The Man of the Forest - Zane Grey (white hot kiss txt) 📗

here!”

 

“Do I look sick?”

 

“Wal, I should smile. Thin an’ pale an’ down in the mouth!

Milt, what ails you?”

 

“I’ve gone to seed.”

 

“You’ve gone off your head, jest as Roy said, livin’ alone

here. You overdid it, Milt. An’ you look sick.”

 

“John, my sickness is here,” replied Dale, soberly, as he

laid a hand on his heart.

 

“Lung trouble!” ejaculated John. “With thet chest, an’ up in

this air? … Get out!”

 

“No — not lung trouble,” said Dale.

 

“I savvy. Had a hunch from Roy, anyhow.”

 

“What kind of a hunch?”

 

“Easy now, Dale, ole man… . Don’t you reckon I’m ridin’

in on you pretty early? Look at thet hoss!” John slid off

and waved a hand at the drooping beast, then began to

unsaddle him. “Wal, he done great. We bogged some comin’

over. An’ I climbed the pass at night on the frozen snow.”

 

“You’re welcome as the flowers in May. John, what month is

it?”

 

“By spades! are you as bad as thet? … Let’s see. It’s

the twenty-third of March.”

 

“March! Well, I’m beat. I’ve lost my reckonin’ — an’ a lot

more, maybe.”

 

“Thar!” declared John, slapping the mustang. “You can jest

hang up here till my next trip. Milt, how ‘re your hosses?”

 

“Wintered fine.”

 

“Wal, thet’s good. We’ll need two big, strong hosses right

off.”

 

“What for?” queried Dale, sharply. He dropped a stick of

wood and straightened up from the campfire.

 

“You’re goin’ to ride down to Pine with me — thet’s what

for.”

 

Familiarly then came back to Dale the quiet, intent

suggestiveness of the Beemans in moments foreboding trial.

 

At this certain assurance of John’s, too significant to be

doubted, Dale’s thought of Pine gave slow birth to a strange

sensation, as if he had been dead and was vibrating back to

life.

 

“Tell what you got to tell!” he broke out.

 

Quick as a flash the Mormon replied: “Roy’s been shot. But

he won’t die. He sent for you. Bad deal’s afoot. Beasley

means to force Helen Rayner out an’ steal her ranch.”

 

A tremor ran all through Dale. It seemed another painful yet

thrilling connection between his past and this vaguely

calling future. His emotions had been broodings dreams,

longings. This thing his friend said had the sting of real

life.

 

“Then old Al’s dead?” he asked.

 

“Long ago — I reckon around the middle of February. The

property went to Helen. She’s been doin’ fine. An’ many

folks say it’s a pity she’ll lose it.”

 

“She won’t lose it,” declared Dale. How strange his voice

sounded to his own ears! It was hoarse and unreal, as if

from disuse.

 

“Wal, we-all have our idees. I say she will. My father says

so. Carmichael says so.”

 

“Who’s he?”

 

“Reckon you remember thet cowpuncher who came up with Roy

an’ Auchincloss after the girls — last fall?”

 

“Yes. They called him Las — Las Vegas. I liked his looks.”

 

“Humph! You’ll like him a heap when you know him. He’s kept

the ranch goin’ for Miss Helen all along. But the deal’s

comin’ to a head. Beasley’s got thick with thet Riggs. You

remember him?”

 

“Yes.”

 

“Wal, he’s been hangin’ out at Pine all winter, watchin’ for

some chance to get at Miss Helen or Bo. Everybody’s seen

thet. An’ jest lately he chased Bo on hossback — gave the

kid a nasty fall. Roy says Riggs was after Miss Helen. But I

think one or t’other of the girls would do thet varmint.

Wal, thet sorta started goin’s-on. Carmichael beat Riggs an’

drove him out of town. But he come back. Beasley called on

Miss Helen an’ offered to marry her so’s not to take the

ranch from her, he said.”

 

Dale awoke with a thundering curse.

 

“Shore!” exclaimed John. “I’d say the same — only I’m

religious. Don’t thet beady-eyed greaser’s gall make you

want to spit all over yourself? My Gawd! but Roy was mad!

Roy’s powerful fond of Miss Helen an’ Bo… . Wal, then,

Roy, first chance he got, braced Beasley an’ give him some

straight talk. Beasley was foamin’ at the mouth, Roy said.

It was then Riggs shot Roy. Shot him from behind Beasley

when Roy wasn’t lookin’! An’ Riggs brags of bein’ a

gun-fighter. Mebbe thet wasn’t a bad shot for him!”

 

“I reckon,” replied Dale, as he swallowed hard. “Now, just

what was Roy’s message to me?”

 

“Wal, I can’t remember all Roy said,” answered John,

dubiously. “But Roy shore was excited an’ dead in earnest.

He says: ‘Tell Milt what’s happened. Tell him Helen Rayner’s

in more danger than she was last fall. Tell him I’ve seen

her look away acrost the mountains toward Paradise Park with

her heart in her eyes. Tell him she needs him most of all!’”

 

Dale shook all over as with an attack of ague. He was seized

by a whirlwind of passionate, terrible sweetness of

sensation, when what he wildly wanted was to curse Roy and

John for their simple-minded conclusions.

 

“Roy’s — crazy!” panted Dale.

 

“Wal, now, Milt — thet’s downright surprisin’ of you. Roy’s

the level-headest of any fellars I know.”

 

“Man! if he MADE me believe him — an’ it turned out untrue

— I’d — I’d kill him,” replied Dale.

 

“Untrue! Do you think Roy Beeman would lie?”

 

“But, John — you fellows can’t see my case. Nell Rayner

wants me — needs me! … It can’t be true!”

 

“Wal, my love-sick pard — it jest IS true!” exclaimed John,

feelingly. “Thet’s the hell of life — never knowin’. But

here it’s joy for you. You can believe Roy Beeman about

women as quick as you’d trust him to track your lost hoss.

Roy’s married three girls. I reckon he’ll marry some more.

Roy’s only twenty-eight an’ he has two big farms. He said

he’d seen Nell Rayner’s heart in her eyes, lookin’ for you

— an’ you can jest bet your life thet’s true. An’ he said

it because he means you to rustle down there an’ fight for

thet girl.”

 

“I’ll — go,” said Dale, in a shaky whisper, as he sat down

on a pine log near the fire. He stared unseeingly at the

bluebells in the grass by his feet while storm after storm

possessed his breast. They were fierce and brief because

driven by his will. In those few moments of contending

strife Dale was immeasurably removed from that dark gulf of

self which had made his winter a nightmare. And when he

stood erect again it seemed that the old earth had a

stirring, electrifying impetus for his feet. Something

black, bitter, melancholy, and morbid, always unreal to him,

had passed away forever. The great moment had been forced

upon him. He did not believe Roy Beeman’s preposterous hint

regarding Helen; but he had gone back or soared onward, as

if by magic, to his old true self.

 

Mounted on Dale’s strongest horses, with only a light pack,

an ax, and their weapons, the two men had reached the

snow-line on the pass by noon that day. Tom, the tame

cougar, trotted along in the rear.

 

The crust of the snow, now half thawed by the sun, would not

hold the weight of a horse, though it upheld the men on

foot. They walked, leading the horses. Travel was not

difficult until the snow began to deepen; then progress

slackened materially. John had not been able to pick out the

line of the trail, so Dale did not follow his tracks. An old

blaze on the trees enabled Dale to keep fairly well to the

trail; and at length the height of the pass was reached,

where the snow was deep. Here the horses labored, plowing

through foot by foot. When, finally, they sank to their

flanks, they had to be dragged and goaded on, and helped by

thick flat bunches of spruce boughs placed under their

hoofs. It took three hours of breaking toil to do the few

hundred yards of deep snow on the height of the pass. The

cougar did not have great difficulty in following, though it

was evident he did not like such traveling.

 

That behind them, the horses gathered heart and worked on to

the edge of the steep descent, where they had all they could

do to hold back from sliding and rolling. Fast time was made

on this slope, at the bottom of which began a dense forest

with snow still deep in places and windfalls hard to locate.

The men here performed Herculean labors, but they got

through to a park where the snow was gone. The ground,

however, soft and boggy, in places was more treacherous than

the snow; and the travelers had to skirt the edge of the

park to a point opposite, and then go on through the forest.

When they reached bare and solid ground, just before dark

that night, it was high time, for the horses were ready to

drop, and the men likewise.

 

Camp was made in an open wood. Darkness fell and the men

were resting on bough beds, feet to the fire, with Tom

curled up close by, and the horses still drooping where they

had been unsaddled. Morning, however, discovered them

grazing on the long, bleached grass. John shook his head

when he looked at them.

 

“You reckoned to make Pine by nightfall. How far is it —

the way you’ll go?”

 

“Fifty mile or thereabouts,” replied Dale.

 

“Wal, we can’t ride it on them critters.”

 

“John, we’d do more than that if we had to.”

 

They were saddled and on the move before sunrise, leaving

snow and bog behind. Level parks and level forests led one

after another to long slopes and steep descents, all growing

sunnier and greener as the altitude diminished. Squirrels

and grouse, turkeys and deer, and less tame denizens of the

forest grew more abundant as the travel advanced. In this

game zone, however, Dale had trouble with Tom. The cougar

had to be watched and called often to keep him off of

trails.

 

“Tom doesn’t like a long trip,” said Dale. “But I’m goin’ to

take him. Some way or other he may come in handy.”

 

“Sic him onto Beasley’s gang,” replied John. “Some men are

powerful scared of cougars. But I never was.”

 

“Nor me. Though I’ve had cougars give me a darn uncanny

feelin’.”

 

The men talked but little. Dale led the way, with Tom

trotting noiselessly beside his horse. John followed close

behind. They loped the horses across parks, trotted through

the forests, walked slow up what few inclines they met, and

slid down the soft, wet, pine-matted descents. So they

averaged from six to eight miles an hour. The horses held up

well under that steady travel, and this without any rest at

noon.

 

Dale seemed to feel himself in an emotional trance. Yet,

despite this, the same old sensorial perceptions crowded

thick and fast upon him, strangely sweet and vivid after the

past dead months when neither sun nor wind nor cloud nor

scent of pine nor anything in nature could stir him. His

mind, his heart, his soul seemed steeped in an intoxicating

wine of expectation, while his eyes and ears and nose had

never been keener to register the facts of the forestland.

He saw the black thing far ahead that resembled a burned

stump, but he knew was a bear before it vanished; he saw

gray flash of deer and wolf and coyote, and the red of fox,

and the small, wary heads of old gobblers