Norcross was interested, but did not want to take up valuable time. He said: “Will you let me use your telephone to Meeker’s?”
“Very sorry, but our line is out of order. You’ll have to wait a day or so—or use the mails. You’re too late for to-day’s stage, but it’s only a short ride across. Come outside and I’ll show you.”
Norcross followed him to the walk, and stood in silence while his guide indicated the pass over the range. It all looked very formidable to the Eastern youth. Thunderous clouds hung low upon the peaks, and the great crags to left and right of the notch were stern and barren. “I think I’ll wait for the stage,” he said, with candid weakness. “I couldn’t make that trip alone.”
“You’ll have to take many such a ride over that range in the night—if you join the service,” Nash warningly replied.
As they were standing there a girl came galloping up to the hitching-post and slid from her horse. It was Berea McFarlane. “Good morning, Emery,” she called to the surveyor. “Good morning,” she nodded at Norcross. “How do you find yourself this morning?”
“Homesick,” he replied, smilingly.
“Why so?”
“I’m disappointed in the town.”
“What’s the matter with the town?”
“It’s so commonplace. I expected it to be—well, different. It’s just like any other plains town.”
Berrie looked round at the forlorn shops, the irregular sidewalks, the grassless yards. “It isn’t very pretty, that’s a fact; but you can always forget it by just looking up at the high country. When you going up to the mill?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t had any word from Meeker, and I can’t reach him by telephone.”
“I know, the line is short-circuited somewhere; but they’ve sent a man out. He may close it any minute.”
“Where’s the Supervisor?” asked Nash.
“He’s gone over to Moore’s cutting. How are you getting on with those plats?”
“Very well. I’ll have ’em all in shape by Saturday.”
“Come in and make yourself at home,” said the girl to Norcross. “You’ll find the papers two or three days old,” she smiled. “We never know about anything here till other people have forgotten it.”
Norcross followed her into the office, curious to know more about her. She was so changed from his previous conception of her that he was puzzled. She had the directness and the brevity of phrase of a business man, as she opened letters and discussed their contents with the men.
“Truly she is different,” thought Norcross, and yet she lost something by reason of the display of her proficiency as a clerk. “I wish she would leave business to some one else,” he inwardly grumbled as he rose to go.
She looked up from her desk. “Come in again later. We may be able to reach the mill.”
He thanked her and went back to his hotel, where he overhauled his outfit and wrote some letters. His disgust of the town was lessened by the presence of that handsome girl, and the hope that he might see her at luncheon made him impatient of the clock.
She did not appear in the dining-room, and when Norcross inquired of Nash whether she took her meals at the hotel or not, the expert replied: “No, she goes home. The ranch is only a few miles down the valley. Occasionally we invite her, but she don’t think much of the cooking.”
One of the young surveyors put in a word: “I shouldn’t think she would. I’d ride ten miles any time to eat one of Mrs. McFarlane’s dinners.”
“Yes,” agreed Nash with a reflective look in his eyes. “She’s a mighty fine girl, and I join the boys in wishing her better luck than marrying Cliff Belden.”
“Is it settled that way?” asked Norcross.
“Yes; the Supervisor warned us all, but even he never has any good words for Belden. He’s a surly cuss, and violently opposed to the service. His brother is one of the proprietors of the Meeker mill, and they have all tried to bulldoze Landon, our ranger over there. By the way, you’ll like Landon. He’s a Harvard man, and a good ranger. His shack is only a half-mile from Meeker’s house. It’s a pretty well-known fact that Alec Belden is part proprietor of a saloon over there that worries the Supervisor worse than anything. Cliff swears he’s not connected with it; but he’s more or less sympathetic with the crowd.”
Norcross, already deeply interested in the present and future of a girl whom he had met for the first time only the day before, was quite ready to give up his trip to Meeker. After the men went back to work he wandered about the town for an hour or two, and then dropped in at the office to inquire if the telephone line had been repaired.
“No, it’s still dead.”
“Did Miss McFarlane return?”
“No. She said she had work to do at home. This is ironing-day, I believe.”
“She plays all the parts, don’t she?”
“She sure does; and she plays one part as well as another. She can rope and tie a steer or bake a cake as well as play the piano.”
“Don’t tell me she plays the piano!”
Nash laughed. “She does; but it’s one of those you operate with your feet.”
“I’m relieved to hear that. She seems almost weirdly gifted as it is.” After a moment he broke in with: “What can a man do in this town?”
“Work, nothing else.”
“What do you do for amusement?”
“Once in a while there is a dance in the hall over the drug-store, and on Sunday you can listen to a wretched sermon in the log church. The rest of the time you work or loaf in the saloons—or read. Old Nature has done her part here. But man—! Ever been in the Tyrol?”
“Yes.”
“Well, some day the people of the plains will have sense enough to use these mountains, these streams, the way they do over there.”
It required only a few hours for Norcross to size up the valley and its people. Aside from Nash and his associates, and one or two families connected with the mill to the north, the villagers were poor, thriftless, and uninteresting. They were lacking in the picturesque quality of ranchers and miners, and had not yet the grace of town-dwellers. They were, indeed, depressingly nondescript.
Early on the second morning he went to the post-office—which was also the telephone station—to get a letter or message from Meeker. He found neither; but as he was standing in the door undecided about taking the stage, Berea came into town riding a fine bay pony, and leading a blaze-face buckskin behind her.
Her face shone cordially, as she called out: “Well, how do you stack up this morning?”
“Tip-top,” he answered, in an attempt to match her cheery greeting.
“Do you like our town better?”
“Not a bit! But the hills are magnificent.”
“Anybody turned up from the mill?”
“No, I haven’t heard a word from there. The telephone is still out of commission.”
“They can’t locate the break. Uncle Joe sent word by the stage-driver asking us to keep an eye out for you and send you over. I’ve come to take you over myself.”
“That’s mighty good of you; but it’s a good deal to ask.”
“I want to see Uncle Joe on business, anyhow, and you’ll like the ride better than the journey by stage.”
Leaving the horses standing with their bridle-reins hanging on the ground, she led the way to the office.
“When father comes in, tell him where I’ve gone, and send Mr. Norcross’s packs by the first wagon. Is your outfit ready?” she asked.
“Not quite. I can get it ready soon.”
He hurried away in pleasant excitement, and in twenty minutes was at the door ready to ride.
“You’d better take my bay,” said Berea. “Old Paint-face there is a little notional.”
Norcross approached his mount with a caution which indicated that he had at least been instructed in range-horse psychology, and as he gathered his reins together to mount, Berrie remarked:
“I hope you’re saddle-wise.”
“I had a few lessons in a riding-school,” he replied, modestly.
Young Downing approached the girl with a low-voiced protest: “You oughtn’t to ride old Paint. He nearly pitched the Supervisor the other day.”
“I’m not worried,” she said, and swung to her saddle.
The ugly beast made off in a tearing sidewise rush, but she smilingly called back: “All set.” And Norcross followed her in high admiration.
Eventually she brought her bronco to subjection, and they trotted off together along the wagon-road quite comfortably. By this time the youth had forgotten his depression, his homesickness of the morning. The valley was again enchanted ground. Its vistas led to lofty heights. The air was regenerative, and though a part of this elation was due, no doubt, to the power of his singularly attractive guide, he laid it discreetly to the climate.
After shacking along between some rather sorry fields of grain for a mile or two, Berea swung into a side-trail. “I want you to meet my mother,” she said.
The grassy road led to a long, one-story, half-log, half-slab house, which stood on the bank of a small, swift, willow-bordered stream.
“This is our ranch,” she explained. “All the meadow in sight belongs to us.”
The young Easterner looked about in astonishment. Not a tree bigger than his thumb gave shade. The gate of the cattle corral stood but a few feet from the kitchen door, and rusty beef-bones, bleaching skulls, and scraps of sun-dried hides littered the ground or hung upon the fence. Exteriorly the low cabin made a drab, depressing picture; but as he alighted—upon Berea’s invitation—and entered the house, he was met by a sweet-faced, brown-haired little woman in a neat gown, whose bearing was not in the least awkward or embarrassed.
“This is Mr. Norcross, the tourist I told you about,” explained Berrie.
Mrs. McFarlane extended her small hand with friendly impulse. “I’m very glad to meet you, sir. Are you going to spend some time at the Mill?”
“I don’t know. I have a letter to Mr. Meeker from a friend of mine who hunted with him last year—a Mr. Sutler.”
“Mr. Sutler! Oh, we know him very well. Won’t you sit down?”
The interior of the house was not only well kept, but presented many evidences of refinement. A mechanical piano stood against the log wall, and books and magazines, dog-eared with use, littered the table; and Norcross, feeling the force of Nash’s half-expressed criticism of his “superior,” listened intently to Mrs. McFarlane’s apologies for the condition of the farmyard.
“Well,” said Berea, sharply, “if we’re to reach Uncle Joe’s for dinner we’d better be scratching the hills.” And to her mother she added: “I’ll pull in about dark.”
The mother offered no objection to her daughter’s plan, and the young people rode off together directly toward the high peaks to the east.
“I’m going by way of the cut-off,” Berrie explained; and Norcross, content and unafraid, nodded in acquiescence. “Here is the line,” she called a few minutes later, pointing at a sign nailed to a tree at the foot of the first wooded hill.
The notice, printed in black ink on a white square of cloth, proclaimed this to be the boundary of the Bear Tooth National Forest, and pleaded with all men to be watchful of fires. Its tone was not at all that of a strong government; it was deprecatory.
The trail, hardly more than a wood road, grew wilder and lonelier as they climbed. Cattle fed on the hillsides in scattered bands like elk. Here and there a small cabin stood on the bank of a stream; but, for the most part, the trail mounted the high slopes in perfect solitude.
The girl talked easily and leisurely, reading the brands of the ranchers, revealing the number of cattle they owned, quite as a young farmer would have done. She seemed not to be embarrassed in the slightest degree by the fact that she was guiding a strange man over a lonely road, and gave no outward sign of special interest in him till she suddenly turned to ask: “What kind of a slicker—I mean a raincoat—did you bring?”
He looked blank. “I don’t believe I brought any. I’ve a leather shooting-jacket, however.”
She shrugged her shoulders and looked up at the sky. “We’re in for a storm. You’d ought ’o have a slicker, no fancy ‘raincoat,’ but a real old-fashioned cow-puncher’s oilskin. They make a business of shedding rain. Leather’s no good, neither is canvas; I’ve tried ’em all.”
She rode on for a few minutes in silence, as if disgusted with his folly, but she was really worrying about him. “Poor chap,” she said to herself. “He can’t stand a chill. I ought to have thought of his slicker myself. He’s helpless as a baby.”
They were climbing fast now, winding upward along the bank of a stream, and the sky had grown suddenly gray, and the woodland path was dark and chill. The mountains were not less beautiful; but they were decidedly less amiable, and the youth shivered, casting an apprehensive eye at the thickening clouds.
Berea perceived something of his dismay, and, drawing rein, dismounted. Behind her saddle was a tightly rolled bundle which, being untied and shaken out, proved to be a horseman’s rainproof oilskin coat. “Put this on!” she commanded.
“Oh no,” he protested, “I can’t take your coat.”
“Yes you can! You must! Don’t you worry about me, I’m used to weather. Put this on over your jacket and all. You’ll need it. Rain won’t hurt me; but it will just about finish you.”
The worst of this lay in its truth, and Norcross lost all his pride of sex for the moment. A wetting would not dim this girl’s splendid color, nor reduce her vitality one degree, while to him it might be a death-warrant. “You could throw me over my own horse,” he admitted, in a kind of bitter admiration, and slipped the coat on, shivering with cold as he did so.
“You think me a poor excuse of a trailer, don’t you?” he said, ruefully, as the thunder began to roll.
“You’ve got to be all made over new,” she replied, tolerantly. “Stay here a year and you’ll be able to stand anything.”
Remounting, she again led the way with cheery cry. The rain came dashing down in fitful, misty streams; but she merely pulled the rim of her sombrero closer over her eyes, and rode steadily on, while he followed, plunged in gloom as cold and gray as the storm. The splitting crashes of thunder echoed from the high peaks like the voices of siege-guns, and the lightning stabbed here and there as though blindly seeking some hidden foe. Long veils of falling water twisted and trailed through the valleys with swishing roar.
“These mountain showers don’t last long,” the girl called back, her face shining like a rose. “We’ll get the sun in a few minutes.”
And so it turned out. In less than an hour they rode into the warm light again, and in spite of himself Norcross returned her smile, though he said: “I feel like a selfish fool. You are soaked.”
“Hardly wet through,” she reassured him. “My jacket and skirt turn water pretty well. I’ll be dry in a jiffy. It does a body good to be wet once in a while.”
The shame of his action remained; but a closer friendship was established, and as he took off the coat and handed it back to her, he again apologized. “I feel like a pig. I don’t see how I came to do it. The thunder and the chill scared me, that’s the truth of it. You hypnotized me into taking it. How wet you are!” he exclaimed, remorsefully. “You’ll surely take cold.”
“I never take cold,” she returned. “I’m used to all kinds of weather. Don’t you bother about me.”
Topping a low divide the youth caught a glimpse of the range to the southeast, which took his breath. “Isn’t that superb!” he exclaimed. “It’s like the shining roof of the world!”
“Yes, that’s the Continental Divide,” she confirmed, casually; but the lyrical note which he struck again reached her heart. The men she knew had so few words for the beautiful in life. She wondered whether this man’s illness had given him this refinement or whether it was native to his kind. “I’m glad he took my coat,” was her thought.
; She pushed on down the slope, riding hard, but it was nearly two o’clock when they drew up at Meeker’s house, which was a long, low, stone structure built along the north side of the road. The place was distinguished not merely by its masonry, but also by its picket fence, which had once been whitewashed. Farm-wagons of various degrees of decay stood by the gate, and in the barn-yard plows and harrows—deeply buried by the weeds—were rusting forlornly away. A little farther up the stream the tall pipe of a sawmill rose above the firs.
A pack of dogs of all sizes and signs came clamoring to the fence, followed by a big, slovenly dressed, red-bearded man of sixty or thereabouts.
“Hello, Uncle Joe,” called the girl, in offhand boyish fashion. “How are you to-day?”
“Howdy, girl,” answered Meeker, gravely. “What brings you up here this time?”
She laughed. “Here’s a boarder who wants to learn how to raise cattle.”
Meeker’s face lightened. “I reckon you’re Mr. Norcross? I’m glad to see ye. Light off and make yourself to home. Turn your horses into the corral, the boys will feed ’em.”
“Am I in America?” Norcross asked himself, as he followed the slouchy old rancher into the unkempt yard. “This certainly is a long way from New Haven.”
Without ceremony Meeker led his guests directly into the dining-room, a long and rather narrow room, wherein a woman and six or seven roughly dressed young men were sitting at a rudely appointed table.
“Earth and seas!” exclaimed Mrs. Meeker. “Here’s Berrie, and I’ll bet that’s Sutler’s friend, our boarder.”
“That’s what, mother,” admitted her husband. “Berrie brought him up.”
“You’d ought ’o gone for him yourself, you big lump,” she retorted.
Mrs. Meeker, who was as big as her husband, greeted Norcross warmly, and made a place for him beside her own chair.
“Highst along there, boys, and give the company a chance,” she commanded, sharply. “Our dinner’s turrible late to-day.”
The boys—they were in reality full-grown cubs of eighteen or twenty—did as they were bid with much noise, chaffing Berrie with blunt humor. The table was covered with a red oil-cloth, and set with heavy blue-and-white china. The forks were two-tined, steel-pronged, and not very polished, and the food was of the simplest sort; but the girl seemed at home there—as she did everywhere—and was soon deep in a discussion of the price of beef, and whether it was advisable to ship now or wait a month.
The Forester's Daughter Page 3
