Part 42

"Delirious," replied the herder. "I've had to hold him to his bed. I'm glad you've come. It's lonesome up here. Don't come too near. Set your tent down there by the trees. I can't have you infected. Keep clear of me and this camp."

"I've got some food and some extra clothing for you."

"Put 'em down here, and in the morning drive these sheep away. That noise disturbs the dago, and I don't like it myself; they sound lonesome and helpless. That dog took 'em away for a while, but brought 'em back again; poor devil, he don't know what to think of it all."

Ross did as Wetherford commanded him to do, and withdrew a little way down the slope; and without putting up his tent, rolled himself in his blankets and went to sleep.

The sun rose gloriously. With mountain fickleness the wind blew gently from the east, the air was precisely like late March, and the short and tender grass, the small flowers in the sheltered corners of the rocks, and the multitudinous bleatings of the lambs were all in keeping. It was spring in the world and it was spring in the heart of the ranger, in spite of all his perplexities. The Basque would recover, the heroic ex-convict would not be stricken, and all would be well. Of such resiliency is the heart of youth.

His first duty was to feed the faithful collie, and to send him forth with the flock. His next was to build a fire and cook some breakfast for Wetherford, and as he put it down beside the tent door he heard the wild pleading of the Basque, who was struggling with his nurse--doubtless in the belief that he was being kept a prisoner. Only a few words like "go home" and "sheep" were intelligible to either the nurse or the ranger.

"Keep quiet now--quiet, boy! It's all right. I'm here to take care of you," Wetherford repeated, endlessly.

Cavanagh waited till a silence came; then called, softly: "Here's your breakfast, Wetherford."

"Move away," retorted the man within. "Keep your distance."

Ross walked away a little space and Wetherford came to the door. "The dago is sure sick, there's no two ways about that. How far is it to the nearest doctor?"

"I could reach one by 'phone from the Kettle Ranch, about twenty miles below here."

"If he don't get better to-day I reckon we'll have to have a doctor." He looked so white and old that Cavanagh said:

"You need rest. Now I think I've had the smallpox--I know I've been vaccinated, and if you go to bed--"

"If you're saying all that preliminary to offering to come in here, you're wasting your breath. I don't intend to let you come any nearer than you are. There is work for you to do. Besides, there's my girl; you're detailed to look after her."

"Would a doctor come?" asked Ross, huskily, moved by Wetherford's words. "It's a hard climb. Would they think the dago worth it?"

Wetherford's face darkened with a look of doubt. "It is a hard trip for a city man, but maybe he would come for you--for the Government."

"I doubt it, even if I were to offer my next month's salary as a fee. These hills are very remote to the townsfolk, and one dago more or less of no importance, but I'll see what I can do."

Ross was really more concerned for Wetherford himself than for the Basque. "If the fever is something malignant, we must have medical aid," he said, and went slowly back to his own camp to ponder his puzzling problem.

One thing could certainly be done, and that was to inform Gregg and Murphy of their herder's illness; surely they would come to the rescue of the collie and his flock. To reach a telephone involved either a ride over into Deer Creek or a return to the Fork. He was tempted to ride all the way to the Fork, for to do so would permit another meeting with Lee; but to do this would require many hours longer, and half a day's delay might prove fatal to the Basque, and, besides, each hour of loneliness and toil rendered Wetherford just so much more open to the deadly attack of the disease.

Here was the tragic side of the wilderness. At such moments even the Fork seemed a haven. The mountains offer a splendid camping-place for the young and the vigorous, but they are implacable foes to the disabled man or the aged. They do not give loathsome diseases like pox, but they do not aid in defence of the sick. Coldly aloof, its clouds sail by. The night winds bite. Its rains fall remorselessly. Sheltering rocks there are, to be sure, but their comfort is small to the man smitten with the scourge of the crowded city. In such heights man is of no more value than the wolf or the cony.

It was hard to leave an old and broken man in such a drear and wind-contested spot, and yet it had to be done. So fastening his tent securely behind a clump of junipers, Cavanagh mounted his horse and rode away across the boundary of the forest into the Deer Creek Basin, which had been the bone of much contention for nearly four years.

It was a high, park-like expanse, sparsely wooded, beautiful in summer, but cold and bleak in winter. The summers were short, and frost fell almost every week even in July and August. It had once been a part of the forest, but under pressure the President had permitted it to be restored to the public lands open for entry. It was not "agricultural grounds," as certain ranchers claimed, but it was excellent summer pasture, and the sheepmen and cattle-men had leaped at once into warfare to possess it. Sheep were beaten to death with clubs by hundreds, herders were hustled out of the park with ropes about their necks and their outfits destroyed--and all this within a few miles of the forest boundary, where one small sentinel kept effective watch and ward.

Cavanagh had never been over this trail but once, and he was trying to locate the cliff from which a flock of sheep had been hurled by cattle-men some years before, when he perceived a thin column of smoke rising from a rocky hillside. With habitual watchfulness as to fire, he raised his glass to his eyes and studied the spot. It was evidently a camp-fire and smouldering dangerously, and turning his horse's head he rode toward it to stamp it out. It was not upon his patrol; but that did not matter, his duty was clear.

As he drew near he began to perceive signs of a broken camp; the ground was littered with utensils. It was not an ordinary camp-fire, and the ranger's heart quickened. "Another sheep-herder has been driven out, and his tent and provisions burned!" he exclaimed, wrathfully.

His horse snorted and shied as he rode nearer, and then a shudder passed through the ranger's heart as he perceived in the edge of the smouldering embers a boot heel, and then--a charred hand! In the smoke of that fire was the reek of human flesh.

For a long time the ranger sat on his horse, peering down into those ashes until at last it became evident to his eyes that at least two sheep-herders had been sacrificed on the cattle-man's altar of hate and greed.

All about on the sod the story was written, all too plain. Two men, possibly three, had been murdered--cut to pieces and burned--not many hours before. There stood the bloody spade with which the bodies had been dismembered, and there lay an empty can whose oil had been poured upon the mingled camp utensils, tent, and wagon of the herders, in the attempt to incinerate the hacked and dismembered limbs of the victims. The lawlessness of the range had culminated. The ferocity of the herder had gone beyond the savage. Here in the sweet autumn air the reek of the cattle-man's vengeance rose like some hideous vapor, poisonous and obscene.

The ranger sickened as the bloody tale unfolded itself before him. Then a fierce hate of such warfare flamed in his heart. Could this enormity be committed under any other civilized flag? Would any other Government intermingle so foolishly, so childishly its State and Federal authority as to permit such diabolism?