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

and more intangible as time passed, and fuller of vague regrets. Bo was a comfort, but also a very considerable source of anxiety. She might have been a help to Helen if she had not assimilated Western ways so swiftly. Helen wished to decide things in her own way, which was as yet quite far from Western. So Helen had been thrown more and more upon her own resources, with the cowboy Carmichael the only one who had come forward voluntarily to her aid.

For an hour Helen sat alone in the room, looking out of the window, and facing stern reality with a colder, graver, keener sense of intimacy than ever before. To hold her property and to live her life in this community according to her ideas of honesty, justice, and law might well be beyond her powers. To-day she had been convinced that she could not do so without fighting for them, and to fight she must have friends. That conviction warmed her toward Carmichael, and a thoughtful consideration of all he had done for her proved that she had not fully appreciated him. She would make up for her oversight.

There were no Mormons in her employ, for the good reason that Auchincloss would not hire them. But in one of his kindlier hours, growing rare now, he had admitted that the Mormons were the best and the most sober, faithful workers on the ranges, and that his sole objection to them was just this fact of their superiority. Helen decided to hire the four Beemans and any of their relatives or friends who would come; and to do this, if possible, without letting her uncle know. His temper now, as well as his judgment, was a hindrance to efficiency. This decision regarding the Beemans; brought Helen back to Carmichael's fervent wish for Dale, and then to her own.

Soon spring would be at hand, with its multiplicity of range tasks. Dale had promised to come to Pine then, and Helen knew that promise would be kept. Her heart beat a little faster, in spite of her business-centered thoughts. Dale was there, over the black-sloped, snowy-tipped mountain, shut away from the world. Helen almost envied him. No wonder he loved loneliness, solitude, the sweet, wild silence and beauty of Paradise Park! But he was selfish, and Helen meant to show him that. She needed his help. When she recalled his physical prowess with animals, and imagined what it must be in relation to men, she actually smiled at the thought of Beasley forcing her off her property, if Dale were there. Beasley would only force disaster upon himself. Then Helen experienced a quick shock. Would Dale answer to this situation as Carmichael had answered? It afforded her relief to assure herself to the contrary. The cowboy was one of a blood-letting breed; the hunter was a man of thought, gentleness, humanity. This situation was one of the kind that had made him despise the littleness of men. Helen assured herself that he was different from her uncle and from the cowboy, in all the relations of life which she had observed while with him. But a doubt lingered in her mind. She remembered his calm reference to Snake Anson, and that caused a recurrence of the little shiver Carmichael had given her. When the doubt augmented to a possibility that she might not be able to control Dale, then she tried not to think of it any more. It confused and perplexed her that into her mind should flash a thought that, though it would be dreadful for Carmichael to kill Beasley, for Dale to do it would be a calamity—a terrible thing. Helen did not analyze that strange thought. She was as afraid of it as she was of the stir in her blood when she visualized Dale.

Her meditation was interrupted by Bo, who entered the room, rebellious-eyed and very lofty. Her manner changed, which apparently owed its cause to the fact that Helen was alone.

“Is that—cowboy gone?” she asked.

“Yes. He left quite some time ago,” replied Helen.

“I wondered if he made your eyes shine—your color burn so. Nell, you're just beautiful.”

“Is my face burning?” asked Helen, with a little laugh. “So it is. Well, Bo, you've no cause for jealousy. Las Vegas can't be blamed for my blushes.”

“Jealous! Me? Of that wild-eyed, soft-voiced, two-faced cow-puncher? I guess not, Nell Rayner. What 'd he say about me?”

“Bo, he said a lot,” replied Helen, reflectively. “I'll tell you presently. First I want to ask you—has Carmichael ever told you how he's helped me?”

“No! When I see him—which hasn't been often lately—he—I—Well, we fight. Nell, has he helped you?”

Helen smiled in faint amusement. She was going to be sincere, but she meant to keep her word to the cowboy. The fact was that reflection had acquainted her with her indebtedness to Carmichael.

“Bo, you've been so wild to ride half-broken mustangs—and carry on with cowboys—and read—and sew—and keep your secrets that you've had no time for your sister or her troubles.”

“Nell!” burst out Bo, in amaze and pain. She flew to Helen and seized her hands. “What 're you saying?”

“It's all true,” replied Helen, thrilling and softening. This sweet sister, once aroused, would be hard to resist. Helen imagined she should hold to her tone of reproach and severity.

“Sure it's true,” cried Bo, fiercely. “But what's my fooling got to do with the—the rest you said? Nell, are you keeping things from me?”

“My dear, I never get any encouragement to tell you my troubles.”

“But I've—I've nursed uncle—sat up with him—just the same as you,” said Bo, with quivering lips.

“Yes, you've been good to him.”

“We've no other troubles, have we, Nell?”

“You haven't, but I have,” responded Helen, reproachfully.

“Why—why didn't you tell me?” cried Bo, passionately. “What are they? Tell me now. You must think me a—a selfish, hateful cat.”

“Bo, I've had much to worry me—and the worst is yet to come,” replied Helen. Then she told Bo how complicated and bewildering was the management of a big ranch—when the owner was ill, testy, defective in memory, and hard as steel—when he had hoards of gold and notes, but could not or would not remember his obligations—when the neighbor ranchers had just claims—when cowboys and sheep-herders were discontented, and wrangled among themselves—when great herds of cattle and flocks of sheep had to be fed in winter—when supplies had to be continually freighted across a muddy desert and lastly, when an enemy rancher was slowly winning away the best hands with the end in view of deliberately taking over the property when the owner died. Then Helen told how she had only that day realized the extent of Carmichael's advice and help and labor—how, indeed, he had been a brother to her—how—

But at this juncture Bo buried her face in Helen's breast and began to cry wildly.

“I—I—don't want—to hear—any more,” she sobbed.

“Well, you've got to hear it,” replied Helen, inexorably “I want you to know how he's stood by me.”

“But I hate him.”

“Bo, I suspect that's not true.”