II
THE FOREST RANGER
From her makeshift bed in the middle of the floor Lee Virginia wasawakened next morning by the passing of some one down the hall calling ateach door, "Six o'clock!" She had not slept at all till after one. She waslame, heart-weary, and dismayed, but she rose and dressed herself asneatly as before. She had decided to return to Sulphur. "I cannot endurethis," she had repeated to herself a hundred times. "I _will_ not!"
Hearing the clatter of dishes, she ventured (with desperate courage) intothe dining-room, which was again filled with cowboys, coal-miners,ranchers and their tousled families, and certain nondescript town loafersof tramp-like appearance. The flies were nearly as bad as ever--but notquite, for under Mrs. Wetherford's dragooning the waiters had made anerveless assault upon them with newspaper bludgeons, and a few of themhad been driven out into the street.
Slipping into a seat at the end of the table which offered the cleanestcloth, Lee Virginia glanced round upon her neighbors with shrinking eyes.All were shovelling their food with knife-blades and guzzling their coffeewith bent heads; their faces scared her, and she dropped her eyes.
At her left, however, sat two men whose greetings were frank and manly,and whose table-manners betrayed a higher form of life. One of them was atall man with a lean red face against which his blond mustache lay like achalk-mark. He wore a corduroy jacket, cut in Norfolk style, and in thecollar of his yellow shirt a green tie was loosely knotted. His hands werelong and freckled, but were manifestly trained to polite usages.
The other man was younger and browner, and of a compact, athletic figure.On the breast of his olive-green coat hung a silver badge which bore apine-tree in the centre. His shirt was tan-colored and rough, but his headwas handsome. He looked like a young officer in the undress uniform of theregular army. His hands were strong but rather small, and the lines of hisshoulders graceful. Most attractive of all were his eyes, so brown, soquietly humorous, and so keen.
In the rumble of cheap and vulgar talk the voices of these men appealed tothe troubled girl with great charm. She felt more akin to them than to anyone else in the room, and from time to time she raised her eyes to theirfaces.
They were aware of her also, and their gaze was frankly admiring as wellas wondering; and in passing the ham and eggs or the sugar they contrivedto show her that they considered her a lady in a rough place, and thatthey would like to know more about her.
She accepted their civilities with gratitude, and listened to their talkwith growing interest. It seemed that the young man had come down from thehills to meet his friend and take him back to his cabin.
"I can't do it to-day, Ross," said the older man. "I wish I could, but onemeal of this kind is all I can stand these days."
"You're getting finicky," laughed the younger man.
"I'm getting old. Time was when my fell of hair would rise at nothing, noteven flies in the butter, but now--"
"That last visit to the ancestral acres is what did it."
"No, it's age--age and prosperity. I know now what it is to have broiledsteak."
Mrs. Wetherford, seizing the moment, came down to do the honors. "Youfellers ought to know my girl. Virginny, this is Forest SupervisorRedfield, and this is Ross Cavanagh, his forest ranger in this district.You ought to know each other. My girl's just back from school, and shedon't think much of the Fork. It's a little too coarse for her."
Lee flushed under this introduction, and her distress was so evident thatboth men came to her rescue.
The older man bowed, and said: "I didn't know you had a daughter, Mrs.Wetherford," and Cavanagh, with a glance of admiration, added: "We've beenwondering who you might be."
Lize went on: "I thought I'd got rid of her. She's been away now for aboutten years. I don't know but it was a mistake--look's like she's grown alittle too fine-haired for us doughies out here."
"So much the worse for us," replied Redfield.
This little dialogue gave the girl time to recover herself, but asCavanagh watched the blush fade from her face, leaving it cold and white,he sympathized with her--pitied her from the bottom of his heart. Heperceived that he was a chance spectator of the first scene in a painfuldomestic drama--one that might easily become a tragedy. He wondered whatthe forces might be which had brought such a daughter to this sloven, thisvirago. To see a maid of this delicate bloom thrust into such a place asLize Wetherford's "hotel" had the reputation of being roused indignation.
"When did you reach town?" he asked, and into his voice his admirationcrept.
"Only last night."
"You find great changes here?"
"Not so great as in my mother. It's all----" She stopped abruptly, and heunderstood.
Lize being drawn back to her cash-register, Redfield turned to say: "Mydear young lady, I don't suppose you remember me, but I knew you when youwere a tot of five or six. I knew your father very well."
"Did you?" Her face lighted up.
"Yes, poor fellow, he went away from here rather under a cloud, youknow."
"I remember a little of it. I was here when the shooting took place."
"So you were. Well, since then much has happened to us all," he explainedto the ranger. "There wasn't room for a dashing young blood such as EdWetherford was in those days." He turned to Lee. "He was no worse than themen on the other side--it was dog eat dog; but some way the people rathersettled on him as a scapegoat. He was forced out, and your mother hasborne the brunt of it since. Those were lawless days."
It was a painful subject, and Redfield's voice grew lower and morehesitant as he went on. Looking at this charming girl through the smoke offried ham, with obscene insects buzzing about her fair head, made him feelfor the thousandth time, and more keenly than ever before, the amazingcombinations in American society. How could she be the issue of Edward andEliza Wetherford?
More and more Lee Virginia's heart went out in trust toward these two men.Opposed to the malodorous, unshaven throng which filled the room, theyseemed wondrously softened and sympathetic, and in the ranger's gaze wassomething else--something which made her troubles somehow lessintolerable. She felt that he understood the difficult situation in whichshe found herself.
Redfield went on. "You find us horribly uncivilized after ten years'absence?"
"I find _this_ uncivilised," she replied, with fierce intensity, lookingaround the room. Then, on the impulse, she added: "I can't stand it! Icame here to live with my mother, but this is too--too horrible!"
"I understand your repulsion," replied Redfield. "A thousand times Irepeat, apropos of this country, 'Where every prospect pleases and onlyman is vile.'"
"Do you suppose it was as bad ten years ago?" she asked. "Was everythingas dirty--as mean? Were the houses then as full of flies and smells?"
"I'm afraid they were. Of course, the country isn't all like this, andthere are neat homes and gentle people in Sulphur; but most cattle-menare--as they've always been--a shiftless, happy-go-lucky lot at best--andsome of them have been worse, as you know."
"I never dreamed of finding my mother in such a place," she went on. "Idon't know what to do or say. She isn't well. I ought to stay and helpher, and yet--oh, it is disheartening!"
Lize tapped Redfield on the shoulder. "Come over here, Reddy, if you'vefinished your breakfast; I want to talk with you."
Redfield rose and followed his landlady behind the counter, and there satin earnest conversation while she made change. The tone in which hermother addressed the Supervisor, her action of touching him as one manlays hand upon another, was profoundly revealing to Lee Virginia. Sherevolted from it without realizing exactly what it meant; and feelingdeeply but vaguely the forest ranger's sympathy, she asked:
"How _can_ you endure this kind of life?"
"I can't, and I don't," he answered, cautiously, for they were beingclosely observed. "I am seldom in town; my dominion is more than a mileabove this level. My cabin is nine thousand feet above the sea. It isclean and quiet up there."
r /> "Are all the other restaurants in the village like this?"
"Worse. I come here because it is the best."
She rose. "I can't stand this air and these flies any longer. They're toodisgusting."
He followed her into the other house, conscious of the dismay andbitterness which burst forth the instant they were alone. "What am I todo? She is my mother, but I've lost all sense of relationship to her. Andthese people--except you and Mr. Redfield--are all disgusting to me. Itisn't because my mother is poor, it isn't because she's keeping boarders;it's something else." At this point her voice failed her.
The ranger, deeply moved, stood helplessly silent. What could he say? Heknew a great deal better than she the essential depravity of her mother,and he felt keenly the cruelty of fate which had plunged a fine youngspirit into this swamp of ill-smelling humanity.
"Let us go out into the air," he suggested, presently. "The mountain windwill do you good."
She followed him trustfully, and as she stepped from the squalor of thehotel into the splendor of the morning her head lifted. She drank theclear, crisp wind as one takes water in the desert.
"The air is clean, anyway," she said.
Cavanagh, to divert her, pointed away to the mountains. "There is mydominion. Up there I am sole ruler. No one can litter the earth withcorruption or poison the streams."
She did not speak, but as she studied the ranger her face cleared. "It_is_ beautiful up there."
He went on. "I hate all this scrap-heap quite as heartily as you do, butup there is sweetness and sanity. The streams are germless, and the forestcannot be devastated. That is why I am a ranger. I could not endure lifein a town like this."
He turned up the street toward the high hill to the south, and she keptstep with him. As she did not speak, he asked: "What did you expect to doout here?"
"I hoped to teach," she replied, her voice still choked with her emotion."I expected to find the country much improved."
"And so it is; but it is still a long way from an Eastern State. Perhapsyou will find the people less savage than they appear at first glance."
"It isn't the town or the people, it is my mother!" she burst forth again."Tell me! A woman in the car yesterday accused my mother of sellingwhiskey unlawfully. Is this so? Tell me!"
She faced him resolutely, and perceiving that she could not be evaded, hemade slow answer. "I don't _know_ that she does, but I've heard it chargedagainst her."
"Who made the charge?"
"One of the clergymen, and then it's common talk among the rough men ofthe town."
"Is that the worst they say of her? Be honest with me--I want to know theworst."
He was quite decisive as he said: "Yes, that is the worst."
She looked relieved. "I'm glad to hear you say so. I've been imagining allkinds of terrifying things."
"Then, too, her bad health is some excuse for her housekeeping," he added,eager to lessen the daughter's humiliation, "and you must remember herassociations are not those which breed scrupulous regard for theproprieties."
"But she's my mother!" wailed the girl, coming back to the central fact."She has sent me money--she has been kind to me--what am I to do? Sheneeds me, and yet the thought of staying here and facing her lifefrightens me."
The rotten board walks, the low rookeries, the unshaven, blear-eyed mensitting on the thresholds of the saloons, the slattern squaws wanderingabroad like bedraggled hens, made the girl stare with wonder and dismay.She had remembered the town street as a highway filled with splendidcavaliers, a list wherein heroic deeds were done with horse and pistol.
She recognized one of those "knights of the lariat" sitting in the sun,flabby, grizzled, and inert. Another was trying to mount his horse with abottle in his hand. She recalled him perfectly. He had been her girlishideal of manly beauty. Now here he was, old and mangy with drink at forty.In a most vivid and appealing sense he measured the change in her as wellas the decay of the old-time cowboy. His incoherent salutation as his eyesfell upon her was like the final blasphemous word from the rear-guard of asavage tribe, and she watched him ride away reeling limply in his saddleas one watches a carrion-laden vulture take its flight.
She perceived in the ranger the man of the new order, and with this in hermind she said: "You don't belong here? You're not a Western man."
"Not in the sense of having been born here," he replied. "I am, in fact, anative of England, though I've lived nearly twenty years of my life in theStates."
She glanced at his badge. "How did you come to be a ranger--what does itmean? It's all new to me."
"It is new to the West," he answered, smilingly, glad of a chance to turnher thought from her own personal griefs. "It has all come about since youwent East. Uncle Sam has at last become provident, and is now 'conservinghis resources.' I am one of his representatives with stewardship over someninety thousand acres of territory--mostly forest."
She looked at him with eyes of changing light. "You don't talk like anEnglishman, and yet you are not like the men out here."
"I shouldn't care to be like some of them," he answered. "My being here isquite logical. I went into the cattle business like many another, and Iwent broke. I served under Colonel Roosevelt in the Cuban War, and aftermy term was out, naturally drifted back. I love the wilderness and havesome natural taste for forestry, and I can ride and pack a horse as wellas most cowboys, hence my uniform. I'm not the best forest ranger in theservice, I'll admit, but I fancy I'm a fair average."
"And that is your badge--the pine-tree?"
"Yes, and I am proud of it. Some of the fellows are not, but so far as Iam concerned I am glad to be known as a defender of the forest. A treemeans much to me. I never mark one for felling without a sense ofresponsibility to the future."
Her questions came slowly, like those of a child. "Where do you live?"
"Directly up the South Fork, about twenty miles."
"What do you do?"
He smiled. "Not much. I ride the trails, guard the game, put out fires,scale lumber, burn brush, build bridges, herd cattle, count sheep, surveyland, and a few other odd chores. It's supposed to be a soft snap, but Ican't see it that way."
"Do you live alone?"
"Yes, for the larger part of the time. I have an assistant who is with meduring part of the summer months. Mostly I am alone. However, I amsupposed to keep open house, and I catch a visitor now and then."
They were both more at ease now, and her unaffected interest pleased him.
She went on, steadily: "Don't you get very lonely?"
"In winter, sometimes; in summer I'm too busy to get lonely. In the fireseason I'm in the saddle every day, and sometimes all night."
"Who cooks for you?"
"I do. That's part of a ranger's job. We have no 'servant problem' tocontend with."
"Do you expect to do this always?"
He smiled again. "There you touch my secret spring. I have the hope ofbeing Chief Forester some time--I mean we all have the prospect ofpromotion to sustain us. The service is so new that any one with even aknowledge of forestry is in demand; by and by real foresters will arise."
She returned abruptly to her own problem. "I dread to go back to mymother, but I must. Oh, how I hate that hotel! I loathe the flies, thesmells, the people that eat there, the waiters--everything!" Sheshuddered.
"Many of the evils you mention could be reformed--except, of course, someof the people who come to eat. I fear several of them have gone beyondreformation."
As they started back down the street she saw the motor-stage just leavingthe door of the office. "That settles one question," she said. "I can'tget away till to-morrow."
"Where would you go if you broke camp--back to the East?"
"No; my mother thinks there is a place for me in Sulphur City."
"Your case interests me deeply. I wish I could advise you to stay, butthis is a rough town for a girl like you. Why don't you talk the problemover with the Supervisor?" His voice became firmer. "Mrs.
Redfield is thevery one to help you."
"Where does she live?"
"Their ranch lies just above Sulphur, at the mouth of the Canon. May Itell him what you've told me? He's a good sort, is Redfield--much betterable to advise than I am."
Cavanagh found himself enjoying the confidence of this girl so strangelythrown into his care, and the curious comment of the people in the streetdid not disturb him, except as it bore upon his companion's position inthe town.
At the door of the hotel some half-a-dozen men were clustered. As theyoung couple approached they gave way, but a short, powerful man, whom LeeVirginia recognized as Gregg the sheepman, called to the ranger:
"I want to see you before you leave town, Mr. Ranger."
"Very well. I shall be here all the forenoon," answered Cavanagh, in thetone of a man accepting a challenge; then, turning to the girl, he said,earnestly: "I want to help you. I shall be here for lunch, and meanwhile Iwish you would take Redfield into your confidence. He's a wise old boy,and everybody knows him. No one doubts his motives; besides, he has afamily, and is rich and unhurried. Would you like me to talk with him?"
"If you will. I want to do right--indeed I do."
"I'm sure of that," he said, with eyes upon her flushed and quiveringface. "There's a way out, believe me."
They parted on the little porch of the hotel, and her eyes followed hisupright figure till he entered one of the shops. He had precisely the lookand bearing of a young lieutenant in the regular army, and she wonderedwhat Gregg's demand meant. In his voice was both menace and contempt.
She returned to her own room, strangely heartened by her talk with theranger. "If I stay here another night this room must be cleaned," shedecided, and approached the bed as though it harbored venomous reptiles."This is one of the things that must be reformed," she decided, harkingback to the ranger's quiet remark.
She was still pondering ways and means of making the room habitable whenher mother came in.
"How'd you sleep last night?"
Lee Virginia could not bring herself to lie. "Not very well," sheadmitted.
"Neither did I. Fact of the matter is your coming fairly upset me. I'vebeen kind o' used up for three months. I don't know what ails me. I'dought to go up to Sulphur to see a doctor, but there don't seem to be anyfree time. I 'pear to have lost my grip. Food don't give me any strength.I saw you talking with Ross Cavanagh. There's a man--and Reddy. Reddy iswhat you may call a fancy rancher--goes in for alfalfy and fruit, and allthat. He isn't in the forest service for the pay or for graft. He's got aregular palace up there above Sulphur--hot and cold water all through thehouse, a furnace in the cellar, and two bath-rooms, so they tell me; Inever was in the place. Well, I must go back--I can't trust them girls aminute." She turned with a groan of pain. "'Pears like every joint in meis a-creakin' to-day."
"Can't I take your place?" asked Lee Virginia, pity deepening in her heartas she caught the look of suffering on her mother's face.
"No; you better keep out o' the caffy. It ain't a fit place for you. Factis, I weren't expecting anything so fine as you are. I laid awake tillthree o'clock last night figurin' on what to do. I reckon you'd better goback and give this outfit up as a bad job. I used to tell Ed you didn'tbelong to neither of us, and you don't. I can't see where you _did_ comefrom--anyhow, I don't want the responsibility of havin' you here. Why,you'll have half the men in the county hitchin' to my corral--and themales out here are a fierce lot o' brutes." She studied the girl again,finding her so dainty, so far above herself, that she added: "It would bea cruel shame for me to keep you here, with all these he-wolves roamin'around. You're too good to be meat for any of them. You just plan to packup and pull out to-morrow."
She went out with a dragging step that softened the girl's heart. It wastrue there was little of real affection between them. Her memories ofEliza up to this moment had been rather mixed. As a child she had seldombeen in her arms, and she had always been a little afraid of the bold,bright, handsome creature who rode horses and shot pistols like a man. Itwas hard to relate the Eliza Wetherford of those days with this flabby,limping old woman, and yet her daughter came nearer to loving her at thismoment than at any time since her fifth year.