by Zane Grey
Tim swung round sharply. “See heah, boy, do you want the other side of yore face mussed up? Thet there word you used is offensive to me.”
“Ahuh!” ejaculated Cal, tartly.
Tim looked belligerent then, and there might have been trouble had not Georgiana come laughingly between them. “You fellows make me tired. Some day I’ll call your bluffs and make you fight.”
“Wal, Miss Georgie, when you do there’ll be only two blows struck—one where I slam Cal an’ the other when he hits the ground. . . . Shore I hope you have a nice ride, but I’m gamblin’ Blazes will spill you today. He looks mean an’ he shore hates the brush.” With that parting shot and an elaborate doffing of his sombrero, Tim turned away.
“Cal, was Tim just kidding me?” queried Georgiana, dubiously.
“Reckon he was. Blazes seems in fine temper today. Now you coax him an’ feed him some sugar, an’ lead him out into the grass before you mount. Then if he bucks you off you’ll light soft. I’ll go get my horse.”
Cal had to go to the farther end of the pasture, and while he was on his way Pan Handle Ames yelled from the corral: “Hey, thar! Air you workin’ today or takin’ out company?”
“You better rustle for Bear Flat,” called Cal, in reply. “An’ I’m advisin’ you to steer round the sawmill so father won’t see how late you are.”
Before Cal caught his other horse, Georgiana came loping down on Blazes and helped corner the bay. She was radiant with joy. The pinto appeared unusually amenable and pranced around with her. Georgiana looked well on a horse and she was learning to ride.
“Georgie, run the edge off him,” said Cal. “Lope up to the end of the pasture, then cut loose an’ make him run back.”
“Oh, Cal! Really? You mean it?” she flashed.
“Sure I mean it. But remember all I told you an’ hang on.”
As she wheeled with a little cry of excitement and delight to urge the willing pinto to a lope, Cal watched her critically. Indeed she was improving. She kept her seat in the saddle very well. Upon reaching the fence, she turned back and let Blazes go. Cal was now unable to watch her critically. He could only gaze with a strange pleasure the sight of her gave him. Blazes could run, and at this gait was easy to ride. Georgiana’s golden curls shone bright in the wind. As she neared Cal he saw her face as never before, and something warm and splendid swept over him. He had found a way to make her happy. Blazes came tearing down on a dead-level run, and Cal saw it was the fence more than the girl that stopped him.
“Oh—that was—grand,” trilled Georgiana, glowing and disheveled. “Why didn’t you—ever let me—race him before?”
“You’re learnin’ to ride, Georgie,” he replied, stirred by her gladness. “You’ve improved a lot since you rode with me last.”
“Am I? Gee! I hope you mean it. I’ve tried hard enough, goodness knows. But none of the boys have horses like Blazes. I feel easier on him.”
“Blazes sure has an easy gait,” replied Cal. It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her that he had decided to make her a present of the pinto, but as he had suffered before from impulsiveness, he thought it best to consider the matter longer. “It’ll be a tough day on you, Georgie, an’ you’ll need to take some lunch.”
“I put some up—myself—enough for both of us,” she said.
“Ahuh! You did? Made sure you were goin’?” he queried.
“Of course I knew you’d take me. You’ve never refused me anything, even when I was meanest.”
“Don’t bank too much on that,” he said, soberly. “Well, you ride down to the lower pasture gate, an’ I’ll catch up with you. Give Blazes a drink—An’ say, where’d you leave that lunch?”
“It’s hanging on the corral gate,” she replied. “Don’t forget it.”
Cal strode away, leading his horse toward the barn, and while he walked he watched the girl trot Blazes down the green pasture. What a difference she made in the familiar old home scene! Her golden hair flying, the red scarf flying, and the trim, graceful girlish figure in action—somehow they swelled his heart. She meant so much. All his life had changed since the coming of this Eastern girl.
Cal located the khaki bag containing the lunch, and as he lifted it off the fence he smiled to feel its weight. What a sly little minx she was! She knew from past experience what a wonderful treat it was for a rider to have a share of such lunch out in the open. Saddling up, he mounted and rode by Wess and Arizona with only a casual nod.
“Hey! Think you’re some punkins, don’t you?” called Arizona, jealously.
“Cal, kiss her for me,” added Wess, in good-natured maliciousness.
It was such remarks as this last that Cal found hard to endure. His cousins and comrade riders did not mean anything vicious, and any one of them would have been quick to resent an insult to Georgiana. But the implication somehow roused Cal’s sensitive jealousy. It somehow cast a slur upon the girl—gave her a shallow and light character that hurt him. But was this not justified? The growing conviction began to be torture. Cal bit his tongue to hold back a reply to Wess, and riding out of the corral into the pasture, he took to the trail along the fence and soon reached the lower gate where Georgiana was waiting for him.
“Let’s go,” she cried, gayly.
“Can you trust the lunch with me?” he inquired as he bent to open the gate.
“Cal, I’d trust you with anything,” she said.
“Even yourself?”
“Well, that’s a hard one,” she replied. “Sometimes you are a cross, jealous, mean boy—and dangerous, too. Not that I’m afraid of you! . . . But I guess if I ever wanted to trust myself to anybody I’d pick you.”
“Ahuh!—I’ve a hunch that’s more of a slam than a compliment.”
“Calvin Thurman, you don’t have any idea what a great compliment that is—coming from me.”
“I’m growin’ wise, Georgiana. . . . Well, it’s ride some now. This is a bad trail. Follow me, but not too close, an’ do what I do. If Blazes slips on the rocks, jerk your feet out of the stirrups quick. An’ if he falls, throw yourself off away from him.”
“Oh, is that all?” queried Georgiana, with a laugh utterly devoid of concern.
Cal had seen Western girls used to horses ride down this rocky ravine and do it with a full appreciation of the bad places. He hoped Georgiana would have good fortune, but he was somewhat worried. There was no telling what a horse might do in unexpected situations. There was hardly any sense in spoiling the girl’s pleasure by suggesting things that might not happen. Blazes was a surefooted pony, not easily frightened or given to shying, and considering that he was carrying a light rider and one who would not spur or hurt him, he was to be trusted. Then Cal had another argument in his resignation—a felling he tried to discountenance, and it was that if Georgiana was destined to have an accident, which seemed inevitable, he wanted it to happen while she was with him.
The trail led down into the foothills, along the steep side of a gully that was brushy and rocky. Live-oak brush and manzanita lined the trail and in many places crowded over it. Swinging head and shoulders to avoid being threshed was second nature to Cal. It pleased him to observe that Georgiana was quick to imitate his movements. This was the first time she had started on a really wild rough ride, and she looked her excitement and daring. Cal wondered if he really could frighten her or shock her, and he wanted to do it. That, however, like other things, had better be left for the future.
Presently the gully opened wide and the trail led down the rocky bed of a brook. The horses drank and then splashed on, cracking slippery stones, and sliding on others. There were banks of sand and gravel, and dark green pools under shelving banks where trout floated motionless. The foothills grew in size until the one farthest in sight assumed the proportions of a mountain, with an immense green slant upward and outcroppings of gray rock and ledges of red, and here and there yellow crags.
Around a turn of the gorge the riders came upon a sycamore grove, g
reen and gold and white, and when they entered it the shade appeared like a thick transparent amber light. Frost had already touched this secluded grove, and the sand was strewn with golden leaves. Once Cal turned to Georgiana, intending to ask her if she did not like this place. But the question would have been superfluous. To the girl’s excitement had been added something of intense and dreamy appreciation. Cal had longed to have her love his country, and now there seemed some hope of it. He did not break the spell until he espied a flock of wild turkeys crossing a ridge ahead.
“What! Wild turkeys? Why, they’re tame,” she cried.
“Sure they’re tame, but they’re wild, all right,” he laughed.
“Like we had for dinner that Sunday?”
“Ahuh. An’ I noticed you ate some.”
“Umm-m! I sure fell for wild turkey, Cal. . . . Oh, there’s a gobbler! How perfectly enormous!”
“He’s not a big one. Wait till I show you some of the whoppers up on the Rim.”
“Cal, I’m a-waitin’ very patiently for you to do a lot of things you promised. You’re making good today, but when do I go turkey-hunting with you?”
“After the fall roundup. We’ll be ridin’ a lot until then. You see, it’s rough country an’ takes hard work to find the cattle.”
“You promise to take me?” she persisted.
“Yes—if you promise not to go huntin’ with any of the other boys,” he replied, hesitatingly.
“Cal, I don’t need to promise that.”
He pondered over this reply. Like many of her speeches, it was open to question, yet he could not help taking this one personally. Georgiana had a trick of making him feel that he was the exceptional one. This was a sweet balm to his wounded feelings. But it held a bitter drop. Others of the Tonto boys had remarked about this peculiar trait of Georgiana’s in their own interest. Suddenly Cal turned to ask:
“Georgie, have you ever ridden off the road with any of the boys?”
“No. Mary laid down the law and said I could not go with any boy but you. Aren’t you flattered?”
“Would you disobey her?” asked Cal, bluntly.
“Not in that. I hate to be bossed, Cal, but I know where to draw the line.”
Cal did not voice another query that stirred him just then. This girl seemed most contradictory and amazing. Today she seemed to be wholly good to Cal. Presently the trail took a sharp turn between two sycamores so close together that a rider had to be quick and skillful to save his knees. Georgiana slipped her left knee back out of danger, but she was not quick enough with her right and struck it hard. Cal heard the thump.
“Oh—damn!” cried Georgiana. “Oh-h! I hit my knee!”
Cal did not need to be told, nor did he need to see the sudden wrinkling of her smooth happy face, or the starting tears. That sound of her knee in contact with the tree had been enough. Any rider knew that sound. Like any other rider, too, he had to laugh.
“Georgie, I told you to look out when you had to go between trees.”
“You’re laughing!” she exclaimed, in surprise. “Cal Thurman, you’re a brute sometimes. I just feel it. . . . To laugh! I tell you that hurt like—like—”
“You bet it hurt,” interrupted Cal. “That’s why I laughed. Besides, it sort of tickled me to find out you are human.”
“It knocked the skin off, I’ll bet,” said Georgiana, ruefully rubbing her knee. At the same time she was regarding Cal with great disfavor, and he gathered that he would have to pay for his mirth.
“Do you want to go back?” he asked, banteringly.
“I’d go on if my knee was broken,” she retorted. “But I’ll say that if you were a good sport you’d’ve gotten a pair of chaps to wear.”
“Georgie, I thought of that very thing,” he returned, eagerly. “There’s a pair at Ryson that’d fit you if you cut them off at the bottom. This brush will tear you to pieces. . . . Would you wear the chaps—if I gave them to you?”
“Would I? After that knock on the knee?—Lead me to them!”
“I’ll phone down for them tonight.”
No matter what he said or did, or what she said or did, Cal felt that he always wound up at the same disturbing place—a troubled gladness at being near her.
“Thanks, Cal. That’ll help some,” she replied.
Below the sycamore grove the trail split, the right branch continuing down the gully and the left sheering up into the brush-covered foothills above which towered the vast green cliff-dotted slope.
Cal had ridden this cattle trail since he was a mere boy just able to climb astride a horse. He knew every foot of it, and many a time he had descended it in the pitchy darkness of night. Like all the trails and one other distinctive feature of his boyhood home, it was something that now seemed strangely dear to him. It had been a part of his life. Riding the ranges was his chief occupation. And he was sorely puzzled now at the realization of how strangely and deeply he wanted this Eastern girl to share something of his feeling for this wild steep trail. Why? Though he asked himself that question, he could not answer it to his satisfaction. Sentimental nonsense, no doubt, because this girl had upset his wits! But he found that this trail was one of the tests by which he meant to judge her.
Cal led the way up the first low, sandy, brushy foothill, and wound down the other side between the walls of grasping live oak, and up a steeper slope to the next hill that was really a step up the mountain. From its summit the whole vast bulk beyond loomed prodigiously. High up, the red cliffs cropped out of the green brush.
“Good night! Do you expect me to climb that?” queried Georgiana, aghast.
“Sure. Why, this’s nothin’ much, Georgie—compared to the Rim or Diamond Butte.”
“If I make good here, will you take me to climb those places?” she asked, with eyes dark and flashing on his.
“Ahuh,” replied Cal, and his short affirmative in no way attested to his thrills.
“I’ll do it or die.”
So Cal led on with these last words ringing in his ears. This girl had feeling. She would come to love the Tonto. He felt what he could not analyze. From the Bench the trail slanted up into the brush and disappeared. Cal’s horse crashed into the thick scrub oak and broke through, while Cal bent low over the saddle. Looking back, he could not see Georgiana, but he heard her horse. When he reached the turn where the trail took its first zigzag, he saw her emerge from the thicket, sombrero awry, her blouse covered with leaves and bits of brush, and her face rosily radiant. Her eyes met his glance, and he saw she was now unconscious of herself. She was reveling in this new experience. He rode on then, and never before had the dry fragrance of the brush been so sweet or the dust of the trail so endurable, or the stings of the thorns somehow pleasurable. At every zigzag turn he halted his horse to let him catch his breath, and Georgiana would ride up the slant below him to do the same. She was out of breath, too. Her bosom heaved. And when she removed her sombrero he could see her hair damp on her brow. Then Cal reached a steeper ascent where the trail led up over rough granite. Here were many sharp white marks made by the iron-shod hooves of horses. Cal bade her dismount and walk here, as he did. But once beyond this place, he mounted again, intending to ride the whole of the remaining ascent. There were places where he thrilled even in his fear for Georgiana, and dared not look back. He should not have let her ride up such treacherous steps and turns. But somehow he was stern and dogged about it. She never uttered a single cry, and there were times when she appeared to be in difficulties. Cal noticed that she had sense enough to let Blazes choose the way, and she confined herself to holding on, a matter not at all easy for a tenderfoot.
Long as was that slope, it seemed only too short to Cal. The last ascent was a lengthy one, and Cal’s horse, having warmed to the climb, surmounted it far in advance of Georgiana’s. When he turned to look down from the top, she was just emerging from a wall of green to enter upon that last straight piece of trail. She waved her gauntleted hand to him, and her call pealed up
ward. He watched her closely while she climbed the remaining distance, conscious that something tremendous was being decided for him. The moment seemed full, and the great slope of gray and green held only the bright moving figure of the girl.
At last she reached his level.
“Somewhat frazzled—but still in the—ring!” she panted out, joyously.
There were black brush marks on her face and a bloody scratch on her chin. She had jammed the sombrero on backward, and from under its rim straggled locks of tangled golden hair. The top button of her blouse had been torn off, exposing the brown and white of her neck. The sleeves likewise had suffered sundry tears. Altogether, she appeared a considerably disheveled young lady. Then Cal looked again into her face—looked keenly this time. He saw a light there—or was it in her eyes?—And quickly he averted his gaze.
“You—sure did—well,” he said, awkwardly, in the grip of his feeling. “I’ll tell you now—that’s no trail for a tenderfoot girl.”
“Then I’ve graduated?” she queried.
“Well, hardly that, but you’ve advanced a grade—. . . . Georgie, did you like that long hard ride?”
“Cal, you’ll never believe me,” she replied, with impulsive earnestness, “but I’ll say that’s my idea of a great time.”
Then, with a strange prophetic knocking at his heart, he bade her look down at the beautiful Green Valley Ranch, shining in the morning sunlight, at the blue smoke curling from the loghouse, at the apple orchards red with fruit, at the white winding road that led on past the old sawmill to disappear in the heavy timber beyond. He showed her the brown speck that was the schoolhouse where her sister was teaching, and the glistening ribbon of water that was Tonto Creek, and lastly the billowy slopes of timber that led up to the noble Rim, standing up gold-barred and black-fringed, to face the sun. Then he waited for her expression of feeling, whatever that might be. But none was forthcoming. For once, Georgiana was not quick to express herself. The omission thrilled Cal far more than any exclamation.
Two hours of riding, much of it down rock-strewn trails, brought Cal and his riding comrade to the divide. Here began the long-sloping bare ridges and the shallow heads of canyons that, inclining endlessly down, grew more rugged and deeper and rockier, to break off suddenly into the black chasm of the Tonto.
