T wasn't on a whistling or singing trip that Sandy Smith, packer, found the woman; but rather at one of those times when terror and fear, in so far as he knew these emotions, sat heavy upon him. was out again and that explained it.
Sandy wouldn't have made the attempt to cross from one station to another had there not been vital necessity for going, and throughout the journey he had avoided the usual ways of travel and sought those which were obscure. Now and again he ventured out into a main trail where the horizons were so clearly marked that his chances for seeing were as good as those of an enemy.
The finding of the woman was not without weirdness. She rose up out of the nowhere and was a well-defined object when first he saw her. The sun was heaping ray on ray of heat over the desert's face, and the desert, in retort, was throwing them back in shimmers that made the sagebrush wave and lent grotesque outlines to everything within the glare. And Sandy, startled, looked through the heat waves and expressed his surprise in a characteristic "Well, I'll be damned!"
Even as he spoke she started toward him, waveringly with outstretched hands, her whole attitude one of mute appeal, staggered almost out into the trail, dropped to her hands and knees, and then, as if utterly worn out, collapsed and rested inertly.
The manner of her fall was not new to Sandy. He had witnessed it before on painful occasions, and the desert's ways were known to him. Without a moment's hesitancy he unslung his canteen, threw the reins over his pony's head, and sprang to the side of the prone figure. With celerity and total lack of ceremony he picked her up in his arms and swung her around until the sun's rays were shielded from her face. He forced the open mouth of the canteen between her parched and swollen lips, and at intervals let the stream trickle gently down her throat; then as she sighed and opened her eyes he patted her as if she were a child and, not knowing what else to say, said, "Brace up! Brace up! You're all right now."
The woman looked up into the homely face and believed. She closed her eyes with a sigh, while Sandy continued his ministrations. Then he scurried his pony and pack burros back into the hollows away from the glare of the beaten way and carried her to his retreat as if she were a weary, sleepy child.
That was merely the beginning of it.
Back in the gully he made for her a shelter of a pack cover and, this work done, retired to a distance where he might search the surface of the inferno for other signs of animation. This because, as he ruminated, "There's shore somethin' wrong or there wouldn't be no white woman afoot away out here fifty mile from nowhere and Injuns everywhere about." But his glasses brought him no sign of life. Everywhere was the silent desert, writhing, writhing monotonously beneath the sun.
If Indians there were, they were beyond the sky line, or—and that seemed improbable—in hiding. He retreated to his camp and passed the afternoon watching over his charge. Regularly he stole to where she slept the sleep of complete exhaustion and gently gave her water, which she, unconscious of his care, drank without effort. With her welfare his motive, as night drew on he "took a chance on a fire" and kindled a tiny blaze sufficient to boil a kettle of water. He screened it around with a sagebrush clipped with laborious effort, wondering the while where Geronimo and his band might be. Then, reasoning that they must be miles away, or that if near, it would do no good to worry, he devoted himself to petting his favorite burro that nosed his pockets and familiarly rubbed a gray muzzle over the back of his neck. And in this reverie he was absorbed until the water boiled over.
With the little burro trotting at his heels, an interested spectator, he made his way to the sleeper, carrying in his hand a battered tin cup that wafted steaming fragrance as he went. He hesitated as to what was the proper method of waking a sleeping woman. This at least was a new experience. He stretched forth a hand and gently shook her, but she, despite his tenderness, started a scream that he brought to a close by firmly clapping a big red palm over her mouth.
"Sorry, but it's ag'in the law, when Geronimo's out, to make a noise," he drawled.
The terror died from her eyes at his apology, and she drank the tea in silence. Sandy and the little burro waited for her to speak, but to their distress she burst into tears. The big packer crushed down an inclination to take her in his arms and rock her as he would a little girl.