The Freebooters of the Wilderness Part 2

"Oh, that," said the Forest Ranger, "that is a well known, game old elderly spinster lady commonly called the Moon; and that other on the branch chittering swear words is nothing in the world but a Douglas squirrel hunting--I think he is really hunting--a flea to mix in his spruce tips as salad."

"Do you know what he is saying?"

"Of course! Cheer up! Cheer up! Chirrup! He's our Master Forester--caches the best seed cones for us to steal."

But when he turned back, she had freed her hands, and slipped to the other side of the slab seat; and Wayland--inconsistent fellow--went all abash when they had both got hold of themselves and were once more back to life with feet on solid earth.

"And is it straddle or--fight?"

She had put on her panama sunshade and was looking straight and steadily in his eyes. The Ranger met the look, the eager look slowly and deliberately giving place to determined masterdom.

"If that is a challenge, I'll take it!" Then he added; and his face went hot as her own: "As to the freebooters of the Western Wilderness ripping the bowels out of public property out here, I'll accept that challenge, too! We'll put up a bluff of a fight, anyway!"

"I didn't mean that, d.i.c.k." She was looking over the edge of the Ridge. "I couldn't give a precious gift conditionally if I wanted to, d.i.c.k. It would surely give itself before I could stop it. Isn't that always the way? I wanted you to feel I would be with you in the fight if I could. They are late. Father and the missionary, Mr. Williams, and his boy were to have been here an hour ago. I heard them talking of your struggle against the big steals, and came up here before them to wait. They are coming to see about changing the sheep from the Holy Cross Range to the Rim Rocks."

"I can hear 'em coming," Wayland leaned over the precipice. "They are coming up the switch back now. They have a turn or two to take--we have a few minutes yet--Eleanor, best gifts come unasked: perhaps, also, they go unsent. Listen, I couldn't Hope to keep the gift unless I jumped in this fight for right; but it's a man's job! I mustn't desert because of the gift! I mustn't take the prize before I finish the job! I want you to see that--always that I mind my p's and q's and don't swerve from that resolution. If I deserted and went down from the Ridge to the Valley, from hard to easy, I wouldn't be worthy of--do you understand what I am trying to say to you?"

"Not in the least. You wouldn't be worthy of what?"

"Of you," said Wayland.

"Gifts?" It was the falsetto of a boy's voice from the trail below the Ridge. "Who's talkin' of gifts and things?"

They heard the others ascending. Her woman instinct caught at the first straw to hand. "Photogravures, Fordie, three more to-day. They are Watts--"

"He has to round the next turn! Never mind! He didn't hear,"

interjected Wayland irritably.

"All the same," she said, "I'm going to send one of those pictures up to you for the cabin. There is Hope sitting on top of the World, eyes bandaged, harp strings broken--"

"Don't send that one! Jim-jams enough of my own up here! I want my Hope clear-eyed even if she has to go it blind for a bit as to you--"

"Then there's Faith sheathing her sword--"

"Not putting away the Big-Stick," interrupted Wayland.

"Then you'll have to take the Happy Warrior--"

"I forget that one: I've been up here four years, you know?"

"It's the Soldier asleep on the Battle-Field--"

"You mean the picture of the girl kissing the man in his sleep--Yes, that will do all right for me. You can send that one--"

And the Missionary's boy came over the edge of the Ridge trail in a hand spring.

CHAPTER III

THE CHALLENGE TO A LOSING FIGHT

"Hullo, d.i.c.k! Who is talking of pictures and things?" The high falsetto announced the Missionary's boy of twelve, who promptly turned a hand spring over the slab bench, never pausing in a running fire of exuberant comment. "Get on y'r bib and tucker, d.i.c.kie! You're goin'

t' have a s'prise party--right away! Senator Moses and Battle Brydges, handy-andy-dandy, comin' up with Dad and MacDonald! Oh, hullo, Miss Eleanor, how d' y' get here ahead? Did y' climb? We met His Royal High Mightiness and His Nibs goin' to the cow-camp. Say, Miss Eleanor, I don't care what they say, I'm goin' to take sheep all by my lonesome this time, sure; goin' t' ride Pinto 'cause he's got a big tummy t'

keep him from sinking when he swims. You needn't laugh, it's so! You ask Dad if a tum-jack don't keep a horse from sinkin'! Say--" sticking forward his face in a whisper--"Senator oughtn't to sink--eh?"

"You don't swim sheep unless you're a pilgrim," admonished Wayland; but at that moment, the Senator himself came over the edge of the Ridge, bloused and white-vested and out of breath, a bunch of mountain flowers in one hand, his felt hat in the other; and three men bobbed up behind, Indian file, over the crest of the trail, the Missionary, Williams, stepping lightly, MacDonald swarthy and close-lipped, taking the climb with the ease of a mountaineer, Bat Brydges, the Senator's newspaper man, hat on the back of his head, coat and vest and collar in hand, blowing with the zest of a puffing locomotive.

"Whew!" The Senator dilated expansively and sank again. "Here we are at last! You here, Miss Eleanor? Evening--Wayland! Night to you, Calamity! How is the world using you since you stopped tramping over the hills?" Calamity shrank back to the cabin. "I thought this trail hard as a climb to Paradise. Now, I know it was," and the gentleman wheezed a bow to Eleanor that sent his neck creasing to his flowing collar and set his vest chortling.

"What! No flowers--either of you? You leave an old fellow like me to gather flowers and quote 'What so rare as a day in June' and all that?

What's that lazy rascal of a Forest fellow doing? I would have spouted _yards_ of good poetry when I was his age a night like this. Hasn't Wayland told you the flowers are the best part of the mountains in June? Pshaw! Like all the rest of them from the East--stuffed full of college chuck--can't tell a daisy from an aster! Takes an old stager who never had your dude Service suits on his back to know the secrets of these hills, Miss Eleanor. Has he told you about the echo? No, I'll bet you, not; nor the gorge in behind this old Holy Cross; nor the cave? Pshaw! See here,"--showing his bunch of wild flowers--"if you want to know what a sly old sphinx Dame Nature is and how she's up to tricks and wiles and ways, snow or s.h.i.+ne, you get these little flower people to whisper their secrets! Whenever I find a new kind on the hills, I mark the place and have roots brought down in the fall. Now this little mountain anemone is still blooming on upper slopes. Little fool of a thing thinks it's April 'stead of June, paints her cheeks, see?--like an old girl trying to look young--"

"But she has a royal white heart," interposed Eleanor.

The Senator looked up to the face of the rancher's daughter and laughed, a big soft noiseless laugh that shook down inside the white vest.

"Typical of a woman, eh? Here, take 'em! Why am I an old bachelor?

Now, here's the wind flower; opens to touch o' the wind like woman to love; find 'em like stars on the bleakest slopes--that's like a woman, too, eh? And like a woman, they wither when you pick 'em, eh? And see these little cheats--pale people--catch flies--know why they call 'em that? Stuck all over with false honey to snare the moths--stew the poor devils to death in sweetness--eh, now, isn't that a woman for you?" Spreading his broad palms, the Senator shook noiselessly at his own facetiousness.

"They keep the real honey for the royal b.u.t.terflies," suggested Eleanor.

"Exactly! What chance on earth for an old b.u.mble bee of a drudge like me without any wings and frills and things, all weighted down with cares of state?" And Moyese mopped the moisture from a good natured red face, that looked anything but weighted down by the cares of state.

"You know, don't you," he added, "that the flies actually do prefer white flowers; bees t' th' blue; b.u.t.terflies, red; and the moths, white?"

So this was the manner of man representing the forces challenging to the great national fight, a lover of flowers paying tribute to all things beautiful; good-natured, smiling, easy-going, soft-speaking; the embodiment of vested rights done up in a white waist-coat. Soldiers of the firing line had fought dragons in the shape of savages and white bandits in the early days; but this dragon had neither horns nor hoofs.

It was a courtly glossy-faced pursuer of gainful occupations according to a limited light and very much according to a belief that freedom meant freedom to make and take and break independent of the other fellow's rights. In fact, as Eleanor looked over the dragon with its wide strong jaw and plausible eyes and big gripping hand she very much doubted whether the conception had ever dawned on the big dome head that the _other_ fellow had _any_ rights. The man was not the baby-eating monster of the muck-rakers. Neither was he a gentleman--he had had a narrow escape from that--the next generation of him would probably be one. He gave the impression of a pa.s.sion for only one thing--getting. If people or things or laws came in the way of that getting, so much the worse for them.

Strident laughter blew up on the wind from the cow camp of the Arizona drovers in the Valley.

"Rough rascals," e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Moyese fanning himself with his hat. "I wish you wouldn't wander round too much alone when these drover fellows are here from Arizona. Birds of pa.s.sage, you know? Sheriff can't pursue 'em into another State! When it's pay day, whiskey flows pretty free--pretty free! Wish you wouldn't wander alone too much when they're up this way."

"Mr. Senator, I move we come to business, and leave poetry and flowers and palaver out of it--"

The Senator turned suavely and faced the impatient sheep-rancher.

"To be sure! Let us get down to business, MacDonald, by all means; but before we go any farther, let me ask you a straight question! Clearing the field before action, Miss Eleanor! Bat come over here and entertain Miss Eleanor. Miss MacDonald, this is my man Friday--Brydges, Miss MacDonald: it's Brydges, you know, sets us all down fools to posterity by reporting our speeches for the newspapers."

Brydges winked as he got his limp collar back to his neck. It wasn't his part to tell how many speeches came in reported before delivered; how many were never delivered at all.

The Senator had stopped fanning himself. He was caressing his shaven chin and taking the measure of the rancher; a tall man, straight and lithe as a whip, lean and clean-limbed and swarthy.

"MacDonald, why don't you take out your naturalization papers so you can vote at election? In the eyes of the law, you're still an alien."

"Alien? What has _that_ to do with paying grazing fees for sheep on the Forest Range?" MacDonald's black eyes closed to a tiny slit of s.h.i.+ny light. "Mr. Senator," he said tersely, "how much do you want?"