by Zane Grey
“Nonsense!” exclaimed Lucinda, aghast. “Who’d ever want to get rid of such a lovely child?”
“Human nature has a queer look sometimes,” replied Logan, grimly. “Probably I’m wrong. But that’s what the tracks say to-night. I’ll try again to-morrow in the daylight...You put her to bed with the boys?”
“Right next to them. See.” Lucinda lifted the lamp and carried it over to disperse the gloom of the cabin corner. Four curly heads all in a row! Abe’s dark and striking, against the fair hair and pale face of little Barbara. They scarcely took up four feet of the cabin. But what a precious treasure! They were for her the difference between happiness and misery, between death and life; for Logan they meant the balance separating achievement and frustration, between something to work for and endless vain oblation. No man could realize failure looking upon such children.
“I wonder!” he ejaculated, his eyes bright. “We wanted a girl. There she is...Luce, all we’ve gone through is nothing.”
“Not quite, for me, darling. But they are wonderful recompense...Isn’t the little girl lovely?...Oh, if we could keep her! But we are silly, Logan. You’ll find her mother to-morrow, I hope and pray.”
Logan saddled his horse at dawn and did not return until night. Not only had he worked out the problem of the little footprints even more plausibly than on the evening before, but he had followed the wheel tracks clear down over the Rim to Payson. Two wagons lad passed through Payson in the dead of night — an unprecedented occurrence, according to Logan’s informants. It was this news which caused Logan to keep silent as to his motive. Let him who owned the child return and trail her as he had!
However, Lucinda took exception to this, and they had their first argument, almost approaching a quarrel.
“Luce, you’re thinking of her mother,” declared Logan, with finality. “I say she hasn’t got any mother. She hasn’t had one for so long she can’t remember. Well, let’s accept gratefully what God puts in our way.”
“Logan, I thought that to-night, when the child went to sleep on my lap...Poor little dear! — I just can’t get over it, nor the conviction that someone will come after her. But if no one does...we shall keep her.”
No one came. In a few days Barbara was a happy, provocative little sister to the boys. The summer passed. Logan put the boys to work with him and Lucinda at the harvest of beans and potatoes, of which he had a large yield. It was all Grant could do to carry some of the largest potatoes. The boys, except Abe, treated the work as play. Abe was willing and obedient, but his heart was not in such pastimes. He watched the birds, the hawks, the crows, the chipmunks; and Lucinda noted more strongly than ever Abe’s leaning towards the woods and wild creatures. Barbara had her share in the general work, of her own free will.
When fall arrived, George and Abe had their first hunt in the woods with their father. That night George was much excited, proudly showing where the gun had kicked a black-and-blue spot on his arm and gleefully exclaiming how it had knocked him flat. Abe was quiet, but his great eyes were luminous and haunted. He could not sleep that night.
“Might as well start them early,” said Logan through () Lucinda’s complaint. “You know this’ll be our life here till these boys are grown men. Lucinda, I want them to be hunters, woodsmen like their father. They’ll make all the better cowboys. We’ve got to live off the land and fight, Luce, fight!...You teach them to read and write — to be fine — to love and obey their parents — to respect women — to believe in God. Leave the rest to me!”
Lucinda surely felt she could trust him with that. When the snow came again, and the homestead was shut in for another half year, Lucinda began her teaching of the two eldest boys. George was quick, intelligent; Abe slow to take up anything mental. But he was sweet, patient, plodding, and he would do anything for his mother. Grant and Barbara played the long winter away on the floor of the cabin.
“But the groundhog saw his shadow and we’ll have six more weeks of winter,” remarked Logan pessimistically, late in the season.
“Logan, that old folk adage may do for Missouri or back East, where they have groundhogs,” replied Lucinda. “But we’ve got gophers, skunks, and a lot of other varmints that have holes. I can show them to you. We’re not through with winter.”
Convinced of this aphorism, the homesteader kept his young stock in the corrals, feeding them the fodder he had saved from earlier months. Then one night in early March, true to his prediction, the storm-king roared down through the forest. When dawn came a blinding blizzard was raging. It snowed all that day and the next night, then cleared off to zero weather, freezing a crust over the deep snow. Logan had to shovel paths to the cowsheds and corrals.
“Heard wolves baying last night,” announced Logan, noncommittally, when he came stamping in, white-booted, to pull off his woollen mitts and spread his hands to the hot fire. “Bet they’ve been on the rampage with my cattle. Soon as I eat a bite I’ll go see.”
“Paw, you gonna take your gun?” asked George, eagerly. “‘Cause if you are I wanta go.”
“Course, you ninny!” ejaculated Abe scornfully. “Paw, you take me. I’ll track them.”
“Not this time, my brave buckaroos. Snow’s over your heads,” replied Huett.
“But it’s froze. It’d hold me up,” added Abe.
“Luce, don’t worry if I’m not back soon. Slow job. But I reckon I’ll find easy going under the wall.”
The short, belated winter day soon passed. A cold white moon followed the sunset. Several times Lucinda looked out to see if Logan was coming — the stock had to be fed and the cows milked. Finally she bundled George and Abe in their warm woollens, to their great glee, and quitted the cabin with them, jangling the buckets. She had to drive Grant and Barbara back and scold them for leaving the door open.
The cold moon had just tipped the black-fringed wall to flood the canyon with silver light. Weird shadows gloomed under the cliffs. Never had the solitude and isolation of Sycamore Canyon seemed more encompassing and terrible. The black pines sheered up to the cold, blinking, pitiless stars; a moan breathed through their branches. The air held a bitter, ripping tang.
“Boys, you carry fodder while I milk,” said Lucinda, taking the buckets.
“Listen, Maw,” spoke up Abe, tensely.
“What do you hear, Abe?” she asked, quickly, suddenly fearful.
“Sounds like Mr. Holbert’s hounds bellarin’. Paw says thet’s the way wolves howl,” replied the lad, his wondering eyes shining as he pointed down the moon-blanched canyon. “They’re way down.”
“Heavens, I hope your father is safe,” exclaimed Lucinda, anxiously turning her face in order to listen.
“Aw, he’s safe, you bet. Paw can lick all the lofers in Arizona.”
“Abe — I hear them!” cried Lucinda, with a cold chill knifing her. The sounds were indeed like the baying of hounds, but deeper, wilder, more prolonged and blood-curdling. Then they ceased, to her immense relief. She admonished the boys to hurry with the fodder and she hastened to her task of milking. She tried desperately not to listen while she milked, attempted also to entertain Abe’s opinion of his father’s prowess. When she had filled one bucket and had begun the other, Abe, white-faced, came running into the shed.
“Maw, come! Them wolves — all around!” he shrieked fearfully, tugging at her.
“Oh, my God — no I Abe, you’re...” She was stricken mute by the sound of a rush of swiftly pattering feet outside the shed. Leaping to her feet, she seized a pitchfork and, with one hand grasping Abe, ran for the corral. The calves and heifers began to bawl and thud about against the fence. She heard George screeching with terror. At that instant, she became a lioness.
“Where are you?” she screamed wildly.
“George’s up there,” yelled Abe.
Lucinda saw the boy then, straddling the high pole fence, his chubby face grey with horror. She reached the open gate a moment before the rush of soft-thudding feet rounded the corral. Abe
darted inside, Lucinda after him. Frantically she shoved the gate. It swung — scraped in the snow — caught, leaving an aperture a foot wide. At that instant grey, furry beasts padded up, swiftly scattering the snow. They resembled dirty white dogs, bounding, leaping, like silent ghosts.
“Shut it, Abe!...Shove!”
A gaunt beast with green-fire eyes leaped at the opening, breaking half-way through before Lucinda thrust the pitchfork into him. With a vicious snarl and a grind of teeth on the implement he fell backwards. The shock of his onslaught almost upset Lucinda, but she righted and braced herself when another beast leaped. She gave this one a powerful stab which caused him to let out a mad howl. But Abe was not strong enough to close the gate. Lucinda, leaned her shoulder against it, still holding the pitchfork low, and shoved with all her might. The gate jarred shut except for the handle of the pitchfork. Then a bigger brute, furry grey with a black collar, leaped up, snapping at George. The boy screamed and fell off into the corral. At that moment Lucinda withdrew her weapon and barred the gate.
On the instant, as she sagged there, she panted audibly: “Thank God — Logan built — this fence!”
Grey forms sped to and fro, bounding with incredible agility, circled the corral, but farther away, and presently thronged into a pack to run up the canyon.
“Maw, they’re gone,” cried Abe. “You sure stuck a couple of ‘em.”
“Oh! — are you — sure?” gasped Lucinda, ready to collapse if the peril was over.
Abe peeped between the poles. “Maw! — they’re across the brook!...Runnin’ round the cabin.” The lad must have had eyes as sharp as the wolves’. “Shore Grant left the door open!”
“Oh, my God!...Grant! Barbara!” screamed Lucinda, dragging the gate open.
“Wait, Maw — they’re runnin’ by — up the hill...up that break where Paw slides down our wood.”
“George, are you hurt?” queried Lucinda, relaxing for an instant, as the other boy came to her.
“I dunno. I felt his teeth — on my foot.”
“Listen, Maw,” called Abe, shrilly.
From the black-and-silver ridge floated down the wild, mournful bay of a hungry wolf. It was answered by a deeper one, prolonged, haunting — a weird beast-sound that fitted the wilderness canyon.
“They might come back,” said Lucinda, fearfully. “Boys, let’s run for the cabin. Hurry!”
They dashed ahead of her, without looking back. Thought of Grant and Barbara lent wings to Lucinda’s feet. She ran as never before. To her horror the cabin door stood wide open; the bright fire blazed in the fireplace. Lucinda staggered transfixed in the doorway with Abe and George clinging to her skirt. Playthings were scattered before the hearth. A chair lay overturned. Dirty wet tracks on the floor! With awful suspension of heart, Lucinda’s terrible glance swept the cabin. Empty! Those grey demons had carried the children away!
“Hey, Maw,” piped up Grant’s treble voice, from the loft, “Barb’ra an’ me run back an’ clumb up here!”
CHAPTER NINE
ONE WARM, SUNNY day afterwards, when the snow was melting swiftly, Logan was nailing the grey wolf hide up on the wall of the cabin.
George was not interested. He had had enough of wolves. But Abe stood by with shining eyes.
“Paw, where’d you hit him?” asked the lad, sticking his finger in a hole in the raw skin.
“Not there, son. That’s where your mother stuck him with the pitchfork. Here’s where I hit him, Abe.”
“Plumb centre,” marvelled Abe. He never forgot any words his father used pertaining to guns, animals, and the forest.
“Sure, son. But it wasn’t a running shot, and your mother had crippled him. So I don’t deserve a lot of credit...Now we’ll rub some salt on...Luce, fetch me a cup full of salt.”
Lucinda came out, followed by the younger children. “Wife, you broke my only pitchfork on this hombre,” complained Logan.
“Did I?” shuddered Lucinda. She had only begun to recover from the devastating horror of the wolves’ attack.
“Look ahere, Paw,” spoke up Abe, who always took his mother’s side. “Maw kept two of ’em from gettin’ in the corral. They’d et all your calves.”
“I reckon, son. And chewed you up besides. That bunch was starved all right...Luce, this hide, will make a fine rug. We’ll have to get use out of it. Old Gray cost us dearly. He and his pack cleaned out our herd, except the bull, and our young stock in the corrals.”
“Oh, Logan! That is a terrible misfortune. I’m afraid we can never start a herd in this wild canyon.”
“Yes, we can — and we will,” he replied grimly, then...”Youngsters, I’m sorry to say Coyote went off with the pack.”
They were grieved and amazed. Abe said: “What’d she do thet for, Paw?”
“Well, she’s half-wolf anyway. I always distrusted her, but I took her with me three mornings before daylight. I hid in the pines and watched. About daylight this morning I heard them. They’d killed something. They came out of a side canyon — must have got Coyote’s scent Anyway, they stopped to nose around...Then’s when I shot old Gray. I crippled another before the rest got out of sight. There were only six left. I reckon we’ve seen the last of them...Coyote double-crossed you, youngsters. She ran out to where old Gray lay, and then she went kind of wild, and let out the queerest yelps. She trailed the pack, looked back at me. I yelled. But she went on...And that’s the end of your pet.”
Barbara wept. Abe tried to console her by averring he would catch her another pet.
“It’s too bad,” said Lucinda, with a sigh. “I always felt easier when Coyote was with the children.”
“Things happen. We’ve got to make the best of it,” said Logan imperturbably. “I’ll get another dog...and some more cattle.”
“Where and how, Logan?” asked Lucinda.
“Ha! — We’ll see.”
In a few more days the snow was gone. The brook again ran bank full, and Logan was forced to fell another tree to make a higher bridge. Spring was at hand, with its manifold tasks.’ The wild turkeys began to gobble from the ridges. Logan took Abe, and with his rifle climbed the slope. When they returned, Abe packed a turkey larger than himself, holding its feet over his shoulder and dragging it behind, head and wings on the ground. Barbara had an eye for the beautiful bronze-and-black feathers. Grant remembered turkey from the preceding fall, and whooped: “Maw, can I have the drum-stick?”
Another day Logan trudged down the hill with a little bear cub under each arm. Then there was pandemonium in Sycamore Canyon. The children went wild with delight.
“Doggone!” ejaculated Logan. “I didn’t know they loved pets so well. That’s one thing I can get them.”
“Such dear little black shiny things! Not at all afraid!” exclaimed Lucinda. “They can’t be very old.”
“I should smile not. You’ll have to feed them with a bottle.”
“And their mother?” asked Lucinda, with a ghost of that old shock which would not wholly vanish.
“She’s up on the hill. I’ll go back up there, skin out some meat, and pack it down. Hide’s not so good.”
Not long after that Lucinda at her work heard the children talking about their kittens. At first she thought Barbara and Grant meant the little bears. But she soon ascertained that they did not. When Logan came in from the fields she told him. It was noonday, and the two youngsters were not in sight...
“Little imps! They’re up to something...Abe, what about these kittens? Your mother heard Grant and Barbara talking.”
“I know, Paw. But I’m not gonna tell,” replied Abe.
“Well! I’ll be damned,” ejaculated the nonplussed father. Whereupon he set off up the canyon in search of the two youngsters.
Lucinda observed that Abe watched with great interest, and this stimulated her own. “They’re comin’, Maw,” he said, intensely. “An’ Paw’s got ‘em.”
It developed that Abe did not mean Barbara and Grant. They came ahead, ru
nning, babbling, too excited to be coherent. Logan followed carrying two furry tan-coloured little cats.
“For heaven’s sake, what now?” ejaculated Lucinda mildly.
“Cougar kittens, Luce! — The-kids are making friends with my bitterest enemies,” replied Logan, in grim humour. “Barbara said Abe found them in a cave. He took her and Grant up there. They’ve been playing with these kittens every day. While the old cougar mother sat up on the ledge above and watched them. I saw her tracks.”
“Why, Logan! I think that’s wonderful. She wouldn’t harm our children because they didn’t harm hers.”
“Yeah. It’s wonderful how quick they’ll grow up and eat my calves. I’ll have to kill their maw. But we’ll keep the kittens for a while...Never heard of cougar pets.”
He built a pen for the little cats. These pets, added to bear cubs, interfered with work and lessons, but Lucinda had not the heart to refuse the children. What else had they to play with? A few primitive bits of stone, some pine cones, and queer knots.
Logan must have reacted in the same way, to Barbara’s and Grant’s rapture, for from that day onwards he kept bringing home pets from the woods. Lucinda suspected that he went purposely to hunt for wild creatures, taking Abe with him. Before hot weather set in two baby chipmunks, a black squirrel, a white-spotted fawn, and a blinking little grey owl had been added to the menagerie.
Having but little stock to tend, Logan put most of his labours into the fields, cultivating more land. This season he tried alfalfa. It seemed to Lucinda that her husband worked harder than ever, if such a thing was possible, but without the old cheer and all-satisfying hope for the future. Without cattle his precious ambition languished. He deferred the trip to town until fall. Holbert drove back with him, and it took little perspicuity for Lucinda to see that the rancher was interested in Sycamore Canyon. He appeared friendly as usual, but he bluntly told Huett that in the spring he would require the amount of money he held as a mortgage or he would be compelled to take over the property.