Books: The Man of the Forest
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Zane Grey >> The Man of the Forest
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When Bo and Muss locked in an embrace and went down to roll
over and over, Dale called Helen's attention to the cougar.
"Tom's jealous. It's strange how animals are like people.
Pretty soon I'll have to corral Muss, or there'll be a
fight."
Helen could not see anything wrong with Tom except that he
did not look playful.
During supper-time both bear and cougar disappeared, though
this was not remarked until afterward. Dale whistled and
called, but the rival pets did not return. Next morning Tom
was there, curled up snugly at the foot of Bo's bed, and
when she arose he followed her around as usual. But Muss did
not return.
The circumstance made Dale anxious. He left camp, taking Tom
with him, and upon returning stated that he had followed
Muss's track as far as possible, and then had tried to put
Tom on the trail, but the cougar would not or could not
follow it. Dale said Tom never liked a bear trail, anyway,
cougars and bears being common enemies. So, whether by
accident or design, Bo lost one of her playmates.
The hunter searched some of the slopes next day and even
went up on one of the mountains. He did not discover any
sign of Muss, but he said he had found something else.
"Bo you girls want some more real excitement?" he asked.
Helen smiled her acquiescence and Bo replied with one of her
forceful speeches.
"Don't mind bein' good an' scared?" he went on.
"You can't scare me," bantered Bo. But Helen looked
doubtful.
"Up in one of the parks I ran across one of my horses -- a
lame bay you haven't seen. Well, he had been killed by that
old silvertip. The one we chased. Hadn't been dead over an
hour. Blood was still runnin' an' only a little meat eaten.
That bear heard me or saw me an' made off into the woods.
But he'll come back to-night. I'm goin' up there, lay for
him, an' kill him this time. Reckon you'd better go, because
I don't want to leave you here alone at night."
"Are you going to take Tom?" asked Bo.
"No. The bear might get his scent. An', besides, Tom ain't
reliable on bears. I'll leave Pedro home, too."
When they had hurried supper, and Dale had gotten in the
horses, the sun had set and the valley was shadowing low
down, while the ramparts were still golden. The long zigzag
trail Dale followed up the slope took nearly an hour to
climb, so that when that was surmounted and he led out of
the woods twilight had fallen. A rolling park extended as
far as Helen could see, bordered by forest that in places
sent out straggling stretches of trees. Here and there, like
islands, were isolated patches of timber.
At ten thousand feet elevation the twilight of this clear
and cold night was a rich and rare atmospheric effect. It
looked as if it was seen through perfectly clear smoked
glass. Objects were singularly visible, even at long range,
and seemed magnified. In the west, where the afterglow of
sunset lingered over the dark, ragged, spruce-speared
horizon-line, there was such a transparent golden line
melting into vivid star-fired blue that Helen could only
gaze and gaze in wondering admiration.
Dale spurred his horse into a lope and the spirited mounts
of the girls kept up with him. The ground was rough, with
tufts of grass growing close together, yet the horses did
not stumble. Their action and snorting betrayed excitement.
Dale led around several clumps of timber, up a long grassy
swale, and then straight westward across an open flat toward
where the dark-fringed forest-line raised itself wild and
clear against the cold sky. The horses went swiftly, and the
wind cut like a blade of ice. Helen could barely get her
breath and she panted as if she had just climbed a laborsome
hill. The stars began to blink out of the blue, and the gold
paled somewhat, and yet twilight lingered. It seemed long
across that flat, but really was short. Coming to a thin
line of trees that led down over a slope to a deeper but
still isolated patch of woods, Dale dismounted and tied his
horse. When the girls got off he haltered their horses also.
"Stick close to me an' put your feet down easy," he
whispered. How tall and dark he loomed in the fading light!
Helen thrilled, as she had often of late, at the strange,
potential force of the man. Stepping softly, without the
least sound, Dale entered this straggly bit of woods, which
appeared to have narrow byways and nooks. Then presently he
came to the top of a well-wooded slope, dark as pitch,
apparently. But as Helen followed she perceived the trees,
and they were thin dwarf spruce, partly dead. The slope was
soft and springy, easy to step upon without noise. Dale went
so cautiously that Helen could not hear him, and sometimes
in the gloom she could not see him. Then the chill thrills
ran over her. Bo kept holding on to Helen, which fact
hampered Helen as well as worked somewhat to disprove Bo's
boast. At last level ground was reached. Helen made out a
light-gray background crossed by black bars. Another glance
showed this to be the dark tree-trunks against the open
park.
Dale halted, and with a touch brought Helen to a straining
pause. He was listening. It seemed wonderful to watch him
bend his head and stand as silent and motionless as one of
the dark trees.
"He's not there yet," Dale whispered, and he stepped forward
very slowly. Helen and Bo began to come up against thin dead
branches that were invisible and then cracked. Then Dale
knelt down, seemed to melt into the ground.
"You'll have to crawl," he whispered.
How strange and thrilling that was for Helen, and hard work!
The ground bore twigs and dead branches, which had to be
carefully crawled over; and lying flat, as was necessary, it
took prodigious effort to drag her body inch by inch. Like a
huge snake, Dale wormed his way along.
Gradually the wood lightened. They were nearing the edge of
the park. Helen now saw a strip of open with a high, black
wall of spruce beyond. The afterglow flashed or changed,
like a dimming northern light, and then failed. Dale crawled
on farther to halt at length between two tree-trunks at the
edge of the wood.
"Come up beside me," he whispered.
Helen crawled on, and presently Bo was beside her panting,
with pale face and great, staring eyes, plain to be seen in
the wan light.
"Moon's comin' up. We're just in time. The old grizzly's not
there yet, but I see coyotes. Look."
Dale pointed across the open neck of park to a dim blurred
patch standing apart some little distance from the black
wall.
"That's the dead horse," whispered Dale. "An' if you watch
close you can see the coyotes. They're gray an' they move. .
. . Can't you hear them?"
Helen's excited ears, so full of throbs and imaginings,
presently registered low snaps and snarls. Bo gave her arm a
squeeze.
"I hear them. They're fighting. Oh, gee!" she panted, and
drew a long, full breath of unutterable excitement.
"Keep quiet now an' watch an' listen," said the hunter.
Slowly the black, ragged forest-line seemed to grow blacker
and lift; slowly the gray neck of park lightened under some
invisible influence; slowly the stars paled and the sky
filled over. Somewhere the moon was rising. And slowly that
vague blurred patch grew a little clearer.
Through the tips of the spruce, now seen to be rather close
at hand, shone a slender, silver crescent moon, darkening,
hiding, shining again, climbing until its exquisite
sickle-point topped the trees, and then, magically, it
cleared them, radiant and cold. While the eastern black wall
shaded still blacker, the park blanched and the border-line
opposite began to stand out as trees.
"Look! Look!" cried Bo, very low and fearfully, as she
pointed.
"Not so loud," whispered Dale.
"But I see something!"
"Keep quiet," he admonished.
Helen, in the direction Bo pointed, could not see anything
but moon-blanched bare ground, rising close at hand to a
little ridge.
"Lie still," whispered Dale. "I'm goin' to crawl around to
get a look from another angle. I'll be right back."
He moved noiselessly backward and disappeared. With him
gone, Helen felt a palpitating of her heart and a prickling
of her skin.
"Oh, my! Nell! Look!" whispered Bo, in fright. "I know I saw
something."
On top of the little ridge a round object moved slowly,
getting farther out into the light. Helen watched with
suspended breath. It moved out to be silhouetted against the
sky -- apparently a huge, round, bristling animal, frosty in
color. One instant it seemed huge -- the next small -- then
close at hand -- and far away. It swerved to come directly
toward them. Suddenly Helen realized that the beast was not
a dozen yards distant. She was just beginning a new
experience -- a real and horrifying terror in which her
blood curdled, her heart gave a tremendous leap and then
stood still, and she wanted to fly, but was rooted to the
spot -- when Dale returned to her side.
"That's a pesky porcupine," he whispered. "Almost crawled
over you. He sure would have stuck you full of quills."
Whereupon he threw a stick at the animal. It bounced
straight up to turn round with startling quickness, and it
gave forth a rattling sound; then it crawled out of sight.
"Por -- cu -- pine!" whispered Bo, pantingly. "It might --
as well -- have been -- an elephant!"
Helen uttered a long, eloquent sigh. She would not have
cared to describe her emotions at sight of a harmless
hedgehog.
"Listen!" warned Dale, very low. His big hand closed over
Helen's gauntleted one. "There you have -- the real cry of
the wild."
Sharp and cold on the night air split the cry of a wolf,
distant, yet wonderfully distinct. How wild and mournful and
hungry! How marvelously pure! Helen shuddered through all
her frame with the thrill of its music, the wild and
unutterable and deep emotions it aroused. Again a sound of
this forest had pierced beyond her life, back into the dim
remote past from which she had come.
The cry was not repeated. The coyotes were still. And
silence fell, absolutely unbroken.
Dale nudged Helen, and then reached over to give Bo a tap.
He was peering keenly ahead and his strained intensity could
be felt. Helen looked with all her might and she saw the
shadowy gray forms of the coyotes skulk away, out of the
moonlight into the gloom of the woods, where they
disappeared. Not only Dale's intensity, but the very
silence, the wildness of the moment and place, seemed
fraught with wonderful potency. Bo must have felt it, too,
for she was trembling all over, and holding tightly to
Helen, and breathing quick and fast.
"A-huh!" muttered Dale, under his breath.
Helen caught the relief and certainty in his exclamation,
and she divined, then, something of what the moment must
have been to a hunter.
Then her roving, alert glance was arrested by a looming gray
shadow coming out of the forest. It moved, but surely that
huge thing could not be a bear. It passed out of gloom into
silver moonlight. Helen's heart bounded. For it was a great
frosty-coated bear lumbering along toward the dead horse.
Instinctively Helen's hand sought the arm of the hunter. It
felt like iron under a rippling surface. The touch eased
away the oppression over her lungs, the tightness of her
throat. What must have been fear left her, and only a
powerful excitement remained. A sharp expulsion of breath
from Bo and a violent jerk of her frame were signs that she
had sighted the grizzly.
In the moonlight he looked of immense size, and that wild
park with the gloomy blackness of forest furnished a fit
setting for him. Helen's quick mind, so taken up with
emotion, still had a thought for the wonder and the meaning
of that scene. She wanted the bear killed, yet that seemed a
pity.
He had a wagging, rolling, slow walk which took several
moments to reach his quarry. When at length he reached it he
walked around with sniffs plainly heard and then a cross
growl. Evidently he had discovered that his meal had been
messed over. As a whole the big bear could be seen
distinctly, but only in outline and color. The distance was
perhaps two hundred yards. Then it looked as if he had begun
to tug at the carcass. Indeed, he was dragging it, very
slowly, but surely.
"Look at that!" whispered Dale. "If he ain't strong! . . .
Reckon I'll have to stop him."
The grizzly, however, stopped of his own accord, just
outside of the shadow-line of the forest. Then he hunched in
a big frosty heap over his prey and began to tear and rend.
"Jess was a mighty good horse," muttered Dale, grimly; "too
good to make a meal for a hog silvertip."
Then the hunter silently rose to a kneeling position,
swinging the rifle in front of him. He glanced up into the
low branches of the tree overhead.
"Girls, there's no tellin' what a grizzly will do. If I
yell, you climb up in this tree, an' do it quick."
With that he leveled the rifle, resting his left elbow on
his knee. The front end of the rifle, reaching out of the
shade, shone silver in the moonlight. Man and weapon became
still as stone. Helen held her breath. But Dale relaxed,
lowering the barrel.
"Can't see the sights very well," he whispered, shaking his
head. "Remember, now -- if I yell you climb!"
Again he aimed and slowly grew rigid. Helen could not take
her fascinated eyes off him. He knelt, bareheaded, and in
the shadow she could make out the gleam of his clear-cut
profile, stern and cold.
A streak of fire and a heavy report startled her. Then she
heard the bullet hit. Shifting her glance, she saw the bear
lurch with convulsive action, rearing on his hind legs. Loud
clicking snaps must have been a clashing of his jaws in
rage. But there was no other sound. Then again Dale's heavy
gun boomed. Helen heard again that singular spatting thud of
striking lead. The bear went down with a flop as if he had
been dealt a terrific blow. But just as quickly he was up on
all-fours and began to whirl with hoarse, savage bawls of
agony and fury. His action quickly carried him out of the
moonlight into the shadow, where he disappeared. There the
bawls gave place to gnashing snarls, and crashings in the
brush, and snapping of branches, as he made his way into the
forest.
"Sure he's mad," said Dale, rising to his feet. "An' I
reckon hard hit. But I won't follow him to-night."
Both the girls got up, and Helen found she was shaky on her
feet and very cold.
"Oh-h, wasn't -- it -- won-wonder-ful!" cried Bo.
"Are you scared? Your teeth are chatterin'," queried Dale.
"I'm -- cold."
"Well, it sure is cold, all right," he responded. "Now the
fun's over, you'll feel it. . . . Nell, you're froze, too?"
Helen nodded. She was, indeed, as cold as she had ever been
before. But that did not prevent a strange warmness along
her veins and a quickened pulse, the cause of which she did
not conjecture.
"Let's rustle," said Dale, and led the way out of the wood
and skirted its edge around to the slope. There they climbed
to the flat, and went through the straggling line of trees
to where the horses were tethered.
Up here the wind began to blow, not hard through the forest,
but still strong and steady out in the open, and bitterly
cold. Dale helped Bo to mount, and then Helen.
"I'm -- numb," she said. "I'll fall off -- sure."
"No. You'll be warm in a jiffy," he replied, "because we'll
ride some goin' back. Let Ranger pick the way an' you hang
on."
With Ranger's first jump Helen's blood began to run. Out he
shot, his lean, dark head beside Dale's horse. The wild park
lay clear and bright in the moonlight, with strange, silvery
radiance on the grass. The patches of timber, like spired
black islands in a moon-blanched lake, seemed to harbor
shadows, and places for bears to hide, ready to spring out.
As Helen neared each little grove her pulses shook and her
heart beat. Half a mile of rapid riding burned out the cold.
And all seemed glorious -- the sailing moon, white in a
dark-blue sky, the white, passionless stars, so solemn, so
far away, the beckoning fringe of forest-land at once
mysterious and friendly, and the fleet horses, running with
soft, rhythmic thuds over the grass, leaping the ditches and
the hollows, making the bitter wind sting and cut. Coming up
that park the ride had been long; going back was as short as
it was thrilling. In Helen, experiences gathered realization
slowly, and it was this swift ride, the horses neck and
neck, and all the wildness and beauty, that completed the
slow, insidious work of years. The tears of excitement froze
on her cheeks and her heart heaved full. All that pertained
to this night got into her blood. It was only to feel, to
live now, but it could be understood and remembered forever
afterward.
Dale's horse, a little in advance, sailed over a ditch.
Ranger made a splendid leap, but he alighted among some
grassy tufts and fell. Helen shot over his head. She struck
lengthwise, her arms stretched, and slid hard to a shocking
impact that stunned her.
Bo's scream rang in her ears; she felt the wet grass under
her face and then the strong hands that lifted her. Dale
loomed over her, bending down to look into her face; Bo was
clutching her with frantic hands. And Helen could only gasp.
Her breast seemed caved in. The need to breathe was torture.
"Nell! -- you're not hurt. You fell light, like a feather.
All grass here. . . . You can't be hurt!" said Dale,
sharply.
His anxious voice penetrated beyond her hearing, and his
strong hands went swiftly over her arms and shoulders,
feeling for broken bones.
"Just had the wind knocked out of you," went on Dale. It
feels awful, but it's nothin'."
Helen got a little air, that was like hot pin-points in her
lungs, and then a deeper breath, and then full, gasping
respiration.
"I guess -- I'm not hurt -- not a bit," she choked out.
"You sure had a header. Never saw a prettier spill. Ranger
doesn't do that often. I reckon we were travelin' too fast.
But it was fun, don't you think?"
It was Bo who answered. "Oh, glorious! . . . But, gee! I was
scared."
Dale still held Helen's hands. She released them while
looking up at him. The moment was realization for her of
what for days had been a vague, sweet uncertainty, becoming
near and strange, disturbing and present. This accident had
been a sudden, violent end to the wonderful ride. But its
effect, the knowledge of what had got into her blood, would
never change. And inseparable from it was this man of the
forest.
CHAPTER XIV
On the next morning Helen was awakened by what she imagined
had been a dream of some one shouting. With a start she sat
up. The sunshine showed pink and gold on the ragged spruce
line of the mountain rims. Bo was on her knees, braiding her
hair with shaking hands, and at the same time trying to peep
out.
And the echoes of a ringing cry were cracking back from the
cliffs. That had been Dale's voice.
"Nell! Nell! Wake up!" called Bo, wildly. "Oh, some one's
come! Horses and men!"
Helen got to her knees and peered out over Bo's shoulder.
Dale, standing tall and striking beside the campfire, was
waving his sombrero. Away down the open edge of the park
came a string of pack-burros with mounted men behind. In the
foremost rider Helen recognized Roy Beeman.
"That first one's Roy!" she exclaimed. "I'd never forget him
on a horse. . . . Bo, it must mean Uncle Al's come!"
"Sure! We're born lucky. Here we are safe and sound -- and
all this grand camp trip. . . . Look at the cowboys. . . .
LOOK! Oh, maybe this isn't great!" babbled Bo.
Dale wheeled to see the girls peeping out.
"It's time you're up!" he called. "Your uncle Al is here."
For an instant after Helen sank back out of Dale's sight she
sat there perfectly motionless, so struck was she by the
singular tone of Dale's voice. She imagined that he
regretted what this visiting cavalcade of horsemen meant --
they had come to take her to her ranch in Pine. Helen's
heart suddenly began to beat fast, but thickly, as if
muffled within her breast.
"Hurry now, girls," called Dale.
Bo was already out, kneeling on the flat stone at the little
brook, splashing water in a great hurry. Helen's hands
trembled so that she could scarcely lace her boots or brush
her hair, and she was long behind Bo in making herself
presentable. When Helen stepped out, a short, powerfully
built man in coarse garb and heavy boots stood holding Bo's
hands.
"Wal, wal! You favor the Rayners," he was saying I remember
your dad, an' a fine feller he was."
Beside them stood Dale and Roy, and beyond was a group of
horses and riders.
"Uncle, here comes Nell," said Bo, softly.
"Aw!" The old cattle-man breathed hard as he turned.
Helen hurried. She had not expected to remember this uncle,
but one look into the brown, beaming face, with the blue
eyes flashing, yet sad, and she recognized him, at the same
instant recalling her mother.
He held out his arms to receive her.
"Nell Auchincloss all over again!" he exclaimed, in deep
voice, as he kissed her. "I'd have knowed you anywhere!"
"Uncle Al!" murmured Helen. "I remember you -- though I was
only four."
"Wal, wal, -- that's fine," he replied. "I remember you
straddled my knee once, an' your hair was brighter -- an'
curly. It ain't neither now. . . . Sixteen years! An' you're
twenty now? What a fine, broad-shouldered girl you are! An',
Nell, you're the handsomest Auchincloss I ever seen!"
Helen found herself blushing, and withdrew her hands from
his as Roy stepped forward to pay his respects. He stood
bareheaded, lean and tall, with neither his clear eyes nor
his still face, nor the proffered hand expressing anything
of the proven quality of fidelity, of achievement, that
Helen sensed in him.
"Howdy, Miss Helen? Howdy, Bo?" he said. "You all both look
fine an' brown. . . . I reckon I was shore slow rustlin'
your uncle Al up here. But I was figgerin' you'd like Milt's
camp for a while."
"We sure did," replied Bo, archly.
"Aw!" breathed Auchincloss, heavily. "Lemme set down."
He drew the girls to the rustic seat Dale had built for them
under the big pine.
"Oh, you must be tired! How -- how are you?" asked Helen,
anxiously.
"Tired! Wal, if I am it's jest this here minit. When Joe
Beeman rode in on me with thet news of you -- wal, I jest
fergot I was a worn-out old hoss. Haven't felt so good in
years. Mebbe two such young an' pretty nieces will make a
new man of me."
"Uncle Al, you look strong and well to me," said Bo. "And
young, too, and --"
"Haw! Haw! Thet 'll do," interrupted Al. "I see through you.
What you'll do to Uncle Al will be aplenty. . . . Yes,
girls, I'm feelin' fine. But strange -- strange! Mebbe
thet's my joy at seein' you safe -- safe when I feared so
thet damned greaser Beasley --"
In Helen's grave gaze his face changed swiftly -- and all
the serried years of toil and battle and privation showed,
with something that was not age, nor resignation, yet as
tragic as both.
"Wal, never mind him -- now," he added, slowly, and the
warmer light returned to his face. "Dale -- come here."
The hunter stepped closer.
"I reckon I owe you more 'n I can ever pay," said
Auchincloss, with an arm around each niece.
"No, Al, you don't owe me anythin'," returned Dale,
thoughtfully, as he looked away.
"A-huh!" grunted Al. "You hear him, girls. . . . Now listen,
you wild hunter. An' you girls listen. . . . Milt, I never
thought you much good, 'cept for the wilds. But I reckon
I'll have to swallow thet. I do. Comin' to me as you did --
an' after bein' druv off -- keepin' your council an' savin'
my girls from thet hold-up, wal, it's the biggest deal any
man ever did for me. . . . An' I'm ashamed of my hard
feelin's, an' here's my hand."
"Thanks, Al," replied Dale, with his fleeting smile, and he
met the proffered hand. "Now, will you be makin' camp here?"
"Wal, no. I'll rest a little, an' you can pack the girls'
outfit -- then we'll go. Sure you're goin' with us?"
"I'll call the girls to breakfast," replied Dale, and he
moved away without answering Auchincloss's query.
Helen divined that Dale did not mean to go down to Pine with
them, and the knowledge gave her a blank feeling of
surprise. Had she expected him to go?
"Come here, Jeff," called Al, to one of his men.
A short, bow-legged horseman with dusty garb and
sun-bleached face hobbled forth from the group. He was not
young, but he had a boyish grin and bright little eyes.
Awkwardly he doffed his slouch sombrero.
"Jeff, shake hands with my nieces," said Al. "This 's Helen,
an' your boss from now on. An' this 's Bo, fer short. Her
name was Nancy, but when she lay a baby in her cradle I
called her Bo-Peep, an' the name's stuck. . . . Girls, this
here's my foreman, Jeff Mulvey, who's been with me twenty
years."
The introduction caused embarrassment to all three
principals, particularly to Jeff.
"Jeff, throw the packs an' saddles fer a rest," was Al's
order to his foreman.
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