Have you ever thought about what fiction is? Probably, such a question may seem surprising: and so everything is clear. Every person throughout his life has to repeatedly create the works he needs for specific purposes - statements, autobiographies, dictations - using not gypsum or clay, not musical notes, not paints, but just a word. At the same time, almost every person will be very surprised if he is told that he thereby created a work of fiction, which is very different from visual art, music and sculpture making. However, everyone understands that a student's essay or dictation is fundamentally different from novels, short stories, news that are created by professional writers. In the works of professionals there is the most important difference - excogitation. But, oddly enough, in a school literature course, you don’t realize the full power of fiction. So using our website in your free time discover fiction for yourself. The Lone Ranche by Mayne Reid (rooftoppers .txt) 📖
- Author: Mayne Reid
Book online «The Lone Ranche by Mayne Reid (rooftoppers .txt) 📖». Author Mayne Reid
She makes no remark, but stepping towards the yucca and reaching up, impales the piece of paper on one of its topmost spikes.
“Now, caballero,” she says, “you mount my mare. See, she stands ready for you.”
Hamersley again protests, saying he can walk well enough.
But his tottering steps contradict him, and he urges his objections in vain.
The young girl appealingly persists, until at length the gallantry of the Kentuckian gives way, and he climbs reluctantly into the saddle.
“Now, Lolita!” cries her mistress, “see that your step is sure, or you shan’t have the pinons I promised you. Adelante! Nos vamos, señor!”
So saying, she strikes off through the sage, the mustang stepping by her side, and the two great hounds, like a rear guard, bringing up behind.
Mounted on the mustang mare, Frank Hamersley pursues his way, wondering at his strange guide. So lovely a being encountered in such an out-of-the-way corner of the world—in the midst of a treeless, waterless desert, over a hundred miles from the nearest civilised settlement!
Who is she? Where has she come from? Whither is she conducting him?
To the last question he will soon have an answer; for as they advance she now and then speaks words of encouragement, telling him they are soon to reach a place of rest.
“Yonder!” she at length exclaims, pointing to two mound-shaped elevations that rise twin-like above the level of the plain. “Between those runs our road. Once there, we shall not have much farther to go; the rancho will be in sight.”
The young prairie merchant makes no reply. He only thinks how strange it all is—the beautiful being by his side—her dash—her wonderful knowledge exhibited with such an air of naïvété—her generous behaviour—the picturesqueness of her dress—her hunter equipment—the great dogs trotting at her heels—the dead game on the croup behind—the animal he bestrides—all are before his mind and mingling in his thoughts like the unreal phantasmagoria of a dream.
And not any more like reality is the scene disclosed to his view when, after passing around the nearest of the twin mound-shaped hills, and entering a gate-like gorge that opens between them, he sees before him and below—hundreds of feet below—a valley of elliptical form like a vast basin scooped out of the plain. But for its oval shape he might deem it the crater of some extinct volcano. But then, where is the lava that should have been projected from it? With the exception of the two hillocks on each hand, all the country around, far as the eye can reach, is level as the bosom of a placid lake. And otherwise unlike a volcanic crater is the concavity itself. No gloom down there, no black scoriae, no returning streams of lava, nor débris of pumice-stone; but, on the contrary, a smiling vegetation—trees with foliage of different shades, among which can be distinguished the dark-green frondage of the live-oak and pecan, the more brilliant verdure of cottonwoods, and the flower-loaded branches of the wild China-tree. In their midst a glassy disc that speaks of standing water, with here and there a fleck of white, which tells of a stream with foaming cascades and cataracts. Near the lakelet, in the centre, a tiny column of blue smoke ascends over the tree-tops. This indicates the presence of a dwelling; and as they advance a little further into the gorge, the house itself can be descried.
In contrast with the dreary plain over which he has been so long toiling, to Hamersley the valley appears a paradise—worthy home of the Peri who is conducting him down to it. It resembles a landscape painted upon the concave sides of an immense oval-shaped dish, with the cloudless sky, like a vast cover of blue glass, arching over it.
The scene seems scarcely real, and once more the young prairie merchant begins to doubt the evidence of his senses. After all, is it only a vision of his brain, distempered by the long strain upon his intellect, and the agony he has been enduring? Or is it but the mirage of the desert, that has so oft already deceived him?
His doubts are dissipated by the sweet voice sounding once more in his ears.
“Mira, caballero! you see where you are going now? It is not far; you will need to keep a firm seat in the saddle for the next hundred yards or so. There is a steep descent and a narrow pathway. Take good hold with your knees, and trust yourself to the mare. She knows the way well, and will bear you in safety. Won’t you, Lolita? You will, my pet!”
At this the mustang gives a soft whimper, as if answering the interrogatory.
“I shall myself go before,” the girl continues. “So let loose the rein, and leave Lolita to take her own way.”
After giving this injunction, she turns abruptly to the right, where a path almost perpendicular leads down a ledge, traversing the façade of the cliff. Close followed by the mustang, she advances fearlessly along it.
Certainly a most dangerous descent, even for one afoot; and if left to his own will, Hamersley might decline attempting it on horseback. But he has no choice now, for before he can make either expostulation or protest, Lolita has struck along the path, and continues with hind-quarters high in air and neck extended in the opposite direction, as though standing upon her head! To her rider there is no alternative but do as he has been directed—stick close to the saddle. This he manages by throwing his feet forward and laying his back flat along the croup, till his shoulders come between the crossed shanks of the prong-horns.
In this position he remains, without saying a word, or even daring to look below, till he at length finds himself moving forward with face upturned to the sky, thus discovering that the animal he bestrides is once more going along level ground.
Again he hears the voice of Lolita’s mistress, saying, “Now, señor, you can sit upright; the danger is past. You have behaved well, yegua—yeguita!” she adds, patting the mare upon the neck; “you shall have the promised pinons—a whole cuartilla of them.”
Once more stepping to the front, she strikes off among the trees, along a path which still inclines downward, though now in gentler slope.
Hamersley’s brain is in a whirl. The strange scenes, things, thoughts, and fancies are weaving weird spells around him; and once more he begins to think that his senses have either forsaken or are forsaking him.
This time it is really so, for the long-protracted suffering—the waste of blood and loss of strength—only spasmodically resuscitated by the excitement of the strange encounter—is now being succeeded by a fever of the brain, that is gradually depriving him of his reason.
He has a consciousness of riding on for some distance farther—under trees, whose leafy boughs form an arcade over his head, shutting out the sun. Soon after, all becomes suddenly luminous, as the mustang bears him out into a clearing, with what appears a log-cabin in the centre. He sees or fancies the forms of several men standing by its door; and as the mare comes to a stop in their midst his fair conductor is heard excitedly exclaiming,—
“Hermano! take hold of him! Alerte! Alerte!”
At this one of the men springs towards him; whether to be kind, or to kill, he cannot tell. For before a hand is laid on him the strange tableau fades from his sight; and death, with all its dark obliviousness, seems to take possession of his soul.
The shadow of Walt Wilder is again projected over the Staked Plain, as before, to a gigantic length. But this time westwardly, from a sun that is rising instead of setting.
It is the morning after he parted with his disabled companion; and he is now making back towards the spot where he had left the latter, the sun’s disc just appearing above the horizon, and shining straight upon his back. Its rays illumine an object not seen before, which lends to Walt’s shadow a shape weird and fantastic. It is that of a giant, with something sticking out on each side of his head that resembles a pair of horns, or as if his neck was embraced by an ox-yoke, the tines tending diagonally outwards.
On looking at Walt himself the singularity is at once understood. The carcase of a deer lies transversely across his back, the legs of the animal being fastened together so as to form a sling, through which he has thrust his head, leaving the long slender shanks, like the ends of the letter X, projecting at each side and high above his shoulders.
Despite the load thus borne by him, the step of the ex-Ranger is no longer that of a man either despairing or fatigued. On the contrary, it is light and elastic; while his countenance shows bright and joyous as the beams of the ascending sun. His very shadow seems to flit over the frosted foliage of the artemisias as lightly as the figure of a gossamer-robed belle gliding across the waxed floor of a ball-room.
Walt Wilder no longer hungers or thirsts. Though the carcase on his back is still unskinned, a huge collop cut out of one of its hind-quarters tells how he has satisfied the first craving; while the gurgle of water, heard inside the canteen slung under his arm, proclaims that the second has also been appeased.
He is now hastening on to the relief of his comrade, happy in the thought of being able soon to relieve him also from his sufferings.
Striding lightly among the sage-bushes, and looking ahead for the landmark that should guide him, he at length catches sight of it. The palmilla, standing like a huge porcupine upon the plain, cannot be mistaken; and he descries it at more than a mile’s distance, the shadow of his own head already flickering among its bayonet-like blades.
Just then something else comes under his eyes, which at once changes the expression upon his countenance. From gay it grows grave, serious, apprehensive. A flock of buzzards, seemingly scared by his shadow, have suddenly flapped up from among the sage-plants, and are now soaring around, close to the spikes of the palmilla. They have evidently been down upon the earth. And what have they been doing there?
It is this question, mentally put by Walt Wilder, that has caused the quick change in his countenance—the result of a painful conjecture.
“Marciful heavens!” he exclaims, suddenly making halt, the gun almost dropping from his grasp. “Kin it be possyble? Frank Hamersley gone under! Them buzzards! They’ve been upon the groun’ to a sartinty. Darnashin! what ked they a been doin’ down thar? Right by the bunch o’ palmetto, jest whar I left him. An’ no sign o’ himself to be seen? Marciful heavens! kin it be possyble they’ve been—?”
Interrupting himself, he remains motionless, apparently paralysed by apprehension, mechanically scanning the palmilla, as though from it he expected an answer to his interrogatory.
“It air possyble,” he continues after a time, “too possyble—too likesome. He war well-nigh done up, poor young fellur; an’ no wonder. Whar is he now? He must be down by the side o’ the bush—down an’ dead. Ef he war alive, he’d be lookin’ out for me. He’s gone under; an’ this deer-meat, this water, purcured to no purpiss. I mout as well fling both away; they’ll reach him too late.”
Once more resuming his forward stride, he advanced towards the dark mass above which the vultures are soaring. His shadow, still by a long distance preceding him, has frightened the birds higher up into the air, but they show no signs of going altogether away. On the contrary, they keep circling around, as if they had already commenced a repast, and, driven off, intend returning to it.
On what have they been banqueting? On the body of
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