Dorn Of The Mountains (10 page)

“Now, Roy, when old Al Auchincloss finds out about this deal, as he’s bound to when you or the boys get back to Pine, he’s goin’ to roar.”

“Do you reckon folks will side with him against Beasley?”

“Some of them. But Al like as not will tell folks to go where it’s hot. He’ll bunch his men an’ strike for the mountains to find his nieces.”

“Wal, all you’ve got to do is to keep the girls hid till I can guide him up to your camp. Or failin’ thet, till you can slip the girls down to Pine.”

“No one but you an’ your brothers ever seen my
parque
. But it could be found easy enough.”

“Anson might blunder on it. But thet ain’t likely.”

“Why ain’t it?”

“Because I’ll stick to thet sheep thief’s tracks like a wolf after a bleedin’ deer. An’ if he ever gets near your camp, I’ll ride in ahead of him.”

“Good,” declared Dorn. “I was calculatin’ you’d go down to Pine sooner or later.”

“Not unless Anson goes. I told John thet in case there was no fight on the stage to make a beeline back to Pine. He was to tell Al an’ offer his ser vices along with Joe an’ Hal.”

“One way or another then there’s bound to be blood spilled over this.”

“Shore! An’ high time. I jest hope I get a look down my old Forty-Four at thet Beasley.”

“In that case I hope you hold straighter than times I’ve seen you.”

“Milt Dorn, I’m a good shot,” declared Roy stoutly.

“You’re no good on movin’ targets.”

“Wal, mebbe so. But I’m not lookin’ for a movin’ target when I meet up with Beasley. I’m a hoss man, not a hunter. You’re used to shootin’ flies off deer’s horns, jest for practice.”

“Roy, can we make my camp by tomorrow night?” queried Dorn more seriously.

“We will if each of us has to carry one of the girls. But they’ll do it or die. Dorn, did you ever see a gamer girl than thet kid Bo?”

“Me! Where’d I ever see any girls?” ejaculated Dorn. “I remember some when I was a boy, but I was only fourteen then. Never had much use for girls.”

“I’d like to have a wife like thet Bo,” declared Roy fervidly.

There ensued a moment’s silence.

“Roy, you’re a Mormon an’ you already got a wife,” was Dorn’s reply.

“Now, Milt, have you lived so long in the woods thet you never heard of a Mormon with two wives?” retorted Roy, and then he laughed heartily.

“I never could stomach what I did hear pertainin’ to more than one wife for a man.”

“Wal, my friend, you go an’ get yourself
one
. An’ see then if you wouldn’t like to have
two
.”

“I reckon one’d be more than enough for Milt Dorn.”

“Milt, old man, let me tell you thet I always envied you your freedom,” said Roy earnestly. “But it ain’t life.”

“You mean life is love of a woman?”

“No. Thet’s only part. I mean a son…a boy thet’s like you…thet you feel will go on with your life after you’re gone.”

“The thought of that…thought it all out, watchin’ the birds an’ animals mate in the woods…. If I have no son, I’ll never live hereafter.”

“Wal,” replied Roy hesitatingly, “I don’t go in so deep as thet. I mean a son goes on with your blood an’ your work.”

“Exactly…. An’, Roy, I envy you what you’ve got, because it’s out of all bounds for Milt Dorn.”

Those words, sad and deep, ended the conversation. Again the rumbling, rushing stream dominated the forest. An owl
hooted
dismally. A horse trod thuddingly nearby and from that direction came a cutting tear of teeth on grass.

A voice pierced Helen’s deep dreams, and, awaking, she found Bo shaking and calling her.

“Are you dead?” came the gay voice.

“Almost. Oh, my back’s broken,” replied Helen. The desire to move seemed clamped in a vise, and, even if that came, she believed the effort would be impossible.

“Roy called us,” said Bo. “He said hurry. I thought I’d die just sitting up, and I’d give you a million dollars to lace my boots. Wait, Sister, till you try to pull on one of those stiff boots!”

With heroic and violent spirit Helen sat up to find that in the act her aches and pains appeared beyond number. Reaching for her boots, she found them cold and stiff. Helen unlaced one, opening it wide enough to get her sore foot down into it. But her foot appeared swollen and the boot appeared shrunken. She could not get it half on, although she expended what little strength seemed left to her aching arms. She groaned.

Bo laughed wickedly. Her hair was tousled, her eyes dancing, her cheeks red.

“Be game,” she said. “Stand up like a real Western girl and
pull
your boot on.”

Whether Bo’s scorn or her advice made the task easier did not occur to Helen, the fact was that she got into her boots. Walking and moving a little appeared to loosen the stiff joints and ease that tired feeling. The water of the stream where the girls washed was colder than any ice Helen had ever felt. It almost paralyzed her hands. Bo mumbled, and blew like a porpoise. They had to run to the fire before being able to comb their hair. The air was wonderfully keen. The dawn was clear, bright, with a red glow in the east where the sun was about to rise.

“All ready, girls?” called Roy. “Reckon you can help yourselves. Milt ain’t comin’ in very fast with the hosses. I’ll rustle off to help him. We’ve got a hard day before us. Yesterday wasn’t nowhere to what today’ll be.”

“But the sun’s going to shine!” implored Bo.

“Wal, you bet,” rejoined Roy as he strode off.

Helen and Bo ate breakfast fast and had the camp to themselves for perhaps half an hour, then the horses came
thudding
down with Dorn and Roy riding bareback.

By the time all was in readiness to start, the sun was up melting the frost and ice so that a dazzling bright mist full of rainbows shone under the trees.

Dorn looked Ranger over and tried the cinches of Bo’s horse. “What’s your choice…a long ride behind the packs with me…or a short cut over the hills with Roy?” he asked.

“I choose the lesser of two rides,” replied Helen, smiling.

“Reckon that’ll be easiest, but you’ll know you’ve had a ride,” said Dorn significantly.

“What was that we had yesterday?” asked Bo archly.

“Only thirty miles, but cold an’ wet. Today will be fine for ridin’?”

“Milt, I’ll take a blanket an’ some grub in case you don’t meet us to night,” said Roy. “An’ I reckon we’ll split up here where I’ll have to strike out in thet short cut.”

Bo mounted without a helping hand, but Helen’s limbs were so stiff that she could not get astride the high Ranger without assistance. The hunter headed up the slope of the cañon which on that side was not steep. It was brown pine forest with here and there a clump of dark silver-pointed evergreens that Roy called spruce. By the time this slope was surmounted, Helen’s aches were not so bad. The saddle appeared to fit her better and the gait of the horse was not so unfamiliar. She reflected, however, that she always had done pretty well uphill. Here it was beautiful forestland, uneven and wilder. They rode for a time along the rim, with the white rushing stream in plain sight far below, with its melodious roar ever thrumming in the ear.

Dorn reined in and peered down at the pine mat. “Fresh deer sign all along here,” he said, pointing.

“Wal, I seen thet long ago,” rejoined Roy.

Helen’s scrutiny was rewarded by descrying several tiny depressions in the pine needles, dark in color and sharply defined.

“We may never get a better chance,” said Dorn. “Those deer are workin’ up our way. Get your rifle out.”

Travel was resumed then, with Roy a little in advance of the pack train. Presently he dismounted, threw his bridle, and cautiously peered ahead. Then, turning, he waved his sombrero; the pack animals halted in a bunch. Dorn beckoned for the girls to follow and rode up to Roy’s horse. This point, Helen saw, was at the top of an intersecting cañon. Dorn dismounted, without drawing his rifle from its saddle sheath, and approached Roy.

“Buck an’ two deers,” he said, low-voiced. “An’ they’ve winded us, but don’t see us yet…. Girls, ride up closer.”

Following the direction indicated by Dorn’s long arm, Helen looked down the slope. It was open, tall pines here and there, and clumps of silver spruce, and aspens shining like gold in the morning sunlight. Presently Bo exclaimed: “Oh, look! I see! I see!” Then Helen’s roving glance passed something different from green and gold and brown. Shifting back to it, she saw a magnificent stag, with noble spreading antlers, standing like a statue, his head up in alert and wild posture. His color was gray. Beside him grazed two other deer of slighter and more graceful build, without horns.

“It’s downhill,” whispered Dorn. “An’ you’re goin’ to overshoot.”

Then Helen saw that Roy had his rifle leveled. “Oh, don’t!” she cried.

Dorn’s remark evidently nettled Roy. He lowered the rifle.

“Milt, it’s me lookin’ over this gun. How can you stand there an’ tell me I was goin’ to shoot high? I had a dead bead on him.”

“Boy, you didn’t allow for downhill…. Hurry. He’s seen us now.”

Roy leveled the rifle, and, taking aim as before, he fired. The buck stood perfectly motionless as if he had indeed been stone. The does, however, jumped with a start and gazed in fright in every direction.

“Told you! I seen where your bullet hit thet pine…half a foot over his shoulder. Try again an’ aim at his legs.”

Roy now took a quicker aim and pulled trigger. A puff of dust right at the feet of the buck showed where Roy’s lead had struck this time. With a single bound, wonderful to see, the big deer was out of sight behind trees and brush. The does leaped after him.

“Dog-gone the luck!” ejaculated Roy, red in the face, as he worked the lever of his rifle. “Never could shoot downhill no-how!”

His rueful apology to the girls for missing brought a merry laugh from Bo.

“Not for worlds would I have had you kill that beautiful deer!” she exclaimed.

“We won’t have venison steak off him, that’s certain,” remarked Dorn dryly. “An’ maybe none off any deer if Roy does the shootin’!”

They resumed travel, sheering off to the right, and keeping to the edge of the intersecting cañon. At length they rode down to the bottom where a tiny brook babbled through willows, and they followed this for a mile or so down to where it flowed into the larger stream. A dim trail overgrown with grass showed at this point.

“Here’s where we part,” said Dorn. “You’ll beat me into my camp, but I’ll get there sometime after dark.”

“Hey, Milt, I forgot about thet darned pet cougar of yours an’ the rest of your menagerie. Reckon they won’t scare the girls? Especially old Tom?”

“You won’t see Tom till I get home,” replied Dorn.

“Ain’t he corralled or tied up?”

“No. He has the run of the place.”

“Wal, good bye then an’ rustle along.”

Dorn nodded to the girls, and, turning his horse, he drove the pack train before him up the open space between the stream and the wooded slope.

Roy stepped off his horse with that single action that appeared such a feat to Helen.

“Guess I’d better cinch up,” he said as he threw a stirrup up over the pommel of his saddle. “You girls are goin’ to see wild country.”

“Who’s old Tom?” queried Bo curiously.

“Why, he’s Milt’s pet cougar.”

“Cougar? That’s a panther…a mountain lion, didn’t he say?”

“Shore is. Tom is a beauty. An’ if he takes a likin’ to you, he’ll love you, play with you, maul you half to death.”

Bo was all eyes. “Dorn has other pets, too?” she questioned eagerly.

“I never was up to his camp but what it was overrun with birds an’ squirrels an’ varmints of all kinds as tame…as tame as cows. Too darn’ tame, Milt says. But I can’t figger thet
parque
of his.”

“What’s a
parque?
” asked Helen as she shifted her foot to let him tighten the cinches on her saddle.

“Thet’s Mexican for park, I guess,” he replied. “These mountains are full of parks, an’, say, I don’t ever want to see no prettier places till I get to heaven…. There Ranger, old boy, thet’s tight.”

He slapped the horse affectionately, and, turning to his own, he stepped and swung his long length up.

“It ain’t deep crossin’ here. Come on!” he called, and spurred his bay.

The stream here was wide and it looked deep, but turned out to be deceptive.

“Wal, girls, here beginneth the second lesson,” he drawled cheerily. “Ride one behind the other…stick close to me…do what I do…an’ holler when you want to rest or if somethin’ goes bad.”

With that he spurred into the thicket. Bo went next, and Helen followed. The willows dragged at her so hard that she was unable to watch Roy, and the result was that a low-sweeping branch of a tree knocked her hard in the head. It hurt and startled her, and roused her mettle. Roy was keeping to the easy trot that covered ground so well, and he led up a slope to the open pine forest. Here the ride for several miles was straight, level, and open. Helen liked the forest today. It was brown and green, with patches of gold where the sun struck. She saw her first birds, big blue grouse that whirred up from under her horse, and little checkered gray quail that appeared awkward on the wing. Several times Roy pointed out deer flashing gray across some forest aisle, and often, when he pointed, Helen was not quick enough to see.

Helen realized that this ride would make up for the hideous one of yesterday. So far she had been only barely conscious of sore places and aching bones. These she would bear with. She loved the wild and the beautiful, both of which increased manifestly with every mile. The sun was warm, the air fragrant and cool, the sky blue as azure and so deep that she imagined she could look far up into it.

Suddenly Roy reined in so sharply that he pulled Bay up short. “Look!” he called sharply.

Bo screamed.

“Not thet way! Here!
Aw,
he’s gone.”

“Nell! It was a bear! I saw it. Oh, not like circus bears at all!”

Helen had missed her opportunity.

“Reckon he was a grizzly, an’ I’m just as well pleased thet he loped off,” said Roy. Altering his course somewhat, he led to an old rotten log that the bear had been digging in. “After grubs there…see his track. He was a whopper, shore enough.”