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

CHAPTER XII

Days passed.

 

Every morning Helen awoke with a wondering question as to

what this day would bring forth, especially with regard to

possible news from her uncle. It must come sometime and she

was anxious for it. Something about this simple, wild camp

life had begun to grip her. She found herself shirking daily

attention to the clothes she had brought West. They needed

it, but she had begun to see how superficial they really

were. On the other hand, campfire tasks had come to be a

pleasure. She had learned a great deal more about them than

had Bo. Worry and dread were always impinging upon the

fringe of her thoughts — always vaguely present, though

seldom annoying. They were like shadows in dreams. She

wanted to get to her uncle’s ranch, to take up the duties of

her new life. But she was not prepared to believe she would

not regret this wild experience. She must get away from that

in order to see it clearly, and she began to have doubts of

herself.

 

Meanwhile the active and restful outdoor life went on. Bo

leaned more and more toward utter reconciliation to it. Her

eyes had a wonderful flash, like blue lightning; her cheeks

were gold and brown; her hands tanned dark as an Indian’s.

 

She could vault upon the gray mustang, or, for that matter,

clear over his back. She learned to shoot a rifle accurately

enough to win Dale’s praise, and vowed she would like to

draw a bead upon a grizzly bear or upon Snake Anson.

 

“Bo, if you met that grizzly Dale said has been prowling

round camp lately you’d run right up a tree,” declared

Helen, one morning, when Bo seemed particularly boastful.

 

“Don’t fool yourself,” retorted Bo.

 

“But I’ve seen you run from a mouse!”

 

“Sister, couldn’t I be afraid of a mouse and not a bear?”

 

“I don’t see how.”

 

“Well, bears, lions, outlaws, and other wild beasts are to

be met with here in the West, and my mind’s made up,” said

Bo, in slow-nodding deliberation.

 

They argued as they had always argued, Helen for reason and

common sense and restraint, Bo on the principle that if she

must fight it was better to get in the first blow.

 

The morning on which this argument took place Dale was a

long time in catching the horses. When he did come in he

shook his head seriously.

 

“Some varmint’s been chasin’ the horses,” he said, as he

reached for his saddle. “Did you hear them snortin’ an’

runnin’ last night?”

 

Neither of the girls had been awakened.

 

“I missed one of the colts,” went on Dale, “an’ I’m goin’ to

ride across the park.”

 

Dale’s movements were quick and stern. It was significant

that he chose his heavier rifle, and, mounting, with a sharp

call to Pedro, he rode off without another word to the

girls.

 

Bo watched him for a moment and then began to saddle the

mustang.

 

“You won’t follow him?” asked Helen, quickly.

 

“I sure will,” replied Bo. “He didn’t forbid it.”

 

“But he certainly did not want us.”

 

“He might not want you, but I’ll bet he wouldn’t object to

me, whatever’s up,” said Bo, shortly.

 

“Oh! So you think —” exclaimed Helen, keenly hurt. She bit

her tongue to keep back a hot reply. And it was certain that

a bursting gush of anger flooded over her. Was she, then,

such a coward? Did Dale think this slip of a sister, so wild

and wilful, was a stronger woman than she? A moment’s silent

strife convinced her that no doubt he thought so and no

doubt he was right. Then the anger centered upon herself,

and Helen neither understood nor trusted herself.

 

The outcome proved an uncontrollable impulse. Helen began to

saddle her horse. She had the task half accomplished when

Bo’s call made her look up.

 

“Listen!”

 

Helen heard a ringing, wild bay of the hound.

 

“That’s Pedro,” she said, with a thrill.

 

“Sure. He’s running. We never heard him bay like that

before.”

 

“Where’s Dale?”

 

“He rode out of sight across there,” replied Bo, pointing.

“And Pedro’s running toward us along that slope. He must be

a mile — two miles from Dale.”

 

“But Dale will follow.”

 

“Sure. But he’d need wings to get near that hound now. Pedro

couldn’t have gone across there with him … just

listen.”

 

The wild note of the hound manifestly stirred Bo to

irrepressible action. Snatching up Dale’s lighter rifle, she

shoved it into her saddle-sheath, and, leaping on the

mustang, she ran him over brush and brook, straight down the

park toward the place Pedro was climbing. For an instant

Helen stood amazed beyond speech. When Bo sailed over a big

log, like a steeple-chaser, then Helen answered to further

unconsidered impulse by frantically getting her saddle

fastened. Without coat or hat she mounted. The nervous horse

bolted almost before she got into the saddle. A strange,

trenchant trembling coursed through all her veins. She

wanted to scream for Bo to wait. Bo was out of sight, but

the deep, muddy tracks in wet places and the path through

the long grass afforded Helen an easy trail to follow. In

fact, her horse needed no guiding. He ran in and out of the

straggling spruces along the edge of the park, and suddenly

wheeled around a corner of trees to come upon the gray

mustang standing still. Bo was looking up and listening.

 

“There he is!” cried Bo, as the hound bayed ringingly,

closer to them this time, and she spurred away.

 

Helen’s horse followed without urging. He was excited. His

ears were up. Something was in the wind. Helen had never

ridden along this broken end of the park, and Bo was not

easy to keep up with. She led across bogs, brooks, swales,

rocky little ridges, through stretches of timber and groves

of aspen so thick Helen could scarcely squeeze through. Then

Bo came out into a large open offshoot of the park, right

under the mountain slope, and here she sat, her horse

watching and listening. Helen rode up to her, imagining once

that she had heard the hound.

 

“Look! Look!” Bo’s scream made her mustang stand almost

straight up.

 

Helen gazed up to see a big brown bear with a frosted coat

go lumbering across an opening on the slope.

 

“It’s a grizzly! He’ll kill Pedro! Oh, where is Dale!” cried

Bo, with intense excitement.

 

“Bo! That bear is running down! We — we must get — out of

his road,” panted Helen, in breathless alarm.

 

“Dale hasn’t had time to be close… . Oh, I wish he’d

come! I don’t know what to do.”

 

“Ride back. At least wait for him.”

 

Just then Pedro spoke differently, in savage barks, and

following that came a loud growl and crashings in the brush.

These sounds appeared to be not far up the slope.

 

“Nell! Do you hear? Pedro’s fighting the bear,” burst out

Bo. Her face paled, her eyes flashed like blue steel. “The

bear ‘ll kill him!”

 

“Oh, that would be dreadful!” replied Helen, in distress.

“But what on earth can we do?”

 

“HEL-LO, DALE!” called Bo, at the highest pitch of her

piercing voice.

 

No answer came. A heavy crash of brush, a rolling of stones,

another growl from the slope told Helen that the hound had

brought the bear to bay.

 

“Nell, I’m going up,” said Bo, deliberately.

 

“No-no! Are you mad?” returned Helen.

 

“The bear will kill Pedro.”

 

“He might kill you.”

 

“You ride that way and yell for Dale,” rejoined Bo.

 

“What will — you do?” gasped Helen.

 

“I’ll shoot at the bear — scare him off. If he chases me he

can’t catch me coming downhill. Dale said that.”

 

“You’re crazy!” cried Helen, as Bo looked up the slope,

searching for open ground. Then she pulled the rifle from

its sheath.

 

But Bo did not hear or did not care. She spurred the

mustang, and he, wild to run, flung grass and dirt from his

heels. What Helen would have done then she never knew, but

the fact was that her horse bolted after the mustang. In an

instant, seemingly, Bo had disappeared in the gold and green

of the forest slope. Helen’s mount climbed on a run,

snorting and heaving, through aspens, brush, and timber, to

come out into a narrow, long opening extending lengthwise up

the slope.

 

A sudden prolonged crash ahead alarmed Helen and halted her

horse. She saw a shaking of aspens. Then a huge brown beast

leaped as a cat out of the woods. It was a bear of enormous

size. Helen’s heart stopped — her tongue clove to the roof

of her mouth. The bear turned. His mouth was open, red and

dripping. He looked shaggy, gray. He let out a terrible

bawl. Helen’s every muscle froze stiff. Her horse plunged

high and sidewise, wheeling almost in the air, neighing his

terror. Like a stone she dropped from the saddle. She did

not see the horse break into the woods, but she heard him.

Her gaze never left the bear even while she was falling, and

it seemed she alighted in an upright position with her back

against a bush. It upheld her. The bear wagged his huge head

from side to side. Then, as the hound barked close at hand,

he turned to run heavily uphill and out of the opening.

 

The instant of his disappearance was one of collapse for

Helen. Frozen with horror, she had been unable to move or

feel or think. All at once she was a quivering mass of cold,

helpless flesh, wet with perspiration, sick with a

shuddering, retching, internal convulsion, her mind

liberated from paralyzing shock. The moment was as horrible

as that in which the bear had bawled his frightful rage. A

stark, icy, black emotion seemed in possession of her. She

could not lift a hand, yet all of her body appeared shaking.

There was a fluttering, a strangling in her throat. The

crushing weight that surrounded her heart eased before she

recovered use of her limbs. Then, the naked and terrible

thing was gone, like a nightmare giving way to

consciousness. What blessed relief! Helen wildly gazed about

her. The bear and hound were out of sight, and so was her

horse. She stood up very dizzy and weak. Thought of Bo then

seemed to revive her, to shock different life and feeling

throughout all her cold extremities. She listened.

 

She heard a thudding of hoofs down the slope, then Dale’s

clear, strong call. She answered. It appeared long before he

burst out of the woods, riding hard and leading her horse.

In that time she recovered fully, and when he reached her,

to put a sudden halt upon the fiery Ranger, she caught the

bridle he threw and swiftly mounted her horse. The feel of

the saddle seemed different. Dale’s piercing