The Man of the Forest - Zane Grey (white hot kiss txt) 📗
- Author: Zane Grey
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carry her share of the burden, and she seemed unsteady on
her feet.
The men were waiting beside a group of horses, one of which
carried a pack.
“Nothin’ slow about you,” said Dale, relieving Helen of the
grip. “Roy, put them up while I sling on this bag.”
Roy led out two of the horses.
“Get up,” he said, indicating Bo. “The stirrups are short on
this saddle.”
Bo was an adept at mounting, but she made such awkward and
slow work of it in this instance that Helen could not
believe her eyes.
“Haw ‘re the stirrups?” asked Roy. “Stand in them. Guess
they’re about right… . Careful now! Thet hoss is
skittish. Hold him in.”
Bo was not living up to the reputation with which Helen had
credited her.
“Now, miss, you get up,” said Roy to Helen. And in another
instant she found herself astride a black, spirited horse.
Numb with cold as she was, she yet felt the coursing thrills
along her veins.
Roy was at the stirrups with swift hands.
“You’re taller ‘n I guessed,” he said. “Stay up, but lift
your foot… . Shore now, I’m glad you have them thick,
soft boots. Mebbe we’ll ride all over the White Mountains.”
“Bo, do you hear that?” called Helen.
But Bo did not answer. She was leaning rather unnaturally in
her saddle. Helen became anxious. Just then Dale strode back
to them.
“All cinched up, Roy?”
“Jest ready,” replied Roy.
Then Dale stood beside Helen. How tall he was! His wide
shoulders seemed on a level with the pommel of her saddle.
He put an affectionate hand on the horse.
“His name’s Ranger an’ he’s the fastest an’ finest horse in
this country.”
“I reckon he shore is — along with my bay,” corroborated
Roy.
“Roy, if you rode Ranger he’d beat your pet,” said Dale. “We
can start now. Roy, you drive the pack-horses.”
He took another look at Helen’s saddle and then moved to do
likewise with Bo’s.
“Are you — all right?” he asked, quickly.
Bo reeled in her seat.
“I’m n-near froze,” she replied, in a faint voice. Her face
shone white in the starlight. Helen recognized that Bo was
more than cold.
“Oh, Bo!” she called, in distress.
“Nell, don’t you worry, now.”
“Let me carry you,” suggested Dale.
“No. I’ll s-s-stick on this horse or d-die,” fiercely
retorted Bo.
The two men looked up at her white face and then at each
other. Then Roy walked away toward the dark bunch of horses
off the road and Dale swung astride the one horse left.
“Keep close to me,” he said.
Bo fell in line and Helen brought up the rear.
Helen imagined she was near the end of a dream. Presently
she would awaken with a start and see the pale walls of her
little room at home, and hear the cherry branches brushing
her window, and the old clarion-voiced cock proclaim the
hour of dawn.
The horses trotted. And the exercise soon warmed Helen,
until she was fairly comfortable except in her fingers. In
mind, however, she grew more miserable as she more fully
realized her situation. The night now became so dark that,
although the head of her horse was alongside the flank of
Bo’s, she could scarcely see Bo. From time to time Helen’s
anxious query brought from her sister the answer that she
was all right.
Helen had not ridden a horse for more than a year, and for
several years she had not ridden with any regularity.
Despite her thrills upon mounting, she had entertained
misgivings. But she was agreeably surprised, for the horse,
Ranger, had an easy gait, and she found she had not
forgotten how to ride. Bo, having been used to riding on a
farm near home, might be expected to acquit herself
admirably. It occurred to Helen what a plight they would
have been in but for the thick, comfortable riding outfits.
Dark as the night was, Helen could dimly make out the road
underneath. It was rocky, and apparently little used. When
Dale turned off the road into the low brush or sage of what
seemed a level plain, the traveling was harder, rougher, and
yet no slower. The horses kept to the gait of the leaders.
Helen, discovering it unnecessary, ceased attempting to
guide Ranger. There were dim shapes in the gloom ahead, and
always they gave Helen uneasiness, until closer approach
proved them to be rocks or low, scrubby trees. These
increased in both size and number as the horses progressed.
Often Helen looked back into the gloom behind. This act was
involuntary and occasioned her sensations of dread. Dale
expected to be pursued. And Helen experienced, along with
the dread, flashes of unfamiliar resentment. Not only was
there an attempt afoot to rob her of her heritage, but even
her personal liberty. Then she shuddered at the significance
of Dale’s words regarding her possible abduction by this
hired gang. It seemed monstrous, impossible. Yet, manifestly
it was true enough to Dale and his allies. The West, then,
in reality was raw, hard, inevitable.
Suddenly her horse stopped. He had come up alongside Bo’s
horse. Dale had halted ahead, and apparently was listening.
Roy and the pack-train were out of sight in the gloom.
“What is it?” whispered Helen.
“Reckon I heard a wolf,” replied Dale.
“Was that cry a wolf’s?” asked Bo. “I heard. It was wild.”
“We’re gettin’ up close to the foot-hills,” said Dale. “Feel
how much colder the air is.”
“I’m warm now,” replied Bo. “I guess being near froze was
what ailed me… . Nell, how ‘re you?”
“I’m warm, too, but —” Helen answered.
“If you had your choice of being here or back home, snug in
bed — which would you take?” asked Bo.
“Bo!” exclaimed Helen, aghast.
“Well, I’d choose to be right here on this horse,” rejoined
Bo.
Dale heard her, for he turned an instant, then slapped his
horse and started on.
Helen now rode beside Bo, and for a long time they climbed
steadily in silence. Helen knew when that dark hour before
dawn had passed, and she welcomed an almost imperceptible
lightening in the east. Then the stars paled. Gradually a
grayness absorbed all but the larger stars. The great white
morning star, wonderful as Helen had never seen it, lost its
brilliance and life and seemed to retreat into the dimming
blue.
Daylight came gradually, so that the gray desert became
distinguishable by degrees. Rolling bare hills, half
obscured by the gray lifting mantle of night, rose in the
foreground, and behind was gray space, slowly taking form
and substance. In the east there was a kindling of pale rose
and silver that lengthened and brightened along a horizon
growing visibly rugged.
“Reckon we’d better catch up with Roy,” said Dale, and he
spurred his horse.
Ranger and Bo’s mount needed no other urging, and they swung
into a canter. Far ahead the pack-animals showed with Roy
driving them. The cold wind was so keen in Helen’s face that
tears blurred her eyes and froze her cheeks. And riding
Ranger at that pace was like riding in a rocking-chair. That
ride, invigorating and exciting, seemed all too short.
“Oh, Nell, I don’t care — what becomes of — me!” exclaimed
Bo, breathlessly.
Her face was white and red, fresh as a rose, her eyes
glanced darkly blue, her hair blew out in bright, unruly
strands. Helen knew she felt some of the physical
stimulation that had so roused Bo, and seemed so
irresistible, but somber thought was not deflected thereby.
It was clear daylight when Roy led off round a knoll from
which patches of scrubby trees — cedars, Dale called them
— straggled up on the side of the foot-hills.
“They grow on the north slopes, where the snow stays
longest,” said Dale.
They descended into a valley that looked shallow, but proved
to be deep and wide, and then began to climb another
foot-hill. Upon surmounting it Helen saw the rising sun, and
so glorious a view confronted her that she was unable to
answer Bo’s wild exclamations.
Bare, yellow, cedar-dotted slopes, apparently level, so
gradual was the ascent, stretched away to a dense ragged
line of forest that rose black over range after range, at
last to fail near the bare summit of a magnificent mountain,
sunrise-flushed against the blue sky.
“Oh, beautiful!” cried Bo. “But they ought to be called
Black Mountains.”
“Old Baldy, there, is white half the year,” replied Dale.
“Look back an’ see what you say,” suggested Roy.
The girls turned to gaze silently. Helen imagined she looked
down upon the whole wide world. How vastly different was the
desert! Verily it yawned away from her, red and gold near at
hand, growing softly flushed with purple far away, a barren
void, borderless and immense, where dark-green patches and
black lines and upheaved ridges only served to emphasize
distance and space.
“See thet little green spot,” said Roy, pointing. “Thet’s
Snowdrop. An’ the other one — ‘way to the right — thet’s
Show Down.”
“Where is Pine?” queried Helen, eagerly.
“Farther still, up over the foot-hills at the edge of the
woods.”
“Then we’re riding away from it.”
“Yes. If we’d gone straight for Pine thet gang could
overtake us. Pine is four days’ ride. An’ by takin’ to the
mountains Milt can hide his tracks. An’ when he’s thrown
Anson off the scent, then he’ll circle down to Pine.”
“Mr. Dale, do you think you’ll get us there safely — and
soon?” asked Helen, wistfully.
“I won’t promise soon, but I promise safe. An’ I don’t like
bein’ called Mister,” he replied.
“Are we ever going to eat?” inquired Bo, demurely.
At this query Roy Beeman turned with a laugh to look at Bo.
Helen saw his face fully in the light, and it was thin and
hard, darkly bronzed, with eyes like those of a hawk, and
with square chin and lean jaws showing scant, light beard.
“We shore are,” he replied. “Soon as we reach the timber.
Thet won’t be long.”
“Reckon we can rustle some an’ then take a good rest,” said
Dale, and he urged his horse into a jogtrot.
During a steady trot for a long hour, Helen’s roving eyes
were everywhere, taking note of the things from near to far
— the scant sage that soon gave place to as scanty a grass,
and the dark blots that proved to be dwarf cedars, and the
ravines opening out as if by magic from what had appeared
level ground, to wind away widening between gray stone
walls, and farther on, patches of lonely pine-trees, two and
three together, and then a straggling clump of yellow
aspens, and up beyond the fringed border of forest, growing
nearer all the while, the black sweeping benches rising to
the noble dome of the dominant mountain of the range.
No birds or animals were seen in that long ride up toward
the timber, which fact seemed strange to Helen. The air lost
something of its cold, cutting edge as the sun rose higher,
and it gained sweeter tang of forestland. The first faint
suggestion of that fragrance was utterly new to Helen, yet
it brought a vague sensation of familiarity and with it an
emotion as strange. It was as if she had smelled that keen,
pungent tang long ago, and her physical sense
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