“Nell—drink!” panted Bo. “Think of our—old spring—in the orchard—full of pollywogs!”
And then Helen drank thirstily, with closed eyes, while a memory of home stirred from Bo's gift of poignant speech.
The first camp duty Dale performed was to throw a pack off one of the horses, and, opening it, he took out tarpaulin and blankets, which he arranged on the ground under a pine-tree.
“You girls rest,” he said, briefly.
“Can't we help?” asked Helen, though she could scarcely stand.
“You'll be welcome to do all you like after you're broke in.”
“Broke in!” ejaculated Bo, with a little laugh. “I'm all broke UP now.”
“Bo, it looks as if Mr. Dale expects us to have quite a stay with him in the woods.”
“It does,” replied Bo, as slowly she sat down upon the blankets, stretched out with a long sigh, and laid her head on a saddle. “Nell, didn't he say not to call him Mister?”
Dale was throwing the packs off the other horses.
Helen lay down beside Bo, and then for once in her life she experienced the sweetness of rest.
“Well, sister, what do you intend to call him?” queried Helen, curiously.
“Milt, of course,” replied Bo.
Helen had to laugh despite her weariness and aches.
“I suppose, then, when your Las Vegas cowboy comes along you will call him what he called you.”
Bo blushed, which was a rather unusual thing for her.
“I will if I like,” she retorted. “Nell, ever since I could remember you've raved about the West. Now you're OUT West, right in it good and deep. So wake up!”
That was Bo's blunt and characteristic way of advising the elimination of Helen's superficialities. It sank deep. Helen had no retort. Her ambition, as far as the West was concerned, had most assuredly not been for such a wild, unheard-of jaunt as this. But possibly the West—a living from day to day—was one succession of adventures, trials, tests, troubles, and achievements. To make a place for others to live comfortably some day! That might be Bo's meaning, embodied in her forceful hint. But Helen was too tired to think it out then. She found it interesting and vaguely pleasant to watch Dale.
He hobbled the horses and turned them loose. Then with ax in hand he approached a short, dead tree, standing among a few white-barked aspens. Dale appeared to advantage swinging the ax. With his coat off, displaying his wide shoulders, straight back, and long, powerful arms, he looked a young giant. He was lithe and supple, brawny but not bulky. The ax rang on the hard wood, reverberating through the forest. A few strokes sufficed to bring down the stub. Then he split it up. Helen was curious to see how he kindled a fire. First he ripped splinters out of the heart of the log, and laid them with coarser pieces on the ground. Then from a saddlebag which hung on a near-by branch he took flint and steel and a piece of what Helen supposed was rag or buckskin, upon which powder had been rubbed. At any rate, the first strike of the steel brought sparks, a blaze, and burning splinters. Instantly the flame leaped a foot high. He put on larger pieces of wood crosswise, and the fire roared.
That done, he stood erect, and, facing the north, he listened. Helen remembered now that she had seen him do the same thing twice before since the arrival at Big Spring. It was Roy for whom he was listening and watching. The sun had set and across the open space the tips of the pines were losing their brightness.
The camp utensils, which the hunter emptied out of a sack, gave forth a jangle of iron and tin. Next he unrolled a large pack, the contents of which appeared to be numerous sacks of all sizes. These evidently contained food supplies. The bucket looked as if a horse had rolled over it, pack and all. Dale filled it at the spring. Upon returning to the camp-fire he poured water into a washbasin, and, getting down to his knees, proceeded to wash his hands thoroughly. The act seemed a habit, for Helen saw that while he was doing it he gazed off into the woods and listened. Then he dried his hands over the fire, and, turning to the spread-out pack, he began preparations for the meal.
Suddenly Helen thought of the man and all that his actions implied. At Magdalena, on the stage-ride, and last night, she had trusted this stranger, a hunter of the White Mountains, who appeared ready to befriend her. And she had felt an exceeding gratitude. Still, she had looked at him impersonally. But it began to dawn upon her that chance had thrown her in the company of a remarkable man. That impression baffled her. It did not spring from the fact that he was brave and kind to help a young woman in peril, or that he appeared deft and quick at camp-fire chores. Most Western men were brave, her uncle had told her, and many were roughly kind, and all of them could cook. This hunter was physically a wonderful specimen of manhood, with something leonine about his stature. But that did not give rise to her impression. Helen had been a school-teacher and used to boys, and she sensed a boyish simplicity or vigor or freshness in this hunter. She believed, however, that it was a mental and spiritual force in Dale which had drawn her to think of it.
“Nell, I've spoken to you three times,” protested Bo, petulantly. “What 're you mooning over?”
“I'm pretty tired—and far away, Bo,” replied Helen. “What did you say?”
“I said I had an e-normous appetite.”
“Really. That's not remarkable for you. I'm too tired to eat. And afraid to shut my eyes. They'd never come open. When did we sleep last, Bo?”
“Second night before we left home,” declared Bo.
“Four nights! Oh, we've slept some.”
“I'll bet I make mine up in this woods. Do you suppose we'll sleep right here—under this tree—with no covering?”
“It looks so,” replied Helen, dubiously.
“How perfectly lovely!” exclaimed Bo, in delight. “We'll see the stars through the pines.”
“Seems to be clouding over. Wouldn't it be awful if we had a storm?”
“Why, I don't know,” answered Bo, thoughtfully. “It must storm out West.”
Again Helen felt a quality of inevitableness in Bo. It was something that had appeared only practical in the humdrum home life in St. Joseph. All of a sudden Helen received a flash of wondering thought—a thrilling consciousness that she and Bo had begun to develop in a new and wild environment. How strange, and fearful, perhaps, to watch that growth! Bo, being younger, more impressionable, with elemental rather than intellectual instincts, would grow stronger more swiftly. Helen wondered if she could yield to her own leaning to the primitive. But how could anyone with a thoughtful and grasping mind yield that way? It was the savage who did not think.
Helen saw Dale stand erect once more and gaze into the forest.
“Reckon Roy ain't comin',” he soliloquized. “An' that's good.” Then he turned to the girls. “Supper's ready.”
The girls responded with a spirit greater than their activity. And they ate like famished children that had been lost in the woods. Dale attended them with a pleasant light upon his still face.
“To-morrow night we'll have meat,” he said.
“What kind?” asked Bo.
“Wild turkey or deer. Maybe both, if you like. But it's well to take wild meat slow. An' turkey—that 'll melt in your mouth.”
“Uummm!” murmured Bo, greedily. “I've heard of wild turkey.”
When they had finished Dale ate his meal, listening to the talk of the girls, and occasionally replying briefly to some query of Bo's. It was twilight when he began to wash the pots and pans, and almost dark by the time his duties appeared ended. Then he replenished the campfire and sat down on a log to gaze into the fire. The girls leaned comfortably propped against the saddles.
“Nell, I'll keel over in a minute,” said Bo. “And I oughtn't—right on such a big supper.”
“I don't see how I can sleep, and I know I can't stay awake,” rejoined Helen.
Dale lifted his head alertly.
“Listen.”
The girls grew tense and still. Helen could not hear a sound, unless it was a low thud of hoof out in the gloom. The forest seemed sleeping. She knew from Bo's eyes, wide and shining in the camp-fire light, that she, too, had failed to catch whatever it was Dale meant.
“Bunch of coyotes comin',” he explained.
Suddenly the quietness split to a chorus of snappy, high-strung, strange barks. They sounded wild, yet they held something of a friendly or inquisitive note. Presently gray forms could be descried just at the edge of the circle of light. Soft rustlings of stealthy feet surrounded the camp, and then barks and yelps broke out all around. It was a restless and sneaking pack of animals, thought Helen; she was glad after the chorus ended and with a few desultory, spiteful yelps the coyotes went away.
Silence again settled down. If it had not been for the anxiety always present in Helen's mind she would have thought this silence sweet and unfamiliarly beautiful.
“Ah! Listen to that fellow,” spoke up Dale. His voice was thrilling.
Again the girls strained their ears. That was not necessary, for presently, clear and cold out of the silence, pealed a mournful howl, long drawn, strange and full and wild.
“Oh! What's that?” whispered Bo.
“That's a big gray wolf—a timber-wolf, or lofer, as he's sometimes called,” replied Dale. “He's high on some rocky ridge back there. He scents us, an' he doesn't like it.... There he goes again. Listen! Ah, he's hungry.”
While Helen listened to this exceedingly wild cry—so wild that it made her flesh creep and the most indescribable sensations of loneliness come over her—she kept her glance upon Dale.
“You love him?” she murmured involuntarily, quite without understanding the motive of her query.
Assuredly Dale had never had that question asked of him before, and it seemed to Helen, as he pondered, that he had never even asked it of himself.
“I reckon so,” he replied, presently.
“But wolves kill deer, and little fawns, and everything helpless in the forest,” expostulated Bo.
The hunter nodded his head.
“Why, then, can you love him?” repeated Helen.
“Come to think of it, I reckon it's because of lots of reasons,” returned Dale. “He kills clean. He eats no carrion. He's no coward. He fights. He dies game.... An' he likes to be alone.”
“Kills clean. What do you mean by that?”
“A cougar, now, he mangles a deer. An' a silvertip, when killin' a cow or colt, he makes a mess of it. But a wolf kills clean, with sharp snaps.”
“What are a cougar and a silvertip?”
“Cougar means mountain-lion or panther, an' a silvertip is a grizzly bear.”
“Oh, they're all cruel!” exclaimed Helen, shrinking.
“I reckon. Often I've shot wolves for relayin' a deer.”
“What's that?”
“Sometimes two or more wolves will run a deer, an' while one of them rests the other will drive the deer around to his pardner, who'll, take up the chase. That way they run the deer down. Cruel it is, but nature, an' no worse than snow an' ice that starve deer, or a fox that kills turkey-chicks breakin' out of the egg, or ravens that pick the eyes out of new-born lambs an' wait till they die. An' for that matter, men are crueler than beasts of prey, for men add to nature, an' have more than instincts.”
Helen was silenced, as well as shocked. She had not only learned a new and striking viewpoint in natural history, but a clear intimation to the reason why she had vaguely imagined or divined a remarkable character in this man. A hunter was one who killed animals for their fur, for their meat or horns, or for some lust for blood—that was Helen's definition of a hunter, and she believed it was held by the majority of people living in settled states. But the majority might be wrong. A hunter might be vastly different, and vastly more than a tracker and slayer of game. The mountain world of forest was a mystery to almost all men. Perhaps Dale knew its secrets, its life, its terror, its beauty, its sadness, and its joy; and if so, how full, how wonderful must be his mind! He spoke of men as no better than wolves. Could a lonely life in the wilderness teach a man that? Bitterness, envy, jealousy, spite, greed, and hate—these had no place in this hunter's heart. It was not Helen's shrewdness, but a woman's intuition, which divined that.
Dale rose to his feet and, turning his ear to the north, listened once more.
“Are you expecting Roy still?” inquired Helen.
“No, it ain't likely he'll turn up to-night,” replied Dale, and then he strode over to put a hand on the pine-tree that soared above where the girls lay. His action, and the way he looked up at the tree-top and then at adjacent trees, held more of that significance which so interested Helen.
“I reckon he's stood there some five hundred years an' will stand through to-night,” muttered Dale.
This pine was the monarch of that wide-spread group.
“Listen again,” said Dale.
Bo was asleep. And Helen, listening, at once caught low, distant roar.
“Wind. It's goin' to storm,” explained Dale. “You'll hear somethin' worth while. But don't be scared. Reckon we'll be safe. Pines blow down often. But this fellow will stand any fall wind that ever was.... Better slip under the blankets so I can pull the tarp up.”
Helen slid down, just as she was, fully dressed except for boots, which she and Bo had removed; and she laid her head close to Bo's. Dale pulled the tarpaulin up and folded it back just below their heads.
“When it rains you'll wake, an' then just pull the tarp up over you,” he said.
“Will it rain?” Helen asked. But she was thinking that this moment was the strangest that had ever happened to her. By the light of the camp-fire she saw Dale's face, just as usual, still, darkly serene, expressing no thought. He was kind, but he was not thinking of these sisters as girls, alone with him in a pitch-black forest, helpless and defenseless. He did not seem to be thinking at all. But Helen had never before in her life been so keenly susceptible to experience.
“I'll be close by an' keep the fire goin' all night,” he said.
She heard him stride off into the darkness. Presently there came a dragging, bumping sound, then a crash of a log dropped upon the fire. A cloud of sparks shot up, and many pattered down to hiss upon the damp ground. Smoke again curled upward along the great, seamed tree-trunk, and flames sputtered and crackled.
Helen listened again for the roar of wind. It seemed to come on a breath of air that fanned her cheek and softly blew Bo's curls, and it was stronger. But it died out presently, only to come again, and still stronger. Helen realized then that the sound was that of an approaching storm. Her heavy eyelids almost refused to stay open, and she knew if she let them close she would instantly drop to sleep. And she wanted to hear the storm-wind in the pines.
A few drops of cold rain fell upon her face, thrilling her with the proof that no roof stood between her and the elements. Then a breeze bore the smell of burnt wood into her face, and somehow her quick mind flew to girlhood days when she burned brush and leaves with her little brothers. The memory faded. The roar that had seemed distant was now back in the forest, coming swiftly, increasing in volume. Like a stream in flood it bore down. Helen grew amazed, startled. How rushing, oncoming, and heavy this storm-wind! She likened its approach to the tread of an army. Then the roar filled the forest, yet it was back there behind her. Not a pine-needle quivered in the light of the camp-fire. But the air seemed to be oppressed with a terrible charge. The roar augmented till it was no longer a roar, but an on-sweeping crash, like an ocean torrent engulfing the earth. Bo awoke to cling to Helen with fright. The deafening storm-blast was upon them. Helen felt the saddle-pillow move under her head. The giant pine had trembled to its very roots. That mighty fury of wind was all aloft, in the tree-tops. And for a long moment it bowed the forest under its tremendous power. Then the deafening crash passed to roar, and that swept on and on, lessening in volume, deepening in low detonation, at last to die in the distance.
No sooner had it died than back to the north another low roar rose and ceased and rose again. Helen lay there, whispering to Bo, and heard again the great wave of wind come and crash and cease. That was the way of this storm-wind of the mountain forest.
A soft patter of rain on the tarpaulin warned Helen to remember Dale's directions, and, pulling up the heavy covering, she arranged it hoodlike over the saddle. Then, with Bo close and warm beside her, she closed her eyes, and the sense of the black forest and the wind and rain faded. Last of all sensations was the smell of smoke that blew under the tarpaulin.
When she opened her eyes she remembered everything, as if only a moment had elapsed. But it was daylight, though gray and cloudy. The pines were dripping mist. A fire crackled cheerily and blue smoke curled upward and a savory odor of hot coffee hung in the air. Horses were standing near by, biting and kicking at one another. Bo was sound asleep. Dale appeared busy around the camp-fire. As Helen watched the hunter she saw him pause in his task, turn his ear to listen, and then look expectantly. And at that juncture a shout pealed from the forest. Helen recognized Roy's voice. Then she heard a splashing of water, and hoof-beats coming closer. With that the buckskin mustang trotted into camp, carrying Roy.
“Bad mornin' for ducks, but good for us,” he called.
“Howdy, Roy!” greeted Dale, and his gladness was unmistakable. “I was lookin' for you.”
Roy appeared to slide off the mustang without effort, and his swift hands slapped the straps as he unsaddled. Buckskin was wet with sweat and foam mixed with rain. He heaved. And steam rose from him.
“Must have rode hard,” observed Dale.
“I shore did,” replied Roy. Then he espied Helen, who had sat up, with hands to her hair, and eyes staring at him.
“Mornin', miss. It's good news.”
“Thank Heaven!” murmured Helen, and then she shook Bo. That young lady awoke, but was loath to give up slumber. “Bo! Bo! Wake up! Mr. Roy is back.”
Whereupon Bo sat up, disheveled and sleepy-eyed.
“Oh-h, but I ache!” she moaned. But her eyes took in the camp scene to the effect that she added, “Is breakfast ready?”
“Almost. An' flapjacks this mornin',” replied Dale.
Bo manifested active symptoms of health in the manner with which she laced her boots. Helen got their traveling-bag, and with this they repaired to a flat stone beside the spring, not, however, out of earshot of the men.
“How long are you goin' to hang around camp before tellin' me?” inquired Dale.
“Jest as I figgered, Milt,” replied Roy. “Thet rider who passed you was a messenger to Anson. He an' his gang got on our trail quick. About ten o'clock I seen them comin'. Then I lit out for the woods. I stayed off in the woods close enough to see where they come in. An' shore they lost your trail. Then they spread through the woods, workin' off to the south, thinkin', of course, thet you would circle round to Pine on the south side of Old Baldy. There ain't a hoss-tracker in Snake Anson's gang, thet's shore. Wal, I follered them for an hour till they'd rustled some miles off our trail. Then I went back to where you struck into the woods. An' I waited there all afternoon till dark, expectin' mebbe they'd back-trail. But they didn't. I rode on a ways an' camped in the woods till jest before daylight.”
“So far so good,” declared Dale.
“Shore. There's rough country south of Baldy an' along the two or three trails Anson an' his outfit will camp, you bet.”
“It ain't to be thought of,” muttered Dale, at some idea that had struck him.
“What ain't?”
“Goin' round the north side of Baldy.”
“It shore ain't,” rejoined Roy, bluntly.
“Then I've got to hide tracks certain—rustle to my camp an' stay there till you say it's safe to risk takin' the girls to Pine.”
“Milt, you're talkin' the wisdom of the prophets.”
“I ain't so sure we can hide tracks altogether. If Anson had any eyes for the woods he'd not have lost me so soon.
“No. But, you see, he's figgerin' to cross your trail.”
“If I could get fifteen or twenty mile farther on an' hide tracks certain, I'd feel safe from pursuit, anyway,” said the hunter, reflectively.
“Shore an' easy,” responded Roy, quickly. “I jest met up with some greaser sheep-herders drivin' a big flock. They've come up from the south an' are goin' to fatten up at Turkey Senacas. Then they'll drive back south an' go on to Phenix. Wal, it's muddy weather. Now you break camp quick an' make a plain trail out to thet sheep trail, as if you was travelin' south. But, instead, you ride round ahead of thet flock of sheep. They'll keep to the open parks an' the trails through them necks of woods out here. An', passin' over your tracks, they'll hide 'em.”
“But supposin' Anson circles an' hits this camp? He'll track me easy out to that sheep trail. What then?”
“Jest what you want. Goin' south thet sheep trail is downhill an' muddy. It's goin' to rain hard. Your tracks would get washed out even if you did go south. An' Anson would keep on thet way till he was clear off the scent. Leave it to me, Milt. You're a hunter. But I'm a hoss-tracker.”
“All right. We'll rustle.”
Then he called the girls to hurry.
Once astride the horse again, Helen had to congratulate herself upon not being so crippled as she had imagined. Indeed, Bo made all the audible complaints.
Both girls had long water-proof coats, brand-new, and of which they were considerably proud. New clothes had not been a common event in their lives.
“Reckon I'll have to slit these,” Dale had said, whipping out a huge knife.
“What for?” had been Bo's feeble protest.
“They wasn't made for ridin'. An' you'll get wet enough even if I do cut them. An' if I don't, you'll get soaked.”
“Go ahead,” had been Helen's reluctant permission.
So their long new coats were slit half-way up the back. The exigency of the case was manifest to Helen, when she saw how they came down over the cantles of the saddles and to their boot-tops.
The morning was gray and cold. A fine, misty rain fell and the trees dripped steadily. Helen was surprised to see the open country again and that apparently they were to leave the forest behind for a while. The country was wide and flat on the right, and to the left it rolled and heaved along a black, scalloped timber-line. Above this bordering of the forest low, drifting clouds obscured the mountains. The wind was at Helen's back and seemed to be growing stronger. Dale and Roy were ahead, traveling at a good trot, with the pack-animals bunched before them. Helen and Bo had enough to do to keep up.
The first hour's ride brought little change in weather or scenery, but it gave Helen an inkling of what she must endure if they kept that up all day. She began to welcome the places where the horses walked, but she disliked the levels. As for the descents, she hated those. Ranger would not go down slowly and the shake-up she received was unpleasant. Moreover, the spirited black horse insisted on jumping the ditches and washes. He sailed over them like a bird. Helen could not acquire the knack of sitting the saddle properly, and so, not only was her person bruised on these occasions, but her feelings were hurt. Helen had never before been conscious of vanity. Still, she had never rejoiced in looking at a disadvantage, and her exhibitions here must have been frightful. Bo always would forge to the front, and she seldom looked back, for which Helen was grateful.
Before long they struck into a broad, muddy belt, full of innumerable small hoof tracks. This, then, was the sheep trail Roy had advised following. They rode on it for three or four miles, and at length, coming to a gray-green valley, they saw a huge flock of sheep. Soon the air was full of bleats and baas as well as the odor of sheep, and a low, soft roar of pattering hoofs. The flock held a compact formation, covering several acres, and grazed along rapidly. There were three herders on horses and several pack-burros. Dale engaged one of the Mexicans in conversation, and passed something to him, then pointed northward and down along the trail. The Mexican grinned from ear to ear, and Helen caught the quick “SI, SENOR! GRACIAS, SENOR!” It was a pretty sight, that flock of sheep, as it rolled along like a rounded woolly stream of grays and browns and here and there a black. They were keeping to a trail over the flats. Dale headed into this trail and, if anything, trotted a little faster.
Presently the clouds lifted and broke, showing blue sky and one streak of sunshine. But the augury was without warrant. The wind increased. A huge black pall bore down from the mountains and it brought rain that could be seen falling in sheets from above and approaching like a swiftly moving wall. Soon it enveloped the fugitives.
With head bowed, Helen rode along for what seemed ages in a cold, gray rain that blew almost on a level. Finally the heavy downpour passed, leaving a fine mist. The clouds scurried low and dark, hiding the mountains altogether and making the gray, wet plain a dreary sight. Helen's feet and knees were as wet as if she had waded in water. And they were cold. Her gloves, too, had not been intended for rain, and they were wet through. The cold bit at her fingers so that she had to beat her hands together. Ranger misunderstood this to mean that he was to trot faster, which event was worse for Helen than freezing.
She saw another black, scudding mass of clouds bearing down with its trailing sheets of rain, and this one appeared streaked with white. Snow! The wind was now piercingly cold. Helen's body kept warm, but her extremities and ears began to suffer exceedingly. She gazed ahead grimly. There was no help; she had to go on. Dale and Roy were hunched down in their saddles, probably wet through, for they wore no rain-proof coats. Bo kept close behind them, and plain it was that she felt the cold.
This second storm was not so bad as the first, because there was less rain. Still, the icy keenness of the wind bit into the marrow. It lasted for an hour, during which the horses trotted on, trotted on. Again the gray torrent roared away, the fine mist blew, the clouds lifted and separated, and, closing again, darkened for another onslaught. This one brought sleet. The driving pellets stung Helen's neck and cheeks, and for a while they fell so thick and so hard upon her back that she was afraid she could not hold up under them. The bare places on the ground showed a sparkling coverlet of marbles of ice.
Thus, storm after storm rolled over Helen's head. Her feet grew numb and ceased to hurt. But her fingers, because of her ceaseless efforts to keep up the circulation, retained the stinging pain. And now the wind pierced right through her. She marveled at her endurance, and there were many times that she believed she could not ride farther. Yet she kept on. All the winters she had ever lived had not brought such a day as this. Hard and cold, wet and windy, at an increasing elevation—that was the explanation. The air did not have sufficient oxygen for her blood.
Still, during all those interminable hours, Helen watched where she was traveling, and if she ever returned over that trail she would recognize it. The afternoon appeared far advanced when Dale and Roy led down into an immense basin where a reedy lake spread over the flats. They rode along its margin, splashing up to the knees of the horses. Cranes and herons flew on with lumbering motion; flocks of ducks winged swift flight from one side to the other. Beyond this depression the land sloped rather abruptly; outcroppings of rock circled along the edge of the highest ground, and again a dark fringe of trees appeared.
How many miles! wondered Helen. They seemed as many and as long as the hours. But at last, just as another hard rain came, the pines were reached. They proved to be widely scattered and afforded little protection from the storm.
Helen sat her saddle, a dead weight. Whenever Ranger quickened his gait or crossed a ditch she held on to the pommel to keep from falling off. Her mind harbored only sensations of misery, and a persistent thought—why did she ever leave home for the West? Her solicitude for Bo had been forgotten. Nevertheless, any marked change in the topography of the country was registered, perhaps photographed on her memory by the torturing vividness of her experience.
The forest grew more level and denser. Shadows of twilight or gloom lay under the trees. Presently Dale and Roy, disappeared, going downhill, and likewise Bo. Then Helen's ears suddenly filled with a roar of rapid water. Ranger trotted faster. Soon Helen came to the edge of a great valley, black and gray, so full of obscurity that she could not see across or down into it. But she knew there was a rushing river at the bottom. The sound was deep, continuous, a heavy, murmuring roar, singularly musical. The trail was steep. Helen had not lost all feeling, as she had believed and hoped. Her poor, mistreated body still responded excruciatingly to concussions, jars, wrenches, and all the other horrible movements making up a horse-trot.
For long Helen did not look up. When she did so there lay a green, willow-bordered, treeless space at the bottom of the valley, through which a brown-white stream rushed with steady, ear-filling roar.
Dale and Roy drove the pack-animals across the stream, and followed, going deep to the flanks of their horses. Bo rode into the foaming water as if she had been used to it all her days. A slip, a fall, would have meant that Bo must drown in that mountain torrent.
Ranger trotted straight to the edge, and there, obedient to Helen's clutch on the bridle, he halted. The stream was fifty feet wide, shallow on the near side, deep on the opposite, with fast current and big waves. Helen was simply too frightened to follow.
“Let him come!” yelled Dale. “Stick on now!... Ranger!”
The big black plunged in, making the water fly. That stream was nothing for him, though it seemed impassable to Helen. She had not the strength left to lift her stirrups and the water surged over them. Ranger, in two more plunges, surmounted the bank, and then, trotting across the green to where the other horses stood steaming under some pines, he gave a great heave and halted.
Roy reached up to help her off.
“Thirty miles, Miss Helen,” he said, and the way he spoke was a compliment.
He had to lift her off and help her to the tree where Bo leaned. Dale had ripped off a saddle and was spreading saddle-blankets on the ground under the pine.
“Nell—you swore—you loved me!” was Bo's mournful greeting. The girl was pale, drawn, blue-lipped, and she could not stand up.
“Bo, I never did—or I'd never have brought you to this—wretch that I am!” cried Helen. “Oh, what a horrible ride!”
Rain was falling, the trees were dripping, the sky was lowering. All the ground was soaking wet, with pools and puddles everywhere. Helen could imagine nothing but a heartless, dreary, cold prospect. Just then home was vivid and poignant in her thoughts. Indeed, so utterly miserable was she that the exquisite relief of sitting down, of a cessation of movement, of a release from that infernal perpetual-trotting horse, seemed only a mockery. It could not be true that the time had come for rest.
Evidently this place had been a camp site for hunters or sheep-herders, for there were remains of a fire. Dale lifted the burnt end of a log and brought it down hard upon the ground, splitting off pieces. Several times he did this. It was amazing to see his strength, his facility, as he split off handfuls of splinters. He collected a bundle of them, and, laying them down, he bent over them. Roy wielded the ax on another log, and each stroke split off a long strip. Then a tiny column of smoke drifted up over Dale's shoulder as he leaned, bareheaded, sheltering the splinters with his hat. A blaze leaped up. Roy came with an armful of strips all white and dry, out of the inside of a log. Crosswise these were laid over the blaze, and it began to roar. Then piece by piece the men built up a frame upon which they added heavier woods, branches and stumps and logs, erecting a pyramid through which flames and smoke roared upward. It had not taken two minutes. Already Helen felt the warmth on her icy face. She held up her bare, numb hands.
Both Dale and Roy were wet through to the skin, yet they did not tarry beside the fire. They relieved the horses. A lasso went up between two pines, and a tarpaulin over it, V-shaped and pegged down at the four ends. The packs containing the baggage of the girls and the supplies and bedding were placed under this shelter.
Helen thought this might have taken five minutes more. In this short space of time the fire had leaped and flamed until it was huge and hot. Rain was falling steadily all around, but over and near that roaring blaze, ten feet high, no water fell. It evaporated. The ground began to steam and to dry. Helen suffered at first while the heat was driving out the cold. But presently the pain ceased.
“Nell, I never knew before how good a fire could feel,” declared Bo.
And therein lay more food for Helen's reflection.
In ten minutes Helen was dry and hot. Darkness came down upon the dreary, sodden forest, but that great camp-fire made it a different world from the one Helen had anticipated. It blazed and roared, cracked like a pistol, hissed and sputtered, shot sparks everywhere, and sent aloft a dense, yellow, whirling column of smoke. It began to have a heart of gold.
Dale took a long pole and raked out a pile of red embers upon which the coffee-pot and oven soon began to steam.
“Roy, I promised the girls turkey to-night,” said the hunter.
“Mebbe to-morrow, if the wind shifts. This 's turkey country.”
“Roy, a potato will do me!” exclaimed Bo. “Never again will I ask for cake and pie! I never appreciated good things to eat. And I've been a little pig, always. I never—never knew what it was to be hungry—until now.”
Dale glanced up quickly.
“Lass, it's worth learnin',” he said.
Helen's thought was too deep for words. In such brief space had she been transformed from misery to comfort!
The rain kept on falling, though it appeared to grow softer as night settled down black. The wind died away and the forest was still, except for the steady roar of the stream. A folded tarpaulin was laid between the pine and the fire, well in the light and warmth, and upon it the men set steaming pots and plates and cups, the fragrance from which was strong and inviting.
“Fetch the saddle-blanket an' set with your backs to the fire,” said Roy.
Later, when the girls were tucked away snugly in their blankets and sheltered from the rain, Helen remained awake after Bo had fallen asleep. The big blaze made the improvised tent as bright as day. She could see the smoke, the trunk of the big pine towering aloft, and a blank space of sky. The stream hummed a song, seemingly musical at times, and then discordant and dull, now low, now roaring, and always rushing, gurgling, babbling, flowing, chafing in its hurry.
Presently the hunter and his friend returned from hobbling the horses, and beside the fire they conversed in low tones.
“Wal, thet trail we made to-day will be hid, I reckon,” said Roy, with satisfaction.
“What wasn't sheeped over would be washed out. We've had luck. An' now I ain't worryin',” returned Dale.
“Worryin'? Then it's the first I ever knowed you to do.”
“Man, I never had a job like this,” protested the hunter.
“Wal, thet's so.”
“Now, Roy, when old Al Auchincloss finds out about this deal, as he's bound to when you or the boys get back to Pine, he's goin' to roar.”
“Do you reckon folks will side with him against Beasley?”
“Some of them. But Al, like as not, will tell folks to go where it's hot. He'll bunch his men an' strike for the mountains to find his nieces.”
“Wal, all you've got to do is to keep the girls hid till I can guide him up to your camp. Or, failin' thet, till you can slip the girls down to Pine.”
“No one but you an' your brothers ever seen my senaca. But it could be found easy enough.”
“Anson might blunder on it. But thet ain't likely.”
“Why ain't it?”
“Because I'll stick to thet sheep-thief's tracks like a wolf after a bleedin' deer. An' if he ever gets near your camp I'll ride in ahead of him.”
“Good!” declared Dale. “I was calculatin' you'd go down to Pine, sooner or later.”
“Not unless Anson goes. I told John thet in case there was no fight on the stage to make a bee-line back to Pine. He was to tell Al an' offer his services along with Joe an' Hal.”
“One way or another, then, there's bound to be blood spilled over this.”
“Shore! An' high time. I jest hope I get a look down my old 'forty-four' at thet Beasley.”
“In that case I hope you hold straighter than times I've seen you.”
“Milt Dale, I'm a good shot,” declared Roy, stoutly.
“You're no good on movin' targets.”
“Wal, mebbe so. But I'm not lookin' for a movin' target when I meet up with Beasley. I'm a hossman, not a hunter. You're used to shootin' flies off deer's horns, jest for practice.”
“Roy, can we make my camp by to-morrow night?” queried Dale, more seriously.
“We will, if each of us has to carry one of the girls. But they'll do it or die. Dale, did you ever see a gamer girl than thet kid Bo?”
“Me! Where'd I ever see any girls?” ejaculated Dale. “I remember some when I was a boy, but I was only fourteen then. Never had much use for girls.”
“I'd like to have a wife like that Bo,” declared Roy, fervidly.
There ensued a moment's silence.
“Roy, you're a Mormon an' you already got a wife,” was Dale's reply.
“Now, Milt, have you lived so long in the woods thet you never heard of a Mormon with two wives?” returned Roy, and then he laughed heartily.
“I never could stomach what I did hear pertainin' to more than one wife for a man.”
“Wal, my friend, you go an' get yourself ONE. An' see then if you wouldn't like to have TWO.”
“I reckon one 'd be more than enough for Milt Dale.”
“Milt, old man, let me tell you thet I always envied you your freedom,” said Roy, earnestly. “But it ain't life.”
“You mean life is love of a woman?”
“No. Thet's only part. I mean a son—a boy thet's like you—thet you feel will go on with your life after you're gone.”
“I've thought of that—thought it all out, watchin' the birds an' animals mate in the woods.... If I have no son I'll never live hereafter.”
“Wal,” replied Roy, hesitatingly, “I don't go in so deep as thet. I mean a son goes on with your blood an' your work.”
“Exactly... An', Roy, I envy you what you've got, because it's out of all bounds for Milt Dale.”
Those words, sad and deep, ended the conversation. Again the rumbling, rushing stream dominated the forest. An owl hooted dismally. A horse trod thuddingly near by and from that direction came a cutting tear of teeth on grass.
A voice pierced Helen's deep dreams and, awaking, she found Bo shaking and calling her.
“Are you dead?” came the gay voice.
“Almost. Oh, my back's broken,” replied Helen. The desire to move seemed clamped in a vise, and even if that came she believed the effort would be impossible.
“Roy called us,” said Bo. “He said hurry. I thought I'd die just sitting up, and I'd give you a million dollars to lace my boots. Wait, sister, till you try to pull on one of those stiff boots!”
With heroic and violent spirit Helen sat up to find that in the act her aches and pains appeared beyond number. Reaching for her boots, she found them cold and stiff. Helen unlaced one and, opening it wide, essayed to get her sore foot down into it. But her foot appeared swollen and the boot appeared shrunken. She could not get it half on, though she expended what little strength seemed left in her aching arms. She groaned.
Bo laughed wickedly. Her hair was tousled, her eyes dancing, her cheeks red.
“Be game!” she said. “Stand up like a real Western girl and PULL your boot on.”
Whether Bo's scorn or advice made the task easier did not occur to Helen, but the fact was that she got into her boots. Walking and moving a little appeared to loosen the stiff joints and ease that tired feeling. The water of the stream where the girls washed was colder than any ice Helen had ever felt. It almost paralyzed her hands. Bo mumbled, and blew like a porpoise. They had to run to the fire before being able to comb their hair. The air was wonderfully keen. The dawn was clear, bright, with a red glow in the east where the sun was about to rise.
“All ready, girls,” called Roy. “Reckon you can help yourselves. Milt ain't comin' in very fast with the hosses. I'll rustle off to help him. We've got a hard day before us. Yesterday wasn't nowhere to what to-day 'll be.”
“But the sun's going to shine?” implored Bo.
“Wal, you bet,” rejoined Roy, as he strode off.
Helen and Bo ate breakfast and had the camp to themselves for perhaps half an hour; then the horses came thudding down, with Dale and Roy riding bareback.
By the time all was in readiness to start the sun was up, melting the frost and ice, so that a dazzling, bright mist, full of rainbows, shone under the trees.
Dale looked Ranger over, and tried the cinches of Bo's horse.
“What's your choice—a long ride behind the packs with me—or a short cut over the hills with Roy?” he asked.
“I choose the lesser of two rides,” replied Helen, smiling.
“Reckon that 'll be easier, but you'll know you've had a ride,” said Dale, significantly.
“What was that we had yesterday?” asked Bo, archly.
“Only thirty miles, but cold an' wet. To-day will be fine for ridin'.”
“Milt, I'll take a blanket an' some grub in case you don't meet us to-night,” said Roy. “An' I reckon we'll split up here where I'll have to strike out on thet short cut.”
Bo mounted without a helping hand, but Helen's limbs were so stiff that she could not get astride the high Ranger without assistance. The hunter headed up the slope of the canyon, which on that side was not steep. It was brown pine forest, with here and there a clump of dark, silver-pointed evergreens that Roy called spruce. By the time this slope was surmounted Helen's aches were not so bad. The saddle appeared to fit her better, and the gait of the horse was not so unfamiliar. She reflected, however, that she always had done pretty well uphill. Here it was beautiful forest-land, uneven and wilder. They rode for a time along the rim, with the white rushing stream in plain sight far below, with its melodious roar ever thrumming in the ear.
Dale reined in and peered down at the pine-mat.
“Fresh deer sign all along here,” he said, pointing.
“Wal, I seen thet long ago,” rejoined Roy.
Helen's scrutiny was rewarded by descrying several tiny depressions in the pine-needles, dark in color and sharply defined.
“We may never get a better chance,” said Dale. “Those deer are workin' up our way. Get your rifle out.”
Travel was resumed then, with Roy a little in advance of the pack-train. Presently he dismounted, threw his bridle, and cautiously peered ahead. Then, turning, he waved his sombrero. The pack-animals halted in a bunch. Dale beckoned for the girls to follow and rode up to Roy's horse. This point, Helen saw, was at the top of an intersecting canuon. Dale dismounted, without drawing his rifle from its saddle-sheath, and approached Roy.
“Buck an' two does,” he said, low-voiced. “An' they've winded us, but don't see us yet.... Girls, ride up closer.”
Following the directions indicated by Dale's long arm, Helen looked down the slope. It was open, with tall pines here and there, and clumps of silver spruce, and aspens shining like gold in the morning sunlight. Presently Bo exclaimed: “Oh, look! I see! I see!” Then Helen's roving glance passed something different from green and gold and brown. Shifting back to it she saw a magnificent stag, with noble spreading antlers, standing like a statue, his head up in alert and wild posture. His color was gray. Beside him grazed two deer of slighter and more graceful build, without horns.
“It's downhill,” whispered Dale. “An' you're goin' to overshoot.”
Then Helen saw that Roy had his rifle leveled.
“Oh, don't!” she cried.
Dale's remark evidently nettled Roy. He lowered the rifle.
“Milt, it's me lookin' over this gun. How can you stand there an' tell me I'm goin' to shoot high? I had a dead bead on him.”
“Roy, you didn't allow for downhill... Hurry. He sees us now.”
Roy leveled the rifle and, taking aim as before, he fired. The buck stood perfectly motionless, as if he had indeed been stone. The does, however, jumped with a start, and gazed in fright in every direction.
“Told you! I seen where your bullet hit thet pine—half a foot over his shoulder. Try again an' aim at his legs.”
Roy now took a quicker aim and pulled trigger. A puff of dust right at the feet of the buck showed where Roy's lead had struck this time. With a single bound, wonderful to see, the big deer was out of sight behind trees and brush. The does leaped after him.
“Doggone the luck!” ejaculated Roy, red in the face, as he worked the lever of his rifle. “Never could shoot downhill, nohow!”
His rueful apology to the girls for missing brought a merry laugh from Bo.
“Not for worlds would I have had you kill that beautiful deer!” she exclaimed.
“We won't have venison steak off him, that's certain,” remarked Dale, dryly. “An' maybe none off any deer, if Roy does the shootin'.”
They resumed travel, sheering off to the right and keeping to the edge of the intersecting canuon. At length they rode down to the bottom, where a tiny brook babbled through willows, and they followed this for a mile or so down to where it flowed into the larger stream. A dim trail overgrown with grass showed at this point.
“Here's where we part,” said Dale. “You'll beat me into my camp, but I'll get there sometime after dark.”
“Hey, Milt, I forgot about thet darned pet cougar of yours an' the rest of your menagerie. Reckon they won't scare the girls? Especially old Tom?”
“You won't see Tom till I get home,” replied Dale.
“Ain't he corralled or tied up?”
“No. He has the run of the place.”
“Wal, good-by, then, an' rustle along.”
Dale nodded to the girls, and, turning his horse, he drove the pack-train before him up the open space between the stream and the wooded slope.
Roy stepped off his horse with that single action which appeared such a feat to Helen.
“Guess I'd better cinch up,” he said, as he threw a stirrup up over the pommel of his saddle. “You girls are goin' to see wild country.”
“Who's old Tom?” queried Bo, curiously.
“Why, he's Milt's pet cougar.”
“Cougar? That's a panther—a mountain-lion, didn't he say?”
“Shore is. Tom is a beauty. An' if he takes a likin' to you he'll love you, play with you, maul you half to death.”
Bo was all eyes.
“Dale has other pets, too?” she questioned, eagerly.
“I never was up to his camp but what it was overrun with birds an' squirrels an' vermin of all kinds, as tame as tame as cows. Too darn tame, Milt says. But I can't figger thet. You girls will never want to leave thet senaca of his.”
“What's a senaca?” asked Helen, as she shifted her foot to let him tighten the cinches on her saddle.
“Thet's Mexican for park, I guess,” he replied. “These mountains are full of parks; an', say, I don't ever want to see no prettier place till I get to heaven.... There, Ranger, old boy, thet's tight.”
He slapped the horse affectionately, and, turning to his own, he stepped and swung his long length up.
“It ain't deep crossin' here. Come on,” he called, and spurred his bay.
The stream here was wide and it looked deep, but turned out to be deceptive.
“Wal, girls, here beginneth the second lesson,” he drawled, cheerily. “Ride one behind the other—stick close to me—do what I do—an' holler when you want to rest or if somethin' goes bad.”
With that he spurred into the thicket. Bo went next and Helen followed. The willows dragged at her so hard that she was unable to watch Roy, and the result was that a low-sweeping branch of a tree knocked her hard on the head. It hurt and startled her, and roused her mettle. Roy was keeping to the easy trot that covered ground so well, and he led up a slope to the open pine forest. Here the ride for several miles was straight, level, and open. Helen liked the forest to-day. It was brown and green, with patches of gold where the sun struck. She saw her first bird—big blue grouse that whirred up from under her horse, and little checkered gray quail that appeared awkward on the wing. Several times Roy pointed out deer flashing gray across some forest aisle, and often when he pointed Helen was not quick enough to see.
Helen realized that this ride would make up for the hideous one of yesterday. So far she had been only barely conscious of sore places and aching bones. These she would bear with. She loved the wild and the beautiful, both of which increased manifestly with every mile. The sun was warm, the air fragrant and cool, the sky blue as azure and so deep that she imagined that she could look far up into it.
Suddenly Roy reined in so sharply that he pulled the bay up short.
“Look!” he called, sharply.
Bo screamed.
“Not thet way! Here! Aw, he's gone!”
“Nell! It was a bear! I saw it! Oh! not like circus bears at all!” cried Bo.
Helen had missed her opportunity.
“Reckon he was a grizzly, an' I'm jest as well pleased thet he loped off,” said Roy. Altering his course somewhat, he led to an old rotten log that the bear had been digging in. “After grubs. There, see his track. He was a whopper shore enough.”
They rode on, out to a high point that overlooked canuon and range, gorge and ridge, green and black as far as Helen could see. The ranges were bold and long, climbing to the central uplift, where a number of fringed peaks raised their heads to the vast bare dome of Old Baldy. Far as vision could see, to the right lay one rolling forest of pine, beautiful and serene. Somewhere down beyond must have lain the desert, but it was not in sight.
“I see turkeys 'way down there,” said Roy, backing away. “We'll go down and around an' mebbe I'll get a shot.”
Descent beyond a rocky point was made through thick brush. This slope consisted of wide benches covered with copses and scattered pines and many oaks. Helen was delighted to see the familiar trees, although these were different from Missouri oaks. Rugged and gnarled, but not tall, these trees spread wide branches, the leaves of which were yellowing. Roy led into a grassy glade, and, leaping off his horse, rifle in hand, he prepared to shoot at something. Again Bo cried out, but this time it was in delight. Then Helen saw an immense flock of turkeys, apparently like the turkeys she knew at home, but these had bronze and checks of white, and they looked wild. There must have been a hundred in the flock, most of them hens. A few gobblers on the far side began the flight, running swiftly off. Helen plainly heard the thud of their feet. Roy shot once—twice—three times. Then rose a great commotion and thumping, and a loud roar of many wings. Dust and leaves whirling in the air were left where the turkeys had been.
“Wal, I got two,” said Roy, and he strode forward to pick up his game. Returning, he tied two shiny, plump gobblers back of his saddle and remounted his horse. “We'll have turkey to-night, if Milt gets to camp in time.”
The ride was resumed. Helen never would have tired riding through those oak groves, brown and sear and yellow, with leaves and acorns falling.
“Bears have been workin' in here already,” said Roy. “I see tracks all over. They eat acorns in the fall. An' mebbe we'll run into one yet.”
The farther down he led the wilder and thicker grew the trees, so that dodging branches was no light task. Ranger did not seem to care how close he passed a tree or under a limb, so that he missed them himself; but Helen thereby got some additional bruises. Particularly hard was it, when passing a tree, to get her knee out of the way in time.
Roy halted next at what appeared a large green pond full of vegetation and in places covered with a thick scum. But it had a current and an outlet, proving it to be a huge, spring. Roy pointed down at a muddy place.
“Bear-wallow. He heard us comin'. Look at thet little track. Cub track. An' look at these scratches on this tree, higher 'n my head. An old she-bear stood up, an' scratched them.”
Roy sat his saddle and reached up to touch fresh marks on the tree.
“Woods's full of big bears,” he said, grinning. “An' I take it particular kind of this old she rustlin' off with her cub. She-bears with cubs are dangerous.”
The next place to stir Helen to enthusiasm was the glen at the bottom of this canuon. Beech-trees, maples, aspens, overtopped by lofty pines, made dense shade over a brook where trout splashed on the brown, swirling current, and leaves drifted down, and stray flecks of golden sunlight lightened the gloom. Here was hard riding to and fro across the brook, between huge mossy boulders, and between aspens so close together that Helen could scarce squeeze her knees through.
Once more Roy climbed out of that canuon, over a ridge into another, down long wooded slopes and through scrub-oak thickets, on and on till the sun stood straight overhead. Then he halted for a short rest, unsaddled the horses to let them roll, and gave the girls some cold lunch that he had packed. He strolled off with his gun, and, upon returning, resaddled and gave the word to start.
That was the last of rest and easy traveling for the girls. The forest that he struck into seemed ribbed like a washboard with deep ravines so steep of slope as to make precarious travel. Mostly he kept to the bottom where dry washes afforded a kind of trail. But it was necessary to cross these ravines when they were too long to be headed, and this crossing was work.
The locust thickets characteristic of these slopes were thorny and close knit. They tore and scratched and stung both horses and riders. Ranger appeared to be the most intelligent of the horses and suffered less. Bo's white mustang dragged her through more than one brambly place. On the other hand, some of these steep slopes, were comparatively free of underbrush. Great firs and pines loomed up on all sides. The earth was soft and the hoofs sank deep. Toward the bottom of a descent Ranger would brace his front feet and then slide down on his haunches. This mode facilitated travel, but it frightened Helen. The climb out then on the other side had to be done on foot.
After half a dozen slopes surmounted in this way Helen's strength was spent and her breath was gone. She felt light-headed. She could not get enough air. Her feet felt like lead, and her riding-coat was a burden. A hundred times, hot and wet and throbbing, she was compelled to stop. Always she had been a splendid walker and climber. And here, to break up the long ride, she was glad to be on her feet. But she could only drag one foot up after the other. Then, when her nose began to bleed, she realized that it was the elevation which was causing all the trouble. Her heart, however, did not hurt her, though she was conscious of an oppression on her breast.
At last Roy led into a ravine so deep and wide and full of forest verdure that it appeared impossible to cross. Nevertheless, he started down, dismounting after a little way. Helen found that leading Ranger down was worse than riding him. He came fast and he would step right in her tracks. She was not quick enough to get away from him. Twice he stepped on her foot, and again his broad chest hit her shoulder and threw her flat. When he began to slide, near the bottom, Helen had to run for her life.
“Oh, Nell! Isn't—this—great?” panted Bo, from somewhere ahead.
“Bo—your—mind's—gone,” panted Helen, in reply.
Roy tried several places to climb out, and failed in each. Leading down the ravine for a hundred yards or more, he essayed another attempt. Here there had been a slide, and in part the earth was bare. When he had worked up this, he halted above, and called:
“Bad place! Keep on the up side of the hosses!”
This appeared easier said than done. Helen could not watch Bo, because Ranger would not wait. He pulled at the bridle and snorted.
“Faster you come the better,” called Roy.
Helen could not see the sense of that, but she tried. Roy and Bo had dug a deep trail zigzag up that treacherous slide. Helen made the mistake of starting to follow in their tracks, and when she realized this Ranger was climbing fast, almost dragging her, and it was too late to get above. Helen began to labor. She slid down right in front of Ranger. The intelligent animal, with a snort, plunged out of the trail to keep from stepping on her. Then he was above her.
“Lookout down there,” yelled Roy, in warning. “Get on the up side!”
But that did not appear possible. The earth began to slide under Ranger, and that impeded Helen's progress. He got in advance of her, straining on the bridle.
“Let go!” yelled Roy.
Helen dropped the bridle just as a heavy slide began to move with Ranger. He snorted fiercely, and, rearing high, in a mighty plunge he gained solid ground. Helen was buried to her knees, but, extricating herself, she crawled to a safe point and rested before climbing farther.
“Bad cave-in, thet,” was Roy's comment, when at last she joined him and Bo at the top.
Roy appeared at a loss as to which way to go. He rode to high ground and looked in all directions. To Helen, one way appeared as wild and rough as another, and all was yellow, green, and black under the westering sun. Roy rode a short distance in one direction, then changed for another.
Presently he stopped.
“Wal, I'm shore turned round,” he said.
“You're not lost?” cried Bo.
“Reckon I've been thet for a couple of hours,” he replied, cheerfully. “Never did ride across here I had the direction, but I'm blamed now if I can tell which way thet was.”
Helen gazed at him in consternation.
“Lost!” she echoed.