The Land of Strong Men Part 1

The Land of Strong Men.

by Arthur M. Chisholm.

CHAPTER I

LOST AND FOUND

It was light, but not yet day. The shadows of the night seemed to linger, to retreat with reluctance; and as they were beaten back by the sun, still far below the eastern curve of the earth and further blockaded by giant mountain ranges also to the eastward, the clinging, gray morning mists of early Fall came to replace them. In the pallid light, a-swim with vapor, objects loomed gigantic and grotesque.

The house which stood among the mists was of squared timbers, mortised and fitted. It was unpainted, and the interstices were neatly filled with plaster. The main part was two stories in height, but back of this and joined to it was another log building, long and low. Evidently this had been the original dwelling, to which the more pretentious structure had been added. From one window of this rear building a light glimmered.

The house was surrounded and in summer would be shaded by trees, cottonwoods and soft maples; but these had shed most of their leaves and the ground was yellowed with them. Close beside the house ran an irrigation ditch in which clear mountain water purred and gurgled softly. To the south loomed the roofs of stables, sheds, high corrals and stacks of hay and straw. Beyond these were cleared, level fields. To the northward, protected to some extent by the buildings and trees, was a small orchard in neat rows.

Now, the light in the rear window went out, and a moment later a door opened and a boy emerged. He was apparently about eighteen, but unusually tall and long of limb. At a casual glance he seemed to run to legs and arms, but a second look would have shown that his chest was broad and deep, and that his apparent ungainliness was due to age merely. His face, naturally dark, was tanned to the color of an old saddle. The cheekbones were high, the nose prominent, the mouth straight and the boyish jaw firm. The eyes were dark, steady and sombre, shaded by black eyebrows which slashed straight across the face, meeting above the nose. The darkness of complexion, the heavy brows, the straight mouth conveyed an expression almost of grimness. The boy wore a battered felt hat, a fawn mackinaw coat, pants thrust into high socks and a pair of moosehide moccasins. In his right hand he carried a rifle, in his left a small cotton bag. The wooden handle of a knife stuck from a jam-sheath in his belt.

For a moment he stood sniffling the morning air like a dog, and then with a light swiftness which gave the lie to his apparent ungainliness, made for the stables. In a few moments he led out a brown pony. He tied the cotton bag to the cantle, thrust the rifle into a saddle holster and swung up.

As he did so there was the sound of running feet, and a girl sped toward him from the house.

"Angus! Wait a minute!" she cried. She was apparently a couple of years younger than the boy, slim, brown of hair, eye, and face, delicate of feature. She held out a paper-wrapped parcel. "Here's some doughnuts for your lunch," she said.

But the boy frowned down at her. "I've got my lunch," he said tapping the cotton bag. In it there was bread and cold meat, which he esteemed manly fare.

"But you like doughnuts," said the girl, "and I thought--I thought--"

Her eyes filled with moisture which was not that of the mists, and the boy either because of that or affected by the silent argument of the doughnuts, relented.

"Oh, well, give 'em here," he said, and dismounting untied the bag, thrust in the doughnuts, made all fast again and remounted. "Tell father I'll be back in time to feed the stock to-night."

"Yes, Angus. I hope you'll get a deer."

"Sure, I'll get one," the boy replied confidently. A thought seemed to strike him. "Oh, thanks for the doughnuts."

The girl beamed at this belated recognition. She felt fully repaid for both the cooking and the early rising. For when a brother is going hunting naturally his thoughts are far above such things as doughnuts and younger sisters. Recognizing the propriety of this she turned back to the house.

The boy rode fast. He pa.s.sed the boundaries of the ranch, followed a road for a mile and then, turning into a beaten cattle trail, headed eastward toward the flanks of a mountain range showing beneath the skirts of the rising mist.

The trail wound sinuously, rising from benchland to benchland, but the boy stuck to it, for he knew that cattle invariably choose the easiest way. Also he knew the country so near home like a book, or rather better than he knew any written books. To him the land, lying as yet much as it came from the hands of the Creator, carried more messages and held more interesting things than any printed pages. Grouse scuttled aside or rose with a roar of wings, and the boy eyed them regretfully. Once he caught sight of a coyote, an arrogant, bushy-tailed youngster which, apparently knowing that he was in a hurry, stood in full view watching him. Once he stopped short at a momentary glimpse of something in thick bush. But as he did not see it again, he rode on.

While he still rode in the shadow of the eastern hills, the sun from behind them struck the face of the western range ten miles or more across Fire Valley. Behind that again it glinted on peaks still capped with the snows of the previous winter. The sunshine moved downward to the valley and eastward across it in a marching swath of gold. In that clear, thin air to the keen eyes of the boy, peaks and rocks and even trees miles away were sharply defined. Below him was a lake, pale silver where the mists that still clung to its surface had parted. Half an hour later it would take on the wondrous blue of mountain waters. But the boy did not care for that, nor just then for the great unfolding panorama of rolling, timber-clad hills, bare, gray peaks and blue sky. He was an hour late and, as everybody knows, the early morning is the best time to hunt.

He had intended to enter a pa.s.s leading into the hills and turn from it up a big draw which he knew held blacktail, but he gave up the idea and turned along the base of the mountain. He was now in a country of jackpine with huge, scattered, gloomy firs and chumps of cottonwood.

Numerous little spring-fed creeks ran through it, and there were rocky coulees and small ponds. It was an ideal country for whitetail. There the boy dismounted, hung his saddle from a tree out of the reach of a possible porcupine, and put his pony on a rope. He glanced around mechanically, noting the exact position and registering landmarks. Then he levered a cartridge into the chamber of his rifle, dropped the hammer to half c.o.c.k, tucked the weapon under his arm and struck off parallel with the base of the mountain.

In motion the impression of awkwardness vanished. He walked with the peculiar straight-footed, bent-kneed slouch which is the distinctive mark of the woodsman and moccasin wearer; and is, moreover, extremely easy because the weight of the body cushions on the natural shock-absorbers, the ball of the foot and the bend of the knee, and so is quite a different method of locomotion from the ordinary heel-jarring stride. Also it is much faster than it looks. And so the boy moved easily and silently, his moccasined feet automatically avoiding sticks and loose stones.

He did not hurry. Now and then he stopped, his eyes keen as a young hawk's fixed on some ill-defined object, and he remained absolutely motionless until it defined itself to his gaze. Occasionally he inspected the soft ground, but though he saw many impressions of the hoofs of deer he paid little attention to them. He followed the only practical method of still-hunting, prowling along quietly and watchfully.

But luck seemed against him. Twice, in spite of his care, he heard the thumping beat which told that deer, alarmed, were making a get-away, but he did not see them. Being pardonably proud of his eyes and his ability to move quietly, the boy was disgusted. Noon came and he had no meat. He sat down by a spring which gushed cold from the base of a hill, and ate his bread and meat and two doughnuts. Of the latter four remained. These he saved against an emergency, and stretching himself on a patch of yellow, sun-dried gra.s.s went to sleep like a young dog.

In an hour he awoke, stretched himself, drank from the spring and circling toward the mountain began to work back toward his pony. He had covered perhaps half the return distance when he came suddenly upon a young buck. At the same time the buck caught sight of him and set sail for the protection of thick brush.

Though taken by surprise, the boy was unflurried. He planted his feet solidly, swung his rifle swiftly but without hurry, caught the leaping form fair with the bead and squeezed the trigger. A second time the rifle rapped on the heels of its own echo, and the buck pitched forward sprawling, the stiffening gone from his slim limbs which kicked convulsively.

But instead of running forward eagerly, the boy scarcely shifted his position as he pumped another cartridge into place. As the deer did not rise he fed two fresh sh.e.l.ls to the magazine methodically. There was no youthful triumph in his face. Instead it showed a certain dissatisfaction.

"Ought to have downed him first shot," he muttered, and went forward. He turned the deer over finding that the first bullet had stuck too far back. Laying the rifle aside he stuck the animal and proceeded to dress him. Completing his task he rose and scanned the brush thirty yards away for a convenient sapling on which to hang his meat.

As he looked, his eye was arrested by a movement in the bushes of something dun or brown. Without taking his eyes from the spot he stooped for his rifle, c.o.c.ked it and advanced slowly.

When he was within thirty feet of the bushes they shook, and the boy halted, throwing his rifle forward, the b.u.t.t halfway to his shoulders.

Then, from the shelter of the bushes out stepped a girl.

She was apparently several years younger than the boy, slight, straight, fair of hair, with clear blue eyes which, however, seemed a little puffy and reddened. Her face, too, was streaked as with tears, and one sheer stocking was torn so that the flesh peeped through. She held her arms straight by her sides, her fists gripped tight. Plainly she was frightened, but though her mouth quivered a little she looked the boy straight in the face.

If it had been a grizzly he would have been less surprised. The girl was a stranger and, moreover, her dress of neat brown linen, her shoes, and even the sheer, torn stockings, showed that she did not belong in that neighborhood.

"Hallo!" he said. She gave a little, gasping sigh of relief.

"Why," she said, "you're just a white boy." She spoke with a faint little lisp, which was really enticing. But her words did not please the boy who privately considered himself a good deal of a man.

"What did you think I was?" he asked in as gruff a voice as he could attain.

"I thought you were an In-di-an," she said, p.r.o.nouncing the word in syllables; "a growed-up--I mean a grown-up-In-di-an."

Having known Indians all his life the boy found her words unflattering.

"What made you think that?" he queried.

"Because you looked so black and b.l.o.o.d.y," she told him frankly.

The boy was disgusted. What business had this girl to call him black?

"What's a kid like you doing away out here?" he demanded severely. And he added wickedly: "Don't you know these woods are full of grizzlies and cougars and wolves? It's a wonder you weren't eaten alive."

The girl shivered and glanced fearfully back into the gloom of the firs.

"I didn't mean to get lost, really."

"Lost, are you?"

"I was," she said, "but now, of course, you've found me. I'm not afraid now, because I know you wouldn't let anything hurt me."

At this belated tribute to his manhood the boy's expression softened.

"Well, I guess you're safe now," he admitted. "How did you get lost, and where from?"

"I got lost from Uncle G.o.dfrey's ranch."