XIV
THE PEST-HOUSE
Cavanagh had kept a keen watch over Wetherford, and when one night the oldman began to complain of the ache in his bones his decision was instant.
"You've got it," he said. "It's up to us to move down the valleyto-morrow."
Wetherford protested that he would as soon die in the hills as in thevalley. "I don't want Lee Virginia to know, but if I seem liable to fadeout, I'd like Lize to be told that I didn't forget her, and that I cameback to find out how she was. I hate to be a nuisance to you, and so I'llgo down the valley if you say so."
As he was about to turn in that night Ross heard a horse cross the bridge,and with intent to warn the rider of his danger, went to the door andcalled out: "Halt! Who's there?"
"A friend," replied the stranger, in a weak voice.
Ross permitted his visitor to ride up to the pole. "I can't ask you in,"he explained. "I've a sick man inside. Who are you, and what can I do foryou?"
Notwithstanding this warning the rider dropped from his saddle, and cameinto the light which streamed from the door.
"My name is Dunn," he began. "I'm from Deer Creek."
"I know you," responded the ranger. "You're that rancher I saw working inthe ditch the day I went to telephone, and you've come to tell mesomething about that murder."
The other man broke into a whimper. "I'm a law-abiding man, Mr. Cavanagh,"he began, tremulously. "I've always kept the law, and never intended tohave anything to do with that business. I was dragged into it against mywill. I've come to you because you're an officer of the Federal law. Youdon't belong here. I trust you. You represent the President, and I want totell you what I know--only I want you to promise not to bring me into it.I'm a man of a family, and I can't bear to have them know the truth."
There was deep agitation and complete sincerity in the rancher's chokedand hesitant utterance, and Cavanagh turned cold with a premonition ofwhat he was about to disclose. "I am not an officer of the law, Mr. Dunn,not in the sense you mean, but I will respect your wishes."
"I know that you are not an officer of the county law, but you're not acattle-man. It is your business to keep the peace in the wild country, andyou do it, everybody knows that; but I can't trust the officers of thiscountry, they're all afraid of the cowboys. You're not afraid, and yourepresent the United States, and I'll tell you. I can't bear it anylonger!" he wailed. "I must tell somebody. I can't sleep and I can't eat.I've been like a man in a nightmare ever since. I had no hand in thekilling--I didn't even see it done; but I knew it was going to happen. Isaw the committee appointed. The meeting that decided it was held in mybarn, but I didn't know what they intended to do. You believe me, don'tyou?" He peered up at Cavanagh with white face and wild eyes.
"Go on," replied the ranger; "I'll protect you--if I can. Go on. It's yourduty--tell all you know."
The troubled man, after a little silence, resumed. "Sometimes I feel thatI'd be happier in jail than I am walking about in the sunshine. I neverdreamed civilized men could do such deeds. I thought they were only goingto scare the herders and drive them out, as they've done so many timesbefore. I can see now that they used my barn for a meeting-place becauseeverybody believed me to be a man of peace. And I am. I'm over seventyyears of age, Mr. Cavanagh, and I've been a law-abiding citizen all mylife."
His mind, shattered by the weight of his ghastly secret, was in confusion,and, perceiving this, Cavanagh began to question him gently. One by one heprocured the names of those who voted to "deal with" the herders. One byone he obtained also the list of those named on "the Committee ofReprisal," and as the broken man delivered himself of these accusing factshe grew calmer. "I didn't know--I couldn't _believe_--that the men on thatcommittee could chop and burn--" His utterance failed him again, and hefell silent abruptly.
"They must have been drunk--mad drunk," retorted Cavanagh. "And yet whowould believe that even drink could inflame white men to such devil'swork? When did you first know what had been done?"
"That night after it was done one of the men, my neighbor, who was drawnon the committee, came to my house and asked me to give him a bed. He wasafraid to go home. 'I can't face my wife and children,' he said. He toldme what he'd seen, and then when I remembered that it had all been decidedin my stable, and the committee appointed there, I began to tremble. Youbelieve I'm telling the truth, don't you?" he again asked, with piteousaccent.
"Yes, I believe you. You must tell this story to the judge. It will endthe reign of the cattle-men."
"Oh no, I can't do that."
"You must do that. It is your duty as a Christian man and citizen."
"No, no; I'll stay and help you--I'll do anything but that. I'm afraid totell what I know. They would burn me alive. I'm not a Western man. I'venever been in a criminal court. I don't belong to this wild country. Icame out here because my daughter is not strong, and now--" He broke downaltogether, and leaning against his horse's side, sobbed pitifully.
Cavanagh, convinced that the old man's mind was too deeply affected toenable him to find his way back over the rough trail that night, spoke tohim gently. "I'll get you something to eat," he said. "Sit down here, andrest and compose yourself."
Wetherford turned a wild eye on the ranger as he reentered. "Who's outthere?" he asked. "Is it the marshal?"
"No, it's only one of the ranchers from below; he's tired and hungry, andI'm going to feed him," Ross replied, filled with a vivid sense of thediverse characters of the two men he was serving.
Dunn received the food with an eager hand, and after he had finished hisrefreshment, Cavanagh remarked: "The whole country should be obliged toyou for your visit to me. I shall send your information to SupervisorRedfield."
"Don't use my name," he begged. "They will kill me if they find out that Ihave told. We were all sworn to secrecy, and if I had not seen thatfire--that pile of bodies--"
"I know, I know! It horrified me. It made me doubt humanity," respondedCavanagh. "We of the North cry out against the South for lynching blackrapers; but here, under our eyes, goes on an equally horrible display ofrage over the mere question of temporary advantage, over the appropriationof free grass, which is a Federal resource--something which belongsneither to one claimant nor to the other, but to the people, and should beof value to the people. There is some excuse for shooting and burning aman who violates a woman, but what shall we say of those who kill anddismember men over the possession of a plot of grass? You must bring thesemen to punishment."
Dunn could only shiver in his horror and repeat his fear. "They'll kill meif I do."
Cavanagh at last said: "You must not attempt to ride back to-night. Ican't give you lodging in the cabin, because my patient is sick ofsmallpox, but you can camp in the barn till morning, then ride straightback to my friend Redfield, and tell him what you've told me. He will seethat you are protected. Make your deposition and leave the country, if youare afraid to remain."
In the end the rancher promised to do this, but his tone was that of abroken and distraught dotard. All the landmarks of his life seemedsuddenly shifted. All the standards of his life hitherto orderly and fixedwere now confused and whirling, and Cavanagh, understanding something ofhis plight, pitied him profoundly. It was of a piece with this ironicstory that the innocent man should suffer madness and the guilty go calmlyabout their business of grazing their cattle on the stolen grass.
Meanwhile the sufferings of his other patient were increasing, and he wasforced to give up all hope of getting him down the trail next morning; andwhen Swenson, the Forest Guard from the south Fork, knocked at the door tosay that he had been to the valley, and that the doctor was coming up withRedfield and the District Forester, Ross thanked him, but ordered him togo into camp across the river, and to warn everybody to keep clear of thecabin. "Put your packages down outside the door," he added, "and takecharge of the situation on the outside. I'll take care of the businessinside."
Wetherford was in great pain, but the poison of the disease had misted
hisbrain, and he no longer worried over the possible disclosure of hisidentity. At times he lost the sense of his surroundings and talked of hisprison life, or of the long ride northward. Once he rose in his bed tobeat off the wolves which he said were attacking his pony.
He was a piteous figure as he struggled thus, and it needed neither hisrelationship to Lee nor his bravery in caring for the Basque herder tofill the ranger's heart with a desire to relieve his suffering. "Perhaps Ishould have sent for Lize at once," he mused, as the light brought out thered signatures of the plague.
Once the old man looked up with wide, dark, unseeing eyes and murmured, "Idon't seem to know you."
"I'm a friend--my name is Cavanagh."
"I can't place you," he sadly admitted. "I feel pretty bad. If I ever getout of this place I'm going back to the Fork; I'll get a gold-mine, thenI'll go back and make up for what Lize has gone through. I'm afraid to goback now."
"All right," Ross soothingly agreed; "but you'll have to keep quiet tillyou get over this fever you're suffering from."
"If Lize weren't so far away, she'd come and nurse me--I'm pretty sick.This stone-cutting--this inside work is hell on an old cow-puncher likeme."
Swenson came back to say that probably Redfield and the doctor would reachThe Station by noon, and thereafter, for the reason that Cavanagh expectedtheir coming, the hours dragged wofully. It was after one o'clock beforeSwenson announced that two teams were coming with three men and two womenin them. "They'll be here in half an hour."
The ranger's heart leaped. Two women! Could one of them be Lee Virginia?What folly--what sweet, desperate folly! And the other--she could not beLize--for Lize was too feeble to ride so far. "Stop them on the other sideof the bridge," he commanded. "Don't let them cross the creek on anypretext."
As he stood in the door the flutter of a handkerchief, the waving of ahand, made his pulses glow and his eyes grow dim. It was Virginia!
Lize did not flutter a kerchief or wave a hand, but when Swenson stoppedthe carriage at the bridge she said: "No, you don't! I'm going across. I'mgoing to see Ross, and if he needs help, I'm going to roll up my sleevesand take hold."
Cavanagh saw her advancing, and, as she came near enough for his voice toreach her, he called out: "Don't come any closer! Stop, I tell you!" Hisvoice was stern. "You must not come a step nearer. Go back across thedead-line and stay there. No one but the doctor shall enter this door. Nowthat's final."
"I want to help!" she protested.
"I know you do; but I won't have it. This quarantine is real, and itgoes!"
"But suppose you yourself get sick?"
"We'll cross _that_ bridge when we get to it. I'm all right so far, andI'll call for help when I need it."
His tone was imperative, and she obeyed, grumbling about his youth and thevalue of his life to the service.
"That's all very nice," he replied; "but I'm in it, and I don't intend toexpose you or any one else to the contagion."
"I've had it once," she asserted.
He looked at her, and smiled in recognition of her subterfuge.
"No matter; you're ailing, and might take it again, so toddle back. It'smighty good of you, and of Lee, to come--but there isn't a thing you cando, and here's the doctor," he added, as he recognized the young studentwho passed for a physician in the Fork. He was a beardless youth of smallexperience and no great courage, and as he approached with hesitant feethe asked:
"Are you sure it's smallpox?"
Cavanagh smiled. "The indications are all that way. That last importationof Basques brought it probably from the steerage of the ship. I'm toldthey've had several cases over in the Basin."
"Have you been vaccinated?"
"Yes; when I was in the army."
"Then you're all right."
"I hope so."
There was a certain comic relief in this long-distance diagnosing of a"case" by a boy, and yet the tragic fact beneath it all was thatWetherford was dying, a broken and dishonored husband and father, and thathis identity must be concealed from his wife and daughter, who were muchmore deeply concerned over the ranger than over the desperate condition ofhis patient. "And this must continue to be so," Cavanagh decided. And ashe stood there looking toward the girl's fair figure on the bridge, hecame to the final, fixed determination never to speak one word or make asign that might lead to the dying man's identification. "Of what use isit?" he asked himself. "Why should even Lize be made to suffer?Wetherford's poor misspent life is already over for her, and for Lee he isonly a dim memory."
Redfield came near enough to see that the ranger's face, though tired,showed no sign of illness, and was relieved. "Who is this old herder?" heasked. "Hasn't he any relatives in the country?"
"He came from Texas, so he said. You're not coming in?" he broke off tosay to the young physician, whom Lize had shamed into returning to thecabin.
"I suppose I'll have to," he protested, weakly.
"I don't see the need of it. The whole place reeks of the poison, and youmight carry it away with you. Unless you insist on coming in, and are sureyou can prevent further contagion, I shall oppose your entrance. You arein the company of others--I must consider their welfare."
The young fellow was relieved. "Well, so long as we know what it is I canprescribe just as well right here," he said, and gave directions for thetreatment, which the ranger agreed to carry out.
"I tried to bring a nurse," explained Redfield, "but I couldn't findanybody but old Lize who would come."
"I don't blame them," replied Ross. "It isn't a nice job, even when you'vegot all the conveniences."
His eyes, as he spoke, were on the figure of Lee, who still stood on thebridge awed and worshipful, barred of approach by Lize. "She shall notknow," he silently vowed. "Why put her through useless suffering andshame? Edward Wetherford's disordered life is near its end. To betray himto his wife and daughter would be but the reopening of an old wound."
He was stirred to the centre of his heart by the coming of Lee Virginia,so sweet and brave and trustful. His stern mood melted as he watched herthere waiting, with her face turned toward him, longing to help. "Shewould have come alone if necessary," he declared, with a fuller revelationof the self-sacrificing depth of her love, "and she would come to my sidethis moment if I called her."
To the District Forester he said no more than to Redfield. "Edwards isevidently an old soldier," he declared. "He was sent up here by Gregg totake the place of a sick herder. He took care of that poor herder till hedied, and then helped me to bury him; now here he lies a victim to his ownsense of duty, and I shall not desert him." And to himself he added: "Norbetray him."
He went back to his repulsive service sustained and soothed by the littlecamp of faithful friends on the other side of the stream. The tender graceof the girl's attitude, her air of waiting, of anxiety, of readiness toserve, made him question the basis of his family pride. He recognized inher the spirit of her sire, tempered, sweetened, made more stable, bysomething drawn from unknown sources. At the moment he felt that Lee wasnot merely his equal but his superior in purity of character and inpurpose. "What nonsense we talk of heredity, of family," he thought.
Standing over the wasted body of his patient, he asked again: "Why leteven Lize know? To her Ed Wetherford is dead. She remembers him now as ayoung, dashing, powerful horseman, a splendid animal, a picturesque lover.Why wring her heart by permitting her to see this wreck of what was onceher pride?"
As for Wetherford himself, nothing mattered very much. He spoke of thepast now and then, but not in the phrase of one who longs for the returnof happy days--rather in the voice of one who murmurs a half-forgottensong. He called no more for his wife and child, and if he had done soCavanagh would have reasoned that the call arose out of weakness, and thathis better self, his real self, would still desire to shield his secretfrom his daughter.
And this was true, for during one of his clearest moments Wetherfordrepeated his wish to die a stranger. "I'm goin' out like the old-t
imeWest, a rag of what I once was. Don't let them know--put no name overme--just say: 'An old cow-puncher lies here.'"
Cavanagh's attempt to change his hopeless tone proved unavailing.Enfeebled by his hardships and his prison life, he had little reserveforce upon which to draw in fighting such an enemy. He sank soon afterthis little speech into a coma which continued to hold him in its unbrokengrasp as night fell.
Meantime, seeing no chance of aiding the ranger, Redfield and the Foresterprepared to return, but Lee, reinforced by her mother, refused toaccompany them. "I shall stay here," she said, "till he is safely out ofit--till I _know_ that he is beyond all danger."
Redfield did not urge her to return as vigorously as Dalton expected himto do, but when he understood the girl's desire to be near her lover, hetook off his hat and bowed to her. "You are entirely in the right," hesaid. "Here is where you belong."
Redfield honored Lize for her sympathetic support of her daughter'sresolution, and expressed his belief that Ross would escape the plague. "Ifeel that his splendid vigor, combined with the mountain air, will carryhim through--even if he should prove not to be immune. I shall run upagain day after to-morrow. I shall be very anxious. What a nuisance thatthe telephone-line is not extended to this point. Ross has been insistingon its value for months."
Lee saw the doctor go with some dismay. Young as he was, he was at least areed to cling to in case the grisly terror seized upon the ranger. "Mr.Redfield, can't you send a real doctor? It seems so horrible to be lefthere without instructions."
The Forester, before going, again besought Cavanagh not to abandon hiswork in the Forestry Service, and intimated that at the proper timeadvancement would be offered him. "The whole policy is but beginning,"said he, "and a practical ranger with your experience and education willprove of greatest value."
To this Ross made reply. "At the moment I feel that no promise ofadvancement could keep me in this country of grafters, poachers, andassassins. I'm weary of it, and all it stands for. However, if I could aidin extending the supervision of the public ranges and in stopping foreverthis murder and burning that goes on outside the forestry domain, I mightremain in the West."
"Would you accept the supervisorship of the Washakie Forest?" demandedDalton.
Taken by surprise, he stammered: "I might; but am I the man?"
"You are. Your experience fits you for a position where the fight is hot.The Washakie Forest is even more a bone of contention than this. We havelaid out the lines of division between the sheep and the cows, and it willtake a man to enforce our regulations. You will have the support of thebest citizens. They will all rally, with you as leader, and so end thewarfare there."
"It can never end till Uncle Sam puts rangers over every section of publiclands and lays out the grazing lines as we have done in this forest,"retorted Cavanagh.
"I know; but to get that requires a revolution in the whole order ofthings." Then his fine young face lighted up. "But we'll get it. Publicsentiment is coming our way. The old order is already so eaten away thatonly its shell remains."
"It may be. If these assassins are punished I shall feel hopeful of thechange."
"I shall recommend you for the supervisorship of the Washakie Forest,"concluded Dalton, decisively. "And so good-bye and good-luck."
England, his blood relatives, even the Redfields, seemed very remote tothe ranger, as he stood in his door that night and watched the sparkle ofSwenson's camp-fire through the trees. With the realization that therewaited a brave girl of the type that loves single-heartedly, ready tosacrifice everything to the welfare of her idealized subject, he feltunworthy, selfish, vain.
"If I should fall sick she would insist on nursing me. For her sake I mustgive Swenson the most rigid orders not to allow her--no matter whathappens--to approach. I will not have her touched by this thing."
Beside the blaze Lee and her mother sat for the most part in silence, withnothing to do but to wait the issue of the struggle going on in the cabin,so near and yet so inaccessible to their will. It was as if a magic wall,crystal-clear yet impenetrable, shut them away from the man whose quietheroism was the subject of their constant thought.
To the girl this ride up into her lover's world had been both exalting andawesome--not merely because the rough and precipitous road took her closerto her lover while placing her farther from medical aid, but also becauseit was so vast a world, so unpeopled and so beautiful.
It was marvellous, as the dusk fell and the air nipped keen, to see howLize Wetherford renewed her youth. The excitement seemed to have given hera fresh hold on life. She was wearied but by no means weakened by herride, and ate heartily of the rude fare which Swenson set before her."This is what I needed," she exultantly said; "the open air and thesetrout. I feel ten years younger already. Many's the night I've camped onthe range with your father with nothing but a purp-tent to cover us both,and the wolves howling round us. I'd feel pretty fairly gay if it weren'tfor Ross over there in that cabin playin' nurse and cook all by hislonesomeness."
Lee expressed a deep satisfaction from the fact of their nearness. "If heis ill we can help him," she reiterated.
She had put behind her all the doubt and fear which his abrupt desertionof her had caused, and, though he had not been able to speak a word toher, his self-sacrifice had made amends. She excused it all as part of hisanxious care. Whatever the mood of that other day had been, it had givenway to one that was lofty and deeply altruistic. Her one anxiety now wasborn of a deepening sense of his danger, but against this she bent thefull strength of her will. "He shall not die," she declared beneath herbreath. "God will not permit it."
There was a touch of frost in the air as they went to their beds, and,though she shivered, Lize was undismayed. "There's nothing the matter withmy heart," she exulted. "I don't believe there was anything really seriousthe matter with me, anyway. I reckon I was just naturally grouchy andworried over you and Ross."
Lee Virginia was now living a romance stranger and more startling than anyshe had ever read. In imagination she was able to look back and down uponthe Fork as if she had been carried into another world--a world that wasat once primeval yet peaceful: a world of dreaming trees, singing streams,and silent peaks; a realm in which law and order reigned, maintained byone determined young man whose power was derived from the Presidenthimself. She felt safe--entirely safe--for just across the roaringmountain torrent the two intrepid guardians of the forest were encamped.One of them, it is true, came of Swedish parentage and the other was anative of England, but they were both American in the high sense of beingloyal to the Federal will, and she trusted them more unquestioningly thanany other men in all that West save only Redfield. She had no doubt therewere others equally loyal, equally to be trusted, but she did not knowthem.
She rose to a complete understanding of Cavanagh's love for "the highcountry" and his enthusiasm for the cause, a cause which was able to bringtogether the student from Yale and the graduates of Bergen and of Oxford,and make them comrades in preserving the trees and streams of the mountainStates against the encroachments of some of their own citizens, who wereopenly, short-sightedly, and cynically bent upon destruction, spoliation,and misuse.
She had listened to the talk of the Forester and the Supervisor, and shehad learned from them that Cavanagh was sure of swift advancement, nowthat he had shown his courage and his skill; and the thought that he mightleave the State to take charge of another forest brought her someuneasiness, for she and Lize had planned to go to Sulphur City. She hadconsented to this because it still left to her the possibility ofoccasionally seeing or hearing from Cavanagh. But the thought that hemight go away altogether took some of the music out of the sound of thestream and made the future vaguely sad.