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

to men, she actually smiled at the thought of

Beasley forcing her off her property, if Dale were there.

Beasley would only force disaster upon himself. Then Helen

experienced a quick shock. Would Dale answer to this

situation as Carmichael had answered? It afforded her relief

to assure herself to the contrary. The cowboy was one of a

blood-letting breed; the hunter was a man of thought,

gentleness, humanity. This situation was one of the kind

that had made him despise the littleness of men. Helen

assured herself that he was different from her uncle and

from the cowboy, in all the relations of life which she had

observed while with him. But a doubt lingered in her mind.

She remembered his calm reference to Snake Anson, and that

caused a recurrence of the little shiver Carmichael had

given her. When the doubt augmented to a possibility that

she might not be able to control Dale, then she tried not to

think of it any more. It confused and perplexed her that

into her mind should flash a thought that, though it would

be dreadful for Carmichael to kill Beasley, for Dale to do

it would be a calamity — a terrible thing. Helen did not

analyze that strange thought. She was as afraid of it as she

was of the stir in her blood when she visualized Dale.

 

Her meditation was interrupted by Bo, who entered the room,

rebellious-eyed and very lofty. Her manner changed, which

apparently owed its cause to the fact that Helen was alone.

 

“Is that — cowboy gone?” she asked.

 

“Yes. He left quite some time ago,” replied Helen.

 

“I wondered if he made your eyes shine — your color burn

so. Nell, you’re just beautiful.”

 

“Is my face burning?” asked Helen, with a little laugh. “So

it is. Well, Bo, you’ve no cause for jealousy. Las Vegas

can’t be blamed for my blushes.”

 

“Jealous! Me? Of that wild-eyed, soft-voiced, two-faced

cowpuncher? I guess not, Nell Rayner. What ‘d he say about

me?”

 

“Bo, he said a lot,” replied Helen, reflectively. “I’ll tell

you presently. First I want to ask you — has Carmichael

ever told you how he’s helped me?”

 

“No! When I see him — which hasn’t been often lately — he

— I — Well, we fight. Nell, has he helped you?”

 

Helen smiled in faint amusement. She was going to be

sincere, but she meant to keep her word to the cowboy. The

fact was that reflection had acquainted her with her

indebtedness to Carmichael.

 

“Bo, you’ve been so wild to ride half-broken mustangs — and

carry on with cowboys — and read — and sew — and keep

your secrets that you’ve had no time for your sister or her

troubles.”

 

“Nell!” burst out Bo, in amaze and pain. She flew to Helen

and seized her hands. “What ‘re you saying?”

 

“It’s all true,” replied Helen, thrilling and softening.

This sweet sister, once aroused, would be hard to resist.

Helen imagined she should hold to her tone of reproach and

severity.

 

“Sure it’s true,” cried Bo, fiercely. “But what’s my fooling

got to do with the — the rest you said? Nell, are you

keeping things from me?”

 

“My dear, I never get any encouragement to tell you my

troubles.”

 

“But I’ve — I’ve nursed uncle — sat up with him — just

the same as you,” said Bo, with quivering lips.

 

“Yes, you’ve been good to him.”

 

“We’ve no other troubles, have we, Nell?”

 

“You haven’t, but I have,” responded Helen, reproachfully.

 

“Why — why didn’t you tell me?” cried Bo, passionately.

“What are they? Tell me now. You must think me a — a

selfish, hateful cat.”

 

“Bo, I’ve had much to worry me — and the worst is yet to

come,” replied Helen. Then she told Bo how complicated and

bewildering was the management of a big ranch — when the

owner was ill, testy, defective in memory, and hard as steel

— when he had hoards of gold and notes, but could not or

would not remember his obligations — when the neighbor

ranchers had just claims — when cowboys and sheep-herders

were discontented, and wrangled among themselves — when

great herds of cattle and flocks of sheep had to be fed in

winter — when supplies had to be continually freighted

across a muddy desert and lastly, when an enemy rancher was

slowly winning away the best hands with the end in view of

deliberately taking over the property when the owner died.

Then Helen told how she had only that day realized the

extent of Carmichael’s advice and help and labor — how,

indeed, he had been a brother to her — how —

 

But at this juncture Bo buried her face in Helen’s breast

and began to cry wildly.

 

“I — I — don’t want — to hear — any more,” she sobbed.

 

“Well, you’ve got to hear it,” replied Helen, inexorably “I

want you to know how he’s stood by me.”

 

“But I hate him.”

 

“Bo, I suspect that’s not true.”

 

“I do — I do.”

 

“Well, you act and talk very strangely then.”

 

“Nell Rayner — are — you — you sticking up for that —

that devil?”

 

“I am, yes, so far as it concerns my conscience,” rejoined

Helen, earnestly. “I never appreciated him as he deserved —

not until now. He’s a man, Bo, every inch of him. I’ve seen

him grow up to that in three months. I’d never have gotten

along without him. I think he’s fine, manly, big. I —”

 

“I’ll bet — he’s made love — to you, too,” replied Bo,

woefully.

 

“Talk sense,” said Helen, sharply. “He has been a brother to

me. But, Bo Rayner, if he HAD made love to me I — I might

have appreciated it more than you.”

 

Bo raised her face, flushed in part and also pale, with

tear-wet cheeks and the telltale blaze in the blue eyes.

 

“I’ve been wild about that fellow. But I hate him, too,” she

said, with flashing spirit. “And I want to go on hating him.

So don’t tell me any more.”

 

Whereupon Helen briefly and graphically related how

Carmichael had offered to kill Beasley, as the only way to

save her property, and how, when she refused, that he

threatened he would do it anyhow.

 

Bo fell over with a gasp and clung to Helen.

 

“Oh — Nell! Oh, now I love him more than — ever,” she

cried, in mingled rage and despair.

 

Helen clasped her closely and tried to comfort her as in the

old days, not so very far back, when troubles were not so

serious as now.

 

“Of course you love him,” she concluded. “I guessed that

long ago. And I’m glad. But you’ve been wilful — foolish.

You wouldn’t surrender to it. You wanted your fling with the

other boys. You’re — Oh, Bo, I fear you have been a sad

little flirt.”

 

“I — I wasn’t very bad till — till he got bossy. Why,

Nell, he acted — right off — just as if he OWNED me. But

he didn’t… . And to show him — I — I really did flirt

with that Turner fellow. Then he — he insulted me… .

Oh, I hate him!”

 

“Nonsense, Bo. You can’t hate any one while you love him,”

protested Helen.

 

“Much you know about that,” flashed Bo. “You just can! Look

here. Did you ever see a cowboy rope and throw and tie up a

mean horse?”

 

“Yes, I have.”

 

“Do you have any idea how strong a cowboy is — how his

hands and arms are like iron?”

 

“Yes, I’m sure I know that, too.”

 

“And how savage he is?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“And how he goes at anything he wants to do?”

 

“I must admit cowboys are abrupt,” responded Helen, with a

smile.

 

“Well, Miss Rayner, did you ever — when you were standing

quiet like a lady — did you ever have a cowboy dive at you

with a terrible lunge — grab you and hold you so you

couldn’t move or breathe or scream — hug you till all your

bones cracked — and kiss you so fierce and so hard that you

wanted to kill him and die?”

 

Helen had gradually drawn back from this blazing-eyed,

eloquent sister, and when the end of that remarkable

question came it was impossible to reply.

 

“There! I see you never had that done to you,” resumed Bo,

with satisfaction. “So don’t ever talk to me.”

 

“I’ve heard his side of the story,” said Helen,

constrainedly.

 

With a start Bo sat up straighter, as if better to defend

herself.

 

“Oh! So you have? And I suppose you’ll take his part — even

about that — that bearish trick.”

 

“No. I think that rude and bold. But, Bo, I don’t believe he

meant to be either rude or bold. From what he confessed to

me I gather that he believed he’d lose you outright or win

you outright by that violence. It seems girls can’t play at

love out here in this wild West. He said there would be

blood shed over you. I begin to realize what he meant. He’s

not sorry for what he did. Think how strange that is. For he

has the instincts of a gentleman. He’s kind, gentle,

chivalrous. Evidently he had tried every way to win your

favor except any familiar advance. He did that as a last

resort. In my opinion his motives were to force you to

accept or refuse him, and in case you refused him he’d

always have those forbidden stolen kisses to assuage his

self-respect — when he thought of Turner or any one else

daring to be familiar with you. Bo, I see through

Carmichael, even if I don’t make him clear to you. You’ve

got to be honest with yourself. Did that act of his win or

lose you? In other words, do you love him or not?”

 

Bo hid her face.

 

“Oh, Nell! it made me see how I loved him — and that made

me so — so sick I hated him… . But now — the hate is

all gone.”