Tales of lonely trails by Zane Grey (best affordable ebook reader .TXT) 📗

to hurry us by auto to Flagstaff on the morrow. So right there at Mormon Lake ended our privations.

Under one of the huge pines I scraped up a pile of needles, made Romer's bed in it, heated a blanket and wrapped him in it. Almost he was asleep when he said: "Some ride, Dad—Good-night."

Later, beside him, I lay awake a while, watching the sparks fly, and the shadows flit, feeling the cold wind on my face, listening to the crackle of the fire and the roar of the gale.

IV

Eventually R.C. and Romer and I arrived in Los Angeles to find all well with our people, which fact was indeed something to rejoice over. Hardly had this 1918 trip ended before I began to plan for that of 1919. But I did not realize how much in earnest I was until I received word that both Lee Doyle in Flagstaff and Nielsen in San Pedro were very ill with influenza. Lee all but died, and Nielsen, afterward, told me he would rather die than have the "flu" again. To my great relief, however, they recovered.

From that time then it pleased me to begin to plan for my 1919 hunting trip. I can never do anything reasonably. I always overdo everything. But what happiness I derive from anticipation! When I am not working I live in dreams, partly of the past, but mostly of the future. A man should live only in the present.

I gave Lee instructions to go about in his own way buying teams, saddle horses, and wagons. For Christmas I sent him a .35 Remington rifle. Mr. Haught got instructions to add some new dogs to his pack. I sent Edd also a .35 Remington, and made Nielsen presents of two guns. In January Nielsen and I went to Picacho, on the lower Colorado river, and then north to Death Valley. So that I kept in touch with these men and did not allow their enthusiasm to wane. For myself and R.C. I had the fun of ordering tents and woolen blankets, and everything that we did not have on our 1918 trip. But owing to the war it was difficult to obtain goods of any description. To make sure of getting a .30 Gov't Winchester I ordered from four different firms, including the Winchester Co. None of them had such a rifle in stock, but all would try to find one. The upshot of this deal was that, when after months I despaired of getting any, they all sent me a rifle at the same time. So I found myself with four, all the same caliber of course, but of different style and finish. When I saw them and thought of the Haughts I had to laugh. One was beautifully engraved, and inlaid with gold—the most elaborate .30 Gov't the Winchester people had ever built. Another was a walnut-stocked, shot-gun butted, fancy checkered take-down. This one I presented to R.C. The third was a plain ordinary rifle with solid frame. And the last was a carbine model, which I gave to Nielsen.

During the summer at Avalon I used to take the solid frame rifle, and climb the hills to practice on targets. At Clemente Island I used to shoot at the ravens. I had a grudge against ravens there for picking the eyes out of newly born lambs. At five hundred yards a raven was in danger from me. I could make one jump at even a thousand yards. These .30 Gov't 1906 rifles with 150-grain bullet are the most wonderful shooting arms I ever tried. I became expert at inanimate targets.

From time to time I heard encouraging news from Lee about horses. Edd wrote me about lion tracks in the snow, and lynx up cedar trees, and gobblers four feet high, and that there was sure to be a good crop of acorns, and therefore some bears. He told me about a big grizzly cow-killer being chased and shot in Chevelon Canyon. News about hounds, however, was slow in coming. Dogs were difficult to find. At length Haught wrote me that he had secured two; and in this same letter he said the boys were cutting trails down under the rim.

Everything pertaining to my cherished plans appeared to be turning out well. But during this time I spent five months at hard work and intense emotional strain, writing the longest novel I ever attempted; and I over-taxed my endurance. By the middle of June, when I finished, I was tired out. That would not have mattered if I had not hurt my back in an eleven-hour fight with a giant broadbill swordfish. This strain kept me from getting in my usual physical trim. I could not climb the hills, or exert myself. Swimming hurt me more than anything. So I had to be careful and wait until my back slowly got better. By September it had improved, but not enough to make me feel any thrills over horseback riding. It seemed to me that I would be compelled to go ahead and actually work the pain out of my back, an ordeal through which I had passed before, and surely dreaded.

During the summer I had purchased a famous chestnut sorrel horse named Don Carlos. He was much in demand among the motion-picture companies doing western plays; and was really too fine and splendid a horse to be put to the risks common to the movies. I saw him first at Palm Springs, down in southern California, where my book Desert Gold was being made into a motion-picture. Don would not have failed to strike any one as being a wonderful horse. He was tremendously high and rangy and powerful in build, yet graceful withal, a sleek, shiny chestnut red in color, with fine legs, broad chest, and a magnificent head. I rode him only once before I bought him, and that was before I hurt my back. His stride was what one would expect from sight of him; his trot seemed to tear me to pieces; his spirit was such that he wanted to prance all the time. But in spite of his spirit he was a pet. And how he could run! Nielsen took Don to Flagstaff by express. And when Nielsen wrote me he said all of Flagstaff came down to the station to see the famous Don Carlos. The car in which he had traveled was backed alongside a platform. Don refused to step on the boards they placed from platform to car. He did not trust them. Don's intelligence had been sharpened by his experience with the movies. Nielsen tried to lead, to coax, and to drive Don to step on the board walk. Don would not go. But suddenly he snorted, and jumped the space clear, to plunge and pound down upon the platform, scattering the crowd like quail.

The day before my departure from Los Angeles was almost as terrible an ordeal as I anticipated would be my first day's ride on Don Carlos. And this ordeal consisted of listening to Romer's passionate appeals and importunities to let him go on the hunt. My only defence was that he must not be taken from school. School forsooth! He was way ahead of his class. If he got behind he could make it up. I talked and argued. Once he lost his temper, a rare thing with him, and said he would run away from school, ride on a freight train to Flagstaff, steal a horse and track me to my camp. I could not say very much in reply to this threat, because I remembered that I had made worse to my father, and carried it out. I had to talk sense to Romer. Often we had spoken of a wonderful hunt in Africa some day, when he was old enough; and I happened upon a good argument. I said: "You'll miss a year out of school then. It won't be so very long. Don't you think you ought to stay in school faithfully now?" So in the end I got away from him, victorious, though not wholly happy. The truth was I wanted him to go.

My Jap cook Takahashi met me in Flagstaff. He was a very short, very broad, very muscular little fellow with a brown, strong face, more pleasant than usually seen in Orientals. Secretly I had made sure that in Takahashi I had discovered a treasure, but I was careful to conceal this conviction from R.C., the Doyles, and Nielsen. They were glad to see him with us, but they manifestly did not expect wonders.

How brief the span of a year! Here I was in Flagstaff again outfitting for another hunt. It seemed incredible. It revived that old haunting thought about the shortness of life. But in spite of that or perhaps more because of it the pleasure was all the keener. In truth the only drawback to this start was the absence of Romer, and my poor physical condition. R.C. appeared to be in fine fettle.

But I was not well. In the mornings I could scarcely arise, and when I did so I could hardly straighten myself. More than once I grew doubtful of my strength to undertake such a hard trip. This doubt I fought fiercely, for I knew that the right thing for me to do was to go—to stand the pain and hardship—to toil along until my old strength and elasticity returned. What an opportunity to try out my favorite theory! For I believed that labor and pain were good for mankind—that strenuous life in the open would cure any bodily ill.

On September fourteenth Edd and George drifted into Flagstaff to join us, and their report of game and water and grass and acorns was so favorable that I would have gone if I had been unable to ride on anything but a wagon.

We got away on September fifteenth at two-thirty o'clock with such an outfit as I had never had in all my many trips put together. We had a string of saddle horses besides those the men rode. They were surely a spirited bunch; and that first day it was indeed a job to keep them with us. Out of sheer defiance with myself I started on Don Carlos. He was no trouble, except that it took all my strength to hold him in. He tossed his head, champed his bit, and pranced sideways along the streets of Flagstaff, manifestly to show off his brand new black Mexican saddle, with silver trappings and tapaderos. I was sure that he did not do that to show me off. But Don liked to dance and prance along before a crowd, a habit that he had acquired with the motion pictures.

Lee and Nielsen and George had their difficulties driving the free horses. Takahashi rode a little buckskin