The Man of the Forest

by Zane Grey

  CHAPTER XII

  Days passed.

  Every morning Helen awoke with a wondering question as to what thisday would bring forth, especially with regard to possible news from heruncle. It must come sometime and she was anxious for it. Something aboutthis simple, wild camp life had begun to grip her. She found herselfshirking daily attention to the clothes she had brought West. Theyneeded it, but she had begun to see how superficial they really were.On the other hand, camp-fire tasks had come to be a pleasure. She hadlearned a great deal more about them than had Bo. Worry and dreadwere always impinging upon the fringe of her thoughts--always vaguelypresent, though seldom annoying. They were like shadows in dreams. Shewanted to get to her uncle's ranch, to take up the duties of her newlife. But she was not prepared to believe she would not regret this wildexperience. She must get away from that in order to see it clearly, andshe began to have doubts of herself.

  Meanwhile the active and restful outdoor life went on. Bo leaned moreand more toward utter reconciliation to it. Her eyes had a wonderfulflash, like blue lightning; her cheeks were gold and brown; her handstanned dark as an Indian's.

  She could vault upon the gray mustang, or, for that matter, clear overhis back. She learned to shoot a rifle accurately enough to win Dale'spraise, and vowed she would like to draw a bead upon a grizzly bear orupon Snake Anson.

  "Bo, if you met that grizzly Dale said has been prowling round camplately you'd run right up a tree," declared Helen, one morning, when Boseemed particularly boastful.

  "Don't fool yourself," retorted Bo.

  "But I've seen you run from a mouse!"

  "Sister, couldn't I be afraid of a mouse and not a bear?"

  "I don't see how."

  "Well, bears, lions, outlaws, and other wild beasts are to be met withhere in the West, and my mind's made up," said Bo, in slow-noddingdeliberation.

  They argued as they had always argued, Helen for reason and common senseand restraint, Bo on the principle that if she must fight it was betterto get in the first blow.

  The morning on which this argument took place Dale was a long time incatching the horses. When he did come in he shook his head seriously.

  "Some varmint's been chasin' the horses," he said, as he reached for hissaddle. "Did you hear them snortin' an' runnin' last night?"

  Neither of the girls had been awakened.

  "I missed one of the colts," went on Dale, "an' I'm goin' to ride acrossthe park."

  Dale's movements were quick and stern. It was significant that he chosehis heavier rifle, and, mounting, with a sharp call to Pedro, he rodeoff without another word to the girls.

  Bo watched him for a moment and then began to saddle the mustang.

  "You won't follow him?" asked Helen, quickly.

  "I sure will," replied Bo. "He didn't forbid it."

  "But he certainly did not want us."

  "He might not want you, but I'll bet he wouldn't object to me,whatever's up," said Bo, shortly.

  "Oh! So you think--" exclaimed Helen, keenly hurt. She bit her tongue tokeep back a hot reply. And it was certain that a bursting gush of angerflooded over her. Was she, then, such a coward? Did Dale think thisslip of a sister, so wild and wilful, was a stronger woman than she? Amoment's silent strife convinced her that no doubt he thought so andno doubt he was right. Then the anger centered upon herself, and Helenneither understood nor trusted herself.

  The outcome proved an uncontrollable impulse. Helen began to saddle herhorse. She had the task half accomplished when Bo's call made her lookup.

  "Listen!"

  Helen heard a ringing, wild bay of the hound.

  "That's Pedro," she said, with a thrill.

  "Sure. He's running. We never heard him bay like that before."

  "Where's Dale?"

  "He rode out of sight across there," replied Bo, pointing. "And Pedro'srunning toward us along that slope. He must be a mile--two miles fromDale."

  "But Dale will follow."

  "Sure. But he'd need wings to get near that hound now. Pedro couldn'thave gone across there with him... just listen."

  The wild note of the hound manifestly stirred Bo to irrepressibleaction. Snatching up Dale's lighter rifle, she shoved it into hersaddle-sheath, and, leaping on the mustang, she ran him over brush andbrook, straight down the park toward the place Pedro was climbing. Foran instant Helen stood amazed beyond speech. When Bo sailed over a biglog, like a steeple-chaser, then Helen answered to further unconsideredimpulse by frantically getting her saddle fastened. Without coat or hatshe mounted. The nervous horse bolted almost before she got into thesaddle. A strange, trenchant trembling coursed through all her veins.She wanted to scream for Bo to wait. Bo was out of sight, but the deep,muddy tracks in wet places and the path through the long grass affordedHelen an easy trail to follow. In fact, her horse needed no guiding. Heran in and out of the straggling spruces along the edge of the park, andsuddenly wheeled around a corner of trees to come upon the gray mustangstanding still. Bo was looking up and listening.

  "There he is!" cried Bo, as the hound bayed ringingly, closer to themthis time, and she spurred away.

  Helen's horse followed without urging. He was excited. His ears were up.Something was in the wind. Helen had never ridden along this broken endof the park, and Bo was not easy to keep up with. She led across bogs,brooks, swales, rocky little ridges, through stretches of timber andgroves of aspen so thick Helen could scarcely squeeze through. ThenBo came out into a large open offshoot of the park, right under themountain slope, and here she sat, her horse watching and listening.Helen rode up to her, imagining once that she had heard the hound.

  "Look! Look!" Bo's scream made her mustang stand almost straight up.

  Helen gazed up to see a big brown bear with a frosted coat go lumberingacross an opening on the slope.

  "It's a grizzly! He'll kill Pedro! Oh, where is Dale!" cried Bo, withintense excitement.

  "Bo! That bear is running down! We--we must get--out of his road,"panted Helen, in breathless alarm.

  "Dale hasn't had time to be close.... Oh, I wish he'd come! I don't knowwhat to do."

  "Ride back. At least wait for him."

  Just then Pedro spoke differently, in savage barks, and following thatcame a loud growl and crashings in the brush. These sounds appeared tobe not far up the slope.

  "Nell! Do you hear? Pedro's fighting the bear," burst out Bo. Her facepaled, her eyes flashed like blue steel. "The bear 'll kill him!"

  "Oh, that would be dreadful!" replied Helen, in distress. "But what onearth can we do?"

  "HEL-LO, DALE!" called Bo, at the highest pitch of her piercing voice.

  No answer came. A heavy crash of brush, a rolling of stones, anothergrowl from the slope told Helen that the hound had brought the bear tobay.

  "Nell, I'm going up," said Bo, deliberately.

  "No-no! Are you mad?" returned Helen.

  "The bear will kill Pedro."

  "He might kill you."

  "You ride that way and yell for Dale," rejoined Bo.

  "What will--you do?" gasped Helen.

  "I'll shoot at the bear--scare him off. If he chases me he can't catchme coming downhill. Dale said that."

  "You're crazy!" cried Helen, as Bo looked up the slope, searching foropen ground. Then she pulled the rifle from its sheath.

  But Bo did not hear or did not care. She spurred the mustang, and he,wild to run, flung grass and dirt from his heels. What Helen would havedone then she never knew, but the fact was that her horse bolted afterthe mustang. In an instant, seemingly, Bo had disappeared in the goldand green of the forest slope. Helen's mount climbed on a run, snortingand heaving, through aspens, brush, and timber, to come out into anarrow, long opening extending lengthwise up the slope.

  A sudden prolonged crash ahead alarmed Helen and halted her horse. Shesaw a shaking of aspens. Then a huge brown beast leaped as a cat out ofthe woods. It was a bear of enormous size. Helen's heart stopped--hertongue clove to the roof of her mouth. The bea
r turned. His mouth wasopen, red and dripping. He looked shaggy, gray. He let out a terriblebawl. Helen's every muscle froze stiff. Her horse plunged high andsidewise, wheeling almost in the air, neighing his terror. Like a stoneshe dropped from the saddle. She did not see the horse break into thewoods, but she heard him. Her gaze never left the bear even while shewas falling, and it seemed she alighted in an upright position with herback against a bush. It upheld her. The bear wagged his huge head fromside to side. Then, as the hound barked close at hand, he turned to runheavily uphill and out of the opening.

  The instant of his disappearance was one of collapse for Helen. Frozenwith horror, she had been unable to move or feel or think. All at onceshe was a quivering mass of cold, helpless flesh, wet with perspiration,sick with a shuddering, retching, internal convulsion, her mindliberated from paralyzing shock. The moment was as horrible as thatin which the bear had bawled his frightful rage. A stark, icy, blackemotion seemed in possession of her. She could not lift a hand, yet allof her body appeared shaking. There was a fluttering, a strangling inher throat. The crushing weight that surrounded her heart eased beforeshe recovered use of her limbs. Then, the naked and terrible thing wasgone, like a nightmare giving way to consciousness. What blessed relief!Helen wildly gazed about her. The bear and hound were out of sight, andso was her horse. She stood up very dizzy and weak. Thought of Bo thenseemed to revive her, to shock different life and feeling throughout allher cold extremities. She listened.

  She heard a thudding of hoofs down the slope, then Dale's clear, strongcall. She answered. It appeared long before he burst out of the woods,riding hard and leading her horse. In that time she recovered fully,and when he reached her, to put a sudden halt upon the fiery Ranger, shecaught the bridle he threw and swiftly mounted her horse. The feel ofthe saddle seemed different. Dale's piercing gray glance thrilled herstrangely.

  "You're white. Are you hurt?" he said.

  "No. I was scared."

  "But he threw you?"

  "Yes, he certainly threw me."

  "What happened?"

  "We heard the hound and we rode along the timber. Then we saw thebear--a monster--white--coated--"

  "I know. It's a grizzly. He killed the colt--your pet. Hurry now. Whatabout Bo?"

  "Pedro was fighting the bear. Bo said he'd be killed. She rode right uphere. My horse followed. I couldn't have stopped him. But we lost Bo.Right there the bear came out. He roared. My horse threw me and ran off.Pedro's barking saved me--my life, I think. Oh! that was awful! Then thebear went up--there.... And you came."

  "Bo's followin' the hound!" ejaculated Dale. And, lifting his hands tohis mouth, he sent out a stentorian yell that rolled up the slope, rangagainst the cliffs, pealed and broke and died away. Then he waited,listening. From far up the slope came a faint, wild cry, high-pitchedand sweet, to create strange echoes, floating away to die in theravines.

  "She's after him!" declared Dale, grimly.

  "Bo's got your rifle," said Helen. "Oh, we must hurry."

  "You go back," ordered Dale, wheeling his horse.

  "No!" Helen felt that word leave her lips with the force of a bullet.

  Dale spurred Ranger and took to the open slope. Helen kept at his heelsuntil timber was reached. Here a steep trail led up. Dale dismounted.

  "Horse tracks--bear tracks--dog tracks," he said, bending over. "We'llhave 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. Helenfollowed. It was rough and hard work. She was lightly clad, yet soon shewas hot, laboring, and her heart began to hurt. When Dale halted torest Helen was just ready to drop. The baying of the hound, thoughinfrequent, inspirited her. But presently that sound was lost. Dale saidbear and hound had gone over the ridge and as soon as the top was gainedhe would hear them again.

  "Look there," he said, presently, pointing to fresh tracks, larger thanthose 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 theridge-top she was all tuckered out. It was all she could do to get onher horse. Dale led along the crest of this wooded ridge toward thewestern end, which was considerably higher. In places open rocky groundsplit the green timber. Dale pointed toward a promontory.

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

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

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

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

  Dale spurred down the slope. Helen rode in his tracks and, though sheplunged so fast that she felt her hair stand up with fright, she saw himdraw away from her. Sometimes her horse slid on his haunches for afew yards, and at these hazardous moments she got her feet out of thestirrups so as to fall free from him if he went down. She let him choosethe way, while she gazed ahead at Dale, and then farther on, in the hopeof seeing Bo. At last she was rewarded. Far Down the wooded bench shesaw 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 andperil. 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 slopeof soft ground he broke out across the open bench at a pace that madethe wind bite Helen's cheeks and roar in her ears. She lost sight ofDale. It gave her a strange, grim exultance. She bent her eager gaze tofind the tracks of his horse, and she found them. Also she made out thetracks of Bo's mustang and the bear and the hound. Her horse, scentinggame, perhaps, and afraid to be left alone, settled into a fleet andpowerful stride, sailing over logs and brush. That open bench had lookedshort, but it was long, and Helen rode down the gradual descent atbreakneck speed. She would not be left behind. She had awakened to aheedlessness of risk. Something burned steadily within her. A grim, hardanger of joy! When she saw, far down another open, gradual descent, thatDale had passed Bo and that Bo was riding the little mustang as neverbefore, then Helen flamed with a madness to catch her, to beat her inthat wonderful chase, to show her and Dale what there really was in thedepths of Helen Rayner.

  Her ambition was to be short-lived, she divined from the lay of the landahead, but the ride she lived then for a flying mile was something thatwould always blanch her cheeks and prick her skin in remembrance.

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

  Besides, her horse was mettlesome, thoroughly aroused, and he wanted afree rein and his own way. Helen tried that, only to lose the trail andto get sundry knocks from trees and branches. She could not hear thehound, nor Dale. The pines were small, close together, and tough. Theywere hard to bend. Helen hurt her
hands, scratched her face, barked herknees. The horse formed a habit suddenly of deciding to go the way heliked instead of the way Helen guided him, and when he plunged betweensaplings too close to permit easy passage it was exceedingly hard onher. That did not make any difference to Helen. Once worked into afrenzy, her blood stayed at high pressure. She did not argue withherself about a need of desperate hurry. Even a blow on the head thatnearly blinded her did not in the least retard her. The horse couldhardly be held, and not at all in the few open places.

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

  Here Helen again missed the tracks made by Dale and Bo. The descentlooked impassable. She rode back along the rim, then forward. Finallyshe found where the ground had been plowed deep by hoofs, down overlittle banks. Helen's horse balked at these jumps. When she goaded himover them she went forward on his neck. It seemed like riding straightdownhill. The mad spirit of that chase grew more stingingly keen toHelen as the obstacles grew. Then, once more the bay of the hound andthe bawl of the bear made a demon of her horse. He snorted a shrilldefiance. He plunged with fore hoofs in the air. He slid and broke a waydown the steep, soft banks, through the thick brush and thick clustersof 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 herebounded and gained his feet. The sounds of fight ceased, but Dale'sthrilling call floated up on the pine-scented air.

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

  Then down-stream Helen did some more reckless and splendid riding. Onlevel ground the horse was great. Once he leaped clear across the brook.Every plunge, every turn Helen expected to come upon Dale and Bo facingthe bear. The canuon narrowed, the stream-bed deepened. She had to slowdown to get through the trees and rocks. Quite unexpectedly she rodepell-mell upon Dale and Bo and the panting Pedro. Her horse plunged to ahalt, 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 bloody, dirty, disheveled, and wringing wet withperspiration. Her riding habit was torn into tatters. Every muscleseemed to burn and sting, and all her bones seemed broken. But it wasworth 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 notlost--so much time--riding down this mountain. And I'd caught you--beatyou."

  "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'srare smile changed his gravity.

  "I'm sorry. It was rash of me. I thought you'd go back.... But all'swell 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 assurance that she did not knowthe real meaning of life--of her stubborn antagonism--made her somehowashamed. But it was not for long.

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

  "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'mnear starved NOW--I was so furious at Bo that I could have choked her. Ifaced that horrible brute.... Oh, I know what it is to fear death!... Iwas 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 ofto-day--before I can know real life," replied Helen, demurely.

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