Dorn Of The Mountains (21 page)

“Wal, the half-breed son-of-a-greaser!” ejaculated Carmichael in utter befuddlement. “He wanted you to marry him?”

“He certainly did. I must say it was a…a rather abrupt proposal.”

Carmichael appeared to be laboring with speech that had to be smothered behind his teeth. At last he let out an explosive breath. “Miss Nell, I’ve shore felt in my bones thet I’m the boy slated to brand thet big bull.”

“Oh, he must have shot Roy. He left here in a rage.”

“I reckon you can coax it out of Roy. Fact is, all I could learn was thet Roy come in the saloon alone. Beasley was there, an’ Riggs….”

“Riggs!” interrupted Helen.

“Shore, Riggs. He came back again. But he’d better keep out of my way. And Jeff Mulvey with his outfit. Turner told me he heard an argument an’ then a shot. The gang cleared out, leavin’ Roy on the floor. I came in a little later. Roy was still layin’ there. Nobody was doin’ anythin’ for him. An’ nobody had. I hold thet against Turner. Wal, I got help an’ packed Roy over to Widow Cass’s. Roy seemed all right. But he was too bright an’ talky to suit me. The bullet hit his lung, thet’s shore. An’ he lost a sight of blood before we stopped it. Thet skunk Turner might have lent a hand. An’ if Roy croaks, I reckon I’ll….”

“Tom, why must you always be reckoning to kill somebody?” demanded Helen angrily.

“ ‘Cause somebody’s got to be killed around here. Thet’s why!” he snapped back.

“Even so…should you risk leaving Bo and me without a friend?” asked Helen reproachfully.

At that Carmichael wavered and lost something of his sullen deadliness.

“
Aw,
Miss Nell, I’m only mad. If you’ll just be patient with me…an’ mebbe coax me…. But I can’t see no other way out.”

“Let’s hope and pray,” said Helen earnestly. “You spoke of my coaxing Roy to tell who shot him. When can I see him?”

“Tomorrow, I reckon. I’ll come for you. Fetch Bo along with you. We’ve got to play safe from now on. An’ what do you say to me an’ Hal sleepin’ here at the ranch house?”

“Indeed, I’d feel safer,” she replied. “There are rooms. Please come.”

“All right. An’ now I’ll be goin’ to fetch Hal. Shore wish I hadn’t made you pale and scared like this.”

About 10:00 a.m. the next morning Carmichael drove Helen and Bo in to Pine, and tied up the team before Widow Cass’s cottage.

The peach and apple trees were mingling blossoms of pink and white; a drowsy
hum
of bees filled the fragrant air; rich dark green alfalfa covered the small orchard flat; a wood fire sent up a lazy column of blue smoke, and birds were singing sweetly.

Helen could scarcely believe that amid all this tranquility a man lay perhaps fatally injured. Assuredly Carmichael had been somber and reticent enough to raise the gravest fears.

Widow Cass appeared on the little porch, a gray, bent, worn, but cheerful old woman who Helen had come to know as her friend.

“My land! I’m that glad to see you, Miss Helen,” she said. “And you’ve fetched the little lass as I’ve not got acquainted with yet.”

“Good morning, Missus Cass. How…how is Roy?” replied Helen anxiously, scanning the wrinkled face.

“Roy? Now don’t you look so scared. Roy’s ‘most ready to git on his hoss an’ ride home, if I let him. He knowed you was a-comin’. An’ he made me hold a lookin’ glass for him to shave. How’s thet for a man with a bullet hole through him. You can’t kill them Mormons, nohow.”

She led them into a little sitting room, where on a couch underneath a window Roy Beeman lay. He was wide awake and smiling, but haggard. He lay partly covered with a blanket. His gray shirt was open at the neck disclosing ban dages.

“ ‘Mornin’, girls,” he drawled. “Shore is good of you now, comin’ down.”

Helen stood beside him, bent over him in her earnestness, as she greeted him. She saw a shade of pain in his eyes and his immobility struck her, but he did not seem badly off. Bo was pale, round-eyed, and apparently too agitated to speak. Carmichael placed chairs beside the couch for the girls.

“Wal, what’s ailin’ you this nice mornin’?” asked Roy, eyes on the cowboy.

“Huh! Would you expect me to be wearin’ the smile of a fellar goin’ to be married?” retorted Carmichael.

“Shore you haven’t made up with Bo yet,” returned Roy.

Bo blushed rosy red. And the cowboy’s face lost something of its somber hue.

“I allow it’s none of you d-…darn’ bizness if
she
ain’t made up with me,” he said.

“Las Vegas, you’re a wonder with a hoss an’ a rope, an’ I reckon with a gun, but when it comes to girls, you shore ain’t there.”

“I’m no Mormon, by golly…. Come, Missus Cass, let’s get out of here, so they can talk.”

“Folks, I was jest a-goin’ to say that Roy’s got fever an’ he oughtn’t t’talk too much,” said the old woman. Then she and Carmichael went into the kitchen and closed the door.

Roy looked up at Helen with his keen eyes, more kindly piercing than ever. “My brother John was here. He’d just left when you come. He rode home to tell my folks I’m not so bad hurt, an’ then he’s goin’ to ride a beeline into the mountains.”

Helen’s eyes asked what her lips refused to utter.

“He’s goin’ after Dorn. I sent him. I reckoned us-all sorta needed sight of thet dog-gone’ hunter.”

Roy had averted his gaze quickly to Bo. “Don’t you agree with me, lass?”

“I sure do,” replied Bo heartily.

All within Helen had been stilled for the moment of her realization, and then came swell and beat of heart, and inconceivable chafing of a tide at its restraint.

“Can John…fetch Dorn out…when the snow’s so deep?” she asked unsteadily.

“Shore. He’s takin’ two hosses up to the snowline. Then, if necessary, he’ll go over the pass on snowshoes. But I bet him Dorn would ride out. Snow’s about gone except on the north slopes an’ on the peaks.”

“Then…when may I…we except to see Dorn?”

“Three or four days, I reckon. I wish he was here now…. Miss Helen, there’s trouble afoot.”

“I realize that. I’m ready. Did Las Vegas tell you about Beasley’s visit to me?”

“No. You tell me,” replied Roy.

Briefly Helen began to acquaint him with the circumstances of that visit, and before she had finished she made sure Roy was swearing to himself.

“He asked you to marry him! Jerusalem! Thet I’d never have reckoned. The…low-down coyote of a greaser! Wal, Miss Helen, when I met up with
Señor
Beasley last night, he was shore spoilin’ from somethin’…now I see what thet was. An’ I reckon I picked out the bad time.”

“For what? Roy, what did you do?”

“But, Miss Helen, thet’s the only way. To be afraid
makes
more danger. Beasley ‘peared civil enough, first off. Him an’ me kept edgin’ off, an’ his pards kept edgin’ after us, till he got me in a corner of the saloon. I don’t know all I said to him. Shore I talked a heap. I told him what my old man thought. An’ Beasley knowed as well as I thet my old man’s not only the oldest inhabitant hereabout, but he’s the wisest, too. An’ he wouldn’t tell a lie. Wal, I used all his sayin’s in my argument to show Beasley thet, if he didn’t haul up short, he’d end almost as short. Beasley’s thick-headed, an’ powerful conceited. Vain as a peacock! He couldn’t see it, an’ he got mad. I told him he was rich enough without robbin’ you of your ranch, an’…wal, I shore put up a big talk for your side. By this time he an’ his gang had me crowded in a corner, an’, from their look, I begun to get cold feet. But I was in it an’ had to make the best of it. The argument worked down to his pinnin’ me to my word thet I’d fight for you when thet fight come off. An’ I shore told him for my own sake I wished it’d come off quick…. When…wal…then somethin’ did come off quick!”

“Roy! Then he shot you!” exclaimed Helen passionately.

“Now, Miss Helen, I didn’t say who done it,” replied Roy with his engaging smile.

“Tell me then…who did?”

“Wal, I reckon I sha’n’t tell you unless you promise not to tell Las Vegas. Thet cowboy is plumb off his head. He thinks he knows who shot me an’ I’ve been lyin’ somethin’ scandalous. You see, if he learns…then he’ll go gunnin’! An’, Miss Helen, thet Texan is bad. He might get plugged as I did…an’ there would be another man put off your side when the big trouble comes.”

“Roy, I promise you I will not tell Las Vegas,” replied Helen earnestly.

“Wal, then…it was Riggs!” Roy grew still paler as he confessed this, and his voice, almost a whisper, expressed shame and hate. “Thet four-flush did it. Shot me from behind Beasley! I had no chance. I couldn’t even see him draw. But when I fell an’ lay there an’ the others dropped back, then I seen the smokin’ gun in his hand. He looked powerful important. An’ Beasley began to cuss him an’ was cussin’ him as they all run out.”

“Oh, the coward! The despicable coward!” cried Helen.

“No wonder Tom wants to find out!” exclaimed Bo, low and deep. “I’ll bet he suspects Riggs.”

“Shore he does. But I wouldn’t give him no satisfaction.”

“Roy, you know that Riggs can’t last out here.”

“Wal, I hope he lasts till I get on my feet again.”

“There you go! Hopeless, all you boys! You must spill blood!”

“Dear Miss Helen, don’t take on so. I’m like Dorn…no man to hunt up trouble. But out here there’s a sort of unwritten law…an eye for an eye…a tooth for a tooth. I believe in God Almighty, an’ killin’s against my religion. But Riggs shot me…the same as shootin’ me in the back.”

“Roy, I’m only a woman…I fear, faint-hearted and unequal to this West.”

“Wait till somethin’ happens to you supposin’ Beasley comes an’ grabs you with his own dirty big paws an’, after maulin’ you some, throws you out of your home! Or supposin’ Riggs chases you into a corner!”

Helen felt the start of all her physical being—a violent leap of blood. But she could only judge of her looks from the grim smile of the wounded man as he watched her with his keen intent eyes.

“My friend, anythin’ can happen,” he said. “But let’s hope it won’t be the worst.”

He had begun to show signs of weakness, and Helen, rising at once, said that she and Bo had better leave him then, but would come to see him the next day. At her call, Carmichael entered again with Mrs. Cass, and, after a few remarks, the visit was terminated. Carmichael lingered in the doorway.

“Wal, cheer up, you old Morman!” he called.

“Cheer up yourself, you cross, old bachelor!” retorted Roy, quite unnecessarily loud. “Can’t you raise enough nerve to make up with Bo!”

Carmichael evacuated the doorway as if he had been spurred. He was quite red in the face while he unhitched the team and silent during the ride up to the ranch house. There he got down and followed the girls into the sitting room. He appeared still somber, although not sullen, and had fully regained his composure.

“Did you find out who shot Roy?” he asked abruptly of Helen.

“Yes. But I promised Roy I would not tell,” replied Helen nervously. She averted her eyes from his searching gaze, intuitively fearing his next query.

“Was it thet…Riggs?”

“Las Vegas, don’t ask me. I will not break my promise.”

He strode to the window and looked out a moment, and presently, when he turned toward Bo, he seemed a stronger, loftier, more impelling man with all his emotions under control.

“Bo, will you listen to me…if I swear to speak the truth…as I know it?”

“Why certainly,” replied Bo with the color coming swiftly to her face.

“Roy doesn’t want me to know because he wants to meet thet fellar himself. An’ I want to know because I want to stop him before he can do more dirt to us or our friends. Thet’s Roy’s reason an’ mine. An’ I’m askin’ you to tell me.”

“But, Tom…I oughtn’t,” replied Bo haltingly.

“Did you promise Roy not to tell?”

“No.”

“Or your sister?”

“No, I didn’t promise either.”

“Wal, then you tell me. I want you to trust me in this here matter. But not because I love you an’ once had a wild dream you might care for me….”

“Oh…Tom!” faltered Bo.

“Listen. I want you to trust me because trouble’s comin’ an’ because I’m the one who knows what’s best. I wouldn’t lie an’ I wouldn’t say so if I didn’t know shore. I swear Dorn will back me up. But he can’t be here for some days. An’ thet gang has got to be bluffed. You ought to see this. I reckon you’ve been quick in savvyin’ Western ways. I couldn’t pay you no higher compliment, Bo Rayner. Now will you tell me?”

“Yes, I will,” replied Bo with the blaze leaping to her eyes.

“Oh, Bo…please don-…please don’t…. Wait!” implored Helen.

“Bo…it’s between you an’ me,” said Carmichael.

“Tom, I’ll tell you,” whispered Bo. “It was a low-down cowardly trick…. Roy was surrounded…and shot from behind Beasley…by that four-flush Riggs!”

The memory of a woman had ruined Milt Dorn’s peace, had confounded his philosophy of self-sufficient lonely happiness in the solitude of the wilds, had forced him to come face to face with his soul and the fatal significance of life. When he realized his defeat, that things were not as they seemed, that there was no joy for him in the coming of spring, that he had been blind in his free sensorial Indian relations to existence, he fell into an inexplicably strange state of despondency, a gloom as deep as the silence of his home. Dorn reflected that the stronger an animal, the keener its nerves, the higher its intelligence, the greater must be its suffering under restraint or injury. He thought of himself as a high order of animal whose great physical need was action, and now the incentive to action seemed dead. He grew lax. He did not want to move. He performed his diminishing duties under compulsion.

He watched for spring as a liberation, but not so that he could leave the valley. He hated the cold, he grew weary of wind and snow; he imagined the warm sun, the park once more green with grass and bright with daisies, the return of birds and squirrels and deer to their old haunts would be the means whereby he could break this spell upon him. Then he might gradually return to past contentment, although it would never be the same.

But spring, coming early to Paradise Park, brought a fever to Dorn’s blood—a fire of unutterable longing. It was good, perhaps, that this was so, because he seemed driven to work, climb, tramp, and keep ceaselessly on the move from dawn to dark. That action strengthened his lax muscles and kept him from those motionless, senseless hours of brooding. He at least need not be ashamed of longing for that which could never be his—the sweetness of a woman—a house full of light, joy, hope, the meaning and beauty of children. But those dark moods were sinking into a pit of hell.

Dorn had not kept track of days and weeks. He did not know when the snow melted off three slopes of Paradise Park. All he knew was that an age had dragged over his head and that spring had come. During his restless waking hours, and even when he was asleep, there seemed always in the back of his mind a growing consciousness that soon he would emerge from this trial, a changed man, ready to sacrifice his chosen lot to give up his lonely life of selfish indulgence in lazy affinity with Nature, and to go wherever his strong hands might perform some real ser vice to people. Nevertheless he wanted to linger in this mountain fastness until his ordeal was over—until he could meet her, and the world, knowing himself more of a man than ever before.

One bright morning, while he was at his campfire, the tame cougar gave low growling warning. Dorn was startled. Tom did not act like that because of a prowling grizzly or a straying stag. Presently Dorn espied a horse man riding slowly out of the straggling spruces. And with that sight Dorn’s heart gave a leap, recalling to him a divination of his future relations to his kind. Never had he been so glad to a see a man!

This visitor resembled one of the Beemans, judging from the way he sat his horse, and presently Dorn recognized him to be John.

At this juncture the jaded horse was spurred into a trot, soon reaching the pines and the camp.

“Howdy there, you ole b’ar hunter!” called John, waving his hand.

For all his hearty greeting his appearance checked a like response from Dorn. The horse was mud to his flanks and John was mud to his knees, wet, bedraggled, worn, and white. The hue of his face meant more than fatigue.

“Howdy, John,” replied Dorn.

They shook hands. John wearily swung his leg over the pommel, but did not at once dismount. His clear gray eyes were wonderingly riveted upon the hunter.

“Milt…what’n hell’s wrong?” he queried.

“Why?”

“Bust me if you ain’t changed so I hardly knowed you. You’ve been sick…all alone here!”

“Do I look sick?”

“Wal, I should smile. Thin an’ pale an’ down in the mouth. Milt, what ails you?”

“I’ve gone to seed.”

“You’ve gone off your head, jest as Roy said, livin’ alone here. You overdid it, Milt. An’ you look sick.”

“John, my sickness is here,” replied Dorn soberly as he lay a hand on his heart.

“Lung trouble!” ejaculated John. “With thet chest an’ up ‘n this air? Get out!”

“No…not lung trouble,” said Dorn.

“I savvy. Had a hunch from Roy, anyhow.”

“What kind of a hunch?”

“Easy now, Dorn, ole man…. Don’t you reckon I’m ridin’ in on you pretty early? Look at that lion!” John slid off and waved a hand at his drooping beast, then began to unsaddle him. “Wal, he done great. He bogged some comin’ over. An’ I climbed the pass at night on the frozen snow.”

“You’re welcome as the flower in May…. John, what month is it?”

“By spades! Are you as bad as thet? Let’s see. It’s the Twenty-Third of March.”

“March! Well, I’m beat. I’ve lost any reckonin’…an’ a lot more, maybe.”

“Thar!” declared John, slapping the mustang. “You can jest hang up here till my next trip. Milt, how’re your hosses?”

“Wintered fine.”

“Wal, thet’s good. “We’ll need two big stray hosses right off.”

“What for?” queried Dorn sharply. He dropped a stick of wood and straightened up from the campfire.

“You’re goin’ to ride down to Pine with me…thet’s what for.”

Familiarly then came back to Dorn the quiet, intent suggestiveness of the Beemans in moments foreboding trial.

At this certain assurance of John’s, too significant and dark to be doubted, Dorn’s thought of Pine gave slow birth to a strange sensation, as if he had been dead and was vibrating back to life.

“Tell me what you got to tell!” he broke out.

Quick as a flash the Mormon replied. “Roy’s been shot. But he won’t die. He sent for you. Bad deals afoot. Beasley means to force Helen Rayner out an’ steal her ranch.”

A tremor ran all through Dorn. It seemed another painful yet thrilling connection between his past and this vaguely calling future. His emotions had been broodings, dreams, longings. This thing his friend said had the sting of real life.

“Then old Al’s dead?” he asked.

“Long ago…I reckon around the middle of February. The property went to Helen. She’s been doin’ fine. An’ many folks say it’s a pity she’ll lose it.”

“She won’t lose it,” declared Dorn. How strange his voice sounded to his own ears. It was hoarse and unreal, as if from disuse.

“Wal, we-all have our ideas. I say she will. My father says so. Carmichael says so.”

“Who’s he?”

“Reckon you remember thet cowpuncher who came up with Roy an’ Auchincloss after the girls…last fall?”

“Yes. They called him Las…Las Vegas. I liked his looks.”

“
Humph!
You’ll like him a heap when you know him. He’s kept the ranch goin’ for Miss Helen all along. But the deals comin’ to a head. Beasley’s got thick with that Riggs. You remember him?”

“Yes.”

“Wal, he’s been hangin’ out at Pine all winter, watchin’ for some chance to get at Miss Helen or Bo. Everybody’s seen thet. An’ jest lately he chased Bo on hossback…gave the kid a nasty fall. Roy says Riggs was after Miss Helen. But I think one or t’other of the girls would do thet varmint. Wal, thet sorta started goin’s on. Carmichael beat Riggs an’ drove him out of town. But he came back. Beasley called on Miss Helen an’ offered to marry her so’s not to take the ranch from her, he said.”

Dorn awoke with a thundering curse.

“Shore!” exclaimed John. “I’d say the same…only I’m religious. Don’t thet beady-eyed greaser’s gall make you want to spit all over yourself? My God, but Roy was mad! Roy’s powerful fond of Miss Helen an’ Bo…. Wal, then, Roy first chance he got, braced Beasley an’ give him some straight talk. Beasley was foamin’ at the mouth, Roy said. It was then Riggs shot Roy. Shot him from behind Beasley when Roy wasn’t lookin’! An’ Riggs brags of bein’ a gunfighter…. Mebbe thet wasn’t a bad shot for him!”

“I reckon,” replied Dorn as he swallowed hard. “Now just what was Roy’s message to me?”

“Wal, I can’t remember all Roy said,” answered John dubiously. “But Roy shore was excited an’ dead in earnest. He says…‘Tell Milt what’s happened. Tell him Helen Rayner’s in more danger than she was last fall. Tell him I’ve seen her look away acrost the mountains toward Paradise Park with her heart in her eyes. Tell him she needs him most of all.’ ”

Dorn shook all over as with an attack of ague. He was seized by a whirlwind of exquisite passionate terrible sweetness of sensation when what he wildly wanted was to curse Roy and John for the simple-minded conclusions.

“Roy’s crazy!” panted Dorn.

“Wal, now, Milt, thet’s downright surprisin’ of you. Roy’s the level-headedest of any fellars I know.”

“Man! If he
made
me believe him…. and it turned out untrue…I’d…I’d kill him,” replied Dorn.

“Untrue! Do you think Roy Beeman would lie?”

“But, John, you fellows can’t see my case. Nell Rayner wants me…needs me! It can’t be true!”

“Well, my love-sick pard…it jest is true!” exclaimed John feelingly. “Thet’s the hell of life…never knowin’. But here it’s joy for you. You can believe Roy Beeman about women as quick as you’d trust him to track your lost hoss. Roy’s married three girls. I reckon he’ll marry some more. Roy’s only twenty-eight an’ he has two big farms. He said he’d seen Nell Rayner’s heart in her eyes, lookin’ for you…an’ you can jest bet your life thet’s true. An’ he said it because he means you to rustle down there an’ fight for thet girl.”

“I’ll go,” said Dorn in a shaky whisper as he sat down on a pine log near the fire. He stared unseeingly at the bluebells in the grass by his feet while storm after storm possessed his breast. They were fierce and brief because driven by his will. In those few moments of contending strife Dorn was immeasurably removed from that dark gulf of self that had made his winter a nightmare. And when he stood erect again, it seemed that the old earth had a stirring electrifying impetus for his feet. Something black, bitter, melancholy, and morbid, always unreal to him, had passed away forever. The great moment had been forced upon him. He did not believe Roy Beeman’s preposterous hint regarding Helen, but he had gone back or soared onward, as if by magic, to his old true self.

Mounted on Dorn’s strongest horses, with only a light pack, an axe, and their weapons, the two men had reached the snowline on the pass by noon that day. Tom, the tame cougar, trotted along in the rear.

The crust of the snow, now half thawed by the sun, would not hold the weight of a horse, although it upheld the men on foot. They walked, leading the horses. Travel was not difficult until the snow began to deepen, then progress slackened materially. John had not been able to pick out the line of the trail, so Dorn did not follow his tracks. An old blaze on the trees enabled Dorn to keep fairly well to the trail, and, at length, the height of the pass was reached where the snow was deep. Here the horses labored, plowing through foot by foot. When finally they sank to their flanks, they had to be dragged and goaded on, and helped by thick flat bunches of spruce boughs placed under their hoofs. It took three hours of breaking toil to do the few hundred yards of deep snow at the height of the pass. The cougar did not have great difficulty in following, although it was evident he did not like such traveling.

That behind them, the horses gathered heart and worked on to the edge of the steep descent where they had all they could do to hold back from sliding and rolling. Fast time was made on this slope, at the bottom of which began a dense forest with snow still deep in places and windfalls hard to locate. The men here performed Herculean labors, but they got through to a park where the snow was gone. The ground, however, soft and boggy in places, was more treacherous than the snow, and the travelers had to skirt the edge of the park to a point opposite, and then go on through the forest. When they reached bare and solid ground, just before dark that night, it was high time, for the horses were ready to drop and the men likewise.

Camp was made in an open wood. When darkness fell and the men were resting on bough beds, feet to the fire, with Tom curled up close by, the horses still drooped where they had been unsaddled. Morning, however, discovered them grazing on the long, bleached grass. John shook his head when he looked at them.

“You reckoned to make Pine by nightfall. How far is it…theway you’ll go?”

“Fifty mile or thereabouts,” replied Dorn.

“Wal, we can’t ride it on these critters.”

“John, we’d do more than that if we had to.”

They were saddled and on the move before sunrise, leaving snow and bog behind. Level parks and level forests led one after another too long slopes and steep descents, all growing sunnier and greener as the altitude diminished. Squirrels and grouse, turkeys and deer, and less tame denizens of the forest grew more abundant as the travel advanced. In this game zone, however, Dorn had trouble with Tom. The cougar had to be watched and called often to keep him off of trails.

“Tom doesn’t like a long trip,” said Dorn. “But I’m goin’ to take him. Some way or other he may come in handy.”

“Sic him onto Beasley’s gang,” replied John. “Some men are powerful scared of cougars. But I never was.”

“Nor me. Though I’ve had cougars give me a darn’ uncanny feelin’.”

The men talked but little. Dorn led the way, with Tom trotting noiselessly beside his horse. John followed close behind. They loped the horses across parks, trotted through the forests, walked slowly up what few inclines they met, and slid down the soft, wet pine-matted descents. So they averaged from six to eight miles an hour. The horses held up well under that steady travel, and this without any rest at noon.

Dorn seemed to feel himself in an emotional trance. Yet, despite this, the same old sensorial perceptions crowded, thick and fast, upon him, strangely sweet and vivid after the past dead months when neither sun nor wind or cloud or scent of pine or anything in Nature could stir him. His mind, his heart, his soul seemed steeped in an intoxicating wine of expectation, while his eyes and ears and nose had never been keener to register the facts of the forestland. He saw the black thing far ahead that resembled a burned stump, but he knew it was a bear before it vanished; he saw the gray flash of deer and wolf and coyote, and the red of fox, and the small wary heads of old gobblers just sticking above the grass, and he saw deep tracks of game as well as the slow-rising blades of bluebells where some soft-footed beast had just trod. And he heard the melancholy notes of birds, the twitter of grouse, the sough of the wind, the light dropping of pine cones, the near and distant bark of squirrels, the deep gobble of a turkey close at hand and the challenge from a rival far away, the
cracking
of twigs in the thickets, the murmur of running water, the scream of an eagle, and the shrill cry of a hawk, and always the soft dull steady pads of the hoofs of the horses.