A Lost Son

Moreover, Belding had other worry and strain. April arrived with no
news of the rangers. From Casita came vague reports of raiders in the
Sonoyta country--reports impossible to verify until his Mexican rangers
returned. When these men rode in, one of them, Gonzales, an
intelligent and reliable halfbreed, said he had met prospectors at the
oasis. They had just come in on the Camino del Diablo, reported a
terrible trip of heat and drought, and not a trace of the Yaqui's party.

"That settles it," declared Belding. "Yaqui never went to Sonoyta.
He's circled round to the Devil's Road, and the rangers, Mercedes,
Thorne, the horses--they--I'm afraid they have been lost in the desert.
It's an old story on Camino del Diablo."

He had to tell Nell that, and it was an ordeal which left him weak.

Mrs. Belding listened to him, and was silent for a long time while she
held the stricken Nell to her breast. Then she opposed his convictions
with that quiet strength so characteristic of her arguments.

"Well, then," decided Belding, "Rojas headed the rangers at Papago Well
or the Tanks."

"Tom, when you are down in the mouth you use poor judgment," she went
on. "You know only by a miracle could Rojas or anybody have headed
those white horses. Where's your old stubborn confidence? Yaqui was
up on Diablo. Dick was up on Sol. And there were the other horses.
They could not have been headed or caught. Miracles don't happen."

"All right, mother, it's sure good to hear you," said Belding. She
always cheered him, and now he grasped at straws. "I'm not myself
these days, don't mistake that. Tell us what you think. You always say
you feel things when you really don't know them."