Cavanagh, Forest Ranger: A Romance of the Mountain West

IV

VIRGINIA TAKES ANOTHER MOTOR RIDE

Lee Virginia’s efforts to refine the little hotel produced an amazing change in Eliza Wetherford’s affairs. The dining-room swarmed with those seeking food, and as the news of the girl’s beauty went out upon the range, the cowboys sought excuse to ride in and get a square meal and a glimpse of the “Queen” whose hand had witched “the old shack” into a marvel of cleanliness.

Say what you will, beauty is a sovereign appeal. These men, unspeakably profane, cruel, and obscene in their saddle-talk, were awed by the fresh linen, the burnished glass, and the well-ordered tables which they found in place of the flies, the dirt, and the disorder of aforetime. “It’s worth a day’s ride just to see that girl for a minute,” declared one enthusiast.

They did not all use the napkins, but they enjoyed having them there beside their plates, and the subdued light, the freedom from insects impressed them almost to decorum. They entered with awe, avid for a word with “Lize Wetherford’s girl.” Generally they failed of so much as a glance at her, for she kept away from the dining-room at meal-time.

Lee Virginia was fully aware of this male curiosity, and vaguely conscious of the merciless light which shone in the eyes of some of them (men like Gregg), who went about their game with the shameless directness of the brute. She had begun to understand, too, that her mother’s reputation was a barrier between the better class of folk and herself; but as they came now and again to take a meal, they permitted themselves a word in her praise, which she resented. “I don’t want their friendship now,” she declared, bitterly.

As she gained courage to look about her, she began to be interested in some of her coatless, collarless boarders on account of their extraordinary history. There was Brady, the old government scout, retired on a pension, who was accustomed to sit for hours on the porch, gazing away over the northern plains – never toward the mountains – as if he watched for bear or bison, or for the files of hostile red hunters – though in reality there was nothing to see but the stage, coming and going, or a bunch of cowboys galloping into town. Nevertheless, every cloud of dust was to him diversion, and he appeared to dream, like a captive eagle, bedraggled, spiritless, but with an inner spark of memory burning deep in his dim blue eyes.

Then there was an old miner, distressingly filthy, who hobbled to his meals on feet that had been frozen into clubs. He had a little gold loaned at interest, and on this he lived in tragic parsimony. He and the old scout sat much together, usually without speech (each knew to the last word the other’s stories), as if they recognized each other’s utter loneliness.

Sifton, the old remittance man, had been born to a higher culture, therefore was his degradation the deeper. His poverty was due to his weakness. Virginia was especially drawn toward him by reason of his inalienable politeness and his well-chosen words. He was always the gentleman – no matter how frayed his clothing.

So far as the younger men were concerned, she saw little to admire and much to hate. They were crude and uninteresting rowdies for the most part. She was put upon her defence by their glances, and she came to dread walking along the street, so open and coarse were their words of praise. She felt dishonored by the glances which her feet drew after her, and she always walked swiftly to and from the store or the post-office.

Few of these loafers had the courage to stand on their feet and court her favor, but there was one who speedily became her chief persecutor. This was Neill Ballard, celebrated (and made impudent) by two years’ travel with a Wild West show. He was tall, lean, angular, and freckled, but his horsemanship was marvellous and his skill with the rope magical. His special glory consisted in a complicated whirling of the lariat. In his hand the limp, inert cord took on life, grace, charm. It hung in the air or ran in rhythmic waves about him, rising, falling, expanding, diminishing, as if controlled by some agency other than a man’s hand, and its gyrations had won much applause in the Eastern cities, where such skill is expected of the cowboys.

He had lost his engagement by reason of a drunken brawl, and he was now living with his sister, the wife of a small rancher near by. He was vain, lazy, and unspeakably corrupt, full of open boasting of his exploits in the drinking-dens of the East. No sooner did he fix eyes upon Virginia than he marked her for his special prey. He had the depraved heart of the herder and the insolent confidence of the hoodlum, and something of this the girl perceived. She despised the other men, but she feared this one, and quite justly, for he was capable of assaulting and binding her with his rope, as he had once done with a Shoshone squaw.

The Greggs, father and son, were in open rivalry for Lee also, but in different ways. The older man, who had already been married several times, was disposed to buy her hand in what he called “honorable wedlock,” but the son, at heart a libertine, approached her as one who despised the West, and who, being kept in the beastly country by duty to a parent, was ready to amuse himself at any one’s expense. He had no purpose in life but to feed his body and escape toil.

There are women to whom all this warfare would have been diverting, but it was not so to Lee. Her sense of responsibility was too keen. It was both a torture and a shame. The chivalry of the plains, of which she had read so much – and which she supposed she remembered – was gone. She doubted if it had ever existed among these centaurs. Why should it inhere in ignorant, brutal plainsmen any more than in ignorant, brutal factory hands?

There came to her, now and again, gentle old ranchers – “grangers,” they would be called – and shy boys from the farms, but for the most part the men she saw embittered her, and she kept out of their sight as much as possible. Her keenest pleasures, almost her only pleasures, lay in the occasional brief visits of the ranger, as he rode in for his mail.

Lize perceived all these attacks on her daughter, and was infuriated by them. She snapped and snarled like a tigress leading her half-grown kitten through a throng of leopards. Her brows were knotted with care as well as with pain, and she incessantly urged Virginia to go back to Sulphur. “I’ll send you money to pay your board till you strike a job.” But to this the girl would not agree; and the business, by reason of her presence, went on increasing from day to day.

To Redfield Lize one day confessed her pain. “I ought to send for that doctor up there, but the plain truth is I’m afraid of him. I don’t want to know what’s the matter of me. It’s his job to tell me I’m sick and I’m scared of his verdict.”

“Nonsense,” he replied; “you can’t afford to put off getting him much longer. I’m going back to-night, but I’ll be over again to-morrow. Why don’t you let me bring him down? It will save you twelve dollars. And, by the way, suppose you let me take Lee Virginia home with me? She looks a bit depressed; an outing will do her good. She’s taken hold here wonderfully.”

“Hasn’t she! But I should have sent her away the very first night. I’m getting to depend on her. I’m plumb foolish about her now – can’t let her out of my sight; and yet I’m off my feed worryin’ over her. Gregg is getting dangerous – you can’t fool me when it comes to men. Curse ’em, they’re all alike – beasts, every cussed one of them. I won’t have my girl mistreated, I tell you that! I’m not fit to be her mother, now that’s the God’s truth, Reddy, and this rotten little back-country cow-town is no place for her. But what can I do? She won’t leave me so long as I’m sick, and every day ties her closer to me. I don’t know what I’d do without her. If I’m goin’ to die I want her by me when I take my drop. So you see just how I’m placed.”

She looked yellow and drawn as she ended, and Redfield was moved by her unwonted tenderness.

“Now let me advise,” he began, after a moment’s pause. “We musn’t let the girl get homesick. I’ll take her home with me this afternoon, and bring her back along with a doctor to-morrow.”

“All right, but before you go I want to have a private talk – I want to tell you something.”

He warned her away from what promised to be a confession. “Now, now, Eliza, don’t tell me anything that requires that tone of voice; I’m a bad person to keep a secret, and you might be sorry for it. I don’t want to know anything more about your business than I can guess.”

“I don’t mean the whiskey trade,” she explained. “I’ve cut that all out anyway. It’s something more important – it’s about Ed and me.”

“I don’t want to hear that either,” he declared. “Let bygones be bygones. What you did then is outlawed, anyway. Those were fierce times, and I want to forget them.” He looked about. “Let me see this Miss Virginia and convey to her Mrs. Redfield’s invitation.”

“She’s in the kitchen, I reckon. Go right out.”

He was rather glad of a chance to see the young reformer in action, and smiled as he came upon her surrounded by waiters and cooks, busily superintending the preparations for the noon meal, which amounted to a tumult each day.

She saw Redfield, nodded, and a few moments later came toward him, flushed and beaming with welcome. “I’m glad to see you again, Mr. Supervisor.”

He bowed profoundly. “I’m delighted to find you well, Miss Virginia, and doubly pleased to see you in your regimentals, which you mightily adorn.”

She looked down at her apron. “I made this myself. Do you know our business is increasing wonderfully? I’m busy every moment of the day till bedtime.”

“Indeed I do know it. I hear of the Wetherford House all up and down the line. I was just telling your mother she’ll be forced to build bigger, like the chap in the Bible.”

“She works too hard. Poor mother! I try to get her to turn the cash-drawer over to me, but she won’t do it. Doesn’t she seem paler and weaker to you?”

“She does, indeed, and this is what I came in to propose. Mrs. Redfield sends by me a formal invitation to you to visit Elk Lodge. She is not quite able to take the long ride, else she’d come to you.” Here he handed her a note. “I suggest that you go up with me this afternoon, and to-morrow we’ll fetch the doctor down to see your mother. What do you say to that?”

Her eyes were dewy with grateful appreciation of his kindness as she answered: “That would be a great pleasure, Mr. Redfield, if mother feels able to spare me.”

“I’ve talked with her; she is anxious to have you go.”

Virginia was indeed greatly pleased and pleasantly excited by this message, for she had heard much of Mrs. Redfield’s exclusiveness, and also of the splendor of her establishment. She hurried away to dress with such flutter of joyous anticipation that Redfield felt quite repaid for the pressure he had put upon his wife to induce her to write that note. “You may leave Lize Wetherford out of the count, my dear,” he had said. “There is nothing of her discernible in the girl. Virginia is a lady. I don’t know where she got it, but she’s a gentlewoman by nature.”

Lize said: “Don’t you figure on me in any way, Reddy. I’m nothing but the old hen that raised up this lark, and all I’m a-livin’ for now is to make her happy. Just you cut me out when it comes to any question about your wife and Virginia. I’m not in their class.”

It was hot and still in the town, but no sooner was the car in motion than both heat and dust were forgotten. Redfield’s machine was not large, and as he was content to go at moderate speed, conversation was possible.

He was of that sunny, optimistic, ever-youthful nature which finds delight in human companionship under any conditions whatsoever. He accepted this girl for what she seemed – a fresh, unspoiled child. He saw nothing cheap or commonplace in her, and was not disposed to impose any of her father’s wild doings upon her calendar. He had his misgivings as to her future – that was the main reason why he had said to Mrs. Redfield, “The girl must be helped.” Afterward he had said “sustained.”

It was inevitable that the girl should soon refer to the ranger, and Redfield was as complimentary of him as she could wish. “Ross hasn’t a fault but one, and that’s a negative one: he doesn’t care a hang about getting on, as they say over in England. He’s content just to do the duty of the moment. He made a good cow-puncher and a good soldier; but as for promotion, he laughs when I mention it.”

“He told me that he hoped to be Chief Forester,” protested Virginia.

“Oh yes, he says that; but do you know, he’d rather be where he is, riding over the hills, than live in London. You should see his cabin some time. It’s most wonderful, really. His walls are covered with bookshelves of his own manufacture, and chairs of his own design. Where the boy got the skill, I don’t see. Heaven knows, his sisters are conventional enough! He’s capable of being Supervisor, but he won’t live in town and work in an office. He’s like an Indian in his love of the open.”

All this was quite too absorbingly interesting to permit of any study of the landscape, which went by as if dismissed by the chariot wheels of some contemptuous magician. Redfield’s eyes were mostly on the road (in the manner of the careful driver), but when he did look up it was to admire the color and poise of his seat-mate, who made the landscape of small account.

She kept the conversation to the desired point. “Mr. Cavanagh’s work interests me very much. It seems very important; and it must be new, for I never heard of a forest ranger when I was a child.”

“The forester is new – at least, in America,” he answered. “My dear young lady, you are returned just in the most momentous period in the history of the West. The old dominion – the cattle-range – is passing. The supremacy of the cowboy is ended. The cow-boss is raising oats, the cowboy is pitching alfalfa, and swearing horribly as he blisters his hands. Some of the rangers at the moment are men of Western training like Ross, but whose allegiance is now to Uncle Sam. With others that transfer of allegiance is not quite complete, hence the insolence of men like Gregg, who think they can bribe or intimidate these forest guards, and so obtain favors; the newer men are college-bred, real foresters. But you can’t know what it all means till you see Ross, or some other ranger, on his own heath. We’ll make up a little party some day and drop down upon him, and have him show us about. It’s a lonely life, and so the ranger keeps open house. Would you like to go?”

“Oh, yes indeed! I’m eager to get into the mountains. Every night as I see the sun go down over them I wonder what the world is like up there.”

Then he began very delicately to inquire about her Eastern experience. There was not much to tell. In a lovely old town not far from Philadelphia, where her aunt lived, she had spent ten years of happy exile. “I was horribly lonely and homesick at first,” she said. “Mother wrote only short letters, and my father never wrote at all. I didn’t know he was dead then. He was always good to me. He wasn’t a bad man, was he?”

“No,” responded Redfield, without hesitation. “He was very like the rest of us – only a little more reckless and a little more partisan, that’s all. He was a dashing horseman and a dead-shot, and so, naturally, a leader of these daredevils. He was popular with both sides of the controversy up to the very moment when he went South to lead the invaders against the rustlers.”

“What was it all about? I never understood it. What were they fighting about?”

“In a sense, it was all very simple. You see, Uncle Sam, in his careless, do-nothing way, has always left his range to whomever got there first, and that was the cattle-man. At first there was grass enough for us all, but as we built sheds and corrals about watering-places we came to claim rights on the range. We usually secured by fraud homesteads in the sections containing water, and so, gun in hand, ‘stood off’ the man who came after. Gradually, after much shooting and lawing, we parcelled out the range and settled down covering practically the whole State. Our adjustments were not perfect, but our system was working smoothly for us who controlled the range. We had convinced ourselves, and pretty nearly everybody else, that the State was only fit for cattle-grazing, and that we were the most competent grazers; furthermore, we were in possession, and no man could come in without our consent.

“However, a very curious law of our own making was our undoing. Of course the ‘nester’ or ‘punkin roller,’ as we contemptuously called the small farmer, began sifting in here and there in spite of our guns, but he was only a mosquito bite in comparison with the trouble which our cow-punchers stirred up. Perhaps you remember enough about the business to know that an unbranded yearling calf without its mother is called a maverick?”

“Yes, I remember that. It belongs to the man who finds him, and brands him.”

“Precisely. Now that law worked very nicely so long as the poor cowboy was willing to catch and brand him for his employer, but it proved a ‘joker’ when he woke up and said to his fellows: ‘Why brand these mavericks at five dollars per head for this or that outfit when the law says it belongs to the man who finds him?’”

Lee Virginia looked up brightly. “That seems right to me!”

“Ah yes; but wait. We cattle-men had large herds, and the probabilities were that the calf belonged to some one of us; whereas, the cowboy, having no herd at all, knew the maverick belonged to some one’s herd. True, the law said it was his, but the law did not mean to reward the freebooter; yet that is exactly what it did. At first only a few outlaws took advantage of it; but hard years came on, the cattle business became less and less profitable, we were forced to lay off our men, and so at last the range swarmed with idle cow-punchers; then came the breakdown in our scheme! The cowboys took to ‘mavericking’ on their own account. Some of them had the grace to go into partnership with some farmer, and so claim a small bunch of cows, but others suddenly and miraculously acquired herds of their own. From keeping within the law, they passed to violent methods. They slit the tongues of calves for the purpose of separating them from their mothers. Finding he could not suck, bossy would at last wander away from his dam, and so become a ‘maverick.’ In short, anarchy reigned on the range.”

“But surely my father had nothing to do with this?”

“No; your father, up to this time, had been on good terms with everybody. He had a small herd of cattle down the river, which he owned in common with a man named Hart.”