Ross turned to Virginia, leaving the political discussion to go on over his head. “I was back in the Old Island a couple of years ago, and you’ve no idea how small it seemed to me. It surely is a ‘right little, tight little island.’ I couldn’t help wondering whether the men in Parliament were as important as they seemed to think they were, and whether England is not really an empty shell of empire, a memory of what it once was. I couldn’t settle down there, someway. I was homesick for the mountains in a month. But what scared me most was the pauper population of the old place—one in every thirty-seven must be helped. I came back to the States gladly. ‘I guess I’m an American,’ I said to my sisters.”
To Lee Virginia all this talk of “the curse of democracy” and “the decay of empire” was unexciting, but when Cavanagh told of the sheepmen’s advance across the dead-line on Deer Creek, and of the threats of the cattle-owners, she was better able to follow the discussion. Bridges was heartily on the side of law and order, for he wished to boom the State (being a heavy owner in a town-site), but he objected to Redfield’s ideas of “bottling up the resources of the State.”
“We’re not,” retorted Redfield; “we’re merely defending them against those who would monopolize them. We believe in their fullest use, but we see no reason for giving away the resources when the country needs the revenue.”
Mrs. Redfield rose as soon as the coffee came on. “You gentlemen seem bent upon discussing matters of no interest to us,” she said, “so we’ll leave you to fight it out alone. I’m sure you’ll all agree with Hugh in the end. Like General Grant, he’s a very obstinate man.”
No sooner were they seated in the big living-room than Mrs. Enderby began to relate comical stories of her household. Her cats had fits and ran up the wall. Her dogs were forever getting quilled by reason of foolish attacks upon porcupines, or else they came home so reminiscent of skunks that they all but smothered the cook. “Invariably they return from encounters of this kind just as we are sitting at dinner,” she explained. “Furthermore, Enderby’s ditches are habitually getting clogged, and overflowing the lawn and filling the cellar, and he stands in terror of his cowboys. When I think of all these irruptions and distractions, England’s order and routine seem heavenly; but Charley finds all this amusing, more’s the pity, and leaves me to set things in order. Most ludicrous of all, to me, is his habitual claim that the ranch is paying. I tell him there’s an error in his bookkeeping somewhere, but he assures me that his receipts exceeded his expenditures last year—which is quite too incredible. You’ve no idea how high wages are and how little we raise.”
“Oh yes, I have,” laughed Mrs. Redfield, “and my cat had a fit too. Hugh says it’s the high altitude. I tell him it’s melancholia.”
Cavanagh showed himself. “I hear so much laughter I’m coming in, we’re all so insufferably political out here. And, besides, I came to see the ladies, and I can only stay a few minutes longer.”
“You’re not going back to-night!” exclaimed his hostess.
“I must be on my own precinct by daylight,” he replied; “the Supervisor has an eye on me.”
Mrs. Redfield explained to Lee Virginia. “He rode fifty miles over the mountains—”
“Thirty,” corrected Ross. “But what does that matter when I’m in the company of such charming ladies?” he added, gallantly.
“And now he’s going to ride all the way back to-night!”
“Think of that,” gasped Mrs. Enderby, “and no moon!”
“How can you find your way?” asked Mrs. Bridges, to whom this was a mortally dangersome journey.
“Oh, it’s quite simple. If you don’t bump against a tree or fall into the creek you may be quite sure you’re on the trail,” laughed Ross.
Mrs. Redfield knew the true reason for his coming, and was not at all pleased, “for with all Lee’s personal charm,” she said to her husband, “she is socially beneath Ross Cavanagh, even in a State where social barriers are few.”
“Come out on the veranda,” suggested Cavanagh, “and I’ll show you the hills I must climb.”
Lee accepted innocently; but as the young people left the room Mrs. Enderby looked at her hostess with significant glance. “There’s the lady Ross rode down to meet. Who is she?”
“Her mother is that dreadful old creature that keeps the Wetherford Hotel in Roaring Fork.”
“No!” exclaimed Mrs. Enderby.
“Yes; Lee Virginia is Lize Wetherford’s daughter.”
“But the girl is charming.”
“I cannot understand it. Hugh came home a week or so ago full of her praise—” And at this point her voice dropped lower and the other drew closer.
Outside, the young people stood in silence. There was no moon, and the mountains rose darkly, a sheer wall at the end of the garden, their tops cutting into the starry sky with a dull edge, over which a dim white cone peered.
“That snow-peak is Wolftooth, and thirty miles from here, and at the head of my ‘beat,’” said the ranger, after a pause, as they leaned against the railing and looked away to the south. “I go up that ridge which you see faintly at the left of the main canon, and through that deep notch which is above timber-line.”
The girl’s eyes widened with awe of the big, silent, dark world he indicated. “Aren’t you afraid to start out on such a trip alone—I mean, don’t you dread it?”
“I’ll be sorry to start back, yes, but not because of the dark. I’ve enjoyed my visit here so much it will be hard to say good-night.”
“It seems strange to me that you should prefer this wild country to England.”
“Do you like the East better than the West?”
“In some ways; but then, you see, I was born out here.”
“So was I—I mean to say I was regenerated out here. The truth is I was a good deal of a scapegrace when I left England. I was always for hunting and horses, and naturally I came directly to the wild West country, and here I’ve been ever since. I’ve had my turn at each phase of it—cow-puncher, soldier, Rough-rider, and finally forest ranger. I reckon I’ve found my job at last.”
“Do you like it so much?”
“At the present time I am perfectly contented. I’m associated now with a country that will never yield to the plough—yes, I like my work. I love the forests and the streams. I wish I might show them to you. You don’t know how beautiful they are. The most beautiful parks in the world are commonplace to what I can show you. My only sorrow is to think of them given over to the sawmill. Perhaps you and your mother will come up some time, and let me show you my lakes and streams. There are waters so lovely they make the heart ache. Hugh is planning to come up soon; perhaps you and Mrs. Redfield will come with him.”
“I’d like it above everything,” she responded, fervently. Then her voice changed: “But all depends on my mother’s health.”
It hurt him to hear her call Eliza Wetherford mother. He wanted to forget her origin for the moment. He was not in love with her—far from it! But she was so alluring, and the proprietress of the Wetherford House was not nice, and that made one doubt the daughter.
She broke the silence. “It seems dreadfully dark and mysterious up there.” She indicated his path.
“It isn’t as bad as it looks. There is a good trail, and my pony knows it as well as I do. I enjoy riding by night.”
“But there are bears and other wild things, are there not?”
“Not as many as I wish there were.”
“Why do you say that?”
“I hate to see all the wild life killed off. Some day all these forests will have game refuges like the Yellowstone National Park. They are coming each year to have greater and greater value to the people of the plains. They are playgrounds, like the Alps. Campers are coming into my valley every day, and, while they increase the danger of fires, I welcome them. They are all advocates of the forest. As one man said: ‘The mountains supplement the plains. They give color and charm to the otherwise monotonous We
st.’ I confess I couldn’t live on the prairies—not even on the plains—if out of sight of the mountains. If I should ever settle down to a home it would be in a canon like this, with a great peak at my front door.”
“It is beautiful,” the girl said, in the tone of sadness with which we confront the perfect night, the perfect flower, the flawless landscape. “It is both grand and peaceful.”
This tone of sadness pleased him. It showed her depth of perception, and he reflected that she had not uttered a vacuous or silly phrase since their first meeting. “She is capable of great development,” he thought. Aloud he said: “You are a strange mingling of East and West. Do you realize it?”
“In what way?” she asked, feeling something ardent in his tone.
“You typify to me at this moment this whole State. You fill me with enthusiasm for its future. Here you are, derived from the lawless West, yet taking on the culture and restraint of the East so readily that you seem not in the least related to—”
He checked himself at this point, and she said: “My mother is not as rough as she seems, Mr. Cavanagh.”
“She must be more of the woman than appears, or she could not have borne such a daughter. But do you feel your relationship to her? Tell me honestly, for you interest me.”
“I didn’t at first, but I do now. I begin to understand her, and, besides, I feel in myself certain things that are in her, though I think I am more like the Wetherfords. My father’s family home was in Maryland.”
Ross could have talked on all night, so alluring was the girl’s dimly-seen yet warmly-felt figure at his side, but a sense of danger and a knowledge that he should be riding led him at last to say: “It is getting chill, we must go in; but before we do so, let me say how much I’ve enjoyed seeing you again. I hope the doctor will make favorable report on your mother’s case. You’ll write me the result of the examination, won’t you?”
“If you wish me to.”
“I shall be most anxious to know.”
They were standing very near to each other at the moment, and the ranger, made very sensitive to woman’s charm by his lonely life, shook with newly-created love of her. A suspicion, a hope that beneath her cultivated manner lay the passionate nature of her mother gave an added force to his desire. He was sorely tempted to touch her, to test her; but her sweet voice, a little sad and perfectly unconscious of evil, calmed him. She said:
“I hope to persuade my mother to leave the Forks. All the best people there are against us. Some of them have been very cruel to her and to me, and, besides, I despise and fear the men who come to our table.”
“You must not exchange words with them,” he all but commanded. “Beware of Gregg; he is a vile lot; do not trust him for an instant. Do not permit any of those loafers to talk with you, for if you do they will go away to defame you. I know them. They are unspeakably vile. It makes me angry to think that Gregg and his like have the right to speak to you every day while I can only see you at long intervals.”
His heat betrayed the sense of proprietorship which he had begun to feel, in spite of his resolution. But the girl only perceived his solicitation, his friendly interest, and she answered: “I keep away from them all I can.”
“You are right to distrust them,” he replied, grimly. “Because old Sam has money, he thinks he can do as he pleases. You must be especially careful of him.”
“The worst is when I go on the street; but if mother does not sell the business, I shall be obliged to stay in the Fork, no matter how I hate it.”
“I wish my station were not so far away,” he mused, darkly. “But I’ll ride down as often as my duties will permit, and you must let me know how things go. And if any of those fellows persecute you, you’ll tell me, won’t you? I wish you’d look upon me as your big brother. Will you do that?” His voice entreated, and as she remained silent, he continued: “Roaring Fork is one of the worst towns in the State, and a girl like you needs some one as a protector. I don’t know just how to put it so that you will not misunderstand me, but, you see, I protect the forest, the streams, and the game; I help the settler in time of trouble; I am a kind of all-round big brother to everybody who needs help in the forest. In fact, I’m paid for protecting things that can’t protect themselves, and so”—here he tried to lend his voice the accent of humor—“why shouldn’t I be the protector of a girl like you, alone—worse than alone—in this little cow-town?”
She remained dumb at one or two points where he clearly hoped for a word, and she was unable to thank him when he had finished. In this silence a curious constriction came into his throat. It was almost as if he had put his passion into definite words, and as the light fell upon her he perceived that her bosom was heaving with deep emotion.
“I am lonely,” she faltered out at last—“horribly lonely; and I know now how people feel toward my mother, and it hurts me—it all hurts me; but I’m going to stay and help her—” She paused to recover her voice. “And you do seem different! I—I—trust you!”
“I’m glad you understand me, and you will let me know if I can help you, won’t you?”
“Yes,” she answered, simply.
“Good-night,” he said, extending his hand.
She placed her palm to his quite frankly, but the touch of it made further speech at the moment impossible.
They went in with such tell-tale faces that even Redfield wondered what had passed between them.
Excusing himself almost at once, Cavanagh left the room, and when he looked in, a few moments later, he was clothed in the ranger’s dusty green uniform, booted and spurred for his long, hard ride. Mrs. Redfield followed him into the hall and out on the door-stone to say: “Ross, you must be careful. This girl is very alluring in herself, but her mother, you know, is impossible.”
“You’re needlessly alarmed, as usual,” he smilingly replied. “She interests me—that’s patent; but beyond that, why—nonsense! Good-night.”
Nevertheless, despite his protestations, he went away up the trail with his mind so filled with Lee Virginia’s appealing face and form that he would certainly have ridden over a precipice had it not been for his experienced pony, who had fortunately but one aim, and that was to cross the range safely and to reach the home pasture at the earliest moment.
Now that he was looking back upon three hours more of Lee’s society, Cavanagh was ready to admit that he had left his range and ridden hard and far with that one purpose in mind. He had been hungry for the sight of her, and now that he had touched her hand and looked upon her again he was a little surprised and deeply disturbed to find himself hungrier than before.
* * *
VI
THE VOICE FROM THE HEIGHTS
Lee Virginia was not entirely without experience as regards respectful courtship. Her life in the East had brought her to know a number of attractive lads and a few men, but none of these had become more than good companions, or friends; and though she wrote to one or two of these youths letters of the utmost friendliness, there was no passion in them, and she felt, as yet, the sting of nothing more intense in her liking for Cavanagh; but he meant more to her, now that she was lonely and beleaguered of those whose eyes were cruel and hot.
Then, too, he had come to represent a new world to her—this world of the forest, this region toward the sunset, which was quite as mysterious to her thinking as it was to the eyes of any plains-dweller. Her imagination went with the ranger on his solitary march into those vague, up-billowing masses of rocks and trees. To her there were many dangers, and she wondered at his courage, his hardihood.
That he had ridden all that long, rough way merely to see her she was not vain enough to believe; but she had, nevertheless, something of every woman’s secret belief in her individual charm. Cavanagh had shown a flattering interest in her, and his wish to be her protector filled her with joy and confidence.
She heard a good deal more about this particular forest ranger next morning at breakfast. “He is throwing himself away,�
�� Mrs. Redfield passionately declared. “Think of a man of Ross’s refinement living in a mountain shack miles from anybody, watching poachers, marking trees, and cooking his own food. It’s a shameful waste of genius.”
“That’s as you look at it, my dear,” responded Redfield. “Ross is the guardian of an immense treasure-chest which belongs to the nation. Furthermore, he is quite certain—as I am—that this Forest Service is the policy of the future, and that it offers fine chances for promotion—and then, finally, he likes it.”
“That is all well enough for a young man; but Ross is at least thirty-five, and should be thinking of settling down. I can’t understand his point of view.”
“My dear, you have never seen the procession of the seasons from such a point of view as that which he enjoys.”
“No, and I do not care to. It is quite lonely enough for me right here.”
Redfield looked at Lee with comic blankness. “Mrs. Redfield is hopelessly urban. As the wife of a forest supervisor, she cares more for pavements and tram-cars than for the most splendid mountain park.”
“I most certainly do,” his wife vigorously agreed. “And if I had my way we should be living in London.”
“Listen to that! She’s ten times more English than Mrs. Enderby.”
“I’m not; but I long for the civilized instead of the wild. I like comfort and society.”
“So do I,” returned he.
“Yes; the comfort of an easy-chair on the porch and the society of your forest rangers. This ranch life is all very well for a summer outing, but to be tied down here all the year round is to be denied one’s birthright as a modern.”
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