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

CHAPTER V

Here, there was no kindly brakeman to help the sisters with

their luggage. Helen bade Bo take her share; thus burdened,

they made an awkward and laborious shift to get off the

train.

 

Upon the platform of the car a strong hand seized Helen’s

heavy bag, with which she was straining, and a loud voice

called out:

 

“Girls, we’re here — sure out in the wild an’ woolly West!”

 

The speaker was Riggs, and he had possessed himself of part

of her baggage with action and speech meant more to impress

the curious crowd than to be really kind. In the excitement

of arriving Helen had forgotten him. The manner of sudden

reminder — the insincerity of it — made her temper flash.

She almost fell, encumbered as she was, in her hurry to

descend the steps. She saw the tall hunter in gray step

forward close to her as she reached for the bag Riggs held.

 

“Mr. Riggs, I’ll carry my bag,” she said.

 

“Let me lug this. You help Bo with hers,” he replied,

familiarly.

 

“But I want it,” she rejoined, quietly, with sharp

determination. No little force was needed to pull the bag

away from Riggs.

 

“See here, Helen, you ain’t goin’ any farther with that

joke, are you?” he queried, deprecatingly, and he still

spoke quite loud.

 

“It’s no joke to me,” replied Helen. “I told you I didn’t

want your attention.”

 

“Sure. But that was temper. I’m your friend — from your

home town. An’ I ain’t goin’ to let a quarrel keep me from

lookin’ after you till you’re safe at your uncle’s.”

 

Helen turned her back upon him. The tall hunter had just

helped Bo off the car. Then Helen looked up into a smooth

bronzed face and piercing gray eyes.

 

“Are you Helen Rayner?” he asked.

 

“Yes.”

 

“My name’s Dale. I’ve come to meet you.”

 

“Ah! My uncle sent you?” added Helen, in quick relief.

 

“No; I can’t say Al sent me,” began the man, “but I reckon

—”

 

He was interrupted by Riggs, who, grasping Helen by the arm,

pulled her back a step.

 

“Say, mister, did Auchincloss send you to meet my young

friends here?” he demanded, arrogantly.

 

Dale’s glance turned from Helen to Riggs. She could not read

this quiet gray gaze, but it thrilled her.

 

“No. I come on my own hook,” he answered.

 

“You’ll understand, then — they’re in my charge,” added

Riggs.

 

This time the steady light-gray eyes met Helen’s, and if

there was not a smile in them or behind them she was still

further baffled.

 

“Helen, I reckon you said you didn’t want this fellow’s

attention.”

 

“I certainly said that,” replied Helen, quickly. Just then

Bo slipped close to her and gave her arm a little squeeze.

Probably Bo’s thought was like hers — here was a real

Western man. That was her first impression, and following

swiftly upon it was a sensation of eased nerves.

 

Riggs swaggered closer to Dale.

 

“Say, Buckskin, I hail from Texas —”

 

“You’re wastin’ our time an’ we’ve need to hurry,”

interrupted Dale. His tone seemed friendly. “An’ if you ever

lived long in Texas you wouldn’t pester a lady an’ you sure

wouldn’t talk like you do.”

 

“What!” shouted Riggs, hotly. He dropped his right hand

significantly to his hip.

 

“Don’t throw your gun. It might go off,” said Dale.

 

Whatever Riggs’s intention had been — and it was probably

just what Dale evidently had read it — he now flushed an

angry red and jerked at his gun.

 

Dale’s hand flashed too swiftly for Helen’s eye to follow

it. But she heard the thud as it struck. The gun went flying

to the platform and scattered a group of Indians and

Mexicans.

 

“You’ll hurt yourself some day,” said Dale.

 

Helen had never heard a slow, cool voice like this hunter’s.

Without excitement or emotion or hurry, it yet seemed full

and significant of things the words did not mean. Bo uttered

a strange little exultant cry.

 

Riggs’s arm had dropped limp. No doubt it was numb. He

stared, and his predominating expression was surprise. As

the shuffling crowd began to snicker and whisper, Riggs gave

Dale a malignant glance, shifted it to Helen, and then

lurched away in the direction of his gun.

 

Dale did not pay any more attention to him. Gathering up

Helen’s baggage, he said, “Come on,” and shouldered a lane

through the gaping crowd. The girls followed close at his

heels.

 

“Nell! what ‘d I tell you?” whispered Bo. “Oh, you’re all

atremble!”

 

Helen was aware of her unsteadiness; anger and fear and

relief in quick succession had left her rather weak. Once

through the motley crowd of loungers, she saw an old gray

stage-coach and four lean horses. A grizzled, sunburned man

sat on the driver’s seat, whip and reins in hand. Beside him

was a younger man with rifle across his knees. Another man,

young, tall, lean, dark, stood holding the coach door open.

He touched his sombrero to the girls. His eyes were sharp as

he addressed Dale.

 

“Milt, wasn’t you held up?”

 

“No. But some long-haired galoot was tryin’ to hold up the

girls. Wanted to throw his gun on me. I was sure scared,”

replied Dale, as he deposited the luggage.

 

Bo laughed. Her eyes, resting upon Dale, were warm and

bright. The young man at the coach door took a second look

at her, and then a smile changed the dark hardness of his

face.

 

Dale helped the girls up the high step into the stage, and

then, placing the lighter luggage, in with them, he threw

the heavier pieces on top.

 

“Joe, climb up,” he said.

 

“Wal, Milt,” drawled the driver, “let’s ooze along.”

 

Dale hesitated, with his hand on the door. He glanced at the

crowd, now edging close again, and then at Helen.

 

“I reckon I ought to tell you,” he said, and indecision

appeared to concern him.

 

“What?” exclaimed Helen.

 

“Bad news. But talkin’ takes time. An’ we mustn’t lose any.”

 

“There’s need of hurry?” queried Helen, sitting up sharply.

 

“I reckon.”

 

“Is this the stage to Snowdrop?

 

“No. That leaves in the mornin’. We rustled this old trap to

get a start to-night.”

 

“The sooner the better. But I — I don’t understand,” said

Helen, bewildered.

 

“It’ll not be safe for you to ride on the mornin’ stage,”

returned Dale.

 

“Safe! Oh, what do you mean?” exclaimed Helen.

Apprehensively she gazed at him and then back at Bo.

 

“Explainin’ will take time. An’ facts may change your mind.

But if you can’t trust me —”

 

“Trust you!” interposed Helen, blankly. “You mean to take us

to Snowdrop?”

 

“I reckon we’d better go roundabout an’ not hit Snowdrop,”

he replied, shortly.

 

“Then to Pine — to my uncle — Al Auchincloss?

 

“Yes, I’m goin’ to try hard.”

 

Helen caught her breath. She divined that some peril menaced

her. She looked steadily, with all a woman’s keenness, into

this man’s face. The moment was one of the fateful decisions

she knew the West had in store for her. Her future and that

of Bo’s were now to be dependent upon her judgments. It was

a hard moment and, though she shivered inwardly, she

welcomed the initial and inevitable step. This man Dale, by

his dress of buckskin, must be either scout or hunter. His

size, his action, the tone of his voice had been reassuring.

But Helen must decide from what she saw in his face whether

or not to trust him. And that face was clear bronze,

unlined, unshadowed, like a tranquil mask, clean-cut,

strong-jawed, with eyes of wonderful transparent gray.

 

“Yes, I’ll trust you,” she said. “Get in, and let us hurry.

Then you can explain.”

 

“All ready, Bill. Send ‘em along,” called Dale.

 

He had to stoop to enter the stage, and, once in, he

appeared to fill that side upon which he sat. Then the

driver cracked his whip; the stage lurched and began to

roll; the motley crowd was left behind. Helen awakened to

the reality, as she saw Bo staring with big eyes at the

hunter, that a stranger adventure than she had ever dreamed

of had began with the rattling roll of that old stage-coach.

 

Dale laid off his sombrero and leaned forward, holding his

rifle between his knees. The light shone better upon his

features now that he was bareheaded. Helen had never seen a

face like that, which at first glance appeared darkly

bronzed and hard, and then became clear, cold, aloof, still,

intense. She wished she might see a smile upon it. And now

that the die was cast she could not tell why she had trusted

it. There was singular force in it, but she did not

recognize what kind of force. One instant she thought it was

stern, and the next that it was sweet, and again that it was

neither.

 

“I’m glad you’ve got your sister,” he said, presently.

 

“How did you know she’s my sister?”

 

“I reckon she looks like you.”

 

“No one else ever thought so,” replied Helen, trying to

smile.

 

Bo had no difficulty in smiling, as she said, “Wish I was

half as pretty as Nell.”

 

“Nell. Isn’t your name Helen?” queried Dale.

 

“Yes. But my — some few call me Nell.”

 

“I like Nell better than Helen. An’ what’s yours?” went on

Dale, looking at Bo.

 

“Mine’s Bo. Just plain B-o. Isn’t it silly? But I wasn’t

asked when they gave it to me,” she replied.

 

“Bo. It’s nice an’ short. Never heard it before. But I

haven’t met many people for years.”

 

“Oh! we’ve left the town!” cried Bo. “Look, Nell! How bare!

It’s just like desert.”

 

“It is desert. We’ve forty miles of that before we come to a

hill or a tree.”

 

Helen glanced out. A flat, dull-green expanse waved away

from the road on and on to a bright, dark horizon-line,

where the sun was setting rayless in a clear sky. Open,

desolate, and lonely, the scene gave her a cold thrill.

 

“Did your uncle Al ever write anythin’ about a man named

Beasley?” asked Dale.

 

“Indeed he did,” replied Helen, with a start of surprise.

“Beasley! That name is familiar to us — and detestable. My uncle

complained of this man for years. Then he grew bitter — accused

Beasley. But the last year or so not a word!”

 

“Well, now,” began the hunter, earnestly, “let’s get the bad

news over. I’m sorry you must be worried. But you must learn

to take the West as it is. There’s good an’ bad, maybe more

bad. That’s because the country’s young… . So to come

right out with it — this Beasley hired a gang of outlaws to

meet the stage you was goin’ in to Snowdrop — tomorrow —

an’ to make off with you.”

 

“Make off with me?” ejaculated Helen, bewildered.

 

“Kidnap you! Which, in that gang, would be worse