THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
-TWJSTK1) ABOUT AND STRUCK OUT WITH ALL HER FO R C E 
 
The Desert and Mrs. Ajax 
 
 By 
 
 EDWARD MOFFAT 
 
 Illustrated 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 
 1914 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1914, BY 
 
 MOFFAT, YARD AND COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 
 
 Published Marc A, 1914 
 
TO 
 MY MOTHER 
 
 M532957 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Twisted About and Struck Out with All 
 Her Force Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 " Steer Him More Port, Altamont " . . 38 
 " Bishop Sorensen from Bull Valley Stake " 178 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 DICK HOLLY was nearly home. Marooned on 
 the sun-bleached platform of Ami flag station amid 
 an assortment of glaringly new pigskin bags, he 
 was impatiently kicking his heels against the side 
 of his trunk and waiting for yesterday s unappre 
 ciated comforts to depart. 
 
 Without a sign of regret on his bronzed face, 
 he saw them roll away damask and silver, cut 
 glass and genial African with all their crowding 
 memories of six months in the East, of strange 
 scenes of pomp and glitter and tumultuous en 
 deavor all dwindling down into the shining plain 
 and fading at last into a mere smudge of smoke 
 against the horizon. 
 
 Before him lay the Desert. Between the 
 shifting slopes of the sand hills he saw it in all its 
 hypnotizing vastness, glittering and twinkling un 
 der a summer s sun. A gray-ash sea of sage bil 
 lowed up from its softer stretches and broke 
 around the whitened platform under his feet, but 
 elsewhere it rolled away, unrelieved and unmeas- 
 
2 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 ured, into distant banks of haze where a grotesque 
 armed Joshua-palm lurched to and fro in the heat, 
 or where it curled, wave-like, around islanded 
 buttes with black, jutting scarps. Here and there 
 dry lake beds, golden yellow, glittered in the smoky 
 distance, glaring up at the crackling blue vault like 
 eye-holes in a skull, while across their hot floors 
 bands of dust-dervishes came spinning in fantastic 
 pirouette. Whirling erratically on unseen pivots 
 and scudding madly hither and yon they dissolved 
 magically every moment in mid-air, only to rise 
 again as quickly in spasmodic, agitated spirals. 
 And over and through it all, from some unknown 
 bourne, came a keen, dry wind which blew un 
 ceasingly. 
 
 "You can t beat it!" the traveler murmured. 
 " This is the real thing. A hundred and fifty miles 
 of just plain distance. Now, that s what I call 
 scenery! " 
 
 Yet there was more to see, for far across the 
 desert, high above the sand bluffs banded red and 
 yellow like some mammoth layer cake, lay his 
 mountains, rimming the cup with a saw-toothed 
 edge. Waterless, lifeless, gaunt, and grim, barely 
 garmented, in fact, with decent earth, the stark 
 spines ran down to the bone-dry plain like the 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 3 
 
 gnarled fingers of some giant hand, searing the eye 
 with their ghastly ugliness. 
 
 The tall traveler tugged at his mustache in silent 
 satisfaction. Yes, it was all there all of that 
 bright, barren, unlovely land he loved, just as 
 it had lived, well remembered and aching, in the 
 back of his head for a long half year. And if, 
 with the sense of heat and light and infinite dis 
 tance, he felt once more the lifelong thrill of free 
 dom, it was because he had come back at last to 
 his own back home. 
 
 Dick Holly had gone East to sell a mine and 
 he had sold it. For thirty hard years he had 
 fought those same bleak ranges and windswept 
 plains, prospecting, farming, milling, and mining, 
 and now at forty-two the man had won and all his 
 troubles were behind him. All were gone, the 
 years of poverty, hardships, privations, the days of 
 discontent everything except the occasional lone 
 liness of a life too uncertain for marriage. 
 
 He turned away from the desert and, musingly, 
 poked at his baggage with his toe. Fifty miles 
 away over there behind the hot hills at Bullionfield 
 men were busy tramming ore in a mine which he, 
 and another man s engineers, knew had established 
 him for life, yet there was work to be done in Ami 
 
4 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 before he set out on the homeward lap and the 
 golden levels of the " Yellow Dog " must wait. 
 Voices were calling from the keen-aired slopes of 
 the Mormons, purpling in the haze, and the sweet 
 scent of his orchards over Moab way was in his 
 nostrils, yet to-day he would tarry awhile in Ami 
 and hear what was to be heard. His deal 
 with Osgood Warder in Philadelphia had been 
 almost ruined at the last moment and some 
 unknown enemy in Moab or Bullionfield had 
 done it. 
 
 Across the road, in what little remained of the 
 once notorious " head-end " camp of Ami, Holly s 
 roving eye caught sight of its only sign of life. 
 " Ami is surely a sincere sleeper, * he meditated. 
 " Old Flatwheel Mullen, behind The Silver State 
 bar, is the only one awake. He s my man, I reckon, 
 but he ll sure be crazy to hear about New York 
 I must think up some awful capers." 
 
 But, much to Holly s disappointment, " The Sil 
 ver State " proved nearly as lifeless as the desert 
 outside. A few resigned-looking Mormon freight 
 ers, in patched, blue overalls, dozed, disheveled 
 and unshorn, among the droning flies in the rear 
 an Eastern consumptive poked the pool balls list 
 lessly about. The ancient fame of Ami had with- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 5 
 
 ered as doth the winter leaf. Ami was indubitably 
 dead and Holly said so. 
 
 " Doghouse is dead, too," Flatwheel retorted, 
 from a strategic position behind the bar. " I knew 
 the rush wouldn t last. Swearing-Johnny Murdock 
 threw up his lease on * The National Mint and 
 came back last night. He said he might have been 
 just a foot short of a million dollars, but to his 
 positive knowledge he was more than forty miles 
 from a drink." 
 
 " No water, I er presume." 
 
 " No whisky," corrected Flatwheel, then red 
 dened under the other s amused eye. " You can t 
 make a new gold camp on this desert with water 
 at fifteen dollars a barrel. Or whisky, either," 
 he sighed. " But how about " 
 
 " Is that all your news, old timer? About half 
 of Broadway thinks Nevada is one of our islands. 
 What else is strange in these parts? " 
 
 " Ickelheimer went loco yesterday. Run clean 
 out of celluloids up to the store just when there s a 
 dance and a new school-marm down to Dutch Flat. 
 But what did you think " 
 
 " Young or old?" 
 
 " Boiled about four minutes," answered Flat- 
 wheel, and scored at last. " Of course, you didn t 
 
6 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 miss it in those New York papers how Cal Wilson 
 was finally obliged to shoot up Shorty Baker? " 
 
 " Shorty always was a careless locator," the tall 
 man murmured guardedly, behind his tawny mus 
 tache. "Jumping claims again, I suppose? * 
 
 In answer the ancient Flatwheel plucked the 
 cigar from between his teeth and smote upon the 
 bar. 
 
 "No," he roared. "Not jumping. He was 
 circulating low statements about Cal s ore. 
 That s just where Shorty snarled his rope what 
 I said to him when they brought him in here and 
 spoiled my pool table for me the last words 
 Shorty Baker ever heard. * Shorty, said I. Plays 
 like you made won t go in Nevada. Your judg 
 ment s horrible. " 
 
 Holly straightened up from his ease against the 
 bar and unsheathed a searching gray eye. 
 
 "Is that all, Tom? Isn t there something 
 else?" 
 
 The old man caught the look and put away his 
 whims. 
 
 " There s two things that s happened," he an 
 swered in lower tones. " The first is that a man 
 named Macklin, who owns the Atlas Mine that 
 side-lines you over at Bullionfield, was in town yes- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 7 
 
 terday, stating that you were in for a lawsuit. That 
 old fool of a George Buckner from Moab had him 
 in tow and when they d lickered they were right 
 noisy about what Macklin could do to your prop 
 erty if he liked." 
 
 The big man, with the untroubled level eyes, 
 only shook his head. 
 
 " He guesses we re working the extension of his 
 vein in the Yellow Dog, but as he s never done any 
 work on his claim to show how the ore lies, he ll 
 have hard work to prove it. But I m someways 
 surprised at old George Buckner," and Holly 
 looked puzzled. " Just before we closed the deal 
 back East, my people told me they d had threaten 
 ing letters from parties out here, but had concluded 
 to take a chance and go ahead. If that was really 
 some of Buckner s work I don t think Macklin, 
 himself, is smart enough." Holly tilted his felt 
 hat over his eyes with the same huge hand that 
 caressed the back of his head, and yawned and 
 stared thoughtfully at nothing. " Poor Uncle 
 Georgie," he said at last. " Made a swing and 
 broke his pick. Ever since he sold me the Yellow 
 Dog for the price of an abandoned well he s been 
 hating himself worse than a Piute. If old Georgie 
 only knew what forty-nine per cent, of that mine 
 
8 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 brought in to me he d be an early bird at locating 
 claims for several years to come. But what s the 
 other thing?" 
 
 41 It s this," was Flatwheel s sober answer. 
 " They ve found Dan Drew! " 
 
 "What?" shouted Holly. " Dan Drew went 
 north more than three years ago." 
 
 " Dan Drew never went north," refuted old 
 Tom, with burning eyes. " Dan Drew never got 
 farther away than ten miles from your own ranch. 
 They found Dan Drew, with his back shot full of 
 holes } covered up in a sand hill in the Devil s Play 
 ground ! " 
 
 The ranchman puckered up his lips in a noise 
 less whistle. Dan Drew alive, he only remembered 
 as a wandering prospector and one-time owner of 
 the Atlas claim, but Dan Drew dead and shot in 
 the back was another matter. Searching his 
 memory for reasons why he should ever have be 
 lieved that Drew, with the unappeasable claim 
 hunger of the prospector, had gone north with his 
 burros into Idaho, he found little that was tangible. 
 Likewise, when he experimented on some connec 
 tion between Drew and old Joe Macklin, the 
 shiftless bar-room miner of Bullionfield, he made 
 even less headway. And yet his instinct told him 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 9 
 
 that these things were very surely about to involve 
 his own interests. Macklin and the Atlas Buck- 
 ner, the " jack-Mormon " storekeeper from Moab 
 and poor, forgotten Dan Drew around these 
 suddenly connected four his mind busied itself in a 
 swift attack, searching for the loose ends of the 
 knot. 
 
 " Probably Macklin s an old side-kicker of 
 yours," the facetious Flatwheel remarked, " but 
 he s the first man / ever see with his picture tat 
 tooed on his arm. That s what," he said, as he 
 concocted something in a bar glass. " A side 
 winder with its fangs out, just jumping from the 
 coil." 
 
 "Where? What? Houfs that?" asked Holly, 
 with a start. 
 
 " On his arm, I ree-peet. Don t shy your drink, 
 compadre. It s a real old Silverado Settler I ve 
 been mixing for you ever since I saw you escaping 
 from that brunette gentleman on the train." 
 
 " It looks like a settler, " and Holly muddied 
 it doubtfully with a spoon. "What kind of a 
 mark " 
 
 " Who all did you see back East? " interrupted 
 Flatwheel, determined to be thwarted no longer. 
 
 "See?" responded Holly vaguely, while his 
 
io THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 mind strained itself across a gap nearly thirty 
 years wide. " Oh, I saw a crew of genial old 
 pirates at their clubs and some high-haired Willie- 
 boys eating cigarettes with their meals. One of 
 them asked how far a man would have to walk to 
 find a claim. They have some sweet ideas about 
 
 a mine." 
 
 Holly turned away and buttoned up his duster. 
 A peculiarly fitting revenge on Buckner of Moab 
 had occurred to him at just that moment and, fur 
 thermore, he wanted to do some thinking about the 
 man with the tattoo mark on his arm. Alto 
 gether, as he figured it, there would be just about 
 time enough to set his revenge in motion and then 
 he had better jog along home. " Yes," he medi 
 tated, with a grim chuckle, " I reckon that by this 
 time to-morrow home will be about the safest lit 
 tle spot on the whole Moab desert for me." 
 Quickly inventorying the human contents of " The 
 Silver State " and finding no worthy tool at hand 
 to carry out his Machiavellian designs, he left his 
 drink untasted and strode in the direction of the 
 door. 
 
 Flatwheel, in dismay, saw his long sought op 
 portunity slipping away before his very eyes. With 
 the departure of the big man his senile dreams of 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX n 
 
 the Great White Way would forever lack con 
 firmation. 
 
 " Don t be in such a tearing hurry, Dick," he 
 yelled. " Can t you even tell a fellow what you 
 think of New York? " 
 
 The door reopened and a cloud of tobacco 
 smoke puffed in. 
 
 " It looks like a permanent camp." 
 
 The sandy bed of " Twenty Mile Canyon " was 
 only a faintly luminous streak of gray next morn 
 ing when Holly s bays clinked down its winding 
 course and whirled him out on the Moab desert. 
 But, early as it was, " The Great Buckner Gold 
 Strike of 1907 " was ready for the tablets of His 
 tory, for in the pifion-dotted confines of the canyon 
 which the amused traveler was rapidly leaving 
 behind him a knot of highly suspicious persons 
 were gathered around a gray-bearded, discomfited 
 old man. This gentleman was responding to 
 verbal and physical proddings by frequent ex 
 hibitions of some snow-white quartz on which the 
 gold lay in preposterous yellow knobs, much as if 
 it had been roughly daubed with butter. He was 
 further defending his difficult position by parrot- 
 like repetitions of some fragmentary information 
 
12 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 gleaned from an unknown, mysterious messenger 
 of the night before. 
 
 " Suppose we sort of cast an eye on that valible 
 sample of your bonanza, George," they said, and 
 forthwith roughly took it from him. 
 
 One look was enough, and a roar went up to 
 the bright Nevada morning. " California gold! " 
 they shouted. " * Oleo like that don t grow in 
 Nevada dirt!" 
 
 " But I m tellin you, Nevada don t follow no 
 geologic probabilities, gents," protested the sus 
 pected one. " This yere ore, like as not, was put 
 in this canyon by One who knows a dern sight 
 more bout rocks than you nor me ! " 
 
 " Then we reckon that s Dick Holly. We never 
 saw that bay team travel so fast away from a gold 
 strike before." Whereupon half a hundred dis 
 appointed men eyed each other sheepishly for a 
 moment and then threw back their heads and ex 
 ploded in laughter. 
 
 " Butter-gold and snow-quartz in the heart of 
 the malapai," they guffawed, and left him for their 
 teams tethered under the pinons. " If Professor 
 Buckner wants to ketch one of them little geologic 
 probabilities running around off the Mother Lode 
 he d better trail that side-bar buggy." And one 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 13 
 
 after another, still exploding with laughter, the 
 gold-seekers turned their horses homewards, al 
 ready shaping up the story for future generations. 
 
 Meanwhile, it promised to be a long, hot ride 
 to where Moab showed in a small, dark spot across 
 the plain, and when the bay team had settled down 
 to their tireless trot, Dick Holly was sitting bent 
 loosely forward, his soft hat pulled down level with 
 his eyebrows, his rein hand hanging listlessly across 
 his knee. In the interval since yesterday a small 
 matter of identification had been clearing itself up. 
 
 He was sitting again on the feed-sack cushion of 
 a rocking freighter, while around him the same 
 thirsty plain stretched away into the smoky dis 
 tance. The same crisp " cla-a-a " rose up from 
 the wheels cleaving the sand of the draws and he 
 looked up, as now, to a blinding sky or down to 
 the powdery dust streaming off the tires. Wedged 
 in between two others, a boy sat with his palms 
 pressed tight together between his knees, employ 
 ing his active mind throughout the long day as 
 best he could. Sometimes he looked up to a patient 
 woman in sleasy black whose sad eyes seemed to 
 look only towards California, and sometimes he 
 stared at a vague-faced figure whose boot was 
 curled around the brake rod, but always his in- 
 
14 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 quisitive glances came back to the arms half bared 
 above the driving cuffs. As if it were only yester 
 day, Dick Holly could see those bright markings 
 on the flat of the forearm. He could even re 
 member how quickly the boy had recognized the 
 snake he knew so well, with its triangular head 
 and its black, venom-tipped tongue thrust forward 
 in the strike. It was all too keenly remembered 
 for mistakes to creep in now, and the man s lips 
 tightened as he tried to shake it off and put his 
 mind on what was to come out of the discovery. 
 But, try as he would, sharp fragments of the 
 tragedy kept coming back. 
 
 In their rear, he saw the trail-wagon with its 
 scant load of household goods balking and bump 
 ing across the yellow swales. In front, the last 
 four of the old ranch horses plodded away from 
 what was now another man s home towards the 
 lush valleys of a kinder State. He saw the week 
 end camp at Hot Creek again and, under the 
 paling stars, the vague-faced man hitching up a 
 team to the lead wagon for an all-day trip for 
 " feed." But neither on that day, nor on the next 
 did the wagon and horses come back, and with 
 the close of the third day the boy knew as well 
 as the white-faced mother, searching through 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 15 
 
 their possessions for a precious wallet, that now 
 there was to be no California for them. 
 
 The boy s arm was around his mother s neck 
 now. He was facing the gaunt mountains and the 
 untilled plain with a certain stout defiance; aye, 
 and frowning up at the blinding sky itself. " Now, 
 don t you go to feelin bad, Ma. We re goin to 
 stick it out right yere. I guess, now, this yere 
 Gawd, He ain t goin to be so terrible down on us 
 just cause we gotta live in Nevada ! Some folks 
 says He helps! " 
 
 Holly woke up and thrust his hat back from his 
 eyes. " Oh-hum," he said with a half laugh. 
 " Poor little cuss. He didn t mean anything by 
 it." 
 
 By this time the road from Moab presented a 
 curious sight, for the troop of fevered gold-seekers 
 that Holly had already met was only a corporal s, 
 guard to those who now came on. And as the 
 minutes flew and wagons and horsemen coursed 
 steadily by, with always a jovial word for the exile 
 escaped from the effete East, Holly s jaw dropped 
 lower and lower. " Who could have figured 
 they d be so restless?" he murmured, conscience- 
 stricken by the alarming results of his practical 
 joke. " All I d hoped for was a little private fun 
 
1 6 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 for George, but hanged if he didn t put the whole 
 county on wheels." 
 
 Moab s poplars came in sight, streaming up 
 straight and slim. Holly could see far down the 
 arch of cottonwoods which drank each side in little 
 brooks gurgling against their roots, but he looked 
 in vain for signs of life. Only a few blue wisps 
 of smoke appeared, curling up from the farmhouse 
 kitchens and, on the fringe of the town, a small 
 cloud of dust. The latter was caused by a foot 
 passenger approaching at a remarkable rate of 
 speed. 
 
 He was a fat, excessively pink-faced man who 
 wore a pink shirt and the remains of a gorgeously 
 striped collar of the same aesthetic hue. Occupying 
 the mathematical center of the road, he was breath 
 lessly maintaining a gait somewhere between a trot 
 and a waddle. On the face of things, he appeared 
 to be agitated. Behind him, what was evidently a 
 pursuing figure had lately taken form, which fact, 
 as he glanced apprehensively over his shoulder, 
 seemed to increase both his agitation and his speed. 
 
 "Am I on my way to the dee-po? " yelled the 
 pink man as he puffed by. 
 
 " You are," the puzzled ranchman replied. 
 "But whereas the bear?" 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 17 
 
 The perspiring one turned a fear-blanched coun 
 tenance and opened his mouth as if to reply. Then 
 he wisely closed it again, as if every breath were 
 precious. With a sweep of his hand he only ges 
 tured dramatically at the impending doom, and 
 scudded fatly away. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 THE pursuer was a woman. Large of frame 
 and red-faced, wilted as her quarry had been, she 
 was, if anything, even more exhausted. As she 
 drew near to Holly her courageously persistent run 
 slowed down to a walk and presently, after a de 
 spairing look at the fast vanishing victim, she 
 gave up completely and sat down disconsolately in 
 the middle of the road. 
 
 The wondering ranchman peered at her over his 
 horses heads. " How do you do, ma am?" he 
 remarked gently. 
 
 " Thanking you kindly very badly," replied 
 the woman, without deigning to look up. After 
 which she proceeded to pull the pins viciously out 
 of a mass of disheveled hair and wind it into a 
 hard, turban-like knob on the top of her head. 
 
 " I trust you will pardon this seeming indispo 
 sition," was her ultimate remark, " but the fact is 
 I m so terribul played out I just can t move." 
 
 " It s a real nice day," said the ranchman 
 genially. " I guess there s time for most every- 
 
 18 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 19 
 
 thing. What seems to be the chief trouble, 
 ma am? " 
 
 The unknown sighed dolefully. " That" she an 
 nounced, and pointed a finger of withering scorn 
 down the road, " that was all that is left of the 
 celebrated G. Edward Pilkington ! " She strained 
 her eyes after the dwindling dust cloud and her 
 voice began to quaver suspiciously. Presently it 
 broke forth in a despairing wail which mounted 
 into tragedy. 
 
 " And he has runned away ! " 
 
 The ranchman was still puzzled. " I I reckon 
 that s all true, ma am." 
 
 " Well," remarked the woman resignedly, " I 
 guess there ain t one bit s use to complain. He s 
 certainly good-and-gone, now. And, landsakes ! 
 I m so darned flustered I might not know just how 
 to address him even if I did catch up with him. 
 Did he mention that he might return? " 
 
 " I think he forgot," Holly answered, ponder 
 ing over the forlorn figure in the dust. " He 
 looked in such a hurry." 
 
 " Well, then," the woman gulped, " I guess 
 I ll just get right in with you and ride back to 
 town. There s nothing more I can do." 
 
 " You re right welcome, ma am," Holly bowed. 
 
20 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 u But just one minute, please. My off horse has 
 picked up a stone." 
 
 The woman rose at once from the ground and 
 looked interested. She was a stoutly made person 
 of middle age, with firm though pleasant features 
 and remarkably strong black eyes. She wore a 
 gray, whipcord skirt of uncertain years but very 
 certain spots, and her neck and arms, which Holly 
 could not help thinking extraordinarily large, 
 stretched a close-fitting green jersey to its utmost 
 capacity. As she drew nearer to the ranchman, 
 across her ample bosom, in the major tints of a 
 California sunset, appeared the emblazoned 
 words, " Pilkington s Circus." 
 
 ;t Which foot did you say?" she queried 
 brightly. " I m mighty tender-hearted about ani 
 mals I guess it s real lucky I m here. Perhaps 
 if I lift him up you can get it out," and without 
 waiting for assent she began to suit her action to 
 her words. " He looks as if he d weigh about 
 eleven hundred," was her only remark as she ap 
 proached with a business-like air and selected a 
 point of attack. Planting her feet firmly on the 
 ground and grasping the horse by the front quar 
 ters with a ferocious grip that made her fingers 
 sink almost out of sight in the wrinkling coat, she 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 21 
 
 took a long breath and then, with a prodigious 
 heave, lifted the animal clear of the ground. 
 " You ll have to hurry some," she panted, as she 
 held a struggling leg imprisoned under each arm. 
 " I guess he don t like it." 
 
 " He he s so used to the ground, ma am," 
 Holly murmured, searching hastily for the stone. 
 " But perhaps it would be all right for you to get 
 
 in now." 
 
 The woman lowered the animal carefully to the 
 roadway and, stretching her arms above her head, 
 proceeded to go though a short course in calis 
 thenics remarkable alike for velocity and power. 
 
 " There" she exclaimed, with explosive relief. 
 " I feel a heap sight better. I had to do something 
 like that or just bust! " 
 
 As they drove down the road towards silent 
 Moab, Holly observed his passenger with an ap 
 preciative eye. Now that the enlivening incident 
 was over, she had lapsed into moody dejection, 
 which involved a blank stare at the dash-board and 
 occasional gusty sighs. In view of the dynamic 
 qualities she seemed to possess, so long a silence 
 stirred his curiosity, and he decided to verge upon 
 the personal. 
 
 " Of course, we haven t been legally and legiti- 
 
22 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 mately introduced," he said, " but I judge it would 
 be perfectly all right for you to tell your name." 
 
 " No trouble," the woman assented instantly, 
 and came out of her trance with a cheery smile. 
 " I m MRS. AJAX, Champion Strong Woman, 
 Weight-Lifter, and Dental Demonstrator of the 
 United States, Cuba, and the Philippines. I guess 
 you ve heard of me before. When I m feeling 
 peart I can lift five hundred pounds just with my 
 teeth. But I m right poorly now." 
 
 " Nerves, I reckon," was the startled sugges 
 tion. 
 
 " The trouble originates in the three squares per 
 day we don t get *em" was the succinct reply. 
 " But, Land-o -Goodness ! I m an imported Cir 
 cassian Beauty alongside of the scarecrows down 
 to the tent. Brothers Blondelli are so hungry 
 they bark when they see meat, and Cobrita, the 
 Snake Lady, is that thin you can hardly talk be 
 hind her back. Most all the horses has died lately, 
 and the Trick Dogs are feeling mean. And yes 
 terday the Wild Man from Java ate the Trained 
 Pig and went back to the Reservation! " 
 
 With this last horrid disclosure, the Strong 
 Woman s voice began to flutter uncertainly. 
 "We ve stuck to it pretty well my husband and 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 23 
 
 I and a few others but now the last card s out 
 of the box. We had it all figured out to show to 
 day, and maybe eat because the place looked so 
 good, but right spang in the middle of the night 
 the whole town went stark, staring crazy and ran 
 away out on the desert. When G. Edward heard 
 about that I guess it was the last straw, cause he 
 just grabbed the cash-box and absquandered the 
 whole thing! " 
 
 " Thousands I guess!" 
 
 " Twenty dollars, s-s-s-sixty-s-s-seven," sobbed 
 Mrs. Ajax, in a storm of tears. " And I bet I 
 could eat it all in custard pie ! " 
 
 Although meditation on the far-reaching effects 
 of the Mother Lode Rock ought to have occupied 
 Holly s thoughts at this moment insatiable curi 
 osity held his conscience in torpid leash. 
 
 "You don t mean you were a circus, ma am? 
 Not a real one with rings and trapezes and a 
 lady hoop-diver with charlotte roosh skirts 
 and " 
 
 " And a band and a Katzenjammer Family and 
 peanuts and and everything" gulped Mrs. 
 Ajax through her tears. " But it s all in the dis 
 card now, Dearie. This mining country we heard 
 so much about s so poor it takes two pee-wee 
 
24 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 birds to sing one song," with which caustic remark 
 the Strong Woman dried her tears and subsided 
 into intermittent hiccoughs of a startling vio 
 lence. 
 
 Holly smiled and pondered. The last time 
 he d seen a circus he d ridden the rods to Salt 
 Lake City and crawled, boy-like, under the canvas, 
 with something interesting scheduled to happen 
 presently at both ends. " Night after night, if 
 you ll remember, youVe laid out on the desert 
 just a-moaning for that little old clown again. 
 And the lady on the spangly horse! And the 
 chariot race! " 
 
 " Mrs. Ajax," said he abruptly. " Your cir 
 cus can have a paying audience of one, if it wants 
 it. You know the trail go to it. Can you lift 
 six hundred if you eat meat? " 
 
 " Don t talk so loud," the woman whispered 
 hoarsely, as she gathered up the reins. " Are you 
 an angel?" 
 
 " It wouldn t be hard to arrange," Holly smiled. 
 " Old Nick, himself, could be elected one in this 
 State. Nevada likes to be broad/ " 
 
 The Strong Woman began to consider him 
 with a strongly favorable look in her shrewd black 
 eyes. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 25 
 
 " You could have my vote," she said. 
 
 As they drove down the shaded street into 
 Moab, Holly s passenger heaved a sigh of satis 
 faction. " We haven t got far to go now," was 
 the cheerful announcement, " and a good thing, 
 too. I guess breakfast is feeling mighty lonesome. 
 Git up, horsey." 
 
 The ranchman heard no more than the first 
 few words. His eyes were on the billowing can 
 vas, the streaming pennants of thirty years gone by. 
 All alert, his slumbering senses woke again to the 
 acrid smell of peanuts and the well-remembered, 
 fresh, rank odor of trampled grass. Once more 
 there rang in his ears the hoarse cries of the 
 barker pleading with the crowd, while out of the 
 dim and distant past the majestic bulk of The Fat 
 Lady on the Side-Show platform loomed up against 
 the sky. 
 
 Down the silent street drove the Strong Woman, 
 while the ranchman stared fondly ahead, waiting 
 for some corner to be turned and disclose the 
 longed-for sight in all its inspiring beauty. 
 
 u Here we be," the Strong Woman announced 
 abruptly, and bringing the team to a stop she 
 wound the reins around the whip-stock and pre 
 pared to disembark. 
 
26 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Holly stared about and his face fell. 
 
 " But where s the Circus?" he queried hol 
 lowly. 
 
 " Right here/ responded Mrs. Ajax definitely. 
 "Time to get out now, Dearie. " 
 
 In the middle of the road in front of them a 
 girl was seated on a brass-bound trunk. She was 
 a small, blonde person, wearing a flimsy, yellow 
 dress with old-fashioned puffed sleeves. Long, 
 black gloves covered her arms, and high-heeled 
 slippers adorned her feet. Surmounting the yellow 
 hair, she wore an amazingly large black hat which, 
 from its precarious clingings on the side of her 
 head, drooped its broken plumes dejectedly over 
 one ear. In fairer times the girl s face would have 
 been pretty, in a soft, childish way, but just now 
 it looked drawn and rather white. With her chin 
 buried in her hands she was staring listlessly at a 
 half-dozen white dogs who lay disposed around 
 her feet in various attitudes of sleep. 
 
 "Hello, there, Cobrita dear!" called Mrs. 
 Ajax, backing out from between the buggy wheels. 
 "Where s all the talent got to? Where in the 
 world s my husband? What s Clarice Belvawney 
 doing, I d like to know leaving you here all 
 alone ? Where s Angelo and Alberto ? I didn t 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 27 
 
 catch him, Cobrita and I ran just all / 
 couU." 
 
 The little blonde person slid down from the 
 trunk and dabbed her handkerchief forlornly at 
 her eyes. 
 
 " I m awful glad you re back, Imogene," she 
 said, " but I m afraid I don t know just where they 
 are I ve been crying and feeding the dogs ever 
 since you left. Clarice said something about trying 
 to get up a French Class she says it worked all 
 right at Piute Junction, once and Brothers 
 Blondelli went away to look up a man who has 
 some cattle, but nobody knows if they re going to 
 kill, or only punch. Your husband stayed around 
 for a while playing * The Star Spangled Banner 
 on his flute to sort of help things out, but I cried 
 all the time and the dogs whined so that he hunted 
 up the drum with the cymbal attachment and went 
 away. I heard a woman saying good-by J or 
 something to him a while back and I don t believe 
 he s made one cent. But they ll all get something 
 to do I don t stand much chance myself. My 
 snakes aren t due to wake up till a week from Tues 
 day, and I haven t a single other thing but the 
 fuzzy dogs and Fancy Dancing." Whereupon the 
 little Snake Lady hid her face in two thin hands, 
 
28 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 unmindful of broken seams in the long, black 
 gloves, and began to cry quietly but very miserably 
 to herself. 
 
 " There, there, now," soothed Mrs. Ajax, as she 
 drew the tangle of yellow hair against her bosom 
 and patted the pinched face. " It will all blow 
 over soon. I guess all these Westerners ain t hard 
 hearted. Have you had your breakfast, Petty? " 
 
 " Belvawney and I had an egg-ug-ug," sobbed 
 Cobrita. u But she made me eat her ha-ha- 
 half." 
 
 Deep in thought the author of the catastrophe 
 sat silent in his buggy. A few yards away a half- 
 dozen battle-scarred circus wagons stood marooned 
 in a vacant field. Long usage had dulled their 
 once effulgent tints, and a desert sun had blistered 
 their vivid panoramas for idle hands to flick away. 
 Here and there, in indescribable chaos, lay trunks 
 with forced locks and broken hinges, boxes, poles, 
 stakes, and snarls of rope. Nearby a depressing 
 collection of mildewed tents strewed a half-acre of 
 ground, as if dropped from some itinerant balloon. 
 A solitary, dispirited horse, browsing destructively 
 among the scattered chattels, lifted a crestless neck 
 and stared gauntly at the man in the buggy. The 
 vociferous appeal of its ribs made his heart ache. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 29 
 
 In fact, the only relieving feature in the whole dis 
 tressing scene was a small, mouse-colored, mud- 
 encrusted elephant, chained by one hind foot to a 
 stake. The elephant had been swaying itself hyp 
 notically from side to side and curling and uncurl 
 ing the tip of its trunk. As Holly looked, it, too, 
 succumbed to the general despondency, for pres 
 ently it kneeled down with several loud groans 
 and rolled over on its back. 
 
 And this, in its entirety, was what now remained 
 of Pilkington s Celebrated Inter-Continental and 
 Trans-Oceanic Hippodrome. The Galaxy of Glit 
 tering Gayeties The Concatenated Bouquet of 
 Beautiful Bewilderments with their Stupendous, 
 Startling, and Sight Satiating Singularities had re 
 treated to the last ditch had fought their last 
 fight had petered out. 
 
 In vain Holly cast about for brass-lunged can- 
 vasmen; there were none. Neither were there 
 "drapers"; for they had vanished away. Nor 
 clowns, nor bandsmen. Nor cooks, flunkeys, nor 
 teamsters. Gone ! All gone ! Gone in the imper 
 ceptible flicker of an eyelid at the first inkling of 
 the pink man s retrogression ! Gone in one mad, 
 tearing rush for Fame and Fortune! For Gold! 
 And Twenty Mile! 
 
30 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Bravely confronting the two women, Holly told 
 the story of the gold strike with soulful gestures. 
 
 " But don t feel mean about not appreciating 
 what a fine joke it was on him" he added, " nor 
 about your missing your calculations. No fellow 
 could expect you to figure beforehand on a crazy 
 gold strike and a real absquandering all in the 
 same day. That would be too much for any lady." 
 
 Then the ranchman s eyes kindled with the fire 
 of a great idea. " Ladies and friends," he said. 
 " From now on, please consider yourselves in my 
 hands perfectly safe. I ll have to leave you for 
 a while or so, but I ll be back. In the meantime, 
 please corral all the Pilkington mavericks and load 
 your trunks on two of the wagons. At one o clock 
 you will all be at my ranch down the valley. At 
 one-thirty you will eat! " 
 
 With this golden promise on his lips Holly 
 turned away and descended on the corrals and 
 barns of Moab even as the Assyrian came down on 
 the fold. Once, when he looked back, he saw 
 Cobrita dutifully gathering her white dogs to 
 gether while, in the distance, Imogene was striding 
 swiftly towards a farmhouse from whose purlieus 
 issued the melting notes of a flute, mingled with 
 some insistent remarks in a woman s voice. Pres- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 31 
 
 ently, with a curious abruptness, the remarks 
 ceased. 
 
 The human selvage of Pilkington s Inter-Con 
 tinental and Trans-Oceanic drifted slowly back 
 from its quests and lent itself to roping trunks, 
 though not without a few cynical doubts. 
 
 " Snakes and all, Imogene?" called Cobrita, 
 raising a flushed face from the depths of a large 
 green box with ventilating screens set in its sides. 
 " He didn t exactly say, you know." 
 
 " Everything goes," responded the grimly reli 
 ant Strong Woman. " / know these big-hearted 
 Westerners. He d feel all broke up if you left out 
 just one little yellow rattler. Take a tip from 
 Clarice she s got her tights and trapeze done up 
 in her shawl-strap right now. You won t catch 
 that young lady out on a desert without means of 
 support. And, hnd-sakes!" she sighed. u No 
 body knows just what will turn up. All / know 
 is we re going somewheres in wagons, and at one- 
 thirty, the man says " 
 
 With a hollow chant the circus finished the 
 sentence. 
 
 " At one-thirty we eat! " 
 
 Troubles in this vale of tears, however, are 
 oftener transferred than entirely destroyed, as 
 
32 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Holly was discovering as he herded his four-footed 
 finds circus-wards. " The puzzle is, how to make 
 a pair out of a work-horse with a splint and a 
 one-eyed mule and still preserve your equinemity," 
 he muttered, in huge disgust. " I guess I ll let the 
 Italians steer these prizes and tow the elephant 
 behind. These four amusing little range ponies 
 can go in the six with me." And although the 
 range ponies at first demurred to this arrangement 
 they soon found themselves harnessed to the larger 
 of the two wagons, whose rear wheels were pres 
 ently chained to a tree. 
 
 The ranchman removed his hat and mopped his 
 brow. The psychological moment had arrived. 
 Little by little the semicircle of trustful Pilking- 
 tons was drawing nearer, seeming to pivot about 
 the stalwart form of Mrs. Ajax, whose strong eyes 
 rested on the ranchman with a certain shrewd re 
 liance. On either side of the Strong Woman a 
 clean-limbed, well-made man stood at rest in the 
 easy pose of the acrobat, clear-eyed and quiet, 
 but thoroughly alert. Next to the younger Italian, 
 with her big hat nodding and her French heels 
 clicked together as if on dress parade, Cobrita 
 whispered softly, an unwinking, pink-nosed dog 
 under each arm. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 33 
 
 Holly s eye ran swiftly along the line and 
 stopped short. " Mister Ajax," he breathed, with 
 an internal convulsion. 
 
 With his flute-case clasped tightly to his breast, 
 the other half of the Ajax family was standing in 
 trance-like quiescence, his mild and colorless eyes 
 untroubled by either the strenuous past or the preg 
 nant future. Beneath the gray stubble of his chin, 
 the end of a celluloid collar swung, joyously un 
 fettered, while his thin, straw-colored hair, 
 smoothed slickly down on one side of his head, 
 rose on the other side in distressing tufts. Very 
 much undersized, entirely indeterminate as a factor 
 in anything, the little man seemed all bones, and 
 angles, and shabby clothes. 
 
 " One, two, three, four, five" Holly counted. 
 "And the dark-eyed, quiet girl, who s been watch 
 ing me, must be Clarice." 
 
 " Friends," said the ranchman, " it s all my 
 fault / did it. Heretofore I ve bought and paid 
 for all the fun I wanted, sometimes by the running 
 foot but mostly by the quart, and the first attempt 
 to have a little private excitement at some other 
 man s expense has turned out to be the failure I 
 always knew it would be. Now, if I can help you 
 out by asking you to visit me down at my ranch 
 
34 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 for as long as you want to stay it will be the least 
 I can do." He paused and surveyed the group with 
 alternate hope and fear. 
 
 " If you ll come I ll be tickled to death. What s 
 the vote? 
 
 With perfect unanimity the circus advanced, 
 looked him fervently in the eye, and gripped his 
 hand. 
 
 Tis a fine fellow ye are," Alberto announced 
 in his native Italian. " If ye ve a few horses be 
 low there I ll be earning me salt as sure as me 
 name s Michael Scanlan." 
 
 " I m wid youse, Pal," breathed Angelo. " I 
 thought to-day it ud be back to the shops fer 
 Harry Doogan." 
 
 Holly spared them a pleased moment. "I m 
 awful glad you re white," he murmured. " There 
 wasn t a single foot of spaghetti in Moab. And 
 now we re all ready but the Chinaman ! " 
 
 u The what? " shrieked Imogene, from the top 
 of the wagon. 
 
 " The cook, ma am," Holly answered uncer 
 tainly. " At least he claimed he d been a cook, 
 back in China." 
 
 " Don t let me get my hands on any Chinaman," 
 snorted Imogene. " I didn t come out here on a 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 35 
 
 wild desert to have my complexion ruined. 
 CLARICE ! Have you got your bundle? " 
 
 " Slip the chain when you re mad," Holly said 
 to the younger acrobat, and swung himself up to 
 his seat and combed out his reins. 
 
 "WOW!" yelled Signer Doogan Blondelli, 
 and gained the tail-board with a dexterous leap. 
 The wagon, suddenly released, shot forward with 
 a bound. 
 
 Once out on the broad, level road which ran 
 south through the valley from Moab the ranch 
 man s attention was drawn to the quiet, dark-eyed 
 girl who had taken a seat on the box beside him. 
 He had been somewhat conscious of her eyes dur 
 ing the rush from the field to the road, although 
 she had held her difficult position with a supple 
 ness of body both unobtrusive and practical, but 
 now that he could turn his thoughts to other things 
 besides the range ponies, she looked away and all 
 that he could see was the smooth whiteness of her 
 neck under a mass of fresh, brown hair. 
 
 His first impression was that all about her was 
 redolent with cleanliness even the forlorn, faded 
 dress could not prevent that and when at last she 
 turned her head, the sweet fullness of her dark 
 eyes startled him. She seemed neither very young 
 
36 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 nor yet thirty a little thin, a little worried, but 
 still brave with cheeks which would tinge with 
 red and lips that would curve again into a smooth 
 bow when life was kinder. 
 
 Yet, it was not because her dress was worn and 
 shiny that the ranchman began to feel sorry for her, 
 but because he saw she felt ashamed. As his eyes 
 rose from the patched blue skirt and carefully 
 hidden shoes her own eyes filled under the mo 
 mentary scrutiny and her chin quivered. 
 
 " I heard about you," Holly said, " and I got 
 you another so you wouldn t feel mean while you 
 were waiting for dinner." 
 
 He groped in his pocket, whence came a won 
 derful odor of freshly-made sandwiches, and 
 pressed something hard and white into her hand. 
 
 The girl examined the object curiously. And 
 then, with a glint of amusement in her eyes, she 
 began, daintily, to eat the egg. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 Ax the lower end of Moab Valley a ranch lay 
 drowsing under a soft pall of heat. In the yellow- 
 floored corrals some motionless horses stared 
 somnolently through the bars in the rich mud of 
 the irrigating ditches a family of irritated ducks 
 complained together concerning the heated term. 
 A fat white dog, that had been sleeping on the 
 doorstep, arose, stretched himself, yawned abys 
 mally, and revolved into a sleeping position again. 
 Seated in a chair, back tilted against the cool, stone 
 wall of the ranch-house, a solitary white man dozed 
 in blissful content, his hat-brim resting on his 
 nose. And it came to pass that there was peace 
 throughout all the land of Moab. 
 
 It was upon this pastoral idyl that the Inter- 
 Continentalers, followed quickly by the Trans- 
 Oceanicers, rudely projected themselves. Entirely 
 forgetting their upbringing the trained dogs leaped 
 from the wagon and fell upon the fatter white one 
 in an untrained uproar of sound while ducks and 
 chickens flew in agitated circles while range 
 
 37 
 
38 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 ponies danced and trunks and boxes came tumbling 
 to the ground in alarming confusion. 
 
 The man on the porch woke up with a start. 
 Where, but a short moment before, the dust motes 
 had flickered through placid solitude he now beheld 
 an elderly gentleman with a craftily innocent face 
 who held in one hand a sinister, tube-like weapon 
 trimmed with silver. With the other hand he was 
 striving to drag an animal of strange proportions 
 through the front gate. The animal, though 
 plainly unwilling, was being progressed by some 
 unseen force in the rear, from whence also came 
 the loud, warning cry, " Steer him more Port, 
 Altamont." 
 
 " Say, YOU!" shouted the foreman, catapult 
 ing out of his chair. " Nothing like that allowed 
 on this ranch. Just gallop it right away." Ap 
 proaching no closer than his first rush carried him 
 he leveled a trembling forefinger at the center of 
 the beast, so that there might be no mistake. 
 " Take it right away," he shouted fearfully. 
 u Only tell me where to kick it and I ll do it my 
 self." 
 
 " Don t hurt the family pets, Drybone," said a 
 reassuring voice from the box-seat. " Can t you 
 see we ve just come home for a while? " 
 
" STEER HIM MORE PORT, ATTAMOXT " 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 39 
 
 With a dazed expression on his face the fore 
 man stepped aside and stared helplessly at the 
 Blondellis hurtling by him with boxes and baggage. 
 Near at hand Imogene was chaining the elephant 
 to a convenient tree. Meanwhile, she shouted di 
 rections to her husband, who was endeavoring to 
 aid Cobrita with a large green box. As might 
 have been expected, the box presently slid from 
 the wagon and fell heavily upon Mr. Ajax. 
 
 The foreman sprang forward with a cry of 
 alarm. As he did so "The Largest Boa Con 
 strictor in Captivity " emerged from the box and 
 slid between his agitated legs like a stream of liv 
 ing oil. 
 
 " Easy there, Drybone," laughed Holly, and 
 held back the stick which seemed to leap from the 
 ground into the foreman s hand. " Don t mind 
 the snake. He s asleep!" He turned to his new 
 friends with a gesture of introduction. " Mr. 
 Drybone Peters, your humble servant, who never 
 stole anything but his wages." 
 
 The circus paused and bowed formally at the 
 dazed Drybone, while Imogene gripped his hand 
 in silent good-will, at which the foreman s grin 
 bravely continued. 
 
 "These all are friends of yours, I might in- 
 
40 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 quire?" he murmured, as his dog-like brown eyes 
 yearned affectionately over his superior. " Y u 
 hasn t been hooked up by the Devil Dodger, has 
 y u, Dick?" 
 
 " Don t be foolish, partner," was the abrupt 
 response, as Holly led the way into the house. 
 ;< We ve been together most too long, now." 
 
 " I didn t know," Drybone answered vaguely, 
 and a spare hand went up to rumple his iron-gray 
 hair in sad perplexity. " That two-tailed critter 
 without any face might be a trooso." 
 
 The ranchman ushered his friends into the new 
 home with a faint twinkle in his eye. But when 
 they drifted back to him from their explorations, 
 puzzled but thoroughly discreet, he sought the 
 Strong Woman s intelligent eye for assistance. 
 
 " It s an old Mormon ranch-house. Quite a 
 lot of women lived here once. It wouldn t be 
 polite to say just how many men." 
 
 * There wasn t many, then," remarked Imogene 
 shrewdly. " Not if I know them." 
 
 ;c We had to muck out a good deal after I 
 bought," the ranchman continued. u I never knew 
 religion could pester a man so the * Zig-zags 
 through Zion and * Little Steps for Little Feet 
 must have been six inches deep on the floor, till we 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 41 
 
 baptized it all in the irrigating ditch, and Dry- 
 bone improved a portrait gallery of Brigham 
 Youngs with the coal-oil can. But even then it was 
 pretty mean and lonely until Drybone papered all 
 this front parlor with the Book of Mormon. 
 
 First Nephi begins over there by the mantel 
 piece. It gallops around pretty hard for two laps, 
 and peters out by the stuffed snake in the corner. 
 After that, Second Nephi takes hold and re 
 veals and educates all the way to the pink-and-green 
 rocker. Between there and the genuine seashell 
 on the what-not it s fairly exciting, but the south 
 side of the stope is rather low-grade laws, mostly 
 and fights in the kitchen. If you want good wars 
 and private killings you have to lie down on your 
 back by the base-board. 
 
 " Night after night I used to lie awake watch 
 ing Drybone on his hands and knees trailing the 
 Nephi family with a candle. He got so after a 
 while that he even knew em all by name, and just 
 who Nephi s best friends were, and how they sold 
 him the watered stock. About the fourth night I 
 felt something pawing around and dropping hot 
 candle grease on my face. So I woke up and said: 
 
 " What s the excitement, Drybone? Didn t 
 you chew your cucumbers ? 
 
42 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " I m searchin for page forty-two, said Dry- 
 bone. * I left friend Nephi over there by the door- 
 jamb along about twelve-thirty and I don t mind 
 tellin you he was in the h 1 of a fix! I ve been 
 around to the stuffed snake twice already and he 
 hasn t got out yet. I m going to stay with him a 
 while/ he said. He hasn t got too many friends. 
 About four in the morning he woke me up and 
 whispered that he d found it. Nephi had got out 
 of jail and been elected Sheriff. 
 
 " And so," said Holly, " we ve got about every 
 thing here that it s safe for two old desert rats to 
 have a genuine circulating library, and a tele 
 phone wire to Moab and a new bed to sleep in 
 every night. The only thing we re short on is 
 help." 
 
 The ranchman was secretly longing for the de 
 spised Chinaman left behind in Moab. When he 
 thought of his own cooking he hesitated. When 
 he thought of Drybone s he turned pale. 
 
 Under the stress of his perplexity his voice faded 
 away and he looked up in the faint hope of sym 
 pathy, perhaps from the dark-eyed girl who had sat 
 on the box-seat. But while he had been speaking 
 the circus had undergone disintegration, and when 
 he came to look about him the passage where he 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 43 
 
 stood was quite empty. Chancing to glance 
 through a window he descried Doogan Blondelli 
 moving blithely springwards with a pail. From 
 the woodpile came a crackling sound which denoted 
 the measured activity of Mr. Ajax. Tiptoeing 
 down the hall he came upon the two girls making 
 ready a dinner table. Presently he saw the Strong 
 Woman stride across the kitchen with unerring 
 scent and unearth the frying-pan from a closet 
 under the sink. 
 
 " I hid it there so s I d know just where it was," 
 gasped Drybone over his shoulder. " Ain t it 
 wonderful? " 
 
 If the Promised Land had seemed gaunt and 
 grim to those dogged souls with whom Brigham 
 Young colonized Nevada, it now bore all the more 
 eloquent witness to Drybone s theory that the 
 Mormons, above all else, were husbandmen. 
 
 For unmeasured aeons it had lain under an over 
 burden of sun and drought, its hot valleys a glit 
 tering menace to the settler, its barren, yellow sinks 
 snarling up at him with the perpetually bared 
 teeth of a starving animal. But now, wherever 
 water could be made to run and ground harrow, 
 fortune followed in some measure and out of the 
 
44 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 arid basins emerald-floored canyons reached, long- 
 fingered, into the hills whence came their help. 
 
 Holly s ranch-house lay in one of these cultivated 
 necks, resting on the crest where the mesa swell 
 broke against the foothills and half hidden in its 
 trees. A cheerfully gurgling brook, fresh from the 
 cool stones and mosses of the canyon, sauntered in 
 on an easy lateral at one side through rows of pop 
 lar, locust, and balm-of-gilead, and dimpled past 
 the long, two-storied house, to disappear eventually 
 among the corrals, where cattle nosed in it by day 
 and two-legged animals went stealthily by night to 
 cool their feet. In front, one looked down a 
 gentle slope into a velvety basin of sage and 
 greasewood, whose undulations faded, with hazy 
 enchantment, into a misty gray, soft as a dove s 
 wing. And then up would go the eye, high over 
 the challenging, blood-red and yellow porphyry 
 buttes on the other side of the valley to where the 
 wine-purple bulk of the mountains sent up a snow- 
 tipped spear to pierce the blue. And over it all 
 sang the afternoon wind of the West, purring 
 softly over the golden-crested rabbit-brush, sway 
 ing the purple acreage of the bee-flower till it 
 spread like a splendid mantle at the feet, sweeping 
 out of the infinite distance with immeasurable 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 45 
 
 strength, keen and dry always and very good for 
 the soul. 
 
 Dick Holly, returning from an inspection of the 
 ranch, drew a rocking-chair towards him and sat 
 down. Out of his gropings for expression his 
 heart struck the simple note of gratitude that he 
 had been able to leave the cities behind him and 
 come again into his own. The only thing that 
 prophesied disturbance of this tranquillity was the 
 revelation of the day before. 
 
 Some one was concocting serious trouble for him 
 and the glittering treasures of the Yellow Dog 
 across the desert at Bullionfield, and he was grow 
 ing restive under his inability to fathom their plans. 
 Buckner, the storekeeper, had owned the Yel 
 low Dog and had sold it to Holly and Dan Drew, 
 had owned the Atlas and sold it to Macklin, or 
 else Macklin had shot him for it, that much was 
 certain. But why had Buckner formed so sudden 
 a friendship with Macklin? And why had Mack 
 lin just begun to talk about an " apex suit " to 
 determine his rights to the Yellow Dog vein? 
 Furthermore, and more important to Dick Holly 
 than all the rest of the mystery, was Flatwheel s 
 story of the tattoo mark. Could it possibly be that 
 old Joe Macklin was the teamster of long ago? 
 
46 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 A door opened quietly and the Strong Woman 
 appeared. She, too, seated herself and began an 
 unobtrusive rocking. She had changed her close- 
 fitting jersey for a soft, white waist and the Gor- 
 dian knot of her hair had been combed into a 
 looser, pleasanter form. Her general atmosphere 
 was one of placid motherliness, which was borne 
 out when she finally spoke. 
 
 " I never hoped to see such a peaceful place." 
 
 The ranchman gave her a grateful look. ( Yes, 
 ma am, so it is but still it did me a lot of good to 
 hear that racket at the table to-day. I lost all of 
 ten years somewheres between the soup and pie." 
 
 " Don t talk about having a home or I ll cry," 
 the woman answered soberly. " I can stand a lot, 
 myself I was raised in Kansas but you ll never 
 know how anxious I was about those girls. When 
 G. Edward left us they just went all to pieces. 
 Of course, most all of us have got a little money 
 set away, but generally it s in some savings bank. 
 And that s what made me run so down the road 
 I thought if I could only borry a little of that 
 twenty-sixty-seven we might be able to worry along 
 somehow till things got straightened out or we 
 could get back to California and soak the elephant. 
 
 " About Cobrita, now," Imogene continued in 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 47 
 
 a lowered voice, as she hitched her rocker closer 
 along the porch. " Of course, you know she s 
 going to be married to Angelo. This was to be 
 their last trip because Angelo s got a good job 
 in the boiler factory back to Salt Lake, and the 
 little girl wants to have a home. Alberto s a 
 quiet fellow most likely he ll go to live with 
 them. As for Altamont and me I guess we can 
 always go along on small time for a living. 
 It s hard for him, but I don t mind it so much. 
 Only, I would like to have a place and a big, wild 
 lawn like this one in front of my house. I expect 
 this valley must be five miles wide." 
 
 " Yes, ma am and ten more," said the ranch 
 man, considering in passing that the dark-eyed 
 girl had not been mentioned. 
 
 " Clarice Clarice is different" continued Imo- 
 gene. " That s about the only way I can say it 
 you ll see for yourself, after a while. Wherever 
 she gets it I dunno or she, either. She doesn t 
 even know who her father was. You wouldn t 
 pick her out for one of the best trapeze artists in 
 the business, would you?" 
 . "Ma am!" 
 
 "Why, yes that s her act didn t you know? 
 And I must say I never saw a better S-s-s-h. 
 
48 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Here she comes now. I guess she s had a good old 
 nap. I said to em J ust Yu children go and 
 get a real, long sleep and dream you re in Heaven 
 with Saint Peter wearing spurs and a six-shooter. " 
 
 The Strong Woman had also said other things 
 in fact, the circus people had severally spoken 
 their minds and each had promptly assumed a 
 daily chore. Even at that very moment a pall of 
 yellow dust hung over the corral, where the 
 Equestrian Twins were trying out Holly s horses, 
 and out in the back yard Cobrita was taking stock 
 of the fowls. Within, the Belyawney had been 
 examining the carpets, while if Altamont s flute 
 purled melodiously in the rear it was only prelimi 
 nary to a descent on the wood-pile. 
 
 " And what do you think of it, Clarice? " asked 
 Imogene, with a meaning look at Holly. 
 
 The girl leaned lightly against a pillar, out 
 lining her slim grace against a cloudless infinity of 
 blue. Although she was in repose it seemed to the 
 ranchman as if she gave out a strange eagerness for 
 action as if the sweet, dark eyes were alight with 
 an impulsive reaching out for new appreciations. 
 The parted lips, the pose of her supple body and 
 rounded neck seemed to reflect a thirst for knowl 
 edge as beautiful as it was naive. Her face was 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 49 
 
 cool and fresh after her sleep, and the softly 
 pulsing blood painted two bright spots on her 
 cheeks as she answered honestly : 
 
 " It makes me want to live forever." 
 
 Mrs. Ajax looked puzzled, but the man s eyes 
 flashed a quick appreciation. 
 
 " She doesn t like the circus much," he thought. 
 " She wants to get out somewhere and live where 
 things are roomy." 
 
 " Do you think you ll ever go back?" teased 
 Imogene. 
 
 The girl turned, smiling, and with a supple 
 movement, took the ample shoulders into her em 
 brace. 
 
 " I ve left the circus, Old Big-heart," she mur 
 mured, her cheek pressed tight against the Strong 
 Woman s. " I left it two whole minutes ago. 
 Never again for Mademoiselle Belvawney, some 
 time of London, Paris, the Winter Circus and 
 Tidioute." 
 
 "Going to leave the * kinkers, honey?" the 
 elder woman asked thoughtfully, and patted the 
 capable young hand on her shoulder. What do 
 you think you ll do? " 
 
 The girl looked bravely but a trifle pinkly at 
 
50 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 the quiet-eyed ranchman. " I m going to be Mr. 
 Holly s private secretary, if I may. You know 
 I used to help Mr. Pilkington with the accounts 
 until there weren t any accounts any more. I ve 
 just been thinking that if Mr. Holly has a gold 
 mine, someone ought to keep track of the gold as 
 it comes out and write letters saying it was posi 
 tively not for sale and keep count of the steers 
 and calves and order shoes for the horses 
 and things for the pigs to eat and and 
 everything! Why, I think there s lots to do on 
 a farm ! " 
 
 " So there is, child," smiled the Strong Woman, 
 making room on the other arm of her chair for the 
 doll-like Cobrita, who had appeared with Doogan 
 Blondelli in tow. " Think you ll ever go back, 
 Little Rattler?" 
 
 " Not under the big top, she won t, you bet," 
 announced the Blondelli quickly. " We re going 
 into the chicken business we ve been figuring it 
 all out on a barrel-top out in the yard. We started 
 with a rooster and six hens apiece and she got 
 nearly a million chickens in five years on her side 
 of the barrel, and, somehow, I got more than 
 twice as many on mine. But, anyhow, at ten 
 cents a pound at ten cents " Doogan s 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 51 
 
 voice faded away as his mind grappled with the 
 stupefying sum. 
 
 " At ten cents a pound," the Snake Lady stated 
 stoutly, " we can make more than two hundred 
 thousand dollars ! Isn t it lovely, Imogene ? " 
 
 " Chickens are good," a voice conceded from 
 the porch corner where the silent Mike had seated 
 himself, " but them pigs, now ! Why haven t I 
 niver thought of pigs and me an Irishman ! All 
 ye have to do is to fence up your alfalfa fields in 
 two long lines of squares with gates between. 
 Ye thin drive, or indooce, these here little pigs into 
 Field Number Wan. Listen to me IVe it all 
 figured out. After eating thimselves simply crazy 
 in Field Number Wan ye persoo thim into 
 Field Number Two. Whereupon the alfalfa im- 
 mejutly grows up behind thim again!" 
 
 A thin voice nearby raised itself in protest. 
 
 " But that is nothing more or less than willful 
 deception of the pigs ! " 
 
 " Be quiet, Altamont," said Imogene not un 
 kindly. " Please get your flute out for us, there s 
 a good boy." 
 
 " Now, the last field say, Field Number Ten," 
 continued the authority on pork, " should be con 
 veniently locayted be the railroad track, where, 
 
52 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 after the pig is no longer able to walk, he can be 
 pushed or rolled into a car " 
 
 But the little gray man, curled up against the 
 steps, had raised his flute to his lips, and with the 
 first wailing notes came silence. 
 
 The sun-glow faded across the valley the haze 
 in the hills turned from violet to darkness. Un 
 consciously the women s arms crept round each 
 other the men s pipes went out. Long ago the 
 shabby little figure had passed out of their ken and 
 he had become, instead, only a kindly natured 
 chum who was giving them lavishly out of his 
 only possession a gift that cured and rested, 
 flushing their minds clear with a sweet wave of 
 sound. And while they stared out into the gath 
 ering darkness, out of the twilight of the little 
 man s memory his own dear shapes came flocking 
 round to aid him, their soft eyes peering through 
 the dulled windows of his mind, their tiny hands 
 tugging at the puzzling door. 
 
 There was a faint movement among the women, 
 and Imogene motioned to Clarice, who stole across 
 the porch and brought back the little man s felt 
 hat which lay beside him. " He tries to pass it 
 round," Imogene whispered. " I can t break him 
 of it." 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 53 
 
 Presently, the little man s notes ceased and he 
 groped mechanically on his head for his hat. Not 
 finding it, he sighed softly and dismembered the 
 flute. 
 
 Imogene now rose and murmured a hint for 
 the two girls to help her in the kitchen. But one 
 of the two, looking back, saw a tall, ruddy-faced 
 man who, with his arm around the little man s 
 shoulders, was gently thrusting something into a 
 vest-pocket. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 IN the light of early morning down where the 
 dazzling sunshine fell through the cottonwoods 
 in yellow splotches on the corral, Mr. Drybone 
 Peters was soliloquizing. With his feet far apart 
 the new Stetson that Holly had brought him 
 on the back of his head and a spear of hay re 
 volving thoughtfully in his mouth, the fascinated 
 foreman was studying the actions of the strange 
 beast lately put in his care and insulting it flagrantly 
 under his breath. 
 
 "But where does he put it?" Drybone mut 
 tered angrily, as the elephant swayed to and fro 
 and stuffed itself with hay. " Six hundredweight 
 of good alfalfa gone this week and here it s only 
 Wednesday! Where do / come in, please tu en 
 quire? Why, I ain t even drawing cyards in this 
 fiesta! " 
 
 At the sound of footsteps, Drybone hastily 
 turned around with a rather conscious look on his 
 seamed, bronzed face. As he did so, the animal 
 silently insinuated its trunk through the fence. 
 
 54 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 55 
 
 Hovering above the foreman s head for a calcu- 
 lative moment, it suddenly dropped down and 
 snatched away the new hat! 
 
 With a hoarse cry of rage, the foreman whirled 
 about and pawed the bars. Scaling the fence with 
 frantic agility he reached the top just in time to see 
 a frightful spectacle. The new hat was following 
 the hay! 
 
 In vain Drybone lifted his bony arms aloft and 
 called upon the gods for vengeance. The ele 
 phant only meditated on the strange diets of for 
 eign lands and blinked a cynical eye. Presently, 
 in the midst of the foreman s plaintive hayings, 
 the hat was reproduced and thrown disgustedly 
 over the fence. 
 
 " Well, dog his cats ! " howled the foreman, 
 clambering down to confront Cobrita and an 
 apronful of eggs; " the rubber-nosed robber! " 
 
 " That s all right, Mister Drybone," laughed 
 Cobrita. " He s a rogue elephant and they just 
 love to steal. Isn t it a good thing he s a dwarf? " 
 
 " Ma am ! " gasped Drybone, following her into 
 the house with the hat clutched to his breast. 
 "Him only a sample copy? Oh, well! Just as 
 you say, my dear. But even that don t make it 
 legal for an animal tu laugh at y u," the foreman 
 
5 6 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 mumbled doggedly. u He wunk his little old red 
 eye at me I see him do it." 
 
 Close on their footsteps the two acrobats came, 
 quite ready for breakfast and full of ideas for a 
 new hay-baler that the owner of the ranch must 
 buy. Instantly Cobrita caught the contagion and 
 began to plan extensive quarters for her menagerie. 
 While, as for the Chef and the Private Secretary, 
 they seemed to dust, scrub, and estimate by both 
 day and night. To the faintly resentful Drybone, 
 the ranchman s fortune seemed already in danger. 
 
 " Have you given any thought to the library 
 yet, Imogene the carpet, you know? Don t you 
 think a good, flowered ingrain would do? " 
 
 With furniture to match? But what about 
 curtains, Dearie? " 
 
 " And stand-lamps?" 
 
 " And a book on pigs," supplied the ruminative 
 Mike. 
 
 " Two horse-clippers and a de-horner," said 
 Doogan, with a business-like air. 
 
 " Three packages of Magic Dog Cakes, please," 
 Cobrita added. " Bosco, the fat white one, is 
 sick." 
 
 " Well," remarked Imogene, summarizing the 
 situation abruptly, " if to-day s Wednesday, it s 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 57 
 
 Montgomery Ward Day, anyhow. Hustle up 
 and eat, everybody, and we ll take all morning fill 
 ing out the blanks. You help me with my num 
 bers, Clarice. The last time we ordered I wrote 
 * Catalogue Number 2537 instead of 2357 for 
 a one-ninety-eight pongee waist with blue dots, 
 and they sent me back thirty-seven cents and a 
 picture of Blind Tom." 
 
 " Y u kin order fer me, too," muttered the dis 
 mayed foreman. " I m just all broke up fer a com 
 bination brass bed and music-box. Ain t y u going 
 tu come along with us, Altamont?" he cackled. 
 " Better take something. Have a cigar." 
 
 The little man meditated and rolled his eyes 
 heavenwards. " I have always wished for a baby 
 grand piano," he said mildly, " but in considera 
 tion of the perpetually existent exigencies con 
 sequent upon nomadic peregrinations " 
 
 " Don t say another word," Holly interrupted 
 swiftly. " We ll order it to-day." 
 
 A half-hour later the one-time owner of a 
 ranch property in the Moab Valley paused at the 
 window of what he had heard was now his " of 
 fice " and peered uncertainly within. 
 
 A young woman in a white shirtwaist and snowy 
 paper cuffs was busying herself with some piles of 
 
58 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 letters laid out on a table the very cleanest table 
 the ranchman had ever seen. The woodwork had 
 recently been scrubbed and the top covered with 
 smooth, white oil-cloth, while in the center of the 
 oil-cloth were pens, pencils, and some blotters 
 tied with a blue bow. A bowl of wild flowers also 
 stood on the table, and whenever the young woman 
 could not decipher the particular letter in hand 
 she only laid it on a particular pile and smelled the 
 flowers and smiled and took up her task again. 
 With the letters apparently sorted out according to 
 some system, she was seen to sharpen a pencil and 
 make notations in a book, after which she con 
 sidered a bill of groceries and frowned blackly 
 at the total. Then she called kitchenwards, and 
 in prompt response the bulk of the Strong Woman 
 filled the doorway, the cold glint of the housewife 
 in her eye. 
 
 " Imogene did we get any * Grandma s Special 
 Selected String Beans in that last shipment?" 
 
 " Not a darned Grandma," responded Imogene 
 accurately. "Are they claiming shipment? Don t 
 you let those robbers soak us, Lovey Dove. Alta- 
 mont says there wasn t anything which might be 
 considered to even approximate a bean." 
 
 "And the ham was bad?" 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 59 
 
 " The ham was very bad. Is that all, Dearie? 
 I m baking, you know. Don t forget to knock off 
 the freight on the ham, will you, Sweetheart?" 
 and Imogene slowly retreated. 
 
 " I won t. (It comes to eight cents and the 
 beans to three-eighty-four)," she whispered to 
 herself, with red lips pouted. " (That makes 
 three-ninety-two less, with the cost of the ham 
 yet to come off.) All right, Imogene. Thank 
 you very much." 
 
 The unseen auditor withdrew from his eaves 
 dropping. With such a Cerberus at the Gate there 
 would be no occasion to quibble over that cost-of- 
 living which the outside world was worrying 
 about, and perhaps talent such as this could be 
 utilized in still another way. 
 
 " I d be obliged to you if you d sort of run 
 your eye over this little list of mine," a voice said. 
 
 The ranchman, hat in hand, was standing beside 
 the table with the flowers on it. He paused after 
 speaking, for awkwardness had come over him 
 under the secretary s quiet eyes. In one of those 
 minute fractions of time allowed us for our most 
 illuminating thoughts, he had become aware that 
 this young lady was thoroughly in earnest in what 
 she was doing. Inspirited by the new surround- 
 
60 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 ings, Miss Clarice Belvawney had taken a very 
 business-like grip on life again, and the seriously 
 impersonal light in her wide eyes stated quietly 
 that she would hold it. 
 
 And yet, with another rare flash of intuition, 
 the ranchman knew he had never been so close to 
 all that was lovably feminine. The delicate 
 aroma of wholesome womanhood, mingled with 
 the scent of flowers, stole upon his helpless senses. 
 He felt himself staring at the shining waves in her 
 hair, his mind temporarily palsied by this near 
 ness to something at once delightful and terrifying. 
 Before the daintiness of her person, he felt hulking 
 and red-handed in his khaki and high boots. 
 
 " It s the pay-roll from those little gold mines 
 over at Bullionfield," he managed to continue. 
 " After you sort of skim through and fix up the 
 spelling, I ll get the money for the envelopes." 
 
 Now, at the time the sheet had been contrived in 
 the privacy of his own room it had seemed a 
 veritable work of art, but as it came forth from 
 his pocket it seemed to undergo a startling change. 
 Under his own eyes, the paper took on a depressing 
 coat of smudge. Instead of Spencerian fluences, 
 its writing became a network of uncouth scrawls, 
 while with crooked rulings and eye-searing mis- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 61 
 
 takes in every column, it was now only an ugly, 
 dreadful thing that any schoolboy would have 
 scorned. As he saw the deft fingers draw a line 
 through each damning error, his face slowly red 
 dened. 
 
 " It s funny how those numbers move around 
 so I thought I had em bedded down for the 
 night," he said, with unsure humor, at which no 
 one laughed and he grew sadly confused. With 
 every investigation some new error seemed to be 
 uncovered, and soon there was the peculiar 
 discovery that one " Pink-eye Reilly " had 
 earned the extravagant total of thirty dollars in 
 a single day s work. 
 
 As the cool, questioning eyes rose to his, the 
 ranchman s brain contracted into a hard knot and 
 its functions appeared to cease. He tugged at his 
 mustache, sighed heavily, and finally tried to 
 smudge out the sum with his finger. 
 
 " It must be three dollars," he muttered 
 desperately. " Those little o s bother me. 
 Pink-eye couldn t make * wages falling down a 
 perpendicular shaft at twenty dollars a foot." 
 
 Under the stress of his feelings the secretary 
 also grew uncomfortable and employed her hands 
 with a vagrant sheet of paper. 
 
62 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 ; That s it," the ranchman said instantly. 
 " Make a new one. Make it out your way the 
 right way. And, here ! Take this ! I don t feel 
 right safe with the thing in my possession." 
 Plucking a check-book out of his coat he laid it 
 on the table before her and covered it with a 
 powerful, brown hand. " You can be watch 
 dog," he said, thoroughly angry with himself and 
 temporarily unafraid of the eyes and hair and 
 smooth, white throat. " When any of this outfit, 
 including this busted out old miner, wants any 
 money after this, they come to you!" 
 
 " But I m not a bookkeeper, Mr. Holly," pro 
 tested the embarrassed Miss Belvawney. " I m 
 only quick at figures. And, as for writing your 
 checks for you why, you don t know anything 
 about me. You don t even know who I am." 
 
 " When I brought you all down here you didn t 
 ask who / was," he said swiftly. 
 
 A slow tide of pink stained the girl s face. 
 
 " We were hungry," she said. 
 
 " So am I hungry," he answered soberly. " I 
 guess I ve been that way for quite a while. And 
 now that the table s ready don t tell a fellow he 
 can t sit down. This old desert does queer things 
 to a man if he stays with it too long. Sometimes 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 63 
 
 it gives but mostly it takes and only in big 
 figures. It took all of me for thirty years and then 
 was kind-hearted and gave me back more than 
 my share. If it wasn t for that I d be a gray old 
 desert rat like Drybone who s lost his appetite. 
 Drybone isn t hungry any more. Perhaps he used 
 to be, but now he ll go out and sit all day on a 
 hill and stare at the dry lakes and the shiny hot 
 rocks and sand and lizards and brush, and away 
 off at the old blue mountains jiggling up and down 
 in the heat. It s a kind of opium pill for Drybone 
 he says it makes him forget. Drybone used to 
 have a family back East somewhere to think about, 
 I reckon, but now he don t care any more. He d 
 just as lieve sit still and see things go by. The 
 desert s got him, you see. His mind s so used to 
 resting on it that it isn t a good fighting mind any 
 more. It s full of big, flat places where the 
 water s too scarce for thoughts to grow. Take old 
 Drybone off the desert? You couldn t! He d 
 die on your hands. And that s why I was hoping 
 you d help me out a little while I was trying to 
 humanize myself again. I expect I ll lose my ap 
 petite, like Drybone, pretty soon but, in the mean 
 time, I might be considered fairly hungry." 
 
 " He s lonely," the girl thought, when he had 
 
64 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 gone. " He wants someone to talk to besides the 
 men. But what can he see in poor me? I don t 
 know a mine from a well. But I d just as lieve. 
 Anything to get away from canvas. I saw a mine 
 in the hill behind the house the other day. I guess 
 I can learn." 
 
 " He talks as if he were an old, old man," Miss 
 Belvawney said hotly to herself. " He isn t a 
 single day over forty. I m going to ask Imogene." 
 
 " I know all about that mine," the Strong 
 Woman stated confidently, when the girl had asked 
 one of her questions but, for some feminine rea 
 son, had retained the other. " I sent Altamont up 
 there last week with a candle to explore, and he 
 said that as closely as he could ascertain it was 
 merely a dank labyrinth containing a mountain rat! 
 So I ran right up there and killed the rat and 
 found all those spoons we ve been missing and my 
 gold thimble and the new egg-beater that went 
 away Tuesday. You know, I d figured all along 
 on a trade-rat as soon as I found those little stones 
 in the spoon-box. Then I did some mining with 
 the handle of the egg-beater, and say! Clarice! 
 I think that mine s just full of gold! I showed 
 some of the rocks to Drybone, and he claimed 
 they would go two thousand pounds to the ton. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 65 
 
 And he said he d go up there with me to-day and 
 show me just how they blast it out. He says Mr. 
 Holly doesn t like it as well as the Yellow Dog, 
 and if that s the case and he don t want it I m go 
 ing to ask if / can have it. I ll just bet / could 
 drill holes in rocks ! 
 
 " Why just think of the money there is in 
 mines! " and Imogene spun around from her stove 
 to where the fluffy-haired, blue-eyed Cobrita and 
 the strangely pensive Belvawney sat side by side 
 on the kitchen-table. " Didn t Mr. Holly get a 
 hundred and fifty thousand dollars for only part 
 of the Yellow Dog? And don t the men say 
 that when it s all opened up they can dig out a 
 terribul lot? And all done in a single year, mind 
 you ! Oh, there s no use talking. It s mines for 
 me every clip, girls. Just you wait! Harry s 
 chicken farm and Mike and his wonderful pig 
 maze won t be in it when I strike it rich ! 
 
 " And here s another thing," and Imogene s 
 voice lowered confidentially before her round-eyed 
 auditors. " I ve been watching that quotation 
 sheet in the office every day for a week and the 
 way those Goldfield mines are booming up is some- 
 pin frightful. * Blue Pig was eight cents Satur 
 day, nine on Monday, and eleven on Tuesday, 
 
66 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 and more than a thousand shares sold. Little 
 Annie is way up in the clouds around six bits 
 and Mohawk! WELL! You know how we lost 
 Annabelle, the Andalusian Albino, that time at 
 Winnemucca. She was just putting on her red, 
 clocked stockings and her gold boots for the after 
 noon act when she heard the Wild Man from Java 
 reading out of the newspaper how Mohawk had 
 gone to nineteen dollars. 
 
 " I hope I ve got it right she says to me, all 
 in a shiver and crying like a baby. My trunk s 
 just cram jam full of Mohawk stock I bought for 
 nineteen cents! A traveling man told me all about 
 it once while we were going down in an elevator. 
 I m going back to the Station and go right straight 
 home to my mother in Kansas City, she says, 
 Just as soon as I get done crying. 
 
 " l But what are you crying now for, Dearie? 
 says I. 
 
 " And she says, l Well you d cry, too, if you d 
 used more than a thousand dollars worth of it for 
 mean old curlpapers! 
 
 But Holly, in the meantime, had sought no com 
 pany. As he walked away from the house and 
 past the corral he even failed to notice the uncon 
 scious Drybone, planning revenge under the eye 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 67 
 
 of the enemy. The ranchman s long strides took 
 him away from the scene of his discomfiture and 
 led him down an avenue of humming hives to 
 where a fence separated the long-aisled orchard 
 from a quiet meadow. Here he hoisted himself 
 to the top rail and gave himself up to thought, his 
 feet crooked in the fence, his hat tilted over his 
 eyes. 
 
 He was wondering if there were very many 
 women in the big outside world like the sweet- 
 eyed young girl he had just left. The Strong 
 Woman had been entirely right Clarice was dif 
 ferent although the dismaying speed with which 
 the unknown had come to be the single desirable 
 woman in the whole universe for Dick Holly of 
 Moab Desert hadn t left overmuch time for 
 analysis. Only a week before he had been on the 
 point of actually regretting his success, for it had 
 seemed only a peak from which he stared out on 
 the flat lands of " Nothing-to-do," but to-day, he 
 saw, there were other peaks to climb. A full, 
 strong wind from the outer world had blown away 
 the mists and shown him new heights and a trail 
 through an unsuspected valley. 
 
 And so he climbed dizzily down from the fence 
 and somnambulated through the orchard, dreaming 
 
68 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 mad dreams as he went. For, who shall say that 
 the fires of middle-age burn less brightly than those 
 of headstrong twenty? With Recollection to re 
 ject the clinkers and Good Judgment to do the 
 stoking, one may yet get a fair, steady blaze that 
 needs no noisy safety-valve. 
 
 But as the ranchman passed through the trees 
 and neared the Garden of Eden, the Evil One ap 
 peared to him in the form of an irrigating ditch. 
 Years ago, he remembered, he had always jumped 
 that particular ditch, generally without an effort. 
 To-day, however, it was much too wide, and as he 
 stared at it with a heavy frown on his face, it 
 seemed to grow still wider. He stared at it silently 
 for a moment longer, then shook his head with 
 something that sounded like a groan and turned 
 away. He was too old. 
 
 Over on the ranch-house porch a white waist 
 was gleaming, but the man, staring at a little tun 
 nel in the hillside behind the corral, kept his eyes 
 turned away. u I ll take another look at that 
 Morning Glory vein," he said to himself. " But 
 I guess it s like me petered out." 
 
 A careful examination of the ill-fated Morning 
 Glory only went too far to confirm that suspicion, 
 and as he came out to daylight again and ran his 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 69 
 
 eye over the admirable width of outcrop it was with 
 a feeling of genuine regret. It all looked very 
 good on the surface but from what the tunnel 
 showed he knew the vein would have to go only a 
 foot or two lower to fade out entirely. 
 
 " I wonder if they re familiar with gash veins 
 at the club ?" he meditated. " All but that 
 dump ore wouldn t buy a Willie boy his cigarettes. 
 But it would be fairer to keep it in the family for 
 a beer cellar," and pondering this idea, he zig 
 zagged down the trail to the house. Here he 
 found Imogene, standing open-mouthed before the 
 daily list of quotations. 
 
 " Little Annie a dollar! " she was soliloquizing 
 in an awe-struck whisper. " My! my! That s en 
 tirely too dear, now. Perhaps Red Ants at 
 seven cents would be better for me to buy or even 
 this new one * Coconoco Coalition that s only 
 three! " Then, as she saw the ranchman 
 " Don t you think Coconoco Coalition sounds 
 good?" 
 
 " Stocks with shorter names are better," that 
 individual answered. " They say that women s 
 names are best of all." 
 
 " Can a woman find a mine? " asked Imogene, 
 whirling swiftly about. 
 
70 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " Only the ugly ones ever have any luck," was 
 the answer. * The really good claims, you see, 
 are all located by old prospectors who ve been ro 
 mancing around all their lives on beans and sow 
 bosom. Generally some girl s at the bottom of it 
 all, so when they find the ledge they sweeten it up 
 with her name, like Little Annie or Alice 
 J. or * Isabel. And it s always a splendid mine 
 and makes just loads of money." 
 
 " And then they go right home and marry little 
 Annie, don t they?" asked Imogene artlessly, for 
 the Lifter of Great Weights was nothing if not 
 a match-maker. 
 
 " Y-e-e-s," Holly admitted wearily. "Or loaf 
 around on the desert a few more years so that little 
 Annie s oldest boy can have a job." 
 
 Failing to detect the irony of the last remark, 
 Imogene only regarded the miner-ranchman with 
 awakening surprise. 
 
 " But you called your mine The Yellow 
 Dog, " she objected pointedly. 
 
 " So I did," he conceded. " But, then, I never 
 had much luck with women." 
 
 The Strong Woman, studying him intently, 
 saw fit to ameliorate this condition. " But you 
 will have," she said forcefully. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 71 
 
 Holly turned a grave face on Mrs. Ajax. The 
 customary twinkle in his eyes was entirely lacking 
 they looked lusterless and tired. The line from 
 the nostril to the corner of his mouth was bitten 
 deep into his cheek with chagrin. The ranchman 
 had learned something about himself that morn 
 ing. 
 
 " No," he said briefly. " No. I m too old." 
 
 The Strong Woman, however, was not dis 
 mayed. " But you will have," she repeated con 
 fidently as she strode kitchenwards. " There s 
 sponge cake in the oven, so I can t stop to explain, 
 but you leave it to me." 
 
 He was still pondering this Delphic utterance 
 when an Indian boy, with black hair streaming, 
 shot out of the kitchen-door and clanged out a 
 delayed dinner call on the ranch triangle. 
 
 " Imogene is surely restless," he reflected. 
 " Perhaps she needs a mine to worry over," and 
 musing over a bright idea, went in to dinner. 
 
 " What s the latest on Red Ant Hills, Imo 
 gene?" inquired the younger Blondelli in the best 
 of spirits, gayly entering the dining-room in a 
 manner all his own. 
 
 " You stop walking into my dining-room on 
 your hands with your feet in the air, or you ll get 
 
72 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 no soup, Harry Doogan," snapped Imogene. " If 
 you mean Red Ants, it s seven cents. Black Hills 
 is so good it s been taken off the Board. How 
 many fancy chickens did you hatch to-day, Mister 
 Smarty?" 
 
 " One," said Harry briefly, cartwheeling grace 
 fully into a chair beside his fiancee. " The egg 
 was too big it came out a duck. But we don t 
 care, do we, Cobrita ? That s better than picking 
 out goose-eggs like Imogene s mines." 
 
 " Don t brag too soon," warned that person 
 darkly. " I might have a mine yet just like 
 Ringling might have you for a clown." 
 
 A flash of amusement showed in the ranchman s 
 face. 
 
 "Do you really want a mine, Imogene?" he 
 asked. 
 
 Something in his tones made Clarice s large 
 eyes turn and envelop him in their soft light. 
 " What is the man going to give away now?" the 
 girl thought, with unsteady emotions. " Shall we 
 leave him anything at all? It s begun to make me 
 feel ashamed." 
 
 The man felt the look, for he smiled and even 
 dared to wink. " Do you really want a mine?" 
 he asked a second time of the speechless Strong 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 73 
 
 Woman. " You can have a deed to the Morning 
 Glory if you like." 
 
 " Ma am? Sir? " gasped Mrs. Ajax. " What 
 for? I I mean for what?" 
 
 " Anything you say," was the easy reply, at 
 which even Altamont and the silent Scanlan looked 
 surprised. Only the genial foreman seemed un 
 perturbed. 
 
 " Make it a raisin pie," cackled Drybone. 
 
 "Done! 9 said Holly. 
 
 At this, not only amazement but also the pros 
 pect of untold riches ran riot in the Strong Wom 
 an s mind. Being futilely repressed, they soon 
 emerged and contended for place on her beaming 
 countenance, finally giving way to a gratitude 
 shaded not in the least by incredulity but tinged, 
 rather, with faint regret over the consideration. 
 
 "Just one pie?" Imogene quavered. 
 
 " One good pie," Holly answered. 
 
 A week later they saw him leaving them for 
 several days. Something unknown to any of the 
 circus except Clarice had called to him from across 
 the desert at Bullionfield, and the bay pair was 
 ready to whirl him away over the red-brown plain 
 and the twinkling dry lakes to where the mysterious 
 treasure-house lay in the smoky lap of the ranges. 
 
74 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 But the Strong Woman managed to speak a 
 last, low-toned word over the buggy-wheel. 
 " Drybone says, please to bring back some seven- 
 eighths steel and a twelve-pound sledge. He s 
 getting sore because I broke all his little tack- 
 hammers." 
 
 Although none but the foreman and the Indian 
 boys knew just what surprising changes had al 
 ready taken place in the Morning Glory, it was 
 undoubtedly an active spot, for the Strong Woman 
 was no longer on view from nine to eleven in the 
 morning or from two to four in the afternoon. 
 At the latter hour, a series of muffled shocks in 
 the hill were generally followed by her reappear 
 ance, very tired and dusty, and nursing strange 
 blisters. 
 
 To-day Imogene and Drybone sat on powder- 
 boxes at the mouth of the mine, watching the In 
 dian boys load sacks of dump ore into a farm- 
 wagon; a shipment to the smelter which had a 
 more practical sponsor than the foreman, who was 
 now advising it. 
 
 "We ll call this first shipment Lot Number 
 Three Hundred and Fifteen B. " Drybone said 
 to Imogene confidentially. " That will make us 
 look like big producers." 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 75 
 
 " Great! " the lady responded, however she 
 feared his ancient wiles. " Maybe, then, the smel 
 ter people will want to buy me out ! " 
 
 " Mebbe," agreed Drybone thoughtfully, and 
 his seamed face added some unsuspected lines of 
 humor. " It might turn out like it did for Powder- 
 itch Jones when he was digging a well by day s pay 
 for a man back in Storey County, and struck a 
 stringer of ore. 
 
 " Right away when Powder-itch panned it out 
 he forgot all about the well. He ran a little drift 
 off the shaft, and cross-cut and panned again. 
 And then he sank a few feet on an incline and 
 drifted some more. In one place he even put up a 
 raise and made a little stope. He kept it up quite 
 a while. v 
 
 " One day the man came back. When he sees 
 the terrible big dump outside he lays down on his 
 stummick and hollers : 
 
 " Y u got my well dug yet? 
 
 " ( Not quite, says Powder-itch. * Be keerful. 
 Don t get too near the edge. 
 
 1 don t see any water, the man says pretty 
 soon. * Derned if this ain t the queerest well / 
 ever see. It don t look like a well at all. It looks 
 
7.6 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 more like a corkscrew. Then the man thinks 
 for a while and says: 
 
 Ahem ! It don t seem like y u were highly 
 interested in wells. 
 
 * Oh, I might give y u a week s work and take 
 a sort of half interest in this one, says Powder- 
 itch, with a yawn. 
 
 " Done, says the man. * Work a week without 
 any pay and we ll go halves on the water. 
 
 " Next week the man comes back and lays down 
 on his stummick and hollers: 
 Y u got my well dug yet? 
 
 " Not quite, says Powder-itch. * Be keerful. 
 Don t get too near the edge. 
 
 " * That water is surely deceitful, the man says. 
 
 " It s worse than whisky, says Powder-itch. 
 * And furthermore, I ve a feelin coming over me 
 that I m about to lose my interest again. If y u 
 say so I ll trade y u back my half of the water 
 for the well. 
 
 " Done, 7 says the man. 
 
 " Done, says Powder-itch. * I sold the well 
 part to-day for five thousand. I didn t want to 
 sink it in too deep. I ve always been taught to let 
 well enough alone. And then 
 
 But the story of Powder-itch Jones was never 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 77 
 
 finished, for at the crucial moment the Strong 
 Woman had risen hastily from the powder-box, 
 and with loud breaths and heaving shoulders had 
 been rapidly lost to view in the mine. 
 
 But however Imogene s venture was regarded 
 there were no signs of envy when the mail brought 
 her the returns from the smelter. Blissfully re 
 covering from the shock which the figures gave 
 her, she instinctively carried the good news to Miss 
 Belvawney. 
 
 That young lady looked up from her reading 
 and greeted her with earnest affection, which was 
 not Clarice s way with women. 
 
 " I think you ought to know that we re all just 
 as glad as we can be," she said. u You ve watched 
 over us so long and mothered us so carefully that 
 I only wish it were twice as much. Mr. Holly will 
 be back to-morrow, and I know he ll be happier 
 than any of us. You re an old dear, Imogene, 
 and I hope you strike a bonanza every single day." 
 
 Under treatment of so genuine a nature the 
 Strong Woman immediately surrendered to the 
 vein of sentiment that lay close to her martial 
 exterior. Sinking into a rocker beside the girl, she 
 stared thoughtfully out over the desert. 
 
 " A few more checks like that and maybe I can 
 
78 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 have something done for Altamont," she said. 
 " He s been on my mind a lot, lately." 
 
 " Is he growing worse?" the girl asked, 
 startled. 
 
 " He s getting better" was Imogene s quick re 
 sponse. " That s what s set me thinking." 
 
 " You know we weren t always like this, 
 Clarice. Altamont was somebody once. He was 
 even a bigger man when I married him he 
 weighed a lot more, and he stood higher than I do 
 now. I know we look awful funny together, but 
 there was a time when you wouldn t have looked 
 at me at all. And then he bumped his head in 
 that train wreck coming out of Council Bluffs, 
 loway. Well since then Altamont hasn t done a 
 great deal in this world. The doctors said there 
 was a chance for him, if I could only get them 
 money enough. But somehow somehow " 
 
 " Now, n-e-e-ver mind, Imogene," the girl inter 
 posed. " Don t let your mind dwell on the im 
 possible. We can t afford to be anything but 
 cheerful here in another person s home, and I feel 
 right down in my bones that if we stay here every 
 thing will turn out right. You don t want to go 
 away for a while yet, do you?" 
 
 " Not on your sacred tin-type," whimpered 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 79 
 
 Imogene. " Do you think I m crazy? I m so 
 happy I just want a good old cry." 
 
 During the subsequent interval for drying tears, 
 the elder woman s eye fell on Clarice s book. 
 " What have you got there, girlie?" she asked, 
 with a return to her normal curiosity. " The 
 words are all like names for corsets it must be 
 French." 
 
 " A history of the United States," Clarice ex 
 plained, a little consciously. " I m studying it in 
 French to save time. I always stood well in French 
 in school before I had to take gym classes in the 
 old Turnverein, and this way I can learn two things 
 at once. I bought some lovely books by mail last 
 week," the girl confessed. " I ve been longing for 
 this chance for ever and ever so long." 
 
 " Hmmmmm," said Imogene thoughtfully. 
 " But men don t like little girlies that know so 
 much." 
 
 "That wouldn t affect me," Clarice returned 
 calmly. 
 
 " Because you don t know much, or because 
 you don t like men?" 
 
 " Either or both" was the collected response. 
 
 " My my!" murmured the shocked Imogene. 
 " But you like Mr. Holly, don t you, Petty? " 
 
8o THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " Very much." 
 
 " Hmmmm," said Imogene dreamily. " Just 
 see, Dearie, how your sleeve has started to ravel 
 there at the elbow. Those Indian washerwomen 
 are awfully hard on those fine goods. Who 
 taught you to put your hair up that way, child? 
 It looks awfully nice I think you have the finest, 
 sweetest hair, Clarice. And your skin s so good 
 and your eyes. This place has certainly done a 
 lot for you with your riding and all. You look 
 made over. But you always did look like a lady." 
 
 " I hope so," the girl said soberly. " My 
 mother was one." 
 
 There was not much doubt of it. But whatever 
 mystery there was in the girl s past was dwarfed by 
 the oddity that she should have been drawn into 
 circus life at all. Popular fancy is apt to make 
 acrobatics a matter of heredity, with the knack of 
 the u double flip " or the ankle coyly engaging the 
 back of the neck, passed down through Papa and 
 Mamma Fortuno to all the Five Little Fearless 
 Fortunes, but Clarice would have had to search 
 still further for the source of her atavism. And 
 yet, beyond a matchless physique whose hunger for 
 activity brooked no refusal, there was nothing in 
 the girl which could not be controlled except, per- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 81 
 
 haps, when danger called. It was here that the 
 real enemy lay hidden, for just as the wolf-dog 
 returns to run with the pack and the descendant of 
 the good four-bottle-man reaches instinctively for 
 the decanter, so the Belvawney blood leaped up 
 whenever any bright, perilous game challenged it. 
 
 Just how she had drifted into circus life, the 
 girl hardly knew, except that work of some kind 
 had become a necessity after her mother s death, 
 and the gradual progression from Turner gym 
 nastics to professional work under canvas had 
 seemed a natural evolution. Although her girl 
 hood had been spent in the East her life as a child 
 had been passed in a small town in some Western 
 State where, it seems, there had been a father. 
 But he had been a very vague sort of father, who 
 seemed to be forever patting her cheek and saying 
 good-by, so that semi-penury and a single parent 
 had always been accepted conditions for Clarice. 
 
 Beyond these fugitive memories the girl pos 
 sessed only a single thing connected with her 
 former life, and that was her mother s ring. It 
 was not a particularly handsome ring, being only 
 a rudely chased affair of clasped hands and made, 
 so the ranchman said, of soft nugget gold, but 
 somehow the understanding had persisted through- 
 
82 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 out the years that its replica was on her father s 
 hand. Until to-day this had seemed a very slim 
 clue indeed, but now that Clarice had entered on 
 another phase of life she felt, and not unnaturally, 
 that she needed a father more than she needed any 
 thing else, and so the poor little ring had come to 
 be her most jealously guarded possession. 
 
 "Why don t you marry, Clarice?" Imogene 
 pursued in purring tones. " What s the use of a 
 girl forever fighting the world for her living? 
 You don t want to juggle those little balls up on a 
 trapeze from now till you re forty and then spend 
 the rest of your life staring out of a boarding- 
 house window ! It s time you had a home of your 
 
 own." 
 
 As the girl only stared straight before her with 
 out replying Imogene tried a few leads. 
 
 " I always thought that freckled-up hardware 
 man in Salt Lake looked good. He " 
 
 " Chewed tobacco," supplied Clarice, swiftly 
 and finally. 
 
 " He wasn t as nice, perhaps, as the little drug 
 gist back in Pueblo. He was near-sighted, of 
 course " 
 
 " So he was," the girl said grimly. " Espe 
 cially when his mother was with him," 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 83 
 
 " But how about the rich candy man s son in 
 Denver? Surely he was all right, wasn t he ? He 
 had an automobile, anyway," muttered Imogene. 
 "That s more than that young Englishman had 
 who read poetry with you all the time on the train 
 coming out of Vancouver. What ever became of 
 him, Dearie? He had such bony legs." 
 
 " He went back home. His brother died. He s 
 an Earl, now. Oh, I m afraid you don t under 
 stand, Imogene," the girl cried despairingly. " I 
 know I m only a second-class acrobat but, some 
 how, I can t stand the common ones and the nice 
 ones wouldn t have me." 
 
 " But why wouldn t they? " persisted Imogene 
 stubbornly. " I ll bet fifty cents none of those 
 Earlesses can stand on their head and jug 
 gle three balls ! I guess those * nice ones you 
 talk about never saw Clarice in her suit of little 
 green ti " 
 
 "Don t say that word!" the girl interrupted 
 fuiously. u I won t have it. I never want to hear 
 it again as long as I live. I hate it ! " Two bright 
 spots stained the girl s cheeks, her throat filled, 
 her eyes burned like hot, twin stars. 
 
 " Give me a chance, Imogene," she said impul 
 sively to that true and tried friend. " Just let me 
 
84 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 stay here a while and read some good books and 
 study up my bookkeeping, so that I can get settled 
 down to what I want to do. I ve made a show of 
 myself long enough." 
 
 She paused for a moment, then turned a strained 
 face. 
 
 " I ve wasted my life" she said with bitter dis 
 tinctness. " I ve thrown it away. For a whole 
 year I ve tried to get somewhere, and do some 
 thing, and be somebody, but it s all come to noth 
 ing. And it never will come to anything. I can 
 just feel life slipping, slipping away from me like 
 sand out of my fingers and I can t seem to wake 
 up. And yet I don t want much. I just want a 
 place for myself, and friendships, and the things 
 that others earn, and a decent, natural life where I 
 can work for them. I ve got it all in me why 
 can t I get it out? And the very biggest thing of 
 all I know now that that will never come. I 
 
 want I want " The girl s voice fluttered and 
 
 broke, and she hid her crimsoning face in her 
 hands. 
 
 " I know, Dearie, I know," childless Imogene 
 answered. "So do we all want it." 
 
 And so, after a time, with an understanding 
 squeeze of a hand, the Strong Woman left the 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 85 
 
 girl to herself. But as she proceeded along the 
 path to the kitchen she broke into broad smiles. 
 
 " Bookkeeping, indeed," she chuckled. u And 
 Cobrita, she wanted to run away and bury herself 
 in a retail shoe-store before Angelo spoke to her ! 
 And / wanted to be a milliner before Altamont 
 condescended ! Wouldn t I have made a dandy lit 
 tle milliner! It s all I can do to trim a pie ! " 
 
 Then she stopped short before a male figure 
 that seemed to start out of the ground at the 
 kitchen-door. 
 
 " WELL, for GOODNESS SAKES! " she ex 
 claimed, open-mouthed. "Darned if it isn t the 
 Wild Man from Java come back to us ! What in 
 the world are you doing here, Wild Man?" 
 
 " Yas m. This is me," the Indian responded 
 diffidently. " My wife, here she make me come." 
 
 "But where in Glory have you been all this 
 time? Who cut your hair? What are you so fat 
 for?" 
 
 " The Gov ment over on the Reservation. It s 
 pretty good to us," the Wild Man said with a 
 cheerful grin. " I got real clothes now. My wife 
 she been wash for you maybeso long time. 
 Some days I eat three meals! " 
 
 " Don t tell me she s been supporting you all 
 
86 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 this time/ said the scandalized Strong Woman. 
 " See here, Wild Man," she pursued relentlessly. 
 " You ve got to pay us for the little Trained Pig 
 you ate. You ll have to work it out. Everybody 
 works here, you know." 
 
 " Yass. I know." 
 
 u Well," announced Imogene with stern de 
 cision, " mornings you work in my mine. Meal 
 times you wait on table. Afternoons you train 
 the elephant. You do that for a month and maybe 
 I ll forgive you. You like the elephant, you 
 know." 
 
 11 Y-a-a-s-s. I know." 
 
 " Humph ! If you don t I ll break your neck, 
 Wild Man. YOU KNOW!" 
 
 Although the departure of the Strong Woman 
 left Miss Belvawney to herself, the study of the 
 polite tongue was not resumed with all its former 
 vigor. In spite of her despairing outburst the 
 efforts she was making to straighten out her life 
 were meeting with very tolerable success, for at 
 least there was time to reflect on whither she was 
 drifting. She smiled faintly when she remembered 
 how she had studied Drybone s seamed and time- 
 worn visage only that very day. She knew that 
 Drybone had a family elsewhere, and she under- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 87 
 
 stood now how the barrier which neglect and dis 
 couragement had raised had gradually become un- 
 surmountable. It seemed likely that her own 
 father had gone through the same experience. 
 But she soon dismissed this train of thought and 
 began to think about the owner of the ranch, for 
 the situation which she knew he was approaching 
 that same day at Bullionfield made her long to help 
 in some more substantial way than merely by filing 
 papers. She was very certain that the connection 
 between the Moab storekeeper and Macklin, the 
 Atlas man, was much less shadowy than Holly 
 seemed to suppose. It seemed illogical that Buck- 
 ner should turn against the ranchman simply be 
 cause the latter had been shrewd enough to buy in 
 a poorly considered prospect and promptly turn 
 it into a producing mine. Something more sinister 
 than jealousy lay hidden there, and that part of the 
 girl s daring which was not yet under the ban re 
 solved to find out just what this was. 
 
 Rising from her chair, the girl walked to the 
 end of the porch and looked down towards the cor 
 ral. The pony which Holly had set apart for her 
 use was nosing expectantly across the bars the 
 road to Moab lay open why should she not be 
 come better acquainted with the wily purveyor of 
 
88 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 groceries ? As she stood there thinking, an Indian 
 boy lounged into the corral and presently emerged 
 leading the old piebald that always went for the 
 mail. 
 
 Clarice called to the boy and shook her head. 
 u Take him back and saddle Polly instead," she 
 said. " I am going for the mail after this." 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FORTY miles away over the desert at Bullion- 
 field at this same hour a tall man in khaki stood in 
 its dusty thoroughfare, exchanging news and jocu 
 larities with his friends. 
 
 With his coming, all work in the Yellow Dog 
 mine, for some occult reason, had suddenly been 
 brought to an end, and mystery and rumor were 
 rampant. 
 
 " Macklin s right noisy, Dick," they told him, 
 hardly disguising their anxiety. " That hike East 
 of yours must have cost him considerable more 
 high grade than he likes to lose." And again, 
 " We re hearing that these new-fangled * apex 
 suits are mighty stylish for summer wear." All 
 very well in its way, but no man likes to see the 
 prize mine of a boom camp suddenly shut down 
 while he has property to sell at a fair profit. 
 
 "Lumber must be getting high, Dick," they 
 probed. " Your man Wiley has stopped work on 
 the new mill, we see." 
 
 " Everything s high except the Yellow Dog," 
 89 
 
90 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 the victim agreed blandly. " And some are say 
 ing that isn t high enough." 
 
 They understood the allusion, for hardly a man 
 of them but had had experience on one side or the 
 other of an apex difficulty much like that now ap 
 parently coming up. Holly s claim, with the Atlas 
 parallel to it and above it, lay immediately behind 
 the town, from where the iron-stained outcrop- 
 pings of the two veins could be seen appearing at 
 intervals above the ground in their courses up the 
 hillside. As Bullionfield prided itself on knowing, 
 the Yellow Dog had been originally opened by a 
 shaft near the highest point of the outcrop and 
 developed to a depth of four hundred feet with 
 what the Bullionfield Booster modestly confessed 
 were dazzling results, but while every miner in 
 camp could describe the wonders of the four-hun 
 dred-foot level, scarcely a man knew precisely 
 what had happened in the tunnel driven to tap the 
 vein three hundred feet below. Popular opinion, 
 lounging against Bullionfield bars, produced solid 
 arguments to show that the ore shoot had not been 
 found in the tunnel, but, on the other hand, equally 
 solid (or liquid) statements were made that the 
 Atlas vein, dipping into Yellow Dog ground at 
 depth, had proved itself the " mother lode " of the 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 91 
 
 two veins and so furnished just and righteous 
 cause for injunction and suit. It was true that 
 developments in the Atlas were confined to a sixty- 
 foot shaft and a decrepit windlass, but in view of 
 Holly s silence as to his tunnel, the second theory 
 was steadily gaining ground. And so, while the 
 Booster s editor searched feverishly for synonyms 
 for " stupefying " and picking up a blue pencil, 
 wrote, " Beat it to Bullionfield " as a six-inch 
 " head," lip slipped it to lip that old-timer Mack- 
 lin had Dick Holly cut off at the pockets. 
 
 A man parted the swinging doors of a saloon 
 and scrutinized the group as they talked. Pres 
 ently, he came out with the sidewise shuffle of an 
 aged crab and hurried past as if on important busi 
 ness. He was a thin, stoop-shouldered individual 
 of sixty or more, with a blotched face half hidden 
 by a straggling gray beard. Except for an un 
 pleasantly broken set of teeth and an inflamed eye, 
 he differed in no wise from any of the vague-faced 
 nondescripts that infested the camp, but for a 
 quite sufficient reason the group saw fit to notice 
 his approach. Then their glances with one accord 
 swung around to Holly. 
 
 " How are you, Macklin?" the big man re 
 marked blandly. " Pleasant day we re having." 
 
92 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 They watched the old man hurry down the 
 street, and amused themselves again. 
 
 " The Stage Office, I reckon." 
 
 " No. The freight on Bibles is up again, darn 
 it." 
 
 "The Post Office for a letter!" 
 
 " Gosh, no ! His girl went back on him in 
 eighty-eight." 
 
 " Tom Osborn s law shop ! " 
 
 ;< Tom s hanging a man in Tuniper to-day." 
 
 U THE RED ONION! Oh, Lordy!" they 
 laughed, as the old man obliqued into a saloon. 
 u All that importance for a drink. Well, that 
 reminds me But, SAY ! You ve heard of this 
 1 Drew business? What about it?" 
 
 " Adios, boys," said Holly, quickly turning 
 away. " I ve got to influence the Sheriff about my 
 taxes." 
 
 He didn t want to talk about Danny s end just 
 then. There was no longer any doubt in his own 
 mind but that old Joey Macklin had been respon 
 sible for Drew s death, but too much idle talk in 
 the absence of direct proof meant too much money 
 for the Atlas. And also, however much he longed 
 to revenge himself for the cruel work of thirty 
 years ago, the interests of a man soon to reach 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 93 
 
 Bullionfield from Philadelphia called for business 
 before pleasure. But he felt, nevertheless, that 
 there might be some devious plan by which both 
 of his lawful designs might yet be accomplished 
 and so lounged in his amiable way about the 
 town, searching among the flesh-pots for the Law 
 in Bullionfield. 
 
 He found the Sheriff mournfully corroborating 
 the Silver Grill man s statement that the little ball 
 had just dropped into the " Double O." 
 
 " There s life for y u," sighed the investigator, 
 following out into the sunlight. " Y u fixes your 
 bets so y u just can t lose and then bang comes 
 the goose-egg." 
 
 " Jake," said Holly, in the privacy of the 
 sage-peppered hillside, " who killed Danny 
 Drew?" 
 
 " Danny s been dead a long time," Jake an 
 swered, without emotion. " Macklin, I reckon 
 between y u and me." 
 
 " Can you prove it?" 
 
 The Sheriff rubbed his grizzled chin and con 
 sidered. 
 
 " Mebbe," said he, and then with judicial appre 
 ciation of man s constitutional rights, " mebbe 
 not." 
 
94 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Holly smiled. He was just in time. Others 
 were planning, too. 
 
 " Will you go slow for a while and let me prove 
 it?" 
 
 The Sheriff cocked a quizzical eyebrow. " They 
 say that Atlas is good ground, Dick," he grinned. 
 " I don t mind telling y u that I ve got a man who 
 knowed Drew coming here tu take a look at old 
 Joey. As a clue, it s about as exciting as a drink 
 of water, but it s the only one I ve got. He ll pull 
 in yere in about two weeks, I reckon." 
 
 Then you ll hold the dogs off while I make a 
 try?" 
 
 By way of answer impartial Justice lost sight in 
 the left eye and regained it. 
 
 The ranchman interposed himself between the 
 Sheriff and the town. "Of course, we haven t 
 quite figured out our first dividend on the Yellow 1 
 Dog yet," he murmured, " but I ve a feeling 
 coming over me that it ll be about a dollar a 
 share." 
 
 " I m real perplexed tu know what that would 
 be on a block of a hundred," the Sheriff murmured 
 dreamily back. " However did I come tu forgit 
 them little shares? Why, I guess I must have 
 lost em." 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 95 
 
 u You ll have a new certificate soon," said 
 Holly, as the dividend was declared. 
 
 They approached the town again, and paused 
 before the Hall of Research into Chance. 
 
 " I seem to be worrying about that * mystery 
 again," the Sheriff said. " I don t feel right about 
 it yet." 
 
 "About " 
 
 " That Double O, " replied the Sheriff, and 
 passed from sight. 
 
 A few minutes later Holly passed by the watch 
 man whittling away his time on a powder-box at 
 the mouth of the Yellow Dog tunnel and entered 
 the mine office. A shirt-sleeved young man with 
 candle-greased trousers looked up from his figuring 
 amid the blue prints of a draughting-table. " The 
 second sampling figures out a little higher than the 
 first," he said with a happy grin, extending a 
 sheet of calculations. " And that s after leaving 
 out all the rich streaks, too." 
 
 " Don t get us overheated, Patterson," was the 
 good-humored reply. " If Wiley has got the cross 
 cut to that tunnel winze closed up by now, I guess 
 you can let our friend Macklin wander up here. 
 Tell him tell him I want to talk business" 
 
 The proprietor of the Red Onion, for the first 
 
96 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 time in months, saw his most promising patron de 
 part from his doors, leaving a perfectly good drink 
 all untouched. Incredulous lips immediately sam 
 pled the drink while equally doubtful eyes fol 
 lowed his slow ascent of the Yellow Dog trail in 
 the wake of the young engineer. " I guess I d bet 
 ter put the bubbles on ice," the Onion man mut 
 tered. " Dick Holly s going tu buy him out." 
 
 Although the ranchman was apparently ab 
 sorbed in conversation with the tunnel watchman 
 as Macklin drew near he missed few details of the 
 man s face or figure. He was trying to con 
 struct a taller man out of that bent shape, trying 
 to clear up the watery eyes and erase the straggling 
 beard and make a flat, thick-lipped face with high 
 cheekbones out of one which whisky had thinned 
 and hollowed. But while he failed to satisfy him 
 self thus of the identity he found other means 
 equally good, for he suddenly began to interpret 
 the look which he had always seen in the old man s 
 eyes. He saw now that not only did the other 
 know him as the boy of long ago whom he had left 
 stranded on the desert, but he had always known 
 him. 
 
 " Macklin," said the ranchman, u do you re 
 member the offer I made you six months ago ? " 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 97 
 
 " Y u kin bet I do, Mister Good-player," was 
 the ready response. " And it warn t very high at 
 that. Twas fifty thousand dollars." 
 
 " Not quite," corrected Holly. " Forty if I 
 recollect. But now I ve decided to make you a 
 new offer." 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 " Yes," said the ranchman dryly. " I ll give 
 you fifteen." 
 
 The other s jaw dropped and he fell back a 
 step. 
 
 " What do you mean?" he rasped angrily. 
 " Did y u bring me way up here for a 
 joke?" 
 
 Holly raised an interrupting hand. " Perhaps 
 the joke is on both of us, Joey," he said. " Did 
 you ever see what happened to our vein on the 
 seven hundred? Light up a candle and come 
 
 in." 
 
 With a puzzled look on his face, the old man 
 took a candle out of the watchman s box and fol 
 lowed Holly. That he was now being urged to 
 enter what he had previously been shut out from 
 gave him food for thought. Only one thing could 
 account for such a remarkable reversal. And if 
 there was something radically wrong with the Yel- 
 
98 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 low Dog, there was probably something wrong 
 with the Atlas, too. 
 
 Near the breast of the tunnel, some nine hun 
 dred feet in by Macklin s mental count, the ranch 
 man stopped and raised his candle above his head 
 with a significant gesture, and at the front itself 
 he climbed the heap of rubble and held the light 
 close to the rock. 
 
 " Do you get me, Macklin? " he said, while he 
 watched the other closely. " Do you blame me 
 now for changing my bid? She s not only petered 
 out, but she s all shot to pieces and faulted clear 
 to Glory ! Look at that front ! Foot and 
 hanging all run together like a scrambled egg! 
 Your world beater of an Atlas mine isn t worth 
 two rubber nickels below the six-hundred-foot 
 level, or this one either. How about that { law 
 suit now?" 
 
 The old man stood staring and silent. Too 
 much of a miner not to read the unmistakable 
 signs of a " fault " he knew instinctively that the 
 Atlas vein, only a few hundred feet away through 
 the rock, had probably undergone the same dis 
 placement. While the vein in either case could 
 doubtless be found again in time, yet the rich pay- 
 shoots of the upper levels undoubtedly came to 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 99 
 
 a very definite end near where they stood in the 
 murky tunnel. 
 
 Irresolute and disconcerted, fully aware that 
 the value of the Atlas both as a producer and an 
 "apex" mine had suddenly taken a sickening 
 drop, the old man stood with his dripping candle 
 held above his head, mumbling profanity through 
 his beard and searching for some sign to which he 
 could pin a desperate hope. 
 
 The flickering flame threw queer shadows on the 
 gaunt face, spotting it with high lights as does a 
 campfire after dark, snatching the years away to 
 put coarse young manhood in their place, then 
 doubly aging its wrinkles with senile evils. The 
 light fell on the slack mouth and wavering chin, 
 dropped to the wasted neck and talon-like hand 
 where a heavy gold ring glittered, then shone, full 
 and yellow, on the bared arm from which the sleeve 
 had fallen away. 
 
 The ranchman saw the sleeve fall and clicked 
 his teeth together. Flatwheel had been right. 
 He snuffed out his candle* between finger and 
 thumb. 
 
 " Pm making you a very fair offer," he said, 
 out of the darkness. " Nobody knows about this 
 fault except a few and we are looking to keep it 
 
ioo THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 quiet. Probably you will, too. Of course, you 
 can try to sell out to some tenderfoot for a bigger 
 price, but I guess I can get to him before all the 
 papers are signed. Perhaps, in that case, he would 
 not be enthusiastic with the coin. Now you have 
 got a little ore up above perhaps and I am 
 giving you a chance to sell it. Make up your mind 
 and let me know inside of two weeks not a day 
 later." 
 
 As the other only nodded vacantly, Holly 
 touched him on the arm and started for the outer 
 air. " Look and sample all you like," he said. 
 " I m going out I can t stand it. It s just the 
 same as if I d been walking along to my wedding 
 some nice bright day and all of a sudden I came 
 across my best man lying out in the brush, cold, 
 shot, maybe shot in the back well, you know 
 how it is." 
 
 The other man s candle slipped from his fingers 
 and went out in the broken rock underfoot. " I ll 
 come, too," he muttered. " I feel like I needed 
 a drink." 
 
 At the tunnel s mouth they parted company, and 
 the old man picked his way down the trail to the 
 Red Onion and the town. 
 
 "What was it he said about a felluh being 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 101 
 
 shot?" he mused suspiciously. " He s hard tu 
 savey. And who d a-thought he d grow up so 
 from such a kid? I didn t feel just right in there 
 with him. I should have took another drink afore 
 I went up. But now is just as good," he reflected 
 happily, and passed inside. 
 
 "Well?" queried the anxious owner of the 
 Onion. " What did he say? Will he buy? Did 
 he talk turkey?" 
 
 The old man poured calmly and smacked his lips 
 with due deliberation. " If y u want tu call it 
 that," he remarked scornfully, as he picked out a 
 comfortable chair and retired behind a newspaper. 
 " He offered me a measly hundred thousand and I 
 threw him down." 
 
 That afternoon a new face showed itself among 
 the habitues of the Onion. He was a miner like 
 the others, a person with a sociable smile and 
 pleasing carelessness as to money. Someone said 
 that he d once been a drill-runner in Holly s tunnel, 
 at which remark the Atlas man, hunched up over 
 a painfully penciled letter to one Buckner, at 
 Moab, raised a calculative eye and decided to 
 make the newcomer s acquaintance. Which par 
 ticular thing was precisely what the drill-runner 
 had been instructed to accomplish. 
 
102 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 And so the day ended, with a beginning made 
 and a little more known and another one of Holly s 
 tunnel workers cashing a pink check at the " New 
 York Store " and fitting out " for a little pros 
 pecting." 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 HOME again, and down by the corral, the ranch 
 man was unhitching his tired pair in the darkness. 
 He had crossed the desert without water in the 
 heat of the day, the center of a pall of alkali dust 
 which had drifted back and forth all day long be 
 tween the rear wheels and his horses ears. The 
 fine white powder lay thick on his hat-brim and 
 gritted between his teeth, and when he had turned 
 his animals loose he knelt by an irrigating ditch 
 and washed his parched mouth free. 
 
 The ranch-house lay quiet and vague against 
 the purple foothills. Above it the plume-like pop 
 lars swayed gently across the last yellow-shot 
 horizon light. At his feet the dark water churked 
 and gurgled. In the silent dusk about him he 
 heard the first of the mysterious night noises, the 
 faint cries of the tired insect world, the drowsy 
 cheep of a bird teetering on a limb, the croak of a 
 tree-toad grateful for the cool night wind on his 
 back. The scent of honeysuckle came down the 
 wind and he thought of the vine which clung out 
 side the office-window. 
 
 103 
 
104 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 He began to rehearse again the role he had 
 morbidly planned during his lonely ride that day. 
 He had already divined the kind of man she would 
 eventually marry. Probably he would be a trim, 
 brisk, city man with a prosperous business, per 
 haps some hustling young merchant back in Salt 
 Lake. There would be a stone house up on the 
 hill near the Eagle Gate (with only a small mort 
 gage on it), and she would wear long, sweeping 
 trains to her dresses and carry a lace parasol. 
 Yes. Even though these had gone out of style she 
 should have them. That was a very small thing 
 to insist on. She was not to grow any taller with 
 marriage (after some troubled thought) but was 
 to fill out sufficiently so that when she rode by in 
 her carriage she would be noticed for her striking 
 beauty. She was to move quietly about in her 
 church and social circles, making lifelong friends 
 wherever she went, through her tact and well 
 her quickness at figures. 
 
 As he neared the house he patiently reviewed 
 the whole miserable horoscope, then saw he had 
 omitted something. It was not fitting that she and 
 the young merchant should always live alone. The 
 inevitable consequences must be considered. Well, 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 105 
 
 there was no use putting it off. There would be 
 a perfect raft of 
 
 A faint sound came to him out of the darkness. 
 A luminous white figure peered at him uncer 
 tainly across the shadowy fence. The gate swung 
 open. 
 
 " I hoped it might be you," a voice said with a 
 glad, warm note. " Welcome home, Mr. Holly." 
 
 Something inside of poor Dick Holly seemed 
 to cease its beating. After a few aeons, however, 
 its action resumed, and he felt the blood rushing 
 back into his face. The world was moving on 
 again. 
 
 "Everything O.K.?" he stammered, his care 
 ful role blown away erased forgotten. Queer 
 how glad the desert made you to see people again ! 
 So she had been thinking about him, after all! 
 Queerer still! Had she heard his question? He 
 was not quite sure that he had spoken aloud. But 
 perhaps he had better first return the hand he 
 found himself holding with the clutch of a drown 
 ing man. For one wild moment he threw discre 
 tion to the winds and madly hungered to catch 
 her in his arms. Here in the fragrant darkness 
 were the time and place his heart went out with 
 a leap to her who was the girl. 
 
106 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 He stepped forward and laid his hand on her 
 bare arm, resting on the fence-top. The arm was 
 not withdrawn, though it quivered. For an in 
 stant he felt her eyes flash at him through the 
 darkness then he lost their light. The soft, 
 warm, rounded wrist he held grew softer, less 
 resentful. He heard her draw a quivering breath 
 saw the other hand raised to hide her face. 
 
 "Little girl little girl!" he whispered. In 
 spite of his vow he was about to stake all his 
 worldly happiness, like any gambler, upon this 
 single throw. 
 
 Then came sounds from the house the light 
 from a door flung open. Others were coming. 
 He would be seen. He drew back instantly. 
 
 Released, the white figure turned and sped up 
 the path. His chance the chance he would never 
 allow himself again had flown. And with it 
 poor Dick Holly saw the last years of his youth 
 also vanish. 
 
 In spite of his hidden agonies he followed in, 
 after an interval, and came upon the family. 
 
 Under the light of the center-lamp Mr. Scanlan 
 Blondelli, absorbed in calculations, was breathing 
 hard over a problem having a pig as the unknown 
 quantity. On the other side of the table Alta- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 107 
 
 mont, in spectacles, was methodically reading the 
 Dictionary, his markers showing that he had pro 
 gressed as far as " Cat to Catapult." Facing each 
 other at opposite ends of the sofa Mrs. Ajax and 
 Mr. Peters, who seemed to be renewing his youth, 
 sat thoroughly at ease. 
 
 " And you say you were once a really Mor 
 mon?" Imogene was asking in awed tones. 
 
 " Just in my mind, I was," Mr. Peters explained 
 with a deprecatory cough, while he crossed his 
 bony knees and rolled his eyes ceilingwards. " I 
 Jiggered I could be as Mormonish as I pleased that- 
 a-way. Y u see, if y u believe, why y u believe 
 but if y u don t tell anybody y u don t have tu 
 pay anything in tu the Tithing House." 
 
 " Tell me more about it," said Imogene, settling 
 back to give the matter undivided attention. 
 "Ever since I papered this room with little blue 
 boats floating round in lakes of mayonnaise sauce 
 and hid up your friend Nephi I ve felt sort 
 of guilty that we haven t any religion sticking 
 around. Too much meat in these hot climates 
 ain t good so far away from a church. The only 
 trouble is, I don t know just what to settle on. 
 Episcopals are lovely, but snobby and nobody s 
 ever sick, so we couldn t be Christian Scientists." 
 
io8 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " Oh, don t let s be Scientists," objected Co- 
 brita, who was combing out a fat, white dog with 
 one hand while she played checkers with the other. 
 " They re always saying manifestation of error 
 when you know perfectly well it was that second 
 piece of mince. Make Drybone convert us. 
 Come on! Let s be Mormons!" 
 
 " I d just as lieve," said Harry across the 
 checker-board. 
 
 "No, sirree, you won t," retorted his fiancee. 
 " But you can be a Baptist if you like." 
 
 What in a desert twenty miles between 
 water-holes?" asked Harry doubtfully. 
 
 !< There s a whole lot more tu it than y u would 
 figger," Drybone stated defensively. " From what 
 the Bishop of Bull Valley Stake s Second Coun 
 selor told me I should say it offered more than 
 most any religion I know. He said that any 
 time I felt my abominations risin up fer tu choke 
 me off from my crowns, tu send him word by a 
 Piute, and he d ride over and help me wrastle 
 Satan." 
 
 " But what is it that they offer? " asked Cobrita, 
 curious and cautious. 
 
 "Everything," responded Drybone, with a 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 109 
 
 strange facial contortion; " everything y u want 
 in the future life." 
 
 A puff of honeysuckle-sweetened air pulsed in 
 at a window and, with a far-away look in her eyes, 
 a slim, white figure slipped out of the room to a 
 corner of the moonlit veranda, only to encounter 
 there one surnamed Richard. Within, the voices 
 of the seekers after Truth murmured on in a con 
 fused drone, which rose to a clamor only when 
 Drybone perpetrated a fresh outrage. 
 
 " I suppose Imogene is about right," the man 
 said uncertainly, when he saw he could not well 
 withdraw. " We are probably a sinful lot. And 
 yet it does seem hard to be bad on a desert with 
 no one else around. I guess a Nevada ranch 
 would make a good summer resort for the Record 
 ing Angel he could rest here undisturbed, and 
 pick up a little confidence again. But it might be 
 too lonely for him, after all. Probably he would 
 get the loco." 
 
 "What is the loco?" the girl asked simply. 
 
 The man put his whims away and searched his 
 memory. 
 
 " It seems to come from silence or heat or 
 thirst or loneliness," he said thoughtfully. " It s 
 a kind of insanity, I suppose. Sometimes it s vio- 
 
no THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 lent, and yet at other times violence would be 
 your worst enemy. It only comes to you on the 
 desert. Young men get it from taking long 
 chances against the sun, or too much whisky. Old 
 men get it from moping over things they did once, 
 or more often didn t do. It makes you like the 
 sun and the sand and the silent places because you 
 hate everything else in the world and yourself 
 worst of all." 
 
 " What a very horrible thing," the girl re 
 sponded in a troubled voice. She saw now that 
 the great gray stretches she had often crossed in 
 the train might have another meaning than that 
 of a passing interval of dust and discomfort. 
 Even the soft-hued basin below the ranch began 
 to take on a disturbing form. Perhaps those 
 glorious crimson buttes which flamed across the 
 valley each morning at her window had a sterner 
 message to convey. As she saw the face oppo 
 site grow grave she knew that while the desert 
 had given this man of its bounty, yet he had never 
 underestimated its dangers. As he spoke, it as 
 sumed the shape of a slow, implacable enemy 
 he seemed to consider it an almost personal foe. 
 His voice dropped to a lower key. He began 
 to tell a story. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX in 
 
 " A few years ago a man with a pair of burros 
 came through here from Moab and stopped for 
 a day to rest. He was a thin, stoop-shouldered 
 man, with a brown mustache and hollow cheeks. 
 He wore gold-rimmed spectacles and coughed a 
 good deal. He looked like a locksmith, out of 
 a job. He sat there on the steps all one morn 
 ing and told me his story. 
 
 " He said he d been peddling a patent mouse 
 trap at back-doors in Kansas and Nebraska for 
 some months past, but hadn t done much. He 
 said that a man had told him about this Western 
 country and he d decided to come out here and 
 try mining. And so he d come, riding the rods 
 and the blind baggage and walking, so as to save 
 his money. 
 
 "I asked him what a vein looked like, but he 
 couldn t exactly tell. He only said he knew he d 
 know one if he saw it. 
 
 " I noticed that he kept saying that he had to 
 hitrry. * I ve got to hurry, he d say. * My wife 
 and daughter, now they ain t very well fixed. 
 It ll take more than a mouse-trap this time, the 
 way I m feeling. I ve got to find a mine. 
 
 " I tried to get him to look around over in the 
 Silver Mountain country where there s more 
 
ii2 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 water than there is here but he wouldn t do it. 
 You see, he was a city fellow. 
 
 " * I m going to try this Amargosa Desert/ he 
 said, coughing and squinting up at me with a wise 
 look. I ve been studying it out on my little map 
 and it don t look as if there was anyone there. 
 
 " * No. They came back. A few stayed I 
 said. 
 
 " Oh! Did they? 1 he said, brightening up. 
 1 Then maybe I ll meet em down there. 
 
 " Before he went I took the name of the town 
 where his family lived. Of course, I ought to 
 have done something more than that, but I didn t. 
 You see, I was foolish. I was letting his sureness 
 about things make me mad. 
 
 " Two months afterwards he came back and I 
 found him filling up at the ditch. He was tuckered 
 out. He d lost both his burros and had come it 
 alone the last week. But he said he d located his 
 claims just the same, and gave me the notices to 
 have recorded for him. They were strung out 
 along a big, red vein on the side of a blue moun 
 tain. You could see the vein for miles and miles, 
 he said. 
 
 u I took a look at his samples. They were 
 porphyry just plain, ordinary porphyry. I did- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 113 
 
 n t say much. I asked him how he lost his burros. 
 He looked at me in a queer way and then he 
 whispered that they d been taken up to Heaven 
 harnessed to a chariot of fire. 
 
 " Of course, then I ought to have understood. 
 I ought to have watched the poor fellow. I ought 
 to have taken care of him. But I didn t. In 
 stead, I sat down on that fallen cottonwood by 
 the corral and started to read his notices. You 
 see, I was mighty mean for the second time. 
 And while I was sitting there he crept up behind 
 and convinced me of it. They said he used a 
 stick of wood " 
 
 " Oh! " gasped Clarice. " Did he really try 
 to kill you? Didn t it hurt terribly?" 
 
 " Yes. It hurt," he admitted frankly. " But it 
 hurt more the next day out in the sun when 
 we were following him." 
 
 " You mean he ran away." 
 
 " Yes, ma am walked and ran. He got as 
 far as the Dry Lake that s forty miles. He did 
 n t know where he was going, or why. I guess 
 he was figuring that he had to hurry. 
 
 Holly began to pause between his sentences. He 
 puffed hard on his cigar. " We knew pretty well 
 how it would be long before we came up with him. 
 
ii4 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Along about evening we found a shirt and then 
 a pair of shoes. A mile or so farther on we picked 
 up his overalls. Perhaps we wouldn t have found 
 him even then if it hadn t been for the Lake. It 
 was nice and smooth there. We could see from 
 the marks where he lay that he d stopped to 
 dance." 
 
 Holly shook his head and puffed out his cheeks. 
 " HOH ! " he said, and threw the cigar away into 
 the darkness. "It was pretty bad." 
 
 With her dark head laid against a pillar, the 
 girl stared out in the direction of the vague, violet 
 plain. The moonlight fell whitely across her face, 
 adding soft curves to her cheek and fresh young 
 lips and glistening liquidly in her eyes. Still 
 under the spell of the sober voice she was con 
 structing the scene for herself, peopling the veiled 
 desert with strange, tragic figures. 
 
 She seemed to be down there, where he had 
 been, in the gray-green waste, where the dust- 
 whirls reeled to and fro, but only as the spectator 
 of activities in some cruel dream. As if she were 
 standing on the edge of a stage, she saw the figures 
 passing, the scenes shifting. 
 
 She was conscious of a world flooded with 
 heat which refracted on her from every angle. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 115 
 
 Hot and glaring, the red-banded buttes moved 
 into their places. Overhead, an infinite blue dome 
 crackled and twinkled. A choke of dust came up 
 in her throat, and she felt the poignant sting of 
 cactus against her feet. Like a breath from a 
 furnace a hot wind puffed up and seared her cheek. 
 Far off in the purple lap of the ranges a dry lake 
 glittered with malignant enchantment. 
 
 Across this scene came men, bronzed and fur 
 row-faced. Noiselessly stooping and searching, 
 rising again to peer from under their sheltering 
 hands at the footprints in the alkaline crust, they 
 as silently flitted away again. 
 
 And now, in their place, crawling covertly 
 through the sage brush on its hands and knees, 
 came a fearful figure. Sanity had long since de 
 parted from the eyes which burned out of the 
 blackened face but, for that matter, neither 
 was there any despair, unless animals despair. 
 Disheveled, inhuman, the man rose to his feet 
 and glared about him. His thickened tongue 
 lolled from his mouth, his eyes were wild and 
 bloodshot. His cracked lips, drawn tight against 
 the gums, were parted in a perpetual snarl. 
 
 The shimmer of the lake attracted him and he 
 stared blankly at the deception, not deigning to 
 
n6 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 shield his eyes. Then a last flicker of intelligence 
 passed through his mind. He seemed to co-ordi 
 nate his thirst with the distant prospect. He 
 threw up his arms, with a croaking shout, and 
 rushed forward. 
 
 A grotesque shape flitted across the yellow 
 floor of the lake. Smirking and posturing in 
 naked contentment, it danced in jiggling sil 
 houette against the eye of the sun. Here it spun 
 wildly and there it glided with mincing step until, 
 after a time, it tired of play and laid itself down, 
 its head on its arms to rest from dancing until 
 the morrow. 
 
 And always before her, through the long, hot 
 day, a grim-visaged man rode on horseback, a 
 crimsoned bandage about his head. 
 
 " And yet I like it," the girl said in a low voice. 
 " To me, the desert seems to suit two kinds of 
 people very little ones who like to grow smaller 
 and very big ones, who only grow bigger. I 
 don t know which I am, but I like it, anyway. 
 And I m not afraid." 
 
 She paused and turned her soft-eyed look. 
 
 "What became of the man s family?" 
 
 Holly stirred uneasily. 
 
 " The mother wrote after a while," he replied 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 117 
 
 briefly, almost curtly, when it was plain that he 
 must answer. " They were going back East to 
 some friends of theirs, she said." 
 
 " Back East!" the girl repeated in a frightened 
 whisper. " Why, isn t this a curious story ! 
 Where in the East?" 
 
 " Illinois, if I remember." He seemed averse 
 to saying more. 
 
 " But they had no means," Clarice objected, 
 and absorbed his vision with her own. A thrill 
 shot through her, tingling out to her extremities. 
 As if she were at a play, she began to see the cur 
 tain stealing up on a drama with an unsuspected 
 caste. 
 
 " Perhaps someone bought the claims," he of 
 fered vaguely, helplessly. 
 
 "Who bought the claims?" persisted the 
 frowning girl. 
 
 " Drybone, I understand," he answered 
 brazenly, and then as suddenly quailed. " But 
 perhaps some fellow loaned him the money." 
 
 " I am certain of it," the girl replied and looked 
 away. When had there been a man like this, and 
 what did his story mean? There had been a 
 time in the long ago, she remembered, when her 
 mother had somehow acquired means to pay their 
 
n8 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 debts and take them away from their Western 
 home, but was it possible that there was a con 
 nection between these two things? Her eyes 
 dropped to the heavy yellow ring on her hand 
 and she fell to turning it nervously round her 
 finger. Puzzled and upset, with the old discontent 
 over her unsatisfactory antecedents in no way 
 lessened by this dreadful possibility, she raised 
 her eyes to his and was shocked by the sudden 
 change in his face. 
 
 He was staring open-mouthed at the ring on 
 her finger, his hand going out towards hers with 
 an impulsive movement an inarticulate sound of 
 dismay in his throat. The surprise which was 
 written in every feature seemed to verge on hor 
 ror. The girl felt as if his convulsive movement 
 had been to clutch her back from some unseen 
 danger. Then the look passed and he drew 
 back into the shadow, too late, however, to pre 
 vent her reading what had passed through his 
 mind. 
 
 Clarice felt her heart grow icy cold. Just as 
 clearly as if he had taken the mate to her ring 
 from his pocket and told her whose hand had 
 worn it, she knew why that look of dismay and 
 dread had fastened itself on his face. The man 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 119 
 
 of the story told in an idle moment for her diver 
 sion, the vague-ideaed searcher for the rainbow s 
 pot of gold, the crazed figure of the dry lake, the 
 man who had crept up behind another with a 
 stick of wood, had been the one who was going 
 to make her new hopes in life secure. 
 
 There was no need to puzzle over his sudden 
 silence now. Somewhere in the story s telling 
 the puzzle had pieced itself together for him after 
 all these years, and immediately the wonderful 
 kindness that seemed to detect pain as quickly as 
 a mother, had been wrapped around her to shield 
 her from further distress. Probably he was right 
 in not telling more he was right in most things. 
 If he thought there was nothing to be gained by 
 more disclosures she would abide by his judg 
 ment. 
 
 With her mind filled with anguish, the girl 
 wondered how it all would end. And this illimi 
 table bounty, on which they all existed, and which 
 she had been trying to return as well as she might, 
 now held her the more firmly in its debt, for it 
 had been begun when she was only a child. A 
 spasm of helplessness before such undefiable 
 forces crossed her face. Despondency began to 
 clutch again at her heart. 
 
120 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 But during the short moment while the girl s 
 startled eyes enveloped his, Dick Holly s thoughts 
 were racing down another channel. Of the two 
 he was the more distressed, for he remembered 
 only too well who had worn the mate to the ring 
 glittering before him in the moonlight. The fact 
 that nothing was known about the man only made 
 matters worse. Macklin was said to carry the 
 miner s card of a Colorado " local," but none of 
 the Cripple Creekers knew him, and the Butte 
 men likewise shook their heads. He had left no 
 tangible impress on the Desert in spite of the fact 
 that he and Drew had been prospectors together, 
 for he had no friends among those coming from 
 down Searchlight way, nor from the copper mines 
 of the Salt Lake Basin. While it seemed well- 
 nigh impossible that the teamster of those many 
 years gone by could ever have become the 
 father of the sweet-eyed girl beside him, yet 
 Dick Holly could not omit it from his calcula 
 tions. 
 
 He could see, now, that his plans were going 
 to face right about. There was no time for pay 
 ing off old grudges while this girl s happiness lay 
 in the balance. Macklin would have to be got 
 out of the country and it would have to be done 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 121 
 
 quickly. Two weeks gave him little enough time 
 as it was, and when the Sheriff once took hold 
 of the case no favors would be asked or granted. 
 If Jake had the evidence, Atlas or no Atlas, 
 friends or no friends, the man who had shot 
 Danny Drew in the back would be hanged as high 
 as Haman. 
 
 Sitting there in the shadow and half-ashamed 
 to read in her pitifully strained face a belief 
 which he could not remove, he felt a wave of 
 compassion sweep over him. He managed an ap 
 proach to her along the railing. To-morrow 
 would be another day, as the Mexicans said. Time 
 enough then for the work in hand. Just now he 
 meant to cheer her up. 
 
 " About that Polly horse you mostly ride," he 
 began. " I ve been thinking lately it would feel 
 a lot better if it belonged just to you. These 
 ranch-hands sometimes teach a young horse bad 
 tricks. It would be safer if you d take her for 
 your really own." 
 
 " No, thank you," said Clarice. 
 
 "Ma am!" he ejaculated blankly. 
 
 " No, thank you! " the girl repeated. The soft 
 white throat that he could see so well in the moon 
 light began to work as if something were hard to 
 
122 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 swallow. Her full lower lip was quivering help 
 lessly. " I can t take her I can t take your pony. 
 I mean I could, but I won t! You give away 
 everything" she said hotly, with brimming eyes. 
 " You just give and give and give. And all we 
 do is live here on your money. I won t do it any 
 longer." 
 
 " Why, I didn t want to sell the little horse," 
 he said despairingly. " I just wanted to loan her 
 away for keeps where she d have good " 
 
 " Treatment," supplied Clarice, with a choke. 
 " From a cheap acrobat! " 
 
 There was no coquetry in the tones. The 
 words had been meant to cut and hurt. With a 
 complete reversal of feeling the girl was now in 
 sulting the very pride which had made her refuse 
 his gift. It was a drastic method of preventing 
 further offerings, perhaps, but not so illogical as 
 may seem. The truth was that Clarice had come 
 to feel herself at a hopeless disadvantage. 
 
 Just when or whence had come this fearful 
 thing some people called Love, but which the girl 
 thought was closer to Anguish, she did not know. 
 It had crept upon her insidiously, undermining the 
 barrier of her reserve, less by one swift assault 
 than by a multitude of approaches through dis- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 123 
 
 used fields, and now that its meaning was revealed 
 she suddenly weakened and retreated before what 
 she thought was an immensely superior force. In 
 effect, Clarice, having fallen in love, was passing 
 through the tortures of self-depreciation, not less 
 ened by the knowledge which she had gained in 
 the few moments past. 
 
 Sick with the tumult of her feelings, the girl 
 tried to think of some means of escape, but since 
 cold-blooded flight was impossible, she could only 
 keep her eyes turned away. The blood surged 
 hotly into her cheeks as the idiocy of her last 
 remark quickly came back to her. She could see 
 now that all was over. She would have none but 
 herself to blame if she lost his respect by throw 
 ing away her own. Apparently her best endeavors 
 to be sincere and womanly were to be thwarted, 
 after all, by this vice of her nature which had so 
 surprisingly blossomed forth. Then she stole a 
 look at his face and saw that he was only badly 
 puzzled. 
 
 " But I ll take care of her, myself" he was 
 saying. " Those acrobats have got their hands full 
 now. You can ride her just as hard as you like 
 don t worry about treatment. Why, I ll feed 
 Polly and water her with my own Hands. I ll 
 
i2 4 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 build a separate corral for her, too, so she won t 
 get kicked. Now will you take her? " 
 
 The girl s pulse gave a quick throb. Not only 
 had he ceased to connect her, except vaguely, with 
 the circus, but that which she had feared most, the 
 man with the stick of wood, seemed to have been 
 thrust angrily out of mind as quickly as he had come 
 in. Perhaps there would be a chance for her yet ! 
 It was hard for the redoubtable Blondellis to be 
 classed as " cheap acrobats, but there would be 
 no explanations now. Up, Eros ! Down, Mars ! 
 Pride had some rights, after all. 
 
 "Yes! Yes! I ll take Polly," she gasped, 
 still a little afraid her sin would find her out. 
 " Drybone says I can go down on the flat with 
 them to-morrow and watch them catch wild 
 horses." 
 
 " Catch one yourself," he urged. " You re a 
 born rider. You d make a good vaquero." 
 
 Her eyes kindled. She was a good rider, she 
 knew, and the spice of danger she had scented was 
 calling. But she only smiled wisely and shook 
 her sleek head. No more of the old life for 
 Clarice nor of anything that savored of it. No 
 more of taking chances. God willing, she was go 
 ing to be a lady as her mother had been. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 125 
 
 Once more the soft darkness wrapped them 
 round, and in the silence her delicious nearness 
 and the scent of honeysuckle which seemed her 
 own, worked their spell. 
 
 Once more Dick Holly forgot the years and his 
 eyes yearned and yearned at her out of his be 
 seeching face, and his hand stole nearer till it 
 covered her own. 
 
 Drawn by his power, the sweet dark eyes rose 
 at last to his, though her cheek had mantled with 
 a burning tide. So close were they that for him, 
 the whole world of sight and sound seemed to 
 fade away and leave only a perfect silence with 
 her still more perfect face and soft mouth helpless 
 before his own. 
 
 Yet it was not to be, and in another moment 
 he had controlled himself. The sound of the tele 
 phone bell in the office had come to them, and 
 before he knew it the exquisite flower of her lips 
 and the soft cheek and lovely, supple body ex 
 isted no more for him on that moon-enchanted 
 veranda than in a vanished dream. 
 
 " A telegram from Philadelphia," he heard her 
 voice repeating. " Very well, I m ready," and her 
 pencil began to move across the pad on her table. 
 
126 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Will reach Ami on the tenth with wife, son, niece, 
 and four trunks. Can you meet us? 
 
 " OSGOOD WARDER." 
 
 " Great Grief!" ejaculated the ranchman, com 
 ing into the room with distress in every feature. 
 " And we were all so happy ! " 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 " OSGOOD/ said Mrs. Warder speculatively, 
 " do you really suppose J. Gardner Paul would 
 have loaned us his private car now that youVe 
 taken his asphalt bonds back again?" 
 
 " Possibly possibly," her husband replied, 
 with the glint of an eye from under his traveling- 
 cap. " But what s the matter with existing accom 
 modations, Charlotte? Do you really think that 
 chef that J. s so chesty about would do any better 
 by us than these Afro-Pullmans? I don t know 
 how you feel about it, but / think this observation 
 platform is just about right," with which remark 
 Warder pere unbuttoned his vest and stretched out 
 a prehensile foot for a campstool. 
 
 His wife adjusted her glasses, with their pendent 
 gold chain, and peered anxiously at her husband. 
 Something akin to despair settled on her full, 
 gray face, with its double chin. Fatal evidence 
 was accumulating that Warder pere had decided 
 to like the free-and-easy West. In Denver he 
 had cut squarely across the canons of fashion in a 
 black silk shirt. In the Royal Gorge, he had per- 
 
 127 
 
128 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 sistently chummed with a brakeman. The brake- 
 man knew how high everything was, and where it 
 flowed after it left here, and the approximate ton 
 nage for which certainly useless information he 
 had been given an unnecessary quantity of cigars. 
 To make matters worse, her husband had totally 
 disappeared in Salt Lake City for several anxious 
 hours, and had finally been detected standing on 
 the curbstone shamelessly eating things out of 
 a paper bag! Later on, he was discovered 
 absorbing knowledge along the streets from tan- 
 faced persons with undignified felt hats, standing 
 with feet wide-spread and thumbs hooked in his 
 vest, saying, " Well, well ! You certainly surprise 
 
 me ! I confess I had no idea " 
 
 But the defection of the Warder family, un 
 fortunately, had not ended there, for Biddle War 
 der had disappeared into the chair-car ahead that 
 morning and refused to come out. It was not 
 quite clear to his mother as to what Biddle had 
 found there, but Amy Radnor had been approached 
 on one of the station platforms by a frank young 
 person, with an all-too-perfect coiffure, who was 
 on her way to Portlandoregon to be married at 
 once to a very rich lumberman, and did Amy 
 think that Eastern men were quite sincere? Upon 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 129 
 
 Amy s nervously expressed belief in male sincerity 
 the thankful young person had kissed her twice, 
 pressed half a sticky orange into her hand, intro 
 duced her to three perfect gentlemen in the boot- 
 and-shoe line and joyously re-entered the chair- 
 car. The boot-and-shoe men had later endeavored 
 to force a passage through to Amy s section, but 
 had been repulsed with slaughter. 
 
 " Osgood," said his wife, with a touch of 
 solemnity, " do you realize that we have not seen 
 a copy of The Ledger since we left Jenkin- 
 town?" 
 
 " Good job, too," her husband replied unfeel 
 ingly, and puffed cigar-smoke from the corner of 
 his mouth. " You read too much we all read 
 too much. You don t catch these chaps out here 
 doing it. By George!" he exclaimed enthusi 
 astically. " Isn t that a splendid sight over there? 
 See that bright red hill backed up against a pur 
 ple mountain! Sniff that air, Charlotte? A fel 
 low told me we d be up six thousand feet by 
 noon! " 
 
 Osgood Warder crossed his feet on the camp- 
 stool and settled back to solid enjoyment. The 
 feet were entirely comfortable in soft, square- 
 toed Oxfords and loose, white socks, and his cigar 
 
130 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 was the best his club could supply. The air about 
 him was redolent with an exhilarating, woody 
 scent that seemed to mingle its tonic with his 
 blood. He had not felt so blissfully juvenile in 
 years. 
 
 He was a white-haired, florid little man and 
 rather square and chunky, with a protuberance 
 immediately below the belt-line, such as might 
 have been caused by swallowing a large-sized 
 canteloupe. His eye was a reserved, almost dull, 
 blue and occasionally he had only a firm slit for 
 a mouth. Somehow, one knew that his associates 
 in business would also be stout and pinkly 
 groomed. They would be mask-faced men, 
 with difficult eyes, experts in " coalers " and the 
 necessary politics, who pushed buttons in flat- 
 topped desks and " affixed " signatures. They, 
 also, would have slits for mouths. 
 
 But with it all there was a decidedly saving sense 
 of humor in Osgood Warder, and a surfeit of 
 one kind of life, for he was now evincing an inter 
 est in how the other fellow " made it." Although 
 perfectly immune in the long run to anything but 
 the deadly certain manipulations of his own clique, 
 he was taking a chortling, boyish delight in a few 
 harmless speculations. As to his venture in Yel- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 131 
 
 low Dog stock, a very few minutes attention to 
 the ranchman s arguments had convinced him that 
 here was a winning chance, and he was now on 
 his half-amused way to see where he had put his 
 money. 
 
 " I m very glad you like the scenery, my dear," 
 his wife remarked. " Probably it reminds you of 
 something I think most things do. Does this 
 gold-mine person live all alone on his farm? " 
 
 " All alone," her husband replied. " I believe 
 he did say something about 4 Indians, but I didn t 
 pay much attention to it." 
 
 " Of course not, dear," his wife retorted trem 
 ulously. " You were thinking only about gold. 
 It will be necessary for me to think about the In 
 dians ! " 
 
 " I understand they re not bad in summer," was 
 the quizzical reply. " Better not imagine too 
 many difficulties, Charlotte. He ll probably make 
 us very comfortable." 
 
 " I fear it will be a rough and savage life," his 
 wife said despairingly. " I hope that Amy real 
 izes by this time what is expected of her." 
 
 " GREAT SCOTT ! " exclaimed Warder, with 
 a choke. " Is that why you brought her? " 
 
 "Why not?" asked Mrs. Warder stonily. 
 
132 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " Amy s a nobody and she s twenty-nine! 
 Sometimes I wish other people saw things as 
 clearly as I do. Have you any well thought out 
 plan for marrying Amy off to anyone, Osgood? " 
 
 " N-no," he confessed, and rubbed his nose. 
 " I can frankly say I have not." 
 
 " Well," said his wife, " I have." 
 
 At this juncture their niece appeared, a pretty 
 but painfully thin brunette, with intelligent dark 
 eyes and a mobile face. As she did not lack the 
 self-effacing air of the poor relation, it was hard 
 to imagine so much intelligence furnishing a very 
 heavy cross for anyone to bear. She seemed to be 
 the type of physiqueless but interesting girl 
 doomed to go through life carrying an old lady s 
 shawl, and yearned after by romantic, poor young 
 men who always looked back but never followed. 
 
 On her heels came Biddle Warder, well- 
 dressed, young, and confident; not lacking in fresh 
 good looks or in brusque determination to have 
 whatever he principally wanted in this world. 
 Biddle had been in business with his father for 
 about six months, during which time his stenog 
 rapher had ridden home regularly thrice a week 
 on the rear platform of the tube train so as not 
 to proclaim her tears. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 133 
 
 The young man brushed by his cousin rather 
 rudely and dropped into a chair by his father s 
 side. It was evident to the women, from Biddle s 
 cold, forceful air, that he was about to talk 
 " business." 
 
 " I ve just been talking to a mining man I met 
 in the car ahead," he said into the parental ear, 
 " and it looks to me as if he had a pretty 
 good thing. I told him we d lately gone into 
 mining, and finally persuaded him to tell me 
 about it. 
 
 " It seems that he s been working for years and 
 years on a machine for concentrating gold, and 
 just got it perfected last week, I think he said. 
 It s what he calls a * dry concentrator, suitable 
 for just such regions as this. He says he got 
 the idea when he saw so many Easterners with 
 money coming out here to take up these proper 
 ties and develop them the way they really ought 
 to be developed. I must say, it seems like a 
 rather costly affair. He put the price sky-high at 
 first, but I jewed him down a lot, let me state. 
 Finally, he said he d make us one of these ma 
 chines for ten thousand dollars a thousand dol 
 lars down and a thousand every thirty days " 
 
 "WHAT S THAT?" barked his father, 
 
134 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 hastily waking up at the mention of money. 
 "When will he deliver? After the first thou 
 sand or the last?" 
 
 " I don t know that I heard him say," his son 
 replied, conscious that perhaps he had missed a 
 point. 
 
 " They generally don t" Warder remarked suc 
 cinctly. " It sounds like a stand-and-deliver propo 
 sition. You stand until he wants to deliver. Just 
 how did this wonderful machine work? Did he 
 see fit to disclose its operations?" 
 
 "Oh, yes," said Diddle eagerly. "He drew 
 me a picture of it. It s certainly a very compli 
 cated thing a crushing apparatus on top and 
 motors and a lot of screens and belts and chutes. 
 He explained it to some sheep men, too, who all 
 believed in it." 
 
 "Oh! They did?" and a satirical light glit 
 tered in the elder s eye. " I thought it sounded 
 like some kind of a separator." 
 
 " That s it," his son said eagerly. " It s really 
 an electric separator. It sifts out the gold and 
 makes it stick on a belt." 
 
 " I didn t know you could attract gold," War 
 der objected doubtfully. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 135 
 
 " But he says he can," the enthusiastic Biddle 
 retorted. " He says it s merely a question of 
 magnetism." 
 
 " Now I feel sure of it," was his father s reply, 
 as he replaced his feet on the comfortable camp- 
 stool. " He will attract his gold as formerly 
 by personal magnetism. You didn t sign any 
 thing, I hope?" 
 
 " W-e-e-1-1," faltered the young man, " I 
 bought an option on his first machine for a hun 
 dred dollars." 
 
 The train now climbed over the rim of the 
 basin and dropped swiftly down into a bigger, 
 grayer desert than any that had gone before. On 
 the far-off slopes of the foothills they saw 
 white mine-dumps, or a bare-boarded bunk-house 
 marooned on a treeless mountain-side. They 
 flashed by sidings where cars of ore stood waiting, 
 and saw loads of unfamiliar machinery lying on 
 sun-bleached platforms. A flock of sheep fled 
 bleating away over the plain, and they glimpsed 
 the herders, knee-deep in the greasewood, staring 
 silently at the train, while the dogs rounded up the 
 animals. 
 
 " Gold Center, next," said someone, and they 
 searched anxiously for the metropolis. It con- 
 
136 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 sisted of some tentative streets, a water-tank, a 
 store, and two saloons. Prominent in the land 
 scape was a twenty-foot board sign, mounted on 
 two posts, "BUY A LOT IN GOLD 
 CENTER." 
 
 "How very silly," Mrs. Warder remarked 
 peevishly. "A lot of what, may I ask? And 
 there isn t any ! " 
 
 "Ami, next," the brakeman announced from 
 the car-door. " It s going to be hot, folkses. 
 This country would make Phil Sheridan think 
 Texas was a cold-storage warehouse." 
 
 The passengers arose and assembled their lug 
 gage. In the interval of waiting, Miss Radnor 
 found her aunt seated in stiff readiness on the 
 edge of her section, a look of unusual pensiveness 
 on her heavy face. 
 
 " It has seemed so very strange. I fear I shall 
 never become used to it," she was saying, half to 
 herself. 
 
 "You mean, Aunt Charlotte " 
 
 " To find so many people living so far from 
 Philadelphia," her aunt replied. 
 
 But there were stranger things yet to happen, 
 for during the long drive to the ranch Mrs. War 
 der elicited some startling information from the 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 137 
 
 man whom her short-sighted husband had care 
 lessly taken as a partner. 
 
 As they first sighted the ranch-house from the 
 desert below Mrs. Warder was heard to believe 
 that life there would prove rather dreary. Holly 
 thought of the ex-Pilkingtons and smiled. 
 
 " You see, ma am, there are more than two of 
 us now. There s my secretary, for one." 
 
 " Ah, yes. A young man to keep the books." 
 
 "Well, not quite," he confessed. " He it- 
 she s a young lady. She s very quick at figures," 
 he added, as if to ameliorate a condition that, for 
 the first time, seemed to require defense. 
 
 "Are there others?" asked Mrs. Warder in 
 a curious tone which her family recognized as her 
 "Associated Charities voice." 
 
 "Yes," he admitted. "There s the cook. 
 She s a lady, too." 
 
 Mrs. Warder s eyelids rose and fell over a swift 
 glance at her niece. The ranchman saw the look 
 and grew troubled. 
 
 " There s still another lady," he said doggedly. 
 " I don t know her last name, but she has snakes." 
 He began to feel distressed and an unstifled yelp 
 of laughter from Biddle didn t help matters. 
 
 " Are these all? " asked Mrs. Warder so coolly 
 
138 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 that her husband waggled his hand at her, be 
 hind his back. 
 
 Holly saw his chance and gulped down his 
 wrath. 
 
 " No, ma am," he answered. " There are also 
 two Italians who are Irishmen." 
 
 Mrs. Warder s lip drooped, then rose as if to 
 form the word "SIR!" 
 
 " No more, I hope," laughed Warder pere, 
 faintly perplexed but genial. " My cigars won t 
 hold out." 
 
 The ranchman s smile was slow but reassuring. 
 
 " We re safe," he said. " The Missing Link 
 doesn t smoke." 
 
 When, some time later, Mrs. Warder paused 
 at the door of the room to which she had been 
 guided, she found Amy Radnor close behind her, 
 and a look from the older woman was enough to 
 bring the girl into the room. 
 
 " Lock the door securely, Amy," said her aunt, 
 feeling for her hatpins and looking about for a 
 mirror. " I have something to say to you." 
 
 Amy scrutinized the door. u There isn t any 
 lock," she said. 
 
 " Then I shall say it, anyway," her aunt an 
 nounced. " Please help me off with my boots, and 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 139 
 
 look in the inside, flap-pocket of the black Steiger- 
 walt hand-bag and see if you can find the key to 
 my trunk. I m sure I can t conceive how the 
 trunk got up here. Did you see any of the men 
 bringing it up? " 
 
 " I I think it was carried up by a woman" 
 Amy faltered, hesitating on her knees before two 
 fat, dusty boots. " I thought I saw " 
 
 "Most improbable," her aunt said finally. 
 " Now, this is what I was saying when you inter 
 rupted me. It s plain to be seen that your uncle 
 has thoughtlessly set us down in the very midst 
 of one of these strange Western sects that we ve 
 read so much about. Nobody, Amy nobody 
 knows who or what these strange women may be. 
 They may be Mormons. They may be Raja 
 Yogas. They may even be those queer Yama 
 Yama people that Biddle knows about. But at 
 any rate, we must be on our guard and we must 
 hold ourselves aloof! " 
 
 " But won t that be rather difficult? " her niece 
 objected timidly, as she thought of the secretary s 
 handclasp and her pleasant eyes. " Shall I also 
 hold myself aloof from Mr. Holly?" 
 
 " By no means, dear," her aunt replied. 4< In 
 deed, I think you might very profitably draw him 
 
140 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 out a little as to his past life. He is evidently a 
 bizarre, though simple-minded character. Please 
 don t misunderstand me, Amy. It is only that at 
 my time of life I do not feel equal to bandying 
 religious argument with the cook, or being taught 
 Theosophy by a Missing Link." 
 
 While it is not improbable that Amy long re 
 membered her relative s remarks, issued in the 
 midst of her alarms, yet an amused gleam shone in 
 her eyes as she proceeded towards her own room. 
 A certain secretiveness in humor seemed to be 
 Amy s major fault. 
 
 " You won t catch me aloofing myself from 
 anyone out here in the West," said Amy to herself. 
 u I ve been hidden away in a little red-brick house 
 long enough as it is. I d give a whole lot to 
 have that snake girl s tan on my face." 
 
 On the threshold she hesitated uncertainly, but 
 only for a moment. The three strange women 
 were waiting for her, side by side on her bed. As 
 she entered the Secretary-Lady came gracefully 
 forward and helped her with her veil; the Snake- 
 Lady tendered cologne; the Cook-Lady unstrapped 
 her baggage. A sweet, swift smile from Amy and 
 their tongues were unleashed. With a sympa 
 thetic, thoroughly feminine rush, they surrounded 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 141 
 
 her. For the first time in years poor Amy Radnor 
 found herself the dazed center of attraction, with 
 women s soft arms around her and women s voices 
 babbling lovable nonsense in her ears. 
 
 u And NOW!" said Imogene, with a pent-up 
 squeal of joy. " Now let s see what this Amy- 
 girl s got in her trunk ! " 
 
 As may be inferred, it was not without certain 
 misgivings that Mrs. Warder entered the dining- 
 room at the call of the triangle. Finding, how 
 ever, that everyone already knew everyone else, 
 she accepted the introductions with lessened 
 timidity. Now that there was opportunity to ob 
 serve, it seemed futile to employ a Fabian policy 
 against Cobrita s doll-like face and figure. In 
 any event, she saw that her husband s concurrence 
 could hardly be relied on, for he had come on to 
 a jovial footing with everyone, and was rapidly 
 nearing the back-slapping stage. At her elbow, 
 Amy Radnor, unmindful of instructions, skir 
 mished boldly with the gaunt Mr. Peters. Turning 
 to Biddle as a forlorn hope, she found him frankly 
 interested in the secretary. Mrs. Warder adjusted 
 her glasses and considered the young person. 
 
 Miss Belvawney, at the head of the table, was 
 pouring tea. Even under the appalling scrutiny 
 
142 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Miss Belvawney was quite self-possessed, for the 
 tinge of color in her creamy cheek sprang less 
 from excitement than from perfect happiness. 
 Fresh and dainty in a starched white waist, she 
 was sitting behind her teacups as supple-wristed 
 and gracious as if she had done naught else in all 
 her fair young life but assist at functions. It 
 was a far cry from hanging precariously in mid 
 air by one s toes to dropping sugar into a million 
 aire s teacup and asking sweetly, " Two lumps, 
 or three? And do you take cream?" At least, 
 so thought the Belvawney person, and so thrilled 
 with the delightfulness of her position that her 
 eyes took on their occasional star-like appearance, 
 thus innocently misleading the interested Biddle. 
 
 " Alas! It is as I feared," thought his mother. 
 " She is a beautiful woman." 
 
 At that moment the seat opposite Mrs. Warder, 
 which until now had remained vacant, was sud 
 denly filled. " Listen to me, people," said the new 
 arrival. " No more beef-a-la-mode till cool 
 weather in October. It gets me all het up." 
 
 Turning to Mrs. Warder, the strange individual 
 made a preliminary offering. " I hope you had a 
 nice ride," she said. 
 
 "Rahther dusty, I m afraid," replied Mrs. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 143 
 
 Warder in a discouraging tone, looking over the 
 tops of her glasses. " Is this the cook?" 
 
 " Not not the regular one," stammered Imo- 
 gene. 
 
 " No," smiled Mrs. Warder. u Not a regular 
 cook." 
 
 " Oh, but I am," insisted Imogene, reddening. 
 " I m only sort of helping out " 
 
 " I understand. Merely an assistant. But you 
 do very well. I feel sure you will learn in time. 
 The canned things make it so much easier. What 
 is your name, Cook? I feel as if I ought to know 
 everyone s name, here." 
 
 " Imogene," responded the Strong Woman, 
 pallid with wrath. 
 
 " What a lovely name what a beautiful name, 
 in fact. Surely your last name is as well chosen." 
 
 " It s it s BOGGS ! " exploded Imogene, and 
 rising from her chair with a quivering lip, she 
 rushed back to the kitchen. 
 
 " Rather precipitate," Mrs. Warder murmured 
 vaguely to Amy, who, besides Drybone, was the 
 only one who had overheard. 
 
 " Rather rude," answered Amy, with similar 
 vagueness, and smiled blandly on the silent Mr. 
 Peters. 
 
144 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 The sound of oven doors slammed shut came 
 from the kitchen, and the strange woman appeared 
 in the doorway. Although she held her arms 
 valiantly akimbo, two hot tears hopped out of her 
 eyes and rolled down her plump cheeks. 
 
 " Dessert s coming up," she announced tremu 
 lously. " M-m-make your bets with the Wild 
 Man. Slat Pie or Spotted Pup ! " 
 
 It cannot be said that all of the company were 
 fully at their ease for the next few minutes. 
 Vaguely, but none the less uncomfortably, Mr. 
 Warder, for one, felt a sudden drop in the social 
 temperature, and he promptly shot a quick look 
 at his wife s gray face. 
 
 " Charlotte s been messing things up again," he 
 guessed shrewdly. " But these people won t take 
 things in our whipped-dog Eastern way. She d 
 better look out for herself." 
 
 "What s up?" he asked with involuntary 
 amusement, as he discerned a movement of the 
 company from the dinner-table to the corral. 
 
 Cobrita turned her saucer-like eyes of blue. 
 
 " Wild Man s going to practice Pretty Percy," 
 she said informingly, and hastened after Dry- 
 bone, who, in some subtle way, seemed to be 
 maneuvering Mrs. Warder into the expedition. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 145 
 
 Warder followed, nibbling on a cigar and won 
 dering what the foreman had in hand. Presently 
 he stopped and listened. 
 
 "He ain t much," he heard Drybone remarking 
 scornfully to Mrs. Warder as they stood inspect 
 ing the elephant through the bars of the corral. 
 " Now that I kin read his mind, I kin see he only 
 knows two English words, * Hay and Sleep/ 
 And yet he figures he s the only one in his class. 
 But there was a sure-enough ellefunt out yere 
 a while back the Gentry-Macdonald ellefunt. 
 Y uVe heard of it?" he asked pensively of 
 the lady, and feigned indifference against the 
 fence. 
 
 " I am not conscious of ever having been in 
 formed " 
 
 " It was a queer animile," Drybone mused remi- 
 niscently. " It had no father and no mother." 
 
 " Pardon me," interposed Mrs. Warder, a lit 
 tle too directly. " Let me fully understand you. 
 Do you say it had no mother?" 
 
 "No," he said sadly, and shook his head. 
 " No mother." 
 
 " No mother at all? " pursued the lady reck 
 lessly, at which her husband uttered a faint chok 
 ing sound. 
 
146 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " No," answered Drybone kindly. " Not even 
 the teeniest bit. Y u see, it was a wild one! And 
 it only lived part of one day. 
 
 " It was first found down on the Vegas Desert 
 by a felluh named Bill Gentry. He found it the 
 same day that Old Man Pickett s mules ran away 
 while he was out prospecting at the foot of 
 Charleston Peak. The old man had been wearing 
 moccasins the day before and it had rained, so he 
 hung em up at night tu dry. In the middle of 
 the night a coyote up on the range caught scent 
 of em and came down and ate em up, hide and 
 hair. When sun-up came the old man found he 
 had no footgear. 
 
 " * Prospecting merely in German socks might 
 not be lucky, the old man says. * I fear and be 
 lieve I must go tu Las Vegas for a set of shoes, 
 and he goes tu ketch up his mules. 
 
 " But these yere mules had decided during the 
 night that they didn t approve of the country, so 
 while he was hitching up they hee-hawed and ran 
 away out on the desert. 
 
 " My dear me! 9 says the old man, after 
 he s got the Recording Angel all tired out. No 
 Stock and no footgear! Whatever shall I do? 
 I can t get one without the other and I haven t 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 147 
 
 got either. Whatever whatever oh hum 
 hum 
 
 " Just then his eye falls on the canvas nose-bags 
 those ornery mules had used tu eat out of. Right 
 away he sticks a foot into one of em. It was 
 sloshy but soothing. He puts on the other, hists 
 up the neck-ropes and ties em round his waist, 
 tries em out on a barrel cactus and a rock, and 
 goes clumping off through the brush after his 
 mules. 
 
 " Now, it happened that Bill Gentry and 
 Scotty Macdonald were chloriding a little claim 
 up on the * bench about this time, and Bill hap 
 pened tu be out on the flat with his gun. After 
 a while he comes tu a piece of soft borax flat and 
 some very amazing tracks. 
 
 " He followed quite a ways. They made him 
 goggle-eyed. 
 
 " My, my, Bill! he says tu hisself. What 
 do y u reckon it is? It s plenty big enough for 
 a piano, but a man wouldn t figure much on that, 
 and yet it ain t a felluh walking on his head. I 
 reckon I could make marks like those with the 
 butt-end of a churn but, why should I? 
 
 " With that he takes a chew and a long think 
 and says: 
 
i 4 8 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " That measly thing s front is just exactly like 
 its tail. It don t look tu me like a square deal. 
 How would a felluh know where tu shoot? And 
 with that he turns around and runs all the way 
 back tu camp. He begins yelling when he was 
 a pretty long ways off. 
 
 " Hello-o-o, Scotty! 9 he yells. Y u come 
 right out yere with a gun and all the cartridges 
 y u got. THERE S A TERRIBUL WILD 
 ELLEFUNT DOWN YERE ON THE 
 FLAT! 
 
 " Y u go tu the devil, says Scotty, sticking his 
 old bald head out of the cabin door. * I m car 
 pentering my beard. I just hate ellefunts on 
 shaving days. 
 
 " I m telling y u, yells Bill. 
 
 " I m telling y u, hollers Scotty. There 
 hasn t been an ellefunt north of the Ryer Grande 
 for years and years? 
 
 " It s got tracks as big as your hat, yells 
 Bill. I followed em for worse than a mile. 
 
 " How many toes did it have ? says Scotty. 
 
 " Hasn t got any toes, yells Bill, running 
 around in circles and waving his arms. It s a 
 young one/ 
 
 " When Scotty heard that he got all het up. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 149 
 
 He grabbed his gun in one hand and the shaving- 
 brush in the other and away he went. They trailed 
 quite a ways. When they stops tu rest Scotty looks 
 around pretty cautious, and says: 
 
 " Bill, the last time y u saw an ellefunt what 
 would y u allow he mostly looked like ? Of course, 
 I know, Bill if it comes right down tu that 
 but I never was bigoty about these things. 
 
 " * Scotty, says Bill, * it s hardly fair for me tu 
 say. Y u know, Scotty, what this yere American 
 language of ours kin say. Y u know what words 
 kin do, and what they just natch ly can t do, 
 what there ain t any sense in their trying tu do, 
 and I m telling y u, Scotty, there ain t any words 
 kin describe an animile like that ! 
 
 " * Gosh! says Scotty, letting it slip right out. 
 
 " * Yessir, says Bill. l If I knowed any kind 
 of a noise that would make y u think right away 
 of an ellefunt I d make it, Scotty bet on that. 
 
 " About what would y u call the formation? 
 asks Scotty. 
 
 " Well, says Bill, * someways it reminds folks 
 of a coyote that s growed up tu resemble a ter 
 rible fierce hawg. 
 
 U4 A-6h! says Scotty. About how big? 
 
 44 Y u see, that was a natural question for this 
 
150 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 yere Scotty man. He had a fearful disposi 
 tion. 
 
 " ( Well, says Bill, looking around for those 
 little old tracks again so s he could quit instructin 
 Scotty, * there s little ones, of course, and big 
 ones, and some that s sort of poor and runty 
 and religious. There s others, too, that just keeps 
 on a-growing. It s never been rightly knowed if 
 they ever do stop. 
 
 " Scotty didn t say much. The end of the shav 
 ing-brush was spinning around in his mouth, and 
 his eyes stuck out like ears on a potato. He was 
 making ellefunts tu hiss elf in his mind. 
 
 " * Be a good fellow, Bill, says he. * Gimme a 
 line on the front section. 
 
 " Scotty, says Bill, mighty pleasant, * take it 
 from me. This is a high-grade animile. Auto- 
 mologically speaking, the front legs is set up 
 ve-e-ry, very close tu the shoulders. In between 
 these two big, strong shoulders I m telling about, 
 comes the head and eyes and teeth when, of 
 course, they ain t stretched way up looking round 
 through the trees. 
 
 " THE TEETH! hollers Scotty. 
 
 " * Yessir, says Bill. And the body comes 
 right along behind. The hind legs, they have tu 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 151 
 
 hit up a good gait and keep up the very best 
 they can. 
 
 " S-s-s-say, says Scotty, and he goes tu pulling 
 at Bill s sleeve. Say, Bill, kin they run? 9 
 
 " Can they run? 9 says Bill. Can they 
 Say ! Don t y u ever ask me such a foolish ques 
 tion again. 
 
 " But Scotty didn t care. He was making new 
 ellefunts tu hisself in his mind and more of em 
 and wusser ones. 
 
 " I do wish, complains Bill, that y u would 
 n t make so much noise while we re trailing these 
 wild ellefunts. There you ve gone and scared up 
 a jack-rabbit. Now, he ll go, like as not, and tell 
 the ellefunt we re a-coming. Then, where do 
 you suppose we d be? 
 
 " Well, I dunno, says Scotty. c I ve been con- 
 siderin that. I dunno just where we would be, 
 Bill. 1 
 
 " Pretty soon Scotty sits down on a rock. He 
 was pretty mournful and sad. Says he: 
 
 " Were y u ever about tu figure that mebbe 
 we could trap him, some way? 
 
 " With that Bill steps off a little, and looks at 
 him sideways, and gives a laugh. 
 
 " It was a mean laugh. Scotty told me about 
 
152 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 it. It was one of those laughs that make y u feel 
 as if y u hadn t ever been any good at all in the 
 world not tu nobody not even a dawg. It 
 would make y u realize right then and there that 
 y u couldn t stop drinking even if y u wanted tu. 
 It would come over y u that all along y u had been 
 just a big, fat thing, with a silly smile, and shiny, 
 red ears. 
 
 " While Scotty was sitting there, thinking how 
 horrible and true it all was, Bill says: 
 
 " Scotty! I tell y u wot! We haven t saw 
 any new tracks lately and I ve about made up my 
 mind that he s hiding out somewheres. What 
 we ve got tu do now is tu distract him. I guess 
 you d better come out yere, Scotty, and lie down 
 on your back. 
 
 " Scotty inspects the lay of the ground and the 
 sun. They was not good tu Scotty. 
 
 " What for? says Scotty. 
 
 " Now, never y u mind, coaxes Bill. This 
 will be all right, reely, trooly it will. Y u see, 
 Scotty I ll take off my neck-rope, and tie it round 
 your feet. Then y u lie still on your back, with 
 your feet curled up in the air 
 
 " Like a sick lizard, says Scotty. 
 
 " And wave em back and forth and side- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 153 
 
 ways, says Bill. * Now, all the time I ll be hiding 
 behind some big rock with my gun, and when he 
 comes a-galloping out, mad as a hornet, looking 
 around tu see what the trouble is I ll get him/ he 
 says. 
 
 " HmmmnV says Scotty. S posing y u don t 
 get him? 
 
 " * But they allers do it this way in Africker, 
 says Bill. Do y u reckon y u know more than an 
 Africker, Scotty? 
 
 * I believe I d just as soon not says Scotty. 
 
 "After that Bill got mad. Here I am, said 
 he, * a-scheming and a-planning and a-working my 
 poor brain trying some way tu capture this dan 
 gerous ellefunt, and make your everlasting fortune. 
 And there y u sit, a-measling round on a rock and 
 raising these little pee-wee objections. 
 
 " My liver is bad, says Scotty. It hasn t 
 hurt me so in I don t know when. I don t feel as 
 if I was doing right by my family in persooin 
 these wild ellefunts, anyway. I bet your wife 
 wouldn t take much stock in it. It s too harrow 
 ing. Now, y u know I allers stand by y u, Bill. 
 Who was it got Smoky Overton s wife s hus 
 band dead drunk down tu Caliente last Christmas 
 so s y u could get out of town? Who was it took 
 
154 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 all your money away from y u that night down tu 
 Tucson, so s y u couldn t play it away on the 
 wheel? Who was it sold y u a half interest in this 
 yere valible mine we ve got? Y u answer me 
 them three things, Bill Gentry. Then I ll tell y u 
 how I d feel if I was lying out there on the sand 
 all mashed out flatter than a hot cake. 
 
 " Now, what this Scotty man was saying was 
 mostly true, and Bill began tu feel bad about ask 
 ing so much of Scotty s liver. He was feeling 
 sorry about those days in Arizona, too, when all of 
 a sudden he remembered that the money Scotty 
 had blasted out of his jeans down at Tucson he 
 hadn t ever given back! Right away he began tu 
 feel worse. As a matter of fact, he was crawling 
 up behind Scotty on his hands and knees tu inter 
 view him p intedly on the subject when Scotty 
 jumped up and let out a yell. Are those the 
 tracks? he hollers. 
 
 " Sure enough, there they were; behind a grease- 
 wood, and around a mesquite, and out on the flat; 
 as big as soup-bowls and as deep as a stove-pipe. 
 On the edge of a sand gully they stopped. The 
 ellefunt had got his feet crossed and rolled down. 
 Then he had thrashed around. It was a sweet 
 sight. Just then, around the base of the hill 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 155 
 
 through the brush, comes a noise like a flock of 
 stampeded yearlings. The rocks went tu falling 
 and the dirt went tu sliding. Something comes 
 scrambling along with an unnatural number of 
 heads and ears. It was breathing like a rusty pump 
 in the night. 
 
 " By the Great Divide/ yells Scotty. It s got 
 eight legs ! and he shakes his gun, and runs all the 
 way back tu camp. 
 
 " Bill saw he d be awful hard tu catch but he 
 did it. He didn t linger any as he went by, either. 
 Only yelled over his shoulder : 
 
 " Don t stay long, Scotty! " 
 
 At this point in his narrative Mr. Peters sud 
 denly paused. With a hasty clutch behind him, 
 he descended agilely from the fence-rail on which 
 he had been mounted. Safe on the ground again 
 he glared suspiciously at the elephant, who, long 
 since discarded by the Wild Man, was to all 
 appearances rocking itself to sleep. 
 
 " And that s what I said in the beginning," said 
 Drybone. " He ain t much. He s a real one. I 
 only wish I could have seen Scotty s." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 " IF there s one thing I like better than another 
 about this Western country it s the way you fellows 
 look at life," Warder said to Holly next morning 
 over their after-breakfast cigars. " While, in a 
 sense, you may be fatalists, yet it strikes me yours 
 is the proper kind of fatalism. If your luck does 
 n t come right now, nothing can prevent its com 
 ing next time. It might be termed bulldozing the 
 future, eh?" 
 
 " If you ll always keep going two feet farther 
 you ll surely find the pay-shoot," the ranchman an 
 swered with a smile. 
 
 " That s the spirit," Warder exclaimed, sitting 
 up in his chair. " That s what I like. And you re 
 fighting with old Dame Nature all the time not 
 with human nature. I guess I can feel a little 
 chesty when I arrange a car shortage for the other 
 fellow, but to my mind this gold-mining business 
 is something essentially er er, why, damn it all 
 it s nobler! I tell you frankly, I m glad to be in 
 it, although I ll confess I don t know beans about 
 
 it yet." 
 
 156 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 157 
 
 "Yes," he continued, " I was tickled to death to 
 get away from it all back East and play with 
 something new. The old game is pretty sordid 
 after you know the ropes. And it was getting to 
 be too much the style in my crowd to put over 
 something big. Of course, if a dollar smiles at 
 me I take it, but when the widows and orphans 
 began writing to the ten-cent magazines I welched. 
 Said I, * Gentlemen, there s a theory abroad in 
 these regenerate days that a man with more than 
 a million is little better than a crazy collector of 
 old coins, and while I don t entirely subscribe Fin 
 going to make Caesar s wife look like a Broadway 
 flirt. You see, I wanted to get into something 
 new and clean. Buying another man s clerks or 
 leaving a bunch of bills on a certain table in a cer 
 tain room was something like our coal shipments 
 used to be there were * drawbacks. And so I 
 thought I d try this mining game. Now that I m 
 in it I like it. I can see it s going to be just a 
 good, long rest no mental excitement, no rows, 
 no shenanigan just pure, unadulterated rest. 
 You simply find the gold, or you don t. You 
 sell your article at any time of year, at a fixed 
 price, in a market that s never glutted and has no 
 competition. No trouble, no lawsuits, nothing 
 
158 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 underhanded there, you bet. If that isn t a satisfac 
 tory snare for the sunny simoleon I want to 
 know it. But now that we re on the subject, sup 
 pose you tell how things stand to date at the 
 
 mines." 
 
 With a few words and an illuminating gesture 
 or two the story of the Yellow Dog was put clearly 
 before him. 
 
 " So that s where all this talk of a shutdown 
 comes from," Warder said shrewdly. " I see now 
 why you re still staying here at the ranch. I sus 
 pected all along that you d started the reports I 
 heard in Salt Lake, but I wanted to let you get at 
 it your own way. But let me get this Atlas situa 
 tion clear in my mind. What is it this gentleman 
 claims?" and he listened carefully while Holly, 
 with a few mental reservations, indicated the pos 
 sible course of events. At the word " injunction " 
 Warder s gradually accumulating wrath came to a 
 head. 
 
 " So he will sue and he won t sell out," he 
 snapped angrily. " Well, if that s the state of the 
 case we ll get in motion. I must confess I didn t 
 exactly look for such things in this business," he 
 said with comic dismay, " but if that fellow or any 
 pinheaded bunch of ginks he sells out to think they 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 159 
 
 can put anything over on us, we ll unmuzzle a 
 bag of tricks that ll make em see colored lights." 
 Warder stopped and grinned sheepishly at Holly, 
 then burst into uproarious laughter. " I guess 
 that clean business I was gassing about is always 
 in the next county." 
 
 The ranchman took a blue print from his pocket 
 and pointed with his cigar. 
 
 " The day after we * abandoned the tunnel on 
 the seven hundred we opened her up again else 
 where," he said. " We ran a cross-cut into the foot- 
 wall here at the end of the drift and sunk a winze 
 till we got below the fractured zone. Then we 
 drifted back " 
 
 "Was it there?" 
 
 " It was and better than ever. But we didn t 
 stop with that. We did a little trespassing. We 
 went on into Atlas ground and proved conclusively 
 that Atlas is a separate vein " 
 
 " Bully for you! " shouted Warder. 
 
 "And while we were proving it we did some 
 measuring and sampling. That young engineer 
 you sent out here has the figures for it in his note 
 book. Of course, he s young and inclined to ex 
 aggerate, but " 
 
 " The Atlas has got to belong to us" the East- 
 
160 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 erner finished instantly. " Now you re talking 
 business. Now I begin to see where / come in. 
 Just let me get at that fellow after we ve shed a 
 few salt tears over the horrible state of the mine 
 and let s see what / can do. SAY ! but we ll make 
 a great pair ! I wish I d come out here sooner," 
 chortled the seeker after clean business. u I hate 
 to give you all the credit for this. What do you 
 really think the Atlas is worth to us? " 
 
 " Well," said Holly with a grim chuckle, " if 
 you and I get hold of the Atlas we ll both need 
 guardians. It won t be safe to have so much 
 money." 
 
 U HANG THE MONEY!" roared Warder. 
 "What /want is a FIGHT!" 
 
 Biddle Warder, in riding clothes, now joined 
 them, and it was soon arranged that the three 
 should leave for the mines the next morning at 
 daybreak. 
 
 Biddle was feeling very fit this morning. Either 
 the altitude, or despised sleep, had repaired the 
 joyous ravages of the Yama Yamas and he felt 
 ready to be amused. In the past this had never 
 been difficult, for, to verge on the descriptive, Bid- 
 die was a very well-favored boy. His blue eye 
 was a very blue blue and his blond hair, close 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 161 
 
 cropped on the sides, owned a shining ripple on 
 top. His nose and his legs were straight, two ex 
 cellent things in man, and while he was presumably 
 cleanly tubbed he had, in any event, the florid 
 faculty of always seeming so which, no doubt, is 
 the greater advantage. Whenever he laughed, 
 which he did in a naively ingratiating way, he 
 added a mouthful of strong, white teeth to his 
 other good points. It being that Biddle could 
 warble a little song completely mystify you with 
 a pack of cards or faithfully reproduce a lion in 
 pursuit of a gazelle if provided with a piano it 
 will be seen that he was not far removed from 
 that pleasantly disrespectful young man who 
 makes attractive the front row of our college glee 
 club, tells us how to run our business over our 
 cigar, and eventually marries our daughter. 
 
 Biddle was decidedly interested in Clarice. She 
 was much too handsome a young woman to be 
 without a history, he thought, although " past " 
 was the word in mind, and he warmed to the pros 
 pect of a flirtation. But Miss Belvawney was ex 
 ceedingly preoccupied this morning and Biddle felt 
 disappointed, after the telegram to Wiley had been 
 sent, that she did not respond. He felt, further 
 more, as if an impression of himself were crys- 
 
1 62 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 tallizing in the girl s mind. Biddle thought her 
 excessively cautious. 
 
 " It s too bad you re not going to the mine with 
 us," said he. " I d like to take you down 
 
 a mine." 
 
 ; What is it like?" asked Clarice. 
 
 " Oh, you just go down and stumble around 
 and bump your head on the gold. It s nice and 
 dark down there," he murmured. 
 
 " Hmmm," said Clarice, as she took up her 
 work. " I don t like the dark." 
 
 * You d have to wear men s clothes," he con 
 tinued. "You d look very well in them, I think." 
 
 The girl began to frown. How much did this 
 young man know about her? 
 
 Biddle saw he was making a poor start, and the 
 appearance of the genial Drybone, wandering aim 
 lessly about in the front yard, was made the occa 
 sion of a quick shift. 
 
 " What a funny old sketch," he said. " You 
 must get a lot of fun out of him." 
 
 " We re all * sketches, the girl answered 
 evenly, her lips in a thoughtful pout. Then her 
 brows relaxed as she saw the foreman mount the 
 steps and doff his hat to Mrs. Warder on the 
 porch. She suspected, from Mr. Peters strangely 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 163 
 
 roving eye, that he was about to perpetrate some 
 thing. 
 
 " I m right glad you re interested in poetry, 
 ma am," the foreman said with a faint cough, as 
 he took a chair beside Mrs. Warder and laid his 
 hat on the floor between them. " Good poetry 
 critics are fairly scarce in these parts it discour 
 ages a man all up. There was an editor over in 
 Esmeralda County once that used to criticise my 
 poetry for me, but when I went over there tu 
 see him about a criticism he d written on some 
 thing of mine, he was dead died the day before," 
 said Drybone. 
 
 " Mastoiditis," said Mrs. Warder. " Everyone 
 has it nowadays." 
 
 "Oh, no," said Drybone. "Private killing. 
 Y u see, another poet got there a day ahead of 
 me. 
 
 " But, now, about this little thing that I dashed 
 off last night, of course, the words ain t much, 
 the idee is what I m mainly sot on." 
 
 " Yes," the lady agreed thoughtfully. " Ideas 
 are everything. Without them even the very long 
 est poem would eh would eh " 
 
 1 That s me ! " said Drybone happily, coming 
 to her rescue. " And so I took a big one ! " 
 
1 64 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 "Love, of course?" smiled the Philadelphia!!. 
 
 " No," replied the foreman decisively, while his 
 eye rolled wildly. " REVENGE ! " 
 
 He took a sheet of paper from his pocket and 
 cleared his throat. " This first part is just ordi 
 nary description y u don t get the * Revenge till 
 it nearly stops. This yere is the first line: 
 
 " O-h-h-h-h-h-h ! Horrid Rat ! " 
 
 " Mercy!" exclaimed the lady, with a faint 
 scream. "A horrid what?" 
 
 "RAT!" replied the foreman with surprise. 
 " What s the matter, ma am ? Ain t rats used much 
 in poems back East? This rat was a mean one, so 
 I just had to. It s all in the idee you ll see. 
 
 " O-h-h-h-h-h-h-h ! Horrid Rat ! 
 
 Oh, dark and dredful beest! 
 
 Beset with hare, and sin, and midnight greed! 
 
 How very curiyus thy eye, 
 
 How unfathomobul thy way! 
 
 Down in the cellurs mold, 
 
 Thou hast thy den. 
 
 The brite day s sun 
 
 Holds out no shining loor. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 165 
 
 / wouldn t be a rat fer any thing! 
 
 (Fer kids tu throw a stone 
 
 And wimen holler) 
 
 And yet, pore thing, 
 
 With all thy faults thou only stole 
 
 Tu fill thy stummick! 
 
 And many a man has did a wusser thing! 
 
 But, say! it cleen beets me, 
 
 How yu kin naw 
 
 Through boards and not get belly-akes! 
 
 Oh, critter of perfidyus nite! 
 
 Oh, denizen of darker worlds than this! 
 
 If I wuz y u I d feel so ding dang bad 
 
 I d just lay down and die I 
 
 But y u wuz ketched, all rite, 
 With all your arts feline, 
 To make example to your kind. 
 There aint no rat kin steel my socks 
 And not get ketched sometime!" 
 
 Drybone paused and looked hopefully over his 
 spectacles. 
 
 "How do you feel about it?" he asked 
 anxiously. 
 
 " I feel rather upset," the Philadelphian said 
 
1 66 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 looking as if she were about two days out on a 
 stormy passage. " It must be something I ve 
 eaten. I think I ll go inside." 
 
 " I could make them all 4 cats, if y u like," 
 Drybone called after her, as she disappeared, and 
 Biddle, with a reddened face, went to meet her. 
 " It s just the idee, y u know." 
 
 With Biddle disposed of, Clarice sped away in 
 search of the ranchman. Her acquaintance with 
 Buckner in Moab had been advanced to the stage 
 where the storekeeper was growing loquacious and 
 the girl was on edge for a clue. What she did not 
 understand, however, was Holly s increasing reti 
 cence. She knew that he was constantly receiv 
 ing reports of some nature as to Macklin, for there 
 were letters which he forgot to give her to file 
 and there were low-voiced men who came and 
 talked with him down by the corral, ate a silent 
 meal, and rode away again. Something was on 
 foot and she wondered why his previous frankness 
 had been withdrawn. Searching about the out 
 skirts of the ranch, she found him, rather to her 
 astonishment, boyishly fishing leaves out of an 
 irrigating ditch with a stick. He colored a little 
 when discovered, for the stick was obviously in 
 adequate. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 167 
 
 To tell the truth, Dick Holly was sadly per 
 plexed. His scouts brought him nothing tangible 
 as to the cause of Drew s death, while Macklin s 
 history, as so far reported, showed only that he 
 had once had a wife, like many another man, and 
 had spent much of his time outside of mining 
 camps. The full weight of what this might mean 
 to the girl was troubling him, and the more he 
 thought of it the more determined he was to keep 
 it from her. 
 
 " I ve wanted to talk to you about Buckner," the 
 girl began, with a note in her voice that chided 
 him for not trusting her completely. 
 
 "Well," said Holly, with a grave look, "I 
 guess that matter will be settled up soon. We re 
 going over there to-morrow." 
 
 " You mean that you have proof that Macklin 
 really is the murderer?" asked she whom Fate 
 was fast making Macklin s daughter. 
 
 Proof is a mighty big word," the man an 
 swered, and smiled up at her as best he could. 
 " Sit down here and fish with me for a while, and 
 we ll see how much we know." 
 
 " We have to go back three years," he said, 
 choosing his words carefully. " We find that Drew 
 left Moab with his outfit to go north through 
 
1 68 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Pahranegat Valley into Idaho. He had his assess 
 ment work done on the Atlas and was free for a 
 year. We hadn t started up the Yellow Dog at 
 that time and so, of course, there wasn t any boom. 
 So this man Drew pulls his freight, and he goes 
 by the way of the Devil s Playground to get into 
 the Pahranegat and save time. Somewhere along 
 there he meets Macklin. Now, we ll say that this 
 Macklin man knows that Atlas is good ground 
 and makes him an offer for the mine. Suppose, 
 again, that Drew is short of money. Suppose that 
 he s growing discouraged with no buyers in sight 
 and only a little pay-ore and no boom coming 
 his way. Well, then he sells out to Macklin 
 for two hundred dollars. So far, so good. And 
 now we have to figure another element into the 
 game that people don t always count on, and that 
 is whisky. Men drink, you know, and men get 
 drunk, and sometimes they re not always exactly 
 happy about it. Perhaps this Drew man was like 
 that. Perhaps, too, he kept gettin worse and 
 worse and finally was foolish with a gun. Now, 
 it s a funny thing that the only thing you can t 
 bluff with out here is a gun. You either use it or 
 you don t. Perhaps Macklin was the quicker of 
 the two. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 169 
 
 "And now let s see where we are. Here is 
 Drew, lying there in the sand by the campfire by his 
 own fault, and here is Macklin standing and look 
 ing down at him and thanking his stars that he was 
 good and quick. Over there are four or five burros. 
 And all around is just sand and sky and lonesome- 
 ness and God not very close by, either. And 
 that s all, you understand all. No witnesses no 
 policeman to blow on his little whistle no crowd 
 to collect nothing of that kind. Just one man 
 there all alone, with the fellow that tried to kill 
 him huddled up like a suit of old clothes on the 
 ground. 
 
 " And now we begin to see what proof is. What 
 is Macklin going to do ? Can he go back to Moab 
 and say, This fellow tried to shoot me ? If he 
 does, the Sheriff will take him in a disgusted sort 
 of way for being such a fool, and lock him up, and 
 after a while they try him. The county goes to 
 expense and Macklin goes to expense and all for 
 what? Just to have twelve men listen to a perfect 
 story of how one man got full and tried to kill 
 another. Now, some of those men are friends of 
 Drew s and they win over the rest, and Macklin 
 gets hung not because he was guilty but because 
 he was unlucky. But perhaps they disagree. Al- 
 
170 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 low that and then see what happens. Macklin, who 
 has as good a claim and as good a right as any 
 in these parts, gets run out of the country. Every 
 one knows about him. Everyone points their 
 finger at him. He gets sick of it after a while and 
 disappears. 
 
 " Now, look at the other thing he can do. He 
 can hide the body and sell the burros and outfit. 
 He can go away for a month or so, come back, 
 record his purchase of the claim, and go to work, 
 and try to forget it. Time passes and they find the 
 body and remember about the other man. And 
 just as they re beginning to raise a hue and cry 
 they begin to think along the lines I ve laid out. 
 And they get weaker and weaker and tired of hear 
 ing the professional bloodhounds bark, and after a 
 while they let it drop." 
 
 He stopped and opened out his hands to her 
 with the kindly smile she loved. " Do you see, 
 Miss Clarice? Perhaps it wasn t murder, after 
 all. Perhaps it was only hard luck. Can you hang 
 a man for that? " 
 
 He watched her puzzling over his ingenious 
 solution and then softly drew a long breath. " Oh, 
 well," he said, " I guess we won t worry about it 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 171 
 
 any more. We ll get the Atlas to-morrow, never 
 fear. 
 
 " It will be a nice thing when we do," he con 
 tinued in lighter tones. " Warder says he s going 
 to keep his son out here to watch the job. Of 
 course, that will be regarded as very pleasant by 
 all he seems to be an active young fellow. It s 
 funny how such a rich young man hasn t any 
 wife. He ought to make a competent husband, I 
 should judge." 
 
 " Suppose," said Clarice, disregarding the 
 brazen allusion to young Warder, " suppose that 
 Macklin gave the other man two hundred dollars 
 for the claim? " 
 
 " Yes," said the ranchman weakly. 
 
 "Then why wasn t it on the body?" 
 
 The ranchman smiled. " You mean he 
 would leave it there to make good his statement 
 about the purchase? Well, the body was found 
 by One-eyed Brewster of Bullionfield," he said 
 with fortunate recollection. " One-Eye s been 
 needing that two hundred for right some time." 
 
 " But, do they know that Macklin had two hun 
 dred dollars, to begin with? " 
 
 Holly shook his head. There was nothing he 
 could say. In spite of his attempts to explain the 
 
172 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 case away she had put her finger unerringly on 
 its weakest spot. 
 
 If he feared, however, that she was about to con 
 tinue the subject he was mistaken, for the girl had 
 won her point and she knew it. Either she had 
 given him an idea to work on or else his defense 
 of the Atlas man had been only a pretense, as she 
 much suspected. In any case, she felt she had 
 a right to go on with what she was doing, and 
 so began to glow inwardly again. She rose blithely 
 to her feet, without touching her hands to the 
 ground, as he noticed admiringly, and smiled down 
 at him with the stars in her eyes once more. She 
 did not know it, but in her radiant health and 
 beauty she was the most desirable, all-satisfying 
 thing that the ranchman s world had ever held. 
 
 " I m so glad that you like young Mr. Warder," 
 she said with what he agonizingly recognized as a 
 pleased note in her voice. " If he s to stay out here 
 I think he ought to marry a Western girl." 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 " AMY," remarked her aunt as the two sat to : 
 gether on the fresh shadowed veranda, " did you 
 see your uncle this morning before he started for 
 the mines? " 
 
 " No, Aunt," said Amy carefully. " I didn t 
 see Mr. Holly I mean, Uncle Os . I didn t get 
 up till half-after seven. But I think Miss Bel- 
 vawney saw them." 
 
 " I was wondering what had brought you to 
 such early hours," Mrs. Warder mused in a tone 
 that both explained her question and asked an 
 other. " It must be because the sun rises so much 
 earlier out here." 
 
 " I was writing a letter," responded Amy, with 
 true Western recklessness. 
 
 " Gfive me the letter and I will put a stamp on 
 it for you," her aunt said a little too promptly. 
 " I was careful to bring some good stamps with me 
 from Philadelphia." 
 
 " Thank you very much, Aunt," the discerning 
 niece replied, " but I have already given the letter 
 to Miss Belvawney to mail with the others." 
 
 173 
 
174 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 It had taken Clarice a little time to understand 
 Miss Radnor. As when at night the most harmless 
 shapes fill our breast with wild alarms, so Amy s 
 swift smiles at the ranchman had furnished cause 
 for not a little distress, but while Clarice had been 
 deliciously torturing herself the thin girl had come 
 to her with encircling arms, a blush, and a letter, 
 whereupon there had been a remarkable outburst 
 of affection and engagements of secrecy. 
 
 But however easily the others adapted them 
 selves, Mrs. Warder daily found life only the more 
 disconcerting. 
 
 " That remarkable woman ! " she said to her 
 niece, so abruptly that Amy divined the cause of 
 the long meditation. " I can t understand her at 
 all. When I was first with her this morning she 
 seemed quite rational, but later on she became so 
 nervous and acted so strangely that I came away. 
 Almost immediately afterwards I saw her out in 
 the back yard throwing an anvil an anvil, Amy 
 up in the air and catching it when it came down. 
 Then she gave a loud, wild laugh and rushed back 
 into the house " 
 
 " What were you talking about?" asked Amy 
 curiously. 
 
 " We began by talking about how long you 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 175 
 
 ought to let jelly boil after you put the sugar in," 
 her aunt replied, " but it was almost no time at all 
 before I found that the woman has no distinct con 
 ception of the future life. I shouldn t like to say 
 that her influence here is precisely sinister, yet 
 religious exercises of some kind, say, a half-hour 
 of talk and prayer each afternoon at four 
 o clock " 
 
 " Imogene blasts at four," reflected Amy. " I m 
 not sure that even prayer would dislodge her from 
 her mine at that hour. Have you thought, Aunt 
 Charlotte, of some easy approach that we might 
 make ? Something rather gradual, you know " 
 
 " You are searching for a word, Amy. I have 
 it. We must be * adroit " 
 
 " Y-e-e-e-s," conceded Amy. " But I ve been 
 thinking that some stepping-stone, like fancy- 
 work " 
 
 The very thing. How you stimulate my mind, 
 my dear. My workbag is up on my bureau if 
 you don t mind." 
 
 When Amy returned to the veranda it was to 
 find Miss Belvawney and the other Pilkington 
 women already there, probably gathered together 
 by some telepathic force. 
 
 " We really must form a Sewing Society," Mrs. 
 
176 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Warder was saying jovially. " Now, in Phila 
 delphia we often sew this way for poor 
 people." 
 
 " So do we/ murmured Imogene. 
 
 We might even give ourselves a name." Mrs. 
 Warder s wary eye, flitting from face to face, en 
 countered only blank innocence. " Let us vote on 
 a name. I have already been thinking of one. 
 Might I suggest * Daughters of Dorcas ? " 
 
 " All agreeable, say AYE ! " announced Imo 
 gene. 
 
 " AYE ! " said Cobrita and Clarice. 
 
 " Dorcas is elected, all right," said the Strong 
 Woman swiftly. " I only hope she was a married 
 woman. Was she? " 
 
 "Well, really! Hum er well " 
 
 "Who was Dorcas?" asked the little yellow- 
 haired person who knew all about snakes. 
 
 " Dorcas," said Mrs. Warder, not too rapidly, 
 " Dorcas was a woman in the Bible who sewed. 
 But more than that " 
 
 " I m real sorry, Mrs. Warder," Imogene inter 
 posed forcefully, u but I m mighty partickler about 
 such things. I always got to know" 
 
 " Her other name was Tabitha, " ventured 
 Clarice, 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 177 
 
 "But I want to know What s that, girlie? 
 Two first names? " 
 
 " She was called Tabitha, which meant 
 4 Dorcas, 7 " Amy explained, hoping to clarify the 
 situation. 
 
 " And Saint Peter brought her back to life after 
 she was dead," added Clarice. "And that is all 
 that is known about her." 
 
 " And that is all that is known about her," said 
 Mrs. Warder. 
 
 " Well I dunno," Imogene muttered, with 
 comic helplessness. " Times have changed. 
 Mighty few poor seamstresses / ever knew ever 
 wanted to be brought back. But it ain t clear in 
 
 my mind yet " Imogene s voice suddenly 
 
 faded away before a presage of coming events 
 which her alert eyes had discerned in the fore 
 ground. 
 
 Down by the corral a person, who had lately 
 dismounted from a thin-necked, ribby little horse, 
 was immersed in conversation with Mr. Peters. 
 To those who could interpret Drybone s insidious 
 persuasions it was clear that he was recommend 
 ing some line of action to the stranger, and al 
 though the horseman at first seemed only partly 
 
1 78 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 willing, the foreman presently linked an arm in 
 his and led him up to the house. 
 
 " Bishop Moroni Sorensen from Bull Valley 
 Stake, " Mr. Peters announced, while his eyes flit 
 ted from face to face with suspicious evasiveness. 
 " Brother Moroni is on his annual round-up for 
 mavericks out of the churchly fold, ladies, and I 
 knew you d want to see him. I hope youVe got 
 your branding-irons hot, Bishop." 
 
 "Pleezed tu meet y u, folks," the Bishop re 
 sponded, with professional ease, smiling yellowly 
 and shaking hands all around. " Always pleezed 
 tu meet the ladies." 
 
 On closer inspection, the Bishop proved to be a 
 gaunt, bleak individual, very loosely jointed and 
 sallow. With his thick, black hair combed back 
 from his forehead and his high cheek-bones and 
 bold gray eyes, he seemed not unlike a hard-faced 
 daguerreotype of Civil War times. The pristine 
 blackness of his old-fashioned cutaway coat had 
 been weathered to a depressing green, and blue- 
 jeans trousers, with no visible means of support, 
 only partly hid a pair of misshapen boots. As his 
 eyes, a little closely set together, flickered over the 
 group, they rested longer than was necessary upon 
 Clarice. They gave her the uncomfortable feel- 
 
J 
 
 * BISHOP SORENSEN FROM BULL VALLEY STAKE 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 179 
 
 ing that the Bishop was, in truth, always pleased to 
 meet the ladies. 
 
 " Is he a Mormon?" Mrs. Warder whispered 
 timidly to her nearest neighbor, who she imme 
 diately realized was Imogene. 
 
 " You bet! And the very biggest of the lot! " 
 the Strong Woman whispered back, with miscon- 
 veying force. "They say he s married every 
 woman in his Stake ! " 
 
 " Great heavens ! What a monster! " the other 
 breathed, and grew pale. For the first time the 
 Easterner felt no aversion to the juggler of anvils. 
 Imogene s thickness of fiber undoubtedly had 
 periods of usefulness. But Mrs. Warder was not 
 without a thrill of sacrificial pleasure in the mo 
 ment of danger. Ever since the Woman s Auxili 
 ary of the Rittenhouse Brick Church had protested 
 to Washington against Mormon representation in 
 Congress she had felt it to be someone s duty really 
 to see a Mormon. And what opportunity now 
 was hers! If Cousin Sally Cadwalader in Spruce 
 Street could only see her Charlotte now! What 
 flutterings ! What envy ! 
 
 " I didn t know there was so many camping 
 here," the Bishop was drawling. " I reckon I ll 
 have a few of The Young Men s Society ride over 
 
1 8o THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 from Moab. Mebbe y u could have a dance and 
 a leetle music. Our people are always strong on 
 bringing the young folks together. " 
 
 " But we re not exactly of the same supersti 
 tion," Cobrita said, and goggled her china-blue 
 eyes at him nervously. Not having meant to speak, 
 she was pinkly sorry for it. " Superstition " was 
 n t the right word, anyway she wished she had a 
 snake to scare him with. 
 
 " Haw-haw-haw ! Our young men don t keer 
 about that" the Bishop assured her genially. 
 " Give em a good leg shaking and a purty young 
 gal like y u, and the Sperrit kin always get its 
 work in." 
 
 A distinct movement went through the women. 
 The Bishop assumed too much. Not even the 
 Eastern clothes prevented him from grouping 
 them all under the head of " Pilkingtons " 
 Moab s Pilkingtons hungry and out-at-heel and 
 sore distressed. 
 
 " Our cause is a-gainin in righteousness every 
 day," the Bishop announced suddenly. " The 
 beauties of salvation, they shall be as a fountain 
 of living water, and a tree of life." 
 
 No one said anything. 
 
 " How beyootiful upon the mountains are the 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 181 
 
 feet of him who bringeth good tidings/ " he con 
 tinued, unconsciously surveying his own boots. 
 " AWAKE ! and hear the words which I shall tell 
 thee; for, behold, I am come tu declare unto y u 
 the glad tidings of great joy. 
 
 " That s Mosiah, " said the Bishop, with a 
 wave of his hand. "I always begins with him. 
 But Nephi and Ether they re my favorytes. 
 It seems like they ketched right hold of y u, telling 
 how it all happened, like they do." 
 
 " What happened? " queried the Strong Woman 
 instantly. 
 
 " Well," explained the Bishop, with brighten 
 ing eyes, " y u see, Nephi tells how he got em all 
 out of Jerusalem, and Ether, he tells how they all 
 got over here. They came over in big barges 
 herds and flocks and families and all. It took 
 three hundred and forty-four days tu come across. 
 Jared s brother he built the barges, and they was 
 made just like a dish. Excuse me, ladies, till I 
 get my Book outa my pants-pocket. Here it is 
 Page Five Hundred and Seventy-four, Chapter 
 Two, Verse Nineteen : 
 
 " * And they were built after a manner that they 
 were exceeding tight, even that they would hold 
 water like unto a dish; and the bottom thereof was 
 
1 82 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 tight like unto a dish; and the sides thereof were 
 tight like unto a dish; and the ends thereof were 
 peaked; and the top thereof was tight like unto 
 a dish; and the length thereof was the length of 
 a tree; and the door thereof, when it was shut, 
 was like unto a dish. 
 
 " That certainly sounds dish-like," remarked 
 Imogene. 
 
 u Don t it?" the Bishop acquiesced happily. 
 u But there s more to it than that. There were 
 holes in each dish barge, I mean " 
 
 " Like a colander," said Imogene promptly. 
 
 " Not quite, ma am. Just two holes, with stop 
 pers. One in the roof and one in the cellar of 
 the boat, so whichever side was up they could git 
 
 air." 
 
 " I should think they d have certainly needed 
 it," murmured Mrs. Ajax, u with the boat rolling 
 around like an egg on a plate and the flocks and 
 herds all falling off the ceiling onto Jared s 
 brother s head. But I m glad to know at last how 
 all those funny little burros got over here. Did 
 they have things like that? " 
 
 " All them things, and a lot more," was the 
 ready response. " Ether tells about it. Chapter 
 Nine, Verse Nineteen: 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 183 
 
 " And they also had horses, and asses, and 
 there were elephants and cureloms and cumoms; all 
 of which were useful unto man; and more espe 
 cially the elephants and cureloms and cumoms! 1 
 
 "What is a curelom f " Cobrita asked curi 
 ously. 
 
 The Bishop paused and considered. " I m sorry 
 tu say there ain t a very great deal knowed about 
 cureloms" he confessed. " Y u see, Miss, that s 
 the only time they re mentioned. But I reckon the 
 cumoms was just as useful." 
 
 By this time Mrs. Warder had recovered from 
 her nervousness and meaning looks began to pass 
 between herself and Imogene. In the face of a 
 scattering fire of history Kansas and Pennsylvania, 
 united, dug their mines and swung their big guns 
 into line. 
 
 But the Bishop s ardor, in the light of possible 
 conversions, increased rather than decreased with 
 his argument and further delvings into the Book 
 of Mormon yielded stories of migrations, legisla 
 tive disputes, and amazingly destructive wars. 
 
 " That makes four hundred and thirty thou 
 sand people you ve killed off in just those last four 
 verses," stated Clarice accurately. " Antionum 
 and his ten thousand brought it up to one hundred 
 
1 84 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 thousand, and Shiblem with his ten, and Shem, 
 and Josh " 
 
 "Who?" asked Imogene sharply. 
 
 The Bishop smiled as easily as the others, but 
 with superior knowledge. " That s nothing tu 
 wut comes later when they gits real hosstyle " 
 
 " What is your position on Polygamy?" asked 
 Mrs. Warder heavily and distinctly. 
 
 The Bishop looked slightly disconcerted. For 
 the first time he seemed to feel the existence of an 
 opposing element and his close-set eyes darted a 
 look at the lady s face. There was nothing there. 
 
 " Plurality of wives is ag in the Law," he an 
 swered sourly. " The Commandment was give tu 
 the Lamanites Jacob, Three, Five. 1 
 
 " But is it not a fact that many of you are 
 polygamists? " came the unevadable question. 
 
 u Yes, ma am," he answered,* reddening. " I 
 ain t denying that s all so, but " 
 
 u Are you a polygamist?" persisted the relent 
 less Philadelphian. 
 
 While the troubled missionary fumbled for a 
 quasi-truthful reply, Imogene advanced an in 
 genious theory. 
 
 " It s mighty hard to keep servants out here. 
 Perhaps " 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 185 
 
 The gale of protest which swallowed up the 
 sentence served to put the Bishop on his feet 
 again. If he had misgivings as to Imogene s sin 
 cerity, they were still unnoticeable. 
 
 " I ain t stating if I am or am not," he replied 
 deviously. " Ether, he says, l The Gentile will 
 mock at these things and, Twelve, Twenty-five, 
 1 Fools shall mock, but they shall mourn. 5 " 
 
 "Just who was this Ether man?" asked Imo- 
 gene, growing restive under the insinuation. 
 
 The Bishop ruffled his pages zealously and got 
 back on the safe ground of history once more. 
 " Ether was a descendant of Coriantor," he said: 
 
 u ( And Coriantor was the son of Moron, 
 And Moron was the son of Ethem, 
 And Ethem was the son of Ahah. " 
 
 The Bishop s voice settled down to a steady 
 drone. Verses Ten, Fifteen, and Twenty clicked 
 by without a sign of fatigue. So did Twenty-five 
 and Thirty and still he was unwinded. More 
 than one auditor heaved a sigh. The genealogical 
 tree of Ether was certainly no scrubby growth. 
 
 " And Shule was the son of Kib, " read the 
 Bishop. 
 
1 86 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " Oh, let me turn the crank for a while," inter 
 rupted Imogene irascibly. " I ll bet I ve read that 
 myself, somewheres: 
 
 " And Kib was the son of Dub, 
 And Dub was the son of Mutt, 
 And Mutt was the son of Gun, 
 
 And " 
 
 " That sort of sounds right," the Bishop said 
 doubtfully, " but still it ain t quite according 
 tu " 
 
 " According to Ether," supplied the thoroughly 
 wearied Strong Woman, as she grappled finally 
 with the Bishop s awakening eye. Well, I guess 
 if we ve got to take * Ether we ain t any of us go 
 ing to be Mormons not before dinner time, any 
 way. We d rather take chloroform!" 
 
 With Imogene s last word the strain under 
 which they labored became too heavy and the 
 group of women broke into a whirl of laughter. 
 As the Bishop, with reddening face, clutched his 
 book shut and sprang to his feet, the unmistakable 
 sounds beat upon him from every side. Waves 
 of it swept over him and gales of it swirled round 
 him, with an occasional scream of delight for good 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 187 
 
 measure. Heartless though it was, the sight of 
 Earnest Man discomfited by their idling selves 
 was too much for their gravity and they laughed 
 till they cried, and sent up blind paeans of joy from 
 each other s shoulders. 
 
 The Bishop stood not on the order of his going. 
 One angry look behind him as he flung away down 
 the steps one red, clenched fist brandished im- 
 potently in the air as he hastily mounted and dis 
 appeared in a cloud of dust, was all that he offered 
 the unregenerate scoffers as farewell. 
 
 Mr. Peters, having seen his friendships in the 
 Bull Valley Stake lessened forever by one, chewed 
 thoughtfully on a blade of grass and betook him 
 self elephantwards. 
 
 " Mebbe that will remind Moroni of that mine 
 he got me tu put my money into a year ago," he 
 muttered. " It was all the money I had, I reckon. 
 I remember, now, I d saved it up tu send away. 
 But was it last year?" He paused awhile in re 
 flection. " Why, no, y u old fool ! Nor the year 
 before that ! Nor five years. Nor ten ! " Dry- 
 bone s face tightened up like a withered parch 
 ment, as if there were not already lines enough. 
 Something blazed up within him for a moment 
 then the spasm passed. He was staring off across 
 
1 88 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 the sleepy, hazy desert, at the rocking mountains 
 and the blue-veiled plain. " Oh, well," said Dry- 
 bone. "Oh, well." 
 
 Mrs. Warder s eyes followed the cloud of dust 
 that rose for a long time in the Bishop s wake. 
 
 " Do you know," she said to Imogene, when 
 the two were alone, " I don t believe the Bishop 
 was surprised one bit to find so many women here. 
 I think he just made that up. I m quite sure he s 
 been thinking of this er er " 
 
 "Outfit?" 
 
 " Oh, thank you. (Dear me, what a funny little 
 word!) This outfit as a fertile field for proselyt 
 ing for several weeks. You see, my dear Mrs. 
 Boggs, that sort of thing would come very 
 naturally to a circus." 
 
 :< Would it? " and the Strong Woman began to 
 listen with acute attention. 
 
 u Yes," the other continued, all unwarned. 
 " Ignorant though the Bishop undoubtedly is, he 
 probably knows that there are some classes more 
 amenable than others to his arguments and his 
 polygamous instincts would enable him to find them 
 out. I have often thought that in any sphere of 
 life where there is a tendency towards er er 
 carelessness in er er " 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 189 
 
 " I m afraid I don t quite understand," said 
 Imogene with a heavy frown. 
 
 " I mean," said Mrs. Warder, " that traveling 
 actors and actresses are subject to great " 
 
 " SEE HERE! " said the Strong Woman vigor 
 ously; "YOU CAN STOP THAT RIGHT 
 NOW ! There s something wrong here that s got 
 to be cleared up. If you don t think if anybody 
 don t think that circus people are just about simon- 
 pure all right in their lives it s time they were edu 
 cated, good and proper." Whereupon the strong- 
 eyed Kansan centered the other s wavering gaze 
 and delivered herself of certain forceful remarks. 
 
 Sometime later Amy Radnor came upon her 
 aunt sitting all alone in a corner of the veranda, a 
 look of mingled fright and bewilderment on her 
 face. 
 
 " Sit down by me here, Amy," she said in a 
 fluttering voice. " I have just been learning some 
 of the most amazing things." 
 
 " Have you been talking with Imogene? " asked 
 Amy with a smile. 
 
 " I have," her aunt replied, " and she tells me 
 now, among other things, that * Emperor, who is 
 a big snake in a box just outside my door, is a 
 great pet of Miss Cobrita, who is going to marry 
 
190 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 the younger of the two Italians. Now, the curious 
 part of it is that Miss Cobrita is so attached to 
 this snake that she simply cannot bear to leave it, 
 or even dispose of it in any way, while Angelo, so 
 Imogene says, has no use for snakes in the house 
 at all. So and I must say I think it uncommonly 
 good of them they re going to put off their mar 
 riage till the snake dies!" 
 
 A heel with a tinkling spur clinked on the 
 threshold behind them, and Miss Belvawney 
 stepped out with a smile and an affectionate touch 
 of her gauntleted hand on Amy s shoulder. 
 
 Clarice was off for Moab on the Polly horse. 
 Down on the mesa the air would be sweet for. an 
 other hour before the sun began its work; the long 
 arroyo beds would still be freshly shadowed on 
 one side. Perhaps, in some wind-still nook, she 
 would come across the crimson cup of a cactus 
 flower, flaming alone in a bed of golden sand. But 
 there would be more to the girl s ride than this, 
 for when the wind blew across the plain she would 
 turn and face it eagerly, her clear eyes opened 
 wide, her red lips parted. She knew whence he 
 came, this wondrous, vast-bodied lover, blowing, 
 blowing unendingly across the ranges. Spiced for a 
 day in palm-fringed isles and salted over the spar- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 191 
 
 kling blue miles of the Pacific, he lingered a while, 
 softening, among the orange groves, and then 
 streamed to her through the fingers of the hazy 
 peaks cleaned and dried and tanged with the 
 scent of far-off worlds. 
 
 She threw out her arms to him this unseen, 
 formless, never-failing friend, as if to clutch some 
 thing closer to her strong young body. When 
 the soft fingers brushed her cheek, something within 
 her wonderful body cried out an unconscious 
 hungering for motherhood a love for life and 
 life-giving a thirsting to give and to keep on giv 
 ing back her vital forces into this marvelous world. 
 
 All this was in the girl as she stood there by her 
 pony in the dazzling morning light it lay in the 
 splendid swell of her shoulders under the white 
 waist, in the fine curve of her back and hips. Best 
 of all, it showed in her shining eyes as she swung 
 up to her saddle with the cavalry mount that 
 Holly had taught her. And Amy poor Amy 
 saw it. 
 
 That young person s clothes seem to fit her 
 rather well," was Mrs. Warder s comment as she 
 took up her work-bag. " Her riding-skirt even 
 looked tailor-made." 
 
 " But it isn t" refuted Amy plaintively, as she 
 
192 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 turned away to go to her room. " She sent her 
 measure away and got it by mail, just as she does 
 everything, and when they come she simply steps 
 right into them. And I have to take in and take 
 in till there s no end to it." 
 
 It was not yet noon when Clarice trotted down 
 Moab s quiet street under the trees and tied her 
 pony in front of Buckner s store. She had come 
 to Moab to find out, once for all, if Macklin had 
 had two hundred dollars or anything like that sum 
 that day in February, three years before, when he 
 had bought his outfit to go prospecting. Ever since 
 the details had been hers to know the girl had 
 felt the solution of the problem to rest on this 
 one contingency, and the time had come when her 
 small plots must be carried to a quick finish. Pass 
 ing behind the counter, she found the storekeeper 
 behind the pigeon-holes of the post office, frown 
 ing into his books in an attempt to reconcile his 
 cash with the contents of his safe. 
 
 " Just the young lady I was looking for," he 
 remarked, with an engaging smile. " I m wonder 
 ing if y u could help me find a small sum in these 
 yere accounts of mine? There seems tu be a small 
 deeficit in the Post-office Cash that must have 
 slipped into the store till some way, and well 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 193 
 
 there s a chance for an Inspector soon so I 
 thought " 
 
 The faintest of faint gleams showed in the girTs 
 eye. " I shall be very glad to help you provided 
 it doesn t take too long," the circus woman re 
 plied, and forced herself to draw off her gauntlets 
 with languid nonchalance. The luck of the thing 
 was incredible ! Here was her chance all made to 
 order, and fairly screaming to her to be taken up ! 
 She almost choked with emotion. 
 
 " How did you balance last week?" she heard 
 herself asking, and smiled at the man as she never 
 knew she smiled at anyone. 
 
 " Clost tu a nickel," was Buckner s dazed reply 
 as he gave up his rat s nest of a desk to the radiant 
 young person at his elbow. " That s what s got 
 me puzzled." 
 
 "Please, Mr. Buckner," she said decisively, 
 " I can t help you at all if you stand there fussing 
 with things. Give me your books and the correct 
 cash on hand, then leave me alone for a good 
 half-hour. Go up in the front of the store and 
 don t let anyone interrupt me, including your good 
 self," she added firmly. 
 
 " That s the talk," was the man s answer. 
 " You re the kind of a woman I d like tu have 
 
194 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 around yere all the time. Help yourself tu the 
 safe the books are all there. And, say it s 
 forty-seven-seventy I m out, and if y u find 
 it " 
 
 " If I find it I ll keep it, so run along, Mr. Bad 
 Bookkeeper," she answered, with delicious in 
 solence, and fluttered her eyelids over a blinding 
 look. " If I want you, I ll call you George." 
 
 " That s it call me George, " said the father 
 of ten incoherently, and walked regretfully away. 
 
 Left to herself in the frowsy den among a year s 
 accumulation of postal trash, samples of groceries, 
 and dust-covered invoices, the girl felt a sudden 
 thrill of fear. Out of all that litter of useless 
 records she had to find one small book, and that 
 book more than three years old the day-book, 
 not the ledger. The ledger account of a man sus 
 pected of a crime might be headed in a dozen dif 
 ferent ways, but the yellow counter-book in which 
 the storekeeper hastily penciled his memos would 
 probably be found unaltered if it were found. 
 
 For five frantic minutes the woman of the cir 
 cus dug through the stack of records. It seemed 
 as if the storekeeper, with all the hoarding in 
 stincts of a mountain rat, had appropriated every 
 ownerless article that had caught his eye, from a 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 195 
 
 seed catalogue, edited by a joyous optimist wear 
 ing glasses magnifying to ten diameters, to a was 
 trel copy of " Proctor Knott on Duluth." Dis 
 couraging though it was to find no clue, the very 
 accumulation of such trash seemed to argue that 
 the book was somewhere in the office, and so, 
 after a cautious look down the room at Buckner 
 nibbling meditatively on a prune, she dropped on 
 her knees before the safe. 
 
 Hardly had she done so when her hands clutched 
 at a stack of battered volumes which filled the 
 middle compartment the missing day-books ! No 
 longer of any possible use, but saved up against 
 some vague emergency with the same miserly in 
 stincts that coveted a sample cigar sent through 
 the mails and added it to stock. 
 
 Clarice snatched up a book at random and 
 flirted back its cover. "April, 1906," it said. 
 Ariother, and "August, 1905, " met her eye. 
 With returning exultation she dove into one after 
 another searched with frantic anxiety for Feb 
 ruary, 1904 and found it! 
 
 Trembling with suspense, the girl studied the 
 first page, turned it like a flash, and raced down the 
 second. " Feb. 3rd," said the heading, and her 
 careful eyes threaded down through the maze of 
 
196 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 scrawls until, midway on the yellow page, mis 
 spelled and cramped, blurred almost to erasure, 
 she saw the longed-for caption, " J. Maklin." 
 
 The circus woman struggled through the items 
 one by one. " Bns" she read, and "Ben" 10 
 libs then Cfee" and " Tob," $1.00. The others, 
 all but the last, were undecipherable. But when 
 she had interpreted that which footed the page and 
 rounded out the record of a prospecting trip pre 
 pared for in the usual way, she found evidence of 
 that condition chronic among most prospectors and 
 without exception encountered by their trustful 
 backers. " Cash $10.00." 
 
 " Cash, ten dollars" Not fifty, nor sixty, nor 
 two hundred dollars borrowed in a hasty moment 
 to buy another man s claim, but only ten. The 
 girl s eyes grew bright with victory. SHE HAD 
 WON ! Instinctively she tore the leaf from the 
 book and hid it in her waist. 
 
 Voices were audible inside the store now, and 
 Buckner was coming her way along his counter 
 with a tall stranger at his heels, but in place of 
 the vivid emotions of a moment ago a feeling of 
 angelic calm pervaded Miss Belvawney s being, 
 and while her cool glances ran down the store 
 keeper s attempt at a balance, she smiled sweetly 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 197 
 
 to herself and hummed a circus tune. Quickly 
 finding the error, she tossed her pencil away, picked 
 up whip and gauntlets, and walked out into the 
 store. 
 
 " You wrote * fifty-three dollars instead of 
 * five-thirty, " she said with a laugh which joy 
 turned into a musical ripple. " The difference 
 makes your forty-seven-seventy. Which will you 
 give me the forty-seven, or the seventy ? " 
 
 " Fine fine ! " exclaimed the store-man, rub 
 bing his hands delightedly. " I ll leave all that 
 tu y u, Miss Clarice or just help yourself tu the 
 candy in the barrel. Allow me tu make y u ac 
 quainted with Mister Mister " 
 
 " Whitley Jack Whitley is my name, sir," the 
 stranger responded in a pleasant, dignified drawl, 
 removing his hat without impairing its symmetrical 
 dents and gazing admiringly at the girl over the 
 hand which stroked a long mustache. 
 
 " You re a stranger here, aren t you, Mr. Whit 
 ley?" the girl asked with interest, for the man 
 reminded her strongly of Holly. 
 
 " I m down here from Idyho, ma am," Mr. 
 Whitley made haste to reply under the uncon 
 scious challenge of the girl s wonderful vigor. 
 " A little business with the Sheriff, maybe." 
 
198 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " So you re bad up in Idaho, too," mocked the 
 red-lipped vision, impudently, while compelling 
 eyes held his own enchained. " You don t look 
 like a bad man, Mr. Whitley. How does it feel 
 to be captured?" 
 
 " Oh, it ain t me. / ain t captured at all," 
 stammered the blushing victim. " Leastways, not 
 by no Sheriff, ma am. I m seeing that if I stayed 
 much in these parts I might try a little captur 
 ing myself." 
 
 "Then you are after someone. Who is it?" 
 
 "A fellow that shot a man down here a long 
 time ago," the Whitley person answered helplessly, 
 and marveled to see the glorious dark eyes open 
 still wider. " That s why I m going to Bullion- 
 field on the quiet," he added freely, then realized 
 it would be no longer " on the quiet." 
 
 " But you re surely not going over there to 
 day?" the beautiful stranger queried, while the 
 eyes beguiled the Whitley heart again. u It s a 
 long ride without watering forty miles or more. 
 You go near the Holly Ranch, you know. Per 
 haps " She left the sentence in the air and, 
 with an arch glance, hurried towards the door and 
 escape. He was a very good-looking man, with 
 his down-drooping mustache and his pleasantly 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 199 
 
 respectful eyes for a short-time flirtation Clarice 
 felt that she had probably broken all known 
 records. 
 
 " I don t know just where that Holly ranch 
 is/ a pleasant voice remarked with amused mean 
 ing as, with her pony untied, she turned to mount 
 and found him holding her stirrup, " but if to 
 morrow ever comes I reckon it ll be mighty hard 
 not to find! " 
 
 Some time during the night of this eventful 
 day the light-sleeping Miss Radnor was wakened 
 by a touch and a whisper. Starting up nervously 
 among her pillows, she was amazed to find Miss 
 Belvawney kneeling by her bedside. 
 
 " Amy, dearest," said Clarice, " I do hate to 
 wake you up, but there s something I simply must 
 know. It s very important. It s more than that," 
 and her hand went over the coverlet to clutch the 
 other s, " it s really terribly serious." 
 
 " Mercy my! " ejaculated the thin girl wonder- 
 ingly. " What is it, Clarice dear? " 
 
 "Well," said Clarice, in a whisper, " Amy, 
 this is it. Are you a good flirt? " 
 
 The Philadelphian gasped indignantly and sat 
 bolt upright in bed. " Do you mean to say that 
 you waked me up in the middle of " 
 
200 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 ** S-s-s-s-h ! " commanded the Belvawney as she 
 put a warning finger to her lips, her eyes big and 
 lustrous in the moonlight. " This isn t a joke. 
 I m in dead earnest " 
 
 "Why!" broke in Amy. "You ve got your 
 riding things on! Where are you going at this 
 time of night?" 
 
 The circus girl s gauntlet tightened on Amy s 
 wrist. " Never mind where. I ve left a note tied 
 to the kitchen stove-lifter for Imogene that ex 
 plains. All I want to know is will you help 
 me?" 
 
 The thin girl s lips twitched with laughter and 
 she dropped down among her pillows again and 
 stared at the tragic face. 
 
 " There s a man coming here to-morrow ! " the 
 Belvawney whispered dramatically. " I ve forgot 
 ten his name, but he has a nice mustache per 
 haps he ll ask for me. The minute you see him 
 go right out and say, I don t know where she is, 
 but I think she will be home very soon and 
 then keep him here as long as ever you can. Now, 
 PROMISE!" 
 
 " I promise," said Amy with a choke. " Please 
 don t break my hand all to pieces. Oh, come 
 here, silly don t run away. CLARICE! Tell 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 201 
 
 me something. Don t you love him ter 
 ribly?" 
 
 "O-h-h-h-h! Do you think I d do this if I 
 didn t? " and she dropped on her knees and flung 
 a hugging arm round the other. " Oh ! Amy, isn t 
 it splendid when you love someone? You just 
 want to sacrifice and give up and work and 
 be devoured by fire or drowned in ice-water if it 
 will do any good. Sometimes it makes you feel, 
 oh, so strong! And then, almost right away, your 
 knees get wobbly and you just turn into a cobble 
 stone inside. And one minute he s looking at you 
 in the most wonderful way, and you feel as if you 
 were floating on a lovely pink cloud, eating ice 
 cream smothered in violets, and the next thing 
 you know something terrible happens and every 
 thing goes to pieces, and you see that he doesn t 
 love you, after all, and oh-h-h ! " The circus 
 woman s cry sounded perilously like despair, her 
 soft lips brushed the other s cheek, she gave a last 
 convulsive squeeze, and stood up, flicking her whip 
 against her spurred heel. 
 
 Under the flooding moonlight the pale oval 
 of her face, framed in the masses of dark hair 
 against her sombrero, seemed to glow with an un 
 earthly beauty. Her eyes were like lustrous pools 
 
202 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 in a creamy blur that was marked out only by the 
 freshness of her lips. All the eagerness, the daring, 
 the flashing elan of her wild spirit were in her un 
 conscious pose. To the timid Easterner she seemed 
 a beautiful creature, all fire and light, or like 
 some bright blade flashing from its scabbard to 
 a comrade s aid. And soon this wonderful per 
 son would be out there all alone on the desert, 
 riding on and on in the blue-gray stillness under 
 the stars, fearless of accidents or distance or los 
 ing her way; steadily pressing on into the night 
 to help the man she loved. 
 
 " Well" said the adoring thin one impetuously 
 as she pounded her pillow with ferocity, " youVe 
 got me so stirred up that I ll never sleep again, 
 which will probably mar my fatal beauty for its 
 work to-morrow, but I ll do my best to fascinate 
 the unknown. The man who wouldn t fall in love 
 with you on sight is an idiot." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 OVER in Bullionfield Dick Holly, Wiley the 
 superintendent, and the two Warders, still proudly 
 wearing their candle-greased khaki, were gathered 
 around the drafting-table in the office of the Yel 
 low Dog. A box of cigars, a syphon, a bowl of 
 cracked ice, and a bottle of rye stood on the table 
 among the maps and blue-prints. Now and then 
 Wiley puffed smoke across a map while he esti 
 mated a distance and answered a question. 
 
 " You see," Holly explained to Warder, " we 
 had to prove ourselves free of the Atlas vein at 
 either one time or other. Now that we ve done 
 it we know where we stand. Nobody stands a 
 ghost of a show in buying the Atlas for an apex 
 claim now; in fact, I wouldn t let a white man 
 waste his money. But while this Macklin man 
 has got good ground, we ll have to keep him from 
 knowing just how good it is. If we close this 
 deal to-morrow it won t be a minute too soon. 
 Some night one of our tunnel men will get full and 
 it will all come out. Every hour we leave this 
 thing open raises the chances against us." 
 
 203 
 
204 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Warder, not knowing what was in the other s 
 mind, only thought fifteen thousand rather high 
 for an undeveloped claim. 
 
 " He ll take whatever we give him," he said 
 shrewdly. " We ve got him going." 
 
 " I d rather pay the difference between fifteen 
 and five than lose the chance at several hundred 
 thousand," was the reply. " And if anything hap 
 pens and he finds out what we ve proved, where will 
 all these other properties soar to Red Rock and 
 Daisy and Atlas Extension? It would look like 
 the start of that balloon race you took me to see 
 in Fairmount Park." 
 
 " Right," was the laconic answer. " We ll get 
 busy and close it up to-morrow. Probably some 
 of those other claims could also be picked up at 
 fairly cheap figures." 
 
 Up until this time Biddle had followed the 
 trend of the plans fairly well, but after his sec 
 ond highball, he remembered that while the mine 
 had been explored the town of Bullionfield was still 
 uninvestigated. 
 
 "And so you think we might take in the Ex 
 tension to advantage?" his father was saying. 
 "Oh, going out, Biddle?" 
 
 " Just for some cigarettes," the boy replied. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 205 
 
 * I m sorry we don t inhale," his father com 
 mented. " Better load up with good cigars before 
 you go. Well, now about this Atlas Exten 
 sion " and the door swung shut upon the 
 
 smoked-wreaflied three. 
 
 It was the Easterner s first experience in a min 
 ing camp, and as he picked his way down the 
 shadowy trail towards the town shining in the 
 gulch below under a flood of moonlight, he 
 breathed the sweet night air with a new zest. The 
 blurred ranges rimming the basin with their dark 
 bulk, the vague desert sweeping off to the north, 
 with its suggestions of freedom and hidden wealth 
 and solitude, began to fascinate him. He felt 
 himself truly on the fringe of civilization, in a 
 remote nook of the world where Young Blood and 
 Chance and Danger ran their riotous course unre 
 strained. 
 
 Thus it was the Silver Grill, instead of the dingy 
 lobby of the hotel, which claimed him and the 
 few gold pieces he fed onto its green cloth, and 
 after that, the Green Front and the Lone Star 
 and the dubious Red Onion. In the latter place 
 he watched until the silent Chesterfield who pre 
 sided over the faro game had turned up the 
 " low " card thrice in succession. Then Biddle 
 
206 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 delved into his pocket and quickly bet on the 
 " high/ brusquely thrusting his hand over the 
 shoulders of the wordless devotees and dropping 
 his coin on the table with a noisome clatter that 
 plainly disturbed their meditations. Whereupon 
 the heavy-eyed dealer rebuked him, with a slow, 
 estimating look and further rebuked him, much to 
 his distress, by turning up the low card some six 
 times running. 
 
 " I ve saw it do that and then get worse," a 
 sympathetic voice murmured nearby. An engag 
 ing individual, the brilliancy of whose smile was 
 slightly dimmed by a three days beard, was walk 
 ing at his side. Rather pleased than otherwise to 
 have a companion, Biddle found himself replying, 
 and by means of unconscious mind-readings, or 
 else it was the genial one s impelling elbow, they 
 presently arrived at the bar. While they stood 
 there it was seen that the man had but one 
 eye. 
 
 " A little whirl at the games comes easy to us 
 mining men," the new friend remarked in tones 
 that reminded Biddle that he was now of that pro 
 fession. The minute I see you I says to myself, 
 1 There s a natural born gambler mines or cyards 
 he don t care which. " 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 207 
 
 " No," said Biddle languidly, " it s all the same 
 to me. When I m tired of one I go to the 
 other." 
 
 "Exactly," and the man doubled up with a 
 noiseless laugh. " That s the way they tell us 
 the world over. But speaking of mines, now," 
 and he deftly extracted a fragment of rock from 
 his pocket, " as one mining man to another, what 
 would be your opinion on that? " 
 
 Biddle s skin prickled a little, but he took the 
 rock and studied it. " Fairly high-grade, I should 
 say. Where did it come from? " 
 
 The unknown clutched at his elbow. 
 
 " Pardner," he said in hushed tones, " you ll 
 never believe it! Right off this hill behind us! 
 I knocked that rock off the outcrop of the Atlas 
 Extension at four o clock this very afternoon." 
 He glanced warily about, then nudged the other. 
 " Let s take a mope," he said. " This place is too 
 popular." 
 
 Once on the street the one-eyed man exploded 
 with excitement. " I struck it just by luck," he 
 whispered hoarsely. " I ve got an option on the 
 claim for a few thousand dollars and was picking 
 around up there and found this bully little rock." 
 He paused and then gave vent to a cynical laugh. 
 
208 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " It s great big luck, all right, and yet it ain t 
 luck at all fer me. But even if I can t make 
 good on the option, do you figger I d tell them 
 what they ve got and have them open up a lead 
 of picture rock and let them lah-di-dah around 
 in their ottomobiles and take their trips to old 
 New York and gay Paree ? Do you reckon I d let 
 them get away with a good thing like this? No, 
 sir. No, sirree! I ain t that partickler kind of 
 an oyster, no I ain t ! I just says to myself, says 
 I, * You re broke and you know it, all along of 
 cyards and sech trash, but mebbe if you ll stay 
 sober long enough you ll find some feller that 
 knows good dirt and he ll take it off your hands 
 and give you a little something for your trouble. 
 And if you don t find any feller like that, then 
 you lay almighty low and squirm around and try 
 every way you kin to get that there option ex 
 tended " 
 
 "What was the purchase price?" Biddle 
 broke in. 
 
 u Three thousand iron men," was the mourn 
 ful reply. " It s a regular crime, now, ain t it? 
 Oh, you can t take a look at that little rock and 
 tell me. No, sirree. You know too much about 
 these things and so do I." 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 209 
 
 The one-eyed man clutched off his hat and ran 
 his hand despairingly through his hair, while his 
 single orb rolled in a fine frenzy. 
 
 "Why, Sacred Pickles!" he moaned; "if 
 there ain t but an inch over three foot of that ore 
 she s worth fifty thousand of any man s money! 
 But, pardner look at me ! Look at them shoes ! 
 Mebbe they really are shoes and mebbe it s only 
 a compliment to my family. And look at this yere 
 hat! Some calls it a hat, but the top falls in and 
 the brim flops up and rightly considered it ain t a 
 gentleman s hat at all. But don t look at the hat 
 look at me with every red cent in the world 
 foolished away at Stud and then tell a feller 
 what he s going to do. Oh, / know just as well 
 as you. I ve got to sell and I ve got to sell cheap, 
 but I tell you it hurts!" 
 
 Standing there in the moonlight before so 
 faultless an exhibition of despair, the Philadel- 
 phian began to thrill a little over his remarkable 
 luck. Three thousand dollars would be a very 
 low figure for a claim in the Yellow Dog group, 
 and fully two thousand less than his father was 
 willing to pay. Biddle began to see an opportu 
 nity for a small deal inside the family. Another 
 moment and he had decided. All these mining 
 
210 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 matters had to be handled decisively and quickly, 
 he knew. 
 
 "What do you want for your option?" he 
 asked. 
 
 The eye ceased its rolling and grew almost tear 
 ful. There were profane lamentations and men 
 tion of five hundred dollars. 
 
 u I ll give you two hundred,* said Biddle. 
 
 The one-eyed man exhibited his soleless shoes 
 again and laughed a bitter laugh. " She s all 
 yours," he answered mournfully. " You couldn t 
 let me have part of it to-night, could you? I ll 
 give you a quit claim to my rights when we go be 
 fore a Notary in the morning." 
 
 " I don t mind," said Biddle. " By the way, 
 what did you say your name was?" 
 
 " Brewster," said the one-eyed man. " I 
 reckon I don t know you so very well, either." 
 
 u My name is Warder," the Philadelphian re 
 plied. 
 
 " No wonder you wanted that option," the other 
 exclaimed with an admirable start. " I ort to 
 have stood out for more." 
 
 " Too late now," said Biddle, quickly passing 
 over some bills. 
 
 " Yep. Too late now," sighed Mr. Brewster, 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 211 
 
 accepting the money with profound regret. " But 
 that s the way she goes. Well, good-night! See 
 you in the morning right here on this very spot 
 at eight o clock. Now, don t forget ! " 
 
 As Biddle climbed the trail to the office he 
 could hardly repress his exultation. People would 
 learn more about him and his eye to opportunities 
 in the morning. 
 
 "This desert is certainly a great place," he re 
 marked genially to Holly, meditating alone on the 
 porch. " I wasn t much for it at first, but now 
 I see there s something in it, after all." 
 
 " It takes a little work sometimes to get it out," 
 the other replied gravely. " But it is pleasant to 
 hear that you have become interested in the min 
 ing idea." 
 
 " Mining is all right," said Biddle. " I used 
 to think it was principally luck, but I consider now 
 that all it needs is the same cold, hard sense you 
 would apply to any commercial proposition." 
 
 " Yes. Sense is good," admitted the ranch 
 man, " and sometimes it s lucky to have a sort of 
 sixth sense hanging round. A newspaper man 
 once told me that mining was c the science of in 
 telligent conjecture. Wasn t it funny how he got 
 to know all that? They were mighty big words 
 
212 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 for just a little pay-ore. Did you find something 
 of interest in our little town? " 
 
 " I think so," said Diddle, feeling that the 
 other was a little too strong for him. "Good 
 night." 
 
 The moon rode higher into the violet vault and 
 filled the star-shot night with a gray gleaming. 
 Under its softening touch the squat cabins of the 
 town, blurred into shadowy picturesqueness, 
 seemed to huddle together on the hillside like a 
 band of night-herded cattle, while vague in the 
 opaline mystery of the desert, the giant bulk of 
 the mountains rose up as if from the wash of a 
 silent, blue-gray sea. 
 
 It had come to Holly, and not without a sense 
 of relief, that he wouldn t be able to prove any 
 thing against old Joey, after all. His investiga 
 tors having brought him nothing definite so far, he 
 further knew that the Sheriff s evidence would be 
 similarly weak, and he only feared the latter s 
 actions for the useless stir they would produce. 
 The thing to do right now was to get the old man 
 out of camp so that no accident could ever reveal 
 his identity to Clarice. But if, on the other hand, 
 Jake decided to take the man into custody without 
 any genuine proof well, the desert was wide and 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 213 
 
 trails were dim. Twenty-four hours start and 
 Jake would have a job on his hands the girl 
 asleep over there behind the hills was going to be 
 kept unsullied at all hazards even if Dick Holly 
 had to break the law to do it. 
 
 A figure sauntered up the trail with its hands 
 in its pockets and drew near to the house by 
 leisurely progressions. 
 
 Holly took his feet down from the railing and 
 shouldered up out of his chair. " Hello, there, 
 Jake. Come up and sit down." 
 
 "I reckon not," said the Sheriff. "I only 
 wanted tu tell y u that I can t hold off any longer 
 my man Whitley will be here to-morrow. If 
 you re figuring on a little jumping well, it s a 
 nice, clear night you d better go tu it." 
 
 " No use," said the ranchman crisply. " You 
 haven t got anything on him, and neither have I. 
 Take my advice, partner, and give it up. The 
 trail s too old." 
 
 " The boys are looking for doings," the Sheriff 
 replied. 
 
 " Jake," broke in Holly strongly, " why don t 
 you let this fellow go? He s an old man and 
 can t do any harm. Why not call it off? You 
 know me and you know that if there was the ghost 
 
2i 4 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 of a show to get that claim without paying for it 
 I d take it quicker than One-eyed Brewster will 
 take a drink. What does this man of yours know 
 about Macklin, anyway?" 
 
 u It s more what he knows about Danny Drew," 
 was Jake s surprising reply. " Macklin claims he 
 bought Drew out, but this man says Drew wrote 
 him the day he left tu go prospecting and refused 
 tu sell the Atlas at any price" 
 
 u Oh, well," retorted Holly good-humoredly, 
 " you know and I know that the average pros 
 pector isn t real happy until he can refuse a big 
 offer and then accept ten per cent, of it six months 
 later. Why, Charley Phillips over in the Booster 
 office has a pet sentence set up all the time waiting 
 for some new strike so that he can say, It is re 
 ported that the owners of this claim have already 
 refused an offer going well into six figures. I 
 guess your letter-writing friend is only accept 
 ing a chance to inspect a new camp free of ex 
 pense." 
 
 " I m just tellin y u," the Sheriff retorted. " I 
 didn t know y u were figurin on being particeps 
 criminis, Dick. Y u couldn t favor the old rat 
 more if y u were soft on his daughter I ve heard 
 he had a family," with which unanswerable re- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 215 
 
 mark the Law in Bullionfield put its hands back 
 in its pockets and meandered pensively away. 
 
 The ranchman watched the departing figure with 
 a thoughtful expression on his face. So there was 
 a case against Macklin, after all. The fat was 
 in the fire with a vengeance ! It would take quick 
 work to-morrow to save it. " Good old Jake," 
 he murmured as he turned away to bed. " He s 
 been mighty square with me. Too bad I ve got 
 to fool him now." 
 
 When six o clock in the morning came Biddle 
 was wide awake and by seven he was shaved and 
 dressed and looking out of his window at the 
 town. Viewed in the searching light of a Nevada 
 morning, the camp seemed to lack some of the 
 flavor it had owned under darkness, but he had 
 no trouble in picking out the Red Onion, where 
 Mr. Brewster would be waiting for him at eight 
 sharp, the more easily because the daily stage for 
 Ami was at that moment about to start from the 
 same spot. There seemed to be some slight de 
 lay in leaving this morning, but after a partially 
 intoxicated passenger had finally been induced to 
 forsake the enticements of the hostelry, the driver 
 let his brake go with a slam, and the stage de 
 parted. 
 
216 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Biddle arrived in front of the Red Onion at 
 eight-five. At eight-fifteen, there being no Mr. 
 Brewster in sight, he looked inside. At eight- 
 thirty he was strolling up and down the street, 
 the better to rid himself of a disturbing sus 
 picion. At nine o clock he walked into the Onion 
 and asked abruptly if Mr. Brewster had been seen 
 that day. 
 
 The bartender appraised him with a competent 
 eye and continued polishing his glasses. After a 
 proper interval, during which it was borne in 
 on the Philadelphian that in these Western States 
 your true gentleman is jealous of his poise, he 
 was asked if, perchance, it might be Mr. " One- 
 eyed " Brewster whom he sought. 
 
 " He certainly had one eye," said Biddle iras 
 cibly. " And somebody s got a hundred dollars of 
 my good money." 
 
 At this the barman raised his eyebrows a frac 
 tion of an inch and coughed faintly. " I m right 
 glad y u mentioned that," he said with some re 
 lief. " One-eye and his curious hundred dollars 
 had us so puzzled last night that we were all 
 counting our rolls. I guess I can locate at least 
 part of it for you." 
 
 " Oh, you can?" said Biddle hopefully. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 217 
 
 " Yes," said the other thoughtfully. " I know 
 I ve got about twenty-five of it and the grave 
 yard shift on the faro bank took in ten more. 
 That would make, say, thirty-five. Then, the 
 stage fare from here to Ami is five that s forty 
 
 altogether " He paused and frowned over a 
 
 disgusting possibility. " I wonder if it s really 
 possible that we let One-eye get away from us 
 with sixty real dollars in his clothes?" 
 
 Biddle waited to hear no more. As he passed 
 out into the street he stepped on something 
 that rolled under his foot, and when he looked 
 down angrily he recognized it as the one-eyed 
 man s fragment of " high-grade," which, having 
 served its purpose, had been blithely tossed away. 
 With a faintly tingling sensation about his ears 
 Biddle realized that it was entirely unnecessary to 
 make inquiry into the ownership of the Atlas 
 Extension, or as to certain valuable options that 
 would presently expire. He had been gulled as 
 easily as any yokel who ever raised the walnut- 
 shell to find the little pea. 
 
 Retracing his steps to the mine office, his dis 
 comfiture was not lessened by the fact that his 
 father and the two miners were waiting for him 
 in a rather pregnant silence. 
 
2i8 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " Biddle," said his father, with a strange, sharp 
 note in his voice, " what s this we hear about 
 your going around town last night buying up 
 claims ?" 
 
 " I didn t buy any claims," the son answered 
 with a troubled look. " I was just just trying 
 to get an option, that was all." 
 
 "Oh, you and your options!" his father 
 barked angrily. " Do you know what you with 
 your kid notions have done to us ? You ve got the 
 whole town laughing over the way this man skinned 
 you out of your money and you ve raised the price 
 of every claim we wanted by at least a hundred per 
 cent. And that isn t all, by any means." 
 
 " Wha-wha-what s the matter now?" faltered 
 Biddle, unable to take his eyes from his father s 
 reddened face. 
 
 " The matter s just this," roared Warder, shak 
 ing a lead pencil under his son s nose. " You 
 snapped at the Atlas Extension so hard that Mack- 
 lin will go up in the air again and we ll never get 
 him down. If you wanted to be the cause of my 
 losing fifty thousand dollars, why, in the name of 
 Time didn t you say so, and I d have given you 
 the money. If you want any more of your precious 
 options, for Heaven s sake go out on a dry lake 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 219 
 
 and mine for crab apples, where you ll be out of 
 the way." 
 
 The father s keen eye searched his son s face 
 for a moment longer. " If I thought you were 
 really trying anything funny I d ship you back to 
 Philadelphia," he said in calmer tones. " I guess 
 you ve got to be educated. This business we re 
 in is a little different from sewing rabbits on a 
 card in a kindergarten." 
 
 Holly pointed out of the window. 
 
 " Here comes Patterson with Joey now. Per 
 haps we can do something along the original lines 
 in spite of his rainbow ideas." 
 
 " I hope so," remarked Warder pere. " I don t 
 want you to lose money on my account. Come 
 right in, Mr. Macklin." 
 
 The moment Macklin stepped inside the door 
 the ranchman knew that something had happened. 
 The old man s beard was as matted as before and 
 his nose was as red as ever, but the confident light 
 in his eye was too strong to proceed from so small 
 a thing as Biddle s mistake. At other times the 
 arrogance with which the Atlas man tilted his 
 chair back and smilingly produced a cigar would 
 have been only ridiculous, but this time it was 
 backed up by something tangible. Holly thought 
 
220 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 of the two precious weeks wasted while he was 
 hunting for evidence that now he couldn t use, 
 and his lips tightened. He wondered why Fate 
 had concentrated the source of all his troubles in 
 this miserable shell of a man, and yet tantalizingly 
 stood him off from a decent vengeance. 
 
 " Joey," said he, " we all know what we re here 
 for and we might as well get down to business. 
 As I told you two weeks ago, the Yellow Dog 
 Company is ready to buy your Atlas claim. 
 We ll give you fifteen thousand dollars, spot 
 cash." 
 
 The old man s lips parted in a knowing and 
 unpleasantly ugly grin. " Push it up," he said 
 laconically. " Y u offered me forty thousand once 
 y u ll offer it again." 
 
 " Feeling pretty strong this morning, are you? " 
 the ranchman asked ironically. " Where do you 
 get these ideas?" 
 
 Macklin puffed out a cloud of smoke and held 
 his cigar aloft between two crooked talons. u I 
 gets my ideas from two things," he answered 
 with studied insolence, " and the fust of em is that 
 since last night proputties, generally, in this yere 
 camp has nz." 
 
 "We re here for business, not foolishness," 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 221 
 
 said Holly sharply. "What s your other rea 
 son?" 
 
 With a gleam of triumph in his eye Macklin let 
 his chair slowly down on all four legs. " Be 
 cause," he answered, as he tapped off the words 
 with a bony forefinger on Holly s knee, "I know 
 what you ve got in your winze in the tunnel! " 
 
 Truth or untruth as this startling announce 
 ment might prove to be, neither the ranchman 
 nor Warder nor even the silent Wiley blinked an 
 eyelid. But Biddle quickly saw that the thing was 
 impossible. 
 
 " You couldn t know," he stated. " WeVe got 
 a watchman there." 
 
 The Atlas man laughed out with unholy glee 
 and slapped his leg. 
 
 "Thanks, young feller; thanks," he said. 
 " Forty thousand is my price. Take it or leave 
 it, just as y u please." 
 
 Before Warder pere could begin a fitting re 
 joinder a rather rueful acceptance of conditions 
 seemed to spread itself over Holly s face. 
 
 " Of course, you would have a right to your 
 ideas," Warder heard his partner saying, " even 
 if we told you that you didn t know what we ve 
 got, but before we go any further we ll ask you to 
 
222 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 show us that the claim is yours to sell. Let s see," 
 said the ranchman, while the old man nodded in 
 cheerful appreciation, " didn t you buy this claim 
 from a man named Drew? " 
 
 " That s right," came the reply. " Danny 
 Drew just afore he went tu Idyho." 
 
 " But Drew didn t get to Idaho," was the objec 
 tion. 
 
 " Right. I know that," old Joey answered 
 alertly. " Some feller shot him." 
 
 4 Y-e-e-s. I guess we re all pretty sure of that 
 by now," Holly agreed. " But did you happen 
 to know that Drew was offered a large sum for 
 the claim about the time that you bought it from 
 him?" 
 
 The question sounded rather queer to Warder. 
 Something in the ranchman s face, though perhaps 
 it was its utter lack of expression, told him that 
 another element had been drawn into the game. 
 Who was this man u Drew " and why had he 
 been shot? What was Holly trying to do to Mack- 
 lin? What had Macklin to do with Drew? 
 The Philadelphian s mouth took on its slit-like 
 look. 
 
 The old man cleared his throat before replying. 
 Sitting still in his chair, with his eyes fixed on 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 223 
 
 Holly, he made answer without a trace of emo 
 tion. 
 
 " Yes," he said evenly. " I ve heard some say 
 he was made an offer about that time." 
 
 " That s right," continued the inquisitor, " and 
 since you re aware of that, you must also know 
 that this offer was made before you bought the 
 claim." 
 
 " Yes," said the old man again, with the same 
 curious calmness. " I know that." 
 
 " Hmmmm," said Holly thoughtfully. He 
 paused long enough to let the halt gather weight, 
 and then suddenly put out a hand and gripped the 
 other s knee. "And do you know, too, that Drew 
 refused that offer? " 
 
 Like a flash, both Warder and Wiley riveted 
 their eyes on Macklin s face. The trap which the 
 silent superintendent had been grimly waiting for 
 and which the Philadelphian now almost under 
 stood had been deftly set. Would he walk into it? 
 
 " Yes, and I know that, too, Mister Good- 
 player !" the old man retorted, with the rising 
 snarl of a cornered animal. " Oh, I ve been wait 
 ing for y u tu spring that, Dick Holly, but it won t 
 go! Don t think I ain t wise tu what they re sayin 
 about my shootin Danny Drew, but you ll never 
 
224 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 prove it that way, or anything about that claim, 
 nuther, for the mighty good reason that I wrote 
 that there refusin letter all by myself! Yes, I 
 did," he went on, leaping from his chair and shak 
 ing his fist in the ranchman s face. " That letter 
 came into Moab post office for Danny Drew and 
 I took it and opened it. And when I saw what 
 he d been offered I sat me down and I refused it 
 for him, and then I went out after Drew, and 
 I bought that claim for myself!" 
 
 Holly felt his partner s eye on him as he slowly 
 took a cigar from his pocket and clipped the end. 
 He knew Warder thought he had failed. And he 
 was inclined to think so, himself, for he had 
 played the only cards that he was allowing him 
 self to-day, and old Joey had trumped them. 
 Jake s evidence had proved worthless, just as he 
 had expected. That which the old man had said 
 he had done with the letter was probably true. 
 The attempt to trap the beast and scare it into 
 submission had proved futile. The trail was too 
 old. 
 
 But there was a last entanglement remaining. It 
 was the same point that the circus woman had 
 made two days before and although he had no 
 hopes of bringing anything to light, his sense of 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 225 
 
 fairness to Warder demanded that he make the 
 attempt. And so he only laughed and puffed out 
 smoke and put a repressing hand on the old man s 
 arm. 
 
 "I wish you wouldn t get so excited," he said. 
 " We can t do any business if you act like a jack- 
 rabbit with the St. Vitus. All we want to know 
 is if you bought and paid for that claim. Didn t 
 Buckner grub-stake you on that trip? " 
 
 There were sounds in the office outside where 
 Patterson was acting as watch-dog, but in the 
 confusion and scraping of chairs none of the five 
 heard the outer door open or the young engineer s 
 quick step as he sprang up. 
 
 Again the Atlas man cleared his throat with 
 irritating calmness and fixed a malevolent eye on 
 the ranchman. 
 
 " Y u asks me if a man by the name of Buckner 
 has interests in this yere deal. I tells y u that I 
 buys and pays for that there claim with my own 
 money. I pays the sum of two hundred dollars 
 for that proputty " 
 
 The click of a lock broke into the sentence. 
 Looking over Macklin s shoulder they saw Patter 
 son with a question on his lips. But the engineer 
 was not the only one in the outer office, for some- 
 
226 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 one presently put a gauntleted hand against the 
 door and opened it wide. 
 
 It was Clarice. 
 
 With a comprehensive glance which took in the 
 occupants of the room and the situation at first 
 sight, the woman of the circus came swiftly in 
 and held out the proof of Macklin s poverty on 
 that February day three years before. There was 
 no word of explanation, or even allusion to the 
 night s ride that they immediately knew she must 
 have taken nothing which thrust the girl herself 
 into the foreground as the heroine of a rather re 
 markable venture. It was merely the direct action 
 of one going about a necessary piece of business in 
 the necessary way. 
 
 " I know you want this, Mr. Holly," she said 
 simply, and gave him the leaf torn from Buckner s 
 day-book. u Please look at it at once." 
 
 The ranchman started to his feet with an audible 
 gasp. He knew instantly what had brought the 
 girl forty miles across the desert to Bullionfield 
 at just that time, and he also knew that he would 
 have given anything he possessed for power to 
 turn her arrival in that particular room into a 
 fugitive nightmare. His face fell and he grew 
 white. Although his hand grasped the piece of 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 227 
 
 paper instinctively, it was more because he hated 
 the sight of it than because he wanted its evidence. 
 He stood still for a short moment, his hand uncon 
 sciously gripping hers, his eyes full of horror 
 over the denouement. That grisly jester, Fate, had 
 found a hand at last to set the noose. 
 
 Out of all those in the room only Macklin 
 still kept his seat, nervously combing his beard with 
 his crooked talons and grinning yellowly, while his 
 malevolent eyes flickered suspiciously from one to 
 the other. Perhaps it was vouchsafed him in 
 that short moment to fathom the meaning of the 
 woman s sudden entrance. Perhaps some vagrant 
 memory of an account jotted down in a day-book 
 with just such pages came to his aid with its mes 
 sage of warning, for while the others exclaimed and 
 wondered the old man s feet unhooked themselves 
 from his chair-rungs and he made ready for flight. 
 
 " Oh would you?" Holly snarled, and caught 
 and whirled him, helpless, into a corner. "We re 
 not through with you yet, Mister Man. We ve 
 got some other business to transact." His hand 
 dove swiftly into the other s pocket and wrested a 
 revolver from the fingers which had curled round 
 it. " Well, lie down then, if you can t stand up." 
 
 " Macklin," said Holly, and he held the piece 
 
228 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 of paper torn from the day-book where the other 
 could see it, " you didn t leave much behind you 
 in the way of evidence when you shot Danny 
 Drew, but you left this, and it can put the rope 
 around your neck." 
 
 Warder wondered why Holly hadn t said 
 " will," instead of " can." Wiley noticed it, too, 
 but Wiley was moving towards the door. Wiley 
 wanted the Atlas and wanted it cheap. Jumping 
 claims meant action, pure and simple. But Holly 
 gestured to him to stay. 
 
 " We re going to buy the Atlas, just as I said 
 we would, Macklin but we re going to change 
 our terms a little. We ll give you in money 
 ONE DOLLAR ! For your good and valuable 
 considerations YOUR LIFE." 
 
 Warder s eyes shot open and he bit his lip, per 
 plexed. If Holly had known about this murder 
 business all along, why hadn t he swung the club 
 long ago? Sixty seconds before this partner of his 
 had been on the point of giving the man his 
 price ! 
 
 " Don t go tu hang a feller, Dick," whined 
 the man on the floor, and clawed at Holly s boots. 
 " I never done harm tu y u." 
 
 Holly shook his feet free. Catching the old man 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 229 
 
 savagely by the beard, he tilted the head back till 
 the other s blotched face was squarely under his 
 blazing eyes. 
 
 "TAKE ANOTHER LOOK!" he shouted, 
 with suddenly flaring rage. " Didn t you ever 
 harm me? Who was it stole a poor widow wom 
 an s horses and outfit thirty years ago and left her 
 stranded on the desert? Who was it took her 
 savings and left her without a red cent to go on ? 
 Who was it turned that poor woman into a slave 
 for the rest of her life that made her life a hell 
 when it ought to have been a heaven? Do you 
 remember Hot Creek, Macklin? Do you remem 
 ber the boy you left behind that day? Take an 
 other look just as I ll take a look," and he jerked 
 down the other s sleeve, " take another look at 
 yourself, you snake, and then say you never did 
 harm to me or mine ! " 
 
 Jerking the man to his feet Holly pitched him 
 forward into a chair and snapped a silver dollar 
 down beside him on the table. " SIGN HERE I " 
 he shouted in the other s ear, as with one heavy 
 hand holding him down he took a paper from 
 Wiley and slapped it open in front of him. " For 
 the sum of one dollar now in hand paid and other 
 good and valuable considerations." There s a lot 
 
230 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 of doubt about how good your life is, but 
 we ll try to make it valuable to you and no mis 
 take ! " 
 
 With a shaking hand the old man traced a 
 signature across the page. The Atlas was passing 
 passing with every wobbling letter passing 
 from Danny Drew to Macklin to Holly a matter 
 of mystery in years gone by, and now that one 
 mystery had been solved another had sprung up to 
 take its place. With a sickness round her heart 
 the woman of the circus recognized the presence 
 of some feeling far more bitter than her limited 
 knowledge would account for. It was as if some 
 thing had suddenly pierced a carefully hidden sack 
 of gall-like acridness and let the sour liquor flow 
 out and embitter Holly s eyes and face. She stole 
 a second look at the ranchman s features and saw 
 there the stoniness of an undeniable vengeance, 
 and a consuming hate which she had not thought 
 would ever show in such a place. 
 
 " STAND UP! " the ranchman shouted in the 
 ear of the almost palsied man. " YOUR JOB 
 HAS ONLY JUST BEGUN ! You thought the 
 desert was good enough for some we ll see if 
 it looks good to you now! " 
 
 The group parted as he pulled the other to his 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 231 
 
 feet, but Holly seemed hardly to know they were 
 there. Passing through the outer office with the 
 man in his clutch, he picked up a Winchester as if 
 it were a jack-straw and let it slide into the hollow 
 of his arm. A pair of field glasses were there, 
 also, and he dropped them in his pocket. Then, 
 half carrying, half pushing the man with him, he 
 passed out of the house and down the steps towards 
 a gulch which ran down at one side to the yellow 
 plain. 
 
 They followed him, fascinated. Although their 
 minds grasped the reason for this final reckoning 
 no better than they fathomed its results, some 
 thing drew them on, and as they followed, they 
 went for the most part silently, each one alone 
 among his thoughts. 
 
 Wiley followed for a time and then stopped 
 and turned back. 
 
 " It s his deal," he said, with a shake of his 
 head, to Clarice, coming slowly along behind. 
 " He has got the rights, here, from what he said. 
 Let him play it out the way he s planned." 
 
 But the circus woman, with a colorless face, 
 passed him without recognition. 
 
 :< What is he going to do with him, papa?" 
 Biddle faltered to his father, as together they 
 
232 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 stumbled down the rocky bed of the gully. " He 
 isn t going to kill him, is he?" 
 
 " I don t know, boy," the father answered, with 
 a troubled face. " Not that, I hope but it must 
 be something pretty bad." 
 
 The gulch was quiet now. Turning and twist 
 ing in its downward course, its bed was consider 
 ably below the mine-house of the Yellow Dog, 
 and farther still out of sight of the town. To 
 those who followed down there where the wind 
 ceased whirring in their ears and the sounds of 
 the camp passed, unheard, overhead, it seemed as 
 if they were miles away from any living thing. 
 Bone-dry and yellow-floored with its tortuous 
 channel choked with greasily shining boulders, the 
 path to the desert waiting below was like a suf 
 focating alley-way to a furnace, towards which 
 two figures always bore on, their shortened shad 
 ows inky black against the sand. 
 
 The gully turned for the last time and opened 
 out into the plain. They saw it stretching far 
 away to the south, father and son and silent, white- 
 faced woman, and it took on a new significance. 
 There was little of it that escaped them now, 
 whether it was the heat-waves eddying up, or the 
 rock hillocks, or the infinite miles themselves. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 233 
 
 They saw what was to happen, and their staring 
 eyes reflected the trials that were to come. The 
 two men hesitated at this point and decided to go 
 no further. But the woman passed on by with 
 a set face, and after a time climbed a side-hill 
 and found a boulder, to sit there silent and alone. 
 
 The two figures came to a halt. As they did 
 so a vagrant dust-whirl, spinning across the yellow 
 silt of the arroyo s mouth, swooped down and en 
 veloped them in its blinding spiral. Yet, when 
 it had passed, they were found in the same posi 
 tions as before, the bearded man shrinking back 
 from a look at the desert for a last, hopeless 
 searching of the other s eyes. 
 
 The man with the rifle seemed to speak for the 
 last time. Then he stepped back and waited. 
 
 The other lifted his arm half-way in a gesture 
 of despair, then let it drop. What was the use? 
 He knelt down and unfastened his shoes. This 
 done, he rose, and, as if the moment had given 
 him thinking space, opened his yellow-fanged 
 mouth and let go a flood of curses. But the tall 
 man, with the same merciless directness, only 
 kicked the shoes away and pointed. 
 
 And so, without noise and without expense 
 without vociferous trial by jury or the putting on 
 
234 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 of black caps the man who had shot another man 
 dead by his own camp-fire went down into the 
 grinning desert at high noon to pay his score. 
 
 An hour passed. At the end of that time the 
 watchers were still on the hillside; the two East 
 erners in the rear, murmuring together and point 
 ing; a hundred yards ahead, the silent, motion 
 less woman. Beyond them all, on the point of the 
 hill, sat a man with his eyes fixed unswervingly 
 on the desert, the long barrel of his rifle across his 
 knees. 
 
 The figure was quite small now. Plodding 
 steadily away to the south, it often lost itself for 
 several minutes at a time among the swales and 
 gullies but always came to sight again, crawling up 
 the opposite bank with the torpid movement of 
 some heat-dazed insect. And always it grew more 
 vague and more difficult to pick up again, once it 
 had vanished, until at last it turned into a mere 
 dot in a hazed immensity of gray. 
 
 Another hour passed and there were only two 
 on the hillside, sitting on in the heat while the 
 silence rang in their ears and lizards flickered up 
 to the tops of the rocks to stare at them alertly 
 with liquescent eyes. 
 
 After a time, the man on the point of the hill 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 235 
 
 leaned his rifle against a boulder and raised his 
 glasses. What he saw apparently satisfied him, for 
 he put the glasses back in his pocket and picked up 
 his rifle again. 
 
 She rose to meet him as he came along the hill 
 side, picking his way carefully among the brush 
 and stones. He had not yet noticed her, and, curi 
 ously enough, he did not look very grim. The 
 stoniness in his face had passed away the eyes 
 were warm and kind again his air was that of 
 a man suddenly relieved of an agonizing weight, 
 or, better still, it was that of one who had joy 
 ously washed himself free of contamination. He 
 stooped to pluck idly at some bright desert flower 
 as he came along, and was even heard to hum a 
 little tune. But when he saw her waiting for him 
 beside the rock of her vigil his face grew grave 
 again. He wondered if she would ever know 
 how very close a thing it had been. 
 
 " I didn t know it would be like that," the girl 
 said simply. " I never thought of there being 
 any ending." Her breath began to come quickly. 
 Her eyes, worn out with watching, grew moist with 
 tears. She looked up at him piteously, unconscious 
 that her hands were clutched together at her breast. 
 Self-accusation trembled on her lips. 
 
236 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " It seemed enough just to prove it. I never 
 stopped to think how it must end." She gave a 
 single, convulsive sob and wavered towards him. 
 " And all last night, while I was riding, I was so 
 happy happy! " 
 
 " Don t, partner," he said, in anguish, and she 
 felt his arm around her for one blessed moment 
 strengthening her, lifting her up, and pouring a 
 vitalizing current into her heart. " Please don t 
 say those things. You re not to blame or else 
 he s right and we all of us are wrong." 
 
 " I know," she said honestly, her brimming 
 eyes held up to his as they stood together. " And 
 yet it was / who did it all." 
 
 " No," he smiled, so that it was a pleasure to be 
 so gently contradicted. " I guess we can leave a 
 little of it to him. And yet, what have we done 
 to-day you and I, and the fear of this gun? 
 We ve only taken this man that ought to be kick 
 ing for his life up there against the sky " 
 
 " But the torture! " she cried. " It isn t 
 right! " 
 
 "Torture?" he answered. " But he wants 
 that. He s good and willing to take it. He gave 
 up his life to-day with that piece of paper. Now 
 he s trying to get it back. He s ready to pay ! " 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 237 
 
 " Do you mean he won t die?" she asked 
 swiftly. 
 
 There was a strange mixture of feelings in the 
 ranchman s breast as he made answer. Yet he was 
 honest as always. 
 
 " He has a chance," he said. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 " I TELL you what, Charlotte. I ve done some 
 fairly smart things in my life, but I was just a 
 little bit the smartest when I got hold of this man 
 Holly. 
 
 Warder pere, luxuriating in his balbriggans and 
 deboutonne in mood as well, was cooling a sun 
 burned face in the wash-basin while, between splut 
 ters, he delivered himself of some opinions to his 
 wife. 
 
 " It s just as they say out here Gold is where 
 you find it. You never can tell you never can 
 tell! Why, when I went down that shaft and 
 looked at the ore I saw right away what it is that 
 drives these fellows crazy. Just think, Charlotte ! 
 There we were, walking along in a tunnel to all 
 appearances just like a ditch for a gas-main back in 
 Jenkintown, when Holly put his hand out and 
 said, There she is ! And there it was ! FIVE 
 HUNDRED DOLLARS A TON ! Just strike it 
 once once in a lifetime, Charlotte, and your for 
 tune s made. 
 
 " And, by George ! the wealth in that property 
 238 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 239 
 
 is something fairly amazing. Holly was as tickled 
 as a ten-year-old boy. Just sat back and laughed 
 and laughed, and said, Well, are you satisfied, 
 Mr. Warder? And I said, 4 Holly, you piebald 
 old son-of-a-gun 
 
 " Osgood ! Your language! " 
 
 " I know I know, darling. It s the high alti 
 tude " 
 
 " But I always thought it took some special kind 
 of a person to know about gold," his wife re 
 marked, doubtfully surveying her hero s legs. " I 
 didn t know that an ordinary man like you could 
 go right out and get it. Isn t it awfully hard to see 
 in the ground? " 
 
 " Not at all not at all," corrected the miner- 
 husband. " Often you can see it in little yellow 
 specks sticking right out. Why a rock no bigger 
 than that sofa you re sitting on will sometimes be 
 worth a thousand dollars if it only has those little 
 flakes in it ! It s really no trick at all. It s what 
 I ve claimed all along you simply find it or you 
 don t. Anybody can have a mine a boy, or a 
 woman anybody at all. Oh, you never can tell 
 you never can tell." 
 
 " I wonder if Imogene " 
 
2 4 o THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 "What say?" 
 
 " Nothing, my dear nothing at all," his wife 
 murmured. " I was only wondering something." 
 
 But, however largely the question of mines 
 might have bulked in the lady s thoughts at just 
 that moment, there was one particular affair which 
 Mrs. Warder at no time lost sight of, and the 
 pressure which lay behind her immediate hints to 
 Amy Radnor was not weakened by what she had 
 heard from her husband. As a result, the girl be 
 gan to feel very forlorn. Insults were an ancient 
 experience for the last of the Radnor family, but 
 what had once been borne as a necessary affliction 
 became a torment under freer surroundings. All 
 too late, she yearned to escape from bondage. 
 Compared to the enterprising Belvawney, whose 
 horizons were apparently limited only by the mail 
 order service, her own life seemed bounded by the 
 conventional shapes of a boxwood hedge. Yet 
 Amy knew instinctively that her yearnings would 
 be in vain. Your fine-furred house-cat must own 
 something sharper than the mere stirrings of in 
 dependence if it contemplates the perilous aerials 
 of the backyard fence. 
 
 But Amy s mind, to-day, was more particularly 
 harassed by another matter, and she set out on 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 241 
 
 a solitary walk through the orchard, which natu 
 rally brought about a meeting with the one person 
 she devoutly hoped to avoid. 
 
 She blushed as the ranchman drew near, and 
 wondered how she looked to him, bareheaded, dis 
 trait, and silent. With a woman s first fear, she 
 hoped she would not be laughed at. But the 
 ranchman only took off his hat and leaned casually 
 against the fence nearby. It seemed as if he un 
 derstood her thoughts and had dropped into silent 
 communion with her. Her flutterings ceased. She 
 felt at ease again. 
 
 " Well, Miss Amy," he said with a pleasantly 
 teasing note in his voice. " What s his name? " 
 
 Amy s second blush was a complete success, 
 until a hand dropped down and covered her 
 own. " It s all right, Miss Amy," she heard him 
 say. " Nobody told me. I just naturally guessed 
 it. I won t tell." 
 
 " I don t see how you ever imagined it," Amy 
 stammered, through her subsiding pinkness. " No 
 body at home knows it; not even Aunt Charlotte 
 just David and myself. But, oh! Mr. Holly! " 
 she broke out with a rush of confidence, " I don t 
 know what we are going to do. We ve been en 
 gaged for so long and he works and works and 
 
242 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 can t get ahead. It seems, sometimes, as if it 
 would never happen." 
 
 " Tell me about it," he said. 
 
 Amy drew a long breath. 
 
 " He s a clerk in the Third Street Bank/ she 
 said. " For a long time he was a * runner. Then 
 they put him in the * loan department for what 
 seemed a geological period. I was afraid he d 
 petrify there. But he got out of that somehow, 
 and now he s First Assistant in the Receiving 
 Teller s cage. But the stuffy bank people won t 
 do anything for him and old Bailey, the Teller, 
 simply won t die and there we are there every 
 thing is. We re just tied hand and foot. And 
 David s growing so white, and I m growing so 
 sallow " 
 
 "Does your aunt know?" he interrupted 
 quickly. 
 
 " No, indeed," was the frightened response. 
 " She wants me to marry someone with lots of 
 money she doesn t care if I like him or not. I 
 might like him, of course," and Amy launched a 
 daring smile, " but even out here you can t love 
 two people at once, unless you re a Bishop. 
 
 " Of course, Uncle Os is awfully good to me," 
 she went on, " but whenever we get settled down 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 243 
 
 for a talk, little boys come with code messages, or 
 else Long Distance calls up and says Pittsburg 
 wants to talk to him, and so we never get around 
 to poor David. But it does me just as much good 
 to talk to you," she said naively. " You seem 
 more like an uncle every day. That won t make 
 you feel too old, will it? You re not really an 
 old man." 
 
 " Oh, no," he said swiftly. " No. I m not old, 
 But tell me more about this man back there in a 
 cage who can t die." 
 
 " Oh, you can t do anything," Amy said hope 
 lessly. " I ve given him mental suggestion for 
 everything from breaking his neck on the cellar 
 stairs to being destroyed by a taxi-cab. And, just 
 to make matters worse, David saw him * Fletcher- 
 izing his lunch last week, and now we think he ll 
 live twenty years ! " 
 
 Holly pondered. " How much money has this 
 David boy saved up? " he asked. " But of course 
 you wouldn t know " 
 
 " Oh, ho ! Don t I ? " exclaimed Amy. " We 
 have exactly four hundred and seventy-two dollars 
 and nine cents. We re waiting for a thousand." 
 
 Holly straightened up and struck the fence a 
 sharp blow with his fist. " Tell him to buy or 
 
244 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 option every single Bullionfield share he can get his 
 hands on," he said. " Amarinth and Daisy Ex 
 tension and Red Rock they ll all be booming big 
 to-morrow. Tell him to draw every cent of his 
 money even that nine cents will buy a share of 
 * Red Rock just tell him to take a big breath 
 and let-her-go! But you ll have to hurry," he 
 warned. u Wire him right away. Send it in code 
 and get Miss Belvawney to help you. Don t let 
 Biddle know, or he ll be too quick perhaps he s 
 thought of it already." 
 
 " I ll hurry," gasped the girl. " I ll go right 
 
 now." 
 
 " And see here ! " he exclaimed vigorously, as he 
 strode after her. " Make a good job of it. Tell 
 him to get you all he can of everything at any 
 price and send me his figures. If you need any 
 more money, come to me! I ll stand by you right 
 straight through ! " 
 
 " I don t like to borrow," the girl fluttered as 
 she stumbled along through the orchard. " But, oh ! 
 if it only does come true! / know what I ll do. 
 I ll give you my note ! " 
 
 " But I ll want interest," he smiled. " I m a 
 terrible miser." 
 
 They reached the edge of the orchard and 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 245 
 
 paused. The ranch-house was not far distant 
 to all appearances no one was in sight. Amy 
 turned to him with a rush of gratitude, her face 
 transfigured. The sallowness had been reddened 
 away and hope had lighted its fires behind her 
 eyes. 
 
 " How can I ever thank you ! " she exclaimed, 
 and dropped her cheek for an instant against his 
 coat. " If you weren t so awfully tall, partner, 
 I d pay you some of that interest now," and 
 with another vivid blush, Amy picked up her skirts 
 and fled. 
 
 Mrs. Warder, on the ranch-house porch, 
 gasped, rose half out of her chair, hesitated 
 then sat heavily down. When, a moment before, 
 she had been idly gazing orchardwards, she had 
 been unwilling to believe her eyes. But for the 
 fleeting vision of her niece, very much flushed and 
 properly abashed, the very speed of the thing 
 would have made it incredible. Yet the fruits of 
 her generalship were undeniably in hand. To seize 
 the psychological moment and to be adroit 
 these had been her weapons. But even Napoleon 
 in Italy had never won such swift success. 
 
 " It must be the high altitude, as Osgood says," 
 she murmured, and sat back and folded her plump 
 
246 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 hands. Matters had turned out happily, after all. 
 
 Only once did a shadow cross her face. Al 
 though the thought that came to her was not pre 
 cisely dismaying, yet it intruded upon her tran 
 quillity with insistent interrogation. WHAT 
 WOULD THE STRONG WOMAN HAVE 
 TO SAY ABOUT IT? 
 
 While she was pondering this question and try 
 ing to build up rebuttals to a curious sensation of 
 fear she suddenly heard a loud " S-S-S-S-S-S-T ! " 
 behind her. Turning anxiously, she saw Imo- 
 gene s head protruding from the doorway. 
 
 The Strong Woman held up a warning finger 
 and looked cautiously about. 
 
 " Are you all ready to go up there? " she whis 
 pered hoarsely. u Now s our time nobody s in 
 sight. Just go monkeying around as if you were 
 n t going anywhere in partickeler, and I ll meet 
 you out back of the hay-stacker. We ll have to be 
 quick, or the men will see us going up the trail." 
 
 The other was instantly all attention. 
 
 " I won t let anybody see me," she fluttered 
 back, and gathered herself together. u But won t 
 we need some sacks to put the gold in? " 
 
 " I ve got all that," was the response, as Imo- 
 gene drew back into the darkened hallway. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 247 
 
 " Picks, and candles, and sample bags every 
 thing s been fixed for you" said Imogene. 
 
 And so it happened that Dick Holly, coming 
 back through the fields, found the house almost 
 deserted and only Drybone and Altamont on view, 
 sitting on the wood-pile. The little man was evi 
 dently explaining the workings of his flute, for 
 presently the foreman raised it gingerly to his 
 lips and blew forth a startling, staccato toot. 
 
 Holly knew well enough whom he sought. The 
 memory of two days ago was with him still, and 
 it dragged a snarl of worries in its train. 
 
 Hardly had they put Bullionfield and the puz 
 zled Sheriff at their backs than Clarice had lapsed 
 into thoughtful silence, with trouble lying behind 
 her eyes, as if she groped among old memories 
 for a leading thread. Swiftly contrived though 
 his revenge on Macklin had been, he feared that 
 some fleeting remembrance an inflection or a ges 
 ture, had set a train of thought in motion that 
 would bring nothing but disastrous results. 
 
 The office-door stood open and he wandered ir 
 resolutely inside. The room seemed as if she had 
 just left it, for he seemed to sense her in the pic 
 tures with which she had hidden the homely walls 
 the curtains draped back to let the sunlight in 
 
248 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 the pretty lamp-shades she had fashioned out of 
 paper. Her books, he saw, were put carefully away 
 in a box out of sight, while his own few volumes 
 stood neatly arranged on a shelf. Elsewhere were 
 other records of her unfailing industry, and wher 
 ever his eyes strayed they saw half-understood evi 
 dences of the girl s efforts to better herself and her 
 surroundings. Flowers were there, as always 
 honeysuckle and wild roses and some bright 
 desert blossom she had found in the valley that 
 morning. On her table by the window, one of her 
 gauntlets lay, palm upwards, the curves of her 
 fingers still in its shape. 
 
 He looked around again, and bit his lip in 
 silent chagrin. It seemed such a strange, unreach- 
 able world for such as he this fragment of a 
 young girl s life of half-guessed mysteries and 
 refinements beside whose delicate shadings his own 
 traits were garish and crude. He grew timid as her 
 images multiplied. Unknowingly, he had created 
 an atmosphere so redolent of femininity that it 
 would have needed only a jacket thrown carelessly 
 across a chair to make him hastily withdraw. 
 While he stood there, pondering, the girl entered 
 the room. 
 
 " I thought I had left a glove," she murmured. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 249 
 
 He followed her eyes and saw the gauntlet 
 clutched firmly in his hand. He stiffened, and 
 handed it to her with a wordless apology. He 
 would have liked to smile, but, somehow, was un 
 able. 
 
 The girl lowered her eyes and fidgeted with a 
 pencil on her desk. 
 
 " You have something for me to do? " she ven 
 tured. 
 
 " No," he said, with a hollow sound echoing 
 somewhere in the vastness of his head. " No. 
 Nothing that I can think of now." 
 
 He looked down at his feet, surprised not to 
 find them cemented to the floor they felt that 
 way. He found he was staring at her helplessly, 
 wondering what made her eyes so full and sweet. 
 He wondered why her hair shone and why it 
 waved. A tinge of pink was creeping up in her 
 cheek and he was puzzled for a reason. He saw 
 her pick up a pen-knife and drop it with a clatter. 
 
 " Mr. Holly," she said, with a quick breath, 
 " there doesn t seem to be much for me to do 
 around here any more." 
 
 "Ma am?" he said, startled. 
 
 " I said there wasn t anything for me to do," 
 she repeated bravely. " You ve put us all on half- 
 
250 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 pay, out of the goodness of your heart, but I can t 
 see at all that I m earning it all the mining busi 
 ness has gone over to the camp now, you know 
 I haven t done any of it here for a week or more. 
 Of course, I d like awfully to do anything you wish, 
 but frankly, Mr. Holly," and she raised her eyes 
 with a perceptible effort, " I don t see how you 
 justify my employment." 
 
 " Employment?" he said, with a bewildered 
 echo. "Justify? Why why why, I thought 
 you were just staying here ! " 
 
 " But the money," she said with some difficulty. 
 " I can t take it." 
 
 " Why I m giving you that," he explained 
 wildly. " It really isn t pay don t look at it that 
 way. It s just to help you out because I got you 
 all in a tight place. And just see what you did for 
 us at Yellow Dog! " 
 
 " I know what you mean," she said, distressed. 
 " But even if there was a need for it once, don t 
 you think you ve done enough for us now? " 
 
 What was she about to say? He felt a presenti 
 ment that something was going to hurt him pres 
 ently. The girl began to look first on one side and 
 then on the other. 
 
 " I don t know exactly what to say," she fal- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 251 
 
 tered. " You make it hard for me. You ask me 
 here as your guest and then you pay your guest. 
 How do you know but that I d like to stay here 
 always ?" She blushed furiously at this, but kept 
 on. " Don t you see how hard that will make it 
 after a while? When you get tired of us and want 
 us to go, you won t just be saying good-by you ll 
 be * dismissing your employees/ And some of 
 them the Blondellis, for instance might not 
 want to go, and then you d be hurting their feelings 
 terribly. But I ought not to speak for any but 
 myself. I only know that it s all been like a beau 
 tiful dream till to-day. I see now that we were 
 all so disheartened and hungry and forlorn that we 
 just took everything you gave us, and we ve lived 
 along ever since without a thought for the future. 
 Perhaps it didn t seem so queer until the others 
 came it was more as if we were all one happy 
 family, with a fine, big brother to take care of us. 
 It s been the very biggest help to me I ever, ever 
 
 had, but now but now I ll have to go " 
 
 " Don t! " he said, anguished, for he saw the 
 worried look behind it all. " Please don t, Miss 
 Clarice. Give me a minute or two ! Can t I 
 can t I sign em up with long-term contracts at full 
 pay and make em stay? " 
 
252 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " But that would only make it worse," she said, 
 with a faint smile over this incoherency. " Then 
 you d be paying us twice as much for doing noth- 
 ing." 
 
 The worried look clouded her eyes again it 
 seemed as if she couldn t keep it back. In spite 
 of her self-control, her mind had been whirling 
 night and day in a tireless circle around that pivotal 
 scene in Bullionfield. Unreasonable though it was, 
 her eyes were always following a black dot plod 
 ding wearily across a yellow plain. As often as 
 her thoughts flashed back to the sudden drama 
 in the office at the mine it was with an insistent 
 searching for something connected with the man 
 Macklin which had passed through her mind, half 
 noticed, at the time, but which now was develop 
 ing into a frightful suspicion. And yet, try as she 
 might, she could not remember what she had seen 
 or heard. 
 
 She stole a look at his face. His eyes were full 
 of misery. 
 
 " Am I a fool? " he was asking in a curiously 
 broken voice. " Why / thought we were happy 
 here ! What is it that I can do ? Isn t there some 
 way " 
 
 " No," she said sadly. " Don t you see that 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 253 
 
 it s all over for me, at least? I came as a guest 
 and I ve tried to help and now I ll go as a guest." 
 The girl s voice faded away. She looked to one 
 side again. Her throat worked and she picked 
 at her dress. 
 
 "But, Clarice!" the man cried frantically, "I 
 DON T WANT YOU TO GO ! You mustn t 
 go! You can t! You just got to stay here and 
 help me out. Why I can t have you running off 
 like this into the world where I can t find you ! " 
 His arms twitched at his sides. Almost almost 
 they were going out to her. 
 
 " You want me to stay? " she asked tremulously. 
 
 " Yes! Yes!" he cried, with the inspiration of 
 despair. " I ve got the biggest kind of a scheme 
 for you to work on. It s it s about this ranch 
 something I ve been thinking of, oh! for ever so 
 long something that you re just fitted for. Why," 
 he said, with wild gestures, " you haven t any idea 
 at all what I m going to do here when I really 
 get going I haven t got it all worked out, my 
 self, yet. You see it s been my plan to take this 
 nice, big, healthy ranch here " He was play 
 ing for time now, and racking his brains. " Where 
 we have sunlight and water and and every 
 thing and " 
 
254 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 She was looking at him very directly 
 
 " And turn it into a a HOME ! A home for 
 boys little boys. Yes, that s it. Little boys that 
 have got consumption. There it is ! Now you ve 
 got it!" 
 
 Her eyes opened. She took a quick breath. 
 He saw his chance and rushed on. 
 
 " That s what I want you for. Take this 
 1 Home and run it ! Be boss. Make the kids get 
 out and chase up and down the hills! Order 
 the fool doctors around and show em who s who, 
 by Jinks! See that they all get fed." He came 
 up for air, searched her face hopefully, then 
 plunged in again. u Wouldn t you like to do 
 that? Won t that be work enough for you? 
 You d have your hands full. Come on, Miss 
 Clarice. Be a sport. Say you ll stay. I ll put 
 Imogene and everyone to work on it nobody will 
 have to go. But no charity this time." (He was 
 going to be very careful of this. No mistakes like 
 that again for Dick Holly.) "Just cold, hard 
 business. And it will be up to you to see that it s 
 managed right. Those who don t do their work 
 will have to come to you and get their time." 
 
 The girl put out her hand and felt for the table. 
 She didn t know whether to laugh or cry or turn 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 255 
 
 and run away. Although she half suspected charity 
 again in some insidious form a recollection of their 
 first day together in this same room came to her, 
 and with it her intuition of his loneliness. It was 
 just that, after all just loneliness. And he was 
 wanting her to stay and help and remodel and 
 work out this amazing fantasy for helping little 
 boys 
 
 " I ll be holding you responsible " She heard 
 
 his warning faintly, as if he spoke from a long 
 way off. And then, somehow, the sickness seemed 
 to pass away. There was a new tone in his voice 
 for her something that suddenly opened up an 
 other world in which neither antecedents, nor 
 anxieties, nor fripperies, nor futile longings held 
 any place. 
 
 She came slowly out of her trance and looked 
 up at him. If it were not Love that was shining 
 on her out of his eyes, then she had made a mis 
 reading from which she could never recover. 
 
 " I KNEW YOU WOULD! " he shouted ex 
 citedly, before she could open her lips. " Good- 
 by. God bless you, Clarice. I ll I ll I ll see 
 you at breakfast, to-morrow! " 
 
 And he was suddenly gone rushing out of the 
 door. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 ANOTHER day was breaking, although it was 
 yet a little while to dawn when she awoke. 
 
 When it came at last, leaping with bright fin 
 gers from point to point, she ceased her wide- 
 eyed musing and stirred exquisitely, easing the 
 languor from her limbs. With the thick rope 
 of her hair tumbling across a snow-white shoulder, 
 the girl raised herself on a rounded arm among 
 her coverings and sat looking out across the desert. 
 
 The plain was still asleep. Lifeless, cool, and 
 gray, it seemed a great, silent sea through whose 
 unmoving surface the foothills shouldered up like 
 drowsy amphibians resting, half submerged, along 
 the shore. A tinge of color began to glow on the 
 western peaks. Gliding down into blue abysses 
 beyond, it brought range after range up into the 
 light and picked them out with twinkling facets. 
 Marching in serried rank they strode forward 
 out of their obscurity mountain-tops and crested 
 buttes, gaudily flaming cliffs and yellow bluffs of 
 
 sand while unguessed valleys opened out between 
 
 256 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 257 
 
 under gray pools of mist until measurement be 
 came futility. 
 
 She threw out her arms to it all, with a thirsty 
 intake of her breath. How big and beautiful the 
 world was to-day and how bright! "Hurry! 
 Hurry ! We must hurry ! " her heart was singing. 
 " We must not lose a moment of this glorious 
 life ! So much to do 1 So much to feel ! Hasten ! 
 HASTEN, I say!" 
 
 She slipped from her bed and dressed swiftly, 
 plunging her face and arms into the cold water 
 with a joyful shudder at the shock. She smiled 
 without reason at her bright image as she knotted 
 her hair, and raised her beautifully molded arms 
 above her head with a delicious stretch and a thrill. 
 Never before had she been so vigorous so all 
 alive. She felt hungry for action for something 
 to which she could apply this suddenly abounding 
 vitality. A mocking-bird, perched high in a shim 
 mering cottonwood at her window, called to her 
 with a rippling fall of notes, and she stole down 
 the stairs and out of the silent house. 
 
 The world was all astir again, and with little 
 runs she sped eagerly across the grass, listening 
 for the sweet fall of water in the brooks, watching 
 with glistening eyes the black-and-white magpies 
 
258 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 flirting their long tails on the fence-posts. The 
 orchard glinted with ripening fruit, and she 
 brought an apple to Polly, nosing through her 
 bars. Clarice put a hand to the mare s neck as the 
 cool nose muzzled in her palm. The animal s coat 
 was smooth and shining. Someone had risen even 
 earlier than she, herself. 
 
 The girl turned away with a faint smile hover 
 ing around her lips. Things had changed since 
 yesterday. While she dared not name the happi 
 ness that warmed her through and through, yet the 
 song her heart was singing had but one refrain. 
 Love and Life were drawing nearer for Clarice. 
 She felt herself poised on the shore of a fragrant, 
 sunlit sea, quivering with readiness to plunge in 
 and swim to the other side. 
 
 A curl of smoke wisped up from the kitchen 
 and a martial step accompanied by an abnormal 
 clattering of pans announced that Imogene was up 
 and stirring. As the girl re-entered the house she 
 paused for a moment, then sped lightly up to her 
 room. When she joined the Strong Woman pot 
 tering over breakfast at the stove she held a news 
 paper covered parcel hidden behind her back. 
 
 " Hello, Bright Eyes! " cried Imogene in grand 
 good humor. " Up with all the little birdies this 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 259 
 
 morning, aren t you, Sweet? How s star-gazing 
 these nights, Lovey Dove? Did it seem like the 
 same old moon? " 
 
 " I wasn t " 
 
 " Oh, you can t fib to me, Vere de Vere. / saw 
 you rubbering out of your window. It was long 
 after midnight before you hit the feathers, young 
 lady!" 
 
 " Why where were you at that hour? " stam 
 mered Clarice. 
 
 "Ah-hah! Where wasn t I?" the other re 
 sponded deviously, backing the girl into a corner 
 and imprisoning the blushing face between her 
 hands. " See here, Miss Peaches-and-Cream. 
 Don t waste your time worrying about old Imo- 
 gene these days or nights, either. You haven t 
 got a great big mining operation to bother you 
 most to death like she has. What s that you re 
 hiding there so cute behind your back? Gimme 
 it instantly! " 
 
 "Go away!" laughed the girl, and struggled 
 free; " don t you dare touch that bundle! Have 
 you got a good, hot fire, Boggsey Dear?" 
 
 " Perfectly bully ! Want an egg to go on till 
 breakfast? You can have anything your little 
 heart desires." Imogene was in uncommon spirits 
 
260 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 this morning, although there were certain blisters 
 on her hands which, Clarice was sure, had not been 
 there the day before. 
 
 The girl lifted the stove-lid and thrust her 
 bundle in among the coals; then stood guard over 
 it as it burned. 
 
 " You ll scorch all your back breadth, Honey," 
 Imogene observed, as she sliced her potatoes. 
 " Going riding to-day, are you you and the Bid- 
 die boy?" 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " I d like to ride, too," sighed the Cook Lady. 
 " I wisht I was young and real strong again. I 
 lose my temper so quick nowadays with all this 
 high-art cooking in the food that I bet I d just 
 about kill one of those little horses if he didn t go 
 right. And, by the way, speaking of athletics " 
 and she seized upon the other with an accusing 
 eye " I haven t heard you doing your exercises 
 at bedtime lately, Clarice." 
 
 " No, ma am," answered Clarice meekly, as the 
 fire began a gentle roar behind her. 
 
 " People in our line of business have gotta keep 
 in shape, you know," the Strong Woman reminded. 
 " You re not exactly what I d call flat-chested, 
 yet but don t you get too darn refined. This 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 261 
 
 mail-order business can be carried entirely too far 
 
 sometimes." 
 
 The girl moved a little farther away from the 
 reddening stove and smiled. 
 
 " What in the world s come over young Amy 
 I don t know, 1 and Imogene clutched a loaf of 
 bread in her hand and strode around the kitchen 
 hunting anxiously for something with which to cut 
 it. She found it on the doorstep, where the Wild 
 Man had been making beautiful kindlings. 
 "Now, isn t that just like an Indian? Another 
 day s nicking and it would be a Christy cake- 
 knife! Oh, yes about Amy. Well. I ve been 
 figuring all along that maybe Amy and that Biddle 
 boy What? No? You don t mean it!" 
 
 " No," said Clarice loudly, for the fire was 
 streaming very audibly up the chimney. 
 
 " Well, I ll be darned," and Imogene sliced 
 viciously for a moment. " I hope it isn t Mr. 
 Holly she s so bubbling about." 
 
 "No." 
 
 The fire gave out a final roar and died 
 down. 
 
 Clarice threw back her head and laughed 
 recklessly exultantly a full-hearted, joyous rip 
 ple of happiness that sang and echoed through the 
 
262 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 kitchen like the song of the mocking-bird perched 
 outside in the cottonwood tree. 
 
 It was all over at last. Off with the old life ! 
 On with the new ! The last relic of the past had 
 dwindled into nothingness, whisking away in a 
 cloud of blue smoke up Imogene s chimney. 
 
 The Strong Woman shot a suddenly suspicious 
 look at the girl and cocked her ear. 
 
 " CLEAR OUT! " she cried, advancing with 
 the toasting-fork brandished on high. " There s 
 something funny going on here behind all these 
 meek little yesses and noses/ " and lifting the 
 stove-lid she peered curiously within. Shapeless 
 though the residuum was, enough of its general 
 outlines was left to confirm the Strong Woman s 
 dreadful suspicions. Of that which, glittering and 
 spangled, Imogene had been wont to watch gyrat 
 ing perilously overhead in the long ago, naught 
 now remained but a handful of fluffy incandescent 
 ashes. 
 
 The Strong Woman whirled about with a fright 
 ened gasp and clutched the girl s wrist with a 
 tragic hand. 
 
 " CLARICE!" she shrieked; "YOU VE 
 BURNED EM. YOU VE GONE AND 
 BURNED UP YOUR TIGHTS ! " 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 263 
 
 The girl stood up straight and strong. 
 
 " Yes," she said proudly. " That s done and 
 I m done ! Never again for me ! There goes my 
 good-by to that side of life forever! It s been a 
 long time coming but it s here now! And, oh! 
 Imogene. I m glad I m glad I m GLAD ! " 
 
 The Strong Woman let the hand fall and drew 
 back a pace. She looked both heartbroken and 
 perplexed, for it seemed like sacrilege to destroy 
 so ruthlessly what little remained of the old asso 
 ciations. Perhaps, to tell the truth, the time had 
 never been when Imogene was entirely persuaded 
 that they would not all be back under canvas to 
 gether some day. Although such a course would 
 have been opposed to her saner judgment, yet the 
 habits of a lifetime were not easily disposed of. 
 
 " But aren t you ever going on with your act 
 again?" she quavered, on the point of tears. 
 
 The girl did her best to smile. She knew that 
 the older woman was only voicing a protest against 
 such swift disruption of the old ties, for the tones 
 carried an unconscious welling up of affection for 
 the better parts of what once had been. But there 
 were to be no faint-hearted yearnings now it 
 would all have to go the good with the bad. 
 
 She knew she could never ask for them again 
 
264 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 the thump of the canvas under the wind the 
 smell of new-turned earth the flare of the torches 
 at night the pale sea of faces rocking far below. 
 Most of it, like the most of other things, had been 
 good. While the time for regrets had passed, yet 
 the fact remained that the comradeship, which 
 had been the best of it all, the care-free jauntings 
 over the land through the bright, summer 
 weather, the life of the Open Road would be 
 no more. 
 
 The girl shook her head mutely, her eyes cast 
 down. 
 
 " I didn t know," said Imogene with a sorrow 
 ful hiccough as she turned to her work once more. 
 " I get real low in my mind sometimes think 
 ing about things. I know you re right and 
 I know I was right when I told you long ago to 
 quit, but still it s hard to break away. Thank 
 heavens, I didn t bring my five-hundred-pound 
 dumb-bells along where Mrs. Muggoosulum could 
 see em. I don t know just how I would get rid 
 of them." 
 
 " But however did you get put up to this so all 
 at once?" Imogene continued, with a suddenly 
 awakening eye. " It ain t like you to be so terrible 
 dramatic, Clarice." Symbolism in even a diluted 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 265 
 
 form found a disgusted translator in Imogene. 
 Once the Strong Woman s common sense had be 
 gun to reject the sentimental side of the proceed 
 ing she hunted industriously for a motive. 
 
 Clarice s answer was composed of an indistinct 
 murmur, a fidget, and an alarming blush. 
 
 "Humph!" remarked the discerning Strong 
 Woman. " There seems to be a terrible lot of 
 moony-wooning going on round here. I guess you 
 and that young Amy are a pair." 
 
 It was about this time that the genial odors of 
 Imogene s cooking began to penetrate other parts 
 of the house, and Biddle, in puttees and riding- 
 clothes, soon made his appearance, frankly glad 
 that Miss Belvawney had not forgotten to make 
 ready for their ride, a fact which he promptly 
 made known to her with a jocular boldness which 
 had always served well in such cases, while his 
 eye roamed over her and said other things. There 
 was little of it that he missed the fine surface 
 of her throat above the rolling collar of her 
 blouse the lights in her hair, bound with a bright 
 fillet of ribbon the curves of lip and chin. In her 
 eyes he saw a wider horizon an indefinable addi 
 tion to what had been there yesterday. Something 
 had occurred to vitalize her face with a brighter 
 
266 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 light and lend a happy ring to her amused re 
 sponses. Searching hopefully for his own image 
 back of it all, he thought that he had found it 
 at last. 
 
 Silent Imogene, stealing a look away from her 
 stove, felt a faint stir around her heart. A senti 
 mental fragment out of her own wooing was vouch 
 safed her something about " the wild freshness 
 of the morning." But, after all, it was Clarice 
 who first saw Imogene s scrambled eggs sticking 
 to the pan and suddenly decided that the Polly 
 horse must be watered and that Biddle must strap 
 a camera to his saddle and a bottle for the horned- 
 toads that Cobrita was collecting, and so maneu 
 vered herself out of one door and Biddle out of 
 another before the Strong Woman realized what 
 was happening. 
 
 Imogene began to feel a certain ineptness in con 
 trolling Clarice s destinies. " The fresh wild ones 
 of the morning, I guess," she sniffed contemptu 
 ously. " Now, where did I dig that up from? 
 Trust that young lady to manage her own affairs 
 so long as she can chin herself ten times with her 
 left hand, anyway. But that Biddle boy s in a 
 bad way. He doesn t even know what s struck 
 him." Imogene paused and looked anxiously 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 267 
 
 about her kitchen for something that sounded sus 
 piciously like a mouse. 
 
 " Why, hullo, Wild Man! " she cried in relief, 
 as that individual appeared in the doorway with all 
 the self-announcement of a shadow. " Have you 
 fed Pretty Percy his little dish of puffed hay this 
 beautiful pea-green morning?" 
 
 " Ya-a-s-s," was the faithful one s response. " I 
 guess Drybone going crazy bout his hay may- 
 beso next week." The Wild Man lolled against the 
 door-jamb and stared shamelessly at nothing, as 
 only an Indian can do. 
 
 " Say, Imogene," he ventured with a suddenly 
 sly look. " About your mine. I was up there 
 just now and I dunno where that vein is after we 
 bias las night. / look all around and / doan see 
 it. An Dog Face Joe and Piute Johnny-Man 
 they look and they doan seen it. Maybeso that 
 
 vein of yours " The Wild Man was 
 
 not sufficiently courageous to express the dis 
 turbing doubts which lurked in his mind, but he 
 allowed himself a knowing grin. Presently the 
 grin faded, for he saw the Strong Woman regard 
 ing him with a murderous eye. 
 
 " Come on inside, Wild Man," suggested the 
 
268 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Strong Woman, luring him in with the frying-pan. 
 " It s nice in here" 
 
 The Wild Man came in. 
 
 " Sit down" the voice went on in the same 
 dulcet tones. 
 
 The Wild man sat down. 
 
 "Now, what was it you were thinking of 
 saying about my little mine?" purred Imo- 
 gene. 
 
 " YASS ! " said the Wild Man promptly, with 
 a gulp of alarm as he discerned not only the frying- 
 pan but also the butcher-knife glittering in the 
 near distance. " YASS ! Imogene. / think you ve 
 got a good mine. Yass ! Don t let anybody tole 
 you different." 
 
 " Well! " said the relieved Imogene. " That s 
 a great deal better. If there s one thing I can t 
 abide it s people making up opinions out of their 
 brains when they haven t rightly got either. 
 WHY! " she exclaimed, with a world of disgust 
 in her tones; " twas me that taught you and that 
 no-good Piute Johnny all you ever knew about 
 mines." She centered his wavering eyes with a 
 meaning glance. " I guess you re troubled the 
 same like I was with them mean little porphy- 
 ritic amygdaloids sorensifying the scorified zone 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 269 
 
 and mussing up my nice diabase, ain t you, Wild 
 Man?" 
 
 " YASS ! Amigamig well that s what! " 
 replied the Wild Man hurriedly. " Why, yass, 
 Imogene. That s just what I was toleing 
 Johnny." 
 
 " It s breakfast time now," Imogene interrupted, 
 " so get out your white apron and play on your 
 triangle. And don t try to serve any of those cute 
 little amygdaloids for breakfast-food cause they 
 won t get!" 
 
 The two on horseback rode down the draw to 
 gether towards the desert. Biddle, following the 
 crimson scarf fluttering ahead, saw the girl riding 
 like the wind, sitting well down in the saddle and 
 swinging freely above the waist with the effort 
 less carriage of a cowpuncher, but presently she 
 reined in with a laugh that rang pure ecstasy and 
 let the plunging Skylark and his rider rack into 
 a walk beside her. Piqued at being outdistanced, 
 the man watched keenly for the ancient feminine 
 query in her eyes, for when a woman does some 
 thing as well as a man, the sweetest praise is mas 
 culine. But he heard no more than the sweet sim 
 mering away of her pleasure, and when he looked 
 
270 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 into her face he saw that she asked for nothing 
 he could give. 
 
 Yet Biddle was far from being discouraged in 
 his quest for a flirtation. Although a two weeks 
 investigation of this particularly rebellious case 
 had revealed nothing more than a disconcerting 
 sense of remoteness, he was not entirely baffled. 
 There were a multitude of paths yet to be trod. 
 
 In the meantime, however, he had been getting 
 in deeper than he had bargained for. Vouchsafed 
 a last glimmer of light before the lethal waters of 
 infatuation closed over his head, there was some 
 discomfort in the thought that his interest could 
 be absorbed by anyone having so strange a point 
 of view. Principally, he was troubled by her re 
 fusal to see that he must, necessarily, represent 
 more of that which was desirable to a woman than 
 any man she must have known. 
 
 The Philadelphian had been conscious of this 
 lack of appreciation all along, and it had seemed 
 a radical defect. He felt an almost childish anger 
 because she would not show more interest in those 
 important things that made up his life in the East. 
 Women, he knew, thought first of advantageous 
 position in life, and next, of things to put on their 
 backs. There was not one, in the dubious section 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 271 
 
 of his acquaintance, at least, whose eyes he could 
 not brighten by ringing the changes on those two 
 notes, and so, although it made him feel very 
 cheap, he soon descended to a trial of her covetous- 
 ness. 
 
 But Clarice wouldn t enthuse. It was not that 
 she wasn t diverted by his personally conducted 
 tours into the sacred limits of his clubs and the 
 homes of his friends, but merely that she was not 
 at all interested in him, the man, Biddle Warder, 
 of Walnut Street and Rittenhouse Square which 
 was what he wanted. 
 
 Biddle was sorely puzzled but mastered his 
 pique as best he could and broke into something 
 amusing. The day was yet young. 
 
 Clarice gave him one of her clear-eyed, joyous 
 looks. " I m always so happy out here in this 
 vastness. If I hadn t a sense of humor I d like 
 to sing!" 
 
 " Pray, don t let my probable amusement re 
 strain you," he bantered. 
 
 " Not I," she laughed. " I m only afraid of 
 the mountains. I wouldn t mind you in the 
 least." 
 
 " Pm quite aware of that," he retorted, with 
 seeming injury, and looked away. The silence be- 
 
272 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 ing prolonged unduly, he looked back, and found 
 her thoughtlessly whirling her quirt and humming 
 to herself. The trick had not availed. 
 
 " Oh, yes. The desert s very fine," he hastened 
 to say, " but don t you like the cities, too? You d 
 suit the city perfectly you re not really made for 
 this." 
 
 " But I ve seen the cities all of them," the girl 
 replied. 
 
 " Not in the best way," he stated, despatching a 
 barbed arrow. " The best things have all been 
 closed to you. You ve virtually seen nothing at 
 all." 
 
 " That s why I like the West," she smiled, un- 
 offended. " There isn t so much closed to me 
 out here." 
 
 Biddle repressed his pity. " I m afraid there s 
 a great deal closed to you," he said. 
 
 The girl thought for a moment. " I suppose 
 you mean things to do and see," she remarked. 
 " But I always see everything. I know lots of 
 
 nice men." 
 
 Biddle looked doubtful. " What kind of men 
 and where? " 
 
 " Oh, ai-vry-where," she drawled absently. " I 
 know some in nearly every State." 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 273 
 
 " But they couldn t have been " 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " I was wondering who they could have been," 
 said Biddle, catching himself. 
 
 " Rich Man, Poor Man, Beggar Man, Thief," 
 chanted the girl with amused reminiscence. " But 
 I never could see much difference in them as far 
 as their businesses went," she stated honestly. 
 " About the best of the lot were a revolutionist 
 and a milkman and I believe I liked the milkman 
 best." 
 
 Biddle stared. " Tell me about the revolution 
 ist," he said hurriedly. 
 
 " Oh, he was nice, too, and there wasn t a place 
 in the world where he hadn t been. He s doing 
 very nicely now in San Francisco, he writes me, 
 starting up little revolutions down in South Amer 
 ica and selling them bombs and gold lace. 
 
 " And then there was the poor old actor in 
 Chicago Charley Belnorde whose wife died and 
 left him with little twin babies. I took care of 
 them all the time I worked at the White City. 
 Charley hadn t any money no one ever had," 
 laughed Clarice. " So when I went away he gave 
 me a play he d been working on for nearly ten 
 years. I guess it wasn t a very good play, but dear 
 
274 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 old Charley didn t know it, so his giving it to me 
 meant a good deal. 
 
 "And after that I went out under canvas again, 
 and the Lion Tamer, who was a Russian, taught 
 me all about his animals. Don t you think they re 
 very interesting? I do. Why!" she exclaimed, 
 with lovely-eyed nai vete; "almost everything I 
 can do with lions and tigers I learned from him ! 
 And then, one day, they hurt him, and I found a 
 young German doctor in the crowd for him, and the 
 doctor and I got to be great friends. After that 
 the doctor went along with us for two weeks or 
 more. He said it was his vacation, but I didn t 
 know doctors could take vacations. And because 
 he was fixing up poor old Glassinsky, who wouldn t 
 leave the show, they gave him a seat next to me, 
 and he would explain all about his surgical cases to 
 me at the table. He made it perfectly absorbing. 
 
 " But there were lots more," said Clarice. 
 " And some of them went away suddenly, like 
 the doctor, and some of them wrote for a while 
 it s funny how a big, strong man can write the 
 silliest letters and I m afraid that some of them 
 died, but they were all very nice men and awfully 
 good to me. And they were always very poor." 
 
 The girl paused and dropped into silent reverie. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 275 
 
 " What a funny, funny life for a girl to lead," she 
 said after a time. " If I d had a father or a 
 mother or anything, I suppose they would have 
 made me understand that it was all wrong, but, 
 somehow, it never seemed so I guess because I 
 could always take care of myself. The best part 
 of it all is that I ve come into all these people s 
 lives and stayed a while and, even though I had to 
 move on again, I know it helped me." 
 
 " So I suppose," Biddle nodded, absorbed in 
 the play of feeling and recollection in her face. 
 He was fast forgetting his dissatisfaction, for the 
 fascination was gripping him more tightly every 
 minute. 
 
 " Did you bring a canteen? " she asked, with a 
 sudden turn of the conversation. " It s growing 
 hot." 
 
 " I never thought of it," Biddle confessed. 
 " Perhaps we d better look for the Hidden Spring 
 that the Blondellis spoke about. Aren t those the 
 * White Sands over there towards the west? " 
 
 1 Yes, I can see them glittering. It s all of five 
 miles, I guess. We ll be late for dinner unless we 
 find the spring right away." 
 
 "We ll find it," Biddle stated confidently. " I 
 make it a point to get what I want." 
 
276 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 As they came nearer to the long belt of white 
 sand the vegetation grew sparser and finally ceased, 
 and when they had climbed a ridge they found 
 themselves on the edge of what looked like a 
 petrified sea. Enormous gullies and swales cut 
 through the expanse of white sand in every direc 
 tion, their tops curling over like waves about to 
 break and giving off a spray of sand under the 
 touch of the wind. 
 
 After an hour s fruitless riding and searching 
 had brought them to the other shore, Biddle began 
 to grow impatient. " I ll tell you what we ll do," 
 he said roughly. " We ll just turn right around 
 and go back again. I came out to find this spring 
 and I m going to do it. Those acrobatic * Micks 
 can t get ahead of me. 
 
 " Do you think I m too peevish? " he laughed, 
 with a dangerous inflection, and rode Skylark closer 
 to Polly. 
 
 " If I thought of you at all," she parried, trying 
 out a touch of the new delightful insolence she 
 had learned. 
 
 With this remark Biddle s bad side came up like 
 a flash. 
 
 " Of course, I know you never think of men or 
 love," he said. " But I m less fortunate. I 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 277 
 
 find myself thinking of a certain girl all the 
 
 time." 
 
 "Haven t you been warned?" she laughed. 
 " Keep your eyes off Cobrita. Harry was a prize 
 fighter, once." 
 
 " Oh, bother Cobrita," he fumed. 
 
 "How stupid of me," she interrupted. " I for 
 got that first cousins could marry " 
 
 " Wrong again," he smiled fatuously. " It 
 seems to me it s very hard when one needs advice 
 about these things to be met with mocking indif 
 ference I was counting on you to help. Tell me 
 what you think about this case. Here is a man, 
 for instance " 
 
 "A man?" She stood up in her stirrups. 
 "Where is the man?" 
 
 " Right here," he snapped, off his guard. 
 
 " Oh, yes. In this case you are a man I mean, 
 the man. And then?" 
 
 " I am very much in love," he said doggedly, 
 and, for a wonder, believed it. 
 
 " He is very much in love," she murmured 
 and laughed at a lizard, flickering away under 
 foot. 
 
 With " 
 
 " With Imogene," she broke in provokingly. 
 
278 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " But what will you do with Altamont? " It was 
 time for him to stop now. If he wouldn t well 
 there was always Polly. She touched the pony with 
 her foot and dashed ahead. Taken by surprise, 
 Biddle kicked Skylark in the ribs and rushed after 
 her. Here and there in delirious zig-zags the 
 two raced along through the White Sands until 
 the horses began to pant under the hot work, and 
 the girl drew rein. Turning a flushed face, she 
 laughed out what was to be the last touch of the fun 
 which good sense forbade her. 
 
 And so he found himself temptingly close, and 
 looking down into the dark eyes of the girl who 
 had piqued and puzzled him for the best part of 
 a month. There was not a single blemish on the 
 lovely, laughing face. The swiftly coursing blood 
 had stained her smooth cheek to the tint of a fresh, 
 wild rose. The perfect bow of her mouth was 
 like some ripe, tantalizing fruit. Her head, back- 
 tilted, could not have been better poised to lure him 
 on. Only her eyes baffled him still, half in love 
 as he was, half furious with her unyielding re 
 serve, and as he leaned closer out of his saddle, it 
 came over him suddenly that she was not laugh 
 ing with him but at him. All that there was for 
 Biddle Warder in that beautiful, provoking face 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 279 
 
 was a strong woman s mockery of man s foolish 
 ness. 
 
 Under this last taunt the viciousness of the 
 young man s nature brooked little delay in ful 
 filling its inclinations. Without warning and be 
 fore she could start back or escape, an arm was 
 flung about her. She felt herself caught up against 
 him, with his maddened face pressed against hers, 
 his lips forcing brutal kisses on her mouth and eyes 
 and cheek. 
 
 An awful terror seized her, who had never been 
 afraid of anything before. Lifted roughly up 
 from her stirrups, she hung suffocated and help 
 less in his arms until, with the moment s passing, 
 she felt the saddle and stirrups again. Then, half 
 blind with rage and terribly frightened by that one 
 instant of helplessness, the girl twisted about and 
 struck out with all her force. 
 
 Although only that very day the Strong Woman 
 had reminded her of the necessary daily stint, 
 there was never a time when the girl s muscles re 
 sponded so fully. Not even the most heart-clutch 
 ing parabola through space from the bar of her 
 trapeze had ever called forth half the strength 
 that lay behind this blow. She struck with the 
 desperation of one struggling in the throes of 
 
280 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 nightmare and doubly strengthened by the strange 
 ness of fright. Then, with never a backward 
 look at the crumpled figure whirling in sick aban 
 donment from the saddle, she threw out her arms 
 and drew in her heels with the impelling force that 
 every wise little cow-pony knows, and was off in a 
 mad gallop. 
 
 It was quiet over there among the White 
 Sands. A noonday sun poured its flood-tide across 
 the waste and stilled what life there was until it 
 seemed as sterile as a scar. For all there was 
 of sound it might have been a pool where the 
 silences of the universe lay concentrated. Only 
 there came the gentle purr of the wind across the 
 ridges and the faint hiss of the sand streaming 
 down a slope. Under the scarps of the jutting 
 reefs, the shadows lay in grotesque, inky sprawls 
 on a snow-white bed that gleamed and glittered. 
 And over all Heat laid a palsying, leaden hand. 
 
 Through the heart of the white silence a pony 
 was coming, ambling through the maze of swales 
 and stoically climbing the ridges to plunge, stiff- 
 legged down the other side. Beyond the creak 
 ing of the saddle leathers, the only sound in the 
 death-like stillness was that of a girl crying to 
 herself. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 281 
 
 With brimming eyes set straight before her, she 
 was weeping out her grief freely and unashamed. 
 In the midst of her childlike happiness when at 
 last she seemed nearing attainment of a few of her 
 poor little hopes of self-improvement the Beast 
 had been thrust upon her, leering and insensate. 
 She gave a long, shuddering cry and shook her 
 head blindly, sick with suspicion of what evil 
 thoughts in the past must have been leading up to 
 this denouement. 
 
 Suddenly Polly pricked up her ears and turned 
 her head. The girl also turned and looked back 
 with a set face. A riderless horse was galloping 
 after them, its head held up with the exulting air 
 of the runaway. 
 
 The girl swung Polly around and began a slow 
 approach. Whereupon the suspicious Skylark 
 lowered his head and sidled away with a crab- 
 like motion calculated to deceive. When cap 
 ture seemed almost certain he threw up his head 
 with a snort and broke away through the brush. 
 
 Clarice drew rein and debated. A moment 
 more, and she had decided, and for a second time 
 that day Polly s head was pointed in the direction 
 of the White Sands. 
 
 Noon passed and early afternoon came and 
 
282 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 went. Mid-afternoon, with the sun-dried air still 
 and choking, found her pale but nevertheless un 
 swerving in her search. A pall of dust hung 
 round her and caked in a glistening white 
 coat on the pony s skin. Her tongue was thick 
 like flannel between her lips. Time and again she 
 was forced to stop and cover her eyes while they 
 recovered from the blinding glare. Here and 
 there she found footprints, but wherever she 
 followed she always found the bootmarks return 
 ing. To make matters worse, the swiftly caving 
 sand and the tireless wind were fast obliterating 
 the trail. Looking about her with tired, smarting 
 eyes she finally caught a glimpse of a dark edge 
 of green above some hummocks not far away. 
 If that were the Hidden Spring, her own condi 
 tion as well as Polly s demanded that something 
 be dpne at once, so she wearily turned the pony s 
 head. A few minutes heavy plodding and she 
 had gained the course which led directly to the 
 clump of mesquite. Something was lying huddled 
 up on the ground beside the spring and as she 
 came nearer she saw that her search was ended. 
 She had found him. 
 
 " I ve had a hard time," Biddle said, staring 
 at her stupidly. " The darn sun, you know and 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 283 
 
 those foots feets feetprints I followed and I 
 followed and it wasn t any use " His utter 
 ances faded away in a senseless clucking. 
 
 Something clutched at the girl s heart and she 
 dropped on her knees beside him. " Never mind 
 now, Mr. Warder," she said hurriedly. " Don t 
 talk about it any more," and she helped him bathe 
 his face. " I ve come to take you home. We ll 
 get out of here right away." 
 
 " You can t," said Biddle with thick certainty. 
 11 Nobody can. I ve tried and tried and it can t be 
 done. If it wasn t for this water I d be dead." 
 He sank down again. 
 
 The trapeze-woman put out her hand for Polly s 
 rein. 
 
 " Come," she said decisively. " Rouse yourself. 
 Get up here on this horse." Seeing that she had 
 waked him, she grasped him by the shoulder and 
 shook him forcibly. " Get up ! " she cried. " Get 
 up at once and do as I tell you ! " 
 
 A look of fright passed over the man s face. 
 Obeying her with more or less uncertain wob- 
 blings he managed to get on his feet. 
 
 " Where s old Skylark? " he asked, and she felt 
 his weight fall back on her as she was helping him 
 mount. " This is your horse. This is Polly." 
 
284 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " Skylark s not far away. Oh, do get up, Mr. 
 Warder," she urged, and nearly frantic with this 
 strange foe which seemed almost like drunkenness, 
 she put forth her abundant strength and lifted the 
 man into the saddle. 
 
 " By George! " he breathed admiringly, as he 
 clutched at the pommel. " You re all right, Miss 
 er Miss why! I can t think of your name! 
 I weigh a hundred and sixty, and you lifted me 
 just like a baby. I sort of feel like a baby, too," 
 he murmured. " I wonder what s the matter! " 
 
 It was a curious-looking party that finally 
 emerged from the White Sands onto the harder 
 floor of the desert. The man was swaying, bent 
 over in the saddle; the woman was well-nigh ex 
 hausted from the heavy walking. She had lost 
 her color and her cheeks were lined with the 
 strain. The dry, lifeless air choked her and 
 slapped her across the face like a stuffy blanket. 
 In spite of the drink she had had at the Spring 
 she felt consumed with thirst. She stopped and 
 leaned dizzily against the mare s neck. It was go 
 ing to be hard work to reach the ranch. 
 
 Suddenly Biddle came out of his lethargy. 
 After a bewildered look at the white-faced woman 
 he slid down from the pony. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 285 
 
 " I guess I m all right now," he said thickly. 
 " It s your turn to ride." 
 
 She made painful negation with her swimming 
 head, while she bit her lips to keep from fainting. 
 Yet she saw he was looking at her with only a plea 
 for her own welfare in his eyes. She saw he was 
 remembering some of it now, and that he was 
 speaking to her out of the Pit of Shame. 
 
 " I wish you would get on this horse, Miss Bel- 
 vawney. I can see now a little bit of what you ve 
 really done for me to-day. God knows I d feel 
 better if I d realized it sooner. I know perfectly 
 well I can t make you get on," he added forlornly. 
 " Somehow, the man of the party doesn t seem to 
 be much of a man to-day but I ll tell you 
 nevertheless, that I mean to walk the rest of 
 the way if it kills me and that you had better 
 ride." 
 
 Too tired even to speak, she was still obstinately 
 shaking her head when she saw Polly turn and 
 look across the desert. 
 
 " She must be looking at Skylark," the girl whis 
 pered, and with this new hope to steady them the 
 two walked on and found that the pony s instinct 
 was unerring. Skylark, much subdued, was wait 
 ing for them on the shady side of a deep wash, 
 
286 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 under a ledge of rock. The episode, and its after 
 math, were nearly over. 
 
 Drawing near to the ranch in the early evening, 
 Biddle looked behind them and broke the long 
 silence. 
 
 14 There s a pillar of dust back there where we 
 were," he said. " I wonder who it can be? " 
 
 The woman turned her head away, the better 
 to disguise a warm rush of life that flooded her 
 tired body. Never a doubt existed in her mind 
 as to who was down there on the plain and who, 
 having seen them headed safely homewards, was 
 unobtrusively coming in their wake. Her eyes 
 lighted up with a replica of the morning s shinings. 
 The day was going to end, after all, as it had 
 begun in happiness. 
 
 "I wonder," said Clarice, and smiled. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 IN speaking of the next twelve hours it is our 
 apt vernacular which best describes Biddle s min 
 gled feelings, and it may be truthfully said that 
 Biddle had a " hard night." Not even the cold 
 bottle of beer consumed in desperation at midnight 
 out of a tumbled bed was successful in inducing 
 sleep, and the young man lay on his back for 
 hours staring up into the darkness with burning 
 eyes, while the long arm of a cottonwood, whis 
 pering in the night wind, tapped against his case 
 ment and a tree-toad croaked a cool though lonely 
 note. As soon as his recollections began to crys 
 tallize, it was borne in on him that he had not been 
 thrown from his horse at all. Neither had he been 
 artfully kicked by a departing hoof nor stunned 
 by striking his head on the ground. Instead, he 
 had been " put down for the count " " knocked 
 out cold " by a woman. 
 
 Biddle s shame was of the teeth-grinding vari 
 ety. To add to the pleasure of the night watches, 
 that obnoxious imp who sometimes sits on our foot 
 board and gleefully repeats the day s idiocies, 
 
 287 
 
288 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 hunted the boy out and tortured him without 
 mercy. Nothing was omitted, nothing minimized, 
 nothing forgotten. The shameful facts were 
 spelled before his wide eyes in flaming letters, and 
 his punishment branded on him with a hissing 
 iron. After a while he got up and wandered dis 
 consolately down the hall to the shower-bath. The 
 cold douche served to turn the current of his 
 thoughts and he began to marvel at what the girl 
 had done. It also occurred to him that she was 
 undoubtedly much more powerful physically than 
 himself, and, curiously, he began to extract some 
 satisfaction from the fact. After that it was all 
 over for Biddle. When he went back to bed it 
 was with the conviction that the very best thing 
 he could do was to ask the impossibly named Miss 
 Vere de Vere Belvawney, who had once been a 
 circus acrobat, to marry him as soon as she con 
 veniently could. 
 
 In the meantime several other minds were simi 
 larly disturbed, and next morning s sun rose on a 
 feverish household, the aching half-hour before 
 breakfast finding Mrs. Warder innocently cornered 
 by Altamont. 
 
 At the moment of their meeting the little man 
 was moving rapidly along a path beside the house, 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 289 
 
 immersed in the result of some of Mike s re 
 searches, his nimble gait embellished by a little 
 skip that interpolated itself with all the independ 
 ence of a hiccough. Altamont s eyes were fixed 
 on an unseen point in the ether and his hair was 
 rampantly unsubdued. At times, he stopped to 
 pull at a refractory garter which, in turn, caught 
 up his trousers under its strap and held them 
 there high above his shoe-tops. Rising from one 
 of these bendings he collided violently with Mrs. 
 Warder. 
 
 " Your pardon, Madam," the little man said, 
 with a recognizable degree of manner. " I had 
 no wish to obstruct your path in this awkward 
 fashion." 
 
 "Eh?" said the lady. 
 
 " I say, I m sorry I jiggled off your glasses," he 
 explained. " I was thinking very hard. Fve been 
 thinking about it all night. It is a question very 
 full of meat." 
 
 " What is? " asked Mrs. Warder not unkindly. 
 
 " PIGS ! " said Altamont, with calm certainty. 
 
 " Why, yes," said she, startled into thought. 
 "So they are. Very full." 
 
 He looked at her with the quick, sidewise flirt 
 of a bird, while his eyes brightened at the pros- 
 
290 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 pect of an appreciative listener. He hesitated, then 
 offered his crooked arm with a timid though re 
 spectful query in his eye. 
 
 The lady accepted gladly. That is to say: she 
 had heard that it was unwise to refuse. You must 
 always do what they wished until you could escape. 
 They walked along the path. 
 
 " The producing power of the pig is perfectly 
 preposterous," said Altamont, with a gentle wave 
 of his hand. " In making a perfect pen picture of 
 porcine proclivities " 
 
 "In or with a pen? " asked Mrs. Warder, with 
 a brilliant but artificial smile. 
 
 " I should prefer being without the pen," was the 
 baffling answer. " But, as I was saying, it is pos 
 sible to prophesy without postulatory pardons by 
 reason of their peculiar posteritousness " 
 
 " Eh? " said the lady again. 
 
 " I am speaking of their particularly powerful 
 pork providing propensities," Altamont an 
 swered gravely. " When properly provided with 
 peas " 
 
 " But I think you have," objected the lady with 
 a careful laugh. " Haven t you? I mean aren t 
 you?" 
 
 "Are I? I should say have I? What?" 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 291 
 
 Altamont could not help thinking the conversation 
 somewhat involved. 
 
 " P s, of course," said Mrs. Warder, with some 
 distinctness. "Lots of them. I never heard so 
 many." 
 
 "HEARD THEM?" quavered the little man 
 with a frightened look. " Why they re perfectly 
 noiseless, I think." 
 
 Mrs. Warder wondered nervously if Altamont s 
 trouble was contagious. 
 
 " Do you mean p s or peas ? " she asked. 
 
 " I mean peas, " he answered, with a puz 
 zled frown. " That is I think I do don t I? " 
 
 " But how are your peas spelt? Of course, 
 you know that much," she asked, seeing that she 
 must straighten him out at once. 
 
 " Why, with a p, " was the troubled reply. 
 " How would you spell pea ? It s just the ordi 
 nary, round kind, that s in pods. " Altamont 
 was growing a trifle mixed himself. 
 
 " The very same c p round or with a tail to 
 it," Mrs. Warder said, with all the necessary 
 firmness. " It doesn t look a bit different, no mat 
 ter what it s in unless it s a German p. She 
 dropped his arm and prepared for flight. 
 
 " Ah I catch your meaning at last. You allude 
 
292 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 to the quality or nature of the pea," he said 
 brightly, with a detaining finger on her arm. 
 " Really, Madam, I assure you. It s all one to a 
 pig! " 
 
 " And to me," said the lady wittily, and seeing 
 Amy in the near distance, she scuttled away. 
 " For Heaven s sake, protect me," she whis 
 pered. " The man can talk of absolutely nothing 
 this morning except things that begin with * p. 
 But you ought to have seen him bow. He could 
 n t have done it better if he d been very well- 
 bred." 
 
 " Bread?" asked the pursuing Altamont, seem 
 ing to catch only the last word. " I could spell 
 bread with a * p, too if I could only get in the 
 right place." 
 
 " Where could that be?" Mrs. Warder asked 
 with a significant look at Amy. 
 
 " In France," chuckled Altamont, and having 
 fully demonstrated the low cunning of the insane, 
 he walked quickly away. 
 
 " I ve been expecting that you d have something 
 to tell me," Amy heard her relative saying pet 
 tishly. " Don t you feel as if it were nearly time 
 you told me? " 
 
 Amy drew back. So the hunt was on again! 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 293 
 
 With a feeling that what she was about to say was, 
 at least, essentially true, Amy made candid reply. 
 
 " I don t feel as if I wanted to say anything 
 just yet" she responded, with eyes averted. " I 
 am waiting waiting for a message" said Amy 
 impressively. " Do you think I ought to say more 
 than that just now, Aunt Charlotte? " 
 
 " Per haps not," was the puzzled reply. 
 " And yet when we re all here together " 
 
 Holly, coming in to breakfast at this moment, 
 received a lightning telepathic warning from Amy 
 and hurried by, much to Mrs. Warder s amaze 
 ment 
 
 " It s all very curious, it seems to me," that lady 
 murmured. " Why he actually seemed to avoid 
 you ! " and with her voice fading away as her 
 perplexity increased, Mrs. Warder proceeded in 
 stinctively in the direction of the dining-room. 
 
 But the Philadelphian was not the only one this 
 morning who was worried, for the freezing note 
 in Mrs. Warder s voice was promptly noted by 
 the ranchman. To make matters worse, breakfast 
 itself was unaccountably delayed, the Strong 
 Woman appearing distrait and silent. 
 
 " I must get them together," the ranchman 
 thought. "We can t let things get tightened up 
 
294 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 this way." And so pondering the matter of his 
 guests amusements in a disturbed mind he worked 
 himself into a partially frenzied state from 
 whence emerged an idea! But the brilliant 
 solution could not yet be disclosed, and an hour 
 after breakfast found him still trying it out before 
 submitting it to her who was to be its judge. 
 
 That person had taken it upon herself to gather 
 cooking apples in the orchard for Imogene, and 
 was soon seen in that locality by the watchful 
 Biddle. 
 
 Biddle felt himself about to do something which 
 he weakly wished to resist but, somehow, was un 
 able to postpone, for he knew, subconsciously, that 
 it would be a perfectly impossible match. He 
 loved and yet he knew good reasons why he should 
 not love or, rather, why he should not have al 
 lowed himself to go so far. And so, although, 
 the main impulse kept driving him ahead, his mind 
 was turbulent with cross-purposes. It is doubtful, 
 in view of these facts, if he approached the dis 
 creetly withdrawing Clarice with a true lover-like 
 hunger in his eye. Instead of an aspiring step and 
 an exalted face, Biddle s jaw was unromantic with 
 honesty. 
 
 " I want to talk to you," he said, standing at an 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 295 
 
 elbow in whose crook the apple-basket was 
 promptly hung. " I can t stand this any longer, 
 Clarice?" 
 
 "Yes?" said Clarice, frowning faintly. 
 
 " I don t know exactly how to begin," he went 
 on, " but I guess you know how I feel about yes 
 terday." 
 
 " Well," said the girl slowly, " do you know, 
 too, how / feel about it?" 
 
 " I I I suppose you do," he answered with 
 difficulty, but failed to say what it was that he 
 supposed. 
 
 " I don t know why you should think the things 
 of me that apparently you have thought," said 
 Clarice, " but I hope you see now that they re 
 not true." 
 
 " I don t know why, either," was the confes 
 sion. " But I know I feel a great deal differently 
 now. I want to apologize to you, Clarice " 
 
 " Who told you that you might call me Cla 
 rice? " she asked with a touch of impatience. 
 
 " Why why, nobody," said Biddle, and paused. 
 He didn t seem to be getting on very fast, and 
 began to feel sick and upset. 
 
 Miss Belvawney saw a promising apple on the 
 ground some distance ahead of her and went to 
 
296 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 pick it up. Then she saw another still farther on. 
 Biddle followed with a moody face. Clarice 
 stopped and sighed over the inevitable. 
 
 "Well?" said she. 
 
 " I guess I ll just say right out what I wanted to 
 say," Biddle continued heavily. " I ve been a 
 regular pup about this thing and I guess you know 
 it. But I want to put myself right in your eyes, 
 and more than that I want to say that I like you 
 more than any girl I ever saw. I know very well 
 I didn t feel this way yesterday, but I certainly 
 do now, and the more I see of you the more I know 
 that I d well I d like to have you for my wife, 
 Miss Belvawney. You re so fine, and strong 
 and everything >and I admire you and 
 
 and I tell you what, Clarice," he hurried on, 
 
 now well under way, " I do want you terribly, and 
 that s no joke. I can t keep my mind off you. I 
 think about you the whole, livelong time. I know 
 this is a queer way to put it, but I ll go down on 
 my knees to you if you ll think it over. I can be a 
 pretty decent fellow when I try, and I think I 
 know I could make you happy." He stopped and 
 sighed dismally for some unknown reason. 
 
 The lady also sighed. 
 
 " I think you re making a great mistake, Mr. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 297 
 
 Warder," said she. " I m very grateful to you 
 for saying all these nice things, but, somehow, I 
 don t believe we d get on very well together do 
 you really think we would? We won t say any 
 thing more about yesterday, because I believe you 
 are sorry, but it seems to me that you could find 
 some other girl who would suit you a great deal 
 better " 
 
 " But I don t think so," he interrupted, posi 
 tive at last. " I love you, Clarice and I want you 
 to be my wife." He knew her well enough now 
 not to make any misplays, but he had to state 
 what was unquestionably true. " I ve got a lot 
 of money, you know, and I could make your life 
 a good deal different from what it is now. I think 
 you d do splendidly at it " 
 
 You can stop right there," the girl commanded, 
 dropping her basket and facing him with an angry 
 look. " That s the whole trouble. You know per 
 fectly well that I m not the sort of girl your other 
 friends are and you admit it when you use those 
 words. If I married you and lived in Philadelphia 
 somebody s teeth would be on edge all the time. 
 Perhaps I could learn to do everything they do, 
 but they would always know where I came from 
 and it would hurt you and would hurt me. That s 
 
298 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 one very good reason, and the other reason is even 
 stronger." 
 
 "What is it?" he asked, with a sick feeling. 
 u Don t you think you could like could love 
 me?" 
 
 " No," she said honestly. " I don t believe I 
 ever could." 
 
 " Well, that s pretty bad for me," said the boy 
 with a gulp. u I thought perhaps you d give me a 
 chance." He raised his eyes and studied her face 
 intently. " I guess you love another man." 
 
 " Oh, no," stammered Clarice, and turned crim 
 son to prove the truth of her statement. "No. 
 You re quite mistaken. But I must go. I can t 
 stay here any longer." 
 
 " I guess I see it all," said Biddle disgustedly. 
 " I never had a chance. Well, I m sorry, Miss 
 Belvawney. I guess I ll go, too. I m going to 
 take a long walk out on the desert somewhere." 
 He moved away a step, then turned a weakly 
 yearning face. u I d give you everything I have 
 in the world, but I guess you wouldn t take it, 
 would you, Clarice? " 
 
 " No," Clarice answered promptly. " I m 
 sorry to hurt your feelings, but I certainly would 
 not." 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 299 
 
 " Well," said Biddle. " Well good-by," and 
 with his hands deep in his pockets he walked 
 heavily away. 
 
 " It seems to me there s a terrible lot of frozen 
 faces around camp this morning," the Strong 
 Woman remarked to the returning Belvawney as 
 she drew hot water for her breakfast dishes. 
 " Grandma Rittenhouse and Amy the Flirt are on 
 the * outs about something the old gentleman s 
 smoked up all his cigars and the Biddler s lost 
 his merry twinkle entirely. That must have been 
 an awful ride you gave him yesterday." 
 
 " It was pretty hot, all right," responded the 
 unperturbed Belvawney, sitting up on the kitchen- 
 table and swinging her feet. " Can t I please 
 make apple pies with you, Boggsey Dear? I d 
 like to learn to cook." 
 
 " Cooks don t wear silk stockings and fancy 
 shoes," Imogene observed pointedly. " Not back 
 in Kansas, anyway." 
 
 " My onliest pair," the Belvawney murmured 
 dreamily, and stretched out her slim ankles. " I m 
 sure I don t know why I put them on to-day." 
 
 " Oh, just because you re nutty like the rest of 
 us. But why this haste to be a cook? " 
 
 "Well, you s-e-e-e," explained Clarice, draw- 
 
300 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 ing a finger carefully along the table-top. " Who 
 knows but you might be sick or blown up sud 
 denly in your mine or something and then 
 where would we be?" 
 
 " Yass," mocked Imogene. " Ho-ho-ho I " and 
 she burst into mighty laughter. " I guess / know 
 why, Miss Smarty! Oh, ain t you cute sitting 
 there so meek, a-looking down your nose like a wise 
 little rabbit? I want to learn to cook, says she. 
 1 Perhaps I might have a home of my own some 
 day. Perhaps I might fall in love, says she. 4 Who 
 knows but I might even take it into my little head 
 to get married. Oh, ho-ho-ho ! " Imogene s sten 
 torian laughter rang far down the hallway after 
 the flying girl. 
 
 Very pink and dewy-eyed and with the mild 
 tortures of a fear that someone would interrupt 
 delicious self-communion, the woman of the cir 
 cus which was not, nor now was ever to have 
 been, sped swiftly from the house. Elissus and 
 its fields, were calling from their safe retreats. 
 The poignant sweetness of unspoken heart s de 
 sire would have not less than solitude for its in 
 effable hour. Something was singing overhead 
 as she went. Something tinkled under foot. An 
 alamo turned its leaves from green to silver and 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 301 
 
 back to glistening green again. The smell of 
 ripened fruit rose in a wave of perfume from the 
 sun-warmed earth and seemed like an overtone in 
 the wordless melody that all surrounding life was 
 singing. Wandering alone with her happiness by 
 brook and meadow, she hugged her joy to herself 
 and dreamed out across the sun-bright plain with 
 eyes that glistened though they saw not. 
 
 Where was the old life now? Had it really 
 ever been? What had blown it away? And who 
 was this in familiar guise of face and supple figure 
 who thought strange thoughts of Love and Con 
 tentment and Growth? She laughed aloud and 
 threw out her arms with their joyous, inclutching 
 gesture. It all seemed so impossible and so 
 blessed. She had been asleep and now she was 
 awake. Once she had lived in a dulled world of 
 grays and monotones, yet here were all the royal 
 colors of the spectrum glowing before her eyes. 
 
 And so she wandered for her hour, out of sight 
 among the trees, but with the house at no time 
 very distant. Coming at last into control of her 
 thoughts and shameless smilings, she turned back 
 to face the sarcasms of the Strong Woman with 
 an empty basket. 
 
 At a corner of the orchard she stood for a mo- 
 
302 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 ment looking across the fields at the ranch-house. 
 Imogene presently strode forth from the kitchen 
 and hurled several gallons of something into the 
 air with great velocity. Clarice laughed and 
 waved her hand, whereat the Strong Woman re 
 sponded in wondrous gestures with the dishpan. 
 Then something humorous seemed to occur to Mrs. 
 Ajax and she went through a shameless pantomime 
 that involved much sentimental posing and silent 
 laughter. But the girl had caught sight of another 
 figure and her eyes shifted to where a tall man 
 with a chin and an eye and a down-drooping, tawny 
 mustache leaned indolently against the corral fence, 
 immersed in conversation with the two acrobats. 
 
 " I ve hardly said a word to him since yester 
 day. I wonder if Imogene hasn t something that 
 she wants to say to me. I think I d better go and 
 see right away," and with this mild mis-statement 
 of motives the new shoes went twinkling blithely 
 down the path. 
 
 But as the woman of the circus walked towards 
 the house, something which protruded from a 
 clump of bushes and high grass beside the path 
 caught her eye. 
 
 It was a very curious thing to be in such a place 
 and position, and she frowned and walked slower. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 303 
 
 A man s boot was projecting into the path, with 
 its toe digging into the ground and its sole upright 
 and facing her. Following the foot farther into 
 the grass, she saw a limb and another foot. As 
 she set her basket down, the foot moved. 
 
 Something tightened around the woman s heart. 
 Flashing a look towards the house she saw it all 
 as through the falling shutter of a camera the 
 clean-swept yard, the pans glittering in the sun 
 a dog yawning on the porch Imogene walking to 
 her across the fields. In the sudden stillness which 
 seemed to fall around her the sounds of the living, 
 moving things across the pasture lot came to her 
 with a curious distinctness, but the silence of the 
 figure in the covert seemed to carry a presage 
 less of life than of that dread thing which fol 
 lows it. 
 
 For a moment the woman wondered if she were 
 dreaming. Then the foot moved again and an 
 inarticulate sound of anger came to her ears. She 
 could not see the man s face, but his huddled 
 shoulders were full of sinister meaning. As she 
 stared over the crouching head, she saw he was 
 looking at the corral. 
 
 And then the significance of the screen, and the 
 position and the death-like silence came home to 
 
3 04 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 her. Who the man was or what his reasons might 
 be were of no importance in this hideous moment, 
 for something whose octagonal barrel gleamed 
 dully as it wavered slightly from side to side, 
 thrust everything out of her mind except the fact 
 that while the man at the corral amused the other 
 two with his good-natured jokes, Death hovered 
 over him with brushing wings. 
 
 There may be infinite periods of time which, to 
 the gods, pass as but moments, but there are, of 
 a certainty, some moments for mortals which seem 
 eternities. To her who now grasped the meaning 
 of it all it seemed as if an aeon passed before she 
 could break free from the nightmare that was 
 numbing her. And then with only a gasping cry 
 wrung from her by her plunge the woman of the 
 circus threw herself through the air as one dives 
 into water, and fell in a fighting, grappling heap 
 across the unknown s shoulders. 
 
 With the rifle flung from his hands the man 
 gave a groan of pain; then twisted himself about 
 to strike at his antagonist. But what feeble blows 
 he could deliver were almost childish compared to 
 the splendid strength which wrenched his hands 
 loose and ground head and shoulders down into 
 the earth under her knee. There was no longer 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 305 
 
 need to wonder who he was. A mere glimpse of 
 the snarling face, half hidden in the dirt, half 
 strangled by her grip, gave the reason for it all. 
 It was Macklin. 
 
 If there had been time to look up in the midst 
 of the struggle, the girl would have seen two 
 things, the first being that Dick Holly had gone 
 into the house without noticing the disturbance, 
 and the second, that Imogene was coming to her 
 across the pasture-lot with incredible speed. But 
 if the Strong Woman imagined there was need of 
 assistance in the astounding struggle which had 
 caught her eye she was mistaken, for the girl had 
 pinioned the man s limbs with her own and was 
 holding him in a vise-like grip from which there 
 could be no escape. Even the pressure on his 
 throat was not relaxed as the seconds passed and 
 his eyes began to start glassily out of a blackening 
 face. 
 
 Then a hand worked itself free and tore hope 
 lessly at her wrist. 
 
 "Oh, hoh! you would would you?" the 
 woman muttered deep in her throat. A sardonic 
 smile parted her lips and she watched the fingers 
 close on her arm in a feeble, useless pull. They 
 were rather long fingers, unbelievably dirty and 
 
306 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 badly gnarled, and in the fraction of time while 
 they closed on her she felt a vivid sensation of dis 
 gust. Yet, as she continued to look at the fingers, 
 her own seemed to grow weaker. Little by little 
 her grip began to relax little by little she took the 
 pressure from his throat. Something was glitter 
 ing on the hand that plucked at her wrist, and as 
 her eyes stared at it a thought more hideous than 
 all the rest went through her and turned her mus 
 cles into ropes of sand. 
 
 Imogene was not far away now, filling the air 
 with wild cries and charging furiously through the 
 brush like an angry rhinoceros, but when she 
 burst upon the scene the struggle had been won 
 and lost again. The man had half risen to his feet 
 while the girl, with a hand thrust out before her 
 face, was shrinking back as if from Death himself. 
 With the promptness which never entirely deserted 
 her the Strong Woman first snatched up the rifle 
 and then struck out with a heavy hand and sent 
 the man sprawling at her feet. 
 
 " What in the world s going on here?" she 
 cried, holding her captive down with one hand. 
 " Who s he trying to shoot bullets at? " 
 
 " I don t know," the girl shuddered, turning as 
 if to run away. " I stopped him, anyway." She 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 307 
 
 caught her breath with a gasp and tottered back 
 wards. 
 
 " Stop that, Clarice ! " snapped Imogene 
 harshly. " Don t you dare faint ! What do you 
 mean by catching this fellow and then letting him 
 go again?" 
 
 The body under her squirmed around as she 
 spoke, and the man s eyes began to flicker from 
 one face to the other. His mouth was too full 
 of dirt for speech, but his sense of hearing had not 
 been impaired. 
 
 The girl shielded her eyes from the sight. 
 
 " I don t know," she said again in a strangled 
 voice. " Get up, Imogene. Let him go." 
 
 " I ll do nothing of the sort," retorted the 
 Strong Woman. " It seems terrible funny you 
 catched him and beat him nearly to death just to 
 let him go " 
 
 The girl turned back with a half-crazed look on 
 her face which frightened the other woman. 
 
 "LET HIM GO!" she cried, clutching at 
 Imogene s arm. " I ve got my reason ! " 
 
 " I think you ve lost your reason," was the angry 
 reply. 
 
 Then the man on the ground managed to clear 
 his mouth and gutter forth some words. 
 
308 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " Get up offn me, y u," he rasped. u Don t 
 y u see she knows me? That s Winnie. THAT S 
 MY DAUGHTER!" 
 
 The words rang strangely in the Strong Wom 
 an s ears. Looking up at the girl, she saw her 
 shrink back with loathing in her eyes. Then the 
 Strong Woman rose from off the prostrate form 
 and gave it a hearty kick. 
 
 " Get up, then," she said, dragging him into 
 an upright position with the gentle grip of a 
 grizzly bear. " Let s take a look." 
 
 " Don t y u pester me," the man whined. " Win 
 nie! Don t y u let this crazy woman " 
 
 " CLARICE ! " commanded Imogene. " Come 
 here and look at this fellow." Do you mean to 
 say that this dirty old pup " 
 
 ; Take a look at it ! " the man interrupted, and 
 thrust a grimy ring-finger under Imogene s dis 
 gusted nose. 
 
 Imogene looked. Then she dropped his arm 
 and gripped the rifle in both hands. 
 
 " I ll give you just exactly one minute to get 
 off this property into Hell," said the Strong 
 Woman. " You re no father of this girl and you 
 never will be. And you ain t goin to stick around 
 here making us poor women cry or shooting things 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 309 
 
 with bullets, either. There s the road to Moab 
 and you re going to take it on the run. Now, 
 you GIT!" And with a heavy swing of the 
 clubbed rifle across his back, she sent the unknown 
 plunging for his life across the fields. 
 
 The Lifter of Great Weights turned to the girl, 
 lying face downwards on the grass, and surveyed 
 her with withering scorn. To be entirely truthful, 
 this promised to be a heavier weight to lift than 
 any dumb-bell the Strong Woman had ever es 
 sayed, but it was going to be accomplished, just 
 the same. 
 
 " Clarice," said she, " you certainly get my goat. 
 How, in the name of Time, you can recognize a 
 father you never saw before beats me all 
 around the block. I guess you re losing your 
 mind." 
 
 " I hope I am," sobbed the girl. 
 
 " Yes, I hope so, too," was the comforting 
 echo. " Sit up here, now, and answer me criss 
 cross your heart. Did Papa show you the Family 
 Album while you were fighting?" 
 
 " Let me alone! " was the protesting moan. 
 
 " Thanking you very kindly I won t," said 
 Imogene. " I m entirely too interested. I gotta 
 know if it was because he has green eyes that you 
 
310 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 were so glad to recognize him or because there s 
 a strawberry mark in the middle of his back." 
 
 " It it was a ring/ the girl muttered, blindly 
 thrusting out her hand. " It s just the same as 
 
 mine." 
 
 u Ah! Yess-s-s-s-s ! " was the politely sibilant 
 response. U A dear little ten-cent ring that he 
 picked up in a pawnshop once when he was flush, 
 I reckon. And you re so tickled to death to have 
 a father that you d take him all on the strength 
 of a little piece of brass that anyone could own. 
 Hurry up now and get done with your crying, be 
 cause I want to tell you what I think of your 
 taste in fathers. I must say that I m pretty much 
 ashamed of you, young lady. After all your 
 traveling round looking at papas, I think you 
 made a mighty bum choice." 
 
 The girl s face came into view and she looked 
 up at the other with clearer eyes. 
 
 11 1 wish I could believe you, Imogene," she 
 said mournfully. 
 
 " Clarice," said Imogene quietly, as she sat 
 down by the girl and hugged her up in her arms, 
 " there s nothing to it. I just said those things to 
 get you angry and calmed down. Believe me, my 
 dear there isn t a word of truth either in what he 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 311 
 
 said or you believe. I advise you to put this thing 
 out of your mind as an absolute impossibility. 
 Don t ever speak to me again about it, or to your 
 self, or to anyone else. When I think it s neces 
 sary for you to have a father, / // give you one" 
 said Imogene. 
 
 She studied the girl for a moment, then con 
 tinued her reflections in a more intimate tone. 
 " I don t see why you re so terrible set on having 
 a father, anyway," said Imogene. " It seems to 
 me I d rather have a husband any day." 
 
 The face was promptly hidden again and there 
 was a mournful sigh. " Impossible," said a voice. 
 
 " Nonsense," said the Strong Woman definitely. 
 " Get up now and rub your cheeks. Mr. Holly s 
 been crazy to find you for a half an hour. He s 
 hunting all over for you." 
 
 Somewhat comforted but with lowered, unsee 
 ing eyes, the girl finally came to the house, de 
 voutly praying for a free passage to her room. 
 But, as Fate intended, they met in the hallway, 
 and before she could escape he threw open the 
 office-door. 
 
 " I ve got a scheme ! Come see it unroll ! " he 
 said boyishly, and in spite of her torture she fol 
 lowed in. 
 
312 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " I don t see why I didn t break into this be 
 fore ! " he said. " Everything s topsy-turvy here 
 you saw that to-day and I ve been racking my 
 brains for something to amuse these people till 
 it s time for them to go. So I ve figured out that 
 what we need here is a Dance ! " He waited for 
 her faint smile, then hurried on. 
 
 " It won t be hard," he said. " I ve been look 
 ing at Drybone s new barn and it s just the thing ! 
 And we can get an awful crowd. All Moab ll 
 come they re crazy about such things. And the 
 young engineer! And the assayer from Yellow 
 Dog ! And folks from Tuniper ! And Ash Flat ! 
 And Lonesome Dove! Why there won t be 
 room for half ! Only the Bishop we ll leave him 
 out. And that s the first part. Now, the second 
 part will be a supper. After that will come 
 THE PERFORMANCE ! " 
 
 "The what?" 
 
 :< The performance! " he repeated, astonished. 
 "Why we couldn t do without that! They d 
 have the time of their lives ! Just think of all we 
 can do for them. Mike and Harry and Imogene 
 and Cobrita " 
 
 His words rang strangely in her ears. A 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 313 
 
 troublous presentiment began to lie heavy on her 
 heart. 
 
 " Do you mean you re going to have them in 
 their acts?" she said. 
 
 " Why, of course," he answered hastily. " Just 
 see what a lot there d be to do. Bareback riding 
 and tumbling and Imogene lifting heavy 
 weights and Cobrita s dogs doing tricks Alta- 
 mont dressed up in a turban playing his flute the 
 Wild Man riding the elephant round and round 
 and the snakes loose in the audience, scaring the 
 women " 
 
 " And you want me to help ? " she asked 
 slowly, mechanically. 
 
 " I wish you would" he said with blind hopeful 
 ness. " You haven t done anything like that in a 
 long time, have you ? " 
 
 " No," she answered. " No. Not in a long 
 time," and a fiery blush spread over her neck and 
 face. She drew back and turned away. A revul 
 sion took possession of her and froze her into 
 white silence. She walked a few steps towards the 
 door, her hands clenched at her sides. Her heart, 
 which had given one stricken leap as she caught his 
 meaning, was beating slowly and laboriously. 
 
 And this was what it all had come to! All her 
 
3 i4 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 efforts to rehabilitate herself all her attempts to 
 shake off the ugly old chrysalis and flutter forth, 
 bright and shining, into what had seemed a beauti 
 ful, new world. Only a few days ago she had 
 thought she was succeeding, but now, it seemed as 
 if a mistake had been made somewhere. If she 
 had deceived herself into thinking the butterfly s 
 original state forgotten, it was being impressed on 
 her with rude strength that other people had not 
 yet gone that far. 
 
 The girl walked unsteadily away and sank down 
 on a chair, her little world in chaos. One there 
 had been who seemed to understand. One there 
 had been who always stood by and smiled good- 
 naturedly, comprehendingly with a word, or a 
 gift, or a frank desire for companionship which 
 was better than any gift. And, just as Fate would 
 have it, this was the one who had deliberately 
 come and struck the hardest blow. She lowered 
 her head on her arms and broke into a shudder of 
 tears. 
 
 The man started as if he had been shot His 
 face grew frightened. He came nearer, wonder 
 ing and perplexed, his hand stretched out in pro 
 test. 
 
 " Why Clarice ! " he cried in amazement. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 315 
 
 "What have I done? What ki the world is the 
 trouble? Why, I don t understand this!" he 
 said despairingly. " I ve done something, and I 
 don t know what it is. Please , don t cry ! My 
 heavens!" he groaned to himself. What s go 
 ing on here? You hurt that little girl? I d kill 
 you first. Clarice ! " he called, and laid a trem 
 bling hand on her arm. " Please, don t cry, little 
 girl. I only asked you to help! " 
 
 " I know," she sobbed. " And that s the worst 
 of it. You asked me you asked me oh oh," 
 she shuddered, and gave it up. " I want to help 
 you but I can t I can t! " 
 
 He stared miserably down at her, appalled at the 
 sight of her grief and yet uncertain as to what to 
 do or think. His hands hovered over, hungering 
 unbelievably to sweep her up into his arms. Then 
 they dropped at his sides, and he retreated. 
 
 " I don t know what I ve done," he faltered. 
 " But I guess it s something that doesn t make you 
 want to see me any more. I ll go right out 
 right away." And he strode quickly from the 
 room. 
 
 A moment later Imogene, looking up from the 
 last relics of breakfast, beheld a strange sight in 
 the kitchen doorway. The owner of the ranch 
 
316 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 was stumbling in on her with staring eyes and 
 wildly waving arms. 
 
 " For Heaven s sake, go see what s the matter 
 with Clarice ! " he burst out. " She s crying as 
 hard as she can. Something terrible must have 
 happened. My God if I ve said anything to hurt 
 her feelings " 
 
 " What have you been saying to that little 
 girl?" demanded Imogene ferociously, drying her 
 hands on her apron and coming on the run. 
 
 " It was about the performance! " he said hus 
 kily. " I asked her to help, but she can t. Says she 
 wants to, but she can t! And then she burst right 
 out crying." 
 
 Imogene halted abruptly. A light flashed across 
 her face and she had hard work to stifle her 
 laughter. 
 
 " Did you ask her to perform for you ? " she 
 barked with well-feigned anger. 
 
 " Why, no! " wailed the helpless one. " I only 
 asked her to help. I didn t ask her to do any of 
 her act I didn t think of it I never have. It 
 never seemed to me as if she belonged to the cir 
 cus like the rest the thought never occurred to 
 me. If I d thought she cared that much about it 
 I d have asked her, too." 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 317 
 
 Then a thought flashed through his agitated 
 mind. He stopped. His eyes brightened. He 
 threw up his hands with a comic gesture of dis 
 gust. 
 
 " / know," he shouted. " What a great big fool 
 I was. She wants to help, but she can t. She hasn t 
 got any tights! " 
 
 "TIGHTS! " yelled Imogene, frantically back 
 ing him up against the door and pinning him fast 
 with her mighty hands. " See here you great big 
 chump ! Did you say anything like that to that 
 child ?" 
 
 11 NO ! " he burst forth. " Of course I didn t. 
 I never thought of it. That s what she s mad 
 about." 
 
 u IDIOT ! " gasped Imogene, shaking him with 
 might and main. " If you say tights to that lit 
 tle girl you ll kill her! Of course she hasn t any. 
 She burned em up long ago right here in my 
 stove with my own eyes watching her. Don t 
 you know what s the matter with her? Haven t 
 you any eyes? Can t you see? She s crazy to have 
 you think she s a better kind of a girl than an acro 
 bat! Wake up, man! She loves you!" 
 
 He strained against her arms. 
 
 " Imogene! You re crazy! " 
 
318 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 "No. I m not crazy!" shouted the Strong 
 Woman; "but I ll be mad enough to pound you 
 in another minute. Now answer me straight and 
 true. You didn t say anything about trapezes or 
 tights or anything? " 
 
 " No. Not a word," he howled, frantic with 
 shame over his awful error. 
 
 "HURRAH!" cried Imogene, backing away 
 to give him room for action. " Now get out of 
 here! RUN! JUMP! GIT! CLEAR OUT! 
 Go to her just as fast as Heaven will let you. Get 
 down on your knees and pray to God to make her 
 forgive you for not staying there in the first place. 
 IF YOU DON T ASK HER TO MARRY 
 YOU IN TWO MINUTES BY THE CLOCK, 
 I LL BREAK YOUR NECK." 
 
 " Imogene," he faltered piteously, " you would 
 n t fool me?" 
 
 " GET OUT OF HERE," said Imogene vio 
 lently, and catapulted him down the hallway. 
 " You men make me tired. I d like to throw you 
 out of my house ! " 
 
 He paused to ask one more timid question, but 
 saw it would be futile. The door slammed in his 
 face. 
 
 He stared wildly about with convulsive move- 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 319 
 
 ments, and took a deep breath. Then he turned 
 and ran madly down the hall. 
 
 Out in the kitchen the Strong Woman, true to 
 her threat, kept a watchful eye on the clock. The 
 fateful two minutes passed, and anon, another two. 
 With five long minutes safely folded to the bosom 
 of the past, a soft radiance spread its glow across 
 Imogene s moon-like countenance. Her body be 
 gan to sway rhythmically from side to side, and a 
 humming sound of wondrous volume filled the 
 kitchen. With skirt nipped daintily twixt thumb 
 and finger, her feet began to glide about in an old- 
 fashioned dance-step, while strange fragments not 
 unlike " The Beautiful Blue Danube " assaulted 
 the air. " Tra-la-la-la. Ki-yi! Ki-yi ! " paeaned 
 Imogene, and spun like a whirling dervish. In and 
 out between stove and table, with only her pots and 
 pans for audience, the Lifter of Great Weights 
 was violently waltzing out her joy all by her 
 self. 
 
 Intruding delicately upon these strange exercises, 
 the Wild Man from Java was presently felt to be 
 near at hand. Not unaverse to being considered 
 graceful in her old age, Imogene kept up an arti 
 ficial unconsciousness among her pirouettes until 
 stopped by a suggestion from the Wild Man. 
 
320 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 " S-s-s-s-s-s-t ! " said the Wild Man forcibly. 
 " Cut that out. She s a-coming!" 
 
 " Who s a-coming ?" demanded the joyful one. 
 
 " Grandma, " answered the Wild Man, with 
 knowing succinctness, and vanished away. 
 
 " I thought I d come around for a little visit," 
 Mrs. Warder said genially, as she stood on the 
 doorstep. " I hope you re not too busy." 
 
 " Not at all," Imogene answered preoccupiedly, 
 and finally looked up from where she sat at her 
 kitchen-table. The table-drawer stood open and 
 numerous documents were scattered about. In her 
 hand she held a square, blue sheet headed, " Ameri 
 can Smelting and Refining Company." 
 
 " Come right in," the Strong Woman said. " I 
 don t mind telling you that I have been real busy, 
 but it s mostly done now. I ve been making up 
 accounts on my mine and sort of looking things 
 over. Sometimes I think it s most too big a thing 
 for a poor weak woman like me to tackle." 
 
 Imogene thrust the papers to one side with a 
 weary movement and leaned her head pensively on 
 her hand. " Of course, it s awful nice to get gold 
 out of," she said, " but the worry of bossing those 
 men is something terrible. If it wasn t that I ve 
 got a good thing close by I believe I believe " 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 321 
 
 Imogene s voice faded gently away, leaving her be 
 liefs still in the shadow. 
 
 " You say you ve taken some gold out of it al 
 ready?** Mrs. Warder asked, speaking in a re- 
 flectful tone and sitting down as if she meant to 
 stay. 
 
 " Yep," said Imogene with a yawn. ;t Want to 
 see some of the returns? There s Shipment Num 
 ber Three Hundred and Fifteen B." 
 
 Mrs. Warder put on her glasses and breathed 
 heavily over the report. 
 
 " I believe I ll get busy and buy me a couple of 
 new silk dresses," remarked Imogene dreamily. 
 " I might have to run down to San Francisco 
 shortly on some matters connected with this prop 
 erty and " 
 
 " One hundred and sixty-five dollars I under 
 stand that much of it, anyway," the Philadelphian 
 said with a shrewd light in her eye. " Did you 
 make a hundred and sixty-five dollars? " 
 
 " Yeh-up. But about those dresses I don t 
 know just where to have em made up. Ain t there 
 some good dressmakers in Philadelphia who could 
 give me a fit? I know I m dreadful partickeler, 
 but " 
 
 Mrs. Warder laid the sheet down and surveyed 
 
322 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 the other calculatively. "Eh?" she murmured. 
 " Oh, dresses. Why, yes to be sure. But sup 
 pose you tell me something more about the 
 
 mine." 
 
 " Oh the mine? Well it s all there," said 
 Imogene. " It s a nice mine, too." 
 
 "You re sure it s a nice little mine?" queried 
 the other carefully. " You think there s money in 
 it, do you?" 
 
 u I know there s money in it," the Strong 
 Woman stated fearlessly. " You never saw a mine 
 yet as big as that one but it had money in it 
 somewhere. Sure it s a nice mine. Didn t I dig 
 the ore out of the vein and wash the gold out for 
 you? You didn t lose the little bag or tell any 
 body, did you?" 
 
 " Oh, no. I ve got it all locked up," and Mrs. 
 Warder fidgeted with her porte-monnaie. " If I 
 were only sure she whispered to herself. 
 
 " As I was saying about those dresses," re 
 marked Imogene. " This trip to the city would 
 come in mighty handy for that. I ve been expect 
 ing to make arrangements regarding this little 
 mine with a certain party for some time past, but 
 on the other hand, if you really want to have the 
 first chance at picking up a bargain " The 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 323 
 
 Strong Woman sat back and drummed thought 
 fully on the table. 
 
 " Hummmm," she said with a heavy frown. 
 " Well, now. I tell you what. I like you a whole 
 lot for coming to me with this idea and, maybe, 
 if you want to talk business, let s us figure out just 
 what we can do. Let s get down to real business." 
 
 " Yes, yes. We must make this real business" 
 was the fidgety reply, and Mrs. Warder hitched 
 her chair closer and brought the porte-monnaie 
 into view. " That s just what I ve been thinking 
 about all night long, dear Mrs. Boggs. I didn t 
 know how you d feel about it Dear. You don t 
 mind if I call you Dear. " 
 
 " I hope I will be dear," purred Imogene. 
 " Now, how much money do you really think you 
 could 
 
 It is regrettable that the remainder of this con 
 versation, being of a strictly business nature, can 
 not be disclosed. All that is known concerning it 
 proves that it was carried on in low tones, and 
 not even the discreet Wild Man, lurking around 
 the doorway, could detect more than a faint mur 
 mur. But the Wild Man soon made his own de 
 ductions, for when Warder senior, casting about 
 for his wife, approached too close to Imogene s 
 
324 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 stronghold, the Wild Man, oh, wonder of won 
 ders! shook his head and pointed in the other 
 direction. 
 
 Mr. Warder thought of the office and concluded 
 that he would proceed thither. The door was 
 shut. But unless a door is locked as well as shut 
 it may often be opened by turning the knob and 
 pushing vigorously until the weight sometimes 
 found to be leaning against it 
 
 " Why, bless my soul!" gasped Mr. Warder. 
 He took a short moment in which to assure himself 
 that it was not an optical illusion, and then as 
 saulted his partner. " You old scamp ! Have 
 you been in love all this time and never told 
 me?" 
 
 He held the incoherent two fast and grew red 
 with laughter. " There, now, Clarice I ll let 
 you go but I ve had the very last squeeze you can 
 ever give away." 
 
 " You were looking for me?" asked Holly. 
 
 u Yes. I have a wire here from San Fran 
 cisco. I promised to meet a man there who s com 
 ing up from Mexico, and he s caught a steamer a 
 week ahead of time. Can you get us off right 
 now? " Warder s hand was on the knob and he 
 was turning away. 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 325 
 
 As he did so there came a sound of steps and 
 tinkling spurs in the hallway. Someone rapped 
 and then opened the door. A man whom none but 
 the ranchman knew stood on the threshold. 
 
 At sight of a woman, the stranger removed his 
 hat, but without further greeting than a nod to 
 the man who had despatched him on his quest two 
 weeks before, the drill-runner proceeded to make 
 his report. 
 
 " I ve been looking up this man Macklin as 
 you told me to do," said the drill-runner with a 
 calm eye, " and I reckon youVe wasted your money, 
 Boss. He hasn t left any more trail than a fly 
 on a rock. Howsomever, he s ketched all right 
 Jake Johnson put the nippers on him down on the 
 Moab road not ten minutes ago." 
 
 Holly nodded silently, as if he were not surprised 
 to find that the man had survived, after all. He 
 glanced quickly at the girl beside him for the look 
 of relief which he felt sure would show in her 
 face, and so looking, saw a curious change take 
 place. 
 
 " But while I was checking up Macklin," the 
 drill-runner continued, u I found out a funny thing 
 about Danny Drew that we never knew before. 
 Maybe you d like to know about it. This yere 
 
326 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 Drew man s name wasn t Drew at all," said the 
 drill-runner. " Twas Henry B alders on !" 
 
 There was a little pause after the drill-runner 
 ceased speaking, and then the woman s eyes began 
 to light up with astonishment. Wider and wider 
 they opened, and she stepped back with an exclama 
 tion. Some wonderful hope was shining in her 
 face and crystallizing behind her eyes. Doubts 
 were being swept away and misconceptions put un 
 der foot forever. The certainty of Truth was 
 filling her with a force which flashed an under 
 standing into Dick Holly s mind long before she 
 spoke. The worst had been for Clarice, and it 
 would never come again. The best was here 
 now. 
 
 " Why that s my name ! " the girl whispered. 
 " I m Winnie Balderson! " 
 
 Ten minutes later the tactful Mr. Warder nois 
 ily approached the front of the house by way of 
 the kitchen, where he had been chumming with 
 Imogene, and found Holly alone. Mr. Warder 
 silently exhibited something which he was carry 
 ing with a certain amount of timidity. 
 
 " That rifle," he said significantly, " was found 
 a few minutes ago in a patch of grass about a hun 
 dred yards in a bee-line from the corral where, I 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 327 
 
 think you will remember, you were standing at 
 about that time. From what Imogene tells me, I 
 believe I m not putting it too strongly when I say 
 that Mr. Richard Holly owes Miss Belvawney- 
 Balderson a great deal more than his share of the 
 Atlas Mine, which he is now preparing to swindle 
 me out of by marriage. Dick ! That girl saved 
 your life to-day, and you never knew it! " 
 
 The ranchman looked ruefully at the dirtied 
 rifle, and put out a hand as if to thrust back the 
 image of that death which had hovered over him 
 and been denied. 
 
 " She began to save it quite a while ago," he 
 said. 
 
 It was characteristic of the Philadelphians that, 
 with their marching orders once issued, they pre 
 pared for departure with commendable direct 
 ness. 
 
 " We leave in half an hour, Amy! " Mrs. War 
 der called, as she hurried up the stairs to her room. 
 " Find someone to send for Biddle. Your uncle 
 mustn t miss his train." 
 
 But Biddle was already in sight, walking in 
 from nowhere in particular, with a frown on his 
 good-looking face. 
 
 " Uh-huh," said Biddle, " I ll be ready, don t 
 
328 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 you fret. I m all packed now. But San Francisco 
 won t see much of me, let me state. I m going 
 down to Burlingame and get in some polo. Monty 
 Dupignac and the Remsen boys have been writing 
 to me for a week." And in order to be quite sure 
 that he was not left behind, Biddle carried his 
 trunk downstairs in his arms and seated himself on 
 it, on the porch. Overhead were sounds of feet 
 moving hurriedly about and Clarice and Amy 
 laughing over the rush of packing. People passed 
 and repassed him Mike and Harry, and Drybone 
 getting his teams out of the corral and hitching 
 up Cobrita, with the smallest of her dogs under 
 her arm, tripping by with a smile into the house. 
 The telephone-bell tinkled after a time, and he an 
 swered it. He wrote out the telegram carefully 
 and read it through twice. Then he opened his 
 mouth in silent amazement. For a moment his 
 eye dwelt calculatively on the quotation sheet on 
 the wall, but he soon shook his head disgustedly 
 and went back to his seat on the trunk. 
 
 Clarice appeared in the doorway, and Biddle 
 rose and bowed. 
 
 " I m sorry everyone s going away," the girl 
 said, straightforwardly. " It s been very nice, has 
 n t it?" 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 329 
 
 " I guess it will be pleasanter when we re gone," 
 he said, with a faint smile. 
 
 " You speak as if we d never meet again." 
 
 " Shall we? " he asked doubtfully. 
 
 " I don t see why not," was the honest answer. 
 " I don t know any reason why I shouldn t be 
 pleasant to you, or you to me." 
 
 " It would never be hard work for me" he said 
 unsteadily. " But I can see now that it would be 
 useless to expect anything more than that on you r 
 part. However, if you re going to marry Holly 
 you re in luck," said Biddle frankly. " He s a 
 corker. He s all right. And Amy seems to be up 
 to something, too. Somebody named David has 
 made a pot of money." 
 
 " WHAT S THAT?" gasped Amy, appearing 
 on the scene in her traveling dress. " Don t tell 
 me it really went through! " 
 
 " Something did," laughed Biddle, for the first 
 time. " According to to-day s market, your 
 4 David boy is about five thousand ahead of the 
 game." 
 
 " I m going to faint, Clarice, I know I am," 
 cried Amy, with a convincing scream. " Support 
 me whilst I swoon. David has actually made some 
 money at last ! " 
 
330 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 The wagons, with Drybone and the Wild Man, 
 drew up in front of the house. While the trunks 
 were being loaded on, Mrs. Warder, fully ac 
 coutred, came down the stairs and those who were 
 going away and those who were to stay, began to 
 say good-by. 
 
 " But what shall I do with the dog, Cobrita? " 
 Amy was saying to the Snake Lady, who seemed 
 quite tearful over the loss of so helpful a hand at 
 trousseau-m^kmg. " You re just a dear to give 
 me the tricksiest one. How shall I treat it? I never 
 had a dog, or anything." 
 
 " Just feed it, I guess," said Cobrita with a 
 gulp. " And write to me next month as Mrs. 
 Harry Doogan. That s all I want." 
 
 Imogene and Mrs. Warder exchanged a few 
 low-toned words, but were interrupted by Alta- 
 mont, who seemed quite excited over something 
 and very bright. 
 
 " When you are home again in Philadelphia," 
 the little man said, and there was a sudden silence, 
 " I hope a sight of the old Friends 1 Meeting 
 House down in Washington Square will remind 
 you pleasantly of us. I used to live right next 
 door when I was a little boy." 
 
 "YOU!" gasped Mrs. Warder, while they 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 331 
 
 listened in amazement. " You lived in Philadel 
 phia?" 
 
 " Oh, dear, yes," said the little man mildly. 
 " Our family always lived there. They were 
 Friends, 7 you know ever since Robert Morris s 
 
 time." 
 
 The lady looked at him in a frightened way 
 for a moment, but nothing but truth, long con 
 cealed, but none the less veracious, beamed in the 
 little man s eye. 
 
 "And where did your ancestors live?" he 
 asked gently. 
 
 Mrs. Warder, in her bewilderment, was as clay 
 in the hands of the potter. 
 
 " On Wood Street," was the fatal answer. 
 
 " Ah! Yes," said Altamont distantly, with en 
 tire appreciation of the import of the disclosure. 
 "In that case we can hardly expect them to have 
 
 met" 
 
 Once more the Inter-Continentalers and Trans- 
 Oceanicers were gathered at the dinner-table. In 
 the course of re-arrangement made necessary by the 
 departures they took their seats, or other people s 
 seats, with rare uncertainty and so were not sur- 
 
332 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 prised, on looking down the long expanse of table, 
 to see a little man with straw-colored eyebrows 
 peering brightly at them over the top of the soup 
 tureen. 
 
 The little man looked rejuvenated. His hair 
 was no longer tufty. His collar, for once, was 
 fastened securely in the back. The faintly puzzled- 
 light in his eye had given way to a beaming cer 
 tainty, while an entire comprehension of all that 
 was going on about him showed in his smiling 
 face. 
 
 " Well, children, " announced Imogene, march 
 ing in with the roast, " it looks as if the days of 
 the old circus were about over. Do I hear any 
 complaints? " 
 
 The circus nodded abstractedly. The days of 
 wandering, in truth, were past. Each one felt 
 within himself or herself the deeply-rooted con 
 viction that he or she was going to remain where 
 he or she was for as long as was humanly pos 
 sible. Then their minds flitted easily to other di 
 versions. Only Altamont spoke, and at his first 
 words Holly felt Clarice s hand grasp his with a 
 startled movement. 
 
 " In spite of the hard times life has held for 
 us so far, I cannot but think that it has all been 
 
THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 333 
 
 worth while," he was saying gently. " Perhaps 
 the hardships have not developed as much in my 
 self as in the others, as I can see only too plainly, 
 but still " The little man stopped and choked. 
 
 " Please, Altamont no more now," said Imo- 
 gene, with a quick breath. " We re going to take 
 a little trip you and me. We re going down 
 to see a wise man who can fix us all up. We re 
 going to be better now, and not have any more 
 headaches." 
 
 " Yes," said the little man, with truth. " I m 
 going to be better soon. I can feel it." 
 
 "Going away, Imogene?" came the dismayed 
 chorus. 
 
 "Oh just to San Francisco," announced that 
 lady with a nonchalant wave of her hand. 
 " Don t worry, chilluns. I ll be back. We re just 
 going to run down on a little honeymoon flyer, 
 Altamont and me, because after a good many 
 years of hard work and hard knocks we ve hit 
 the pay streak at last." 
 
 Without waiting for the clamor of inquiry, the 
 Strong Woman tossed her napkin aside and, ris 
 ing to her feet, whisked a piece of paper out of her 
 pocket. 
 
 "OH, YOU HARRY-AND-MIKE!" she 
 
334 THE DESERT AND MRS. AJAX 
 
 cried exultantly, while she waved a check before 
 their astounded eyes. * You ll have to go some 
 now with your million-dollar chicken crops and 
 your fancy pigs if you want to catch old Imogene, 
 even if she did have to mark it down from five 
 thousand dollars to forty-nine-ninety, cause 
 I VE SOLD MY MINE ! " 
 
 Into the momentary silence there came a little 
 squeak of excitement from Altamont, followed by 
 a mighty shout. And then, while chaos reigned, 
 the discomfited Equestrian Twins fell deftly from 
 their chairs and rolled about upon the floor. 
 
 FINIS 
 
FOURTEEN DAY USE 
 
 RETURN TO DESK FROM WHICH BORROWED 
 
 This book is due on the last date stamped below, or 
 
 on the date to which renewed. 
 Renewed books are subject to immediate recall. 
 
 2Jun 55D3 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 LD 21-100m-2, 55 
 (B139s22)476 
 
 General Library 
 University of California 
 Berkeley 
 
 
YB 33460