by Zane Grey
“Certainly, if I can. Some of your questions are hard to answer.”
“Have you ever been starved?” he asked.
“No,” replied Helen.
“Have you ever been lost away from home?”
“No.”
“Have you ever faced death—real stark an’ naked death, close an’ terrible?”
“No, indeed.”
“Have you ever wanted to kill anyone with your bare hands?”
“Oh, Mr. Dale, you—you amaze me. No!… No!”
“I reckon I know your answer to my last question, but I’ll ask it, anyhow.… Have you ever been so madly in love with a man that you could not live without him?”
Bo fell off her seat with a high, trilling laugh. “Oh, you two are great!”
“Thank Heaven, I haven’t been,” replied Helen, shortly.
“Then you don’t know anythin’ about life,” declared Dale, with finality.
Helen was not to be put down by that, dubious and troubled as it made her.
“Have you experienced all those things?” she queried, stubbornly.
“All but the last one. Love never came my way. How could it? I live alone. I seldom go to the villages where there are girls. No girl would ever care for me. I have nothin’.… But, all the same, I understand love a little, just by comparison with strong feelin’s I’ve lived.”
Helen watched the hunter and marveled at his simplicity. His sad and penetrating gaze was on the fire, as if in its white heart to read the secret denied him. He had said that no girl would ever love him. She imagined he might know considerably less about the nature of girls than of the forest.
“To come back to myself,” said Helen, wanting to continue the argument. “You declared I didn’t know myself. That I would have no self-control. I will!”
“I meant the big things of life,” he said, patiently.
“What things?”
“I told you. By askin’ what had never happened to you I learned what will happen.”
“Those experiences to come to me!” breathed Helen, incredulously. “Never!”
“Sister Nell, they sure will—particularly the last-named one—the mad love,” chimed in Bo, mischievously, yet believingly.
Neither Dale nor Helen appeared to hear her interruption.
“Let me put it simpler,” began Dale, evidently racking his brain for analogy. His perplexity appeared painful to him, because he had a great faith, a great conviction that he could not make clear. “Here I am, the natural physical man, livin’ in the wilds. An’ here you come, the complex, intellectual woman. Remember, for my argument’s sake, that you’re here. An’ suppose circumstances forced you to stay here. You’d fight the elements with me an’ work with me to sustain life. There must be a great change in either you or me, accordin’ to the other’s influence. An’ can’t you see that change must come in you, not because of anythin’ superior in me—I’m really inferior to you—but because of our environment? You’d lose your complexity. An’ in years to come you’d be a natural physical woman, because you’d live through an’ by the physical.”
“Oh dear, will not education be of help to the Western woman?” queried Helen, almost in despair.
“Sure it will,” answered Dale, promptly. “What the West needs is women who can raise an’ teach children. But you don’t understand me. You don’t get under your skin. I reckon I can’t make you see my argument as I feel it. You take my word for this, though. Sooner or later you will wake up an’ forget yourself. Remember.”
“Nell, I’ll bet you do, too,” said Bo, seriously for her. “It may seem strange to you, but I understand Dale. I feel what he means. It’s a sort of shock. Nell, we’re not what we seem. We’re not what we fondly imagine we are. We’ve lived too long with people—too far away from the earth. You know the Bible says something like this: ‘Dust thou art and to dust thou shalt return.’ Where do we come from?”
CHAPTER XII
Days passed.
Every morning Helen awoke with a wondering question as to what this day would bring forth, especially with regard to possible news from her uncle. It must come sometime and she was anxious for it. Something about this simple, wild camp life had begun to grip her. She found herself shirking daily attention to the clothes she had brought West. They needed it, but she had begun to see how superficial they really were. On the other hand, camp-fire tasks had come to be a pleasure. She had learned a great deal more about them than had Bo. Worry and dread were always impinging upon the fringe of her thoughts—always vaguely present, though seldom annoying. They were like shadows in dreams. She wanted to get to her uncle’s ranch, to take up the duties of her new life. But she was not prepared to believe she would not regret this wild experience. She must get away from that in order to see it clearly, and she began to have doubts of herself.
Meanwhile the active and restful outdoor life went on. Bo leaned more and more toward utter reconciliation to it. Her eyes had a wonderful flash, like blue lightning; her cheeks were gold and brown; her hands tanned dark as an Indian’s.
She could vault upon the gray mustang, or, for that matter, clear over his back. She learned to shoot a rifle accurately enough to win Dale’s praise, and vowed she would like to draw a bead upon a grizzly bear or upon Snake Anson.
“Bo, if you met that grizzly Dale said has been prowling round camp lately you’d run right up a tree,” declared Helen, one morning, when Bo seemed particularly boastful.
“Don’t fool yourself,” retorted Bo.
“But I’ve seen you run from a mouse!”
“Sister, couldn’t I be afraid of a mouse and not a bear?”
“I don’t see how.”
“Well, bears, lions, outlaws, and other wild beasts are to be met with here in the West, and my mind’s made up,” said Bo, in slow-nodding deliberation.
They argued as they had always argued, Helen for reason and common sense and restraint, Bo on the principle that if she must fight it was better to get in the first blow.
The morning on which this argument took place Dale was a long time in catching the horses. When he did come in he shook his head seriously.
“Some varmint’s been chasin’ the horses,” he said, as he reached for his saddle. “Did you hear them snortin’ an’ runnin’ last night?”
Neither of the girls had been awakened.
“I missed one of the colts,” went on Dale, “an’ I’m goin’ to ride across the park.”
Dale’s movements were quick and stern. It was significant that he chose his heavier rifle, and, mounting, with a sharp call to Pedro, he rode off without another word to the girls.
Bo watched him for a moment and then began to saddle the mustang.
“You won’t follow him?” asked Helen, quickly.
“I sure will,” replied Bo. “He didn’t forbid it.”
“But he certainly did not want us.”
“He might not want you, but I’ll bet he wouldn’t object to me, whatever’s up,” said Bo, shortly.
“Oh! So you think—” exclaimed Helen, keenly hurt. She bit her tongue to keep back a hot reply. And it was certain that a bursting gush of anger flooded over her. Was she, then, such a coward? Did Dale think this slip of a sister, so wild and wilful, was a stronger woman than she? A moment’s silent strife convinced her that no doubt he thought so and no doubt he was right. Then the anger centered upon herself, and Helen neither understood nor trusted herself.
The outcome proved an uncontrollable impulse. Helen began to saddle her horse. She had the task half accomplished when Bo’s call made her look up.
“Listen!”
Helen heard a ringing, wild bay of the hound.
“That’s Pedro,” she said, with a thrill.
“Sure. He’s running. We never heard him bay like that before.”
“Where’s Dale?”
“He rode out of sight across there,” replied Bo, pointing. “And Pedro’s running toward us along that slope. He must
be a mile—two miles from Dale.”
“But Dale will follow.”
“Sure. But he’d need wings to get near that hound now. Pedro couldn’t have gone across there with him…just listen.”
The wild note of the hound manifestly stirred Bo to irrepressible action. Snatching up Dale’s lighter rifle, she shoved it into her saddle-sheath, and, leaping on the mustang, she ran him over brush and brook, straight down the park toward the place Pedro was climbing. For an instant Helen stood amazed beyond speech. When Bo sailed over a big log, like a steeple-chaser, then Helen answered to further unconsidered impulse by frantically getting her saddle fastened. Without coat or hat she mounted. The nervous horse bolted almost before she got into the saddle. A strange, trenchant trembling coursed through all her veins. She wanted to scream for Bo to wait. Bo was out of sight, but the deep, muddy tracks in wet places and the path through the long grass afforded Helen an easy trail to follow. In fact, her horse needed no guiding. He ran in and out of the straggling spruces along the edge of the park, and suddenly wheeled around a corner of trees to come upon the gray mustang standing still. Bo was looking up and listening.
“There he is!” cried Bo, as the hound bayed ringingly, closer to them this time, and she spurred away.
Helen’s horse followed without urging. He was excited. His ears were up. Something was in the wind. Helen had never ridden along this broken end of the park, and Bo was not easy to keep up with. She led across bogs, brooks, swales, rocky little ridges, through stretches of timber and groves of aspen so thick Helen could scarcely squeeze through. Then Bo came out into a large open offshoot of the park, right under the mountain slope, and here she sat, her horse watching and listening. Helen rode up to her, imagining once that she had heard the hound.
“Look! Look!” Bo’s scream made her mustang stand almost straight up.
Helen gazed up to see a big brown bear with a frosted coat go lumbering across an opening on the slope.
“It’s a grizzly! He’ll kill Pedro! Oh, where is Dale!” cried Bo, with intense excitement.
“Bo! That bear is running down! We—we must get—out of his road,” panted Helen, in breathless alarm.
“Dale hasn’t had time to be close.… Oh, I wish he’d come! I don’t know what to do.”
“Ride back. At least wait for him.”
Just then Pedro spoke differently, in savage barks, and following that came a loud growl and crashings in the brush. These sounds appeared to be not far up the slope.
“Nell! Do you hear? Pedro’s fighting the bear,” burst out Bo. Her face paled, her eyes flashed like blue steel. “The bear’ll kill him!”
“Oh, that would be dreadful!” replied Helen, in distress. “But what on earth can we do?”
“Hel-lo, Dale!” called Bo, at the highest pitch of her piercing voice.
No answer came. A heavy crash of brush, a rolling of stones, another growl from the slope told Helen that the hound had brought the bear to bay.
“Nell, I’m going up,” said Bo, deliberately.
“No-no! Are you mad?” returned Helen.
“The bear will kill Pedro.”
“He might kill you.”
“You ride that way and yell for Dale,” rejoined Bo.
“What will—you do?” gasped Helen.
“I’ll shoot at the bear—scare him off. If he chases me he can’t catch me coming downhill. Dale said that.”
“You’re crazy!” cried Helen, as Bo looked up the slope, searching for open ground. Then she pulled the rifle from its sheath.
But Bo did not hear or did not care. She spurred the mustang, and he, wild to run, flung grass and dirt from his heels. What Helen would have done then she never knew, but the fact was that her horse bolted after the mustang. In an instant, seemingly, Bo had disappeared in the gold and green of the forest slope. Helen’s mount climbed on a run, snorting and heaving, through aspens, brush, and timber, to come out into a narrow, long opening extending lengthwise up the slope.
A sudden prolonged crash ahead alarmed Helen and halted her horse. She saw a shaking of aspens. Then a huge brown beast leaped as a cat out of the woods. It was a bear of enormous size. Helen’s heart stopped—her tongue clove to the roof of her mouth. The bear turned. His mouth was open, red and dripping. He looked shaggy, gray. He let out a terrible bawl. Helen’s every muscle froze stiff. Her horse plunged high and sidewise, wheeling almost in the air, neighing his terror. Like a stone she dropped from the saddle. She did not see the horse break into the woods, but she heard him. Her gaze never left the bear even while she was falling, and it seemed she alighted in an upright position with her back against a bush. It upheld her. The bear wagged his huge head from side to side. Then, as the hound barked close at hand, he turned to run heavily uphill and out of the opening.
The instant of his disappearance was one of collapse for Helen. Frozen with horror, she had been unable to move or feel or think. All at once she was a quivering mass of cold, helpless flesh, wet with perspiration, sick with a shuddering, retching, internal convulsion, her mind liberated from paralyzing shock. The moment was as horrible as that in which the bear had bawled his frightful rage. A stark, icy, black emotion seemed in possession of her. She could not lift a hand, yet all of her body appeared shaking. There was a fluttering, a strangling in her throat. The crushing weight that surrounded her heart eased before she recovered use of her limbs. Then, the naked and terrible thing was gone, like a nightmare giving way to consciousness. What blessed relief! Helen wildly gazed about her. The bear and hound were out of sight, and so was her horse. She stood up very dizzy and weak. Thought of Bo then seemed to revive her, to shock different life and feeling throughout all her cold extremities. She listened.
She heard a thudding of hoofs down the slope, then Dale’s clear, strong call. She answered. It appeared long before he burst out of the woods, riding hard and leading her horse. In that time she recovered fully, and when he reached her, to put a sudden halt upon the fiery Ranger, she caught the bridle he threw and swiftly mounted her horse. The feel of the saddle seemed different. Dale’s piercing gray glance thrilled her strangely.
“You’re white. Are you hurt?” he said.
“No. I was scared.”
“But he threw you?”
“Yes, he certainly threw me.”
“What happened?”
“We heard the hound and we rode along the timber. Then we saw the bear—a monster—white—coated—”
“I know. It’s a grizzly. He killed the colt—your pet. Hurry now. What about Bo?”
“Pedro was fighting the bear. Bo said he’d be killed. She rode right up here. My horse followed. I couldn’t have stopped him. But we lost Bo. Right there the bear came out. He roared. My horse threw me and ran off. Pedro’s barking saved me—my life, I think. Oh! that was awful! Then the bear went up—there.… And you came.”
“Bo’s followin’ the hound!” ejaculated Dale. And, lifting his hands to his mouth, he sent out a stentorian yell that rolled up the slope, rang against the cliffs, pealed and broke and died away. Then he waited, listening. From far up the slope came a faint, wild cry, high-pitched and sweet, to create strange echoes, floating away to die in the ravines.
“She’s after him!” declared Dale, grimly.
“Bo’s got your rifle,” said Helen. “Oh, we must hurry.”
“You go back,” ordered Dale, wheeling his horse.
“No!” Helen felt that word leave her lips with the force of a bullet.
Dale spurred Ranger and took to the open slope. Helen kept at his heels until timber was reached. Here a steep trail led up. Dale dismounted.
“Horse tracks—bear tracks—dog tracks,” he said, bending over. “We’ll have to walk up here. It’ll save our horses an’ maybe time, too.”
“Is Bo riding up there?” asked Helen, eying the steep ascent.
“She sure is.” With that Dale started up, leading his horse. Helen followed. It was rough and hard work. She was
lightly clad, yet soon she was hot, laboring, and her heart began to hurt. When Dale halted to rest Helen was just ready to drop. The baying of the hound, though infrequent, inspirited her. But presently that sound was lost. Dale said bear and hound had gone over the ridge and as soon as the top was gained he would hear them again.
“Look there,” he said, presently, pointing to fresh tracks, larger than those made by Bo’s mustang. “Elk tracks. We’ve scared a big bull an’ he’s right ahead of us. Look sharp an’ you’ll see him.”
Helen never climbed so hard and fast before, and when they reached the ridge-top she was all tuckered out. It was all she could do to get on her horse. Dale led along the crest of this wooded ridge toward the western end, which was considerably higher. In places open rocky ground split the green timber. Dale pointed toward a promontory.
Helen saw a splendid elk silhouetted against the sky. He was a light gray over all his hindquarters, with shoulders and head black. His ponderous, wide-spread antlers towered over him, adding to the wildness of his magnificent poise as he stood there, looking down into the valley, no doubt listening for the bay of the hound. When he heard Dale’s horse he gave one bound, gracefully and wonderfully carrying his antlers, to disappear in the green.
Again on a bare patch of ground Dale pointed down. Helen saw big round tracks, toeing in a little, that gave her a chill. She knew these were grizzly tracks.
Hard riding was not possible on this ridge crest, a fact that gave Helen time to catch her breath. At length, coming out upon the very summit of the mountain, Dale heard the hound. Helen’s eyes feasted afar upon a wild scene of rugged grandeur, before she looked down on this western slope at her feet to see bare, gradual descent, leading down to sparsely wooded bench and on to deep-green canuon.
“Ride hard now!” yelled Dale. “I see Bo, an’ I’ll have to ride to catch her.”
Dale spurred down the slope. Helen rode in his tracks and, though she plunged so fast that she felt her hair stand up with fright, she saw him draw away from her. Sometimes her horse slid on his haunches for a few yards, and at these hazardous moments she got her feet out of the stirrups so as to fall free from him if he went down. She let him choose the way, while she gazed ahead at Dale, and then farther on, in the hope of seeing Bo. At last she was rewarded. Far Down the wooded bench she saw a gray flash of the little mustang and a bright glint of Bo’s hair. Her heart swelled. Dale would soon overhaul Bo and come between her and peril. And on the instant, though Helen was unconscious of it then, a remarkable change came over her spirit. Fear left her. And a hot, exalting, incomprehensible something took possession of her.