The Man of the Forest by Zane Grey (fastest ebook reader .TXT) 📖

CHAPTER VI

The horses trotted. And the exercise soon warmed Helen,

until she was fairly comfortable except in her fingers. In

mind, however, she grew more miserable as she more fully

realized her situation. The night now became so dark that,

although the head of her horse was alongside the flank of

Bo’s, she could scarcely see Bo. From time to time Helen’s

anxious query brought from her sister the answer that she

was all right.

 

Helen had not ridden a horse for more than a year, and for

several years she had not ridden with any regularity.

Despite her thrills upon mounting, she had entertained

misgivings. But she was agreeably surprised, for the horse,

Ranger, had an easy gait, and she found she had not

forgotten how to ride. Bo, having been used to riding on a

farm near home, might be expected to acquit herself

admirably. It occurred to Helen what a plight they would

have been in but for the thick, comfortable riding outfits.

 

Dark as the night was, Helen could dimly make out the road

underneath. It was rocky, and apparently little used. When

Dale turned off the road into the low brush or sage of what

seemed a level plain, the traveling was harder, rougher, and

yet no slower. The horses kept to the gait of the leaders.

Helen, discovering it unnecessary, ceased attempting to

guide Ranger. There were dim shapes in the gloom ahead, and

always they gave Helen uneasiness, until closer approach

proved them to be rocks or low, scrubby trees. These

increased in both size and number as the horses progressed.

Often Helen looked back into the gloom behind. This act was

involuntary and occasioned her sensations of dread. Dale

expected to be pursued. And Helen experienced, along with

the dread, flashes of unfamiliar resentment. Not only was

there an attempt afoot to rob her of her heritage, but even

her personal liberty. Then she shuddered at the significance

of Dale’s words regarding her possible abduction by this

hired gang. It seemed monstrous, impossible. Yet, manifestly

it was true enough to Dale and his allies. The West, then,

in reality was raw, hard, inevitable.

 

Suddenly her horse stopped. He had come up alongside Bo’s

horse. Dale had halted ahead, and apparently was listening.

Roy and the pack-train were out of sight in the gloom.

 

“What is it?” whispered Helen.

 

“Reckon I heard a wolf,” replied Dale.

 

“Was that cry a wolf’s?” asked Bo. “I heard. It was wild.”

 

“We’re gettin’ up close to the foot-hills,” said Dale. “Feel

how much colder the air is.”

 

“I’m warm now,” replied Bo. “I guess being near froze was

what ailed me… . Nell, how ‘re you?”

 

“I’m warm, too, but —” Helen answered.

 

“If you had your choice of being here or back home, snug in

bed — which would you take?” asked Bo.

 

“Bo!” exclaimed Helen, aghast.

 

“Well, I’d choose to be right here on this horse,” rejoined

Bo.

 

Dale heard her, for he turned an instant, then slapped his

horse and started on.

 

Helen now rode beside Bo, and for a long time they climbed

steadily in silence. Helen knew when that dark hour before

dawn had passed, and she welcomed an almost imperceptible

lightening in the east. Then the stars paled. Gradually a

grayness absorbed all but the larger stars. The great white

morning star, wonderful as Helen had never seen it, lost its

brilliance and life and seemed to retreat into the dimming

blue.

 

Daylight came gradually, so that the gray desert became

distinguishable by degrees. Rolling bare hills, half

obscured by the gray lifting mantle of night, rose in the

foreground, and behind was gray space, slowly taking form

and substance. In the east there was a kindling of pale rose

and silver that lengthened and brightened along a horizon

growing visibly rugged.

 

“Reckon we’d better catch up with Roy,” said Dale, and he

spurred his horse.

 

Ranger and Bo’s mount needed no other urging, and they swung

into a canter. Far ahead the pack-animals showed with Roy

driving them. The cold wind was so keen in Helen’s face that

tears blurred her eyes and froze her cheeks. And riding

Ranger at that pace was like riding in a rocking-chair. That

ride, invigorating and exciting, seemed all too short.

 

“Oh, Nell, I don’t care — what becomes of — me!” exclaimed

Bo, breathlessly.

 

Her face was white and red, fresh as a rose, her eyes

glanced darkly blue, her hair blew out in bright, unruly

strands. Helen knew she felt some of the physical

stimulation that had so roused Bo, and seemed so

irresistible, but somber thought was not deflected thereby.

 

It was clear daylight when Roy led off round a knoll from

which patches of scrubby trees — cedars, Dale called them

— straggled up on the side of the foot-hills.

 

“They grow on the north slopes, where the snow stays

longest,” said Dale.

 

They descended into a valley that looked shallow, but proved

to be deep and wide, and then began to climb another

foot-hill. Upon surmounting it Helen saw the rising sun, and

so glorious a view confronted her that she was unable to

answer Bo’s wild exclamations.

 

Bare, yellow, cedar-dotted slopes, apparently level, so

gradual was the ascent, stretched away to a dense ragged

line of forest that rose black over range after range, at

last to fail near the bare summit of a magnificent mountain,

sunrise-flushed against the blue sky.

 

“Oh, beautiful!” cried Bo. “But they ought to be called

Black Mountains.”

 

“Old Baldy, there, is white half the year,” replied Dale.

 

“Look back an’ see what you say,” suggested Roy.

 

The girls turned to gaze silently. Helen imagined she looked

down upon the whole wide world. How vastly different was the

desert! Verily it yawned away from her, red and gold near at

hand, growing softly flushed with purple far away, a barren

void, borderless and immense, where dark-green patches and

black lines and upheaved ridges only served to emphasize

distance and space.

 

“See thet little green spot,” said Roy, pointing. “Thet’s

Snowdrop. An’ the other one — ‘way to the right — thet’s

Show Down.”

 

“Where is Pine?” queried Helen, eagerly.

 

“Farther still, up over the foot-hills at the edge of the

woods.”

 

“Then we’re riding away from it.”

 

“Yes. If we’d gone straight for Pine thet gang could

overtake us. Pine is four days’ ride. An’ by takin’ to the

mountains Milt can hide his tracks. An’ when he’s thrown

Anson off the scent, then he’ll circle down to Pine.”

 

“Mr. Dale, do you think you’ll get us there safely — and

soon?” asked Helen, wistfully.

 

“I won’t promise soon, but I promise safe. An’ I don’t like

bein’ called Mister,” he replied.

 

“Are we ever going to eat?” inquired Bo, demurely.

 

At this query Roy Beeman turned with a laugh to look at Bo.

Helen saw his face fully in the light, and it was thin and

hard, darkly bronzed, with eyes like those of a hawk, and

with square chin and lean jaws showing scant, light beard.

 

“We shore are,” he replied. “Soon as we reach the timber.

Thet won’t be long.”

 

“Reckon we can rustle some an’ then take a good rest,” said

Dale, and he urged his horse into a jogtrot.

 

During a steady trot for a long hour, Helen’s roving eyes

were everywhere, taking note of the things from near to far

— the scant sage that soon gave place to as scanty a grass,

and the dark blots that proved to be dwarf cedars, and the

ravines opening out as if by magic from what had appeared

level ground, to wind away widening between gray stone

walls, and farther on, patches of lonely pine-trees, two and

three together, and then a straggling clump of yellow

aspens, and up beyond the fringed border of forest, growing

nearer all the while, the black sweeping benches rising to

the noble dome of the dominant mountain of the range.

 

No birds or animals were seen in that long ride up toward

the timber, which fact seemed strange to Helen. The air lost

something of its cold, cutting edge as the sun rose higher,

and it gained sweeter tang of forestland. The first faint

suggestion of that fragrance was utterly new to Helen, yet

it brought a vague sensation of familiarity and with it an

emotion as strange. It was as if she had smelled that keen,

pungent tang long ago, and her physical sense