The Desert Valley | Page 3

coffee in the thermos
bottle and we can open a tin of potted chicken.'
'The fire makes it cosier,' Helen said, beginning to gather twigs. Last
night coyotes had howled fearsomely, and even dwellers of the cities
know that the surest safeguard against a ravening beast is a camp-fire.
For a little while the man strove with his tangled rope; she was lost to
him through the mesquite. Suddenly she came running back.
'Papa,' she whispered excitedly. 'There's some one already here.'
She led him a few paces and pointed, making him stoop to see. Under
the tangle of a thin brush patch he made out what she had seen. But a
short distance from the spot they had elected for their camp site was a
tiny fire blazing merrily.
'Ahem,' said Helen's father, shifting nervously and looking at his
daughter as though for an explanation of this oddity. 'This is peculiar. It
has an air of--of----'
'Why, it is the most natural thing in the world,' she said swiftly. 'Where
would you expect to find a camp-fire if not near a spring?'
'Yes, yes, that part of it is all right,' he admitted grudgingly. 'But why
does he hold back and thereby give one an impression of a desire on his
part for secrecy? Why does he not come forward and make himself
known? I do not mean to alarm you, my dear, but this is not the way an
honest fellow-wayfarer should behave. Wait here for me; I shall
investigate.' Intrepidly he walked toward the fire. Helen kept close to
his side.
'Hello!' he called, when they had taken a dozen steps. They paused and
listened. There was no reply, and Helen's fingers tightened on his arm.

Again he looked to her as though once more he asked the explanation
of her; the look hinted that upon occasion the father leaned on the
daughter more than she on him. He called again. His voice died away
echoless, the silence seeming heavier than before. When one of the
horses behind them, turning from the water, trod upon a dry twig, both
man and girl started. Then Helen laughed and went forward again.
Since the fire had not lighted itself, it merely bespoke the presence of a
man. Men had no terror to her. In the ripe fullness of her something less
than twenty years she had encountered many of them. While with due
modesty she admitted that there was much in the world that she did not
know, she considered that she 'knew' men.
The two pressed on together. Before they had gone far they were
greeted by the familiar and vaguely comforting odours of boiling coffee
and frying bacon. Still they saw no one. They pushed through the last
clump of bushes and stood by the fire. On the coals was the black
coffee-pot. Cunningly placed upon two stones over a bed of coals was
the frying-pan. Helen stooped instinctively and lifted it aside; the
half-dozen slices of bacon were burned black.
'Hello!' shouted the man a third time, for nothing in the world was more
clear than that whoever had made the fire and begun his supper
preparations must be within call. But no answer came. Meantime the
night had deepened; there was no moon; the taller shrubs, aspiring to
tree proportions, made a tangle of shadow.
'He has probably gone off to picket his horse,' said Helen's father.
'Nothing could be more natural.'
Helen, more matter-of-fact and less given to theorizing, looked about
her curiously. She found a tin cup; there was no bed, no pack, no other
sign to tell who their neighbour might be. Close by the spot where she
had set down the frying-pan she noted a second spring. Through an
open space in the stunted desert growth the trail came in from the north.
Glancing northward she saw for the first time the outline of a low hill.
She stepped quickly to her father's side and once more laid her hand on
his arm.

'What is it?' he asked, his voice sharpening at her sudden grip.
'It's--it's spooky out here,' she said.
He scoffed. 'That's a silly word. In a natural world there is no place for
the supernatural.' He grew testy. 'Can I ever teach you, Helen, not to
employ words utterly meaningless?'
But Helen was not to be shaken.
'Just the same, it is spooky. I can feel it. Look there.' She pointed.
'There is a hill. There will be a little ring of hills. In the centre of the
basin they make would be the pool. And you know what we heard
about it before we left San Juan. This whole country is strange,
somehow.'
'Strange?' he queried challengingly. 'What do you mean?'
She had not relaxed her hand on his