The Forester's Daughter by Hamlin Garland




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[Illustration: HER FACE SHONE AS SHE CALLED OUT: "WELL, HOW DO YOU
STACK UP THIS MORNING?" (See page 31)]

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THE FORESTER'S DAUGHTER

A Romance of the Bear-Tooth Range

By
HAMLIN GARLAND

Author of
"The Captain of the Gray-Horse Troop"
"Main-Travelled Roads" Etc.

Illustrated

HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS
New York and London
MCMXIV

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COPYRIGHT. 1914. BY HAMLIN GARLAND

Printed in the United States of America
Published February, 1914
A-O

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER                                PAGE
      I  The Happy Girl                   1
     II  A Ride In The Rain              19
    III  Wayland Receives a Warning      46
     IV  The Supervisor of the Forest    68
      V  The Golden Pathway              82
     VI  Storm-Bound                    110
    VII  The Walk in the Rain           123
   VIII  The Other Girl                 142
     IX  Further Perplexities           159
      X  The Camp on the Pass           173
     XI  The Death-Grapple              195
    XII  Berrie's Vigil                 204
   XIII  The Gossips Awake              223
    XIV  The Summons                    247
     XV  A Matter of Millinery          260
    XVI  The Private Car                274

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ILLUSTRATIONS

                                                              PAGE

HER FACE SHONE AS SHE CALLED OUT: "WELL, HOW DO YOU
STACK UP THIS MORNING?"                               Frontispiece

THE GIRL BEHIND HIM WAS A WONDROUS PART OF THIS WILD
AND UNACCOUNTABLE COUNTRY                                        6

SHE FOUND HERSELF CONFRONTED BY AN ENDLESS MAZE
OF BLACKENED TREE-TRUNKS                                       140

THE SLENDER YOUTH WENT DOWN BEFORE THE BIG RANCHER
AS THOUGH STRUCK BY A CATAPULT                                 195

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AUTHOR'S FOREWORD

This little story is the outcome of two trips (neither of which was in
the Bear Tooth Forest) during the years 1909 and 1910. Its main claim on
the reader's interest will lie, no doubt, in the character of Berea
McFarlane; but I find myself re-living with keen pleasure the splendid
drama of wind and cloud and swaying forest which made the expeditions
memorable.

The golden trail is an actuality for me. The camp on the lake was mine.
The rain, the snow I met. The prying camp-robbers, the grouse, the
muskrats, the beaver were my companions. But Berrie was with me only in
imagination. She is a fiction, born of a momentary, powerful hand-clasp
of a Western rancher's daughter. The story of Wayland Norcross is fiction
also. But the McFarlane ranch, the mill, and the lonely ranger-stations
are closely drawn pictures of realities. Although the stage of my comedy
is Colorado, I have not held to any one locality. The scene is
composite.

It was my intention, originally, to write a much longer and more
important book concerning Supervisor McFarlane, but Berrie took the story
into her own strong hands and made of it something so intimate and so
idyllic that I could not bring the more prosaic element into it. It
remained personal and youthful in spite of my plans, a divergence for
which, perhaps, most of my readers will be grateful.

As for its title, I had little to do with its selection. My daughter,
Mary Isabel, aged ten, selected it from among a half-dozen others, and
for luck I let it stand, although it sounds somewhat like that of a
paper-bound German romance. For the sub-title my publishers are
responsible.

Finally, I warn the reader that this is merely the very slender story of
a young Western girl who, being desired of three strong men, bestows her
love on a "tourist" whose weakness is at once her allurement and her
care. The administration problem, the sociologic theme, which was to have
made the novel worth while, got lost in some way on the low trail and
never caught up with the lovers. I'm sorry--but so it was!

Chicago, January, 1914.

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THE FORESTER'S DAUGHTER

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THE FORESTER'S DAUGHTER

I

THE HAPPY GIRL


The stage line which ran from Williams to Bear Tooth (one of the most
authentic then to be found in all the West) possessed at least one
genuine Concord coach, so faded, so saddened, so cracked, and so
splintered that its passengers entered it under protest, and alighted
from it with thanksgiving, and yet it must have been built by honorable
men, for in 190- it still made the run of one hundred and twenty miles
twice each week without loss of wheel or even so much as moulting a scrap
of paint.

And yet, whatever it may have been in its youth, it was in its age no
longer a gay dash of color in the landscape. On the contrary, it fitted
into the dust-brown and sage-green plain as defensively as a beetle in a
dusty path. Nevertheless, it was an indispensable part of a very moving
picture as it crept, creaking and groaning (or it may be it was the
suffering passenger creaking and groaning), along the hillside.

After leaving the Grande River the road winds up a pretty high divide
before plunging down into Ute Park, as they call all that region lying
between the Continental Range on the east and the Bear Tooth plateau on
the west. It was a big spread of land, and very far from an Eastern man's
conception of a park. From Dome Peak it seems a plain; but, in fact, when
clouds shut off the high summits to the west, this "valley" becomes a
veritable mountain land, a tumbled, lonely country, over which an
occasional horseman crawls, a minute but persistent insect. It is, to be
exact, a succession of ridges and ravines, sculptured (in some far-off,
post-glacial time) by floods of water, covered now, rather sparsely, with
pinons, cedars, and aspens, a dry, forbidding, but majestic landscape.

In late August the hills become iridescent, opaline with the translucent
yellow of the aspen, the coral and crimson of the fire-weed, the
blood-red of huckleberry beds, and the royal purple of the asters, while
flowing round all, as solvent and neutral setting, lies the gray-green of
the ever-present and ever-enduring sage-brush. On the loftier heights
these colors are arranged in most intricate and cunning patterns, with
nothing hard, nothing flaring in the prospect. All is harmonious and
restful. It is, moreover, silent, silent as a dream world, and so flooded
with light that the senses ache with the stress of it.

Through this gorgeous land of mist, of stillness, and of death, a few
years ago a pale young man (seated beside the driver) rode one summer day
in a voiceless rapture which made Bill McCoy weary.

"If you'd had as much of this as I have you'd talk of something else," he
growled, after a half dozen attempts at conversation. Bill wasn't much to
look at, but he was a good driver and the stranger respected him for it.

Eventually this simple-minded horseman became curious about the slim
young fellow sitting beside him.

"What you doing out here, anyhow--fishing or just rebuilding a lung?"

"Rebuilding two lungs," answered the tourist.

"Well, this climate will just about put lungs into a coffee-can,"
retorted Bill, with official loyalty to his country.

To his discerning eye "the tourist" now became "a lunger." "Where do you
live when you're to home?"

"Connecticut."

"I knew it."

"How did you know it?" The youth seemed really interested to know.

"I drove another fellow up here last fall that dealt out the same kind of
brogue you do."

This amused the tourist. "You think I have a 'brogue,' do you?"

"I don't think it--I know it!" Bill replied, shortly.

He was prevented at the moment from pursuing this line of inquiry by the
discovery of a couple of horsemen racing from a distant ranch toward the
road. It was plain, even to the stranger, that they intended to intercept
the stage, and Bill plied the lash with sudden vigor.

"I'll give 'em a chase," said he, grimly.

The other appeared a little alarmed, "What are they--bandits?"

"Bandits!" sneered Bill. "Your eyesight is piercing. Them's _girls_."

The traveler apologized. "My eyes aren't very good," he said, hurriedly.

He was, however, quite justified in his mistake, for both riders wore
wide-rimmed sombreros and rode astride at a furious pace, bandanas
fluttering, skirts streaming, and one was calling in shrill command, "OH,
BILL!"

As they neared the gate the driver drew up with a word of surprise. "Why,
howdy, girls, howdy!" he said, with an assumption of innocence. "Were you
wishin' fer to speak to me?"

"Oh, shut up!" commanded one of the girls, a round-faced, freckled romp.
"You know perfectly well that Berrie is going home to-day--we told you
all about it yesterday."

"Sure thing!" exclaimed Bill. "I'd forgot all about it."

"Like nothin'!" exclaimed the maid. "You've been countin' the hours till
you got here--I know you."

Meanwhile her companion had slipped from her horse. "Well, good-by,
Molly, wish I could stay longer."

"Good-by. Run down again."

"I will. You come up."

The young passenger sprang to the ground and politely said: "May I help
you in?"

Bill stared, the girl smiled, and her companion called: "Be careful,
Berrie, don't hurt yourself, the wagon might pitch."

The youth, perceiving that he had made another mistake, stammered an
apology.

The girl perceived his embarrassment and sweetly accepted his hand. "I am
much obliged, all the same."

Bill shook with malicious laughter. "Out in this country girls are
warranted to jump clean over a measly little hack like this," he
explained.

The girl took a seat in the back corner of the dusty vehicle, and Bill
opened conversation with her by asking what kind of a time she had been
having "in the East."

"Fine," said she.

"Did ye get as far back as my old town?"

"What town is that, Bill?"

"Oh, come off! You know I'm from Omaha."

"No, I only got as far as South Bend."

The picture which the girl had made as she dashed up to the pasture gate
(her hat-rim blown away from her brown face and sparkling eyes), united
with the kindliness in her voice as she accepted his gallant aid, entered
a deep impression on the tourist's mind; but he did not turn his head to
look at her--perhaps he feared Bill's elbow quite as much as his
guffaw--but he listened closely, and by listening learned that she had
been "East" for several weeks, and also that she was known, and favorably
known, all along the line, for whenever they met a team or passed a ranch
some one called out, "Hello, Berrie!" in cordial salute, and the men, old
and young, were especially pleased to see her.

[Illustration: THE GIRL BEHIND HIM WAS A WONDROUS PART OF THIS WILD
AND UNACCOUNTABLE COUNTRY]

Meanwhile the stage rose and fell over the gigantic swells like a tiny
boat on a monster sea, while the sun blazed ever more fervently from the
splendid sky, and the hills glowed with ever-increasing tumult of color.
Through this land of color, of repose, of romance, the young traveler
rode, drinking deep of the germless air, feeling that the girl behind him
was a wondrous part of this wild and unaccountable country.

He had no chance to study her face again till the coach rolled down the
hill to "Yancy's," where they were to take dinner and change horses.

Yancy's ranch-house stood on the bank of a fine stream which purled--in
keen defiance of the hot sun--over a gravel bed, so near to the mountain
snows that their coolness still lingered in the ripples. The house, a
long, low, log hut, was fenced with antlers of the elk, adorned with
morning-glory vines, and shaded by lofty cottonwood-trees, and its green
grass-plat--after the sun-smit hills of the long morning's ride--was very
grateful to the Eastern man's eyes.

With intent to show Bill that he did not greatly fear his smiles, the
youth sprang down and offered a hand to assist his charming
fellow-passenger to alight; and she, with kindly understanding, again
accepted his aid--to Bill's chagrin--and they walked up the path side by
side.

"This is all very new and wonderful to me," the young man said in
explanation; "but I suppose it's quite commonplace to you--and Bill."

"Oh no--it's home!"

"You were born here?"

"No, I was born in the East; but I've lived here ever since I was three
years old."

"By East you mean Kansas?"

"No, Missouri," she laughed back at him.

She was taller than most women, and gave out an air of fine unconscious
health which made her good to see, although her face was too broad to be
pretty. She smiled easily, and her teeth were white and even. Her hand he
noticed was as strong as steel and brown as leather. Her neck rose from
her shoulders like that of an acrobat, and she walked with the sense of
security which comes from self-reliant strength.

She was met at the door by old lady Yancy, who pumped her hand up and
down, exclaiming: "My stars, I'm glad to see ye back! 'Pears like the
country is just naturally goin' to the dogs without you. The dance last
Saturday was a frost, so I hear, no snap to the fiddlin', no gimp to the
jiggin'. It shorely was pitiful."

Yancy himself, tall, grizzled, succinct, shook her hand in his turn.
"Ma's right, girl, the country needs ye. I'm scared every time ye go away
fer fear some feller will snap ye up."

She laughed. "No danger. Well, how are ye all, anyway?" she asked.

"All well, 'ceptin' me," said the little old woman. "I'm just about able
to pick at my vittles."

"She does her share o' the work, and half the cook's besides,"
volunteered Yancy.

"I know her," retorted Berrie, as she laid off her hat. "It's me for a
dip. Gee, but it's dusty on the road!"

The young tourist--he signed W. W. Norcross in Yancy's register--watched
her closely and listened to every word she spoke with an intensity of
interest which led Mrs. Yancy to say, privately:

"'Pears like that young 'lunger' ain't goin' to forgit you if he can help
it."

"What makes you think he's a 'lunger'?"

"Don't haf to think. One look at him is enough."

Thereafter a softer light--the light of pity--shone in the eyes of the
girl. "Poor fellow, he does look kind o' peaked; but this climate will
bring him up to the scratch," she added, with optimistic faith in her
beloved hills.

A moment later the down-coming stage pulled in, loaded to the side-lines,
and everybody on it seemed to know Berea McFarlane. It was hello here and
hello there, and how are ye between, with smacks from the women and open
cries of "pass it around" on the part of the men, till Norcross marveled
at the display.

"She seems a great favorite," he observed to Yancy.

"Who--Berrie? She's the whole works up at Bear Tooth. Good thing she
don't want to go to Congress--she'd lay Jim Worthy on the shelf."

Berea's popularity was not so remarkable as her manner of receiving it.
She took it all as a sort of joke--a good, kindly joke. She shook hands
with her male admirers, and smacked the cheeks of her female friends with
an air of modest deprecation. "Oh, you don't mean it," was one of her
phrases. She enjoyed this display of affection, but it seemed not to
touch her deeply, and her impartial, humorous acceptance of the courtship
of the men was equally charming, though this was due, according to
remark, to the claims of some rancher up the line.

She continued to be the theme of conversation at the dinner-table and yet
remained unembarrassed, and gave back quite as good as she received.

"If I was Cliff," declared one lanky admirer, "I'd be shot if I let you
out of my sight. It ain't safe."

She smiled broadly. "I don't feel scared."

"Oh, _you're_ all right! It's the other feller--like me--that gets
hurt."

"Don't worry, you're old enough and tough enough to turn a steel-jacketed
bullet."

This raised a laugh, and Mrs. Yancy, who was waiting on the table, put in
a word: "I'll board ye free, Berrie, if you'll jest naturally turn up
here regular at meal-time. You do take the fellers' appetites. It's the
only time I make a cent."

To the Eastern man this was all very unrestrained and deeply diverting.
The people seemed to know all about one another notwithstanding the fact
that they came from ranches scattered up and down the stage line twenty,
thirty miles apart--to be neighbors in this country means to be anywhere
within a sixty-mile ride--and they gossiped of the countryside as
minutely as the residents of a village in Wisconsin discuss their kind.
News was scarce.

The north-bound coach got away first, and as the girl came out to take
her place, Norcross said: "Won't you have my seat with the driver?"

She dropped her voice humorously. "No, thank you, I can't stand for
Bill's clack."

Norcross understood. She didn't relish the notion of being so close to
the frankly amorous driver, who neglected no opportunity to be personal;
therefore, he helped her to her seat inside and resumed his place in
front.

Bill, now broadly communicative, minutely detailed his tastes in food,
horses, liquors, and saddles in a long monologue which would have been
tiresome to any one but an imaginative young Eastern student. Bill had a
vast knowledge of the West, but a distressing habit of repetition. He was
self-conscious, too, for the reason that he was really talking for the
benefit of the girl sitting in critical silence behind him, who, though
he frequently turned to her for confirmation of some of the more
startling of his statements, refused to be drawn into controversy.

In this informing way some ten miles were traversed, the road climbing
ever higher, and the mountains to right and left increasing in grandeur
each hour, till of a sudden and in a deep valley on the bank of another
swift stream, they came upon a squalid saloon and a minute post-office.
This was the town of Moskow.

Bill, lumbering down over the wheel, took a bag of mail from the boot and
dragged it into the cabin. The girl rose, stretched herself, and said:
"This stagin' is slow business. I'm cramped. I'm going to walk on
ahead."

"May I go with you?" asked Norcross.

"Sure thing! Come along."

As they crossed the little pole bridge which spanned the flood, the
tourist exclaimed: "What exquisite water! It's like melted opals."

"Comes right down from the snow," she answered, impressed by the poetry
of his simile.

He would gladly have lingered, listening to the song of the water, but as
she passed on, he followed. The opposite hill was sharp and the road
stony, but as they reached the top the young Easterner called out, "See
the savins!"

Before them stood a grove of cedars, old, gray, and drear, as weirdly
impressive as the cacti in a Mexican desert. Torn by winds, scarred by
lightnings, deeply rooted, tenacious as tradition, unlovely as Egyptian
mummies, fantastic, dwarfed and blackened, these unaccountable creatures
clung to the ledges. The dead mingled horribly with the living, and when
the wind arose--the wind that was robustly cheerful on the high
hills--these hags cried out with low moans of infinite despair. It was as
if they pleaded for water or for deliverance from a life that was a kind
of death.

The pale young man shuddered. "What a ghostly place!" he exclaimed, in a
low voice. "It seems the burial-place of a vanished race."

Something in his face, some note in his voice profoundly moved the girl.
For the first time her face showed something other than childish good
nature and a sense of humor. "I don't like these trees myself," she
answered. "They look too much like poor old squaws."

For a few moments the man and the maid studied the forest of immemorial,
gaunt, and withered trees--bright, impermanent youth confronting
time-defaced and wind-torn age. Then the girl spoke: "Let's get out of
here. I shall cry if we don't."

In a few moments the dolorous voices were left behind, and the cheerful
light of the plain reasserted itself. Norcross, looking back down upon
the cedars, which at a distance resembled a tufted, bronze-green carpet,
musingly asked: "What do you suppose planted those trees there?"

The girl was deeply impressed by the novelty of this query. "I never
thought to ask. I reckon they just grew."

"No, there's a reason for all these plantings," he insisted.

"We don't worry ourselves much about such things out here," she replied,
with charming humor. "We don't even worry about the weather. We just take
things as they come."

They walked on talking with new intimacy. "Where is your home?" he
asked.

"A few miles out of Bear Tooth. You're from the East, Bill says--'the far
East,' we call it."

"From New Haven. I've just finished at Yale. Have you ever been to New
York?"

"Oh, good Lord, no!" she answered, as though he had named the ends of the
earth. "My mother came from the South--she was born in Kentucky--that
accounts for my name, and my father is a Missourian. Let's see, Yale is
in the state of Connecticut, isn't it?"

"Connecticut is no longer a state; it is only a suburb of New York
City."

"Is that so? My geography calls it 'The Nutmeg State.'"

"Your geography is behind the times. New York has absorbed all of
Connecticut and part of Jersey."

"Well, it's all the same to us out here. Your whole country looks like
the small end of a slice of pie to us."

"Have you ever been in a city?"

"Oh yes, I go to Denver once in a while, and I saw St. Louis once; but I
was only a yearling, and don't remember much about it. What are you doing
out here, if it's a fair question?"

He looked away at the mountains. "I got rather used up last spring, and
my doctor said I'd better come out here for a while and build up. I'm
going up to Meeker's Mill. Do you know where that is?"

"I know every stove-pipe in this park," she answered. "Joe Meeker is kind
o' related to me--uncle by marriage. He lives about fifteen miles over
the hill from Bear Tooth."

This fact seemed to bring them still closer together. "I'm glad of that,"
he said, pointedly. "Perhaps I shall be permitted to see you now and
again? I'm going to be lonesome for a while, I'm afraid."

"Don't you believe it! Joe Meeker's boys will keep you interested," she
assured him.

The stage overtook them at this point, and Bill surlily remarked: "If
you'd been alone, young feller, I'd 'a' give you a chase." His resentment
of the outsider's growing favor with the girl was ludicrously evident.

As they rose into the higher levels the aspen shook its yellowish leaves
in the breeze, and the purple foot-hills gained in majesty. Great new
peaks came into view on the right, and the lofty cliffs of the Bear Tooth
range loomed in naked grandeur high above the blue-green of the pines
which clothed their sloping eastern sides.

At intervals the road passed small log ranches crouching low on the banks
of creeks; but aside from these--and the sparse animal life around
them--no sign of settlement could be seen. The valley lay as it had lain
for thousands of years, repeating its forests as the meadows of the lower
levels send forth their annual grasses. Norcross said to himself: "I have
circled the track of progress and have re-entered the border America,
where the stage-coach is still the one stirring thing beneath the sun."

At last the driver, with a note of exultation, called out: "Grab a root,
everybody, it's all the way down-hill and time to feed."

And so, as the dusk came over the mighty spread of the hills to the east,
and the peaks to the west darkened from violet to purple-black, the stage
rumbled and rattled and rushed down the winding road through thickening
signs of civilization, and just at nightfall rolled into the little town
of Bear Tooth, which is the eastern gateway of the Ute Plateau.

Norcross had given a great deal of thought to the young girl behind him,
and thought had deepened her charm. Her frankness, her humor, her superb
physical strength and her calm self-reliance appealed to him, and the
more dangerously, because he was so well aware of his own weakness and
loneliness, and as the stage drew up before the hotel, he fervently said:
"I hope I shall see you again?"

Before she could reply a man's voice called: "Hello, there!" and a tall
fellow stepped up to her with confident mien.

Norcross awkwardly shrank away. This was her cowboy lover, of course. It
was impossible that so attractive a girl should be unattached, and the
knowledge produced in him a faint but very definite pang of envy and
regret.

The happy girl, even in the excitement of meeting her lover, did not
forget the stranger. She gave him her hand in parting, and again he
thrilled to its amazing power. It was small, but it was like a steel
clamp. "Stop in on your way to Meeker's," she said, as a kindly man would
have done. "You pass our gate. My father is Joseph McFarlane, the Forest
Supervisor. Good night."

"Good night," he returned, with sincere liking.

"Who is that?" Norcross heard her companion ask.

She replied in a low voice, but he overheard her answer, "A poor
'lunger,' bound for Meeker's--and Kingdom Come, I'm afraid. He seems a
nice young feller, too."

"They always wait till the last minute," remarked the rancher, with
indifferent tone.




II

A RIDE IN THE RAIN


There are two Colorados within the boundaries of the state of that name,
distinct, almost irreconcilable. One is a plain (smooth, dry,
monotonous), gently declining to the east, a land of sage-brush,
wheat-fields, and alfalfa meadows--a rather commonplace region now, given
over to humdrum folk intent on digging a living from the soil; but the
other is an army of peaks, a region of storms, a spread of dark and
tangled forests. In the one, shallow rivers trickle on their sandy way to
the Gulf of Mexico; from the other, the waters rush, uniting to make the
mighty stream whose silt-laden floods are slowly filling the Gulf of
California.

If you stand on one of the great naked crests which form the dividing
wall, the rampart of the plains, you can see the Colorado of tradition to
the west, still rolling in wave after wave of stupendous altitudes, each
range cutting into the sky with a purple saw-tooth edge. The landscape
seems to contain nothing but rocks and towering crags, a treasure-house
for those who mine. But this is illusive. Between these purple heights
charming valleys wind and meadows lie in which rich grasses grow and
cattle feed.

On certain <DW72>s--where the devastating miners have not yet played their
relentless game--dark forests rise to the high, bold summits of the
chiefest mountains, and it is to guard these timbered tracts, growing
each year more valuable, that the government has established its Forest
Service to protect and develop the wealth-producing power of the
watersheds.

Chief among the wooded areas of this mighty inland empire of crag and
stream is the Bear Tooth Forest, containing nearly eight hundred thousand
acres of rock and trees, whose seat of administration is Bear Tooth
Springs, the small town in which our young traveler found himself.

He carefully explained to the landlord of the Cottage Hotel that he had
never been in this valley before, and that he was filled with
astonishment and delight of the scenery.

"Scenery! Yes, too much scenery. What we want is settlers," retorted the
landlord, who was shabby and sour and rather contemptuous, for the reason
that he considered Norcross a poor consumptive, and a fool to boot--"one
of those chaps who wait till they are nearly dead, then come out here
expecting to live on climate."

The hotel was hardly larger than the log shanty of a railway-grading
camp; but the meat was edible, and just outside the door roared Bear
Creek, which came down directly from Dome Mountain, and the young
Easterner went to sleep beneath its singing that night. He should have
dreamed of the happy mountain girl, but he did not; on the contrary, he
imagined himself back at college in the midst of innumerable freshmen,
yelling, "Bill McCoy, Bill McCoy!"

He woke a little bewildered by his strange surroundings, and when he
became aware of the cheap bed, the flimsy wash-stand, the ugly wallpaper,
and thought how far he was from home and friends, he not only sighed, he
shivered. The room was chill, the pitcher of water cold almost to the
freezing-point, and his joints were stiff and painful from his ride. What
folly to come so far into the wilderness at this time.

As he crawled from his bed and looked from the window he was still
further disheartened. In the foreground stood a half dozen frame
buildings, graceless and cheap, without tree or shrub to give shadow or
charm of line--all was bare, bleak, sere; but under his window the stream
was singing its glorious mountain song, and away to the west rose the
aspiring peaks from which it came. Romance brooded in that shadow, and on
the lower foot-hills the frost-touched foliage glowed like a mosaic of
jewels.

Dressing hurriedly he went down to the small bar-room, whose litter of
duffle-bags, guns, saddles, and camp utensils gave evidence of the
presence of many hunters and fishermen. The slovenly landlord was poring
over a newspaper, while a discouraged half-grown youth was sludging the
floor with a mop; but a cheerful clamor from an open door at the back of
the hall told that breakfast was on.

Venturing over the threshold, Norcross found himself seated at table with
some five or six men in corduroy jackets and laced boots, who were, in
fact, merchants and professional men from Denver and Pueblo out for fish
and such game as the law allowed, and all in holiday mood. They joked the
waiter-girls, and joshed one another in noisy good-fellowship, ignoring
the slim youth in English riding-suit, who came in with an air of mingled
melancholy and timidity and took a seat at the lower corner of the long
table.

The landlady, tall, thin, worried, and inquisitive, was New
England--Norcross recognized her type even before she came to him with a
question on her lips. "So you're from the East, are you?"

"I've been at school there."

"Well, I'm glad to see you. My folks came from York State. I don't often
get any one from the _real_ East. Come out to fish, I s'pose?"

"Yes," he replied, thinking this the easiest way out.

"Well, they's plenty of fishing--and they's plenty of air, not much of
anything else."

As he looked about the room, the tourist's eye was attracted by four
young fellows seated at a small table to his right. They wore rough
shirts of an olive-green shade, and their faces were wind-scorched; but
their voices held a pleasant tone, and something in the manner of the
landlady toward them made them noticeable. Norcross asked her who they
were.

"They're forestry boys."

"Forestry boys?"

"Yes; the Supervisor's office is here, and these are his help."

This information added to Norcross's interest and cheered him a little.
He knew something of the Forest Service, and had been told that many of
the rangers were college men. He resolved to make their acquaintance. "If
I'm to stay here they will help me endure the exile," he said.

After breakfast he went forth to find the post-office, expecting a letter
of instructions from Meeker. He found nothing of the sort, and this quite
disconcerted him.

"The stage is gone," the postmistress told him, "and you can't get up
till day after to-morrow. You might reach Meeker by using the government
'phone, however."

"Where will I find the government 'phone?"

"Down in the Supervisor's office. They're very accommodating; they'll let
you use it, if you tell them who you want to reach."

It was impossible to miss the forestry building for the reason that a
handsome flag fluttered above it. The door being open, Norcross perceived
from the threshold a young clerk at work on a typewriter, while in a
corner close by the window another and older man was working intently on
a map.

"Is this the office of the Forest Supervisor?" asked the youth.

The man at the machine looked up, and pleasantly answered: "It is, but
the Supervisor is not in yet. Is there anything I can do for you?"

"It may be you can. I am on my way to Meeker's Mill for a little outing.
Perhaps you could tell me where Meeker's Mill is, and how I can best get
there."

The man at the map meditated. "It's not far, some eighteen or twenty
miles; but it's over a pretty rough trail."

"What kind of a place is it?"

"Very charming. You'll like it. Real mountain country."

This officer was a plain-featured man of about thirty-five, with keen and
clear eyes. His voice, though strongly nasal, possessed a note of manly
sincerity. As he studied his visitor, he smiled.

"You look brand-new--haven't had time to season-check, have you?"

"No; I'm a stranger in a strange land."

"Out for your health?"

"Yes. My name is Norcross. I'm just getting over a severe illness, and
I'm up here to lay around and fish and recuperate--if I can."

"You can--you will. You can't help it," the other assured him. "Join one
of our surveying crews for a week and I'll mellow that suit of yours and
make a real mountaineer of you. I see you wear a _Sigma Chi_ pin. What
was your school?"

"I am a 'Son of Eli.' Last year's class."

The other man displayed his fob. "I'm ten classes ahead of you. My name
is Nash. I'm what they call an 'expert.' I'm up here doing some
estimating and surveying for a big ditch they're putting in. I was rather
in hopes you had come to join our ranks. We sons of Eli are holding the
conservation fort these days, and we need help."

"My knowledge of your work is rather vague," admitted Norcross. "My
father is in the lumber business; but his point of view isn't exactly
yours."

"He slays 'em, does he?"

"He did. He helped devastate Michigan."

"After me the deluge! I know the kind. Why not make yourself a sort of
vicarious atonement?"

Norcross smiled. "I had not thought of that. It would help some, wouldn't
it?"

"It certainly would. There's no great money in the work; but it's about
the most enlightened of all the governmental bureaus."

Norcross was strongly drawn to this forester, whose tone was that of a
highly trained specialist. "I rode up on the stage yesterday with Miss
Berrie McFarlane."

"The Supervisor's daughter?"

"She seemed a fine Western type."

"She's not a type; she's an individual. She hasn't her like anywhere I've
gone. She cuts a wide swath up here. Being an only child she's both son
and daughter to McFarlane. She knows more about forestry than her father.
In fact, half the time he depends on her judgment."

Norcross was interested, but did not want to take up valuable time. He
said: "Will you let me use your telephone to Meeker's?"

"Very sorry, but our line is out of order. You'll have to wait a day or
so--or use the mails. You're too late for to-day's stage, but it's only a
short ride across. Come outside and I'll show you."

Norcross followed him to the walk, and stood in silence while his guide
indicated the pass over the range. It all looked very formidable to the
Eastern youth. Thunderous clouds hung low upon the peaks, and the great
crags to left and right of the notch were stern and barren. "I think I'll
wait for the stage," he said, with candid weakness. "I couldn't make that
trip alone."

"You'll have to take many such a ride over that range in the _night_--if
you join the service," Nash warningly replied.

As they were standing there a girl came galloping up to the hitching-post
and slid from her horse. It was Berea McFarlane. "Good morning, Emery,"
she called to the surveyor. "Good morning," she nodded at Norcross. "How
do you find yourself this morning?"

"Homesick," he replied, smilingly.

"Why so?"

"I'm disappointed in the town."

"What's the matter with the town?"

"It's so commonplace. I expected it to be--well, different. It's just
like any other plains town."

Berrie looked round at the forlorn shops, the irregular sidewalks, the
grassless yards. "It isn't very pretty, that's a fact; but you can always
forget it by just looking up at the high country. When you going up to
the mill?"

"I don't know. I haven't had any word from Meeker, and I can't reach him
by telephone."

"I know, the line is short-circuited somewhere; but they've sent a man
out. He may close it any minute."

"Where's the Supervisor?" asked Nash.

"He's gone over to Moore's cutting. How are you getting on with those
plats?"

"Very well. I'll have 'em all in shape by Saturday."

"Come in and make yourself at home," said the girl to Norcross. "You'll
find the papers two or three days old," she smiled. "We never know about
anything here till other people have forgotten it."

Norcross followed her into the office, curious to know more about her.
She was so changed from his previous conception of her that he was
puzzled. She had the directness and the brevity of phrase of a business
man, as she opened letters and discussed their contents with the men.

"Truly she _is_ different," thought Norcross, and yet she lost something
by reason of the display of her proficiency as a clerk. "I wish she would
leave business to some one else," he inwardly grumbled as he rose to go.

She looked up from her desk. "Come in again later. We may be able to
reach the mill."

He thanked her and went back to his hotel, where he overhauled his outfit
and wrote some letters. His disgust of the town was lessened by the
presence of that handsome girl, and the hope that he might see her at
luncheon made him impatient of the clock.

She did not appear in the dining-room, and when Norcross inquired of Nash
whether she took her meals at the hotel or not, the expert replied: "No,
she goes home. The ranch is only a few miles down the valley.
Occasionally we invite her, but she don't think much of the cooking."

One of the young surveyors put in a word: "I shouldn't think she would.
I'd ride ten miles any time to eat one of Mrs. McFarlane's dinners."

"Yes," agreed Nash with a reflective look in his eyes. "She's a mighty
fine girl, and I join the boys in wishing her better luck than marrying
Cliff Belden."

"Is it settled that way?" asked Norcross.

"Yes; the Supervisor warned us all, but even he never has any good words
for Belden. He's a surly cuss, and violently opposed to the service. His
brother is one of the proprietors of the Meeker mill, and they have all
tried to bulldoze Landon, our ranger over there. By the way, you'll like
Landon. He's a Harvard man, and a good ranger. His shack is only a
half-mile from Meeker's house. It's a pretty well-known fact that Alec
Belden is part proprietor of a saloon over there that worries the
Supervisor worse than anything. Cliff swears he's not connected with it;
but he's more or less sympathetic with the crowd."

Norcross, already deeply interested in the present and future of a girl
whom he had met for the first time only the day before, was quite ready
to give up his trip to Meeker. After the men went back to work he
wandered about the town for an hour or two, and then dropped in at the
office to inquire if the telephone line had been repaired.

"No, it's still dead."

"Did Miss McFarlane return?"

"No. She said she had work to do at home. This is ironing-day, I
believe."

"She plays all the parts, don't she?"

"She sure does; and she plays one part as well as another. She can rope
and tie a steer or bake a cake as well as play the piano."

"Don't tell me she plays the piano!"

Nash laughed. "She does; but it's one of those you operate with your
feet."

"I'm relieved to hear that. She seems almost weirdly gifted as it is."
After a moment he broke in with: "What can a man do in this town?"

"Work, nothing else."

"What do you do for amusement?"

"Once in a while there is a dance in the hall over the drug-store, and on
Sunday you can listen to a wretched sermon in the log church. The rest of
the time you work or loaf in the saloons--or read. Old Nature has done
her part here. But man--! Ever been in the Tyrol?"

"Yes."

"Well, some day the people of the plains will have sense enough to use
these mountains, these streams, the way they do over there."

It required only a few hours for Norcross to size up the valley and its
people. Aside from Nash and his associates, and one or two families
connected with the mill to the north, the villagers were poor,
thriftless, and uninteresting. They were lacking in the picturesque
quality of ranchers and miners, and had not yet the grace of
town-dwellers. They were, indeed, depressingly nondescript.

Early on the second morning he went to the post-office--which was also
the telephone station--to get a letter or message from Meeker. He found
neither; but as he was standing in the door undecided about taking the
stage, Berea came into town riding a fine bay pony, and leading a
blaze-face buckskin behind her.

Her face shone cordially, as she called out: "Well, how do you stack up
this morning?"

"Tip-top," he answered, in an attempt to match her cheery greeting.

"Do you like our town better?"

"Not a bit! But the hills are magnificent."

"Anybody turned up from the mill?"

"No, I haven't heard a word from there. The telephone is still out of
commission."

"They can't locate the break. Uncle Joe sent word by the stage-driver
asking us to keep an eye out for you and send you over. I've come to take
you over myself."

"That's mighty good of you; but it's a good deal to ask."

"I want to see Uncle Joe on business, anyhow, and you'll like the ride
better than the journey by stage."

Leaving the horses standing with their bridle-reins hanging on the
ground, she led the way to the office.

"When father comes in, tell him where I've gone, and send Mr. Norcross's
packs by the first wagon. Is your outfit ready?" she asked.

"Not quite. I can get it ready soon."

He hurried away in pleasant excitement, and in twenty minutes was at the
door ready to ride.

"You'd better take my bay," said Berea. "Old Paint-face there is a little
notional."

Norcross approached his mount with a caution which indicated that he had
at least been instructed in range-horse psychology, and as he gathered
his reins together to mount, Berrie remarked:

"I hope you're saddle-wise."

"I had a few lessons in a riding-school," he replied, modestly.

Young Downing approached the girl with a low-voiced protest: "You
oughtn't to ride old Paint. He nearly pitched the Supervisor the other
day."

"I'm not worried," she said, and swung to her saddle.

The ugly beast made off in a tearing sidewise rush, but she smilingly
called back: "All set." And Norcross followed her in high admiration.

Eventually she brought her bronco to subjection, and they trotted off
together along the wagon-road quite comfortably. By this time the youth
had forgotten his depression, his homesickness of the morning. The valley
was again enchanted ground. Its vistas led to lofty heights. The air was
regenerative, and though a part of this elation was due, no doubt, to the
power of his singularly attractive guide, he laid it discreetly to the
climate.

After shacking along between some rather sorry fields of grain for a mile
or two, Berea swung into a side-trail. "I want you to meet my mother,"
she said.

The grassy road led to a long, one-story, half-log, half-slab house,
which stood on the bank of a small, swift, willow-bordered stream.

"This is our ranch," she explained. "All the meadow in sight belongs to
us."

The young Easterner looked about in astonishment. Not a tree bigger than
his thumb gave shade. The gate of the cattle corral stood but a few feet
from the kitchen door, and rusty beef-bones, bleaching skulls, and scraps
of sun-dried hides littered the ground or hung upon the fence. Exteriorly
the low cabin made a drab, depressing picture; but as he alighted--upon
Berea's invitation--and entered the house, he was met by a sweet-faced,
brown-haired little woman in a neat gown, whose bearing was not in the
least awkward or embarrassed.

"This is Mr. Norcross, the tourist I told you about," explained Berrie.

Mrs. McFarlane extended her small hand with friendly impulse. "I'm very
glad to meet you, sir. Are you going to spend some time at the Mill?"

"I don't know. I have a letter to Mr. Meeker from a friend of mine who
hunted with him last year--a Mr. Sutler."

"Mr. Sutler! Oh, we know him very well. Won't you sit down?"

The interior of the house was not only well kept, but presented many
evidences of refinement. A mechanical piano stood against the log wall,
and books and magazines, dog-eared with use, littered the table; and
Norcross, feeling the force of Nash's half-expressed criticism of his
"superior," listened intently to Mrs. McFarlane's apologies for the
condition of the farmyard.

"Well," said Berea, sharply, "if we're to reach Uncle Joe's for dinner
we'd better be scratching the hills." And to her mother she added: "I'll
pull in about dark."

The mother offered no objection to her daughter's plan, and the young
people rode off together directly toward the high peaks to the east.

"I'm going by way of the cut-off," Berrie explained; and Norcross,
content and unafraid, nodded in acquiescence. "Here is the line," she
called a few minutes later, pointing at a sign nailed to a tree at the
foot of the first wooded hill.

The notice, printed in black ink on a white square of cloth, proclaimed
this to be the boundary of the Bear Tooth National Forest, and pleaded
with all men to be watchful of fires. Its tone was not at all that of a
strong government; it was deprecatory.

The trail, hardly more than a wood road, grew wilder and lonelier as they
climbed. Cattle fed on the hillsides in scattered bands like elk. Here
and there a small cabin stood on the bank of a stream; but, for the most
part, the trail mounted the high <DW72>s in perfect solitude.

The girl talked easily and leisurely, reading the brands of the ranchers,
revealing the number of cattle they owned, quite as a young farmer would
have done. She seemed not to be embarrassed in the slightest degree by
the fact that she was guiding a strange man over a lonely road, and gave
no outward sign of special interest in him till she suddenly turned to
ask: "What kind of a slicker--I mean a raincoat--did you bring?"

He looked blank. "I don't believe I brought any. I've a leather
shooting-jacket, however."

She shrugged her shoulders and looked up at the sky. "We're in for a
storm. You'd ought 'o have a slicker, no fancy 'raincoat,' but a real
old-fashioned cow-puncher's oilskin. They make a business of shedding
rain. Leather's no good, neither is canvas; I've tried 'em all."

She rode on for a few minutes in silence, as if disgusted with his folly,
but she was really worrying about him. "Poor chap," she said to herself.
"He can't stand a chill. I ought to have thought of his slicker myself.
He's helpless as a baby."

They were climbing fast now, winding upward along the bank of a stream,
and the sky had grown suddenly gray, and the woodland path was dark and
chill. The mountains were not less beautiful; but they were decidedly
less amiable, and the youth shivered, casting an apprehensive eye at the
thickening clouds.

Berea perceived something of his dismay, and, drawing rein, dismounted.
Behind her saddle was a tightly rolled bundle which, being untied and
shaken out, proved to be a horseman's rainproof oilskin coat. "Put this
on!" she commanded.

"Oh no," he protested, "I can't take your coat."

"Yes you can! You must! Don't you worry about me, I'm used to weather.
Put this on over your jacket and all. You'll need it. Rain won't hurt
_me_; but it will just about finish you."

The worst of this lay in its truth, and Norcross lost all his pride of
sex for the moment. A wetting would not dim this girl's splendid color,
nor reduce her vitality one degree, while to him it might be a
death-warrant. "You could throw me over my own horse," he admitted, in a
kind of bitter admiration, and slipped the coat on, shivering with cold
as he did so.

"You think me a poor excuse of a trailer, don't you?" he said, ruefully,
as the thunder began to roll.

"You've got to be all made over new," she replied, tolerantly. "Stay here
a year and you'll be able to stand anything."

Remounting, she again led the way with cheery cry. The rain came dashing
down in fitful, misty streams; but she merely pulled the rim of her
sombrero closer over her eyes, and rode steadily on, while he followed,
plunged in gloom as cold and gray as the storm. The splitting crashes of
thunder echoed from the high peaks like the voices of siege-guns, and the
lightning stabbed here and there as though blindly seeking some hidden
foe. Long veils of falling water twisted and trailed through the valleys
with swishing roar.

"These mountain showers don't last long," the girl called back, her face
shining like a rose. "We'll get the sun in a few minutes."

And so it turned out. In less than an hour they rode into the warm light
again, and in spite of himself Norcross returned her smile, though he
said: "I feel like a selfish fool. You are soaked."

"Hardly wet through," she reassured him. "My jacket and skirt turn water
pretty well. I'll be dry in a jiffy. It does a body good to be wet once
in a while."

The shame of his action remained; but a closer friendship was
established, and as he took off the coat and handed it back to her, he
again apologized. "I feel like a pig. I don't see how I came to do it.
The thunder and the chill scared me, that's the truth of it. You
hypnotized me into taking it. How wet you _are_!" he exclaimed,
remorsefully. "You'll surely take cold."

"I never take cold," she returned. "I'm used to all kinds of weather.
Don't you bother about me."

Topping a low divide the youth caught a glimpse of the range to the
southeast, which took his breath. "Isn't that superb!" he exclaimed.
"It's like the shining roof of the world!"

"Yes, that's the Continental Divide," she confirmed, casually; but the
lyrical note which he struck again reached her heart. The men she knew
had so few words for the beautiful in life. She wondered whether this
man's illness had given him this refinement or whether it was native to
his kind. "I'm glad he took my coat," was her thought.

She pushed on down the <DW72>, riding hard, but it was nearly two o'clock
when they drew up at Meeker's house, which was a long, low, stone
structure built along the north side of the road. The place was
distinguished not merely by its masonry, but also by its picket fence,
which had once been whitewashed. Farm-wagons of various degrees of decay
stood by the gate, and in the barn-yard plows and harrows--deeply buried
by the weeds--were rusting forlornly away. A little farther up the stream
the tall pipe of a sawmill rose above the firs.

A pack of dogs of all sizes and signs came clamoring to the fence,
followed by a big, slovenly dressed, red-bearded man of sixty or
thereabouts.

"Hello, Uncle Joe," called the girl, in offhand boyish fashion. "How are
you _to-day_?"

"Howdy, girl," answered Meeker, gravely. "What brings you up here this
time?"

She laughed. "Here's a boarder who wants to learn how to raise cattle."

Meeker's face lightened. "I reckon you're Mr. Norcross? I'm glad to see
ye. Light off and make yourself to home. Turn your horses into the
corral, the boys will feed 'em."

"Am I in America?" Norcross asked himself, as he followed the slouchy old
rancher into the unkempt yard. "This certainly is a long way from New
Haven."

Without ceremony Meeker led his guests directly into the dining-room, a
long and rather narrow room, wherein a woman and six or seven roughly
dressed young men were sitting at a rudely appointed table.

"Earth and seas!" exclaimed Mrs. Meeker. "Here's Berrie, and I'll bet
that's Sutler's friend, our boarder."

"That's what, mother," admitted her husband. "Berrie brought him up."

"You'd ought 'o gone for him yourself, you big lump," she retorted.

Mrs. Meeker, who was as big as her husband, greeted Norcross warmly, and
made a place for him beside her own chair.

"Highst along there, boys, and give the company a chance," she commanded,
sharply. "Our dinner's turrible late to-day."

The boys--they were in reality full-grown cubs of eighteen or twenty--did
as they were bid with much noise, chaffing Berrie with blunt humor. The
table was covered with a red oil-cloth, and set with heavy blue-and-white
china. The forks were two-tined, steel-pronged, and not very polished,
and the food was of the simplest sort; but the girl seemed at home
there--as she did everywhere--and was soon deep in a discussion of the
price of beef, and whether it was advisable to ship now or wait a month.

Meeker read Sutler's letter, which Norcross had handed him, and, after
deliberation, remarked: "All right, we'll do the best we can for you, Mr.
Norcross; but we haven't any fancy accommodations."

"He don't expect any," replied Berrie. "What he needs is a little
roughing it."

"There's plinty of that to be had," said one of the herders, who sat
below the salt. "'is the soft life I'm nadin'."

"Pat's strong on soft jobs," said another; and Berea joined the laugh
which followed this pointless joke. She appeared to be one of them, and
it troubled Norcross a little. She had so little the sex feeling and
demanded so few of the rights and privileges of a girl. The men all
admired her, that was evident, almost too evident, and one or two of the
older men felt the charm of her young womanhood too deeply even to meet
her eyes; but of this Norcross was happily ignorant. Already in these two
days he had acquired a distinct sense of proprietorship in her, a feeling
which made him jealous of her good name.

Meeker, it turned out, was an Englishman by way of Canada, and this was
his second American wife. His first had been a sister to Mrs. McFarlane.
He was a man of much reading--of the periodical sort--and the big
sitting-room was littered with magazines both English and American, and
his talk abounded in radical and rather foolish utterances. Norcross
considered it the most disorderly home he had ever seen, and yet it was
not without a certain dignity. The rooms were large and amply provided
with furniture of a very mixed and gaudy sort, and the table was spread
with abundance.

One of the lads, Frank Meeker, a dark, intense youth of about twenty, was
Berea's full cousin. The others were merely hired hands, but they all
eyed the new-comer with disfavor. The fact that Berrie had brought him
and that she seemed interested in him added to the effect of the smart
riding-suit which he wore. "I'd like to roll him in the creek," muttered
one of them to his neighbor.

This dislike Berrie perceived--in some degree--and to Frank she privately
said: "Now you fellows have got to treat Mr. Norcross right. He's been
very sick."

Frank maliciously grinned. "Oh, we'll treat him _right_. We won't do a
thing to him!"

"Now, Frank," she warned, "if you try any of your tricks on him you'll
hear from me."

"Why all this worry on your part?" he asked, keenly. "How long since you
found him?"

"We rode up on the stage day before yesterday, and he seemed so kind o'
blue and lonesome I couldn't help trying to chirk him up."

"How will Cliff take all this chirking business?"

"Cliff ain't my guardian--yet," she laughingly responded. "Mr. Norcross
is a college man, and not used to our ways--"

"_Mister_ Norcross--what's his front name?"

"Wayland."

He snorted. "Wayland! If he gets past us without being called 'pasty'
he's in luck. He's a 'lunger' if there ever was one."

The girl was shrewd enough to see that the more she sought to soften the
wind to her Eastern tenderfoot the more surely he was to be shorn, so she
gave over her effort in that direction, and turned to the old folks. To
Mrs. Meeker she privately said: "Mr. Norcross ain't used to rough ways,
and he's not very rugged, you ought 'o kind o' favor him for a while."

The girl herself did not understand the vital and almost painful interest
which this young man had roused in her. He was both child and poet to
her, and as she watched him trying to make friends with the men, her
indignation rose against their clownish offishness. She understood fully
that his neat speech, his Eastern accent, together with his tailor-cut
clothing and the delicacy of his table manners, would surely mark him for
slaughter among the cow-hands, and the wish to shield him made her face
graver than anybody had ever seen it.

"I don't feel right in leaving you here," she said, at last; "but I must
be ridin'." And while Meeker ordered her horse brought out, she walked to
the gate with Norcross at her side.

"I'm tremendously obliged to you," he said, and his voice was vibrant.
"You have been most kind. How can I repay you?"

"Oh, that's all right," she replied, in true Western fashion. "I wanted
to see the folks up here, anyhow. This is no jaunt at all for me." And,
looking at her powerful figure, and feeling the trap-like grip of her
cinch hand, he knew she spoke the truth.

Frank had saddled his own horse, and was planning to ride over the hill
with her; but to this she objected. "I'm going to leave Pete here for Mr.
Norcross to ride," she said, "and there's no need of your going."

Frank's face soured, and with instant perception of the effect her
refusal might have on the fortunes of the stranger, she reconsidered.

"Oh, come along! I reckon you want to get shut of some mean job."

And so she rode away, leaving her ward to adjust himself to his new and
strange surroundings as best he could, and with her going the whole
valley darkened for the convalescent.




III

WAYLAND RECEIVES A WARNING


Distance is no barrier to gossip. It amazed young Norcross to observe how
minutely the ranchers of the valley followed one another's most intimate
domestic affairs. Not merely was each man in full possession of the color
and number of every calf in his neighbor's herd, it seemed that nothing
could happen in the most remote cabin and remain concealed. Any event
which broke the monotony of their life loomed large, and in all matters
of courtship curiosity was something more than keen, it was remorseless.

Living miles apart, and riding the roads but seldom, these lonely gossips
tore to tatters every scrap of rumor. No citizen came or went without
being studied, characterized, accounted for, and every woman was
scrutinized as closely as a stray horse, and if there was within her, the
slightest wayward impulse some lawless centaur came to know it, to exult
over it, to make test of it. Her every word, her minutest expression of a
natural coquetry was enlarged upon as a sign of weakness, of yielding.
Every personable female was the focus of a natural desire, intensified by
lonely brooding on the part of the men.

It was soon apparent to the Eastern observer that the entire male
population for thirty miles around not only knew McFarlane's girl; but
that every unmarried man--and some who were both husbands and
fathers--kept a deeply interested eye upon her daily motion, and certain
shameless ones openly boasted among their fellows of their intention to
win her favor, while the shy ones reveled in secret exultation over every
chance meeting with her. She was the topic of every lumber-camp, and the
shining lure of every dance to which the ranch hands often rode over long
and lonely trails.

Part of this intense interest was due, naturally, to the scarcity of
desirable women, but a larger part was called out by Berea's frank
freedom of manner. Her ready camaraderie was taken for carelessness, and
the candid grip of her hand was often misunderstood; and yet most of the
men respected her, and some feared her. After her avowed choice of
Clifford Belden they all kept aloof, for he was hot-tempered and
formidably swift to avenge an insult.

At the end of a week Norcross found himself restless and discontented
with the Meekers. He was tired of fishing, tired of the old man's endless
arguments, and tired of the obscene cow-hands. The men around the mill
did not interest him, and their Saturday night spree at the saloon
disgusted him. The one person who piqued his curiosity was Landon, the
ranger who was stationed not far away, and who could be seen occasionally
riding by on a handsome black horse. There was something in his bearing,
in his neat and serviceable drab uniform, which attracted the
convalescent, and on Sunday morning he decided to venture a call,
although Frank Meeker had said the ranger was a "grouch."

His cabin, a neat log structure, stood just above the road on a huge
natural terrace of grassy boulders, and the flag which fluttered from a
tall staff before it could be seen for several miles--the bright sign of
federal control, the symbol of law and order, just as the saloon and the
mill were signs of lawless vice and destructive greed. Around the door
flowers bloomed and kittens played; while at the door of the dive broken
bottles, swarms of flies, and heaps of refuse menaced every corner, and
the mill immured itself in its own debris like a foul beast.

It was strangely moving to come upon this flower-like place and this
garden in the wilderness. A spring, which crept from the high wall back
of "the station" (as these ranger headquarters are called), gave its
delicious water into several winding ditches, trickled musically down the
other side of the terrace in little life-giving cascades, and so finally,
reunited in a single current, fell away into the creek. It was plain that
loving care, and much of it, had been given to this tiny system of
irrigation.

The cabin's interior pleased Wayland almost as much as the garden. It was
built of pine logs neatly matched and hewed on one side. There were but
two rooms--one which served as sleeping-chamber and office, and one which
was at once kitchen and dining-room. In the larger room a quaint
fireplace with a flat arch, a bunk, a table supporting a typewriter, and
several shelves full of books made up the furnishing. On the walls hung a
rifle, a revolver in its belt, a couple of uniforms, and a yellow oilskin
raincoat.

The ranger, spurred and belted, with his cuffs turned back, was pounding
the typewriter when Wayland appeared at the open door; but he rose with
grave courtesy. "Come in," he said, and his voice had a pleasant
inflection.

"I'm interrupting."

"Nothing serious, just a letter. There's no hurry. I'm always glad of an
excuse to rest from this job." He was at once keenly interested in his
visitor, for he perceived in him the gentleman and, of course, the
alien.

Wayland, with something of the feeling of a civilian reporting to an
officer, explained his presence in the neighborhood.

"I've heard of you," responded the ranger, "and I've been hoping you'd
look in on me. The Supervisor's daughter has just written me to look
after you. She said you were not very well."

Again Wayland protested that he was not a consumptive, only a student who
needed mountain air; but he added: "It is very kind of Miss McFarlane to
think of me."

"Oh, she thinks of everybody," the young fellow declared. "She's one of
the most unselfish creatures in the world."

Something in the music of this speech, and something in the look of the
ranger's eyes, caused Wayland to wonder if here were not still another of
Berrie's subjects. He became certain of it as the young officer went on,
with pleasing frankness, and it was not long before he had conveyed to
Wayland his cause for sadness. "She's engaged to a man that is not her
equal. In a certain sense no man is her equal; but Belden is a pretty
hard type, and I believe, although I can't prove it, that he is part
owner of the saloon over there."

"How does that saloon happen to be here?"

"It's on patented land--a so-called 'placer claim'--experts have reported
against it. McFarlane has protested against it, but nothing is done. The
mill is also on deeded land, and together they are a plague spot. I'm
their enemy, and they know it; and they've threatened to burn me out. Of
course they won't do that, but they're ready to play any kind of trick on
me."

"I can well believe that, for I am getting my share of practical jokes at
Meeker's."

"They're not a bad lot over there--only just rowdy. I suppose they're
initiating you," said Landon.

"I didn't come out here to be a cowboy," responded Norcross. "But Frank
Meeker seems to be anxious to show me all the good old cowboy courtesies.
On Monday he slipped a burr under my horse's saddle, and I came near to
having my neck broken. Then he or some one else concealed a frog in my
bed, and fouled my hair-brushes. In fact, I go to sleep each night in
expectation of some new attack; but the air and the riding are doing me a
great deal of good, and so I stay."

"Come and bunk with me," urged Landon. "I'll be glad to have you. I get
terribly lonesome here sometimes, although I'm supposed to have the best
station in the forest. Bring your outfit and stay as long as you like."

This offer touched Norcross deeply. "That's very kind of you; but I guess
I'll stick it out. I hate to let those hoodlums drive me out."

"All right, but come and see me often. I get so blue some days I wonder
what's the use of it all. There's one fatal condition about this ranger
business--it's a solitary job, it cuts out marriage for most of us. Many
of the stations are fifteen or twenty miles from a post-office; then,
too, the lines of promotion are few. I guess I'll have to get out,
although I like the work. Come in any time and take a snack with me."

Thereafter Wayland spent nearly every day with the ranger, either in his
cabin or riding the trail, and during these hours confidence grew until
at last Landon confessed that his unrest arose from his rejection by
Berrie.

"She was not to blame. She's so kind and free with every one, I thought I
had a chance. I was conceited enough to feel sorry for the other fellows,
and now I can't even feel sorry for myself. I'm just dazed and hanging to
the ropes. She was mighty gentle about it--you know how sunny her face
is--well, she just got grave and kind o' faint-voiced, and said--Oh, you
know what she said! She let me know there was another man. I didn't ask
her who, and when I found out, I lost my grip entirely. At first I
thought I'd resign and get out of the country; but I couldn't do it--I
can't yet. The chance of seeing her--of hearing from her once in a
while--she never writes except on business for her father; but--you'll
laugh--I can't see her signature without a tremor." He smiled, but his
eyes were desperately sad. "I ought to resign, because I can't do my work
as well as I ought to. As I ride the trail I'm thinking of her. I sit
here half the night writing imaginary letters to her. And when I see her,
and she takes my hand in hers--you know what a hand she has--my mind goes
blank. Oh, I'm crazy! I admit it. I didn't know such a thing could happen
to me; but it has."

"I suppose it's being alone so much," Wayland started to argue, but the
other would not have it so.

"No, it's the girl herself. She's not only beautiful in body, she's all
sweetness and sincerity in mind. There isn't a petty thing about her. And
her happy smile--do you know, I have times when I resent that smile? How
can she be so happy without me? That's crazy, too, but I think it,
sometimes. Then I think of the time when she will not smile--when that
brute Belden will begin to treat her as he does his sisters--then I get
murderous."

As Wayland listened to this outpouring he wondered at the intensity of
the forester's passion. He marveled, too, at Berrie's choice, for there
was something fine and high in Landon's worship. A college man with a
mining engineer's training, he should go high in the service. "He made
the mistake of being too precipitate as a lover," concluded Wayland. "His
forthright courtship repelled her."

Meanwhile his own troubles increased. Frank's dislike had grown to an
impish vindictiveness, and if the old man Meeker had any knowledge of his
son's deviltries, he gave no sign. Mrs. Meeker, however, openly reproved
the scamp.

"You ought to be ashamed of worrying a sick man," she protested,
indignantly.

"He ain't so sick as all that; and, besides, he needs the starch taken
out of him," was the boy's pitiless answer.

"I don't know why I stay," Wayland wrote to Berea. "I'm disgusted with
the men up here--they're all tiresome except Landon--but I hate to slink
away, and besides, the country is glorious. I'd like to come down and see
you this week. May I do so? Please send word that I may."

She did not reply, and wondering whether she had received his letter or
not, he mounted his horse one beautiful morning and rode away up the
trail with a sense of elation, of eager joy, with intent to call upon her
at the ranch as he went by.

Hardly had he vanished among the pines when Clifford Belden rode in from
his ranch on Hat Creek, and called at Meeker's for his mail.

Frank Meeker was in the office, and as he both feared and disliked this
big contemptuous young cattleman, he set to work to make him jealous.

"You want to watch this one-lung boarder of ours," he warned, with a
grin. "He's been writing to Berrie, and he's just gone down to see her.
His highfalutin ways, and his fine white hands, have put her on the
slant."

Belden fixed a pair of cold, gray-blue eyes on his tormentor, and said:
"You be careful of your tongue or I'll put _you_ on the slant."

"I'm her own cousin," retorted Frank. "I reckon I can say what I please
about her. I don't want that dude Easterner to cut you out. She guided
him over here, and gave him her slicker to keep him dry, and I can see
she's terribly taken with him. She's headstrong as a mule, once she gets
started, and if she takes a notion to Norcross it's all up with you."

"I'm not worrying," retorted Belden.

"You'd better be. I was down there the other day, and it 'peared like she
couldn't talk of anything else but Mister Norcross, Mister Norcross, till
I was sick of his name."

An hour later Belden left the mill and set off up the trail behind
Norcross, his face fallen into stern lines. Frank writhed in delight.
"There goes Cliff, hot under the collar, chasing Norcross. If he finds
out that Berrie is interested in him, he'll just about wring that dude's
neck."

Meanwhile Wayland was riding through the pass with lightening heart, his
thought dwelling on the girl at the end of his journey. Aside from Landon
and Nash, she was the one soul in all this mountain world in whom he took
the slightest interest. Her pity still hurt him, but he hoped to show her
such change of color, such gain in horsemanship, that she could no longer
consider him an invalid. His mind kept so closely to these interior
matters that he hardly saw the path, but his horse led him safely back
with precise knowledge and eager haste.

As he reached the McFarlane ranch it seemed deserted of men, but a faint
column of smoke rising from the roof of the kitchen gave evidence of a
cook, and at his knock Berrie came to the door with a boyish word of
frank surprise and pleasure. She was dressed in a blue-and-white calico
gown with the collar turned in and the sleeves rolled up; but she seemed
quite unembarrassed, and her pleasure in his coming quite repaid him for
his long and tiresome ride.

"I've been wondering about you," she said. "I'm mighty glad to see you.
How do you stand it?"

"You got my letter?"

"I did--and I was going to write and tell you to come down, but I've had
some special work to do at the office."

She took the horse's rein from him, and together they started toward
the stables. As she stepped over and around the old hoofs and
meat-bones--which littered the way--without comment, Wayland again
wondered at her apparent failure to realize the disgusting disorder of
the yard. "Why don't she urge the men to clean it up?" he thought.

This action of stabling the horses--a perfectly innocent and natural one
for her--led one of the hands, a coarse-minded sneak, to watch them from
a corral. "I wonder how Cliff would like that?" he evilly remarked.

Berea was frankly pleased to see Wayland, and spoke of the improvement
which had taken place in him. "You're looking fine," she said, as they
were returning to the house. "But how do you get on with the boys?"

"Not very well," he admitted. "They seem to have it in for me. It's a
constant fight."

"How about Frank?"

"He's the worst of them all. He never speaks to me that he doesn't insult
me. I don't know why. I've tried my best to get into his good graces, but
I can't. Your uncle I like, and Mrs. Meeker is very kind; but all the
others seem to be sworn enemies. I don't think I could stand it if it
weren't for Landon. I spend a good deal of time with him."

Her face grew grave. "I reckon you got started wrong," she said at last.
"They'll like you better when you get browned up, and your clothes get
dirty--you're a little too fancy for them just now."

"But you see," he said, "I'm not trying for their admiration. I haven't
the slightest ambition to shine as a cow-puncher, and if those fellows
are fair samples I don't want anybody to mistake me for one."

"Don't let that get around," she smilingly replied. "They'd run you out
if they knew you despised them."

"I've come down here to confer with you," he declared, as they reached
the door. "I don't believe I want any more of their company. What's the
use? As you say, I've started wrong with them, and I don't see any
prospect of getting right; and, besides, I like the rangers better.
Landon thinks I might work into the service. I wonder if I could? It
would give me something to do."

She considered a moment. "We'll think about that. Come into the kitchen.
I'm cook to-day, mother's gone to town."

The kitchen was clean and ample, and the delicious odor of new-made bread
filled it with cheer. As the girl resumed her apron, Wayland settled into
a chair with a sigh of content. "I like this," he said aloud. "There's
nothing cowgirl about you now, you're the Anglo-Saxon housewife. You
might be a Michigan or Connecticut girl at this moment."

Her cheeks were ruddy with the heat, and her eyes intent on her work; but
she caught enough of his meaning to be pleased with it. "Oh, I have to
take a hand at the pots and pans now and then. I can't give all my time
to the service; but I'd like to."

He boldly announced his errand. "I wish you'd take me to board? I'm sure
your cooking would build up my shattered system a good deal quicker than
your aunt's."

She laughed, but shook her head. "You ought to be on the hills riding
hard every day. What you need is the high country and the air of the
pines."

"I'm not feeling any lack of scenery or pine-tree air," he retorted. "I'm
perfectly satisfied right here. Civilized bread and the sight of you will
do me more good than boiled beans and camp bread. I hate to say it, but
the Meeker menu runs largely to beef. Moreover, just seeing you would
help my recovery."

She became self-conscious at this, and he hastened to add:

"Not that I'm really sick. Mrs. Meeker, like yourself, persists in
treating me as if I were. I'm feeling fine--perfectly well, only I'm not
as rugged as I want to be."

She had read that victims of the white plague always talk in this
cheerful way about themselves, and she worked on without replying, and
this gave him an excellent opportunity to study her closely. She was
taller than most women and lithely powerful. There was nothing delicate
about her--nothing spirituelle--on the contrary, she was markedly
full-veined, cheerful and humorous, and yet she had responded several
times to an allusive phrase with surprising quickness. She did so now as
he remarked: "Somebody, I think it was Lowell, has said 'Nature is all
very well for a vacation, but a poor substitute for the society of good
men and women.' It's beautiful up at the mill, but I want some one to
enjoy it with, and there is no one to turn to, except Landon, and he's
rather sad and self-absorbed--you know why. If I were here--in the
valley--you and I could ride together now and then, and you could show me
all the trails. Why not let me come here and board? I'm going to ask your
mother, if I may not do so?"

Quite naturally he grew more and more personal. He told her of his
father, the busy director of a lumber company, and of his mother, sickly
and inert.

"She ought never to have married," he said, with darkened brow. "Not one
of her children has even a decent constitution. I'm the most robust of
them all, and I must seem a pretty poor lot to you. However, I wasn't
always like this, and if that young devil, Frank Meeker, hadn't tormented
me out of my sleep, I would have shown you still greater improvement.
Don't you see that it is your duty to let me stay here where I can build
up on your cooking?"

She turned this aside. "Mother don't think much of my cooking. She says I
can handle a brandin'-iron a heap better than I can a rollin'-pin."

"You certainly can ride," he replied, with admiring accent. "I shall
never forget the picture you made that first time I saw you racing to
intercept the stage. Do you _know_ how fine you are physically? You're a
wonder." She uttered some protest, but he went on: "When I think of my
mother and sisters in comparison with you, they seem like caricatures of
women. I know I oughtn't to say such things of my mother--she really is
an exceptional person--but a woman should be something more than mind. My
sisters could no more do what you do than a lame duck can lead a ballet.
I suppose it is because I have had to live with a lot of ailing women all
my life that I feel as I do toward you. I worship your health and
strength. I really do. Your care of me on that trip was very sweet--and
yet it stung."

"I didn't mean to hurt you."

"I know you didn't, and I'm not complaining. I'm only wishing I could
come here and be 'bossed' by you until I could hold my own against any
weather. You make me feel just as I used to do when I went to a circus
and watched the athletes, men and women, file past me in the sawdust.
They seemed like demigods. As I sit here now I have a fierce desire to be
as well, as strong, as full of life as you are. I hate being thin and
timid. You have the physical perfection that queens ought to have."

Her face was flushed with inward heat as she listened to his strange
words, which sprang, she feared, from the heart of a man hopelessly ill;
but she again protested. "It's all right to be able to throw a rope and
ride a mean horse, but you have got something else--something I can never
get. Learning is a thousand times finer than muscle."

"Learning does not compensate for nine-inch shoulders and spindle legs,"
he answered. "But I'm going to get well. Knowing you has given me renewed
desire to be a man. I'm going to ride and rough it, and sleep out of
doors till I can follow you anywhere. You'll be proud of me before the
month is out. But I'm going to cut the Meeker outfit. I won't subject
myself to their vulgarities another day. Why should I? It's false pride
in me to hang on up there any longer."

"Of course you can come here," she said. "Mother will be glad to have
you, although our ranch isn't a bit pretty. Perhaps father will send you
out with one of the rangers as a fire-guard. I'll ask him to-night."

"I wish you would. I like these foresters. What I've seen of them. I
wouldn't mind serving under a man like Landon. He's fine."

Upon this pleasant conference Cliff Belden unexpectedly burst. Pushing
the door open with a slam, he confronted Berrie with dark and angry
face.

"Why, Cliff, where did you come from?" she asked, rising in some
confusion. "I didn't hear you ride up."

"Apparently not," he sneeringly answered. "I reckon you were too much
occupied."

She tried to laugh away his black mood. "That's right, I was. I'm chief
cook to-day. Come in and sit down. Mother's gone to town, and I'm playing
her part," she explained, ignoring his sullen displeasure. "Cliff, this
is Mr. Norcross, who is visiting Uncle Joe. Mr. Norcross, shake hands
with Mr. Belden." She made this introduction with some awkwardness, for
her lover's failure to even say, "Howdy," informed her that his jealous
heart was aflame, and she went on, quickly: "Mr. Norcross dropped in on
his way to the post-office, and I'm collecting a snack for him."

Recognizing Belden's claims upon the girl, Wayland rose. "I must be
going. It's a long ride over the hill."

"Come again soon," urged Berrie; "father wants to see you."

"Thank you. I will look in very shortly," he replied, and went out with
such dignity as he could command, feeling, however, very much like a dog
that has been kicked over the threshold.

Closing the door behind him, Belden turned upon the girl. "What's that
consumptive 'dogie' doing here? He 'peared to be very much at home with
you--too dern much at home!"

She was prepared for his displeasure, but not for words like these. She
answered, quietly: "He just dropped in on his way to town, and he's not a
dogie!" She resented his tone as well as his words.

"I've heard about you taking him over to Meeker's and lending him your
only slicker," he went on; "but I didn't expect to find him sittin' here
like he owned you and the place. You're taking altogether too much pains
with him. Can't he put his own horse out? Do you have to go to the stable
with him? You never did have any sense about your actions with men.
You've all along been too free of your reputation, and now I'm going to
take care of it for you. I won't have you nursin' this runt any longer!"

She perceived now the full measure of his base rage, and her face grew
pale and set. "You're making a perfect fool of yourself, Cliff," she
said, with portentous calmness.

"Am I?" he asked.

"You sure are, and you'll see it yourself by and by. You've no call to
get wire-edged about Mr. Norcross. He's not very strong. He's just
getting well of a long sickness. I knew a chill would finish him, that's
why I gave him my slicker. It didn't hurt me, and maybe it saved his
life. I'd do it again if necessary."

"Since when did you start a hospital for Eastern tenderfeet?" he sneered;
then his tone changed to one of downright command. "You want to cut this
all out, I tell you! I won't have any more of it! The boys up at the mill
are all talkin' about your interest in this little whelp, and I'm getting
the branding-iron from every one I meet. Sam saw you go into the barn
with that dude, and _that_ would have been all over the country
to-morrow, if I hadn't told him I'd sew his mouth up if he said a word
about it. Of course, I don't think you mean anything by this coddlin'."

"Oh, thank you," she interrupted, with flaming, quick, indignant fury.
"That's mighty nice of you. I went to the barn to show Mr. Norcross where
to stall his horse. I didn't know Sam was here."

He sneered: "No, I bet you didn't."

She fired at this. "Come now! Spit it out! Something nasty is in your
mind. Go on! What have I done? What makes you so hot?"

He began to weaken. "I don't accuse you of anything. I--but I--"

"Yes you do--in your heart you distrust me--you just as much as said
so!"

He was losing his high air of command. "Never mind what I said, Berrie,
I--"

She was blazing now. "But I _do_ mind--I mind a whole lot--I didn't think
it of you," she added, as she realized his cheapness, his coarseness. "I
didn't suppose you could even _think_ such things of me. I don't like
it," she repeated, and her tone hardened, "and I guess you'd better pull
out of here--for good. If you've no more faith in me than that, I want
you to go and never come back."

"You don't mean that!"

"Yes, I do! You've shown this yellow streak before, and I'm tired of it.
This is the limit. I'm done with you."

She stood between tears and benumbing anger now, and he was scared.
"Don't say that, Berrie!" he pleaded, trying to put his arm about her.

"Keep away from me!" She dashed his hands aside. "I hate you. I never
want to see you again!" She ran into her own room and slammed the door
behind her.

Belden stood for a long time with his back against the wall, the heat of
his resentment utterly gone, an empty, aching place in his heart. He
called her twice, but she made no answer, and so, at last, he mounted his
horse and rode away.




IV

THE SUPERVISOR OF THE FOREST


Young Norcross, much as he admired Berrie, was not seeking to exchange
her favor for her lover's enmity, and he rode away with an uneasy feeling
of having innocently made trouble for himself, as well as for a fine,
true-hearted girl. "What a good friendly talk we were having," he said,
regretfully, "and to think she is to marry that big, scowling brute. How
could she turn Landon down for a savage like that?"

He was just leaving the outer gate when Belden came clattering up and
reined his horse across the path and called out: "See here, you young
skunk, you're a poor, white-livered tenderfoot, and I can't bust you as I
would a full-grown man, but I reckon you better not ride this trail any
more."

"Why not?" inquired Wayland.

Belden glared. "Because I tell you so. Your sympathy-hunting game has
just about run into the ground. You've worked this baby dodge about long
enough. You're not so almighty sick as you put up to be, and you'd better
hunt some other cure for lonesomeness, or I'll just about cave your chest
in."

All this was shockingly plain talk for a slender young scholar to listen
to, but Norcross remained calm. "I think you're unnecessarily excited,"
he remarked. "I have no desire to make trouble. I'm considering Miss
Berea, who is too fine to be worried by us."

His tone was conciliating, and the cowman, in spite of himself, responded
to it. "That's why I advise you to go. She was all right till you came.
Colorado's a big place, and there are plenty other fine ranges for men of
your complaint--why not try Routt County? This is certain, you can't stay
in the same valley with my girl. I serve notice of that."

"You're making a prodigious ass of yourself," observed Wayland, with calm
contempt.

"You think so--do you? Well, I'll make a jack-rabbit out of you if I find
you on this ranch again. You've worked on my girl in some way till she's
jest about quit me. I don't see how you did it, you measly little pup,
but you surely have turned her against me!" His rage burst into flame as
he thought of her last words. "If you were so much as half a man I'd
break you in two pieces right now; but you're not, you're nothing but a
dead-on-the-hoof lunger, and there's nothing to do but run you out. So
take this as your final notice. You straddle a horse and head east and
keep a-ridin', and if I catch you with my girl again, I'll deal you a
whole hatful of misery--now that's right!"

Thereupon, with a final glance of hate in his face, he whirled his horse
and galloped away, leaving Norcross dumb with resentment, intermingled
with wonder.

"Truly the West is a dramatic country! Here I am, involved in a lover's
wrath, and under sentence of banishment, all within a month! Well, I
suppose there's nothing to do but carry out Belden's orders. He's the
boss," he said as he rode on. "I wonder just what happened after I left?
Something stormy, evidently. She must have given him a sharp rebuff, or
he wouldn't have been so furious with me. Perhaps she even broke her
engagement with him. I sincerely hope she did. She's too good for him.
That's the truth."

And so, from point to point, he progressed till with fine indignation he
reached a resolution to stay and meet whatever came. "I certainly would
be a timorous animal if I let myself be scared into flight by that big
bonehead," he said at last. "I have as much right here as he has, and the
law must protect me. It can't be that this country is entirely
barbaric."

Nevertheless, he felt very weak and very much depressed as he rode up the
street of the little town and dismounted at the hotel. The sidewalks were
littered with loafing cowboys and lumber-jacks, and some of them quite
openly ridiculed his riding-breeches and his thin legs. Others merely
grinned, but in their grins lay something more insulting than words. "To
them I am a poor thing," he admitted; but as he lifted his eyes to the
mighty semicircular wall of the Bear Tooth Range, over which the daily
storm was playing, he forgot his small worries. What gorgeous pageantry!
What life-giving air! "If only civilized men and women possessed this
glorious valley, what a place it would be!" he exclaimed, and in the heat
of his indignant contempt he would have swept the valley clean.

As his eyes caught the flutter of the flag on its staff above the Forest
Service building, his heart went out to the men who unselfishly wrought
beneath that symbol of federal unity for the good of the future. "That is
civilized," he said; "that is prophetic," and alighted at the door in a
glow of confidence.

Nash, who was alone in the office, looked up from his work. "Come in," he
called, heartily. "Come in and report."

"Thank you. I'd like to do so; and may I use your desk? I have a letter
to write."

"Make yourself at home. Take any desk you like. The men are all out on
duty."

"You're very kind," replied Wayland, gratefully. There was something
reassuring in this greeting, and in the many signs of skill and
scientific reading which the place displayed. It was like a bit of
Washington in the midst of a careless, slovenly, lawless mountain town,
and Norcross took his seat and wrote his letter with a sense of
proprietorship.

"I'm getting up an enthusiasm for the Service just from hearing Alec
Belden rave against it," he said a few minutes later, as he looked up
from his letter.

Nash grinned. "How did you like Meeker?"

"He's a good man, but he has his peculiarities. Belden is your real
enemy. He is blue with malignity--so are most of the cowmen I met up
there. I wish I could do something for the Service. I'm a thoroughly
up-to-date analytical chemist and a passable mining engineer, and my
doctor says that for a year at least I must work in the open air. _Is_
there anything in this Forest Service for a weakling like me?"

Nash considered. "The Supervisor might put you on as a temporary guard.
I'll speak to him if you like?"

"I wish you would. Tell him to forget the pay. I'm not in need of money,
but I do require some incentive--something to do--something to give me
direction. It bores me stiff to fish, and I'm sick of loafing. If
McFarlane can employ me I shall be happy. The country is glorious, but I
can't live on scenery."

"I think we can employ you, but you'll have to go on as fire-guard or
something like that for the first year. You see, the work is getting to
be more and more technical each year. As a matter of fact"--here he
lowered his voice a little--"McFarlane is one of the old guard, and will
have to give way. He don't know a thing about forestry, and is too old to
learn. His girl knows more about it than he does. She helps him out on
office work, too."

Wayland wondered a little at the freedom of expression on the part of
Nash; but said: "If he runs his office as he runs his ranch he surely is
condemned to go."

"There's where the girl comes in. She keeps the boys in the office lined
up and maintains things in pretty fair shape. She knows the old man is in
danger of losing his job, and she's doing her best to hold him to it.
She's like a son to him and he relies on her judgment when a close
decision comes up. But it's only a matter of time when he and all he
represents must drift by. This is a big movement we're mixed with."

"I begin to feel that that's why I'd like to take it up. It's the only
thing out here that interests me--and I've got to do something. I can't
loaf."

"Well, you get Berrie to take up your case and you're all right. She has
the say about who goes on the force in this forest."

It was late in the afternoon before Wayland started back to Meeker's with
intent to repack his belongings and leave the ranch for good. He had
decided not to call at McFarlane's, a decision which came not so much
from fear of Clifford Belden as from a desire to shield Berea from
further trouble, but as he was passing the gate, the girl rose from
behind a clump of willows and called to him: "Oh, Mr. Norcross! Wait a
moment."

He drew rein, and, slipping from his horse, approached her. "What is it,
Miss Berrie?" he asked, with wondering politeness.

She confronted him with gravity. "It's too late for you to cross the
ridge. It'll be dark long before you reach the cut-off. You'd better not
try to make it."

"I think I can find my way," he answered, touched by her consideration.
"I'm not so helpless as I was when I came."

"Just the same you mustn't go on," she insisted. "Father told me to ask
you to come in and stay all night. He wants to meet you. I was afraid you
might ride by after what happened to-day, and so I came up here to head
you off." She took his horse by the rein, and flashed a smiling glance up
at him. "Come now, do as the Supervisor tells you."

"Wait a moment," he pleaded. "On second thought, I don't believe it's a
good thing for me to go home with you. It will only make further trouble
for--for us both."

She was almost as direct as Belden had been. "I know what you mean. I saw
Cliff follow you. He jumped you, didn't he?"

"He overtook me--yes."

"What did he say?"

He hesitated. "He was pretty hot, and said things he'll be sorry for when
he cools off."

"He told you not to come here any more--advised you to hit the out-going
trail--didn't he?"

He flushed with returning shame of it all, but quietly answered: "Yes, he
said something about riding east."

"Are you going to do it?"

"Not to-day; but I guess I'd better keep away from here."

She looked at him steadily. "Why?"

"Because you've been very kind to me, and I wouldn't for the world do
anything to hurt or embarrass you."

"Don't you mind about me," she responded, bluntly. "What happened this
morning wasn't your fault nor mine. Cliff made a mighty coarse play,
something he'll have to pay for. He knows that right now. He'll be back
in a day or two begging my pardon, and he won't get it. Don't you worry
about me, not for a minute--I can take care of myself--I grew up that
way, and don't you be chased out of the country by anybody. Come, father
will be looking for you."

With a feeling that he was involving both the girl and himself in still
darker storms, the young fellow yielded to her command, and together they
walked along the weed-bordered path, while she continued:

"This isn't the first time Cliff has started in to discipline me; but
it's obliged to be the last. He's the kind that think they own a girl
just as soon as they get her to wear an engagement ring; but Cliff don't
own me. I told him I wouldn't stand for his coarse ways, and I won't!"

Wayland tried to bring her back to humor. "You're a kind of 'new
woman.'"

She turned a stern look on him. "You bet I am! I was raised a free
citizen. No man can make a slave of me. I thought he understood that; but
it seems he didn't. He's all right in many ways--one of the best riders
in the country--but he's pretty tolerable domineering--I've always known
that--still, I never expected him to talk to me like he did to-day. It
certainly was raw." She broke off abruptly. "You mustn't let Frank Meeker
get the best of you, either," she advised. "He's a mean little weasel if
he gets started. I'll bet he put Cliff up to this business."

"Do you think so?"

"Yes, he just as good as told me he'd do it. I know Frank, he's my own
cousin, and someways I like him; but he's the limit when he gets going.
You see, he wanted to get even with Cliff and took that way of doing it.
I'll ride up there and give him a little good advice some Saturday."

He was no longer amused by her blunt speech, and her dark look saddened
him. She seemed so unlike the happy girl he met that first day, and the
change in her subtended a big, rough, and pitiless world of men against
which she was forced to contend all her life.

Mrs. McFarlane greeted Norcross with cordial word and earnest hand-clasp.
"I'm glad to see you looking so well," she said, with charming
sincerity.

"I'm browner, anyway," he answered, and turned to meet McFarlane, a
short, black-bearded man, with fine dark eyes and shapely hands--hands
that had never done anything more toilsome than to lift a bridle rein or
to clutch the handle of a gun. He was the horseman in all his training,
and though he owned hundreds of acres of land, he had never so much as
held a plow or plied a spade. His manner was that of the cow-boss, the
lord of great herds, the claimant of empires of government grass-land.
Poor as his house looked, he was in reality rich. Narrow-minded in
respect to his own interests, he was well in advance of his neighbors on
matters relating to the general welfare, a curious mixture of greed and
generosity, as most men are, and though he had been made Supervisor at a
time when political pull still crippled the Service, he was loyal to the
flag. "I'm mighty glad to see you," he heartily began. "We don't often
get a man from the sea-level, and when we do we squeeze him dry."

His voice, low, languid, and soft, was most insinuating, and for hours he
kept his guest talking of the East and its industries and prejudices; and
Berrie and her mother listened with deep admiration, for the youngster
had seen a good deal of the old world, and was unusually well read on
historical lines of inquiry. He talked well, too, inspired by his
attentive audience.

Berrie's eyes, wide and eager, were fixed upon him unwaveringly. He felt
her wonder, her admiration, and was inspired to do his best. Something in
her absorbed attention led him to speak of things so personal that he
wondered at himself for uttering them.

"I've been dilettante all my life," was one of his confessions. "I've
traveled; I've studied in a tepid sort of fashion; I went through college
without any idea of doing anything with what I got; I had a sort of pride
in keeping up with my fellows; and I had no idea of preparing for any
work in the world. Then came my breakdown, and my doctor ordered me out
here. I came intending to fish and loaf around, but I can't do that. I've
got to do something or go back home. I expected to have a chum of mine
with me, but his father was injured in an automobile accident, so he went
into the office to help out."

As he talked the girl discovered new graces, new allurements in him. His
smile, so subtly self-derisive, and his voice so flexible and so quietly
eloquent, completed her subjugation. She had no further care concerning
Clifford--indeed, she had forgotten him--for the time at least. The other
part of her--the highly civilized latent power drawn from her mother--was
in action. She lost her air of command, her sense of chieftainship, and
sat humbly at the feet of this shining visitor from the East.

At last Mrs. McFarlane rose, and Berea, reluctantly, like a child loath
to miss a fairy story, held out her hand to say good night, and the young
man saw on her face that look of adoration which marks the birth of
sudden love; but his voice was frank and his glance kindly as he said:

"Here I've done all the talking when I wanted you to tell _me_ all sorts
of things."

"I can't tell you anything."

"Oh yes, you can; and, besides, I want you to intercede for me with your
father and get me into the Service. But we'll talk about that to-morrow.
Good night."

After the women left the room Norcross said:

"I really am in earnest about entering the Forest Service. Landon filled
me with enthusiasm about it. Never mind the pay. I'm not in immediate
need of money; but I do need an interest in life."

McFarlane stared at him with kindly perplexity. "I don't know exactly
what you can do, but I'll work you in somehow. You ought to work under a
man like Settle, one that could put you through a training in the
rudiments of the game. I'll see what can be done."

"Thank you for that half promise," said Wayland, and he went to his bed
happier than at any moment since leaving home.

Berrie, on her part, did not analyze her feeling for Wayland, she only
knew that he was as different from the men she knew as a hawk from a
sage-hen, and that he appealed to her in a higher way than any other had
done. His talk filled her with visions of great cities, and with thoughts
of books, for though she was profoundly loyal to her mountain valley, she
held other, more secret admirations. She was, in fact, compounded of two
opposing tendencies. Her quiet little mother longing--in secret--for the
placid, refined life of her native Kentucky town, had dowered her
daughter with some part of her desire. She had always hated the slovenly,
wasteful, and purposeless life of the cattle-rancher, and though she
still patiently bore with her husband's shortcomings, she covertly hoped
that Berea might find some other and more civilized lover than Clifford
Belden. She understood her daughter too well to attempt to dictate her
action; she merely said to her, as they were alone for a few moments: "I
don't wonder your father is interested in Mr. Norcross, he's very
intelligent--and very considerate."

"Too considerate," said Berrie, shortly; "he makes other men seem like
bears or pigs."

Mrs. McFarlane said no more, but she knew that Cliff was, for the time,
among the bears.




V

THE GOLDEN PATHWAY


Young Norcross soon became vitally engaged with the problems which
confronted McFarlane, and his possible enrolment as a guard filled him
with a sense of proprietorship in the forest, which made him quite
content with Bear Tooth. He set to work at once to acquire a better
knowledge of the extent and boundaries of the reservation. It was,
indeed, a noble possession. Containing nearly eight hundred thousand
acres of woodland, and reaching to the summits of the snow-lined peaks to
the east, south, and west, it appealed to him with silent majesty. It
drew upon his patriotism. Remembering how the timber of his own state had
been slashed and burned, he began to feel a sense of personal
responsibility. He had but to ride into it a few miles in order to
appreciate in some degree its grandeur, considered merely as the source
of a hundred swift streams, whose waters enriched the valleys lying
below.

He bought a horse of his own--although Berrie insisted upon his retaining
Pete--and sent for a saddle of the army type, and from sheer desire to
keep entirely clear of the cowboy equipment procured puttees like those
worn by cavalry officers, and when he presented himself completely
uniformed, he looked not unlike a slender, young lieutenant of the
cavalry on field duty, and in Berrie's eyes was wondrous alluring.

He took quarters at the hotel, but spent a larger part of each day in
Berrie's company--a fact which was duly reported to Clifford Belden.
Hardly a day passed without his taking at least one meal at the
Supervisor's home.

As he met the rangers one by one, he perceived by their outfits, as well
as by their speech, that they were sharply divided upon old lines and
new. The experts, the men of college training, were quite ready to be
known as Uncle Sam's men. They held a pride in their duties, a respect
for their superiors, and an understanding of the governmental policy
which gave them dignity and a quiet authority. They were less policemen
than trusted agents of a federal department. Nevertheless, there was much
to admire in the older men, who possessed a self-reliance, a knowledge of
nature, and a certain rough grace which made them interesting companions,
and rendered them effective teachers of camping and trailing, and while
they were secretly a little contemptuous of the "schoolboys"; they were
all quite ready to ask for expert aid when knotty problems arose. It was
no longer a question of grazing, it was a question of lumbering and
reforestration.

Nash, who took an almost brotherly interest in his apprentice,
warningly said: "You want to go well clothed and well shod. You'll have
to meet all kinds of weather. Every man in the service, I don't care
what his technical job is, should be schooled in taking care of himself
in the forest and on the trail. I often meet surveyors and civil
engineers--experts--who are helpless as children in camp, and when I
want them to go into the hills and do field work, they are almost
useless. The old-style ranger has his virtues. Settle is just the kind
of instructor you young fellows need."

Berrie also had keen eyes for his outfit and his training, and under her
direction he learned to pack a horse, set a tent, build a fire in the
rain, and other duties.

"You want to remember that you carry your bed and board with you," she
said, "and you must be prepared to camp anywhere and at any time."

The girl's skill in these particulars was marvelous to him, and added to
the admiration he already felt for her. Her hand was as deft, as sure, as
the best of them, and her knowledge of cayuse psychology more profound
than any of the men excepting her father.

One day, toward the end of his second week in the village, the Supervisor
said: "Well, now, if you're ready to experiment I'll send you over to
Settle, the ranger, on the Horseshoe. He's a little lame on his pen-hand
side, and you may be able to help him out. Maybe I'll ride over there
with you. I want to line out some timber sales on the west side of
Ptarmigan."

This commission delighted Norcross greatly. "I'm ready, sir, this
moment," he answered, saluting soldier-wise.

That night, as he sat in the saddle-littered, boot-haunted front room of
Nash's little shack, his host said, quaintly: "Don't think you are
inheriting a soft snap, son. The ranger's job was a man's job in the old
days when it was a mere matter of patrolling; but it's worse and more of
it to-day. A ranger must be ready and willing to build bridges, fight
fire, scale logs, chop a hole through a windfall, use a pick in a ditch,
build his own house, cook, launder, and do any other old trick that comes
along. But you'll know more about all this at the end of ten days than I
can tell you in a year."

"I'm eager for duty," replied Wayland.

The next morning, as he rode down to the office to meet the Supervisor,
he was surprised and delighted to find Berea there. "I'm riding, too,"
she announced, delightedly. "I've never been over that new trail, and
father has agreed to let me go along." Then she added, earnestly: "I
think it's fine you're going in for the Service; but it's hard work, and
you must be careful till you're hardened to it. It's a long way to a
doctor from Settle's station."

He was annoyed as well as touched by her warning, for it proclaimed that
he was still far from looking the brave forester he felt himself to be.
He replied: "I'm not going to try anything wild, but I do intend to
master the trailer's craft."

"I'll teach you how to camp, if you'll let me," she continued. "I've been
on lots of surveys with father, and I always take my share of the work. I
threw that hitch alone." She nodded toward the pack-horse, whose neat
load gave evidence of her skill. "I told father this was to be a real
camping expedition, and as the grouse season is on we'll live on the
country. Can you fish?"

"Just about that," he laughed. "Good thing you didn't ask me if I could
_catch_ fish?" He was recovering his spirits. "It will be great fun to
have you as instructor in camp science. I seem to be in for all kinds of
good luck."

They both grew uneasy as time passed, for fear something or some one
would intervene to prevent this trip, which grew in interest each moment;
but at last the Supervisor came out and mounted his horse, the
pack-ponies fell in behind, Berrie followed, and the student of woodcraft
brought up to rear.

"I hope it won't rain," the girl called back at him, "at least not till
we get over the divide. It's a fine ride up the hill, and the foliage is
at its best."

It seemed to him the most glorious morning of his life. A few large white
clouds were drifting like snow-laden war-vessels from west to east,
silent and solemn, and on the highest peaks a gray vapor was lightly
clinging. The near-by hills, still transcendently beautiful with the
flaming gold of the aspen, burned against the dark green of the farther
forest, and far beyond the deep purple of the shadowed <DW72>s rose to
smoky blue and tawny yellow. It was a season, an hour, to create raptures
in a poet, so radiant, so wide-reaching, so tumultuous was the landscape.
Nothing sad, nothing discouraging, showed itself. The wind was brisk, the
air cool and clear, and jewel-like small, frost-painted vines and ripened
shrubberies blazed upward from the ground. As he rode the youth silently
repeated: "Beautiful! Beautiful!"

For several miles they rode upward through golden forests of aspens. On
either hand rose thick walls of snow-white boles, and in the mystic glow
of their gilded leaves the face of the girl shone with unearthly beauty.
It was as if the very air had become auriferous. Magic coins dangled from
the branches. Filmy shadows fell over her hair and down her strong young
arms like priceless lace. Gold, gold! Everywhere gold, gold and fire!

Twice she stopped to gaze into Wayland's face to say, with hushed
intensity: "Isn't it wonderful! Don't you wish it would last forever?"

Her words were poor, ineffectual; but her look, her breathless voice made
up for their lack of originality. Once she said: "I never saw it so
lovely before; it is an enchanted land!" with no suspicion that the
larger part of her ecstasy arose from the presence of her young and
sympathetic companion. He, too, responded to the beauty of the day, of
the golden forest as one who had taken new hold on life after long
illness.

Meanwhile the Supervisor was calmly leading the way upward, vaguely
conscious of the magical air and mystic landscape in which his young folk
floated as if on wings, thinking busily of the improvements which were
still necessary in the trail, and weighing with care the clouds which
still lingered upon the tallest summits, as if debating whether to go or
to stay. He had never been an imaginative soul, and now that age had
somewhat dimmed his eyes and blunted his senses he was placidly content
with his path. The rapture of the lover, the song of the poet, had long
since abandoned his heart. And yet he was not completely oblivious. To
him it was a nice day, but a "weather breeder."

"I wonder if I shall ever ride through this mountain world as unmoved as
he seems to be?" Norcross asked himself, after some jarring prosaic
remark from his chief. "I am glad Berrie responds to it."

At last they left these lower, wondrous forest aisles and entered the
unbroken cloak of firs whose dark and silent deeps had a stern beauty all
their own; but the young people looked back upon the glowing world below
with wistful hearts. Back and forth across a long, down-sweeping ridge
they wove their toilsome way toward the clouds, which grew each hour more
formidable, awesome with their weight, ponderous as continents in their
majesty of movement. The horses began to labor with roaring breath, and
Wayland, dismounting to lighten his pony's burden, was dismayed to
discover how thin the air had become. Even to walk unburdened gave him a
smothering pain in his breast.

"Better stay on," called the girl. "My rule is to ride the hill going up
and walk it going down. Down hill is harder on a horse than going up."

Nevertheless he persisted in clambering up some of the steepest parts of
the trail, and was increasingly dismayed by the endless upward reaches of
the foot-hills. A dozen times he thought, "We must be nearly at the top,"
and then other and far higher ridges suddenly developed. Occasionally the
Supervisor was forced to unsling an ax and chop his way through a fallen
tree, and each time the student hurried to the spot, ready to aid, but
was quite useless. He admired the ease and skill with which the older man
put his shining blade through the largest bole, and wondered if he could
ever learn to do as well.

"One of the first essentials of a ranger's training is to learn to swing
an ax," remarked McFarlane, "and you never want to be without a real
tool. _I_ won't stand for a hatchet ranger."

Berrie called attention to the marks on the trees. "This is the
government sign--a long blaze with two notches above it. You can trust
these trails; they lead somewhere."

"As you ride a trail study how to improve it," added the Supervisor,
sheathing his ax. "They can all be improved."

Wayland was sure of this a few steps farther on, when the Supervisor's
horse went down in a small bog-hole, and Berrie's pony escaped only by
the most desperate plunging. The girl laughed, but Wayland was appalled
and stood transfixed watching McFarlane as he calmly extricated himself
from the saddle of the fallen horse and chirped for him to rise.

"You act as if this were a regular part of the journey," Wayland said to
Berrie.

"It's all in the day's work," she replied; "but I despise a bog worse
than anything else on the trail. I'll show you how to go round this one."
Thereupon she slid from her horse and came tiptoeing back along the edge
of the mud-hole.

McFarlane cut a stake and plunged it vertically in the mud. "That means
'no bottom,'" he explained. "We must cut a new trail."

Wayland was dismounting when Berrie said: "Stay on. Now put your horse
right through where those rocks are. It's hard bottom there."

He felt like a child; but he did as she bid, and so came safely through,
while McFarlane set to work to blaze a new route which should avoid the
slough which was already a bottomless horror to the city man.

This mishap delayed them nearly half an hour, and the air grew dark and
chill as they stood there, and the amateur ranger began to understand how
serious a lone night journey might sometimes be. "What would I do if when
riding in the dark my horse should go down like that and pin me in the
mud?" he asked himself. "Eternal watchfulness is certainly one of the
forester's first principles."

The sky was overshadowed now, and a thin drizzle of rain filled the air.
The novice hastened to throw his raincoat over his shoulders; but
McFarlane rode steadily on, clad only in his shirtsleeves, unmindful of
the wet. Berrie, however, approved Wayland's caution. "That's right; keep
dry," she called back. "Don't pay attention to father, he'd rather get
soaked any day than unroll his slicker. You mustn't take him for model
yet awhile."

He no longer resented her sweet solicitude, although he considered
himself unentitled to it, and he rejoiced under the shelter of his fine
new coat. He began to perceive that one could be defended against a
storm.

After passing two depressing marshes, they came to a hillside so steep,
so slippery, so dark, so forbidding, that one of the pack-horses balked,
shook his head, and reared furiously, as if to say "I can't do it, and I
won't try." And Wayland sympathized with him. The forest was gloomy and
cold, and apparently endless.

After coaxing him for a time with admirable gentleness, the Supervisor,
at Berrie's suggestion, shifted part of the load to her own saddle-horse,
and they went on.

Wayland, though incapable of comment--so great was the demand upon his
lungs--was not too tired to admire the power and resolution of the girl,
who seemed not to suffer any special inconvenience from the rarefied air.
The dryness of his open mouth, the throbbing of his troubled pulse, the
roaring of his breath, brought to him with increasing dismay the fact
that he had overlooked another phase of the ranger's job. "I couldn't
chop a hole through one of these windfalls in a week," he admitted, as
McFarlane's blade again liberated them from a fallen tree. "To do office
work at six thousand feet is quite different from swinging an ax up here
at timber-line," he said to the girl. "I guess my chest is too narrow for
high altitudes."

"Oh, you'll get used to it," she replied, cheerily. "I always feel it a
little at first; but I really think it's good for a body, kind o'
stretches the lungs." Nevertheless, she eyed him with furtive anxiety.

He was beginning to be hungry also--he had eaten a very early
breakfast--and he fell to wondering just where and when they were to
camp; but he endured in silence. "So long as Berrie makes no complaint my
mouth is shut," he told himself. "Surely I can stand it if she can." And
so struggled on.

Up and up the pathway looped, crossing minute little boggy meadows, on
whose bottomless ooze the grass shook like a blanket, descending steep
ravines and climbing back to dark and muddy <DW72>s. The forest was
dripping, green, and silent now, a mysterious menacing jungle. All the
warmth and magic of the golden forest below was lost as though it
belonged to another and sunnier world. Nothing could be seen of the high,
snow-flecked peaks which had allured them from the valley. All about them
drifted the clouds, and yet through the mist the flushed face of the girl
glowed like a dew-wet rose, and the imperturbable Supervisor jogged his
remorseless, unhesitating way toward the dense, ascending night.

"I'm glad I'm not riding this pass alone," Wayland said, as they paused
again for breath.

"So am I," she answered; but her thought was not his. She was happy at
the prospect of teaching him how to camp.

At last they reached the ragged edge of timber-line, and there, rolling
away under the mist, lay the bare, grassy, upward-climbing, naked neck of
the great peak. The wind had grown keener moment by moment, and when they
left the storm-twisted pines below, its breath had a wintry nip. The rain
had ceased to fall, but the clouds still hung densely to the loftiest
summits. It was a sinister yet beautiful world--a world as silent as a
dream, and through the short, thick grass the slender trail ran like a
timid serpent. The hour seemed to have neither daytime nor season. All
was obscure, mysterious, engulfing, and hostile. Had he been alone the
youth would have been appalled by the prospect.

"Now we're on the divide," called Berea; and as she spoke they seemed to
enter upon a boundless Alpine plain of velvet-russet grass. "This is the
Bear Tooth plateau." Low monuments of loose rock stood on small ledges,
as though to mark the course, and in the hollows dark ponds of icy water
lay, half surrounded by masses of compact snow.

"This is a stormy place in winter," McFarlane explained. "These piles of
stone are mighty valuable in a blizzard. I've crossed this divide in
August in snow so thick I could not see a rod."

Half an hour later they began to descend. Wind-twisted, storm-bleached
dwarf pines were first to show, then the firs, then the blue-green
spruces, and then the sheltering deeps of the undespoiled forest opened,
and the roar of a splendid stream was heard; but still the Supervisor
kept his resolute way, making no promises as to dinner, though his
daughter called: "We'd better go into camp at Beaver Lake. I hope you're
not starved," she called to Wayland.

"But I am," he replied, so frankly that she never knew how faint he
really was. His knees were trembling with weakness, and he stumbled
dangerously as he trod the loose rocks in the path.

They were all afoot now descending swiftly, and the horses ramped down
the trail with expectant haste, so that in less than an hour from
timber-line they were back into the sunshine of the lower valley, and at
three o'clock or thereabouts they came out upon the bank of an exquisite
lake, and with a cheery shout McFarlane called out: "Here we are, out of
the wilderness!" Then to Wayland: "Well, boy, how did you stand it?"

"Just middling," replied Wayland, reticent from weariness and with joy of
their camping-place. The lake, dark as topaz and smooth as steel, lay in
a frame of golden willows--as a jewel is filigreed with gold--and above
it the cliffs rose three thousand feet in sheer majesty, their upper
<DW72>s glowing with autumnal grasses. A swift stream roared down a low
ledge and fell into the pond near their feet. Grassy, pine-shadowed
knolls afforded pasture for the horses, and two giant firs, at the edge
of a little glade, made a natural shelter for their tent.

With businesslike certitude Berrie unsaddled her horse, turned him loose,
and lent a skilful hand at removing the panniers from the pack-animals,
while Wayland, willing but a little uncertain, stood awkwardly about.
Under her instruction he collected dead branches of a standing fir, and
from these and a few cones kindled a blaze, while the Supervisor hobbled
the horses and set the tent.

"If the work of a forester were all like this it wouldn't be so bad," he
remarked, wanly. "I think I know several fellows who would be glad to do
it without a cent of pay."

"Wait till you get to heaving a pick," she retorted, "or scaling lumber
in a rain, or building a corduroy bridge."

"I don't want to think of anything so dreadful. I want to enjoy this
moment. I never was hungrier or happier in my life."

"Do ye good," interjected McFarlane, who had paused to straighten up the
coffee-pot. "Most people don't know what hunger means. There's nothing
finer in the world than good old-fashioned hunger, provided you've got
something to throw into yourself when you come into camp. This is a great
place for fish. I think I'll see if I can't jerk a few out."

"Better wait till night," said his daughter. "Mr. Norcross is starving,
and so am I. Plain bacon will do me."

The coffee came to a boil, the skillet gave off a wondrous savor, and
when the corn and beans began to sizzle, the trailers sat down to their
feast in hearty content, with one of the panniers for a table, and the
fir-tree for roof. "This is one of the most perfectly appointed
dining-rooms in the world," exclaimed the alien.

The girl met his look with a tender smile. "I'm glad you like it, for
perhaps we'll stay a week."

"It looks stormy," the Supervisor announced, after a glance at the
crests. "I'd like to see a soaking rain--it would end all our worry about
fires. The country's very dry on this side the range, and your duty for
the present will be to help Tony patrol."

While he talked on, telling the youth how to beat out a small blaze and
how to head off a large one, Wayland listened, but heard his instructions
only as he sensed the brook, as an accompaniment to Berea's voice, for as
she busied herself clearing away the dishes and putting the camp to
rights, she sang.

"You're to have the tent," said her father, "and we two huskies will
sleep under the shade of this big fir. If you're ever caught out," he
remarked to Wayland, "hunt for one of these balsam firs; there's always a
dry spot under them. See here!" And he showed him the sheltered circle
beneath the tree. "You can always get twigs for kindling from their inner
branches," he added, "or you can hew into one of these dead trees and get
some pitchy splinters. There's material for everything you want if you
know where to find it. Shelter, food, fire are all here for us as they
were for the Indians. A ranger who needs a roof all the time is not worth
his bacon."

So, one by one, the principles of camping were taught by the kindly old
rancher; but the hints which the girl gave were quite as valuable, for
Wayland was eager to show her that he could be, and intended to be, a
forester of the first class or perish in the attempt.

McFarlane went farther and talked freely of the forest and what it meant
to the government. "We're all green at the work," he said, "and we old
chaps are only holding the fort against the thieves till you youngsters
learn how to make the best use of the domain."

"I can see that it takes more than technical training to enable a man to
be Supervisor of a forest," conceded Wayland.

McFarlane was pleased with this remark. "That's true, too. It's a big
responsibility. When I first came on, it was mainly patrolling; but now,
with a half dozen sawmills, and these 'June Eleventh Homesteads,' and the
new ways of marking timber, and the grazing and free-use permits, the
office work has doubled. And this is only the beginning. Wait till
Colorado has two millions of people, and all these lower valleys are
clamoring for water. Then you'll see a new party spring up--right here in
our state."

Berrie was glowing with happiness. "Let's stay here till the end of the
week," she suggested. "I've always wanted to camp on this lake, and now
I'm here I want time to enjoy it."

"We'll stay a day or two," said her father; "but I must get over to that
ditch survey which is being made at the head of Poplar, and then Moore is
coming over to look at some timber on Porcupine."

The young people cut willow rods and went angling at the outlet of the
lake with prodigious success. The water rippled with trout, and in half
an hour they had all they could use for supper and breakfast, and,
behold, even as they were returning with their spoil they met a covey of
grouse strolling leisurely down to the lake's edge. "Isn't it a wonderful
place!" exclaimed the happy girl. "I wish we could stay a month."

"It's like being on the Swiss Family Robinson's Island. I never was more
content," he said, fervently. "I wouldn't mind staying here all winter."

"I would!" she laughed. "The snow falls four feet deep up here. It's
likely there's snow on the divide this minute, and camping in the snow
isn't so funny. Some people got snowed in over at Deep Lake last year and
nearly all their horses starved before they could get them out. This is a
fierce old place in winter-time."

"I can't imagine it," he said, indicating the glowing amphitheater which
inclosed the lake. "See how warmly the sun falls into that high basin!
It's all as beautiful as the Tyrol."

The air at the moment was golden October, and the dark clouds which lay
to the east seemed the wings of a departing rather than an approaching
storm; and even as they looked, a rainbow sprang into being, arching the
lake as if in assurance of peace and plenty, and the young people, as
they turned to face it, stood so close together that each felt the glow
of the other's shoulder. The beauty of the scene seemed to bring them
together in body as in spirit, and they fell silent.

McFarlane seemed quite unconscious of any necromancy at work upon his
daughter. He smoked his pipe, made notes in his field-book, directing an
occasional remark toward his apprentice, enjoying in his tranquil,
middle-age way the beauty and serenity of the hour.

"This is the kind of thing that makes up for a hard day's ride," he said,
jocosely.

As the sunset came on, the young people again loitered down to the
water's edge, and there, seated side by side, on a rocky knoll, watched
the phantom gold lift from the willows and climb slowly to the cliffs
above, while the water deepened in shadow, and busy muskrats marked its
glossy surface with long silvery lines. Mischievous camp-birds peered at
the couple from the branches of the pines uttering satirical comment,
while squirrels, frankly insolent, dropped cones upon their heads and
barked in saucy glee.

Wayland forgot all the outside world, forgot that he was studying to be a
forest ranger, and was alive only to the fact that in this most
bewitching place, in this most entrancing hour, he had the companionship
of a girl whose eyes sought his with every new phase of the silent and
wonderful scene which shifted swiftly before their eyes like a noiseless
yet prodigious drama. The blood in his thin body warmed. He forgot his
fatigue, his weakness. He was the poet and the forest lover, and this the
heart of the range.

Lightly the golden glory rose till only the highest peaks retained its
flame; then it leapt to the clouds behind the peaks, and gorgeously lit
their somber sulphurous masses. The edges of the pool grew black as
night; the voice of the stream grew stern; and a cold wind began to fall
from the heights, sliding like an invisible but palpable icy cataract.

At last the girl rose. "It is getting dark. I must go back and get
supper."

"We don't need any supper," he protested.

"Father does, and you'll be hungry before morning," she retorted, with
sure knowledge of men.

He turned from the scene reluctantly; but once at the camp-fire
cheerfully gave his best efforts to the work in hand, seconding Berrie's
skill as best he could.

The trout, deliciously crisp, and some potatoes and batter-cakes made a
meal that tempted even his faint appetite, and when the dishes were
washed and the towels hung out to dry, deep night possessed even the high
summit of stately Ptarmigan.

McFarlane then said: "I'll just take a little turn to see that the horses
are all right, and then I think we'd better close in for the night."

When they were alone in the light of the fire, Wayland turned to Berrie:
"I'm glad you're here. It must be awesome to camp alone in a wilderness;
and yet, I suppose, I must learn to do it."

"Yes, the ranger often has to camp alone, ride alone, and work alone for
weeks at a time," she assured him. "A good trailer don't mind a night
trip any more than he does a day trip, or if he does he never admits it.
Rain, snow, darkness, is all the same to him. Most of the boys are
fifteen to forty miles from the post-office."

He smiled ruefully. "I begin to have new doubts about this ranger
business. It's a little more vigorous than I thought it was. Suppose a
fellow breaks a leg on one of those high trails?"

"He mustn't!" she hastened to say. "He can't afford really to take
reckless chances; but then father won't expect as much of you as he does
of the old-stagers. You'll have plenty of time to get used to it."

"I may be like the old man's cow and the green shavings, just as I'm
getting used to it I'll die."

She didn't laugh at this. "You mustn't be rash; don't jump into any hard
jobs for the present; let the other fellow do it."

"But that's not very manly. If I go into the work I ought to be able to
take my share of any task that turns up."

"You'd better go slow," she argued. "Wait till you get hardened to it.
You need something over your shoulders now," she added; and rose and laid
a blanket over him. "You're tired; you'll take a chill if you're not
careful."

"You're very considerate," he said, looking up at her gratefully. "But it
makes me feel like a child to think I need such care. If honestly trying,
if going up against these hills and winds with Spartan courage will do me
good, I'm for it. I'm resolved to show to you and your good father that I
can learn to ride and pack and cut trail, and do all the rest of
it--there's some honor in qualifying as a forester, and I'm going to do
it."

"Of course there isn't much in it for you. The pay, even of a full
ranger, isn't much, after you count out his outlay for horses and saddles
and their feed, and his own feed. It don't leave so very much of his
ninety dollars a month."

"I'm not thinking of that," he retorted. "If you had once seen a doctor
shake his head over you, as I have, you'd think just being here in this
glorious spot, as I am to-night, would be compensation enough. It's a joy
to be in the world, and a delight to have you for my teacher."

She was silent under the pleasure of his praise, and he went on: "I
_know_ I'm better, and, I'm perfectly certain I can regain my strength.
The very odor of these pines and the power of these winds will bring it
back to me. See me now, and think how I looked when I came here six weeks
ago."

She looked at him with fond agreement. "You _are_ better. When I saw you
first I surely thought you were--"

"I know what you thought--and forget it, _please_! Think of me as one who
has touched mother earth again and is on the way to being made a giant.
You can't imagine how marvelous, how life-giving all this is to me. It is
poetry, it is prophecy, it is fulfilment. I am fully alive again."

McFarlane, upon his return, gave some advice relating to the care of
horses. "All this stock which is accustomed to a barn or a pasture will
quit you," he warned. "Watch your broncos. Put them on the outward side
of your camp when you bed down, and pitch your tent near the trail, then
you will hear the brutes if they start back. Some men tie their stock all
up; but I usually picket my saddle-horse and hobble the rest."

It was a delightful hour for schooling, and Wayland would have been
content to sit there till morning listening; but the air bit, and at last
the Supervisor asked: "Have you made your bed? If you have, turn in. I
shall get you out early to-morrow." As he saw the bed, he added: "I see
you've laid out a bed of boughs. That shows how Eastern you are. We don't
do that out here. It's too cold in this climate, and it's too much work.
You want to hug the ground--if it's dry."

The weary youth went to his couch with a sense of timorous elation, for
he had never before slept beneath the open sky. Over him the giant
fir--tall as a steeple--dropped protecting shadow, and looking up he
could see the firelight flickering on the wide-spread branches. His bed
seemed to promise all the dreams and restful drowse which the books on
outdoor life had described, and close by in her tiny little canvas house
he could hear the girl in low-voiced conversation with her sire. All
conditions seemed right for slumber, and yet slumber refused to come!

After the Supervisor had rolled himself in the blanket, long after all
sounds had ceased in the tent, there still remained for the youth a score
of manifold excitations to wakefulness. Down on the lake the muskrats and
beavers were at their work. Nocturnal birds uttered uncanny, disturbing
cries. Some animal with stealthy crackling tread was ranging the
hillside, and the roar of the little fall, so far from lulling him to
sleep--as he had imagined it would--stimulated his imagination till he
could discern in it the beat of scurrying wings and the patter of
pernicious padded feet. "If I am appalled by the wilderness now, what
would it seem to me were I alone!" he whispered.

Then, too, his bed of boughs discovered unforeseen humps and knobs, and
by the time he had adjusted himself to their discomfort, it became
evident that his blankets were both too thin and too short. And the gelid
air sweeping down from the high places submerged him as if with a flood
of icy water. In vain he turned and twisted within his robes. No sooner
were his shoulders covered and comfortable than his hip-bones began to
ache. Later on the blood of his feet congealed, and in the effort to wrap
them more closely, he uncovered his neck and shoulders. The frost became
a wolf, the night an oppressor. "I must have a different outfit," he
decided. And then thinking that this was but early autumn, he added:
"What will it be a month later?" He began to doubt his ability to measure
up to the heroic standard of a forest patrol.

The firelight flickered low, and a prowling animal daringly sniffed about
the camp, pawing at the castaway fragments of the evening meal. The youth
was rigid with fear. "Is it a bear? Shall I call the Supervisor?" he
asked himself.

He felt sadly unprotected, and wished McFarlane nearer at hand. "It may
be a lion, but probably it is only a coyote, or a porcupine," he
concluded, and lay still for what seemed like hours waiting for the beast
to gorge himself and go away.

He longed for morning with intense desire, and watched an amazingly
luminous star which hung above the eastern cliff, hoping to see it pale
and die in dawn light, but it did not; and the wind bit even sharper. His
legs ached almost to the cramping-point, and his hip-bones protruded like
knots on a log. "I didn't know I had door-knobs on my hips," he remarked,
with painful humor, and, looking down at his feet, he saw that a thick
rime was gathering on his blanket. "This sleeping out at night isn't what
the books crack it up to be," he groaned again, drawing his feet up to
the middle of his bed to warm them. "Shall I resign to-morrow? No, I'll
stay with it; but I'll have more clothing. I'll have blankets six inches
thick. Heaps of blankets--the fleecy kind--I'll have an air-mattress."
His mind luxuriated in these details till he fell into an uneasy drowse.




VI

STORM-BOUND


Wayland was awakened by the mellow voice of his chief calling: "_All out!
All out! Daylight down the creek!_" Breathing a prayer of thankfulness,
the boy sat up and looked about him. "The long night is over at last, and
I am alive!" he said, and congratulated himself.

He drew on his shoes and, stiff and shivering, stood about in helpless
misery, while McFarlane kicked the scattered, charred logs together, and
fanned the embers into a blaze with his hat. It was heartening to see the
flames leap up, flinging wide their gorgeous banners of heat and light,
and in their glow the tenderfoot ranger rapidly recovered his courage,
though his teeth still chattered and the forest was dark.

"How did you sleep?" asked the Supervisor.

"First rate--at least during the latter part of the night," Wayland
briskly lied.

"That's good. I was afraid that Adirondack bed of yours might let the
white wolf in."

"My blankets did seem a trifle thin," confessed Norcross.

"It don't pay to sleep cold," the Supervisor went on. "A man wants to
wake up refreshed, not tired out with fighting the night wind and frost.
I always carry a good bed."

It was instructive to see how quietly and methodically the old
mountaineer went about his task of getting the breakfast. First he cut
and laid a couple of eight-inch logs on either side of the fire, so that
the wind drew through them properly, then placing his dutch-oven cover on
the fire, he laid the bottom part where the flames touched it. Next he
filled his coffee-pot with water, and set it on the coals. From his
pannier he took his dishes and the flour and salt and pepper, arranging
them all within reach, and at last laid some slices of bacon in the
skillet.

At this stage of the work a smothered cry, half yawn, half complaint,
came from the tent. "Oh, hum! Is it morning?" inquired Berrie.

"Morning!" replied her father. "It's going toward noon. You get up or
you'll have no breakfast."

Thereupon Wayland called: "Can I get you anything, Miss Berrie? Would you
like some warm water?"

"What for?" interposed McFarlane, before the girl could reply.

"To bathe in," replied the youth.

"To bathe in! If a daughter of mine should ask for warm water to wash
with I'd throw her in the creek."

Berrie chuckled. "Sometimes I think daddy has no feeling for me. I reckon
he thinks I'm a boy."

"Hot water is debilitating, and very bad for the complexion," retorted
her father. "Ice-cold water is what you need. And if you don't get out o'
there in five minutes I'll dowse you with a dipperful."

This reminded Wayland that he had not yet made his own toilet, and,
seizing soap, towel, and brushes, he hurried away down to the beach where
he came face to face with the dawn. The splendor of it smote him full in
the eyes. From the waveless surface of the water a spectral mist was
rising, a light veil, through which the stupendous cliffs loomed three
thousand feet in height, darkly shadowed, dim and far. The willows along
the western marge burned as if dipped in liquid gold, and on the lofty
crags the sun's coming created keen-edged shadows, violet as ink. Truly
this forestry business was not so bad after all. It had its
compensations.

Back at the camp-fire he found Berrie at work, glowing, vigorous,
laughing. Her comradeship with her father was very charming, and at the
moment she was rallying him on his method of bread-mixing. "You should
rub the lard into the flour," she said. "Don't be afraid to get your
hands into it--after they are clean. You can't mix bread with a spoon."

"Sis, I made camp bread for twenty years afore you were born."

"It's a wonder you lived to tell of it," she retorted, and took the pan
away from him. "That's another thing _you_ must learn," she said to
Wayland. "You must know how to make bread. You can't expect to find
bake-shops or ranchers along the way."

In the heat of the fire, in the charm of the girl's presence, the young
man forgot the discomforts of the night, and as they sat at breakfast,
and the sun rising over the high summits flooded them with warmth and
good cheer, and the frost melted like magic from the tent, the experience
had all the satisfying elements of a picnic. It seemed that nothing
remained to do; but McFarlane said: "Well, now, you youngsters wash up
and pack whilst I reconnoiter the stock." And with his saddle and bridle
on his shoulder he went away down the trail.

Under Berrie's direction Wayland worked busily putting the camp equipment
in proper parcels, taking no special thought of time till the tent was
down and folded, the panniers filled and closed, and the fire carefully
covered. Then the girl said: "I hope the horses haven't been stampeded.
There are bears in this valley, and horses are afraid of bears. Father
ought to have been back before this. I hope they haven't quit us."

"Shall I go and see?"

"No, he'll bring 'em--if they're in the land of the living. He picketed
his saddle-horse, so he's not afoot. Nobody can teach him anything about
trailing horses, and, besides, you might get lost. You'd better keep
close to camp."

Thereupon Wayland put aside all responsibility. "Let's see if we can
catch some more fish," he urged.

To this she agreed, and together they went again to the outlet of the
lake--where the trout could be seen darting to and fro on the clear, dark
flood--and there cast their flies till they had secured ten good-sized
fish.

"We'll stop now," declared the girl. "I don't believe in being
wasteful."

Once more at the camp they prepared the fish for the pan. The sun
suddenly burned hot and the lake was still as brass, but great, splendid,
leisurely, gleaming clouds were sailing in from the west, all centering
about Chief Audobon, and the experienced girl looked often at the sky. "I
don't like the feel of the air. See that gray cloud spreading out over
the summits of the range, that means something more than a shower. I do
hope daddy will overtake the horses before they cross the divide. It's
going to pour up there."

"What can I do?"

"Nothing. We'll stay right here and get dinner for him. He'll be hungry
when he gets back."

As they were unpacking the panniers and getting out the dishes, thunder
broke from the high crags above the lake, and the girl called out:

"Quick! It's going to rain! We must reset the tent and get things under
cover."

Once more he was put to shame by the decision, the skill, and the
strength with which she went about re-establishing the camp. She led, he
followed in every action. In ten minutes the canvas was up, the beds
rolled, the panniers protected, the food stored safely; but they were
none too soon, for the thick gray veil of rain, which had clothed the
loftiest crags for half an hour, swung out over the water--leaden-gray
under its folds--and with a roar which began in the tall pines--a roar
which deepened, hushed only when the thunder crashed resoundingly from
crag to crest--the tempest fell upon the camp and the world of sun and
odorous pine vanished almost instantly, and a dark, threatening, and
forbidding world took its place.

But the young people--huddled close together beneath the tent--would have
enjoyed the change had it not been for the thought of the Supervisor. "I
hope he took his slicker," the girl said, between the tearing, ripping
flashes of the lightning. "It's raining hard up there."

"How quickly it came. Who would have thought it could rain like this
after so beautiful a morning?"

"It storms when it storms--in the mountains," she responded, with the
sententious air of her father. "You never can tell what the sky is going
to do up here. It is probably snowing on the high divide. Looks now as
though those cayuses pulled out sometime in the night and have hit the
trail for home. That's the trouble with stall-fed stock. They'll quit you
any time they feel cold and hungry. Here comes the hail!" she shouted, as
a sharper, more spiteful roar sounded far away and approaching. "Now keep
from under!"

"What will your father do?" he called.

"Don't worry about him. He's at home any place there's a tree. He's
probably under a balsam somewhere, waiting for this ice to spill out. The
only point is, they may get over the divide, and if they do it will be
slippery coming back."

For the first time the thought that the Supervisor might not be able to
return entered Wayland's mind; but he said nothing of his fear.

The hail soon changed to snow, great, clinging, drowsy, soft, slow-moving
flakes, and with their coming the roar died away and the forest became as
silent as a grave of bronze. Nothing moved, save the thick-falling,
feathery, frozen vapor, and the world was again very beautiful and very
mysterious.

"We must keep the fire going," warned the girl. "It will be hard to start
after this soaking."

He threw upon the fire all of the wood which lay near, and Berrie, taking
the ax, went to the big fir and began to chop off the dry branches which
hung beneath, working almost as effectively as a man. Wayland insisted on
taking a turn with the tool; but his efforts were so awkward that she
laughed and took it away again. "You'll have to take lessons in swinging
an ax," she said. "That's part of the job."

Gradually the storm lightened, the snow changed back into rain, and
finally to mist; but up on the heights the clouds still rolled wildly,
and through their openings the white drifts bleakly shone.

"It's all in the trip," said Berrie. "You have to take the weather as it
comes on the trail." As the storm lessened she resumed the business of
cooking the midday meal, and at two o'clock they were able to eat in
comparative comfort, though the unmelted snow still covered the trees,
and water dripped from the branches.

"Isn't it beautiful!" exclaimed Wayland, with glowing boyish face. "The
landscape is like a Christmas card. In its way it's quite as beautiful as
that golden forest we rode through."

"It wouldn't be so beautiful if you had to wallow through ten miles of
it," she sagely responded. "Daddy will be wet to the skin, for I found he
didn't take his slicker. However, the sun may be out before night. That's
the way the thing goes in the hills."

To the youth, though the peaks were storm-hid, the afternoon was joyous.
Berrie was a sweet companion. Under her supervision he practised at
chopping wood and took a hand at cooking. At her suggestion he stripped
the tarpaulin from her father's bed and stretched it over a rope before
the tent, thus providing a commodious kitchen and dining-room. Under this
roof they sat and talked of everything except what they should do if the
father did not return, and as they talked they grew to even closer
understanding.

Though quite unlearned of books, she had something which was much more
piquant than anything which theaters and novels could give--she possessed
a marvelous understanding of the natural world in which she lived. As the
companion of her father on many of his trips, she had absorbed from him,
as well as from the forest, a thousand observations of plant and animal
life. Seemingly she had nothing of the woman's fear of the wilderness,
she scarcely acknowledged any awe of it. Of the bears, and other
predatory beasts, she spoke carelessly.

"Bears are harmless if you let 'em alone," she said, "and the
mountain-lion is a great big bluff. He won't fight, you can't make him
fight; but the mother lion will. She's dangerous when she has cubs--most
animals are. I was out hunting grouse one day with a little twenty-two
rifle, when all at once, as I looked up along a rocky point I was
crossing, I saw a mountain-lion looking at me. First I thought I'd let
drive at him; but the chances were against my getting him from there, so
I climbed up above him--or where I thought he was--and while I was
looking for him I happened to glance to my right, and there he was about
fifty feet away looking at me pleasant as you please. Didn't seem to be
mad at all--'peared like he was just wondering what I'd do next. I jerked
my gun into place, but he faded away. I crawled around to get behind him,
and just when I reached the ledge on which he had been standing a few
minutes before, I saw him just where I'd been. He had traded places with
me. I began to have that creepy feeling. He was so silent and so kind of
pleasant-looking I got leery of him. It just seemed like as though I'd
dreamed him. He didn't seem real."

Wayland shuddered. "You foolish girl! Why didn't you run?"

"I did. I began to figure then that this was a mother lion, and that her
cubs were close by, and that she could just as well sneak up and drop on
me from above as not. So I got down and left her alone. It was her
popping up now here and now there like a ghost that locoed me. I was sure
scared."

Wayland did not enjoy this tale. "I never heard of such folly. Did your
father learn of that adventure?"

"Yes, I told him."

"Didn't he forbid your hunting any more?"

"No, indeed! Why should he? He just said it probably was a lioness, and
that it was just as well to let her alone. He knows I'm no chicken."

"How about your mother--does she approve of such expeditions?"

"No, mother worries more or less when I'm away; but then she knows it
don't do any good. I'm taking all kinds of chances every day, anyhow."

He had to admit that she was better able to care for herself in the
wilderness than most men--even Western men--and though he had not yet
witnessed a display of her skill with a rifle, he was ready to believe
that she could shoot as well as her sire. Nevertheless, he liked her
better when engaged in purely feminine duties, and he led the talk back
to subjects concerning which her speech was less blunt and manlike.

He liked her when she was joking, for delicious little curves of laughter
played about her lips. She became very amusing, as she told of her
"visits East," and of her embarrassments in the homes of city friends. "I
just have to own up that about all the schooling I've got is from the
magazines. Sometimes I wish I had pulled out for town when I was about
fourteen; but, you see, I didn't feel like leaving mother, and she didn't
feel like letting me go--and so I just got what I could at Bear Tooth."
She sprang up. "There's a patch of blue sky. Let's go see if we can't get
a grouse."

The snow had nearly all sunk into the ground on their level; but it still
lay deep on the heights above, and the torn masses of vapor still clouded
the range. "Father has surely had to go over the divide," she said, as
they walked down the path along the lake shore. "He'll be late getting
back, and a plate of hot chicken will seem good to him."

Together they strolled along the edge of the willows. "The grouse come
down to feed about this time," she said. "We'll put up a covey soon."

It seemed to him as though he were re-living the experiences of his
ancestors--the pioneers of Michigan--as he walked this wilderness with
this intrepid huntress whose alert eyes took note of every moving thing.
She was delightfully unconscious of self, of sex, of any doubt or fear. A
lovely Diana--strong and true and sweet.

Within a quarter of a mile they found their birds, and she killed four
with five shots. "This is all we need," she said, "and I don't believe in
killing for the sake of killing. Rangers should set good examples in way
of game preservation. They are deputy game-wardens in most states, and
good ones, too."

They stopped for a time on a high bank above the lake, while the sunset
turned the storm-clouds into mountains of brass and iron, with sulphurous
caves and molten glowing ledges. This grandiose picture lasted but a few
minutes, and then the Western gates closed and all was again gray and
forbidding. "Open and shut is a sign of wet," quoted Berrie, cheerily.

The night rose formidably from the valley while they ate their supper;
but Berrie remained tranquil. "Those horses probably went clean back to
the ranch. If they did, daddy can't possibly get back before eight
o'clock, and he may not get back till to-morrow."




VII

THE WALK IN THE RAIN


Norcross, with his city training, was acutely conscious of the delicacy
of the situation. In his sister's circle a girl left alone in this way
with a man would have been very seriously embarrassed; but it was evident
that Berrie took it all joyously, innocently. Their being together was
something which had happened in the natural course of weather, a
condition for which they were in no way responsible. Therefore she
permitted herself to be frankly happy in the charm of their enforced
intimacy.

She had never known a youth of his quality. He was so considerate, so
refined, so quick of understanding, and so swift to serve. He filled her
mind to the exclusion of unimportant matters like the snow, which was
beginning again; indeed, her only anxiety concerned his health, and as he
toiled amid the falling flakes, intent upon heaping up wood enough to
last out the night, she became solicitous.

"You will be soaked," she warningly cried. "Don't stay out any more. Come
to the fire. I'll bring in the wood."

Something primeval, some strength he did not know he possessed sustained
him, and he toiled on. "Suppose this snow keeps falling?" he retorted.
"The Supervisor will not be able to get back to-night--perhaps not for a
couple of nights. We will need a lot of fuel."

He did not voice the fear of the storm which filled his thought; but the
girl understood it. "It won't be very cold," she calmly replied. "It
never is during these early blizzards; and, besides, all we need to do is
to drop down the trail ten miles and we'll be entirely out of it."

"I'll feel safer with plenty of wood," he argued; but soon found it
necessary to rest from his labors. Coming in to camp, he seated himself
beside her on a roll of blankets, and so together they tended the fire
and watched the darkness roll over the lake till the shining crystals
seemed to drop from a measureless black arch, soundless and oppressive.
The wind died away, and the trees stood as if turned into bronze,
moveless, save when a small branch gave way and dropped its rimy burden,
or a squirrel leaped from one top to another. Even the voice of the
waterfall seemed muffled and remote.

"I'm a long way from home and mother," Wayland said, with a smile;
"but--I like it."

"Isn't it fun?" she responded. "In a way it's nicer on account of the
storm. But you are not dressed right; you should have waterproof boots.
You never can tell when you may be set afoot. You should always go
prepared for rain and snow, and, above all, have an extra pair of thick
stockings. Your feet are soaked now, aren't they?"

"They are; but your father told me to always dry my boots on my feet,
otherwise they'd shrink out of shape."

"That's right, too; but you'd better take 'em off and wring out your
socks or else put on dry ones."

"You insist on my playing the invalid," he complained, "and that makes me
angry. When I've been over here a month you'll find me a glutton for
hardship. I shall be a bear, a grizzly, fearful to contemplate. My roar
will affright you."

She laughed like a child at his ferocity. "You'll have to change a whole
lot," she said, and drew the blanket closer about his shoulders. "Just
now your job is to keep warm and dry. I hope you won't get lonesome over
here."

"I'm not going to open a book or read a newspaper. I'm not going to write
to a single soul except you. I'll be obliged to report to you, won't I?"

"I'm not the Supervisor."

"You're the next thing to it," he quickly retorted. "You've been my board
of health from the very first. I should have fled for home long ago had
it not been for you."

Her eyes fell under his glance. "You'll get pretty tired of things over
here. It's one of the lonesomest stations in the forest."

"I'll get lonesome for you; but not for the East." This remark, or rather
the tone in which it was uttered, brought another flush of consciousness
to the girl's face.

"What time is it now?" she asked, abruptly.

He looked at his watch. "Half after eight."

"If father isn't on this side of the divide now he won't try to cross. If
he's coming down the <DW72> he'll be here in an hour, although that trail
is a tolerably tough proposition this minute. A patch of dead timber on a
dark night is sure a nuisance, even to a good man. He may not make it."

"Shall I fire my gun?"

"What for?"

"As a signal to him."

This amused her. "Daddy don't need any hint about direction--what he
needs is a light to see the twist of the trail through those fallen
logs."

"Couldn't I rig up a torch and go to meet him?"

She put her hand on his arm. "You stay right here!" she commanded. "You
couldn't follow that trail five minutes."

"You have a very poor opinion of my skill."

"No, I haven't; but I know how hard it is to keep direction on a night
like this and I don't want you wandering around in the timber. Father can
take care of himself. He's probably sitting under a big tree smoking his
pipe before his fire--or else he's at home. He knows we're all right, and
we are. We have wood and grub, and plenty of blankets, and a roof over
us. You can make your bed under this fly," she said, looking up at the
canvas. "It beats the old balsam as a roof. You mustn't sleep cold
again."

"I think I'd better sit up and keep the fire going," he replied,
heroically. "There's a big log out there that I'm going to bring in to
roll up on the windward side."

"It'll be cold and wet early in the morning, and I don't like to hunt
kindling in the snow," she said. "I always get everything ready the night
before. I wish you had a better bed. It seems selfish of me to have the
tent while you are cold."

One by one--under her supervision--he made preparations for morning. He
cut some shavings from a dead, dry branch of fir and put them under the
fly, and brought a bucket of water from the creek, and then together they
dragged up the dead tree.

Had the young man been other than he was, the girl's purity, candor, and
self-reliance would have conquered him, and when she withdrew to the
little tent and let fall the frail barrier between them, she was as safe
from intrusion as if she had taken refuge behind gates of triple brass.
Nothing in all his life had moved him so deeply as her solicitude, her
sweet trust in his honor, and he sat long in profound meditation. Any man
would be rich in the ownership of her love, he admitted. That he
possessed her pity and her friendship he knew, and he began to wonder if
he had made a deeper appeal to her than this.

"Can it be that I am really a man to her," he thought, "I who am only a
poor weakling whom the rain and snow can appall?"

Then he thought of the effect of this night upon her life. What would
Clifford Belden do now? To what deeps would his rage descend if he should
come to know of it?

Berrie was serene. Twice she spoke from her couch to say: "You'd better
go to bed. Daddy can't get here till to-morrow now."

"I'll stay up awhile yet. My boots aren't entirely dried out."

As the flame sank low the cold bit, and he built up the half-burned logs
so that they blazed again. He worked as silently as he could; but the
girl again spoke, with sweet authority: "Haven't you gone to bed yet?"

"Oh yes, I've been asleep. I only got up to rebuild the fire."

"I'm afraid you're cold."

"I'm as comfortable as I deserve; it's all schooling, you know. Please go
to sleep again." His teeth were chattering as he spoke, but he added:
"I'm all right."

After a silence she said: "You must not get chilled. Bring your bed into
the tent. There is room for you."

"Oh no, that isn't necessary. I'm standing it very well."

"You'll be sick!" she urged, in a voice of alarm. "Please drag your bed
inside the door. What would I do if you should have pneumonia to-morrow?
You must not take any risk of a fever."

The thought of a sheltered spot, of something to break the remorseless
wind, overcame his scruples, and he drew his bed inside the tent and
rearranged it there.

"You're half frozen," she said. "Your teeth are chattering."

"It isn't so much the cold," he stammered. "I'm tired."

"You poor boy!" she exclaimed, and rose in her bed. "I'll get up and heat
some water for you."

"I'll be all right, in a few moments," he said. "Please go to sleep. I
shall be snug as a bug in a moment."

She watched his shadowy motions from her bed, and when at last he had
nestled into his blankets, she said: "If you don't lose your chill I'll
heat a rock and put at your feet."

He was ready to cry out in shame of his weakness; but he lay silent till
he could command his voice, then he said: "That would drive me from the
country in disgrace. Think of what the fellows down below will say when
they know of my cold feet."

"They won't hear of it; and, besides, it is better to carry a hot-water
bag than to be laid up with a fever."

Her anxiety lessened as his voice resumed its pleasant tenor flow. "Dear
girl," he said, "no one could have been sweeter--more like a guardian
angel to me. Don't place me under any greater obligation. Go to sleep. I
am better--much better now."

She did not speak for a few moments, then in a voice that conveyed to him
a knowledge that his words of endearment had deeply moved her, she softly
said: "Good night."

He heard her sigh drowsily thereafter once or twice, and then she slept,
and her slumber redoubled in him his sense of guardianship, of
responsibility. Lying there in the shelter of her tent, the whole
situation seemed simple, innocent, and poetic; but looked at from the
standpoint of Clifford Belden it held an accusation.

"It cannot be helped," he said. "The only thing we can do is to conceal
the fact that we spent the night beneath this tent alone."

In the belief that the way would clear with the dawn, he, too, fell
asleep, while the fire sputtered and smudged in the fitful mountain
wind.

The second dawn came slowly, as though crippled by the storm and walled
back by the clouds. Gradually, austerely, the bleak, white peaks began to
define themselves above the firs. The camp-birds called cheerily from the
wet branches which overhung the smoldering embers of the fire, and so at
last day was abroad in the sky.

With a dull ache in his bones, Wayland crept out to the fire and set to
work fanning the coals with his hat, as he had seen the Supervisor do. He
worked desperately till one of the embers began to angrily sparkle and to
smoke. Then slipping away out of earshot he broke an armful of dry fir
branches to heap above the wet, charred logs. Soon these twigs broke into
flame, and Berrie, awakened by the crackle of the pine branches, called
out: "Is it daylight?"

"Yes, but it's a very _dark_ daylight. Don't leave your warm bed for the
dampness and cold out here; stay where you are; I'll get breakfast."

"How are you this morning? Did you sleep?"

"Fine!"

"I'm afraid you had a bad night," she insisted, in a tone which indicated
her knowledge of his suffering.

"Camp life has its disadvantages," he admitted, as he put the coffee-pot
on the fire. "But I'm feeling better now. I never fried a bird in my
life, but I'm going to try it this morning. I have some water heating for
your bath." He put the soap, towel, and basin of hot water just inside
the tent flap. "Here it is. I'm going to bathe in the lake. I must show
my hardihood."

He heard her protesting as he went off down the bank, but his heart was
resolute. "I'm not dead yet," he said, grimly. "An invalid who can spend
two such nights as these, and still face a cold wind, has some vitality
in his bones after all."

When he returned he found the girl full dressed, alert, and glowing; but
she greeted him with a touch of shyness and self-consciousness new to
her, and her eyes veiled themselves before his glance.

"_Now_, where do you suppose the Supervisor is?" he asked.

"I hope he's at home," she replied, quite seriously. "I'd hate to think
of him camped in the high country without bedding or tent."

"Oughtn't I to take a turn up the trail and see? I feel guilty somehow--I
must do something!"

"You can't help matters any by hoofing about in the mud. No, we'll just
hold the fort till he comes, that's what he'll expect us to do."

He submitted once more to the force of her argument, and they ate
breakfast in such intimacy and good cheer that the night's discomforts
and anxieties counted for little. As the sun broke through the clouds
Berrie hung out the bedding in order that its dampness might be warmed
away.

"We may have to camp here again to-night," she explained, demurely.

"Worse things could happen than that," he gallantly answered. "I wouldn't
mind a month of it, only I shouldn't want it to rain or snow all the
time."

"Poor boy! You did suffer, didn't you? I was afraid you would. Did you
sleep at all?" she asked, tenderly.

"Oh yes, after I came inside; but, of course, I was more or less restless
expecting your father to ride up, and then it's all rather exciting
business to a novice. I could hear all sorts of birds and beasts stepping
and fluttering about. I was scared in spite of my best resolution."

"That's funny; I never feel that way. I slept like a log after I knew you
were comfortable. You must have a better bed and more blankets. It's
always cold up here."

The sunlight was short-lived. The clouds settled over the peaks, and
ragged wisps of gray vapor dropped down the timbered <DW72>s of the
prodigious amphitheater in which the lake lay. Again Berrie made
everything snug while her young woodsman toiled at bringing logs for the
fire.

In truth, he was more elated than he had been since leaving school, for
he was not only doing a man's work in the world, he was serving a woman
in the immemorial way of the hewer of wood and the carrier of water. His
fatigue and the chill of the morning wore away, and he took vast pride in
dragging long poles down the hillside, forcing Berrie to acknowledge that
he was astonishingly strong. "But don't overdo it," she warned.

At last fully provided for, they sat contentedly side by side under the
awning and watched the falling rain as it splashed and sizzled on the
sturdy fire. "It's a little like being shipwrecked on a desert island,
isn't it?" he said. "As if our boats had drifted away."

At noon she again prepared an elaborate meal. She served potatoes and
grouse, hot biscuit with sugar syrup, and canned peaches, and coffee done
to just the right color and aroma. He declared it wonderful, and they ate
with repeated wishes that the Supervisor might turn up in time to share
their feast; but he did not. Then Berrie said, firmly: "Now you must take
a snooze, you look tired."

He was, in truth, not only drowsy but lame and tired. Therefore, he
yielded to her suggestion.

She covered him with blankets and put him away like a child. "Now you
have a good sleep," she said, tenderly. "I'll call you when daddy
comes."

With a delicious sense of her protecting care he lay for a few moments
listening to the drip of the water on the tent, then drifted away into
peace and silence.

When he woke the ground was again covered with snow, and the girl was
feeding the fire with wood which her own hands had supplied.

Hearing him stir, she turned and fixed her eyes upon him with clear, soft
gaze. "How do you feel by now?" she asked.

"Quite made over," he replied, rising alertly.

His cheer, however, was only pretense. He was greatly worried. "Something
has happened to your father," he said. "His horse has thrown him, or he
has slipped and fallen." His peace and exultation were gone. "How far is
it down to the ranger station?"

"About twelve miles."

"Don't you think we'd better close camp and go down there? It is now
three o'clock; we can walk it in five hours."

She shook her head. "No, I think we'd better stay right here. It's a
long, hard walk, and the trail is muddy."

"But, dear girl," he began, desperately, "it won't do for us to camp
here--alone--in this way another night. What will Cliff say?"

She flamed red, then whitened. "I don't care what Cliff thinks--I'm done
with him--and no one that I really care about would blame us." She was
fully aware of his anxiety now. "It isn't our fault."

"It will be _my_ fault if I keep you here longer!" he answered. "We must
reach a telephone and send word out. Something may have happened to your
father."

"I'm not worried a bit about him. It may be that there's been a big
snowfall up above us--or else a windstorm. The trail may be blocked; but
don't worry. He may have to go round by Lost Lake pass." She pondered a
moment. "I reckon you're right. We'd better pack up and rack down the
trail to the ranger's cabin. Not on my account, but on yours. I'm afraid
you've taken cold."

"I'm all right, except I'm very lame; but I am anxious to go on. By the
way, is this ranger Settle married?"

"No, his station is one of the lonesomest cabins on the forest. No woman
will stay there."

This made Wayland ponder. "Nevertheless," he decided, "we'll go. After
all, the man is a forest officer, and you are the Supervisor's
daughter."

She made no further protest, but busied herself closing the panniers and
putting away the camp utensils. She seemed to recognize that his judgment
was sound.

It was after three when they left the tent and started down the trail,
carrying nothing but a few toilet articles.

He stopped at the edge of the clearing. "Should we have left a note for
the Supervisor?"

She pointed to their footprints. "There's all the writing he needs," she
assured him, leading the way at a pace which made him ache. She plashed
plumply into the first puddle in the path. "No use dodging 'em," she
called over her shoulder, and he soon saw that she was right.

The trees were dripping, the willows heavy with water, and the mud
ankle-deep--in places--but she pushed on steadily, and he, following in
her tracks, could only marvel at her strength and sturdy self-reliance.
The swing of her shoulders, the poise of her head, and the lithe movement
of her waist, made his own body seem a poor thing.

For two hours they zigzagged down a narrow canyon heavily timbered with
fir and spruce--a dark, stern avenue, crossed by roaring streams, and
filled with frequent boggy meadows whereon the water lay mid-leg deep.

"We'll get out of this very soon," she called, cheerily.

By degrees the gorge widened, grew more open, more genial. Aspen thickets
of pale-gold flashed upon their eyes like sunlight, and grassy bunches
afforded firmer footing, but on the <DW72>s their feet slipped and slid
painfully. Still Berea kept her stride. "We must get to the middle fork
before dark," she stopped to explain, "for I don't know the trail down
there, and there's a lot of down timber just above the station. Now that
we're cut loose from our camp I feel nervous. As long as I have a tent I
am all right; but now we are in the open I worry. How are you standing
it?" She studied him with keen and anxious glance, her hand upon his
arm.

"Fine as a fiddle," he replied, assuming a spirit he did not possess,
"but you are marvelous. I thought cowgirls couldn't walk?"

"I can do anything when I have to," she replied. "We've got three hours
more of it." And she warningly exclaimed: "Look back there!"

They had reached a point from which the range could be seen, and behold
it was covered deep with a seamless robe of new snow.

"That's why dad didn't get back last night. He's probably wallowing along
up there this minute." And she set off again with resolute stride.
Wayland's pale face and labored breath alarmed her. She was filled with
love and pity, but she pressed forward desperately.

As he grew tired, Wayland's boots, loaded with mud, became fetters, and
every <DW72> greasy with mire seemed an almost insurmountable barricade.
He fell several times, but made no outcry. "I will not add to her
anxiety," he said to himself.

At last they came to the valley floor, over which a devastating fire had
run some years before, and which was still covered with fallen trees in
desolate confusion. Here the girl made her first mistake. She kept on
toward the river, although Wayland called attention to a trail leading to
the right up over the low grassy hills. For a mile the path was clear,
but she soon found herself confronted by an endless maze of blackened
tree-trunks, and at last the path ended abruptly.

Dismayed and halting, she said: "We've got to go back to that trail which
branched off to the right. I reckon that was the highland trail which
Settle made to keep out of the swamp. I thought it was a trail from
Cameron Peak, but it wasn't. Back we go."

She was suffering keenly now, not on her own account, but on his, for she
could see that he was very tired, and to climb up that hill again was
like punishing him a second time.

When she picked up the blazed trail it was so dark that she could
scarcely follow it; but she felt her way onward, turning often to be sure
that he was following. Once she saw him fall, and cried out: "It's a
shame to make you climb this hill again. It's all my fault. I ought to
have known that that lower road led down into the timber."

Standing close beside him in the darkness, knowing that he was weary,
wet, and ill, she permitted herself the expression of her love and pity.
Putting her arm about him, she drew his cheek against her own, saying:
"Poor boy, your hands are cold as ice." She took them in her own warm
clasp. "Oh, I wish we had never left the camp! What does it matter what
people say?" Then she broke down and wailed. "I shall never forgive
myself if you--" Her voice failed her.

[Illustration: SHE FOUND HERSELF CONFRONTED BY AN ENDLESS MAZE
OF BLACKENED TREE-TRUNKS]

He bravely reassured her: "I'm not defeated, I'm just tired. That's all.
I can go on."

"But you are shaking."

"That is merely a nervous chill. I'm good for another hour. It's better
to keep moving, anyhow."

She thrust her hand under his coat and laid it over his heart. "You are
tired out," she said, and there was anguish in her voice. "Your heart is
pounding terribly. You mustn't do any more climbing. And, hark, there's a
wolf!"

He listened. "I hear him; but we are both armed. There's no danger from
wild animals."

"Come!" she said, instantly recovering her natural resolution. "We can't
stand here. The station can't be far away. We must go on."




VIII

THE OTHER GIRL


The girl's voice stirred the benumbed youth into action again, and he
followed her mechanically. His slender stock of physical strength was
almost gone, but his will remained unbroken. At every rough place she
came back to him to support him, to hearten him, and so he crept on
through the darkness, falling often, stumbling against the trees,
slipping and sliding, till at last his guide, pitching down a sharp
<DW72>, came directly upon a wire fence.

"Glory be!" she called. "Here is a fence, and the cabin should be near,
although I see no light. Hello! Tony!"

No voice replied, and, keeping Wayland's hand, she felt her way along the
fence till it revealed a gate; then she turned toward the roaring of the
stream, which grew louder as they advanced. "The cabin is near the falls,
that much I know," she assured him. Then a moment later she joyfully
cried out: "Here it is!"

Out of the darkness a blacker, sharper shadow rose. Again she called, but
no one answered. "The ranger is away," she exclaimed, in a voice of
indignant alarm. "I do hope he left the door unlocked."

Too numb with fatigue, and too dazed by the darkness to offer any aid,
Wayland waited--swaying unsteadily on his feet--while she tried the door.
It was bolted, and with but a moment's hesitation, she said: "It looks
like a case of breaking and entering. I'll try a window." The windows,
too, were securely fastened. After trying them all, she came back to
where Wayland stood. "Tony didn't intend to have anybody pushing in," she
decided. "But if the windows will not raise they will smash."

A crash of glass followed, and with a feeling that it was all part of a
dream, Wayland waited while the girl made way through the broken sash
into the dark interior. Her next utterance was a cry of joy: "Oh, but
it's nice and warm in here! I can't open the door. You'll have to come in
the same way I did."

He was too weak and too irresolute to respond immediately, and, reaching
out, she took him by the arms and dragged him across the sill. Her
strength seemed prodigious. A delicious warmth, a grateful dryness, a
sense of shelter enfolded him like a garment. The place smelled
deliciously of food, of fire, of tobacco.

Leading him toward the middle of the room, Berrie said: "Stand here till
I strike a light."

As her match flamed up Norcross found himself in a rough-walled cabin, in
which stood a square cook-stove, a rude table littered with dishes, and
three stools made of slabs. It was all very rude; but it had all the
value of a palace at the moment.

The girl's quick eye saw much else. She located an oil-lamp, some
pine-wood, and a corner cupboard. In a few moments the lamp was lit, the
stove refilled with fuel, and she was stripping Wayland's wet coat from
his back, cheerily discoursing as she did so. "Here's one of Tony's old
jackets, put that on while I see if I can't find some dry stockings for
you. Sit right down here by the stove; put your feet in the oven. I'll
have a fire in a jiffy. There, that's right. Now I'll start the
coffee-pot." She soon found the coffee, but it was unground. "Wonder,
where he keeps his coffee-mill." She rummaged about for a few minutes,
then gave up the search. "Well, no matter, here's the coffee, and here's
a hammer. One of the laws of the trail is this: If you can't do a thing
one way, do it another."

She poured the coffee beans into an empty tomato-can and began to pound
them with the end of the hammer handle, laughing at Wayland's look of
wonder and admiration. "Necessity sure is the mother of invention out
here. How do you feel by now? Isn't it nice to own a roof and four walls?
I'm going to close up that window as soon as I get the coffee started.
Are you warming up?"

"Oh yes, I'm all right now," he replied; but he didn't look it, and her
own cheer was rather forced. He was in the grasp of a nervous chill, and
she was deeply apprehensive of what the result of his exposure might be.
It seemed as if the coffee would never come to a boil.

"I depend on that to brace you up," she said.

After hanging a blanket over the broken window, she set out some cold
meat and a half dozen baking-powder biscuits, which she found in the
cupboard, and as soon as the coffee was ready she poured it for him; but
she would not let him leave the fire. She brought his supper to him and
sat beside him while he ate and drank.

"You must go right to bed," she urged, as she studied his weary eyes.
"You ought to sleep for twenty-four hours."

The hot, strong coffee revived him physically and brought back a little
of his courage, and he said: "I'm ashamed to be such a weakling."

"Now hush," she commanded. "It's not your fault that you are weak. Now,
while I am eating my supper you slip off your wet clothes and creep into
Tony's bunk, and I'll fill one of these syrup-cans with hot water to put
at your feet."

It was of no use for him to protest against her further care. She
insisted, and while she ate he meekly carried out her instructions, and
from the delicious warmth and security of his bed watched her moving
about the stove till the shadows of the room became one with the dusky
figures of his sleep.

A moment later something falling on the floor woke him with a start, and,
looking up, he found the sun shining, and Berrie confronting him with
anxious face. "Did I waken you?" she asked. "I'm awfully sorry. I'm
trying to be extra quiet. I dropped a pan. How do you feel this
_morning_?"

He pondered this question a moment. "Is it to-morrow or the next week?"

She laughed happily. "It's only the next day. Just keep where you are
till the sun gets a little higher." She drew near and put a hand on his
brow. "You don't feel feverish. Oh, I hope this trip hasn't set you
back."

He laid his hands together, and then felt of his pulse. "I don't seem to
have a temperature. I just feel lazy, limp and lazy; but I'm going to get
up, if you'll just leave the room for a moment--"

"Don't try it now. Wait till you have had your breakfast. You'll feel
stronger then."

He yielded again to the force of her will, and fell back into a luxurious
drowse hearing the stove roar and the bacon sizzle in the pan. There was
something primitive and broadly poetic in the girl's actions. Through the
haze of the kitchen smoke she enlarged till she became the typical
frontier wife, the goddess of the skillet and the coffee-pot, the consort
of the pioneer, equally skilled with the rifle and the rolling-pin. How
many millions of times had this scene been enacted on the long march of
the borderman from the Susquehanna to the Bear Tooth Range?

Into his epic vision the pitiful absurdity of his own part in the play
broke like a sad discord. "Of course, it is not my fault that I am a
weakling," he argued. "Only it was foolish for me to thrust myself into
this stern world. If I come safely out of this adventure I will go back
to the sheltered places where I belong."

At this point came again the disturbing realization that this night of
struggle, and the ministrations of his brave companion had involved him
deeper in a mesh from which honorable escape was almost impossible. The
ranger's cabin, so far from being an end of their compromising intimacy,
had added and was still adding to the weight of evidence against them
both. The presence of the ranger or the Supervisor himself could not now
save Berea from the gossips.

She brought his breakfast to him, and sat beside him while he ate,
chatting the while of their good fortune. "It is glorious outside, and I
am sure daddy will get across to-day, and Tony is certain to turn up
before noon. He probably went down to Coal City to get his mail."

"I must get up at once," he said, in a panic of fear and shame. "The
Supervisor must not find me laid out on my back. Please leave me alone
for a moment."

She went out, closing the door behind her, and as he crawled from his bed
every muscle in his body seemed to cry out against being moved.
Nevertheless, he persisted, and at last succeeded in putting on his
clothes, even his shoes--though he found tying the laces the hardest task
of all--and he was at the wash-basin bathing his face and hands when
Berrie hurriedly re-entered. "Some tourists are coming," she announced,
in an excited tone. "A party of five or six people, a woman among them,
is just coming down the <DW72>. Now, who do you suppose it can be? It
would be just our luck if it should turn out to be some one from the
Mill."

He divined at once the reason for her dismay. The visit of a woman at
this moment would not merely embarrass them both, it would torture
Berrie. "What is to be done?" he asked, roused to alertness.

"Nothing; all we can do is to stand pat and act as if we belonged here."

"Very well," he replied, moving stiffly toward the door. "Here's where I
can be of some service. I am an excellent white liar."

As our hero crawled out into the brilliant sunshine some part of his
courage came back to him. Though lame in every muscle, he was not ill.
That was the surprising thing. His head was clear, and his breath full
and deep. "My lungs are all right," he said to himself. "I'm not going to
collapse." And he looked round him with a new-born admiration of the
wooded hills which rose in somber majesty on either side the roaring
stream. "How different it all looks this morning," he said, remembering
the deep blackness of the night.

The beat of hoofs upon the bridge drew his attention to the cavalcade,
which the keen eyes of the girl had detected as it came over the ridge to
the east. The party consisted of two men and two women and three
pack-horses completely outfitted for the trail.

One of the women, spurring her horse to the front, rode serenely up to
where Wayland stood, and called out: "Good morning. Are you the ranger?"

"No, I'm only the guard. The ranger has gone down the trail."

He perceived at once that the speaker was an alien like himself, for she
wore tan- riding-boots, a divided skirt of expensive cloth, and a
jaunty, wide-rimmed sombrero. She looked, indeed, precisely like the
heroine of the prevalent Western drama. Her sleeves, rolled to the elbow,
disclosed shapely brown arms, and her neck, bare to her bosom, was
equally sun-smit; but she was so round-cheeked, so childishly charming,
that the most critical observer could find no fault with her make-up.

One of the men rode up. "Hello, Norcross. What are you doing over here?"

The youth smiled blandly. "Good morning, Mr. Belden. I'm serving my
apprenticeship. I'm in the service now."

"The mischief you are!" exclaimed the other. "Where's Tony?"

"Gone for his mail. He'll return soon. What are _you_ doing over here,
may I ask?"

"I'm here as guide to Mr. Moore. Mr. Moore, this is Norcross, one of
McFarlane's men. Mr. Moore is connected with the tie-camp operations of
the railway."

Moore was a tall, thin man with a gray beard and keen blue eyes. "Where's
McFarlane? We were to meet him here. Didn't he come over with you?"

"We started together, but the horses got away, and he was obliged to go
back after them. He also is likely to turn up soon."

"I am frightfully hungry," interrupted the girl. "Can't you hand me out a
hunk of bread and meat? We've been riding since daylight."

Berrie suddenly appeared at the door. "Sure thing," she called out.
"Slide down and come in."

Moore removed his hat and bowed. "Good morning, Miss McFarlane, I didn't
know you were here. You know my daughter Siona?"

Berrie nodded coldly. "I've met her."

He indicated the other woman. "And Mrs. Belden, of course, you know."

Mrs. Belden, the fourth member of the party, a middle-aged, rather flabby
person, just being eased down from her horse, turned on Berrie with a
battery of questions. "Good Lord! Berrie McFarlane, what are you doing
over in this forsaken hole? Where's your dad? And where is Tony? If Cliff
had known you was over here he'd have come, too."

Berrie retained her self-possession. "Come in and get some coffee, and
we'll straighten things out."

Apparently Mrs. Belden did not know that Cliff and Berrie had quarreled,
for she treated the girl with maternal familiarity. She was a
good-natured, well-intentioned old sloven, but a most renowned tattler,
and the girl feared her more than she feared any other woman in the
valley. She had always avoided her, but she showed nothing of this
dislike at the moment.

Wayland drew the younger woman's attention by saying: "It's plain that
you, like myself, do not belong to these parts, Miss Moore."

"What makes you think so?" she brightly queried.

"Your costume is too appropriate. Haven't you noticed that the women who
live out here carefully avoid convenient and artistic dress? Now your
outfit is precisely what they should wear and don't."

This amused her. "I know, but they all say they have to wear out their
Sunday go-to-meeting clothes, whereas I can 'rag out proper.' I'm glad
you like my 'rig.'"

"When I look at you," he said, "I'm back on old Broadway at the Herald
Square Theater. The play is 'Little Blossom, or the Cowgirl's Revenge.'
The heroine has just come into the miner's cabin--"

"Oh, go 'long," she replied, seizing her cue and speaking in character,
"you're stringin' me."

"Not on your life! Your outfit is a peacherino," he declared. "I am glad
you rode by."

At the moment he was bent on drawing the girl's attention from Berrie,
but as she went on he came to like her. She said: "No, I don't belong
here; but I come out every year during vacation with my father. I love
this country. It's so big and wide and wild. Father has built a little
bungalow down at the lower mill, and we enjoy every day of our stay."

"You're a Smith girl," he abruptly asserted.

"What makes you think so?"

"Oh, there's something about you Smith girls that gives you dead away."

"Gives us away! I like that!"

"My phrase was unfortunate. I like Smith girls," he hastened to say; and
in five minutes they were on the friendliest terms--talking of mutual
acquaintances--a fact which both puzzled and hurt Berea. Their laughter
angered her, and whenever she glanced at them and detected Siona looking
into Wayland's face with coquettish simper, she was embittered. She was
glad when Moore came in and interrupted the dialogue.

Norcross did not relax, though he considered the dangers of
cross-examination almost entirely passed. In this he was mistaken, for no
sooner was the keen edge of Mrs. Belden's hunger dulled than her
curiosity sharpened.

"Where did you say the Supervisor was?" she repeated.

"The horses got away, and he had to go back after them," again responded
Berrie, who found the scrutiny of the other girl deeply disconcerting.

"When do you expect him back?"

"Any minute now," she replied, and in this she was not deceiving them,
although she did not intend to volunteer any information which might
embarrass either Wayland or herself.

Norcross tried to create a diversion. "Isn't this a charming valley?"

Siona took up the cue. "Isn't it! It's romantic enough to be the
back-drop in a Bret Harte play. I love it!"

Moore turned to Wayland. "I know a Norcross, a Michigan lumberman,
Vice-President of the Association. Is he, by any chance, a relative?"

"Only a father," retorted Wayland, with a smile. "But don't hold me
responsible for anything he has done. We seldom agree."

Moore's manner changed abruptly. "Indeed! And what is the son of W. W.
Norcross doing out here in the Forest Service?"

The change in her father's tone was not lost upon Siona, who ceased her
banter and studied the young man with deeper interest, while Mrs. Belden,
detecting some restraint in Berrie's tone, renewed her questioning:
"Where did you camp last night?"

"Right here."

"I don't see how the horses got away. There's a pasture here, for we rode
right through it."

Berrie was aware that each moment of delay in explaining the situation
looked like evasion, and deepened the significance of her predicament,
and yet she could not bring herself to the task of minutely accounting
for her time during the last two days.

Belden came to her relief. "Well, well! We'll have to be moving on. We're
going into camp at the mouth of the West Fork," he said, as he rose.
"Tell Tony and the Supervisor that we want to line out that timber at the
earliest possible moment."

Siona, who was now distinctly coquetting with Wayland, held out her hand.
"I hope you'll find time to come up and see us. I know we have other
mutual friends, if we had time to get at them."

His answer was humorous. "I am a soldier. I am on duty. I'm not at all
sure that I shall have a moment's leave; but I will call if I can
possibly do so."

They started off at last without having learned in detail anything of the
intimate relationship into which the Supervisor's daughter and young
Norcross had been thrown, and Mrs. Belden was still so much in the dark
that she called to Berrie: "I'm going to send word to Cliff that you are
over here. He'll be crazy to come the minute he finds it out."

"Don't do that!" protested Berrie.

Wayland turned to Berrie. "That would be pleasant," he said, smilingly.

But she did not return his smile. On the contrary, she remained very
grave. "I wish that old tale-bearer had kept away. She's going to make
trouble for us all. And that girl, isn't she a spectacle? I never could
bear her."

"Why, what's wrong with her? She seems a very nice, sprightly person."

"She's a regular play actor. I don't like made-up people. Why does she go
around with her sleeves rolled up that way, and--and her dress open at
the throat?"

"Oh, those are the affectations of the moment. She wants to look tough
and boisterous. That's the fad with all the girls, just now. It's only a
harmless piece of foolishness."

She could not tell him how deeply she resented his ready tone of
camaraderie with the other girl; but she was secretly suffering. It hurt
her to think that he could forget his aches and be so free and easy with
a stranger at a moment's notice. Under the influence of that girl's smile
he seemed to have quite forgotten his exhaustion and his pain. It was
wonderful how cheerful he had been while she was in sight.

In all this Berrie did him an injustice. He had been keenly conscious,
during every moment of the time, not only of his bodily ills, but of
Berrie, and he had kept a brave face in order that he might prevent
further questioning on the part of a malicious girl. It was his only way
of being heroic. Now that the crisis was passed he was quite as much of a
wreck as ever.

A new anxiety beset her. "I hope they won't happen to meet father on the
trail."

"Perhaps I should go with them and warn him."

"Oh, it doesn't matter," she wearily answered. "Old Mrs. Belden will
never rest till she finds out just where we've been, and just what we've
done. She's that kind. She knows everything that goes on."

He understood her fear, and yet he was unable to comfort her in the only
way she could be comforted. That brief encounter with Siona Moore--a girl
of his own world--had made all thought of marriage with Berea suddenly
absurd. Without losing in any degree the sense of gratitude he felt for
her protecting care, and with full acknowledgment of her heroic support
of his faltering feet, he revolted from putting into words a proposal of
marriage. "I love her," he confessed to himself, "and she is a dear,
brave girl; but I do not love her as a man should love the woman he is to
marry."

A gray shadow had plainly fallen between them. Berea sensed the change in
his attitude, and traced it to the influence of the coquette whose
smiling eyes and bared arms had openly challenged admiration. It saddened
her to think that one so fine as he had seemed could yield even momentary
tribute to an open and silly coquette.




IX

FURTHER PERPLEXITIES


Wayland, for his part, was not deceived by Siona Moore. He knew her kind,
and understood her method of attack. He liked her pert ways, for they
brought back his days at college, when dozens of just such misses lent
grace and humor and romance to the tennis court and to the football
field. She carried with her the aroma of care-free, athletic girlhood.
Flirtation was in her as charming and almost as meaningless as the
preening of birds on the bank of a pool in the meadow.

Speaking aloud, he said: "Miss Moore travels the trail with all known
accessories, and I've no doubt she thinks she is a grand campaigner; but
I am wondering how she would stand such a trip as that you took last
night. I don't believe she could have done as well as I. She's the
imitation--you're the real thing."

The praise involved in this speech brought back a little of Berrie's
humor. "I reckon those brown boots of hers would have melted," she said,
with quaint smile.

He became very grave. "If it had not been for you, dear girl, I would be
lying up there in the forest this minute. Nothing but your indomitable
spirit kept me moving. I shall be deeply hurt if any harm comes to you on
account of me."

"If it hadn't been for me you wouldn't have started on that trip last
night. It was perfectly useless. It would have been better for us both if
we had stayed in camp, for we wouldn't have met these people."

"That's true," he replied; "but we didn't know that at the time. We acted
for the best, and we must not blame ourselves, no matter what comes of
it."

They fell silent at this point, for each was again conscious of their new
relationship. She, vaguely suffering, waited for him to resume the
lover's tone, while he, oppressed by the sense of his own shortcomings
and weakness, was planning an escape. "It's all nonsense, my remaining in
the forest. I'm not fitted for it. It's too severe. I'll tell McFarlane
so and get out."

Perceiving his returning weakness and depression, Berea insisted on his
lying down again while she set to work preparing dinner. "There is no
telling when father will get here," she said. "And Tony will be hungry
when he comes. Lie down and rest."

He obeyed her silently, and, going to the bunk, at once fell asleep. How
long he slept he could not tell, but he was awakened by the voice of the
ranger, who was standing in the doorway and regarding Berrie with a
round-eyed stare.

He was a tall, awkward fellow of about thirty-five, plainly of the
frontier type; but a man of intelligence. At the end of a brief
explanation Berrie said, with an air of authority: "Now you'd better ride
up the trail and bring our camp outfit down. We can't go back that way,
anyhow."

The ranger glanced toward Wayland. "All right, Miss Berrie, but perhaps
your tenderfoot needs a doctor."

Wayland rose painfully but resolutely. "Oh no, I am not sick. I'm a
little lame, that's all. I'll go along with you."

"No," said Berrie, decisively. "You're not well enough for that. Get up
your horses, Tony, and by that time I'll have some dinner ready."

"All right, Miss Berrie," replied the man, and turned away.

Hardly had he crossed the bridge on his way to the pasture, when Berrie
cried out: "There comes daddy."

Wayland joined her at the door, and stood beside her watching the
Supervisor, as he came zigzagging down the steep hill to the east, with
all his horses trailing behind him roped together head-to-tail.

"He's had to come round by Lost Lake," she exclaimed. "He'll be tired
out, and absolutely starved. Wahoo!" she shouted in greeting, and the
Supervisor waved his hand.

There was something superb in the calm seat of the veteran as he slid
down the <DW72>. He kept his place in the saddle with the air of the rider
to whom hunger, fatigue, windfalls, and snowslides were all a part of the
day's work; and when he reined in before the door and dropped from his
horse, he put his arm about his daughter's neck with quiet word: "I
thought I'd find you here. How is everything?"

"All right, daddy; but what about you? Where have you been?"

"Clean back to Mill Park. The blamed cayuses kept just ahead of me all
the way."

"Poor old dad! And on top of that came the snow."

"Yes, and a whole hatful. I couldn't get back over the high pass. Had to
go round by Lost Lake, and to cap all, Old Baldy took a notion not to
lead. Oh, I've had a peach of a time; but here I am. Have you seen Moore
and his party?"

"Yes, they're in camp up the trail. He and Alec Belden and two women. Are
you hungry?"

He turned a comical glance upon her. "Am I hungry? Sister, I am a wolf.
Norcross, take my horses down to the pasture."

She hastened to interpose. "Let me do that, daddy, Mr. Norcross is badly
used up. You see, we started down here late yesterday afternoon. It was
raining and horribly muddy, and I took the wrong trail. The darkness
caught us and we didn't reach the station till nearly midnight."

Wayland acknowledged his weakness. "I guess I made a mistake, Supervisor;
I'm not fitted for this strenuous life."

McFarlane was quick to understand. "I didn't intend to pitchfork you into
the forest life quite so suddenly," he said. "Don't give up yet awhile.
You'll harden to it."

"Here comes Tony," said Berrie. "He'll look after the ponies."

Nevertheless Wayland went out, believing that Berrie wished to be alone
with her father for a short time.

As he took his seat McFarlane said: "You stayed in camp till yesterday
afternoon, did you?"

"Yes, we were expecting you every moment."

He saw nothing in this to remark upon. "Did it snow at the lake?"

"Yes, a little; it mostly rained."

"It stormed up on the divide like a January blizzard. When did Moore and
his party arrive?"

"About ten o'clock this morning."

"I'll ride right up and see them. What about the outfit? That's at the
lake, I reckon?"

"Yes, I was just sending Tony after it. But, father, if you go up to
Moore's camp, don't say too much about what has happened. Don't tell them
just when you took the back-trail, and just how long Wayland and I were
in camp."

"Why not?"

She reddened with confusion. "Because--You know what an old gossip Mrs.
Belden is. I don't want her to know. She's an awful talker, and our being
together up there all that time will give her a chance."

A light broke in on the Supervisor's brain. In the midst of his
preoccupation as a forester he suddenly became the father. His eyes
narrowed and his face darkened. "That's so. The old rip could make a
whole lot of capital out of your being left in camp that way. At the same
time I don't believe in dodging. The worst thing we could do would be to
try to blind the trail. Was Tony here last night when you came?"

"No, he was down the valley after his mail."

His face darkened again. "That's another piece of bad luck, too. How much
does the old woman know at present?"

"Nothing at all."

"Didn't she cross-examine you?"

"Sure she did; but Wayland side-tracked her. Of course it only delays
things. She'll know all about it sooner or later. She's great at putting
two and two together. Two and two with her always make five."

McFarlane mused. "Cliff will be plumb crazy if she gets his ear first."

"I don't care anything about Cliff, daddy. I don't care what he thinks or
does, if he will only let Wayland alone."

"See here, daughter, you do seem to be terribly interested in this
tourist."

"He's the finest man I ever knew, father."

He looked at her with tender, trusting glance. "He isn't your kind,
daughter. He's a nice clean boy, but he's different. He don't belong in
our world. He's only just stopping here. Don't forget that."

"I'm not forgetting that, daddy. I know he's different, that's why I like
him." After a pause she added: "Nobody could have been nicer all through
these days than he has been. He was like a brother."

McFarlane fixed a keen glance upon her. "Has he said anything to you? Did
you come to an understanding?"

Her eyes fell. "Not the way you mean, daddy; but I think he--likes me.
But do you know who he is? He's the son of W. W. Norcross, that big
Michigan lumberman."

McFarlane started. "How do you know that?"

"Mr. Moore asked him if he was any relation to W.W. Norcross, and he
said, 'Yes, a son.' You should have seen how that Moore girl changed her
tune the moment he admitted that. She'd been very free with him up to
that time; but when she found out he was a rich man's son she became as
quiet and innocent as a kitten. I hate her; she's a deceitful snip."

"Well, now, daughter, that being the case, it's all the more certain that
he don't belong to our world, and you mustn't fix your mind on keeping
him here."

"A girl can't help fixing her mind, daddy."

"Or changing it." He smiled a little. "You used to like Cliff. You liked
him well enough to promise to marry him."

"I know I did; but I despise him now."

"Poor Cliff! He isn't so much to blame after all. Any man is likely to
flare out when he finds another fellow cutting in ahead of him. Why, here
you are wanting to kill Siona Moore just for making up to your young
tourist."

"But that's different."

He laughed. "Of course it is. But the thing we've got to guard against is
old lady Belden's tongue. She and that Belden gang have it in for me, and
all that has kept them from open war has been Cliff's relationship to
you. They'll take a keen delight in making the worst of all this camping
business." McFarlane was now very grave. "I wish your mother was here
this minute. I guess we had better cut out this timber cruise and go
right back."

"No, you mustn't do that; that would only make more talk. Go on with your
plans. I'll stay here with you. It won't take you but a couple of days to
do the work, and Wayland needs the rest."

"But suppose Cliff hears of this business between you and Norcross and
comes galloping over the ridge?"

"Well, let him, he has no claim on me."

He rose uneasily. "It's all mighty risky business, and it's my fault. I
should never have permitted you to start on this trip."

"Don't you worry about me, daddy, I'll pull through somehow. Anybody that
knows me will understand how little there is in--in old lady Belden's
gab. I've had a beautiful trip, and I won't let her nor anybody else
spoil it for me."

McFarlane was not merely troubled. He was distracted. He was afraid to
meet the Beldens. He dreaded their questions, their innuendoes. He had
perfect faith in his daughter's purity and honesty, and he liked and
trusted Norcross, and yet he knew that should Belden find it to his
advantage to slander these young people, and to read into their action
the lawlessness of his own youth, Berea's reputation, high as it was,
would suffer, and her mother's heart be rent with anxiety. In his growing
pain and perplexity he decided to speak frankly to young Norcross
himself. "He's a gentleman, and knows the way of the world. Perhaps he'll
have some suggestion to offer." In his heart he hoped to learn that
Wayland loved his daughter and wished to marry her.

Wayland was down on the bridge leaning over the rail, listening to the
song of the water.

McFarlane approached gravely, but when he spoke it was in his usual soft
monotone. "Mr. Norcross," he began, with candid inflection, "I am very
sorry to say it; but I wish you and my daughter had never started on this
trip."

"I know what you mean, Supervisor, and I feel as you do about it. Of
course, none of us foresaw any such complication as this, but now that we
are snarled up in it we'll have to make the best of it. No one of us is
to blame. It was all accidental."

The youth's frank words and his sympathetic voice disarmed McFarlane
completely. Even the slight resentment he felt melted away. "It's no use
saying _if_," he remarked, at length. "What we've got to meet is Seth
Belden's report--Berrie has cut loose from Cliff, and he's red-headed
already. When he drops onto this story, when he learns that I had to
chase back after the horses, and that you and Berrie were alone together
for three days, he'll have a fine club to swing, and he'll swing it; and
Alec will help him. They're all waiting a chance to get me, and they're
mean enough to get me through my girl."

"What can I do?" asked Wayland.

McFarlane pondered. "I'll try to head off Marm Belden, and I'll have a
talk with Moore. He's a pretty reasonable chap."

"But you forget there's another tale-bearer. Moore's daughter is with
them."

"That's so. I'd forgotten her. Good Lord! we are in for it. There's no
use trying to cover anything up."

Here was the place for Norcross to speak up and say: "Never mind, I'm
going to ask Berrie to be my wife." But he couldn't do it. Something rose
in his throat which prevented speech. A strange repugnance, a kind of
sullen resentment at being forced into a declaration, kept him silent,
and McFarlane, disappointed, wondering and hurt, kept silence also.

Norcross was the first to speak. "Of course those who know your daughter
will not listen for an instant to the story of an unclean old thing like
Mrs. Belden."

"I'm not so sure about that," replied the father, gloomily. "People
always listen to such stories, and a girl always gets the worst of a
situation like this. Berrie's been brought up to take care of herself,
and she's kept clear of criticism so far; but with Cliff on edge and this
old rip snooping around--" His mind suddenly changed. "Your being the son
of a rich man won't help any. Why didn't you tell me who you were?"

"I didn't think it necessary. What difference does it make? I have
nothing to do with my father's business. His notions of forest
speculation are not mine."

"It would have made a difference with me, and it might have made a
difference with Berrie. She mightn't have been so free with you at the
start, if she'd known who you were. You looked sick and kind of lonesome,
and that worked on her sympathy."

"I _was_ sick and I was lonesome, and she has been very sweet and lovely
to me, and it breaks my heart to think that her kindness and your
friendship should bring all this trouble and suspicion upon her. Let's go
up to the Moore camp and have it out with them. I'll make any statement
you think best."

"I reckon the less said about it the better," responded the older man.
"I'm going up to the camp, but not to talk about my daughter."

"How can you help it? They'll force the topic."

"If they do, I'll force them to let it alone," retorted McFarlane; but he
went away disappointed and sorrowful. The young man's evident avoidance
of the subject of marriage hurt him. He did not perceive, as Norcross
did, that to make an announcement of his daughter's engagement at this
moment would be taken as a confession of shameful need. It is probable
that Berrie herself would not have seen this further complication.

Each hour added to Wayland's sense of helplessness and bitterness. "I am
in a trap. I can neither help Berrie nor help myself. Nothing remains for
me but flight, and flight will also be a confession of guilt."

Once again, and in far more definite terms, he perceived the injustice of
the world toward women. Here with Berrie, as in ages upon ages of other
times, the maiden must bear the burden of reproach. "In me it will be
considered a joke, a romantic episode, in her a degrading misdemeanor.
And yet what can I do?"

When he re-entered the cabin the Supervisor had returned from the camp,
and something in his manner, as well as in Berrie's, revealed the fact
that the situation had not improved.

"They forced me into a corner," McFarlane said to Wayland, peevishly. "I
lied out of one night; but they know that you were here last night. Of
course, they were respectful enough so long as I had an eye on them, but
their tongues are wagging now."

The rest of the evening was spent in talk on the forest, and in going
over the ranger's books, for the Supervisor continued to plan for
Wayland's stay at this station, and the young fellow thought it best not
to refuse at the moment.

As bedtime drew near Settle took a blanket and went to the corral, and
Berrie insisted that her father and Wayland occupy the bunk.

Norcross protested; but the Supervisor said: "Let her alone. She's better
able to sleep on the floor than either of us."

This was perfectly true; but, in spite of his bruised and aching body,
the youth would gladly have taken her place beside the stove. It seemed
pitifully unjust that she should have this physical hardship in addition
to her uneasiness of mind.




X

THE CAMP ON THE PASS


Berea suffered a restless night, the most painful and broken she had
known in all her life. She acknowledged that Siona Moore was prettier,
and that she stood more nearly on Wayland's plane than herself; but the
realization of this fact did not bring surrender--she was not of that
temper. All her life she had been called upon to combat the elements, to
hold her own amidst rude men and inconsiderate women, and she had no
intention of yielding her place to a pert coquette, no matter what the
gossips might say. She had seen this girl many times, but had refused to
visit her house. She had held her in contempt, now she quite cordially
hated her.

"She shall not have her way with Wayland," she decided. "I know what she
wants--she wants him at her side to-morrow; but I will not have it so.
She is trying to get him away from me."

The more she dwelt on this the hotter her jealous fever burned. The floor
on which she lay was full of knots. She could not lose herself in sleep,
tired as she was. The planks no longer turned their soft spots to her
flesh, and she rolled from side to side in torment. She would have arisen
and dressed only she did not care to disturb the men. The night seemed
interminable.

Her plan of action was simple. "I shall go home the morrow and take
Wayland with me. I will not have him going with that girl--that's
settled!" The very thought of his taking Siona's hand in greeting angered
her beyond reason.

She had put Cliff Belden completely out of her mind, and this was
characteristic of her. She had no divided interests, no subtleties, no
subterfuges. Forthright, hot-blooded, frank and simple, she had centered
all her care, all her desires, on this pale youth whose appeal was at
once mystic and maternal; but her pity was changing to something deeper,
for she was convinced that he was gaining in strength, that he was in no
danger of relapse. The hard trip of the day before had seemingly done him
no permanent injury; on the contrary, a few hours' rest had almost
restored him to his normal self. "To-morrow he will be able to ride
again." And this thought reconciled her to her hard bed. She did not look
beyond the long, delicious day which they must spend in returning to the
Springs.

She fell asleep at last, and was awakened only by her father tinkering
about the stove.

She rose alertly, signing to the Supervisor not to disturb her patient.

However, Norcross also heard the rattle of the poker, opened his eyes and
regarded Berrie with sleepy smile. "Good morning, if it _is_ morning," he
said, slowly.

She laughed back at him. "It's almost sunup."

"You don't tell me! How could I have overslept like this? Makes me think
of the Irishman who, upon being awakened to an early breakfast like this,
ate it, then said to his employer, an extra thrifty farmer, 'Two suppers
in wan night--and hurrah for bed again.'"

This amused her greatly. "It's too bad. I hope you got some sleep?"

"All there was time for." His voice changed. "I feel like a hound-pup, to
be snoring on a downy couch like this while you were roughing it on the
floor. How did I come to do it? It's shameful!"

"Don't worry about me. How are you feeling this morning?"

He stretched and yawned. "Fine! That is, I'm sore here and there, but I'm
feeling wonderfully well. Do you know, I begin to hope that I can finally
dominate the wilderness. Wouldn't it be wonderful if I got so I could
ride and walk as you do, for instance? The fact that I'm not dead this
morning is encouraging." He drew on his shoes as he talked, while she
went about her toilet, which was quite as simple as his own. She had
spent two nights in her day dress with almost no bathing facilities; but
that didn't trouble her. It was a part of the game. She washed her face
and hands in Settle's tin basin, but drew the line at his rubber comb.

There was a distinct charm in seeing her thus adapting herself to the
cabin, a charm quite as powerful as that which emanated from Siona
Moore's dainty and theatrical personality. What it was he could not
define, but the forester's daughter had something primeval about her,
something close to the soil, something which aureoles the old Saxon
words--_wife_ and _home_ and _fireplace_. Seeing her through the savory
steam of the bacon she was frying, he forgot her marvelous skill as
horsewoman and pathfinder, and thought of her only as the housewife. She
belonged here, in this cabin. She was fitted to this landscape, whereas
the other woman was alien and dissonant.

He moved his arms about and shook his legs with comical effect of trying
to see if they were still properly hinged. "It's miraculous! I'm not lame
at all. No one can accuse me of being a 'lunger' now. Last night's sleep
has made a new man of me. I've met the forest and it is mine."

She beamed upon him with happy pride. "I'm mighty glad to hear you say
that. I was terribly afraid that long, hard walk in the rain had been too
much for you. I reckon you're all right for the work now."

He recalled, as she spoke, her anguish of pity while they stood in the
darkness of the trail, and it seemed that he could go no farther, and he
said, soberly: "It must have seemed to you one while as if I were all in.
I felt that way myself. I was numb from head to heel. I couldn't have
gone another mile."

Her face clouded with retrospective pain. "You mustn't try any more such
stunts--not for a few weeks, anyway. But get ready for breakfast."

He went out into the morning exultantly, and ran down to the river to
bathe his face and hands, allured by its splendid voice. The world seemed
very bright and beautiful and health-giving once more.

As soon as she was alone with her father, Berrie said: "I'm going home
to-day, dad."

"Going home! What for?"

"I've had enough of it."

He glanced at her bed on the floor. "I can't say I blame you any. This
has been a rough trip; but we'll go up and bring down the outfit, and
then we men can sleep in the tent and let you have the bunk--you'll be
comfortable to-night."

"Oh, I don't mind sleeping on the floor," she replied; "but I want to get
back. I don't want to meet those women. Another thing, you'd better use
Mr. Norcross at the Springs instead of leaving him here with Tony."

"Why so?"

"Well, he isn't quite well enough to run the risk. It's a long way from
here to a doctor."

"He 'pears to be on deck this morning. Besides, I haven't anything in the
office to offer him."

"Then send him up to Meeker. Landon needs help, and he's a better
forester than Tony, anyway."

"How about Cliff? He may make trouble."

Her face darkened. "Cliff will reach him if he wants to--no matter where
he is. And then, too, Landon likes Mr. Norcross and will see that he is
not abused."

McFarlane ruminated over her suggestion, well knowing that she was
planning this change in order that she might have Norcross a little
nearer, a little more accessible.

"I don't know but you're right. Landon is almost as good a hustler as
Tony, and a much better forester. I thought of sending Norcross up there
at first, but he told me that Frank and his gang had it in for him. Of
course, he's only nominally in the service; but I want him to begin
right."

Berrie went further. "I want him to ride back with me to-day."

He looked at her with grave inquiry. "Do you think that a wise thing to
do? Won't that make more talk?"

"We'll start early and ride straight through."

"You'll have to go by Lost Lake, and that means a long, hard hike. Can he
stand it?"

"Oh yes. He rides well. It's the walking at a high altitude that does him
up. Furthermore, Cliff may turn up here, and I don't want another
mix-up."

McFarlane was troubled. "I ought to go back with you; but Moore is over
here to line out a cutting, and I must stay on for a couple of days.
Suppose I send Tony along?"

"No, Tony would be a nuisance and would do no good. Another day on the
trail won't add to Mrs. Belden's story. If she wants to be mean she's got
all the material for it already."

In the end she had her way. McFarlane, perceiving that she had set her
heart on this ride, and having perfect faith in her skill and judgment on
the trail, finally said: "Well, if you do so, the quicker you start the
better. With the best of luck you can't pull in before eight o'clock, and
you'll have to ride hard to do that."

"If I find we can't make it I'll pull into a ranch. But I'm sure we
can."

When Wayland came in the Supervisor inquired: "Do you feel able to ride
back over the hill to-day?"

"Entirely so. It isn't the riding that uses me up; it is the walking;
and, besides, as candidate for promotion I must obey orders--especially
orders to march."

They breakfasted hurriedly, and while McFarlane and Tony were bringing in
the horses Wayland and Berrie set the cabin to rights. Working thus side
by side, she recovered her dominion over him, and at the same time
regained her own cheerful self-confidence.

"You're a wonder!" he exclaimed, as he watched her deft adjustment of the
dishes and furniture. "You're ambidextrous."

"I have to be to hold my job," she laughingly replied. "A feller must
play all the parts when he's up here."

It was still early morning as they mounted and set off up the trail; but
Moore's camp was astir, and as McFarlane turned in--much against Berrie's
will--the lumberman and his daughter both came out to meet them. "Come in
and have some breakfast," said Siona, with cordial inclusiveness, while
her eyes met Wayland's glance with mocking glee.

"Thank you," said McFarlane, "we can't stop. I'm going to set my daughter
over the divide. She has had enough camping, and Norcross is pretty well
battered up, so I'm going to help them across. I'll be back to-night, and
we'll take our turn up the valley to-morrow. Nash will be here then."

Berrie did not mind her father's explanation; on the contrary, she took a
distinct pleasure in letting the other girl know of the long and intimate
day she was about to spend with her young lover.

Siona, too adroit to display her disappointment, expressed polite regret.
"I hope you won't get storm-bound," she said, showing her white teeth in
a meaning smile.

"If there is any sign of a storm we won't cross," declared McFarlane.
"We're going round by the lower pass, anyhow. If I'm not here by dark,
you may know I've stayed to set 'em down at the Mill."

There was charm in Siona's alert poise, and in the neatness of her camp
dress. Her dainty tent, with its stools and rugs, made the wilderness
seem but a park. She reminded Norcross of the troops of tourists of the
Tyrol, and her tent was of a kind to harmonize with the tea-houses on the
path to the summit of the Matterhorn. Then, too, something triumphantly
feminine shone in her bright eyes and glowed in her softly rounded
cheeks. Her hand was little and pointed, not fitted like Berrie's for
tightening a cinch or wielding an ax, and as he said "Good-by," he added:
"I hope I shall see you again soon," and at the moment he meant it.

"We'll return to the Springs in a few days," she replied. "Come and see
us. Our bungalow is on the other side of the river--and you, too," she
addressed Berrie; but her tone was so conventionally polite that the
ranch-girl, burning with jealous heat, made no reply.

McFarlane led the way to the lake rapidly and in silence. The splendors
of the foliage, subdued by the rains, the grandeur of the peaks, the song
of the glorious stream--all were lost on Berrie, for she now felt herself
to be nothing but a big, clumsy, coarse-handed tomboy. Her worn gloves,
her faded skirt, and her man's shoes had been made hateful to her by that
smug, graceful, play-acting tourist with the cool, keen eyes and smirking
lips. "She pretends to be a kitten; but she isn't; she's a sly grown-up
cat," she bitterly accused, but she could not deny the charm of her
personality.

Wayland was forced to acknowledge that Berrie in this dark mood was not
the delightful companion she had hitherto been. Something sweet and
confiding had gone out of their relationship, and he was too keen-witted
not to know what it was. He estimated precisely the value of the
malicious parting words of Siona Moore. "She's a natural tease, the kind
of woman who loves to torment other and less fortunate women. She cares
nothing for me, of course, it's just her way of paying off old scores. It
would seem that Berrie has not encouraged her advances in times past."

That Berrie was suffering, and that her jealousy touchingly proved the
depth of her love for him, brought no elation, only perplexity. He was
not seeking such devotion. As a companion on the trail she had been a
joy--as a jealous sweetheart she was less admirable. He realized
perfectly that this return journey was of her arrangement, not
McFarlane's, and while he was not resentful of her care, he was in doubt
of the outcome. It hurried him into a further intimacy which might prove
embarrassing.

At the camp by the lake the Supervisor became sharply commanding. "Now
let's throw these packs on lively. It will be slippery on the high trail,
and you'll just naturally have to hit leather hard and keep jouncing if
you reach the wagon-road before dark. But you'll make it."

"Make it!" said Berrie. "Of course we'll make it. Don't you worry about
that for a minute. Once I get out of the green timber the dark won't
worry me. We'll push right through."

In packing the camp stuff on the saddles, Berrie, almost as swift and
powerful as her father, acted with perfect understanding of every task,
and Wayland's admiration of her skill increased mightily.

She insisted on her father's turning back. "We don't need you," she said.
"I can find the pass."

McFarlane's faith in his daughter had been tested many times, and yet he
was a little loath to have her start off on a trail new to her. He argued
against it briefly, but she laughed at his fears. "I can go anywhere you
can," she said. "Stand clear!" With final admonition he stood clear.

"You'll have to keep off the boggy meadows," he warned; "these rains will
have softened all those muck-holes on the other side; they'll be
bottomless pits; watch out for 'em. Good-by! If you meet Nash hurry him
along. Moore is anxious to run those lines. Keep in touch with Landon,
and if anybody turns up from the district office say I'll be back on
Friday. Good luck."

"Same to you. So long."

Berea led the way, and Norcross fell in behind the pack-horses, feeling
as unimportant as a small boy at the heels of a circus parade. His girl
captain was so competent, so self-reliant, and so sure that nothing he
could say or do assisted in the slightest degree. Her leadership was a
curiously close reproduction of her father's unhurried and graceful
action. Her seat in the saddle was as easy as Landon's, and her eyes were
alert to every rock and stream in the road. She was at home here, where
the other girl would have been a bewildered child, and his words of
praise lifted the shadow from her face.

The sky was cloudy, and a delicious feeling of autumn was in the
air--autumn that might turn to winter with a passing cloud, and the
forest was dankly gloomy and grimly silent, save from the roaring stream
which ran at times foam-white with speed. The high peaks, gray and
streaked with new-fallen snow, shone grandly, bleakly through the firs.
The radiant beauty of the road from the Springs, the golden glow of four
days before was utterly gone, and yet there was exultation in this ride.
A distinct pleasure, a delight of another sort, lay in thus daring the
majesty of an unknown wind-swept pass.

Wayland called out: "The air feels like Thanksgiving morning, doesn't
it?"

"It _is_ Thanksgiving for me, and I'm going to get a grouse for dinner,"
she replied; and in less than an hour the snap of her rifle made good her
promise.

After leaving the upper lake she turned to the right and followed the
course of a swift and splendid stream, which came churning through a
cheerless, mossy swamp of spruce-trees. Inexperienced as he was, Wayland
knew that this was not a well-marked trail; but his confidence in his
guide was too great to permit of any worry over the pass, and he amused
himself by watching the water-robins as they flitted from stone to stone
in the torrent, and in calculating just where he would drop a line for
trout if he had time to do so, and in recovered serenity enjoyed his
ride. Gradually he put aside his perplexities concerning the future,
permitting his mind to prefigure nothing but his duties with Landon at
Meeker's Mill.

He was rather glad of the decision to send him there, for it promised
absorbing sport. "I shall see how Landon and Belden work out their
problem," he said. He had no fear of Frank Meeker now. "As a forest guard
with official duties to perform I can meet that young savage on other and
more nearly equal terms," he assured himself.

The trail grew slippery and in places ran full of water. "But there's a
bottom, somewhere," Berrie confidently declared, and pushed ahead with
resolute mien. It was noon when they rose above timber and entered upon
the wide, smooth <DW72>s of the pass. Snow filled the grass here, and the
wind, keen, cutting, unhindered, came out of the desolate west with
savage fury; but the sun occasionally shone through the clouds with vivid
splendor. "It is December now," shouted Wayland, as he put on his slicker
and cowered low to his saddle. "It will be January soon."

"We will make it Christmas dinner," she laughed, and her glowing good
humor warmed his heart. She was entirely her cheerful self again.

As they rose, the view became magnificent, wintry, sparkling. The great
clouds, drifting like ancient warships heavy with armament, sent down
chill showers of hail over the frosted gold of the grassy <DW72>s; but
when the shadows passed the sunlight descended in silent cataracts
deliriously spring-like. The conies squeaked from the rocky ridges, and a
brace of eagles circling about a lone crag, as if exulting in their
sovereign mastery of the air, screamed in shrill ecstatic duo. The sheer
cliffs, on their shadowed sides, were violently purple. Everywhere the
landscape exhibited crashing contrasts of primary pigments which bit into
consciousness like the flare of a martial band.

The youth would have lingered in spite of the cold; but the girl kept
steadily on, knowing well that the hardest part of their journey was
still before them, and he, though longing to ride by her side, and to
enjoy the views with her, was forced to remain in the rear in order to
hurry the reluctant pack-animals forward. They had now reached a point
twelve thousand feet above the sea, and range beyond range, to the west
and south, rose into sight like stupendous waves of a purple-green sea.
To the east the park lay level as a floor and carpeted in tawny velvet.

It was nearly two o'clock when they began to drop down behind the rocky
ridges of the eastern <DW72>, and soon, in the bottom of a warm and
sheltered hollow just at timber-line, Berrie drew her horse to a stand
and slipped from the saddle. "We'll rest here an hour," she said, "and
cook our grouse; or are you too hungry to wait?"

"I can wait," he answered, dramatically. "But it seems as if I had never
eaten."

"Well, then, we'll save the grouse till to-morrow; but I'll make some
coffee. You bring some water while I start a fire."

And so, while the tired horses cropped the russet grass, she boiled some
coffee and laid out some bread and meat, while he sat by watching her and
absorbing the beauty of the scene, the charm of the hour. "It is exactly
like a warm afternoon in April," he said, "and here are some of the
spring flowers."

"There now, sit by and eat," she said, with humor; and in perfectly
restored tranquillity they ate and drank, with no thought of critics or
of rivals. They were alone, and content to be so.

It was deliciously sweet and restful there in that sunny hollow on the
breast of the mountain. The wind swept through the worn branches of the
dwarfed spruce with immemorial wistfulness; but these young souls heard
it only as a far-off song. Side by side on the soft Alpine clover they
rested and talked, looking away at the shining peaks, and down over the
dark-green billows of fir beneath them. Half the forest was under their
eyes at the moment, and the man said: "Is it not magnificent! It makes me
proud of my country. Just think, all this glorious spread of hill and
valley is under your father's direction. I may say under _your_
direction, for I notice he does just about what you tell him to do."

"You've noticed that?" she laughed. "If I were a man I'd rather be
Supervisor of this forest than Congressman."

"So would I," he agreed. "Nash says you _are_ the Supervisor. I wonder if
your father realizes how efficient you are? Does he ever sorrow over your
not being a boy?"

Her eyes shone with mirth. "Not that I can notice. He 'pears contented."

"You're a good deal like a son to him, I imagine. You can do about all
that a boy can do, anyhow--more than I could ever do. Does he realize how
much you have to do with the management of his forest? I've never seen
your like. I really believe you _could_ carry on the work as well as
he."

She flushed with pleasure. "You seem to think I'm a district forester in
disguise."

"I have eyes, Miss Supervisor, and also ears--which leads me to ask: Why
don't you clean out that saloon gang? Landon is sure there's crooked work
going on at that mill--certainly that open bar is a disgraceful and
corrupting thing."

Her face clouded. "We've tried to cut out that saloon, but it can't be
done. You see, it's on a patented claim--the claim was bogus, of course,
and we've made complaint, but the matter is hung up, and that gives 'em a
chance to go on."

"Well, let's not talk of that. It's too delicious an hour for any
question of business. It is a moment for poetry. I wish I could write
what I feel this moment. Why don't we camp here and watch the sun go down
and the moon rise? From our lofty vantage-ground the coming of dawn would
be an epic."

"We mustn't think of that," she protested. "We must be going."

"Not yet. The hour is too perfect. It may never come again. The wind in
the pines, the sunshine, the conies crying from their rocks, the
butterflies on the clover--my heart aches with the beauty of it. It's
been a wonderful trip. Even that staggering walk in the rain had its
splendid quality. I couldn't see the poetry in it then; but I do now.
These few days have made us comrades, haven't they--comrades of the
trail? You have been very considerate of me." He took her hand. "I've
never seen such hands. They are like steel, and yet they are feminine."

She drew her hands away. "I'm ashamed of my hands--they are so big and
rough and dingy."

"They're brown, of course, and calloused--a little--but they are not big,
and they are beautifully modeled." He looked at her speculatively. "I am
wondering how you would look in conventional dress."

"Do you mean--" She hesitated. "I'd look like a gawk in one of those
low-necked outfits. I'd never dare--and those tight skirts would sure
<DW36> me."

"Oh no, they wouldn't. You'd have to modify your stride a little; but
you'd negotiate it. You're equal to anything."

"You're making fun of me!"

"No, I'm not. I'm in earnest. You're the kind of American girl that can
go anywhere and do anything. My sisters would mortgage their share of the
golden streets for your abounding health--and so would I."

"You are all right now," she smiled. "You don't look or talk as you
did."

"It's this sunlight." He lifted a spread hand as if to clutch and hold
something. "I feel it soaking into me like some magical oil. No more
moping and whining for me. I've proved that hardship is good for me."

"Don't crow till you're out of the woods. It's a long ride down the hill,
and going down is harder on the tenderfoot than going up."

"I'm no longer a tenderfoot. All I need is another trip like this with
you and I shall be a master trailer."

All this was very sweet to her, and though she knew they should be going,
she lingered. Childishly reckless of the sinking sun, she played with the
wild flowers at her side and listened to his voice in complete content.
He was right. The hour was too beautiful to be shortened, although she
saw no reason why others equally delightful might not come to them both.
He was more of the lover than he had ever been before, that she knew, and
in the light of his eyes all that was not girlish and charming melted
away. She forgot her heavy shoes, her rough hands and sun-tanned face,
and listened with wondering joy and pride to his words, which were of a
fineness such as she had never heard spoken--only books contained such
unusual and exquisite phrases.

A cloud passing across the sun flung down a shadow of portentous chill
and darkness. She started to her feet with startled recollection of the
place and the hour.

"We _must_ be going--at once!" she commanded.

"Not yet," he pleaded. "It's only a cloud. The sun is coming out again. I
have perfect confidence in your woodcraft. Why not spend another night on
the trail? It may be our last trip together."

He tempted her strongly, so frank and boyish and lovable were his glances
and his words. But she was vaguely afraid of herself, and though the long
ride at the moment seemed hard and dull, the thought of her mother
waiting decided her action.

"No, no!" she responded, firmly. "We've wasted too much time already. We
must ride."

He looked up at her with challenging glance. "Suppose I refuse--suppose I
decide to stay here?"

Upon her, as he talked, a sweet hesitation fell, a dream which held more
of happiness than she had ever known. "It is a long, hard ride," she
thought, "and another night on the trail will not matter." And so the
moments passed on velvet feet, and still she lingered, reluctant to break
the spell.

Suddenly, into their idyllic drowse of content, so sweet, so youthful,
and so pure of heart, broke the sound of a horse's hurrying, clashing,
steel-shod feet, and looking up Berrie saw a mounted man coming down the
mountainside with furious, reckless haste.

"It is Cliff!" she cried out. "He's on our trail!" And into her face came
a look of alarm. Her lips paled, her eyes widened. "He's mad--he's
dangerous! Leave him to me," she added, in a low, tense voice.




XI

THE DEATH-GRAPPLE


There was something so sinister in the rider's disregard of stone and
tree and pace, something so menacing in the forward thrust of his body,
that Berrie was able to divine his wrath, and was smitten into
irresolution--all her hardy, boyish self-reliance swallowed up in the
weakness of the woman. She forgot the pistol at her belt, and awaited the
assault with rigid pose.

As Belden neared them Norcross also perceived that the rider's face was
distorted with passion, and that his glance was not directed upon Berrie,
but upon himself, and he braced himself for the attack.

Leaving his saddle with one flying leap, which the cowboy practises at
play, Belden hurled himself upon his rival with the fury of a panther.

The slender youth went down before the big rancher as though struck by a
catapult; and the force of his fall against the stony earth stunned him
so that he lay beneath his enemy as helpless as a child.

[Illustration: THE SLENDER YOUTH WENT DOWN BEFORE THE BIG RANCHER
AS THOUGH STRUCK BY A CATAPULT]

Belden snarled between his teeth: "I told you I'd kill you, and I will."

But this was not to be. Berea suddenly recovered her native force. With a
cry of pain, of anger, she flung herself on the maddened man's back. Her
hands encircled his neck like a collar of bronze. Hardened by incessant
use of the cinch and the rope, her fingers sank into the sinews of his
great throat, shutting off both blood and breath.

"Let go!" she commanded, with deadly intensity. "Let go, or I'll choke
the life out of you! Let go, I say!"

He raised a hand to beat her off, but she was too strong, too desperate
to be driven away. She was as blind to pain as a mother eagle, and bent
above him so closely that he could not bring the full weight of his fist
to bear. With one determined hand still clutching his throat, she ran the
fingers of her other hand into his hair and twisted his head upward with
a power which he could not resist. And so, looking into his upturned,
ferocious eyes, she repeated with remorseless fury: "_Let go_, I say!"

His swollen face grew rigid, his mouth gaped, his tongue protruded, and
at last, releasing his hold on his victim, he rose, flinging Berrie off
with a final desperate effort. "I'll kill you, too!" he gasped.

Up to this moment the girl had felt no fear of herself; but now she
resorted to other weapons. Snatching her pistol from its holster, she
leveled it at his forehead. "Stop!" she said; and something in her voice
froze him into calm. He was not a fiend; he was not a deliberate
assassin; he was only a jealous, despairing, insane lover, and as he
looked into the face he knew so well, and realized that nothing but hate
and deadly resolution lit the eyes he had so often kissed, his heart gave
way, and, dropping his head, he said: "Kill me if you want to. I've
nothing left to live for."

There was something unreal, appalling in this sudden reversion to
weakness, and Berrie could not credit his remorse. "Give me your gun,"
she said.

He surrendered it to her and she threw it aside; then turned to Wayland,
who was lying white and still with face upturned to the sky. With a moan
of anguish she bent above him and called upon his name. He did not stir,
and when she lifted his head to her lap his hair, streaming with blood,
stained her dress. She kissed him and called again to him, then turned
with accusing frenzy to Belden: "You've killed him! Do you hear? You've
killed him!"

The agony, the fury of hate in her voice reached the heart of the
conquered man. He raised his head and stared at her with mingled fear and
remorse. And so across that limp body these two souls, so lately lovers,
looked into each other's eyes as though nothing but words of hate and
loathing had ever passed between them. The girl saw in him only a savage,
vengeful, bloodthirsty beast; the man confronted in her an accusing
angel.

"I didn't mean to kill him," he muttered.

"Yes, you did! You meant it. You crushed his life out with your big
hands--and now I'm going to kill you for it!"

A fierce calm had come upon her. Some far-off ancestral deep of passion
called for blood revenge. She lifted the weapon with steady hand and
pointed it at his heart.

His fear passed as his wrath had passed. His head drooped, his glance
wavered. "Shoot!" he commanded, sullenly. "I'd sooner die than
live--now."

His words, his tone, brought back to her a vision of the man he had
seemed when she first met and admired him. Her hand fell, the woman in
her reasserted itself. A wave of weakness, of indecision, of passionate
grief overwhelmed her. "Oh, Cliff!" she moaned. "Why did you do it? He
was so gentle and sweet."

He did not answer. His glance wandered to his horse, serenely cropping
the grass in utter disregard of this tumultuous human drama; but the
wind, less insensate than the brute, swept through the grove of dwarfed,
distorted pines with a desolate, sympathetic moan which filled the man's
heart with a new and exalted sorrow. "You're right," he said. "I was
crazy. I deserve killing."

But Berrie was now too deep in her own desolation to care what he said or
did. She kissed the cold lips of the still youth, murmuring passionately:
"I don't care to live without you--I shall go with you!"

Belden's hand was on her wrist before she could raise her weapon. "Don't,
for God's sake, don't do that! He may not be dead."

She responded but dully to the suggestion. "No, no. He's gone. His breath
is gone."

"Maybe not. Let me see."

Again she bent to the quiet face on which the sunlight fell with mocking
splendor. It seemed all a dream till she felt once more the stain of his
blood upon her hands. It was all so incredibly sudden. Only just now he
was exulting over the warmth and beauty of the day--and now--

How beautiful he was. He seemed asleep. The conies crying from their
runways suddenly took on poignant pathos. They appeared to be grieving
with her; but the eagles spoke of revenge.

A sharp cry, a note of joy sprang from her lips. "He _is_ alive! I saw
his eyelids quiver--quick! Bring some water."

The man leaped to his feet, and, running down to the pool, filled his
sombrero with icy water. He was as eager now to save his rival as he had
been mad to destroy him. "Let me help," he pleaded. But she would not
permit him to touch the body.

Again, while splashing the water upon his face, the girl called upon her
love to return. "He hears me!" she exulted to her enemy. "He is breathing
now. He is opening his eyes."

The wounded man did, indeed, open his eyes, but his look was a blank,
uncomprehending stare, which plunged her back into despair. "He don't
know me!" she said, with piteous accent. She now perceived the source of
the blood upon her arm. It came from a wound in the boy's head which had
been dashed upon a stone.

The sight of this wound brought back the blaze of accusing anger to her
eyes. "See what you did!" she said, with cold malignity. Then by sudden
shift she bent to the sweet face in her arms and kissed it passionately.
"Open your eyes, darling. You must not die! I won't let you die! Can't
you hear me? Don't you know where you are?"

He opened his eyes once more, quietly, and looked up into her face with a
faint, drowsy smile. He could not yet locate himself in space and time,
but he knew her and was comforted. He wondered why he should be looking
up into a sunny sky. He heard the wind and the sound of a horse cropping
grass, and the voice of the girl penetratingly sweet as that of a young
mother calling her baby back to life, and slowly his benumbed brain began
to resolve the mystery.

Belden, forgotten, ignored as completely as the conies, sat with choking
throat and smarting eyes. For him the world was only dust and ashes--a
ruin which his own barbaric spirit had brought upon itself.

Slowly the youth's eyes took on expression. "Are we still on the hill?"
he asked.

"Yes, dearest," she assured him. Then to Belden, "He knows where he is!"

Wayland again struggled with reality. "What has happened to me?"

"You fell and hurt your head."

He turned slightly and observed the other man looking down at her with
dark and tragic glance. "Hello, Belden," he said, feebly. "How came you
here?" Then noting Berrie's look, he added: "I remember. He tried to kill
me." He again searched his antagonist's face. "Why didn't you finish the
job?"

The girl tried to turn his thought aside. "It's all right now, darling.
He won't make any more trouble. Don't mind him. I don't care for anybody
now you are coming back to me."

Wayland wonderingly regarded the face of the girl. "And you--are you
hurt?"

"No, I'm not hurt. I am perfectly happy now." She turned to Belden with
quick, authoritative command. "Unsaddle the horses and set up the tent.
We won't be able to leave here to-night."

He rose with instant obedience, glad of a chance to serve her, and soon
had the tent pegged to its place and the bedding unrolled. Together they
lifted the wounded youth and laid him upon his blankets beneath the low
canvas roof which seemed heavenly helpful to Berea.

"There!" she said, caressingly. "Now you are safe, no matter whether it
rains or not."

He smiled. "It seems I'm to have my way after all. I hope I shall be able
to see the sun rise. I've sort of lost my interest in the sunset."

"Now, Cliff," she said, as soon as the camp was in order and a fire
started, "I reckon you'd better ride on. I haven't any further use for
you."

"Don't say that, Berrie," he pleaded. "I can't leave you here alone with
a sick man. Let me stay and help."

She looked at him for a long time before she replied. "I shall never be
able to look at you again without hating you," she said. "I shall always
remember you as you looked when you were killing that boy. So you'd
better ride on and keep a-riding. I'm going to forget all this just as
soon as I can, and it don't help me any to have you around. I never want
to see you or hear your name again."

"You don't mean that, Berrie!"

"Yes, I do," she asserted, bitterly. "I mean just that. So saddle up and
pull out. All I ask of you is to say nothing about what has happened
here. You'd better leave the state. If Wayland should get worse it might
go hard with you."

He accepted his banishment. "All right. If you feel that way I'll ride.
But I'd like to do something for you before I go. I'll pile up some
wood--"

"No. I'll take care of that." And without another word of farewell she
turned away and re-entered the tent.

Mounting his horse with painful slowness, as though suddenly grown old,
the reprieved assassin rode away up the mountain, his head low, his eyes
upon the ground.




XII

BERRIE'S VIGIL


The situation in which Berea now found herself would have disheartened
most women of mature age, but she remained not only composed, she was
filled with an irrational delight. The nurse that is in every woman was
aroused in her, and she looked forward with joy to a night of vigil,
confident that Wayland was not seriously injured and that he would soon
be able to ride. She had no fear of the forest or of the night. Nature
held no menace now that her tent was set and her fire alight.

Wayland, without really knowing anything about it, suspected that he owed
his life to her intervention, and this belief deepened the feeling of
admiration which he had hitherto felt toward her. He listened to her at
work around the fire with a deepening sense of his indebtedness to her,
and when she looked in to ask if she could do anything for him, his
throat filled with an emotion which rendered his answer difficult.

As his mind cleared he became very curious to know precisely what had
taken place, but he did not feel free to ask her. "She will tell me if
she wishes me to know." That she had vanquished Belden and sent him on
his way was evident, although he had not been able to hear what she had
said to him at the last. What lay between the enemy's furious onslaught
and the aid he lent in making the camp could only be surmised. "I wonder
if she used her pistol?" Wayland asked himself. "Something like death
must have stared him in the face."

"Strange how everything seems to throw me ever deeper into her debt," he
thought, a little later. But he did not quite dare put into words the
resentment which mingled with his gratitude. He hated to be put so
constantly into the position of the one protected, defended. And yet it
was his own fault. He had put himself among people and conditions where
she was the stronger. Having ventured out of his world into hers he must
take the consequences.

That she loved him with the complete passion of her powerful and simple
nature he knew, for her voice had reached through the daze of his
semi-unconsciousness with thrilling power. The touch of her lips to his,
the close clasp of her strong arms were of ever greater convincing
quality. And yet he wished the revelation had come in some other way. His
pride was abraded. His manhood seemed somehow lessened. It was a
disconcerting reversal of the ordinary relations between hero and
heroine, and he saw no way of re-establishing the normal attitude of the
male.

Entirely unaware of what was passing in the mind of her patient, Berrie
went about her duties with a cheerfulness which astonished the sufferer
in the tent. She seemed about to hum a song as she set the skillet on the
fire, but a moment later she called out, in a tone of irritation: "Here
comes Nash!"

"I'm glad of that," answered Wayland, although he perceived something of
her displeasure.

Nash, on his way to join the Supervisor, raised a friendly greeting as he
saw the girl, and drew rein. "I expected to meet you farther down the
hill," he said. "Tony 'phoned that you had started. Where did you leave
the Supervisor?"

"Over at the station waiting for you. Where's your outfit?"

"Camped down the trail a mile or so. I thought I'd better push through
to-night. What about Norcross? Isn't he with you?"

She hesitated an instant. "He's in the tent. He fell and struck his head
on a rock, and I had to go into camp here."

Nash was deeply concerned. "Is that so? Well, that's hard luck. Is he
badly hurt?"

"Well, he had a terrible fall. But he's easier now. I think he's
asleep."

"May I look in on him?"

"I don't think you'd better take the time. It's a long, hard ride from
here to the station. It will be deep night before you can make it--"

"Don't you think the Supervisor would want me to camp here to-night and
do what I could for you? If Norcross is badly injured you will need me."

She liked Nash, and she knew he was right, and yet she was reluctant to
give up the pleasure of her lone vigil. "He's not in any danger, and
we'll be able to ride on in the morning."

Nash, thinking of her as Clifford Belden's promised wife, had no
suspicion of her feeling toward Norcross. Therefore he gently urged that
to go on was quite out of order. "I _can't_ think of leaving you here
alone--certainly not till I see Norcross and find out how badly he is
hurt."

She yielded. "I reckon you're right," she said. "I'll go see if he is
awake."

He followed her to the door of the tent, apprehending something new and
inexplicable in her attitude. In the music of her voice as she spoke to
the sick man was the love-note of the mate. "You may come in," she called
back, and Nash, stooping, entered the small tent.

"Hello, old man, what you been doing with yourself? Hitting the high
spots?"

Norcross smiled feebly. "No, the hill flew up and bumped _me_."

"How did it all happen?"

"I don't exactly know. It all came of a sudden. I had no share in it--I
didn't go for to do it."

"Whether you did or not, you seem to have made a good job of it."

Nash examined the wounded man carefully, and his skill and strength in
handling Norcross pleased Berrie, though she was jealous of the warm
friendship which seemed to exist between the men.

She had always liked Nash, but she resented him now, especially as he
insisted on taking charge of the case; but she gave way finally, and went
back to her pots and pans with pensive countenance.

A little later, when Nash came out to make report, she was not very
gracious in her manner. "He's pretty badly hurt," he said. "There's an
ugly gash in his scalp, and the shock has produced a good deal of pain
and confusion in his head; but he's going to be all right in a day or
two. For a man seeking rest and recuperation he certainly has had a tough
run of weather."

Though a serious-minded, honorable forester, determined to keep sternly
in mind that he was in the presence of the daughter of his chief, and
that she was engaged to marry another, Nash was, after all, a man, and
the witchery of the hour, the charm of the girl's graceful figure,
asserted their power over him. His eyes grew tender, and his voice
eloquent in spite of himself. His words he could guard, but it was hard
to keep from his speech the song of the lover. The thought that he was to
camp in her company, to help her about the fire, to see her from moment
to moment, with full liberty to speak to her, to meet her glance, pleased
him. It was the most romantic and moving episode in his life, and though
of a rather dry and analytic temperament he had a sense of poesy.

The night, black, oppressive, and silent, brought a closer bond of mutual
help and understanding between them. He built a fire of dry branches
close to the tent door, and there sat, side by side with the girl, in the
glow of embers, so close to the injured youth that they could talk
together, and as he spoke freely, yet modestly, of his experiences Berrie
found him more deeply interesting than she had hitherto believed him to
be. True, he saw things less poetically than Wayland, but he was finely
observant, and a man of studious and refined habits.

She grew friendlier, and asked him about his work, and especially about
his ambitions and plans for the future. They discussed the forest and its
enemies, and he wondered at her freedom in speaking of the Mill and
saloon. He said: "Of course you know that Alec Belden is a partner in
that business, and I'm told--of course I don't know this--that Clifford
Belden is also interested."

She offered no defense of young Belden, and this unconcern puzzled him.
He had expected indignant protest, but she merely replied: "I don't care
who owns it. It should be rooted out. I hate that kind of thing. It's
just another way of robbing those poor tie-jacks."

"Clifford should get out of it. Can't you persuade him to do so?"

"I don't think I can."

"His relationship to you--"

"He is not related to me."

Her tone amazed him. "You know what I mean."

"Of course I do, but you're mistaken. We're not related that way any
longer."

This silenced him for a few moments, then he said: "I'm rather glad of
that. He isn't anything like the man you thought he was--I couldn't say
these things before--but he is as greedy as Alec, only not so open about
it."

All this comment, which moved the forester so deeply to utter, seemed not
to interest Berea. She sat staring at the fire with the calm brow of an
Indian. Clifford Belden had passed out of her life as completely as he
had vanished out of the landscape. She felt an immense relief at being
rid of him, and resented his being brought back even as a subject of
conversation.

Wayland, listening, fancied he understood her desire, and said nothing
that might arouse Nash's curiosity.

Nash, on his part, knowing that she had broken with Belden, began to
understand the tenderness, the anxious care of her face and voice, as she
bent above young Norcross. As the night deepened and the cold air stung,
he asked: "Have you plenty of blankets for a bed?"

"Oh yes," she answered, "but I don't intend to sleep."

"Oh, you must!" he declared. "Go to bed. I will keep the fire going."

At last she consented. "I will make my bed right here at the mouth of the
tent close to the fire," she said, "and you can call me if you need me."

"Why not put your bed in the tent? It's going to be cold up here."

"I am all right outside," she protested.

"Put your bed inside, Miss Berrie. We can't let conventions count above
timber-line. I shall rest better if I know you are properly sheltered."

And so it happened that for the third time she shared the same roof with
her lover; but the nurse was uppermost in her now. At eleven thousand
feet above the sea--with a cold drizzle of fine rain in the air--one does
not consider the course of gossip as carefully as in a village, and
Berrie slept unbrokenly till daylight.

Nash was the first to arise in the dusk of dawn, and Berrie, awakened by
the crackle of his fire, soon joined him. There is no sweeter sound than
the voice of the flame at such a time, in such a place. It endows the
bleak mountainside with comfort, makes the ledge a hearthstone. It holds
the promise of savory meats and fragrant liquor, and robs the frosty air
of its terrors.

Wayland, hearing their voices, called out, with feeble humor: "Will some
one please turn on the steam in my room?"

Berrie uttered a happy word. "How do you feel this morning?" she asked.

"Not precisely like a pugilist--well, yes, I believe I do--like the
fellow who got second money."

"How is the bump?" inquired Nash, thrusting his head inside the door.

"Reduced to the size of a golf-ball as near as I can judge of it. I doubt
if I can wear a hat; but I'm feeling fine. I'm going to get up."

Berrie was greatly relieved. "I'm so glad! Do you feel like riding down
the hill?"

"Sure thing! I'm hungry, and as soon as I am fed I'm ready to start."

Berrie joined the surveyor at the fire.

"If you'll round up our horses, Mr. Nash, I'll rustle breakfast and we'll
get going," she said.

Nash, enthralled, lingered while she twisted her hair into place, then
went out to bring in the ponies.

Wayland came out a little uncertainly, but looking very well. "I think I
shall discourage my friends from coming to this region for their health,"
he said, ruefully. "If I were a novelist now all this would be grist for
my mill."

Beneath his joking he was profoundly chagrined. He had hoped by this time
to be as sinewy, as alert as Nash, instead of which here he sat,
shivering over the fire like a sick girl, his head swollen, his blood
sluggish; but this discouragement only increased Berea's tenderness--a
tenderness which melted all his reserve.

"I'm not worth all your care," he said to her, with poignant glance.

The sun rose clear and warm, and the fire, the coffee, put new courage
into him as well as into the others, and while the morning was yet early
and the forest chill and damp with rain, the surveyor brought up the
horses and started packing the outfit.

In this Berrie again took part, doing her half of the work quite as
dextrously as Nash himself. Indeed, the forester was noticeably confused
and not quite up to his usual level of adroit ease.

At last both packs were on, and as they stood together for a moment, Nash
said: "This has been a great experience--one I shall remember as long as
I live."

She stirred uneasily under his frank admiration. "I'm mightily obliged to
you," she replied, as heartily as she could command.

"Don't thank me, I'm indebted to you. There is so little in my life of
such companionship as you and Norcross give me."

"You'll find it lonesome over at the station, I'm afraid," said she. "But
Moore intends to put a crew of tie-cutters in over there--that will help
some." She smiled.

"I'm not partial to the society of tie-jacks."

"If you ride hard you may find that Moore girl in camp. She was there
when we left." There was a sparkle of mischief in her glance.

"I'm not interested in the Moore girl," he retorted.

"Do you know her?"

"I've seen her at the post-office once or twice; _she_ is not my kind."

She gave him her hand. "Well, good-by. I'm all right now that Wayland can
ride."

He held her hand an instant. "I believe I'll ride back with you as far as
the camp."

"You'd better go on. Father is waiting for you. I'll send the men along."
There was dismissal in her voice, and yet she recognized as never before
the fine qualities that were his. "Please don't say anything of this to
others, and tell my father not to worry about us. We'll pull in all
right."

He helped Norcross mount his horse, and as he put the lead rope into
Berrie's hand, he said: with much feeling: "Good luck to you. I shall
remember this night all the rest of my life."

"I hate to be going to the rear," called Wayland, whose bare, bandaged
head made him look like a wounded young officer. "But I guess it's better
for me to lay off for a week or two and recover my tone."

And so they parted, the surveyor riding his determined way up the naked
mountainside toward the clouds, while Berrie and her ward plunged at once
into the dark and dripping forest below. "If you can stand the grief,"
she said, "we'll go clear through."

Wayland had his misgivings, but did not say so. His confidence in his
guide was complete. She would do her part, that was certain. Several
times she was forced to dismount and blaze out a new path in order to
avoid some bog; but she sternly refused his aid. "You must not get off,"
she warned; "stay where you are. I can do this work better alone."

They were again in that green, gloomy, and silent zone of the range,
where giant spruces grow, and springs, oozing from the rocks, trickle
over the trail. It was very beautiful, but menacing, by reason of its
apparently endless thickets cut by stony ridges. It was here she met the
two young men, Downing and Travis, bringing forward the surveying outfit,
but she paused only to say: "Push along steadily. You are needed on the
other side."

After leaving the men, and with a knowledge that the remaining leagues of
the trail were solitary, Norcross grew fearful. "The fall of a horse, an
accident to that brave girl, and we would be helpless," he thought. "I
wish Nash had returned with us." Once his blood chilled with horror as he
watched his guide striking out across the marge of a grassy lake. This
meadow, as he divined, was really a carpet of sod floating above a
bottomless pool of muck, for it shook beneath her horse's feet.

"Come on, it's all right," she called back, cheerily. "We'll soon pick up
the other trail."

He wondered how she knew, for to him each hill was precisely like
another, each thicket a maze.

Her caution was all for him. She tried each dangerous slough first, and
thus was able to advise him which way was safest. His head throbbed with
pain and his knees were weary, but he rode on, manifesting such cheer as
he could, resolving not to complain at any cost; but his self-respect
ebbed steadily, leaving him in bitter, silent dejection.

At last they came into open ground on a high ridge, and were gladdened by
the valley outspread below them, for it was still radiant with color,
though not as brilliant as before the rain. It had been dimmed, but not
darkened. And yet it seemed that a month had passed since their ecstatic
ride upward through the golden forest, and Wayland said as much while
they stood for a moment surveying the majestic park with its wall of
guardian peaks.

But Berrie replied: "It seems only a few hours to me."

From this point the traveling was good, and they descended rapidly,
zigzagging from side to side of a long, sweeping ridge. By noon they were
once more down amid the aspens, basking in a world of sad gold leaves and
delicious September sunshine.

At one o'clock, on the bank of a clear stream, the girl halted. "I reckon
we'd better camp awhile. You look tired, and I am hungry."

He gratefully acquiesced in this stop, for his knees were trembling with
the strain of the stirrups; but he would not permit her to ease him down
from his saddle. Turning a wan glance upon her, he bitterly asked: "Must
I always play the weakling before you? I am ashamed of myself. Ride on
and leave me to rot here in the grass. I'm not worth keeping alive."

"You must not talk like that," she gently admonished him. "You're not to
blame."

"Yes, I am. I should never have ventured into this man's country."

"I'm glad you did," she answered, as if she were comforting a child. "For
if you hadn't I should never have known you."

"That would have been no loss--to you," he bitterly responded.

She unsaddled one pack-animal and spread some blankets on the grass. "Lie
down and rest while I boil some coffee," she commanded; and he obeyed,
too tired to make pretension toward assisting.

Lying so, feeling the magic of the sun, hearing the music of the water,
and watching the girl, he regained a serener mood, and when she came back
with his food he thanked her for it with a glance before which her eyes
fell. "I don't see why you are so kind to me, I really believe you _like_
to do things for me." Her head drooped to hide her face, and he went on:
"Why do you care for me? Tell me!"

"I don't know," she murmured. Then she added, with a flash of bravery:
"But I do."

"What a mystery it all is! You turn from a splendid fellow like Landon to
a 'skate' like me. Landon worships you--you know that--don't you?"

"I know--he--" she ended, vaguely distressed.

"Did he ask you to marry him?"

"Yes."

"Why didn't you? He's just the mate for you. He's a man of high character
and education." She made no answer to this, and he went on: "Dear girl,
I'm not worth your care--truly I'm not. I resented your engagement to
Belden, for he was a brute; but Landon is different. He thinks the world
of you. He'll go high in the service. I've never done anything in the
world--I never shall. It will be better for you if I go--to-morrow."

She took his hand and pressed it to her cheek, then, putting her arm
about his neck, drew him to her bosom and kissed him passionately. "You
break my heart when you talk like that," she protested, with tears. "You
mustn't say such gloomy things--I won't let you give up. You shall come
right home with me, and I will nurse you till you are well. It was all my
fault. If we had only stayed in camp at the lake daddy would have joined
us that night, and if I had not loitered on the mountain yesterday Cliff
would not have overtaken us. It's all my fault."

"I will not have it go that way," he said. "I've brought you only care
and unhappiness thus far. I'm an alien--my ways are not your ways."

"I can change," she answered. "I hate my ways, and I like yours."

As they argued she felt no shame, and he voiced no resentment. She knew
his mood. She understood his doubt, his depression. She pleaded as a man
might have done, ready to prove her love, eager to restore his
self-respect, while he remained both bitter and sadly contemptuous.

A cow-hand riding up the trail greeted Berrie respectfully, but a cynical
smile broke out on his lips as he passed on. Another witness--another
gossip.

She did not care. She had no further concern of the valley's comment. Her
life's happiness hung on the drooping eyelashes of this wounded boy, and
to win him back to cheerful acceptance of life was her only concern.

"I've never had any motives," he confessed. "I've always done what
pleased me at the moment--or because it was easier to do as others were
doing. I went to college that way. Truth is, I never had any surplus
vitality, and my father never demanded anything of me. I haven't any
motives now. A few days ago I was interested in forestry. At this time it
all seems futile. What's the use of my trying to live?"

Part of all this despairing cry arose from weariness, and part from a
luxurious desire to be comforted, for it was sweet to feel her sympathy.
He even took a morbid pleasure in the distress of her eyes and lips while
her rich voice murmured in soothing protest.

She, on her part, was frightened for him, and as she thought of the long
ride still before them she wrung her hands. "Oh, what shall I do? What
shall I do?" she moaned.

Instantly smitten into shame, into manlier mood, he said: "Don't worry
about me, please don't. I can ride. I'm feeling better. You must not
weaken. Please forgive my selfish complaints. I'm done! You'll never hear
it again. Come, let us go on. I can ride."

"If we can reach Miller's ranch--"

"I can ride to _your_ ranch," he declared, and rose with such new-found
resolution that she stared at him in wonder.

He was able to smile. "I've had my little crying spell. I've relieved my
heart of its load. I didn't mean to agonize you. It was only a slump." He
put his hand to his head. "I must be a comical figure. Wonder what that
cowboy thought of me?"

His sudden reversal to cheer was a little alarming to her, but at length
she perceived that he had in truth mastered his depression, and bringing
up the horses she saddled them, and helped him to mount. "If you get
tired or feel worse, tell me, and we'll go into camp," she urged as they
were about to start.

"You keep going till I give the sign," he replied; and his voice was so
firm and clear that her own sunny smile came back. "I don't know what to
make of you," she said. "I reckon you must be a poet."




XIII

THE GOSSIPS AWAKE


It was dark when they reached the village, but Wayland declared his
ability to go on, although his wounded head was throbbing with fever and
he was clinging to the pommel of his saddle; so Berrie rode on.

Mrs. McFarlane, hearing the horses on the bridge, was at the door and
received her daughter with wondering question, while the stable-hands,
quick to detect an injured man, hurried to lift Norcross down from his
saddle.

"What's the matter?" repeated Mrs. McFarlane.

"He fell and struck his head on a stone," Berea hastily explained. "Take
the horses, boys, mother and I will look out for Mr. Norcross."

The men obeyed her and fell back, but they were consumed with curiosity,
and their glances irritated the girl. "Slip the packs at once," she
insisted.

With instant sympathy her mother came to her aid in supporting the
wounded, weary youth indoors, and as he stretched out on the couch in the
sitting-room, he remarked, with a faint, ironic smile: "This beats any
bed of balsam boughs."

"Where's your father?" asked Mrs. McFarlane of her daughter.

"He's over on the Ptarmigan. I've a powerful lot to tell you, mother; but
not now; we must look after Wayland. He's nearly done up, and so am I."

Mrs. McFarlane winced a little at her daughter's use of Norcross's first
name, but she said nothing further at the moment, although she watched
Berrie closely while she took off Wayland's shoes and stockings and
rubbed his icy feet. "Get him something hot as quick as you can!" she
commanded; and Mrs. McFarlane obeyed without a word.

Gradually the tremor passed out of his limbs and a delicious sense of
warmth, of safety, stole over him, and he closed his eyes in the comfort
of her presence and care. "Rigorous business this life of the pioneer,"
he said, with mocking inflection. "I think I prefer a place in the lumber
trust."

"Don't talk," she said. Then, with a rush of tender remorse: "Why didn't
you tell me to stop? I didn't realize that you were so tired. We could
have stopped at the Springs."

"I didn't know how tired I was till I got here. Gee," he said, boyishly,
"that door-knob at the back of my head is red-hot! You're good to me," he
added, humbly.

She hated to have him resume that tone of self-depreciation, and,
kneeling to him, she kissed his cheek, and laid her head beside his.
"You're splendid," she insisted. "Nobody could be braver; but you should
have told me you were exhausted. You fooled me with your cheerful
answers."

He accepted her loving praise, her clasping arms, as a part of the rescue
from the darkness and pain of the long ride, careless of what it might
bring to him in the future. He ate his toast and drank his coffee, and
permitted the women to lead him to his room, and then being alone he
crept into his bed and fell instantly asleep.

Berrie and her mother went back to the sitting-room, and Mrs. McFarlane
closed the door behind them. "Now tell me all about it," she said, in the
tone of one not to be denied.

The story went along very smoothly till the girl came to the second night
in camp beside the lake; there her voice faltered, and the reflective
look in the mother's eyes deepened as she learned that her daughter had
shared her tent with the young man. "It was the only thing to do,
mother," Berrie bravely said. "It was cold and wet outside, and you know
he isn't very strong, and his teeth were chattering, he was so chilled. I
know it sounds strange down here; but up there in the woods in the storm
what I did seemed right and natural. You know what I mean, don't you?"

"Yes, I understand. I don't blame you--only--if others should hear of
it--"

"But they won't. No one knows of our being alone there except Tony and
father."

"Are you sure? Doesn't Mrs. Belden know?"

"I don't think so--not yet."

Mrs. McFarlane's nervousness grew. "I wish you hadn't gone on this trip.
If the Beldens find out you were alone with Mr. Norcross they'll make
much of it. It will give them a chance at your father." Her mind turned
upon another point. "When did Mr. Norcross get his fall?"

"On the way back." Here Berrie hesitated again. "I don't like to tell
you, mother, but he didn't fall, Cliff jumped him and tried to kill
him."

The mother doubted her ears. "Cliff did? How did he happen to meet you?"

Berrie was quick to answer. "I don't know how he found out we were on the
trail. I suppose the old lady 'phoned him. Anyhow, while we were camped
for noon yesterday"--her face flamed again at thought of that tender,
beautiful moment when they were resting on the grass--"while we were at
our lunch he came tearing down the hill on that big bay horse of his and
took a flying jump at Wayland. As Wayland went down he struck his head on
a stone. I thought he was dead, and I was paralyzed for a second. Then I
flew at Cliff and just about choked the life out of him. I'd have ended
him right there if he hadn't let go."

Mrs. McFarlane, looking upon her daughter in amazement, saw on her face
the shadow of the deadly rage which had burned in her heart as she
clenched young Belden's throat.

"What then? What happened then?"

"He let go, you bet." Her smile came back. "And when he realized what
he'd done--_he_ thought Wayland was dead--he began to weaken. Then I took
my gun and was all for putting an end to him right there, when I saw
Wayland's eyelids move. After that I didn't care what became of Cliff. I
told him to ride on and keep a-ridin', and I reckon he's clear out of the
state by this time. If he ever shows up I'll put him where he'll have all
night to be sorry in."

"When did this take place?"

"Yesterday about two. Of course Wayland couldn't ride, he was so dizzy
and kind o' confused, and so I went into camp right there at timber-line.
Along about sunset Nash came riding up from this side, and insisted on
staying to help me--so I let him."

Mrs. McFarlane's tense attitude relaxed. "Nash is not the kind that
tattles. I'm glad he turned up."

"And this morning I saddled and came down."

"Did Nash go on?"

"Yes, daddy was waiting for him, so I sent him along."

"It's all sad business," groaned Mrs. McFarlane, "and I can see you're
keeping something back. How did Cliff happen to know just where you were?
And what started you back without your father?"

For the first time Berrie showed signs of weakness and distress. "Why,
you see, Alec Belden and Mr. Moore were over there to look at some
timber, and old Marm Belden and that Moore girl went along. I suppose
they sent word to Cliff, and I presume that Moore girl put him on our
trail. Leastwise that's the way I figure it out. That's the worst of the
whole business." She admitted this with darkened brow. "Mrs. Belden's
tongue is hung in the middle and loose at both ends--and that Moore girl
is spiteful mean." She could not keep the contempt out of her voice. "She
saw us start off, and she is sure to follow it up and find out what
happened on the way home; even if they don't see Cliff they'll _talk_."

"Oh, I _wish_ you hadn't gone!" exclaimed the worried mother.

"It can't be helped now, and it hasn't done me any real harm. It's all in
the day's work, anyhow. I've always gone with daddy before, and this trip
isn't going to spoil me. The boys all know me, and they will treat me
fair."

"Yes, but Mr. Norcross is an outsider--a city man. They will all think
evil of him on that account."

"I know; that's what troubles me. No one will know how fine and
considerate he was. Mother, I've never known any one like him. He's a
poet! He's taught me to see things I never saw before. Everything
interests him--the birds, the clouds, the voices in the fire. I never was
so happy in my life as I was during those first two days, and that night
in camp before he began to worry--it was just wonderful." Words failed
her, but her shining face and the forward straining pose of her body
enlightened the mother. "I don't care what people say of me if only they
will be just to him. They've _got_ to treat him right," she added,
firmly.

"Did he speak to you--are you engaged?"

Her head drooped. "Not really engaged, mother; but he told me how much he
liked me--and--it's all right, mother, I _know_ it is. I'm not fine
enough for him, but I'm going to try to change my ways so he won't be
ashamed of me."

Mrs. McFarlane's face cleared. "He surely is a fine young fellow, and can
be trusted to do the right thing. Well, we might as well go to bed. We
can't settle anything till your father gets home," she said.

Wayland rose next morning free from dizziness and almost free from pain,
and when he came out of his room his expression was cheerful. "I feel as
if I'd slept a week, and I'm hungry. I don't know why I should be, but I
am."

Mrs. McFarlane met him with something very intimate, something almost
maternal in her look; but her words were as few and as restrained as
ever. He divined that she had been talking with Berrie, and that a fairly
clear understanding of the situation had been reached. That this
understanding involved him closely he was aware; but nothing in his
manner acknowledged it.

She did not ask any questions, believing that sooner or later the whole
story must come out. The fact that Siona Moore and Mrs. Belden knew that
Berrie had started back on Thursday with young Norcross made it easy for
the villagers to discover that she had not reached the ranch till
Saturday. "What could Joe have been thinking of to allow them to go?" she
said. "Mr. Nash's presence in the camp must be made known; but then there
is Clifford's assault upon Mr. Norcross, can that be kept secret, too?"
And so while the young people chatted, the troubled mother waited in
fear, knowing that in a day or two the countryside would be aflame with
accusation.

In a landscape like this, as she well knew, nothing moves unobserved. The
native--man or woman--is able to perceive and name objects scarcely
discernible to the eye of the alien. A minute speck is discovered on the
hillside. "Hello, there's Jim Sanders on his roan," says one, or "Here
comes Kit Jenkins with her flea-bit gray. I wonder who's on the bay
alongside of her," remarks another, and each of these observations is
taken quite as a matter of course. With a wide and empty field of vision,
and with trained, unspoiled optic nerves, the plainsman is marvelously
penetrating of glance. Hence, Mrs. McFarlane was perfectly certain that
not one but several of her neighbors had seen and recognized Berrie and
young Norcross as they came down the hill. In a day or two every man
would know just where they camped, and what had taken place in camp. Mrs.
Belden would not rest till she had ferreted out every crook and turn of
that trail, and her speech was quite as coarse as that of any of her male
associates.

Easy-going with regard to many things, these citizens were abnormally
alive to all matters relating to courtship, and popular as she believed
Berrie to be, Mrs. McFarlane could not hope that her daughter would be
spared--especially by the Beldens, who would naturally feel that Clifford
had been cheated. She sighed deeply. "Well, nothing can be done till Joe
returns," she repeated.

A long day's rest, a second night's sleep, set Wayland on his feet. He
came to breakfast quite gay. "Barring the hickory-nut on the back of my
head," he explained, "I'm feeling fine, almost ready for another
expedition. I may make a ranger yet."

Berrie, though equally gay, was not so sure of his ability to return to
work. "I reckon you'd better go easy till daddy gets back; but if you
feel like it we'll ride up to the post-office this afternoon."

"I want to start right in to learn to throw that hitch, and I'm going to
practise with an ax till I can strike twice in the same place. This trip
was an eye-opener. Great man I'd be in a windfall--wouldn't I?"

He was persuaded to remain very quiet for another day, and part of it was
spent in conversation with Mrs. McFarlane--whom he liked very much--and
an hour or more in writing a long letter wherein he announced to his
father his intention of going into the Forest Service. "I've got to build
up a constitution," he said, "and I don't know of a better place to do it
in. Besides, I'm beginning to be interested in the scheme. I like the
Supervisor. I'm living in his house at the present time, and I'm feeling
contented and happy, so don't worry about me."

He was indeed quite comfortable, save when he realized that Mrs.
McFarlane was taking altogether too much for granted in their
relationship. It was delightful to be so watched over, so waited upon, so
instructed. "But where is it all leading me?" he continued to ask
himself--and still that wall of reserve troubled and saddened Berrie.

They expected McFarlane that night, and waited supper for him, but he did
not come, and so they ate without him, and afterward Wayland helped
Berrie do up the dishes while the mother bent above her sewing by the
kitchen lamp.

There was something very sweet and gentle about Mrs. McFarlane, and the
exile took almost as much pleasure in talking with her as with her
daughter. He led her to tell of her early experiences in the valley, and
of the strange types of men and women with whom she had crossed the
range.

"Some of them are here yet," she said. "In fact the most violent of all
the opponents to the Service are these old adventurers. I don't think
they deserve to be called pioneers. They never did any work in clearing
the land or in building homes. Some of them, who own big herds of cattle,
still live in dug-outs. They raged at Mr. McFarlane for going into the
Service--called him a traitor. Old Jake Proudfoot was especially
furious--"

"You should see where old Jake lives," interrupted Berrie. "He sleeps on
the floor in one corner of his cabin, and never changes his shirt."

"Hush!" warned Mrs. McFarlane.

"That's what the men all say. Daddy declares if they were to scrape Jake
they'd find at least five layers of shirts. His wife left him fifteen
years ago, couldn't stand his habits, and he's got worse ever since.
Naturally he is opposed to the Service."

"Of course," her mother explained, "those who oppose the Supervisor
aren't all like Jake; but it makes me angry to have the papers all
quoting Jake as 'one of the leading ranchers of the valley.'"

She could not bring herself to take up the most vital subject of all--the
question of her daughter's future. "I'll wait till father gets home," she
decided.

On the fourth morning the 'phone rang, and the squawking voice of Mrs.
Belden came over the wire. "I wanted to know if Berrie and her feller got
home all right?"

"Yes, they arrived safely."

The old woman chuckled. "Last I see of Cliff he was hot on their
trail--looked like he expected to take a hand in that expedition. Did he
overtake 'em?"

"I don't hear very well--where are you?"

"I'm at the Scott ranch--we're coming round 'the horn' to-day."

"Where is the Supervisor?"

"He headed across yesterday. Say, Cliff was mad as a hornet when he
started. I'd like to know what happened--"

Mrs. McFarlane hung up the receiver. The old woman's nasty chuckle was
intolerable; but in silencing the 'phone Mrs. McFarlane was perfectly
aware that she was not silencing the gossip; on the contrary, she was
certain that the Beldens would leave a trail of poisonous comment from
the Ptarmigan to Bear Tooth. It was all sweet material for them.

Berrie wanted to know who was speaking, and Mrs. McFarlane replied: "Mrs.
Belden wanted to know if you got through all right."

"She said something else, something to heat you up," persisted the girl,
who perceived her mother's agitation. "What did she say--something about
me--and Cliff?"

The mother did not answer, for Wayland entered the room at the moment;
but Berrie knew that traducers were already busy with her affairs. "I
don't care anything about old lady Belden," she said, later; "but I hate
to have that Moore girl telling lies about me."

As for Wayland, the nights in the camp by the lake, and, indeed, all the
experiences of his trip in the high places were becoming each moment more
remote, more unreal. Camp life at timber-line did not seem to him subject
to ordinary conventional laws of human conduct, and the fact that he and
Berrie had shared the same tent under the stress of cold and snow, now
seemed so far away as to be only a complication in a splendid mountain
drama. Surely no blame could attach to the frank and generous girl, even
though the jealous assault of Cliff Belden should throw the valley into a
fever of chatter. "Furthermore, I don't believe he will be in haste to
speak of his share in the play," he added. "It was too nearly criminal."

It was almost noon of the fourth day when the Supervisor called up to say
that he was at the office, and would reach the ranch at six o'clock.

"I wish you would come home at once," his wife argued; and something in
her voice convinced him that he was more needed at home, than in the
town.

"All right, mother. Hold the fort an hour and I'll be there."

Mrs. McFarlane met him at the hitching-bar, and it required but a glance
for him to read in her face a troubled state of mind.

"This has been a disastrous trip for Berrie," she said, after one of the
hands had relieved the Supervisor of his horse.

"In what way?"

She was a bit impatient. "Mrs. Belden is filling the valley with the
story of Berrie's stay in camp with Mr. Norcross."

His face showed a graver line. "It couldn't be helped. The horses had to
be followed, and that youngster couldn't do it--and, besides, I expected
to get back that night. Nobody but an old snoop like Seth Belden would
think evil of our girl. And, besides, Norcross is a man to be trusted."

"Of course he is, but the Beldens are ready to think evil of any one
connected with us. And Cliff's assault on Wayland--"

He looked up quickly. "Assault? Did he make trouble?"

"Yes, he overtook them on the trail, and would have killed Norcross if
Berrie hadn't interfered. He was crazy with jealousy."

"Nash didn't say anything about any assault."

"He didn't know it. Berrie told him that Norcross fell from his horse."

McFarlane was deeply stirred. "I saw Cliff leave camp, but I didn't think
anything of it. Why should he jump Norcross?"

"I suppose Mrs. Belden filled him with distrust of Berrie. He was already
jealous, and when he came up with them and found them lunching together,
he lost his head and rushed at Wayland like a wild beast. Of course he
couldn't stand against a big man like Cliff, and his head struck on a
stone; and if Berrie hadn't throttled the brute he would have murdered
the poor boy right there before her eyes."

"Good God! I never suspected a word of this. I didn't think he'd do
that."

The Supervisor was now very grave. These domestic matters at once threw
his work as forester into the region of vague and unimportant
abstractions. He began to understand the danger into which Berea had
fallen, and step by step he took up the trails which had brought them all
to this pass.

He fixed another penetrating look upon her face, and his voice was vibrant
with anxiety as he said: "You don't think there's anything--wrong?"

"No, nothing wrong; but she's profoundly in love with him. I never have
seen her so wrapped up in any one. She thinks of nothing else. It scares
me to see it, for I've studied him closely and I can't believe he feels
the same toward her. His world is so different from ours. I don't know
what to do or say. I fear she is in for a period of great unhappiness."

She was at the beginning of tears, and he sought to comfort her. "Don't
worry, honey, she's got too much horse sense to do anything foolish.
She's grown up. I suppose it's his being so different from the other boys
that catches her. We've always been good chums--let me talk with her. She
mustn't make a mistake."

The return of the crew from the corral cut short this conference, and
when McFarlane went in Berrie greeted him with such frank and joyous
expression that all his fears vanished.

"Did you come over the high trail?" she asked.

"No, I came your way. I didn't want to take any chances on getting mired.
It's still raining up there," he answered, then turned to Wayland:
"Here's your mail, Norcross, a whole hatful of it--and one telegram in
the bunch. Hope it isn't serious."

Wayland took the bundle of letters and retired to his room, glad to
escape the persistent stare of the cow-hands. The despatch was from his
father, and was curt and specific as a command: "Shall be in Denver on
the 23d, meet me at the Palmer House. Am on my way to California. Come
prepared to join me on the trip."

With the letters unopened in his lap he sat in silent thought, profoundly
troubled by the instant decision which this message demanded of him. At
first glance nothing was simpler than to pack up and go. He was only a
tourist in the valley with no intention of staying; but there was Berea!
To go meant a violent end of their pleasant romance. To think of flight
saddened him, and yet his better judgment was clearly on the side of
going. "Much as I like her, much as I admire her, I cannot marry her. The
simplest way is to frankly tell her so and go. It seems cowardly, but in
the end she will be happier."

His letters carried him back into his own world. One was from Will
Halliday, who was going with Professor Holsman on an exploring trip up
the Nile. "You must join us. Holsman has promised to take you on."
Another classmate wrote to know if he did not want to go into a land deal
on the Gulf of Mexico. A girl asked: "Are you to be in New York this
winter? I am. I've decided to go into this Suffrage Movement." And so,
one by one, the threads which bound him to Eastern city life re-spun
their filaments. After all, this Colorado outing, even though it should
last two years, would only be a vacation--his real life was in the cities
of the East. Charming as Berea was, potent as she seemed, she was after
all a fixed part of the mountain land, and not to be taken from it. At
the moment marriage with her appeared absurd.

A knock at his door and the Supervisor's voice gave him a keen shock.
"Come in," he called, springing to his feet with a thrill of dread, of
alarm.

McFarlane entered slowly and shut the door behind him. His manner was
serious, and his voice gravely gentle as he said: "I hope that telegram
does not call you away?"

"It is from my father, asking me to meet him in Denver," answered
Norcross, with faltering breath. "He's on his way to California. Won't
you sit down?"

The older man took a seat with quiet dignity. "Seems like a mighty fine
chance, don't it? I've always wanted to see the Coast. When do you plan
for to pull out?"

Wayland was not deceived by the Supervisor's casual tone; there was
something ominously calm in his manner, something which expressed an
almost dangerous interest in the subject.

"I haven't decided to go at all. I'm still dazed by the suddenness of it.
I didn't know my father was planning this trip."

"I see. Well, before you decide to go I'd like to have a little talk with
you. My daughter has told me part of what happened to you on the trail. I
want to know _all_ of it. You're young, but you've been out in the world,
and you know what people can say about you and my girl." His voice became
level and menacing, as he added: "And I don't intend to have her put in
wrong on account of you."

Norcross was quick to reply. "Nobody will dare accuse her of wrongdoing.
She's a noble girl. No one will dare to criticize her for what she could
not prevent."

"You don't know the Beldens. My girl's character will be on trial in
every house in the county to-morrow. The Belden side of it will appear in
the city papers. Sympathy will be with Clifford. Berrie will be made an
issue by my enemies. They'll get me through her."

"Good Lord!" exclaimed Norcross, in sudden realization of the gravity of
the case. "What beasts they are!"

"Moore's gang will seize upon it and work it hard," McFarlane went on,
with calm insistence. "They want to bring the district forester down on
me. This is a fine chance to badger me. They will make a great deal of my
putting you on the roll. Our little camping trip is likely to prove a
serious matter to us all."

"Surely you don't consider me at fault?"

Worried as he was, the father was just. "No, you're not to blame--no one
is to blame. It all dates back to the horses quitting camp; but you've
got to stand pat now--for Berrie's sake."

"But what can I do? I'm at your service. What role shall I play? Tell me
what to do, and I will do it."

McFarlane was staggered, but he answered: "You can at least stay on the
ground and help fight. This is no time to stampede."

"You're right. I'll stay, and I'll make any statement you see fit. I'll
do anything that will protect Berrie."

McFarlane again looked him squarely in the eyes. "Is there a--an
agreement between you?"

"Nothing formal--that is--I mean I admire her, and I told her--" He
stopped, feeling himself on the verge of the irrevocable. "She's a
splendid girl," he went on. "I like her exceedingly, but I've known her
only a few weeks."

McFarlane interrupted. "Girls are flighty critters," he said, sadly. "I
don't know why she's taken to you so terrible strong; but she has. She
don't seem to care what people say so long as they do not blame you; but
if you should pull out you might just as well cut her heart to pieces--"
His voice broke, and it was a long time before he could finish. "You're
not at fault, I know that, but if you _can_ stay on a little while and
make it an ounce or two easier for her and for her mother, I wish you'd
do it."

Wayland extended his hand impulsively. "Of course I'll stay. I never
really thought of leaving." In the grip of McFarlane's hand was something
warm and tender.

He rose. "I'm terribly obliged," he said; "but we mustn't let her suspect
for a minute that we've been discussing her. She hates being pitied or
helped."

"She shall not experience a moment's uneasiness that I can prevent,"
replied the youth; and at the moment he meant it.

Berrie could not be entirely deceived. She read in her father's face a
subtle change of line which she related to something Wayland had said.
"Did he tell you what was in the telegram? Has he got to go away?" she
asked, anxiously.

"Yes, he said it was from his father."

"What does his father want of him?"

"He's on his way to California and wants Wayland to go with him; but
Wayland says he's not going."

A pang shot through Berrie's heart. "He mustn't go--he isn't able to go,"
she exclaimed, and her pain, her fear, came out in her sharpened,
constricted tone. "I won't let him go--till he's well."

Mrs. McFarlane gently interposed. "He'll have to go, honey, if his father
needs him."

"Let his father come here." She rose, and, going to his door, decisively
knocked. "May I come in?" she demanded, rather than asked, before her
mother could protest. "I must see you."

Wayland opened the door, and she entered, leaving her parents facing each
other in mute helplessness.

Mrs. McFarlane turned toward her husband with a face of despair. "She's
ours no longer, Joe. Our time of bereavement has come."

He took her in his arms. "There, there, mother. Don't cry. It can't be
helped. You cut loose from your parents and came to me in just the same
way. Our daughter's a grown woman, and must have her own life. All we can
do is to defend her against the coyotes who are busy with her name."

"But what of _him_, Joe; he don't care for her as she does for him--can't
you see that?"

"He'll do the right thing, mother; he told me he would. He knows how much
depends on his staying here now, and he intends to do it."

"But in the end, Joe, after this scandal is lived down, can he--will
he--marry her? And if he marries her can they live together and be happy?
His way of life is so different. He can't content himself here, and she
can't fit in where he belongs. It all seems hopeless to me. Wouldn't it
be better for her to suffer for a little while now than to make a mistake
that may last a lifetime?"

"Mebbe it would, mother, but the decision is not ours. She's too strong
for us to control. She's of age, and if she comes to a full understanding
of the situation, she can decide the question a whole lot better than
either of us."

"That's true," she sighed. "In some ways she's bigger and stronger than
both of us. Sometimes I wish she were not so self-reliant."

"Well, that's the way life is, sometimes, and I reckon there's nothin'
left for you an' me but to draw closer together and try to fill up the
empty place she's going to leave between us."




XIV

THE SUMMONS


When Wayland caught the startled look on Berrie's face he knew that she
had learned from her father the contents of his telegram, and that she
would require an explanation.

"Are you going away?" she asked.

"Yes. At least, I must go down to Denver to see my father. I shall be
gone only over night."

"And will you tell him about our trip?" she pursued, with unflinching
directness. "And about--me?"

He gave her a chair, and took a seat himself before replying. "Yes, I
shall tell him all about it, and about you and your father and mother. He
shall know how kind you've all been to me."

He said this bravely, and at the moment he meant it; but as his father's
big, impassive face and cold, keen eyes came back to him his courage
sank, and in spite of his firm resolution some part of his secret anxiety
communicated itself to the girl, who asked many questions, with intent to
find out more particularly what kind of man the elder Norcross was.

Wayland's replies did not entirely reassure her. He admitted that his
father was harsh and domineering in character, and that he was ambitious
to have his son take up and carry forward his work. "He was willing
enough to have me go to college till he found I was specializing on wrong
lines. Then I had to fight in order to keep my place. He's glad I'm out
here, for he thinks I'm regaining my strength. But just as soon as I'm
well enough he expects me to go to Chicago and take charge of the Western
office. Of course, I don't want to do that. I'd rather work out some
problem in chemistry that interests me; but I may have to give in, for a
time at least."

"Will your mother and sisters be with your father?"

"No, indeed! You couldn't get any one of them west of the Hudson River
with a log-chain. My sisters were both born in Michigan, but they want to
forget it--they pretend they have forgotten it. They both have
New-Yorkitis. Nothing but the Plaza will do them now."

"I suppose they think we're all 'Injuns' out here?"

"Oh no, not so bad as that; but they wouldn't comprehend anything about
you except your muscle. That would catch 'em. They'd worship your
splendid health, just as I do. It's pitiful the way they both try to put
on weight. They're always testing some new food, some new tonic--they'll
do anything except exercise regularly and go to bed at ten o'clock."

All that he said of his family deepened her dismay. Their interests were
so alien to her own.

"I'm afraid to have you go even for a day," she admitted, with simple
honesty, which moved him deeply. "I don't know what I should do if you
went away. I think of nothing but you now."

Her face was pitiful, and he put his arm about her neck as if she were a
child. "You mustn't do that. You must go on with your life just as if I'd
never been. Think of your father's job--of the forest and the ranch."

"I can't do it. I've lost interest in the service. I never want to go
into the high country again, and I don't want you to go, either. It's too
savage and cruel."

"That is only a mood," he said, confidently. "It is splendid up there. I
shall certainly go back some time."

He could not divine, and she could not tell him, how poignantly she had
sensed the menace of the cold and darkness during his illness. For the
first time in her life she had realized to the full the unrelenting
enmity of the clouds, the wind, the night; and during that interminable
ride toward home, when she saw him bending lower and lower over his
saddle-bow, her allegiance to the trail, her devotion to the stirrup was
broken. His weariness and pain had changed the universe for her. Never
again would she look upon the range with the eyes of the care-free girl.
The other, the civilized, the domestic, side of her was now dominant. A
new desire, a bigger aspiration, had taken possession of her.

Little by little he realized this change in her, and was touched with the
wonder of it. He had never had any great self-love either as man or
scholar, and the thought of this fine, self-sufficient womanly soul
centering all its interests on him was humbling. Each moment his
responsibility deepened, and he heard her voice but dimly as she went
on.

"Of course we are not rich; but we are not poor, and my mother's family
is one of the oldest in Kentucky." She uttered this with a touch of her
mother's quiet dignity. "Your father need not despise us."

"So far as my father is concerned, family don't count, and neither does
money. But he confidently expects me to take up his business in Chicago,
and I suppose it is my duty to do so. If he finds me looking fit he may
order me into the ranks at once."

"I'll go there--I'll do anything you want me to do," she urged. "You can
tell your father that I'll help you in the office. I can learn. I'm ready
to use a typewriter--anything."

He was silent in the face of her naive expression of self-sacrificing
love, and after a moment she added, hesitatingly: "I wish I could meet
your father. Perhaps he'd come up here if you asked him to do so?"

He seized upon the suggestion. "By George! I believe he would. I don't
want to go to town. I just believe I'll wire him that I'm laid up here
and can't come." Then a shade of new trouble came over his face. How
would the stern, methodical old business man regard this slovenly ranch
and its primitive ways? She felt the question in his face.

"You're afraid to have him come," she said, with the same disconcerting
penetration which had marked every moment of her interview thus far.
"You're afraid he wouldn't like me?"

With almost equal frankness he replied: "No. I think he'd like _you_, but
this town and the people up here would gall him. Order is a religion with
him. Then he's got a vicious slant against all this conservation
business--calls it tommy-rot. He and your father might lock horns first
crack out of the box. But I'll risk it. I'll wire him at once."

A knock at the door interrupted him, and Mrs. McFarlane's voice, filled
with new excitement, called out: "Berrie, the District office is on the
wire."

Berrie opened the door and confronted her mother, who said: "Mr. Evingham
'phones that the afternoon papers contain an account of a fight at Coal
City between Settle and one of Alec Belden's men, and that the District
Forester is coming down to investigate it."

"Let him come," answered Berrie, defiantly. "He can't do us any harm.
What was the row about?"

"I didn't hear much of it. Your father was at the 'phone."

McFarlane, with the receiver to his ear, was saying: "Don't know a thing
about it, Mr. Evingham. Settle was at the station when I left. I didn't
know he was going down to Coal City. No, that's a mistake. My daughter
was never engaged to Alec Belden. Alec Belden is the older of the
brothers, and is married. I can't go into that just now. If you come down
I'll explain fully."

He hung up the receiver and slowly turned toward his wife and daughter.
"This sure is our day of trouble," he said, with dejected countenance.

"What is it all about?" asked Berrie.

"Why, it seems that after I left yesterday Settle rode down the valley
with Belden's outfit, and they all got to drinking, ending in a row, and
Tony beat one of Belden's men almost to death. The sheriff has gone over
to get Tony, and the Beldens declare they're going to railroad him. That
means we'll all be brought into it. Belden has seized the moment to
prefer charges against me for keeping Settle in the service and for
putting a non-resident on the roll as guard. The whelp will dig up
everything he can to queer me with the office. All that kept him from
doing it before was Cliff's interest in you."

"He can't make any of his charges stick," declared Berrie.

"Of course he can't. He knows that. But he can bring us all into court.
You and Mr. Norcross will both be called as witnesses, for it seems that
Tony was defending your name. The papers call it 'a fight for a girl.'
Oh, it's a sweet mess."

For the first time Berrie betrayed alarm. "What shall we do? I can't go
on the stand! They can't make me do that, can they?" She turned to
Wayland. "Now you _must_ go away. It is a shame to have you mixed up in
such a trial."

"I shall not run away and leave you and the Supervisor to bear all the
burden of this fight."

He anticipated in imagination--as they all did--some of the consequences
of this trial. The entire story of the camping trip would be dragged in,
distorted into a scandal, and flashed over the country as a disgraceful
episode. The country would ring with laughter and coarse jest. Berrie's
testimony would be a feast for court-room loafers.

"There's only one thing to do," said McFarlane, after a few moments of
thought. "You and Berrie and Mrs. McFarlane must get out of here before
you are subpoenaed."

"And leave you to fight it out alone?" exclaimed his wife. "I shall do
nothing of the kind. Berrie and Mr. Norcross can go."

"That won't do," retorted McFarlane, quickly. "That won't do at all. You
must go with them. I can take care of myself. I will not have you dragged
into this muck-hole. We've got to think quick and act quick. There won't
be any delay about their side of the game. I don't think they'll do
anything to-day; but you've got to fade out of the valley. You all get
ready and I'll have one of the boys hook up the surrey as if for a little
drive, and you can pull out over the old stage-road to Flume and catch
the narrow-gage morning train for Denver. You've been wanting for some
time to go down the line. Now here's a good time to start."

Berrie now argued against running away. Her blood was up. She joined her
mother. "We won't leave you to inherit all this trouble. Who will look
after the ranch? Who will keep house for you?"

McFarlane remained firm. "I'll manage. Don't worry about me. Just get out
of reach. The more I consider this thing, the more worrisome it gets.
Suppose Cliff should come back to testify?"

"He won't. If he does I'll have him arrested for trying to kill Wayland,"
retorted Berrie.

"And make the whole thing worse! No. You are all going to cross the
range. You can start out as if for a little turn round the valley, and
just naturally keep going. It can't do any harm, and it may save a nasty
time in court."

"One would think we were a lot of criminals," remarked Wayland.

"That's the way you'll be treated," retorted McFarlane. "Belden has
retained old Whitby, the foulest old brute in the business, and he'll
bring you all into it if he can."

"But running away from it will not prevent talk," argued his wife.

"Not entirely; but talk and testimony are two different things. Suppose
they call daughter to the stand? Do you want her cross-examined as to
what basis there was for this gossip? They know something of Cliff's
being let out, and that will inflame them. He may be at the mill this
minute."

"I guess you're right," said Norcross, sadly. "Our delightful excursion
into the forest has led us into a predicament from which there is only
one way of escape, and that is flight."

Back of all this talk, this argument, there remained still unanswered the
most vital, most important question: "Shall I speak of marriage at this
time? Would it be a source of comfort to them as well as a joy to her?"
At the moment he was ready to speak, for he felt himself to be the direct
cause of all their embarrassment. But closer thought made it clear that a
hasty ceremony would only be considered a cloak to cover something
illicit. "I'll leave it to the future," he decided.

McFarlane was again called to the telephone. Landon, with characteristic
brevity, conveyed to him the fact that Mrs. Belden was at home and busily
'phoning scandalous stories about the country. "If you don't stop her
she's going to poison every ear in the valley," ended the ranger.

"You'd think they'd all know my daughter well enough not to believe
anything Mrs. Belden says," responded McFarlane, bitterly.

"All the boys are ready to do what Tony did. But nobody can stop this old
fool's mouth but you. Cliff has disappeared, and that adds to the
excitement."

"Thank the boys for me," said McFarlane, "and tell them not to fight.
Tell 'em to keep cool. It will all be cleared up soon."

As McFarlane went out to order the horses hooked up, Wayland followed him
as far as the bars. "I'm conscience-smitten over this thing, Supervisor,
for I am aware that I am the cause of all your trouble."

"Don't let that worry you," responded the older man. But he spoke with
effort. "It can't be helped. It was all unavoidable."

"The most appalling thing to me is the fact that not even your daughter's
popularity can neutralize the gossip of a woman like Mrs. Belden. My
being an outsider counts against Berrie, and I'm ready to do
anything--anything," he repeated, earnestly. "I love your daughter, Mr.
McFarlane, and I'm ready to marry her at once if you think best. She's a
noble girl, and I cannot bear to be the cause of her calumniation."

There was mist in the Supervisor's eyes as he turned them on the young
man. "I'm right glad to hear you say that, my boy." He reached out his
hand, and Wayland took it. "I knew you'd say the word when the time came.
I didn't know how strongly she felt toward you till to-day. I knew she
liked you, of course, for she said so, but I didn't know that she had
plum set her heart on you. I didn't expect her to marry a city man;
but--I like you and--well, she's the doctor! What suits her suits me.
Don't you be afraid of her not meeting all comers." He went on after a
pause, "She's never seen much of city life, but she'll hold her own
anywhere, you can gamble on that."

"She has wonderful adaptability, I know," answered Wayland, slowly. "But
I don't like to take her away from here--from you."

"If you hadn't come she would have married Cliff--and what kind of a life
would she have led with him?" demanded McFarlane. "I knew Cliff was
rough, but I couldn't convince her that he was cheap. I live only for her
happiness, my boy, and, though I know you will take her away from me, I
believe you can make her happy, and so--I give her over to you. As to
time and place, arrange that--with--her mother." He turned and walked
away, unable to utter another word.

Wayland's throat was aching also, and he went back into the house with a
sense of responsibility which exalted him into sturdier manhood.

Berea met him in a pretty gown, a dress he had never seen her wear, a
costume which transformed her into something entirely feminine.

She seemed to have put away the self-reliant manner of the trail, and in
its stead presented the lambent gaze, the tremulous lips of the bride. As
he looked at her thus transfigured his heart cast out its hesitancy and
he entered upon his new adventure without further question or regret.




XV

A MATTER OF MILLINERY


It was three o'clock of a fine, clear, golden afternoon as they said
good-by to McFarlane and started eastward, as if for a little drive.
Berrie held the reins in spite of Wayland's protestations. "These
bronchos are only about half busted," she said. "They need watching. I
know them better than you do." Therefore he submitted, well knowing that
she was entirely competent and fully informed.

Mrs. McFarlane, while looking back at her husband, sadly exclaimed: "I
feel like a coward running away like this."

"Forget it, mother," commanded her daughter, cheerily. "Just imagine
we're off for a short vacation. I'm for going clear through to Chicago.
So long as we _must_ go, let's go whooping. Father's better off without
us."

Her voice was gay, her eyes shining, and Wayland saw her as she had been
that first day in the coach--the care-free, laughing girl. The trouble
they were fleeing from was less real to her than the happiness toward
which she rode.

Her hand on the reins, her foot on the brake, brought back her
confidence; but Wayland did not feel so sure of his part in the
adventure. She seemed so unalterably a part of this life, so fitted to
this landscape, that the thought of transplanting her to the East brought
uneasiness and question. Could such a creature of the open air be content
with the walls of a city?

For several miles the road ran over the level floor of the valley, and
she urged the team to full speed. "I don't want to meet anybody if I can
help it. Once we reach the old stage route the chances of being scouted
are few. Nobody uses that road since the broad-gauge reached Cragg's."

Mrs. McFarlane could not rid herself of the resentment with which she
suffered this enforced departure; but she had small opportunity to
protest, for the wagon bumped and clattered over the stony stretches with
a motion which confused as well as silenced her. It was all so
humiliating, so unlike the position which she had imagined herself to
have attained in the eyes of her neighbors. Furthermore, she was going
away without a trunk, with only one small bag for herself and
Berrie--running away like a criminal from an intangible foe. However, she
was somewhat comforted by the gaiety of the young people before her. They
were indeed jocund as jaybirds. With the resiliency of youth they had
accepted the situation, and were making the best of it.

"Here comes somebody," called Berrie, pulling her ponies to a walk.
"Throw a blanket over that valise." She was chuckling as if it were all a
good joke. "It's old Jake Proudfoot. I can smell him. Now hang on. I'm
going to pass him on the jump."

Wayland, who was riding with his hat in his hand because he could not
make it cover his bump, held it up as if to keep the wind from his face,
and so defeated the round-eyed, owl-like stare of the inquisitive
rancher, who brought his team to a full stop in order to peer after them,
muttering in a stupor of resentment and surprise.

"He'll worry himself sick over us," predicted Berrie. "He'll wonder where
we're going and what was under that blanket till the end of summer. He is
as curious as a fool hen."

A few minutes more and they were at the fork in the way, and, leaving the
trail to Cragg's, the girl pulled into the grass-grown, less-traveled
trail to the south, which entered the timber at this point and began to
climb with steady grade. Letting the reins fall slack, she turned to her
mother with reassuring words. "There! Now we're safe. We won't meet
anybody on this road except possibly a mover's outfit. We're in the
forest again," she added.

For two hours they crawled slowly upward, with a roaring stream on one
side and the pine-covered <DW72>s on the other. Jays and camp-birds called
from the trees. Water-robins fluttered from rock to rock in the foaming
flood. Squirrels and minute chipmunks raced across the fallen tree-trunks
or clattered from great boulders, and in the peace and order and beauty
of the forest they all recovered a serener outlook on the noisome tumult
they were leaving behind them. Invisible as well as inaudible, the
serpent of slander lost its terror.

Once, as they paused to rest the horses, Wayland said: "It is hard to
realize that down in that ethereal valley people like old Jake and Mrs.
Belden have their dwelling-place."

This moved Mrs. McFarlane to admit that it might all turn out a blessing
in disguise. "Mr. McFarlane may resign and move to Denver, as I've long
wanted him to do."

"I wish he would," exclaimed Berrie, fervently. "It's time you had a
rest. Daddy will hate to quit under fire, but he'd better do it."

Peak by peak the Bear Tooth Range rose behind them, while before them the
smooth, grassy <DW72>s of the pass told that they were nearing
timber-line. The air was chill, the sun was hidden by old Solidor, and
the stream had diminished to a silent rill winding among sear grass and
yellowed willows. The valley behind them was vague with mist. The
southern boundary of the forest was in sight.

At last the topmost looming crags of the Continental Divide cut the
sky-line, and then in the smooth hollow between two rounded grassy
summits Berrie halted, and they all silently contemplated the two worlds.
To the west and north lay an endless spread of mountains, wave on wave,
snow-lined, savage, sullen in the dying light; while to the east and
southeast the foot-hills faded into the plain, whose dim cities,
insubstantial as flecks in a veil of violet mist, were hardly
distinguishable without the aid of glasses.

To the girl there was something splendid, something heroical in that
majestic, menacing landscape to the west. In one of its folds she had
begun her life. In another she had grown to womanhood and self-confident
power. The rough men, the coarse, ungainly women of that land seemed less
hateful now that she was leaving them, perhaps forever, and a confused
memory of the many splendid dawns and purple sunsets she had loved filled
her thought.

Wayland, divining some part of what was moving in her mind, cheerily
remarked, "Yes, it's a splendid place for a summer vacation, but a stern
place in winter-time, and for a lifelong residence it is not inspiring."

Mrs. McFarlane agreed with him in this estimate. "It _is_ terribly
lonesome in there at times. I've had enough of it. I'm ready for the
comforts of civilization."

Berrie turned in her seat, and was about to take up the reins when
Wayland asserted himself. "Wait a moment. Here's where my dominion
begins. Here's where you change seats with me. I am the driver now."

She looked at him with questioning, smiling glance. "Can you drive? It's
all the way down-hill--and steep?"

"If I can't I'll ask your aid. I'm old enough to remember the family
carriage. I've even driven a four-in-hand."

She surrendered her seat doubtfully, and smiled to see him take up the
reins as if he were starting a four-horse coach. He proved adequate and
careful, and she was proud of him as, with foot on the brake and the
bronchos well in hand, he swung down the long looping road to the
railway. She was pleased, too, by his care of the weary animals, easing
them down the steepest <DW72>s and sending them along on the comparatively
level spots.

Their descent was rapid, but it was long after dark before they reached
Flume, which lay up the valley to the right. It was a poor little
decaying mining-town set against the hillside, and had but one hotel, a
sun-warped and sagging pine building just above the station.

"Not much like the Profile House," said Wayland, as he drew up to the
porch. "But I see no choice."

"There isn't any," Berrie assured him.

"Well, now," he went on, "I am in command of this expedition. From this
on I lead this outfit. When it comes to hotels, railways, and the like o'
that, I'm head ranger."

Mrs. McFarlane, tired, hungry, and a little dismayed, accepted his
control gladly; but Berrie could not at once slip aside her
responsibility. "Tell the hostler--"

"Not a word!" commanded Norcross; and the girl with a smile submitted to
his guidance, and thereafter his efficiency, his self-possession, his
tact delighted her. He persuaded the sullen landlady to get them supper.
He secured the best rooms in the house, and arranged for the care of the
team, and when they were all seated around the dim, fly-specked oil-lamp
at the end of the crumby dining-room table he discovered such a gay and
confident mien that the women looked at each other in surprise.

Berrie was correspondingly less masculine. In drawing off her buckskin
driving-gloves she had put away the cowgirl, and was silent, a little sad
even, in the midst of her enjoyment of his dictatorship. And when he
said, "If my father reaches Denver in time I want you to meet him," she
looked the dismay she felt.

"I'll do it--but I'm scared of him."

"You needn't be. I'll see him first and draw his fire."

Mrs. McFarlane interposed. "We must do a little shopping first. We can't
meet your father as we are."

"Very well. I'll go with you if you'll let me. I'm a great little
shopper. I have infallible taste, so my sisters say. If it's a case of
buying new hats, for instance, I'm the final authority with them." This
amused Berrie, but her mother took it seriously.

"Of course, I'm anxious to have my daughter make the best possible
impression."

"Very well. It is arranged. We get in, I find, about noon. We'll go
straight to the biggest shop in town. If we work with speed we'll be able
to lunch with my father. He'll be at the Palmer House at one."

Berrie said nothing, either in acceptance or rejection of his plan. Her
mind was concerned with new conceptions, new relationships, and when in
the hall he took her face between his hands and said, "Cheer up! All is
not lost," she put her arms about his neck and laid her cheek against his
breast to hide her tears. "Oh, Wayland! I'm such an idiot in the city.
I'm afraid your father will despise me."

What he said was not very cogent, and not in the least literary, but it
was reassuring and lover-like, and when he turned her over to her mother
she was composed, though unwontedly grave.

She woke to a new life next morning--a life of compliance, of following,
of dependence upon the judgment of another. She stood in silence while
her lover paid the bills, bought the tickets, and telegraphed their
coming to his father. She acquiesced when he prevented her mother from
telephoning to the ranch. She complied when he countermanded her order to
have the team sent back at once. His judgment ruled, and she enjoyed her
sudden freedom from responsibility. It was novel, and it was very sweet
to think that she was being cared for as she had cared for and shielded
him in the world of the trail.

In the little railway-coach, which held a score of passengers, she found
herself among some Eastern travelers who had taken the trip up the Valley
of the Flume in the full belief that they were piercing the heart of the
Rocky Mountains! It amused Wayland almost as much as it amused Berrie
when one man said to his wife:

"Well, I'm glad we've seen the Rockies."

"He really believes it!" exclaimed Norcross.

After an hour's ride Wayland tactfully withdrew, leaving mother and
daughter to discuss clothes undisturbed by his presence.

"We must look our best, honey," said Mrs. McFarlane. "We will go right to
Mme. Crosby at Battle's, and she'll fit us out. I wish we had more time;
but we haven't, so we must do the best we can."

"I want Wayland to choose my hat and traveling-suit," replied Berrie.

"Of course. But you've got to have a lot of other things besides." And
they bent to the joyous work of making out a list of goods to be
purchased as soon as they reached Chicago.

Wayland came back with a Denver paper in his hand and a look of disgust
on his face. "It's all in here--at least, the outlines of it."

Berrie took the journal, and there read the details of Settle's assault
upon the foreman. "The fight arose from a remark concerning the Forest
Supervisor's daughter. Ranger Settle resented the gossip, and fell upon
the other man, beating him with the butt of his revolver. Friends of the
foreman claim that the ranger is a drunken bully, and should have been
discharged long ago. The Supervisor for some mysterious reason retains
this man, although he is an incompetent. It is also claimed that
McFarlane put a man on the roll without examination." The Supervisor was
the protagonist of the play, which was plainly political. The attack upon
him was bitter and unjust, and Mrs. McFarlane again declared her
intention of returning to help him in his fight. However, Wayland again
proved to her that her presence would only embarrass the Supervisor. "You
would not aid him in the slightest degree. Nash and Landon are with him,
and will refute all these charges."

This newspaper story took the light out of their day and the smile from
Berrie's lips, and the women entered the city silent and distressed in
spite of the efforts of their young guide. The nearer the girl came to
the ordeal of facing the elder Norcross, the more she feared the outcome;
but Wayland kept his air of easy confidence, and drove them directly to
the shopping center, believing that under the influence of hats and
gloves they would regain their customary cheer.

In this he was largely justified. They had a delightful hour trying on
millinery and coats and gloves. The forewoman, who knew Mrs. McFarlane,
gladly accepted her commission, and, while suspecting the tender
relationship between the girl and the man, she was tactful enough to
conceal her suspicion. "The gentleman is right; you carry simple things
best," she remarked to Berrie, thus showing her own good judgment.
"Smartly tailored gray or blue suits are your style."

Silent, blushing, tousled by the hands of her decorators, Berrie
permitted hats to be perched on her head and jackets buttoned and
unbuttoned about her shoulders till she felt like a worn clothes-horse.
Wayland beamed with delight, but she was far less satisfied than he; and
when at last selection was made, she still had her doubts, not of the
clothes, but of her ability to wear them. They seemed so alien to her, so
restrictive and enslaving.

"You're an easy fitter," said the saleswoman. "But"--here she lowered her
voice--"you need a new corset. This old one is out of date. Nobody is
wearing hips now."

Thereupon Berrie meekly permitted herself to be led away to a
torture-room. Wayland waited patiently, and when she reappeared all
traces of Bear Tooth Forest had vanished. In a neat tailored suit and a
very "chic" hat, with shoes, gloves, and stockings to match, she was so
transformed, so charmingly girlish in her self-conscious glory, that he
was tempted to embrace her in the presence of the saleswoman. But he
didn't. He merely said: "I see the governor's finish! Let's go to lunch.
You are stunning!"

"I don't know myself," responded Berrie. "The only thing that feels
natural is my hand. They cinched me so tight I can't eat a thing, and my
shoes hurt." She laughed as she said this, for her use of the vernacular
was conscious. "I'm a fraud. Your father will spot my brand first shot.
Look at my face--red as a saddle!"

"Don't let that trouble you. This is the time of year when tan is
fashionable. Don't you be afraid of the governor. Just smile at him, give
him your grip, and he'll melt."

"I'm the one to melt. I'm beginning now."

"I know how you feel, but you'll get used to the conventional
boiler-plate and all the rest of it. We all groan and growl when we come
back to it each autumn; but it's a part of being civilized, and we
submit."

Notwithstanding his confident advice, Wayland led the two silent and
inwardly dismayed women into the showy cafe of the hotel with some degree
of personal apprehension concerning the approaching interview with his
father. Of course, he did not permit this to appear in the slightest
degree. On the contrary, he gaily ordered a choice lunch, and did his
best to keep his companions from sinking into deeper depression.

It pleased him to observe the admiring glances which were turned upon
Berrie, whose hat became her mightily, and, leaning over, he said in a
low voice to Mrs. McFarlane: "Who is the lovely young lady opposite?
Won't you introduce me?"

This rejoiced the mother almost as much as it pleased the daughter, and
she answered, "She looks like one of the Radburns of Lexington, but I
think she's from Louisville."

This little play being over, he said, "Now, while our order is coming
I'll run out to the desk and see if the governor has come in or not."




XVI

THE PRIVATE CAR


After he went away Berrie turned to her mother with a look in which humor
and awe were blent. "Am I dreaming, mother, or am I actually sitting here
in the city? My head is dizzy with it all." Then, without waiting for an
answer, she fervently added: "Isn't he fine! I'm the tenderfoot now. I
hope his father won't despise me."

With justifiable pride in her child, the mother replied: "He can't help
liking you, honey. You look exactly like your grandmother at this moment.
Meet Mr. Norcross in her spirit."

"I'll try; but I feel like a woodchuck out of his hole."

Mrs. McFarlane continued: "I'm glad we were forced out of the valley. You
might have been shut in there all your life as I have been with your
father."

"You don't blame father, do you?"

"Not entirely. And yet he always was rather easy-going, and you know how
untidy the ranch is. He's always been kindness and sympathy itself; but
his lack of order is a cross. Perhaps now he will resign, rent the ranch,
and move over here. I should like to live in the city for a while, and
I'd like to travel a little."

"Wouldn't it be fine if you could! You could live at this hotel if you
wanted to. Yes, you're right. You need a rest from the ranch and
dish-washing."

Wayland returned with an increase of tension in his face.

"He's here! I've sent word saying, 'I am lunching in the cafe with
ladies.' I think he'll come round. But don't be afraid of him. He's a
good deal rougher on the outside than he is at heart. Of course, he's a
bluff old business man, and not at all pretty, and he'll transfix you
with a kind of estimating glare as if you were a tree; but he's actually
very easy to manage if you know how to handle him. Now, I'm not going to
try to explain everything to him at the beginning. I'm going to introduce
him to you in a casual kind of way and give him time to take to you both.
He forms his likes and dislikes very quickly."

"What if he don't like us?" inquired Berrie, with troubled brow.

"He can't help it." His tone was so positive that her eyes misted with
happiness. "But here comes our food. I hope you aren't too nervous to
eat. Here is where I shine as provider. This is the kind of camp fare I
can recommend."

Berrie's healthy appetite rose above her apprehension, and she ate with
the keen enjoyment of a child, and her mother said, "It surely is a treat
to get a chance at somebody else's cooking."

"Don't you slander your home fare," warned Wayland. "It's as good as
this, only different."

He sat where he could watch the door, and despite his jocund pose his
eyes expressed growing impatience and some anxiety. They were all well
into their dessert before he called out: "Here he is!"

Mrs. McFarlane could not see the new-comer from where she sat, but Berrie
rose in great excitement as a heavy-set, full-faced man with short, gray
mustache and high, smooth brow entered the room. He did not smile as he
greeted his son, and his penetrating glance questioned even before he
spoke. He seemed to silently ask: "Well, what's all this? How do you
happen to be here? Who are these women?"

Wayland said: "Mrs. McFarlane, this is my father. Father, this is Miss
Berea McFarlane, of Bear Tooth Springs."

The elder Norcross shook hands with Mrs. McFarlane politely, coldly; but
he betrayed surprise as Berea took his fingers in her grip. At his son's
solicitation he accepted a seat opposite Berea, but refused dessert.

Wayland explained: "Mrs. McFarlane and her daughter quite saved my life
over in the valley. Their ranch is the best health resort in Colorado."

"Your complexion indicates that," his father responded, dryly. "You look
something the way a man of your age ought to look. I needn't ask how
you're feeling."

"You needn't, but you may. I'm feeling like a new fiddle--barring a
bruise at the back of my head, which makes a 'hard hat' a burden. I may
as well tell you first off that Mrs. McFarlane is the wife of the Forest
Supervisor at Bear Tooth, and Miss Berea is the able assistant of her
father. We are all rank conservationists."

Norcross, Senior, examined Berrie precisely as if his eyes were a couple
of X-ray tubes, and as she flushed under his slow scrutiny he said: "I
was not expecting to find the Forest Service in such hands."

Wayland laughed.

"I hope you didn't mash his fingers, Berrie."

She smiled guiltily. "I'm afraid I did. I hope I didn't hurt
you--sometimes I forget."

Norcross, Senior, was waking up. "You have a most extraordinary grip.
What did it? Piano practice?"

Wayland grinned. "Piano! No--the cinch."

"The what?"

Wayland explained. "Miss McFarlane was brought up on a ranch. She can
rope and tie a steer, saddle her own horse, pack an outfit, and all the
rest of it."

"Oh! Kind of cowgirl, eh?"

Mrs. McFarlane, eager to put Berrie's better part forward, explained:
"She's our only child, Mr. Norcross, and as such has been a constant
companion to her father. She's not all cow-hand. She's been to school,
and she can cook and sew as well."

He looked from one to the other. "Neither of you correspond exactly to my
notions of a forester's wife and daughter."

"Mrs. McFarlane comes from an old Kentucky family, father. Her
grandfather helped to found a college down there."

Wayland's anxious desire to create a favorable impression of the women
did not escape the lumberman, but his face remained quite expressionless
as he replied:

"If the life of a cow-hand would give you the vigor this young lady
appears to possess, I'm not sure but you'd better stick to it."

Wayland and the two women exchanged glances of relief.

"Why not tell him now?" they seemed to ask. But he said: "There's a long
story to tell before we decide on my career. Let's finish our lunch. How
is mother, and how are the girls?"

Once, in the midst of a lame pursuit of other topics, the elder Norcross
again fixed his eyes on Berea, saying: "I wish my girls had your weight
and color." He paused a moment, then resumed with weary infliction: "Mrs.
Norcross has always been delicate, and all her children--even her
son--take after her. I've maintained a private and very expensive
hospital for nearly thirty years."

This regretful note in his father's voice gave Wayland confidence. His
spirits rose.

"Come, let's adjourn to the parlor and talk things over at our ease."

They all followed him, and after showing the mother and daughter to their
seats near a window he drew his father into a corner, and in rapid
undertone related the story of his first meeting with Berrie, of his
trouble with young Belden, of his camping trip, minutely describing the
encounter on the mountainside, and ended by saying, with manly
directness: "I would be up there in the mountains in a box if Berrie had
not intervened. She's a noble girl, father, and is foolish enough to like
me, and I'm going to marry her and try to make her happy."

The old lumberman, who had listened intently all through this impassioned
story, displayed no sign of surprise at its closing declaration; but his
eyes explored his son's soul with calm abstraction. "Send her over to
me," he said, at last. "Marriage is a serious matter. I want to talk with
her--alone."

Wayland went back to the women with an air of victory. "He wants to see
you, Berrie. He's mellowing. Don't be afraid of him."

She might have resented the father's lack of gallantry; but she did not.
On the contrary, she rose and walked resolutely over to where he sat,
quite ready to defend herself. He did not rise to meet her, but she did
not count that against him, for there was nothing essentially rude in his
manner. He was merely her elder, and inert.

"Sit down," he said, not unkindly. "I want to have _you_ tell me about my
son. He has been telling me all about you. Now let's have your side of
the story."

She took a seat and faced him with eyes as steady as his own. "Where
shall I begin?" she bluntly challenged.

"He wants to marry you. Now, it seems to me that seven weeks is very
short acquaintance for a decision like that. Are you sure you want him?"

"Yes, sir; I am." Her answer was most decided.

His voice was slightly cynical as he went on. "But you were tolerably
sure about that other fellow--that rancher with the fancy name--weren't
you?" She flushed at this, but waited for him to go on. "Don't you think
it possible that your fancy for Wayland is also temporary?"

"No, sir!" she bravely declared. "I never felt toward any one the way I
do toward Wayland. He's different. I shall _never_ change toward him."

Her tone, her expression of eyes stopped this line of inquiry. He took up
another. "Now, my dear young lady, I am a business man as well as a
father, and the marriage of my son is a weighty matter. He is my main
dependence. I am hoping to have him take up and carry on my business. To
be quite candid, I didn't expect him to select his wife from a Colorado
ranch. I considered him out of the danger-zone. I have always understood
that women were scarce in the mountains. Now don't misunderstand me. I'm
not one of those fools who are always trying to marry their sons and
daughters into the ranks of the idle rich. I don't care a hang about
social position, and I've got money enough for my son and my son's wife.
But he's all the boy I have, and I don't want him to make a mistake."

"Neither do I," she answered, simply, her eyes suffused with tears. "If I
thought he would be sorry--"

He interrupted again. "Oh, you can't tell that now. Any marriage is a
risk. I don't say he's making a mistake in selecting you. You may be just
the woman he needs. Only I want to be consulted. I want to know more
about you. He tells me you have taken an active part in the management of
the ranch and the forest. Is that true?"

"I've always worked with my father--yes, sir."

"You like that kind of life?"

"I don't know much about any other kind. Yes, I like it. But I've had
enough of it. I'm willing to change."

"Well, how about city life--housekeeping and all that?"

"So long as I am with Wayland I sha'n't mind what I do or where I live."

"At the same time you figure he's going to have a large income, I
suppose? He's told you of his rich father, hasn't he?"

Berrie's tone was a shade resentful of his insinuation. "He has never
said much about his family one way or another. He only said you wanted
him to go into business in Chicago, and that he wanted to do something
else. Of course, I could see by his ways and the clothes he wore that
he'd been brought up in what we'd call luxury, but we never inquired into
his affairs."

"And you didn't care?"

"Well, not that, exactly. But money don't count for as much with us in
the valley as it does in the East. Wayland seemed so kind of sick and
lonesome, and I felt sorry for him the first time I saw him. I felt like
mothering him. And then his way of talking, of looking at things was so
new and beautiful to me I couldn't help caring for him. I had never met
any one like him. I thought he was a 'lunger'--"

"A what?"

"A consumptive; that is, I did at first. And it bothered me. It seemed
terrible that any one so fine should be condemned like that--and so--I
did all I could to help him, to make him happy. I thought he hadn't long
to live. Everything he said and did was wonderful to me, like poetry and
music. And then when he began to grow stronger and I saw that he was
going to get well, and Cliff went on the rampage and showed the yellow
streak, and I gave him back his ring--I didn't know even then how much
Wayland meant to me. But on our trip over the Range I understood. He
meant everything to me. He made Cliff seem like a savage, and I wanted
him to know it. I'm not ashamed of loving him. I want to make him happy,
and if he wishes me to be his wife I'll go anywhere he says--only I think
he should stay out here till he gets entirely well."

The old man's eyes softened during her plea, and at its close a slight
smile moved the corners of his mouth. "You've thought it all out, I see.
Your mind is clear and your conscience easy. Well, I like your spirit. I
guess he's right. The decision is up to you. But if he takes you and
stays in Colorado he can't expect me to share the profits of my business
with him, can he? He'll have to make his own way." He rose and held out
his hand. "However, I'm persuaded he's in good hands."

She took his hand, not knowing just what to reply. He examined her
fingers with intent gaze.

"I didn't know any woman could have such a grip." He thoughtfully took
her biceps in his left hand. "You are magnificent." Then, in ironical
protest, he added: "Good God, no! I can't have you come into my family.
You'd make caricatures of my wife and daughters. Are all the girls out in
the valley like you?"

She laughed. "No. Most of them pride themselves on _not_ being
horsewomen. Mighty few of 'em ever ride a horse. I'm a kind of a tomboy
to them."

"I'm sorry to hear that. It's the same old story. I suppose they'd all
like to live in the city and wear low-necked gowns and high-heeled shoes.
No, I can't consent to your marriage with my son. I must save you from
corruption. Go back to the ranch. I can see already signs of your
deterioration. Except for your color and that grip you already look like
upper Broadway. The next thing will be a slit skirt and a diamond
garter."

She flushed redly, conscious of her new corset, her silk stockings, and
her pinching shoes. "It's all on the outside," she declared. "Under this
toggery I'm the same old trailer. It don't take long to get rid of these
things. I'm just playing a part to-day--for you."

He smiled and dropped her hand. "No, no. You've said good-by to the
cinch, I can see that. You're on the road to opera boxes and limousines.
What is your plan? What would you advise Wayland to do if you knew I was
hard against his marrying you? Come, now, I can see you're a
clear-sighted individual. What can he do to earn a living? How will you
live without my aid? Have you figured on these things?"

"Yes; I'm going to ask my father to buy a ranch near here, where mother
can have more of the comforts of life, and where we can all live together
till Wayland is able to stand city life again. Then, if you want him to
go East, I will go with him."

They had moved slowly back toward the others, and as Wayland came to meet
them Norcross said, with dry humor: "I admire your lady of the cinch
hand. She seems to be a person of singular good nature and most uncommon
shrewd--"

Wayland, interrupting, caught at his father's hand and wrung it
frenziedly. "I'm glad--"

"Here! Here!" A look of pain covered the father's face. "That's the fist
she put in the press."

They all laughed at his joke, and then he gravely resumed. "I say I
admire her, but it's a shame to ask such a girl to marry an invalid like
you. Furthermore, I won't have her taken East. She'd bleach out and lose
that grip in a year. I won't have her contaminated by the city." He mused
deeply while looking at his son. "Would life on a wheat-ranch accessible
to this hotel by motor-car be endurable to you?"

"You mean with Berea?"

"If she'll go. Mind you, I don't advise her to do it!" he added,
interrupting his son's outcry. "I think she's taking all the chances." He
turned to Mrs. McFarlane. "I'm old-fashioned in my notions of marriage,
Mrs. McFarlane. I grew up when women were helpmates, such as, I judge,
you've been. Of course, it's all guesswork to me at the moment; but I
have an impression that my son has fallen into an unusual run of luck. As
I understand it, you're all out for a pleasure trip. Now, my private car
is over in the yards, and I suggest you all come along with me to
California--"

"Governor, you're a wonder!" exclaimed Wayland.

"That'll give us time to get better acquainted, and if we all like one
another just as well when we get back--well, we'll buy the best farm in
the North Platte and--"

"It's a cinch we get that ranch," interrupted Wayland, with a triumphant
glance at Berea.

"Don't be so sure of it!" replied the lumberman. "A private car, like a
yacht, is a terrible test of friendship." But his warning held no terrors
for the young lovers. They had entered upon certainties.

THE END






End of Project Gutenberg's The Forester's Daughter, by Hamlin Garland

*** 