Books: The Man of the Forest

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"Nell, reckon you'll have fun bossin' thet outfit," chuckled
Al. "None of 'em's got a wife. Lot of scalawags they are; no
women would have them!"

"Uncle, I hope I'll never have to be their boss," replied
Helen.

"Wal, you're goin' to be, right off," declared Al. "They
ain't a bad lot, after all. An' I got a likely new man."

With that he turned to Bo, and, after studying her pretty
face, he asked, in apparently severe tone, "Did you send a
cowboy named Carmichael to ask me for a job?"

Bo looked quite startled.

"Carmichael! Why, Uncle, I never heard that name before,"
replied Bo, bewilderedly.

"A-huh! Reckoned the young rascal was lyin'," said
Auchincloss. "But I liked the fellar's looks an' so let him
stay."

Then the rancher turned to the group of lounging riders.

"Las Vegas, come here," he ordered, in a loud voice.

Helen thrilled at sight of a tall, superbly built cowboy
reluctantly detaching himself from the group. He had a
red-bronze face, young like a boy's. Helen recognized it,
and the flowing red scarf, and the swinging gun, and the
slow, spur-clinking gait. No other than Bo's Las Vegas
cowboy admirer!

Then Helen flashed a look at Bo, which look gave her a
delicious, almost irresistible desire to laugh. That young
lady also recognized the reluctant individual approaching
with flushed and downcast face. Helen recorded her first
experience of Bo's utter discomfiture. Bo turned white then
red as a rose.

"Say, my niece said she never heard of the name Carmichael,"
declared Al, severely, as the cowboy halted before him.
Helen knew her uncle had the repute of dealing hard with his
men, but here she was reassured and pleased at the twinkle
in his eye.

"Shore, boss, I can't help thet," drawled the cowboy. "It's
good old Texas stock."

He did not appear shamefaced now, but just as cool, easy,
clear-eyed, and lazy as the day Helen had liked his warm
young face and intent gaze.

"Texas! You fellars from the Pan Handle are always hollerin'
Texas. I never seen thet Texans had any one else beat -- say
from Missouri," returned Al, testily.

Carmichael maintained a discreet silence, and carefully
avoided looking at the girls.

"Wal, reckon we'll all call you Las Vegas, anyway,"
continued the rancher. "Didn't you say my niece sent you to
me for a job?"

Whereupon Carmichael's easy manner vanished.

"Now, boss, shore my memory's pore," he said. "I only says
--"

"Don't tell me thet. My memory's not p-o-r-e," replied Al,
mimicking the drawl. "What you said was thet my niece would
speak a good word for you."

Here Carmichael stole a timid glance at Bo, the result of
which was to render him utterly crestfallen. Not improbably
he had taken Bo's expression to mean something it did not,
for Helen read it as a mingling of consternation and fright.
Her eyes were big and blazing; a red spot was growing in
each cheek as she gathered strength from his confusion.

"Well, didn't you?" demanded Al.

From the glance the old rancher shot from the cowboy to the
others of his employ it seemed to Helen that they were
having fun at Carmichael's expense.

"Yes, sir, I did," suddenly replied the cowboy.

"A-huh! All right, here's my niece. Now see thet she speaks
the good word."

Carmichael looked at Bo and Bo looked at him. Their glances
were strange, wondering, and they grew shy. Bo dropped hers.
The cowboy apparently forgot what had been demanded of him.

Helen put a hand on the old rancher's arm.

"Uncle, what happened was my fault," she said. "The train
stopped at Las Vegas. This young man saw us at the open
window. He must have guessed we were lonely, homesick girls,
getting lost in the West. For he spoke to us -- nice and
friendly. He knew of you. And he asked, in what I took for
fun, if we thought you would give him a job. And I replied,
just to tease Bo, that she would surely speak a good word
for him."

"Haw! Haw! So thet's it," replied Al, and he turned to Bo
with merry eyes. "Wal, I kept this here Las Vegas Carmichael
on his say-so. Come on with your good word, unless you want
to see him lose his job."

Bo did not grasp her uncle's bantering, because she was
seriously gazing at the cowboy. But she had grasped
something.

"He -- he was the first person -- out West -- to speak
kindly to us," she said, facing her uncle.

"Wal, thet's a pretty good word, but it ain't enough,"
responded Al.

Subdued laughter came from the listening group. Carmichael
shifted from side to side.

"He -- he looks as if he might ride a horse well," ventured
Bo.

"Best hossman I ever seen," agreed Al, heartily.

"And -- and shoot?" added Bo, hopefully.

"Bo, he packs thet gun low, like Jim Wilson an' all them
Texas gun-fighters. Reckon thet ain't no good word."

"Then -- I'll vouch for him," said Bo, with finality.

"Thet settles it." Auchincloss turned to the cowboy. "Las
Vegas, you're a stranger to us. But you're welcome to a
place in the outfit an' I hope you won't never disappoint
us."

Auchincloss's tone, passing from jest to earnest, betrayed
to Helen the old rancher's need of new and true men, and
hinted of trying days to come.

Carmichael stood before Bo, sombrero in hand, rolling it
round and round, manifestly bursting with words he could not
speak. And the girl looked very young and sweet with her
flushed face and shining eyes. Helen saw in the moment more
than that little by-play of confusion.

"Miss -- Miss Rayner -- I shore -- am obliged," he
stammered, presently.

"You're very welcome," she replied, softly. "I -- I got on
the next train," he added.

When he said that Bo was looking straight at him, but she
seemed not to have heard.

"What's your name?" suddenly she asked.

"Carmichael."

"I heard that. But didn't uncle call you Las Vegas?"

"Shore. But it wasn't my fault. Thet cow-punchin' outfit
saddled it on me, right off . They Don't know no better.
Shore I jest won't answer to thet handle. . . . Now -- Miss
Bo -- my real name is Tom."

"I simply could not call you -- any name but Las Vegas,"
replied Bo, very sweetly.

"But -- beggin' your pardon -- I -- I don't like thet,"
blustered Carmichael.

"People often get called names -- they don't like," she
said, with deep intent.

The cowboy blushed scarlet. Helen as well as he got Bo's
inference to that last audacious epithet he had boldly
called out as the train was leaving Las Vegas. She also
sensed something of the disaster in store for Mr.
Carmichael. Just then the embarrassed young man was saved by
Dale's call to the girls to come to breakfast.

That meal, the last for Helen in Paradise Park, gave rise to
a strange and inexplicable restraint. She had little to say.
Bo was in the highest spirits, teasing the pets, joking with
her uncle and Roy, and even poking fun at Dale. The hunter
seemed somewhat somber. Roy was his usual dry, genial self.
And Auchincloss, who sat near by, was an interested
spectator. When Tom put in an appearance, lounging with his
feline grace into the camp, as if he knew he was a
privileged pet, the rancher could scarcely contain himself.

"Dale, it's thet damn cougar!" he ejaculated.

"Sure, that's Tom."

"He ought to be corralled or chained. I've no use for
cougars," protested Al.

"Tom is as tame an' safe as a kitten."

"A-huh! Wal, you tell thet to the girls if you like. But not
me! I'm an old hoss, I am."

"Uncle Al, Tom sleeps curled up at the foot of my bed," said
Bo.

"Aw -- what?"

"Honest Injun," she responded. "Well, isn't it so?"

Helen smilingly nodded her corroboration. Then Bo called Tom
to her and made him lie with his head on his stretched paws,
right beside her, and beg for bits to eat.

"Wal! I'd never have believed thet!" exclaimed Al, shaking
his big head. "Dale, it's one on me. I've had them big cats
foller me on the trails, through the woods, moonlight an'
dark. An' I've heard 'em let out thet awful cry. They ain't
any wild sound on earth thet can beat a cougar's. Does this
Tom ever let out one of them wails?"

"Sometimes at night," replied Dale.

"Wal, excuse me. Hope you don't fetch the yaller rascal down
to Pine."

"I won't."

"What'll you do with this menagerie?"

Dale regarded the rancher attentively. "Reckon, Al, I'll
take care of them."

"But you're goin' down to my ranch."

"What for?"

Al scratched his head and gazed perplexedly at the hunter.
"Wal, ain't it customary to visit friends?"

"Thanks, Al. Next time I ride down Pine way -- in the
spring, perhaps -- I'll run over an' see how you are."

"Spring!" ejaculated Auchincloss. Then he shook his head
sadly and a far-away look filmed his eyes. "Reckon you'd
call some late."

"Al, you'll get well now. These, girls -- now -- they'll
cure you. Reckon I never saw you look so good."

Auchincloss did not press his point farther at that time,
but after the meal, when the other men came to see Dale's
camp and pets, Helen's quick ears caught the renewal of the
subject.

"I'm askin' you -- will you come?" Auchincloss said, low and
eagerly.

"No. I wouldn't fit in down there," replied Dale.

"Milt, talk sense. You can't go on forever huntin' bear an'
tamin' cats," protested the old rancher.

"Why not?" asked the hunter, thoughtfully.

Auchincloss stood up and, shaking himself as if to ward off
his testy temper, he put a hand on Dale's arm.

"One reason is you're needed in Pine."

"How? Who needs me?"

"I do. I'm playin' out fast. An' Beasley's my enemy. The
ranch an' all I got will go to Nell. Thet ranch will have to
be run by a man an' HELD by a man. Do you savvy? It's a big
job. An' I'm offerin' to make you my foreman right now."

"Al, you sort of take my breath," replied Dale. "An' I'm
sure grateful. But the fact is, even if I could handle the
job, I -- I don't believe I'd want to."

"Make yourself want to, then. Thet 'd soon come. You'd get
interested. This country will develop. I seen thet years
ago. The government is goin' to chase the Apaches out of
here. Soon homesteaders will be flockin' in. Big future,
Dale. You want to get in now. An' --"

Here Auchincloss hesitated, then spoke lower:

"An' take your chance with the girl! . . . I'll be on your
side."

A slight vibrating start ran over Dale's stalwart form.

"Al -- you're plumb dotty!" he exclaimed.

"Dotty! Me? Dotty!" ejaculated Auchincloss. Then he swore.
"In a minit I'll tell you what you are."

"But, Al, that talk's so -- so -- like an old fool's."

"Huh! An' why so?"

"Because that -- wonderful girl would never look at me,"
Dale replied, simply.

"I seen her lookin' already," declared Al, bluntly.

Dale shook his head as if arguing with the old rancher was
hopeless.

"Never mind thet," went on Al. "Mebbe I am a dotty old fool
-- 'specially for takin' a shine to you. But I say again --
will you come down to Pine and be my foreman?"

"No," replied Dale.

"Milt, I've no son -- an' I'm -- afraid of Beasley." This
was uttered in an agitated whisper.

"Al, you make me ashamed," said Dale, hoarsely. "I can't
come. I've no nerve."

"You've no what?"

"Al, I don't know what's wrong with me. But I'm afraid I'd
find out if I came down there."

"A-huh! It's the girl!"

"I don't know, but I'm afraid so. An' I won't come."

"Aw yes, you will --"

Helen rose with beating heart and tingling ears, and moved
away out of hearing. She had listened too long to what had
not been intended for her ears, yet she could not be sorry.
She walked a few rods along the brook, out from under the
pines, and, standing in the open edge of the park, she felt
the beautiful scene still her agitation. The following
moments, then, were the happiest she had spent in Paradise
Park, and the profoundest of her whole life.

Presently her uncle called her.

"Nell, this here hunter wants to give you thet black hoss.
An' I say you take him."

"Ranger deserves better care than I can give him," said
Dale. "He runs free in the woods most of the time. I'd be
obliged if she'd have him. An' the hound, Pedro, too."

Bo swept a saucy glance from Dale to her sister.

"Sure she'll have Ranger. Just offer him to ME!"

Dale stood there expectantly, holding a blanket in his hand,
ready to saddle the horse. Carmichael walked around Ranger
with that appraising eye so keen in cowboys.

"Las Vegas, do you know anything about horses?" asked Bo.

"Me! Wal, if you ever buy or trade a hoss you shore have me
there," replied Carmichael.

"What do you think of Ranger?" went on Bo.

"Shore I'd buy him sudden, if I could."

"Mr. Las Vegas, you're too late," asserted Helen, as she
advanced to lay a hand on the horse.

"Ranger is mine."

Dale smoothed out the blanket and, folding it, he threw it
over the horse; and then with one powerful swing he set the
saddle in place.

"Thank you very much for him," said Helen, softly.

"You're welcome, an' I'm sure glad," responded Dale, and
then, after a few deft, strong pulls at the straps, he
continued. "There, he's ready for you."

With that he laid an arm over the saddle, and faced Helen as
she stood patting and smoothing Ranger. Helen, strong and
calm now, in feminine possession of her secret and his, as
well as her composure, looked frankly and steadily at Dale.
He seemed composed, too, yet the bronze of his fine face was
a trifle pale.

"But I can't thank you -- I'll never be able to repay you --
for your service to me and my sister," said Helen.

"I reckon you needn't try," Dale returned. "An' my service,
as you call it, has been good for me."

"Are you going down to Pine with us?"

"No."

"But you will come soon?"

"Not very soon, I reckon," he replied, and averted his gaze.

"When?"

"Hardly before spring."

"Spring? . . . That is a long time. Won't you come to see me
sooner than that?"

"If I can get down to Pine."

"You're the first friend I've made in the West," said Helen,
earnestly.

"You'll make many more -- an' I reckon soon forget him you
called the man of the forest."

"I never forget any of my friends. And you've been the --
the biggest friend I ever had."

"I'll be proud to remember."

"But will you remember -- will you promise to come to Pine?"

"I reckon."

"Thank you. All's well, then. . . . My friend, goodby."

"Good-by," he said, clasping her hand. His glance was clear,
warm, beautiful, yet it was sad.

Auchincloss's hearty voice broke the spell. Then Helen saw
that the others were mounted. Bo had ridden up close; her
face was earnest and happy and grieved all at once, as she
bade good-by to Dale. The pack-burros were hobbling along
toward the green slope. Helen was the last to mount, but Roy
was the last to leave the hunter. Pedro came reluctantly.

It was a merry, singing train which climbed that brown
odorous trail, under the dark spruces. Helen assuredly was
happy, yet a pang abided in her breast.

She remembered that half-way up the slope there was a turn
in the trail where it came out upon an open bluff. The time
seemed long, but at last she got there. And she checked
Ranger so as to have a moment's gaze down into the park.

It yawned there, a dark-green and bright-gold gulf, asleep
under a westering sun, exquisite, wild, lonesome. Then she
saw Dale standing in the open space between the pines and
the spruces. He waved to her. And she returned the salute.

Roy caught up with her then and halted his horse. He waved
his sombrero to Dale and let out a piercing yell that awoke
the sleeping echoes, splitting strangely from cliff to cliff
.

"Shore Milt never knowed what it was to be lonesome," said
Roy, as if thinking aloud. "But he'll know now."

Ranger stepped out of his own accord and, turning off the
ledge, entered the spruce forest. Helen lost sight of
Paradise Park. For hours then she rode along a shady,
fragrant trail, seeing the beauty of color and wildness,
hearing the murmur and rush and roar of water, but all the
while her mind revolved the sweet and momentous realization
which had thrilled her -- that the hunter, this strange man
of the forest, so deeply versed in nature and so unfamiliar
with emotion, aloof and simple and strong like the elements
which had developed him, had fallen in love with her and did
not know it.

CHAPTER XV

Dale stood with face and arm upraised, and he watched Helen
ride off the ledge to disappear in the forest. That vast
spruce slope seemed to have swallowed her. She was gone!
Slowly Dale lowered his arm with gesture expressive of a
strange finality, an eloquent despair, of which he was
unconscious.

He turned to the park, to his camp, and the many duties of a
hunter. The park did not seem the same, nor his home, nor
his work.

"I reckon this feelin's natural," he soliloquized,
resignedly, "but it's sure queer for me. That's what comes
of makin' friends. Nell an' Bo, now, they made a difference,
an' a difference I never knew before."

He calculated that this difference had been simply one of
responsibility, and then the charm and liveliness of the
companionship of girls, and finally friendship. These would
pass now that the causes were removed.

Before he had worked an hour around camp he realized a
change had come, but it was not the one anticipated. Always
before he had put his mind on his tasks, whatever they might
be; now he worked while his thoughts were strangely
involved.

The little bear cub whined at his heels; the tame deer
seemed to regard him with deep, questioning eyes, the big
cougar padded softly here and there as if searching for
something.

"You all miss them -- now -- I reckon," said Dale. "Well,
they're gone an' you'll have to get along with me."

Some vague approach to irritation with his pets surprised
him. Presently he grew both irritated and surprised with
himself -- a state of mind totally unfamiliar. Several
times, as old habit brought momentary abstraction, he found
himself suddenly looking around for Helen and Bo. And each
time the shock grew stronger. They were gone, but their
presence lingered. After his camp chores were completed he
went over to pull down the lean-to which the girls had
utilized as a tent. The spruce boughs had dried out brown
and sear; the wind had blown the roof awry; the sides were
leaning in. As there was now no further use for this little
habitation, he might better pull it down. Dale did not
acknowledge that his gaze had involuntarily wandered toward
it many times. Therefore he strode over with the intention
of destroying it.

For the first time since Roy and he had built the lean-to he
stepped inside. Nothing was more certain than the fact that
he experienced a strange sensation, perfectly
incomprehensible to him. The blankets lay there on the
spruce boughs, disarranged and thrown back by hurried hands,
yet still holding something of round folds where the slender
forms had nestled. A black scarf often worn by Bo lay
covering the pillow of pine-needles; a red ribbon that Helen
had worn on her hair hung from a twig. These articles were
all that had been forgotten. Dale gazed at them attentively,
then at the blankets, and all around the fragrant little
shelter; and he stepped outside with an uncomfortable
knowledge that he could not destroy the place where Helen
and Bo had spent so many hours.

Whereupon, in studious mood, Dale took up his rifle and
strode out to hunt. His winter supply of venison had not yet
been laid in. Action suited his mood; he climbed far and
passed by many a watching buck to slay which seemed murder;
at last he jumped one that was wild and bounded away. This
he shot, and set himself a Herculean task in packing the
whole carcass back to camp. Burdened thus, be staggered
under the trees, sweating freely, many times laboring for
breath, aching with toil, until at last he had reached camp.
There he slid the deer carcass off his shoulders, and,
standing over it, he gazed down while his breast labored. It
was one of the finest young bucks he had ever seen. But
neither in stalking it, nor making a wonderful shot, nor in
packing home a weight that would have burdened two men, nor
in gazing down at his beautiful quarry, did Dale experience
any of the old joy of the hunter.

"I'm a little off my feed," he mused, as he wiped sweat from
his heated face. "Maybe a little dotty, as I called Al. But
that'll pass."

Whatever his state, it did not pass. As of old, after a long
day's hunt, he reclined beside the camp-fire and watched the
golden sunset glows change on the ramparts; as of old he
laid a hand on the soft, furry head of the pet cougar; as of
old he watched the gold change to red and then to dark, and
twilight fall like a blanket; as of old he listened to the
dreamy, lulling murmur of the water fall. The old familiar
beauty, wildness, silence, and loneliness were there, but
the old content seemed strangely gone.

Soberly he confessed then that he missed the happy company
of the girls. He did not distinguish Helen from Bo in his
slow introspection. When he sought his bed he did not at
once fall to sleep. Always, after a few moments of
wakefulness, while the silence settled down or the wind
moaned through the pines, he had fallen asleep. This night
he found different. Though he was tired, sleep would not
soon come. The wilderness, the mountains, the park, the camp
-- all seemed to have lost something. Even the darkness
seemed empty. And when at length Dale fell asleep it was to
be troubled by restless dreams.

Up with the keen-edged, steely-bright dawn, he went at the
his tasks with the springy stride of the deer-stalker.

At the end of that strenuous day, which was singularly full
of the old excitement and action and danger, and of new
observations, he was bound to confess that no longer did the
chase suffice for him.

Many times on the heights that day, with the wind keen in
his face, and the vast green billows of spruce below him, he
had found that be was gazing without seeing, halting without
object, dreaming as he had never dreamed before.

Once, when a magnificent elk came out upon a rocky ridge
and, whistling a challenge to invisible rivals, stood there
a target to stir any hunter's pulse, Dale did not even raise
his rifle. Into his ear just then rang Helen's voice: "Milt
Dale, you are no Indian. Giving yourself to a hunter's
wildlife is selfish. It is wrong. You love this lonely life,
but it is not work. Work that does not help others is not a
real man's work."

From that moment conscience tormented him. It was not what
he loved, but what he ought to do, that counted in the sum
of good achieved in the world. Old Al Auchincloss had been
right. Dale was wasting strength and intelligence that
should go to do his share in the development of the West.
Now that he had reached maturity, if through his knowledge
of nature's law he had come to see the meaning of the strife
of men for existence, for place, for possession, and to hold
them in contempt, that was no reason why he should keep
himself aloof from them, from some work that was needed in
an incomprehensible world.

Dale did not hate work, but he loved freedom. To be alone,
to live with nature, to feel the elements, to labor and
dream and idle and climb and sleep unhampered by duty, by
worry, by restriction, by the petty interests of men -- this
had always been his ideal of living. Cowboys, riders,
sheep-herders, farmers -- these toiled on from one place and
one job to another for the little money doled out to them.
Nothing beautiful, nothing significant had ever existed in
that for him. He had worked as a boy at every kind of
range-work, and of all that humdrum waste of effort he had
liked sawing wood best. Once he had quit a job of branding
cattle because the smell of burning hide, the bawl of the
terrified calf, had sickened him. If men were honest there
would be no need to scar cattle. He had never in the least
desired to own land and droves of stock, and make deals with
ranchmen, deals advantageous to himself. Why should a man
want to make a deal or trade a horse or do a piece of work
to another man's disadvantage? Self-preservation was the
first law of life. But as the plants and trees and birds and
beasts interpreted that law, merciless and inevitable as
they were, they had neither greed nor dishonesty. They lived
by the grand rule of what was best for the greatest number.

But Dale's philosophy, cold and clear and inevitable, like
nature itself, began to be pierced by the human appeal in
Helen Rayner's words. What did she mean? Not that he should
lose his love of the wilderness, but that he realize
himself! Many chance words of that girl had depth. He was
young, strong, intelligent, free from taint of disease or
the fever of drink. He could do something for others. Who?
If that mattered, there, for instance, was poor old Mrs.
Cass, aged and lame now; there was Al Auchincloss, dying in
his boots, afraid of enemies, and wistful for his blood and
his property to receive the fruit of his labors; there were
the two girls, Helen and Bo, new and strange to the West,
about to be confronted by a big problem of ranch life and
rival interests. Dale thought of still more people in the
little village of Pine -- of others who had failed, whose
lives were hard, who could have been made happier by
kindness and assistance.

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