Cavanaugh-Forest Ranger

by Garland, Hamlin

  But as he recalled the spot in which he lay and the uniform which hung upon the wall, he was frank to admit that the beautiful and rich heiress of whom his family dreamed was a very unsubstantial vision indeed, and that, to be honest with himself, he had nothing to offer for such shining good-fortune.

  At breakfast next morning he said: “I must ride back and take some bread to the dog. I can’t go away and leave him there without saying ‘hello.’”

  “Let me do that,” suggested Wetherford. “I’m afraid to go down to the Fork. I reckon I’d better go back and tend the sheep till Gregg sends some one up to take my place.”

  “That might be too late to see Lize. Lee’s voice showed great anxiety. She may be on her death-bed. No; you’d better go down with me to-day,” he urged. And at last the old man consented.

  Putting some bread in his pockets, Ross rode off up the trail to see how the dog and his flock were faring. He had not gone far when he heard the tinkle of the bells and the murmur of the lambs, and a few moments later the collie came toward him with the air of a boy who, having assumed to disregard the orders of his master, expects a scolding. He plainly said: “I’ve brought my sheep to you because I was lonesome. Please forgive me.”

  Cavanagh called to him cheerily, and tossed him a piece of bread, which he caught in his teeth but did not swallow; on the contrary, he held it while leaping for joy of the praise he heard in his new-found master’s voice.

  Turning the flock upward again toward the higher peaks, the ranger commanded the collie to their heels, and so, having redeemed his promise, rode back to the cabin, where he found Wetherford saddled and ready for his momentous trip to the valley. He had shaved away his gray beard, and had Ross been unprepared for these changes he would have been puzzled to account for this decidedly military figure sitting statuesquely on his pony before the door.

  “You can prove an alibi,” he called, as he drew near. “Gregg himself would never recognize you now.”

  Wetherford was in no mood for joking. “Lize will. I wore a mustache in the old days, and there’s a scar on my chin.”

  As he rode he confided this strange thing to Cavanagh. “I know,” said he, “that Lize is old and wrinkled, for I’ve seen her, but all the same I can’t realize it. That heavy-set woman down there is not Lize. My Lize is slim and straight. This woman whom you know has stolen her name and face, that’s all. I can’t explain exactly what I feel, but Lee Virginia means more to me now than Lize.”

  “I think I understand you,” said Cavanagh, with sympathy in his voice.

  The nearer Wetherford came to the actual meeting with his wife the more he shook. At last he stopped in the road. “I don’t believe I can do it,” he declared. “I’ll be like a ghost to her. What’s the use of it? She’ll only be worried by my story. I reckon I’d better keep dark to everybody. Let me go back. I’m plum scared cold.”

  While still he argued, two men on horseback rounded a sharp turn in the trail and came face to face with the ranger. Wetherford’s face went suddenly gray. “My God, there’s the deputy!”

  “Keep quiet. I’ll do the talking,” commanded Cavanagh, who was instant in his determination to shield the man. “Good-morning, gentlemen,” he called, cheerily, “you’re abroad early!”

  The man in front was the deputy sheriff of the county; his companion was a stranger.

  “That was a horrible mess you stumbled on over on Deer Creek,” the deputy remarked.

  “It certainly was. Have any arrests been made?”

  “Not yet, but we’re on a clew. This is Marshal Haines, of Dallas, Mr. Cavanagh,” pursued the deputy. The two men nodded in token of the introduction, and the deputy went on: “You remember that old cuss that used to work for Gregg?”

  Again Cavanagh nodded.

  “Well, that chap is wanted by the Texas authorities. Mr. Haines, here, wants to see him mighty bad. He’s an escaped convict with a bad record.”

  “Is that so?” exclaimed Cavanagh. “I thought he seemed a bit gun-shy.”

  “The last seen of him was when Sam Gregg sent him up to herd sheep. I think he was mixed up in that killing, myself—him and Ballard—and we’re going up to get some track of him. Didn’t turn up at your station, did he?”

  “Yes, he came by some days ago, on his way, so he said, to relieve that sick Basque, Ambro. I went up a couple of days ago, and found the Basque dead and the old man gone. I buried the herder the best I could, and I’m on my way down to report the case.”

  The deputy mused: “He may be hanging ’round some of the lumber-camps. I reckon we had better go up and look the ground over, anyhow. We might just chance to overhaul him.”

  “He may have pulled out over the range,” suggested the ranger. “Anyhow, it’s a long way up there, and you’ll probably have to camp at my place to-night. You’ll find the key hanging up over the door. Go in and make yourself comfortable.”

  The deputy thanked him, and was about to ride on when Cavanagh added: “I burned that Basque’s tent and bedding for fear of contagion. His outfit was worthless, anyhow. You’ll find the sheep just above my cabin, and the horse in my corral.”

  “The old man didn’t take the horse, eh? Well, that settles it; he’s sure at one of the camps. Much obliged. Good-day.”

  As the two officers rode away Wetherford leaned heavily on his pommel and stared at the ranger with wide eyes. His face was drawn and his lips dry. “They’ll get me! My God, they’ll get me!” he said.

  “Oh no, they won’t,” rejoined Cavanagh. “You’re all right yet. They suspected nothing. How could they, with you in uniform and in my company?”

  “All the same, I’m scared. That man Haines had his eyes on me every minute. He saw right through me. They’ll get me, and they’ll charge me up with that killing.”

  “No, they won’t, I tell you,” insisted the ranger. “Haines suspected nothing. I had his eye. He never saw you before, and has nothing but a description to go by. So cheer up. Your uniform and your position with me will make you safe—perfectly safe. They’ll find the Basque’s camp burned and the sheep in charge of the dog, and they’ll fancy that you have skipped across the range. But see here, old man,” and he turned on him sharply, “you didn’t tell me the whole truth. You said you were out on parole.”

  “I couldn’t tell you the whole truth,” replied the fugitive. “But I will now. I was in for a life sentence. I was desperate for the open air and homesick for the mountains, and I struck down one of the guards. I was willing to do anything to get out. I thought if I could get back to this country and my wife and child I’d be safe. I said I’d be willing to go back to the pen if necessary, but I’m not. I can’t do it. I’d die there in that hell. You must save me for my girl’s sake.”

  His voice and eyes were wild with a kind of desperate fury of fear, and Cavanagh, moved to pity, assured him of his aid. “Now listen,” he said. “I’m going to shield you on account of your work for that poor shepherd and for your daughter’s sake. It’s my duty to apprehend you, of course, but I’m going to protect you. The safest thing for you to do is to go back to my cabin. Ride slow, so as not to get there till they’re gone. They’ll ride over to the sawmill, without doubt. If they come back this way, remember that the deputy saw you only as a ragged old man with a long beard, and that Haines has nothing but a printed description to go by. There’s no use trying to flee. You are a marked man in that uniform, and you are safer right here with me than anywhere else this side of Chicago. Haines is likely to cross the divide in the belief that you have gone that way, and, if he does, you have no one but the deputy to deal with.”

  He succeeded at last in completely rousing the older man’s courage.

  Wetherford rose to meet his opportunity. “I’ll do it,” he said, firmly.

  “That’s the talk!” exclaimed Cavanagh, to encourage him. “You can throw them off the track this time, and when I come back to-morrow I’ll bring some other clothing for you, and then we’ll plan some kind
of a scheme that will get you out of the country. I’ll not let them make a scapegoat of you.”

  The ranger watched the fugitive, as he started back over the trail in this desperate defiance of his pursuers, with far less confidence in the outcome than he had put into words.

  “All depends on Wetherford himself. If his nerve does not fail him, if they take the uniform for granted, and do not carry the matter to the Supervisor, we will pull the plan through.” And in this hope he rode away down the trail with bent head, for all this bore heavily upon his relationship to the girl waiting for him in the valley. He had thought Lize a burden, a social disability, but a convict father now made the mother’s faults of small account.

  The nearer he drew to the meeting with Lee Virginia the more important that meeting became. After all, woman is more important than war. The love of home and the child persists through incredible vicissitudes; the conqueror returns from foreign lands the lover still; and in the deep of flooded mines and on the icy slopes of arctic promontories dead men have been found holding in their rigid hands the pictured face of some fair girl. In the presence of such irrefutable testimony, who shall deny the persistence and the reality of love?

  Cavanagh had seen Virginia hardly more than a score of times, and yet she filled his thought, confused his plans, making of his brain a place of doubt and hesitation. For her sake he had entered upon a plan to shield a criminal, to harbor an escaped convict. It was of no avail to argue that he was moved to shield Wetherford because of his heroic action on the peak. He knew perfectly well that it was because he could not see that fair, brave girl further disgraced by the discovery of her father’s identity, for in the searching inquiry which would surely follow his secret would develop.

  To marry her, knowing the character of her father and her mother, was madness, and the voice within him warned him of his folly. “Pure water cannot be drawn from corrupt sources,” it is said. Nevertheless, the thought of having the girl with him in the wilderness filled him with divine recklessness. He was bewitched by the satin smoothness of her skin, the liquid light of her eye, the curve of her cheek, the swell of her bosom, and, most of all, by the involuntary movement of yielding which betrayed her trust and her love. While still he debated, alternately flushed with resolve to be happy and chilled by some strange dejection, he met Swenson, the young guard who guarded the forest on the south Fork.

  As he rode up, Cavanagh perceived in the other man’s face something profoundly serious. He did not smile in greeting, as was usual with him, and, taking some letters from his pocket, passed them over in ominous silence.

  Cavanagh, upon looking them over, selected a letter evidently from Mrs. Redfield, and stuffed the others into his coat-pocket. It was a closely written letter, and contained in its first sentence something which deeply affected him. Slipping from his saddle, he took a seat upon a stone, that he might the better read and slowly digest what was contained therein. He read on slowly, without any other movement than that which was required to turn the leaves. It was a passionate plea from Eleanor Redfield against his further entanglement with Lize Wetherford’s girl.

  “You cannot afford to marry her. You simply cannot. The old mother is too dreadful, and may live on for years. The girl is attractive, I grant you, but she’s tainted. If there is anything in the law of heredity, she will develop the traits of her mother or her father sooner or later. You must not marry her, Ross; and if you cannot, what will you do? There’s only one thing to do. Keep away. I enclose a letter from your sister, pleading with me to urge you to visit them this winter. She is not very strong, as you can see by her writing, and her request will give you an excuse for breaking off all connection with this girl. I am sorry for her, Ross, but you can’t marry her. You must not—you must not! Ride over and see us soon, and we will talk it all out together.”

  He opened another letter, but did not read it. He was too profoundly shaken by the first. He felt the pure friendship, the fine faith, and the guardianship of the writer, and he acknowledged the good sense of all she said, and yet—and yet—

  When he looked up Swenson was staring down at him with a face of such bitterness that it broke through even the absorbed and selfish meditation into which he had been thrown.

  “What’s the matter, Swenson? You look as if you had lost a friend.”

  “I have,” answered the guard, shortly, “and so have you. The chief is out.”

  “What?”

  “They’ve got him!” he exclaimed. “He’s out.”

  Cavanagh sprang up. “I don’t believe it! For what reason? Why?”

  “Don’t that letter tell you? The whole town is chuckling. Every criminal and plug-ugly in the country is spitting in our faces this morning. Yes, sir, the President has fired the chief—the man that built up this Forestry Service. The whole works is goin’ to hell, that’s what it is. We’ll have all the coal thieves, water-power thieves, poachers, and free-grass pirates piling in on us in mobs. They’ll eat up the forest. I see the finish of the whole business. They’ll put some Western man in, somebody they can work. Then where will we be?”

  Cavanagh’s young heart burned with indignation, but he tried to check the other man’s torrent of protest.

  “I can’t believe it. There’s some mistake. Maybe they’ve made him the secretary of the department or something.”

  “No, they haven’t. They’ve thrown him out. They’ve downed him because he tried to head off some thievery of coal-mines in Alaska.” The man was ready to weep with chagrin and indignant sorrow. His voice choked, and he turned away to conceal his emotion.

  Cavanagh put the letter back into his pocket and mounted his horse. “Well, go on back to your work, Swenson. I’m going to town to get the Supervisor on the wire, and find out what it all means.”

  He was almost as badly stunned by the significance of Swenson’s news as Swenson himself. Could it be possible that the man who had built up the field service of the bureau—the man whose clean-handed patriotism had held the boys together, making them every year more clearly a unit, a little army of enthusiasts—could it be possible that the originator, the organizer of this great plan, had been stricken down just when his influence was of most account? He refused to believe it of an administration pledged to the cause of conservation.

  As he entered the town he was struck instantly by the change in the faces turned toward him, in the jocular greetings hurled at him. “Hello, Mr. Cossack! What do you think of your chief now?”

  “This will put an end to your infernal nonsense,” said another. “We’ll have a man in there now who knows the Western ways, and who’s willing to boom things along. The cork is out of your forest bottle.”

  Gregg was most offensive of all. “This means throwing open the forest to anybody that wants to use it. Means an entire reversal of this fool policy.”

  “Wait and see,” replied Cavanagh, but his face was rigid with the repression of the fear and anger he felt. With hands that trembled he opened the door to the telephone-booth, closed it carefully behind him, and called for the Supervisor’s office. As soon as Redfield replied, he burst forth in question: “Is it true that the chief is out?”

  Redfield’s voice was husky as he replied, “Yes, lad, they’ve got him.”

  “Good Lord! What a blow to the service!” exclaimed Cavanagh, with a groan of sorrow and rage. “What is the President thinking of—to throw out the only man who stood for the future, the man who had built up this corps, who was its inspiration?” Then after a pause he added, with bitter resolution: “This ends it for me. Here’s where I get off.”

  “Don’t say that, boy. We need you now more than ever.”

  “I’m through. I’m done with America—with the States. I shall write my resignation at once. Send down another man to take my place.”

  Redfield’s pleadings were of no avail. Cavanagh went directly from the booth to the post-office, and there, surrounded by jeering and exultant citizens, he penned his resignation and ma
iled it. Then, with stern and contemptuous face, he left the place, making no reply to the jeers of his enemies, and, mounting his horse, mechanically rode away out upon the plains, seeking the quiet, open places in order to regain calmness and decision. He did not deliberately ride away from Lee Virginia, but as he entered upon the open country he knew that he was leaving her as he was leaving the forests. He had cut himself off from her as he had cut himself off from the work he loved. His heart was swollen big within his breast. He longed for the return of “the Colonel” to the White House. “What manner of ruler is this who is ready to strike down the man whose very name means conservation, and who in a few years would have made this body of forest rangers the most effective corps of its size in the world?” He groaned again, and his throat ached with the fury of his indignation.

  “Dismissed for insubordination,” the report said. “In what way? Only in making war on greed, in checking graft, in preserving the heritage of the people.”

  The lash that cut deepest was the open exultation of the very men whose persistent attempt to appropriate public property the chief had helped to thwart. “Redfield will go next. The influence that got the chief will get Hugh. He’s too good a man to escape. Then, as Swenson says, the thieves will roll in upon us to slash, and burn, and corrupt. What a country! What a country!”

  As he reached the end of this line of despairing thought, he came back to the question of his remaining personal obligations. Wetherford must be cared for, and then—and then! there was Virginia waiting for him at this moment. In his weakness he confessed that he had never intended to marry her, and yet he had never deliberately intended to do her wrong. He had always stopped short of the hideous treachery involved in despoiling her young love. “And for her sake, to save her from humiliation, I will help her father to freedom.”

  This brought him back to the hideous tragedy of the heights, and with that thought the last shred of faith in the sense of justice in the State vanished.

  “They will never discover those murderers. They will permit this outrage to pass unpunished, like the others. It will be merely another ‘dramatic incident’ in the history of the range.”