Part 2

Now that a girl of her own age had come into her life, her cup of happiness was so full she could not sleep. As often as the patient moved, Nevada rose quickly, eager to render any service she could give. Late in the night the patient sank into a calm, peaceful slumber. Then it was that Nevada turned the lamp lower and went to sleep. When she awoke, the bright, dazzling sun of the desert was streaming in through the window. She heard her mother at work in the kitchen. From the pump-house came the irregular “Put-put Put-put!” of the gasoline engine as it labored vigorously in its work of refilling the deplenished tank. She knew by this that her father was up and at work. As a usual thing she was out in the tool house with him, or in the kitchen with her mother at this time of day. She heard a slight movement from the bed, and looking over, saw her patient sitting up.

“Isn’t it a lovely morning!” exclaimed the superintendent’s daughter. “And I feel fine. My hand does not pain me at all.”

“I am so glad,” returned Nevada. “I’ll bring you fresh water and you can dress at your leisure, that is, if you feel like getting up.”

“Oh, yes, I want to get up! I’m not an invalid. We must fill these days full, you know.”

The young guest thanked her hostess as she brought basin and water and then she added, “Just a moment, please. Before you go I want to ask your name. I haven’t heard it yet.”

“It’s Nevada,” was the answer, the radiant glow of the desert in her cheeks and the brightness of the desert stars in her eyes.

“Nevada,” the other girl repeated. “Nevada, a lovely name, and it fits you,” she said frankly. “And now I’ll tell you mine. It is Debue.”

“Oh, that is the name of your father’s car,” said Nevada.

“Yes, he named it in my honor,” Debue informed her.

“It is certainly a pretty name. And now that we are fully acquainted, you’ll call me Nevada, or ‘Neva,’ if you like, just as do father and mother and Jerry Kerrigan.”

“That will be lovely,” Debue agreed, as she sprang out of bed. “We’re going to have a big time together. And you will call me Debue.”

The “big time together” had its beginning soon after breakfast. The stipulation of Debue was that it must not interfere with the regular work of her hostess, and though the injured hand prevented her from giving much assistance, she did help Nevada with her household tasks. Then they visited the pump-house where the busy gasoline engine kept up its noisy chugging. They watched the coming and the going of the trains. They received letters, messages and bundles from men of the crew. They even gathered an armload of the pink-tinted thistle blossoms, plucking only those that stood away from rocks and sage clumps where the dreaded scorpions might lie in hiding. Before noon came they seemed as well acquainted as though they had always been together.

[Illustration: They received bundles from men of the crew.]

Late in the afternoon, when supper was over, the dishes cleared away and Bob Buckley had gone out on his regular evening trip with the speeder to light the signal lamps, the two girls took a short walk into the desert. The sun had gone down behind the Funeral Range. The dazzling golden light of day was replaced with the subdued shades of dusk, shades that changed from crimson to lavender, from lavender to purple. The shimmering heat waves were driven away by a cooling breeze. The desert, with its vast, far-reaching border lines came out in clear outline. Distant sand ridges, buttes and ranges that could not be seen during the day, were now clearly visible. Desert birds, that had been hushed and silent through the hours of dazzling heat, now opened their throats and sang.

“I did not know the desert was so beautiful, and yet so vast and mysterious,” spoke Debue, as the two, walking hand in hand, reached the summit of a sand ridge a mile from the station. They had followed a dim trail made by Nevada in her regular wanderings. After crossing a broad, mesquite-grown mesa, they dropped down into a dry, shale-floored coulee, and then climbed the ridge beyond. Here they stood looking around them. To the utter amazement of the visitor, they had reached, in this brief time, a spot that seemed isolation itself. Silver Thistle, with its cluster of yellow buildings, the railroad with its line of telegraph poles and lifting semaphores, all were blotted out. It was as if the whole world were a desert, and they its only inhabitants.

“I can’t understand it!” exclaimed Debue in surprise. “We have not come far. The station must be right over there!” she said, raising her hand and pointing across the mesa.

Nevada laughed merrily. “You would miss it a long way, if you went in that direction to find it,” she said.

“Then I must be lost,” admitted Debue.

“Not exactly that,” Nevada corrected. “You’re confused a little in direction, that’s all. I had the same difficulty when I first came out here. This old desert is very deceiving to the eye, and this particular spot is especially so. The station is hidden behind that lifting sand ridge over there. When we dropped into the coulee we lost sight of it, and we made a turn in climbing up here. I call this my lookout, and I often come out here in the evening just to catch the spirit of the desert.”

They stood for a time, silently, held speechless by the wonder and awe of the vast arid waste around them. The world seemed a long way off. Then came a sound, a dull, distant rumble that grew louder and louder as the moments passed. Not until the musical tritone of a locomotive whistle lifted clear and distinct as a bugle call, did Debue realize that it was the sound of an approaching train.

“It’s Number Sixteen,” said Nevada, and then she added in tones of infinite meaning, “Do you know it has been almost a whole day since you came?”

“A very happy day it has been for me,” Debue told her.

“The very happiest day in all my life,” the desert girl added.

They turned from the ridge, and hand in hand, walked slowly through the growing dark toward the station-house. They were tired, both of them, and they made ready at once to retire. Again it was arranged for Debue to occupy Nevada’s bed, while the latter prepared to sleep on the sofa near the open door. Debue’s hand was dressed for the last time, Nevada assuring her the bandage could be removed on the morrow.

A few minutes after getting into bed, Debue was soundly asleep. Nevada put out the light and soon followed her into dreamland. How long she slept she did not know. Some time in the night she awoke with a start, and found herself sitting up, carried at once from utter unconsciousness to complete wakefulness. She looked toward the bed. The window curtain had been rolled to the top and the window left wide open. A silvery desert moonlight poured in. She could see every corner of the room, the white sheets of the bed, and the head of the sleeping Debue on the pillow. Nevada knew she was sleeping, by her long, regular breathing. Absolute stillness filled the station-house. In a vague way Nevada realized that a train had passed, yet she knew no train had awakened her. Something else had disturbed her sleep and she looked around with a feeling of alarm.

She got up and tiptoed to the clock in the living-room. It was a quarter of one. Her father had been home almost two hours, so it could not have been his coming that awoke her. Debue had not called or made any unusual sound. What was it, then? Some unusual sound had awakened her, of this she was certain.

She took a peep into the kitchen, then came back toward the sofa. Just as she entered the open door of her room, she was startled by a slight sound outside, a sound that seemed to come from near the window. She paused, peered intently in that direction and heard the sound resolve into a low, muffled tread. While she looked, the dark form of a man, stooping low, crept away from the house and moved slowly toward the railroad.

_CHAPTER FOUR_

Nevada first believed that the man who crept away from the station-house, and disappeared in the direction of the water tank, was a tramp. She knew that a freight train had passed not more than an hour before, after making the usual stop for water at Silver Thistle. She knew, also, that the train crews, out of regard for the people of the isolated station, as well as for the unfortunate tramps, allowed the latter to continue their journey unmolested. It was not likely a tramp would get off a train at a lonely pump-station in the middle of the desert.

Then who could this man be? Why was he prowling about the station-house at such an hour? These were questions for which she could find no reasonable answer. She stood a full minute or longer in the middle of the little room looking out into the night. The dark, stealthily moving form disappeared and no other sounds followed, no voices, no footfalls. As far as she knew, nothing had been disturbed about the station. Yet she believed the man had been in the room, had passed out through the open window, and that his going had awakened her.

She walked quietly over to the stand near the bed on which had been placed the jeweled wrist-watch, the gold necklace and the rings of the magnate’s daughter. The silvery beams of the moon fell with a reflected radiance upon the jewels. All were there, undisturbed, just as they had been placed the evening before. If the midnight prowler had entered the house, he had not come for the purpose of robbery, of this she felt certain.

Determined that the visit should not be repeated, she quietly lowered the window, fastened it, and dropped the upper sash to admit the cool night air. As she looked out again over the desert waste, there came to her sensitive ear a distant sound like the long-drawn call of a human voice. The call was answered immediately from a more distant point; then silence fell over the desert. Nevada knew the sound could have been made by a pair of coyotes calling to each other from neighboring sand ridges, and this thought, followed by a deep-toned rumble of an approaching train, drove away her fears.

She returned to the sofa and was asleep when the long freight train, drawn by its two thirsty moguls, stopped for a drink at the water tank. She was happily surprised on waking early in the morning, to find Debue already up and dressed, and the room filled by the sun with a glory-fire.

“I beat you,” cried Debue, her eyes sparkling, pink in her cheeks, and an eagerness and buoyancy in her every movement.

“I’m the lazy one this time,” her hostess admitted. “But I’ll soon be dressed.”

“I’m going to help get breakfast,” Debue declared. “I’m well this morning. There’s not a bit of soreness in my hand, and I can do work, real, sure-enough work now.” Debue spoke as if this would be the finest thing in the world. She gave Nevada’s round cheek a friendly pat and hurried out. A little later Nevada heard her tripping lightly to and fro in the little kitchen.

This day proved a happier one for the two girls than the day that preceded it. When the east-bound Limited halted for a drink, the gray head of Jerry Kerrigan was thrust out of the cab windows. There was a broad smile on the old engineer’s face when he tossed down the customary bundle and looked into two pairs of laughing eyes.

[Illustration: He tossed down the customary bundle.]

“I’m almost glad it happened!” he said, when Nevada told the story of the scorpion’s sting.

“And we are, too!” the pair answered truthfully.

“But I hope it will not happen again,” added the engineer with a hearty laugh as he touched his gloved hand to the throttle of the huge engine. The long Limited moved forward, and as Jerry doffed his cap in farewell he called to the girls, “Have a fine time together!”

“We will! We will!” they answered.

The day went rapidly by, and so did other days that quickly followed, Nevada did not count them, because she wanted that week to last as long as possible. Only one thing troubled her and that was the visit of the mysterious night prowler. She thought at first she should report the matter to her father, but concluded it would only cause him unnecessary worry. For the same good reason she said nothing about it to Debue. When the opportunity allowed, she made an examination of the tracks in the sandy yard. It was this investigation that brought her the gravest concern. The tracks, she discovered, did lead to the window. Moreover, there were grains of sand on the sill, and on the floor of the room.

In view of this discovery she could form but one conclusion. The prowler had entered the house. But he had taken nothing. It might have been that her waking caused him to make an exit before any stealing could be done. He had left Silver Thistle, as he had undoubtedly come, on a passing freight train. Having reached this final conclusion, Nevada dismissed the incident from her mind.

She did not have cause to worry about it again until late in the week. As she and Debue were on the “lookout” beyond the coulee, watching the changing colors paint the desert in a sunset glory, her keen eyes, scanning a distant sand ridge, caught for a moment an object that appeared above the purple hazed clumps of mesquite. She looked at it intently, a full half-minute. An object, with the appearance of the head and shoulders of a man, stood up plainly, remained quiet while she looked, and then dropped down again.

What a lone man could be doing out there in the desert, and why he should attempt to hide, were beyond her understanding. She was at once reminded of that creeping night-prowler and her fears returned. She held her gaze so long and intently on the distant ridge that Debue became curious.

“What do you see, Neva?” she wanted to know.

“Nothing, at least nothing now,” Nevada answered. “I thought I saw something over there on the ridge. It has disappeared.”

In spite of her best efforts to forget the incident, Nevada was silent and concerned as they strolled back through the twilight.

There was one truth on the minds of both that brought a feeling of dismay. This would be their last night together! The week had gone by on swift-flying wings. And what changes that week had wrought. Debue had absorbed the spirit of the desert, the sunshine had fairly poured into her, browning her neck and arms and bringing a healthy glow to her cheeks. So attached had the two become to each other that it was with deep regret that they thought of parting.

Neither of them mentioned the parting of the morrow, but they were reminded of it the next day. Jerry Kerrigan, when the Limited came through, had a letter to deliver. “It’s from the chief,” he said, putting it in the extended hand of Debue. The kindly face of the old engineer wore an expression of soberness. “I really hate to give it to you,” he added. “It’s transfer orders from the chief.” He smiled then and the girls knew what he meant. It was a letter from Superintendent Foster, which, when seated on the kitchen step, Debue read aloud.

My Dear Daughter:

I was glad to get a good report of you today from Jerry. Your quick recovery speaks well for the little doctor lady’s treatment and the good desert sunshine. I shall expect to see a healthy coat of tan----and a few freckles wouldn’t matter.

This is to inform you, though, that the “Special” will be due at Silver Thistle at nine-forty-five, Thursday evening. Be ready to leave at that time. I have been lonely without you. Give my sincere regards and best wishes to your little comrade, and to her mother and father. Good-by, until Thursday evening.

Your devoted Father.

There were tears in the eyes of both girls when Debue finished reading. Kind as was the message, it brought upon them the realization that their time for being together could now be counted by hours and minutes. No comments were offered, none were needed. But hand in hand, the activities of the day were resumed with increased vivacity.

Sunset came again, and with it the changing colors of the painted desert, the cooling breath of night, the full-throated, ever-delightful melodies of the nightingale.

The girls had hoped to go together to the “lookout” beyond the coulee for this last evening together. But it so happened that Nevada had to operate the gasoline engine in the pump-house for nearly an hour after her father went out on the usual run. To avoid the possibility of missing the sunset glories, Debue concluded she would go alone, and wait there for Nevada. The two had been over the trail so many times of late that neither had any fear of losing the way.

“I’ll join you in half an hour,” Nevada said, “so go ahead, Debue. Just remember to swing round to the right after you cross the mesa and drop down into the coulee.”

“I’ll get there all right, even if I am a tenderfoot!” Debue said merrily as she struck out into the desert. From the pump-house door, Nevada saw the trim figure of her friend disappear in the crimson glow.

It proved to be three-quarters of an hour before the tank was filled. But with a true railroader’s sense of duty, Nevada did not leave until the gage indicated that the water level had reached the highest point. Then she shut down the engine, closed the door, tossed off the grease-stained apron that had protected her dress, washed her hands, and hurried out across the desert. The first purple shades of dusk were lowering. Night was not far off, and fearing that Debue would grow tired of waiting, Nevada quickened her steps. Nearly across the mesa, her pace slackened. She observed that the strong north wind of the day had blown new sand across the path, until in places the trail was completely obliterated. At the coulee, Nevada halted abruptly, and uttered a low cry of alarm. Debue’s tracks had disappeared!

Anxiously watching for footprints Nevada ran on until the trail came out plain again. Though she stooped and looked searchingly, she could find no fresh tracks to indicate that Debue had lately passed. She got to her feet, rigid and tense, and lifted a fear-filled face to the darkening sky. “Can it be possible,” she asked herself with a feeling of terror, “that Debue is lost--lost out here on the desert!”

[Illustration]

_CHAPTER FIVE_

So intense was Nevada’s fear that Debue was lost, that she stood like one paralyzed. A score of terrorizing possibilities, connected with the mysterious appearance of that midnight prowler and of the man’s head that had appeared for a moment above the sand ridge came into her mind.

At length she started forward, then dropped again to scan the trail closely. It was getting dark now and tracks of any sort were hard to see, yet there were no new footprints on the sand-blown path. Then she made a trumpet of her hands and called and called; then listened intently. There was no responding cry. A breathless quietude settled over the desert. The nightingales were hushed. It was as if all living creatures of the vast sand wastes had gone to sleep. “Oh, Debue, Debue! Why did I let you go?” she cried aloud, but the great void around her brought no echoing cry.

[Illustration: She made a trumpet of her hands and called.]

The rumble of a train, far away in the distance, reminded her that in a few short hours the superintendent’s “Special” would arrive at Silver Thistle. If Debue were not there to meet her father--it was too dreadful a thing to contemplate. She recalled the last words of the chief, spoken to her as he firmly gripped her hand and gazed into her face, “I leave her in your care. She is everything to me. I am going to trust you!”

To her belonged the true spirit of the railroad, which meant that failure of duty, failure to make good on a trust imposed, was an unpardonable sin. Tears streamed down Nevada’s face as she paced up and down the ridge, wrung her hands helplessly and shouted out over the desert. It was not that she lacked courage, but the thought that Debue was lost because of her own neglect all but overwhelmed her.

But she realized that she must go out into the desert and find her friend, who was possibly wandering in an aimless circle not a great distance from the “lookout.” She knew from the observations made of the trail in daylight, that Debue got off the path before she had fully crossed the mesa. The trail made a sweeping curve, of which fact Debue had probably never taken note. And, Nevada reasoned, when she got off the beaten path, she had gone straight ahead. On this supposition, she went back halfway across the mesa, then turned round and took a direct course from the coulee. She reached it fully a half-mile west of the regular trail crossing. The opposite slope was rough and broken with outcroppings of shale rock that still held the heat of the sun absorbed through the blistering day. Beyond were ravines, equally rough, but grown with straggling clumps of mesquite.

On the summit of the knob, when she had caught her breath, she again gave a long, shrill call. In the stillness of the desert the pounding of her own heart was the loudest thing she heard. Conquering terror, she started on again. Debue, she believed, would naturally have followed the ridge, but in what direction, was a guess. The “lookout” path turned to the left, so to the left she went, pausing now and then to shout and listen.

It had become lighter because the stars were brighter. But with a feeling of uneasiness, she observed that the handle of the Big Dipper was swinging up from the ragged hump of the Vermilion Cliffs. This meant that time was swiftly passing. Away off in the distance sounded the low rumble of a train. In less than two hours the superintendent’s “Special” would be due at Silver Thistle. The increased rumbling of the approaching train brought a new course of reasoning to her mind. Debue would undoubtedly hear it, and unless she was too badly confused, would take a course calculated to lead her toward the railroad. If she had wandered along the shale ridge, she would reach the track a mile or more west of the station-house. The possibility of this gave Nevada renewed hope and courage, and believing that she would come upon Debue either on some nearby sand-ridge or on the railroad, she started swiftly toward the tracks.