The Man of the Forest, Zane Grey [manga ebook reader txt] 📗
- Author: Zane Grey
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Dale's horse, a little in advance, sailed over a ditch. Ranger made a splendid leap, but he alighted among some grassy tufts and fell. Helen shot over his head. She struck lengthwise, her arms stretched, and slid hard to a shocking impact that stunned her.
Bo's scream rang in her ears; she felt the wet grass under her face and then the strong hands that lifted her. Dale loomed over her, bending down to look into her face; Bo was clutching her with frantic hands. And Helen could only gasp. Her breast seemed caved in. The need to breathe was torture.
“Nell!—you're not hurt. You fell light, like a feather. All grass here.... You can't be hurt!” said Dale, sharply.
His anxious voice penetrated beyond her hearing, and his strong hands went swiftly over her arms and shoulders, feeling for broken bones.
“Just had the wind knocked out of you,” went on Dale. “It feels awful, but it's nothin'.”
Helen got a little air, that was like hot pin-points in her lungs, and then a deeper breath, and then full, gasping respiration.
“I guess—I'm not hurt—not a bit,” she choked out.
“You sure had a header. Never saw a prettier spill. Ranger doesn't do that often. I reckon we were travelin' too fast. But it was fun, don't you think?”
It was Bo who answered. “Oh, glorious!... But, gee! I was scared.”
Dale still held Helen's hands. She released them while looking up at him. The moment was realization for her of what for days had been a vague, sweet uncertainty, becoming near and strange, disturbing and present. This accident had been a sudden, violent end to the wonderful ride. But its effect, the knowledge of what had got into her blood, would never change. And inseparable from it was this man of the forest.
CHAPTER XIV
On the next morning Helen was awakened by what she imagined had been a dream of some one shouting. With a start she sat up. The sunshine showed pink and gold on the ragged spruce line of the mountain rims. Bo was on her knees, braiding her hair with shaking hands, and at the same time trying to peep out.
And the echoes of a ringing cry were cracking back from the cliffs. That had been Dale's voice.
“Nell! Nell! Wake up!” called Bo, wildly. “Oh, some one's come! Horses and men!”
Helen got to her knees and peered out over Bo's shoulder. Dale, standing tall and striking beside the campfire, was waving his sombrero. Away down the open edge of the park came a string of pack-burros with mounted men behind. In the foremost rider Helen recognized Roy Beeman.
“That first one's Roy!” she exclaimed. “I'd never forget him on a horse.... Bo, it must mean Uncle Al's come!”
“Sure! We're born lucky. Here we are safe and sound—and all this grand camp trip.... Look at the cowboys.... LOOK! Oh, maybe this isn't great!” babbled Bo.
Dale wheeled to see the girls peeping out.
“It's time you're up!” he called. “Your uncle Al is here.”
For an instant after Helen sank back out of Dale's sight she sat there perfectly motionless, so struck was she by the singular tone of Dale's voice. She imagined that he regretted what this visiting cavalcade of horsemen meant—they had come to take her to her ranch in Pine. Helen's heart suddenly began to beat fast, but thickly, as if muffled within her breast.
“Hurry now, girls,” called Dale.
Bo was already out, kneeling on the flat stone at the little brook, splashing water in a great hurry. Helen's hands trembled so that she could scarcely lace her boots or brush her hair, and she was long behind Bo in making herself presentable. When Helen stepped out, a short, powerfully built man in coarse garb and heavy boots stood holding Bo's hands.
“Wal, wal! You favor the Rayners,” he was saying, “I remember your dad, an' a fine feller he was.”
Beside them stood Dale and Roy, and beyond was a group of horses and riders.
“Uncle, here comes Nell,” said Bo, softly.
“Aw!” The old cattle-man breathed hard as he turned.
Helen hurried. She had not expected to remember this uncle, but one look into the brown, beaming face, with the blue eyes flashing, yet sad, and she recognized him, at the same instant recalling her mother.
He held out his arms to receive her.
“Nell Auchincloss all over again!” he exclaimed, in deep voice, as he kissed her. “I'd have knowed you anywhere!”
“Uncle Al!” murmured Helen. “I remember you—though I was only four.”
“Wal, wal,—that's fine,” he replied. “I remember you straddled my knee once, an' your hair was brighter—an' curly. It ain't neither now.... Sixteen years! An' you're twenty now? What a fine, broad-shouldered girl you are! An', Nell, you're the handsomest Auchincloss I ever seen!”
Helen found herself blushing, and withdrew her hands from his as Roy stepped forward to pay his respects. He stood bareheaded, lean and tall, with neither his clear eyes nor his still face, nor the proffered hand expressing anything of the proven quality of fidelity, of achievement, that Helen sensed in him.
“Howdy, Miss Helen? Howdy, Bo?” he said. “You all both look fine an' brown.... I reckon I was shore slow rustlin' your uncle Al up here. But I was figgerin' you'd like Milt's camp for a while.”
“We sure did,” replied Bo, archly.
“Aw!” breathed Auchincloss, heavily. “Lemme set down.”
He drew the girls to the rustic seat Dale had built for them under the big pine.
“Oh, you must be tired! How—how are you?” asked Helen, anxiously.
“Tired! Wal, if I am it's jest this here minit. When Joe Beeman rode in on me with thet news of you—wal, I jest fergot I was a worn-out old
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