The Man of the Forest Part 6

The girl deal is what riled me.... She's to arrive at Magdalena on the sixteenth, an' take stage for Snowdrop.... Now what to do? If she travels on that stage I'll be on it, you bet. But she oughtn't to be in it at all. ... Boys, somehow I'm goin' to save her. Will you help me? I reckon I've been in some tight corners for you. Sure, this 's different.

But are you my friends? You know now what Beasley is. An' you're all lost at the hands of Snake Anson's gang. You've got fast hosses, eyes for trackin', an' you can handle a rifle. You're the kind of fellows I'd want in a tight pinch with a bad gang. Will you stand by me or see me go alone?"

Then John Beeman, silently, and with pale face, gave Dale's hand a powerful grip, and one by one the other brothers rose to do likewise.

Their eyes flashed with hard glint and a strange bitterness hovered around their thin lips.

"Milt, mebbe we know what Beasley is better 'n you," said John, at length. "He ruined my father. He's cheated other Mormons. We boys have proved to ourselves thet he gets the sheep Anson's gang steals.... An'

drives the herds to Phenix! Our people won't let us accuse Beasley. So we've suffered in silence. My father always said, let some one else say the first word against Beasley, an' you've come to us!"

Roy Beeman put a hand on Dale's shoulder. He, perhaps, was the keenest of the brothers and the one to whom adventure and peril called most.

He had been oftenest with Dale, on many a long trail, and he was the hardest rider and the most relentless tracker in all that range country.

"An' we're goin' with you," he said, in a strong and rolling voice.

They resumed their seats before the fire. John threw on more wood, and with a crackling and sparkling the blaze curled up, fanned by the wind.

As twilight deepened into night the moan in the pines increased to a roar. A pack of coyotes commenced to pierce the air in staccato cries.

The five young men conversed long and earnestly, considering, planning, rejecting ideas advanced by each. Dale and Roy Beeman suggested most of what became acceptable to all. Hunters of their type resembled explorers in slow and deliberate attention to details. What they had to deal with here was a situation of unlimited possibilities; the horses and outfit needed; a long detour to reach Magdalena un.o.bserved; the rescue of a strange girl who would no doubt be self-willed and determined to ride on the stage--the rescue forcible, if necessary; the fight and the inevitable pursuit; the flight into the forest, and the safe delivery of the girl to Auchincloss.

"Then, Milt, will we go after Beasley?" queried Roy Beeman, significantly.

Dale was silent and thoughtful.

"Sufficient unto the day!" said John. "An' fellars, let's go to bed."

They rolled out their tarpaulins, Dale sharing Roy's blankets, and soon were asleep, while the red embers slowly faded, and the great roar of wind died down, and the forest stillness set in.

CHAPTER IV

Helen Rayner had been on the westbound overland train fully twenty-four hours before she made an alarming discovery.

Accompanied by her sister Bo, a precocious girl of sixteen, Helen had left St. Joseph with a heart saddened by farewells to loved ones at home, yet full of thrilling and vivid antic.i.p.ations of the strange life in the Far West. All her people had the pioneer spirit; love of change, action, adventure, was in her blood. Then duty to a widowed mother with a large and growing family had called to Helen to accept this rich uncle's offer. She had taught school and also her little brothers and sisters; she had helped along in other ways. And now, though the tearing up of the roots of old loved ties was hard, this opportunity was irresistible in its call. The prayer of her dreams had been answered. To bring good fortune to her family; to take care of this beautiful, wild little sister; to leave the yellow, sordid, humdrum towns for the great, rolling, boundless open; to live on a wonderful ranch that was some day to be her own; to have fulfilled a deep, instinctive, and undeveloped love of horses, cattle, sheep, of desert and mountain, of trees and brooks and wild flowers--all this was the sum of her most pa.s.sionate longings, now in some marvelous, fairylike way to come true.

A check to her happy antic.i.p.ations, a blank, sickening dash of cold water upon her warm and intimate dreams, had been the discovery that Harve Riggs was on the train. His presence could mean only one thing--that he had followed her. Riggs had been the worst of many sore trials back there in St. Joseph. He had possessed some claim or influence upon her mother, who favored his offer of marriage to Helen; he was neither attractive, nor good, nor industrious, nor anything that interested her; he was the boastful, strutting adventurer, not genuinely Western, and he affected long hair and guns and notoriety. Helen had suspected the veracity of the many fights he claimed had been his, and also she suspected that he was not really big enough to be bad--as Western men were bad. But on the train, in the station at La Junta, one glimpse of him, manifestly spying upon her while trying to keep out of her sight, warned Helen that she now might have a problem on her hands.

The recognition sobered her. All was not to be a road of roses to this new home in the West. Riggs would follow her, if he could not accompany her, and to gain his own ends he would stoop to anything. Helen felt the startling realization of being cast upon her own resources, and then a numbing discouragement and loneliness and helplessness. But these feelings did not long persist in the quick pride and flash of her temper. Opportunity knocked at her door and she meant to be at home to it. She would not have been Al Auchincloss's niece if she had faltered.

And, when temper was succeeded by genuine anger, she could have laughed to scorn this Harve Riggs and his schemes, whatever they were. Once and for all she dismissed fear of him. When she left St. Joseph she had faced the West with a beating heart and a high resolve to be worthy of that West. Homes had to be made out there in that far country, so Uncle Al had written, and women were needed to make homes. She meant to be one of these women and to make of her sister another. And with the thought that she would know definitely what to say to Riggs when he approached her, sooner or later, Helen dismissed him from mind.

While the train was in motion, enabling Helen to watch the ever-changing scenery, and resting her from the strenuous task of keeping Bo well in hand at stations, she lapsed again into dreamy gaze at the pine forests and the red, rocky gullies and the dim, bold mountains. She saw the sun set over distant ranges of New Mexico--a golden blaze of glory, as new to her as the strange fancies born in her, thrilling and fleeting by.

Bo's raptures were not silent, and the instant the sun sank and the color faded she just as rapturously importuned Helen to get out the huge basket of food they had brought from home.

They had two seats, facing each other, at the end of the coach, and piled there, with the basket on top, was luggage that const.i.tuted all the girls owned in the world. Indeed, it was very much more than they had ever owned before, because their mother, in her care for them and desire to have them look well in the eyes of this rich uncle, had spent money and pains to give them pretty and serviceable clothes.

The girls sat together, with the heavy basket on their knees, and ate while they gazed out at the cool, dark ridges. The train clattered slowly on, apparently over a road that was all curves. And it was supper-time for everybody in that crowded coach. If Helen had not been so absorbed by the great, wild mountain-land she would have had more interest in the pa.s.sengers. As it was she saw them, and was amused and thoughtful at the men and women and a few children in the car, all middle-cla.s.s people, poor and hopeful, traveling out there to the New West to find homes. It was splendid and beautiful, this fact, yet it inspired a brief and inexplicable sadness. From the train window, that world of forest and crag, with its long bare reaches between, seemed so lonely, so wild, so unlivable. How endless the distance! For hours and miles upon miles no house, no hut, no Indian tepee! It was amazing, the length and breadth of this beautiful land. And Helen, who loved brooks and running streams, saw no water at all.

Then darkness settled down over the slow-moving panorama; a cool night wind blew in at the window; white stars began to blink out of the blue.

The sisters, with hands clasped and heads nestled together, went to sleep under a heavy cloak.

Early the next morning, while the girls were again delving into their apparently bottomless basket, the train stopped at Las Vegas.

"Look! Look!" cried Bo, in thrilling voice. "Cowboys! Oh, Nell, look!"

Helen, laughing, looked first at her sister, and thought how most of all she was good to look at. Bo was little, instinct with pulsating life, and she had chestnut hair and dark-blue eyes. These eyes were flashing, roguish, and they drew like magnets.

Outside on the rude station platform were railroad men, Mexicans, and a group of lounging cowboys. Long, lean, bow-legged fellows they were, with young, frank faces and intent eyes. One of them seemed particularly attractive with his superb build, his red-bronze face and bright-red scarf, his swinging gun, and the huge, long, curved spurs. Evidently he caught Bo's admiring gaze, for, with a word to his companions, he sauntered toward the window where the girls sat. His gait was singular, almost awkward, as if he was not accustomed to walking. The long spurs jingled musically. He removed his sombrero and stood at ease, frank, cool, smiling. Helen liked him on sight, and, looking to see what effect he had upon Bo, she found that young lady staring, frightened stiff.

"Good mawnin'," drawled the cowboy, with slow, good-humored smile. "Now where might you-all be travelin'?"

The sound of his voice, the clean-cut and droll geniality; seemed new and delightful to Helen.

"We go to Magdalena--then take stage for the White Mountains," replied Helen.

The cowboy's still, intent eyes showed surprise.

"Apache country, miss," he said. "I reckon I'm sorry. Thet's sh.o.r.e no place for you-all... Beggin' your pawdin--you ain't Mormons?"

"No. We're nieces of Al Auchincloss," rejoined Helen.

"Wal, you don't say! I've been down Magdalena way an' heerd of Al....

Reckon you're goin' a-visitin'?"

"It's to be home for us."

"Sh.o.r.e thet's fine. The West needs girls.... Yes, I've heerd of Al.

An old Arizona cattle-man in a sheep country! Thet's bad.... Now I'm wonderin'--if I'd drift down there an' ask him for a job ridin' for him--would I get it?"

His lazy smile was infectious and his meaning was as clear as crystal water. The gaze he bent upon Bo somehow pleased Helen. The last year or two, since Bo had grown prettier all the time, she had been a magnet for admiring glances. This one of the cowboy's inspired respect and liking, as well as amus.e.m.e.nt. It certainly was not lost upon Bo.

"My uncle once said in a letter that he never had enough men to run his ranch," replied Helen, smiling.

"Sh.o.r.e I'll go. I reckon I'd jest naturally drift that way--now."

He seemed so laconic, so easy, so nice, that he could not have been taken seriously, yet Helen's quick perceptions registered a daring, a something that was both sudden and inevitable in him. His last word was as clear as the soft look he fixed upon Bo.

Helen had a mischievous trait, which, subdue it as she would, occasionally cropped out; and Bo, who once in her wilful life had been rendered speechless, offered such a temptation.

"Maybe my little sister will put in a good word for you--to Uncle Al,"

said Helen. Just then the train jerked, and started slowly. The cowboy took two long strides beside the car, his heated boyish face almost on a level with the window, his eyes, now shy and a little wistful, yet bold, too, fixed upon Bo.

"Good-by--Sweetheart!" he called.

He halted--was lost to view.

"Well!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Helen, contritely, half sorry, half amused. "What a sudden young gentleman!"

Bo had blushed beautifully.