The Boy Ranchers of Puget Sound

  CHAPTER II

  THE BUSH

  Frank awoke a little before daylight, feeling considerably better. Thenausea and dizziness had gone, and the sloop seemed to be lying almoststill, which was a relief to him. Then he noticed by the light of a lampthat his companions' places were empty, and presently he heard themtalking in the well. Crawling out through the narrow doorway, he stoodup shivering in the coldness of the dawn.

  There were dim black trees and shadowy rocks close in front of him, witha white wash about the latter, for a smooth swell worked in around apoint from open water. He could hear the rumble of the surf upon thereefs, and though he could scarcely feel a breath of wind upon his facethe wailing of the black pines suggested that it was blowing still. Hecould smell the clean resinous scent of them and it seemed to him thatthey were singing wild, barbaric songs. Afterward, when he knew thembetter, he learned that the pines and their kin, the cedars and balsamsand redwoods, are never silent altogether. Even when their fragrancesteals out heavy and sweet as honey under the fierce sunshine of awindless day, one can hear faint elfin whisperings high up among theirsomber spires. Then he saw that Jake was standing on the side deck,apparently gazing at the white surf about the end of the point.

  "No," he mused, "she wouldn't face it. The breeze hasn't fallen any, andthe sea'll be steeper. Guess you'd better leave me here, and take theIndian trail."

  Harry agreed with this.

  "We'll get off as soon as we've had breakfast; and, as I did the cookingyesterday, it's your turn this morning. There's still a little fire inthe stove."

  Jake disappeared into the cabin, and presently came out again and wasfilling his pipe when Harry sprang up suddenly on the deck.

  "Hello!" he cried. "There's a schooner yonder!"

  It was growing a little clearer and Frank, turning around, saw a tallblack spire of canvas cutting against the sky. He made out a frothywhiteness beneath it where the swell broke on the vessel's bows, and thesight of her singularly stirred his imagination. She had appeared sosuddenly, probably from behind the point, and she looked ghostly in theuncertain light. She ran in under her headsails and boom-foresail withher mainmast bare, rising higher and growing clearer all the while. Byand by there was a splash, and a voice broke through the wailing of thetrees.

  "Three fathom," it said. "You can luff her in a little."

  Harry seemed about to hail her, but Jake gripped his arm, and they allstood silent while the schooner crept up abreast of them. The littlesloop, lying with the shadowy land close behind her, had evidently notbeen seen. Then the vessel commenced to fade again, and in a few minutesshe had vanished altogether.

  "It looks as if there might have been some truth in old Sandberg'stale," Harry remarked thoughtfully. "It's kind of curious that halibutfisherman from Bannington's said he saw her too."

  "He said she'd a white stripe round her. Sandberg allowed it was green,"objected Jake.

  "That wouldn't prove anything. They could soon paint the stripe anothercolor."

  "What would they want to do it for?"

  "What does a schooner want running in here? There's no freight to bepicked up nearer than Port Townsend."

  "That," said Jake dryly, "is just what I don't know. What's more, Idon't want to. She might have run in for bark for cooking, or maybe forwater."

  Harry laughed. "If she has come down from Seattle they'd get plentycordwood or, if they wanted it, stove coal there, and I guess a skipperwouldn't waste a fair wind like this one to save two or three dollars.The thing's mighty curious. That vessel's been seen twice, anyway, andnobody seems to know where she comes from or where she goes."

  "Well," Jake observed stolidly, "she doesn't belong to you or me, and ifyou want your breakfast it should be ready."

  They crawled into the cabin, and when they had made a meal Jake sculledthe sloop in near enough to the steep beach for them to jump. Then heflung a small packet after them.

  "It's the most I can spare you, as I mayn't get a slant round the reefsuntil to-morrow," he said. "Anyway, it will do you two meals, and youought to fetch the ranch by sundown. You want to head right up thevalley until you strike a big log that lies across the river. When youget over, cross the neck of the ridge where it's lowest. You'll see theclearing from the top of it."

  Harry said this was plain enough and moved away across the shingle,Frank following him cautiously when they reached the fringe of driftwoodwhich divided beach from bush. Whitened logs and barked branches werescattered about in tangled confusion where the water had left them, andit was with difficulty that the lads scrambled over the barrier. ThenFrank stopped breathless, with one leg wet to the knee and a rent in histrousers.

  "It's pretty rough going, if this is an average sample," he panted.

  "You'll find it a good deal worse before we reach the ranch," Harryanswered with a laugh.

  He strode forward, and Frank looked around with wonder when they plungedinto the bush, for he had never seen a wood of that kind except inpictures of the giant Californian Sequoia. There are, of course, pinesin the eastern states, but they seemed pigmies by comparison with thesetremendous conifers which were already tall and stately when Columbussailed from Spain. They ran up far above the boy in huge cylindricalcolumns before they flung out their first great branches, which met andcrossed like the ribs of high-vaulted arches, holding up a roof of duskygreenery. Beneath, there was a dim shadow, and a tangle of suchluxuriant vegetation as is seen, excepting in the tropics, probably onlyupon the warm, damp Pacific Slope.

  There was another difference which struck Frank. The eastern woods thathe had seen were clear of wreckage, for lumber and fuel are valuablethere, and the ax had kept them clean, but this forest was strewn withhuge logs and branches, some of which evidently had fallen years ago.Thickets of all kinds had sprung up between, and these were filled withtufts of unrolling fern which Harry told him would grow six or eightfeet high. Through the midst of it all there twisted a narrow path whichFrank remembered Jake had mentioned as the Indian trail.

  "Have you Indians here?" he asked.

  "Oh, yes," said Harry, "we have a few Siwashes, though there are more ofthem up in Canada. They seem fond of Indians there."

  "Are they quiet?"

  Harry chuckled. "You don't want to get them mixed with the redskins ofthe plains, though I suppose where they're not wiped out they're prettyquiet too. These fellows are a different breed. Most of them aresailors and fishermen, and they dress much the same as you and I do.They come up these rivers now and then after the salmon, and they madethis trail. You can tell that by the looks of it."

  "How?"

  "It goes in and out, and where there's an obstacle it winds around.That's the difference between a white man's and an Indian's nature. TheSiwash strikes a big fir log, and he walks around it, if he has to keepon doing it for months. It doesn't seem to worry him that he's wasting aminute or two every time. Then the white man comes along and gets towork with his ax. He goes right straight through. It's born in him."

  Frank had made a sign of understanding. He knew something of the historyof the old great nations as well as that of his own country, and heremembered another dominant race that ages ago blazed its trails fromRome across all Europe and far into Asia. It was characteristic of thosemen that, turning aside for no obstacle, they went straight, and longafter their power had perished their roads remained, running, as thecrow flies, through morasses and over mountains and rivers. His ownpeople had done much the same, whittling west with the axes through theeastern woods, and then pushing on with their wagons across the lonelyplains, until they drove the steel track through the snow-clad Rockiesand over the Sierras. They died in shoals on the journey, but it was themarch of a nation, and always more came on, the lumberman after thetrapper, the track-grader on the cowboy's heels, with ranches and farmsand factories growing up along the line. Now they had reached thePacific, and Frank wondered vaguely whether that would be the limit, orwhere they were going then. It was, however, a question th
at seemed toobig for him.

  "This country's rough on one's clothes," he said ruefully, looking downat a second tear in his trousers.

  Harry laughed. He was dressed in old duck overalls, long boots, and abattered gray hat.

  "That's a fact. What you want to wear is leather. There were two sportsfrom back East came out to hunt last fall, and they had their thingsmade of some patent cloth warranted to turn water and resist any thorns.Jake went along to cook for them." He paused with a chuckle and added,"They were wearing their blankets because they hadn't any clothes leftwhen he brought them back."

  They went on for an hour or so until they came out upon the bank of afrothing river which roared among the rocks in a shallow canon. Therewas no way of reaching the water, had they desired it, and, as Harry hadpredicted, the trail they followed grew rapidly worse. In places itwound perilously along narrow ledges beneath a dripping wall of rock, inothers it led over banks of stones which had slipped down from theheights above. The boys made very slow progress until noon, when theystopped for a meal from the package Jake had thrown them. While they ateit Frank looked down again at his boots, which were already badlyripped.

  "They were new just before I left Winnipeg," he said. "In some ways thepeople in Europe are ahead of us. There are one or two countries wherethey make their shoes of wood."

  Harry was too busy to make an answer, and when he had finished eating hecarefully tied up the packet, which was now considerably smaller, beforehe turned to his companion.

  "We'd better be hitting the trail," he said. "Unless we can make theranch by sundown, we'll get mighty little supper."

  They pushed on for a couple of hours, still floundering and stumblingamong the rocks. Harry stopped for a moment where the bush was thinnerand pointed to a big gap in a ridge of hillside three or four milesaway.

  "That's the neck," he said. "The log we cross the river on is somewhereabreast of it. We surely can't have passed the thing."

  They went on a little farther, but there was no sign of the log.Presently Harry stopped again with an exclamation, catching a glimpse ofa great branchless fir which rose out of a welter of foam in the bottomof the canon.

  "There she is," he exclaimed, "jammed in where we certainly can't getdown to her. It will be difficult to go straight this time, but we'llhave to try."

  Frank drew a pace or two nearer the edge of the canon, and felt a creepyshiver run through him as he looked down. The rock he stood upon archedout a little over the shadowy hollow, through the bottom of which thewild waters seethed and clamored. He supposed that he stood at leastsixty feet above them. The rock on the opposite side also projected, sothat the rift was wider at the bottom than at the top. In one place,however, the crest of it had broken away and plunged into the gulf,leaving a short slope down which stones and soil had slid. Its loweredge lay about twelve feet beneath him, though the distance would havebeen rather less if it could have been measured horizontally.

  "How are we to get across?" he asked hesitatingly.

  "Jump," said Harry curtly. "Can't you do it?"

  "No," Frank answered with some reluctance.

  "Scared?" asked Harry, looking at him curiously.

  "I am, but it's not that altogether."

  "You didn't seem to want sand when you jumped into the boat."

  Frank stood silent a moment or two with a flush on his face. Had he beenforced to make the choice a year earlier, he probably would have jumpedand chanced it from shame of appearing afraid or of owning hisinferiority to another, but he had learned a little sense since then.

  "It was different then," he explained. "I was scared--badly scared--butI felt I could do the thing if I forced myself to it. Now I'm almostcertain that I can't."

  "Yes," owned Harry, thoughtfully, "that's quite right. One hasn't muchuse for the fellow whose great idea is to keep himself from gettinghurt, but when a thing's too big for you it's best to own it." Hedismissed the subject with a wave of his hand. "The question is howwe're going to get across, and my notion is that we'd better head rightup into the bush. The river will be getting smaller, and it forkssomewhere. Each branch will probably be only half the size, and I guessthe canon can't go on very far."

  It occurred to Frank that considering the nature of the country it wouldbe singularly inconvenient if the canon went on for another league ortwo, particularly as they had only a handful of provisions left, but hefollowed his companion, and they stumbled and floundered forward all theafternoon. There was now no trail to follow, and where they were notforced to scramble over slippery rock, fallen trees and thorny brakesbarred their way. Still, there was nothing to indicate that the canonwas dying out, and where they could have reached the water it eitherfoamed furiously between rocky ledges or spun round in horrible blackeddies on the verge of a wild, yeasty turmoil. They looked at thesespots and abandoned any thought of swimming.

  Evening came at length, and they sat down beneath a big cedar where theroar of the river rang about them in deep pulsations. A chilly wind waswailing in the tops of the pines, and trails of white mist commenced todrift in and out among their trunks, which showed through itspectrally. Harry gazed about him with a rueful grin on his face.

  "If I'd an ax, one or two matches, and a couple of blankets, I'd makeyou quite snug. Then with a few groceries, a kettle, and a spider, we'dhave all any one could reasonably want."

  "You haven't got them," Frank commented. "Wouldn't it save time if youwished for a furnished house?"

  "I'd 'most as soon have an ax. Then I could make a shelter that would,anyway, keep us comfortable enough, and when I'd cut you a good layer ofspruce twigs you wouldn't want a better bed. If I'd a rifle I might geta blue grouse for supper. Still"--and he laughed--"as you say, wehaven't got them, and we couldn't do any cooking without matches.Curious, isn't it, what a lot of things you want, and that in most casesyou have to get another fellow to make them?"

  Frank agreed with this, but he had never realized the truth of it as hedid just then. It was clear that the man who made all he wanted mustlive as the Indians or grosser savages did, and that it was only thedivision of employments that provided one with the comforts ofcivilization. Every man, it seemed, lived by the toil of another, forwhile on the Pacific Slope they turned the forests into dressed lumberand raised fruit and wheat, the clothes they wore, and their saws andplows and axes, came from the East. One could clear a ranch on PugetSound only because a host of other men puddled liquid iron or poundedwhite-hot steel in the forges of, for instance, Pennsylvania. Frankwould very much have liked to provide his companion with the fruit ofsomebody else's labor in the shape of a few matches, which would havemade a cheerful fire possible.

  In the meanwhile Harry had opened the packet and divided its contentsequally.

  "There's not enough to keep any over," he observed. "We have got to makethe ranch to-morrow."

  They ate the little that was left them, and then set to work to searchfor a young spruce from which they might obtain a few branches, but theyfailed to find one small enough even to climb. Coming back they lay downamong the cedar sprays, which seemed rather wet, and it was some timebefore Frank could go to sleep. He was still hungry, and the roar of theriver and the strangeness of his surroundings had a peculiar effect onhim. The mist, which was getting thicker, rested clammily on his face,and crawled in denser wreaths among the black trunks which stood outhere and there from the encircling gloom. Drops of moisture began tofall upon him from the branches, and once or twice he cautiously movedan elbow until it touched his companion. It was consoling to feel thathe was not alone.

  At length, however, he fell asleep, and awaking in the gray light ofdawn staggered to his feet when Harry called him, feeling verymiserable. He was chilled to the bone. His shoulders ached, his kneesached, and one hip-joint ached worse than all, while his energy andcourage seemed to have melted out of him. As a matter of fact, nobodyunused to it feels very animated on getting up before sunrise from a bedon the damp ground.

  "As we hav
e to reach home to-night, we may as well get a move on,"announced Harry. "It's about four o'clock now, and it won't be darkuntil after eight."

  The prospect of a sixteen hours' march with nothing to eat all the whiledid not appeal to Frank. It was the first time in his life that he hadfelt downright hungry, and this fast had made him the more sensitive toan unpleasant pain in his left side.

  "If you're not sure about the way, wouldn't it be better if we wentback to Jake?" he suggested. "It seems a pity we didn't think of itearlier."

  "I did," Harry answered smilingly. "The trouble is that Jake would clearout the minute the wind dropped a little or shifted enough to let himget round the head. Besides, he'd have mighty little to eat if he werestill lying behind the point when we got there. When your letter reachedus we'd hardly time to run down to Bannington's to meet the steamer, soI just grabbed what I could find, and we sailed in a few minutes."

  Frank said nothing further, and they pushed on doggedly into the shadowybush. It was wrapped in a thick white mist, and every brake they smashedthrough dripped with moisture. Except for the clamor of the river,everything was wonderfully still--so still, indeed, that the heavysilence was beginning to pall upon Frank, who suddenly turned to hiscompanion.

  "Isn't there anything alive besides ourselves in this bush?" he asked.

  "That," replied Harry, "is more than I can tell you. We have bears, anda few timber wolves, besides two kinds of deer and several kinds ofgrouse, and some of them are quite often about, but there are belts ofbush where for some reason you can't find one."

  They went on again, following up the river for an hour or two. In themeanwhile the mist melted, and Frank could see the endless ranks ofmighty trees stretch away before him until they merged into a blurredcolumnar mass. At last the canon, which was growing shallower, forkedoff into two branches, and they followed one branch until a broken rockyslope led them down to the water. It was a dull greenish color andfoamed furiously past them among great stones. There was no means ofascertaining how deep it was and the boys looked at each other dubiouslyfor a moment or two. Then Harry made a little gesture.

  "We have to get across," he said.

  Frank, without waiting for his resolution to fail him, plunged in on theinstant, and a couple of steps took him well above his knees. The waterseemed icy cold. As a matter of fact, it was mostly melted snow, and thedrainage from the glaciers had given it the curious green color. Thegravel commenced to slide away beneath Frank's feet, and by the time thefoam was swirling round his waist he was gasping and strugglingsavagely. There was a big, eddying pool not far away and, though hecould swim a little, he had no desire to be swept into it. A moment ortwo later he was driven against a rock with a violence that shook allthe breath out of him. He clung to it desperately until Harry camefloundering by and held out his hand. They made a yard or two togetherand then Harry slipped suddenly, jerking Frank off his feet as he rolledover in the flood. Frank went down overhead and as he felt himself beingswept along toward the eddy he exerted all his energy in a struggle toregain his footing. He clutched at a rock, but the swirling waters onlycarried him past. Half dazed and breathless he was flung against anotherrock. This time, with a great effort, he managed to hold on, and when hestood up, gasping, he found that the water now reached only to hisknees. In another minute he and Harry were safe on dry land.

  Half an hour later they crossed the other creek, and soon afterwardFrank sat down limply in the warm sunlight, which at last came filteringbetween the thinner trees.

  "I must have a rest," he gasped.

  "There's just this trouble," Harry pointed out. "If you rest any timeyou won't want to get up again."

  "If I go on now I'll drop in another few hundred yards," declared Frank.

  It was probably no more than the truth. He had been clever at athleticsand open air games, but, as it happened, he had been able to learn themeasily. Besides, he had been indulged by his mother and had been rathera favorite at school, and as one result of it he fell short of thehardihood usually acquired by the boy who has everything against him.After all, an hour's exercise in a gymnasium or an hour and a half spentover a game amidst applause and excitement is a very different thingfrom the strain of unrelaxing effort that must be made all day whenthere is nobody to cheer. He did not want to rest, but his worn-out bodyrebelled and mastered him.

  "Aren't--you--played out?" he stammered weakly.

  "Oh, yes," replied Harry with a grin. "Still, in this country you'requite often dead played out and have to go on again."

  "But if you can't?"

  "Then," said Harry dryly, "you have to keep on trying until you're ableto."

  It struck Frank that this might be painful and his heart sank. After awhile he tried another question:

  "Don't people get lost in the bush every now and then?"

  "Why, yes," was the answer. "There was a man strayed off from a picnicjust outside one of the cities not long ago and they didn't find himuntil a month or two afterward. He was lying dead not a mile from agraded road."

  Frank shivered inwardly at this.

  "Still, I suppose you generally have something to guide you--the moss onthe north side of the trees? I've heard that people who don't know aboutit walk around in rings."

  "I must have gone pretty straight the only time I was lost," laughedHarry; "and it's mighty hard to find moss in some parts of the bush. Inothers it's all around the trees. I'd rather have a big peak as a guide.You have heard about people walking round, but I wonder whether you haveheard that when they're badly scared they'll walk right across a trailwithout seeing it?"

  "Is that a fact?" Frank asked in astonishment.

  "Sure!" said Harry. "A lost man will sometimes walk across a loggingroad without the slightest idea that he's doing it. Anyway, I know wherethe homestead lies. It's only a question of holding out until we reachit."

  Frank was sincerely pleased to hear this, and by and by he rose with aneffort and they went on again.