The Man of the Forest, Zane Grey [manga ebook reader txt] 📗

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.