Books: The Man of the Forest

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They rode into the forest.

To Helen it seemed a strange, critical entrance into another
world, which she was destined to know and to love. The pines
were big, brown-barked, seamed, and knotted, with no typical
conformation except a majesty and beauty. They grew far
apart. Few small pines and little underbrush flourished
beneath them. The floor of this forest appeared remarkable
in that it consisted of patches of high silvery grass and
wide brown areas of pine-needles. These manifestly were what
Roy had meant by pine-mats. Here and there a fallen monarch
lay riven or rotting. Helen was presently struck with the
silence of the forest and the strange fact that the horses
seldom made any sound at all, and when they did it was a
cracking of dead twig or thud of hoof on log. Likewise she
became aware of a springy nature of the ground. And then she
saw that the pine-mats gave like rubber cushions under the
hoofs of the horses, and after they had passed sprang back
to place again, leaving no track. Helen could not see a sign
of a trail they left behind. Indeed, it would take a sharp
eye to follow Dale through that forest. This knowledge was
infinitely comforting to Helen, and for the first time since
the flight had begun she felt a lessening of the weight upon
mind and heart. It left her free for some of the
appreciation she might have had in this wonderful ride under
happier circumstances.

Bo, however, seemed too young, too wild, too intense to mind
what the circumstances were. She responded to reality. Helen
began to suspect that the girl would welcome any adventure,
and Helen knew surely now that Bo was a true Auchincloss.
For three long days Helen had felt a constraint with which
heretofore she had been unfamiliar; for the last hours it
had been submerged under dread. But it must be, she
concluded, blood like her sister's, pounding at her veins to
be set free to race and to burn.

Bo loved action. She had an eye for beauty, but she was not
contemplative. She was now helping Dale drive the horses and
hold them in rather close formation. She rode well, and as
yet showed no symptoms of fatigue or pain. Helen began to be
aware of both, but not enough yet to limit her interest.

A wonderful forest without birds did not seem real to her.
Of all living creatures in nature Helen liked birds best,
and she knew many and could imitate the songs of a few. But
here under the stately pines there were no birds. Squirrels,
however, began to be seen here and there, and in the course
of an hour's travel became abundant. The only one with which
she was familiar was the chipmunk. All the others, from the
slim bright blacks to the striped russets and the
white-tailed grays, were totally new to her. They appeared
tame and curious. The reds barked and scolded at the passing
cavalcade; the blacks glided to some safe branch, there to
watch; the grays paid no especial heed to this invasion of
their domain.

Once Dale, halting his horse, pointed with long arm, and
Helen, following the direction, descried several gray deer
standing in a glade, motionless, with long ears up. They
made a wild and beautiful picture. Suddenly they bounded
away with remarkable springy strides.

The forest on the whole held to the level, open character,
but there were swales and stream-beds breaking up its
regular conformity. Toward noon, however, it gradually
changed, a fact that Helen believed she might have observed
sooner had she been more keen. The general lay of the land
began to ascend, and the trees to grow denser.

She made another discovery. Ever since she had entered the
forest she had become aware of a fullness in her head and a
something affecting her nostrils. She imagined, with regret,
that she had taken cold. But presently her head cleared
somewhat and she realized that the thick pine odor of the
forest had clogged her nostrils as if with a sweet pitch.
The smell was overpowering and disagreeable because of its
strength. Also her throat and lungs seemed to burn.

When she began to lose interest in the forest and her
surroundings it was because of aches and pains which would
no longer be denied recognition. Thereafter she was not
permitted to forget them and they grew worse. One,
especially, was a pain beyond all her experience. It lay in
the muscles of her side, above her hip, and it grew to be a
treacherous thing, for it was not persistent. It came and
went. After it did come, with a terrible flash, it could be
borne by shifting or easing the body. But it gave no
warning. When she expected it she was mistaken; when she
dared to breathe again, then, with piercing swiftness, it
returned like a blade in her side. This, then, was one of
the riding-pains that made a victim of a tenderfoot on a
long ride. It was almost too much to be borne. The beauty of
the forest, the living creatures to be seen scurrying away,
the time, distance -- everything faded before that stablike
pain. To her infinite relief she found that it was the trot
that caused this torture. When Ranger walked she did not
have to suffer it. Therefore she held him to a walk as long
as she dared or until Dale and Bo were almost out of sight;
then she loped him ahead until he had caught up.

So the hours passed, the sun got around low, sending golden
shafts under the trees, and the forest gradually changed to
a brighter, but a thicker, color. This slowly darkened.
Sunset was not far away.

She heard the horses splashing in water, and soon she rode
up to see the tiny streams of crystal water running swiftly
over beds of green moss. She crossed a number of these and
followed along the last one into a more open place in the
forest where the pines were huge, towering, and far apart. A
low, gray bluff of stone rose to the right, perhaps
one-third as high as the trees. From somewhere came the
rushing sound of running water.

"Big Spring," announced Dale. "We camp here. You girls have
done well."

Another glance proved to Helen that all those little streams
poured from under this gray bluff.

"I'm dying for a drink," cried Bo. with her customary
hyperbole.

"I reckon you'll never forget your first drink here,"
remarked Dale.

Bo essayed to dismount, and finally fell off, and when she
did get to the ground her legs appeared to refuse their
natural function, and she fell flat. Dale helped her up.

"What's wrong with me, anyhow?" she demanded, in great
amaze.

"Just stiff, I reckon," replied Dale, as he led her a few
awkward steps.

"Bo, have you any hurts?" queried Helen, who still sat her
horse, loath to try dismounting, yet wanting to beyond all
words.

Bo gave her an eloquent glance.

"Nell, did you have one in your side, like a wicked, long
darning-needle, punching deep when you weren't ready?"

"That one I'll never get over!" exclaimed Helen, softly.
Then, profiting by Bo's experience, she dismounted
cautiously, and managed to keep upright. Her legs felt like
wooden things.

Presently the girls went toward the spring.

"Drink slow," called out Dale.

Big Spring had its source somewhere deep under the gray,
weathered bluff, from which came a hollow subterranean
gurgle and roar of water. Its fountainhead must have been a
great well rushing up through the cold stone.

Helen and Bo lay flat on a mossy bank, seeing their faces as
they bent over, and they sipped a mouthful, by Dale's
advice, and because they were so hot and parched and burning
they wanted to tarry a moment with a precious opportunity.

The water was so cold that it sent a shock over Helen, made
her teeth ache, and a singular, revivifying current steal
all through her, wonderful in its cool absorption of that
dry heat of flesh, irresistible in its appeal to thirst.
Helen raised her head to look at this water. It was
colorless as she had found it tasteless.

"Nell -- drink!" panted Bo. "Think of our -- old spring --
in the orchard -- full of pollywogs!"

And then Helen drank thirstily, with closed eyes, while a
memory of home stirred from Bo's gift of poignant speech.

CHAPTER VII

The first camp duty Dale performed was to throw a pack off
one of the horses, and, opening it, he took out tarpaulin
and blankets, which he arranged on the ground under a
pine-tree.

"You girls rest," he said, briefly.

"Can't we help?" asked Helen, though she could scarcely
stand.

"You'll be welcome to do all you like after you're broke
in."

"Broke in!" ejaculated Bo, with a little laugh. "I'm all
broke UP now."

"Bo, it looks as if Mr. Dale expects us to have quite a stay
with him in the woods."

"It does," replied Bo, as slowly she sat down upon the
blankets, stretched out with a long sigh, and laid her head
on a saddle. "Nell, didn't he say not to call him Mister?"

Dale was throwing the packs off the other horses.

Helen lay down beside Bo, and then for once in her life she
experienced the sweetness of rest.

"Well, sister, what do you intend to call him?" queried
Helen, curiously.

"Milt, of course," replied Bo.

Helen had to laugh despite her weariness and aches.

"I suppose, then, when your Las Vegas cowboy comes along you
will call him what he called you."

Bo blushed, which was a rather unusual thing for her.

"I will if I like," she retorted. "Nell, ever since I could
remember you've raved about the West. Now you're OUT West,
right in it good and deep. So wake up!"

That was Bo's blunt and characteristic way of advising the
elimination of Helen's superficialities. It sank deep. Helen
had no retort. Her ambition, as far as the West was
concerned, had most assuredly not been for such a wild,
unheard-of jaunt as this. But possibly the West -- a living
from day to day -- was one succession of adventures, trials,
tests, troubles, and achievements. To make a place for
others to live comfortably some day! That might be Bo's
meaning, embodied in her forceful hint. But Helen was too
tired to think it out then. She found it interesting and
vaguely pleasant to watch Dale.

He hobbled the horses and turned them loose. Then with ax in
hand he approached a short, dead tree, standing among a few
white-barked aspens. Dale appeared to advantage swinging the
ax. With his coat off, displaying his wide shoulders,
straight back, and long, powerful arms, he looked a young
giant. He was lithe and supple, brawny but not bulky. The ax
rang on the hard wood, reverberating through the forest. A
few strokes sufficed to bring down the stub. Then he split
it up. Helen was curious to see how he kindled a fire. First
he ripped splinters out of the heart of the log, and laid
them with coarser pieces on the ground. Then from a
saddlebag which hung on a near-by branch he took flint and
steel and a piece of what Helen supposed was rag or
buckskin, upon which powder had been rubbed. At any rate,
the first strike of the steel brought sparks, a blaze, and
burning splinters. Instantly the flame leaped a foot high.
He put on larger pieces of wood crosswise, and the fire
roared.

That done, he stood erect, and, facing the north, he
listened. Helen remembered now that she had seen him do the
same thing twice before since the arrival at Big Spring. It
was Roy for whom he was listening and watching. The sun had
set and across the open space the tips of the pines were
losing their brightness.

The camp utensils, which the hunter emptied out of a sack,
gave forth a jangle of iron and tin. Next he unrolled a
large pack, the contents of which appeared to be numerous
sacks of all sizes. These evidently contained food supplies.
The bucket looked as if a horse had rolled over it, pack and
all. Dale filled it at the spring. Upon returning to the
camp-fire he poured water into a washbasin, and, getting
down to his knees, proceeded to wash his hands thoroughly.
The act seemed a habit, for Helen saw that while he was
doing it he gazed off into the woods and listened. Then he
dried his hands over the fire, and, turning to the
spread-out pack, he began preparations for the meal.

Suddenly Helen thought of the man and all that his actions
implied. At Magdalena, on the stage-ride, and last night,
she had trusted this stranger, a hunter of the White
Mountains, who appeared ready to befriend her. And she had
felt an exceeding gratitude. Still, she had looked at him
impersonally. But it began to dawn upon her that chance had
thrown her in the company of a remarkable man. That
impression baffled her. It did not spring from the fact that
he was brave and kind to help a young woman in peril, or
that he appeared deft and quick at camp-fire chores. Most
Western men were brave, her uncle had told her, and many
were roughly kind, and all of them could cook. This hunter
was physically a wonderful specimen of manhood, with
something leonine about his stature. But that did not give
rise to her impression. Helen had been a school-teacher and
used to boys, and she sensed a boyish simplicity or vigor or
freshness in this hunter. She believed, however, that it was
a mental and spiritual force in Dale which had drawn her to
think of it.

"Nell, I've spoken to you three times," protested Bo,
petulantly. "What 're you mooning over?"

"I'm pretty tired -- and far away, Bo," replied Helen. "What
did you say?"

"I said I had an e-normous appetite."

"Really. That's not remarkable for you. I'm too tired to
eat. And afraid to shut my eyes. They'd never come open.
When did we sleep last, Bo?"

"Second night before we left home," declared Bo.

"Four nights! Oh, we've slept some."

"I'll bet I make mine up in this woods. Do you suppose we'll
sleep right here -- under this tree -- with no covering?"

"It looks so," replied Helen, dubiously.

"How perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Bo, in delight. "We'll see
the stars through the pines."

"Seems to be clouding over. Wouldn't it be awful if we had a
storm?"

"Why, I don't know," answered Bo, thoughtfully. "It must
storm out West."

Again Helen felt a quality of inevitableness in Bo. It was
something that had appeared only practical in the humdrum
home life in St. Joseph. All of a sudden Helen received a
flash of wondering thought -- a thrilling consciousness that
she and Bo had begun to develop in a new and wild
environment. How strange, and fearful, perhaps, to watch
that growth! Bo, being younger, more impressionable, with
elemental rather than intellectual instincts, would grow
stronger more swiftly. Helen wondered if she could yield to
her own leaning to the primitive. But how could anyone with
a thoughtful and grasping mind yield that way? It was the
savage who did not think.

Helen saw Dale stand erect once more and gaze into the
forest.

"Reckon Roy ain't comin'," he soliloquized. "An' that's
good." Then he turned to the girls. "Supper's ready."

The girls responded with a spirit greater than their
activity. And they ate like famished children that had been
lost in the woods. Dale attended them with a pleasant light
upon his still face.

"To-morrow night we'll have meat," he said.

"What kind?" asked Bo.

"Wild turkey or deer. Maybe both, if you like. But it's well
to take wild meat slow. An' turkey -- that 'll melt in your
mouth."

"Uummm!" murmured Bo, greedily. "I've heard of wild turkey."

When they had finished Dale ate his meal, listening to the
talk of the girls, and occasionally replying briefly to some
query of Bo's. It was twilight when he began to wash the
pots and pans, and almost dark by the time his duties
appeared ended. Then he replenished the campfire and sat
down on a log to gaze into the fire. The girls leaned
comfortably propped against the saddles.

"Nell, I'll keel over in a minute," said Bo. "And I oughtn't
-- right on such a big supper."

"I don't see how I can sleep, and I know I can't stay
awake," rejoined Helen.

Dale lifted his head alertly.

"Listen."

The girls grew tense and still. Helen could not hear a
sound, unless it was a low thud of hoof out in the gloom.
The forest seemed sleeping. She knew from Bo's eyes, wide
and shining in the camp-fire light, that she, too, had
failed to catch whatever it was Dale meant.

"Bunch of coyotes comin'," he explained.

Suddenly the quietness split to a chorus of snappy,
high-strung, strange barks. They sounded wild, yet they held
something of a friendly or inquisitive note. Presently gray
forms could be descried just at the edge of the circle of
light. Soft rustlings of stealthy feet surrounded. the camp,
and then barks and yelps broke out all around. It was a
restless and sneaking pack of animals, thought Helen; she
was glad after the chorus ended and with a few desultory,
spiteful yelps the coyotes went away.

Silence again settled down. If it had not been for the
anxiety always present in Helen's mind she would have
thought this silence sweet and unfamiliarly beautiful.

"Ah! Listen to that fellow," spoke up Dale. His voice was
thrilling.

Again the girls strained their ears. That was not necessary,
for presently, clear and cold out of the silence, pealed a
mournful howl, long drawn, strange and full and wild.

"Oh! What's that?" whispered Bo.

"That's a big gray wolf -- a timber-wolf, or lofer, as he's
sometimes called," replied Dale. "He's high on some rocky
ridge back there. He scents us, an' he doesn't like it. . .
. There he goes again. Listen! Ah, he's hungry."

While Helen listened to this exceedingly wild cry -- so wild
that it made her flesh creep and the most indescribable
sensations of loneliness come over her -- she kept her
glance upon Dale.

"You love him?" she murmured involuntarily, quite without
understanding the motive of her query.

Assuredly Dale had never had that question asked of him
before, and it seemed to Helen, as he pondered, that he had
never even asked it of himself.

"I reckon so," he replied, presently.

"But wolves kill deer, and little fawns, and everything
helpless in the forest," expostulated Bo.

The hunter nodded his head.

"Why, then, can you love him?" repeated Helen.

"Come to think of it, I reckon it's because of lots of
reasons," returned Dale. "He kills clean. He eats no
carrion. He's no coward. He fights. He dies game. . . . An'
he likes to be alone."

"Kills clean. What do you mean by that?"

"A cougar, now, he mangles a deer. An' a silvertip, when
killin' a cow or colt, he makes a mess of it. But a wolf
kills clean, with sharp snaps."

"What are a cougar and a silvertip?"

"Cougar means mountain-lion or panther, an' a silvertip is a
grizzly bear."

"Oh, they're all cruel!" exclaimed Helen, shrinking.

"I reckon. Often I've shot wolves for relayin' a deer."

"What's that?"

"Sometimes two or more wolves will run a deer, an' while one
of them rests the other will drive the deer around to his
pardner, who'll, take up the chase. That way they run the
deer down. Cruel it is, but nature, an' no worse than snow
an' ice that starve deer, or a fox that kills turkey-chicks
breakin' out of the egg, or ravens that pick the eyes out of
new-born lambs an' wait till they die. An' for that matter,
men are crueler than beasts of prey, for men add to nature,
an' have more than instincts."

Helen was silenced, as well as shocked. She had not only
learned a new and striking viewpoint in natural history, but
a clear intimation to the reason why she had vaguely
imagined or divined a remarkable character in this man. A
hunter was one who killed animals for their fur, for their
meat or horns, or for some lust for blood -- that was
Helen's definition of a hunter, and she believed it was held
by the majority of people living in settled states. But the
majority might be wrong. A hunter might be vastly different,
and vastly more than a tracker and slayer of game. The
mountain world of forest was a mystery to almost all men.
Perhaps Dale knew its secrets, its life, its terror, its
beauty, its sadness, and its joy; and if so, how full, how
wonderful must be his mind! He spoke of men as no better
than wolves. Could a lonely life in the wilderness teach a
man that? Bitterness, envy, jealousy, spite, greed, and hate
-- these had no place in this hunter's heart. It was not
Helen's shrewdness, but a woman's intuition, which divined
that.

Dale rose to his feet and, turning his ear to the north,
listened once more.

"Are you expecting Roy still?" inquired Helen.

"No, it ain't likely he'll turn up to-night," replied Dale,
and then he strode over to put a hand on the pine-tree that
soared above where the girls lay. His action, and the way he
looked up at the tree-top and then at adjacent trees, held
more of that significance which so interested Helen.

"I reckon he's stood there some five hundred years an' will
stand through to-night," muttered Dale.

This pine was the monarch of that wide-spread group.

"Listen again," said Dale.

Bo was asleep. And Helen, listening, at once caught low,
distant roar.

"Wind. It's goin' to storm," explained Dale. "You'll hear
somethin' worth while. But don't be scared. Reckon we'll be
safe. Pines blow down often. But this fellow will stand any
fall wind that ever was. . . . Better slip under the
blankets so I can pull the tarp up."

Helen slid down, just as she was, fully dressed except for
boots, which she and Bo had removed; and she laid her head
close to Bo's. Dale pulled the tarpaulin up and folded it
back just below their heads.

"When it rains you'll wake, an' then just pull the tarp up
over you," he said.

"Will it rain?" Helen asked. But she was thinking that this
moment was the strangest that had ever happened to her. By
the light of the camp-fire she saw Dale's face, just as
usual, still, darkly serene, expressing no thought. He was
kind, but he was not thinking of these sisters as girls,
alone with him in a pitch-black forest, helpless and
defenseless. He did not seem to be thinking at all. But
Helen had never before in her life been so keenly
susceptible to experience.

"I'll be close by an' keep the fire goin' all night," he
said.

She heard him stride off into the darkness. Presently there
came a dragging, bumping sound, then a crash of a log
dropped upon the fire. A cloud of sparks shot up, and many
pattered down to hiss upon the damp ground. Smoke again
curled upward along the great, seamed tree-trunk, and flames
sputtered and crackled.

Helen listened again for the roar of wind. It seemed to come
on a breath of air that fanned her cheek and softly blew
Bo's curls, and it was stronger. But it died out presently,
only to come again, and still stronger. Helen realized then
that the sound was that of an approaching storm. Her heavy
eyelids almost refused to stay open, and she knew if she let
them close she would instantly drop to sleep. And she wanted
to hear the storm-wind in the pines.

A few drops of cold rain fell upon her face, thrilling her
with the proof that no roof stood between her and the
elements. Then a breeze bore the smell of burnt wood into
her face, and somehow her quick mind flew to girlhood days
when she burned brush and leaves with her little brothers.
The memory faded. The roar that had seemed distant was now
back in the forest, coming swiftly, increasing in volume.
Like a stream in flood it bore down. Helen grew amazed,
startled. How rushing, oncoming, and heavy this storm-wind!
She likened its approach to the tread of an army. Then the
roar filled the forest, yet it was back there behind her.
Not a pine-needle quivered in the light of the camp-fire.
But the air seemed to be oppressed with a terrible charge.
The roar augmented till it was no longer a roar, but an
on-sweeping crash, like an ocean torrent engulfing the
earth. Bo awoke to cling to Helen with fright. The deafening
storm-blast was upon them. Helen felt the saddle-pillow move
under her head. The giant pine had trembled to its very
roots. That mighty fury of wind was all aloft, in the
tree-tops. And for a long moment it bowed the forest under
its tremendous power. Then the deafening crash passed to
roar, and that swept on and on, lessening in volume,
deepening in low detonation, at last to die in the distance.

No sooner had it died than back to the north another low
roar rose and ceased and rose again. Helen lay there,
whispering to Bo, and heard again the great wave of wind
come and crash and cease. That was the way of this
storm-wind of the mountain forest.

A soft patter of rain on the tarpaulin warned Helen to
remember Dale's directions, and, pulling up the heavy
covering, she arranged it hoodlike over the saddle. Then,
with Bo close and warm beside her, she closed her eyes, and
the sense of the black forest and the wind and rain faded.
Last of all sensations was the smell of smoke that blew
under the tarpaulin.

When she opened her eyes she remembered everything, as if
only a moment had elapsed. But it was daylight, though gray
and cloudy. The pines were dripping mist. A fire crackled
cheerily and blue smoke curled upward and a savory odor of
hot coffee hung in the air. Horses were standing near by,
biting and kicking at one another. Bo was sound asleep. Dale
appeared busy around the camp-fire. As Helen watched the
hunter she saw him pause in his task, turn his ear to
listen, and then look expectantly. And at that juncture a
shout pealed from the forest. Helen recognized Roy's voice.
Then she heard a splashing of water, and hoof-beats coming
closer. With that the buckskin mustang trotted into camp,
carrying Roy.

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