Все приключения Шерлока Холмса. Сборник. Уровень 2

On the Great Alkali Plain

In the central portion of the great North American Continent there lies an arid and repulsive desert. There are no inhabitants of this land of despair. Coyotes and grizzly bears are the sole dwellers in the wilderness.

One can see a pathway across the desert, which winds away and is lost in the extreme distance. There stood upon the fourth of May, eighteen hundred and forty-seven, a solitary traveller. It was difficult to say whether he was nearer to forty or to sixty. His face was lean and haggard; his long, brown hair and beard were white. His hand grasped his rifle. The man was dying-dying from hunger and from thirst.

He deposited upon the ground a large bundle, which he was carrying over his right shoulder. It was too heavy for his strength. Instantly a moaning cry broke from the grey parcel, and from it there protruded a small, scared face, with bright brown eyes.

“You hurt me!” said a childish voice reproachfully.

“I’m sorry,” the man answered penitently.

As he spoke he unwrapped the grey shawl and extricated a pretty little girl of about five years of age.

“How is it now?” he answered anxiously.

“Kiss it,” she said. “My mother did so. Where’s mother?”

“She went away. I think you’ll see her soon.”

“She didn’t say good-bye,” said the little girl. “I’m thirsty and hungry. Is there any water, or anything to eat?”

“No, nothing, dear. Be patient, and then you’ll be all right. What’s that?”

“Pretty things! Fine things!” cried the little girl enthusiastically. She held up two glittering fragments of mica. “When we come back home I’ll give them to brother Bob.”

“You’ll see prettier things soon,” said the man confidently. “Just wait a bit. Do you remember when we left the river?”

“Oh, yes.”

“Well, there was something wrong; compasses, or map, or something, you see. And we have no water.”

“And you can’t wash yourself,” interrupted his companion gravely.

“No, nor drink. And Mr. Bender was the first who dies, and then Indian Pete, and then Mrs. McGregor, and then Johnny Hones, and then, my dear, your mother.”

“Oh, mother is dead too!” cried the little girl.

“Yes, they all went except you and me. And there’s a small chance for us now!”

“Do you mean that we are going to die too?” asked the child.

“I think so.”

“Why didn’t you say so before?” she said. “So we’ll be with mother again.”

“Yes, you will, dear.”

“And you too. She will meet us at the door of Heaven with a big pitcher of water, and a lot

of buckwheat cakes. How long will we wait?”

“I don’t know-not very long.”

The man saw three large brown birds. They were buzzards, the vultures of the west, the forerunners of death.

“Cocks and hens,” cried the little girl gleefully. “Say, did God make this country?”

“In course He did,” said her companion.

“He made Illinois, and He made Missouri,” the little girl continued. “I guess somebody else made the country here. They forgot the water and the trees.”

“We can pray, can’t we?” the man said.

“Then kneel down,” the little girl said.

It was a strange sight. Side by side on the narrow shawl knelt the two wanderers, the little child and the reckless adventurer.

The prayer finished. They went to sleep.

Far away the tilts of waggons and the figures of armed horsemen began to show up. It was a great caravan upon its journey for the West.

At the head of the column there rode grave men. They held a short council among themselves.

“The wells are to the right, my brothers,” said a man with grizzly hair.

“To the right of the Sierra Blanco-so we shall reach the Rio Grande,” said another.

Suddenly they saw pink clothes.

“I shall go forward and see, Brother Stangerson,” said a horseman.

“And I,” “and I,” cried a dozen voices.

“Leave your horses below and we will await you here,” the Elder answered.

In a moment the horsemen dismounted, fastened their horses, and were ascending the slope. They advanced rapidly and noiselessly.

On the little plateau there stood a single giant boulder, and against this boulder there lay a tall man, he was asleep. Beside him lay a little child. On the ledge of rock above this strange couple there stood three buzzards, who, at the sight of the new comers flew sullenly away.

The cries of the birds awoke the two sleepers. The man staggered to his feet and looked around. “This is what they call delirium, I guess,” he muttered. The child stood beside him.

The newcomers convinced them that their appearance was no delusion. One of them seized the little girl, and hoisted her upon his shoulder, while two others assisted her gaunt companion towards the waggons.

“My name is John Ferrier,” the wanderer explained; “we were twenty-one people. The rest are all dead in the south.”

“Is she your child?” asked someone.

“Yes, she is,” the man answered, defiantly; “she’s mine because I saved her. No man will take her from me. She’s Lucy Ferrier. Who are you? I see many people here.”