The Man of the Forest Part 16

"I'm dying for a drink," cried Bo with her customary hyperbole.

"I reckon you'll never forget your first drink here," remarked Dale.

Bo essayed to dismount, and finally fell off, and when she did get to the ground her legs appeared to refuse their natural function, and she fell flat. Dale helped her up.

"What's wrong with me, anyhow?" she demanded, in great amaze.

"Just stiff, I reckon," replied Dale, as he led her a few awkward steps.

"Bo, have you any hurts?" queried Helen, who still sat her horse, loath to try dismounting, yet wanting to beyond all words.

Bo gave her an eloquent glance.

"Nell, did you have one in your side, like a wicked, long darning-needle, punching deep when you weren't ready?"

"That one I'll never get over!" exclaimed Helen, softly. Then, profiting by Bo's experience, she dismounted cautiously, and managed to keep upright. Her legs felt like wooden things.

Presently the girls went toward the spring.

"Drink slow," called out Dale.

Big Spring had its source somewhere deep under the gray, weathered bluff, from which came a hollow subterranean gurgle and roar of water.

Its fountainhead must have been a great well rus.h.i.+ng up through the cold stone.

Helen and Bo lay flat on a mossy bank, seeing their faces as they bent over, and they sipped a mouthful, by Dale's advice, and because they were so hot and parched and burning they wanted to tarry a moment with a precious opportunity.

The water was so cold that it sent a shock over Helen, made her teeth ache, and a singular, revivifying current steal all through her, wonderful in its cool absorption of that dry heat of flesh, irresistible in its appeal to thirst. Helen raised her head to look at this water. It was colorless as she had found it tasteless.

"Nell--drink!" panted Bo. "Think of our--old spring--in the orchard--full of pollywogs!"

And then Helen drank thirstily, with closed eyes, while a memory of home stirred from Bo's gift of poignant speech.

CHAPTER VII

The first camp duty Dale performed was to throw a pack off one of the horses, and, opening it, he took out tarpaulin and blankets, which he arranged on the ground under a pine-tree.

"You girls rest," he said, briefly.

"Can't we help?" asked Helen, though she could scarcely stand.

"You'll be welcome to do all you like after you're broke in."

"Broke in!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Bo, with a little laugh. "I'm all broke UP now."

"Bo, it looks as if Mr. Dale expects us to have quite a stay with him in the woods."

"It does," replied Bo, as slowly she sat down upon the blankets, stretched out with a long sigh, and laid her head on a saddle. "Nell, didn't he say not to call him Mister?"

Dale was throwing the packs off the other horses.

Helen lay down beside Bo, and then for once in her life she experienced the sweetness of rest.

"Well, sister, what do you intend to call him?" queried Helen, curiously.

"Milt, of course," replied Bo.

Helen had to laugh despite her weariness and aches.

"I suppose, then, when your Las Vegas cowboy comes along you will call him what he called you."

Bo blushed, which was a rather unusual thing for her.

"I will if I like," she retorted. "Nell, ever since I could remember you've raved about the West. Now you're OUT West, right in it good and deep. So wake up!"

That was Bo's blunt and characteristic way of advising the elimination of Helen's superficialities. It sank deep. Helen had no retort. Her ambition, as far as the West was concerned, had most a.s.suredly not been for such a wild, unheard-of jaunt as this. But possibly the West--a living from day to day--was one succession of adventures, trials, tests, troubles, and achievements. To make a place for others to live comfortably some day! That might be Bo's meaning, embodied in her forceful hint. But Helen was too tired to think it out then. She found it interesting and vaguely pleasant to watch Dale.

He hobbled the horses and turned them loose. Then with ax in hand he approached a short, dead tree, standing among a few white-barked aspens. Dale appeared to advantage swinging the ax. With his coat off, displaying his wide shoulders, straight back, and long, powerful arms, he looked a young giant. He was lithe and supple, brawny but not bulky.

The ax rang on the hard wood, reverberating through the forest. A few strokes sufficed to bring down the stub. Then he split it up. Helen was curious to see how he kindled a fire. First he ripped splinters out of the heart of the log, and laid them with coa.r.s.er pieces on the ground.

Then from a saddlebag which hung on a near-by branch he took flint and steel and a piece of what Helen supposed was rag or buckskin, upon which powder had been rubbed. At any rate, the first strike of the steel brought sparks, a blaze, and burning splinters. Instantly the flame leaped a foot high. He put on larger pieces of wood crosswise, and the fire roared.

That done, he stood erect, and, facing the north, he listened. Helen remembered now that she had seen him do the same thing twice before since the arrival at Big Spring. It was Roy for whom he was listening and watching. The sun had set and across the open s.p.a.ce the tips of the pines were losing their brightness.

The camp utensils, which the hunter emptied out of a sack, gave forth a jangle of iron and tin. Next he unrolled a large pack, the contents of which appeared to be numerous sacks of all sizes. These evidently contained food supplies. The bucket looked as if a horse had rolled over it, pack and all. Dale filled it at the spring. Upon returning to the camp-fire he poured water into a washbasin, and, getting down to his knees, proceeded to wash his hands thoroughly. The act seemed a habit, for Helen saw that while he was doing it he gazed off into the woods and listened. Then he dried his hands over the fire, and, turning to the spread-out pack, he began preparations for the meal.

Suddenly Helen thought of the man and all that his actions implied.

At Magdalena, on the stage-ride, and last night, she had trusted this stranger, a hunter of the White Mountains, who appeared ready to befriend her. And she had felt an exceeding grat.i.tude. Still, she had looked at him impersonally. But it began to dawn upon her that chance had thrown her in the company of a remarkable man. That impression baffled her. It did not spring from the fact that he was brave and kind to help a young woman in peril, or that he appeared deft and quick at camp-fire ch.o.r.es. Most Western men were brave, her uncle had told her, and many were roughly kind, and all of them could cook. This hunter was physically a wonderful specimen of manhood, with something leonine about his stature. But that did not give rise to her impression. Helen had been a school-teacher and used to boys, and she sensed a boyish simplicity or vigor or freshness in this hunter. She believed, however, that it was a mental and spiritual force in Dale which had drawn her to think of it.

"Nell, I've spoken to you three times," protested Bo, petulantly. "What 're you mooning over?"

"I'm pretty tired--and far away, Bo," replied Helen. "What did you say?"

"I said I had an e-normous appet.i.te."

"Really. That's not remarkable for you. I'm too tired to eat. And afraid to shut my eyes. They'd never come open. When did we sleep last, Bo?"

"Second night before we left home," declared Bo.

"Four nights! Oh, we've slept some."

"I'll bet I make mine up in this woods. Do you suppose we'll sleep right here--under this tree--with no covering?"

"It looks so," replied Helen, dubiously.

"How perfectly lovely!" exclaimed Bo, in delight. "We'll see the stars through the pines."

"Seems to be clouding over. Wouldn't it be awful if we had a storm?"