The Line of Least Resistance/Chapter 2

T is most irregular for a cañon to run due north into a river flowing due south, but Mescal does just that, the enormous mass of Caballo Mountain barring it from other access to the Rio Grande. Precisely at this junction the river is forced to a reluctant westering, and gnaws persistently at the western base of the Caballos with intent presently to undermine their foundations. In this design it will doubtless be successful; these sandy waters cut like a chisel. You see, there is a grudge of some standing. These—literally—upstart Caballos were one day upheaved directly in the river's chosen course, with resultant bitterness.

Mescal rises in the bewildered tangle of low sandstone foot hills between the Caballo and that northern prong of the great Chihuahuan Desert, named of the maps the Jornada del Muerto, and locally known as the Jornada.

To say that Mescal flowed due north, however, would be doubly inaccurate. Its course so meandered, wound, twisted, turned, looped, curlicued, doubled and twined, and generally boxed the compass forward and back, that cautious mention of its mouth as being north of its source was as far as a reputable person would care to commit himself. Secondly, save for springs near its mouth, no water flows in it. Here is a roaring muddy torrent after a rainstorm, but not for long. As Neighbor Jones put it: "Mescal would be steep as the steeple on a church-house if 'twasn't so crooked. Good gramagrass on them hills, just alongin' to be minted into gold pieces—only, cattle get so plumb dizzy going down to the river for water they never get back."

Now, near the head of Mescal, Hiram Yoast and Don Kennedy espied by chance a clump of tender greenery—a wild grapevine, small but thrifty. This, in the arid lands, cannot live unless the roots reach to living water. Hiram made camp with saddle blankets and both canteens, while Kennedy rode post haste after supplies. Ownership of water, in the desert, is wealth, culture and social distinction.

Hiram Yoast was deeply in love with life, sunny, lighthearted, given to cheerful self-delight. In that fresh and fragrant hour, dearest of all the clean, bright, desert day—the cool silence between dawn and sunrise—he sat tailor-wise before the fire. His unlined boyish face was illuminated by a saintly smile of conscious virtue; such bright approval as Little Jack Horner proclaimed during a memorable event. The occasions were in no way dissimilar: the night before they had struck water at eighteen feet.

A cottontail, daintily nibbling in the bushes, caught a glint of the firelight. Decidedly this must be investigated. Noiseless, he hopped into the open and sat down shyly, black eyes blinking and ears pinkily aquiver; to flee terrified as Hiram raised his voice in a cheerful little matin song:

In one hand he held the branding iron from his saddle, a small rod bent to a sort of shepherd's crook. The other hand held an iron fork with which he turned the venison in a merrily spluttering pan. This done, he lifted off the bubbling coffee-pot and poured in water from a canteen to settle it.

Next he hooked his crook in the rimmed lid of the iron bakeoven, raised it and made inspection. The baking-powder biscuits were light and flaky, and not brown enough. He tilted the lid to let the dying coals slide off, placed it on the hottest place in the fire, whistling a merry tune the while. With his useful crook he raked out the live embers and set the bake oven over them, flipped fresh coals on the now heated top and replaced it on the oven.

The camp—uncomplicated to a degree—was made on a shelf in the hillside, well out of the arroyo. Under a thick-topped cedar a few blankets were spread on a tarp, which in turn was pulled up over the blankets. The bed was now in some disarray, exposing cartridge belts and pistol belts under the war sacks that served for heading. Saddles and other gear hung from the branches, beyond the reach of prowling coyote or an occasional salt-hungry cow.

The fire was built against a big out-cropping boulder that served as a strong-room. On its top were the leather-bound canvas pack-sacks, their collapsed condition revealing the nearly exhausted commissariat—dwindled sacks of flour, salt, sugar and coffee, a slab of breakfast bacon, a few tins of canned goods; a new pack-saddle with breeching, breast straps and broad pack-cinch; and symmetrical rows of empty tins, bearing mute witness to Hiram's methodical housewifery.

Beside the boulder were two five-gallon kegs, a large canteen with a two-inch strap, smaller ones for saddle use. Each day they watered their horses at Mescal Spring, five crooked miles away, and packed back water for the household.

A clatter broke the stillness. A quail whistled shrill alarm, then whirred through the air in bullet flight. Two loose horses soberly topped the hill, their rawhide hobbles buttoned around their necks; then Kennedy, riding bareback and sidewise, swinging an empty canvas nosebag against the fat sides of Doubting Thomas, the pack-horse.

Kennedy was taller than Hiram, stronger-thewed, a dozen years older. His strong, rough-hewn face had yet a careless, flashing charm of self-reliance, force, alert poise, more pleasing than mere beauty; but in its underlying lines of sternness and resolution it was the face of a man who has passed many Rubicons. Privately, Hiram considered Kennedy quite the finest little piece of work produced to date, but carefully concealed this boyish idolatry from its object. His elation grew to think that henceforth this was to be his pardner; he whistled more blithely than ever. Pray observe that "pardner" is not at all the same word or thing as the purely commercial term "partner."

The horse-wrangler slid off easily, apportioned the scanty remnant of corn to the three nosebags, and slipped them on the three nuzzling heads. The munching horses, eyes half closed luxuriously, stood with noses pointing to a common center, untied and contented.

"Was they far?"

"They were headed for Winter's Flat. Had to track 'em. Jug in the lead. The old skunk wants to go back to Palomas." Kennedy performed his simple ablutions. Holding a cup between his teeth, he poured water on his hands; holding it between his knees, he filled his cupped hands for facial purposes.

"Br-reakfas' now ready in the dining-cyar!" announced Hiram in sonorous satisfaction. "Bring the dishes, Don. And the cow. And the sugar." Knives and forks were of iron; the battered plates, cups, spoons and the cow were tin.

"Been down to the well yet, Hiram?"

"Puesto que si! Eight feet of water! Me, I'm most might undiscontented. D'yuh reckon we'd better pipe it out or get a windmill?"

"Windmill first. Pipe-line, poco tiempo, bimeby, day after . It'll be a big job. This mine, miner, minus dream is due to play out before long. Then we can hire some one to do the ditch on reasonable terms. Pass the meat. It'll cost us a heap of money even then—but it'll be worth a dollar a year for every head of stock it'll water. Next thing to ownin' a mint, water is."

"Mañana just suits my style of beauty," said Hiram. "I don't mind work that I can do ahorseback, but I don't noways yearn, long, hone or hanker to make any personal excavation in the solid rock twelve or fifteen feet deep and three hundred yards long. That's too much like old manual labor. Look at me now! Look at my hands—and these brogans—and these overalls! Marse Hi shaves his face and crawls into his nice little corduroys before we hit the trail. Just think, Don—this noon we'll sit down to eggs and chili and real cream of the cow!"

Don put his plate down and looked at his pardner solicitously. "Who is it this time—Milly or the widow? Blue overalls, Mr. Yoast, are by long odds the most fashionable garments worn. They're always in style. Don't turn up your nose at 'em. Many an honest heart On reflection, the honest heart beats under the ragged coat."

Marse Hi ignored this frivolous banter. He turned a brisk and businesslike eye to Timber Mountain. The summit glowed warm and golden. Day was upon them.

"There's no use packin' in our plunder. Let's just pile all of it upon the rock, pack-saddle and all, and pull the tarp over it. We've got to buy a harness and wagon and bring out our windmill and truck. Say, we nearly forgot one thing. We got to locate the well as a millsite. Can't lay no preemption papers or homestead in a country all shot full o' mineral. Can you write out a location notice?"

"Notice is hereby given that we, the undersigned citizens of the United States, having complied with the United States Statutes and the local rules and regulations, do hereby locate this spring and five acres of non-mineral land adjoining for a millsite in connection with the Baby Mine," quoted Don in glib singsong. "Sure! I can do it."

"Seems plumb foolish, don't it?" said Hiram meditatively. "Looks like the well was notice enough that some one had got here first. Man ain't likely to think a well just happened, is he, now? But I suppose we have to. That's the way they all do."

"Hiram," said Don severely, "do you realize that you are proposing a barefaced fraud? The law strictly forbids using millsites for agricultural purposes—and a steer is that precise purpose. Far be it from me to have lot or part in any evasion of the law. You tidy up the camp, Bridget, dear, and I'll write off a notice that we can sign in good faith."

It did not take him long. This is what he handed to Hiram:

Hiram's face, usually so legible, became preternaturally expressionless as he read this extraordinary document. He sedately penciled his signature. "That ought to hold 'em a while. We will now make this well a ranch by watering our horses, as an agricultural purpose."

"That rawhide bucket's punched full of holes from hauling up rocks," objected Don.

For answer, Hiram began loosening the hoops of a keg, with design to remove one end. Seeing what he was about Don took the saddle ropes and led the horses to the well. Hiram followed with the keg.

On the dump lay hammer, drills, picks and shovels. Turning in forked cedar uprights, spiked to the cedar curb, was a cedar windlass, axe-grooved, with a roughly trimmed natural crook for handle; the pack-rope served as a windlass rope. Cutting off a length of this, Hiram made cunning adjustment of half-hitches below and above the swell of the improvised bucket, and tied the loose ends together for a handle.

Horses watered, Kennedy built into a monument of loose stones the tin can containing his remarkable location papers. Hiram unreeled and coiled the windlass rope, now needed for tying up the bed. This done, he looked thoughtfully into the well. "Don't you reckon we'd better cut some poles and cover this up? Something might come along and fall in."

"Oh, I guess not," said Kennedy.

Even as he spoke, his spur caught in a tangle of grapevine, he stumbled sprawlingly, made futile clutch at the windlass post, and shot down into the water, head first, gasping. He bobbed up choking and spluttering, found a precarious hand-hold on the rocky sides, and looked up. Hiram, still holding the neatly coiled rope, was seated on the curb in profound and silent meditation, his legs dangling idly in the well. His elbow was on his knee and his chin rested on his hand; he regarded Kennedy with grave interest. Kennedy opened his mouth, but could not find the fitting word. Hiram clicked his heels gently together, pushed his hat back, cocked his eye at the sun and, ignoring the interruption, continued in a pleasant drawl:

"It won't take us long. I'll cut 'em if you'll drag 'em." His round-eyed, innocent gaze wandered to the near hillside. "I see some good ones over there a couple of hundred yards."

"Throw down that rope!"

Hiram recalled himself with a start and peered again into the cool depths. After a moment's contemplation he nodded brightly as one well pleased at his own quickness in grasping the situation.

"Sure!" he said mildly—and dropped the coil.

Kennedy bobbed under again. He came up choking and gurgling, having indignantly tried to talk under water, and began an incoherent endeavor to express his views in several different and inadequate ways at once. After some emotional discussion Hiram caught a glimpse of his true meaning.

"Oh, I see! You want me to let one end of a rope down there and keep the other end up here? Yes, yes! And to pull you up? I'll get a rope off one of the horses and fix you in a jiffy."

But when he had Kennedy halfway up, Hiram stopped and sat down on the windlass handle. "I see now what your idea was!" he said thoughtfully. "You can't fool Rosie! You're always guying me because I like to be as neat as the law allows. All the same, you "

The rope was violently agitated. Kennedy was coming up hand-over-hand. He was nearly to the top. "Here, I'll give you a hand," said Hiram kindly, and rose to help him. The windlass spun wildly. … When Kennedy reappeared above the water, clutching the rope, the look of disappointment and astonishment was still on Hiram's face; his helping hands were still extended.

"Hiram, you're a fool!" said Kennedy in an agonized whisper, when he could get his breath.

Hiram seemed struck with this and sat down to consider it. "Possibly. … Probably," he admitted. "But never mind that. Tell me honestly now if you didn't do this just so you'd have to change your clothes?"

"That was my motive, certainly," said Kennedy. "But I didn't think that you'd catch on." His teeth were chattering.

"Sorter wanted an excuse to spruce up?" prompted Hiram.

"That's it exactly," said Kennedy meekly. "I'm really very dressy."

"So'm I," said Hiram. "'When I go out to promenade I look so fine and gay, I have to take the dogs along to keep the girls away'."

"Hiram," said Don persuasively, "don't you think we'd better get our horse-ride over before it gets too hot?"

"Sure you don't want to punch my silly head?" suggested Hiram.

"Me? Oh, no!" said Don, horrified at this idea. "Not for worlds. Whatever put such a thought in your mind, Hiram?"

"Sure?"

"Sure. Cross my heart and hope to die!"

So Hiram pulled him up.