THE
COPYRIGHT 1903
'HE only decent thing
' about him was his horse.
His clothes were ragged,
and they flapped against
) the saddle as he rode;
> they were stained by sun,
; wind and rain, and coated
with gray dust whicb had
n
eaten its way into the texture of the material.
His boots gaped wounds; his white hair
showed anxiously beneath the soft hat; stir
rup leather had been tod often mended with
thongs; he carried neither whip nor spur;
long and lean he was; sunburnt, with large,
sunken black eyes, and a short crop of iron
gray hair about his face.
His horse was well-fed, well-groomed, a
thoroughbred; his coat shone in the sun, his
long tail and mane waved as the breeze
caught them.
A cloud of dust pursued them to the land
office. There Brinkley drew rein and threw
himself from the saddle.
A boy jeered at his A smart Western
girl, booted, short skirted, the loose shirt dis
closing brown arms and neck, watched him
swing heavily through the doors and lean
over the desk where a neatly dressed clerk
struggled with the accounts of his books.
Rosalia was not often guilty of curiosity,
but she drew nearer the office and peered
through the window, wondering what had
brought such a human scarecrow to the
Western Development and Real I.state Corn
pany’s offices. A daughter of the hills and
plains, she knew most men within a hundred
miles east and west, but this man was a
stranger.
The clerk glanced tip as Brinkley entered,
then with a supert ilious grin bent over his
books again. The man of rags and tatters
waited patiently, chewing the stump of a
cigar. A big fly buzzed around his head, the
dust filtered through his rags as he shifted
his position.
But the clerk continued to ignore him.
“Say -when yu’re through?”
There was no response, not even an incli
nation of the head.
“Young man, 1 don’t know whether yu’re
here for business or if yur boss pays yu’ wages
as an ornament; either way he's losing money
—'spose you git a move on ycr!”
The clerk raised his head; the sleek hair
was well brushed, the round face well shaved.
“And who the hell d’you think you’re
talking to?”
“A kid that don’t know his business and
wants a lesson, (lit off that stool, and come
here.”
For reply the clerk expectorated in Brink
ley's direction and turned his back on him.
Now Rosalia, acting on a sudden impulse,
pushed open the tloors apd entered the office.
In an instant the clerk was grinning at her
across the desk.
“Say, you're quite a stranger here, Mias
Rosa!”
She looked him squarely in the eyes:
“There's another stranger here; you'd better
attend to him first.”
The i lerk managed to raise a leer. “ Ladies
first, I guess.”
“Sure,” echoed the ragged one softly, as
he removed his sombrero.
Rosalia smiled, ami Jim Brinkley felt as
good as if he had just swallowed a pint of beer
at T 'om Craik’s Thirst Pond; he forgot the
growth upon his face, the dust ingrained on
boots, body and clothes. But looking at this
daughter of the West; he remembered her
youth and the object of his visit.
He had come to buy an Oasis! lie lipped
the word lovingly with the stump of his rigar.
The large, sunken eyes grew moist, the
dusty head inclined a little.
“Guess 1 won’t trouble the boss after all,”
he mumbled; “think I've altered my mind.”
“Forget it,” the girl said quickly; then to
the youth, frowning sulkily now: “Just
hurrv, you, and take this gentleman's name
to Mr. Seidlcr.”
The clerk obeyed, glaring. Brinkley ran
his fingers through his hair, removed the
cigar stump from his lips, and throwing it
on the tloor placed the heel of his boot
upon it.
“Yu* shouldn't have butted in on my ac
count,” lie said awkwardly. “ 1 only came
in ter see if there was a piece of waste land
I could buy. But I don’t know 'f 1 want it
now —anyhow ”
The girl swung herself on to the edge of
the desk and looked Brinkley up and down,
as if he were a horse, kindly and critically.
“What were you going to do with waste
land?”
Her voice had changed; it had been sharp
when she addressed the clerk, now it was like
the wind calling down Red Wood Cafion.
He looked through the window into the
street where his horse stood in the sun, as if
asking explanation—or protection—from his
only friend. Rosalia followed his gaze.
"lie's all right,” she smiled. “As good a
one as I'vc seen round here.”
Brinkley's eyes brightened. “ Yu’ bet!”
“You were going to tell me why you
changed your mind about buying the land
you're after.”
Brinkley searched in strange places for an
other cigar. Failing to find one, he replaced
his hat. and then hid his hands in his breeches
pockets.
“ Twem’t exactly land, either; more’n
that,” he said dreamily. “ 1 don’t know
rightly now what 'lis. Something that a
poet-fellow 1 know of calls an ou^w.”
“Poet!” Rosalia’s eyes opened wide.
“Didn’t know there was one around here;
what’s his name, anyway ? ”
Again Brinkley hunted in strange places,
and after a struggle produced a small, dirty
volume, which he held toward Rosalia.
“That’s the boy; he’s got a queer name,
but he’s a poet all right. Me and the hoss
have sat up readin’ him aloud a good many
nights when there was a full moon; though
I bet I could see to read him in the dark.”
Rosalia was fingering the volume gently.
“An oasis? That’s a place all green and
damp and flowery in the middle of a desert,
isn’t it ?”
“That’s what th’ poet says, and I’ve been
’most crazy to find an oasis all my life,
pretty near. But I figgered out ’twould cost
a stake -'eos what's the good of the oasis, if
yu' haven’t got the desert to keep it in?"
“ You’re a philosopher!”
Brinkley looked puzzled for a while, then
he nodded: “Guess that’s so, but it aren’t
no good; a fellow never gets no for’arder. I
was a philosopher —as yu’ c alled it —for years
and years ’fore I struck gold.”
“Gold?” Rosalia stared, and an appre
ciative smile played about her lips.
Brinkley nodded. “’Spose I don’t look a
lot like a lucky strike? Well, I guess 1 am
kind o’ careless-like about my looks—ain’t
never been nobody that keered how I looked,
’cept old hoss there, and he’s never kicked
at the cut of my Prince Albert.”
“ I beg your pardon,” Rosalia said gently.
“ I smiled because —oh, because I am glad,
perhaps, that you struc k gold at last.”
Brinkley again ran his fingers through his
hair. “ Mcbbe it has come rather late,” he
said thoughtfully. “I’m none so old, fer all
thet. Mcbbe I’m like that oasis I’m after—
all desert on the outside: gray and dusty-like
and some parched and dried up, but away
down in the middle of me is a kind o’ spring
thet’s just bubblin’ and bubblin’—and waitin’
fer someone ter dig through the dust and let
it come up, and make the flowers and things
’pear like ’twas summer.”
Rosalia slipped from her seat on the desk
and turning her back on the stranger stared
into the street.
The clerk returned. “Step right in—the
boss’ll see you now.”
Brinkley obeyed. The agent sized him up
quickly and curtly demanded his business.
Brinkley again assayed an unsuccessful
search for a cigar. “ I want ter buy a chunk
of desert. Don’t much kcer where ’bouts—
guess Nevada’s good enough as long as yu’
steers clear of Las Vegas. It must be real
desert, mind —a good long jump away from
any blamed gang ”
The agent interrupted with the remark that
deserts were not in his line, and recom
mended a nice plot of land on the Shore
Front Development, at seven hundred dollars
-payable in instalments.
Brinkley moved toward the door. “ Not fer
me! But it looks to me yu’ don’t know what
kind o’ man yu're talkin’ to, pardner — I ken
pay cash down —” he produced a roll of
notes from a pocket hidden in his rags. A
broken cigar protruded from the center of
them, and he hastily placed it between his
lips. “And I'm calculating to pay in thou
sands. So long! ”
“ Hold on!”
The agent was on his feet. In another
minute both men were seated at the table, a
box of imported hav&nas and a map of
Nevada between them.
\\ hen Brinkley shuttled out of the office
into the street he found the girl and the horse
in earnest conversation. The clerk looked up
from his desk and glared through the win
dows.
“Sav, that's fine!” Brinklev cried. “He
don't go round makin’ friends with every
body that speaks ter him, thet hoss don’t.
"YU' IKY RIGHT THERE, WHERE I WAS SITTINT ”
Guess he can size up a feller quicker than I
ken—that’s sure.”
The girl laid her brown face against the
chestnut with the white star on his forehead.
“I’m wishing he was mine; he’s a great
horse.”
A shadow crossed Brinkley’s face. He was
about to (ling himself into the saddle when
he changed his mind.
“Mcbbe he’ll be wishin’ the same, not as
he’d leave me—willin’, fer any livin’ creature.
But I guess yu’ ain’t—well, ordinary. Say,
what’s yur name?”
“ Rosalia.”
“Gee, I might hev guessed it.” He ran
his hands lovingly over the horse’s shoulders,
and looked at Rosalia under the shade of his
sombrero. “If yu’d like ter git on him I
reckon he wouldn’t hev no objection —though
it’ud be the first time any woman ”
Rosalia was already in the saddle. Brink
ley’s teeth took a firmer hold of the land
agent’s imported cigar; his eyes shohe.
“May I take him down the road a turn?”
For a moment Brinkley hesitated and his
great hands started out as if feeling for the
reins, then he nodded: “Yep!”
The clerk rose from his seat and flattened
his nose against the hot window-pane, his
pale face expressive of disgust. And the
horse and the girl disappeared in a little
cloud. Brinkley stood alone, bis eyes pierc
ing the floating must; the cigar, bitten through,
fell to the ground. Presently Rosalia re
turned, and the horse nosed his master
approvingly.
She dismounted and held out her hand.
“Thanks . . . I understand.”
Brinkley nodded, and jerked himself into
the saddle.
“Did you locate your oasis?” she asked.
“Got ter come again, inside of a month,”
Brinkley snapped. He moved his horse for
ward. “Mebbe I’ll see yu’ —when I come.”
“Maybe,” Rosalia whispered. And she
watched him out of sight.
Inside of a month Brinkley returned. He
returned with his well-groomed, well-bred
horse, with his rags, his dust, and his gray
matted hair; but the clerk in the Land Estate
Agent’s office received him almost politely,
and at once ushered him into the presence of
his chief. When he came out, his face, in
spite of the dust upon it, shone, for in the
pocket where the fat wad of notes had lain
now rested the title to a big slice of the
coveted desert.
“ If you strike a good thing,” the clerk sug
gested, “maybe you’d put me on to it, Mr.
Brinkley?”
Brinkley took off his hat and pushed the
hair from his forehead. “Young man, I’m
glad to see that since I was here last yu’ve
lamed some manners; most people in this
blamed country seem to think manners ain't
no use at all. But let me tell yu’, right here,
that manners make dollars about as quick as
anything else. And that’s about the best
thing yu'U ever be put on to; don’t forget
it!"
He strolled out and was reaching for the
stirrup, when he was arrested by a moving
pillar of dust at the far end of the straggling
street. The pillar approached quickly, and
out of it emerged a horse and rider.
Rosalia drew rein beside Brinkley and
threw herself off the gray Pinto.
“Say, yu're in some hum-,” the man said
slowly, running his eyes over the pony.
“ 1 was 'way up on the hills,” Rosalia re
plied. “ and I saw you come down the street
—’fraid I might miss you.”
"Yu’ saw me —from them hills?”
“ 1 had glasses,” Rosalia smiled —“ and
Pinto can go some.”
"Yu’ bet he can!” Brinkley nodded ap
provingly in the direction of the pony.
“ Well, have you got your desert ?”
Brinklev raised his head and looked into
the girl’s face. “ Sure . . . but now I don’t
know as I want it —much.”
She smiled, and Brinkley thought he saw
something in her eyes of which he disap
proved. “That’s the way with most things,
isn’t it?”
He had no reply for this question, and
moreover the silence contented him. Pres
ently he suggested they should ride a little
way together. He noted the easy grace with
which Rosalia swung into her saddle; he
noted how she controlled her wicked little
pony, not with rein or spur, but with voice,
touch of knee and hand, and that seventh
sense which is as yet unnamed.
“ Where d’yu’ live?” he asked presently.
“’Most anywhere.” Again he noted that
change in her eyes, rather as if a cloud sud
denly hid the sunshine.
“ Got any people ? ”
“ No—not living.”
“That’s bad.”
“I’m used to it; and I’ve grown to sort of
like it. Nobody to boss me. And I’ve got
Pinto, and a good chestnut, Kentucky bred.”
Brinkley shook his head. He had a small
opinion of Eastern bred horses.
“Comes dark pretty sudden here; yu’d
better be gettin’.”
“ I’m not afraid of the dark,” she laughed.
“Pinto is, though; he’s a devil in the dark.
But it’s fun.”
Brinkley smiled. It was so rare with him
that for a moment his sun-baked face seemed
in danger of splitting. “Guess ther’ ain’t
much yu’re skeered of . . . Wonder if yu’d
be skeered of—the desert?”
“ It’s lonesome, isn’t it ? ” she acknowledged
after a slight pause. “ And cruel, too.”
Brinkley nodded; all traces of the smile had
vanished. “Damned cruel; that’s why we
love one another, the desert and me.”
Suddenly he drew rein. “ Yu’ve got to go
back, whether yu’ want ter or not.” He took
off his hat, and pulling his horse up, held out
his hand. “ And say —d’yu’ care to meet me
agen?”
For a moment Rosalia hesitated, her eyes
hidden, then she raised her head and looked
into his face. “Sure!”
“ You can’t raise me on that! Say, this
here desert” —he tapped his pocket with his
hand —“ is goin’ to be my—home. I’m goin’
to build a shack on it, not an ordinary one,
either; I’m goin’ to raise flowers and trees
and things. How would it strike yu’ and
Pinto and that Kentucky bred to come out
there, some time, and sort of watch the flowers
grow?”
“ It’d strike us as being bully,” she whis
pered. And then, ere he knew it, she had
gone; and Brinkley was alone. And the sun
had spilled all his glory on the hills and was
now dipping into a purple bed.
* * * *
A gray tent shone in the pitiless sun in the
midst of the hot sand; some hundred yards
from it Brinkley sat, careless of the heat. He
sat hunched up, looking more like a camel
than a man, his clothes more ragged, and dust
upon him everywhere. His big hat was
pulled over his eyes; he was watching a group
of men a distance off who for many days had
been digging and probing—searching for the
oasis which they had been bidden to find.*
His desert! lie looked at it —north, south,
east and west, and cursed it. “Cruel,” Ro
salia had said; aye! than the desert nothing
crueller.
“Guess the Lord had His eye on this
when He thought o’ hell,” one of the men
said, standing over a puncture in the sand.
“Water! —that blamed old fool’d ought to be
soaked in the cooler —making money sudden
has turned his head.”
“Well, we’re gettin’ some of it,” another
laughed.
“And we’ll be gettin’ bit by a rattler, or
driv’ crazy by this infernal sun.”
“Guess well quit it, boys,” the engineer
said, who, bribed by Brinkley’s dollars, had
come on what he described as a wild water
chase. “ I told the old idiot there would be
more sense in lookin’ for diamonds than
water, and now it’s about time to tell him to
go to hell.”
Straightening himself and wiping the per
spiration from his forehead, he strode over to
Brinkley —and told him.
Brinkley nodded. “Yu’don’t know yu’r
job or yu’ wouldn’t quit it so soon. ” He spat
into the burning sand. “ I never was no quit
ter; I looked for gold for nigh twenty years
’fore I struck it, but I knew it had got to
come, and so it came.” He laid his hand
on his hip where his gun protruded, “And
now I'm alter water, and I guess it’s got to
come, too. Go back and get on with your
probin’.”
The F.astemer laughed uncomfortably; he
began to fear the sun had done its work.
“ Bluff won’t carry, Mr. Brinkley, you’ve
got to pay up the balance of what you owe
me, and then we’re goin’.”
Brinkley slowly stretched, rolled over twice,
and then pulled out his gun. “ Yu’ try right
there, where I was sittin’l I don’t bluff, and
BY MTHUR UPPLiN
I ain’t to be bluffed.” He wagged his head to
and fro, whispering as if to himself. “ Sure
as I was sittin’ there, I heerd it . . . callin’
to me to be set free; it was ripplin’ and gur
glin’ underneath me. Why, I ’most felt the
wind in the trees and the leaves rattlin’.”
He glared angrily at the engineer. “ Git a
move on, son!”
The man hesitated, shrugged his shoulders,
and, beckoning to his companions, started
again to place his plant and bore for water.
They worked and sweated and cursed, while
the sun, with an evil red leer, dropped slowly,
slowly, toward the West. The little hills
which had looked so close receded, and it
seemed as if the sun would never reach them.
But at last it dropped, and only the sand gave
off its heat into the quiet evening.
Brinkley’s head dropped on his breast; his
eyes closed; he nodded.
At first he thought there was an earth
quake, then he guessed nature had gone
crazy suddenly and sent a thunderstorm, but
he blessed the rain that whirled around him.
“CAN YOU TELL ME IF there’s A MAN CALLED BRINKLEY HANGS OUT AROUND HERE?”
Above the sudden uproar he heard veils and
oaths and cries of astonishment. He rubbed
his eyes and laughed stupidly; a river rushed
around, threatening to carry him away. Like
a madman, he dabbled his hands in the cool
waters, and lay flat and let them cover his
neck and face and arms; he drank of them,
and bathed in them —laughing, shouting, like
a child.
For he knew what had happened. They
had struck water. The old tired earth flowed
youth at his feet, and he lay in the midst of
the oasis of which he had so long dreamed.
“ Yu’ ken go now,” he shouted to tht three
men staring stupidly at him. “Yu’ ken go
now, and take yer engines, and all the damned
dollars 1 owe ye.” He hurled wads of notes
at them and, rising with difficulty, stood up
right while the waters rushed around him.
“Guess I ken fix this up on my own hook.
Git off my land, d’ye hear? Git off, and tell
’em that Brinkley, the Water King, will be at
home every afternoon from four to seven.”
So they left him, babbling like a child,
while the night crept down and the stars
came out and blinked their little eyes at the
miracle they saw.
* * * *
Brinkley sat at the door of his shack and
smoked his pipe. As yet the trees scarcely
topped his head, but the green alfalfa bor
dered the tiny stream that whispered over the
sands; and flowers blazed as the sun blazed,
and threw their perfume to the four winds.
A bird sang in his cage beneath the shadow
of the overhanging roof. The shack was
built of rough pine and stones and mud, and
though but little over a year old, resembled
somewhat an English farm-house; already
creepers attempted the roof, and purple flow
ers clung to the pine logs.
“ Guess she’s forgot me,” he muttered un
der his breath for perhaps the hundredth
time. “Guessshe’Sforgotten! S’posehosses
is the only things that don’t forgit.”
Time had hurried while Brinkley built, and
planned and conjured flowers and trees to
life. And though, now, many men and
women visited him and drank the Healing
Waters of Life. She never came.
“ She must have forgot,” he said sadly each
night as the sun went down, “as I guess
by now we’re famous from ’Frisco to
Omaha.”
One morning, out of the dust into the sun
shine ambled a weary Pinto. On his back
a youth swayed to and fro, as tired as the
beast. Brinkley watched them curiously,
then of a sudden sprang forward; for the
youth resolved itself into a girl—short-skirted,
booted, a light shirt disclosing brown arms
and neck; dark hair, with a glint of gold
clustering round her forehead; large eyes,
staring hungrily between the pony’s ears.
The man and the girl looked at one another.
Pulling off her soft hat, Rosalia fanned the
dust from her face. “ Stranger, can you tell
me if there’s a shack where a spring rises,
and a man called Brinkley hangs out, any
where round here?”
Brinkley drew his horse a little closer, and
leaned forward until his great hand rested on
Rosalia’s knee. “ I’ve heerd tell of such a
man; they say he’s crazy. He’s a feller that
was looking for an oasis, and didn’t find it.”
Rosalia swayed forward, the ghost of a
smile on her lips. “ Why, you —you ”
“Sure! I’m it!"
She drew back, the coicr returned to her
face, her eyes sparkled., “But you were an
old man ”
“The Healing Waters,” he mumbled. . . .
“ I’ve been sittin’ by them a long time now,
Rosalia, waitin’ for you. And last night I
began to feel I was growin’ old agen, in spite
of’em.” He turned his horse’s head. “Best
bring Pinto along and have a look at the
shack. It ain’t much yet, but it’s gettin’
along; and the flowers —well, they know their
business!”
In silence they rode to where the healing
waters sprang and the young trees whispered.
The flowers at their approach flung perfume
in their faces, a little breeze kissed lips and
eyes. In silence they entered the shack, and
passed from living room to dining room;
from kitchen to sleeping chamber.
“That was your room if you ever came,”
Brinkley whispered, pushing Rosalia through
an open door. “ And there’s a stall out there
for the pony. Yu’d better both get in and
have a wash and brush up. I’ll be knockin’
the dust out of him while yu’ do the same
for yourself.”
It took the whole day showing Rosalia
round the oasis; as Brinkley said, it was quitei
a little oasis in a mighty fine desert, and it was!
all his, and he and-the old horse were alone!
in the midst of it. There were the house
and stables, the spring ever bubbling and the
little stream that ran away to lose itself in
the sand; and the trees! “Yu’ ken watch
’em grow if yu’ stand still a minute.” And
the long stretch of green grass, and the
flowers christened with names Brinkley had
chosen.
“ Birds don’t seem to come here, somehow,
so I had to buy one, and though he sings
fine, yet yu’ know there’s somethin’ missin’.”
He laid his hand on the bosom of his shirt.
“Or, there’s somethin’ wantin’.”
Dinner was a success, though Brinkley
apologized for it. “I have to go back to
canned goods; but I’m raisin’ chickens, and
there’s an orchard at the back that’ll be doin’
business next year or so.”
That evening when the sun set he smoked
his pipe outside the shack door with Rosalia
beside him. He waited until darkness came,
then he spoke his thoughts.
“D’yu’ remember sayin’ once to me that
there was nothin’ yu’ were ’feerd of?” He
fingered his pipe awkwardly. “ Would yu’ be
’feerd of stayin’ here till to-morrow? I’m
tellin’ yu’ the place isn’t right yet; it wants a
woman around. . . . Wre as safe, as if yu’
was ’way back in the town —mebbe safer.”
He did not look at her, or he would .have
seen that her eyes were moist and that tears
threatened to overflow. “ You thought I was
a long time coming,” she whispered at last,
“ but I started a time or two, and couldn’t find
you. Then, last year, I got ill, and though
I’m all right now ”
She left her speech unfinished, and Brink-i
ley filled another pipe and smoked it before)
the silence was broken.
All the stars were shining now —they danced
as merrily as on that night when the water
gushed from the barren womb of the desert.
“ Yu’ll stay till to-morrow, then ? ” Brinkley
stammered.
Rosalia’s reply seemed a long time coming,
and the smoke died from the bowl of Brink
ley’s pipe, and a shadow of fear flitted across
his eyes. He was looking across the desert,
and he saw the desert of his own life. And
there was still no oasis in that. Then, ere he
knew it, Rosalia had slipped 'o her knees,
and was by his side, her small brown hands
seeking his.
“ Say, if I stayed till to-morrow, couldn’t 1
stay always ? ”
And she did.
