CHAPTER XII
ALMOST TRAMPLED TO DEATH
The minute the stampede began Wilbur's nerves steadied, and with voicemore than with hand he quieted Kit. It took a moment or two for thefront group to break into the running gallop of the frightened steer,and two head of cattle not twenty feet from Wilbur were forced over theedge before the leaders started to run. In this moment the rear bunchclosed up solidly and Wilbur was hemmed in.
The pace became terrific, and as they hurtled along the face of thecliff with the precipice below, Wilbur noted to his horror that he wasgradually being forced to the outer edge. Being lighter than the steers,the heavier animals were surging ahead alongside the cliff wall, and thelittle pony with the boy on his back was inch by inch being forced tothe verge, of which there was a clear fall now of about one hundredfeet. Vainly he looked for a tree overhanging the road into which hecould leap; there were no trees. And every few strides he found himselfappreciably nearer the edge. Looking back, as far as he could see thesteers were crowding, and looking forward the road curved, hiding whatmight lie before.
His feet were out of the stirrups and well forward, so that, although hehad received three or four bruising encounters as the cattle lurched andsurged against him, he was unhurt. Several times Kit was hurled from herstride, but she always picked up her feet neatly again. Wilbur could notbut admire the little mare, although he felt that there was no hope forthem.
Then suddenly, with an angry bellow, a big black steer which had beenpushing up on the inside turned his head and tried to gore the pony.There was not room, however, but the action so angered Wilbur that,pulling his six-shooter, he sent a bullet crashing to his brain. Thesteer gave a wild lurch, but did not fall immediately, and in an instantwas forced to the edge and fell into the valley below. Instantly, Kit,even before Wilbur could speak or lay hand on the rein, gave a sidewisejump into the hole made by the place the black steer had occupied. Inone stride as much gain away from the dangerous edge had been made ashad been lost in the previous half mile.
More at his ease, but for the fearful speed and the danger that Kitmight lose her footing, Wilbur looked ahead, talking to the steersaround, endeavoring to quiet them, noting that the road was turning moresharply in the valley, although the downward grade was steeper and itwas increasingly hard for the little pony to hold up. But as they turnedthe curve, there, immediately before them, standing in the middle of theroad, with their fishing poles over their shoulders, were a man and aboy, evidently entirely ignorant of the danger so rapidly approaching.The bank above was too steep to climb, and the one below straight ninetyfeet sheer to the creek. To Wilbur it looked like sure death, and a mostawful one at that, but he at least was utterly unable to do anything toprevent it, and he shuddered to think that he himself might be tramplingwith his pony's hoofs on what might be below.
But just as he had in that instant decided that there was no help forit, he suddenly saw Merritt on old Baldy shoot forward like an arrowfrom a bow stretched to the uttermost. The herd of steers was travelingat a rapid clip, but under the startling influence of combined quirtand spur, and with no room in which to display his bucking propensities,Baldy just put himself to running, and only hit the high spots here andthere.
It seemed incredible to Wilbur that any horse could stop, especially ona down grade, at the speed that Baldy was traveling, but just before hereached the man and boy, having previously shouted to warn them, Merrittpulled up with a jerk that brought Baldy clear back on his haunches.Like a flash of light he leaped from the horse and half lifted, halfpushed the man into the saddle, tossed the boy up behind him, and then,grabbing hold of the slicker which was tied behind the cantle, he hitold Baldy a slap with the quirt, and down the road they went, not twentyyards ahead of the steers, Baldy carrying on his back the man and theboy, and Merritt, hanging on like grim death, trying to run, takingstrides that looked as though he wore seven-leagued boots. The speed wasterrific and presently Wilbur noticed that Merritt was keeping both feettogether, putting his weight on the saddle, and vaulting along inimmense leaps. One moment he was there, but the next moment that Wilburlooked ahead Baldy was still racing down the road with his double load,but Merritt was nowhere to be seen. It was with a sickening feeling thatWilbur realized that he must have lost his hold, and was in the sameperil from which he had saved the man and the boy.
For a few fearful minutes Wilbur watched the ground beneath his horse'sfeet, but saw no object in the occasional glimpses he could secure ofthe dusty road. Once again Wilbur found himself being forced to theouter edge of the road, but the cliff was shallowing rapidly, and nowthey were not more than twenty feet above the valley with the roadcurving into it in the distance. A couple of hundred feet further on,however, a hillock rose abruptly, coming within four feet of the levelof the road, and Wilbur decided to put the pony at it, seeing there wasa chance of safety, and that even if they both got bad falls, there wasno fear of being trampled.
Allowing the pony to come to the outside, he reined her in hard and ledher to the jump, swinging from the saddle as he did so in order to giveboth Kit and himself a fair chance. The pony, released from the weightof the rider before she struck ground, met it in a fair stride, andwithout losing footing kept up the gait to the bottom of the hillock,pulling up herself on the level grass below. But Wilbur, not being ableto estimate his jump, because he was in the act of vaulting from thesaddle, struck the ground all in a heap, crumpled up as though he werebroken in pieces and was hurled down the hill, reaching the bottomstunned. He was unconscious for several minutes, but when he came tohimself, Kit was standing over him, nosing him with her soft muzzle asthough to bring him round. Weakly he staggered to his feet, and seeingKit standing patiently, managed to clamber into the saddle.
The pony started immediately at an easy canter, crossing the valley andmeeting the herd where the road ran into the level. The cattle weretired from the run, and sick and bruised as he was, Wilbur headed themoff and rounded them up, being aided presently by Rodgers and Grier, whohad found themselves unable to cut into the stampeding herd, andconsequently had waited until the whole herd got by, when they hadridden back along the trail a little distance, got down to the creek bya bridle path, and crossed the valley by a short cut.
In the distance Baldy could be seen grazing, and Wilbur lightly touchedKit with the spur to find out what had happened. The bay, as soon as hehad stopped running, evidently had bucked off his two riders, who werestill sitting on the ground, apparently dazed. The man, who wasevidently an Eastern tourist, was pale as ashes and dumb with fright,and could tell nothing. The boy knew no more than, "He had to let go, hehad to let go."
Together with Grier, Wilbur started back along the road to look for whatmight be left of Merritt. The foreman tried to persuade the lad to stay,for he was bleeding from a scalp wound and his left wrist was sorelytwisted, if not actually sprained, but Wilbur replied that he had saidhe was going back to look for Merritt, and go back he would if both armsand legs were broken. Kit, although very much blown, was willing to betaken up the road at a fair gallop, when, just as they turned a corner,they almost ran down the Supervisor, who was walking down the road asunconcernedly as though nothing had happened.
"Oh, Mr. Merritt," cried the boy, "I thought you were dead."
"Cheerful greeting, that," answered the Forester. "No, I'm not dead. Youlook nearer it than I do."
"But didn't you get run down?"
"Do I look as if I'd been a sidewalk for a thousand steers?" was thedisgusted reply. "Don't ask silly questions, Loyle."
But the foreman broke in:
"The boy's right enough to ask," he said; "an' there's no reason why youshouldn't tell. How did you dodge the steers?"
"That was easy enough," said Merritt. "I held on to Baldy until I saw acrack in the rock big enough to hold a man. Then I let go and crawledinto that until the herd passed by."
The boy breathed a sigh of relief.
"I sure thought you were gone," he said.
/> The Supervisor scanned him keenly, then slapped Kit heartily on theflank.
"You've got a good little mare there," he said; "there's not many ofthem could have done it. Tell me all about it some time. What startedthem?" he added, turning to the cattleman.
"That fool new bridge gave way just as the last of the bunch crowded onit. About twenty of them fell over the cliff there, and about thirtymore along the road. But it might have been a heap worse, an' you oughtter have two life-savin' medals."
Merritt's only reply was a gesture of protest.
"An' you, youngster," went on the cattleman, "you kept your nerve androde a bully ride. I wish you'd take my quirt and keep it from me as aremembrance of your first experience with a cattle stampede."
Wilbur stammered some words of thanks, but the foreman waved them aside.
"And now," said the Supervisor, with an entire change of tone, "I guesswe'll go back and get the pack-horse and go on to the valley."
As they rode over the bridge Wilbur noted with a great deal of interestthe breakage of the supporting timbers on the outer side, and lookingdown into the valley beneath, he could see the bodies of the cattle whohad been pushed over the edge in the stampede.
"I read a story once," said the boy, "of a youngster who got caught in astampede of buffalo, and when his horse lost his footing he escaped byjumping from the back of one buffalo to another until he reached theoutside of the herd. But I never believed it much."
"It makes a good yarn," said the Supervisor, "an' it's a little like thestory they tell of Buffalo Bill, who, trying to get away from a buffalostampede, was thrown by his horse puttin' his foot in a badger hole andbreaking his leg."
"Why, what in the world did he do?" queried Wilbur.
"He waited until the foremost buffalo was just upon him, then gave aleap, clear over his horns, and landed on his back, then turning sharplyround so as to face the head instead of the tail, he pulled out hisrevolver and kept shooting to one side of the buffalo's head, just pasthis eye, so that at every shot the beast turned a little more to oneside, thus cutting him out of the herd. Then, when he was clear of theherd, he shot the buffalo."
"What for?" asked Wilbur indignantly. "It seems a shame to kill thebuffalo which had got him free."
"What chance would he have had against an angered buffalo alone and onfoot?" said Merritt. "He couldn't very well get off and make a bow tothe beast and have the buffalo drop a curtsey?"
"I hadn't thought of that," said the boy, laughing.
"I was afraid I might have to try that dodge, but when I saw the crackin the rock I knew it was all right."
"Well," said Wilbur as they turned off the road to where the pack-horsehad been picketed, "I think we're both pretty lucky to have come off soeasily."
Merritt looked at the lad. He was dusty and grimy to a degree, hisclothes were torn in a dozen places where he had gone rolling down thehill, a handkerchief was roughly knotted around his head, and there werestreaks of dried blood in his hair.
"You look a little the worse for wear," he said; "maybe you'd better gohome, and I'll go on alone."
"I won't," said Wilbur.
"You what?" came the curt rebuke. "You mean that you would rather not."
"Yes, sir," said the boy. "I mean that I don't feel too used up."
The Supervisor nodded and rode on ahead. For a couple of miles or so,they rode single file, and in spite of the boy's bold announcement thathe was not too badly shaken up, by the time he had ridden nearly an hourmore in the hot sun his head was aching furiously and he was beginningto stiffen up. Accordingly he was glad when a cabin hove in sight, andhe cantered up to ask if they might call for a drink of water.
"We stop here," was the laconic reply.
As they rode up a big man came out of the house, which was quite afair-sized place, to meet them.
"Well, Merritt," he said, "what have you got for me this time?"motioning to the boy.
"No patient for you, Doc," said Merritt; "one for your wife."
The mountain doctor laughed, a great big hearty laugh.
"Violet," he called, "you're taking my practice away from me. Here's apatient that says he won't have me, but wants you."
Immediately at his call, a small, slender woman came to the porch of thehouse, and seeing the doctor helping Wilbur down from the saddle,stepped forward.
"I can walk all right," said Wilbur when the doctor put out a hand tosteady him. "I just wanted a drink of water."
"Right you are," said the doctor, "we'll give you all the water youwant, just in a minute. Now," he continued as he led the boy into thehouse, "let's have a look at the trouble."
But Wilbur interposed.
"This Forest Service," he said, smiling, "is the worst that everhappened for having to obey orders, and Mr. Merritt put me in charge ofyour wife, not you."
The big doctor put his hand on the shoulder of his wife and roared untilthe house shook with his laughter. It was impossible to resist theinfection, and Wilbur, despite his headache, found himself laughing withthe rest. But the doctor's wife, stepping quietly forward, took the ladaside and, removing the handkerchief that Grier had wound around hishead, bathed the wound and cleansed it. She had just finished this whenthe doctor came over, still laughing. He touched the wound deftly, andWilbur was amazed to find that the touch of this large, hearty man wasjust as soft and tender as that of his wife. There was power in his veryfinger-tips, and the boy felt it. He looked up, smiling.
"I guess you're Doctor Davis," he said.
"Why?" said the doctor; "what makes you think so?"
"Oh, I just felt it," the boy replied. "I've heard a lot about you."
"I'm 'it,' all right," said the doctor, "but you've refused to allow meto attend you. I'll turn the case over to Dr. Violet Davis," and helaughed again.
Mrs. Davis smiled brightly in response and continued attending to theboy. Then she turned to the two men.
"You've put this case in my charge," she said, "and I'm going toprescribe rest for a day or two anyway. That is," she added, "unless Mr.Merritt finds it compulsory to take him away."
The Supervisor smiled one of his rare smiles.
"I wouldn't be so unkind as to take any one away from hereunnecessarily," he said, "no matter how busy. But there always is a lotto do. Ever since the beavers first started forestry, it has meant work,and lots of it. But if you're told to rest you've got to do it. I know.I've been sick myself here."
The doctor slapped him on the shoulder.
"Beautiful case," he said, "beautiful case. But he wouldn't obeyorders."
"He always did mine," put in Mrs. Davis.
"I'm afraid I can't this time," said the Supervisor with one of hisabrupt changes of manner, turning to the door. "I'll call for Loyle onmy way home to-morrow."
"Oh, Mr. Merritt," began Mrs. Davis in protest, "he ought to have two orthree days' rest, anyway."
The chief of the forest turned to Wilbur.
"Well?" he queried.
The boy looked around at the comfortable home, at the big jovial doctor,and his charming little wife, and thought how delightful it would be tohave a few days' rest. And his head was aching, and he was very stiff.Then he looked at the Supervisor, quiet and unflinching in anything thatwas to be done, working with him and helping him despite the biginterests for which he was responsible, he thought of the Forest Serviceto which he was pledged to serve, he remembered his little tent home andthe portion of the range over which he had control, and straightened up.
"What time to-morrow?" he said. "I'll be ready."
"Middle of the afternoon," said Merritt. "So long."
He bade good-by to the doctor and his wife, and after having seen thatKit was properly attended to, went on his way to the Kern River Valley,to visit the Edison power plant erected on the river, and to prepare forthe installation of the new pulp-mill.
In the meantime, Wilbur, more fatigued by the day's excitement than hehad supposed himself to be, had fallen asleep, a sle
ep unbroken untilthe evening. And all evening the doctor and his wife told him stories ofthe Forest Service men and of the various miners, lumbermen,prospectors, ranchers, and so forth, all tales of manliness, courage,and endurance, and not infrequently of heroism. But when Wilbur told ofthe professor and asked about other greenhorns that had come to theforest, the doctor turned and asked him if he knew anything of "the boyfrom Peanutville."
"He had just come into camp up here in the Sierras," said the doctor onreceiving the lad's negative reply, "from some little place in themiddle West that was giving itself airs as a city. He had read somewhereabout the forest Rangers, and he himself had been on several SundaySchool picnics in the woods, so he thought that he knew all about it. Atthe end of his first couple of days' work he said:
"'I never supposed that a Ranger had to cut brush and build fence andgrub stumps and slave like a nigger. I don't believe he ought to. Idon't think it's what my people would like to have me do. I alwayssupposed that he just rode around under the trees and made outsiders toethe mark.'
"I said he was a new Guard," the doctor continued, "but he said this incamp to a group of old-timers with whom he had been working. They hadn'tworried him at all, but had given him a fair show and helped him allthey could. But this was too rich. They glanced at each other withmingled contempt and amusement, then put on mournful faces, looked onhim solemn-eyed, and regretted the cruelties of the Service.
"'The boss,' they said, 'just sticks it on us all the time. We areworkin' like slaves--Guards and Rangers and everybody. It's plumb wickedthe way we're herded here.'
"So the new hand felt comforted by this outward sympathy, and he ambledinnocently on.
"'That heavy brush tears my clothes, and my back aches, and I burned ashoe, and my socks are full of stickers. Then I fell on the barbed wirewhen I was stretching it--and cut my nose. I tell you what it is,fellows, if I ever get a chance to get away, I hope I'll never seeanother inch of barbed wire as long as I live. If I was only back inPeanutville, where I used to live, I could be eating a plate of icecream this minute instead of working like a dog and having to wash myown clothes Sundays when I might be hearing the band play in the park.'
"'Too bad,' shouted the old Rangers in chorus, until a peal of laughterthat echoed through and through that mountain camp showed the indignantyoungster that his point of view hadn't been what you might say warmlywelcomed by the old-timers.
"But the following day, as I heard the story from Charles H. Shinn," thedoctor went on, "one of the best men in the gang took the lad aside thefollowing morning as they were riding up the trail, and said to him:
"'How much of that stuff you was preachin' last night did you mean? Ofcourse, this is hard work; it has to be. Either leave it mighty pronto,or wrastle with it till you're a man at the game. I've seen lots ofyoung fellows harden up--some of 'em just as green an' useless when theycame as you are now. Don't you know you hold us back, and waste ourtime, too, on almost any job? But it's the price we have to pay up hereto get new men started. Unless you grow to love it so much that thereisn't anything else in all the world you'd care to do, you ain't fit forit, an' you'd better get out, and let some one with more sand than youhave get in.'
"Well, Loyle," the doctor said, "that youngster was provoked. Hewasn't man enough to get really angry, so that his temper wouldkeep him sticking to the work; he was one of these saucyslap-'em-on-the-wrist-naughty kind.
"'I think all of you are crazy,' he said.
"He walked into the Supervisor's office that afternoon and explainedthat the kind of work he had been given to do was altogether below hisintellectual powers. He never understood how quickly things happened,but he signed a resignation blank almost before he knew it, and wentback to Peanutville.
"It so happened that one of the Rangers had friends in Peanutville, andthe boys at the camp followed the youth's career with much interest. Heclerked, he took money at a circus window, he tried cub newspaper work,he stood behind a dry-goods counter, he was everything by turns butnothing long."
"What finally happened to him?" asked Wilbur.
"Last I heard he was a salesman in a woman's shoe store. But he's stillwith us in spirit," said the doctor, "as a horrible example. Right now,down in the heart of a forest fire, when the Rangers are working likemen possessed down some hot gulch, one will say to the other:
"'Gee, Jack, if I was only back where I used to be, I could be having aplate of ice cream this minute.' And the other will reply: 'I wish Imight be back in Peanutville and hear the band play in the park.' Andboth men will laugh and go at the work all the harder for realizing whata miserable failure the weak greenhorn had been."
"I'm thinking," said Wilbur, "that I'll never give them the chance totalk like that about me!"
"From what I heard," said the doctor, "I don't believe you will."
"And from what I see," said the doctor's wife gently, as the two roseand bade the "patient" good-night, "I know we shall all be glad that youhave come to us here in the forest."
WHAT TREE-PLANTING WILL DO.
Pine plantation fifty years old showing growth of timber. Trunks,however, should not show so many superfluous low branches.
_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]
THE FIRST CONSERVATION EXPERT
Work of a beaver in felling a tree with which to build a dam for hishome.
_Photograph by U. S. Forest Service._]