Part 65

But Lize was not deceived. This unwonted caress made perfectly plain to her the relief which filled the girl's heart.

* * * * *

Lee Virginia was awakened some hours later by a roaring, crackling sound, and by the flare of a yellow light upon her tent. Peering out, she saw flames shooting up through the roof of the ranger's cabin, while beside it, wrapped in a blanket, calmly contemplating it, stood Cavanagh with folded arms. A little nearer to the bridge Redfield was sitting upon an upturned box.

With a cry of alarm she aroused her mother, and Lize, heavy-eyed, laggard with sleep, rose slowly and peered out at the scene with eyes of dull amazement. "Why don't they try to put it out?" she demanded, as she took in the import of the passive figures.

Dressing with tremulous haste, Lee stepped from the tent just in time to see Swenson come from behind the burning building and join the others in silent contemplation of the scene. There was something uncanny in the calm inaction of the three strong men.

A dense fog hung low, enveloping the whole canon in a moist, heavy, sulphurous veil, through which the tongues of flame shot with a grandiose effect; but the three foresters, whose shadows expanded, contracted, and wavered grotesquely, remained motionless as carven figures of ebony. It was as if they were contemplating an absorbing drama, in whose enactment they had only the spectator's curious interest.

Slowly, wonderingly, the girl drew near and called to Cavanagh, who turned quickly, crying out: "Don't come too close, and don't be frightened. I set the place on fire myself. The poor old herder died last night, and is decently buried in the earth, and now we are burning the cabin and every thread it contains to prevent the spread of the plague. Hugh and Swenson have divided their garments with me, and this blanket which I wear is my only coat. All that I have is in that cabin now going up in smoke--my guns, pictures, everything."

"How could you do it?" she cried out, understanding what his sacrifice had been.

"I couldn't," he replied. "The Supervisor did it. They had to go. The cabin was saturated with poison; it had become to me a plague spot, and there was no other way to stamp it out. I should never have felt safe if I had carried out even so much as a letter."

Dumb and shivering with the chill of the morning, Lee Virginia drew nearer, ever nearer. "I am so sorry," she said, and yearned toward him, eager to comfort him, but he warningly motioned her away.

"Please don't come any nearer, for I dare not touch you."

"But you are not ill?" she cried out, with a note of apprehension in her voice.

He smiled in response to her question. "No, I feel nothing but weariness and a little depression. I can't help feeling somehow as if I were burning up a part of myself in that fire--the saddle I have ridden for years, my guns, ropes, spurs, everything relating to the forest, are gone, and with them my youth. I have been something of a careless freebooter myself, I fear; but that is all over with now." He looked her in the face with a sad and resolute glance. "The Forest Service made a man of me, taught me to regard the future. I never accepted responsibility till I became a ranger, and in thinking it all over I have decided to stay with it, as the boys say, 'till the spring rains.'"

"I am very glad of that," she said.

"Yes; Dalton thinks I can qualify for the position of Supervisor, and Redfield may offer me the supervision of this forest. If he does, I will accept it--if you will go with me and share the small home which the Supervisor's pay provides. Will you go?"

In the light of his burning cabin, and in the shadow of the great peaks, Lee Virginia could not fail of a certain largeness and dignity of mood. She neither blushed nor stammered, as she responded: "I will go anywhere in the world with you."

He could not touch so much as the hem of her garment, but his eyes embraced her, as he said: "God bless you for the faith you seem to have in me!"

* * * * *

Redfield's voice interrupted with hearty clamor. "And now, Miss Virginia, you go back and rustle some breakfast for us all. Swenson, bring the horses in and harness my team; I'm going to take these women down the canon. And, Ross, you'd better saddle up as soon as you feel rested and ride across the divide, and go into camp in that little old cabin by the dam above my house. You'll have to be sequestered for a few days, I reckon, till we see how you're coming out. I'll telephone over to the Fork and have the place made ready for you, and I'll have the doctor go up there to meet you and put you straight. If you're going to be sick we'll want you where we can look after you. Isn't that so, Lee Virginia?"

"Indeed it is," replied the girl, earnestly.

"But I'm not going to be sick," retorted Cavanagh. "I refuse to be sick."

"Quite right," replied Redfield; "but all the same we want you where we can get at you, and where medical aid of the right sort is accessible. I'm going to fetch my bed over here and put you into it. You need rest."

Lee still lingered after Redfield left them. "Please do as Mr. Redfield tells you," she pleaded, "for I shall be very anxious till you get safely down the mountains. If that poor old man has any relatives they ought to be told how kind you have been. You could not have been kinder to one of your own people."

These words from her had a poignancy of meaning which made his reply difficult. His tone was designedly light as he retorted: "I would be a fraud if I stood here listening to your praise without saying--without confessing--how deadly weary I got of the whole business. It was simply that there was nothing else to do. I had to go on."

Her mind still dwelt on the tragic event. "I wish he could have had some kind of a service. It seems sort of barbarous to bury him without any one to say a prayer over him. But I suppose that was impossible. Surely some one ought to mark his grave, for some of his people may come and want to know where he lies."

He led her thoughts to pleasanter paths. "I am glad you are going with the Supervisor. You are going, are you not?"

"Yes, for a few days, till I'm sure you're safe."

"I shall be tempted to pretend being sick just to keep you near me," he was saying, when Redfield returned, bringing his sleeping-couch. Unrolling this under a tree beside the creek, the Supervisor said: "Now, get into that."