Dorn Of The Mountains (13 page)

“Oh, what you say is wonderful, but it’s terrible!” exclaimed Helen. He had struck deep into her soul.

“Terrible? I reckon,” he replied sadly.

Then ensued a little interval of silence.

“Milt Dorn, I lose the bet,” declared Bo with earnestness behind her frivolity.

“I’d forgotten that. Reckon I talked a lot,” he said apologetically. “You see I don’t get much chance to talk, except to myself or Tom. Years ago, when I found the habit of silence settlin’ down on me, I took to thinkin’ out loud an’ talkin’ to anythin’.”

“I could listen to you all night,” returned Bo dreamily.

“Do you read…do you have books?” inquired Helen suddenly.

“Yes. I read tolerable well, a good deal better than I talk or write,” he replied. “I went to school till I was fifteen. Always hated study, but liked to read…. Years ago an old friend of mine down here at Pine…Widow Cass…she gave me a lot of old books. An’ I packed them up here. Winter’s the time I read.”

Conversation lagged after that, except for desultory remarks, and presently Dorn bade the girls good night and left them.

Helen watched his tall form vanish in the gloom under the pines, and, after he had disappeared, she still stared.

“Nell!” called Bo shrilly. “I’ve called you three times. I want to go to bed.”

“Oh! I…I was thinking,” rejoined Helen, half embarrassed, half wondering at herself. “I didn’t hear you.”

“I should smile you didn’t,” retorted Bo. “Wish you could just have seen your eyes…. Nell, do you want
me
to tell
you
something?”

“Why…yes,” said Helen rather feebly. She did not at all, when Bo talked like that.

“You’re going to fall in love with that wild hunter,” declared Bo in a voice that rang like a bell.

Helen was not only amazed, but enraged. She caught her breath, preparatory to giving this incorrigible sister a piece of her mind.

Bo went calmly on. “I can feel it in my bones.”

“Bo, you’re a little fool…a sentimental, romancing, gushy little fool!” retorted Helen. “All you seem to hold in your head is some rot about love. To hear you talk one would think there’s nothing else in the world but love.”

Bo’s eyes were bright, shrewd, affectionate, and laughing as she bent their steady gaze upon Helen.

“Nell, that’s just it. There
is
…nothing else!”

After a few days of riding the grassy level of that wonderfully gold and purple park, and dreamily listening by day to the ever low and ever changing murmur of the waterfall, and by night to the wild lonely mourn of a hunting wolf, and climbing to the dizzy heights where the wind stung sweetly, Helen Rayner lost track of time and forgot her peril.

Roy Beeman did not return. If occasionally Dorn mentioned Roy and his quest, the girls had little to say beyond a recurrent anxiety for the old uncle, and then they forgot again. Paradise Park, lived in a little while at that season of the year, would have claimed anyone, and ever afterward haunted sleeping or waking dreams.

Bo took at once to the wild life, to the horses and rides, to the camp work, for the girls had insisted on doing their share, to the many pets, and especially to the cougar, Tom. The big cat followed Bo everywhere, played with her, rolling and pawing, kitten-like, and he would lay his massive head in her lap to purr his content. Bo had little fear of anything. And here in the wilds she soon lost that.

One of Dorn’s pets was a half-grown black bear named Muss. He was abnormally jealous of little Bud and he had a well-developed hatred of Tom; otherwise, he was a very good-tempered bear and enjoyed Dorn’s impartial regard. Tom, however, chased Muss out of camp whenever Dorn’s back was turned, and sometimes Muss stayed away, shifting for himself. With the advent of Bo, who spent a good deal of time on the animals, Muss manifestly found the camp more attractive. Whereupon Dorn predicted trouble between Tom and Muss.

Bo liked nothing better than a rough and tumble frolic with the black bear. Muss was not very big or very heavy, and in a wresting bout with the strong and wiry girl he sometimes came out second best. It spoke well of him that he seemed to be careful not to hurt Bo. He never bit or scratched, although he sometimes gave her sounding slaps with his paws. Whereupon Bo would clench her gauntleted fists and sail into him in earnest.

One afternoon, before the early supper they always had, Dorn and Helen were watching Bo teasing the bear. She was in her most vixenish mood, full of life and fight. Tom lay all his long length on the grass, watching with narrow gleaming eyes.

When Bo and Muss locked in an embrace and went down to roll over and over, Dorn called Helen’s attention to the cougar. “Tom’s jealous. It’s strange how animals are like people. Pretty soon I’ll have to corral Muss or there’ll be a fight.”

Helen could not see anything wrong with Tom except that he did not look playful.

During suppertime both bear and cougar disappeared, although this was not remarkable until afterwards. Dorn whistled and called, but the rival pets did not return. Next morning Tom was there, curled up snugly at the foot of Bo’s bed, and, when she arose, he followed her around as usual. But Muss did not return.

The circumstance made Dorn anxious. He left camp, taking Tom with him and, upon returning, stated that he had followed Muss’s tracks as far as possible, and then had tried to put Tom on the trail, but the cougar would not or could not follow it. Dorn said Tom never liked a bear trail, anyway—cougars and bears being common enemies. So whether by accident or design Bo lost one of her playmates.

The hunter searched some of the slopes next day and even went up on one of the mountains. He did not discover any sign of Muss, but he said he had found something else.

“Do you girls want some real excitement?” he asked.

Helen smiled her acquiescence and Bo replied with one of her forceful speeches.

“Don’t mind bein’ good an’ scared?” he went on.

“You can’t scare me,” bantered Bo. But Helen looked doubtful.

“Up in one of the parks I run across one of my horses…a lame bay you haven’t seen. Well, he had been killed by that old silvertip I told you was hangin’ around. Hadn’t been dead over an hour. Blood was still runnin’ an’ only a little meat eaten. That bear heard me or saw me an’ made off into the woods. But he’ll come back to night. I’m goin’ up there, lay for him, an’ kill him…. Reckon you’d better go, because I don’t want to leave you here alone at night.”

“Are you going to take Tom?” asked Bo.

“No. The bear might get his scent. An’ besides Tom ain’t reliable on bears.”

When they had hurried supper, and Dorn had gotten in the horses, the sun had set and the valley was shadowing low down while the ramparts were still golden.

The long zigzag trail Dorn followed up the slope took nearly an hour to climb, so that, when that was surmounted and he led out of the woods, twilight had fallen. A rolling park extended as far as Helen could see, bordered by forest that in places sent out straggling stretches of trees. Here and there like islands were isolated patches of timber.

At 10,000 feet elevation the twilight of this clear and cold night was a rich and rare atmospheric effect. It looked as if it was seen through perfectly clear smoked glass. Objects were singularly visible, even at long range, and seemed magnified. In the west, where the afterglow of sunset lingered over the dark ragged spruce-speared horizon line, there was such a transparent golden line melting into vivid star-fired blue that Helen could only gaze and gaze in wondering admiration.

Dorn spurred his horse into a lope and the spirited mounts of the girls kept up with him. The ground was rough, with tufts of grass growing close together, yet the horses did not stumble. Their action and snorting betrayed excitement. Dorn led around several clumps of timber, up a long grassy swale, and then straight westward across an open flat toward where the dark-fringed forest line raised itself, wild and clear, against the cold sky. The horses went swiftly, and the wind cut like a blade of ice. Helen could barely get her breath and she panted as if she had just climbed a laborsome hill. The stars began to blink out of the blue, and the gold paled somewhat, and yet twilight lingered. It seemed long across that flat, but really was short. Coming to a thin line of trees that led down over a slope to deeper, but still isolated patch of woods, Dorn dismounted and tied his horse. When the girls got off, he halted their horses, also.

“Stick close to me an’ put your feet down easy,” he whispered. How tall and dark he loomed in the fading light! Helen thrilled, as she had often of late, at the strange potential physical force of the man. Stepping softly, without the least sound, Dorn entered this straggly bit of woods, which appeared to have narrow byways and nooks. Then presently he came to the top of a well-wooded slope, dark as pitch, apparently. But as Helen followed, she perceived the trees, and they were thin dwarf spruce, partly dead. The slope was exposed—springy, easy to step upon without noise. Dorn went so cautiously that Helen could not hear him, and sometimes in the gloom she could not see him. Then the chill thrills ran over her. Bo kept holding on to Helen, which fact hampered Helen as well as worked somewhat to disprove Bo’s boast. At last level ground was reached. Helen made out a light-gray background crossed by black bars. Another glance showed this to be the dark tree trunks against the open park.

Dorn halted and with a touch brought Helen to a straining pause. He was listening. It seemed wonderful to watch him bend his head and stand as silently and motionlessly as one of the dark trees.

“He’s not there yet,” Dorn whispered, and he stepped forward very slowly. Helen and Bo began to come up against thin dead branches that were invisible, and they
cracked
. Then Dorn knelt down, seemed to melt into the ground.

“You’ll have to crawl,” he whispered.

How strange and thrilling that was for Helen, and hard work! The ground bore twigs and dead branches, which had to be carefully crawled over, and lying flat, as was necessary, it took prodigious effort to drag her body inch by inch. Like a huge snake Dorn wormed his way along.

Gradually the wind lightened. They were nearing the edge of the park. Helen now saw a strip of open with a high black wall of spruce beyond. The afterglow flashed or changed, like a diminishing northern light, and then failed. Dorn crawled on farther to halt at length between two tree trunks at the edge of the wood.

“Come up beside me,” he whispered.

Helen crawled on, and presently Bo was beside her, panting, with pale face and great staring eyes, plain to be seen in the wan light.

“Moon’s comin’ up. We’re just in time. The old grizzly’s not there yet, but I see coyotes. Look.” Dorn pointed across the open neck of park to a dim blurred patch standing apart some little distance from the black wall.

“That’s the dead horse,” whispered Dorn. “An’ if you watch close, you can see the coyotes. They’re gray an’ they move…. Can’t you hear them?”

Helen’s excited ears, so full of throbs and imaginings, presently registered low snaps and snarls. Bo gave her arm a squeeze.

“I hear them. They’re fighting…. Oh…gee,” she panted, and drew a long full breath of unutterable excitement.

“Keep quiet now an’ watch an’ listen,” said the hunter.

Slowly the black ragged forest line seemed to grow blacker and lift; slowly the gray neck of park lightened under some invisible influence; slowly the stars paled and the sky filmed over. Somewhere the moon was rising. And slowly that vague blurred patch grew a little clearer.

Through the tips of the spruce, now seen to be rather close at hand, shone a slender silver crescent moon, darkening, hiding, shining again, climbing until its exquisite sickle point topped the trees, and then, magically it cleared them, radiant and cold. While the eastern black wall shaded still blacker, the park blanched and the borderline opposite began to stand out as trees.

“Look! Look!” cried Bo very low and fearfully, as she pointed.

“Not so loud,” whispered Dorn.

“But I see something!”

“Keep quiet,” he admonished.

Helen, in the direction Bo pointed, could not see anything but moon-blanched bare ground, rising close at hand to a little ridge.

“Lie still,” whispered Dorn. “I’m goin’ to crawl around to get a look from another angle. I’ll be right back.” He moved noiselessly backward and disappeared.

With him gone, Helen felt a palpitating of her heart and a prickling of her skin.

“Oh, my, Nell. Look,” whispered Bo in fright. “I know I saw something.”

On top of the little ridge a round object moved slowly, getting farther out into the light. Helen watched with suspended breath. It moved out to be silhouetted against the sky—apparently a huge round bristling animal frosty in color. Helen’s tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. That frosty color proved the thing to be a grizzly bear. One instant it seemed huge—the next small—then close at hand and far away. It swerved to come directly toward them. Suddenly Helen realized that the beast was not a dozen yards distant. She was just beginning a new experience—a real and horrifying terror in which her blood curdled, her heart gave a tremendous leap and then stood still, and she wanted to fly, but was rooted to the spot—when Dorn returned to her side.

“That’s a pesky porcupine,” he whispered. “Almost crawled over you. He sure would have stuck you full of quills.”

Whereupon, he threw a stick at the animal. It bounced straight up to turn around with startling quickness, and it gave forth a rattling sound, then it crawled out of sight.

“Por-cu-pine?” whispered Bo pantingly. “It might…as well…have been…an elephant.”

Helen uttered a long eloquent sigh. She would not have cared to describe her emotions at sight of a harmless hedgehog.

“Listen,” warned Dorn, very low. His big hand closed over Helen’s gauntleted one. “There you have the real cry of the wild.”

Sharp and cold on the night air split the cry of a wolf, distant yet wonderfully distinct. How wild and mournful and hungry! How marvelously pure! Helen shuddered through all her frame with the thrill of its music, the wild and unutterable and deep emotions it aroused. Again a sound of this forest had pierced beyond her life, back into the dim remote past from which she had come.

The cry was not repeated. The coyotes were still. And a silence fell, absolutely unbroken.

Dorn nudged Helen, and then reached out to give Bo a tap. He was peering keenly ahead and his strained intensity could be felt. Helen looked with all her might and she saw the shadowy gray forms of the coyotes skulk away, out of the moonlight into the gloom of the woods, where they disappeared. Not only Dorn’s intensity but the very silence, the wildness of the moment and place, seemed fraught with wonderful potency. Bo must have felt it, too, for she was trembling all over, and holding tightly on to Helen, and breathing quickly and fast.

“Ahuh,” muttered Dorn under his breath.

Helen caught the relief and certainty in his exclamation, and she divined then something of what the moment must have been to a hunter. Then her roving alert glance was arrested by a looming gray shadow coming out of the forest. It moved, but surely that huge thing could not be a bear. It passed out of gloom into silver moonlight. Helen’s heart bounded. For it was a great frosty-coated bear lumbering along toward the dead horse. Instinctively Helen’s hand sought the arm of the hunter. It felt like iron under a rippling surface. The touch eased away the oppression over her lungs, the tightness of her throat. What must have been fear left her, and only a powerful excitement remained. A sharp expulsion of breath from Bo and a violent jerk of her frame were signs that she had sighted the grizzly.

In the moonlight he looked of immense size and that wild park with the gloomy blackness of forest furnished a fit setting for him. Helen’s quick mind, so taken up with emotions, still had a thought for the wonder and the meaning of that scene. She wanted the bear killed, yet that seemed a pity.

He had a wagging, rolling slow walk that took several moments to reach his quarry. When at length he reached it, he walked around with sniffs, plainly heard, and then a cross growl. Evidently he had discovered that his meal had been messed over. As a whole the big bear could be seen distinctly, but only in outline and color. The distance was perhaps 200 yards. Then it looked as if he had begun to tug at the carcass. Indeed he was dragging it, very slowly but surely.