V

VTWO ON THE VERANDA

Redfieldmet his young guest in dinner-coat, looking extremely urban, and presented his “friend and neighbor, Mr. Enderby.”

Enderby turned out to be the owner of the voice with the English accent which Lee Virginia had heard in the hall, but he was very nice, and a moment later Mrs. Redfield entered with Mrs. Enderby, a large lady with a smiling face. Then a voice she knew spoke from behind her: “I don’t need a presentation. Miss Wetherford and I have already met.”

She turned to meet Ross Cavanagh, the young ranger.

“How did you get here?” she asked, in wonder.

“I rode across the hills; it’s not far.”

He too was in evening dress, and as she stared at him in surprise he laughingly protested. “Please don’t scrutinize this coat too closely. It’s the only one I’ve owned for ten years, and this is the only house in which I’ddareto wear it.”

Bridges (who turned out to be a State senator) was a farmer-like elderly man wearing a badly fitting serge suit. He was markedly Western; so was his wife, who looked rather uneasy and hot.

It was all delightfully exciting to Lee Virginia, and to be taken in to dinner by the transfigured ranger completed her appreciation of the charming home and its refined hostess.

Redfield shone as host, presenting an admirable mixture of clubman and Western rancher. His natural sense of humor, sharpened by twenty years of plains life, was Western. His manner, his habits of dress, of dining, of taking wine, were uncorruptedly Manhattan. Enderby, large, high-colored, was naturally a bit of what we know as the “haw-haw type” of Englishman—a thoroughly good fellow, kindly, tolerant, brave, and generous, who could not possibly change his spots. He had failed utterly to acquire the American idiom, and his attempts at cowboy slang were often amusing—especially to Redfield, who prided himself on being quite undistinguishable in a cow-camp.

Virginia and Ross, being the only young folk at the table, were seated together, and Enderby remarked privately: “Ross, you’re in luck.”

“I know I am,” he replied, heartily.

He was (as Redfield had said) highly susceptible, made so by his solitary life in the mountains, and to be seated close beside this maid of the valley stirred his blood to the danger-point. It was only by an effort of the will that he kept in touch with Redfield’s remarks.

“Enderby never can grow accustomed to his democratic neighbors,” Redfield was saying. “He’s been here six years, and yet when one of his cowboy friends tells him to ‘go to hell’ he’s surprised and a bit offended.”

“Oh, it isn’t that,” explained Mrs. Enderby; “it’s to have your maids say ‘All right’ when you ask them to remove the soup. It’s a bit shocking also to have your cook or housemaid going about the house singing some wretched ditty. What was that one, Charley, that Irma Maud sang till we were nearly wild (Irma Maud was my chambermaid). What was it? Something about ‘Tixey Ann.’”

“Oh, I know it perfectly!” exclaimed Enderby. “‘If you want to make a niggah feel good—’”

“No, no; that’s another one.”

Redfield interposed. “You wouldn’t have them go about in sullen stealth, would you? Think how song lightens their drudgery.”

“Ah yes; but if it drives the family out-of-doors?”

“It shouldn’t. You should take it all as a part of the happy world of democracy wherein even the maid-servant sings at her toil.”

“But our democratic neighbors are all the time coming to look round the place. We’ve no privacy whatever. On Sunday afternoon they drive through the grounds in procession; you’d think our place a public park and we the keepers.”

In all this banter Virginia was given the English viewpoint as to Western manners and conditions. She perceived that the Enderbys, notwithstanding their heavy-set prejudices, were persons of discernment and right feeling. It certainly was impertinent of the neighbors to ride through the grounds as if they were public, and Mrs. Enderby was justified in resenting it.

Ross turned to her. “Enderby is the kind of Englishman who wants to adapt himself to new conditions, but can’t.”

“You don’t seem like an Englishman at all.”

“Well, I was caught young, and, besides, I’m really Irish—on my father’s side.”

“Oh, that’s different!” she exclaimed, as though that somehow brought him nearer to her own people.

“It is, isn’t it?” he laughingly agreed. “But Enderby—I suppose his pedigree goes back to Cedric and his swineherds. You can’t change that kind.”

“I hadn’t the least thought of seeing you here. How did you happen to come?”

“Redfield telephoned me at the mill, and I came at once. I haven’t been here since May, and I just thought I’d take a half a day off. Luckily, my understudy was with me. I left him ‘on the job.’”

He did not tell her that she was the principal reason for this sudden descent upon Elk Lodge, and no one but Redfield knew the killing ride he had taken in order to be in at the beginning of the dinner. The girl’s face and voice, especially her voice, had been with him night and day as he went about his solitary duties. Her life problem had come to fill his mind to a disturbing degree, and he was eager to know more of her and of her struggle against the vice and vulgarity of the Forks.

“How is your mother?” he asked, a few minutes later.

“Not at all well. Mr. Redfield is to take the doctor back with us to-morrow.” The ecstasy died out of herface, and the flexible lips drooped with troubled musing. “I am afraid she suffers more than she will admit.”

“She needs a rest and change. She should get away from her seat at that cash-register, and return to the open air. A touch of camp-life would help her. She sticks too close to her work.”

“I know she does, but she won’t let me relieve her, even for an hour. It isn’t because she doesn’t trust me; she says it’s because she doesn’t want me sitting there—so—publicly. She doesn’t oppose my housekeeping any more—”

“You certainly have made the old hotel into a place of miraculous neatness.”

She flushed with pleasure. “I have done something, but not as I’d like to do. I really think if mother wishes to sell she could do so now to much better advantage.”

“I’ve no doubt of it. Really, I’m not being funny, Miss Wetherford, when I say you’ve done something heroic. It’s no easy thing to come into a place like that and make it habitable. It shows immense courage and self-reliance on your part. It’s precisely the kind of work this whole country needs.”

His praise, sincere and generous, repaid her for all she had gone through. It was a great pleasure to hear her small self praised for courage and self-reliance by one whose daily work was heroic. All things conspired to make a conquest of her heart, for the ranger bore himself with grace, and dealt with his silver deftly. His face, seen from the side, was older and sterner than she had thought it, but it was very attractive in line.

She said: “Mr. Redfield and I were talking of ‘the war’ to-day—I mean our ‘cattle-man’s invasion’—and I learned that you were the sergeant who came for the prisoners.”

He smiled. “Yes; I was serving in the regular army at that time.”

“You must have been very young?”

“I was—a kid.”

“That was a brave thing to do.”

“Not at all. I was a soldier under orders of the commander of the post. I dared not disobey.”

She would not have it so. “But you knew that you were going into danger?”

“To be honest about it, I did; but I relied on my blue coat to protect me.”

“It was a terrible time. I was only a child, but I can remember how wild the men all seemed when you drove up and leaped out of the wagon. I didn’t realize that my father’s life depended on your coming, but we all knew it was brave of you.”

“I think I was born a soldier. What I like about my present job is its definiteness. I have my written instructions, and there’s no need to argue anything. I carry out my orders. But I beg pardon, I’m not going to talk ‘shop’ to you. I want you to tell me about yourself. I hope you are not to return to the East, for if you do not I shall be able to see you occasionally.”

Here Redfield appealed to the ranger. “Ross, you’re all sorts of a reactionary. What do you say to this?Senator Bridges is opposed to all Federal interference with State forests and State game.”

The forester’s eyes lit up. “But are they State forests and State game? What makes them so? They are lands which the whole people purchased and which the whole people defended.”

“Heah! heah!” cheered Enderby.

Bridges bristled with anger, and went off into a long harangue on States rights and the dangers of centralization, to which Enderby replied: “Bosh! the whole trouble with your bally Government is its lack of cohesion. If I had my way, I’d wipe out the Senate and put a strong man like Roosevelt at the head of the executive. You’re such blooming asses over here; you don’t know enough to keep a really big man in your presidential chair. This fussing about every four years to put in some oily corporation lawyer is bloody rot. Here’s Roosevelt gets in the midst of a lot of the finest kind of reforms, y’ know, and directly you go and turn him out! Then if you get a bad man, you’ve to wait four years till you can fetch him a whack. Why not arrange it so you can pitch your President out the minute he goes wrong? I say your old rag of a Constitution is a ball-and-chain on your national leg. England is immeasurably better off so far as that goes.”

Ross turned to Virginia, leaving the political discussion to go on over his head. “I was back in the Old Island a couple of years ago, and you’ve no idea how small it seemed to me. It surely is a ‘right little, tight little island.’ I couldn’t help wondering whether the menin Parliament were as important as they seemed to think they were, and whether England is not really an empty shell of empire, a memory of what it once was. I couldn’t settle down there, someway. I was homesick for the mountains in a month. But what scared me most was the pauper population of the old place—one in every thirty-seven must be helped. I came back to the States gladly. ‘I guess I’m an American,’ I said to my sisters.”

To Lee Virginia all this talk of “the curse of democracy” and “the decay of empire” was unexciting, but when Cavanagh told of the sheepmen’s advance across the dead-line on Deer Creek, and of the threats of the cattle-owners, she was better able to follow the discussion. Bridges was heartily on the side of law and order, for he wished to boom the State (being a heavy owner in a town-site), but he objected to Redfield’s ideas of “bottling up the resources of the State.”

“We’re not,” retorted Redfield; “we’re merely defending them against those who would monopolize them. We believe in their fullest use, but we see no reason for giving away the resources when the country needs the revenue.”

Mrs. Redfield rose as soon as the coffee came on. “You gentlemen seem bent upon discussing matters of no interest to us,” she said, “so we’ll leave you to fight it out alone. I’m sure you’ll all agree with Hugh in the end. Like General Grant, he’s a very obstinate man.”

No sooner were they seated in the big living-room than Mrs. Enderby began to relate comical stories of herhousehold. Her cats had fits and ran up the wall. Her dogs were forever getting quilled by reason of foolish attacks upon porcupines, or else they came home so reminiscent of skunks that they all but smothered the cook. “Invariably they return from encounters of this kind just as we are sitting at dinner,” she explained. “Furthermore, Enderby’s ditches are habitually getting clogged, and overflowing the lawn and filling the cellar, and he stands in terror of his cowboys. When I think of all these irruptions and distractions, England’s order and routine seem heavenly; but Charley finds all this amusing, more’s the pity, and leaves me to set things in order. Most ludicrous of all, to me, is his habitual claim that the ranch is paying. I tell him there’s an error in his bookkeeping somewhere, but he assures me that his receipts exceeded his expenditures last year—which is quite too incredible. You’ve no idea how high wages are and how little we raise.”

“Oh yes, I have,” laughed Mrs. Redfield, “and my cat had a fit too. Hugh says it’s the high altitude. I tell him it’s melancholia.”

Cavanagh showed himself. “I hear so much laughter I’m coming in, we’re all so insufferably political out here. And, besides, I came to see the ladies, and I can only stay a few minutes longer.”

“You’re not going back to-night!” exclaimed his hostess.

“I must be on my own precinct by daylight,” he replied; “the Supervisor has an eye on me.”

Mrs. Redfield explained to Lee Virginia. “He rode fifty miles over the mountains—”

“Thirty,” corrected Ross. “But what does that matter when I’m in the company of such charming ladies?” he added, gallantly.

“And now he’s going to ride all the way back to-night!”

“Think of that,” gasped Mrs. Enderby, “and no moon!”

“How can you find your way?” asked Mrs. Bridges, to whom this was a mortally dangersome journey.

“Oh, it’s quite simple. If you don’t bump against a tree or fall into the creek you may be quite sure you’re on the trail,” laughed Ross.

Mrs. Redfield knew the true reason for his coming, and was not at all pleased, “for with all Lee’s personal charm,” she said to her husband, “she is socially beneath Ross Cavanagh, even in a State where social barriers are few.”

“Come out on the veranda,” suggested Cavanagh, “and I’ll show you the hills I must climb.”

Lee accepted innocently; but as the young people left the room Mrs. Enderby looked at her hostess with significant glance. “There’s the lady Ross rode down to meet. Who is she?”

“Her mother is that dreadful old creature that keeps the Wetherford Hotel in Roaring Fork.”

“No!” exclaimed Mrs. Enderby.

“Yes; Lee Virginia is Lize Wetherford’s daughter.”

“But the girl is charming.”

“I cannot understand it. Hugh came home a week or so ago full of her praise—” And at this point her voice dropped lower and the other drew closer.

Outside, the young people stood in silence. There was no moon, and the mountains rose darkly, a sheer wall at the end of the garden, their tops cutting into the starry sky with a dull edge, over which a dim white cone peered.

“That snow-peak is Wolftooth, and thirty miles from here, and at the head of my ‘beat,’” said the ranger, after a pause, as they leaned against the railing and looked away to the south. “I go up that ridge which you see faintly at the left of the main canon, and through that deep notch which is above timber-line.”

The girl’s eyes widened with awe of the big, silent, dark world he indicated. “Aren’t you afraid to start out on such a trip alone—I mean, don’t you dread it?”

“I’ll be sorry to start back, yes, but not because of the dark. I’ve enjoyed my visit here so much it will be hard to say good-night.”

“It seems strange to me that you should prefer this wild country to England.”

“Do you like the East better than the West?”

“In some ways; but then, you see, I was born out here.”

“So was I—I mean to say I was regenerated out here. The truth is I was a good deal of a scapegrace when I left England. I was always for hunting and horses, and naturally I came directly to the wild West country, and here I’ve been ever since. I’ve had my turn at each phase of it—cow-puncher, soldier, Rough-rider, and finally forest ranger. I reckon I’ve found my job at last.”

“Do you like it so much?”

“At the present time I am perfectly contented. I’massociated now with a country that will never yield to the plough—yes, I like my work. I love the forests and the streams. I wish I might show them to you. You don’t know how beautiful they are. The most beautiful parks in the world are commonplace to what I can show you. My only sorrow is to think of them given over to the sawmill. Perhaps you and your mother will come up some time, and let me show you my lakes and streams. There are waters so lovely they make the heart ache. Hugh is planning to come up soon; perhaps you and Mrs. Redfield will come with him.”

“I’d like it above everything,” she responded, fervently. Then her voice changed: “But all depends on my mother’s health.”

It hurt him to hear her call Eliza Wetherford mother. He wanted to forget her origin for the moment. He was not in love with her—far from it! But she was so alluring, and the proprietress of the Wetherford House was not nice, and that made one doubt the daughter.

She broke the silence. “It seems dreadfully dark and mysterious up there.” She indicated his path.

“It isn’t as bad as it looks. There is a good trail, and my pony knows it as well as I do. I enjoy riding by night.”

“But there are bears and other wild things, are there not?”

“Not as many as I wish there were.”

“Why do you say that?”

“I hate to see all the wild life killed off. Some day all these forests will have game refuges like the YellowstoneNational Park. They are coming each year to have greater and greater value to the people of the plains. They are playgrounds, like the Alps. Campers are coming into my valley every day, and, while they increase the danger of fires, I welcome them. They are all advocates of the forest. As one man said: ‘The mountains supplement the plains. They give color and charm to the otherwise monotonous West.’ I confess I couldn’t live on the prairies—not even on the plains—if out of sight of the mountains. If I should ever settle down to a home it would be in a canon like this, with a great peak at my front door.”

“Itisbeautiful,” the girl said, in the tone of sadness with which we confront the perfect night, the perfect flower, the flawless landscape. “It is both grand and peaceful.”

This tone of sadness pleased him. It showed her depth of perception, and he reflected that she had not uttered a vacuous or silly phrase since their first meeting. “She is capable of great development,” he thought. Aloud he said: “You are a strange mingling of East and West. Do you realize it?”

“In what way?” she asked, feeling something ardent in his tone.

“You typify to me at this moment this whole State. You fill me with enthusiasm for its future. Here you are, derived from the lawless West, yet taking on the culture and restraint of the East so readily that you seem not in the least related to—”

He checked himself at this point, and she said:“My mother is not as rough as she seems, Mr. Cavanagh.”

“She must be more of the woman than appears, or she could not have borne such a daughter. But do you feel your relationship to her? Tell me honestly, for you interest me.”

“I didn’t at first, but I do now. I begin to understand her, and, besides, I feel in myself certain things that are in her, though I think I am more like the Wetherfords. My father’s family home was in Maryland.”

Ross could have talked on all night, so alluring was the girl’s dimly-seen yet warmly-felt figure at his side, but a sense of danger and a knowledge that he should be riding led him at last to say: “It is getting chill, we must go in; but before we do so, let me say how much I’ve enjoyed seeing you again. I hope the doctor will make favorable report on your mother’s case. You’ll write me the result of the examination, won’t you?”

“If you wish me to.”

“I shall be most anxious to know.”

They were standing very near to each other at the moment, and the ranger, made very sensitive to woman’s charm by his lonely life, shook with newly-created love of her. A suspicion, a hope that beneath her cultivated manner lay the passionate nature of her mother gave an added force to his desire. He was sorely tempted to touch her, to test her; but her sweet voice, a little sad and perfectly unconscious of evil, calmed him. She said:

“I hope to persuade my mother to leave the Forks. All the best people there are against us. Some of themhave been very cruel to her and to me, and, besides, I despise and fear the men who come to our table.”

“You must not exchange words with them,” he all but commanded. “Beware of Gregg; he is a vile lot; do not trust him for an instant. Do not permit any of those loafers to talk with you, for if you do they will go away to defame you. I know them. They are unspeakably vile. It makes me angry to think that Gregg and his like have the right to speak to you every day while I can only see you at long intervals.”

His heat betrayed the sense of proprietorship which he had begun to feel, in spite of his resolution. But the girl only perceived his solicitation, his friendly interest, and she answered: “I keep away from them all I can.”

“You are right to distrust them,” he replied, grimly. “Because old Sam has money, he thinks he can do as he pleases. You must be especially careful of him.”

“The worst is when I go on the street; but if mother does not sell the business, I shall be obliged to stay in the Fork, no matter how I hate it.”

“I wish my station were not so far away,” he mused, darkly. “But I’ll ride down as often as my duties will permit, and you must let me know how things go. And if any of those fellows persecute you, you’ll tell me, won’t you? I wish you’d look upon me as your big brother. Will you do that?” His voice entreated, and as she remained silent, he continued: “Roaring Fork is one of the worst towns in the State, and a girl like you needs some one as a protector. I don’t know just how to put it so that you will not misunderstand me, but, you see, I protectthe forest, the streams, and the game; I help the settler in time of trouble; I am a kind of all-round big brother to everybody who needs help in the forest. In fact, I’m paid for protecting things that can’t protect themselves, and so”—here he tried to lend his voice the accent of humor—“why shouldn’t I be the protector of a girl like you, alone—worse than alone—in this little cow-town?”

She remained dumb at one or two points where he clearly hoped for a word, and she was unable to thank him when he had finished. In this silence a curious constriction came into his throat. It was almost as if he had put his passion into definite words, and as the light fell upon her he perceived that her bosom was heaving with deep emotion.

“Iamlonely,” she faltered out at last—“horribly lonely; and I know now how people feel toward my mother, and it hurts me—it all hurts me; but I’m going to stay and help her—” She paused to recover her voice. “And youdoseem different! I—I—trust you!”

“I’m glad you understand me, and youwilllet me know if I can help you, won’t you?”

“Yes,” she answered, simply.

“Good-night,” he said, extending his hand.

She placed her palm to his quite frankly, but the touch of it made further speech at the moment impossible.

They went in with such tell-tale faces that even Redfield wondered what had passed between them.

Excusing himself almost at once, Cavanagh left the room, and when he looked in, a few moments later, he was clothed in the ranger’s dusty green uniform, booted and spurred for his long, hard ride. Mrs. Redfield followed him into the hall and out on the door-stone to say: “Ross, you must be careful. This girl is very alluring in herself, but her mother, you know, is impossible.”

“You’re needlessly alarmed, as usual,” he smilingly replied. “She interests me—that’s patent; but beyond that, why—nonsense! Good-night.”

Nevertheless, despite his protestations, he went away up the trail with his mind so filled with Lee Virginia’s appealing face and form that he would certainly have ridden over a precipice had it not been for his experienced pony, who had fortunately but one aim, and that was to cross the range safely and to reach the home pasture at the earliest moment.

Now that he was looking back upon three hours more of Lee’s society, Cavanagh was ready to admit that he had left his range and ridden hard and far with that one purpose in mind. He had been hungry for the sight of her, and now that he had touched her hand and looked upon her again he was a little surprised and deeply disturbed to find himself hungrier than before.

VITHE VOICE FROM THE HEIGHTS

Lee Virginiawas not entirely without experience as regards respectful courtship. Her life in the East had brought her to know a number of attractive lads and a few men, but none of these had become more than good companions, or friends; and though she wrote to one or two of these youths letters of the utmost friendliness, there was no passion in them, and she felt, as yet, the sting of nothing more intense in her liking for Cavanagh; but he meant more to her, now that she was lonely and beleaguered of those whose eyes were cruel and hot.

Then, too, he had come to represent a new world to her—this world of the forest, this region toward the sunset, which was quite as mysterious to her thinking as it was to the eyes of any plains-dweller. Her imagination went with the ranger on his solitary march into those vague, up-billowing masses of rocks and trees. To her there were many dangers, and she wondered at his courage, his hardihood.

That he had ridden all that long, rough way merely to see her she was not vain enough to believe; but she had, nevertheless, something of every woman’s secret belief in her individual charm. Cavanagh had showna flattering interest in her, and his wish to be her protector filled her with joy and confidence.

She heard a good deal more about this particular forest ranger next morning at breakfast. “He is throwing himself away,” Mrs. Redfield passionately declared. “Think of a man of Ross’s refinement living in a mountain shack miles from anybody, watching poachers, marking trees, and cooking his own food. It’s a shameful waste of genius.”

“That’s as you look at it, my dear,” responded Redfield. “Ross is the guardian of an immense treasure-chest which belongs to the nation. Furthermore, he is quite certain—as I am—that this Forest Service is the policy of the future, and that it offers fine chances for promotion—and then, finally, he likes it.”

“That is all well enough for a young man; but Ross is at least thirty-five, and should be thinking of settling down. I can’t understand his point of view.”

“My dear, you have never seen the procession of the seasons from such a point of view as that which he enjoys.”

“No, and I do not care to. It is quite lonely enough for me right here.”

Redfield looked at Lee with comic blankness. “Mrs. Redfield is hopelessly urban. As the wife of a forest supervisor, she cares more for pavements and tram-cars than for the most splendid mountain park.”

“I most certainly do,” his wife vigorously agreed. “And if I had my way we should be living in London.”

“Listen to that! She’s ten times more English than Mrs. Enderby.”

“I’m not; but I long for the civilized instead of the wild. I like comfort and society.”

“So do I,” returned he.

“Yes; the comfort of an easy-chair on the porch and the society of your forest rangers. This ranch life is all very well for a summer outing, but to be tied down here all the year round is to be denied one’s birthright as a modern.”

All this more or less cheerful complaint expressed the minds of many others who live amid these superb scenes. When autumn comes, when the sky is gray and the peaks are hid in mist, they long for the music, the lights, the comfort of the city; but when the April sun begins to go down in a smother of crimson and flame, and the mountains loom with epic dignity, or when at dawn the air is like some divine flood descending from the unstained mysterious heights, then the dweller in the foot-hills cries out: “How fortunate we are! Here is health and happiness! Here poverty is unknown!” One side of the girl was of this strain, the other was of the character described by her hostess. She began to see that Ross Cavanagh was fitted for higher duties than those of forest guard.

Mrs. Redfield was becoming more and more interested in this child, who had not merely the malodorous reputation of her mother to contend with, but the memory of a traitorous sire to live down; and when Lee Virginia went to her room to pack her bag, the wife turned to herhusband and said: “What are we to think of heredity when we see a thoroughly nice girl like that rise out of the union of a desperado with a vixen?”

Redfield answered: “It is unaccountable. I knew her father well; he was a reckless daredevil, with less real courage in him than there is in old Lize; but I can’t tell the girl that. She is sufficiently humiliated by her mother; she takes comfort in the thought that her father at least was brave and heroic.”

“I don’t believe in heredity as I did once,” his wife resumed. “Aren’t scientific men rather divided about it?”

“Yes, there are those who deny that there is any inheritance of the spirit, of character, insisting that the laws of transmission affect the body only. Lee is certainly like her father in looks. He was a handsome rascal.”

“Ross is terribly smitten with her.”

Redfield coughed, uneasily. “I hope not. Of course he admires her, as any man must. She’s physically attractive, very attractive, and, besides, Ross is as susceptible as a cow-puncher. He was deeply impressed the first time he saw her, I could see that.”

“I didn’t like his going out on the veranda with her last night,” continued Mrs. Redfield, “and when they came in her eyes and color indicated that he’d been saying something exciting to her. Hugh, Ross Cavanagh must not get involved with that girl. It’s your duty as his superior to warn him.”

“He’s fully grown, my dear, and a bit dictatorial onhis own part. I’m a trifle timid about cutting in on his private affairs.”

“Then I’ll do it. Marriage with a girl like that is out of the question. Think what his sisters would say.”

Redfield smiled a bit satirically. “To the outsider a forest ranger at $900 a year and find himself and horses is not what you may call a brilliant catch.”

“Oh, well, the outsider is no judge. Ross Cavanagh is a gentleman, and, besides, he’s sure to be promoted. I acknowledge the girl’s charms, and I don’t understand it. When I think of her objectively as Lize Wetherford’s girl I wonder at her being in my house. When I see her I want her to stay with me; I want to hug her.”

“Perhaps we’ve been unjust to Lize all along,” suggested Redfield. “She has remained faithful to Ed Wetherford’s memory all these years—that is conceded. Doesn’t that argue some unusual quality? How many women do we know who are capable of such loyalty? Come, now! Lize is a rough piece of goods, I’ll admit, and her fly-bit lunch-counter was a public nuisance; but she had the courage to send her girl away to be educated, denying herself the joy of seeing her develop by her side. We mustn’t permit our prejudices to run away with us.”

The girl’s return put a stop to the discussion, which could end in nothing but confusion anyway.

Lee Virginia said good-bye to Mrs. Redfield with grateful appreciation of her kindness, and especially of her invitation to come again, and the tears in hereyes profoundly affected the older woman, who, with a friendliness which was something more than politeness, invited her to come again. “Whenever Roaring Fork gets on your nerves we’ll be very glad to rescue you,” she said in parting.

Hugh Redfield the girl thoroughly understood and loved, he was so simple-hearted and so loyal. His bitter criticisms of the West were not uttered in a destructive mood—quite the contrary. His work was constructive in the highest degree. He was profoundly impatient of America’s shortcomings, for the reason that he deeply felt her responsibility to the rest of the world. His knowledge of other republics and “limited monarchies” gave his suggestions power and penetration; and even Bridges, besotted in his provincial selfishness, had advised his selection as Supervisor. Of his own fitness for the work, Redfield himself took a dispassionate view. “I am only filling the place till the right man comes along,” he said to his friends. “The man before me was a half-hearted and shifty advocate. I am an enthusiast without special training; by-and-by the real forester will come to take my place.”

On the way to the office, he said to Lee: “I will talk to the doctor if you like.”

“I wish you would,” she responded, fervently.

She remained in the machine while he went in, and as she sat there a train passed on its downward eastward run, and a feeling of loneliness, of helplessness, filled her heart. She had written many brave letters to her Eastern friends, but the vital contests, the important factors ofher life, she had not mentioned. She had given no hint of her mother’s physical and moral degeneration, and she had set down no word of her longing to return; but now that she was within sight of the railway the call of the East, the temptation to escape all her discomforts, was almost great enough to carry her away; but into her mind came the thought of the ranger riding his solitary way, and she turned her face to her own duties once more, comforted by the words of praise he had spoken and by the blaze of admiration in his eyes.

Redfield came out, followed by a small man carrying a neat bag. He was of surpassing ugliness, and yet she liked him. His mouth had a curious twist. He had no chin to speak of, and his bright eyes protruded like those of a beetle. His voice, however, was surprisingly fine and resonant.

“You’d better sit behind, Doctor,” said Redfield. “I shall be very busy on this trip.”

“Very well,” replied the other, “if Miss Wetherford remains beside me; otherwise I shall rebel.” He was of those small, plain men whose absurd gallantry is never taken seriously by women, and yet is something more than pretence.

He began by asking a few questions about her mother’s way of life, but as Lee was not very explicit, he became impersonal, and talked of whatsoever came into his mind—motor-cars, irrigation, hunting, flowers—anything at all; and the girl had nothing to do but to utter an occasional phrase to show that she was listening. It was all rather depressing to her, for she could not understandhow a man so garrulous could be a good physician. She was quite sure her mother would not treat him with the slightest respect.

After all, he talked well. His stream of conversation shortened the way for her, and she was surprised when they topped the last ridge and the Fork could be seen lying before them in the valley. Soon they were rolling quietly up the street to the door of the Wetherford House.

Springing out unaided, Lee hurried in, hoping to prepare her mother for the shock of the little physician’s unimposing appearance, while Redfield remained behind to arm the physician for his encounter. “Now, Doctor, Mrs. Wetherford is a very singular and plain-spoken person. She’s quite likely to swear like a man, but she will perform like a woman. Don’t mind what she says; go ahead in your own way. Will you wait till after dinner, or shall I—”

“No, I shall make the examination first—while I’m hungry. My mind works quicker. I can’t diagnose properly on a full stomach.”

“Very well; line up with me, and together we’ll beard the old grizzly in her den.”

They found Lize on duty behind the counter as usual. Her face was dejected, her eyes dull, but as she caught sight of the strange little man, she cried out: “Lord God, Reddy, why didn’t you bring me aman?”

“Hush, mother,” cautioned Lee, “this is the famous Eastern physician.”

“You can’t be famous for your beauty—you must be brainy,” she remarked to herself in the stranger’s hearing.

Redfield presented “Doctor Fessenden, of Omaha.”

She started again on contemptuous ways, but was stopped by the little man. “Get down out o’ that chair!” he commanded. “My time is money!”

Lize flushed with surprise and anger, but obeyed, and Lee Virginia, secretly delighted with the physician’s imperative manner, led the way into the lodging-house. “I’ll look after the cash, mother,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

“I’m not worryin’,” she replied; “but what does that little whelp mean by talking to me like that? I’ll swat him one if he isn’t careful!”

“It’s his way. Please don’t anger him. You need his help.”

The doctor interfered. “Now, madam, strip, and let’s see what’s the matter with you,” whereupon he laid off his coat, and opened his box of instruments.

Lee fled, and Redfield, who had remained standing beside the counter, could not repress a smile. “She’s caught a tartar this time. He’s a little tiger, isn’t he? I had prepared him for war, but I didn’t expect him to fly at her that way.”

“Poor mother! how dreadfully ill she looks to-day. I hope the doctor will order her to rest.”

“But will she obey? I’ve argued that with her. She keeps saying she will, but she won’t.”

It was nearly one, but the customers were coming in, and the girl, laying aside her hat and veil, took her seat at the cash-register, while Redfield went out to put his machine in order for the return trip. She realizedthat she was now at close-hand grapple with life. For the most part she had been able, up to this time, to keep in the background, and to avoid the eyes of the rough men who came and went before her mother’s seat. But now she was not merely exposed to their bold glances; she was in a position where each man could make excuse to stop and demand a word what time his change was being counted.

Her glowing cheeks, her pretty dress, made her a shining mark, and the men began at once to improve their opportunity by asking, “Where’s Lize?” And this embarrassed her, for the reason that she did not care to go into the cause of her mother’s temporary absence, and, perceiving her confusion, one of them passed to coarse compliment. “There’s nothing the matter with you,” he said, with a leer. Others, though coarse, were kindly in their familiarity, and Sifton, with gentle face, remained to help her bear the jests of the more uncouth and indelicate of her admirers.

Perceiving her nervousness, Neill Ballard raised loud outcry over a mistake she made in returning change, and this so confused and angered her that her eyes misted with tears, and she blundered sadly with the next customer. His delight in her discomfiture, his words, his grin became unendurable, and in a flush of rage and despair she sprang to her feet and left them to make triumphant exit. “I got her rattled!” he roared, as he went out. “She’ll remember me.”

The diners were all smiling, and Gregg took a malicious satisfaction in her defeat. She had held herselfhaughtily apart from him, and he was glad to see her humbled.

Leaving her place behind the counter, she walked through the room with uplifted head and burning eyes, her heart filled with bitterness and fire. She hated the whole town, the whole State, at the moment. Were these “the chivalrous short-grass knights” she had heard so much about? These the large-souled “Western founders of empire”? At the moment she was in the belief that all the heroes of her childhood had been of the stamp of Neill Ballard—selfish, lustful, and cruel.

In the hall her pride, her sense of duty, came back to her, and she halted her fleeing feet. “I will not be beaten!” she declared, and her lips straightened. “I will not let these dreadful creatures make a fool of me in that way!”

Thereupon she turned and went back, pale now, but resolved to prove herself the mistress of the situation. Fortunately Redfield had returned, and his serene presence helped her to recover complete control of herself. She remained coldly blank to every compliment, and by this means she subdued them. “Why doesn’t the doctor return for his dinner?” she asked, after the room had cleared. The desire to know her mother’s real condition at last quite subordinated her own besetments. To some of the older men whom she knew to be neighbors and friends she gladly explained the situation, and their sympathy did something to restore her faith in humankind. Nevertheless, this hour of unprotectedintercourse with the citizens of the town was disturbing, humiliating, and embittering.

The doctor appearing suddenly in the door beckoned to her, and, leaving her place, she crossed to where he stood. “Your mother needs you,” he said, curtly. “Go to her, and keep her quiet for an hour or two if you can.”

“What is the matter, doctor?”

“I can’t tell you precisely, but you must get her on a diet and keep her there. I will write out some lists for you after my luncheon.”

Lee found her mother sitting in such dejection as she had never known her to display, though she fired up sufficiently to say: “That cussed little thimble-rigger has been throwing a great big scare into me. He says I’ve got to get out-doors, live on raw meat and weak tea, and walk five miles a day. That’s what he says!” she added, in renewed astonishment at the man’s audacity. “Who’s at the cash?”

“Mr. Redfield,” replied Lee. “I’ll go right back.”

“No you won’t, I’m no dead horse yet.” She struggled to her feet and started for the cash-register. “I won’t let no little Omaha doughgie like that put me out o’ business.”

Despite all warnings, she walked out into the dining-room and took her accustomed seat with set and stern face, while her daughter went to the table where the doctor sat, and explained her inability to manage her mother.

“That’syourproblem,” he replied, coolly. Thenrapidly, succinctly, and clearly he went over the case, and laid out a course of treatment. Out of it all Lee deduced that her mother was very ill indeed, though not in danger of sudden death.

“She’s on the chute,” said Fessenden, “and everything depends upon her own action whether she takes the plunge this winter or twenty years from now. She’s a strong woman—or has been—but she has presumed upon her strength. She used to live out-of-doors, she tells me, during all her early life, and now, shut in by these walls, working sixteen hours a day, she is killing herself. Get her out if you can, and cut out stimulants.”

As he rose and approached the counter, Lize shoved a couple of gold pieces across the board. “That wipes you off my map,” she grimly declared. “I hope you enjoyed your ride.”

“It’s up to you, madam,” he replied, pocketing the gold. “Good-day!”

Lee followed him out to the car, eager to secure all she could of his wisdom. He repeated his instructions. “Medicine can’t help her much,” he said, “but diet can do a great deal. Get her out of that rut she’s in. Good-bye.”

“I’ll be down again in a day or two!” called Redfield.

The machine began to purr and spit and the wheels to spin, and Lee Virginia was left to face her mother’s obstinate resistance alone. She felt suddenly very desolate, very weak, and very poor. “What if mother should die?” she asked herself.

Gregg was standing before the counter talking withLize as Lee returned, and he said, with a broad smile: “I’ve just been saying I’d take this hotel off your mother’s hands provided you went with it.”

In the mouths of some men these words would have been harmless enough, but coming from the tongue of one whose life could only be obscurely hinted at the jest was an insult. The girl shuddered with repulsion, and Lize spoke out:

“Now see here, Bullfrog, I’m dead on the hoof and all that, but neither you nor any other citizen like you can be funny with my girl. She’s not for you. Now that’s final! She ain’t your kind.”

Gregg’s smile died into a gray, set smirk, and his eyes took on a steely glint. He knew when the naked, unadorned truth was spoken to him. Words came slowly to his lips, but he said: “You’ll be glad to come to me for help some day—both of you.”

“Oh, get along! You don’t hold no mortgage on me,” retorted Lize, contemptuously, and turned to Lee. “I’m hungry. Where’s that grub chart o’ mine?”

Lee brought the doctor’s page of notes and read it through, while her mother snorted at intervals: “Hah! dry toast, weak tea, no coffee, no alcohol. Huh! I might as well starve! Eggs—fish—milk! Why didn’t he say boiled live lobsters and champagne? I tell you right now, I’m not going to go into that kind of a game. If I die I’m going to die eating what I blame please.”

The struggle had begun. With desperate courage Lee fought, standing squarely in the rut of her mother’s daily habit. “You must not hive up here any longer,”she insisted; “you must get out and walk and ride. I can take care of the house—at least, till we can sell it.”

It was like breaking the pride of an athlete, but little by little she forced upon her mother a realization of her true condition, and at last Lize consented to offer the business for sale. Then she wept (for the first time in years), and the sight moved her daughter much as the sobs of a strong man would have done.

She longed for the presence of Ross Cavanagh at this moment, when all her little world seemed tumbling into ruin; and almost in answer to her wordless prayer came a messenger from the little telephone office: “Some one wants to talk to you.”

She answered this call hurriedly, thinking at first that it must be Mrs. Redfield. The booth was in the little sitting-room of a private cottage, and the mistress of the place, a shrewd little woman with inquisitive eyes, said: “Sounds to me like Ross Cavanagh’s voice.”

Lee was thankful for the booth’s privacy, for her cheeks flamed up at this remark; and when she took up the receiver her heart was beating so loud it seemed as if the person at the other end of the wire must hear it. “Who is it, please?” she asked, with breathless intensity.

A man’s voice came back over the wire so clear, so distinct, so intimate, it seemed as if he were speaking into her ear. “It is I, Ross Cavanagh. I want to ask how your mother is?”

“She is terribly disheartened by what the doctor has said, but she is in no immediate danger.”

He perceived her agitation, and was instantly sympathetic. “Can I be of use—do you need me? If you do, I’ll come down.”

“Where are you?”

“I am at the sawmill—the nearest telephone station.”

“How far away are you?”

“About thirty miles.”

“Oh!” She expressed in this little sound her disappointment, and as it trembled over the wire he spoke quickly: “Please tell me! Do you want me to come down? Never mind the distance—I can ride it in a few hours.”

She was tempted, but bravely said: “No; I’d like to see you, of course, but the doctor said mother was in no danger. You must not come on our account.”

He felt the wonder of the moment’s intercourse over the wilderness steeps, and said so. “You can’t imagine how strangely sweet and civilized your voice sounds to me here in this savage place. It makes me hope that some day you and Mrs. Redfield will come up and visit me in person.”

“I should like to come.”

“Perhaps it would do your mother good to camp for a while. Can’t you persuade her to do so?”

“I’m trying to do that—I mean, to stop work; but she says, ‘What can we do to earn a living?’”

“If nothing happens I hope to spend an hour or two at the Forks next Sunday. I hope to find your mother better.”

Their words were of this unemotional sort, but intheir voices something subtler than the electrical current vibrated. He called to her in wordless fashion and she answered in the same mysterious code, and when she said “Good-bye” and hung up the receiver her world went suddenly gray and commonplace, as if a ray of special sunlight had been withdrawn.

The attendant asked, with village bluntness: “ItwasRoss, wasn’t it?”

Lee Virginia resented this almost as much as if it were the question of an eavesdropper; but she answered: “Yes; he wanted to know how my mother was.”

She turned as she reached the street and looked up toward the glorious purpling deeps from which the ranger’s voice had come, and the thought that he was the sole guardian of those dark forests and shining streams—that his way led among those towering peaks and lone canons—made of him something altogether admirable.

That night her loneliness, her sense of weakness, carried her to bed with tears of despair in her eyes. Lize had insisted on going back to her work looking like one stricken with death, yet so rebellious that her daughter could do nothing with her; and in the nature of fate the day’s business had been greater than ever, so that they had all been forced to work like slaves to feed the flood of custom. And Lize herself still kept her vigil in her chair above her gold.

Closing her mind to the town and all it meant to her, the girl tried to follow, in imagination, the ranger treading his far, high trails. She recalled his voice, so cultivated,so rich of inflection, with dangerous tenderness. It had come down to her from those lofty parapets like that of a friend, laden with something sweeter than sympathy, more alluring than song.

The thought of some time going up to the high country where he dwelt came to her most insistently, and she permitted herself to dream of long days of companionship with him, of riding through sunlit aisles of forest with him, of cooking for him at the cabin—what time her mother grew strong once more—and these dreams bred in her heart a wistful ache, a hungry need which made her pillow a place of mingled ecstasy and pain.

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