The ranger was awakened in the first faint dawn by the passing of the
girl's light feet as she went across the hall to her mother's room, and a
moment later he heard the low murmur of her voice. Throwing off his
blankets and making such scant toilet as he needed, he stepped into the
hall and waited for her to return.
Soon she came toward him, a smile of confidence and pleasure on her lips.
"How is she?" he asked.
"Quite comfortable."
"And you?" His voice was very tender.
"I am a little tired," she acknowledged. "I didn't sleep very well."
"You didn't sleep at all," he declared, regretfully.
"Oh yes, I did," she replied, brightly.
She appeared a little pale but by no means worn. Indeed, her face had
taken on new charm with its confession of feminine weakness, its
expression of trust in him.
These two ardent souls confronted each other in absorbed silence with
keener perception, with new daring, with new intimacy, till he recalled
himself with effort. "You must let me help you if there's anything I can
do. Remember, I'm your big brother."
"I remember," she answered, smilingly, "and I'm going out to see what my
big brother is to have for breakfast."
Cavanagh found the street empty, silent, and utterly commonplace. And as
he walked past Halsey's saloon the tumult of the night seemed born of a
vision in disordered sleep--and yet it had happened! From these reeking
little dens a score of foul tatterdemalions had issued, charged with
malicious fury. Each of these shacks seemed the lurking-place of a species
of malevolent insect whose sting was out for every comer.
The rotting sidewalks, the tiny shops, with their dusty fly-specked
windows, the groggeries, from whose open doors a noisome vapor streamed,
poisoning the morning air--all these typed the old-time West as Redfield
and his farmstead typed the new.
"Once I would have laughed at this town," he said; "but now it is
disgusting--something to be wiped out as one expunges an obscene mark upon
a public wall."
As for the attack upon himself, terrifying as it had seemed to Lee
Virginia, it was in reality only another lively episode in the history of
the town, another disagreeable duty in the life of a ranger. It was all a
part of his job.
He went forth to his duties with a deepened conviction of the essential
lawlessness of the State and of America in general; for this spirit of mob
law was to be found in some form throughout the land. He was disgusted,
but not beaten. His resolution to carry out the terms of his contract with
the Government remained unshaken.
He carried with him, also, a final disturbing glimpse of Eliza
Wetherford's girl that did indeed threaten his peace of mind. There was an
involuntary appeal, a wistful depth, to her glance which awakened in him
an indignant pity, and also blew into flame something not so
creditable--something which smoldered beneath his conscious will. He
perceived in her a spirit of yielding which was difficult to resist. He
understood, much more clearly than at his first meeting with her, how
impossible it was for her to remain in this country (where law was a joke
and women a ribald jest) without being corrupted. She had not escaped her
heritage of passion, and her glances, innocent as they were, roused, even
in him, something lawless.
As he climbed the long hill he grappled deeply with this new and
inexplicable weakness. He had always been a decent fellow as respects
women, and had maintained the same regard for the moral code that he
instinctively bore toward the laws of his adopted country. He could not,
therefore, regard this girl (low as her parentage seemed) in the light of
license; for (he thought) whatever of evil may have been planted deep in
her nature by her ill-assorted father and mother, she is at the moment
sweet and fine, and the man who would awaken her other self should be
accursed.
In this mood, too, he acknowledged the loneliness of his life for the
first time, and rode his silent way up the trail like one in a dream. He
went over his life story in detail, wondering if he had not made a mistake
in leaving England, in taking out his American citizenship. He considered
again, very seriously, the question of going back to live on the estate of
his mother, and once more decided that its revenue was too small. To
return to it meant an acceptance of the restricted life of an English
farmer, and, worst of all, an acquiescence in the social despotism which
he had come to feel and to hate.
The English empire to him was falling apart. Its supremacy was already
threatened by Germany, whereas the future of the States appealed to his
imagination. Here the problems of popular government and of industry were
to be worked out on the grandest scale. The West inspired him. "Some day
each of these great ranges will be a national forest, and each of these
canons will contain its lake, its reservoir." There was something fine in
this vision of man's conquest of nature. "Surely in this development there
is a place for me," he said.
Start at any place he pleased, his mind circled and came back to Lee
Virginia. He reproached himself for not having remained one more day to
help her. She was in the midst of a most bleak and difficult pass, and
whether she came through or not depended on something not derived from
either her father or her mother. The test of her character was being
made.
"Happily the father is dead, and his exploits fading to a dim legend; but
the mother may live for years to dishearten and corrupt. It is foolish of
the girl to stay, and yet to have her go would leave me and the whole
valley poorer."
He perceived in her a symbol. "She is the new West just as the mother
represents the old, and the law of inheritance holds in her as it holds in
the State. She is a mixture of good and evil, of liberty and license. She
must still draw forward, for a time, the dead weight of her past, just as
the West must bear with and gradually slough off its violent moods."
His pony plodded slowly, and the afternoon was half-spent before he came
in sight of the long, low log-cabin which was the only home he possessed
in all America. For the first time since he built it, the station seemed
lonely and disheartening. "Would any woman, for love of me, come to such a
hearthstone?" he asked himself. "And if she consented to do so, could I be
so selfish as to exact such sacrifice? No, the forest ranger in these
attitudes must be young and heart-free; otherwise his life would be
miserably solitary."
He unsaddled his horse and went about his duties with a leaden pall over
his spirit, a fierce turmoil in his brain. He was no longer single-hearted
in his allegiance to the forest. He could not banish that appealing
girlish face, that trusting gaze. Lee Virginia needed him as he needed
her; and yet--and yet--the people's lands demanded his care, his social
prejudices forbade his marriage.
He was just dishing out his rude supper when the feet of a horse on the
log bridge announced a visitor.
With a feeling of pleasure as well as relief, he rose to greet the
stranger. "Any visitor is welcome this night," he said.
The horseman proved to be his former prisoner, the old man Edwards, who
slipped from his saddle with the never-failing grace of the cow-man, and
came slowly toward the cabin. He smiled wearily as he said: "I'm on your
trail, Mr. Ranger, but I bear no malice. You were doing your duty. Can you
tell me how far it is to Ambro's camp?"
There was something forlorn in the man's attitude, and Cavanagh's heart
softened. "Turn your horse into the corral and come to supper," he
commanded, with Western bluntness; "we'll talk about all that later."
Edwards accepted his hospitality without hesitation, and when he had
disposed of his mount and made himself ready for the meal, he came in and
took a seat at the table in silence, while the ranger served him and
waited for his explanation.
"I'm going up to take Ambro's place," he began, after a few minutes of
silent eating. "Know where his camp is?"
"I do," replied Ross, to whom the stranger now appeared in pathetic guise.
"Any man of his age consenting to herd sheep is surely hard hit by the
rough hand of the world," he reasoned, and the closer he studied his
visitor the plainlier he felt his ungoverned past. His chest was hollow,
his eyes unnaturally large, and his hands thin, but he still displayed
faint lines of the beauty and power he had once gloried in. His clothing
was worn and poor, and Ross said: "You'll need plenty of bedding up
there."
"Is it high?"
"About eleven thousand feet."
"Jehosaphat! How will I stand that kind of air? Still, it may be it's what
I need. I've been living down in the low country for ten years, and I'm a
little bit hide-bound."
"Lung trouble?"
"Oh no; old age, I reckon."
"You're not old--not more than fifty-five."
"I'm no colt," he admitted; "and, besides, I've lived pretty swift."
In this was the hint of a confession, but Cavanagh did not care to have
him proceed further in that line. "I suppose Gregg paid your fine?"
"Yes."
"In any other town in the State you'd have gone down the line."
He roused himself. "See here, Mr. Ranger, you've no warrant to believe me,
but I told you the God's truth. Young Gregg got me to ride into the range
and show him the trail. I didn't intend to get mixed up with a game
warden. I've had all the confinement I need."
"Well, it's a closed incident now," interposed Ross; "we won't reopen it.
Make yourself at home."
The stranger, hungry as he was, ate with unexpected gentility, and, as the
hot coffee sent its cheerful glow through his body, he asked, with
livening interest, a good many questions about the ranger and the Forest
Service. "You fellers have to be all-round men. The cowboys think you have
a snap, but I guess you earn your money."
"A man that builds trail, lays bridges, burns brush, fights fire, rides
the round-up, and covers seventy-five miles of trail every week on eighty
dollars per month, and feeds himself and his horses, isn't what I would
call enjoying a soft snap."
"What do you do it for?"
"God knows! I've been asking myself that question all day to-day."
"This playin' game warden has some outs, too. That was a wild crowd last
night. The town is the same old hell-hole it was when I knew it years ago.
Fine girl of Lize Wetherford's. She blocked _me_ all right." He smiled
wanly. "I certainly was on my way to the green timber when she put the
bars up."
Ross made no comment, and the other went on, in a tone of reminiscent
sadness. "Lize has changed terribly. I used to know her when she was a
girl. Judas Priest! but she could ride and shoot in those days!" His eyes
kindled with the memory of her. "She could back a horse to beat any woman
that ever crossed the range, but I didn't expect to see her have such a
skein of silk as that girl. She sure looks the queen to me."
Cavanagh did not greatly relish this line of conversation, but the pause
enabled him to say: "Miss Wetherford is not much Western; she got her
training in the East. She's been with an aunt ever since her father's
death."
"He's dead, is he?"
"So far as anybody knows, he is."
"Well, he's no loss. I knew him, too. He was all kinds of a fool; let a
few slick ones seduce him with fizz-water and oysters on the
half-shell--that's the kind of a weak sister he was. He got on the wrong
side of the rustler line-up--you know all about that, I reckon? Fierce old
days, those. We didn't know anything about forest rangers or game wardens
in them days."
The stranger's tone was now that of a man quite certain of himself. He had
become less furtive under the influence of the food and fire.
Ross defended Wetherford for Virginia's sake. "He wasn't altogether to
blame, as I see it. He was the Western type in full flower, that's all. He
had to go like the Indian and the buffalo. And these hobos like Ballard
and Gregg will go next."
Edwards sank back into his chair. "I reckon that's right," he agreed, and
made offer to help clear away the supper dishes.
"No, you're tired," replied Ross; "rest and smoke. I'll soon be done."
The poacher each moment seemed less of the hardened criminal, and more and
more of the man prematurely aged by sickness and dissipation, and
gradually the ranger lost all feeling of resentment.
As he sat down beside the fire, Edwards said: "Them Wetherford women think
a whole lot of you. 'Pears like they'd both fight for you. Are you sweet
on the girl?"
"Now, see here, old man," Ross retorted, sharply, "you want to do a lot of
thinking before you comment on Miss Wetherford. I won't stand for any
nasty clack."
Edwards meekly answered: "I wasn't going to say anything out of the way. I
was fixin' for to praise her."
"All the same, I don't intend to discuss her with you," was Cavanagh's
curt answer.
The herder fell back into silence while the ranger prepared his bunk for
the night. The fact that he transferred some of the blankets from his own
bed to that of his visitor did not escape Edwards's keen eyes, and with
grateful intent he said:
"I can give you a tip, Mr. Ranger," said he, breaking out of a silence.
"The triangle outfit is holding more cattle on the forest than their
permits call for."
"How do you know?"
"I heard one of the boys braggin' about it."
"Much obliged," responded Ross. "I'll look into it."
Edwards went on: "Furthermore, they're fixing for another sheep-kill over
there, too; all the sheepmen are armed. That's why I left the country. I
don't want to run any more chances of being shot up. I've had enough of
trouble; I can't afford to be hobnobbing with judges and juries."
"When does your parole end?" asked Ross.
Edwards forced a grin. "I was handing you one when I said that," he
declared, weakly. "I was workin' up sympathy. I'm not out on parole; I'm
just a broken-down old cow-puncher herdin' sheep in order to keep clear of
the liquor belt."
This seemed reasonable, and the ranger remarked, by way of dropping the
subject: "I've nothing to say further than this--obey the rules of the
forest, and you won't get into any further trouble with me. And as for
being shot up by the cow-men, you'll not be disturbed on any national
forest. There never has been a single herder shot nor a sheep destroyed on
this forest."
"I'm mighty glad to hear that," replied Edwards, with sincere relief.
"I've had my share of shooting up and shooting down. All I ask now is
quiet and the society of sheep. I take a kind of pleasure in protecting
the fool brutes. It's about all I'm good for."
He did, indeed, look like a man in the final year of life as he spoke.
"Better turn in," he said, in kindlier tone; "I'm an early riser."
The old fellow rose stiffly, and, laying aside his boots and trousers,
rolled into his bunk and was asleep in three minutes.
Cavanagh himself was very tired, and went to bed soon after, to sleep
dreamlessly till daylight. He sprang from his bed, and after a plunge in
the stream set about breakfast; while Edwards rose from his bunk, groaning
and sighing, and went forth to wrangle the horses, rubbing his hands and
shivering as he met the keen edge of the mountain wind. When he returned,
breakfast was ready, and again he expressed his gratitude.
"Haven't you any slicker?" asked Cavanagh. "It looks like rain."
"No, I'm run down pretty low," he replied. "The truth is, Mr. Ranger, I
blew in all my wages at roulette last week."
Ross brought out a canvas coat, well worn but serviceable. "Take this
along with you. It's likely to storm before we reach the sheep-camp. And
you don't look very strong. You must take care of yourself."