The Man of the Forest Part 34

"Horse tracks--bear tracks--dog tracks," he said, bending over. "We'll have to walk up here. It'll save our horses an' maybe time, too."

"Is Bo riding up there?" asked Helen, eying the steep ascent.

"She sure is." With that Dale started up, leading his horse. Helen followed. It was rough and hard work. She was lightly clad, yet soon she was hot, laboring, and her heart began to hurt. When Dale halted to rest Helen was just ready to drop. The baying of the hound, though infrequent, inspirited her. But presently that sound was lost. Dale said bear and hound had gone over the ridge and as soon as the top was gained he would hear them again.

"Look there," he said, presently, pointing to fresh tracks, larger than those made by Bo's mustang. "Elk tracks. We've scared a big bull an'

he's right ahead of us. Look sharp an' you'll see him."

Helen never climbed so hard and fast before, and when they reached the ridge-top she was all tuckered out. It was all she could do to get on her horse. Dale led along the crest of this wooded ridge toward the western end, which was considerably higher. In places open rocky ground split the green timber. Dale pointed toward a promontory.

Helen saw a splendid elk silhouetted against the sky. He was a light gray over all his hindquarters, with shoulders and head black. His ponderous, wide-spread antlers towered over him, adding to the wildness of his magnificent poise as he stood there, looking down into the valley, no doubt listening for the bay of the hound. When he heard Dale's horse he gave one bound, gracefully and wonderfully carrying his antlers, to disappear in the green.

Again on a bare patch of ground Dale pointed down. Helen saw big round tracks, toeing in a little, that gave her a chill. She knew these were grizzly tracks.

Hard riding was not possible on this ridge crest, a fact that gave Helen time to catch her breath. At length, coming out upon the very summit of the mountain, Dale heard the hound. Helen's eyes feasted afar upon a wild scene of rugged grandeur, before she looked down on this western slope at her feet to see bare, gradual descent, leading down to spa.r.s.ely wooded bench and on to deep-green canuon.

"Ride hard now!" yelled Dale. "I see Bo, an' I'll have to ride to catch her."

Dale spurred down the slope. Helen rode in his tracks and, though she plunged so fast that she felt her hair stand up with fright, she saw him draw away from her. Sometimes her horse slid on his haunches for a few yards, and at these hazardous moments she got her feet out of the stirrups so as to fall free from him if he went down. She let him choose the way, while she gazed ahead at Dale, and then farther on, in the hope of seeing Bo. At last she was rewarded. Far Down the wooded bench she saw a gray flash of the little mustang and a bright glint of Bo's hair.

Her heart swelled. Dale would soon overhaul Bo and come between her and peril. And on the instant, though Helen was unconscious of it then, a remarkable change came over her spirit. Fear left her. And a hot, exalting, incomprehensible something took possession of her.

She let the horse run, and when he had plunged to the foot of that slope of soft ground he broke out across the open bench at a pace that made the wind bite Helen's cheeks and roar in her ears. She lost sight of Dale. It gave her a strange, grim exultance. She bent her eager gaze to find the tracks of his horse, and she found them. Also she made out the tracks of Bo's mustang and the bear and the hound. Her horse, scenting game, perhaps, and afraid to be left alone, settled into a fleet and powerful stride, sailing over logs and brush. That open bench had looked short, but it was long, and Helen rode down the gradual descent at breakneck speed. She would not be left behind. She had awakened to a heedlessness of risk. Something burned steadily within her. A grim, hard anger of joy! When she saw, far down another open, gradual descent, that Dale had pa.s.sed Bo and that Bo was riding the little mustang as never before, then Helen flamed with a madness to catch her, to beat her in that wonderful chase, to show her and Dale what there really was in the depths of Helen Rayner.

Her ambition was to be short-lived, she divined from the lay of the land ahead, but the ride she lived then for a flying mile was something that would always blanch her cheeks and p.r.i.c.k her skin in remembrance.

The open ground was only too short. That thundering pace soon brought Helen's horse to the timber. Here it took all her strength to check his headlong flight over deadfalls and between small jack-pines. Helen lost sight of Bo, and she realized it would take all her wits to keep from getting lost. She had to follow the trail, and in some places it was hard to see from horseback.

Besides, her horse was mettlesome, thoroughly aroused, and he wanted a free rein and his own way. Helen tried that, only to lose the trail and to get sundry knocks from trees and branches. She could not hear the hound, nor Dale. The pines were small, close together, and tough. They were hard to bend. Helen hurt her hands, scratched her face, barked her knees. The horse formed a habit suddenly of deciding to go the way he liked instead of the way Helen guided him, and when he plunged between saplings too close to permit easy pa.s.sage it was exceedingly hard on her. That did not make any difference to Helen. Once worked into a frenzy, her blood stayed at high pressure. She did not argue with herself about a need of desperate hurry. Even a blow on the head that nearly blinded her did not in the least r.e.t.a.r.d her. The horse could hardly be held, and not at all in the few open places.

At last Helen reached another slope. Coming out upon canuon rim, she heard Dale's clear call, far down, and Bo's answering peal, high and piercing, with its note of exultant wildness. Helen also heard the bear and the hound fighting at the bottom of this canuon.

Here Helen again missed the tracks made by Dale and Bo. The descent looked impa.s.sable. She rode back along the rim, then forward. Finally she found where the ground had been plowed deep by hoofs, down over little banks. Helen's horse balked at these jumps. When she goaded him over them she went forward on his neck. It seemed like riding straight downhill. The mad spirit of that chase grew more stingingly keen to Helen as the obstacles grew. Then, once more the bay of the hound and the bawl of the bear made a demon of her horse. He snorted a shrill defiance. He plunged with fore hoofs in the air. He slid and broke a way down the steep, soft banks, through the thick brush and thick cl.u.s.ters of saplings, sending loose rocks and earth into avalanches ahead of him.

He fell over one bank, but a thicket of aspens upheld him so that he rebounded and gained his feet. The sounds of fight ceased, but Dale's thrilling call floated up on the pine-scented air.

Before Helen realized it she was at the foot of the slope, in a narrow canuon-bed, full of rocks and trees, with a soft roar of running water filling her ears. Tracks were everywhere, and when she came to the first open place she saw where the grizzly had plunged off a sandy bar into the water. Here he had fought Pedro. Signs of that battle were easy to read. Helen saw where his huge tracks, still wet, led up the opposite sandy bank.

Then down-stream Helen did some more reckless and splendid riding. On level ground the horse was great. Once he leaped clear across the brook.

Every plunge, every turn Helen expected to come upon Dale and Bo facing the bear. The canuon narrowed, the stream-bed deepened. She had to slow down to get through the trees and rocks. Quite unexpectedly she rode pell-mell upon Dale and Bo and the panting Pedro. Her horse plunged to a halt, answering the shrill neighs of the other horses.

Dale gazed in admiring amazement at Helen.

"Say, did you meet the bear again?" he queried, blankly.

"No. Didn't--you--kill him?" panted Helen, slowly sagging in her saddle.

"He got away in the rocks. Rough country down here."

Helen slid off her horse and fell with a little panting cry of relief.

She saw that she was b.l.o.o.d.y, dirty, disheveled, and wringing wet with perspiration. Her riding habit was torn into tatters. Every muscle seemed to burn and sting, and all her bones seemed broken. But it was worth all this to meet Dale's penetrating glance, to see Bo's utter, incredulous astonishment.

"Nell--Rayner!" gasped Bo.

"If--my horse 'd been--any good--in the woods," panted Helen, "I'd not lost--so much time--riding down this mountain. And I'd caught you--beat you."

"Girl, did you RIDE down this last slope?" queried Dale.

"I sure did," replied Helen, smiling.

"We walked every step of the way, and was lucky to get down at that,"

responded Dale, gravely. "No horse should have been ridden down there.

Why, he must have slid down."

"We slid--yes. But I stayed on him."

Bo's incredulity changed to wondering, speechless admiration. And Dale's rare smile changed his gravity.

"I'm sorry. It was rash of me. I thought you'd go back.... But all's well that ends well.... Helen, did you wake up to-day?"

She dropped her eyes, not caring to meet the questioning gaze upon her.

"Maybe--a little," she replied, and she covered her face with her hands.

Remembrance of his questions--of his a.s.surance that she did not know the real meaning of life--of her stubborn antagonism--made her somehow ashamed. But it was not for long.

"The chase was great," she said. "I did not know myself. You were right."

"In how many ways did you find me right?" he asked.

"I think all--but one," she replied, with a laugh and a shudder. "I'm near starved NOW--I was so furious at Bo that I could have choked her. I faced that horrible brute.... Oh, I know what it is to fear death!... I was lost twice on the ride--absolutely lost. That's all."

Bo found her tongue. "The last thing was for you to fall wildly in love, wasn't it?"

"According to Dale, I must add that to my new experiences of to-day--before I can know real life," replied Helen, demurely.

The hunter turned away. "Let us go," he said, soberly.

CHAPTER XIII

After more days of riding the gra.s.sy level of that wonderfully gold and purple park, and dreamily listening by day to the ever-low and ever-changing murmur of the waterfall, and by night to the wild, lonely mourn of a hunting wolf, and climbing to the dizzy heights where the wind stung sweetly, Helen Rayner lost track of time and forgot her peril.

Roy Beeman did not return. If occasionally Dale mentioned Roy and his quest, the girls had little to say beyond a recurrent anxiety for the old uncle, and then they forgot again. Paradise Park, lived in a little while at that season of the year, would have claimed any one, and ever afterward haunted sleeping or waking dreams.

Bo gave up to the wild life, to the horses and rides, to the many pets, and especially to the cougar, Tom. The big cat followed her everywhere, played with her, rolling and pawing, kitten-like, and he would lay his ma.s.sive head in her lap to purr his content. Bo had little fear of anything, and here in the wilds she soon lost that.

Another of Dale's pets was a half-grown black bear named Muss. He was abnormally jealous of little Bud and he had a well-developed hatred of Tom, otherwise he was a very good-tempered bear, and enjoyed Dale's impartial regard. Tom, however, chased Muss out of camp whenever Dale's back was turned, and sometimes Muss stayed away, shifting for himself.

With the advent of Bo, who spent a good deal of time on the animals, Muss manifestly found the camp more attractive. Whereupon, Dale predicted trouble between Tom and Muss.

Bo liked nothing better than a rough-and-tumble frolic with the black bear. Muss was not very big nor very heavy, and in a wrestling bout with the strong and wiry girl he sometimes came out second best. It spoke well of him that he seemed to be careful not to hurt Bo. He never bit or scratched, though he sometimes gave her sounding slaps with his paws.