The Forester's Daughter Part 7

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 Sat.u.r.day 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 gra.s.sy 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 pa.s.sion. 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 pa.s.s 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 unembarra.s.sed, 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 coa.r.s.e-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."