XI
SHADOWS ON THE MIST
The decision which Cavanagh made between love and duty distinguished theofficer from the man, the soldier from the civilian. He did not hesitateto act, and yet he suffered a mental conflict as he rode back toward thescene of that inhuman sacrifice on the altar of greed. His heart went outto Lee Virginia in longing. Her appealing voice still lay in his ear withan effect like the touch of her soft lips, and his flagging horse sufferedfrom the unconscious pressure of his haste.
"It will be hours before any part of the sheriff's posse can reach thefalls, even though they take to the swiftest motors, and then other longhours must intervene before I can ride down to her. Yes, at least a dayand a night must drag their slow course before I can hope to be of serviceto her," and the thought drew a groan of anxiety from him. At such momentsof mental stress the trail is a torture and the mountain-side aninexorable barrier.
Half-way to the hills he was intercepted by an old man who was at work onan irrigating ditch beside the road. He seemed very nervous and veryinquisitive, and as he questioned the ranger his eyes were like those of adog that fears his master's hand. Ross wondered about this afterward, butat the moment his mind was busy with the significance of this patienttoiler with a spade. He was a prophetic figure in the most picturesque andsterile land of the stockman. "Here within twenty miles of this peacefulfruit-grower," he said, "is the crowning infamy of the free-bootingcowboy. My God, what a nation we are!"
He wondered, as he rode on, whether the papers of the State would make ajest of _this_ deed. "Will this be made the theme for caustic comment inthe Eastern press for a day, and then be forgotten?"
As his hot blood cooled he lost faith in even this sacrifice. Couldanything change the leopard West into the tameness and serenity of the ox?"No," he decided, "nothing but death will do that. This generation, thesefierce and bloody hearts, must die; only in that way can the tradition ofviolence be overcome and a new State reared."
At the foot of the toilsome, upward-winding trail he dismounted, and ledhis weary horse. Over his head, and about half-way to the first hilltop,lay a roof of fleecy vapor, faint purple in color and seamless in texture.Through this he must pass, and it symbolized to him the line ofdemarkation between the plain and the mountain, between order andviolence.
Again he rose above it, to find it a fantastic sea lit by the sun, andglowing with pink and gold and violet. Celestial in its ethereal beauty,it threw into still more appalling shadow the smoking altar of passiontoward which he spurred. From moment to moment the surface rose andshifted in swift, tumultuous, yet soundless waves, breaking roundpine-clad promontories in shimmering breakers, faint, and far, andserene.
Down through a deep canon to the south a prodigious river of mist wasrushing, a silent cataract of ashy vapor plunging to a soundless beach.Above and beyond it the high peaks shone in radiance so pure that theheart of the lover ached with the pain of its evanescent beauty. It was asif he were looking across a foaming flood upon the stupendous and shiningpark of some imperial potentate whose ornate and splendid country home layjust beyond. Rocky spires rose like cathedral towers, and fortressesabutted upon the stream. And yet in the midst of that glorified plain thesmoke of the burning rose.
Slowly he led his horse along the mountain-side, grasping with eagerdesire at every changing aspect of this marvellous scene. It wasinfinitely more gorgeous, more compelling, than his moonlight experiencethe night before, for here reality, definite and powerful, was interfusedwith mystery. These foot-hills, hitherto pleasantly precipitous, hadsuddenly become grandiose. All was made over upon a mightier scale, eachrock and tree being distorted by the passing translucent clouds into akind of monstrous yet epic proportion.
Ghostly white ledges broke from the darker mist like fields of distantcrusted snow. Castellated crags loomed from the mystic river likefortified islands. Cattle, silent, enormously aggrandized, emerged likefabled beasts of the eld, and stared upon him, their jaws dripping withdew. Bulls roared from the obscure deeps. Dead trees, with stark andsinister arms, menaced warningly. All was as unreal as the world of pain'sdelirium, and yet was as beautiful as the poet's vision; and the ranger,feeling that he was looking upon one of Nature's rarest displays, removedhis hat in worship of it, thrilling with pride and satisfaction over thethought that this was his domain, his to guard and preserve.
The crowning glow of mystery and grace came as he led his horse out upon aprojecting point of rocky ledge to rest. Here the cliff descended abruptlyto an enormous depth, and upon the vaporous rolling flood beneath him adome of darker shadow rested. At the summit of this shadow an aureole ofrainbow light, a complete and glorious circle rested, in the midst ofwhich his own image was flung, grotesque and gigantic.
"The Shadows of the Brocken!" he exclaimed, in ecstasy, all hisbitterness, his care, forgotten. "Now I understand Goethe's lines." In allhis life in the hills he had never before witnessed such a combination ofpeak and sun and cloud and shadow.
His love for the range came back upon him with such power that tearsmisted his eyes and his throat ached. "Where else will I find such scenesas this?" he asked himself. "Where in all the lowlands could suchsplendors shine? How can I leave this high world in which these wonderscome and go? I will not! Here will I bring my bride and build my home.This is my world."
But the mist grew gray, the aureole of fire faded, the sun went downbehind the hills, and the chill of evening deepened on the trail, and ashe reapproached the scene of man's inhumanity to man the thought ofcamping there beside those charred limbs called for heroic resolution. Hewas hungry, too, and as the air pinched, he shivered.
"At the best, the sheriff cannot reach here before midnight," he said, andsettled down to his unsought, revolting vigil.
His one relief lay in the mental composition of a long letter to LeeVirginia, whose life at that moment was a comfort to him. "If such purity,such sweetness, can come from violence and vulgarity, then surely a newand splendid State can rise even out of the ashes of these murdered men.Perhaps this is the end of the old," he mused, "perhaps this is thebeginning of the new," and as he pondered the last faint crimson died outof the west. "So must the hate and violence die out of America," he said,"leaving the clear, sweet air of liberty behind."
He was near to the poet at the moment, for he was also the lover. Hisallegiance to the great republic stood the test. His faith in democracywas shaken, but not destroyed. "I will wait," he decided. "This shall bethe sign. If this deed goes unavenged, then will I put off my badge and myuniform, and go back to the land where for a hundred years at least suchdeeds as these have been impossible."
He built a fire, as night fell, to serve both as beacon and as a defenceagainst the cold. He felt himself weirdly remote in this vigil. From hisfar height he looked abroad upon the tumbled plain as if upon an oceandimly perceptible yet august. "At this moment," he said, "curious andperhaps guilty eyes are wondering what my spark of firelight may mean."
His mind went again and again to that tall old man in the ditch. What wasthe meaning of his scared and sorrowful glance? Why should one sopeacefully employed at such a time and in such a place wear the look of ahunted deer? What meant the tremor in his voice?
Was it possible that one so gentle should have taken part in this deed?"Preposterous suspicion, and yet he had a guilty look."
He was not a believer in ghosts, but he came nearer to a fear of the darkthat night than ever before in his life. He brought his horse close to thefire for company, and was careful not to turn his back upon the dead. Acorpse lying peacefully would not have produced this overpowering horror.He had seen battle-fields, but this pile of mangled limbs conquered eventhe hardened campaigner. He shivered each time his memory went back towhat he had first looked upon--the charred hand, the helpless heel.
From his high hill of meditation he reviewed the history of the West.Based in bloody wars between the primitive races, and between the trappersand their allies, the land had passed through a th
in adumbration ofcivilization as the stockmen drove out the buffalo and their hunters.Vigilantes, sheriff's posses (and now and again the regular army) hadswept over these grassy swells on errands of retributory violence, and sothe territory had been divided at last into populous States. Thenpolitics, the great national game, had made of them a power, with Senatorsto represent a mere handful of miners and herdsmen. In the Congress of theUnited States these commonwealths had played their unscrupulous games,trading for this and for that local appropriation. Happily in someinstances these Senators had been higher than their State, but in othercases they represented only too loyally the violent and consciencelesscow-man or lumber king, and now, as Redfield had said, the land-boomer wasto have his term. The man who valued residents, not Wild West performers,was about to govern and despoil; this promoter, almost as selfish as thecattle king, was about to advance the State along the lines of _his_conception of civilization; and so, perhaps, this monstrous deed, thisfinal inexcusable inhuman offence against law and humanity, was to standas a monument dividing the old from the new. Such, at least, was theranger's hope.
At last, far in the night, he heard the snort of a horse and the sound ofvoices. The law (such as it was) was creeping up the mountain-side in theperson of the sheriff of Chauvenet County, and was about to relieve theranger from his painful responsibility as guardian of the dead.
At last he came, this officer of the law, attended (like a Cheyenne chief)by a dozen lesser warriors of various conditions and kinds, but amongthem--indeed, second only to the sheriff--was Hugh Redfield, the ForestSupervisor, hot and eager with haste.
As they rode up to the fire, the officer called out: "Howdy, ranger! Howabout it?"
Ross stated briefly, succinctly, what he had discovered; and as he talkedother riders came up the hill and gathered closely around to listen inwordless silence--in guilty silence, the ranger could not help believing.
The sheriff, himself a cattle-man, heard Cavanagh without comment till hehad ended with a gesture. "And there they are; I turn them over to youwith vast relief. I am anxious to go back to my own peaceful world, wheresuch things do not happen."
The sheriff removed his hat and wiped his brow, then swore with a mutterof awe. "Well, by God, this is the limit! You say there were threebodies?"
"I lacked the courage to sort them out. I've been in battle, Mr. Sheriff,and I've seen dead men tumbled in all shapes, but someway this took thestiffening out of my knees. I rode away and left them. I don't care to seethem again. My part of this work is done."
Redfield spoke. "Sheriff Van Horne, you and I have been running cattle inthis country for nearly thirty years, and we've witnessed all kinds ofshooting and several kinds of hanging, but when it comes to chopping andburning men, I get off. I shall personally offer a reward of a thousanddollars for the apprehension of these miscreants, and I hope you'll makeit your solemn duty to hunt them to earth."
"You won't have far to go," remarked Ross, significantly.
"What do you mean?" asked the sheriff.
"I mean this slaughter, like the others that have taken place, was thework of cattle-men who claim this range. Their names are known to usall."
"Can it be possible!" exclaimed Redfield, looking round at the silentthrong, and in the wavering light certain eyes seemed to shift and fall.
"In what essential does it differ from the affair over on the Red Desert?"demanded Cavanagh. "Who would kill these poor sheep-herders but cattle-menwarring for the grass on which we stand?"
"But they would not dare to do such work themselves."
"No one else would do it. Hired assassins would not chop and burn. Hateand greed were both involved in this butchery--hate and greed made mad bydrink. I tell you, the men who did this are less than a day's ride ofwhere we stand."
A silence followed--so deep a silence that the ranger was convinced of thefact that in the circle of his listeners stood those who, if they had notshared in the slaughter, at least knew the names of the guilty men.
At last the sheriff spoke, this time with a sigh. "I hope you're allwrong, Cavanagh. I'd hate to think any constituent of mine had sanctionedthis job. Give me that lantern, Curtis."
The group of ranchers dismounted, and followed the sheriff over to thegrewsome spot; but Redfield stayed with the ranger.
"Have you any suspicion, Ross?"
"No, hardly a suspicion. However, you know as well as I that this was nota sudden outbreak. This deed was planned. It represents the feeling ofmany cattle-men--in everything but the extra horror of its execution._That_ was the work of drunken, infuriated men. But I am more deeplyconcerned over Miss Wetherford's distress. Did she reach you by telephoneto-night?"
"No. What's the trouble?"
"Her mother is down again. I telephoned her, and she asked me to come toher, but I cannot go, for I have a case of smallpox up on the hill. Ambro,the Basque herder, is down with it, and another herder is up there alonewith him. I must go back to them. But meanwhile I wish you would go to theFork and see what you can do for her."
His voice, filled with emotion, touched Redfield, and he said: "Can't I goto the relief of the herder?"
"No, you must not think of it; you are a man of a family. But if you canfind any one who has had the smallpox send him up; the old herder who isnursing the patient is not strong, and may drop any moment. Then it's upto me."
The men came back to the camp-fire conversing in low voices, some of themcursing in tones of awe. One or two of them were small farmers from DeerCreek, recent comers to the State, or men with bunches of milk-cows, andto them this deed was awesome.
The sheriff followed, saying: "Well, there's nothing to do but wait tillmorning. The rest of you men better go home. You can't be of any usehere."
For more than three hours the sheriff and Redfield sat with the rangerwaiting for daylight, and during this time the name of every man in theregion was brought up and discussed. Among others, Ross mentioned the oldman in the ditch.
"He wouldn't hurt a bumblebee!" declared the sheriff. "He's got a bunch ofcattle, but he's the mildest old man in the State. He's the last rancherin the country to even stand for such work. What made you mention him?"
"I passed him as I was riding back," replied Cavanagh, "and he had ascared look in his eyes."
The sheriff grunted. "You imagined all that. The old chap always has akind of meek look."
Cavanagh, tired, hungry, and rebellious, waited until the first faintlight in the east announced the dawn; then he rose, and, stretching hishand out toward it, said: "Here comes the new day. Will it be a new day tothe State, or is it to be the same old round of savagery?"
Redfield expressed a word of hope, and in that spirit the ranger mountedand rode away back toward the small teepee wherein Wetherford was doinghis best to expiate his past--a past that left him old and friendless atfifty-five. The sheriff and his men took up the work of vengeance whichfell to them as officers of the law.
It was nearly noon of a glorious day as Cavanagh, very tired and veryhungry, rode up to the sheep-herder's tent. Wetherford was sitting in thesun calmly smoking his pipe, the sheep were feeding not far away, attendedby the dog, and an air of peace covered his sunlit rocky world.
"How is the Basque?" asked the ranger.
Wetherford pointed upward. "All over."
"Then it wasn't smallpox?"
"I reckon that's what it was; it sure was fierce. I judge it's a case ofInjun burial--no ceremony--right here in the rocks. I'll let you dig thehole (I'm just about all in), but mind you keep to the windward all thetime. I don't want you spotted."
Cavanagh understood the necessity for these precautions, but first of allcame his own need of food and rest. Turning his tired horse to grass, hestretched himself along a grassy, sunny cranny between the rocks, andthere ate and afterward slept, while all about him the lambs called andthe conies whined.
He was awakened by a pebble tossed upon him, and when he arose, stiff andsore, but feeling stronger and in better temper, t
he sun was wearing low.Setting to work at his task, he threw the loose rock out of a hollow inthe ledge near by, and to this rude sepulchre Wetherford dragged the deadman, refusing all aid, and there piled a cairn of rocks above his grave.
The ranger was deeply moved by the pitiless contrast of the scene and thedrama. The sun was still shining warmly aslant the heavens; the wind,crisp and sweet, wandered by on laggard wings, the conies cried from theledges; the lambs were calling--and in the midst of it one tatteredfragment of humanity was heaping the iron earth upon another, stricken,perhaps, by the same dread disease.
Wetherford himself paused to moralize. "I suppose that chap has a mothersomewhere who is wondering where her boy is. This isn't exactly Christianburial, but it's all he'll get, I reckon; for whether it was smallpox orplain fever, nobody's going to uselessly resurrect him. Even the coyoteswill fight shy of his meat."
Nevertheless, the ranger took a hand at the end and rolled some hugebowlders upon the grave, to insure the wolves' defeat.
"Now burn the bedding," he commanded--"the whole camp has got to go--andyour clothing, too, after we get down the hill."
"What will we do with the sheep?"
"Drive them over the divide and leave them."
All these things Wetherford did, and leaving the camp in ashes behind him,Cavanagh drove the sheep before him on his homeward way. As night fell,the dog, at his command, rounded them up and put them to bed, and the menwent on down the valley, leaving the brave brute on guard, pathetic figureof faithful guardianship.
"It hurts me to desert you, old fellow," called the ranger, looking back,"but there's no help for it. I'll come up in the morning and bring yousome biscuit."
The collie seemed to understand. He waggled his tail and whined, as thoughstruggling to express his wonder and pain, and Ross, moved to pity,called: "Come on, boy, never mind the sheep! Come along with us!"
But the dog, leaping from side to side, uttered a short howl and a sharpbark, as if to say: "I can't! I can't!"
"He's onto _his_ job," remarked Wetherford. "It beats all how human theydo seem sometimes. I've no manner of doubt that dago's booted him all overthe place many a time, and yet he seemed horrible sorry about his master'strouble. Every few minutes, all night long, he'd come pattering andwhining round the door of the tent--didn't come in, seemed just trying toask how things were coming. He was like a child, lonesome and grieving."
It was long after dark when they entered the canon just above the cabin,and Wetherford was shivering from cold and weakness.
"Now you pull up just outside the gate, and wait there till I bring outsome blankets; then you've got to strip to the skin and start the worldall over again," said Cavanagh. "I'll build a fire here, and we'll cremateyour past. How about it?"
"I'm willing," responded Wetherford. "You can burn everything that belongsto me but my wife and my girl."
All through the ceremony which followed ran this self-banter. "I'll be allranger, barring a commission," he said, with a grin, as he put on theolive-yellow shirt and a pair of dusty-green trousers. "And here goes mypast!" he added, as he tossed his contaminated rags upon the fire.
"What a corking opportunity to make a fresh start," commented Cavanagh. "Ihope you see it."
"I see it; but it's hard to live up to your mark."
When every precaution had been taken, the ranger led the freshly scrubbed,scoured, and transformed fugitive to his cabin.
"Why, man, you're fit for the State Legislature," he exclaimed, as theycame into the full light. "My clothes don't precisely meet every demandyou make upon them, but they give you an air of command. I wish your wifecould see you now."
Wetherford was quite serious as he answered: "This uniform means more tome than you think. I wish I was entitled to wear it. The wild-wood is justabout populous enough for me."
"Good for you!" responded Cavanagh. "To convert a man of your record to abelief in conservation is to demonstrate once again the regenerative powerof an idea." Then, seeing that Wetherford was really in earnest, he added:"You can stay with me as long as you wish. Perhaps in time you might beable to work into the service as a guard, although the chief is gettingmore and more insistent on real foresters."
There were tears in Wetherford's eyes as he said: "You cannot realize whatthis clean, warm uniform means to me. For nine years I wore the prisonstripes; then I was turned loose with a shoddy suit and a hat a size toobig for me--an outfit that gave me away everywhere I went. Till my hairand beard sprouted I had a hard rustle of it, but my clothes grew oldfaster than my beard. At last I put every cent I had earned into a poorold horse, and a faded saddle, and once mounted I kept a-moving north." Hesmoothed the sleeve of his coat. "It is ten years since I was dressed likea man."
"You need not worry about food or shelter for the present," repliedCavanagh, gently. "Grub is not costly here, and house-rent is less thannominal, so make yourself at home and get strong."
Wetherford lifted his head. "But I want to do something. I want to redeemmyself in some way. I don't want my girl to know who I am, but I'd like towin her respect. I can't be what you say she thinks I was, but if I had achance I might show myself a man again. I wouldn't mind Lize knowing thatI am alive--it might be a comfort to her; but I don't want even her to betold till I can go to her in my own duds."
"She's pretty sick," said Cavanagh. "I telephoned Lee Virginia last night,and if you wish you may ride down with me to-morrow and see her."
The old man fell a-tremble. "I daren't do that. I can't bear to tell herwhere I've been!"
"She needn't know. I will tell her you've been out of your mind. I'll sayanything you wish! You can go to her in the clothes you have on if youlike--she will not recognize you as the prisoner I held the other night.You can have your beard trimmed, and not even the justice will know you."
All reserve had vanished out of the convict's heart, and with chokingvoice he thanked his young host. "I'll never be a burden to you," hedeclared, in firmer voice. "And if my lung holds out, I'll show you I'mnot the total locoe that I 'pear to be."
No further reference was made to Lee Virginia, but Ross felt himself to bemore deeply involved than ever by these promises; his fortunes seemed tobe inextricably bound up with this singular and unhappy family. Lying inhis bunk (after the lights were out), he fancied himself back in hisancestral home, replying to the questions of his aunts and uncles, whowere still expecting him to bring home a rich and beautiful Americanheiress. Some of the Cavanaghs were drunkards and some were vixens, butthey were on the whole rather decent, rather decorous and very dull, andto them this broken ex-convict and this slattern old barmaid would seemvery far from the ideal they had formed of the family into which Ross wascertain to marry.
But as he recalled the spot in which he lay and the uniform which hungupon the wall, he was frank to admit that the beautiful and rich heiressof whom his family dreamed was a very unsubstantial vision indeed, andthat, to be honest with himself, he had nothing to offer for such shininggood-fortune.
At breakfast next morning he said: "I must ride back and take some breadto the dog. I can't go away and leave him there without saying 'hello.'"
"Let me do that," suggested Wetherford. "I'm afraid to go down to theFork. I reckon I'd better go back and tend the sheep till Gregg sends someone up to take my place."
"That might be too late to see Lize. Lee's voice showed great anxiety. Shemay be on her death-bed. No; you'd better go down with me to-day," heurged. And at last the old man consented.
Putting some bread in his pockets, Ross rode off up the trail to see howthe dog and his flock were faring. He had not gone far when he heard thetinkle of the bells and the murmur of the lambs, and a few moments laterthe collie came toward him with the air of a boy who, having assumed todisregard the orders of his master, expects a scolding. He plainly said:"I've brought my sheep to you because I was lonesome. Please forgive me."
Cavanagh called to him cheerily, and tossed him a piece of bread, which hecaught in his te
eth but did not swallow; on the contrary, he held it whileleaping for joy of the praise he heard in his new-found master's voice.
Turning the flock upward again toward the higher peaks, the rangercommanded the collie to their heels, and so, having redeemed his promise,rode back to the cabin, where he found Wetherford saddled and ready forhis momentous trip to the valley. He had shaved away his gray beard, andhad Ross been unprepared for these changes he would have been puzzled toaccount for this decidedly military figure sitting statuesquely on hispony before the door.
"You can prove an alibi," he called, as he drew near. "Gregg himself wouldnever recognize you now."
Wetherford was in no mood for joking. "Lize will. I wore a mustache in theold days, and there's a scar on my chin."
As he rode he confided this strange thing to Cavanagh. "I know," said he,"that Lize is old and wrinkled, for I've seen her, but all the same Ican't realize it. That heavy-set woman down there is not Lize. My Lize isslim and straight. This woman whom you know has stolen her name and face,that's all. I can't explain exactly what I feel, but Lee Virginia meansmore to me now than Lize."
"I think I understand you," said Cavanagh, with sympathy in his voice.
The nearer Wetherford came to the actual meeting with his wife the more heshook. At last he stopped in the road. "I don't believe I can do it," hedeclared. "I'll be like a ghost to her. What's the use of it? She'll onlybe worried by my story. I reckon I'd better keep dark to everybody. Let mego back. I'm plum scared cold."
While still he argued, two men on horseback rounded a sharp turn in thetrail and came face to face with the ranger. Wetherford's face wentsuddenly gray. "My God, there's the deputy!"
"Keep quiet. I'll do the talking," commanded Cavanagh, who was instant inhis determination to shield the man. "Good-morning, gentlemen," he called,cheerily, "you're abroad early!"
The man in front was the deputy sheriff of the county; his companion was astranger.
"That was a horrible mess you stumbled on over on Deer Creek," the deputyremarked.
"It certainly was. Have any arrests been made?"
"Not yet, but we're on a clew. This is Marshal Haines, of Dallas, Mr.Cavanagh," pursued the deputy. The two men nodded in token of theintroduction, and the deputy went on: "You remember that old cuss thatused to work for Gregg?"
Again Cavanagh nodded.
"Well, that chap is wanted by the Texas authorities. Mr. Haines, here,wants to see him mighty bad. He's an escaped convict with a bad record."
"Is that so?" exclaimed Cavanagh. "I thought he seemed a bit gun-shy."
"The last seen of him was when Sam Gregg sent him up to herd sheep. Ithink he was mixed up in that killing, myself--him and Ballard--and we'regoing up to get some track of him. Didn't turn up at your station, didhe?"
"Yes, he came by some days ago, on his way, so he said, to relieve thatsick Basque, Ambro. I went up a couple of days ago, and found the Basquedead and the old man gone. I buried the herder the best I could, and I'mon my way down to report the case."
The deputy mused: "He may be hanging 'round some of the lumber-camps. Ireckon we had better go up and look the ground over, anyhow. We might justchance to overhaul him."
"He may have pulled out over the range," suggested the ranger. "Anyhow,it's a long way up there, and you'll probably have to camp at my placeto-night. You'll find the key hanging up over the door. Go in and makeyourself comfortable."
The deputy thanked him, and was about to ride on when Cavanagh added: "Iburned that Basque's tent and bedding for fear of contagion. His outfitwas worthless, anyhow. You'll find the sheep just above my cabin, and thehorse in my corral."
"The old man didn't take the horse, eh? Well, that settles it; he's sureat one of the camps. Much obliged. Good-day."
As the two officers rode away Wetherford leaned heavily on his pommel andstared at the ranger with wide eyes. His face was drawn and his lips dry."They'll get me! My God, they'll get me!" he said.
"Oh no, they won't," rejoined Cavanagh. "You're all right yet. Theysuspected nothing. How could they, with you in uniform and in mycompany?"
"All the same, I'm scared. That man Haines had his eyes on me everyminute. He saw right through me. They'll get me, and they'll charge me upwith that killing."
"No, they won't, I tell you," insisted the ranger. "Haines suspectednothing. I had his eye. He never saw you before, and has nothing but adescription to go by. So cheer up. Your uniform and your position with mewill make you safe--perfectly safe. They'll find the Basque's camp burnedand the sheep in charge of the dog, and they'll fancy that you haveskipped across the range. But see here, old man," and he turned on himsharply, "you didn't tell me the whole truth. You said you were out onparole."
"I couldn't tell you the whole truth," replied the fugitive. "But I willnow. I was in for a life sentence. I was desperate for the open air andhomesick for the mountains, and I struck down one of the guards. I waswilling to do anything to get out. I thought if I could get back to thiscountry and my wife and child I'd be safe. I said I'd be willing to goback to the pen if necessary, but I'm not. I can't do it. I'd die there inthat hell. You must save me for my girl's sake."
His voice and eyes were wild with a kind of desperate fury of fear, andCavanagh, moved to pity, assured him of his aid. "Now listen," he said."I'm going to shield you on account of your work for that poor shepherdand for your daughter's sake. It's my duty to apprehend you, of course,but I'm going to protect you. The safest thing for you to do is to go backto my cabin. Ride slow, so as not to get there till they're gone. They'llride over to the sawmill, without doubt. If they come back this way,remember that the deputy saw you only as a ragged old man with a longbeard, and that Haines has nothing but a printed description to go by.There's no use trying to flee. You are a marked man in that uniform, andyou are safer right here with me than anywhere else this side of Chicago.Haines is likely to cross the divide in the belief that you have gone thatway, and, if he does, you have no one but the deputy to deal with."
He succeeded at last in completely rousing the older man's courage.
Wetherford rose to meet his opportunity. "I'll do it," he said, firmly.
"That's the talk!" exclaimed Cavanagh, to encourage him. "You can throwthem off the track this time, and when I come back to-morrow I'll bringsome other clothing for you, and then we'll plan some kind of a schemethat will get you out of the country. I'll not let them make a scapegoatof you."
The ranger watched the fugitive, as he started back over the trail in thisdesperate defiance of his pursuers, with far less confidence in theoutcome than he had put into words.
"All depends on Wetherford himself. If his nerve does not fail him, ifthey take the uniform for granted, and do not carry the matter to theSupervisor, we will pull the plan through." And in this hope he rode awaydown the trail with bent head, for all this bore heavily upon hisrelationship to the girl waiting for him in the valley. He had thoughtLize a burden, a social disability, but a convict father now made themother's faults of small account.
The nearer he drew to the meeting with Lee Virginia the more importantthat meeting became. After all, woman is more important than war. The loveof home and the child persists through incredible vicissitudes; theconqueror returns from foreign lands the lover still; and in the deep offlooded mines and on the icy slopes of arctic promontories dead men havebeen found holding in their rigid hands the pictured face of some fairgirl. In the presence of such irrefutable testimony, who shall deny thepersistence and the reality of love?
Cavanagh had seen Virginia hardly more than a score of times, and yet shefilled his thought, confused his plans, making of his brain a place ofdoubt and hesitation. For her sake he had entered upon a plan to shield acriminal, to harbor an escaped convict. It was of no avail to argue thathe was moved to shield Wetherford because of his heroic action on thepeak. He knew perfectly well that it was because he could not see thatfair, brave girl further disgraced by the discovery of her father'sidentity, for in the
searching inquiry which would surely follow hissecret would develop.
To marry her, knowing the character of her father and her mother, wasmadness, and the voice within him warned him of his folly. "Pure watercannot be drawn from corrupt sources," it is said. Nevertheless, thethought of having the girl with him in the wilderness filled him withdivine recklessness. He was bewitched by the satin smoothness of her skin,the liquid light of her eye, the curve of her cheek, the swell of herbosom, and, most of all, by the involuntary movement of yielding whichbetrayed her trust and her love. While still he debated, alternatelyflushed with resolve to be happy and chilled by some strange dejection, hemet Swenson, the young guard who guarded the forest on the south Fork.
As he rode up, Cavanagh perceived in the other man's face somethingprofoundly serious. He did not smile in greeting, as was usual with him,and, taking some letters from his pocket, passed them over in ominoussilence.
Cavanagh, upon looking them over, selected a letter evidently from Mrs.Redfield, and stuffed the others into his coat-pocket. It was a closelywritten letter, and contained in its first sentence something which deeplyaffected him. Slipping from his saddle, he took a seat upon a stone, thathe might the better read and slowly digest what was contained therein. Heread on slowly, without any other movement than that which was required toturn the leaves. It was a passionate plea from Eleanor Redfield againsthis further entanglement with Lize Wetherford's girl.
"You cannot afford to marry her. You simply cannot. The old mother is toodreadful, and may live on for years. The girl is attractive, I grant you,but she's tainted. If there is anything in the law of heredity, she willdevelop the traits of her mother or her father sooner or later. You mustnot marry her, Ross; and if you cannot, what will you do? There's only onething to do. Keep away. I enclose a letter from your sister, pleading withme to urge you to visit them this winter. She is not very strong, as youcan see by her writing, and her request will give you an excuse forbreaking off all connection with this girl. I am sorry for her, Ross, butyou can't marry her. You must not--you must not! Ride over and see ussoon, and we will talk it all out together."
He opened another letter, but did not read it. He was too profoundlyshaken by the first. He felt the pure friendship, the fine faith, and theguardianship of the writer, and he acknowledged the good sense of all shesaid, and yet--and yet--
When he looked up Swenson was staring down at him with a face of suchbitterness that it broke through even the absorbed and selfish meditationinto which he had been thrown.
"What's the matter, Swenson? You look as if you had lost a friend."
"I have," answered the guard, shortly, "and so have you. The chief isout."
"What?"
"They've got him!" he exclaimed. "He's out."
Cavanagh sprang up. "I don't believe it! For what reason? Why?"
"Don't that letter tell you? The whole town is chuckling. Every criminaland plug-ugly in the country is spitting in our faces this morning. Yes,sir, the President has fired the chief--the man that built up thisForestry Service. The whole works is goin' to hell, that's what it is.We'll have all the coal thieves, water-power thieves, poachers, andfree-grass pirates piling in on us in mobs. They'll eat up the forest. Isee the finish of the whole business. They'll put some Western man in,somebody they can work. Then where will we be?"
Cavanagh's young heart burned with indignation, but he tried to check theother man's torrent of protest.
"I can't believe it. There's some mistake. Maybe they've made him thesecretary of the department or something."
"No, they haven't. They've thrown him out. They've downed him because hetried to head off some thievery of coal-mines in Alaska." The man wasready to weep with chagrin and indignant sorrow. His voice choked, and heturned away to conceal his emotion.
Cavanagh put the letter back into his pocket and mounted his horse. "Well,go on back to your work, Swenson. I'm going to town to get the Supervisoron the wire, and find out what it all means."
He was almost as badly stunned by the significance of Swenson's news asSwenson himself. Could it be possible that the man who had built up thefield service of the bureau--the man whose clean-handed patriotism hadheld the boys together, making them every year more clearly a unit, alittle army of enthusiasts--could it be possible that the originator, theorganizer of this great plan, had been stricken down just when hisinfluence was of most account? He refused to believe it of anadministration pledged to the cause of conservation.
As he entered the town he was struck instantly by the change in the facesturned toward him, in the jocular greetings hurled at him. "Hello, Mr.Cossack! What do you think of your chief now?"
"This will put an end to your infernal nonsense," said another. "We'llhave a man in there now who knows the Western ways, and who's willing toboom things along. The cork is out of your forest bottle."
Gregg was most offensive of all. "This means throwing open the forest toanybody that wants to use it. Means an entire reversal of this foolpolicy."
"Wait and see," replied Cavanagh, but his face was rigid with therepression of the fear and anger he felt. With hands that trembled heopened the door to the telephone-booth, closed it carefully behind him,and called for the Supervisor's office. As soon as Redfield replied, heburst forth in question: "Is it true that the chief is out?"
Redfield's voice was husky as he replied, "Yes, lad, they've got him."
"Good Lord! What a blow to the service!" exclaimed Cavanagh, with a groanof sorrow and rage. "What is the President thinking of--to throw out theonly man who stood for the future, the man who had built up this corps,who was its inspiration?" Then after a pause he added, with bitterresolution: "This ends it for me. Here's where I get off."
"Don't say that, boy. We need you now more than ever."
"I'm through. I'm done with America--with the States. I shall write myresignation at once. Send down another man to take my place."
Redfield's pleadings were of no avail. Cavanagh went directly from thebooth to the post-office, and there, surrounded by jeering and exultantcitizens, he penned his resignation and mailed it. Then, with stern andcontemptuous face, he left the place, making no reply to the jeers of hisenemies, and, mounting his horse, mechanically rode away out upon theplains, seeking the quiet, open places in order to regain calmness anddecision. He did not deliberately ride away from Lee Virginia, but as heentered upon the open country he knew that he was leaving her as he wasleaving the forests. He had cut himself off from her as he had cut himselfoff from the work he loved. His heart was swollen big within his breast.He longed for the return of "the Colonel" to the White House. "What mannerof ruler is this who is ready to strike down the man whose very name meansconservation, and who in a few years would have made this body of forestrangers the most effective corps of its size in the world?" He groanedagain, and his throat ached with the fury of his indignation.
"Dismissed for insubordination," the report said. "In what way? Only inmaking war on greed, in checking graft, in preserving the heritage of thepeople."
The lash that cut deepest was the open exultation of the very men whosepersistent attempt to appropriate public property the chief had helped tothwart. "Redfield will go next. The influence that got the chief will getHugh. He's too good a man to escape. Then, as Swenson says, the thieveswill roll in upon us to slash, and burn, and corrupt. What a country! Whata country!"
As he reached the end of this line of despairing thought, he came back tothe question of his remaining personal obligations. Wetherford must becared for, and then--and then! there was Virginia waiting for him at thismoment. In his weakness he confessed that he had never intended to marryher, and yet he had never deliberately intended to do her wrong. He hadalways stopped short of the hideous treachery involved in despoiling heryoung love. "And for her sake, to save her from humiliation, I will helpher father to freedom."
This brought him back to the hideous tragedy of the heights, and with thatthought the last shred of faith in the sense o
f justice in the Statevanished.
"They will never discover those murderers. They will permit this outrageto pass unpunished, like the others. It will be merely another 'dramaticincident' in the history of the range."
His pony of its own accord turned, and by a circuitous route headed atlast for the home canon as if it knew its master's wavering mind. Cavanaghobserved what he was doing, but his lax hand did not intervene. Helplessto make the decision himself, he welcomed the intervention of the hominginstinct of his horse. With bent head and brooding face he returned to thesilence of the trail and the loneliness of the hills.