Part 39

In packing the camp stuff on the saddles, Berrie, almost as swift and powerful as her father, acted with perfect understanding of every task, and Wayland's admiration of her skill increased mightily.

She insisted on her father's turning back. "We don't need you," she said. "I can find the pass."

McFarlane's faith in his daughter had been tested many times, and yet he was a little loath to have her start off on a trail new to her. He argued against it briefly, but she laughed at his fears. "I can go anywhere you can," she said. "Stand clear!" With final admonition he stood clear.

"You'll have to keep off the boggy meadows," he warned; "these rains will have softened all those muck-holes on the other side; they'll be bottomless pits; watch out for 'em. Good-by! If you meet Nash hurry him along. Moore is anxious to run those lines. Keep in touch with Landon, and if anybody turns up from the district office say I'll be back on Friday. Good luck."

"Same to you. So long."

Berea led the way, and Norcross fell in behind the pack-horses, feeling as unimportant as a small boy at the heels of a circus parade. His girl captain was so competent, so self-reliant, and so sure that nothing he could say or do assisted in the slightest degree. Her leadership was a curiously close reproduction of her father's unhurried and graceful action. Her seat in the saddle was as easy as Landon's, and her eyes were alert to every rock and stream in the road. She was at home here, where the other girl would have been a bewildered child, and his words of praise lifted the shadow from her face.

The sky was cloudy, and a delicious feeling of autumn was in the air--autumn that might turn to winter with a passing cloud, and the forest was dankly gloomy and grimly silent, save from the roaring stream which ran at times foam-white with speed. The high peaks, gray and streaked with new-fallen snow, shone grandly, bleakly through the firs. The radiant beauty of the road from the Springs, the golden glow of four days before was utterly gone, and yet there was exultation in this ride. A distinct pleasure, a delight of another sort, lay in thus daring the majesty of an unknown wind-swept pass.

Wayland called out: "The air feels like Thanksgiving morning, doesn't it?"

"It is Thanksgiving for me, and I'm going to get a grouse for dinner," she replied; and in less than an hour the snap of her rifle made good her promise.

After leaving the upper lake she turned to the right and followed the course of a swift and splendid stream, which came churning through a cheerless, mossy swamp of spruce-trees. Inexperienced as he was, Wayland knew that this was not a well-marked trail; but his confidence in his guide was too great to permit of any worry over the pass, and he amused himself by watching the water-robins as they flitted from stone to stone in the torrent, and in calculating just where he would drop a line for trout if he had time to do so, and in recovered serenity enjoyed his ride. Gradually he put aside his perplexities concerning the future, permitting his mind to prefigure nothing but his duties with Landon at Meeker's Mill.

He was rather glad of the decision to send him there, for it promised absorbing sport. "I shall see how Landon and Belden work out their problem," he said. He had no fear of Frank Meeker now. "As a forest guard with official duties to perform I can meet that young savage on other and more nearly equal terms," he assured himself.

The trail grew slippery and in places ran full of water. "But there's a bottom, somewhere," Berrie confidently declared, and pushed ahead with resolute mien. It was noon when they rose above timber and entered upon the wide, smooth slopes of the pass. Snow filled the grass here, and the wind, keen, cutting, unhindered, came out of the desolate west with savage fury; but the sun occasionally shone through the clouds with vivid splendor. "It is December now," shouted Wayland, as he put on his slicker and cowered low to his saddle. "It will be January soon."

"We will make it Christmas dinner," she laughed, and her glowing good humor warmed his heart. She was entirely her cheerful self again.

As they rose, the view became magnificent, wintry, sparkling. The great clouds, drifting like ancient warships heavy with armament, sent down chill showers of hail over the frosted gold of the grassy slopes; but when the shadows passed the sunlight descended in silent cataracts deliriously spring-like. The conies squeaked from the rocky ridges, and a brace of eagles circling about a lone crag, as if exulting in their sovereign mastery of the air, screamed in shrill ecstatic duo. The sheer cliffs, on their shadowed sides, were violently purple. Everywhere the landscape exhibited crashing contrasts of primary pigments which bit into consciousness like the flare of a martial band.

The youth would have lingered in spite of the cold; but the girl kept steadily on, knowing well that the hardest part of their journey was still before them, and he, though longing to ride by her side, and to enjoy the views with her, was forced to remain in the rear in order to hurry the reluctant pack-animals forward. They had now reached a point twelve thousand feet above the sea, and range beyond range, to the west and south, rose into sight like stupendous waves of a purple-green sea. To the east the park lay level as a floor and carpeted in tawny velvet.

It was nearly two o'clock when they began to drop down behind the rocky ridges of the eastern slope, and soon, in the bottom of a warm and sheltered hollow just at timber-line, Berrie drew her horse to a stand and slipped from the saddle. "We'll rest here an hour," she said, "and cook our grouse; or are you too hungry to wait?"

"I can wait," he answered, dramatically. "But it seems as if I had never eaten."

"Well, then, we'll save the grouse till to-morrow; but I'll make some coffee. You bring some water while I start a fire."

And so, while the tired horses cropped the russet grass, she boiled some coffee and laid out some bread and meat, while he sat by watching her and absorbing the beauty of the scene, the charm of the hour. "It is exactly like a warm afternoon in April," he said, "and here are some of the spring flowers."

"There now, sit by and eat," she said, with humor; and in perfectly restored tranquillity they ate and drank, with no thought of critics or of rivals. They were alone, and content to be so.

It was deliciously sweet and restful there in that sunny hollow on the breast of the mountain. The wind swept through the worn branches of the dwarfed spruce with immemorial wistfulness; but these young souls heard it only as a far-off song. Side by side on the soft Alpine clover they rested and talked, looking away at the shining peaks, and down over the dark-green billows of fir beneath them. Half the forest was under their eyes at the moment, and the man said: "Is it not magnificent! It makes me proud of my country. Just think, all this glorious spread of hill and valley is under your father's direction. I may say under your direction, for I notice he does just about what you tell him to do."

"You've noticed that?" she laughed. "If I were a man I'd rather be Supervisor of this forest than Congressman."

"So would I," he agreed. "Nash says you are the Supervisor. I wonder if your father realizes how efficient you are? Does he ever sorrow over your not being a boy?"

Her eyes shone with mirth. "Not that I can notice. He 'pears contented."

"You're a good deal like a son to him, I imagine. You can do about all that a boy can do, anyhow--more than I could ever do. Does he realize how much you have to do with the management of his forest? I've never seen your like. I really believe you could carry on the work as well as he."

She flushed with pleasure. "You seem to think I'm a district forester in disguise."

"I have eyes, Miss Supervisor, and also ears--which leads me to ask: Why don't you clean out that saloon gang? Landon is sure there's crooked work going on at that mill--certainly that open bar is a disgraceful and corrupting thing."

Her face clouded. "We've tried to cut out that saloon, but it can't be done. You see, it's on a patented claim--the claim was bogus, of course, and we've made complaint, but the matter is hung up, and that gives 'em a chance to go on."