30,000 On the Hoof

by Grey, Zane

  Lucinda saw a thick snake, black and yellow, scaly and ugly, glide under the cabin. "That's all right," she said to the perturbed Logan. "I'm not afraid of snakes."

  "Well, don't go kicking one of those boys in the grass... Here's a trail."

  They discovered the clear, bubbling spring of cold water, which made the difference, Logan stated, between a good and a poor camp. On the way back Lucinda, peeping into the log-cabin, became virtually obsessed by wonder and dread. The littered earthen floor, the blackened fireplace, the rude shelves and the bedstead of poles, told a story that saddened and shocked her. What had happened there? How little Eastern people realized the crude living of those who set their faces West! Lucinda did not want Logan to find out how strongly she felt. She asked him if he had seen the beautiful black-horned animal leading the white and tan ones across the open.

  "Sure did. Golly, I wanted my rifle. That was a black antelope, king of that herd. Holbert has seen him for years."

  "Logan, you wouldn't kill him, would you?" she asked, gazing at him in horror.

  "Reckon I would. Wild animals sort of excite me. I like to hunt. I'll bet we make the acquaintance of Gray, that black-ruffed lofer."

  "I hope not, if you must murder everything," returned Lucinda sharply.

  Logan stared at her, then stamped away with a puzzled frown on his face.

  Lucinda remembered how she used to fight her brothers and their comrades for chasing chipmunks along the rail-fences. How they would yell and run, wild as any young savages! But she must conquer her disgust at Logan's passion to kill, she knew, regardless of her own feeling in the matter.

  Supper was soon over and the chores finished. The lonely night clamped down upon the forest. Lucinda was glad to crawl into her wagon-bed and stretch out--glad that weariness inhibited thought. Her slumbers were punctuated by dreams of an enormous bull and a huge snake. Logan routed her out in the grey of dawn. Before sunrise the wagon was packed and the oxen ready for Lucinda.

  "I'll follow, same as yesterday," said Logan, imperturbably, as she climbed up to the seat. "I'm not sure about all the road. But it's most as good as that we've come over. There's a long downhill stretch through the woods. When you hit that you'll be getting near home. But I'll be on your heels before we get there. Good luck."

  "Let me try to start them," said Lucinda, after she had helped Coyote up.

  She uncoiled the long whip and tried to crack it. She did make a noise, but that was the end of the leather thong lashing her back.

  "Gadep!" she shouted, at the top of her lungs. The oxen obeyed at once, to her surprise, and relief, and the wagon' was on its way.

  "Turn left," called Logan. He waved his hat.

  "Haw!... Haw!" yelled Lucinda. They wagged to the left and straightened out on the road, headed south.

  "Say," shouted Logan, gleefully, "let me drive the oxen and you drive that bull!"

  "I should say not!" retorted Lucinda, refusing to allow her husband's flattery to inflate her egotism. Something was bound to happen--she just knew it.

  The morning was warm, compared with the others before it. There was no frost. When she drove into the forest she had an agreeable surprise. Jays were screeching, squirrels were chattering, grey deer with white tails up bounded away from the road. Presently Lucinda came upon a flock of wild turkeys, scratching in the grass under the pine saplings. Those near the road ran with a "Put-put, put-put-put." But most of them let the wagon go by without taking flight. The sight greatly pleased Lucinda.

  As the day progressed, the heat poured down from the sun and rose like transparent veils of smoke from the ground. Lucinda grew unbearably hot and wet. Then she ran into the stretch of dust that Logan had mentioned.

  It appeared to be half a foot deep on the road, and every step of the oxen sent up great yellow puffs, thick and dry, that rolled back upon Lucinda. Her clothes became as yellow as the roadside; the dust ran off her sombrero; her gloves filled; she gasped and choked and nearly suffocated. "Whoa!" she finally yelled in desperation to her oxen. They stopped, as if glad of a respite. The dust-pall rolled back, so that Lucinda could breathe. Her nostrils were clogged. She could smell no longer. Then she remembered the silk scarf which Logan had advised for this very emergency. She tied the ends around her neck and drew the wide fold up over her nose. This was stifling, yet not so unendurable as the dust. At her call the oxen lurched on, and again she was enveloped. Then followed an almost insupportable period, the length of which could only be computed by slow, hateful miles. The tears that Lucinda shed saved her from being blinded.

  Presently the oxen floundered into the dust that was so suffocating that they halted of their own accord. Lucinda coughed and choked miserably.

  Would this horrible day never end? She felt that she could not bear it longer. The afternoon must be waning, and when the air cleared somewhat, she looked around for the position of the sun. It was low in the sky and shone dark red through the pall. Their destination could not be far off now, but, despite her misery, she hoped that Logan's Canyon was not located in this terrible country. Where was Logan? Suddenly a distant yell quickened Lucinda's pulse. She looked back. Dust-clouds far behind!

  "Gadep!" she called. But the oxen did not budge. She called louder. Then she yelled. But the gentle, long-suffering beasts of burden had rebelled at last. Lucinda did not blame them. She looked back. That terrible bull was coming at a gallop. Swift terror shook Lucinda. Suppose he ran into us, she thought wildly. She yelled hoarsely and cracked the whip, but the drooping oxen never swung an inch under the wooden yoke.

  A bawl and pound of hoofs behind elicited sharp barks from the dog.

  Coyote leaped to the ground and dashed back. Lucinda thanked her stars that she was high up on the wagon seat. The bull, his hide as yellow as the road, dashed about the wagon, his huge head lowered at the snapping dog. He lunged this way and that. Coyote nipped him on the nose. Then with a bellow he charged and in blind fury or by accident ran into the oxen with a terrific crash. The shock nearly upset the wagon. Lucinda screamed. The bull sprawled as the oxen, leaping ahead, struck him with the yoke. Down the road the oxen galloped madly, Lucinda holding on to the seat, terrified. They were running off, going faster every moment.

  The wagon rolled and swayed, but careened along fast enough to keep ahead of the great stream of dust which rolled from under the oxen's ponderous hoofs.

  Lucinda realized she must leap for her life. Sooner or later the oxen would run off the road into a log or a ditch; but every time she essayed to get a hold and a footing which would enable her to spring clear a bump would throw her back. The yellow road flashed under her; the trees blurred; the ground appeared like moving sheets of grey. A heavy, clattering thud of hoofs mingled with the rolling, creaking roar of the wagon. Alas for her trunks and Logan's treasured possessions!

  The oxen sheered off the road towards brush and trees. They were slowing down of their own accord, or the soft going retarded them. Lucinda made up her mind to leap into the brush. She stood up, leaning out, holding desperately to the canvas-covered hoop. But before she could jump, the oxen plunged into a wash, the wheels hit a bank with a tremendous shock, and Lucinda shot as if from a catapult far out into the brush. Thick branches broke her fall. Still, she landed on the ground hard enough to make her see a shower of sparks.

  She struggled to her feet, dizzy, scratched, torn, but sound in limb. A few rods beyond, the wagon stood upright, with the heaving oxen halted by the brush. The extra horse that had been haltered was missing. Lucinda staggered out to a log at the edge, and there she sank down, panting, scarcely able to believe her good fortune, suddenly freed of mingled terror and anger.

  Then she saw that Coyote had stopped the bull a short distance up the valley. Logan appeared beyond, urging on the spent, straggling bunch of cattle. He chased the bull in among them, and, riding from one side to the other, shunted them off the road on Lucinda's side, passed her with a wild shout, and drove them into the woods. Because of
that move, Lucinda knew gratefully they had not far to go.

  She rested, endeavouring to remove some of the travel-stains and the blood on her wrists where the brush had scratched her. Coyote sought Lucinda out and sank to the ground, her red tongue protruding and her heavy coat yellow with dust. Presently Lucinda espied the horse that had been tethered behind the wagon. She secured it and led it back to the oxen. Oppression from her exertion and fright weighed heavily upon her.

  At length Logan rode back to her; black as a coal-heaver; yet nothing could have hidden his triumphant air, his grim mastery, his gay possession of success.

  "Done!" he cried, ringingly. "Not a hoof lost! But oh, what a hell of a drive!... What happened to you, Luce?"

  "Oh, nothing--much," she answered, calling upon a sense of humour that eluded her.

  "But you look queer. And the wagon there--in the brush! But say, Luce, your face--it's all scratched."

  "That awful bull! He butted into the oxen. They ran off. Down here they turned off the road, hit a bank and pitched me into the brush."

  Logan leaped off to approach her with earnest solicitude. "You poor kid!

  I was afraid something had happened. I shouldn't have left you so far ahead. But are you hurt, dear?"

  "No. Only a scratch or two."

  "Thank God for that!" He shook his head in wonderment. "I can't get over how my luck holds." He ran to the wagon, then examined wheels and tongue and the oxen. Evidently no damage had been done, for he mounted the seat and with yells drove the oxen out of the brush.

  "All right. Come on, honey. Get up while I tie the horses behind... It won't be long now, Luce! Sycamore Canyon! My range! Our home!"

  Lucinda had lost her hopes and what little curiosity she might have had.

  Logan drove into the woods, along what appeared to have once been a road.

  Oxen and wagon jarred heavily over saplings. After about a mile or less Lucinda saw a light space through the woods. The green failed, and far beyond and above appeared again, only dimmer. There was an opening and a valley--a canyon, Logan had said--just ahead. On the left side of the road a rocky ledge rose. Logan drove through a gap between the ledge and a brushy bank, halted and dismounted to carry poles and small logs with which to improvise a gate closing the opening. How energetic he was and tireless! There seemed a growing passion within him. Lastly he hauled a log that two men might well have found burdensome, which he placed across the gap.

  "Luce girl," he said, intensely, as he mounted beside her. "Our stock is down in the canyon. Fenced in, all save a few holes in the rock rim they'll never find before I close them. Aha!... I'll show you pronto." A great weight seemed lifted from his shoulders.

  Lucinda could not look just yet. She watched Logan jump off the wagon, untie the horses at the back and drive them past the wagon, down what appeared a narrow, overgrown road. She saw him take an axe and chop down a small pine as thick at the base as his thigh. The whole bushy tree, by prodigious effort, he dragged behind the wagon and secured with a chain.

  "What's that for?" she asked him as he returned.

  "Just a drag to hold us back. Pretty steep. Hold on now and look. You'll see the greatest valley in all the West!"

  In spite of herself, Lucinda was compelled to gaze. A long, winding, apparently bottomless gorge yawned beneath them. As the wagon lurched down the grade, this thing Logan called a canyon gradually became visible. It struck Lucinda with appalling force: a grey, granite-walled abyss widening to the south, yawning up at her as if to swallow her. It appeared narrow just below, but it was not narrow. As all this deceitful West, it was not what it appeared. A ribbon of water and waste of white sand wound through the centre of it, to disappear round a bend; beyond, the canyon widened out into a great basin enclosed by yellow slopes and pine-fringed rims.

  Lucinda had to hold on tightly to keep from being thrown off the seat. As the wagon rolled deeper into the declivity, brush on one side and bluff on the other obscured Lucinda's view. The grade steepened. Screeching brakes and crunching wheels increased their clamour. Despite the oxen holding back and the drag of the pine tree behind, the wagon rolled and bumped too fast for safety. Lucinda held on to her seat, although she wondered bitterly why she clung to it so dearly. Then suddenly the pine tree behind broke or pulled loose; the wagon rolled down upon the oxen, forcing them into a dead run, and swaying dangerously one side to the other. Barely in time for safety it rattled out upon the level open of the canyon floor and came to a jarring stop. Manifestly unable to control his elation, Logan drove across a flat of seared, bleached grass, across a shallow brook and bar of sand, up a considerable grade to a flat where big pines stood far apart and a white-barked tree shone among them.

  "Whoa!" he yelled, in stentorian voice of finality, that echoed from the black, looming slope above. He threw away his whip and, giving Lucinda a grimy, sweat-laden embrace, leaped to the ground, and held out his arms to help her down.

  "Sycamore Canyon, sweetheart!" he said, with husky emotion. "Here's where we homestead."

  But Lucinda did not move nor respond on the moment. She gazed about spellbound, aghast. The drab, silent rocks, the lonely pines, shouted doom at her. The brook babbled in mockery. There was no view, no outlook except down the grey, monotonous canyon, with its terrible, forbidding walls. Savage wilderness encompassed her on all sides. Solitude reigned there. No sound, no brightness, no life! She would be shut in always. A pioneer wife chained irrevocably to her toil and her cabin! A low, strange murmuring--the mysterious voice of the wild--breathed out of the forest. The wind in the pines! It seemed foreboding, inevitable, awful, whispering death to girlish hopes and dreams.

  Chapter FOUR.

  Huett, seldom prey to strong feeling, expected Lucinda to share his joy at their safe arrival in the canyon which they were to homestead, but he was somewhat taken back by his wife's pale face and the strange gaze that seemed to see beyond the pines. When she had no word to say, he divined that his vague fear of her reaction to Sycamore Canyon had been justified. But, he reflected, women were queer, and beyond men's understanding. What difference did it really make where they began to live their lives together? The essential thing was that they were together, mated, facing the great project. He stifled his disappointment.

  "Come down and let's rustle," he said, and helped her out of the wagon, aware that she was heavy on her feet. "Rest a bit. Or better walk about.

  I'll throw supper together in a jiffy."

  As she walked slowly away, not looking, Logan felt sorry for her. But what had he done that was amiss? This was the finest place he had ever seen. He threw off his coat and filled all the water-pails. What a wonderful spring--cold as ice, straight from granite rock, soft as silk, and even now, late in the fall, flowing a hundred gallons a minute! That spring was priceless. As Logan carried the pails, he gazed about for firewood. Up the canyon on the slope stood an aspen grove, burning vivid gold in the sunset. There would be dead aspen wood there--a wood next best to dead oak for a corking fire. He fared forth with an axe and dragged down some long poles. He noted with pleasure that beaver had been cutting the live aspens, and he wondered where their dam was. He built a fire with pine, and split the aspen to burn afterwards. Lucinda had not come back.

  While Logan was rushing the supper, Lucinda returned, carrying a handful of flowers.

  "Purple asters!" she exclaimed, her pale features animated for the first time. "My favourite flowers! These are wild--so much larger and lovelier than cultivated ones."

  "Lots of wild flowers in these woods," he replied. "I like best that yellow one, like a bell in shape, that nods at you in the creek bottoms."

  "I saw golden rod along the road. That's something," she said thoughtfully. She helped him get supper, ate without appetite, and wiped the utensils after he washed them.

  Logan felt full of thoughts and feelings. He was not given to voluble expression, but if she had encouraged him now he might have formed the nucleus of a habit to talk. But she sa
id only that it was much warmer down in the canyon. This night she did not put on her heavy coat, nor stand eagerly by the fire.

  "I'll make your bed before it gets too dark," he said.

  "What will we use for lights?" she asked, curiously.

  "Camp-fire. I can get some pine knots presently. There's a box of candles to use in the cabin, when we throw that up:' When Logan emerged from his task in the wagon, Lucinda was standing with her dog watching the afterglow fade in the west. He made his own bed under the great pine near-by. Dusk fell, and then began the gloaming hour Logan liked best. He lighted his pipe. Lucinda came back presently.

  "I'm tired," she said. "I'll be--all right to-morrow. Good night, Logan."

  "Good night, dear. You've sure been game." He patted her shoulder awkwardly with his hand, but did not attempt to kiss her.

  Night closed down upon the canyon. Logan sat smoking. He saw the fading red embers of his fire, the great looming pines, the black, shadowy wall; he smelled the smoke and the tang of the forest; he heard the sough of the wind, the brawl of the brook, the wail of coyotes. But he did not waste thought on these external manifestations which measured his contentment. He had made the drive from Flagg in three days, with a heavy load, the latter half of the distance with a score and more of cattle, and a wild bull. That stock, his oxen, and horses were safe in the canyon. It seemed incredible. Even with less than that he would have had a splendid start. His ranch was an established fact, and his range would be the envy of cattlemen some day. Yet he did not dream; he had no illusions. He was assured of the fact that he would have a great herd.

  Holbert had had trouble with a grasshopper plague one year, but such a contingency did not worry Logan here.

  He looked impartially towards success in the long run. As he would not require cowboys for many years, he could manage the ranch himself.

  Lucinda would cook and take care of the children when they came. He would do the thousand and one tasks that fell to a homesteader's lot. For the immediate present he had the log cabin to throw up speedily--a job for one man; then the gaps to close in his natural fences around the canyon; and after that the winter's supply of firewood and meat. He would never have to kill any beef--not in this forest. Such a reflection afforded him double satisfaction. He would be able to indulge in his one and only pleasure, and, besides that, save many calves and yearlings.