Judith of Blue Lake Ranch

by Jackson Gregory

  XXVII

  ALONE IN THE WILDERNESS

  And Quinnion was coming on. She was trapped, caught between the two ofthem. She heard Quinnion laugh again; he, too, had heard Ruth.

  "Oh, God help me!" whispered Judith. "God help me now!"

  There was no time to hesitate. If she stood here, Quinnion would in amoment wrap his arms about her; if she dropped down, she would be inthe frenzied clutch of Mad Ruth.

  A second she crouched, peering down into the gloom below her, seekingto make out the form of the mad woman. Then she did not merely drop,but jumped, landing fair upon the waiting figure, striking with herboots on Mad Ruth's ample shoulders. A scream of rage from Ruth, alittle, strangling cry from Judith, and the two fell together. Ruthclutched as she went down and a hand closed over the girl's ankle.Judith rolled, struck again with the free boot, twisted sharply andfelt the grip torn loose from her ankle. She was free.

  She jumped up and ran and knew that Ruth was running just behind her,screaming terribly. Judith fell, and her heart grew sick within her.But again she was up just as Ruth's hand clutched at her skirt,clutched and was torn away as Judith ran on. Quinnion cursed fromabove as she had not yet heard him curse. Ruth reviled both her andQuinnion for having let her go.

  Judith was running swiftly and felt that she could get the better ofthe heavier, older woman in a race of this sort. She stumbled andfell, and fear again gripped her; it seemed so long before she couldrise and clamber over a fallen log and race on. But the darkness whichtricked her protected her at the same time, playing no favorites now.Ruth, too, had fallen; Ruth, too, was frenzied at the brief delay.

  Stumbling, falling, rising, staggering back from a tree into which shehad run full tilt, bruised and torn, the girl ran on. At every freestep hope shot upward in her heart; at every fall she grew sick withdread.

  The canon broadened rapidly, the ground underfoot grew less broken andlittered with boulders and logs. Through tangles of brush she wentblindly, throwing herself forward, falling, rising, falling, risingagain. It was a nightmare of a race, with Ruth always just there,almost at her heels. She turned as far away from the stream as shecould, keeping under the cliffs where there was less brush; where theway was more open; where the shadows were thickest.

  She was outdistancing Mad Ruth. Ruth's weird voice came from a greaterdistance; the woman was ten, maybe twenty, feet behind her.

  The moon at last rose pale gold above the eastern ridge. And nowJudith could thank God for it. For the canon had widened more andmore, the banks of the river were studded with big trees, there werewide open spaces between them through which she shot like a frighteneddeer, turning this way and that, darting about a clump of little firs,plunging into the shadows under great sky-seeking cedars, running asshe had never run before and as she knew Mad Ruth could not run.

  Free! She was free. The triumph of it danced in her blood. On sheran and now Quinnion's voice and Ruth's were confused with the roar ofthe river. On she ran and on and on, and but faintly there came to herthe sound of breaking brush somewhere behind her. Never had her bloodsung within her as it sang now; never had the dim, moonlit solitudes ofthe mountains opened their sheltering arms to one more grateful to slipinto them, like a wounded child into the soothing embrace of its mother.

  Now again she turned so that her flying steps brought her close to thewater's edge. Louder and louder grew its shouting voice in her ears,little by little drowning out the sounds of Ruth and Quinnion behindher. Now, in all the glorious night, there was no sound to reach herbut the sound of running water and her own beating feet. She was free.

  But still she ran, summoning all of the reserve of strength andwill-power which was hers to command. The sky was brightening to theclimbing moon. She must round many a sweeping curve of the river, passunder many a sheltering, shadowing tree before she dared slow her steps.

  When she felt that she was overtaxing herself, she dropped from thewild pace she had set herself into a little jogging trot. When herwhole body cried out at the effort demanded of it, she slowed down to abrisk walk. She was shot through with pain, her throat ached, she wasgrowing dizzy. But on she went stubbornly. It was a full hour afterthe last sound of pursuit had died out after her that she flung herselfdown at the water's edge to drink and bathe her arms and face in thecold stream. And, even then, she chose a spot where the shadow of agreat pine lay like ink over the bank.

  The moon was high in the sky, the world bright with it, when Judithleft the valley into which the canon had widened and made her wayslowly upward along a timbered ridge to the west. Of Quinnion and MadRuth she now had no fear. Their chance of coming upon her was lessthan negligible. She could creep into a clump of thick-standing youngtrees and, even if they should come, could watch them go past. But asthey had dropped out of her world, another matter had entered it. Themountains had befriended her; they had opened their arms to her andthat was all that she had asked of them. They had mothered her,drawing her into hiding against their bosom. But it was a barren,barren breast. And already she was hungry, daring to eat but sparinglyof her handful of bread and meat.

  From this ridge, finding an open crest, she stood looking out over theworld. Mile after mile of mountain and canon and cliff fell away onevery side. She sought eagerly for a landmark: to see yonder in thedistance Old Baldy or Copper Mountain or Three Fools' Peak, any one ofthe mountains or ridges known to her. And in the end she could onlyshake her head and sigh wearily and slip down where she was to fallasleep, thanking God that she was free, asking God to lead her arightin the morning.

  The stars watched over her, a pale, worn-out girl sleeping alone in theheart of the wilderness; the night breezes sang through the century-oldtree-tops; and Judith, having striven to the utter-most, slept in heavydreamlessness.

  With the cool dawn she awoke shivering and hungry. Her hair hadtumbled about her face, and sitting up she braided it with numb, sorefingers. She looked at her hands; they well stained with blood frommany cuts. Her skirt was torn and soiled; her stockings were instrips; her knees were bruised. But as she rose to her feet and oncemore searched the riddle of a crag-broken world, her heart was lightwith thankfulness.

  Last night the one friend she had with her was the north star. To-dayshe would seek to push on toward the west. In that direction shebelieved the Blue Lake ranch lay, though at best it was a guess. Butgoing westward she could follow the course of the bigger streams, andsoon or late, if her strength held, she would come to some open valleywhere men ran stock. Now, she would go down into the little meadowlying a mile away yonder and seek to find something to eat. If shecould but dig a few wild onions, wild potatoes, they would keep heralive. West she would go, if for no other reason than because thus shewould be setting her back squarely upon the cavern where Quinnion andRuth were.

  The sun rolled into a clear blue sky and warmed her. She made her waydown the long flank of the mountain and into the tiny meadow. Forupward of two hours she remained there, nibbling at roots which she dugup with a broken stick, seeking edible growths which she knew, findinglittle, but enough to keep the life in her, the heart warm in herbreast. Then she went on, over a ridge again, down into a canon andalong the stream which rose here and flowed westward.

  By noon she was faint and sick and had to stop often to rest, her legsshaking under her. Again she made a scant meal. She had stumbled on atiny field of wild potatoes and ate what she could of them, thinkinglongingly of a match for a fire. The match which Ruth had dropped shestill had, but she carefully reserved it now, thinking how perhaps atrout, caught in a pool, might save her life.

  In her already half-starved condition and with the demands constantlyput on her strength, she would grow weaker and weaker if help did notsoon come. But she was still filled with the glory of freedom.

  It was a heart-weary, trembling Judith who late that afternoon made herway upward along another ridge, seeking anxiously to find from thislookout some landmark whic
h she had sought in vain last night. In herblouse were the few roots she had brought with her from the fielddiscovered at noon. Lying in a little patch of dry grass, resting, shewatched the day go down and the night drift into the mountains, fillingthe ravines, creeping up the slopes, rising slowly to the peak to whichshe had climbed, seeping into her soul. Never had the passing of theday seemed to her so majestic a thing, truly filled with awe. Neveruntil now had the solitudes seemed so vast, so utterly, stupendouslybig. Never until now, as she lay staring up into the limitless sky,having given up the world about her as unknown, had she drunk to thelees of the cup of loneliness.

  So great was the weariness of her tired body that as she lay still,watching the stars come out one by one, she was half-resigned to lie soand let death come to find her. It seemed to her that there in therude arms of Mother Earth a human life was a matter of no greaterconsequence than the down upon a moth's wing. But she rested a littleand this mood, foreign to her intrepid heart, passed, and she sat up,again resolute, again ready to make her fight as long as life beatthrough her blood. At last she took the one match from her pocket.She scarcely dared breathe when, with dry grass and twigs piled againsta rock, her dress shielding them from the wind, she rubbed the matchsoftly against her boot. A sputtering flame, making the blue light ofburning sulphur, died down, creating panic in her breast, then flared,crackled, licked at the grass. She had a fire and she knew how to useit!

  When a log was blazing, assuring her that her fire was safe, she roseswiftly and went in search of the tree she meant to burn. She found agiant pine, pitch-oozing, standing in a rocky open space where therewas little danger of the fire spreading. Fagged out and eager as shewas, she had not come to the point of forgetting what a greatforest-fire meant.

  She went back to her burning log, for a blazing dry branch which shecarried swiftly to the tree. Then she piled dry grass and dead twigs,logs as heavy as she could carry, bits of brush. The flames licked atthe tree, ran up it, seemed to fall away, sprang at it again,hungering. Now and then a long tongue of fire went crackling high upalong the side of the tree. Judith went back to a spot where, in aring of boulders, there was another grassy plot, threw herself down anlay staring at the tongues of fire which were climbing higher andhigher.

  Some one would see her beacon. A forest ranger, perhaps, whose duty itwas to ride fast and far to battle with the first spark threatening thewooded solitudes; perhaps some crew in a logging-camp, than whom noneknew better the danger of spreading fires; perhaps some cow-boy, evenone of her own men--perhaps Quinnion and Ruth? She then would hideamong the rocks until they had come and gone. Even now, against thesleep falling upon her, she drew farther back through the tumbledboulders. Perhaps, Bud Lee. . . .

  She went to sleep beyond the circle of bright light, tired and hungryand striving against a returning hopelessness, her young body curled upin the nest she had found, a cheek cuddled against her arm, wonderingvaguely if some one would see her fire and come--if that some one mightbe Bud Lee.