The Man of the Forest by Zane Grey (read me like a book txt) 📗

“Isn't he just beautiful?” she burst out. “Oh, look at him spit! Just like a cat! Dale, he looks afraid he might fall off.”

“He sure does. Lions are never sure of their balance in a tree. But I never saw one make a misstep. He knows he doesn't belong there.”

To Helen the lion looked splendid perched up there. He was long and round and graceful and tawny. His tongue hung out and his plump sides heaved, showing what a quick, hard run he had been driven to. What struck Helen most forcibly about him was something in his face as he looked down at the hound. He was scared. He realized his peril. It was not possible for Helen to watch him killed, yet she could not bring herself to beg Bo not to shoot. Helen confessed she was a tenderfoot.

“Get down, Bo, an' let's see how good a shot you are,” said Dale. Bo slowly withdrew her fascinated gaze from the lion and looked with a rueful smile at Dale.

“I've changed my mind. I said I would kill him, but now I can't. He looks so—so different from what I'd imagined.”

Dale's answer was a rare smile of understanding and approval that warmed Helen's heart toward him. All the same, he was amused. Sheathing the gun, he mounted his horse.

“Come on, Pedro,” he called. “Come, I tell you,” he added, sharply, “Well, girls, we treed him, anyhow, an' it was fun. Now we'll ride back to the deer he killed an' pack a haunch to camp for our own use.”

“Will the lion go back to his—his kill, I think you called it?” asked Bo.

“I've chased one away from his kill half a dozen times. Lions are not plentiful here an' they don't get overfed. I reckon the balance is pretty even.”

This last remark made Helen inquisitive. And as they slowly rode on the back-trail Dale talked.

“You girls, bein' tender-hearted an' not knowin' the life of the forest, what's good an' what's bad, think it was a pity the poor deer was killed by a murderous lion. But you're wrong. As I told you, the lion is absolutely necessary to the health an' joy of wild life—or deer's wild life, so to speak. When deer were created or came into existence, then the lion must have come, too. They can't live without each other. Wolves, now, are not particularly deer-killers. They live off elk an' anythin' they can catch. So will lions, for that matter. But I mean lions follow the deer to an' fro from winter to summer feedin'-grounds. Where there's no deer you will find no lions. Well, now, if left alone deer would multiply very fast. In a few years there would be hundreds where now there's only one. An' in time, as the generations passed, they'd lose the fear, the alertness, the speed an' strength, the eternal vigilance that is love of life—they'd lose that an' begin to deteriorate, an' disease would carry them off. I saw one season of black-tongue among deer. It killed them off, an' I believe that is one of the diseases of over-production. The lions, now, are forever on the trail of the deer. They have learned. Wariness is an instinct born in the fawn. It makes him keen, quick, active, fearful, an' so he grows up strong an' healthy to become the smooth, sleek, beautiful, soft-eyed, an' wild-lookin' deer you girls love to watch. But if it wasn't for the lions, the deer would not thrive. Only the strongest an' swiftest survive. That is the meanin' of nature. There is always a perfect balance kept by nature. It may vary in different years, but on the whole, in the long years, it averages an even balance.”

“How wonderfully you put it!” exclaimed Bo, with all her impulsiveness. “Oh, I'm glad I didn't kill the lion.”

“What you say somehow hurts me,” said Helen, wistfully, to the hunter. “I see—I feel how true—how inevitable it is. But it changes my—my feelings. Almost I'd rather not acquire such knowledge as yours. This balance of nature—how tragic—how sad!”

“But why?” asked Dale. “You love birds, an' birds are the greatest killers in the forest.”

“Don't tell me that—don't prove it,” implored Helen. “It is not so much the love of life in a deer or any creature, and the terrible clinging to life, that gives me distress. It is suffering. I can't bear to see pain. I can STAND pain myself, but I can't BEAR to see or think of it.”

“Well,” replied. Dale, thoughtfully, “There you stump me again. I've lived long in the forest an' when a man's alone he does a heap of thinkin'. An' always I couldn't understand a reason or a meanin' for pain. Of all the bafflin' things of life, that is the hardest to understand an' to forgive—pain!”

That evening, as they sat in restful places round the camp-fire, with the still twilight fading into night, Dale seriously asked the girls what the day's chase had meant to them. His manner of asking was productive of thought. Both girls were silent for a moment.

“Glorious!” was Bo's brief and eloquent reply.

“Why?” asked. Dale, curiously. “You are a girl. You've been used to home, people, love, comfort, safety, quiet.”

“Maybe that is just why it was glorious,” said Bo, earnestly. “I can hardly explain. I loved the motion of the horse, the feel of wind in my face, the smell of the pine, the sight of slope and forest glade and windfall and rocks, and the black shade under the spruces. My blood beat and burned. My teeth clicked. My nerves all quivered. My heart sometimes, at dangerous moments, almost choked me, and all the time it pounded hard. Now my skin was hot and then it was cold. But I think the best of that chase for me was that I was on a fast horse, guiding him, controlling him. He was alive. Oh, how I felt his running!”

“Well, what you say is as natural to me as if I felt it,” said Dale. “I wondered. You're certainly full of fire, An', Helen, what do you say?”

“Bo has answered you with her feelings,” replied Helen, “I could not do that and be honest. The fact that Bo wouldn't shoot the lion after we treed him acquits her. Nevertheless, her answer is purely physical. You know, Mr. Dale, how you talk about the physical. I should say my sister was just a young, wild, highly sensitive, hot-blooded female of the species. She exulted in that chase as an Indian. Her sensations were inherited ones—certainly not acquired by education. Bo always hated study. The ride was a revelation to me. I had a good many of Bo's feelings—though not so strong. But over against them was the opposition of reason, of consciousness. A new-born side of my nature confronted me, strange, surprising, violent, irresistible. It was as if another side of my personality suddenly said: 'Here I am. Reckon with me now!' And there was no use for the moment to oppose that strange side. I—the thinking Helen Rayner, was powerless. Oh yes, I had such thoughts even when the branches were stinging my face and I was thrilling to the bay of the hound. Once my horse fell and threw me.... You needn't look alarmed. It was fine. I went into a soft place and was unhurt. But when I was sailing through the air a thought flashed: this is the end of me! It was like a