THE DESERT TRAIL
"So she gave me her hand and away we went."
THE DESERT
TRAIL
BY
DANE COOLIDGE
AUTHOR OF
BAT WING BOWLES
ILLUSTRATIONS BY
DOUGLAS DUER and P.J. MONAHAN
NEW YORK
GROSSET & DUNLAP
PUBLISHERS
Copyright, 1915, by
W.J. WATT & COMPANY
THE DESERT TRAIL
I
The slow-rolling winter's sun rose coldly, far to the south, ridingup from behind the saw-toothed Sierras of Mexico to throw a silveryhalo on Gadsden, the border city. A hundred miles of desert lay in itspath—a waste of broken ridges, dry arroyos, and sandy plains—and thensuddenly, as if by magic, the city rose gleaming in the sun.
It was a big city, for the West, and swarming with traffic and men.Its broad main street, lined with brick buildings and throbbing withautomobiles, ran from the railroad straight to the south until, at aline, it stopped short and was lost in the desert.
That line which marked the sudden end of growth and progress was theborder of the United States; the desert was Mexico. And the differencewas not in the land, but in the government.
As the morning air grew warm and the hoar frost dripped down from theroofs the idlers of the town crept forth, leaving chill lodgings andstale saloons for the street corners and the sun.
Against the dead wall of a big store the Mexicans gathered in shiveringgroups, their blankets wrapped around their necks and their brownankles bare to the wind. On another corner a bunch of cowboys stoodclannishly aloof, eying the passing crowd for others of their kind.
In this dun stream which flowed under the morning sun there were miningmen, with high-laced boots and bulging pockets; graybeards, with thegossip of the town in their cheeks; hoboes, still wearing their Easterncaps and still rustling for a quarter to eat on; somber-eyed refugeesand soldiers of fortune from Mexico—but idlers all, and each seekinghis class and kind.
If any women passed that way they walked fast, looking neither to theright nor to the left; for they, too, being so few, missed their classand kind.
Gadsden had become a city of men, huge-limbed and powerful and witha questing look in their eyes; a city of adventurers gathered fromthe ends of the world. A common calamity had driven them from theirmines and ranches and glutted the town with men; for the war was on inMexico and from the farthermost corners of Sonora they still came, hotfrom some new scene of murder and pillage, to add their modicum to thegeneral discontent.
As the day wore on the crowd on the bank corner, where the refugeesmade their stand, changed its complexion, grew big, and stretched farup the street. Men stood in shifting groups, talking, arguing, gazingmoodily at those who passed.
Here were hawk-eyed Texas cattlemen, thinking of their scattered herdsat Mababi or El Tigre; mining men, with idle prospects and desertedmines as far south as the Rio Yaqui; millmen, ranchers, and men oftrades—all driven in from below the line and all chafing at the leash.While a