30,000 On the Hoof (7 page)

At length Logan rode back to her; black as a coal-heaver; yet nothing could have hidden his triumphant air, his grim mastery, his gay possession of success.

"Done!" he cried, ringingly. "Not a hoof lost! But oh, what a hell of a drive!... What happened to you, Luce?"

"Oh, nothing--much," she answered, calling upon a sense of humour that eluded her.

"But you look queer. And the wagon there--in the brush! But say, Luce, your face--it's all scratched."

"That awful bull! He butted into the oxen. They ran off. Down here they turned off the road, hit a bank and pitched me into the brush."

Logan leaped off to approach her with earnest solicitude. "You poor kid!

I was afraid something had happened. I shouldn't have left you so far ahead. But are you hurt, dear?"

"No. Only a scratch or two."

"Thank God for that!" He shook his head in wonderment. "I can't get over how my luck holds." He ran to the wagon, then examined wheels and tongue and the oxen. Evidently no damage had been done, for he mounted the seat and with yells drove the oxen out of the brush.

"All right. Come on, honey. Get up while I tie the horses behind... It won't be long now, Luce! Sycamore Canyon! My range! Our home!"

Lucinda had lost her hopes and what little curiosity she might have had.

Logan drove into the woods, along what appeared to have once been a road.

Oxen and wagon jarred heavily over saplings. After about a mile or less Lucinda saw a light space through the woods. The green failed, and far beyond and above appeared again, only dimmer. There was an opening and a valley--a canyon, Logan had said--just ahead. On the left side of the road a rocky ledge rose. Logan drove through a gap between the ledge and a brushy bank, halted and dismounted to carry poles and small logs with which to improvise a gate closing the opening. How energetic he was and tireless! There seemed a growing passion within him. Lastly he hauled a log that two men might well have found burdensome, which he placed across the gap.

"Luce girl," he said, intensely, as he mounted beside her. "Our stock is down in the canyon. Fenced in, all save a few holes in the rock rim they'll never find before I close them. Aha!... I'll show you pronto." A great weight seemed lifted from his shoulders.

Lucinda could not look just yet. She watched Logan jump off the wagon, untie the horses at the back and drive them past the wagon, down what appeared a narrow, overgrown road. She saw him take an axe and chop down a small pine as thick at the base as his thigh. The whole bushy tree, by prodigious effort, he dragged behind the wagon and secured with a chain.

"What's that for?" she asked him as he returned.

"Just a drag to hold us back. Pretty steep. Hold on now and look. You'll see the greatest valley in all the West!"

In spite of herself, Lucinda was compelled to gaze. A long, winding, apparently bottomless gorge yawned beneath them. As the wagon lurched down the grade, this thing Logan called a canyon gradually became visible. It struck Lucinda with appalling force: a grey, granite-walled abyss widening to the south, yawning up at her as if to swallow her. It appeared narrow just below, but it was not narrow. As all this deceitful West, it was not what it appeared. A ribbon of water and waste of white sand wound through the centre of it, to disappear round a bend; beyond, the canyon widened out into a great basin enclosed by yellow slopes and pine-fringed rims.

Lucinda had to hold on tightly to keep from being thrown off the seat. As the wagon rolled deeper into the declivity, brush on one side and bluff on the other obscured Lucinda's view. The grade steepened. Screeching brakes and crunching wheels increased their clamour. Despite the oxen holding back and the drag of the pine tree behind, the wagon rolled and bumped too fast for safety. Lucinda held on to her seat, although she wondered bitterly why she clung to it so dearly. Then suddenly the pine tree behind broke or pulled loose; the wagon rolled down upon the oxen, forcing them into a dead run, and swaying dangerously one side to the other. Barely in time for safety it rattled out upon the level open of the canyon floor and came to a jarring stop. Manifestly unable to control his elation, Logan drove across a flat of seared, bleached grass, across a shallow brook and bar of sand, up a considerable grade to a flat where big pines stood far apart and a white-barked tree shone among them.

"Whoa!" he yelled, in stentorian voice of finality, that echoed from the black, looming slope above. He threw away his whip and, giving Lucinda a grimy, sweat-laden embrace, leaped to the ground, and held out his arms to help her down.

"Sycamore Canyon, sweetheart!" he said, with husky emotion. "Here's where we homestead."

But Lucinda did not move nor respond on the moment. She gazed about spellbound, aghast. The drab, silent rocks, the lonely pines, shouted doom at her. The brook babbled in mockery. There was no view, no outlook except down the grey, monotonous canyon, with its terrible, forbidding walls. Savage wilderness encompassed her on all sides. Solitude reigned there. No sound, no brightness, no life! She would be shut in always. A pioneer wife chained irrevocably to her toil and her cabin! A low, strange murmuring--the mysterious voice of the wild--breathed out of the forest. The wind in the pines! It seemed foreboding, inevitable, awful, whispering death to girlish hopes and dreams.

Chapter
FOUR
.

Huett, seldom prey to strong feeling, expected Lucinda to share his joy at their safe arrival in the canyon which they were to homestead, but he was somewhat taken back by his wife's pale face and the strange gaze that seemed to see beyond the pines. When she had no word to say, he divined that his vague fear of her reaction to Sycamore Canyon had been justified. But, he reflected, women were queer, and beyond men's understanding. What difference did it really make where they began to live their lives together? The essential thing was that they were together, mated, facing the great project. He stifled his disappointment.

"Come down and let's rustle," he said, and helped her out of the wagon, aware that she was heavy on her feet. "Rest a bit. Or better walk about.

I'll throw supper together in a jiffy."

As she walked slowly away, not looking, Logan felt sorry for her. But what had he done that was amiss? This was the finest place he had ever seen. He threw off his coat and filled all the water-pails. What a wonderful spring--cold as ice, straight from granite rock, soft as silk, and even now, late in the fall, flowing a hundred gallons a minute! That spring was priceless. As Logan carried the pails, he gazed about for firewood. Up the canyon on the slope stood an aspen grove, burning vivid gold in the sunset. There would be dead aspen wood there--a wood next best to dead oak for a corking fire. He fared forth with an axe and dragged down some long poles. He noted with pleasure that beaver had been cutting the live aspens, and he wondered where their dam was. He built a fire with pine, and split the aspen to burn afterwards. Lucinda had not come back.

While Logan was rushing the supper, Lucinda returned, carrying a handful of flowers.

"Purple asters!" she exclaimed, her pale features animated for the first time. "My favourite flowers! These are wild--so much larger and lovelier than cultivated ones."

"Lots of wild flowers in these woods," he replied. "I like best that yellow one, like a bell in shape, that nods at you in the creek bottoms."

"I saw golden rod along the road. That's something," she said thoughtfully. She helped him get supper, ate without appetite, and wiped the utensils after he washed them.

Logan felt full of thoughts and feelings. He was not given to voluble expression, but if she had encouraged him now he might have formed the nucleus of a habit to talk. But she said only that it was much warmer down in the canyon. This night she did not put on her heavy coat, nor stand eagerly by the fire.

"I'll make your bed before it gets too dark," he said.

"What will we use for lights?" she asked, curiously.

"Camp-fire. I can get some pine knots presently. There's a box of candles to use in the cabin, when we throw that up:' When Logan emerged from his task in the wagon, Lucinda was standing with her dog watching the afterglow fade in the west. He made his own bed under the great pine near-by. Dusk fell, and then began the gloaming hour Logan liked best. He lighted his pipe. Lucinda came back presently.

"I'm tired," she said. "I'll be--all right to-morrow. Good night, Logan."

"Good night, dear. You've sure been game." He patted her shoulder awkwardly with his hand, but did not attempt to kiss her.

Night closed down upon the canyon. Logan sat smoking. He saw the fading red embers of his fire, the great looming pines, the black, shadowy wall; he smelled the smoke and the tang of the forest; he heard the sough of the wind, the brawl of the brook, the wail of coyotes. But he did not waste thought on these external manifestations which measured his contentment. He had made the drive from Flagg in three days, with a heavy load, the latter half of the distance with a score and more of cattle, and a wild bull. That stock, his oxen, and horses were safe in the canyon. It seemed incredible. Even with less than that he would have had a splendid start. His ranch was an established fact, and his range would be the envy of cattlemen some day. Yet he did not dream; he had no illusions. He was assured of the fact that he would have a great herd.

Holbert had had trouble with a grasshopper plague one year, but such a contingency did not worry Logan here.

He looked impartially towards success in the long run. As he would not require cowboys for many years, he could manage the ranch himself.

Lucinda would cook and take care of the children when they came. He would do the thousand and one tasks that fell to a homesteader's lot. For the immediate present he had the log cabin to throw up speedily--a job for one man; then the gaps to close in his natural fences around the canyon; and after that the winter's supply of firewood and meat. He would never have to kill any beef--not in this forest. Such a reflection afforded him double satisfaction. He would be able to indulge in his one and only pleasure, and, besides that, save many calves and yearlings.

It did not occur to Huett, as he stretched out under the blankets, that he was a happy man. Nevertheless he felt a great sense of accomplishment--to have won Lucinda Baker for a wife, to have driven safely into Sycamore Canyon with supplies and stock sufficient for the long task ahead--this seemed as much of a miracle as he ever dared hope for. The rest depended upon him, and he was positive that he was equal to the task. He had never tested his powers, but he felt that they were unlimited. Sleep glued his eyelids the instant he closed them.

At dawn he was up, wading through the dewy grass to 'fetch in his horse.

He saw deer with the cattle, and wished he had brought along his rifle.

Venison was tasty after the first frosts and would keep if hung up in the shade. Returning to camp, he put his heaviest saddle on Buck and left him standing bridle down. Logan next applied himself to putting up a tarpaulin shelter in a convenient place. He had a camp-chair somewhere in the wagon. This and a box for a table would do for Lucinda.

The sun struck down early into Sycamore--another of the many desirable features of this canyon. In summer it would be hot, but in winter the more sun the better. Huett anticipated much from those ample south slopes and walls, Which, would not only melt snow off promptly, but reflect heap down-upon the level. What corn, beans, cabbage, hay, grapes, peaches, he would raise! While mixing the biscuit dough that morning Logan located certain spots for gardens and fields.

Lucinda appeared, her face sunburned and slightly swollen.

"Mawnin', settler," she said, with a brightness that he was quick to grasp.

"How are you, Luce?" he greeted her, heartily.

"Fine. Only burnt to a crisp, lame in one leg, and sore from sundry scratches," she replied wryly. She had brushed her hair and left it to hang in a braid, a way that made her look more girlish, and pleased Logan. "I'm afraid to wash my face, it's so sore."

"Don't. Be chary of water in this country till you're broken in."

"Heaven!--What'll we do for a bath?"

"There's the brook."

"Be sensible, Logan. Besides, I felt that water last night. Cold--why, it made me jump! Can't you fix a place for us?"

"Sure I can. And I'll do it pronto. The brook will be good enough for me yet awhile."

"Where's my dog?"

"I haven't seen her."

"She went out before daylight."

"Coyotes! By gum! I hope she doesn't run true to form. Them half-wolf dogs are queer. She might go back to her kind; for she's more wolf than shepherd."

Lucinda made a face. "Oh dear!--I suppose I mustn't let myself love anything out here, because I can't keep it."

"I reckon, Luce. Nothing except me," he replied, not realizing the jest.

"You? Why--er--of course, Logan. But can't I keep pets?"

"Sure. But I won't swear how long. You can have bear-cubs, fawns--anything I can catch for you."

"A bear-cub? Oh, how darling! I'd love that."

While they sat at breakfast Coyote came back, her long fur full of burrs, her tongue hanging out. Lucinda was delighted at her return, while Logan was manifestly not displeased. The dog had evidently been chasing some wild animal, but apparently knew when to return home.