Dorn Of The Mountains (11 page)

They rode on, out to a high point that overlooked cañon and range, gorge and ridge, green and black as far as Helen could see. The ranges were bold and long, climbing to the central uplift where a number of fringed peaks raised their heads to the vast bare dome of Old Baldy. Far as vision could see to the right lay one rolling forest of pine, beautiful and serene. Somewhere down beyond must have lain the desert, but it was not in sight.

“I see turkeys way down there,” said Roy, backing away. “We’ll go down around an’ mebbe I’ll get a shot.”

Descent beyond a rocky point was made through thick brush. This slope consisted of wide benches covered with copses and scattered pines and many oaks. Helen was delighted to see the familiar trees, although these were different from Missouri oaks. Rugged and gnarled, but not tall, these trees spread wide branches, the leaves of which were yellowing. Roy led into a grassy glade, and, leaping off his horse, rifle in hand, he prepared to shoot at something. Again Bo cried out, but this time it was with delight. Then Helen saw an immense flock of turkeys, apparently like the turkeys she knew at home, but these had bronze and checks of white, and they looked wild. There must have been a hundred in the flock, most of them hens. A few gobblers on the far side began the flight, running swiftly off. Helen plainly heard the
thud
of their feet. Roy shot once—twice—three times. Then rose a great commotion and
thumping,
and a loud roar of many wings. Dust and leaves whirling in the air were left where the turkeys had been.

“Wal, I got two,” said Roy, and he strode forward to pick up his game. Returning, he tied two shiny plump gobblers back of his saddle and remounted his horse. “We’ll have turkey to night, if Milt gets to camp in time.”

The ride was resumed. Helen never would have tired riding through those oak groves, brown and sear and yellow, with leaves and acorns falling.

“Bears have been workin’ in here already,” said Roy. “I see tracks all over. They eat acorns in the fall. An’ mebbe we’ll run into one yet.”

The farther down he led the wilder and thicker grew the trees, so that dodging bunches was no light task. Ranger did not seem to care how close he passed a tree or under a limb, so that he missed them himself. But Helen thereby got some additional bruises. Particularly hard was it, when passing a tree, to get her knee out of the way in time.

Roy halted next at what appeared a large green pond full of vegetation and in places covered with a thick scum. But it had a current and an outlet, proving it to be a huge spring. Roy pointed down at a muddy place.

“Bear wallow. He heard us comin’. Look at thet little track. Cub track. An’ look at these scratches on this tree, higher’n my head. An old she-bear stood up an’ scratched them.” Roy sat his saddle and reached up to touch fresh marks on the tree. “Woods’s full of big bears,” he said, grinning. “An’ I take it particular kind of this old she rustlin’ off with her cub. She-bears with cubs are dangerous.”

The next place to stir Helen to enthusiasm was the glen at the bottom of this cañon. Beech trees, maples, aspens overtopped by lofty pines made dense shade over a brook where trout splashed in the brown swirling current and leaves drifted down, and stray flecks of golden sunlight lightened the gloom. Here was hard riding to and fro across the brook, between huge mossy boulders, and between aspens so close together that Helen could scarcely squeeze her knees through.

Once more Roy climbed, out of that cañon, over a ridge into another, down long wooded slopes and through scrub oak thickets, on and on till the sun stood straight overhead. Then he halted for a short rest, unsaddled the horses to let them roll, and gave the girls some cold lunch that he packed. He strolled off with his gun and, upon returning, resaddled and gave the word to start.

That was the last of rest and easy traveling for the girls. The forest that he struck into seemed ribbed like a washboard with deep ravines so steep of slope as to make precarious travel. Mostly he kept to the bottom where dry washes afforded a kind of trail. But it was necessary to cross those ravines when they were too long to be headed, and this crossing was work.

The locust thickets, characteristic of these slopes, were thorny and closely knit. They tore and scratched and stung both horses and riders. Ranger appeared to be the most intelligent of the horses and suffered less. Bo’s white mustang dragged her through more than one brambly place. On the other hand, some of these steep slopes were comparatively free of underbrush. Great firs and pines loomed up on all sides. The earth was soft and the hoofs sank deep. Toward the bottom of a descent Ranger would brace his front hoofs, and then slide down on his haunches. This mode facilitated travel, but it frightened Helen. The climb out, then, on the other side had to be done on foot.

After half a dozen slopes surmounted in this way Helen’s strength was spent and her breath was gone. She felt light-headed. She could not get enough air. Her feet felt like lead and her riding coat was a burden. A hundred times, hot and wet and throbbing, she was compelled to stop. Always she had been a splendid walker and climber. And here, to break up the long ride, she was glad to be on her feet. But she could only drag one foot up after the other. Then, when her nose began to bleed, she realized that it was the elevation that was causing all the trouble. Her heart, however, did not hurt her, although she was conscious of an oppression on her breast.

At length Roy led into a ravine so deep and wide and full of forest verdure that it appeared impossible to cross. Just the same he started down, after a little way dismounting. Helen found that leading Ranger down was worse than riding him. He came fast and he would step right in her tracks. She was not quick enough to get away from him. Twice he stepped on her foot and again his broad chest hit her shoulder and threw her flat. When he began to slide, near the bottom, Helen had to run for her life.

“Oh, Nell! Isn’t…this…great?” panted Bo from somewhere ahead.

“Bo…your…mind’s…gone,” panted Helen in reply.

Roy tried several places to climb out and failed in each. Leading down the ravine for 100 yards or more, he essayed another attempt. Here there had been a slide and in part the earth was bare. When he had worked up this, he halted above and called: “Bad place! Keep on the upside of the hosses!”

This appeared easier said than done. Helen could not watch Bo, because Ranger would not wait. He pulled at the bridle and snorted.

“Faster you come the better!” called Roy.

Helen could not see the sense of that, but she tried. Roy and Bo had dug a deep trail, zigzag, up that treacherous slide. Helen made the mistake of starting to follow in their tracks, and, when she realized this, Ranger was climbing fast, almost dragging her, and it was too late to get above. Helen began to labor. She slid down right in front of Ranger. The intelligent animal, with a snort, plunged out of the trail to keep from stepping on her. Then he was above her.

“Look out down there!” yelled Roy in warning. “Get on the upside!”

But that did not appear possible. The earth began to slide under Ranger and that impeded Helen’s progress. He got in advance of her, straining on the bridle.

“Let go!” yelled Roy.

Helen dropped the bridle just as a heavy slide began to move with Ranger. He snorted fiercely, and, rearing high in a mighty plunge, he gained solid ground. Helen was buried to her knees, but, extricating herself, she crawled to a safe point and rested before climbing farther.

“Bad cave-in thet,” was Roy’s comment, when at last she joined him and Bo at the top.

Roy appeared at a loss as to which way to go. He rode to high ground and looked in all directions. To Helen one way appeared as wild and rough as another, and all was yellow, green, and black under the westering sun. Roy rode a short distance in one direction, then changed for another.

Presently he stopped. “Wal, I’m shore turned around,” he said.

“You’re not lost?” cried Bo.

“Reckon I’ve been thet for a couple of hours,” he replied cheerfully. “Never did ride across here. I had the direction, but I’m blamed now if I can tell which way thet was.”

Helen gazed at him in consternation. “Lost!” she echoed.

A silence ensued, fraught with poignant fear for Helen, as she gazed into Bo’s whitening face. She read her sister’s mind. Bo was remembering tales of lost people who never were found.

“Me an’ Milt get lost every day,” said Roy. “You don’t suppose any man can know all this big country. It’s nothin’ for us to be lost.”

“Oh! I was lost when I was little,” said Bo.

“Wal, I reckon it’d been better not to tell you so offhand-like,” replied Roy contritely. “Don’t feel bad now. All I need is a peek at Old Baldy. Then I’ll have my bearin’. Come on.”

Helen’s confidence returned as Roy led off at a fast trot. He rode toward the westering sun, keeping to the ridge they had ascended until once more he came out upon a promontory. Old Baldy loomed there, blacker and higher and closer. The dark forest showed round yellow bare spots like parks.

“Not so far off the track,” said Roy as he wheeled his horse. “We’ll make camp in Milt’s
parque
to night.”

He led down off that ridge into a valley, and then up to higher altitude where the character of the forest changed. The trees were no longer pines, but fir and spruce, growing thin and exceedingly tall, with few branches below the topmost foliage. So dense was this forest that twilight seemed to have come.

Travel was arduous. Everywhere were windfalls that had to be avoided, and not a root was there without a fallen tree. The horses, laboring slowly, sometimes sank knee-deep into the brown duff. Gray moss festooned the tree trunks and an amber-green moss grew thickly on the rotting logs.

Helen loved this forest primeval. It was so still, so dark, so gloomy, so full of shadows and shade, and a dank smell of rotting wood and sweet fragrance of spruce. The great windfalls, where trees were jammed together in dozens, showed the savagery of the storms. Wherever a single monarch lay uprooted, there had sprung up a number of ambitious sons, jealous of each other, fighting for place. Even the trees fought each other. The forest was a place of mystery, but its strife could be read by any eye. Lightning had split firs clear to the roots, and others it had circled with ripping tear from top to trunk.

Time came, however, when the exceeding wildness of the forest, in density and fallen timber, made it imperative for Helen to put all her attention on ground and trees in her immediate vicinity. So the plea sure of gazing ahead at the beautiful wilderness was denied her. Thereafter travel became toil and the hours endless.

Roy led on and Ranger followed while the shadows darkened under the trees. She was reeling in her saddle, half blind and sick, when Roy called out cheerily that they were almost there.

What ever his idea was, to Helen it seemed many miles that she followed him farther, out of the heavy timbered forest down upon slopes of low spruce, like evergreen, which descended sharply to another level, where dark shallow streams flowed gently and the solemn stillness held a low murmur of falling water, and at last the wood ended upon a wonderful park full of a thick rich golden light of fast-fading sunset.

“Smell the smoke,” said Roy. “By Solomon, if Milt ain’t here ahead of me!”

He rode on. Helen’s weary gaze took in the round
parque
, the circling black slopes, leading up to craggy rims all gold and red in the last flare of the sun, and all the spirit left in her flashed up in thrilling wonder at this exquisite, wild, and colorful spot.

Horses were grazing out in the long grass and there were deer grazing with them. Roy led around a corner of the fringed bordering woodland, and there, under lofty trees, shone a campfire. Huge gray rocks loomed beyond, and then cliffs rose step by step to a notch in the mountain wall over which poured a thin lacy waterfall. As Helen gazed in rapture, the sunset gold faded to white, and all the western slope of the amphitheater darkened.

Dorn’s tall form appeared. “Reckon you’re late,” he said as, with a comprehensive flash of eyes, he took in the three.

“Milt, I got lost,” replied Roy.

“I feared as much…. You girls look like you’d’ve done better to ride with me,” went on Dorn as he offered a hand to help Bo off. She took it, tried to get her feet out of the stirrups, and then she slid from the saddle into Dorn’s arms. He placed her on her feet and, supporting her, said solicitously: “A hundred mile ride in three days for a tenderfoot is somethin’ your Uncle Al won’t believe…. Come, walk if it kills you.”

Whereupon he led Bo, very much as if he were teaching a child to walk. The fact that the voluble Bo had nothing to say was significant to Helen, who was following with the assistance of Roy.

One of the huge rocks resembled a seashell in that it contained a hollow over which the wide-spreading shelf flared out. It reached toward branches of great pines. A spring burst from a crack in the solid rock. The campfire blazed under a pine, and the blue column of smoke rose just in front of the shelving rock. Packs were lying on the grass and some of them were open. There were no signs here of a permanent habitation of the hunter. But farther on were other huge rocks, leaning, cracked, and forming caverns, some of which perhaps he utilized.

“My camp is just back,” said Dorn as if he had read He len’s mind. “Tomorrow we’ll fix it up comfortable-like around here for you girls.”

Helen and Bo were made as easy as blankets and saddles could make them, serving for resting places, and the men went about their tasks.

“Nell…isn’t this…a dream?” murmured Bo.

“No, child. It’s real…terribly real,” replied Helen. “Now that we’re here…with that awful ride over…we can think.”

“It’s so pretty…here.” Bo yawned. “I’d just as lief Uncle Al didn’t find us very soon.”

“Bo! He’s a sick man. Think what the worry will be to him.”

“I’ll bet if he knows Dorn, he won’t be so worried.”

“Dorn told us Uncle Al disliked him.”

“
Pooh!
What difference does that make…? Oh, I don’t know which I am…hungrier or tireder!”

“I couldn’t eat to night,” said Helen wearily.

When she stretched out, she had a vague delicious sensation that that was the end of Helen Rayner and she was glad. Above her, through the lacy fern-like pine needles, she saw blue sky and a pale star, just showing. Twilight was stealing down swiftly. The silence was beautiful, seemingly undisturbed by the soft silky dreamy fall of water. Helen closed her eyes, ready for sleep, with the physical commotion within her body gradually yielding. In some places her bones felt as if they had come out through her flesh; in others throbbed deep-seated aches; her muscles appeared slowly to subside, to relax with the quivering twinges ceasing one by one, and through muscle and bone, through all her body, pulsed a burning current.

Bo’s head dropped on Helen’s shoulder. Sense became vague to Helen. She lost the low murmur of the waterfall, and then the sound or feeling of someone at the campfire, and her last conscious thought was that she tried to open her eyes and could not.

When she awoke, all was bright. The sun shone almost directly overhead. Helen was astounded. Bo lay wrapped in deep sleep, her face flushed, with beads of perspiration on her brow and the chestnut curls damp. Helen threw down the blankets, and then, gathering courage, for she felt as if her back was broken, she endeavored to sit up. In vain! Her spirit was willing, but her muscles refused to act. It must take a violent spasmodic effort. She tried it with shut eyes and, succeeding, sat there trembling. The commotion she had made in the blankets awoke Bo, and she blinked her surprised blue eyes in the sunlight.

“Hello…Nell…do I have to…get up?” she asked sleepily.

“Can you?” queried Helen.

“Can I what?” Bo was now thoroughly awake and lay there staring at her sister.

“Why…get up.”

“I’d like to know why not,” retorted Bo as she made the effort. She got one arm and shoulder up only to flop back like a crippled thing. And she uttered the most piteous little moan. “I’m dead. I know…I am.”

“Well, if you’re going to be a Western girl, you’d better have spunk enough to move.”

“Uhn-huh!” ejaculated Bo. Then she rolled over, not without groans, and, once upon her face, she raised herself on her hands and turned to a sitting posture. “Where’s everybody? Oh, Nell, it’s perfectly lovely here. Paradise!”

Helen looked around. A fire was smoldering. No one was in sight. Wonderful distant colors seemed to strike her glance as she tried to fix it upon nearby objects. A beautiful little green tent or shack had been erected out of spruce boughs. It had a slanting roof that sloped all the way from a ridge pole to the ground; half of the opening in front was closed as were the sides. The spruce boughs appeared all to be laid in the same direction, giving it a smooth compact appearance, actually as if it had grown there.

“That lean-to wasn’t there last night?” inquired Bo.

“I didn’t see it. Lean-to? Where’d you get that name?”

“It’s Western, my dear…. I’ll bet they put it up for us…. Sure, I see our bags inside. Let’s get up…. Say, it must be late.”

The girls had considerable fun as well as pain in getting up and keeping each other erect until their limbs would hold them firmly. They were delighted with the spruce lean-to. It faced the open and stood just under the wide-spreading shelf of rock. The tiny outlet from the spring flowed beside it and spilled its clear water over a stone to fall into a little pool. The floor of this woodland habitation consisted of tips of spruce boughs, to about a foot in depth, all laid one way, smooth and springy, and so sweetly odorous that the air seemed intoxicating. Helen and Bo opened their baggage, and, what with use of the cold water, and brush and comb, and clean blouses, they made themselves feel as comfortable as possible, considering the excruciating aches. Then they went out to the campfire.

Helen’s eye was attracted by moving objects near at hand. Then, simultaneously with Bo’s cry of delight, Helen saw a beautiful doe approaching under the trees. Dorn walked beside it.

“You sure had a long sleep,” was the hunter’s greeting. “I reckon you both look better.”

“Good morning. Or is it afternoon? We’re just able to move about,” said Helen.

“I could ride,” declared Bo stoutly “Oh, Nell, look at the deer! It’s coming to me.”

The doe had hung back a little as Helen reached the campfire. It was a gray slender creature, smooth as silk, with great dark eyes. It stood a moment, long ears erect, and then with a graceful little trot came up to Bo and reached a slim nose for her outstretched hand. All about it, except the beautiful soft eyes, seemed wild, and yet it was as tame as a kitten. Then, suddenly, as Bo fondled the long ears, it gave a start and, breaking away, ran back out of sight under the pines.

“What frightened it?” asked Bo.

Dorn pointed up at the wall under the shelving roof of rock. There twenty feet from the ground, curled up on a ledge, lay a huge tawny animal with a face like that of a cat.

“She’s afraid of Tom,” replied Dorn. “Recognizes him as a hereditary foe, I guess. I can’t make friends of them.”

“Oh…so that’s Tom…the pet lion!” exclaimed Bo. “
Ugh!
No wonder that deer ran off!”

“How long has he been up there?” queried Helen, gazing fascinatedly at Dorn’s famous pet.

“I couldn’t say. Tom comes an’ goes,” replied Dorn. “But I sent him up there last night.”

“And he was there…perfectly free…right over us…while we slept!” burst out Bo.

“Yes. An’ I reckon you slept the safer for that.”

“Of all things! Nell, isn’t he a monster? But he doesn’t look like a lion…an African lion. He’s a panther. I saw his like at the circus once.”

“He’s a cougar,” said Dorn. “The panther is long and slim. Tom is not only long but thick an’ round. I’ve had him four years. An’ he was a kitten no bigger’n my fist when I got him.”

“Is he perfectly tame…safe?” asked Helen anxiously.

“I’ve never told anybody that Tom was safe, but he is,” replied Dorn. “You can absolutely believe it. A wild cougar wouldn’t attack a man unless cornered or starved. An’ Tom is like a big cat.”

The beast raised his great cat-like face, with its sleepy half-shut eyes, and looked down upon them.

“Shall I call him down?” inquired Dorn.

For once Bo did not find her voice.

“Let us…get a little more used to him…at a distance,” replied Helen with a little laugh.

“If he comes to you, just rub his head an’ you’ll see how tame he is,” said Dorn. “Reckon you’re both hungry?”

“Not so very,” returned Helen, aware of his penetrating gray gaze upon her.

“Well, I am,” vouchsafed Bo.

“Soon as the turkey’s done we’ll eat. My camp is around between the rocks. I’ll call you.”

Not until his broad back was turned did Helen notice that the hunter looked different. Then she saw he wore a lighter, cleaner suit of buckskin, with no coat, and instead of the high-heeled horse man’s boots he wore moccasins and leggings. The change made him appear more lithe.

“Nell, I don’t know what you think, but
I
call him handsome,” declared Bo.

Helen had no idea what she thought. “Let’s try to walk some,” she suggested.

So they assayed that painful task and got as far as a pine log some few rods from their camp. This point was close to the edge of the park from which there was an unobstructed view.

“My! What a place!” exclaimed Bo, with eyes wide and round.

“Oh, beautiful!” breathed Helen.

An unexpected blaze of color drew her gaze first. Out of the black spruce slopes shone patches of aspens, gloriously red and gold, and low down along the edge of timber troops of aspens ran out into the park, not yet so blazing as those above, but purple and yellow and white in the sunshine. Masses of silver spruce, like trees in the moonlight, bordered the park, sending out here and there an isolated tree, sharp as a spear, with under branches close to the ground. Long golden-green grass, resembling half-ripe wheat, covered the entire floor of the park, gently waving to the wind. Above sheered the black, gold-patched slopes, steep and unscalable, rising to buttresses of dark iron-hued rock. And to the east circled the rows of cliff bench, gray and old and fringed, splitting at the top in the notch where the lacy slumberous waterfall, like white smoke, fell and vanished to reappear in wider sheet of lace, only to fall and vanish again in the green depths.