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Dobe seemed to be doing his best, yet he could not overtake the buckskin. Behind Bartley the patter of hoofs sounded nearer. Bartley thought he heard Cheyenne call back to him. He leaned forward, but the drumming of hoofs deadened all other sound. They were on a road, now a road that ran south across the spaces, unwinding itself like a tape flung from a reel. Suddenly Cheyenne pulled to a stop.
Across the somber brown of the 'dobe walls hung strings of chiles drying in the sun.
And while Dobe munched his hay, Bartley smoked and roughly planned his itinerary. He would travel south as far as Phoenix and then swing back again, over the old Apache Trail if he did not overtake Cheyenne. If he did overtake him, the plan might be changed. It did not matter. He had set out to find his erstwhile traveling companion. If he found him, they could just as well travel together.
Sheltered by a couple of sage-bushes and lying flat to the ground, Wilbur looked over and down upon the beach. The first object he made out was a crazy, roofless house, built of driftwood, the chinks plastered with 'dobe mud, the door fallen in. Beyond, on the beach, was a flat-bottomed dingy, unpainted and foul with dirt.
Mexican Joe's place was closed and likewise the other little 'dobe life saving station. So, naturally the body politic emits thirsty ejaculations of surprise and ports hellum for the Blue Snake. And what does it find there? "Behind one end of the bar sits Jefferson Peters, octopus, with a sixshooter on each side of him, ready to make change or corpses as the case may be.
At every switch a negro flagman crouched beneath a slanting sheet of corrugated iron, seeking shelter alike from flying fragments and the blazing sun. From beneath the drills came occasional subterranean explosions; then geysers of muddy water rose in the air. Under the snouts of the steam shovels "dobe" shots went off as bowlders were riven into smaller fragments.
I queried. "To-morrow? Look, Russ, what's left of my old 'dobe house is on fire. The ruins can't be searched soon. And I was particular to fix things so it'd look like I was home. I just wanted to give them a chance. It's incomprehensible how easy men like them can be duped. Whisky-soaked! Yes, they'll be surprised!"
But the summers in New Mexico were crushingly, killingly hot, and so the sturdy-hearted health chasers left the 'dobe cottage, packed their few possessions and moved up into Colorado. And while David waited patiently in the hotel, Carol set forth alone and found a small cottage with sleeping porch, cleanly and nicely furnished, rent reasonable, no objections to health seekers.
Relieved at the safe outcome of their adventure, everybody joined in the laugh, and for several minutes the high good humor manifested itself in jokes bandied back and forth. Then a 'dobe ranch house loomed ahead, low-lying, of four or five rooms, a wide, dirt-floored porch along its length, upon which the rooms gave through separate doors.
He had more than enough money to last him until he reached El Paso, and a plentiful stock of cigars. It was about nine o'clock next morning when he pulled up at Flores's 'dobe and dismounted stiffly. Flores was visibly surprised and fawningly obsequious. His chief was dressed for a long journey. It had been many years since The Spider had ridden so far from Showdown.
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