The Man of the Forest Part 21

"I choose the lesser of two rides," replied Helen, smiling.

"Reckon that 'll be easier, but you'll know you've had a ride," said Dale, significantly.

"What was that we had yesterday?" asked Bo, archly.

"Only thirty miles, but cold an' wet. To-day will be fine for ridin'."

"Milt, I'll take a blanket an' some grub in case you don't meet us to-night," said Roy. "An' I reckon we'll split up here where I'll have to strike out on thet short cut."

Bo mounted without a helping hand, but Helen's limbs were so stiff that she could not get astride the high Ranger without a.s.sistance. The hunter headed up the slope of the canyon, which on that side was not steep.

It was brown pine forest, with here and there a clump of dark, silver-pointed evergreens that Roy called spruce. By the time this slope was surmounted Helen's aches were not so bad. The saddle appeared to fit her better, and the gait of the horse was not so unfamiliar. She reflected, however, that she always had done pretty well uphill. Here it was beautiful forest-land, uneven and wilder. They rode for a time along the rim, with the white rus.h.i.+ng stream in plain sight far below, with its melodious roar ever thrumming in the ear.

Dale reined in and peered down at the pine-mat.

"Fresh deer sign all along here," he said, pointing.

"Wal, I seen thet long ago," rejoined Roy.

Helen's scrutiny was rewarded by descrying several tiny depressions in the pine-needles, dark in color and sharply defined.

"We may never get a better chance," said Dale. "Those deer are workin'

up our way. Get your rifle out."

Travel was resumed then, with Roy a little in advance of the pack-train.

Presently he dismounted, threw his bridle, and cautiously peered ahead.

Then, turning, he waved his sombrero. The pack-animals halted in a bunch. Dale beckoned for the girls to follow and rode up to Roy's horse.

This point, Helen saw, was at the top of an intersecting canuon. Dale dismounted, without drawing his rifle from its saddle-sheath, and approached Roy.

"Buck an' two does," he said, low-voiced. "An' they've winded us, but don't see us yet.... Girls, ride up closer."

Following the directions indicated by Dale's long arm, Helen looked down the slope. It was open, with tall pines here and there, and clumps of silver spruce, and aspens s.h.i.+ning like gold in the morning sunlight.

Presently Bo exclaimed: "Oh, look! I see! I see!" Then Helen's roving glance pa.s.sed something different from green and gold and brown.

s.h.i.+fting back to it she saw a magnificent stag, with n.o.ble spreading antlers, standing like a statue, his head up in alert and wild posture.

His color was gray. Beside him grazed two deer of slighter and more graceful build, without horns.

"It's downhill," whispered Dale. "An' you're goin' to overshoot."

Then Helen saw that Roy had his rifle leveled.

"Oh, don't!" she cried.

Dale's remark evidently nettled Roy. He lowered the rifle.

"Milt, it's me lookin' over this gun. How can you stand there an' tell me I'm goin' to shoot high? I had a dead bead on him."

"Roy, you didn't allow for downhill... Hurry. He sees us now."

Roy leveled the rifle and, taking aim as before, he fired. The buck stood perfectly motionless, as if he had indeed been stone. The does, however, jumped with a start, and gazed in fright in every direction.

"Told you! I seen where your bullet hit thet pine--half a foot over his shoulder. Try again an' aim at his legs."

Roy now took a quicker aim and pulled trigger. A puff of dust right at the feet of the buck showed where Roy's lead had struck this time. With a single bound, wonderful to see, the big deer was out of sight behind trees and brush. The does leaped after him.

"Doggone the luck!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Roy, red in the face, as he worked the lever of his rifle. "Never could shoot downhill, nohow!"

His rueful apology to the girls for missing brought a merry laugh from Bo.

"Not for worlds would I have had you kill that beautiful deer!" she exclaimed.

"We won't have venison steak off him, that's certain," remarked Dale, dryly. "An' maybe none off any deer, if Roy does the shootin'."

They resumed travel, sheering off to the right and keeping to the edge of the intersecting canuon. At length they rode down to the bottom, where a tiny brook babbled through willows, and they followed this for a mile or so down to where it flowed into the larger stream. A dim trail overgrown with gra.s.s showed at this point.

"Here's where we part," said Dale. "You'll beat me into my camp, but I'll get there sometime after dark."

"Hey, Milt, I forgot about thet darned pet cougar of yours an' the rest of your menagerie. Reckon they won't scare the girls? Especially old Tom?"

"You won't see Tom till I get home," replied Dale.

"Ain't he corralled or tied up?"

"No. He has the run of the place."

"Wal, good-by, then, an' rustle along."

Dale nodded to the girls, and, turning his horse, he drove the pack-train before him up the open s.p.a.ce between the stream and the wooded slope.

Roy stepped off his horse with that single action which appeared such a feat to Helen.

"Guess I'd better cinch up," he said, as he threw a stirrup up over the pommel of his saddle. "You girls are goin' to see wild country."

"Who's old Tom?" queried Bo, curiously.

"Why, he's Milt's pet cougar."

"Cougar? That's a panther--a mountain-lion, didn't he say?"

"Sh.o.r.e is. Tom is a beauty. An' if he takes a likin' to you he'll love you, play with you, maul you half to death."

Bo was all eyes.

"Dale has other pets, too?" she questioned, eagerly.

"I never was up to his camp but what it was overrun with birds an'

squirrels an' vermin of all kinds, as tame as tame as cows. Too darn tame, Milt says. But I can't figger thet. You girls will never want to leave thet senaca of his."

"What's a senaca?" asked Helen, as she s.h.i.+fted her foot to let him tighten the cinches on her saddle.

"Thet's Mexican for park, I guess," he replied. "These mountains are full of parks; an', say, I don't ever want to see no prettier place till I get to heaven.... There, Ranger, old boy, thet's tight."