The Heart of the Desert

Heart of the Desert, The

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Willsie Morrow, Illustrated by V. Herbert Dunton
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Title: The Heart of the Desert Kut-Le of the Desert
Author: Honoré Willsie Morrow

Release Date: September 30, 2005 [eBook #16777]
Language: English
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THE HEART OF THE DESERT
(Kut-Le of the Desert)
by
HONORÉ WILLSIE
Author of "Still Jim"
With Frontispiece in Colors by V. Herbert Dunton
A. L. Burt Company, Publishers 114-120 East Twenty-third Street ----
New York Published by Arrangement with Frederick A. Stokes
Company
1913

[Frontispiece: Side by side, they rode off into the desert sunset.]

CONTENTS

CHAPTER
I
THE VALLEY OF THE PECOS II THE CAUCASIAN WAY III THE
INDIAN AND CAUCASIAN IV THE INDIAN WAY V THE
PURSUIT VI ENTERING THE DESERT KINDERGARTEN VII
THE FIRST LESSON VIII A BROADENING HORIZON IX TOUCH

AND GO X A LONG TRAIL XI THE TURN IN THE TRAIL XII
THE CROSSING TRAILS XIII AN INTERLUDE XIV THE
BEAUTY OF THE WORLD XV AN ESCAPE XVI ADRIFT IN THE
DESERT XVII THE HEART'S OWN BITTERNESS XVIII THE
FORGOTTEN CITY XIX THE TRAIL AGAIN XX THE RUINED
MISSION XXI THE END OF THE TRAIL

The Heart of the Desert

CHAPTER I
THE VALLEY OF THE PECOS
Rhoda hobbled through the sand to the nearest rock. On this she sank
with a groan, clasped her slender foot with both hands and looked
about her helplessly.
She felt very small, very much alone. The infinite wastes of yellow
desert danced in heat waves against the bronze-blue sky. The girl saw
no sign of living thing save a buzzard that swept lazily across the zenith.
She turned dizzily from contemplating the vast emptiness about her to a
close scrutiny of her injured foot. She drew off her thin satin house
slipper painfully and dropped it unheedingly into a bunch of yucca that
crowded against the rock. Her silk stocking followed. Then she sat in
helpless misery, eying her blue-veined foot.
In spite of her evident invalidism, one could but wonder why she made
so little effort to help herself. She sat droopingly on the rock, gazing
from her foot to the far lavender line of the mesas. A tiny, impotent
atom of life, she sat as if the eternal why which the desert hurls at one
overwhelmed her, deprived her of hope, almost of sensation. There was
something of nobility in the steadiness with which she gazed at the
melting distances, something of pathos in her evident resignation, to
her own helplessness and weakness.

The girl was quite unconscious of the fact that a young man was
tramping up the desert behind her. He, however, had spied the white
gown long before Rhoda had sunk to the rock and had laid his course
directly for her. He was a tall fellow, standing well over six feet and he
swung through the heavy sand with an easy stride that covered distance
with astonishing rapidity. As he drew near enough to perceive Rhoda's
yellow head bent above her injured foot, he quickened his pace, swung
round the yucca thicket and pulled off his soft felt hat.
"Good-morning!" he said. "What's the matter?"
Rhoda started, hastily covered her foot, and looked up at the tall
khaki-clad figure. She never had seen the young man before, but the
desert is not formal.
"A thing like a little crayfish bit my foot," she answered; "and you don't
know how it hurts!"
"Ah, but I do!" exclaimed the young man. "A scorpion sting! Let me
see it!"
Rhoda flushed.
"Oh, never mind that!" she said. "But if you will go to the Newman
ranch-house for me and ask them to send the buckboard I'll be very
grateful. I--I feel dizzy, you know."
"Gee whiz!" exclaimed the young man. "There's no time for me to run
about the desert if you have a scorpion sting in your foot!"
"Is a scorpion sting dangerous?" asked Rhoda. Then she added,
languidly, "Not that I mind if it is!"
The young man gave her a curious glance. Then he pulled a small case
from his pocket, knelt in the sand and lifted Rhoda's foot in one slender,
strong, brown hand. The instep already was badly swollen.