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

a single monarch

lay uprooted there had sprung up a number of ambitious sons,

jealous of one another, fighting for place. Even the trees

fought one another! The forest was a place of mystery, but

its strife could be read by any eye. The lightnings had

split firs clear to the roots, and others it had circled

with ripping tear from top to trunk.

 

Time came, however, when the exceeding wildness of the

forest, in density and fallen timber, made it imperative for

Helen to put all her attention on the ground and trees in

her immediate vicinity. So the pleasure of gazing ahead at

the beautiful wilderness was denied her. Thereafter travel

became toil and the hours endless.

 

Roy led on, and Ranger followed, while the shadows darkened

under the trees. She was reeling in her saddle, half blind

and sick, when Roy called out cheerily that they were almost

there.

 

Whatever his idea was, to Helen it seemed many miles that

she followed him farther, out of the heavy-timbered forest

down upon slopes of low spruce, like evergreen, which

descended sharply to another level, where dark, shallow

streams flowed gently and the solemn stillness held a low

murmur of falling water, and at last the wood ended upon a

wonderful park full of a thick, rich, golden light of

fast-fading sunset.

 

“Smell the smoke,” said Roy. “By Solomon! if Milt ain’t here

ahead of me!”

 

He rode on. Helen’s weary gaze took in the round senaca, the

circling black slopes, leading up to craggy rims all gold

and red in the last flare of the sun; then all the spirit

left in her flashed up in thrilling wonder at this

exquisite, wild, and colorful spot.

 

Horses were grazing out in the long grass and there were

deer grazing with them. Roy led round a corner of the

fringed, bordering woodland, and there, under lofty trees,

shone a campfire. Huge gray rocks loomed beyond, and then

cliffs rose step by step to a notch in the mountain wall,

over which poured a thin, lacy waterfall. As Helen gazed in

rapture the sunset gold faded to white and all the western

slope of the amphitheater darkened.

 

Dale’s tall form appeared.

 

“Reckon you’re late,” he said, as with a comprehensive flash

of eye he took in the three.

 

“Milt, I got lost,” replied Roy.

 

“I feared as much… . You girls look like you’d done

better to ride with me,” went on Dale, as he offered a hand

to help Bo off. She took it, tried to get her foot out of

the stirrups, and then she slid from the saddle into Dale’s

arms. He placed her on her feet and, supporting her, said,

solicitously: “A hundred-mile ride in three days for a

tenderfoot is somethin’ your uncle Al won’t believe… .

Come, walk if it kills you!”

 

Whereupon he led Bo, very much as if he were teaching a

child to walk. The fact that the voluble Bo had nothing to

say was significant to Helen, who was following, with the

assistance of Roy.

 

One of the huge rocks resembled a sea-shell in that it

contained a hollow over which the wide-spreading shelf

flared out. It reached toward branches of great pines. A

spring burst from a crack in the solid rock. The campfire

blazed under a pine, and the blue column of smoke rose just

in front of the shelving rock. Packs were lying on the grass

and some of them were open. There were no signs here of a

permanent habitation of the hunter. But farther on were

other huge rocks, leaning, cracked, and forming caverns,

some of which perhaps he utilized.

 

“My camp is just back,” said Dale, as if he had read Helen’s

mind. “Tomorrow we’ll fix up comfortable-like round here

for you girls.”

 

Helen and Bo were made as easy as blankets and saddles could

make them, and the men went about their tasks.

 

“Nell — isn’t this — a dream?” murmured Bo.

 

“No, child. It’s real — terribly real,” replied Helen. “Now

that we’re here — with that awful ride over — we can

think.”

 

“It’s so pretty — here,” yawned Bo. “I’d just as lief Uncle

Al didn’t find us very soon.”

 

“Bo! He’s a sick man. Think what the worry will be to him.”

 

“I’ll bet if he knows Dale he won’t be so worried.”

 

“Dale told us Uncle Al disliked him.”

 

“Pooh! What difference does that make? … Oh, I don’t

know which I am — hungrier or tireder!”

 

“I couldn’t eat to-night,” said Helen, wearily.

 

When she stretched out she had a vague, delicious sensation

that that was the end of Helen Rayner, and she was glad.

Above her, through the lacy, fernlike pine-needles, she saw

blue sky and a pale star just showing. Twilight was stealing

down swiftly. The silence was beautiful, seemingly

undisturbed by the soft, silky, dreamy fall of water. Helen

closed her eyes, ready for sleep, with the physical

commotion within her body gradually yielding. In some places

her bones felt as if they had come out through her flesh; in

others throbbed deep-seated aches; her muscles appeared

slowly to subside, to relax, with the quivering twinges

ceasing one by one; through muscle and bone, through all her

body, pulsed a burning current.

 

Bo’s head dropped on Helen’s shoulder. Sense became vague to

Helen. She lost the low murmur of the waterfall, and then

the sound or feeling of some one at the campfire. And her

last conscious thought was that she tried to open her eyes

and could not.

 

When she awoke all was bright. The sun shone almost directly

overhead. Helen was astounded. Bo lay wrapped in deep sleep,

her face flushed, with beads of perspiration on her brow and

the chestnut curls damp. Helen threw down the blankets, and

then, gathering courage — for she felt as if her back was

broken — she endeavored to sit up. In vain! Her spirit was

willing, but her muscles refused to act. It must take a

violent spasmodic effort. She tried it with shut eyes, and,

succeeding, sat there trembling. The commotion she had made

in the blankets awoke Bo, and she blinked her surprised blue

eyes in the sunlight.

 

“Hello — Nell! do I have to — get up?” she asked,

sleepily.

 

“Can you?” queried Helen.

 

“Can I what?” Bo was now thoroughly awake and lay there

staring at her sister.

 

“Why — get up.”

 

“I’d like to know why not,” retorted Bo, as she made the

effort. She got one arm and shoulder up, only to flop back

like a crippled thing. And she uttered the most piteous

little moan. “I’m dead! I know — I am!”

 

“Well, if you’re going to be a Western girl you’d better

have spunk enough to move.”

 

“A-huh!” ejaculated Bo. Then she rolled over, not without

groans, and, once upon her face, she raised herself on her

hands and turned to a sitting posture. “Where’s everybody? …

Oh, Nell, it’s perfectly lovely here. Paradise!”

 

Helen looked around. A fire was smoldering. No one was in

sight. Wonderful distant colors seemed to strike her glance

as she tried to fix it upon near-by objects. A beautiful

little green tent or shack had been erected out of spruce

boughs. It had a slanting roof that sloped all the way from

a ridge-pole to the ground; half of the opening in front was

closed, as were the sides. The spruce boughs appeared all to

be laid in the same direction, giving it a smooth, compact

appearance, actually as if it had grown there.

 

“That lean-to wasn’t there last night?” inquired Bo.

 

“I didn’t see it. Lean-to? Where’d you get that name?”

 

“It’s Western, my dear. I’ll bet they put it up for us… .

Sure, I see our bags inside. Let’s get up. It must be

late.”

 

The girls had considerable fun as well as pain in getting up

and keeping each other erect until their limbs would hold

them firmly. They were delighted with the spruce lean-to. It

faced the open and stood just under the wide-spreading shelf

of rock. The tiny outlet from the spring flowed beside it

and spilled its clear water over a stone, to fall into a

little pool. The floor of this woodland habitation consisted

of tips of spruce boughs to about a foot in depth, all laid

one way, smooth and springy, and so sweetly odorous that the

air seemed intoxicating. Helen and Bo opened their baggage,

and what with use of the cold water, brush and comb, and

clean blouses, they made themselves feel as comfortable as

possible, considering the excruciating aches. Then they went

out to the campfire.

 

Helen’s eye was attracted by moving objects near at hand.

Then simultaneously with Bo’s cry of delight Helen saw a

beautiful doe approaching under the trees. Dale walked

beside it.

 

“You sure had a long sleep,” was the hunter’s greeting. “I

reckon you both look better.”

 

“Good morning. Or is it afternoon? We’re just able to move

about,” said Helen.

 

“I could ride,” declared Bo, stoutly. “Oh, Nell, look at the

deer! It’s coming to me.”

 

The doe had hung back a little as Dale reached the

campfire. It was a gray, slender creature, smooth as silk,

with great dark eyes. It stood a moment, long ears erect,

and then with a graceful little trot came up to Bo and

reached a slim nose for her outstretched hand. All about it,

except the beautiful soft eyes, seemed wild, and yet it was

as tame as a kitten. Then, suddenly, as Bo fondled the long

ears, it gave a start and, breaking away, ran back out of

sight under the pines.

 

“What frightened it?” asked Bo.

 

Dale pointed up at the wall under the shelving roof of rock.

There, twenty feet from the ground, curled up on a ledge,

lay a huge tawny animal with a face like that of a cat.

 

“She’s afraid of Tom,” replied Dale. “Recognizes him as a

hereditary foe, I guess. I can’t make friends of them.”

 

“Oh! So that’s Tom — the pet lion!” exclaimed Bo. “Ugh! No

wonder that deer ran off!”

 

“How long has he been up there?” queried Helen, gazing

fascinated at Dale’s famous pet.

 

“I couldn’t say. Tom comes an’ goes,” replied Dale. “But I

sent him up there last night.”

 

“And he was there — perfectly free — right over us —

while we slept!” burst out Bo.

 

“Yes. An’ I reckon you slept the safer for that.”

 

“Of all things! Nell, isn’t he a monster? But he doesn’t

look like a lion — an African lion. He’s a panther. I saw

his like at the circus once.”

 

“He’s a cougar,” said Dale. “The panther is long and slim.

Tom is not only long, but thick an’ round. I’ve had him four

years. An’ he was a kitten no bigger ‘n my fist when I got

him.”

 

“Is he perfectly tame — safe?” asked Helen, anxiously.

 

“I’ve never told anybody that Tom was safe, but he is,”

replied Dale. “You can absolutely believe it. A wild cougar

wouldn’t attack a man unless cornered or starved. An’ Tom is

like a big kitten.”

 

The beast raised his great catlike face, with its sleepy,

half-shut eyes, and looked down upon them.

 

“Shall I call him down?” inquired Dale.

 

For once Bo did not find her voice.

 

“Let us — get a little more used to him — at a distance,”

replied Helen, with a little laugh.

 

“If he comes to you, just rub his head an’