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

caught it

before her memory.

 

The yellow plain had only appeared to be level. Roy led down

into a shallow ravine, where a tiny stream meandered, and he

followed this around to the left, coming at length to a

point where cedars and dwarf pines formed a little grove.

Here, as the others rode up, he sat cross-legged in his

saddle, and waited.

 

“We’ll hang up awhile,” he said. “Reckon you’re tired?”

 

“I’m hungry, but not tired yet,” replied Bo.

 

Helen dismounted, to find that walking was something she had

apparently lost the power to do. Bo laughed at her, but she,

too, was awkward when once more upon the ground.

 

Then Roy got down. Helen was surprised to find him lame. He

caught her quick glance.

 

“A hoss threw me once an’ rolled on me. Only broke my

collar-bone, five ribs, one arm, an’ my bow-legs in two

places!”

 

Notwithstanding this evidence that he was a cripple, as he

stood there tall and lithe in his homespun, ragged garments,

he looked singularly powerful and capable.

 

“Reckon walkin’ around would be good for you girls,” advised

Dale. “If you ain’t stiff yet, you’ll be soon. An’ walkin’

will help. Don’t go far. I’ll call when breakfast’s ready.”

 

A little while later the girls were whistled in from their

walk and found campfire and meal awaiting them. Roy was

sitting cross-legged, like an Indian, in front of a

tarpaulin, upon which was spread a homely but substantial

fare. Helen’s quick eye detected a cleanliness and

thoroughness she had scarcely expected to find in the camp

cooking of men of the wilds. Moreover, the fare was good.

She ate heartily, and as for Bo’s appetite, she was inclined

to be as much ashamed of that as amused at it. The young men

were all eyes, assiduous in their service to the girls, but

speaking seldom. It was not lost upon Helen how Dale’s gray

gaze went often down across the open country. She divined

apprehension from it rather than saw much expression in it.

 

“I — declare,” burst out Bo, when she could not eat any

more, “this isn’t believable. I’m dreaming… . Nell, the

black horse you rode is the prettiest I ever saw.”

 

Ranger, with the other animals, was grazing along the little

brook. Packs and saddles had been removed. The men ate

leisurely. There was little evidence of hurried flight. Yet

Helen could not cast off uneasiness. Roy might have been

deep, and careless, with a motive to spare the girls’

anxiety, but Dale seemed incapable of anything he did not

absolutely mean.

 

“Rest or walk,” he advised the girls. “We’ve got forty miles

to ride before dark.”

 

Helen preferred to rest, but Bo walked about, petting the

horses and prying into the packs. She was curious and eager.

 

Dale and Roy talked in low tones while they cleaned up the

utensils and packed them away in a heavy canvas bag.

 

“You really expect Anson ‘ll strike my trail this mornin’?”

Dale was asking.

 

“I shore do,” replied Roy.

 

“An’ how do you figure that so soon?”

 

“How’d you figure it — if you was Snake Anson?” queried

Roy, in reply.

 

“Depends on that rider from Magdalena,” Said Dale, soberly.

“Although it’s likely I’d seen them wheel tracks an’ hoss

tracks made where we turned off. But supposin’ he does.”

 

“Milt, listen. I told you Snake met us boys face to face day

before yesterday in Show Down. An’ he was plumb curious.”

 

“But he missed seein’ or hearin’ about me,” replied Dale.

 

“Mebbe he did an’ mebbe he didn’t. Anyway, what’s the

difference whether he finds out this mornin’ or this

evenin’?”

 

“Then you ain’t expectin’ a fight if Anson holds up the

stage?”

 

“Wal, he’d have to shoot first, which ain’t likely. John an’

Hal, since thet shootin’-scrape a year ago, have been sort

of gun-shy. Joe might get riled. But I reckon the best we

can be shore of is a delay. An’ it’d be sense not to count

on thet.”

 

“Then you hang up here an’ keep watch for Anson’s gang —

say long enough so’s to be sure they’d be in sight if they

find our tracks this mornin’. Makin’ sure one way or

another, you ride ‘cross-country to Big Spring, where I’ll

camp to-night.”

 

Roy nodded approval of that suggestion. Then without more

words both men picked up ropes and went after the horses.

Helen was watching Dale, so that when Bo cried out in great

excitement Helen turned to see a savage yellow little

mustang standing straight up on his hind legs and pawing the

air. Roy had roped him and was now dragging him into camp.

 

“Nell, look at that for a wild pony!” exclaimed Bo.

 

Helen busied herself getting well out of the way of the

infuriated mustang. Roy dragged him to a cedar near by.

 

“Come now, Buckskin,” said Roy, soothingly, and he slowly

approached the quivering animal. He went closer, hand over

hand, on the lasso. Buckskin showed the whites of his eyes

and also his white teeth. But he stood while Roy loosened

the loop and, slipping it down over his head, fastened it in

a complicated knot round his nose.

 

“Thet’s a hackamore,” he said, indicating the knot. “He’s

never had a bridle, an’ never will have one, I reckon.”

 

“You don’t ride him?” queried Helen.

 

“Sometimes I do,” replied Roy, with a smile. “Would you

girls like to try him?”

 

“Excuse me,” answered Helen.

 

“Gee!” ejaculated Bo. “He looks like a devil. But I’d tackle

him — if you think I could.”

 

The wild leaven of the West had found quick root in Bo

Rayner.

 

“Wal, I’m sorry, but I reckon I’ll not let you — for a

spell,” replied Roy, dryly.

 

“He pitches somethin’ powerful bad.”

 

“Pitches. You mean bucks?”

 

“I reckon.”

 

In the next half-hour Helen saw more and learned more about

how horses of the open range were handled than she had ever

heard of. Excepting Ranger, and Roy’s bay, and the white

pony Bo rode, the rest of the horses had actually to be

roped and hauled into camp to be saddled and packed. It was

a job for fearless, strong men, and one that called for

patience as well as arms of iron. So that for Helen Rayner

the thing succeeding the confidence she had placed in these

men was respect. To an observing woman that half-hour told

much.

 

When all was in readiness for a start Dale mounted, and

said, significantly: “Roy, I’ll look for you about sundown.

I hope no sooner.”

 

“Wal, it’d be bad if I had to rustle along soon with bad

news. Let’s hope for the best. We’ve been shore lucky so

far. Now you take to the pine-mats in the woods an’ hide

your trail.”

 

Dale turned away. Then the girls bade Roy good-by, and

followed. Soon Roy and his buckskin-colored mustang were

lost to sight round a clump of trees.

 

The unhampered horses led the way; the pack-animals trotted

after them; the riders were close behind. All traveled at a

jogtrot. And this gait made the packs bob up and down and

from side to side. The sun felt warm at Helen’s back and the

wind lost its frosty coldness, that almost appeared damp,

for a dry, sweet fragrance. Dale drove up the shallow valley

that showed timber on the levels above and a black border of

timber some few miles ahead. It did not take long to reach

the edge of the forest.

 

Helen wondered why the big pines grew so far on that plain

and no farther. Probably the growth had to do with snow,

but, as the ground was level, she could not see why the edge

of the woods should come just there.

 

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