the shade of which were rich green growths. Damp, cold atmosphere here assailed Marian. The cause of this appeared to be banks of snow filling the hollows under the wall. A crusting of red dust covered the snow.

Marian reveled in riding the kind of trail here presented. It was soft red earth, without rocks or deep washes, and it wound along the bold corners of the wall, under the looming shade, through thick piñions and cedars, with always a changing scene out across the wild uplands. The last quarter- circle round that widened wall sent the creeping cold sensations over Marian, for the overhanging sections of crumbling cliff above and the abrupt opening of an abyss below, a sinister chasm, a thousand feet deep, made this part of the trail a perilous one.

Then once more Marian rode out into the sunlight, with level open desert ahead. The Indians and pack-mules were in sight, going into a dark-green forest of cedars and piñions, larger and richer than those below. Mile after mile this forest rolled westward, rising to plain of purple sage. Beyond the horizon of deep color rose a black-and-white dome of a mountain that Marian believed she recognized as Nothsis Ahn, the first sight of which she had obtained at Red Sandy. As she rode westward this mountain top dropped below the horizon.

Marian began to find the saddle and stirrups and motion most uncomfortable things. The easy gait of Buckskin very likely had saved her up to this hour. But now the riding had commenced to tell upon her. Grateful indeed was she for the stretch of good country, for she feared bad trails more than growing discomfort. Indeed, she rather gloried in her aches and pains. Despite a hot sun the air was cold. And it grew to hold such dry sweet fragrance that Marian felt in it a kind of intoxication. By and by all the landmarks of stone dropped out of sight. There appeared to be only undulating forest of green interspersed with patches of purple. Nevertheless there was a gradual ascent in size of trees and green of foliage and fragrance of sage.

The sun climbed high and burned hot. A warm breeze, burdened with the sweet incense of the desert, blew in Marian’s face. She rode on, losing track of time. No weariness nor pangs could deaden her enthusiasm or interest, nor that haunting and recurring surety of the growing nearness of Nophaie. There were live creatures to watch on this endless rolling plateau–dark blue jays that uttered singular piercing cries, and lizards that darted across the red bare earth, and hawks that sailed low, looking for prey, and rabbits that scurried away in the sage.

It was hunger that reminded Marian of the passing hours and discovered to her that she had ridden until noon. Five hours of steady riding! At four miles an hour, she had in all covered twenty miles. She wondered if Buckskin was tired. He paced on, steadfast and leisurely, as if distance or time or sun were nothing to him. Marian had recourse to her sandwich and a bit of chocolate, and a drink from her canteen, therein to be rendered grateful and thoughtful for such simple things. It was the need of anything that made it precious. When before in her life had a dusty black-crusted biscuit seemed at once a pleasure and a blessing? How often had she no taste for chocolate! And as for water and its wonderful refreshing power she had known nothing. There must be a time then for food, for drink, to mean a great deal. And if for these, why not for all things?

So Marian rode on, pondering thoughts thus evolved. All at once she looked up to see a tremendous gash in the green-forested earth ahead. Withers, on foot, was waiting for her on the brink of a chasm. Far across Marian saw the opposite rim, a red-gold, bare-faced cliff, sheering downward. She was amazed. The very earth seemed to have opened. As she rode up to Withers the chasm deepened to astonishing depths and still she could not see the bottom. The trader halted her before she got to the rim.

“Pahute Canyon,” he said. “And it’s bad medicine. You’ve got to walk fast. Because the horses can’t go slow and I’ll have to lead them. Be sure to keep me in sight, otherwise you might lose the trail.”

Marian dismounted, and handing her bridle to the trader she walked to the rim. A ghastly and naked glaring canyon yawned beneath her, tremendously wide and deep, bare of vegetation and blazing with its denuded and colored slopes.

“White people don’t get to see Pahute Canyon,” said Withers, as he gazed from beside her. “It’s the wildest and most beautiful spot in the West. Reckon it’ll be shore a spell before automobile tourists will drive in and out of her, eh?”

He laughed grimly, with some note of gratification in his voice. Marian felt speech difficult. She was astounded. Pictures of grand canyons could not convey any adequate conception of what was given by actual sight.

“Wonderful!... Fearful!” exclaimed Marian, feeling the strange drawing power of the depths. “Oh! it seems impossible even to–to slidedown there.”

“Well, let me get down a ways with the horses before you start, so you won’t roll on me,” said the trader. “Then you’d shore better come a-sliding, if you want to see Nophaie to-day. We’ve got to rustle to make the other rim before dark.”

“Do–do you really believe–he’ll meet us?” queried Marian.

“I’d gamble on it.... Be careful you don’t sprain your ankle on these loose stones.”

With that Withers looped the bridle of Marian’s horse over the pommel, and started him down. Buckskin sent the stones cracking. Then the trader followed, leading his own horse. Marian watched him for a moment. Assuredly they had to descend rapidly or lose their equilibrium. From farther down in the depths soared up the mellow voices of the Indians, evidently calling to the mules. Cracking of rocks and sliding rattles attested to the nature of that descent far below.

Marian took one long thrilling gaze at the opposite rim where she had been assured Nophaie might meet her. It seemed a most fitting place for this meeting so fraught with significance for her. A green-fringed red-gold canyon rim, bold and beautiful, lofty and lonely as the crag of eagles–it was indeed an outlook wherefore the Indian might watch and wait. When Marian let her gaze slowly wander down from that rim she was struck with the stupendous height and massive formation of the canyon wall. Five miles distant it was, yet it looked so high and sheer and immense that she could not repress a cry. If she had to climb that to see Nophaie this day! The idea seemed absurd. She did not possess wings. How beyond comprehension were these Westerners, red men and white men, who conquered the obstacles of nature!

Under the colossal wall lay a flat of yellow sand through which a bright winding stream, like a white thread, meandered along shining under the sun. The stark nudity of that canyon floor was relieved by several clumps of trees, richly green in foliage. It was a light green, proving these trees to be other than evergreens, and that summer had come down in those depths.

Then Marian’s gaze returned to the declivity at her feet. The angle was forty- five degrees and the trail was a narrow line of loose rocks. Marian drew a deep breath and essayed the start. But, loath to take the plunge that would permit of no more gaze at length and breadth of this wonderful canyon, she halted to satisfy herself and make the spectacle hers forever. The declivity was almost straight down, rough, bowlder strewn, and far below apparently shelved out into a zone of colored earths, worn into corrugations. Northward the canyon widened into a vast amphitheater of exceedingly wild nature, with slopes and walls and benches and lines of strata and slides of rock, and numberless fan-shaped facets of clay, forming a mosaic of red, yellow, purple, gray, and violet, glaring bare and bright under the sun.

Pahute Canyon had all that made the Valley of Gods an unforgettable memory picture, and moreover it had the strangeness of desolation and decay and death. Nature had its moods and here was ruthless despoliation of the face of the earth. Marian could not see any reason why the beautiful plateau of cedar and piñon should have been riven by this catastrophe of time. Yet what else could have uncovered those intense mineral colors, which at the very least had served to charm the Indian’s eye and furnish his paints.

Reluctantly Marian turned away from this vista of canyon beauty. She had not taken half a dozen steps before she forgot all about the scenery. She became suddenly and violently aware of the treachery of loose rocks and of the hard nature of contact with them. The first fall hurt her considerably, especially bruising her elbow; but it also hurt her vanity. She started anew, more carefully, and soon found herself wildly clutching at the air and balancing on rolling stones. This time she saved herself. But she had a good scare. Caution would not do on this trail. She had to step lightly and swiftly, to be off a loose stone before it could turn with her. There was a thrill in this descent, and she began to grow reckless. Action liberated her spirit, and the faster she progressed the less she felt fear. At sight of the worst places, long slants of loose rock on a bed of soft earth, she halted long enough to select a line of rocks, and then she tripped down, faster and faster, growing more surefooted with practice. Once she saw the horses and Withers far below, working out over ridged red earth. As she went down, either the trail grew easier or she did better; and despite sundry knocks and several slips she began to get fun out of it. The race for her was to keep her balance. Down and down she zigzagged, growing out of breath. The slope of bowlders sheered out, affording less precipitous descent. Stones as large as houses lay everywhere. Presently Marian ran out of this bowlder zone upon red earth, still steep but affording safer and easier going. When she gazed upward, to see the red rim far above, she could scarcely believe her eyes. Little steps, but many of them, made short work of distance! It was an achievement that she felt proud of as she ruefully rubbed her bruises. Then she ran on down the easy stages over soft ground, soon to find Buckskin standing, bridle dragging in the trail. Withers waited a little way ahead. Marian mounted, then became conscious that excitement had kept her from realizing both pain and fatigue. She rode on to meet Withers.

“You’re no tenderfoot,” he said, gayly.

“That’s all you know,” retorted Marian. “My feet appear to be intact, but I assure you I have some tender places.”

“Did you slide some?”

“I did... and I could surely give pointers to some baseball players I’ve seen.”

“Get on and ride now. Don’t be scared of the jump-off places in the trail below. Just hang on.”

“Do you know, Mr. Withers, you have the most wonderful and easy solution to these trail problems?... Just hang on!”

The trader laughed and turned his horse to the descent. Marian let Buckskin have free rein. The clay slopes below presented a strange variegated appearance and seemingly stood on end. Red succeeded to yellow, and yellow to violet, and that to pale chocolate. The horses slid down places so steep that Marian could scarcely keep her seat in the saddle. Some places Buckskin just slipped down. These always meant a deep wash to cross, with a climb up the opposite side. Buckskin would not climb leisurely. He usually jumped the washes, and before Marian could establish herself properly in the saddle again he was loping up the bank. The result was mortifying to her, and sometimes painful and not wholly without panic. Wither’s admonition was faithfully acted upon by Marian, though not always without frantic and violent measures. Nevertheless, she had moments of thrill and pleasure, intermingled with the other sensations. It seemed she was descending into the very bowels of the earth. How deep this canyon! Though early in the afternoon, the sun just tipped the western wall. Marian grew extremely tired just holding on, and was indeed glad when the last incline led down to a sandy wash, that in turn opened out into the canyon floor.

The stream which from above had appeared a thread of silver now proved to be a shallow and wide flow of roily water into which the horses hurried to drink. Withers got off, lay flat, and quenched his own thirst. The Indians had halted beside one of the clumps of green trees and were talking to another Indian who was on foot.

“Take a rest in the shade of these cottonwoods,” suggested the trader. “You’ll need all your strength climbing out. I see some Pahutes.”

Not until Marian had ridden across the sandy flat almost to the cottonwoods did she observe other than the one Indian. Then she saw an Indian woman with a child sitting somewhat beyond the clump of trees. Upon dismounting, Marian searched in her pockets for something to give the child, and found a piece of chocolate that had escaped her at lunch time. With this she approached the two.

A fire was smoldering on the sand. Two cooking utensils sat near by, each with a remnant of food adhering to it. The woman was young and rather pretty, Marian thought. She wore a dark dress of some thick material, a bead necklace round her neck, and silver bracelets studded with turquoises, very crude in design. The child appeared to be a girl of about three years, tiny of form, with little dark, frightened face. The mother showed a shyness that surprised Marian. Indeed, there was something wild about these two natives in this canyon, especially in the black tangled hair of the little one.

“Here,” said Marian, with a smile, proffering the chocolate. It amused her greatly to see that, despite an unmistakable fright, the child flashed out a brown hand and snatched the candy. Then she shrank closer to her mother, as if to hide behind her. Marian wanted to stand there and make known her friendliness, but out of kindness she turned away. Her presence was assuredly a source of fear to the child and of extreme embarrassment to the mother. From the shade of the cottonwoods Marian watched them with wondering interest and sympathy. No hogan or shack or habitation of any kind appeared to be in sight. But that this place was home for these Indians Marian had no doubt. She saw the flat ground was a cornfield, and that the Pahute man now talking to Withers carried a crude-handled shovel. What a stalwart Indian! He was young, and little there was about him to connect him with the dirty, slouching Indians Marian had seen at Mesa. As she looked he raised a strong, capable hand, pointing, with singular grace and expressiveness and slow meaning movement, toward a point above and beyond the canyon. It was a beautiful gesture.

Withers came to Marian.

“The Pahute whose tracks we saw crossed here early this morning. He’s shore to meet Nophaie. And he’ll tell Nophaie the same he told this Indian here.”

“What?” queried Marian, catching her breath.

“Benow di cleash on the Pahute trail,” replied the trader, with a smile. “That may be strange to these Indians. But it won’t be to Nophaie!”

For answer Marian rose, averting her face, and went to her horse. As she reached for the bridle she saw her gloved hand tremble. Strong indeed was the hold she had on herself, but she could no longer trust it.

Once more she fell in behind Withers and the Indians. They rode up the canyon to a break in the wall, where they turned upward. The mouth of this gorge was narrow and jagged, opening back into the mountain of rock. To gaze up over the long jumble of broken cliff, far to the apex of that notch, made Marian’s blood rush back to her heart.

Withers allowed her to ride for a long distance. A sandy bank ran under the right wall. Running water dashed over the rocks at the bottom of this gorge. Cottonwood trees, with foliage bright green and fresh, shaded part of the trail. Soon the rocks began to encroach upon that sandy strip. Marian saw the Indians above her on the left, toiling over the weathered slide.

At a crossing of the stream Withers bade her dismount. He filled her canteen. Marian found the water cold and fine, free of acrid taste, and very satisfying.

“You should drink oftener,” he said, as he watched her. “You’ll dry up in this desert. Well, shore you’ve a climb ahead. Go slow. Be careful. Rest often. You can’t miss the trail.”

With that he started up a ledge of soft blue rock, leading Marian’s horse. His own was evidently in charge of one of the Indians.

Marian gazed aloft, with something of shock and awe. She actually saw a wedge of blue sky, fitting into that red notch far above her. This gorge dug deeply back into the solid earth, and sides and floor were one bewildering jumble of rocks of every size and shape. She felt impelled to gaze upward, but the act was not conducive to encouragement.

The climb she began with forced husbanding of her strength and a restraint to her eagerness. Time enough, if she ever surmounted this frightful steep, to think of Nophaie! In spite of what Withers had said, Marian had little faith in her hopes. To-morrow perhaps she would meet Nophaie. With eyes seeking out the tracks of the horses and marks of the trail, Marian slowly lent her energies to the ascent. This trail must have been very old, she thought, judging from unmistakable ruts worn in ledges and places where avalanches and weathering slides had not covered it. At every convenient rock to sit or lean upon she rested. In half an hour she found the gorge opening wide, bowl shaped in the center, with slopes of broken rock leading up on all sides. Another half- hour apparently made little progress toward the distant rim, yet it brought her to solid rock. All below now appeared the slanted floor of this gorge, choked with the debris from the cliffs above.

The trail kept to the left side and led up toward the face of an overhanging mountain of ledges, walls, juts, and corners, the ensemble of which seemed an unscalable precipice. Marian had climbed an hour, just to get started. Moreover, the character of the ascent changed. She became fronted by a succession of rocky steps, leading up to ledges that ran at right angles with the trail, and long narrow strips of rock standing out from the slope, all bare and smooth, treacherous in slant and too hard to catch the nails of her boots. How the horses ever climbed these slippery places was a mystery to Marian. But they had done so, for she saw the white scratches made by their iron shoes on the stone.

More than once Marian heard the Indians and Withers working far above her. The clang of a hammer rang out with keen metallic sound. She had observed a short- handled sledge on one of the mule-packs; now she understood its use on the trail. Withers was cracking rocks to roll them, and breaking the corners of jutting cliff to permit the mules to swing by with their packs. She welcomed these periods, for she had long rests, during which she fell into dreams.

When she ascended to the points where trail work had been necessary she had all she could do to scramble up. And her hands helped as much as her feet. An endless stairway of steps in solid rock, manifold in character, with every conceivable angle and crack and sharp point and narrow ledge. Mostly she feared the narrow ledges. For if she slipped on those it might mean the end of her. Treading these, she dare not look over into the abyss, now assuming dreadful depths.

This toil took Marian not only far upward, but far back into the gorge. The sky began to lighten. The ragged red rim above seemed possibly attainable. Below her shadows of purple began to gather under the deep walls. Her watch told the hour of five. Marian feared she had made too leisurely a task of it, or had rested too long. Still, these had been her orders from Withers. But the long climb all alone, the persistent exertion, the holding back of emotion, the whole time increasingly fraught with suspense had begun to weaken her. Resting long might have been advisable, but she could not do it. At every risky place she grew nervous and hurried. Once she lost her footing and fell, to slide hard against a projecting rock. That hurt her. But the fright she suffered was worse than the hurt. For an instant she shook all over and her heart seemed to contract. Suppose she had slipped on one of the narrow ledges!

“Oh! this is–new and–hard for me,” she panted. “Mr. Withers shouldn’t– have trusted me–to myself.”

She realized she had been thrown upon her own resources. If she had not been equal to this climb Withers would never have left her. That moment alone there in the gorge, calling upon all her courage and reserve force, was one Marian felt to her depths. She scorned herself, but she recognized natural fear- -an emotion she had never felt before in her life. She conquered it. And resolutely, but with trembling lips she had to bite to still, she began to climb again.

Once more the character of the slope changed. The solid gleaming granite gave way to soft red sandstone; and the long reaches of ledge and short steps to wide zigzags, the corners of which turned on promontories that sheered out over the depths. Marian found the going easier here, and if she had not been worn out she would have climbed well. As it was she dragged her weary feet, slow step after step, up the long slants of trail.

Six o’clock by her watch and the gold of sunset on the far points of the rim! It seemed only a short climb now, from every turn, yet she did not get there. Nevertheless, weary and almost desperate as she was, the moment came when the strange glamour of that canyon stole over her. Perhaps the sunset hour with its gold gleams high, and purple shadows low, could be held accountable for this, or the sublimity of the heights she had attained. Wild realm of solitude! Here must the eagles clasp the crags with crooked claws.

Slowly Marian toiled round an abrupt corner on a bare promontory. She paused, her eyes on the incredible steps she had ascended. Her breast heaved. A cold wind from above cooled her hot, uncovered brow.

Suddenly a cry startled her. Piercingly high and strange it pealed down, and the echoes from the canyon walls magnified it and clapped it from cliff to cliff, until it died weirdly far below.

With uplift of head Marian swept the rim above. An Indian stood silhouetted against the gold of sky. Slender and tall, motionless as a statue, he stood, a black figure in singular harmony with the wildness and nobility of that height.

“Nophaie!” whispered Marian, with a leap of her heart.

He waved his hand aloft, a slow gesture, significant and thrilling. Marian waved her sombrero in reply, and tried to call out, but just then her voice failed. Wheeling away with swift strides, shot through and through with a current of fire, she began the last few zigzags of that trail.

Endless that last climb–unattainable the rim! Marian had overreached herself. Dizzy, half blind, with bursting heart she went on, upward, toward Nophaie. She saw him dimly as in a dream. He was coming. How strange the light! Night already? Vaguely the rim wall waved and rocked, grew darker.

No, she had not fainted. Not for one second had she wholly lost sense of that close, hard contact, of an arm like iron around her, of being borne upward. Then–one long moment–not clear, and again she felt the bursting throb of her heart–that pang in her breast. Her breath came and went in hurried little gasps. The dimness left her eyes. She saw the gorge, a blue abyss, yawning down into the purple depths of Pahute Canyon. But she could not see anything else, for she was unable to move. Nophaie held her close, her cheek against his breast.

“Benow di cleash!”

“Nophaie!”

There was no other greeting between them. He did not kiss her, and his close clasp slowly loosened. Marian rallied to the extent of being able to stand and she slipped away from him, still holding his hand. The Indian she had known as Lo Blandy had changed with the resigning of that white man’s name. Dark as bronze his fine face had grown, lean and older, graver, with long sloping lines of pain, not wholly hidden by his smile of welcome. His eyes, black and piercing with intense light, burned into hers. Unutterable love and joy shone in them.

“Nophaie–you have–changed,” she said, breathlessly.

“So have you,” he replied. An indefinable difference in the tone of his voice struck Marian forcibly. It was lower, softer, with something liquid in its depth, something proving that his mother tongue had returned to detract from the white man’s.

“How have–I–changed?” murmured Marian. Her pent-up emotions had been eased, if not expressed. The great longed-for moment had come, strangely unlike what she had expected, yet full and sweet. Slowly she was realizing.

“Still Benow di cleash, but woman now, more than girl.... It’s the same face I saw first at Cape May, only more beautiful, Marian.”

“At least you’ve not changed Lo Blandy’s habit of flattery.”

“Do not call me that,” he said, a somber look momentarily shadowing the gladness of his eyes.

Marian hesitated. She was trying to realize him, to find him again as she had known and loved him. But it was not easy.

“Must we get acquainted all over?” she asked, seriously.

“You must.”

“Very well, I am ready.”

“Then you have come to work among my people?”

“Of course,” replied Marian, simply. “I’ve come to do what you want me to.”

Love and loyalty spoke unmistakably in her voice and in the gaze with which she met his piercing eyes. For an instant, then, Marian trembled in a consciousness of his gratitude, of his sudden fierce desire to gather her to his breast. She felt that, and saw it in the slight leap of his frame.

“You are noble. You prove my faith. You save me from hate of the white race.” Loosening her hands, he took a long stride toward the rim and gazed away across the purple canyon.

Then Marian had her first real sight of him. This appeared but a shadow of the magnificent form of the famous athlete, Lo Blandy. Thinned out, lean and hard he looked. He was dressed in worn corduroy and velveteen, with silver- buckled belt and brown moccasins. His black hair was drawn back and bound under a red band that encircled his head. This garb, and the wonderful poise of his lofty figure against the background of wild canyon, removed him immeasurably from the man Marian had known as Lo Blandy. If there had ever been anything untrue or unreal about him, it was gone now. He satisfied some long unknown yearning in Marian’s heart. Even the suggestion of the tragic was not discordant. What was in his soul then?

“I’m glad for what you think I am,” she said, stepping to his side. “For what you say I do... and I want to–to make you happy.”

“Happy! Benow di cleash, this is the first happy moment I have ever lived- - since I was a shepherd boy–Nophaie, down there with the sheep. Happy, because, Indian as I am, I know you love me.”

“Yes, I–I love you, Nophaie,” she said, low, unsteadily. She wanted him to know again, at once.

Hand in hand then they gazed out across the purpling depths and the gold- rimmed walls, to the vast heave of desert beyond. The sun set while Marian watched and divined the strange exaltation of the moment. Incalculable were to be her blessings–the glory of loving, and forgetting self, the work that was to be hers, the knowledge of this lonely and beautiful land, seen through the eyes and soul of an Indian. Marian marveled now that she had ever hesitated or feared.

“Come, we must go,” said Nophaie. “You are tired and hungry. Withers will make camp some miles from here.”

“Withers!” echoed Marian, with a little laugh. “I had forgotten him–and camp–and that I ever was hungry.”

“Do you remember how you used to hate clams and like ice-cream, back in those Cape May days?” he asked.

“Yes, and I haven’t changed in that respect,” she replied, gayly. “You do remember, don’t you?... Well, sir, how about Jack Bailey?”

“Your dancing lizard. I am jealous again–to hear you speak his name.”

“Nophaie–after you went away there was no more cause. I have been true to you.”

Marian felt, too, that she was ridiculously happy, and quite unlike herself in some wild desire to torment Nophaie and break his reserve. Always she had felt this Indian’s strength, and, woman-like, half resented it. She found him stranger than ever, harder to reach, in spite of the love in his eyes.

His mustang was the largest Marian had seen, a wild shaggy animal of tan color. When it came to getting upon her own horse again she was not above a little feminine vanity in her hope to accomplish a graceful mount before Nophaie. But she made indeed a sorry one, for almost all her strength was gone. Then they rode side by side through a fragrant level land of piñon and sage, with the afterglow of sunset lighting the western sky. The romance of that moment seemed an enchantment of her dreams. Here was the gloaming hour, and a beautiful place of the desert wilderness, and the man she loved. His color and his race were no hindrances to her respect. She talked a little while of their last times together at the seashore, and then of friends of hers whom he knew, and lastly of her home, in which she had no longer seemed to fit happily. Nophaie listened without comment. When, however, she broached the subject of her arrival in the West, and her reception by the Withers, she found him communicative. Withers was a good man, a trader who helped the Indians and did not make his post a means to cheat them. Mrs. Withers was more to the Indians than any other white person had ever been.

Presently the thickening twilight was pierced by the bright blaze of a campfire. And Marian followed the Indian down into a shallow ravine where a gleam of water reflected the blaze and the dark branches of cedar trees. Withers was busy at the supper tasks.

“Well, here you are,” he called out, cheerily. “Marian, you’re a little white through your sunburn. Get down and come in. Did you climb up Pahute Canyon? Ha- ha! I kept an eye on you.... Nophaie, turn Buckskin loose and lend a hand here. Shore, we’ll soon have this lady tenderfoot comfortable and happy.”

Marian thought she might be a good deal more comfortable, but scarcely happier. It was about all she could do to drag herself to the seat Withers made for her. The warmth that stole over her, and the languor, would have ended in sleep but for the trader’s hearty call, “Come and get it.”

“I’m afraid you’ll have to bring it to me,” replied Marian. “If I get up I’ll fall down.”

Withers and Nophaie served her, and she discovered that exhaustion and physical pangs did not destroy hunger, or, in her case, keen enjoyment of the meal. Nophaie sat beside her, the light of the camp fire playing upon his face. The other two Indians came for their supper, soft-footed and slow, and they sat down to eat.

After the meal Withers and Nophaie made short work of what tasks were left to do. The two Indians appeared to mingle with the encircling darkness. For a moment the low, strange notes of their voices came back to Marian, and then were heard no more. Withers erected the little tent under the piñon near the fire, and then drawled, “Shore, I reckon that’s about all.” Then bidding Nophaie and Marian good night, he discreetly retired to his own bed under an adjoining piñon. The night silence settled down upon the camp, so lonely and sweet, so strangely full for Marian, that she was loath to break it. She watched Nophaie. In the flickering light his face seemed impassively sad, a bronze mask molded in the mood of sorrow. From time to time he would lift his face and turn his dark gaze upon Marian. Then she thrilled, and felt a warmth of gladness wave over her.

“Will you stay with us to-night?” she asked, at last.

“No. I will ride back to my hogan,” he said.

“Is it far?”

“For you, yes. I will ride back to meet you in the morning.”

“Is your–your home at Oljato?”

“No. Oljato is down in the lowland. Some of my people live there.”

“People? You mean relatives?”

He replied in the negative, and went on to tell of his only living kin. And he fell to talking of himself–how he had chosen this wildest and loneliest part of the reservation because he wanted to be far away from white people. It was a custom of the tribe for the women to own the sheep, but he had acquired a small flock. He owned a few mustangs. He was the poorest Indian he knew. He did not possess even a saddle or a gun. His means of livelihood was the selling of wool and hides, and working for some of the rich Indians in that section. He had taught them how much better corn would grow in plowed land. He built dams to hold the spring freshets from the melting snows and thus conserve water for the long period of drought. What his tribe needed most was to learn ways that were better than theirs. But they were slow to change. They had to see results. And therefore he did not find a great deal of work which was remunerative.

It had never occurred to Marian that Nophaie might be poor. She remembered him as the famous athlete who had been highly salaried at Cape May. Yet she might have guessed it. The white people had taught him to earn money in some of their pursuits, which he had renounced.

Poverty had always seemed a hideous condition. Marian had never known real luxury and did not want it, but she had never been in need of the simple and necessary things of life. Perhaps to the Indian poverty was nothing. The piñons might be his room and warmth, the sage-covered earth his bed, the sheep his sustenance. Marian hesitated to voice her sympathy and perplexity. She could help Nophaie. But how? Maybe he did not want more sheep, more horses, more clothes and blankets, a gun and a saddle. Marian felt that she must go slowly. Nophaie’s simplicity was striking and it was easy for her to see that he had not been well fed. His lean face and his lean form were proofs of that. Had she ever dined at the Bellevue-Stratford Hotel with this very Indian? Incredible! Yet no more incredible than this hour on the lonely desert, with a flickering camp fire lighting Nophaie’s dark face! How much stranger was real life than the fiction of dreams!

After a long silence, which Marian yearned to break, but could not, Nophaie rose and touched her hair with his hand.

“Benow di cleash, your eyes are heavy,” he said. “You must sleep. But I shall lie awake. I will start back with the sunrise. Good night.”

Would he bend to kiss her? She had treasured and remembered his kisses, few as they had been. But he moved away, silently, his tall form dark against the pale starlit sky, and vanished from her sight.

Long Marian sat there, fighting sleep, fighting to stay awake to think of this place and Nophaie and her love, and what must be the outcome. Fatality hovered there in the night shadow. In Nophaie’s look and voice, and the condition he confessed, she had read catastrophe for the Indian. Yet Marian could not be unhappy. She divined her power to give; and that Nophaie, stoic, nailed to his Indian martyrdom, would not wholly miss the blessedness and glory of love.

Marian repaired to the little tent and its bed of blankets. How good they felt! What a wonderful relief to stretch out and lie still! Sleep soon must deaden the throbbing of pulse, the aching of muscle, the burn of cheek. But would not her thoughts of Nophaie persist even in her dreams? Shadows of branches cast by the firelight moved on the walls of her tent, weird and strange. A low wind rose to moan in the piñions. The desert seemed to brood over her.