E-text prepared by Al Haines

THE DESERT VALLEY

by

JACKSON GREGORY

Author of The Bells of San Juan, Man to Man

Hodder and Stoughton Limited London
Charles Scribner's Sons

1921

CONTENTS

CHAPTER

THE DESERT I A BLUEBIRD'S FEATHER II SUPERSTITION POOL III PAYMENT IN RAW GOLD IV IN DESERT VALLEY V THE GOOD OLD SPORT VI THE YOUTHFUL HEART VII WAITING FOR MOONRISE VIII POKER AND THE SCIENTIFIC MIND IX HELEN KNEW X A WARNING AND A SIGN XI SEEKING XII THE DESERT SUPREME XIII A SON OF THE SOLITUDES XIV THE HATE OF THE HIDDEN PEOPLE XV THE GOLDEN SECRET XVI SANCHIA SCHEMES XVII HOWARD HOLDS THE GULCH XVIII A TOWN IS BORN XIX SANCHIA PERSISTENT XX TWO FRIENDS AND A GIRL XXI ALMOST XXII THE PROFESSOR DICTATES XXIII THE WILL-O'-THE-WISP XXIV THE SHADOW XXV IN THE OPEN XXVI WHEN DAY DAWNED

The Desert

Over many wide regions of the south-western desert country of Arizonaand New Mexico lies an eternal spell of silence and mystery. Acrossthe sand-ridges come many foreign things, both animate and inanimate,which are engulfed in its immensity, which frequently disappear for alltime from the sight of men, blotted out like a bird which flies freefrom a lighted room into the outside darkness. As though incompensation for that which it has taken, the desert from time to timeallows new marvels, riven from its vitals, to emerge.

Though death-still, it has a voice which calls ceaselessly to thosehuman hearts tuned to its messages: hostile and harsh, it draws andurges; repellent, it profligately awards health and wealth; inviting,it kills. And always it keeps its own counsel; it is without peer inits lonesomeness, and without confidants; it heaps its sand over itssecrets to hide them from its flashing stars.

You see the bobbing ears of a pack-animal and the dusty hat and stoopshoulders of a man. They are symbols of mystery. They rise brieflyagainst the skyline, they are gone into the grey distance. Somethingbeckons or something drives. They are lost to human sight, perhaps tohuman memory, like a couple of chips drifting out into the ocean.Patient time may witness their return; it is still likely that soonanother incarnation will have closed for man and beast, that they willhave left to mark their passing a few glisteningly white bones,polished untiringly by tiny sand-chisels in the grip of the desertwinds. They may find gold, but they may not come in time to water.The desert is equally conversant with the actions of men mad with goldand mad with thirst.

To push out along into this immensity is to evince the heart of a braveman or the brain of a fool. The endeavour to traverse the forbiddengarden of silence implies on the part of the agent an adventurousnature. Hence it would seem no great task to catalogue those humanbeings who set their backs to the gentler world and press forward intothe naked embrace of this merciless land. Yet as many sorts andconditions come here each year as are to be found outside.

Silence, ruthlessness, mystery—these are the attributes of the desert.True, it has its softer phases—veiled dawns and dusks, rainbow hues,moon and stars. But these are but tender blossoms from a spiked,poisonous stalk, like the flowers of the cactus. They are brief andevanescent; the iron parent is everlasting.

Chapter I...