TRAPS
Tragedy brooded over the mountain. The air was depressed, heavy with
smoke lingering from the fire the night before. Still heavier was the
atmosphere of the cabin on the Cascada. For a half hour Damon had been
talking with two visitors on the porch. One was James Barnes, the Forest
Supervisor, whom Dawn knew, and the other a man whom she had never
before seen.
They had been sitting at lunch when the callers arrived. Hinray had
slipped out the back door without being noticed. Garen and Dawn had
cleared the table and sat down a trifle uneasily. Damon talked on with
the Supervisor outside and finally came in, his face unusually grave and
worn. The Supervisor and his companion followed.
“No, don’t go, Shepherd.” Damon nodded as Garen lifted an eyebrow of
inquiry as to whether they wished to be alone.
The uncomfortable sense of something pending that Dawn had had all
morning now came to a sharp reality. What had happened?
“Daughter, this concerns you,” Damon said with obvious effort. Dawn
lifted her chin, waiting. The Supervisor took a seat at the table
opposite her. Garen stood behind Dawn, and her father sat beside her.
The other gentleman, who was introduced as the Assistant Supervisor of
the Predatory Animal Bureau for the state, sat down too. His expression
was dour.
“Supposing I talk with the young lady,” said the Supervisor. He had
known Dawn for a long while, having come to the state but a few years
after Ranger O’Neill.
The matter was this. Here was a letter from the Department of
Agriculture, the Bureau of Predatory Animal Extinction, setting forth a
complaint against her, Dawn O’Neill, on the testimony of one of the
Bureau officials; that she had willfully and maliciously interfered with
his work: namely, that whenever she found baited traps she had sprung
them; that she had released certain small animals and had hidden or
demolished poison bait spread in far parts of the range, difficult of
access. As these baits were not put out till late in the season, after
all cattle had been brought down from the range, the Government’s agent
had been unaware of the interference with his work until he visited
these places, weeks, sometimes months, later.
Damon O’Neill was looking with painful concentration at his daughter.
Could she have done this?
The Supervisor finished speaking. He regarded Dawn seriously. There was
absolute silence as she struggled with a stony rage in her heart. The
Supervisor coughed. “It is really a serious matter,” he observed, “and
one that we would not expect to encounter right in the service. I am
told it has been going on for some time, more than a year to certain
knowledge and probably still longer.” He read three instances of
meddling with traps and poison bait.
Dawn sprang to her feet, but before she could say anything Garen caught
her arm firmly and pushed her back into her chair. “I guess I’m the man
who did it, Mr. Supervisor,” he asserted boldly. “At least I did on
certain occasions, cited here. If this gentleman here was an eyewitness
he must have seen me covering up a poison bait this spring. I was afraid
that the game birds—some members of the bureau seem to forget that this
is a bird refuge, too—might get it. I have found dead quail and turkey
that have fed around the bait. A single grain of arsenic is sufficient
for them.
“I am willing to make an issue of this,” Garen concluded firmly, “to
protest against this method of killing wild animals. Not only because of
its cruelty, but because of other, profounder, aspects of their
slaughter. The true meaning of this I’ve learned by contact with this
splendid forester, Damon O’Neill, and his daughter, Miss Dawn, who has
done more for the Service than it can ever repay.”
Garen’s declaration had given no one an opportunity to speak. Dawn was
staring at him in amazement. She stood up again and came over behind her
father, putting her hands on his shoulders.
“I did it myself,” she said firmly. “Mr. Shepherd can’t lie for me,
though I’m much obliged to him. He did help me cover one poison bait.
But I sprung the traps, and many more of ’em; all I could find and
spring. And I always have hid every bit of poisoned bait I found. I—I’ve
been sorry at times—when I saw some one lose cattle that couldn’t afford
it. But just the same—” she turned defiantly to the solemn-faced
Supervisor of the Predatory Bureau—“it’s not right, killing wild things
like that.
“Even though my father says it’s necessary under the circumstances, it’s
_not_ right. Shoot them if you will. Oh, I know that I can’t do any
good. My little help isn’t going to straighten out all the wrongs of my
world any more than what you’re doing is going to help any one in the
end. It’s gone beyond that. But just the same I’m not going to sit still
and act as if I liked it! Why, there’s too many cattle for the range
now.” She spread her hands helplessly, tears in her blazing eyes. “Why
kill off the wild creatures? They don’t eat grass! They keep your
forests and watersheds healthy.”
The expert on poison chemistry looked pained and bewildered. What was
this abandoned, headstrong young person talking about? But the
Supervisor had listened with involuntary appreciation. “O’Neill, your
daughter is filled with true scientific ardor, I can see.”
“Well, I am to blame for that,” Damon replied quietly. “She has been
brought up on the soundest principles of forestry. The French hold the
wolf a great friend to the forest. They have not the problems of a stock
country over there.”
“I see, I see.” The Supervisor was drumming on the table with his
fingers. “Miss Dawn, you love this mountain, don’t you?”
Dawn did not reply. She could not. She flushed painfully. The Supervisor
continued.
“You want to stay here, of course. And so you must yield to orders.
O’Neill—” He turned to Damon, who, having revolved the matter in his
mind, was about to say something. “No, just a moment, please. Let us say
nothing more about this. I think that when I have explained to the
departmental heads the peculiar feeling that Dawn has for the forest and
its wellbeing, for the mountain and all the life on it, that the
complaints which have been forwarded to the local office will be
withdrawn.
“It is scarcely necessary to remind them of your long and exceptional
service, but knowing nothing about the facts, I could make no
explanation. You and Dawn had better come down to the District
Superintendent’s office and talk it over.”
The forest ranger nodded. “Dawn has worked as hard on this job for the
last three years as many a man,” he said gruffly. “She’s preserved more
range to fatten more cattle than the beasts you kill could destroy, I
venture.”
“That’s pure imagination.” Pickering of the Predatory Bureau spoke for
the first time. “If you have no conception of the value of the work, at
least you can keep from interfering. We had set traps for a most
dangerous lobo, but finally had to put our hunters on his trail. We got
him too—” he glared triumphantly—“the outlaw lobo that we’ve been after
for years—and the last grizzly on this mountain. Shot yesterday.”
A cry escaped Dawn, and Damon’s big knotty hands shook so that he had to
steady them by holding on to the back of a chair. He recovered himself
in a moment.
“You may say,” he said directly to his chief, “that my daughter will not
interfere with any of the work of the bureau in the future.” He came to
his feet, his voice rising. “Let them kill off everything and be damned
to them. You know as well as I do, Chief, that one wrong don’t right
another. That’s what this country’s suffering from now. Too damn many
cattle. And I guess the wild beasts know it. But no one takes the hint.
Some day the real predatory animal that walks on two legs, ’ll get his.”
“By golly, O’Neill, you’re right. Ours is a slow uphill job; but
remember, reclamation isn’t accomplished in a year.” He shook hands all
around, and departed, Pickering protesting as they rode off that the
forest ranger was an impractical fool, a visionary.
Damon was shaking with passion. Dawn stood by the table, the color
drained from her face. To these two, children of nature, hating the
strife and friction of the outside world, the morning’s visit had been a
decided shock. Garen Shepherd broke the silence by coming forward with
outstretched hands to Dawn.
“Let me shake hands with you, Dawn, and with you, sir. I’m proud to know
you both. You are ornaments to a grand work and should be presented with
special medals. And you will be, before the task is finished. Mark my
words.”
“That old lemon-face!” came Hinray’s voice from the kitchen door.
Dawn laughed suddenly, a bright spontaneous laugh, clearing away the
gloom that had fallen on the cabin as a fresh wind sweeping through
clears out smoke. She had laughed this way when Garen first heard her
across the lake.
“That’s that!” she shouted. “Oh, Damon, cheer up! I’ll not be shot or
put in the reformatory. Thank you, Garen Shepherd,” she whirled on the
Irrigation engineer, “thank you for that one grand lie. But do you
suppose I’d let anybody else take the credit for a sin I’m proud of?”
And while she wrung his hand she laughed again, happy once more, full of
exuberant gayety.