Part 58

Dunn received the food with an eager hand, and after he had finished his refreshment, Cavanagh remarked: "The whole country should be obliged to you for your visit to me. I shall send your information to Supervisor Redfield."

"Don't use my name," he begged. "They will kill me if they find out that I have told. We were all sworn to secrecy, and if I had not seen that fire--that pile of bodies--"

"I know, I know! It horrified me. It made me doubt humanity," responded Cavanagh. "We of the North cry out against the South for lynching black rapers; but here, under our eyes, goes on an equally horrible display of rage over the mere question of temporary advantage, over the appropriation of free grass, which is a Federal resource--something which belongs neither to one claimant nor to the other, but to the people, and should be of value to the people. There is some excuse for shooting and burning a man who violates a woman, but what shall we say of those who kill and dismember men over the possession of a plot of grass? You must bring these men to punishment."

Dunn could only shiver in his horror and repeat his fear. "They'll kill me if I do."

Cavanagh at last said: "You must not attempt to ride back to-night. I can't give you lodging in the cabin, because my patient is sick of smallpox, but you can camp in the barn till morning, then ride straight back to my friend Redfield, and tell him what you've told me. He will see that you are protected. Make your deposition and leave the country, if you are afraid to remain."

In the end the rancher promised to do this, but his tone was that of a broken and distraught dotard. All the landmarks of his life seemed suddenly shifted. All the standards of his life hitherto orderly and fixed were now confused and whirling, and Cavanagh, understanding something of his plight, pitied him profoundly. It was of a piece with this ironic story that the innocent man should suffer madness and the guilty go calmly about their business of grazing their cattle on the stolen grass.

Meanwhile the sufferings of his other patient were increasing, and he was forced to give up all hope of getting him down the trail next morning; and when Swenson, the Forest Guard from the south Fork, knocked at the door to say that he had been to the valley, and that the doctor was coming up with Redfield and the District Forester, Ross thanked him, but ordered him to go into camp across the river, and to warn everybody to keep clear of the cabin. "Put your packages down outside the door," he added, "and take charge of the situation on the outside. I'll take care of the business inside."

Wetherford was in great pain, but the poison of the disease had misted his brain, and he no longer worried over the possible disclosure of his identity. At times he lost the sense of his surroundings and talked of his prison life, or of the long ride northward. Once he rose in his bed to beat off the wolves which he said were attacking his pony.

He was a piteous figure as he struggled thus, and it needed neither his relationship to Lee nor his bravery in caring for the Basque herder to fill the ranger's heart with a desire to relieve his suffering. "Perhaps I should have sent for Lize at once," he mused, as the light brought out the red signatures of the plague.

Once the old man looked up with wide, dark, unseeing eyes and murmured, "I don't seem to know you."

"I'm a friend--my name is Cavanagh."

"I can't place you," he sadly admitted. "I feel pretty bad. If I ever get out of this place I'm going back to the Fork; I'll get a gold-mine, then I'll go back and make up for what Lize has gone through. I'm afraid to go back now."

"All right," Ross soothingly agreed; "but you'll have to keep quiet till you get over this fever you're suffering from."

"If Lize weren't so far away, she'd come and nurse me--I'm pretty sick. This stone-cutting--this inside work is hell on an old cow-puncher like me."

Swenson came back to say that probably Redfield and the doctor would reach The Station by noon, and thereafter, for the reason that Cavanagh expected their coming, the hours dragged wofully. It was after one o'clock before Swenson announced that two teams were coming with three men and two women in them. "They'll be here in half an hour."

The ranger's heart leaped. Two women! Could one of them be Lee Virginia? What folly--what sweet, desperate folly! And the other--she could not be Lize--for Lize was too feeble to ride so far. "Stop them on the other side of the bridge," he commanded. "Don't let them cross the creek on any pretext."

As he stood in the door the flutter of a handkerchief, the waving of a hand, made his pulses glow and his eyes grow dim. It was Virginia!

Lize did not flutter a kerchief or wave a hand, but when Swenson stopped the carriage at the bridge she said: "No, you don't! I'm going across. I'm going to see Ross, and if he needs help, I'm going to roll up my sleeves and take hold."

Cavanagh saw her advancing, and, as she came near enough for his voice to reach her, he called out: "Don't come any closer! Stop, I tell you!" His voice was stern. "You must not come a step nearer. Go back across the dead-line and stay there. No one but the doctor shall enter this door. Now that's final."

"I want to help!" she protested.

"I know you do; but I won't have it. This quarantine is real, and it goes!"

"But suppose you yourself get sick?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I'm all right so far, and I'll call for help when I need it."

His tone was imperative, and she obeyed, grumbling about his youth and the value of his life to the service.

"That's all very nice," he replied; "but I'm in it, and I don't intend to expose you or any one else to the contagion."

"I've had it once," she asserted.

He looked at her, and smiled in recognition of her subterfuge.

"No matter; you're ailing, and might take it again, so toddle back. It's mighty good of you, and of Lee, to come--but there isn't a thing you can do, and here's the doctor," he added, as he recognized the young student who passed for a physician in the Fork. He was a beardless youth of small experience and no great courage, and as he approached with hesitant feet he asked: