Part 60

"Would you accept the supervisorship of the Washakie Forest?" demanded Dalton.

Taken by surprise, he stammered: "I might; but am I the man?"

"You are. Your experience fits you for a position where the fight is hot. The Washakie Forest is even more a bone of contention than this. We have laid out the lines of division between the sheep and the cows, and it will take a man to enforce our regulations. You will have the support of the best citizens. They will all rally, with you as leader, and so end the warfare there."

"It can never end till Uncle Sam puts rangers over every section of public lands and lays out the grazing lines as we have done in this forest," retorted Cavanagh.

"I know; but to get that requires a revolution in the whole order of things." Then his fine young face lighted up. "But we'll get it. Public sentiment is coming our way. The old order is already so eaten away that only its shell remains."

"It may be. If these assassins are punished I shall feel hopeful of the change."

"I shall recommend you for the supervisorship of the Washakie Forest," concluded Dalton, decisively. "And so good-bye and good-luck."

England, his blood relatives, even the Redfields, seemed very remote to the ranger, as he stood in his door that night and watched the sparkle of Swenson's camp-fire through the trees. With the realization that there waited a brave girl of the type that loves single-heartedly, ready to sacrifice everything to the welfare of her idealized subject, he felt unworthy, selfish, vain.

"If I should fall sick she would insist on nursing me. For her sake I must give Swenson the most rigid orders not to allow her--no matter what happens--to approach. I will not have her touched by this thing."

Beside the blaze Lee and her mother sat for the most part in silence, with nothing to do but to wait the issue of the struggle going on in the cabin, so near and yet so inaccessible to their will. It was as if a magic wall, crystal-clear yet impenetrable, shut them away from the man whose quiet heroism was the subject of their constant thought.

To the girl this ride up into her lover's world had been both exalting and awesome--not merely because the rough and precipitous road took her closer to her lover while placing her farther from medical aid, but also because it was so vast a world, so unpeopled and so beautiful.

It was marvellous, as the dusk fell and the air nipped keen, to see how Lize Wetherford renewed her youth. The excitement seemed to have given her a fresh hold on life. She was wearied but by no means weakened by her ride, and ate heartily of the rude fare which Swenson set before her. "This is what I needed," she exultantly said; "the open air and these trout. I feel ten years younger already. Many's the night I've camped on the range with your father with nothing but a purp-tent to cover us both, and the wolves howling round us. I'd feel pretty fairly gay if it weren't for Ross over there in that cabin playin' nurse and cook all by his lonesomeness."

Lee expressed a deep satisfaction from the fact of their nearness. "If he is ill we can help him," she reiterated.

She had put behind her all the doubt and fear which his abrupt desertion of her had caused, and, though he had not been able to speak a word to her, his self-sacrifice had made amends. She excused it all as part of his anxious care. Whatever the mood of that other day had been, it had given way to one that was lofty and deeply altruistic. Her one anxiety now was born of a deepening sense of his danger, but against this she bent the full strength of her will. "He shall not die," she declared beneath her breath. "God will not permit it."

There was a touch of frost in the air as they went to their beds, and, though she shivered, Lize was undismayed. "There's nothing the matter with my heart," she exulted. "I don't believe there was anything really serious the matter with me, anyway. I reckon I was just naturally grouchy and worried over you and Ross."

Lee Virginia was now living a romance stranger and more startling than any she had ever read. In imagination she was able to look back and down upon the Fork as if she had been carried into another world--a world that was at once primeval yet peaceful: a world of dreaming trees, singing streams, and silent peaks; a realm in which law and order reigned, maintained by one determined young man whose power was derived from the President himself. She felt safe--entirely safe--for just across the roaring mountain torrent the two intrepid guardians of the forest were encamped. One of them, it is true, came of Swedish parentage and the other was a native of England, but they were both American in the high sense of being loyal to the Federal will, and she trusted them more unquestioningly than any other men in all that West save only Redfield. She had no doubt there were others equally loyal, equally to be trusted, but she did not know them.

She rose to a complete understanding of Cavanagh's love for "the high country" and his enthusiasm for the cause, a cause which was able to bring together the student from Yale and the graduates of Bergen and of Oxford, and make them comrades in preserving the trees and streams of the mountain States against the encroachments of some of their own citizens, who were openly, short-sightedly, and cynically bent upon destruction, spoliation, and misuse.

She had listened to the talk of the Forester and the Supervisor, and she had learned from them that Cavanagh was sure of swift advancement, now that he had shown his courage and his skill; and the thought that he might leave the State to take charge of another forest brought her some uneasiness, for she and Lize had planned to go to Sulphur City. She had consented to this because it still left to her the possibility of occasionally seeing or hearing from Cavanagh. But the thought that he might go away altogether took some of the music out of the sound of the stream and made the future vaguely sad.

WETHERFORD PASSES ON

For the next two days Cavanagh slept but little, for his patient grew steadily worse. As the flame of his fever mounted, Wetherford pleaded for air. The ranger threw open the doors, admitting freely the cool, sweet mountain wind. "He might as well die of a draught as smother," was his thought; and by the use of cold cloths he tried to allay the itching and the pain.

"What I am doing may be all wrong," he admitted to Swenson, who came often to lean upon the hitching-pole and offer aid. "I have had no training as a nurse, but I must be doing something. The man is burning up, and hasn't much vitality to spare. I knew a ranger had to be all kinds of things, cowboy, horse-doctor, axe-man, carpenter, surveyor, and all the rest of it, but I didn't know that he had to be a trained nurse in addition."

"How do you feel yourself?" asked his subordinate, anxiously.

"Just tired; nothing more. I reckon I am going to escape. I should be immune, but you never can tell. The effect of vaccination wears off after a few years."

"The women folks over there are terribly worried, and the old lady has made me promise to call her in if you show the slightest signs of coming down."

"Tell her to rest easy. I am keeping mighty close watch over myself, and another night will tell the story so far as the old man is concerned. I wish I had a real doctor, but I don't expect any. It is a long hard climb up here for one of those tenderfeet."

He returned to his charge, and Swenson walked slowly away, back to the camp, oppressed with the sense of his utter helplessness.

Again and again during the day Lee Virginia went to the middle of the bridge, which was the dead-line, and there stood to catch some sign, some wave of the hand from her lover. Strange courtship! and yet hour by hour the tie which bound these young souls together was strengthened. She cooked for him in the intervals of her watch and sent small pencilled notes to him, together with the fish and potatoes, but no scrap of paper came back to her--so scrupulous was Cavanagh to spare her from the faintest shadow of danger.

Swenson brought verbal messages, it was true, but they were by no means tender, for Cavanagh knew better than to intrust any fragile vessel of sentiment to this stalwart young woodsman. Now that Lee knew the mysterious old man was dying, she longed for his release--for his release would mean her lover's release. She did not stop to think that it would be long, very long, before she could touch Cavanagh's hand or even speak with him face to face. At times under Swenson's plain speaking she grew faint with the horror of the struggle which was going on in that silent cabin.