The Forester's Daughter

by Garland, Hamlin

  “What will your father do?” he called.

  “Don’t worry about him. He’s at home any place there’s a tree. He’s probably under a balsam somewhere, waiting for this ice to spill out. The only point is, they may get over the divide, and if they do it will be slippery coming back.”

  For the first time the thought that the Supervisor might not be able to return entered Wayland’s mind; but he said nothing of his fear.

  The hail soon changed to snow, great, clinging, drowsy, soft, slow-moving flakes, and with their coming the roar died away and the forest became as silent as a grave of bronze. Nothing moved, save the thick-falling, feathery, frozen vapor, and the world was again very beautiful and very mysterious.

  “We must keep the fire going,” warned the girl. “It will be hard to start after this soaking.”

  He threw upon the fire all of the wood which lay near, and Berrie, taking the ax, went to the big fir and began to chop off the dry branches which hung beneath, working almost as effectively as a man. Wayland insisted on taking a turn with the tool; but his efforts were so awkward that she laughed and took it away again. “You’ll have to take lessons in swinging an ax,” she said. “That’s part of the job.”

  Gradually the storm lightened, the snow changed back into rain, and finally to mist; but up on the heights the clouds still rolled wildly, and through their openings the white drifts bleakly shone.

  “It’s all in the trip,” said Berrie. “You have to take the weather as it comes on the trail.” As the storm lessened she resumed the business of cooking the midday meal, and at two o’clock they were able to eat in comparative comfort, though the unmelted snow still covered the trees, and water dripped from the branches.

  “Isn’t it beautiful!” exclaimed Wayland, with glowing boyish face. “The landscape is like a Christmas card. In its way it’s quite as beautiful as that golden forest we rode through.”

  “It wouldn’t be so beautiful if you had to wallow through ten miles of it,” she sagely responded. “Daddy will be wet to the skin, for I found he didn’t take his slicker. However, the sun may be out before night. That’s the way the thing goes in the hills.”

  To the youth, though the peaks were storm-hid, the afternoon was joyous. Berrie was a sweet companion. Under her supervision he practised at chopping wood and took a hand at cooking. At her suggestion he stripped the tarpaulin from her father’s bed and stretched it over a rope before the tent, thus providing a commodious kitchen and dining-room. Under this roof they sat and talked of everything except what they should do if the father did not return, and as they talked they grew to even closer understanding.

  Though quite unlearned of books, she had something which was much more piquant than anything which theaters and novels could give—she possessed a marvelous understanding of the natural world in which she lived. As the companion of her father on many of his trips, she had absorbed from him, as well as from the forest, a thousand observations of plant and animal life. Seemingly she had nothing of the woman’s fear of the wilderness, she scarcely acknowledged any awe of it. Of the bears, and other predatory beasts, she spoke carelessly.

  “Bears are harmless if you let ’em alone,” she said, “and the mountain-lion is a great big bluff. He won’t fight, you can’t make him fight; but the mother lion will. She’s dangerous when she has cubs—most animals are. I was out hunting grouse one day with a little twenty-two rifle, when all at once, as I looked up along a rocky point I was crossing, I saw a mountain-lion looking at me. First I thought I’d let drive at him; but the chances were against my getting him from there, so I climbed up above him—or where I thought he was—and while I was looking for him I happened to glance to my right, and there he was about fifty feet away looking at me pleasant as you please. Didn’t seem to be mad at all—’peared like he was just wondering what I’d do next. I jerked my gun into place, but he faded away. I crawled around to get behind him, and just when I reached the ledge on which he had been standing a few minutes before, I saw him just where I’d been. He had traded places with me. I began to have that creepy feeling. He was so silent and so kind of pleasant-looking I got leery of him. It just seemed like as though I’d dreamed him. He didn’t seem real.”

  Wayland shuddered. “You foolish girl! Why didn’t you run?”

  “I did. I began to figure then that this was a mother lion, and that her cubs were close by, and that she could just as well sneak up and drop on me from above as not. So I got down and left her alone. It was her popping up now here and now there like a ghost that locoed me. I was sure scared.”

  Wayland did not enjoy this tale. “I never heard of such folly. Did your father learn of that adventure?”

  “Yes, I told him.”

  “Didn’t he forbid your hunting any more?”

  “No, indeed! Why should he? He just said it probably was a lioness, and that it was just as well to let her alone. He knows I’m no chicken.”

  “How about your mother—does she approve of such expeditions?”

  “No, mother worries more or less when I’m away; but then she knows it don’t do any good. I’m taking all kinds of chances every day, anyhow.”

  He had to admit that she was better able to care for herself in the wilderness than most men—even Western men—and though he had not yet witnessed a display of her skill with a rifle, he was ready to believe that she could shoot as well as her sire. Nevertheless, he liked her better when engaged in purely feminine duties, and he led the talk back to subjects concerning which her speech was less blunt and manlike.

  He liked her when she was joking, for delicious little curves of laughter played about her lips. She became very amusing, as she told of her “visits East,” and of her embarrassments in the homes of city friends. “I just have to own up that about all the schooling I’ve got is from the magazines. Sometimes I wish I had pulled out for town when I was about fourteen; but, you see, I didn’t feel like leaving mother, and she didn’t feel like letting me go—and so I just got what I could at Bear Tooth.” She sprang up. “There’s a patch of blue sky. Let’s go see if we can’t get a grouse.”

  The snow had nearly all sunk into the ground on their level; but it still lay deep on the heights above, and the torn masses of vapor still clouded the range. “Father has surely had to go over the divide,” she said, as they walked down the path along the lake shore. “He’ll be late getting back, and a plate of hot chicken will seem good to him.”

  Together they strolled along the edge of the willows. “The grouse come down to feed about this time,” she said. “We’ll put up a covey soon.”

  It seemed to him as though he were re-living the experiences of his ancestors—the pioneers of Michigan—as he walked this wilderness with this intrepid huntress whose alert eyes took note of every moving thing. She was delightfully unconscious of self, of sex, of any doubt or fear. A lovely Diana—strong and true and sweet.

  Within a quarter of a mile they found their birds, and she killed four with five shots. “This is all we need,” she said, “and I don’t believe in killing for the sake of killing. Rangers should set good examples in way of game preservation. They are deputy game-wardens in most states, and good ones, too.”

  They stopped for a time on a high bank above the lake, while the sunset turned the storm-clouds into mountains of brass and iron, with sulphurous caves and molten glowing ledges. This grandiose picture lasted but a few minutes, and then the Western gates closed and all was again gray and forbidding. “Open and shut is a sign of wet,” quoted Berrie, cheerily.

  The night rose formidably from the valley while they ate their supper; but Berrie remained tranquil. “Those horses probably went clean back to the ranch. If they did, daddy can’t possibly get back before eight o’clock, and he may not get back till to-morrow.”

  * * *

  VII

  THE WALK IN THE RAIN

  Norcross, with his city training, was acutely conscious of the delicacy of the situation. In his sist
er’s circle a girl left alone in this way with a man would have been very seriously embarrassed; but it was evident that Berrie took it all joyously, innocently. Their being together was something which had happened in the natural course of weather, a condition for which they were in no way responsible. Therefore she permitted herself to be frankly happy in the charm of their enforced intimacy.

  She had never known a youth of his quality. He was so considerate, so refined, so quick of understanding, and so swift to serve. He filled her mind to the exclusion of unimportant matters like the snow, which was beginning again; indeed, her only anxiety concerned his health, and as he toiled amid the falling flakes, intent upon heaping up wood enough to last out the night, she became solicitous.

  “You will be soaked,” she warningly cried. “Don’t stay out any more. Come to the fire. I’ll bring in the wood.”

  Something primeval, some strength he did not know he possessed sustained him, and he toiled on. “Suppose this snow keeps falling?” he retorted. “The Supervisor will not be able to get back to-night—perhaps not for a couple of nights. We will need a lot of fuel.”

  He did not voice the fear of the storm which filled his thought; but the girl understood it. “It won’t be very cold,” she calmly replied. “It never is during these early blizzards; and, besides, all we need to do is to drop down the trail ten miles and we’ll be entirely out of it.”

  “I’ll feel safer with plenty of wood,” he argued; but soon found it necessary to rest from his labors. Coming in to camp, he seated himself beside her on a roll of blankets, and so together they tended the fire and watched the darkness roll over the lake till the shining crystals seemed to drop from a measureless black arch, soundless and oppressive. The wind died away, and the trees stood as if turned into bronze, moveless, save when a small branch gave way and dropped its rimy burden, or a squirrel leaped from one top to another. Even the voice of the waterfall seemed muffled and remote.

  “I’m a long way from home and mother,” Wayland said, with a smile; “but—I like it.”

  “Isn’t it fun?” she responded. “In a way it’s nicer on account of the storm. But you are not dressed right; you should have waterproof boots. You never can tell when you may be set afoot. You should always go prepared for rain and snow, and, above all, have an extra pair of thick stockings. Your feet are soaked now, aren’t they?”

  “They are; but your father told me to always dry my boots on my feet, otherwise they’d shrink out of shape.”

  “That’s right, too; but you’d better take ’em off and wring out your socks or else put on dry ones.”

  “You insist on my playing the invalid,” he complained, “and that makes me angry. When I’ve been over here a month you’ll find me a glutton for hardship. I shall be a bear, a grizzly, fearful to contemplate. My roar will affright you.”

  She laughed like a child at his ferocity. “You’ll have to change a whole lot,” she said, and drew the blanket closer about his shoulders. “Just now your job is to keep warm and dry. I hope you won’t get lonesome over here.”

  “I’m not going to open a book or read a newspaper. I’m not going to write to a single soul except you. I’ll be obliged to report to you, won’t I?”

  “I’m not the Supervisor.”

  “You’re the next thing to it,” he quickly retorted. “You’ve been my board of health from the very first. I should have fled for home long ago had it not been for you.”

  Her eyes fell under his glance. “You’ll get pretty tired of things over here. It’s one of the lonesomest stations in the forest.”

  “I’ll get lonesome for you; but not for the East.” This remark, or rather the tone in which it was uttered, brought another flush of consciousness to the girl’s face.

  “What time is it now?” she asked, abruptly.

  He looked at his watch. “Half after eight.”

  “If father isn’t on this side of the divide now he won’t try to cross. If he’s coming down the slope he’ll be here in an hour, although that trail is a tolerably tough proposition this minute. A patch of dead timber on a dark night is sure a nuisance, even to a good man. He may not make it.”

  “Shall I fire my gun?”

  “What for?”

  “As a signal to him.”

  This amused her. “Daddy don’t need any hint about direction—what he needs is a light to see the twist of the trail through those fallen logs.”

  “Couldn’t I rig up a torch and go to meet him?”

  She put her hand on his arm. “You stay right here!” she commanded. “You couldn’t follow that trail five minutes.”

  “You have a very poor opinion of my skill.”

  “No, I haven’t; but I know how hard it is to keep direction on a night like this and I don’t want you wandering around in the timber. Father can take care of himself. He’s probably sitting under a big tree smoking his pipe before his fire—or else he’s at home. He knows we’re all right, and we are. We have wood and grub, and plenty of blankets, and a roof over us. You can make your bed under this fly,” she said, looking up at the canvas. “It beats the old balsam as a roof. You mustn’t sleep cold again.”

  “I think I’d better sit up and keep the fire going,” he replied, heroically. “There’s a big log out there that I’m going to bring in to roll up on the windward side.”

  “It’ll be cold and wet early in the morning, and I don’t like to hunt kindling in the snow,” she said. “I always get everything ready the night before. I wish you had a better bed. It seems selfish of me to have the tent while you are cold.”

  One by one—under her supervision—he made preparations for morning. He cut some shavings from a dead, dry branch of fir and put them under the fly, and brought a bucket of water from the creek, and then together they dragged up the dead tree.

  Had the young man been other than he was, the girl’s purity, candor, and self-reliance would have conquered him, and when she withdrew to the little tent and let fall the frail barrier between them, she was as safe from intrusion as if she had taken refuge behind gates of triple brass. Nothing in all his life had moved him so deeply as her solicitude, her sweet trust in his honor, and he sat long in profound meditation. Any man would be rich in the ownership of her love, he admitted. That he possessed her pity and her friendship he knew, and he began to wonder if he had made a deeper appeal to her than this.

  “Can it be that I am really a man to her,” he thought, “I who am only a poor weakling whom the rain and snow can appall?”

  Then he thought of the effect of this night upon her life. What would Clifford Belden do now? To what deeps would his rage descend if he should come to know of it?

  Berrie was serene. Twice she spoke from her couch to say: “You’d better go to bed. Daddy can’t get here till to-morrow now.”

  “I’ll stay up awhile yet. My boots aren’t entirely dried out.”

  As the flame sank low the cold bit, and he built up the half-burned logs so that they blazed again. He worked as silently as he could; but the girl again spoke, with sweet authority: “Haven’t you gone to bed yet?”

  “Oh yes, I’ve been asleep. I only got up to rebuild the fire.”

  “I’m afraid you’re cold.”

  “I’m as comfortable as I deserve; it’s all schooling, you know. Please go to sleep again.” His teeth were chattering as he spoke, but he added: “I’m all right.”

  After a silence she said: “You must not get chilled. Bring your bed into the tent. There is room for you.”

  “Oh no, that isn’t necessary. I’m standing it very well.”

  “You’ll be sick!” she urged, in a voice of alarm. “Please drag your bed inside the door. What would I do if you should have pneumonia to-morrow? You must not take any risk of a fever.”

  The thought of a sheltered spot, of something to break the remorseless wind, overcame his scruples, and he drew his bed inside the tent and rearranged it there.

  “You’re half frozen,” s
he said. “Your teeth are chattering.”

  “It isn’t so much the cold,” he stammered. “I’m tired.”

  “You poor boy!” she exclaimed, and rose in her bed. “I’ll get up and heat some water for you.”

  “I’ll be all right, in a few moments,” he said. “Please go to sleep. I shall be snug as a bug in a moment.”

  She watched his shadowy motions from her bed, and when at last he had nestled into his blankets, she said: “If you don’t lose your chill I’ll heat a rock and put at your feet.”

  He was ready to cry out in shame of his weakness; but he lay silent till he could command his voice, then he said: “That would drive me from the country in disgrace. Think of what the fellows down below will say when they know of my cold feet.”

  “They won’t hear of it; and, besides, it is better to carry a hot-water bag than to be laid up with a fever.”

  Her anxiety lessened as his voice resumed its pleasant tenor flow. “Dear girl,” he said, “no one could have been sweeter—more like a guardian angel to me. Don’t place me under any greater obligation. Go to sleep. I am better—much better now.”

  She did not speak for a few moments, then in a voice that conveyed to him a knowledge that his words of endearment had deeply moved her, she softly said: “Good night.”

  He heard her sigh drowsily thereafter once or twice, and then she slept, and her slumber redoubled in him his sense of guardianship, of responsibility. Lying there in the shelter of her tent, the whole situation seemed simple, innocent, and poetic; but looked at from the standpoint of Clifford Belden it held an accusation.

  “It cannot be helped,” he said. “The only thing we can do is to conceal the fact that we spent the night beneath this tent alone.”

  In the belief that the way would clear with the dawn, he, too, fell asleep, while the fire sputtered and smudged in the fitful mountain wind.

  The second dawn came slowly, as though crippled by the storm and walled back by the clouds. Gradually, austerely, the bleak, white peaks began to define themselves above the firs. The camp-birds called cheerily from the wet branches which overhung the smoldering embers of the fire, and so at last day was abroad in the sky.