The Zane Grey Megapack

by Zane Grey

  “Nell, I never knew before how good a fire could feel,” declared Bo.

  And therein lay more food for Helen’s reflection.

  In ten minutes Helen was dry and hot. Darkness came down upon the dreary, sodden forest, but that great camp-fire made it a different world from the one Helen had anticipated. It blazed and roared, cracked like a pistol, hissed and sputtered, shot sparks everywhere, and sent aloft a dense, yellow, whirling column of smoke. It began to have a heart of gold.

  Dale took a long pole and raked out a pile of red embers upon which the coffee-pot and oven soon began to steam.

  “Roy, I promised the girls turkey tonight,” said the hunter.

  “Mebbe tomorrow, if the wind shifts. This ’s turkey country.”

  “Roy, a potato will do me!” exclaimed Bo. “Never again will I ask for cake and pie! I never appreciated good things to eat. And I’ve been a little pig, always. I never—never knew what it was to be hungry—until now.”

  Dale glanced up quickly.

  “Lass, it’s worth learnin’,” he said.

  Helen’s thought was too deep for words. In such brief space had she been transformed from misery to comfort!

  The rain kept on falling, though it appeared to grow softer as night settled down black. The wind died away and the forest was still, except for the steady roar of the stream. A folded tarpaulin was laid between the pine and the fire, well in the light and warmth, and upon it the men set steaming pots and plates and cups, the fragrance from which was strong and inviting.

  “Fetch the saddle-blanket an’ set with your backs to the fire,” said Roy.

  Later, when the girls were tucked away snugly in their blankets and sheltered from the rain, Helen remained awake after Bo had fallen asleep. The big blaze made the improvised tent as bright as day. She could see the smoke, the trunk of the big pine towering aloft, and a blank space of sky. The stream hummed a song, seemingly musical at times, and then discordant and dull, now low, now roaring, and always rushing, gurgling, babbling, flowing, chafing in its hurry.

  Presently the hunter and his friend returned from hobbling the horses, and beside the fire they conversed in low tones.

  “Wal, thet trail we made today will be hid, I reckon,” said Roy, with satisfaction.

  “What wasn’t sheeped over would be washed out. We’ve had luck. An’ now I ain’t worryin’,” returned Dale.

  “Worryin’? Then it’s the first I ever knowed you to do.”

  “Man, I never had a job like this,” protested the hunter.

  “Wal, thet’s so.”

  “Now, Roy, when old Al Auchincloss finds out about this deal, as he’s bound to when you or the boys get back to Pine, he’s goin’ to roar.”

  “Do you reckon folks will side with him against Beasley?”

  “Some of them. But Al, like as not, will tell folks to go where it’s hot. He’ll bunch his men an’ strike for the mountains to find his nieces.”

  “Wal, all you’ve got to do is to keep the girls hid till I can guide him up to your camp. Or, failin’ thet, till you can slip the girls down to Pine.”

  “No one but you an’ your brothers ever seen my senaca. But it could be found easy enough.”

  “Anson might blunder on it. But thet ain’t likely.”

  “Why ain’t it?”

  “Because I’ll stick to thet sheep-thief’s tracks like a wolf after a bleedin’ deer. An’ if he ever gets near your camp I’ll ride in ahead of him.”

  “Good!” declared Dale. “I was calculatin’ you’d go down to Pine, sooner or later.”

  “Not unless Anson goes. I told John thet in case there was no fight on the stage to make a bee-line back to Pine. He was to tell Al an’ offer his services along with Joe an’ Hal.”

  “One way or another, then, there’s bound to be blood spilled over this.”

  “Shore! An’ high time. I jest hope I get a look down my old ‘forty-four’ at thet Beasley.”

  “In that case I hope you hold straighter than times I’ve seen you.”

  “Milt Dale, I’m a good shot,” declared Roy, stoutly.

  “You’re no good on movin’ targets.”

  “Wal, mebbe so. But I’m not lookin’ for a movin’ target when I meet up with Beasley. I’m a hossman, not a hunter. You’re used to shootin’ flies off deer’s horns, jest for practice.”

  “Roy, can we make my camp by tomorrow night?” queried Dale, more seriously.

  “We will, if each of us has to carry one of the girls. But they’ll do it or die. Dale, did you ever see a gamer girl than thet kid Bo?”

  “Me! Where’d I ever see any girls?” ejaculated Dale. “I remember some when I was a boy, but I was only fourteen then. Never had much use for girls.”

  “I’d like to have a wife like that Bo,” declared Roy, fervidly.

  There ensued a moment’s silence.

  “Roy, you’re a Mormon an’ you already got a wife,” was Dale’s reply.

  “Now, Milt, have you lived so long in the woods thet you never heard of a Mormon with two wives?” returned Roy, and then he laughed heartily.

  “I never could stomach what I did hear pertainin’ to more than one wife for a man.”

  “Wal, my friend, you go an’ get yourself one. An’ see then if you wouldn’t like to have two.”

  “I reckon one ’d be more than enough for Milt Dale.”

  “Milt, old man, let me tell you thet I always envied you your freedom,” said Roy, earnestly. “But it ain’t life.”

  “You mean life is love of a woman?”

  “No. Thet’s only part. I mean a son—a boy thet’s like you—thet you feel will go on with your life after you’re gone.”

  “I’ve thought of that—thought it all out, watchin’ the birds an’ animals mate in the woods.… If I have no son I’ll never live hereafter.”

  “Wal,” replied Roy, hesitatingly, “I don’t go in so deep as thet. I mean a son goes on with your blood an’ your work.”

  “Exactly… An’, Roy, I envy you what you ve got, because it’s out of all bounds for Milt Dale.”

  Those words, sad and deep, ended the conversation. Again the rumbling, rushing stream dominated the forest. An owl hooted dismally. A horse trod thuddingly near by and from that direction came a cutting tear of teeth on grass.

  A voice pierced Helen’s deep dreams and, awaking, she found Bo shaking and calling her.

  “Are you dead?” came the gay voice.

  “Almost. Oh, my back’s broken,” replied Helen. The desire to move seemed clamped in a vise, and even if that came she believed the effort would be impossible.

  “Roy called us,” said Bo. “He said hurry. I thought I’d die just sitting up, and I’d give you a million dollars to lace my boots. Wait, sister, till you try to pull on one of those stiff boots!”

  With heroic and violent spirit Helen sat up to find that in the act her aches and pains appeared beyond number. Reaching for her boots, she found them cold and stiff. Helen unlaced one and, opening it wide, essayed to get her sore foot down into it. But her foot appeared swollen and the boot appeared shrunken. She could not get it half on, though she expended what little strength seemed left in her aching arms. She groaned.

  Bo laughed wickedly. Her hair was tousled, her eyes dancing, her cheeks red.

  “Be game!” she said. “Stand up like a real Western girl and pull your boot on.”

  Whether Bo’s scorn or advice made the task easier did not occur to Helen, but the fact was that she got into her boots. Walking and moving a little appeared to loosen the stiff joints and ease that tired feeling. The water of the stream where the girls washed was colder than any ice Helen had ever felt. It almost paralyzed her hands. Bo mumbled, and blew like a porpoise. They had to run to the fire before being able to comb their hair. The air was wonderfully keen. The dawn was clear, bright, with a red glow in the east where the sun was about to rise.

  “All ready, girls,” called Roy. “Reckon you can help you
rselves. Milt ain’t comin’ in very fast with the hosses. I’ll rustle off to help him. We’ve got a hard day before us. Yesterday wasn’t nowhere to what today’ll be.”

  “But the sun’s going to shine?” implored Bo.

  “Wal, you bet,” rejoined Roy, as he strode off.

  Helen and Bo ate breakfast and had the camp to themselves for perhaps half an hour; then the horses came thudding down, with Dale and Roy riding bareback.

  By the time all was in readiness to start the sun was up, melting the frost and ice, so that a dazzling, bright mist, full of rainbows, shone under the trees.

  Dale looked Ranger over, and tried the cinches of Bo’s horse.

  “What’s your choice—a long ride behind the packs with me—or a short cut over the hills with Roy?” he asked.

  “I choose the lesser of two rides,” replied Helen, smiling.

  “Reckon that’ll be easier, but you’ll know you’ve had a ride,” said Dale, significantly.

  “What was that we had yesterday?” asked Bo, archly.

  “Only thirty miles, but cold an’ wet. Today will be fine for ridin’.”

  “Milt, I’ll take a blanket an’ some grub in case you don’t meet us tonight,” said Roy. “An’ I reckon we’ll split up here where I’ll have to strike out on thet short cut.”

  Bo mounted without a helping hand, but Helen’s limbs were so stiff that she could not get astride the high Ranger without assistance. The hunter headed up the slope of the canyon, which on that side was not steep. It was brown pine forest, with here and there a clump of dark, silver-pointed evergreens that Roy called spruce. By the time this slope was surmounted Helen’s aches were not so bad. The saddle appeared to fit her better, and the gait of the horse was not so unfamiliar. She reflected, however, that she always had done pretty well uphill. Here it was beautiful forest-land, uneven and wilder. They rode for a time along the rim, with the white rushing stream in plain sight far below, with its melodious roar ever thrumming in the ear.

  Dale reined in and peered down at the pine-mat.

  “Fresh deer sign all along here,” he said, pointing.

  “Wal, I seen thet long ago,” rejoined Roy.

  Helen’s scrutiny was rewarded by descrying several tiny depressions in the pine-needles, dark in color and sharply defined.

  “We may never get a better chance,” said Dale. “Those deer are workin’ up our way. Get your rifle out.”

  Travel was resumed then, with Roy a little in advance of the pack-train. Presently he dismounted, threw his bridle, and cautiously peered ahead. Then, turning, he waved his sombrero. The pack-animals halted in a bunch. Dale beckoned for the girls to follow and rode up to Roy’s horse. This point, Helen saw, was at the top of an intersecting canuon. Dale dismounted, without drawing his rifle from its saddle-sheath, and approached Roy.

  “Buck an’ two does,” he said, low-voiced. “An’ they’ve winded us, but don’t see us yet.… Girls, ride up closer.”

  Following the directions indicated by Dale’s long arm, Helen looked down the slope. It was open, with tall pines here and there, and clumps of silver spruce, and aspens shining like gold in the morning sunlight. Presently Bo exclaimed: “Oh, look! I see! I see!” Then Helen’s roving glance passed something different from green and gold and brown. Shifting back to it she saw a magnificent stag, with noble spreading antlers, standing like a statue, his head up in alert and wild posture. His color was gray. Beside him grazed two deer of slighter and more graceful build, without horns.

  “It’s downhill,” whispered Dale. “An’ you’re goin’ to overshoot.”

  Then Helen saw that Roy had his rifle leveled.

  “Oh, don’t!” she cried.

  Dale’s remark evidently nettled Roy. He lowered the rifle.

  “Milt, it’s me lookin’ over this gun. How can you stand there an’ tell me I’m goin’ to shoot high? I had a dead bead on him.”

  “Roy, you didn’t allow for downhill… Hurry. He sees us now.”

  Roy leveled the rifle and, taking aim as before, he fired. The buck stood perfectly motionless, as if he had indeed been stone. The does, however, jumped with a start, and gazed in fright in every direction.

  “Told you! I seen where your bullet hit thet pine—half a foot over his shoulder. Try again an’ aim at his legs.”

  Roy now took a quicker aim and pulled trigger. A puff of dust right at the feet of the buck showed where Roy’s lead had struck this time. With a single bound, wonderful to see, the big deer was out of sight behind trees and brush. The does leaped after him.

  “Doggone the luck!” ejaculated Roy, red in the face, as he worked the lever of his rifle. “Never could shoot downhill, nohow!”

  His rueful apology to the girls for missing brought a merry laugh from Bo.

  “Not for worlds would I have had you kill that beautiful deer!” she exclaimed.

  “We won’t have venison steak off him, that’s certain,” remarked Dale, dryly. “An’ maybe none off any deer, if Roy does the shootin’.”

  They resumed travel, sheering off to the right and keeping to the edge of the intersecting canuon. At length they rode down to the bottom, where a tiny brook babbled through willows, and they followed this for a mile or so down to where it flowed into the larger stream. A dim trail overgrown with grass showed at this point.

  “Here’s where we part,” said Dale. “You’ll beat me into my camp, but I’ll get there sometime after dark.”

  “Hey, Milt, I forgot about thet darned pet cougar of yours an’ the rest of your menagerie. Reckon they won’t scare the girls? Especially old Tom?”

  “You won’t see Tom till I get home,” replied Dale.

  “Ain’t he corralled or tied up?”

  “No. He has the run of the place.”

  “Wal, good-by, then, an’ rustle along.”

  Dale nodded to the girls, and, turning his horse, he drove the pack-train before him up the open space between the stream and the wooded slope.

  Roy stepped off his horse with that single action which appeared such a feat to Helen.

  “Guess I’d better cinch up,” he said, as he threw a stirrup up over the pommel of his saddle. “You girls are goin’ to see wild country.”

  “Who’s old Tom?” queried Bo, curiously.

  “Why, he’s Milt’s pet cougar.”

  “Cougar? That’s a panther—a mountain-lion, didn’t he say?”

  “Shore is. Tom is a beauty. An’ if he takes a likin’ to you he’ll love you, play with you, maul you half to death.”

  Bo was all eyes.

  “Dale has other pets, too?” she questioned, eagerly.

  “I never was up to his camp but what it was overrun with birds an’ squirrels an’ vermin of all kinds, as tame as tame as cows. Too darn tame, Milt says. But I can’t figger thet. You girls will never want to leave thet senaca of his.”

  “What’s a senaca?” asked Helen, as she shifted her foot to let him tighten the cinches on her saddle.

  “Thet’s Mexican for park, I guess,” he replied. “These mountains are full of parks; an’, say, I don’t ever want to see no prettier place till I get to heaven.… There, Ranger, old boy, thet’s tight.”

  He slapped the horse affectionately, and, turning to his own, he stepped and swung his long length up.

  “It ain’t deep crossin’ here. Come on,” he called, and spurred his bay.

  The stream here was wide and it looked deep, but turned out to be deceptive.

  “Wal, girls, here beginneth the second lesson,” he drawled, cheerily. “Ride one behind the other—stick close to me—do what I do—an’ holler when you want to rest or if somethin’ goes bad.”

  With that he spurred into the thicket. Bo went next and Helen followed. The willows dragged at her so hard that she was unable to watch Roy, and the result was that a low-sweeping branch of a tree knocked her hard on the head. It hurt and startled her, and roused her mettle. Roy was keeping to the easy trot that covered ground
so well, and he led up a slope to the open pine forest. Here the ride for several miles was straight, level, and open. Helen liked the forest today. It was brown and green, with patches of gold where the sun struck. She saw her first bird—big blue grouse that whirred up from under her horse, and little checkered gray quail that appeared awkward on the wing. Several times Roy pointed out deer flashing gray across some forest aisle, and often when he pointed Helen was not quick enough to see.

  Helen realized that this ride would make up for the hideous one of yesterday. So far she had been only barely conscious of sore places and aching bones. These she would bear with. She loved the wild and the beautiful, both of which increased manifestly with every mile. The sun was warm, the air fragrant and cool, the sky blue as azure and so deep that she imagined that she could look far up into it.

  Suddenly Roy reined in so sharply that he pulled the bay up short.

  “Look!” he called, sharply.

  Bo screamed.

  “Not thet way! Here! Aw, he’s gone!”

  “Nell! It was a bear! I saw it! Oh! not like circus bears at all!” cried Bo.

  Helen had missed her opportunity.

  “Reckon he was a grizzly, an’ I’m jest as well pleased thet he loped off,” said Roy. Altering his course somewhat, he led to an old rotten log that the bear had been digging in. “After grubs. There, see his track. He was a whopper shore enough.”

  They rode on, out to a high point that overlooked canuon and range, gorge and ridge, green and black as far as Helen could see. The ranges were bold and long, climbing to the central uplift, where a number of fringed peaks raised their heads to the vast bare dome of Old Baldy. Far as vision could see, to the right lay one rolling forest of pine, beautiful and serene. Somewhere down beyond must have lain the desert, but it was not in sight.

  “I see turkeys ’way down there,” said Roy, backing away. “We’ll go down and around an’ mebbe I’ll get a shot.”

  Descent beyond a rocky point was made through thick brush. This slope consisted of wide benches covered with copses and scattered pines and many oaks. Helen was delighted to see the familiar trees, although these were different from Missouri oaks. Rugged and gnarled, but not tall, these trees spread wide branches, the leaves of which were yellowing. Roy led into a grassy glade, and, leaping off his horse, rifle in hand, he prepared to shoot at something. Again Bo cried out, but this time it was in delight. Then Helen saw an immense flock of turkeys, apparently like the turkeys she knew at home, but these had bronze and checks of white, and they looked wild. There must have been a hundred in the flock, most of them hens. A few gobblers on the far side began the flight, running swiftly off. Helen plainly heard the thud of their feet. Roy shot once—twice—three times. Then rose a great commotion and thumping, and a loud roar of many wings. Dust and leaves whirling in the air were left where the turkeys had been.