Cavanaugh-Forest Ranger Page 5

  He uttered all this quite calmly, but his ease of manner, his absolute disregard of consequences, joined with his wealth and culture, gave his words great weight and power. No one was ready with an answer but Lize, who called out, with mocking accent: “Reddy, you’re too good for the Forest Service, you’d ought ’o be our next Governor.”

  This was a centre shot. Redfield flushed, and Cavanagh laughed. “Mr. Supervisor, you are discovered!”

  Redfield recovered himself. “I should like to be Governor of this State for about four years, but I’m likelier to be lynched for being in command of twenty ‘Cossacks.’”

  At this moment Sam Gregg entered the room, followed by a young man in an English riding-suit. Seeing that “the star-boarder table” offered a couple of seats, they pointed that way. Sam was plainly in war-like frame of mind, and slammed his sombrero on its nail with the action of a man beating an adversary.

  “That is Sam Gregg and his son Joe—used to be ranch cattle-man, now one of our biggest sheepmen,” Cavanagh explained. “He’s bucking the cattle-men now.”

  Lee Virginia studied young Gregg with interest, for his dress was that of a man to whom money came easy, and his face was handsome, though rather fat and sullen. In truth, he had been brought into the room by his father to see “Lize Wetherford’s girl,” and his eyes at once sought and found her. A look of surprise and pleasure at once lit his face.

  Gregg was sullen because of his interview with Cavanagh, which had been in the nature of a grapple; and in the light of what Redfield had said, Lee Virginia was able to perceive in these two men a struggle for supremacy. Gregg was the greedy West checked and restrained by the law.

  Every man in the room knew that Gregg was a bitter opponent of the Forest Service, and that he “had it in” for the ranger; and some of them knew that he was throwing more sheep into the forest than his permits allowed, and that a clash with Redfield was sure to come. It was just like the burly old Irishman to go straight to the table where his adversary sat.

  Virginia’s eyes fell before the gaze of these two men, for they had none of the shyness or nothing of the indirection of the ruder men she had met. They expressed something which angered her, though she could not have told precisely why.

  Redfield did not soften his words on Gregg’s account; on the contrary he made them still more cutting and to the line.

  “The mere fact that I live near the open range or a national forest does not give me any rights in the range or forest,” he was saying, as Gregg took his seat. “I enjoy the privilege of these Government grazing grounds, and I ought to be perfectly willing to pay the fee. These forests are the property of the whole nation; they are public lands, and should yield a revenue to the whole nation. It is silly to expect the Government to go on enriching a few of us stockmen at the expense of others. I see this, and I accept the change.”

  “After you’ve got rich at it,” said Gregg.

  “Well, haven’t you?” retorted Redfield. “Are you so greedy that nothing will stop you?”

  Lize threw in a wise word. “The sporting-houses of Kansas City and Chicago keep old Sam poor.”

  A roar of laughter followed this remark, and Gregg was stumped for a moment; but the son grinned appreciatively. “Now be good!”

  Cavanagh turned to Virginia in haste to shield her from all that lay behind and beneath this sally of the older and deeply experienced woman. “The Supervisor is willing to yield a point—he knows what the New West will bring.”

  Gregg growled out: “I’m not letting any of my rights slip.”

  The girl was troubled by the war-light which she saw in the faces of the men about her, and vague memories of the words and stories she had overchanced to hear in her childhood came back to her mind—hints of the drunken orgies of the cowboys who went to the city with cattle, and the terrifying suggestion of their attitude toward all womankind. She set Cavanagh and his chief quite apart from all the others in the room, and at first felt that in young Gregg was another man of education and right living—but in this she was misled.

  Lize had confidence enough in the ranger to throw in another malicious word. “Ross, old Bullfrog came down here to chase you up a tree—so he said. Did he do it?”

  Gregg looked ugly. “I’m not done with this business.”

  She turned to Ross. “Don’t let him scare you—his beller is a whole lot worse than his bite.”

  This provoked another laugh, and Gregg was furious—all the more so that his son joined in. “I’ll have your head, Mr. Supervisor; I’ll carry my fight to the Secretary.”

  “Very well,” returned Redfield, “carry it to the President if you wish. I simply repeat that your sheep must correspond to your permit, and if you don’t send up and remove the extra number I will do it myself. I don’t make the rules of the department. My job is to carry them out.”

  By this time every person in the room was tense with interest. They all knew Gregg and his imperious methods. He was famous for saying once (when in his cup): “I always thought sheepmen were blankety blank sons of guns, and now I’m one of ’em I know they are.” Some of the cattle-men in the room had suffered from his greed, and while they were not partisans of the Supervisor they were glad to see him face his opponent fearlessly.

  Lize delivered a parting blow. “Bullfrog, you and me are old-timers. We’re on the losing side. We belong to the ‘good old days’ when the Fork was ‘a man’s town,’ and to be ‘shot up’ once a week kept us in news. But them times are past. You can’t run the range that way any more. Why, man, you’ll have to buy and fence your own pasture in a few years more, or else pay rent same as I do. You stockmen kick like steers over paying a few old cents a head for five months’ range; you’ll be mighty glad to pay a dollar one o’ these days. Take your medicine—that’s my advice.” And she went back to her cash-drawer.

  Redfield’s voice was cuttingly contemptuous as he said quite calmly: “You’re all kinds of asses, you sheepmen. You ought to pay the fee for your cattle with secret joy. So long as you can get your stock pastured (and in effect guarded) by the Government from June to November for twenty cents, or even fifty cents, per head you’re in luck. Mrs. Wetherford is right: we’ve all been educated in a bad school. Uncle Sam has been too bloomin’ lazy to keep any supervision over his public lands. He’s permitted us grass pirates to fight and lynch and burn one another on the high range (to which neither of us had any right), holding back the real user of the land—the farmer. We’ve played the part of selfish and greedy gluttons so long that we fancy our privileges have turned into rights. Having grown rich on free range, you’re now fighting the Forest Service because it is disposed to make you pay for what has been a gratuity. I’m a hog, Gregg, but I’m not a fool. I see the course of empire, and I’m getting into line.”

  Gregg was silenced, but not convinced. “It’s a long lane that has no turn,” he growled.

  Redfield resumed, in impersonal heat. “The cow-man was conceived in anarchy and educated in murder. Whatever romantic notions I may have had of the plains twenty-five years ago, they are lost to me now. The free-range stock-owner has no country and no God; nothing but a range that isn’t his, and damned bad manners—begging pardon, Miss Wetherford. The sooner he dies the better for the State. He’s a dirty, wasteful sloven, content to eat canned beans and drink canned milk in his rotten bad coffee; and nobody but an old crank like myself has the grace to stand up and tell the truth about him.”

  Cavanagh smiled. “And you wouldn’t, if you weren’t a man of independent means, and known to be one of the most experienced cow-punchers in the county. I’ve no fight with men like Gregg; all is they’ve got to conform to the rules of the service.”

  Gregg burst out: “You think you’re the whole United States army! Who gives you all the authority?”

  “Congress and the President.”

  “There’s nothing in that bill to warrant these petty tyrannies of yours.”

  “What you call tyrannies
I call defending the public domain,” replied Redfield. “If I had my way, I’d give my rangers the power of the Canadian mounted police. Is there any other State in this nation where the roping of sheep-herders and the wholesale butchery of sheep would be permitted? From the very first the public lands of this State have been a refuge for the criminal—a lawless no-man’s land; but now, thanks to Roosevelt and the Chief Forester, we at least have a force of men on the spot to see that some semblance of law and order is maintained. You fellows may protest and run to Washington, and you may send your paid representatives there, but you’re sure to lose. As free-range monopolists you are cumberers of the earth, and all you represent must pass, before this State can be anything but the byword it now is. I didn’t feel this so keenly ten years ago, but with a bunch of children growing up my vision has grown clearer. The picturesque West must give way to the civilized West, and the war of sheepmen and cattle-men must stop.”

  The whole dining-room was still as he finished, and Lee Virginia, with a girl’s vague comprehension of the man’s world, apprehended in Redfield’s speech a large and daring purpose.

  Gregg sneered. “Perhaps you intend to run for Congress on that line of talk.”

  Redfield’s voice was placid. “At any rate, I intend to represent the policy that will change this State from the sparsely settled battle-ground of a lot of mounted hobos to a State with an honorable place among the other commonwealths. If this be treason, make the most of it.”

  Cavanagh was disturbed; for while he felt the truth of his chief’s words, he was in doubt as to the policy of uttering them.

  It was evident to Virginia that the cow-men, as well as Gregg, were nearly all against the prophet of the future, and she was filled with a sense of having arrived on the scene just as the curtain to a stern and purposeful drama was being raised. With her recollections of the savage days of old, it seemed as if Redfield, by his bold words, had placed his life in danger.

  Cavanagh rose. “I must be going,” he said, with a smile.

  Again the pang of loss touched her heart. “When will you come again?” she asked, in a low voice.

  “It is hard to say. A ranger’s place is in the forest. I am very seldom in town. Just now the danger of fires is great, and I am very uneasy. I may not be down again for a month.”

  The table was empty now, and they were standing in comparative isolation looking into each other’s eyes in silence. At last she murmured: “You’ve helped me. I’m going to stay—a little while, anyway, and do what I can—”

  “I’m sorry I can’t be of actual service, but I am a soldier with a work to do. Even if I were here, I could not help you as regards the townspeople—they all hate me quite cordially; but Redfield, and especially Mrs. Redfield, can be of greater aid and comfort. He’s quite often here, and when you are lonely and discouraged let him take you up to Elk Lodge.”

  “I’ve been working all the morning to make this room decent. It was rather fun. Don’t you think it helped?”

  “I saw the mark of your hand the moment I entered the door,” he earnestly replied. “I’m not one that laughs at the small field of woman’s work. If you make this little hotel clean and homelike, you’ll be doing a very considerable work in bringing about the New West which the Supervisor is spouting about.” He extended his hand, and as she took it he thrilled to the soft strength of it. “Till next time,” he said, “good luck!”

  She watched him go with a feeling of pain—as if in his going she were losing her best friend and most valiant protector.

  * * *

  IV

  VIRGINIA TAKES ANOTHER MOTOR RIDE

  Lee Virginia’s efforts to refine the little hotel produced an amazing change in Eliza Wetherford’s affairs. The dining-room swarmed with those seeking food, and as the news of the girl’s beauty went out upon the range, the cowboys sought excuse to ride in and get a square meal and a glimpse of the “Queen” whose hand had witched “the old shack” into a marvel of cleanliness.

  Say what you will, beauty is a sovereign appeal. These men, unspeakably profane, cruel, and obscene in their saddle-talk, were awed by the fresh linen, the burnished glass, and the well-ordered tables which they found in place of the flies, the dirt, and the disorder of aforetime. “It’s worth a day’s ride just to see that girl for a minute,” declared one enthusiast.

  They did not all use the napkins, but they enjoyed having them there beside their plates, and the subdued light, the freedom from insects impressed them almost to decorum. They entered with awe, avid for a word with “Lize Wetherford’s girl.” Generally they failed of so much as a glance at her, for she kept away from the dining-room at meal-time.

  Lee Virginia was fully aware of this male curiosity, and vaguely conscious of the merciless light which shone in the eyes of some of them (men like Gregg), who went about their game with the shameless directness of the brute. She had begun to understand, too, that her mother’s reputation was a barrier between the better class of folk and herself; but as they came now and again to take a meal, they permitted themselves a word in her praise, which she resented. “I don’t want their friendship now,” she declared, bitterly.

  As she gained courage to look about her, she began to be interested in some of her coatless, collarless boarders on account of their extraordinary history. There was Brady, the old government scout, retired on a pension, who was accustomed to sit for hours on the porch, gazing away over the northern plains—never toward the mountains—as if he watched for bear or bison, or for the files of hostile red hunters—though in reality there was nothing to see but the stage, coming and going, or a bunch of cowboys galloping into town. Nevertheless, every cloud of dust was to him diversion, and he appeared to dream, like a captive eagle, bedraggled, spiritless, but with an inner spark of memory burning deep in his dim blue eyes.

  Then there was an old miner, distressingly filthy, who hobbled to his meals on feet that had been frozen into clubs. He had a little gold loaned at interest, and on this he lived in tragic parsimony. He and the old scout sat much together, usually without speech (each knew to the last word the other’s stories), as if they recognized each other’s utter loneliness.

  Sifton, the old remittance man, had been born to a higher culture, therefore was his degradation the deeper. His poverty was due to his weakness. Virginia was especially drawn toward him by reason of his inalienable politeness and his well-chosen words. He was always the gentleman—no matter how frayed his clothing.

  So far as the younger men were concerned, she saw little to admire and much to hate. They were crude and uninteresting rowdies for the most part. She was put upon her defence by their glances, and she came to dread walking along the street, so open and coarse were their words of praise. She felt dishonored by the glances which her feet drew after her, and she always walked swiftly to and from the store or the post-office.

  Few of these loafers had the courage to stand on their feet and court her favor, but there was one who speedily became her chief persecutor. This was Neill Ballard, celebrated (and made impudent) by two years’ travel with a Wild West show. He was tall, lean, angular, and freckled, but his horsemanship was marvellous and his skill with the rope magical. His special glory consisted in a complicated whirling of the lariat. In his hand the limp, inert cord took on life, grace, charm. It hung in the air or ran in rhythmic waves about him, rising, falling, expanding, diminishing, as if controlled by some agency other than a man’s hand, and its gyrations had won much applause in the Eastern cities, where such skill is expected of the cowboys.

  He had lost his engagement by reason of a drunken brawl, and he was now living with his sister, the wife of a small rancher near by. He was vain, lazy, and unspeakably corrupt, full of open boasting of his exploits in the drinking-dens of the East. No sooner did he fix eyes upon Virginia than he marked her for his special prey. He had the depraved heart of the herder and the insolent confidence of the hoodlum, and something of this the girl perceived. She despised the
other men, but she feared this one, and quite justly, for he was capable of assaulting and binding her with his rope, as he had once done with a Shoshone squaw.

  The Greggs, father and son, were in open rivalry for Lee also, but in different ways. The older man, who had already been married several times, was disposed to buy her hand in what he called “honorable wedlock,” but the son, at heart a libertine, approached her as one who despised the West, and who, being kept in the beastly country by duty to a parent, was ready to amuse himself at any one’s expense. He had no purpose in life but to feed his body and escape toil.

  There are women to whom all this warfare would have been diverting, but it was not so to Lee. Her sense of responsibility was too keen. It was both a torture and a shame. The chivalry of the plains, of which she had read so much—and which she supposed she remembered—was gone. She doubted if it had ever existed among these centaurs. Why should it inhere in ignorant, brutal plainsmen any more than in ignorant, brutal factory hands?

  There came to her, now and again, gentle old ranchers—“grangers,” they would be called—and shy boys from the farms, but for the most part the men she saw embittered her, and she kept out of their sight as much as possible. Her keenest pleasures, almost her only pleasures, lay in the occasional brief visits of the ranger, as he rode in for his mail.