The rock defile, through which the trail led, was narrow, and the walls were nearly perpendicular. The passage was twisting, but a tiny trickle of water gave promise of a broader canon farther up. The trail, while very narrow, was well-defined and worn deep. It looked as though it had been in constant use for years.
Ross had progressed along this strange passage for about a quarter mile when his attention was suddenly arrested by something on the canon wall. Involuntarily, he stopped. Instantly the burros halted as though their motive power was automatically turned off whenever their master stopped walking.
“Great Horned Toads!” ejaculated Ross in a low voice. “Archibald, do you see what I see, or has the sun gone to my head? Has the world slipped back three centuries, or is it actually nineteen-twenty-three? ’Tain’t possible, Archibald, but nevertheless I see what I see!”
There, not thirty feet distant, was a girl—a pretty girl—and she was shackled to four great iron rings, fastened in the canon wall, by means of handcuffs, ankle fetters, and four heavy chains!
_CHAPTER TWO_
BROKEN SHACKLES AND A MYSTERY
Ross stood spellbound. He could not believe his own eyes.
That he should meet a human being in this vast waste of rock and sand and cactus was possible. That he should find a girl chained to a rock, like a felon of the black ages, was nothing short of incredible.
There was no denying the girl’s existence, however. She was there, and she was in need of help.
His incredulity shattered, Ross was beside the girl in a bound. Even a cursory glance showed her to be undeniably pretty, and it also showed her to be quite as undeniably in a state of total exhaustion.
At Ross’s approach, the girl raised her head with difficulty. Her eyes opened and she smiled slowly. Then her whole body suddenly fell forward against the chains that held her. She had fainted.
No stranger situation could be imagined than the finding of a beautiful girl chained to a rock in the midst of the great Red Desert. This, however, was a matter for future consideration. The girl needed immediate attention, and Ross’s first thought was to release her.
When he examined her shackles Ross realized that release was not going to be easy. The four rings to which the chains were fastened were secured to the canon wall by means of heavy iron staples driven deep into fissures in the rock. A test of strength showed that nothing short of a charge of dynamite would ever loosen them.
The chains were comparatively heavy and well forged. A file was the only solution—and Ross did not possess a file.
Not till he examined the handcuffs did he see any hope of releasing the girl. These were not of the ordinary type. They were not the steel manacles of the sort used today, but were about two inches wide, heavy in construction and made of cast iron. The locking device was old-fashioned. They were a type of handcuff that had been obsolete for nearly three quarters of a century.
Having satisfied himself that they were really made of cast iron, Ross at once realized that it would be a comparatively easy task to free the girl. Securing a small rock for a hammer, he braced the girl back against the canon wall and held her wrist against the rock. A few well directed blows with the improvised hammer easily cracked the rusty cast iron and the handcuff fell away in two pieces.
The girl’s wrist had been freed without more than slightly bruising the skin. The second handcuff was broken quite as easily. Ross gently lowered the girl to the ground.
Releasing her ankles was more difficult. The anklets were of heavier construction and harder to break without injuring the girl. However, by placing a rock under the anklet and being careful, Ross finally managed to shatter the cast iron without more than bruising the girl’s slender ankles.
In an instant he had jerked the pack from one of the burros and spread his blanket roll out on the ground. Picking up the unconscious girl, he placed her on the blankets and improvised a pillow from his coat.
Almost opposite where the girl had been chained the tiny trickle of water had formed a miniature pool in the rocks. Seizing a tin cup from his camp outfit, Ross hurried to this pool, scooped up a cup of water, and in an instant was kneeling at the girl’s side.
Dipping his fingers in the water, he flicked it across her face, then carefully bathed her forehead, and then set to chafing her wrists.
It was fully ten minutes before the girl showed any evidence of returning consciousness. Then her eyelids began to flutter. Finally she sighed deeply, and her eyes slowly opened.
Stanley Ross thought he had never seen such a look of abject terror as now appeared in the girl’s eyes. It was as though she had just awakened from a terrible dream and was still laboring under its terrorizing influence. Such a look might have appeared in the eyes of a slave girl when Nero ruled in Rome.
For a moment, consciousness battled with that nightmare that had been seething through the girl’s brain and finally won. Her eyes opened wide. A half smile slowly crossed her face. Whatever might have inspired her terror, the girl evidently recognized in Ross a friend.
Her lips, dry and parched, moved with difficulty, but Ross saw that they framed the word “Water!”
Lifting her head, he dampened the girl’s lips from the cup and then allowed her to drink her fill. But weakness still held sway over her body, and she sank back on the blankets, exhausted. Her eyes closed again.
“Don’t try to talk,” advised Ross. “You just lie there and rest until I fix something for you. Then you can tell me about this thing.”
For once in his life, Ross was glad that he had taken another man’s advice. When he had started his desert pilgrimage an old prospector had advised him to include a few cans of soup in his outfit. Ross had demurred, seeing no use in packing superfluous weight, but the old desert rat had insisted.
Ross had included the soup. So far, he had had no use for it, but now it was to show its worth.
Collecting a few dry sticks from the stubby willows that grew around the pool, Ross soon had a tiny fire going. Opening a can of soup, he heated it over the fire and carried a cup of it to the girl.
“Oh, that’s so good!” she murmured after she had drained the cup. “Thank you.”
“Do you feel like talking?” asked Ross.
For a moment the girl regarded him with frank eyes. Then she shook her head wearily.
“Not—not just yet—please. I’m—so—tired.” She sank back onto the blankets.
Realizing that, for the present, rest was the most important thing for her, Ross covered the girl with a blanket and set about his camp duties.
He finished unpacking his burros and turned them loose to pick at the scanty tufts of grass that grew along the seeping stream. This done, he set about preparing his own meal.
It was already dusk, and by the time he had cooked and eaten his supper darkness had settled down over the little canon. Washing his few dishes in the pool, Ross set them aside and turned his attention to finding enough firewood to keep the fire going.
In the darkness this was somewhat of a task, and Ross was absent from the camp for some little time. When he returned he saw that his strange guest had evidently fallen asleep.
Ross threw some wood on the fire and sat down with his back against a rock. Filling his pipe, he lighted it and leaned back to contemplate the events of the afternoon and evening.
His first mental reaction on finding the girl had been one of intense rage that any one, no matter what the cause or conditions, could be so utterly inhuman as to perpetrate such an act. He was still angry now, but he had cooled off to the extent that he could consider the affair calmly.
There seemed to be no off-hand explanation whatever. As far as Ross knew, there was no human habitation in all this desert waste, yet this trail up the little canon had been used frequently and recently, so somewhere up the winding trail must lie a solution to the mystery. But what it could be, or whether he could ever solve it, Ross could not imagine.
The whole affair was grotesque, bizarre. Why any one should chain a young girl to a rock wall in the midst of a heat-scorched desert was utterly incomprehensible. The girl was not gross or criminal-looking. On the contrary, she was pretty, delicate, and obviously refined. Her clothes bespoke a far different environment. How any one could be so inhuman as to subject her to such treatment was unfathomable.
Sitting there, smoking and watching the girl, mulling the strangeness of the affair over in his mind, Ross could offer himself no explanation. The only thing to do, apparently, was to wait for the girl to awaken and then wait for her to talk.
At any rate, the adventure which he had craved seemed to be at hand. Where it would lead him he had no idea.
The fire gradually burned low. The girl slept on. Ross removed the pipe from his mouth. His head nodded. In half an hour the campfire had wasted to an ember.
The man’s head had sunk forward onto his breast; his body had relaxed comfortably against its support. He, too, was asleep.