The Desert Valley

When Alan Howard fully understood, he felt his face go red with shame. There was in his soul something akin to timidity as he put his hand forth for the hand of Kish Taka. And when the Indian nodded gravely and gave his own hand, the white man's fingers locked about it hard. Still East was East and West was West, and again had two strong men met from the ends of earth.

'I have horses and cows and houses and corn,' said Howard, speaking slowly and simply that the Indian might understand clearly. 'What I have is my brother's. When Kish Taka wants a friend, let him come down into Desert Valley and call to Alan Howard.'

The beady, bird-like eyes were void of expression as Kish Taka regarded him steadily. The Indian did not so much as nod again. Like the desert that had mothered him and his progenitors, he had the tricks of silence and of inscrutability.

From the few words which the Indian had spoken and from his own suddenly altered estimate of his new companion, Howard came to understand fully the amazing act which Kish Taka had performed during the night. The Indian had been near the limits of his strength and endurance when the white man had given him generously of his water. Kish Taka had drank sparingly and, because he was desert-bred and because the stock from which he was sprung was desert-bred, his bodily strength had returned to him. He slept; Howard slept. But the Indian woke, somewhat refreshed, in half an hour. He understood that in the canteen there was not water for both. He promptly drank one of the two remaining cupfuls, slung the canteen over his shoulder and struck off swiftly for the twenty-five-mile-distant spring.

Again, had he been other than a Hopi, less than the superb creature that he was, the thing could not have been done. Down in Oraibi to-day an Indian boy will run eighty miles in a day for ten dollars, and on his return will run races for fun. The American desert has made him just as it has made the thirstless cactus and the desert wolf. He is a special creation, and Kish Taka was but doing the thing he knew. On the run he drained the canteen; at the end of it he stopped and drank and rested briefly. Then with full canteen he turned back to succour and save the man who had befriended and saved him. So it came about that he found Howard in time.

All of that long hot day they sought to rest, lying inert in what scant shade they could find, eating a few bits of dried beef, drinking their water now and then. By the time that the first hint of coming coolness crept into the air Howard sat up, somewhat refreshed and again eager to be moving. He turned to the Indian with a question on his lips, for a thought had come to him.