The Deer Stalker

by Zane Grey

  Eburne rode five miles up into the foothills under the rim. The higher he got, the deeper the snow lay and the more deer and deer tracks he saw. Most of the deer were browsing high. They would be hard to drive out of the rough brakes and thick brush. Eburne was quite astonished to find so many deer up there, when by all calculations they should be down on the lower, warmer slopes.

  “Well, I’ve seen about seven hundred deer,” he said to himself as he turned back toward camp. “And I still have one quarter of my ground to ride. Seven hundred in a strip a mile wide and six or seven miles long. That’s a lot of deer. It would augur well for McKay’s drive if it wasn’t for all these infernal hitches. There are twelve or fifteen thousand deer on these cedar slopes between the Cocks Combs and the Saddle. If they were all low down we might make some progress toward driving them into Saddle Canyon, and so over the pass. But most of them are high up in the breaks. It’s going to take time!”

  The ranger returned to camp early in the afternoon. There had been many new arrivals. McKay’s brother had arrived from Kanab, bringing four Piute Indians. He had been expected to bring at least twenty-five riders. Eburne casually interviewed him.

  “Wal,” he said, “I had their promise to come. But lately they just backed out. Reckon the feelin’s, pretty much agin the drive over thet way. Somebody’s done a heap of talkin’, I don’t know who.”

  So one by one the things McKay had counted on, either with or without reason, failed him. Still he went on deluding himself.

  “Me an’ some of the boys rode across them draws under the Saddle today,” he declared in his big, lusty voice as he stood back to Eburne’s campfire. “Seen a million deer, more or less. We edged them along a ways. Reckon they’ll herd just like sheep, once we git them bunched an’ started. We had the camera men with us, an’ they shore throwed fits at the places to photograph a bunch of deer runnin’ along…. Wal, I’ll stretch a line of men an’ Indians from the foothills to the edge of the cedars. Men on hosses an’ Indians with bells. We’ll start back here five miles or so, where the Cocks Combs begin, an’ drive this way, as far as camp. Next day we’ll drive five miles more. Thet ought to bunch a big herd just under the Saddle. There’s a wall thet’ll stop the deer from movin’ on down. The third day we’ll kind of corral them an’ drive them up to the Saddle. Once over thet an’ they’ve got to run down to the river. Trail or canyon. It don’t make no difference to us.”

  “Mac, have you forgotten about the wire fence to go up in the several breaks along the trail?” queried Eburne casually.

  “Jeepers, I reckon I had forgot thet,” declared McKay perplexedly. “Wal, it’ll take only a half day when the wire gits here…. I shore wish it’d come, an’ them Indians, too.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  DECEMBER fourteenth arrived, with the unprecedented fine weather still holding.

  Deer Drive Camp, as the motion picture wags called it, was a scene of color and action, noise and bustle. By the time the last truckload of Indians arrived, there were two hundred men in camp. Among them were Cassell, Judson, Settlemire, and game wardens, deputy marshals, sheriffs, tourists, rangers, wild horse hunters, cattlemen, Dyott and his gang, traders from the reservation, strangers from Utah, and last but not least, a Hopi truck driver. This Indian had spent three days and nights fetching the Navajos from the Gap.

  Eburne cultivated the Hopi’s acquaintance. He was an educated boy, small and sinewy, with clean-cut dark face and fine eyes. He wore a fur cap, which he set jauntily on his black hair. In the course of the ranger’s friendly advances and inquiries, the fact came out that this Hopi had been approached at Lee’s Ferry and Kane by strangers who made flattering offers for him to quit the job he was on and start at once on some errand for them. He said he had promised Mobray to get the Navajos to the deer drive and he was going to keep that promise.

  “You’re a straight shooter, boy,” declared Thad with feeling, handing him a silver dollar. “You can eat at my camp. There won’t be anything much to eat at your camp.”

  Dyott and his four men had a camp back of the Warm Springs cabin. Eburne strolled over there and up to their campfire.

  “Howdy, men,” he said coolly. “I see you’ve joined the procession.”

  “Yep, we reckoned it’d be some fun,” replied Dyott, just as coolly, and he perked his huge head like a bird.

  “The more the merrier. Of course you’ve got lots of friends in this crowd, and like them you’re keen to help McKay make his deer drive,” returned Thad with sarcasm.

  “Wal, from all I hear you ain’t any too popular either,” said Dyott gruffly.

  “Thank goodness!” declared the deer stalker fervently. “Dyott, you’re an old-timer. Back in the days when you were the real thing, as cowman, or horse dealer—or just plain rustler—you’d have shied at a dirty job such as you’ve helped put over this fall and winter. I’ll bet deep down in your heart you’re ashamed of it now.”

  “Eburne, you shoot off your chin a lot fer a fellar who ain’t got any half-hitch on his ranger job,” rejoined Dyott with a leer.

  “Dyott, I haven’t any ranger job.”

  “Ha! You got fired, then, just as—”

  “No. I quit. I beat them to it,” interrupted Thad. “But ranger or otherwise, I still have a grudge to work out on you. And I’m no longer handicapped by forest service regulations. Savvy that?”

  “Ahuh!” grunted Dyott, with his bushy head hanging thoughtfully. Then he looked up with a gleam in his deep-set eyes. “Eburne, I gotta hand it to you fer bein’ the kind of man I like. Listen hyar. I had as dirty a deal from these cattlemen as McKay’s got. An’ if they didn’t hev the goods on me I’d shore give you a hunch. Thet’s sayin’ a lot, considerin’ the whack you gave me on the head.”

  “Dyott, I don’t want your hunch,” replied Eburne, “but I’ll shake hands with you on that straight talk…. There are a lot worse men than you.”

  From Dyott’s camp Thad sauntered over to the ranger cabin, where Cassell, Judson, and others of the service were chatting with game wardens and deputies. Eburne found them all agreeable, pleasant to him, and full of questions about the drive. If any of them opposed McKay’s plan, they assuredly were capital actors. The ranger inclined more and more to the conviction that the officials of the forest service would have been keen for the drive if only they themselves had originated it. The underground machinery of that cattle country, managing affairs at such long distance, operated perhaps a little too silently, secretly, and perfectly for them to comprehend. Eburne had the grace to give them the benefit of the doubt.

  “I expected you to come to Ogden to report on the deer investigation,” said Cassell.

  “I mailed my report,” replied Thad. “Then I got a few days’ leave, went to Flagstaff, where I decided to resign from the service. Wrote you to that effect.”

  “You resigned!” ejaculated Cassell in surprise and heat. “Well, you saved us the trouble of dismissing you.”

  “Sure. I figured that. You don’t want any rangers like me. I know too much about deer—and other things. Cattlemen, for instance, and how they don’t obey the law. Tell your successor that, Mr. Cassell.”

  Eburne turned on his heel and went out amid complete silence. He was glad to have had an opportunity for that caustic little dig at the men who in the past had heaped so many indignities and injustices upon his head.

  Then the ranger walked through the light snow up among the cedars where the Indians were encamped. They had cut large quantities of cedar and pine brush, which they heaped high in a circle, like a corral with a single opening. Around the inside edge they spread their blankets and sheepskins, and in the center they built a fire. Most of them were young stalwart men, eager for the deer drive and the big feast McKay’s emissary had promised them. With their lean, dark heads and bronze, immobile faces, their blankets of bright hues, and their slow gestures and low, guttural voices, they formed picturesque and romantic groups which powerfully appealed to Tha
d. He wished Patricia might have seen these camps.

  A vivid contrast to them was the camp of the motion picture men. It was like a prosperous little village where a circus was in progress. They had a cook and huge stores of food, tents and bales of blankets, utensils of every shape and size, and, lastly, many strange-appearing cases and stands and paraphernalia for their picture-making. This was an adventure for them, a thrilling and interesting hardship for which they had made full preparation and which they evidently were enjoying to the full. Eburne listened to their strange modern banter with amusement and with a feeling of how far and how long he had been absent from the world which they represented.

  That night Thad heard McKay discuss his plans around two campfires, first with a crowd of forest service men and their visitors, and secondly with a miscellaneous group of the campers. In both cases he interrupted his harangues to stoop and draw rude maps on the ground. For some reason his first talk and map differed materially from the second.

  Among the many remarks the silent and observant ranger heard made by disinterested men were two that stood out strikingly. An old deer hunter who had turned deputy sheriff remarked gruffly, “Wal, I come down Tanner’s trail with him an’ up to this Saddle. He can’t do what he thinks he can. If you got a million deer started over thet Saddle, they’d all be gone out of sight before you got to Mancoweeps.” The second remark was made by a thoughtful missionary who lived with Mobray and had spent years among the Navajos. “If I was doing it I’d let two of these old Indians manage this drive.”

  Before dawn next morning, the ring of axes awoke the echoes among the cedars, and bright fires soon blazed. The day broke clear and frosty, with a rosy east. By the time breakfast was over, the horses saddled, and Indians assembled, the sun had risen. No better day for a great drive could have been hoped for.

  Mobray and the missionary had charge of the Indians. McKay led the forty or fifty horsemen; and they all went north through the cedars, making for a high green-spotted knoll that marked the northern end of the Cocks Combs. It took an hour or more of steady travel to reach it. Here McKay gave orders for Mobray and the missionary to take the Indians straight down the slope from this knoll and station a driver about every hundred yards. The men were to ride in groups up into the foothills. Eburne was given the job of climbing the knoll to shoot his rifle as a signal when all was ready and everyone in his position.

  So the company parted, and Thad set out in the direction of the knoll. It was a foothill, steep on the side toward him, sloping gradually to the north. In spite of the easy climb, it proved to be higher than it looked. From the summit Eburne had a magnificent view in every direction. But withdrawing his eyes from the vast desert and the winding black canyon that bisected it, he concentrated his gaze on the topography of the ground at hand.

  Between where he stood and the main slope of Buckskin there was a country so big and wild and wooded that a thousand riders could not have routed deer out of it.

  Watching McKay, with a dozen or more riders, Eburne saw he was not trying to keep in line with the Indians, who had formed a picket line stretching straight down the slope.

  “Haphazard in everything!” muttered Eburne. “Well, I’ll give him two days for his drive. Maybe only one, for I sure don’t like those hazy clouds forming over Buckskin.”

  Gradually the riders disappeared, but Thad could still locate many by sound of hoof and voice. At length McKay’s stentorian holloa from some high point made known to Eburne that he and his men were ready.

  Thad dismounted and fired his rifle. The great deer drive was on!

  He saw the Indian line, stretching down through open sage flat and cedar forest, begin to move forward with a jangle of cowbells and melodious Indian yells. The sights and sounds in the early morning air stirred the ranger mightily. This vast drive was such a worthwhile, such a humane undertaking; what a pity McKay had not been able to measure up to the bigness of his idea! From the slopes above and the thickets of pine under the rim there rang out the long whoops and hoarse yells and good-natured shouts of the riders.

  Eburne, calculating that it would be some little time before McKay’s line worked down even with his position, remained where he was to watch and listen. And everywhere he gazed he espied deer beginning to move. Perhaps many had been standing motionless gazing at him and his horse, and because of their protective coloration against that gray background he had not been able to see them. Big bucks with wide-spread horns came into open places to look. Groups of does, some with fawns, appeared on the hillsides. Down below on the gradual slope, flashes of gray crossed aisles between the cedars. Deer were moving near and far, but it appeared to Eburne that they traveled in every direction except that hoped for by the drivers.

  Soon Thad heard a line of riders coming down the thickly-timbered slope opposite his position. They were throwing rocks, beating the brush, calling in every range of voice. Deer crossed in front of them going down; soon other deer ran in the opposite direction; next a mixed bunch of does and bucks moved diagonally back into the cedars.

  “Looks to me like they just won’t drive,” muttered Eburne, his keen eyes roving everywhere.

  Turning to keep in line with the Indians, who were now ahead of the riders, the ranger rode down the slope.

  The first sign of deer he saw in front of the Indians was a little fawn. It evidently had lost its mother and did not know which way to go. It ran right into one of the Indians. He whooped and rang his bell, and ran quickly to try to catch the fawn. He did not succeed, but at least it appeared as though the Indians were having fun out of the drive. The next deer the ranger espied was a buck walking unconcernedly down the cedar slope, parallel with the Indians and right in front of them.

  Eburne rode into a wash between the hills, where he got out of sight and soured of the drivers until he mounted the slope beyond. Along here, a chain of foothills extended steeply in the direction of the looming Cocks Combs, and more gently in the direction of the desert.

  Adding his voice to the din, Eburne rode on, keeping to the highest points. He wanted to do his share of the driving, yet at the same time he wanted to see everything possible that was taking place in connection with the drive as a whole. To his dismay, he saw that McKay and his men were dropping back out of line. They could not have done otherwise, owing to the lay of the land. But even as they fell behind, they continued whooping at a great rate. The deer stalker recognized some high-pitched cowboy yells, such as were common on round-ups.

  He came to a point where the ridge of the foothill sheered up and far to the right, reaching the proportions of a mountain. In one place it loomed so high that it concealed the Cocks Combs. The open sage slope changed to brushy cedars, with ravines and benches and outcroppings of ragged rock. At the base of this slope Eburne encountered a troop of deer, above him and a little to his right. They were working down almost in single file, and when they came close enough, he made them out to be bucks. He counted forty— all bucks. Then, above them, appeared a line of does moving in the same general direction. The mating season had probably just ended, and bucks and does were now separating. Thad was at the extreme western end of the Indian line, and these deer were going behind it. He could not head them. So he waited to see what would happen when this large troop of deer encountered McKay’s riders.

  They passed within fifty yards of the ranger, coming close before he had time to ride up ahead of them. He calculated there were perhaps seventy in the two lines. The yelling evidently disturbed them, though they were not yet frightened. Eburne rode to an eminence so as to get a better perspective, and from there he saw more deer coming down the slope he had just crossed. Old bucks stood momentarily to gaze and then move on; groups of does, sleek and gray, yet too thin to be beautiful, nosed at the brush, walked, turned with long ears erect, distracted from the fading sounds of cowbells and Indians’ yells to a new commotion closer at hand. A bunch of McKay’s riders appeared in sight on a slope Eburne had just quit. They were yelli
ng now at each other as much as to the deer. Eburne recognized McKay’s booming voice, now hoarse, and strong with impatience. The deer were moving, but not forward.

  Eburne was in time to see some riders race across an opening to head off half a dozen deer. They failed.

  “Hyar they come!” yelled unseen riders.

  “Head ’em off, boys!”

  “Whoopee! All set! Let’s go!”

  “Ride ’em cowboy!”

  So it appeared one troop of McKay’s riders had raced down to the base of the steep slope, and another had gone up to the ridge, both in pursuit of bunches of deer. Eburne then saw the two lines of deer he had just watched pass him join others from the slope and all trot leisurely through the break in the line of riders and go out of sight in the cedars.

  He waited for McKay to reach his position. Some of his riders arrived first. They had lost their loquacity and good humor. The work was hard, uphill and down, and inasmuch as it had been for nought, it was now becoming exasperating. Then McKay came along with six men. Eburne related briefly what he had observed.

  “We can’t keep up with the Indians,” he shouted, his face grimy with sweat and dust. “The line’s busted. Bill’s lost in them brakes under the Cocks Combs. He’s got ten men. I can’t even hear the others. What’ll we do?”

  “Ride ahead. Catch up with the Indian line, and spread up the slopes as far as we can get,” suggested Thad.

  They rode on at a trot. McKay, with his best riders, including the cowboys, took to the slopes. Eburne, riding straight south, now with Blakener, found himself on a level sage flat, sparsely sprinkled with cedars and thinly patched with snow. They caught up with the Indian line. Deer were showing in increased numbers ahead of the Indians and working toward higher ground. Occasionally one would dash between the Indians, who now appeared close together. They had not kept their line formation.