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

for Milt Dale.”

 

Those words, sad and deep, ended the conversation. Again the

rumbling, rushing stream dominated the forest. An owl hooted

dismally. A horse trod thuddingly near by and from that

direction came a cutting tear of teeth on grass.

 

A voice pierced Helen’s deep dreams and, awaking, she found

Bo shaking and calling her.

 

“Are you dead?” came the gay voice.

 

“Almost. Oh, my back’s broken,” replied Helen. The desire to

move seemed clamped in a vise, and even if that came she

believed the effort would be impossible.

 

“Roy called us,” said Bo. “He said hurry. I thought I’d die

just sitting up, and I’d give you a million dollars to lace

my boots. Wait, sister, till you try to pull on one of those

stiff boots!”

 

With heroic and violent spirit Helen sat up to find that in

the act her aches and pains appeared beyond number. Reaching

for her boots, she found them cold and stiff. Helen unlaced

one and, opening it wide, essayed to get her sore foot down

into it. But her foot appeared swollen and the boot appeared

shrunken. She could not get it half on, though she expended

what little strength seemed left in her aching arms. She

groaned.

 

Bo laughed wickedly. Her hair was tousled, her eyes dancing,

her cheeks red.

 

“Be game!” she said. “Stand up like a real Western girl and

PULL your boot on.”

 

Whether Bo’s scorn or advice made the task easier did not

occur to Helen, but the fact was that she got into her

boots. Walking and moving a little appeared to loosen the

stiff joints and ease that tired feeling. The water of the

stream where the girls washed was colder than any ice Helen

had ever felt. It almost paralyzed her hands. Bo mumbled,

and blew like a porpoise. They had to run to the fire before

being able to comb their hair. The air was wonderfully keen.

The dawn was clear, bright, with a red glow in the east

where the sun was about to rise.

 

“All ready, girls,” called Roy. “Reckon you can help

yourselves. Milt ain’t comin’ in very fast with the hosses.

I’ll rustle off to help him. We’ve got a hard day before us.

Yesterday wasn’t nowhere to what to-day ‘ll be.”

 

“But the sun’s going to shine?” implored Bo.

 

“Wal, you bet,” rejoined Roy, as he strode off.

 

Helen and Bo ate breakfast and had the camp to themselves

for perhaps half an hour; then the horses came thudding

down, with Dale and Roy riding bareback.

 

By the time all was in readiness to start the sun was up,

melting the frost and ice, so that a dazzling, bright mist,

full of rainbows, shone under the trees.

 

Dale looked Ranger over, and tried the cinches of Bo’s

horse.

 

“What’s your choice — a long ride behind the packs with me

— or a short cut over the hills with Roy?” he asked.

 

“I choose the lesser of two rides,” replied Helen, smiling.

 

“Reckon that ‘ll be easier, but you’ll know you’ve had a

ride,” said Dale, significantly.

 

“What was that we had yesterday?” asked Bo, archly.

 

“Only thirty miles, but cold an’ wet. To-day will be fine

for ridin’.”

 

“Milt, I’ll take a blanket an’ some grub in case you don’t

meet us to-night,” said Roy. “An’ I reckon we’ll split up

here where I’ll have to strike out on thet short cut.”

 

Bo mounted without a helping hand, but Helen’s limbs were so

stiff that she could not get astride the high Ranger without

assistance. The hunter headed up the slope of the canyon,

which on that side was not steep. It was brown pine forest,

with here and there a clump of dark, silver-pointed

evergreens that Roy called spruce. By the time this slope

was surmounted Helen’s aches were not so bad. The saddle

appeared to fit her better, and the gait of the horse was

not so unfamiliar. She reflected, however, that she always

had done pretty well uphill. Here it was beautiful

forestland, uneven and wilder. They rode for a time along

the rim, with the white rushing stream in plain sight far

below, with its melodious roar ever thrumming in the ear.

 

Dale reined in and peered down at the pine-mat.

 

“Fresh deer sign all along here,” he said, pointing.

 

“Wal, I seen thet long ago,” rejoined Roy.

 

Helen’s scrutiny was rewarded by descrying several tiny

depressions in the pine-needles, dark in color and sharply

defined.

 

“We may never get a better chance,” said Dale. “Those deer

are workin’ up our way. Get your rifle out.”

 

Travel was resumed then, with Roy a little in advance of the

pack-train. Presently he dismounted, threw his bridle, and

cautiously peered ahead. Then, turning, he waved his

sombrero. The pack-animals halted in a bunch. Dale beckoned

for the girls to follow and rode up to Roy’s horse. This

point, Helen saw, was at the top of an intersecting canuon.

Dale dismounted, without drawing his rifle from its

saddle-sheath, and approached Roy.

 

“Buck an’ two does,” he said, low-voiced. “An’ they’ve

winded us, but don’t see us yet… . Girls, ride up

closer.”

 

Following the directions indicated by Dale’s long arm, Helen

looked down the slope. It was open, with tall pines here and

there, and clumps of silver spruce, and aspens shining like

gold in the morning sunlight. Presently Bo exclaimed: “Oh,

look! I see! I see!” Then Helen’s roving glance passed

something different from green and gold and brown. Shifting

back to it she saw a magnificent stag, with noble spreading

antlers, standing like a statue, his head up in alert and

wild posture. His color was gray. Beside him grazed two deer

of slighter and more graceful build, without horns.

 

“It’s downhill,” whispered Dale. “An’ you’re goin’ to

overshoot.”

 

Then Helen saw that Roy had his rifle leveled.

 

“Oh, don’t!” she cried.

 

Dale’s remark evidently nettled Roy. He lowered the rifle.

 

“Milt, it’s me lookin’ over this gun. How can you stand

there an’ tell me I’m goin’ to shoot high? I had a dead bead

on him.”

 

“Roy, you didn’t allow for downhill … Hurry. He sees us

now.”

 

Roy leveled the rifle and, taking aim as before, he fired.

The buck stood perfectly motionless, as if he had indeed

been stone. The does, however, jumped with a start, and

gazed in fright in every direction.

 

“Told you! I seen where your bullet hit thet pine — half a

foot over his shoulder. Try again an’ aim at his legs.”

 

Roy now took a quicker aim and pulled trigger. A puff of

dust right at the feet of the buck showed where Roy’s lead

had struck this time. With a single bound, wonderful to see,

the big deer was out of sight behind trees and brush. The

does leaped after him.

 

“Doggone the luck!” ejaculated Roy, red in the face, as he

worked the lever of his rifle. “Never could shoot downhill,

nohow!”

 

His rueful apology to the girls for missing brought a merry

laugh from Bo.

 

“Not for worlds would I have had you kill that beautiful

deer!” she exclaimed.

 

“We won’t have venison steak off him, that’s certain,”

remarked Dale, dryly. “An’ maybe none off any deer, if Roy

does the shootin’.”

 

They resumed travel, sheering off to the right and keeping

to the edge of the intersecting canuon. At length they rode

down to the bottom, where a tiny brook babbled through

willows, and they followed this for a mile or so down to

where it flowed into the larger stream. A dim trail

overgrown with grass showed at this point.

 

“Here’s where we part,” said Dale. “You’ll beat me into my

camp, but I’ll get there sometime after dark.”

 

“Hey, Milt, I forgot about thet darned pet cougar of yours

an’ the rest of your menagerie. Reckon they won’t scare the

girls? Especially old Tom?”

 

“You won’t see Tom till I get home,” replied Dale.

 

“Ain’t he corralled or tied up?”

 

“No. He has the run of the place.”

 

“Wal, good-by, then, an’ rustle along.”

 

Dale nodded to the girls, and, turning his horse, he drove

the pack-train before him up the open space between the

stream and the wooded slope.

 

Roy stepped off his horse with that single action which

appeared such a feat to Helen.

 

“Guess I’d better cinch up,” he said, as he threw a stirrup

up over the pommel of his saddle. “You girls are goin’ to

see wild country.”

 

“Who’s old Tom?” queried Bo, curiously.

 

“Why, he’s Milt’s pet cougar.”

 

“Cougar? That’s a panther — a mountain-lion, didn’t he

say?”

 

“Shore is. Tom is a beauty. An’ if he takes a likin’ to you

he’ll love you, play with you, maul you half to death.”

 

Bo was all eyes.

 

“Dale has other pets, too?” she questioned, eagerly.

 

“I never was up to his camp but what it was overrun with

birds an’ squirrels an’ vermin of all kinds, as tame as tame

as cows. Too darn tame, Milt says. But I can’t figger thet.

You girls will never want to leave thet senaca of his.”

 

“What’s a senaca?” asked Helen, as she shifted her foot to

let him tighten the cinches on her saddle.

 

“Thet’s Mexican for park, I guess,” he replied. “These

mountains are full of parks; an’, say, I don’t ever want to

see no prettier place till I get to heaven… . There,

Ranger, old boy, thet’s tight.”

 

He slapped the horse affectionately, and, turning to his

own, he stepped and swung his long length up.

 

“It ain’t deep crossin’ here. Come on,” he called, and

spurred his bay.

 

The stream here was wide and it looked deep, but turned out

to be deceptive.

 

“Wal, girls, here beginneth the second lesson,” he drawled,

cheerily. “Ride one behind the other — stick close to me —

do what I do — an’ holler when you want to rest or if

somethin’ goes bad.”

 

With that he spurred into the thicket. Bo went next and

Helen followed. The willows dragged at her so hard that she

was unable to watch Roy, and the result was that a

low-sweeping branch of a tree knocked her hard on the head.

It hurt and startled her, and roused her mettle. Roy was

keeping to the easy trot that covered ground so well, and he

led up a slope to the open pine forest. Here the ride for

several miles was straight, level, and open. Helen liked the

forest to-day. It was brown and green, with patches of gold

where the sun struck. She saw her first bird — big blue

grouse that whirred up from under her horse, and little

checkered gray quail that appeared awkward on the wing.

Several times Roy pointed out deer flashing gray across some

forest aisle, and often when he pointed Helen was not quick

enough to see.

 

Helen realized that this ride would make up for the hideous

one of yesterday. So far she had been only barely conscious

of sore places and aching bones. These she would bear with.

She loved the wild and the beautiful, both of which

increased manifestly with every mile. The sun was warm, the

air fragrant and cool, the sky blue as azure and so deep

that she imagined that she could look far up into it.

 

Suddenly Roy reined in so sharply that he pulled the bay up

short.

 

“Look!” he called, sharply.

 

Bo screamed.

 

“Not thet way! Here!