HOW THE FOREST WON A GREAT DOCTOR
In the middle of the night the telephone bell rang. Instantly Wilbur
heard the doctor's voice responding.
"Yes, where is it?" he queried. "Where? Oh, just beyond Basco Aleck's
place. All right, I'll start right away."
There was some rummaging in the other rooms, and in less than five
minutes' time the clatter of hoofs outside told the boy that the doctor
was off, probably on the huge gray horse Wilbur had seen in the corral
as he rode in that day. It was broad daylight when he wakened again, and
Mrs. Davis was standing beside him with his breakfast tray. It was so
long since Wilbur had not had to prepare breakfast for himself that he
felt quite strange, but the night's rest had eased him wonderfully, and
aside from a little soreness where he had had his scalp laid open, he
was quite himself again.
"Did Doctor Davis have to go away in the night?" he asked. "I thought I
heard the telephone."
"Yes," answered the doctor's wife. "But that is nothing new. Almost once
a week, at least, he is sent for in the night, or does not reach home
till late in the night. I've grown used to it," she added; "doctors'
wives must."
"But distances are so great, and there are so few trails," said the boy,
"and Doctor Davis is so famous, one would think that he would do better
in a city."
"Better for himself?" came the softly uttered query.
The boy colored hotly as he realized the idea of selfishness that there
had been in his speech.
"I beg your pardon," he said. "No, I see. But it does seem strange, just
the same, that he should be out here."
"He wouldn't be happy anywhere else."
"Excuse me, Mrs. Davis," said the boy, who had caught something of the
Supervisor's abruptness, "but what brought him here?"
"Do you not," answered the doctor's wife, giving question for question,
"know the old hunter, 'Rifle-Eye Bill'? I don't know his right name.
Why, of course, you must; he's the Ranger in your part of the forest."
"Do I know him?" said Wilbur, and without stopping for further question
talked for ten minutes on end, telling all that the old hunter had done
for him and how greatly he admired him. "Know him," he concluded, "I
should just guess I did."
"It was he," said the woman, "who persuaded us to come out here."
"Won't you tell me?" pleaded the boy. "I'd love to hear anything about
Rifle-Eye. And the doctor, too," he added as an afterthought.
"It was long ago," she began, "seventeen years ago. Yes," she continued
with a smile at the lad's surprise, "I have lived here seventeen years."
"Do you--" began the boy excitedly, "do you ride a white mare?"
This time it was the doctor's wife who colored. She flushed to the roots
of her hair.
"Yes," she answered hurriedly, and went on to explain the early
conditions of the forest. But Wilbur was not listening, he was
remembering the stories that he had heard since his arrival into the
forest of the "little white lady," of whom the ranchers and miners
always spoke so reverently. But presently Rifle-Eye's name attracted his
attention and he listened again.
"We were camping," she said, "in one of the redwood groves not far from
San Francisco for the summer, the doctor having been appointed an
attending surgeon at one of the larger hospitals, although he was very
young. We had been married only a little over a year. One evening just
after supper, Rifle-Eye, although we did not know him then, walked into
camp.
"'You are a doctor, an operating doctor?' he inquired.
"'Yes,' my husband replied, 'I am a surgeon.'
"Then the old hunter came to where I was standing.
"'You are a doctor's wife?' he queried. You know that direct way of
his?"
"Indeed I do," Wilbur replied. "It's one you've got to answer."
"So I said, 'Yes, I am a doctor's wife,' just as if I was a little girl
answering a catechism.
"'The case is seventy miles away,' he said, 'and there's a horse
saddled.' He turned to me. 'A woman I know is coming over in a little
while to stay the night with you, so that you will not be lonely.
Come, doctor.' There was a hurried farewell, and they were gone. I can
laugh now, as I think of it, but it was dreadful then.
"Presently, however, the woman that he had spoken of came over to our
camp. She was a mountaineer's wife, and very willing and helpful. But I
was a little frightened, as I had never seen any one quite like her
before."
"You couldn't have had much in common," said Wilbur, who was observant
enough to note the artistic nature of the room wherein he lay, the
exquisite cleanliness and freshness of all his surroundings, and the
faultless English of the doctor's wife. Besides, she was pretty and
sweet-looking, and boys are quick to note it.
"We didn't," she answered, "but when I happened to mention the old
hunter, why the woman was transformed. She brightened up, and told me
tales far into the night of what the old hunter had done until," she
smiled, "I almost thought he must be as nice as Doctor Davis."
"Doctor Davis does look awfully fine," agreed Wilbur.
"I always think so," said his wife demurely. "Two days passed before the
men returned, and when I got a chance alone with my husband, he was
twice as bad as the mountaineer's wife. He would talk of nothing but
Rifle-Eye and the need of surgical work in the mountains.
"'And you, Violet,' he said, 'you're going to ride there with me to-day
and help look after this man.' It did rather surprise me, because I knew
that he hated to have me troubled with any details of his work, for he
used to like to leave his profession behind when he came home. So I knew
that he thought it important, and I went. But I rode the greater part of
the day with the old hunter, and long before he reached the place where
the man was who needed me, all my objections had vanished and I was
eager to begin."
"That's just the way that Rifle-Eye does," said the boy, "he makes it
seem that what he wants you to do is just what you want to do yourself."
"When I got to the place," she went on, "I found that it was a Basque
shepherd, who had been hurt by some of the cattlemen. That made it much
more interesting for me, for you know, my people were Basques, that
strange old race, who, tradition tells, are all that are left of the
shepherds on the mountains of the lost Atlantis. So I nursed him as best
I could, and presently, from far and wide over the Rockies I would get
messages from the Basque shepherds."
"Didn't you put a stop to the feuds at one time?" asked Wilbur. "The old
hunter told me something about 'the little white lady' and the sheep
war."
"I helped in many of them," she said simply, "and when they came to me
for advice I tried to give it. Doctor Davis was always there to suggest
the more advisable course, and I put it to these Bascos, as they called
them, so that they would understand."
"How about Burleigh?" asked Wilbur.
But the doctor's wife disclaimed all knowledge of a sheep-owner called
Burleigh.
"All right," said Wilbur, "then I'll give my share of the story, as the
old hunter told it to me. That is, if you don't mind."
"Tell it," she smiled, "if you like."
"Well," said Wilbur, "one Sunday afternoon a Ranger, whose cabin was
near a lookout point, said to his wife, 'I'll ride up to the peak, and
be back in time for supper.' He went off in his shirt-sleeves,
bare-headed, for an hour's ride, and was gone a week. Up in the brush he
found the trail of a band of sheep, and although he was cold and hungry
and his horse was playing out, he stuck right on the job until it got
too dark to see. The second day he smashed in the door of a miner's
cabin, got some grub, and nailed a note on the door saying who'd taken
it, and kept on. He tired his horse out, and left him in another
fellow's corral, but kept on going on foot. The sheepman was known as
dangerous, but this little Ranger--did I tell you he was Irish--stuck to
it, trusting to find some way out even if the grazer did get ugly.
"At last he came on the sheep in a mountain meadow, and Burleigh on his
horse by them, a rifle across his saddle bow. The Ranger said little at
the time, and the two men went home to supper. After eating, as they sat
there, the Ranger said his say. He told the grazer what were the orders
he had, and that he would have to live up to them. But the grazer had a
copy of 'orders,' too, and he had hired a lawyer to find out how he
could get out of them. So he lit into the Ranger.
"'You see, Mac,' he said, 'those orders don't mean anything. They may be
all right in Washington, but they don't go here. You can't stop me, nor
arrest me, nor hurt my sheep. Your bosses won't stand by you if you get
into any mix-up. The best thing you can do is to stay here to-night, and
then go home. Make a report on it, if you like, I don't care."
"And then the Ranger began," the boy went on. "The old hunter told me
that this little bit of an Irishman told the grazer about his work as a
Ranger. He told him how he had seen the good that was going to be done,
and that having put his hand to the plow, he couldn't let it go again.
He didn't know much about it, and he'd never tried to talk about it
before, but the natural knack of talking which his race always has came
to help him out. Then he began to talk of the sheep and cattle war, and
the shame that it was to have them killing each other's flocks and
shooting each other because they could not agree about the right to
grass.
"'An' there's one more thing,' he said, ''tis only the other day that I
was talkin' to the "little white lady," and she said she knew that you
wouldn't be the one to start up trouble again.' And he wound up with an
appeal to his better judgment, which, so the old hunter told me the
grazer said afterward, would have got a paralyzed mule on the move.
"When he got through, Burleigh merely answered:
"'Mac, take that blanket and go to bed. I'll talk to you in the
morning.'
"When the Ranger woke, a little after daylight, the grazer sat beside
his blanket, smoking. He began without wasting any time.
"'Mac,' he said, 'I'm going to take my sheep out to-day. Not because of
any of your little bits of printed orders--I could drive a whole herd
through them; and not because of any of your bosses back in Washington,
who wouldn't know a man's country if they ever got into it, and couldn't
find their way out; and not entirely because, as you say, "the little
white lady" trusts me, though perhaps that's got a good deal to do with
it. But when I find a man who is so many different kinds of a fool as
you seem to be, it looks some like my moral duty to keep him out of an
asylum.' And that's the story I heard about Burleigh.
"But I interrupted you," the boy continued, "you were going to tell me
about Doctor Davis. Didn't you ever go back to the city?"
"Oh, yes," she replied. "The doctor had to take his hospital service,
and for three years he spent six months in the hospital in the city,
and six months out here in the mountains. But there were several good
surgeons in the city, and only one on the great wide Sierras, and, as
you know, he is strong enough for the hardest work. So,--I remember well
the night,--he came to me, and hesitatingly suggested that we should
live out here for always, but that he didn't wish to take me away from
my city friends. And I--oh, I had been wanting to come all the time. I
was just one out of so many in the city, paying little social calls, but
here I found so many people to be fond of. I think I know every one on
the mountains here, and they are all so kind to me. And," she added
proudly, "so appreciative of the doctor."
Wilbur laughed as she gathered up the things on the tray.
"Well," he said, "I don't believe the old hunter ever did a better thing
when he got Doctor Davis to come to the forest--unless, it was the day
'the little white lady' came with him. Haven't I had a broken head, and
am I not her patient? You bet!"
But Mrs. Davis only smiled as she passed from the room.
Wilbur spent the rest of the morning in the doctor's library, and was
more than delighted to learn that these books were there for borrowing,
on the sole condition that they should be returned. He learned, later,
that under the guise of a library to lend books, all sorts of little
plans were done for the cheering of the lives of those who lived in
isolated portions of the mountain range. The boy had not been
twenty-four hours under the doctor's roof, yet he was quite at home, and
sorry to go when the Supervisor rode up. He had been careful to groom
Kit very thoroughly, and she was standing saddled at the door, half an
hour before the time appointed. He was ready to swing into the saddle as
soon as Merritt appeared.
"Not so fast, Loyle," he said, "this is once that promptness is a bad
thing. I must have a word or two with Mrs. Davis; he'd be a pretty poor
stick who ever missed that chance."
So, while he went inside, Wilbur looked over the pack to see that it was
riding easily, and led Baldy to where he could have a few mouthfuls of
grass. And when he came out the Forester was even more silent than
usual, and rode for two hours without uttering a syllable.
"Did you find everything going on all right for the pulp-mill?" asked
Wilbur, finally desiring to give a chance for conversation. But Merritt
simply replied, "Fairly so," and relapsed into silence. He wakened into
sudden energy, however, when, a half an hour later, in making a shortcut
to headquarters he came upon an old abandoned trail. It was somewhat
overgrown, but the Supervisor turned into it and followed it for some
length, finally arriving at a large spring, one of the best in the
forest, which evidently had been known at some time prior to the Forest
Service taking control, but now had passed into disuse. But Merritt was
even more surprised to find beside the spring a prospector of the old
type, with his burro and pack, evidently making camp for the night.
"Evenin'," said Merritt, "where did you get hold of this trail?"
"Allers knew about it," said the prospector. "I s'pose," he added,
noting the bronze "U. S." on the khaki shirt, "that you're the Ranger."
"Supervisor," replied Merritt. "Locating a mineral claim, are you?"
"Not yet," the other replied; "I ain't located any mineral to claim yet.
I'll come to you for a permit as soon as I do. But I'm lookin' for
Burns's lost mine."
"You don't believe in that old yarn, surely?" questioned the other
surprisedly.
"Would I be lookin' for it if I hadn't doped it out that it was there?"
"Where?"
"Oh, somewheres around here. I reckon it's further north. But if you
don't take any stock in it, there's no use talkin'."
"I'm not denying its existence," said Merritt, "but you know dozens of
men have looked for that and no one's found it yet."
"There can't be but one find it," said the prospector. "I aims to be
that one. I used to think it was further south. Twenty years ago I spent
a lot o' time down at the end of the range. Two seasons ago I got a
hunch it was further north. I couldn't get away last year, so here I am.
I've been busy on Indian Creek for some years."
"Got a claim there?"
"Got the only jade in the country."
"Was it you located that mine in the Klamath Forest?" queried the
Supervisor interestedly. "But that's quite a good deposit. I shouldn't
think you'd be prospecting now."
"I didn't for two years. But, pard, it was dead slow, an' so I hired a
man to run the works while I hit the old trail again. I don't have to
get anybody to grubstake me now. I've been able to boost some of the
others who used to help me."
"But what started you looking for Burns's mine? I thought that story had
been considered a fake years ago."
"What is a lost mine?" asked Wilbur.
Merritt looked at him a moment thoughtfully, then turned to the
prospector.
"You tell the yarn," he said. "You probably know it better than I do."
"I'm not much on talkin'," began the prospector. "Away back in the
sixties, after the first gold-rush, Jock Burns, one of the old
Forty-niners, started prospectin' in the Sierras. There's not much here,
but one or two spots pay. By an' by Burns comes into the settlements
with a few little bags of gold dust, an' nuggets of husky size. He blows
it all in. He spends free, but he's nowise wasteful, so he stays in town
maybe a month.
"Then he disappears from view, an' turns up in less than another month
in town with another little bundle of gold dust. It don't take much
figurin' to see that where there's a pay streak so easy worked as that,
there's a lot more of it close handy. An' so they watches Burns close.
Burns, he can't divorce himself from his friends any more than an Indian
can from his color. This frequent an' endurin' friendliness preys some
on Burns's nature, an' bein' of a bashful disposition, he makes several
breaks to get away. But while the boys are dead willin' to see him start
for the mountains, they reckon an escort would be an amiable form of
appreciation. Also, they ain't got no objection to bein' shown the way
to the mine.
"Burns gets a little thin an' petered out under the strain, but time an'
agin he succeeds in givin' 'em the slip. Sure enough he lines up a month
or two later with some more of the real thing. Finally, one of these
here friends gets a little peevish over his frequent failures to stack
the deck on Burns. He avers that he'll insure that Burns don't spend any
more coin until he divvys up, an' accordin'ly he hands him a couple of
bullets where he thinks they'll do most good."
"What did he want to kill him for?" asked Wilbur.
"He didn't aim to kill him prompt," was the reply. "His idee was to trot
him down the hill by easy stages, an' gradooally indooce the old
skinflint to talk. But his shootin' was a trifle too straight, and
Burns jest turns in his toes then an' there. This displeases the
sentiment of the community. Then some literary shark gits up and spins a
yarn about killin' some goose what laid eggs that assayed a hundred per
cent., an' they decides that it would be a humane thing to arrange that
Burns shan't go out into the dark without some comfortin' friend beside
him. So they dispatches the homicide, neat an' pretty, with the aid of a
rope, an' remarks after the doin's is over that Burns is probably a heap
less lonesome."
"Well, I should think that would have stopped all chance of further
search," said Wilbur.
"It did. But a year or two after that, Burns acquires the habit of
intrudin' his memory on the minds of some of these here friends. When it
gits noised about that a certain kind of nose-paint is some advantageous
toward this particular brand of dream, why, there ain't no way of
keeping a sufficient supply in camp. I goes up against her myself, an'
wild licker she is. But one by one, the boys all gets to dreamin' that
Burns has sorter floated afore them, accordin' to ghostly etiquette, an'
pointed a ghostly finger at the ground. Which ain't so plumb exact, for
no one supposes a mine to be up in the air. But different ones affirms
that they can recognize the features of the landscape which the ghost of
Burns frequents. As, however, they all strikes out in different
directions, I ain't takin' no stock therein.
"But, two years ago, when I was meanderin' around lookin' for signs, I
comes across the bones of an old mule with the remains of a saddle on
his back, an' I didn't have any trouble in guessin' it to be Burns's.
There was no way of tellin', though, whether he was goin' or returnin'
when the mule broke down, or if he was far or near the mine, but,
anyhow, it gave some idee of direction, an' I reckon I'm goin' to find
it."
"All right," said the Supervisor as they shook up their horses ready to
go, "I hope you have good luck and find it."
"I'll let you or Rifle-Eye know as soon as I do," called back the
prospector, "an' you folks can pan out some samples. If I find it, we'll
make the Yukon look sick."
Merritt laughed as they cantered down the trail to headquarters.
[Illustration: SAND BURYING A PEAR ORCHARD.
Almost too late to save a fine plantation which a suitable wind-break of
trees would have guarded.
_Photo by U. S. Forest Service._]