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

Every morning Helen awoke with a wondering question as to what this day would bring forth, especially with regard to possible news from her uncle. It must come sometime and she was anxious for it. Something about this simple, wild camp life had begun to grip her. She found herself shirking daily attention to the clothes she had brought West. They needed it, but she had begun to see how superficial they really were. On the other hand, camp-fire tasks had come to be a pleasure. She had learned a great deal more about them than had Bo. Worry and dread were always impinging upon the fringe of her thoughts—always vaguely present, though seldom annoying. They were like shadows in dreams. She wanted to get to her uncle's ranch, to take up the duties of her new life. But she was not prepared to believe she would not regret this wild experience. She must get away from that in order to see it clearly, and she began to have doubts of herself.

Meanwhile the active and restful outdoor life went on. Bo leaned more and more toward utter reconciliation to it. Her eyes had a wonderful flash, like blue lightning; her cheeks were gold and brown; her hands tanned dark as an Indian's.

She could vault upon the gray mustang, or, for that matter, clear over his back. She learned to shoot a rifle accurately enough to win Dale's praise, and vowed she would like to draw a bead upon a grizzly bear or upon Snake Anson.

“Bo, if you met that grizzly Dale said has been prowling round camp lately you'd run right up a tree,” declared Helen, one morning, when Bo seemed particularly boastful.

“Don't fool yourself,” retorted Bo.

“But I've seen you run from a mouse!”

“Sister, couldn't I be afraid of a mouse and not a bear?”

“I don't see how.”

“Well, bears, lions, outlaws, and other wild beasts are to be met with here in the West, and my mind's made up,” said Bo, in slow-nodding deliberation.

They argued as they had always argued, Helen for reason and common sense and restraint, Bo on the principle that if she must fight it was better to get in the first blow.

The morning on which this argument took place Dale was a long time in catching the horses. When he did come in he shook his head seriously.

“Some varmint's been chasin' the horses,” he said, as he reached for his saddle. “Did you hear them snortin' an' runnin' last night?”

Neither of the girls had been awakened.

“I missed one of the colts,” went on Dale, “an' I'm goin' to ride across the park.”

Dale's movements were quick and stern. It was significant that he chose his heavier rifle, and, mounting, with a sharp call to Pedro, he rode off without another word to the girls.

Bo watched him for a moment and then began to saddle the mustang.

“You won't follow him?” asked Helen, quickly.

“I sure will,” replied Bo. “He didn't forbid it.”

“But he certainly did not want us.”

“He might not want you, but I'll bet he wouldn't object to me, whatever's up,” said Bo, shortly.

“Oh! So you think—” exclaimed Helen, keenly hurt. She bit her tongue to keep back a hot reply. And it was certain that a bursting gush of anger flooded over her. Was she, then, such a coward? Did Dale think this slip of a sister, so wild and wilful, was a stronger woman than she? A moment's silent strife convinced her that no doubt he thought so and no doubt he was right. Then the anger centered upon herself, and Helen neither understood nor trusted herself.

The outcome proved an uncontrollable impulse. Helen began to saddle her horse. She had the task half accomplished when Bo's call made her look up.

“Listen!”

Helen heard a ringing, wild bay of the hound.

“That's Pedro,” she said, with a thrill.

“Sure. He's running. We never heard him bay like that before.”

“Where's Dale?”

“He rode out of sight across there,” replied Bo, pointing. “And Pedro's running toward us along that slope. He must be a mile—two miles from Dale.”

“But Dale will follow.”

“Sure. But he'd need wings to get near that hound now. Pedro couldn't have gone across there with him... just listen.”

The wild note of the hound manifestly stirred Bo to irrepressible action. Snatching up Dale's lighter rifle, she shoved it into her saddle-sheath, and, leaping on the mustang, she ran him over brush and brook, straight down the park toward the place Pedro was climbing. For an instant Helen stood amazed beyond speech. When Bo sailed over a big log, like a steeple-chaser, then Helen answered to further unconsidered impulse by frantically getting her saddle fastened. Without coat or hat she mounted. The nervous horse bolted almost before she got into the saddle. A strange, trenchant trembling coursed through all her veins. She wanted to scream for Bo to wait. Bo was out of sight, but the deep, muddy tracks in wet places and the path through the long grass afforded Helen an easy trail to follow. In fact, her horse needed no guiding. He ran in and out of the straggling spruces along the edge of the park, and suddenly wheeled around a corner of trees to come upon the gray mustang standing still. Bo was looking up and listening.

“There he is!” cried Bo, as the hound bayed ringingly, closer to them this time, and she spurred away.

Helen's horse followed without urging. He was excited. His ears were up. Something was in the wind. Helen had never ridden along this broken end of the park, and Bo was not easy to keep up with. She led across bogs, brooks, swales, rocky little ridges, through stretches of timber and groves of aspen so thick Helen could scarcely squeeze through. Then Bo came out into a large open offshoot of the park, right under the mountain slope, and here she sat, her horse watching and listening. Helen rode up to her, imagining once that she had heard the hound.

“Look! Look!” Bo's scream made her mustang stand almost straight up.

Helen gazed up to see a big brown bear with a frosted coat go lumbering across an opening on the slope.

“It's a grizzly! He'll kill Pedro! Oh, where is Dale!” cried Bo, with intense excitement.

“Bo! That bear