easily be made into a ranch. How can one make a ranch of desert land? Are you certain of where we are?”
“You can look at the map,” Cynthia said, handing it to him. “Perhaps you will read it differently.”
Bixby studied the map for a moment, then sighed. “No,” he said. “You are right. This is the property I was to buy. But no more. I will not be bamboozled. As soon as we return to Phoenix, I will stop the sale and we will return to New York.”
Suddenly there was a creaking, snapping sound, and the buckboard lurched so badly that Cynthia was very nearly tossed out. She looked up from the map.
“Oh!” she gasped in a startled tone of voice. “What was that?”
“Whoa, horses,” Bixby called, pulling back on the reins. The team stopped and the buckboard sat there, listing sharply to the right.
“Jay, what is it?” Cynthia asked. “What is wrong?”
“Oh, this is just too much,” Bixby said. “I believe we have broken an axle.”
“Can you fix it?” Cynthia asked.
“Now how can I fix it?” Bixby replied. “What do you take me for? A common tradesman? Oh, to provide customers with a conveyance that breaks down on you the first time you take it out is unconscionable.”
Cynthia climbed down from the listing buckboard.
“Don’t tell me you think you can fix it,” Bixby said.
“No, I can’t fix it. But we can’t just stay here.”
“What do you propose that we do?”
“I think we should start walking back.”
“Walking? Walking where? All the way back to Phoenix?”
“If necessary, yes, all the way to Phoenix,” Cynthia said. “But I believe Mr. Hendel will notice the lateness of our return, and will arrange for someone to come and collect us.”
“You have more confidence in him than I do,” Bixby said. “I doubt seriously that he will have the presence of mind to notice that we are late.”
“You underestimate Mr. Hendel,” Cynthia said. “I find him to be a very clever person. He is also very loyal and dependable.”
“No doubt you should have married him, rather than me,” Bixby said.
Cynthia did not respond, but Bixby was too self-centered to notice.
Approximately five miles from where Cynthia and Bixby abandoned the buckboard, six men were prospecting at the foot of Superstition Mountain. They were used to working alone, but with the recent outbreak of Indian trouble, they decided it would be safer to prospect together. The little valley where they were working rang with the sound of their hammers as they chipped away at the hard rock, looking for “color.”
“Listen,” one of them said. He held up his hand. “Stop the hammerin’ for a minute, will you?”
“What is it, Mickey?” one of the others asked. “I don’t hear nothin’.”
“Listen,” Mickey said again.
All six were quiet for a moment, with the only sound the ever-present mournful wail of the wind through the rocks and peaks. Then, they all heard what Mickey had heard, the distant thunder of pounding hooves.
“Better get to your guns, boys,” Mickey said. “We’ve got company comin’, and I don’t think it’s anyone we want.”
The battle was short and violent. Delshay moved in and out of gulleys, shouting with joy as he led the fight. The prospectors were all armed and they fired at him, but he was much too nimble to present an easy target for them, and not one bullet found its mark.
Within a short time after the initial attack, all six miners had fallen mortally wounded, and Delshay stuck both arms in the air, leaned his head back, and gave a loud shout of victory. The warriors who were with him, not one of whom had been wounded, shouted as well.
Delshay and the others went through the prospectors’ camp, taking everything that was of any value—guns, knives, cooking utensils. One of them took a compass, and though none of the Indians had ever seen anything like it before, they were intrigued by the way the arrow always seemed to point toward the McDowell Mountains. They discussed the possibility of the compass being some sort of omen, and decided to smash it on the rocks.
“What was that?” Cynthia asked.
The two were walking west on the same road over which they had come, and Bixby was now breathing hard with the effort.
“What was what?” he asked, panting.
“That sound,” Cynthia said. “Didn’t you hear it?”
“I haven’t heard anything except the eternal and infernal howl of wind. What do you think you heard?”
“I don’t know,” Cynthia confessed. “It sounded like several pops.” She laughed. “Rather like the sound popcorn makes when it is popping.”
“Your imagination is working overtime,” Bixby said. “Perhaps you are hearing the Mountain God. What did
