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

gray glance

thrilled her strangely.

 

“You’re white. Are you hurt?” he said.

 

“No. I was scared.”

 

“But he threw you?”

 

“Yes, he certainly threw me.”

 

“What happened?”

 

“We heard the hound and we rode along the timber. Then we

saw the bear — a monster — white — coated —”

 

“I know. It’s a grizzly. He killed the colt — your pet.

Hurry now. What about Bo?”

 

“Pedro was fighting the bear. Bo said he’d be killed. She

rode right up here. My horse followed. I couldn’t have

stopped him. But we lost Bo. Right there the bear came out.

He roared. My horse threw me and ran off. Pedro’s barking

saved me — my life, I think. Oh! that was awful! Then the

bear went up — there… . And you came.”

 

“Bo’s followin’ the hound!” ejaculated Dale. And, lifting

his hands to his mouth, he sent out a stentorian yell that

rolled up the slope, rang against the cliffs, pealed and

broke and died away. Then he waited, listening. From far up

the slope came a faint, wild cry, high-pitched and sweet, to

create strange echoes, floating away to die in the ravines.

 

“She’s after him!” declared Dale, grimly.

 

“Bo’s got your rifle,” said Helen. “Oh, we must hurry.”

 

“You go back,” ordered Dale, wheeling his horse.

 

“No!” Helen felt that word leave her lips with the force of

a bullet.

 

Dale spurred Ranger and took to the open slope. Helen kept

at his heels until timber was reached. Here a steep trail

led up. Dale dismounted.

 

“Horse tracks — bear tracks — dog tracks,” he said,

bending over. “We’ll have to walk up here. It’ll save our

horses an’ maybe time, too.”

 

“Is Bo riding up there?” asked Helen, eying the steep

ascent.

 

“She sure is.” With that Dale started up, leading his horse.

Helen followed. It was rough and hard work. She was lightly

clad, yet soon she was hot, laboring, and her heart began to

hurt. When Dale halted to rest Helen was just ready to drop.

The baying of the hound, though infrequent, inspirited her.

But presently that sound was lost. Dale said bear and hound

had gone over the ridge and as soon as the top was gained he

would hear them again.

 

“Look there,” he said, presently, pointing to fresh tracks,

larger than those made by Bo’s mustang. “Elk tracks. We’ve

scared a big bull an’ he’s right ahead of us. Look sharp an’

you’ll see him.”

 

Helen never climbed so hard and fast before, and when they

reached the ridge-top she was all tuckered out. It was all

she could do to get on her horse. Dale led along the crest

of this wooded ridge toward the western end, which was

considerably higher. In places open rocky ground split the

green timber. Dale pointed toward a promontory.

 

Helen saw a splendid elk silhouetted against the sky. He was

a light gray over all his hindquarters, with shoulders and

head black. His ponderous, wide-spread antlers towered over

him, adding to the wildness of his magnificent poise as he

stood there, looking down into the valley, no doubt

listening for the bay of the hound. When he heard Dale’s

horse he gave one bound, gracefully and wonderfully carrying

his antlers, to disappear in the green.

 

Again on a bare patch of ground Dale pointed down. Helen saw

big round tracks, toeing in a little, that gave her a chill.

She knew these were grizzly tracks.

 

Hard riding was not possible on this ridge crest, a fact

that gave Helen time to catch her breath. At length, coming

out upon the very summit of the mountain, Dale heard the

hound. Helen’s eyes feasted afar upon a wild scene of rugged

grandeur, before she looked down on this western slope at

her feet to see bare, gradual descent, leading down to

sparsely wooded bench and on to deep-green canuon.

 

“Ride hard now!” yelled Dale. “I see Bo, an’ I’ll have to

ride to catch her.”

 

Dale spurred down the slope. Helen rode in his tracks and,

though she plunged so fast that she felt her hair stand up

with fright, she saw him draw away from her. Sometimes her

horse slid on his haunches for a few yards, and at these

hazardous moments she got her feet out of the stirrups so as

to fall free from him if he went down. She let him choose

the way, while she gazed ahead at Dale, and then farther on,

in the hope of seeing Bo. At last she was rewarded. Far Down

the wooded bench she saw a gray flash of the little mustang

and a bright glint of Bo’s hair. Her heart swelled. Dale

would soon overhaul Bo and come between her and peril. And

on the instant, though Helen was unconscious of it then, a

remarkable change came over her spirit. Fear left her. And a

hot, exalting, incomprehensible something took possession of

her.

 

She let the horse run, and when he had plunged to the foot

of that slope of soft ground he broke out across the open

bench at a pace that made the wind bite Helen’s cheeks and

roar in her ears. She lost sight of Dale. It gave her a

strange, grim exultance. She bent her eager gaze to find the

tracks of his horse, and she found them. Also she made out

the tracks of Bo’s mustang and the bear and the hound. Her

horse, scenting game, perhaps, and afraid to be left alone,

settled into a fleet and powerful stride, sailing over logs

and brush. That open bench had looked short, but it was

long, and Helen rode down the gradual descent at breakneck

speed. She would not be left behind. She had awakened to a

heedlessness of risk. Something burned steadily within her.

A grim, hard anger of joy! When she saw, far down another

open, gradual descent, that Dale had passed Bo and that Bo

was riding the little mustang as never before, then Helen

flamed with a madness to catch her, to beat her in that

wonderful chase, to show her and Dale what there really was

in the depths of Helen Rayner.

 

Her ambition was to be short-lived, she divined from the lay

of the land ahead, but the ride she lived then for a flying

mile was something that would always blanch her cheeks and

prick her skin in remembrance.

 

The open ground was only too short. That thundering pace

soon brought Helen’s horse to the timber. Here it took all

her strength to check his headlong flight over deadfalls and

between small jack-pines. Helen lost sight of Bo, and she

realized it would take all her wits to keep from getting

lost. She had to follow the trail, and in some places it was

hard to see from horseback.

 

Besides, her horse was mettlesome, thoroughly aroused, and

he wanted a free rein and his own way. Helen tried that,

only to lose the trail and to get sundry knocks from trees

and branches. She could not hear the hound, nor Dale. The

pines were small, close together, and tough. They were hard

to bend. Helen hurt her hands, scratched her face, barked

her knees. The horse formed a habit suddenly of deciding to

go the way he liked instead of the way Helen guided him, and

when he plunged between saplings too close to permit easy

passage it was exceedingly hard on her. That did not make

any difference to Helen. Once worked into a frenzy, her

blood stayed at high pressure. She did not argue with

herself about a need of desperate hurry. Even a blow on the

head that nearly blinded her did not in the least retard

her. The horse could hardly be held, and not at all in the

few open places.

 

At last Helen reached another slope. Coming out upon canuon

rim, she heard Dale’s clear call, far down, and Bo’s

answering peal, high and piercing, with its note of exultant

wildness. Helen also heard the bear and the hound fighting

at the bottom of this canuon.

 

Here Helen again missed the tracks made by Dale and Bo. The

descent looked impassable. She rode back along the rim, then

forward. Finally she found where the ground had been plowed

deep by hoofs, down over little banks. Helen’s horse balked

at these jumps. When she goaded him over them she went

forward on his neck. It seemed like riding straight

downhill. The mad spirit of that chase grew more stingingly

keen to Helen as the obstacles grew. Then, once more the bay

of the hound and the bawl of the bear made a demon of her

horse. He snorted a shrill defiance. He plunged with fore

hoofs in the air. He slid and broke a way down the steep,

soft banks, through the thick brush and thick clusters of

saplings, sending loose rocks and earth into avalanches

ahead of him. He fell over one bank, but a thicket of aspens

upheld him so that he rebounded and gained his feet. The

sounds of fight ceased, but Dale’s thrilling call floated up

on the pine-scented air.

 

Before Helen realized it she was at the foot of the slope,

in a narrow canuon-bed, full of rocks and trees, with a soft

roar of running water filling her ears. Tracks were

everywhere, and when she came to the first open place she

saw where the grizzly had plunged off a sandy bar into the

water. Here he had fought Pedro. Signs of that battle were

easy to read. Helen saw where his huge tracks, still wet,

led up the opposite sandy bank.

 

Then down-stream Helen did some more reckless and splendid

riding. On level ground the horse was great. Once he leaped

clear across the brook. Every plunge, every turn Helen

expected to come upon Dale and Bo facing the bear. The canuon

narrowed, the stream-bed deepened. She had to slow down to

get through the trees and rocks. Quite unexpectedly she rode

pell-mell upon Dale and Bo and the panting Pedro. Her horse

plunged to a halt, answering the shrill neighs of the other

horses.

 

Dale gazed in admiring amazement at Helen.

 

“Say, did you meet the bear again?” he queried, blankly.

 

“No. Didn’t — you — kill him?” panted Helen, slowly

sagging in her saddle.

 

“He got away in the rocks. Rough country down here.”

 

Helen slid off her horse and fell with a little panting cry

of relief. She saw that she was bloody, dirty, disheveled,

and wringing wet with perspiration. Her riding habit was

torn into tatters. Every muscle seemed to burn and sting,

and all her bones seemed broken. But it was worth all this

to meet Dale’s penetrating glance, to see Bo’s utter,

incredulous astonishment.

 

“Nell — Rayner!” gasped Bo.

 

“If — my horse ‘d been — any good — in the woods,” panted

Helen, “I’d not lost — so much time — riding down this

mountain. And I’d caught you — beat you.”

 

“Girl, did you RIDE down this last slope?” queried Dale.

 

“I sure did,” replied Helen, smiling.

 

“We walked every step of the way, and was lucky to get down

at that,” responded Dale, gravely. “No horse should have

been ridden down there. Why, he must have slid down.”

 

“We slid — yes. But I stayed on him.”

 

Bo’s incredulity changed to wondering, speechless

admiration. And Dale’s rare smile changed his gravity.

 

“I’m sorry. It was rash of me. I thought you’d go back… .

But all’s well that ends well… . Helen, did you wake

up to-day?”

 

She dropped her eyes, not caring to meet