is able to hobble around in his cast and help out at the restaurant.
Last Sunday we had a picnic out by the lake. The fishing was swell. And there was a dance at the pavilion afterward. I’m not much for dancing, but I know you like to. Still, you must be having plenty of fun out at the well.
“Fun!” Sandy exploded as he reread that paragraph. He was bathing his blistered feet in the first spring he had found that day and batting at deer flies that seemed determined to eat him alive. Then he read on:
I haven’t forgotten about Cavanaugh. Dad says he’s a lone wolf and that nobody knows much about him. He came here about two years ago, flashed a lot of money around, and built his lab. Joined the Country Club, Rotary, and so on. Impressed a lot of people with his football talk. Makes good equipment and has several research contracts that take him to Washington quite frequently. His employees think he’s a stuffed shirt, too.
I tried to look up his sports record at the library, but the newspapers that should tell about his big game are missing from the files. When Dad gets better, he says I can take a day or two off and see what I can find in the San Francisco library. I’ll let you know. Funny about those newspapers, isn’t it?
Give my regards to the gang. I sure do wish I was there instead of here.
As ever,
Quiz
After he had finished reading Sandy sat for a long time with his chin in his hands, thinking. The survey wasn’t going well, he knew. Yesterday, Hall and Donovan had paid them a visit and shaken their heads at the map that Ralph and Stack were drawing.
“This isn’t an anticline, John,” the geologist had said. “What we have here is fault that has caused a stratigraphic trap. That is, layers of rock on one side of the fault line have been lifted above those on the other side of the crack by some old earthquake. The slip sealed off the upper end of what may be an oil-bearing layer with the edge of a layer of hard, impervious rock. If you drill here”—he pointed with his pipe stem—“you may hit a small pool. Nothing spectacular, you understand, but it ought to more than pay expenses.”
“I don’t know whether I should take the chance.” Hall had shaken his gray head. “I need something better than this to gamble on, the way things are. Tell you what, Don. There’s going to be a bid session at Window Rock next Monday. Keep the crew working here for a few days longer while I drive down and see if I can shake loose a better lease. Ralph, you’d better come along. I hear that the Navajo and Hopi Councils will have some sort of joint powwow at the Rock and I’ll want you to keep an eye on it. You come along too, Sandy, and bring the ‘ear.’ I have a hunch that a lot of things are about to pop.”
“Will we have room for Kitty?” Ralph asked. “I dropped over to see her after work yesterday and she told me the school is closing Monday and Tuesday because there’s going to be a big Squaw Dance in the neighborhood. She wants to go home and get her best clothes to wear to it. She could drive her own car, of course…”
“Kitty’s good company,” Hall had replied. “I’d be glad to have her along.”
A distant hail jerked Sandy out of his reverie. He put on his shoes, picked up his rod, hammer and compass, and started climbing over jagged rocks to the top of a crumbling low butte that was to be the next survey location. The going wasn’t too bad because one side of the cone had collapsed, thus providing a slope of debris up which he could clamber with fair speed.
When Stack’s transit came in sight, Sandy placed the stadia rod upright so that it could be seen against the skyline and started the slow business of moving it about in response to the surveyor’s hand signals.
Several times he stopped and listened intently. Off to his right, hidden in the underbrush that choked the crater, he thought he heard some large animal moving. A deer, probably, he tried to reassure himself, although he remembered that one of the other crewmen had had a nasty brush with a bobcat several days previously.
“That’s it, Sandy,” the surveyor in the valley bellowed through cupped hands at last. “Call it a day.”
The boy was beating a quiet retreat down the slope when a tired bleat stopped him in his tracks. The animal in there was either a sheep or a calf, and it seemed to be in trouble.
“Better take a look,” said Sandy. (He had got into the habit of talking to himself these last few lonely weeks. The noise seemed to keep the homesickness away.)
It was a calf, he found, when he had fought his way into the thicket. And it seemed to be sick. First it would nibble at some plants where it stood, then, lifting its feet high and putting them down gingerly, it would move slowly to another location and repeat the performance. Every so often it let out that piteous bleat.
“Poor thing,” Sandy murmured. “Maybe I ought to take it back to camp.”
He fished a length of cord out of his knapsack, looped it around the calf’s neck and tugged. The animal gave him a glassy stare and wobbled forward.
“Probably a Navajo stray,” he said. “Its owners will be looking for it.”
When he reached the temporary camp half an hour later, Ralph took one look at the calf and let out an astonished whoop.
“Loco,” he shouted. “Hey, gang! Come look what Sandy found.”
Men came running from all directions.
“Where did you find it?” Stack demanded.
“Up there. On top of that butte.” Sandy pointed.
“Was it eating anything at the time?” Ralph snapped.
“Yes. Some plants that looked sort of like ferns, only they had little bell-like blossoms hanging from stalks in their centers.
“Locoweed,” the Indian crowed. “Astragalus Pattersoni, Donovan calls it. Sandy, you may have found just what the doctor ordered to get John out of his pinch. I’ll get a Geiger counter. The rest of you round up some flashlights, sacks and spades. We’d better take a look at this right away.”
“What about my calf?” Sandy objected.
“Oh, stake it out somewhere and give it some water. It may recover. It’s just drugged. Indians used to chew locoweed when they went down in their kivas, you know. They said it made them see visions in which they talked to the spirits. Eat too much of the stuff, though, and you’re a goner.”
* * * *
Two hours later, after having dug up most of the crater, the men tramped wearily back to camp in the light of the rising moon. The sacks they carried on their backs bulged with loads of black earth mixed with yellow carnotite crystals that made the Geiger chatter madly.
Hall was just driving into camp as they arrived.
“We’ve found a rich uranium lode or lens, I think, John,” Ralph shouted to him. For once he had lost his Indian calm and was almost dancing with excitement.
“You don’t say,” yawned the producer as he dragged himself out of the car.
“Well!” Ralph stared, openmouthed, at this cool reception. “What’s the matter, boss? Don’t you care?”
“Where
