The Man of the Forest - Zane Grey (white hot kiss txt) 📗
- Author: Zane Grey
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before her memory.
The yellow plain had only appeared to be level. Roy led down
into a shallow ravine, where a tiny stream meandered, and he
followed this around to the left, coming at length to a
point where cedars and dwarf pines formed a little grove.
Here, as the others rode up, he sat cross-legged in his
saddle, and waited.
“We’ll hang up awhile,” he said. “Reckon you’re tired?”
“I’m hungry, but not tired yet,” replied Bo.
Helen dismounted, to find that walking was something she had
apparently lost the power to do. Bo laughed at her, but she,
too, was awkward when once more upon the ground.
Then Roy got down. Helen was surprised to find him lame. He
caught her quick glance.
“A hoss threw me once an’ rolled on me. Only broke my
collar-bone, five ribs, one arm, an’ my bow-legs in two
places!”
Notwithstanding this evidence that he was a cripple, as he
stood there tall and lithe in his homespun, ragged garments,
he looked singularly powerful and capable.
“Reckon walkin’ around would be good for you girls,” advised
Dale. “If you ain’t stiff yet, you’ll be soon. An’ walkin’
will help. Don’t go far. I’ll call when breakfast’s ready.”
A little while later the girls were whistled in from their
walk and found campfire and meal awaiting them. Roy was
sitting cross-legged, like an Indian, in front of a
tarpaulin, upon which was spread a homely but substantial
fare. Helen’s quick eye detected a cleanliness and
thoroughness she had scarcely expected to find in the camp
cooking of men of the wilds. Moreover, the fare was good.
She ate heartily, and as for Bo’s appetite, she was inclined
to be as much ashamed of that as amused at it. The young men
were all eyes, assiduous in their service to the girls, but
speaking seldom. It was not lost upon Helen how Dale’s gray
gaze went often down across the open country. She divined
apprehension from it rather than saw much expression in it.
“I — declare,” burst out Bo, when she could not eat any
more, “this isn’t believable. I’m dreaming… . Nell, the
black horse you rode is the prettiest I ever saw.”
Ranger, with the other animals, was grazing along the little
brook. Packs and saddles had been removed. The men ate
leisurely. There was little evidence of hurried flight. Yet
Helen could not cast off uneasiness. Roy might have been
deep, and careless, with a motive to spare the girls’
anxiety, but Dale seemed incapable of anything he did not
absolutely mean.
“Rest or walk,” he advised the girls. “We’ve got forty miles
to ride before dark.”
Helen preferred to rest, but Bo walked about, petting the
horses and prying into the packs. She was curious and eager.
Dale and Roy talked in low tones while they cleaned up the
utensils and packed them away in a heavy canvas bag.
“You really expect Anson ‘ll strike my trail this mornin’?”
Dale was asking.
“I shore do,” replied Roy.
“An’ how do you figure that so soon?”
“How’d you figure it — if you was Snake Anson?” queried
Roy, in reply.
“Depends on that rider from Magdalena,” Said Dale, soberly.
“Although it’s likely I’d seen them wheel tracks an’ hoss
tracks made where we turned off. But supposin’ he does.”
“Milt, listen. I told you Snake met us boys face to face day
before yesterday in Show Down. An’ he was plumb curious.”
“But he missed seein’ or hearin’ about me,” replied Dale.
“Mebbe he did an’ mebbe he didn’t. Anyway, what’s the
difference whether he finds out this mornin’ or this
evenin’?”
“Then you ain’t expectin’ a fight if Anson holds up the
stage?”
“Wal, he’d have to shoot first, which ain’t likely. John an’
Hal, since thet shootin’-scrape a year ago, have been sort
of gun-shy. Joe might get riled. But I reckon the best we
can be shore of is a delay. An’ it’d be sense not to count
on thet.”
“Then you hang up here an’ keep watch for Anson’s gang —
say long enough so’s to be sure they’d be in sight if they
find our tracks this mornin’. Makin’ sure one way or
another, you ride ‘cross-country to Big Spring, where I’ll
camp to-night.”
Roy nodded approval of that suggestion. Then without more
words both men picked up ropes and went after the horses.
Helen was watching Dale, so that when Bo cried out in great
excitement Helen turned to see a savage yellow little
mustang standing straight up on his hind legs and pawing the
air. Roy had roped him and was now dragging him into camp.
“Nell, look at that for a wild pony!” exclaimed Bo.
Helen busied herself getting well out of the way of the
infuriated mustang. Roy dragged him to a cedar near by.
“Come now, Buckskin,” said Roy, soothingly, and he slowly
approached the quivering animal. He went closer, hand over
hand, on the lasso. Buckskin showed the whites of his eyes
and also his white teeth. But he stood while Roy loosened
the loop and, slipping it down over his head, fastened it in
a complicated knot round his nose.
“Thet’s a hackamore,” he said, indicating the knot. “He’s
never had a bridle, an’ never will have one, I reckon.”
“You don’t ride him?” queried Helen.
“Sometimes I do,” replied Roy, with a smile. “Would you
girls like to try him?”
“Excuse me,” answered Helen.
“Gee!” ejaculated Bo. “He looks like a devil. But I’d tackle
him — if you think I could.”
The wild leaven of the West had found quick root in Bo
Rayner.
“Wal, I’m sorry, but I reckon I’ll not let you — for a
spell,” replied Roy, dryly.
“He pitches somethin’ powerful bad.”
“Pitches. You mean bucks?”
“I reckon.”
In the next half-hour Helen saw more and learned more about
how horses of the open range were handled than she had ever
heard of. Excepting Ranger, and Roy’s bay, and the white
pony Bo rode, the rest of the horses had actually to be
roped and hauled into camp to be saddled and packed. It was
a job for fearless, strong men, and one that called for
patience as well as arms of iron. So that for Helen Rayner
the thing succeeding the confidence she had placed in these
men was respect. To an observing woman that half-hour told
much.
When all was in readiness for a start Dale mounted, and
said, significantly: “Roy, I’ll look for you about sundown.
I hope no sooner.”
“Wal, it’d be bad if I had to rustle along soon with bad
news. Let’s hope for the best. We’ve been shore lucky so
far. Now you take to the pine-mats in the woods an’ hide
your trail.”
Dale turned away. Then the girls bade Roy good-by, and
followed. Soon Roy and his buckskin-colored mustang were
lost to sight round a clump of trees.
The unhampered horses led the way; the pack-animals trotted
after them; the riders were close behind. All traveled at a
jogtrot. And this gait made the packs bob up and down and
from side to side. The sun felt warm at Helen’s back and the
wind lost its frosty coldness, that almost appeared damp,
for a dry, sweet fragrance. Dale drove up the shallow valley
that showed timber on the levels above and a black border of
timber some few miles ahead. It did not take long to reach
the edge of the forest.
Helen wondered why the big pines grew so far on that plain
and no farther. Probably the growth had to do with snow,
but, as the ground was level, she could not see why the edge
of the woods should come just there.
They rode into the forest.
To Helen it seemed a strange, critical entrance into another
world, which she was destined to know and to love. The pines
were big, brown-barked, seamed, and knotted, with no typical
conformation except a majesty and beauty. They grew far
apart. Few small pines and little underbrush flourished
beneath them. The floor of this forest appeared remarkable
in that it consisted of patches of high silvery grass and
wide brown areas of pine-needles. These manifestly were what
Roy had meant by pine-mats. Here and there a fallen monarch
lay riven or rotting. Helen was presently struck with the
silence of the forest and the strange fact that the horses
seldom made any sound at all, and when they did it was a
cracking of dead twig or thud of hoof on log. Likewise she
became aware of a springy nature of the ground. And then she
saw that the pine-mats gave like rubber cushions under the
hoofs of the horses, and after they had passed sprang back
to place again, leaving no track. Helen could not see a sign
of a trail they left behind. Indeed, it would take a sharp
eye to follow Dale through that forest. This knowledge was
infinitely comforting to Helen, and for the first time since
the flight had begun she felt a lessening of the weight upon
mind and heart. It left her free for some of the
appreciation she might have had in this wonderful ride under
happier circumstances.
Bo, however, seemed too young, too wild, too intense to mind
what the circumstances were. She responded to reality. Helen
began to suspect that the girl would welcome any adventure,
and Helen knew surely now that Bo was a true Auchincloss.
For three long days Helen had felt a constraint with which
heretofore she had been unfamiliar; for the last hours it
had been submerged under dread. But it must be, she
concluded, blood like her sister’s, pounding at her veins to
be set free to race and to burn.
Bo loved action. She had an eye for beauty, but she was not
contemplative. She was now helping Dale drive the horses and
hold them in rather close formation. She rode well, and as
yet showed no symptoms of fatigue or pain. Helen began to be
aware of both, but not enough yet to limit her interest.
A wonderful forest without birds did not seem real to her.
Of all living creatures in nature Helen liked birds best,
and she knew many and could imitate the songs of a few. But
here under the stately pines there were no birds. Squirrels,
however, began to be seen here and there, and in the course
of an hour’s travel became abundant. The only one with which
she was familiar was the chipmunk. All the others, from the
slim bright blacks to the striped russets and the
white-tailed grays, were totally new to her. They appeared
tame and curious. The reds barked and scolded at the passing
cavalcade; the blacks glided to some safe branch, there to
watch; the grays paid no especial heed to this invasion of
their domain.
Once Dale, halting his horse, pointed with long arm, and
Helen, following the direction, descried several gray deer
standing in a glade, motionless, with long ears up. They
made a wild and beautiful picture. Suddenly they bounded
away with remarkable springy strides.
The forest on the whole held to the level, open character,
but there were swales and stream-beds breaking up its
regular conformity. Toward noon, however, it gradually
changed, a fact that Helen believed she might have observed
sooner had she been more keen. The general lay of the land
began to ascend, and the trees to grow denser.
She made another discovery. Ever since she had entered the
forest she had become aware
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