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

you go

presently… . Girls, you’re goin’ to see somethin’. But

stay on your horses.”

 

Dale, with the hound tense and bristling beside him, strode

here and there at the edge of the swale. Presently he halted

on a slight elevation and beckoned for the girls to ride

over.

 

“Here, see where the grass is pressed down all nice an’

round,” he said, pointing. “A lion made that. He sneaked

there, watchin’ for deer. That was done this mornin’. Come

on, now. Let’s see if we can trail him.”

 

Dale stooped now, studying the grass, and holding Pedro.

Suddenly he straightened up with a flash in his gray eyes.

 

“Here’s where he jumped.”

 

But Helen could not see any reason why Dale should say that.

The man of the forest took a long stride then another.

 

“An’ here’s where that lion lit on the back of the deer. It

was a big jump. See the sharp hoof tracks of the deer.” Dale

pressed aside tall grass to show dark, rough, fresh tracks

of a deer, evidently made by violent action.

 

“Come on,” called Dale, walking swiftly. “You’re sure goin’

to see somethin’ now… . Here’s where the deer bounded,

carryin’ the lion.”

 

“What!” exclaimed Bo, incredulously.

 

“The deer was runnin’ here with the lion on his back. I’ll

prove it to you. Come on, now. Pedro, you stay with me.

Girls, it’s a fresh trail.” Dale walked along, leading his

horse, and occasionally he pointed down into the grass.

“There! See that! That’s hair.”

 

Helen did see some tufts of grayish hair scattered on the

ground, and she believed she saw little, dark separations in

the grass, where an animal had recently passed. All at once

Dale halted. When Helen reached him Bo was already there and

they were gazing down at a wide, flattened space in the

grass. Even Helen’s inexperienced eyes could make out

evidences of a struggle. Tufts of gray-white hair lay upon

the crushed grass. Helen did not need to see any more, but

Dale silently pointed to a patch of blood. Then he spoke:

 

“The lion brought the deer down here an’ killed him.

Probably broke his neck. That deer ran a hundred yards with

the lion. See, here’s the trail left where the lion dragged

the deer off.”

 

A well-defined path showed across the swale.

 

“Girls, you’ll see that deer pretty quick,” declared Dale,

starting forward. “This work has just been done. Only a few

minutes ago.”

 

“How can you tell?” queried Bo.

 

“Look! See that grass. It has been bent down by the deer

bein’ dragged over it. Now it’s springin’ up.”

 

Dale’s next stop was on the other side of the swale, under a

spruce with low, spreading branches. The look of Pedro

quickened Helen’s pulse. He was wild to give chase.

Fearfully Helen looked where Dale pointed, expecting to see

the lion. But she saw instead a deer lying prostrate with

tongue out and sightless eyes and bloody hair.

 

“Girls, that lion heard us an’ left. He’s not far,” said

Dale, as he stooped to lift the head of the deer. “Warm!

Neck broken. See the lion’s teeth an’ claw marks… . It’s

a doe. Look here. Don’t be squeamish, girls. This is only an

hourly incident of everyday life in the forest. See where

the lion has rolled the skin down as neat as I could do it,

an’ he’d just begun to bite in there when he heard us.”

 

“What murderous work, The sight sickens me!” exclaimed

Helen.

 

“It is nature,” said Dale, simply.

 

“Let’s kill the lion,” added Bo.

 

For answer Dale took a quick turn at their saddle-girths,

and then, mounting, he called to the hound. “Hunt him up,

Pedro.”

 

Like a shot the hound was off.

 

“Ride in my tracks an’ keep close to me,” called Dale, as he

wheeled his horse.

 

“We’re off!” squealed Bo, in wild delight, and she made her

mount plunge.

 

Helen urged her horse after them and they broke across a

corner of the swale to the woods. Pedro was running straight,

with his nose high. He let out one short bark. He headed

into the woods, with Dale not far behind. Helen was on one

of Dale’s best horses, but that fact scarcely manifested

itself, because the others began to increase their lead.

They entered the woods. It was open, and fairly good going.

Bo’s horse ran as fast in the woods as he did in the open.

That frightened Helen and she yelled to Bo to hold him in.

She yelled to deaf ears. That was Bo’s great risk — she did

not intend to be careful. Suddenly the forest rang with

Dale’s encouraging yell, meant to aid the girls in following

him. Helen’s horse caught the spirit of the chase. He gained

somewhat on Bo, hurdling logs, sometimes two at once.

Helen’s blood leaped with a strange excitement, utterly

unfamiliar and as utterly resistless. Yet her natural fear,

and the intelligence that reckoned with the foolish risk of

this ride, shared alike in her sum of sensations. She tried

to remember Dale’s caution about dodging branches and snags,

and sliding her knees back to avoid knocks from trees. She

barely missed some frightful reaching branches. She received

a hard knock, then another, that unseated her, but

frantically she held on and slid back, and at the end of a

long run through comparatively open forest she got a

stinging blow in the face from a far-spreading branch of

pine. Bo missed, by what seemed only an inch, a solid snag

that would have broken her in two. Both Pedro and Dale got

out of Helen’s sight. Then Helen, as she began to lose Bo,

felt that she would rather run greater risks than be left

behind to get lost in the forest, and she urged her horse.

Dale’s yell pealed back. Then it seemed even more thrilling

to follow by sound than by sight. Wind and brush tore at

her. The air was heavily pungent with odor of pine. Helen

heard a wild, full bay of the hound, ringing back, full of

savage eagerness, and she believed Pedro had roused out the

lion from some covert. It lent more stir to her blood and it

surely urged her horse on faster.

 

Then the swift pace slackened. A windfall of timber delayed

Helen. She caught a glimpse of Dale far ahead, climbing a

slope. The forest seemed full of his ringing yell. Helen

strangely wished for level ground and the former swift

motion. Next she saw Bo working down to the right, and

Dale’s yell now came from that direction. Helen followed,

got out of the timber, and made better time on a gradual

slope down to another park.

 

When she reached the open she saw Bo almost across this

narrow open ground. Here Helen did not need to urge her

mount. He snorted and plunged at the level and he got to

going so fast that Helen would have screamed aloud in

mingled fear and delight if she had not been breathless.

 

Her horse had the bad luck to cross soft ground. He went to

his knees and Helen sailed out of the saddle over his head.

Soft willows and wet grass broke her fall. She was surprised

to find herself unhurt. Up she bounded and certainly did not

know this new Helen Rayner. Her horse was coming, and he had

patience with her, but he wanted to hurry. Helen made the

quickest mount of her experience and somehow felt a pride in

it. She would tell Bo that. But just then Bo flashed into

the woods out of sight. Helen fairly charged into that green

foliage, breaking brush and branches. She broke through into

open forest. Bo was inside, riding down an aisle between

pines and spruces. At that juncture Helen heard Dale’s

melodious yell near at hand. Coming into still more open

forest, with rocks here and there, she saw Dale dismounted

under a pine, and Pedro standing with fore paws upon the

tree-trunk, and then high up on a branch a huge tawny

colored lion, just like Tom.

 

Bo’s horse slowed up and showed fear, but he kept on as far

as Dale’s horse. But Helen’s refused to go any nearer. She

had difficulty in halting him. Presently she dismounted and,

throwing her bridle over a stump, she ran on, panting and

fearful, yet tingling all over, up to her sister and Dale.

 

“Nell, you did pretty good for a tenderfoot,” was Bo’s

greeting.

 

“It was a fine chase,” said Dale. “You both rode well. I

wish you could have seen the lion on the ground. He bounded

— great long bounds with his tail up in the air — very

funny. An’ Pedro almost caught up with him. That scared me,

because he would have killed the hound. Pedro was close to

him when he treed. An’ there he is — the yellow

deer-killer. He’s a male an’ full grown.”

 

With that Dale pulled his rifle from its saddle-sheath and

looked expectantly at Bo. But she was gazing with great

interest and admiration up at the lion.

 

“Isn’t he just beautiful?” she burst out. “Oh, look at him

spit! Just like a cat! Dale, he looks afraid he might fall

off.”

 

“He sure does. Lions are never sure of their balance in a

tree. But I never saw one make a misstep. He knows he

doesn’t belong there.”

 

To Helen the lion looked splendid perched up there. He was

long and round and graceful and tawny. His tongue hung out

and his plump sides heaved, showing what a quick, hard run

he had been driven to. What struck Helen most forcibly about

him was something in his face as he looked down at the

hound. He was scared. He realized his peril. It was not

possible for Helen to watch him killed, yet she could not

bring herself to beg Bo not to shoot. Helen confessed she

was a tenderfoot.

 

“Get down, Bo, an’ let’s see how good a shot you are, said

Dale. Bo slowly withdrew her fascinated gaze from the lion

and looked with a rueful smile at Dale.

 

“I’ve changed my mind. I said I would kill him, but now I

can’t. He looks so — so different from what I’d imagined.”

 

Dale’s answer was a rare smile of understanding and approval

that warmed Helen’s heart toward him. All the same, he was

amused. Sheathing the gun, he mounted his horse.

 

“Come on, Pedro,” he called. “Come, I tell you,” he added,

sharply, “Well, girls, we treed him, anyhow, an’ it was fun.

Now we’ll ride back to the deer he killed an’ pack a haunch

to camp for our own use.”

 

“Will the lion go back to his — his kill, I think you

called it?” asked Bo.

 

“I’ve chased one away from his kill half a dozen times.

Lions are not plentiful here an’ they don’t get overfed. I

reckon the balance is pretty even.”

 

This last remark made Helen inquisitive. And as they slowly

rode on the backtrail Dale talked.

 

“You girls, bein’ tender-hearted an’ not knowin’ the life of

the forest, what’s good an’ what’s bad, think it was a pity

the poor deer was killed by a murderous lion. But you’re

wrong. As I told you, the lion is absolutely necessary to

the health an’ joy of wild life — or deer’s wild life, so

to speak. When deer were created or came into existence,

then the lion must have come, too. They can’t live without

each other. Wolves, now, are not particularly deer-killers.

They live off elk an’ anythin’ they can catch.