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Once more Hardy took his ax and went out in search of palo verdes, high or low, young or old. There was a gnarled trunk, curling up against a rocky butte and protected by two spiny sahuaros that stood before it like armed guards, and he climbed up the rock to reach it. Chopping away the first sahuaro he paused to watch it fall.
Follow the sahuaro and the pitahaya into the tropics again, and with their cousin, the organ cactus, you will find them growing a soft thorn that would hardly penetrate clothing. But are they not just as much exposed to browsing animals in the high table-lands as in the desert, if not more so? Mr. Van Dyke asserts that Nature is more solicitous about the species than about the individual.
Little frisk-tailed things ran up and down the spiney shrubs, and a woodpecker, who had made his nest in its pithy stalk, peered at them from a tall sahuaro. The Road-Runner tilted his long rudder-like tail, flattened his crested head until it reminded them of a wicked snake, and suddenly made up his mind to be friendly. "Come inside and get your head in the shade," he invited.
Accordingly the Mexicans renewed the chase with increased vigor. As McKee bent over his captive's feet, piling against them the burning ends of the sticks, the rattlesnake on the sahuaro, incited by the fire above, struggled free from the impaling thorns by a desperate effort, and dropped on the back of the half-breed. It struck its fangs into his neck.
Well, we'll try a little 'Pache persuadin'." And the renegade dragged his helpless captive up to the thorny sahuaro, and bound his back against it with the dead horse's bridle. McKee searched through Lane's pockets until he found a match. "Last one, hey? Kinder 'propriate. Las' drink from the old canteen, las' ca'tridge, last look at the scenery, and las' will an' testyment.
The air was so dry and clear that even far out in the Basin, many miles away, Lennon could distinguish patches of green. Nearer at hand appeared blurs of a grayish vegetation. But at his pleased exclamation Carmena told him that he was looking at no oasis. What he saw was only the green of mesquite and palo verde, the fluted columns of the giant sahuaro, and the gray of sagebrush.
At the far end of the scattered mesquite growth Carmena edged off to the left, down a shallow wash that brought them around to the west side of a ridge. Under cover of the gaunt earth-rib of worn rock she headed north, straight for the distant towers of Triple Butte. The deceptive green of occasional palo-verde bushes now gave place to the columns of the giant sahuaro.
Lane writhed and groaned under the excruciating torture, but uttered no word or cry. McKee brought other brands, and began piling them about his captive's feet. In the meantime the sahuaro had caught fire at the top, and was burning down through the interior. A thin column of smoke rose straight above it in the still air.
"Just the same a man might live on what we see before us here for a long time," replied the guide. "If you will examine those mesquite bushes you will find a bean pod on them. It is a rich and nourishing food. Then there are the pears of the tuna and the fruit of the sahuaro or giant cactus." "We saw a forest of them on the Apache Trail," Grace informed him. "Yes, I know.
Then he began going from post to post on a continuous round of self-imposed sentinel duty. "If I could only climb the sahuaro," he thought, "and fly my red shirt as a flag, to let the Rurales know I've flanked the enemy, it might hurry them along in time to put a crimp in these devils before they get me. But it'll have to be 'Hold the Fort' without any 'Oh, Say Can You See? business.
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