III
LEE VIRGINIA WAGES WAR
IN truth, Lize had risen that morning intending "to whirl in and clean upthe house," being suddenly conscious to some degree of the dirt anddisorder around her, but she found herself physically unequal to the task.Her brain seemed misted, and her food had been a source of keen pain toher. Hence, after a few half-hearted orders, she had settled into herbroad chair behind the counter and there remained, brooding over hermaternal responsibilities.
She gave sharp answers to all the men who came up to ask after herdaughter, and to one who remarked on the girl's good looks, and demandedan introduction, she said: "Get along! I'd as soon introduce her to agoat. Now you fellers want to understand I'll kill the man that sets outto fool with my girl, I tell you that!"
While yet Lee Virginia was wondering how to begin the day's work, some oneknocked on her door, and in answer to her invitation a woman stepped in--athin blond hag with a weak smile and watery blue eyes. "Is this little LeeVirginy?" she asked.
The girl rose. "Yes."
"Well, howdy!" She extended her hand, and Lee took it. "My name'sJackson--Mrs. Orlando Jackson. I knew yore pa and you before 'the war.'"
Lee Virginia dimly recalled such a family, and asked: "Where do youlive?"
"We hole up down here on a ranch about twenty miles--stayed with yore malast night--thought I'd jest nacherly look in and say howdy. Are ye backfer to stay?"
"No, I don't think so. Will you sit down?"
Mrs. Jackson took a seat. "Come back to see how yore ma was, I reckon?Found her pretty porely, didn't ye?" She lowered her voice. "I think she'sgot cancer of the stummick--now that's my guess."
Virginia started. "What makes you think so?"
"Well, I knew a woman who went just that way. Had that same flabby, funnylook--and that same distress after eatin', I told her this mornin' she'dbetter go up to Sulphur and see that new doctor. You see, yore ma hasalways been a reckless kind of a critter--more like a man than a woman,God knows--an' how she ever got a girl like you I don't fairly understand.I reckon you must be what the breedin' men call 'a throw-back,' for yorepa wa'n't much to brag of, 'ceptin' for looks--he certainly wasgood-lookin'. He used to sober down when he got where you was; butmy--good God!--weren't they a pair to draw to? I've heard 'Lando telltales of yore ma's doin's that would 'fright ye. Not that she fooled withmen," she hastened to say. "Lord, no! For her the sun rose and set in EdWetherford. She'd leave you any day, and go on the round-up with him. Itnigh about broke her up in business when Ed hit the far-away trail."
The girl perceived that in her visitor she had one of these self-oiledhuman talking-machines "with tongue hung in the middle," as the old sayinggoes, and she was dimly conscious of having heard her many times before."You don't look very well yourself," she said.
"Me? Oh, I'm like one o' these Injun dawgs--can't kill me. I've been onthe range so long I'm tough as dried beef. It's a fierce old place for awoman--or it was before 'the war'--since then it's kind o' softened down ahair."
"What do you mean by 'the war'?"
"Why, you remember the rustler war? We date everything out here from thatyear. You was here, for I saw ye--a slob of a child."
"Oh!" exclaimed Virginia. "I understand now. Yes, I was here. I saw myfather at the head of the cowboys."
"They weren't cowboys; they were hired killers from Texas. That's what letyore pa out o' the State. He were on the wrong side, and if it hadn't 'a'been for the regular soldiers he'd 'a' been wiped out right hyer. As itwas he had to skip the range, and hain't never been back. I don't s'posefolks will lay it up agin you--bein' a girl--but they couldn't no _son_ ofEd Wetherford come back here and settle, not for a minute. Why, yore mahas had to bluff the whole county a'most--not that _I_ lay anything upagin her. I tell folks she was that bewitched with Ed she couldn't seethings any way but his way. She fought to save his ranch and stawkand--but hell! she couldn't do nothin'--and then to have him go back onher the way he did--slip out 'twixt two days, and never write; that justabout shot her to pieces. I never could understand that in Ed, he 'pearedso mortally fond of you and of her, too. He sure was fond of you!" Sheshook her head. "No, can't anybody make me believe Ed Wetherford isalive."
Lee Virginia started. "Who says he's alive?"
"Now don't get excited, girl. He ain't alive; but yet folks say we don't_know_ he's dead. He jest dropped out so far as yore ma is concerned, andso far as the county is concerned; but some thought you was with him inthe East."
The girl was now aware that her visitor was hoping to gain some furtherinformation, and so curtly answered: "I've never seen my father since thatnight the soldiers came and took him away to the fort. And my mother toldme he died down in Texas."
Mrs. Jackson seemed a little disappointed, but she smoothed the dress overher sharp knees, and continued: "Right there the good old days ended foryore ma--and for us. The cattle business has been steadily on thechute--that is, the free-range business. I saw it comin', an' I says toJackson, 'Camp on some river-bottom and chuck in the alfalfy,' I says. An'that's what we did. We got a little bunch o' cattle up in the park--UncleSam's man is lookin' after 'em." She grinned. "Jackson kicked at the fee,but I says: 'Twenty cents a head is cheap pasture. We're lucky to get anygrass at all, now that everybody's goin' in for sheep. 'Pears like thesheepmen air gettin' bolder and bolder in this free-range graft, and I'ma-bettin' on trouble.'" She rose. "Well, I'm glad to 've had a word withye; but you hear me: yore ma has got to have doctor's help, or she'sa-goin' to fall down some day soon."
Every word the woman uttered, every tone of her drawling voice, put LeeVirginia back into the past. She heard again the swift gallop ofhooves, saw once more the long line of armed ranchers, and felt the hushof fear that lay over the little town on that fateful day. The situationbecame clearer in her mind. She recalled vividly the words ofastonishment and hate with which the women had greeted her mother on themorning when the news came that Edward Wetherford was among theinvading cattle-barons--was, indeed, one of the leaders.
In Philadelphia the Rocky Mountain States were synonyms of picturesquelawlessness, the theatre of reckless romance, and Virginia Wetherford,loyal daughter of the West, had defended it; but in the coarse phrase ofthis lean rancheress was pictured a land of border warfare as ruthless asthat which marked the Scotland of Rob Roy.
Commonplace as the little town looked at the moment, it had been the sceneof many a desperate encounter, as the girl herself could testify, for shehad seen more than one man killed therein. Some way the hideousness ofthese scenes had never shown itself to her--perhaps because she had been achild at the time, and had thrilled to the delicious excitement of it; butnow, as she imagined it all happening again before her eyes, she shiveredwith horror. How monstrous, how impossible those killings now seemed!
Then her mind came back to her mother's ailment. Eliza Wetherford hadnever been one to complain, and her groans meant real suffering.
Her mind resolved upon one thing. "She must see a doctor," she decided.And with this in mind she reentered the cafe, where Lize was again inviolent altercation with a waitress.
"Mother," called Lee, "I want to see you."
With a parting volley of vituperation, Mrs. Wetherford followed herdaughter back into the lodging-house.
"Mother," the girl began, facing her and speaking firmly, "you must go toSulphur City and see a doctor. I'll stay here and look after thebusiness."
Mrs. Wetherford perceived in her daughter's attitude and voice somethingdecisive and powerful. She sank into a chair, and regarded her with intentgaze. "Hett Jackson's been gabblin' to you," she declared. "Hett knowsmore fool things that ain't so than any old heffer I know. She said I wasabout all in, didn't she? Prophesied I'd fall down and stay? I know her."
Lee Virginia remained firm. "I'm not going by what she said, I've got eyesof my own. You need help, and if the doctor here can't help you, you mustgo to Sulphur or to Kansas City. I can run the boarding-house till you getback."
&
nbsp; Eliza eyed her curiously. "Don't you go to countin' on this 'chivalry ofthe West' which story-writers put into books. These men out here will eatyou up if you don't watch out. I wouldn't dare to leave you here alone.No, what I'll do is sell the place, if I can, and both of us get out."
"But you need a doctor this minute."
"I'll be all right in a little while; I'm always the worst for an hour ortwo after I eat. This little squirt of a local doctor gave me some dope toease that pain, but I've got my doubts--I don't want any morphine habit inmine. No, daughter Virginny, it's mighty white of you to offer, but youdon't know what you're up against when you contract to step into myshoes."
Visions of reforming methods about the house passed through the girl'smind. "There must be something I can do. Why don't you have the doctorcome down here?"
"I might do that if I get any worse, but I hate to have you stay in thehouse another night. It's only fit for these goats of cowboys and womenlike Hett Jackson. Did the bugs eat you last night?"
Virginia flushed. "Yes."
Eliza's face fell. "I was afraid of that. You can't keep 'em out. Thecowboys bring 'em in by the quart."
"They can be destroyed--and the flies, too, can't they?"
"When you've bucked flies and bugs as long as I have, you'll be less'peart about it. I don't care a hoot in Hades till somebody like you orReddy or Ross comes along. Most of the men that camp with me are likeInjuns, anyway--they wouldn't feel natural without bugs a ticklin' 'em.No, child, you get ready and pull out on the Sulphur stage to-morrow. I'llpay your way back to Philadelphy."
"I can't leave you now, mother. Now that I know you're ill, I'm going tostay and take care of you."
Lize rose. "See here, girl, don't you go to idealizin' me, neither. I'mwhat the boys call an old battle-axe. I've been through the whole war. I'mable to feed myself and pay your board besides. Just you find some decentboarding-place in Sulphur, and I'll see that you have ten dollars a weekto live on, just because you're a Wetherford."
"But I'm your daughter!"
Again Eliza fixed a musing look upon her. "I reckon if the truth was knownyour aunt Celia was nigher to being your mother than I ever was. Theyalways said you was all Wetherford, and I reckon they were right. I alwaysliked men better than babies. So long as I had your father, you didn'tcount--now that's the God's truth. And I didn't intend that you shouldever come back here. I urged you to stay--you know that."
Lee Virginia imagined all this to be a savage self-accusation which sprangfrom long self-bereavement, and yet there was something terrifying in itsbrutal frankness. She stood in silence till her mother left the room, thenwent to her own chamber with a painful knot in her throat. What could shedo with elemental savagery of this sort?
The knowledge that she must spend another night in the bed led her toactive measures of reform. With disgustful desperation, she emptied theroom and swept it as with fire and sword. Her change of mind, from thepassive to the active state, relieved and stimulated her, and she hurriedfrom one needed reform to another. She drew others into the vortex. Sheinspired the chambermaid to unwilling yet amazing effort, and thelodging-house endured such a blast from the besom that it stood inopen-windowed astonishment uttering dust like the breath of a dragon.Having swept and garnished the bed-chambers, Virginia moved on thedining-room. As the ranger had said, this, too, could be reformed.
Unheeding her mother's protests, she organized the giggling waiters into awarring party, and advanced upon the flies. By hissing and shooing, andthe flutter of newspapers, they drove the enemy before them, and acarpenter was called in to mend screen doors and windows, thus preventingtheir return. New shades were hung to darken the room, and newtable-cloths purchased to replace the old ones, and the kitchen had such acleaning as it had not known before in five years.
In this work the time passed swiftly, and when Redfield and Cavanagh cameagain to lunch they exclaimed in astonishment--as, indeed, every one did.
"How's this?" queried Cavanagh, humorously. "Has the place 'changedhands?'"
Lize was but grimly responsive. "Seem's like it has."
"I hope the price has not gone up?"
"Not yet."
Redfield asked: "Who's responsible for this--your new daughter?"
"You've hit it. She's started right in to polish us all up to citystandards."
"We need it," commented Cavanagh, in admiration of the girl's promptaction. "This room is almost civilized, still we'll sort o' miss theflies."
Lize apologized. "Well, you know a feller gits kind o' run down like aclock, and has to have some outsider wind him up now and again. First Iwas mad, then I was scared, but now I'm cheerin' the girl on. She can runthe whole blame outfit if she's a mind to--even if I go broke for it. Thework she got out o' them slatter-heels of girls is a God's wonder."
Ross looked round for Virginia, but could not find her. She had seen himcome in, and was out in the kitchen doing what she could to have his foodbrought in and properly served.
Redfield reassured the perturbed proprietor of "the joint." "No fear ofgoing broke, madam--quite the contrary. A few little touches like this,and you'll be obliged to tear down and build bigger. I don't believe I'dlike to see your daughter run this eating-house as a permanent job, but ifshe starts in I'm sure she'll make a success of it."
Lee Virginia came in flushed and self-conscious, but far lighter of spiritthan at breakfast; and stood beside the table while the waitress _laid_the dishes before her guests with elaborate assumption of grace anddesign. Hitherto she had bumped them down with a slash of slangy comment.The change was quite as wonderful as the absence of the flies.
"Do we owe these happy reforms to you?" asked Cavanagh, admiringVirginia's neat dress and glowing cheeks.
"Partly," she answered. "I was desperate. I had to do something, so I tookto ordering people around."
"I understand," he said. "Won't you sit at our table again?"
"Please do," said Redfield. "I want to talk with you."
She took a seat--a little hesitantly. "You see, I studied Domestic Scienceat school, and I've never had a chance to apply it before."
"Here's your opportunity," Redfield assured her. "My respect for thescience of domestics is growing--I marvel to think what another week willbring forth. I think I'll have to come down again just to observe theimprovement in the place."
"It can't last," Lize interjected. "She'll catch the Westernhabits--she'll sag, same as we all do."
"No she won't," declared Ross, with intent to encourage her. "If you giveher a free hand, I predict she'll make your place the wonder and boast ofthe county-side."
"When do you go back to the mountains?" Lee Virginia asked, a littlelater.
"Immediately after my luncheon," he replied.
She experienced a pang of regret, and could not help showing it a little."Your talk helped me," she said; "I've decided to stay, and be of use tomy mother."
Redfield overheard this, and turned toward her.
"This is a rough school for you, Lee Virginia, and I should dislike seeingyou settle down to it for life: but it can't hurt you if you are what Ithink you are. Nothing can soil or mar the mind that wills for good. Iwant Mrs. Redfield to know you; I'm sure her advice will be helpful. Ihope you'll come up and see us if you decide to settle in Sulphur--or ifyou don't."
"I should like to do so," she said, touched by the tone as well as by thewords of his invitation.
"Redfield's house is one of the few completely civilized homes in theState," put in Cavanagh. "When I get so weary of cuss-words and poachingand graft that I can't live without killing some one, I go down to ElkLodge and smoke and read the Supervisor's London and Paris weeklies andrecover my tone."
Redfield smiled. "When I get weak-kneed or careless in the service andfeel my self-respect slipping away, I go up to Ross's cabin and talk witha man who represents the impersonal, even-handed justice of the Federallaw."
Cavanagh laughed. "There! Having handed each other reciprocal bouqu
ets, wecan now tell Miss Wetherford the truth. Each of us thinks very well ofhimself, and we're both believers in the New West."
"What do you mean by the New West?" asked the girl.
"Well, the work you've been doing here this morning is a part of it,"answered Redfield. "It's a kind of housecleaning. The Old West waspicturesque and, in a way, manly and fine--certain phases of it wereheroic--and I hate to see it all pass, but some of us began to realizethat it was not all poetry. The plain truth is my companions for overtwenty years were lawless ruffians, and the cattle business as wepracticed it in those days was founded on selfishness and defended at themouth of the pistol. We were all pensioners on Uncle Sam, and fighting tokeep the other fellow off from having a share of his bounty. It was allwasteful, half-savage. We didn't want settlement, we didn't want law, wedidn't want a State. We wanted free range. We were a line of pirates frombeginning to end, and we're not wholly, reformed yet."
He was talking to the whole table now, for all were listening. No otherman on the range could say these things with the same authority, for HughRedfield was known all over the State as a man who had been one of thebest riders and ropers in his outfit--one who had started in as a commonhand at herding, and who had been entirely through "the war."
Lee Virginia listened with a stirring of the blood. Her recollections ofthe range were all of the heroic. She recalled the few times when she waspermitted to go on the round-up, and to witness the breaking of newhorses, and the swiftness, grace, and reckless bravery of the riders, themoan and surge of herds, the sweep of horsemen, came back and filled hermind with large and free and splendid pictures. And now it was passing--orpast!
Some one at the table accused Redfield of being more of a town-site boomerthan a cattle-man.
He was quite unmoved by this charge. "The town-site boomer at leastbelieves in progress. He does not go so far as to shut out settlement. Ifa neat and tidy village or a well-ordered farmstead is not consideredsuperior to a cattle-ranch littered with bones and tin cans, or betterthan even a cow-town whose main industry is whiskey-selling, then allcivilized progress is a delusion. When I was a youngster theseconsiderations didn't trouble me. I liked the cowboy life and the carelessmethod of the plains, but I've some girls growing up now, and I begin tosee the whole business in a new light. I don't care to have my childrenlive the life I've lived. Besides, what right have we to stand in the wayof a community's growth? Suppose the new life _is_ less picturesque thanthe old? We don't like to leave behind us the pleasures and sports ofboyhood; but we grow up, nevertheless. I'm far more loyal to the State asForest Supervisor than I was when I was riding with the cattle-men toscare up the nester."
He uttered all this quite calmly, but his ease of manner, his absolutedisregard of consequences, joined with his wealth and culture, gave hiswords great weight and power. No one was ready with an answer but Lize,who called out, with mocking accent: "Reddy, you're too good for theForest Service, you'd ought 'o be our next Governor."
This was a centre shot. Redfield flushed, and Cavanagh laughed. "Mr.Supervisor, you are discovered!"
Redfield recovered himself. "I should like to be Governor of this Statefor about four years, but I'm likelier to be lynched for being in commandof twenty 'Cossacks.'"
At this moment Sam Gregg entered the room, followed by a young man in anEnglish riding-suit. Seeing that "the star-boarder table" offered a coupleof seats, they pointed that way. Sam was plainly in war-like frame ofmind, and slammed his sombrero on its nail with the action of a manbeating an adversary.
"That is Sam Gregg and his son Joe--used to be ranch cattle-man, now oneof our biggest sheepmen," Cavanagh explained. "He's bucking the cattle-mennow."
Lee Virginia studied young Gregg with interest, for his dress was that ofa man to whom money came easy, and his face was handsome, though ratherfat and sullen. In truth, he had been brought into the room by his fatherto see "Lize Wetherford's girl," and his eyes at once sought and foundher. A look of surprise and pleasure at once lit his face.
Gregg was sullen because of his interview with Cavanagh, which had been inthe nature of a grapple; and in the light of what Redfield had said, LeeVirginia was able to perceive in these two men a struggle for supremacy.Gregg was the greedy West checked and restrained by the law.
Every man in the room knew that Gregg was a bitter opponent of the ForestService, and that he "had it in" for the ranger; and some of them knewthat he was throwing more sheep into the forest than his permits allowed,and that a clash with Redfield was sure to come. It was just like theburly old Irishman to go straight to the table where his adversary sat.
Virginia's eyes fell before the gaze of these two men, for they had noneof the shyness or nothing of the indirection of the ruder men she had met.They expressed something which angered her, though she could not have toldprecisely why.
Redfield did not soften his words on Gregg's account; on the contrary hemade them still more cutting and to the line.
"The mere fact that I live near the open range or a national forest doesnot give me any _rights_ in the range or forest," he was saying, as Greggtook his seat. "I enjoy the _privilege_ of these Government grazinggrounds, and I ought to be perfectly willing to pay the fee. These forestsare the property of the whole nation; they are public lands, and shouldyield a revenue to the whole nation. It is silly to expect the Governmentto go on enriching a few of us stockmen at the expense of others. I seethis, and I accept the change."
"After you've got rich at it," said Gregg.
"Well, haven't you?" retorted Redfield. "Are you so greedy that nothingwill stop you?"
Lize threw in a wise word. "The sporting-houses of Kansas City and Chicagokeep old Sam poor."
A roar of laughter followed this remark, and Gregg was stumped for amoment; but the son grinned appreciatively. "Now be good!"
Cavanagh turned to Virginia in haste to shield her from all that laybehind and beneath this sally of the older and deeply experienced woman."The Supervisor is willing to yield a point--he knows what the New Westwill bring."
Gregg growled out: "I'm not letting any of my rights slip."
The girl was troubled by the war-light which she saw in the faces of themen about her, and vague memories of the words and stories she hadoverchanced to hear in her childhood came back to her mind--hints of thedrunken orgies of the cowboys who went to the city with cattle, and theterrifying suggestion of their attitude toward all womankind. She setCavanagh and his chief quite apart from all the others in the room, and atfirst felt that in young Gregg was another man of education and rightliving--but in this she was misled.
Lize had confidence enough in the ranger to throw in another maliciousword. "Ross, old Bullfrog came down here to chase you up a tree--so hesaid. Did he do it?"
Gregg looked ugly. "I'm not done with this business."
She turned to Ross. "Don't let him scare you--his beller is a whole lotworse than his bite."
This provoked another laugh, and Gregg was furious--all the more so thathis son joined in. "I'll have your head, Mr. Supervisor; I'll carry myfight to the Secretary."
"Very well," returned Redfield, "carry it to the President if you wish. Isimply repeat that your sheep must correspond to your permit, and if youdon't send up and remove the extra number I will do it myself. I don'tmake the rules of the department. My job is to carry them out."
By this time every person in the room was tense with interest. They allknew Gregg and his imperious methods. He was famous for saying once (whenin his cup): "I always thought sheepmen were blankety blank sons of guns,and now I'm one of 'em I _know_ they are." Some of the cattle-men in theroom had suffered from his greed, and while they were not partisans of theSupervisor they were glad to see him face his opponent fearlessly.
Lize delivered a parting blow. "Bullfrog, you and me are old-timers. We'reon the losing side. We belong to the 'good old days' when the Fork was 'aman's town,' and to be 'shot up' once a week kept us in news. But themtimes are past. You can't run th
e range that way any more. Why, man,you'll have to buy and fence your own pasture in a few years more, or elsepay rent same as I do. You stockmen kick like steers over paying a few oldcents a head for five months' range; you'll be mighty glad to pay a dollarone o' these days. Take your medicine--that's my advice." And she wentback to her cash-drawer.
Redfield's voice was cuttingly contemptuous as he said quite calmly:"You're all kinds of asses, you sheepmen. You ought to pay the fee foryour cattle with secret joy. So long as you can get your stock pastured(and in effect guarded) by the Government from June to November for twentycents, or even fifty cents, per head you're in luck. Mrs. Wetherford isright: we've all been educated in a bad school. Uncle Sam has been toobloomin' lazy to keep any supervision over his public lands. He'spermitted us grass pirates to fight and lynch and burn one another on thehigh range (to which neither of us had any right), holding back the realuser of the land--the farmer. We've played the part of selfish and greedygluttons so long that we fancy our privileges have turned into rights.Having grown rich on free range, you're now fighting the Forest Servicebecause it is disposed to make you pay for what has been a gratuity. I'm ahog, Gregg, but I'm not a fool. I see the course of empire, and I'mgetting into line."
Gregg was silenced, but not convinced. "It's a long lane that has noturn," he growled.
Redfield resumed, in impersonal heat. "The cow-man was conceived inanarchy and educated in murder. Whatever romantic notions I may have hadof the plains twenty-five years ago, they are lost to me now. Thefree-range stock-owner has no country and no God; nothing but a range thatisn't his, and damned bad manners--begging pardon, Miss Wetherford. Thesooner he dies the better for the State. He's a dirty, wasteful sloven,content to eat canned beans and drink canned milk in his rotten badcoffee; and nobody but an old crank like myself has the grace to stand upand tell the truth about him."
Cavanagh smiled. "And you wouldn't, if you weren't a man of independentmeans, and known to be one of the most experienced cow-punchers in thecounty. I've no fight with men like Gregg; all is they've got to conformto the rules of the service."
Gregg burst out: "You think you're the whole United States army! Who givesyou all the authority?"
"Congress and the President."
"There's nothing in that bill to warrant these petty tyrannies of yours."
"What you call tyrannies I call defending the public domain," repliedRedfield. "If I had my way, I'd give my rangers the power of the Canadianmounted police. Is there any other State in this nation where the ropingof sheep-herders and the wholesale butchery of sheep would be permitted?From the very first the public lands of this State have been a refuge forthe criminal--a lawless no-man's land; but now, thanks to Roosevelt andthe Chief Forester, we at least have a force of men on the spot to seethat some semblance of law and order is maintained. You fellows mayprotest and run to Washington, and you may send your paid representativesthere, but you're sure to lose. As free-range monopolists you arecumberers of the earth, and all you represent must pass, before this Statecan be anything but the byword it now is. I didn't feel this so keenly tenyears ago, but with a bunch of children growing up my vision has grownclearer. The picturesque West must give way to the civilized West, and thewar of sheepmen and cattle-men must stop."
The whole dining-room was still as he finished, and Lee Virginia, with agirl's vague comprehension of the man's world, apprehended in Redfield'sspeech a large and daring purpose.
Gregg sneered. "Perhaps you intend to run for Congress on that line oftalk."
Redfield's voice was placid. "At any rate, I intend to represent thepolicy that will change this State from the sparsely settled battle-groundof a lot of mounted hobos to a State with an honorable place among theother commonwealths. If this be treason, make the most of it."
Cavanagh was disturbed; for while he felt the truth of his chief's words,he was in doubt as to the policy of uttering them.
It was evident to Virginia that the cow-men, as well as Gregg, were nearlyall against the prophet of the future, and she was filled with a sense ofhaving arrived on the scene just as the curtain to a stern and purposefuldrama was being raised. With her recollections of the savage days of old,it seemed as if Redfield, by his bold words, had placed his life indanger.
Cavanagh rose. "I must be going," he said, with a smile.
Again the pang of loss touched her heart. "When will you come again?" sheasked, in a low voice.
"It is hard to say. A ranger's place is in the forest. I am very seldom intown. Just now the danger of fires is great, and I am very uneasy. I maynot be down again for a month."
The table was empty now, and they were standing in comparative isolationlooking into each other's eyes in silence. At last she murmured: "You'vehelped me. I'm going to stay--a little while, anyway, and do what Ican--"
"I'm sorry I can't be of actual service, but I am a soldier with a work todo. Even if I were here, I could not help you as regards thetownspeople--they all hate me quite cordially; but Redfield, andespecially Mrs. Redfield, can be of greater aid and comfort. He's quiteoften here, and when you are lonely and discouraged let him take you up toElk Lodge."
"I've been working all the morning to make this room decent. It was ratherfun. Don't you think it helped?"
"I saw the mark of your hand the moment I entered the door," he earnestlyreplied. "I'm not one that laughs at the small field of woman's work. Ifyou make this little hotel clean and homelike, you'll be doing a veryconsiderable work in bringing about the New West which the Supervisor isspouting about." He extended his hand, and as she took it he thrilled tothe soft strength of it. "Till next time," he said, "good luck!"
She watched him go with a feeling of pain--as if in his going she werelosing her best friend and most valiant protector.
Cavanagh, Forest Ranger: A Romance of the Mountain West Page 4