DAWN AND THE FOUR-FOOTED
The doctor had said that Mrs. Perry must go to the Rockies. She could
not face another winter even in the Middle West. Her lungs were
infected, and she needed altitude, ozone, sunshine, rare air. Mrs. Perry
was pretty, spoiled, but somehow an appealing person.
She sat now on the veranda of the log cabin that squatted on the eastern
slope of Amarillo Canyon. Before her reared the snowy peaks of the
Coronado, rising above precipitous and wooded hills.
In front of the lodge a party was getting ready for a ride off over the
mountains. Her husband, cigar in mouth, and dressed in the most correct
of sports outfits, stood critically surveying the saddling of his horse.
It gave him the feeling of a sportsman to run a finger under the cinch
and tell young Benty to put a martingale on the obedient little mountain
horse so it would not toss its head.
John Perry was a self-made man who believed firmly in development. He
had developed the dump grounds south of the suburb in which he had
lived, and why not the mountains? He had developed his business in
Kansas City successfully enough to catch the attention of the big
fellows higher up. Twelve-per cent. interest had, several years before,
attracted his capital to the banks of the cattle state. But lately his
investment hadn’t been doing so well. Since Mrs. Perry had been ordered
west he had embraced the opportunity to take charge of his business
personally, and had entered a bank of the metropolis of the state as
president.
Young Jack was thoroughly enjoying the experience. An instinctive
wholesomeness, the natural response of youth to outdoor pleasures, had
survived the would-be fast pace set by his school crowd at home. Now he
was artfully exhibiting his horsemanship before the group on the
veranda, pulling viciously at his mild pony’s mouth, causing her to
rear, on which he would pull her back smartly on her haunches, her front
feet helplessly pawing the air.
“He’s a natural horseman,” Mrs. Perry observed with pride. “Do be
careful of that brute, Jack.”
“Where are they going? The Rio Cascada! I’m no wiser than I was before.”
Mrs. Perry laughed and shrugged, wondering if there would be any one
left that evening with energy enough for a hand of auction. After an
hour’s preparation the party was off, cantering up the canyon road.
The horses’ flying feet struck pebbles that bounded rattling down to the
rocky gorge of the river beneath. As the road wound upward they slowed
to a steady walk. Dean Benty, Old Man Benty’s son, rode ahead with Jack.
Mr. Perry rode beside a large powerful-looking man, who slouched in his
expensive but carelessly worn clothes. Perry was waving his arms about
and arguing earnestly.
“It’s not been touched. Virgin, you might say. Needs development, that’s
all, Gershwin. The country’s all right. Nothing to this hard times talk.
They could get back all they’ve put into the cattle business if they’d
just open up these mountain ranges to the full. There’s been more
rainfall the last few years than formerly. Ask the forest service men;
they know. What’s that?
“No-o. Not much range left down below. That’s true. Most of it’s been
taken up. But up here—why look at it! Range for the world and to spare!”
Mr. Perry saw no flaw in his arguments.
“Difficulty is in getting in. Only a certain amount of range supposed to
be leased to each stockman, and under certain conditions. Although my
bank has done so much for the state, extending loans to the cattlemen, I
personally could get only a small per cent. of the cattle, from that Bar
A ranch that I’ve been trying to save, up here for grazing!
“If you hadn’t got that motion by the committee to open up the Indian
Reservation”—Mr. Perry had worked himself up into a state of
indignation—“we’d have been up against it. The goats and the sheep we
had to put over through Gonzales, an old homesteader up here, an old
reliable. And that with the Indian Reservation shut away from the rest
of us. Say, isn’t that an outrage!
“Why, they haven’t even cattle enough to fill a corner of it. Sure. I
know you supported that bill all along. Going through next month for
sure, you say? Fine.”
Gershwin, the big man, conversed chiefly in nods and monosyllabic
grunts.
“Temporary injunction,” he observed, “opening reservation range to
public. First come, first served. Think it’ll go through all right.
They’re not sure of the boundaries anyway.”
They had come to the fork of the Cascada. Here the trail crossed the
stream, and so did the horses. By clinging ignominiously to his horse’s
neck Mr. Perry managed to do likewise.
“Don’t hang on that way, Dad,” shouted Jack from the other bank.
“They’ll think you’re a tenderfoot.”
“He is,” Mr. Gershwin emitted succinctly.
When the crossing had been successfully accomplished Mr. Perry drew
alongside Gershwin, who, in spite of his size, rode as easily and well
as, one felt, he did anything that he attempted.
“We may have some trouble with these forest service fellows,” Perry said
jocularly, although with a trace of concern in his manner. “Sticklers
for regulations, you know.”
“I was born down yonder in Texas.” Gershwin thrust a spatulate thumb
over his shoulder, indicating that he knew the ways of the country.
They were cantering along a level stretch of the trail that led up to
the forest supervisor’s cabin. They could see Damon O’Neill from some
distance, standing in his doorway with another man.
Damon looked down and saw them coming. He recognized in Gershwin a man
born to the saddle, but Perry, by his insecure seat, he assumed to be
one of the new city boarders down at Mountain Lodge. He turned to the
tall Westerner at his side and resumed the conversation.
“I’m awfully sorry, James,” he said regretfully; “I want the worst way
to see you pull through. But your range down below is sure gone, old
man. It’s been grazed to the limit for twenty years; you know that. If
you try to pull out of the hole by borrowing, expanding your herd, and
renting more range, where will you be next winter?
“Even if you let your grass crop lie idle all summer, the range is cut
up so bad, so little root or seed left, it’s going to take several years
for grass to take hold. It ought to lie fallow till the roots have
clamped some of that desert soil down again. You’ll get little hay off
your range next fall. Certainly not enough for two thousand head.”
“I’ll sell enough of the two-year-olds and the old ones in the fall to
make out if you’ll lease me an extra piece of mountain range for late
fall,” James urged, his deep-set eyes burning anxiously under his shaggy
brows. “A summer here’ll condition ’em into A-1 grade.”
Damon slowly shook his head. “You’d have to go in that much deeper to
buy winter feed for the balance. It’s for your own good, James, I’m
advising you. I can’t understand the Cattleman’s Loan offering to carry
you for any more. I know the other banks are simply extending their old
loans where necessary. Go slow till your range recuperates, till I can
get further mountain pasture for you. As an owner of improved ranch
property you’re entitled to preference.
“Let’s see—” Damon crossed to his map on the wall, consulting certain
areas—“you’ve just brought your stock up from the oak-brush forage, eh?
Salted them? Well, they can stay on the aspen-fir location till July 10.
The season was so late this year we couldn’t let them up earlier. On
July 10 you can move them up into the spruce-fir belt. Keep your salt
away from the streams, James. And try to draw your stock up to the west
slopes with it. The forage will be well developed up there by that time.
“Who’ve you got to herd for you till then?”
James flushed. “I’ll have to ride up every week myself, Mr. O’Neill.
I’ve got a couple of kids, but I rightly need them down below, and I had
to let two old hands and my foreman go this spring; the biz was too
broke. It keeps me busy moving the other thousand around down below.
I’ve lost a lot this spring too. About ten head already.
“Looks like the old Custer lobo got a few. Killed two mother cows and et
the calves before they wuz born.” He spoke bitterly.
Dawn had come in quietly and had been straightening the papers on her
father’s desk, sorting the mail. Now she spoke up quickly.
“Let me help herd Mr. James’ mountain bunch, Damon, if he’s willing.”
James looked with surprise at the girl, clad in the riding-breeches,
shirt, and mountain boots of the men of the service. The forest ranger
smiled at the stockman’s amazement.
“She’s as good a cow-hand, James, as she is assistant ranger. I’m
willing, if you are. She usually rides over that range once a week
anyway. If you want she can help your boy move the stock in units.”
“There’s a hundred to a salt-unit,” answered James a bit dubiously.
“All right. Dawn knows as well as any of us just how long a given meadow
can support how many head of stock. She’ll salt them to stay put for a
month, two weeks, whatever the range’ll stand.”
The ranchman’s face cleared. With a look of surprise and relief he
turned to Dawn, slowly extending a hand.
“Well, young woman,” he drawled, “that sure would be pretty of you, if
you mean it. It would sure set my mind at ease. Cattle has pesky tastes
and appetites. Sometimes seems they just naturally _craves poison_. And
they sure can demolish young leaves before the time comes.”
“Dawn is usually all for keeping the stock moving,” her father smiled.
“I never heard her offer to tend cattle before.”
A swift attack of conscience had struck Dawn like summer lightning.
Impulsively her sympathies went out to the man who had suffered from the
animals of her mountain. She was partly to blame, springing traps, and
all. What could she do? She must make amends.
The four who had been riding up the trail now pushed through the trees
into the open space surrounding the cabin. They forded the eager little
stream leaping before the ranger’s door and rode up to the stoop. James
said a hasty farewell and rode off. Gershwin and Perry sat their horses,
but Jack and Dean Benty dismounted.
Dean introduced his party to the ranger, Jack jumped up on the porch and
held out his hand to Dawn. “Good morning, Miss O’Neill. You see, I did
find my way up here.”
He was very smiling, sure of himself, spick and span. Dawn did not like
his manner. She let go his hand and leaned back indifferently against
the wall. Fresh pink and white thing. Did he have bear’s grease on his
hair? No, most likely that perfumed stuff.
Their fathers were talking. Damon O’Neill listened gravely to the suave
tones of John Perry. Surely they were at liberty to ride anywhere they
wished. This was public domain. He was sorry he could not accompany
them, but that would be impossible. He waved to the littered desk which
could be seen from the door. A ranger’s duties were many, and as he was
acting at present in the capacity of assistant supervisor there was
correspondence to which he must attend. Range management was keeping him
very busy just now.
Well, that was one of the very things they were wanting to talk to him
about. Damon knew that very well; he had heard of Gershwin, of course.
And John Perry was the new banker? He had banked with his bank for
years.
“Glad to meet you, Mr. Perry,” said Damon sincerely. “You big banking
men have a great responsibility on you this year. I guess they’re all
depending on the banks and on the forests.”
“That’s right, that’s right,” agreed Perry. “Wonderful country you’ve
got up here. Wonderful. Don’t know why they call this a dry country,
with almost fifty per cent. of the area in forests like this. Water
enough, grass enough, to feed all the world, I’d think.”
Gershwin was, as usual, saying nothing. Time enough for talk. Orders
would be received today or tomorrow notifying the forest supervisor of
this section that the Indian Reservation was to be thrown open to the
public, and by that time the rest of his cattle and sheep would be on
the range. But he had other things in mind as well. Perry was talking to
the ranger.
“No, much of the region is wild and very rocky,” O’Neill was
explaining—“almost inaccessible. For that reason there are several
million feet of mature timber that have not yet been taken out. The cost
of getting them to a railroad would be almost prohibitive.
“The old silver mines? No one seems to have located them since the
Indians abandoned their early workings when the Spanish came. Pasture?
Well, there is no more left open at this season of the year. There will
be some open, under regulation, for fall.”
Jack Perry spoke to the ranger. Couldn’t his daughter go with them this
morning as guide? Dean Benty had to get back to haul wood for his
father. Would she be willing? Although she had told herself in the first
five minutes that she despised Jack Perry, Dawn agreed to go.
Either she could take them the way she had ridden yesterday, or they
could cross the Cascada right here, go up through the forest straight
west, above timber line, and see the whole country beyond spread before
them. Her tone made the latter course seem more alluring; so they chose
it. In three minutes Dawn was ready, a new blue kerchief knotted about
her throat, a suède leather coat tied to her saddle. The white collie
barked his delight at the prospect of running with them, but Damon
called him back and he came with instant obedience, though he sat
watching Dawn and Piñon till they were out of sight.
The trail led at once into the deep forest. There was a foot of springy
tanbark beneath their horses’ feet. Before Damon and Hinray covered the
trail it had been slippery with mud at this time of year. The forest
closed about them and the trail grew steeper and steeper. They were in a
dark green twilight, through which an occasional shaft of sunshine
pierced.
There was no sign of wild life or game in these primeval depths,
although in a thicket not thirty feet from the trail a pair of mule deer
fawns froze motionless, their large beautiful ears pricked forward. The
horses had gone about a quarter of a mile when Dawn stopped to rest.
There was a hard climb ahead. A ten minutes’ rest, and they were at it
again. Within five minutes they had entered the densest forest that the
men had ever seen and were climbing almost at a seventy-five-degree
angle.
The horses groaned, all but Piñon, and even he was shining with sweat
and lathered where the cinch pinched his belly.
“Good heavens,” Perry gasped with awe, “think of all this timber going
to waste!”
“Cut it,” Dawn replied crisply, “and most of the valley below would wash
down to the sea.”
They emerged suddenly into the open and found themselves on a rocky
tilted slope. With difficulty they picked their way across the sky
table, which looked as though it had been strewn with giant stone
building-blocks in all kinds of rectangular shapes. They were brought to
a halt at the head of a sheer escarpment that dropped five hundred feet
or more to a meadow of parklike beauty. Gershwin took off his hat, as
though compelled, unconsciously, to uncover before a power so infinitely
beyond his own.
The valleys below them were dotted with cattle. At their right rose a
peak that still harbored in its shadows a glacial bank of blue-white
snow. Occasionally a cold breath blew down across their faces,
alternating with the sun-heated air.
“Whose cattle?” Gershwin inquired.
“Most of them, I think, belong to a Mexican homesteader, Gonzales,” Dawn
replied. “Let the horses have their heads going down,” she warned.
Jack sat awkwardly. Dawn knew very well that he must be stiff. But he
said nothing about it. “I give him credit for that,” she thought.
Jack followed close on her heels as Piñon led the way down the ledge to
where the escarpment sloped into another upland meadow. It stretched as
far as the eye could see.
“You say you haven’t enough range,” exclaimed Perry, Senior. “What’s
wrong with this?”
“It’s not ready yet for grazing,” Dawn explained eagerly. “See, the
ground is soft, and these flowers are not good graze. The forage cover
is just breaking the ground—the bluegrass, the oats, the wheat you see
here—and the browse plants are only in bud.
“We have to have deferred grazing here, because the cover needs
reseeding. This range had been open for grazing for years, long before
the Forest Service was established twenty years ago, and it’s been
burned over again and again by lightning fires. It slopes right down
into the valleys; so it’s an important drainage area into the Rio
Grande.”
“Help, help!” Jack laughed. “School’s over for the year. You sound like
a book. This is vacation, fun!”
Dawn looked at him witheringly. He must be feeble-minded. “I never went
to school,” she said, “but three months in my life. This is my business
and my fun too.”
Perry laughed outright. Mr. Gershwin grinned, and Jack echoed him
sheepishly.
“What is the scrub hillside way down at the foot of this range?” asked
Gershwin.
“Juniper, Mister, likely. But I can’t tell whether it’s monosperma or
occidentals from California. They both grow round seven to eight
thousand altitude. Both are durable light woods, used for fencing and—”
“You’d make a good witness, young lady!” Gershwin smiled. “Point is,
it’s not good forage, eh?” Gershwin was beginning to understand the
meaning of scientific grazing. He was not above learning from this young
girl.
“No, sir. Not very. Take the oak-brush type range of the foothills; not
much vegetation there, it’s been overgrazed so long. Snowberry, service
berry, squaw apple, sagebrush, and a few wheat grasses, all hardy
plants, with needle grass, butterweed, and bluebells.
“But in the aspen-fir”—she waved her hand—“lots of vegetation. I’ll
spare you the names, but there’s all kinds of berries, flowers—see the
sweet cicely, the wild roses and geraniums, the honeysuckle and clematis
above?
“Last comes the spruce-fir range, up around our cabin, about nine
thousand feet. There you find more herbaceous growth in the open parks
and less bush browse.”
Jack was reduced to awed silence during this conversation. He had been
filled with the importance of Mr. Gershwin anyway, and here was the big
man listening respectfully to a girl, a mountain girl, and asking her
questions.
Then he contributed a brilliant idea. “Let’s eat. Have you all forgotten
we carried grub!”
“No”—Dawn ignored such a thing as a pang of hunger—“you’ll have to wait
until we get down to water. There’s a little stream down in that canyon
if it hasn’t dried up since the last fire here.
“Let your horse’s reins loose on his neck, can’t you?” she reminded Jack
sharply, as they started down the trail that would lead them into the
canyon. “You’ll be sailing right out over this precipice if you don’t
stop pulling his mouth on the wrong side.”
Mr. Perry hastily and meekly dropped the tightly clutched reins he held.
They did not speak again till they reached the bottom of the canyon.
Dawn saw a covey of brilliant grouse in the piñon scrub but did not call
attention to them. Jack produced from the various saddlebags the lunch
Mrs. Benty had put up, and they sat down on the rocks to eat.
Afterward the men stretched themselves out with cigars, but Jack and
Dawn wandered down the stream; at every turn it changed, now deep and
swift, now shallow and sunny, with little flower-rimmed beaches.
“You’re a wonderful girl, do you know it?” Jack blurted suddenly. He
really felt that she was wonderful. His weaker nature was impressed with
her strength of mind, her independence and character.
Unconsciously Dawn was relenting to a certain sweetness in Jack; and
then, he was young. She yearned unconsciously for the companionship of
other young creatures. A look of blond delicacy about Jack stirred a
motherliness within her, whereas with her father she had striven always
to be a companion.
Jack had a nice expression, she thought. But he had seemed cocksure of
himself with everything till it came to the mountain. She chuckled to
herself.
What was she laughing at? he wondered uneasily. Jack had been spoiled in
school by girls of a different mettle from this mountain girl. It had
been too easy for him. The girls he knew were active, clever enough. But
in the daughter of the mountain ranger there was a serenity, an absence
of any attempt to charm or amuse, that was new. He could never have
analyzed the vivid force of her, but he felt it as some strong electric
current is felt.
Mr. Perry and Mr. Gershwin were hallooing to them, and they hurried
back. The men had heard shots on the mountain side above and the baying
of dogs.
“There must be a hunt on,” Dawn cried. “The Government hunters are after
lion. They were rounding up this mountain to get the old Custer lobo
too. Come on!” She was resaddling Piñon, whose back had been cooling
while they ate lunch. “We’ve got to get out of here, and we may catch a
glimpse of them.”
The men were delighted. This was something better than Perry had hoped
for. They clambered up out of the canyon over a slope covered with
russet pine needles, sparsely wooded and almost free of underbrush. The
baying of the hounds came nearer.
Shots were closing in round the base of the hill. Dawn halted her party.
“Get off. We’ll have to sit tight right here,” she told them, “if we
don’t want to be blown to kingdom come by a stray shot. We’ve got right
in the way of the hunt somehow.”
She led the horses quickly down behind an abutment of rock, where the
men crouched in safety, peering excitedly over the top. Piñon nickered
suddenly and began to tremble violently. Head up, tail out, he ran up to
where Dawn lay stretched with her chin on her hands. Without warning,
and so swiftly that his yellow length was gone before they could speak,
a mountain lion came bounding through the trees. With a leap he sailed
through the air and over the escarpment of rock, within fifteen feet of
them. Swift as he was, they saw for a clear moment his grace, his cruel
head. His tawny flanks, his long tail, were stretched their utmost. Then
he was out of sight, but they could hear the falling of stones down into
the canyon as his great weight struck. Evidently he had lit on a shelf
of loose shaly rock.
“Driven into the open,” Dawn murmured. The words had hardly escaped her
when a second shadow hurtled from the slight cover before them, a shadow
that for a moment loomed but a few feet away, a grayish ghost with bared
fangs and wide yellow eyes—and was gone.
Jack’s face was blank with incredulity and amazement. His father and
Gershwin had flattened themselves against the rock, a shade paler,
thrilled.
“It’s the great lobo.” Dawn nodded to herself with shocked calm. “They
said they were going to get him if it took all summer. They’ve got
twenty men and fifteen dogs and rounded them in a lion to boot.”
Her color had gone. Gershwin looked at her curiously. “Ain’t scared,
girlie, surely?” His tone was kindly but bantering.
She looked at him swiftly, contemptuously. She mistrusted him, yet she
liked him. His wide-set grayish eyes, with strange yellow lights about
the pupils—why, they were like the lobo’s! A wolf’s eyes, and his
cunning; that was it. Now Dawn understood Gershwin. She laughed back at
him.
“You know better’n that,” she said.
“Gee, I want to get in on that hunting,” Jack sputtered, coming out from
between the rocks where he had taken refuge.
“I expect you could if you wanted,” Dawn replied indifferently. “I
expect Mr. Gershwin could manage that too.” He probably couldn’t shoot
anyway; it wouldn’t make any difference.
“Great guns!” Mr. Perry’s teeth were chattering. “Those are the fellows
that kill the sheep and cattle, eh? Why, they say a few years ago these
predatory animals cost the state over two hundred thousand a year.”
“Gee, there’s the banker talking at a time like this!” interrupted Jack
plaintively.
“Well, it costs fifteen hundred dollars to let one lion live a year,”
insisted his father. “Much as a man would eat. Think of it. That’s gotta
be stopped.”
“Don’t worry, Mister,” Dawn observed with grim impertinence, as she
gathered Piñon’s reins and flung into the saddle. “Before long there
won’t be any great game outside a museum. Except deer. Fifty thousand
big wild animals have been killed in less than five years. Makin’ the
world safe for mutton- and beef-eaters. Come on.”
“I want to chat with this young lady a bit,” said Gershwin, as he
mounted heavily and followed after Dawn.
“Why, I’ve got friends who’d give a fortune just to get a look-in on one
of these hunts,” Mr. Perry exclaimed, pressing along after them.
“Bring ’em on,” Gershwin rumbled. “I read that the skins alone have put
two hundred and fifty thousand dollars in the U. S. Treasury in the last
few years. Used to be the Government paid _us_ a bounty for ’em when I
was a lad.”
“Well, I always did believe in private enterprise for developing rather
than the Government,” Perry replied with a wink. “The Government makes
us pay its price for the timber we buy up here.”
There was no chance for Gershwin to catch up with Dawn; she led them by
a short cut that brought them out into the canyon of the Amarillo at
some distance below Benty’s place. Gershwin caught up with her as they
reached the road.
“I believe you’re tryin’ to run away from me, young lady,” he drawled,
with a half-humorous glint in his eyes. “There’s so much up here we
don’t half know about. It’s a revelation to get with folks like you and
your father.” It was not without reason that Gershwin had become one of
the suavest lobbyists of his political era. Dawn expanded, warmed
unsuspiciously to one who thus showed appreciation for the mountain.
“Funny there’s no minerals up here in these rocks,” Gershwin rumbled
along. “Plenty in the other ranges, and copper in the deserts. Funny
they never found anything up here.”
“No one’s ever tried,” Dawn flashed. “Gold’s where you find it, you
know.”
“I was just wondering, Miss Dawn, if there was anything to this rumor
that there was silver-bearing quartz on the Indian Reservation?” It was
worth trying out, to question the girl, he thought. Gonzales and others
had shown him samples of first-rate ore from these mountains, but no one
had been able to locate a body of ore. Maybe he could get something out
of this girl. He’d make it his business to acquire the proper locations
and claims no matter on what reservation ore was found. The girl’s face
was perfectly noncommittal, however.
“It would make a great difference to the Indians,” Gershwin continued
aloud. “The Government’s bound to protect the interests of its wards,
you know.”
“And you bet it’ll do it too, Mister,” she retorted, “as far as the
Forest Service is concerned.”
“Mm-m. What would you say, I wonder, if I told you—?” They were walking
at a lazy amble up the road, Jack and his father following about a
quarter of a mile behind, and Mr. Gershwin glanced sidewise at Dawn out
of oblique eyes.
“What, Mister? Shoot!” Dawn turned her steady gaze on him and the
wolf-like eyes turned aside.
“That your father”—he dwelt on the words—“had a claim staked on the
Indian Reservation—what properly should be, and will be, the Indian
Reservation when the correct survey is made.”
“I’d say you were a liar!” Dawn blazed. She pulled Piñon up on his
haunches and looked straight at the big man slouching in the saddle.
“It’s not on Indian ground; never was, and we’ll prove it! Though if it
were it would be safe enough with _us_.
“But all that range you’re aimin’ to open up is Indian ground and always
has been. They’re just tryin’ to give everybody a crooked deal.” Her
voice shook; she was trembling with passion. A slap on Piñon’s flanks
was enough to send him off racing up the road.
A pebble from his flying hoofs struck Gershwin in the cheek, its sharp
edge drawing a fleck of blood. He brushed it off as a giant brushes a
gnat. He was smiling.