Tappan now had his try at finding it. But for him the shifting sands of the southern California desert or even the barren and desolate Death Valley were preferable to this Superstition Range. It was a harder country than the Pinacate of Sonora. Tappan hated cactus, and the Superstitions were full of it. Everywhere stood up the huge sahuaro, the giant cacti of the Arizona plateaus, tall like branchless trees, fluted and columnar, beautiful and fascinating to gaze upon, but obnoxious to prospector and burro.
One day from a north slope Tappan saw afar a wonderful country of black timber, above which zigzagged for many miles a yellow, winding rampart of rock. This he took to be the rim of the Mogollon Mesa, one of Arizona’s freaks of nature. Something called Tappan. He was forever victim to yearnings for the unattainable. He was tired of heat, glare, dust, bare rock, and thorny cactus. The Lost Dutchman gold mine was a myth. Besides, he did not need any more gold.
Next morning Tappan packed Jenet and worked down off the north slopes of the Superstition Range. That night about sunset he made camp on the bank of a clear brook, with grass and wood in abundance—such a camp site as a prospector dreamed of but seldom found.
Before dark Jenet’s long ears told of the advent of strangers. A man and a woman rode down the trail into Tappan’s camp. They had poor horses, and led a pack animal that appeared too old and weak to bear up under even the meager pack he carried.
“Howdy,” said the man.
Tappan rose from his task to his lofty height and returned the greeting. The man was middle-aged, swarthy, and rugged, a mountaineer, with something about him that Tappan instinctively distrusted. The woman was under thirty, comely in a full-blown way, with rich brown skin and glossy dark hair. She had wide-open black eyes that bent a curious possession-taking gaze upon Tappan.
“Care if we camp with you?” she inquired, and she smiled.
That smile changed Tappan’s habit and conviction of a lifetime.
“No indeed. Reckon I’d like a little company,” he said.
Very probably Jenet did not understand Tappan’s words, but she dropped one ear, and walked out of camp to the green bank.
“Thanks, stranger,” replied the woman. “That grub shore smells good.” She hesitated a moment, evidently waiting to catch her companion’s eye, then she continued. “My name’s Madge Beam. He’s my brother Jake. … Who might you happen to be?”
“I’m Tappan, lone prospector, as you see,” replied Tappan.
“Tappan! What’s your front handle?” she queried, curiously.
“Fact is, I don’t remember,” replied Tappan, as he brushed a huge hand through his shaggy hair.
“Ahuh? Any name’s good enough.”
When she dismounted, Tappan saw that she had a tall, lithe figure, garbed in rider’s overalls and boots. She unsaddled her horse with the dexterity of long practice. The saddlebags she carried over to the spot the man Jake had selected to throw the pack.
Tappan heard them talking in low tones. It struck him as strange that he did not have his usual reaction to an invasion of his privacy and solitude. Tappan had thrilled under those black eyes. And now a queer sensation of the unusual rose in him. Bending over his camp-fire tasks he pondered this and that, but mostly the sense of the nearness of a woman. Like most desert men, Tappan knew little of the other sex. A few that he might have been drawn to went out of his wandering life as quickly as they had entered it. This Madge Beam took possession of his thoughts. An evidence of Tappan’s preoccupation was the fact that he burned his first batch of biscuits. And Tappan felt proud of his culinary ability. He was on his knees, mixing more flour and water, when the woman spoke from right behind him.
“Tough luck you burned the first pan,” she said. “But it’s a good turn for your burro. That shore is a burro. Biggest I ever saw.”
She picked up the burned biscuits and tossed them over to Jenet. Then she came back to Tappan’s side, rather embarrassingly close.
“Tappan, I know how I’ll eat, so I ought to ask you to let me help,” she said, with a laugh.
“No, I don’t need any,” replied Tappan. “You sit down on my roll of beddin’ there. Must be tired, aren’t you?”
“Not so very,” she returned. “That is, I’m not tired of ridin’.” She spoke the second part of this reply in lower tone.
Tappan looked up from his task. The woman had washed her face, brushed her hair, and had put on a skirt—a singularly attractive change. Tappan thought her younger. She was the handsomest woman he had ever seen. The look of her made him clumsy. What eyes she had! They looked through him. Tappan returned to his task, wondering if he was right in his surmise that she wanted to be friendly.
“Jake an’ I drove a bunch of cattle to Maricopa,” she volunteered. “We sold ’em, an’ Jake gambled away most of the money. I couldn’t get what I wanted.”
“Too bad! So you’re ranchers. Once thought I’d like that. Fact is, down here at Globe a few weeks ago I came near buyin’ some rancher out an’ tryin’ the game.”
“You did?” Her query had a low, quick eagerness that somehow thrilled Tappan. But he did not look up.
“I’m a wanderer. I’d never do on a ranch.”
“But if you had a woman?” Her laugh was subtle and gay.
“A woman! For me? Oh, Lord, no!” ejaculated Tappan, in confusion.
“Why not? Are you a woman hater?”
“I can’t say that,” replied Tappan, soberly. “It’s just—I guess—no woman would have me.”
“Faint heart never won fair lady.”
Tappan had no reply for that. He surely was making a mess of the second pan of biscuit dough. Manifestly the woman saw this, for with a laugh she plumped down on her knees in front of Tappan, and rolled her sleeves up over shapely brown arms.
“Poor man! Shore you need a woman. Let me show you,” she said, and put her hands right down upon Tappan’s. The touch gave him a strange thrill. He had to pull his hands away, and as he wiped them with his scarf he looked at her. He seemed compelled to look. She was close to him now, smiling in good nature, a little scornful of man’s encroachment upon the housewifely duties of a woman. A subtle something emanated from her—a more than kindness or gayety. Tappan grasped that it was just the woman of her. And it was going to his head.
“Very well, let’s see you show me,” he replied, as he rose to his feet.
Just then the brother Jake strolled over, and he had a rather amused and derisive eye for his sister.
“Wal, Tappan, she’s not overfond of work, but I reckon she can cook,” he said.
Tappan felt greatly relieved at the approach of this brother. And he fell into conversation with him, telling something of his prospecting since leaving Globe, and listening to the man’s cattle talk. By and by the woman called, “Come an’ get it!” Then they sat down to eat, and, as usual with hungry wayfarers, they did not talk much until appetite was satisfied. Afterward, before the camp fire, they began to talk again, Jake being the most discursive. Tappan