Books: The Man of the Forest

Z >> Zane Grey >> The Man of the Forest

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27

"Oh dear, will not education be of help to the Western
woman?" queried Helen, almost in despair.

"Sure it will," answered Dale, promptly. "What the West
needs is women who can raise an' teach children. But you
don't understand me. You don't get under your skin. I reckon
I can't make you see my argument as I feel it. You take my
word for this, though. Sooner or later you WILL wake up an'
forget yourself. Remember."

"Nell, I'll bet you do, too," said Bo, seriously for her.
"It may seem strange to you, but I understand Dale. I feel
what he means. It's a sort of shock. Nell, we're not what we
seem. We're not what we fondly imagine we are. We've lived
too long with people -- too far away from the earth. You
know the Bible says something like this: 'Dust thou art and
to dust thou shalt return.' Where DO we come from?"

CHAPTER XII

Days passed.

Every morning Helen awoke with a wondering question as to
what this day would bring forth, especially with regard to
possible news from her uncle. It must come sometime and she
was anxious for it. Something about this simple, wild camp
life had begun to grip her. She found herself shirking daily
attention to the clothes she had brought West. They needed
it, but she had begun to see how superficial they really
were. On the other hand, camp-fire tasks had come to be a
pleasure. She had learned a great deal more about them than
had Bo. Worry and dread were always impinging upon the
fringe of her thoughts -- always vaguely present, though
seldom annoying. They were like shadows in dreams. She
wanted to get to her uncle's ranch, to take up the duties of
her new life. But she was not prepared to believe she would
not regret this wild experience. She must get away from that
in order to see it clearly, and she began to have doubts of
herself.

Meanwhile the active and restful outdoor life went on. Bo
leaned more and more toward utter reconciliation to it. Her
eyes had a wonderful flash, like blue lightning; her cheeks
were gold and brown; her hands tanned dark as an Indian's.

She could vault upon the gray mustang, or, for that matter,
clear over his back. She learned to shoot a rifle accurately
enough to win Dale's praise, and vowed she would like to
draw a bead upon a grizzly bear or upon Snake Anson.

"Bo, if you met that grizzly Dale said has been prowling
round camp lately you'd run right up a tree," declared
Helen, one morning, when Bo seemed particularly boastful.

"Don't fool yourself," retorted Bo.

"But I've seen you run from a mouse!"

"Sister, couldn't I be afraid of a mouse and not a bear?"

"I don't see how."

"Well, bears, lions, outlaws, and other wild beasts are to
be met with here in the West, and my mind's made up," said
Bo, in slow-nodding deliberation.

They argued as they had always argued, Helen for reason and
common sense and restraint, Bo on the principle that if she
must fight it was better to get in the first blow.

The morning on which this argument took place Dale was a
long time in catching the horses. When he did come in he
shook his head seriously.

"Some varmint's been chasin' the horses," he said, as he
reached for his saddle. "Did you hear them snortin' an'
runnin' last night?"

Neither of the girls had been awakened.

"I missed one of the colts," went on Dale, "an' I'm goin' to
ride across the park."

Dale's movements were quick and stern. It was significant
that he chose his heavier rifle, and, mounting, with a sharp
call to Pedro, he rode off without another word to the
girls.

Bo watched him for a moment and then began to saddle the
mustang.

"You won't follow him?" asked Helen, quickly.

"I sure will," replied Bo. "He didn't forbid it."

"But he certainly did not want us."

"He might not want you, but I'll bet he wouldn't object to
me, whatever's up," said Bo, shortly.

"Oh! So you think --" exclaimed Helen, keenly hurt. She bit
her tongue to keep back a hot reply. And it was certain that
a bursting gush of anger flooded over her. Was she, then,
such a coward? Did Dale think this slip of a sister, so wild
and wilful, was a stronger woman than she? A moment's silent
strife convinced her that no doubt he thought so and no
doubt he was right. Then the anger centered upon herself,
and Helen neither understood nor trusted herself.

The outcome proved an uncontrollable impulse. Helen began to
saddle her horse. She had the task half accomplished when
Bo's call made her look up.

"Listen!"

Helen heard a ringing, wild bay of the hound.

"That's Pedro," she said, with a thrill.

"Sure. He's running. We never heard him bay like that
before."

"Where's Dale?"

"He rode out of sight across there," replied Bo, pointing.
"And Pedro's running toward us along that slope. He must be
a mile -- two miles from Dale."

"But Dale will follow."

"Sure. But he'd need wings to get near that hound now. Pedro
couldn't have gone across there with him. . . . just
listen."

The wild note of the hound manifestly stirred Bo to
irrepressible action. Snatching up Dale's lighter rifle, she
shoved it into her saddle-sheath, and, leaping on the
mustang, she ran him over brush and brook, straight down the
park toward the place Pedro was climbing. For an instant
Helen stood amazed beyond speech. When Bo sailed over a big
log, like a steeple-chaser, then Helen answered to further
unconsidered impulse by frantically getting her saddle
fastened. Without coat or hat she mounted. The nervous horse
bolted almost before she got into the saddle. A strange,
trenchant trembling coursed through all her veins. She
wanted to scream for Bo to wait. Bo was out of sight, but
the deep, muddy tracks in wet places and the path through
the long grass afforded Helen an easy trail to follow. In
fact, her horse needed no guiding. He ran in and out of the
straggling spruces along the edge of the park, and suddenly
wheeled around a corner of trees to come upon the gray
mustang standing still. Bo was looking up and listening.

"There he is!" cried Bo, as the hound bayed ringingly,
closer to them this time, and she spurred away.

Helen's horse followed without urging. He was excited. His
ears were up. Something was in the wind. Helen had never
ridden along this broken end of the park, and Bo was not
easy to keep up with. She led across bogs, brooks, swales,
rocky little ridges, through stretches of timber and groves
of aspen so thick Helen could scarcely squeeze through. Then
Bo came out into a large open offshoot of the park, right
under the mountain slope, and here she sat, her horse
watching and listening. Helen rode up to her, imagining once
that she had heard the hound.

"Look! Look!" Bo's scream made her mustang stand almost
straight up.

Helen gazed up to see a big brown bear with a frosted coat
go lumbering across an opening on the slope.

"It's a grizzly! He'll kill Pedro! Oh, where is Dale!" cried
Bo, with intense excitement.

"Bo! That bear is running down! We -- we must get -- out of
his road," panted Helen, in breathless alarm.

"Dale hasn't had time to be close. . . . Oh, I wish he'd
come! I don't know what to do."

"Ride back. At least wait for him."

Just then Pedro spoke differently, in savage barks, and
following that came a loud growl and crashings in the brush.
These sounds appeared to be not far up the slope.

"Nell! Do you hear? Pedro's fighting the bear," burst out
Bo. Her face paled, her eyes flashed like blue steel. "The
bear 'll kill him!"

"Oh, that would be dreadful!" replied Helen, in distress.
"But what on earth can we do?"

"HEL-LO, DALE!" called Bo, at the highest pitch of her
piercing voice.

No answer came. A heavy crash of brush, a rolling of stones,
another growl from the slope told Helen that the hound had
brought the bear to bay.

"Nell, I'm going up," said Bo, deliberately.

"No-no! Are you mad?" returned Helen.

"The bear will kill Pedro."

"He might kill you."

"You ride that way and yell for Dale," rejoined Bo.

"What will -- you do?" gasped Helen.

"I'll shoot at the bear -- scare him off. If he chases me he
can't catch me coming downhill. Dale said that."

"You're crazy!" cried Helen, as Bo looked up the slope,
searching for open ground. Then she pulled the rifle from
its sheath.

But Bo did not hear or did not care. She spurred the
mustang, and he, wild to run, flung grass and dirt from his
heels. What Helen would have done then she never knew, but
the fact was that her horse bolted after the mustang. In an
instant, seemingly, Bo had disappeared in the gold and green
of the forest slope. Helen's mount climbed on a run,
snorting and heaving, through aspens, brush, and timber, to
come out into a narrow, long opening extending lengthwise up
the slope.

A sudden prolonged crash ahead alarmed Helen and halted her
horse. She saw a shaking of aspens. Then a huge brown beast
leaped as a cat out of the woods. It was a bear of enormous
size. Helen's heart stopped -- her tongue clove to the roof
of her mouth. The bear turned. His mouth was open, red and
dripping. He looked shaggy, gray. He let out a terrible
bawl. Helen's every muscle froze stiff. Her horse plunged
high and sidewise, wheeling almost in the air, neighing his
terror. Like a stone she dropped from the saddle. She did
not see the horse break into the woods, but she heard him.
Her gaze never left the bear even while she was falling, and
it seemed she alighted in an upright position with her back
against a bush. It upheld her. The bear wagged his huge head
from side to side. Then, as the hound barked close at hand,
he turned to run heavily uphill and out of the opening.

The instant of his disappearance was one of collapse for
Helen. Frozen with horror, she had been unable to move or
feel or think. All at once she was a quivering mass of cold,
helpless flesh, wet with perspiration, sick with a
shuddering, retching, internal convulsion, her mind
liberated from paralyzing shock. The moment was as horrible
as that in which the bear had bawled his frightful rage. A
stark, icy, black emotion seemed in possession of her. She
could not lift a hand, yet all of her body appeared shaking.
There was a fluttering, a strangling in her throat. The
crushing weight that surrounded her heart eased before she
recovered use of her limbs. Then, the naked and terrible
thing was gone, like a nightmare giving way to
consciousness. What blessed relief! Helen wildly gazed about
her. The bear and hound were out of sight, and so was her
horse. She stood up very dizzy and weak. Thought of Bo then
seemed to revive her, to shock different life and feeling
throughout all her cold extremities. She listened.

She heard a thudding of hoofs down the slope, then Dale's
clear, strong call. She answered. It appeared long before he
burst out of the woods, riding hard and leading her horse.
In that time she recovered fully, and when he reached her,
to put a sudden halt upon the fiery Ranger, she caught the
bridle he threw and swiftly mounted her horse. The feel of
the saddle seemed different. Dale's piercing gray glance
thrilled her strangely.

"You're white. Are you hurt?" he said.

"No. I was scared."

"But he threw you?"

"Yes, he certainly threw me."

"What happened?"

"We heard the hound and we rode along the timber. Then we
saw the bear -- a monster -- white -- coated --"

"I know. It's a grizzly. He killed the colt -- your pet.
Hurry now. What about Bo?"

"Pedro was fighting the bear. Bo said he'd be killed. She
rode right up here. My horse followed. I couldn't have
stopped him. But we lost Bo. Right there the bear came out.
He roared. My horse threw me and ran off. Pedro's barking
saved me -- my life, I think. Oh! that was awful! Then the
bear went up -- there. . . . And you came."

"Bo's followin' the hound!" ejaculated Dale. And, lifting
his hands to his mouth, he sent out a stentorian yell that
rolled up the slope, rang against the cliffs, pealed and
broke and died away. Then he waited, listening. From far up
the slope came a faint, wild cry, high-pitched and sweet, to
create strange echoes, floating away to die in the ravines.

"She's after him!" declared Dale, grimly.

"Bo's got your rifle," said Helen. "Oh, we must hurry."

"You go back," ordered Dale, wheeling his horse.

"No!" Helen felt that word leave her lips with the force of
a bullet.

Dale spurred Ranger and took to the open slope. Helen kept
at his heels until timber was reached. Here a steep trail
led up. Dale dismounted.

"Horse tracks -- bear tracks -- dog tracks," he said,
bending over. "We'll have to walk up here. It'll save our
horses an' maybe time, too."

"Is Bo riding up there?" asked Helen, eying the steep
ascent.

"She sure is." With that Dale started up, leading his horse.
Helen followed. It was rough and hard work. She was lightly
clad, yet soon she was hot, laboring, and her heart began to
hurt. When Dale halted to rest Helen was just ready to drop.
The baying of the hound, though infrequent, inspirited her.
But presently that sound was lost. Dale said bear and hound
had gone over the ridge and as soon as the top was gained he
would hear them again.

"Look there," he said, presently, pointing to fresh tracks,
larger than those made by Bo's mustang. "Elk tracks. We've
scared a big bull an' he's right ahead of us. Look sharp an'
you'll see him."

Helen never climbed so hard and fast before, and when they
reached the ridge-top she was all tuckered out. It was all
she could do to get on her horse. Dale led along the crest
of this wooded ridge toward the western end, which was
considerably higher. In places open rocky ground split the
green timber. Dale pointed toward a promontory.

Helen saw a splendid elk silhouetted against the sky. He was
a light gray over all his hindquarters, with shoulders and
head black. His ponderous, wide-spread antlers towered over
him, adding to the wildness of his magnificent poise as he
stood there, looking down into the valley, no doubt
listening for the bay of the hound. When he heard Dale's
horse he gave one bound, gracefully and wonderfully carrying
his antlers, to disappear in the green.

Again on a bare patch of ground Dale pointed down. Helen saw
big round tracks, toeing in a little, that gave her a chill.
She knew these were grizzly tracks.

Hard riding was not possible on this ridge crest, a fact
that gave Helen time to catch her breath. At length, coming
out upon the very summit of the mountain, Dale heard the
hound. Helen's eyes feasted afar upon a wild scene of rugged
grandeur, before she looked down on this western slope at
her feet to see bare, gradual descent, leading down to
sparsely wooded bench and on to deep-green canuon.

"Ride hard now!" yelled Dale. "I see Bo, an' I'll have to
ride to catch her."

Dale spurred down the slope. Helen rode in his tracks and,
though she plunged so fast that she felt her hair stand up
with fright, she saw him draw away from her. Sometimes her
horse slid on his haunches for a few yards, and at these
hazardous moments she got her feet out of the stirrups so as
to fall free from him if he went down. She let him choose
the way, while she gazed ahead at Dale, and then farther on,
in the hope of seeing Bo. At last she was rewarded. Far Down
the wooded bench she saw a gray flash of the little mustang
and a bright glint of Bo's hair. Her heart swelled. Dale
would soon overhaul Bo and come between her and peril. And
on the instant, though Helen was unconscious of it then, a
remarkable change came over her spirit. Fear left her. And a
hot, exalting, incomprehensible something took possession of
her.

She let the horse run, and when he had plunged to the foot
of that slope of soft ground he broke out across the open
bench at a pace that made the wind bite Helen's cheeks and
roar in her ears. She lost sight of Dale. It gave her a
strange, grim exultance. She bent her eager gaze to find the
tracks of his horse, and she found them. Also she made out
the tracks of Bo's mustang and the bear and the hound. Her
horse, scenting game, perhaps, and afraid to be left alone,
settled into a fleet and powerful stride, sailing over logs
and brush. That open bench had looked short, but it was
long, and Helen rode down the gradual descent at breakneck
speed. She would not be left behind. She had awakened to a
heedlessness of risk. Something burned steadily within her.
A grim, hard anger of joy! When she saw, far down another
open, gradual descent, that Dale had passed Bo and that Bo
was riding the little mustang as never before, then Helen
flamed with a madness to catch her, to beat her in that
wonderful chase, to show her and Dale what there really was
in the depths of Helen Rayner.

Her ambition was to be short-lived, she divined from the lay
of the land ahead, but the ride she lived then for a flying
mile was something that would always blanch her cheeks and
prick her skin in remembrance.

The open ground was only too short. That thundering pace
soon brought Helen's horse to the timber. Here it took all
her strength to check his headlong flight over deadfalls and
between small jack-pines. Helen lost sight of Bo, and she
realized it would take all her wits to keep from getting
lost. She had to follow the trail, and in some places it was
hard to see from horseback.

Besides, her horse was mettlesome, thoroughly aroused, and
he wanted a free rein and his own way. Helen tried that,
only to lose the trail and to get sundry knocks from trees
and branches. She could not hear the hound, nor Dale. The
pines were small, close together, and tough. They were hard
to bend. Helen hurt her hands, scratched her face, barked
her knees. The horse formed a habit suddenly of deciding to
go the way he liked instead of the way Helen guided him, and
when he plunged between saplings too close to permit easy
passage it was exceedingly hard on her. That did not make
any difference to Helen. Once worked into a frenzy, her
blood stayed at high pressure. She did not argue with
herself about a need of desperate hurry. Even a blow on the
head that nearly blinded her did not in the least retard
her. The horse could hardly be held, and not at all in the
few open places.

At last Helen reached another slope. Coming out upon canuon
rim, she heard Dale's clear call, far down, and Bo's
answering peal, high and piercing, with its note of exultant
wildness. Helen also heard the bear and the hound fighting
at the bottom of this canuon.

Here Helen again missed the tracks made by Dale and Bo. The
descent looked impassable. She rode back along the rim, then
forward. Finally she found where the ground had been plowed
deep by hoofs, down over little banks. Helen's horse balked
at these jumps. When she goaded him over them she went
forward on his neck. It seemed like riding straight
downhill. The mad spirit of that chase grew more stingingly
keen to Helen as the obstacles grew. Then, once more the bay
of the hound and the bawl of the bear made a demon of her
horse. He snorted a shrill defiance. He plunged with fore
hoofs in the air. He slid and broke a way down the steep,
soft banks, through the thick brush and thick clusters of
saplings, sending loose rocks and earth into avalanches
ahead of him. He fell over one bank, but a thicket of aspens
upheld him so that he rebounded and gained his feet. The
sounds of fight ceased, but Dale's thrilling call floated up
on the pine-scented air.

Before Helen realized it she was at the foot of the slope,
in a narrow canuon-bed, full of rocks and trees, with a soft
roar of running water filling her ears. Tracks were
everywhere, and when she came to the first open place she
saw where the grizzly had plunged off a sandy bar into the
water. Here he had fought Pedro. Signs of that battle were
easy to read. Helen saw where his huge tracks, still wet,
led up the opposite sandy bank.

Then down-stream Helen did some more reckless and splendid
riding. On level ground the horse was great. Once he leaped
clear across the brook. Every plunge, every turn Helen
expected to come upon Dale and Bo facing the bear. The canuon
narrowed, the stream-bed deepened. She had to slow down to
get through the trees and rocks. Quite unexpectedly she rode
pell-mell upon Dale and Bo and the panting Pedro. Her horse
plunged to a halt, answering the shrill neighs of the other
horses.

Dale gazed in admiring amazement at Helen.

"Say, did you meet the bear again?" he queried, blankly.

"No. Didn't -- you -- kill him?" panted Helen, slowly
sagging in her saddle.

"He got away in the rocks. Rough country down here.

Helen slid off her horse and fell with a little panting cry
of relief. She saw that she was bloody, dirty, disheveled,
and wringing wet with perspiration. Her riding habit was
torn into tatters. Every muscle seemed to burn and sting,
and all her bones seemed broken. But it was worth all this
to meet Dale's penetrating glance, to see Bo's utter,
incredulous astonishment.

"Nell -- Rayner!" gasped Bo.

"If -- my horse 'd been -- any good -- in the woods," panted
Helen, "I'd not lost -- so much time -- riding down this
mountain. And I'd caught you -- beat you."

"Girl, did you RIDE down this last slope?" queried Dale.

"I sure did," replied Helen, smiling.

"We walked every step of the way, and was lucky to get down
at that," responded Dale, gravely. "No horse should have
been ridden down there. Why, he must have slid down."

"We slid -- yes. But I stayed on him."

Bo's incredulity changed to wondering, speechless
admiration. And Dale's rare smile changed his gravity.

"I'm sorry. It was rash of me. I thought you'd go back. . .
. But all's well that ends well. . . . Helen, did you wake
up to-day?"

She dropped her eyes, not caring to meet the questioning
gaze upon her.

"Maybe -- a little," she replied, and she covered her face
with her hands. Remembrance of his questions -- of his
assurance that she did not know the real meaning of life --
of her stubborn antagonism -- made her somehow ashamed. But
it was not for long.

"The chase was great," she said. "I did not know myself. You
were right."

"In how many ways did you find me right?" he asked.

"I think all -- but one," she replied, with a laugh and a
shudder. "I'm near starved NOW -- I was so furious at Bo
that I could have choked her. I faced that horrible brute. .
. . Oh, I know what it is to fear death! . . . I was lost
twice on the ride -- absolutely lost. That's all."

Bo found her tongue. "The last thing was for you to fall
wildly in love, wasn't it?"

"According to Dale, I must add that to my new experiences of
to-day -- before I can know real life," replied Helen,
demurely.

The hunter turned away. "Let us go," he said, soberly.

CHAPTER XIII

After more days of riding the grassy level of that
wonderfully gold and purple park, and dreamily listening by
day to the ever-low and ever-changing murmur of the
waterfall, and by night to the wild, lonely mourn of a
hunting wolf, and climbing to the dizzy heights where the
wind stung sweetly, Helen Rayner lost track of time and
forgot her peril.

Roy Beeman did not return. If occasionally Dale mentioned
Roy and his quest, the girls had little to say beyond a
recurrent anxiety for the old uncle, and then they forgot
again. Paradise Park, lived in a little while at that season
of the year, would have claimed any one, and ever afterward
haunted sleeping or waking dreams.

Bo gave up to the wild life, to the horses and rides, to the
many pets, and especially to the cougar, Tom. The big cat
followed her everywhere, played with her, rolling and
pawing, kitten-like, and he would lay his massive head in
her lap to purr his content. Bo had little fear of anything,
and here in the wilds she soon lost that.

Another of Dale's pets was a half-grown black bear named
Muss. He was abnormally jealous of little Bud and he had a
well-developed hatred of Tom, otherwise he was a very
good-tempered bear, and enjoyed Dale's impartial regard.
Tom, however, chased Muss out of camp whenever Dale's back
was turned, and sometimes Muss stayed away, shifting for
himself. With the advent of Bo, who spent a good deal of
time on the animals, Muss manifestly found the camp more
attractive. Whereupon, Dale predicted trouble between Tom
and Muss.

Bo liked nothing better than a rough-and-tumble frolic with
the black bear. Muss was not very big nor very heavy, and in
a wrestling bout with the strong and wiry girl he sometimes
came out second best. It spoke well of him that he seemed to
be careful not to hurt Bo. He never bit or scratched, though
he sometimes gave her sounding slaps with his paws.
Whereupon, Bo would clench her gauntleted fists and sail
into him in earnest.

One afternoon before the early supper they always had, Dale
and Helen were watching Bo teasing the bear. She was in her
most vixenish mood, full of life and fight. Tom lay his long
length on the grass, watching with narrow, gleaming eyes.

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27