The Man of the Forest by Zane Grey (fb2 epub reader .txt) 📕

CHAPTER I

At sunset hour the forest was still, lonely, sweet with tang

of fir and spruce, blazing in gold and red and green; and

the man who glided on under the great trees seemed to blend

with the colors and, disappearing, to have become a part of

the wild woodland.

 

Old Baldy, highest of the White Mountains, stood up round

and bare, rimmed bright gold in the last glow of the setting

sun. Then, as the fire dropped behind the domed peak, a

change, a cold and darkening blight, passed down the black

spear-pointed slopes over all that mountain world.

 

It was a wild, richly timbered, and abundantly watered

region of dark forests and grassy parks, ten thousand feet

above sea-level, isolated on all sides by the southern

Arizona desert — the virgin home of elk and deer, of bear

and lion, of wolf and fox, and the birthplace as well as the

hiding-place of the fierce Apache.

 

September in that latitude was marked by the sudden cool

night breeze following shortly after sundown. Twilight

appeared to come on its wings, as did faint sounds, not

distinguishable before in the stillness.

 

Milt Dale, man of the forest, halted at the edge of a

timbered ridge, to listen and to watch. Beneath him lay a

narrow valley, open and grassy, from which rose a faint

murmur of running water. Its music was pierced by the wild

staccato yelp of a hunting coyote. From overhead in the

giant fir came a twittering and rustling of grouse settling

for the night; and from across the valley drifted the last

low calls of wild turkeys going to roost.

 

To Dale’s keen ear these sounds were all they should have

been, betokening an unchanged serenity of forestland. He was

glad, for he had expected to hear the clipclop of white

men’s horses — which to hear up in those fastnesses was

hateful to him. He and the Indian were friends. That fierce

foe had no enmity toward the lone hunter. But there hid

somewhere in the forest a gang of bad men, sheep-thieves,

whom Dale did not want to meet.

 

As he started out upon the slope, a sudden flaring of the

afterglow of sunset flooded down from Old Baldy, filling the

valley with lights and shadows, yellow and blue, like the

radiance of the sky. The pools in the curves of the brook

shone darkly bright. Dale’s gaze swept up and down the

valley, and then tried to pierce the black shadows across

the brook where the wall of spruce stood up, its speared and

spiked crest against the pale clouds. The wind began to moan

in the trees and there was a feeling of rain in the air.

Dale, striking a trail, turned his back to the fading

afterglow and strode down the valley.

 

With night at hand and a rain-storm brewing, he did not head

for his own camp, some miles distant, but directed his steps

toward an old log cabin. When he reached it darkness had

almost set in. He approached with caution. This cabin, like

the few others scattered in the valleys, might harbor

Indians or a bear or a panther. Nothing, however, appeared

to be there. Then Dale studied the clouds driving across the

sky, and he felt the cool dampness of a fine, misty rain on

his face. It would rain off and on during the night.

Whereupon he entered the cabin.

 

And the next moment he heard quick hoof-beats of trotting

horses. Peering out, he saw dim, moving forms in the

darkness, quite close at hand. They had approached against

the wind so that sound had been deadened. Five horses with

riders, Dale made out — saw them loom close. Then he heard

rough voices. Quickly he turned to feel in the dark for a

ladder he knew led to a loft; and finding it, he quickly

mounted, taking care not to make a noise with his rifle, and

lay down upon the floor of brush and poles. Scarcely had he

done so when heavy steps, with accompaniment of clinking

spurs, passed through the door below into the cabin.

 

“Wal, Beasley, are you here?” queried a loud voice.

 

There was no reply. The man below growled under his breath,

and again the spurs jingled.

 

“Fellars, Beasley ain’t here yet,” he called. “Put the

hosses under the shed. We’ll wait.”

 

“Wait, huh!” came a harsh reply. “Mebbe all night — an’ we

got nuthin’ to eat.”

 

“Shut up, Moze. Reckon you’re no good for anythin’ but

eatin’. Put them hosses away an’ some of you rustle

fire-wood in here.”

 

Low, muttered curses, then mingled with dull thuds of hoofs

and strain of leather and heaves of tired horses.

 

Another shuffling, clinking footstep entered the cabin.

 

“Snake, it’d been sense to fetch a pack along,” drawled this

newcomer.

 

“Reckon so, Jim. But we didn’t, an’ what’s the use

hollerin’? Beasley won’t keep us waitin’ long.”

 

Dale, lying still and prone, felt a slow start in all his

blood — a thrilling wave. That deep-voiced man below was

Snake Anson, the worst and most dangerous character of the

region; and the others, undoubtedly, composed his gang, long

notorious in that sparsely settled country. And the Beasley

mentioned — he was one of the two biggest ranchers and

sheep-raisers of the White Mountain ranges. What was the

meaning of a rendezvous between Snake Anson and Beasley?

Milt Dale answered that question to Beasley’s discredit; and

many strange matters pertaining to sheep and herders, always

a mystery to the little village of Pine, now became as clear

as daylight.

 

Other men entered the cabin.

 

“It ain’t a-goin’ to rain much,” said one. Then came a crash

of wood thrown to the ground.

 

“Jim, hyar’s a chunk of pine log, dry as punk,” said

another.

 

Rustlings and slow footsteps, and then heavy thuds attested

to the probability that Jim was knocking the end of a log

upon the ground to split off a corner whereby a handful of

dry splinters could be procured.

 

“Snake, lemme your pipe, an’ I’ll hev a fire in a jiffy.”

 

“Wal, I want my terbacco an’ I ain’t carin’ about no fire,”

replied Snake.

 

“Reckon you’re the meanest cuss in these woods,” drawled

Jim.

 

Sharp click of steel on flint — many times — and then a

sound of hard blowing and sputtering told of Jim’s efforts

to start a fire. Presently the pitchy blackness of the cabin

changed; there came a little crackling of wood and the

rustle of flame, and then a steady growing roar.

 

As it chanced, Dale lay face down upon the floor of the

loft, and right near his eyes there were cracks between the

boughs. When the fire blazed up he was fairly well able to

see the men below. The only one he had ever seen was Jim

Wilson, who had been well known at Pine before Snake Anson

had ever been heard of. Jim was the best of a bad lot, and

he had friends among the honest people. It was rumored that

he and Snake did not pull well together.

 

“Fire feels good,” said the burly Moze, who appeared as

broad as he was black-visaged. “Fall’s sure a-comin’…

Now if only we had some grub!”

 

“Moze, there’s a hunk of deer meat in my saddlebag, an’ if

you git it you can have half,” spoke up another voice.

 

Moze shuffled out with alacrity.

 

In the firelight Snake Anson’s face looked lean and

serpent-like, his eyes glittered, and his long neck and all

of his long length carried out the analogy of his name.

 

“Snake, what’s this here deal with Beasley?” inquired Jim.

 

“Reckon you’ll l’arn when I do,” replied the leader. He

appeared tired and thoughtful.

 

“Ain’t we done away with enough of them poor greaser herders

— for nothin’?” queried the youngest of the gang, a boy in

years, whose hard, bitter lips and hungry eyes somehow set

him apart from his comrades.

 

“You’re dead right, Burt — an’ that’s my stand,” replied

the man who had sent Moze out. “Snake, snow ‘ll be flyin’

round these woods before long,” said Jim Wilson. “Are we

goin’ to winter down in the Tonto Basin or over on the

Gila?”

 

“Reckon we’ll do some tall ridin’ before we strike south,”

replied Snake, gruffly.

 

At the juncture Moze returned.

 

“Boss, I heerd a hoss comin’ up the trail,” he said.

 

Snake rose and stood at the door, listening. Outside the

wind moaned fitfully and scattering raindrops pattered upon

the cabin.

 

“A-huh!” exclaimed Snake, in relief.

 

Silence ensued then for a moment, at the end of which

interval Dale heard a rapid clipclop on the rocky trail

outside. The men below shuffled uneasily, but none of them

spoke. The fire cracked cheerily. Snake Anson stepped back

from before the door with an action that expressed both

doubt and caution.

 

The trotting horse had halted out there somewhere.

 

“Ho there, inside!” called a voice from the darkness.

 

“Ho yourself!” replied Anson.

 

“That you, Snake?” quickly followed the query.

 

“Reckon so,” returned Anson, showing himself.

 

The newcomer entered. He was a large man, wearing a slicker

that shone wet in the firelight. His sombrero, pulled well

down, shadowed his face, so that the upper half of his

features might as well have been masked. He had a black,

drooping mustache, and a chin like a rock. A potential

force, matured and powerful, seemed to be wrapped in his

movements.

 

“Hullo, Snake! Hullo, Wilson!” he said. “I’ve backed out on

the other deal. Sent for you on — on another little matter …

particular private.”

 

Here he indicated with a significant gesture that Snake’s

men were to leave the cabin.

 

“A-huh! ejaculated Anson, dubiously. Then he turned

abruptly. Moze, you an’ Shady an’ Burt go wait outside.

Reckon this ain’t the deal I expected…. An’ you can saddle

the hosses.”

 

The three members of the gang filed out, all glancing keenly

at the stranger, who had moved back into the shadow.

 

“All right now, Beasley,” said Anson, low-voiced. “What’s

your game? Jim, here, is in on my deals.”

 

Then Beasley came forward to the fire, stretching his hands

to the blaze.

 

“Nothin’ to do with sheep,” replied he.

 

“Wal, I reckoned not,” assented the other. “An’ say —

whatever your game is, I ain’t likin’ the way you kept me

waitin’ an’ ridin’ around. We waited near all day at Big

Spring. Then thet greaser rode up an’ sent us here. We’re a

long way from camp with no grub an’ no blankets.”

 

“I won’t keep you long,” said Beasley. “But even if I did

you’d not mind — when I tell you this deal concerns Al

Auchincloss — the man who made an outlaw of you!”

 

Anson’s sudden action then seemed a leap of his whole frame.

Wilson, likewise, bent forward eagerly. Beasley glanced at

the door — then began to whisper.

 

“Old Auchincloss is on his last legs. He’s goin’ to croak.

He’s sent back to Missouri for a niece — a young girl —

an’ he means to