"He ain't alone," declared the sheriff. "Tom 'phoned me that he had an assistant."

"Swenson, I suppose," said Redfield, who entered at this moment. "Swenson is his assistant."

"I didn't see him myself," Gregg continued, "but I understood the deputy to say that he was an old man."

"Swenson is a young man," corrected Redfield.

The sheriff insisted. "Tom said it was an old man—a stranger to him—tall, smooth-shaven, not very strong, he said—'peared to be a cook. He had helped nurse the dago, so Tom said."

"That's very curious," mused Redfield. "There isn't an old man in the service of this forest. There's a mistake somewhere."

"Well," concluded Gregg, "that's what he said. I thought at first it might be that old hobo Edwards, but this feller being in uniform and smooth-shaven—" His face changed, his voice deepened. "Say, by the Lord! I believe it was Edwards, and, furthermore, Edwards is the convict that Texas marshal was after the other day, and this man Cavanagh—your prize ranger—is harborin' him."

"What nonsense!" exclaimed Redfield.

The sheriff banged his hand upon the table. "That's the whole mystery. I see it all now. He's up there concealing this man. He's given out this smallpox scare just to keep the officers away from him. Now you've got it!"

The thunder in his voice drew toward him all those who remained in the dining-room, and Lee found herself ringed about by a dozen excited men. But she did not flinch; she was too deeply concerned over Cavanagh's fate to be afraid, and, besides, Redfield and the Forester were beside her.

The Supervisor was staggered by Gregg's accusation, and by certain confirmatory facts in his own possession, but he defended Cavanagh bravely. "You're crazy," he replied. "Why should Ross do such a foolish thing? What is his motive? What interest would he have in this man Edwards, whom you call a tramp? He can't be a relative and certainly not a friend of Cavanagh's, for you say he is a convict. Come, now, your hatred of Cavanagh has gone too far."

Gregg was somewhat cooled by this dash of reason, but replied: "I don't know what relation he is, but these are facts. He's concealing an escaped convict, and he knows it."

Dalton put in a quiet word. "What is the use of shouting a judgment against a man like Cavanagh before you know the facts? He's one of the best and ablest rangers on this forest. I don't know why he has resigned, but I'm sure—"

"Has he resigned?" asked Gregg, eagerly.

"He has."

"A damn good job for him. I was about to circulate a petition to have him removed."

"If all the stockmen in the valley had signed a petition against him, it wouldn't have done any good," replied Dalton. "We know a good man when we see him. I'm here to offer him promotion, not to punish him."

Lee, looking about at the faces of these men, and seeing disappointment in their faces, lost the keen sting of her own humiliation. "In the midst of such a fight as this, how can he give time or thought to me?" Painful as the admission was, she was forced to admit that she was a very humble factor in a very large campaign. "But suppose he falls ill!" Her face grew white and set, and her lips bitter. "That would be the final, tragic touch," she thought, "to have him come down of a plague from nursing one of Sam Gregg's sheep-herders." Aloud she said: "His resignation comes just in time, doesn't it? He can now be sick without loss to the service."

Dalton answered her. "The Supervisor has not accepted his resignation. On the contrary, I shall offer him a higher position. His career as a forester is only beginning. He would be foolish to give up the work now, when the avenues of promotion are just opening. I can offer him very soon the supervision of a forest."

As they talked Lee felt herself sinking the while her lover rose. It was all true. The Forester was right. Ross was capable of any work they might demand of him. He was too skilled, too intelligent, too manly, to remain in the forest, heroic as its duties seemed.

Upon this discussion, Lize, hobbling painfully, appeared. With a cry of surprise, Lee rose to meet her.

"Mother, you must not do this!"

She waved her away. "I'm all right," she said, "barring the big marbles in my slippers." Then she turned to Dalton. "Now what's it all about? Is it true that Ross is down?"

"No. So far as we know, he is well."

"Well, I'm going to find out. I don't intend to set here and have him up there without a cook or a nurse."

At this moment a tall, fair young fellow, dressed in a ranger's uniform, entered the room, and made his way directly to the spot where Lee, her mother, and Redfield were standing. "Mr. Supervisor, Cavanagh has sent me to tell you that he needs a doctor. He's got a sick man up at The Station, and he's afraid it's a case of smallpox." He turned to Lee. "He told me to tell you that he would have written, only he was afraid to even send a letter out."

"What does he need?" asked Redfield.

"He needs medicine and food, a doctor, and he ought to have a nurse."

"That's my job," said Lize.

"Nonsense!" said Redfield. "You're not fit to ride a mile. I won't hear of your going."

"You wait and see. I'm goin', and you can't stop me."

"Who is the man with him?" asked the Forester.

"I don't know. An old herder, he said. He said he could take care of him all right for the present, but that if he were taken down himself—"

Lee's mounting emotion broke from her in a little cry. "Oh, Mr. Redfield, please let me go too! I want to help—I must help!"

Redfield said: "I'll telephone to Sulphur City and ask Brooks to get a nurse, and come down as soon as possible. Meanwhile I'll go out to see what the conditions are."

"I'm going too, I tell you," announced Lize. "I've had the cussed disease, and I'm not afraid of it. We had three sieges of it in my family. You get me up there, and I'll do the rest."

"But you are ill?"

"I was, but I'm not now." Her voice was firmer than it had been for days. "All I needed was something to do. Ross Cavanagh has been like a son to me for two years; he's the one man in this country I'd turn my hand over for—barrin' yourself, Reddy—and it's my job to see him through this pinch."

In spite of all opposition, she had her way. Returning to her room to get such clothing as she needed for her stay in the hills, she waited for Redfield to send a carriage to her. "I can't ride a horse no more," she sorrowfully admitted.

Lee's secret was no secret to any one there. Her wide eyes and heaving breast testified to the profound stir in her heart. She was in an anguish of fear lest Ross should already be in the grip of his loathsome enemy. That it had come to him by way of a brave and noble act only made the situation the more tragic.



XIV

THE PEST-HOUSE

Cavanagh had kept a keen watch over Wetherford, and when one night the old man began to complain of the ache in his bones his decision was instant.

"You've got it," he said. "It's up to us to move down the valley to-morrow."

Wetherford protested that he would as soon die in the hills as in the valley. "I don't want Lee Virginia to know, but if I seem liable to fade out, I'd like Lize to be told that I didn't forget her, and that I came back to find out how she was. I hate to be a nuisance to you, and so I'll go down the valley if you say so."

As he was about to turn in that night Ross heard a horse cross the bridge, and with intent to warn the rider of his danger, went to the door and called out: "Halt! Who's there?"

"A friend," replied the stranger, in a weak voice.

Ross permitted his visitor to ride up to the pole. "I can't ask you in," he explained. "I've a sick man inside. Who are you, and what can I do for you?"

Notwithstanding this warning the rider dropped from his saddle, and came into the light which streamed from the door.

"My name is Dunn," he began. "I'm from Deer Creek."

"I know you," responded the ranger. "You're that rancher I saw working in the ditch the day I went to telephone, and you've come to tell me something about that murder."

The other man broke into a whimper. "I'm a law-abiding man, Mr. Cavanagh," he began, tremulously. "I've always kept the law, and never intended to have anything to do with that business. I was dragged into it against my will. I've come to you because you're an officer of the Federal law. You don't belong here. I trust you. You represent the President, and I want to tell you what I know—only I want you to promise not to bring me into it. I'm a man of a family, and I can't bear to have them know the truth."

There was deep agitation and complete sincerity in the rancher's choked and hesitant utterance, and Cavanagh turned cold with a premonition of what he was about to disclose. "I am not an officer of the law, Mr. Dunn, not in the sense you mean, but I will respect your wishes."

"I know that you are not an officer of the county law, but you're not a cattle-man. It is your business to keep the peace in the wild country, and you do it, everybody knows that; but I can't trust the officers of this country, they're all afraid of the cowboys. You're not afraid, and you represent the United States, and I'll tell you. I can't bear it any longer!" he wailed. "I must tell somebody. I can't sleep and I can't eat. I've been like a man in a nightmare ever since. I had no hand in the killing—I didn't even see it done; but I knew it was going to happen. I saw the committee appointed. The meeting that decided it was held in my barn, but I didn't know what they intended to do. You believe me, don't you?" He peered up at Cavanagh with white face and wild eyes.

"Go on," replied the ranger; "I'll protect you—if I can. Go on. It's your duty—tell all you know."

The troubled man, after a little silence, resumed. "Sometimes I feel that I'd be happier in jail than I am walking about in the sunshine. I never dreamed civilized men could do such deeds. I thought they were only going to scare the herders and drive them out, as they've done so many times before. I can see now that they used my barn for a meeting-place because everybody believed me to be a man of peace. And I am. I'm over seventy years of age, Mr. Cavanagh, and I've been a law-abiding citizen all my life."

His mind, shattered by the weight of his ghastly secret, was in confusion, and, perceiving this, Cavanagh began to question him gently. One by one he procured the names of those who voted to "deal with" the herders. One by one he obtained also the list of those named on "the Committee of Reprisal," and as the broken man delivered himself of these accusing facts he grew calmer. "I didn't know—I couldn't believe—that the men on that committee could chop and burn—" His utterance failed him again, and he fell silent abruptly.

"They must have been drunk—mad drunk," retorted Cavanagh. "And yet who would believe that even drink could inflame white men to such devil's work? When did you first know what had been done?"

"That night after it was done one of the men, my neighbor, who was drawn on the committee, came to my house and asked me to give him a bed. He was afraid to go home. 'I can't face my wife and children,' he said. He told me what he'd seen, and then when I remembered that it had all been decided in my stable, and the committee appointed there, I began to tremble. You believe I'm telling the truth, don't you?" he again asked, with piteous accent.

"Yes, I believe you. You must tell this story to the judge. It will end the reign of the cattle-men."

"Oh no, I can't do that."

"You must do that. It is your duty as a Christian man and citizen."

"No, no; I'll stay and help you—I'll do anything but that. I'm afraid to tell what I know. They would burn me alive. I'm not a Western man. I've never been in a criminal court. I don't belong to this wild country. I came out here because my daughter is not strong, and now—" He broke down altogether, and leaning against his horse's side, sobbed pitifully.

Cavanagh, convinced that the old man's mind was too deeply affected to enable him to find his way back over the rough trail that night, spoke to him gently. "I'll get you something to eat," he said. "Sit down here, and rest and compose yourself."

Wetherford turned a wild eye on the ranger as he reentered. "Who's out there?" he asked. "Is it the marshal?"

"No, it's only one of the ranchers from below; he's tired and hungry, and I'm going to feed him," Ross replied, filled with a vivid sense of the diverse characters of the two men he was serving.

Dunn received the food with an eager hand, and after he had finished his refreshment, Cavanagh remarked: "The whole country should be obliged to you for your visit to me. I shall send your information to Supervisor Redfield."

"Don't use my name," he begged. "They will kill me if they find out that I have told. We were all sworn to secrecy, and if I had not seen that fire—that pile of bodies—"

"I know, I know! It horrified me. It made me doubt humanity," responded Cavanagh. "We of the North cry out against the South for lynching black rapers; but here, under our eyes, goes on an equally horrible display of rage over the mere question of temporary advantage, over the appropriation of free grass, which is a Federal resource—something which belongs neither to one claimant nor to the other, but to the people, and should be of value to the people. There is some excuse for shooting and burning a man who violates a woman, but what shall we say of those who kill and dismember men over the possession of a plot of grass? You must bring these men to punishment."

Dunn could only shiver in his horror and repeat his fear. "They'll kill me if I do."

Cavanagh at last said: "You must not attempt to ride back to-night. I can't give you lodging in the cabin, because my patient is sick of smallpox, but you can camp in the barn till morning, then ride straight back to my friend Redfield, and tell him what you've told me. He will see that you are protected. Make your deposition and leave the country, if you are afraid to remain."

In the end the rancher promised to do this, but his tone was that of a broken and distraught dotard. All the landmarks of his life seemed suddenly shifted. All the standards of his life hitherto orderly and fixed were now confused and whirling, and Cavanagh, understanding something of his plight, pitied him profoundly. It was of a piece with this ironic story that the innocent man should suffer madness and the guilty go calmly about their business of grazing their cattle on the stolen grass.

Meanwhile the sufferings of his other patient were increasing, and he was forced to give up all hope of getting him down the trail next morning; and when Swenson, the Forest Guard from the south Fork, knocked at the door to say that he had been to the valley, and that the doctor was coming up with Redfield and the District Forester, Ross thanked him, but ordered him to go into camp across the river, and to warn everybody to keep clear of the cabin. "Put your packages down outside the door," he added, "and take charge of the situation on the outside. I'll take care of the business inside."

Wetherford was in great pain, but the poison of the disease had misted his brain, and he no longer worried over the possible disclosure of his identity. At times he lost the sense of his surroundings and talked of his prison life, or of the long ride northward. Once he rose in his bed to beat off the wolves which he said were attacking his pony.

He was a piteous figure as he struggled thus, and it needed neither his relationship to Lee nor his bravery in caring for the Basque herder to fill the ranger's heart with a desire to relieve his suffering. "Perhaps I should have sent for Lize at once," he mused, as the light brought out the red signatures of the plague.

Once the old man looked up with wide, dark, unseeing eyes and murmured, "I don't seem to know you."

"I'm a friend—my name is Cavanagh."

"I can't place you," he sadly admitted. "I feel pretty bad. If I ever get out of this place I'm going back to the Fork; I'll get a gold-mine, then I'll go back and make up for what Lize has gone through. I'm afraid to go back now."

"All right," Ross soothingly agreed; "but you'll have to keep quiet till you get over this fever you're suffering from."

"If Lize weren't so far away, she'd come and nurse me—I'm pretty sick. This stone-cutting—this inside work is hell on an old cow-puncher like me."

Swenson came back to say that probably Redfield and the doctor would reach The Station by noon, and thereafter, for the reason that Cavanagh expected their coming, the hours dragged wofully. It was after one o'clock before Swenson announced that two teams were coming with three men and two women in them. "They'll be here in half an hour."

The ranger's heart leaped. Two women! Could one of them be Lee Virginia? What folly—what sweet, desperate folly! And the other—she could not be Lize—for Lize was too feeble to ride so far. "Stop them on the other side of the bridge," he commanded. "Don't let them cross the creek on any pretext."

As he stood in the door the flutter of a handkerchief, the waving of a hand, made his pulses glow and his eyes grow dim. It was Virginia!

Lize did not flutter a kerchief or wave a hand, but when Swenson stopped the carriage at the bridge she said: "No, you don't! I'm going across. I'm going to see Ross, and if he needs help, I'm going to roll up my sleeves and take hold."

Cavanagh saw her advancing, and, as she came near enough for his voice to reach her, he called out: "Don't come any closer! Stop, I tell you!" His voice was stern. "You must not come a step nearer. Go back across the dead-line and stay there. No one but the doctor shall enter this door. Now that's final."

"I want to help!" she protested.

"I know you do; but I won't have it. This quarantine is real, and it goes!"

"But suppose you yourself get sick?"

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. I'm all right so far, and I'll call for help when I need it."

His tone was imperative, and she obeyed, grumbling about his youth and the value of his life to the service.

"That's all very nice," he replied; "but I'm in it, and I don't intend to expose you or any one else to the contagion."

"I've had it once," she asserted.

He looked at her, and smiled in recognition of her subterfuge.

"No matter; you're ailing, and might take it again, so toddle back. It's mighty good of you, and of Lee, to come—but there isn't a thing you can do, and here's the doctor," he added, as he recognized the young student who passed for a physician in the Fork. He was a beardless youth of small experience and no great courage, and as he approached with hesitant feet he asked:

"Are you sure it's smallpox?"

Cavanagh smiled. "The indications are all that way. That last importation of Basques brought it probably from the steerage of the ship. I'm told they've had several cases over in the Basin."

"Have you been vaccinated?"

"Yes; when I was in the army."

"Then you're all right."

"I hope so."

There was a certain comic relief in this long-distance diagnosing of a "case" by a boy, and yet the tragic fact beneath it all was that Wetherford was dying, a broken and dishonored husband and father, and that his identity must be concealed from his wife and daughter, who were much more deeply concerned over the ranger than over the desperate condition of his patient. "And this must continue to be so," Cavanagh decided. And as he stood there looking toward the girl's fair figure on the bridge, he came to the final, fixed determination never to speak one word or make a sign that might lead to the dying man's identification. "Of what use is it?" he asked himself. "Why should even Lize be made to suffer? Wetherford's poor misspent life is already over for her, and for Lee he is only a dim memory."

Redfield came near enough to see that the ranger's face, though tired, showed no sign of illness, and was relieved. "Who is this old herder?" he asked. "Hasn't he any relatives in the country?"

"He came from Texas, so he said. You're not coming in?" he broke off to say to the young physician, whom Lize had shamed into returning to the cabin.

"I suppose I'll have to," he protested, weakly.

"I don't see the need of it. The whole place reeks of the poison, and you might carry it away with you. Unless you insist on coming in, and are sure you can prevent further contagion, I shall oppose your entrance. You are in the company of others—I must consider their welfare."

The young fellow was relieved. "Well, so long as we know what it is I can prescribe just as well right here," he said, and gave directions for the treatment, which the ranger agreed to carry out.

"I tried to bring a nurse," explained Redfield, "but I couldn't find anybody but old Lize who would come."

"I don't blame them," replied Ross. "It isn't a nice job, even when you've got all the conveniences."

His eyes, as he spoke, were on the figure of Lee, who still stood on the bridge awed and worshipful, barred of approach by Lize. "She shall not know," he silently vowed. "Why put her through useless suffering and shame? Edward Wetherford's disordered life is near its end. To betray him to his wife and daughter would be but the reopening of an old wound."

He was stirred to the centre of his heart by the coming of Lee Virginia, so sweet and brave and trustful. His stern mood melted as he watched her there waiting, with her face turned toward him, longing to help. "She would have come alone if necessary," he declared, with a fuller revelation of the self-sacrificing depth of her love, "and she would come to my side this moment if I called her."

To the District Forester he said no more than to Redfield. "Edwards is evidently an old soldier," he declared. "He was sent up here by Gregg to take the place of a sick herder. He took care of that poor herder till he died, and then helped me to bury him; now here he lies a victim to his own sense of duty, and I shall not desert him." And to himself he added: "Nor betray him."

He went back to his repulsive service sustained and soothed by the little camp of faithful friends on the other side of the stream. The tender grace of the girl's attitude, her air of waiting, of anxiety, of readiness to serve, made him question the basis of his family pride. He recognized in her the spirit of her sire, tempered, sweetened, made more stable, by something drawn from unknown sources. At the moment he felt that Lee was not merely his equal but his superior in purity of character and in purpose. "What nonsense we talk of heredity, of family," he thought.

Standing over the wasted body of his patient, he asked again: "Why let even Lize know? To her Ed Wetherford is dead. She remembers him now as a young, dashing, powerful horseman, a splendid animal, a picturesque lover. Why wring her heart by permitting her to see this wreck of what was once her pride?"

As for Wetherford himself, nothing mattered very much. He spoke of the past now and then, but not in the phrase of one who longs for the return of happy days—rather in the voice of one who murmurs a half-forgotten song. He called no more for his wife and child, and if he had done so Cavanagh would have reasoned that the call arose out of weakness, and that his better self, his real self, would still desire to shield his secret from his daughter.

And this was true, for during one of his clearest moments Wetherford repeated his wish to die a stranger. "I'm goin' out like the old-time West, a rag of what I once was. Don't let them know—put no name over me—just say: 'An old cow-puncher lies here.'"

Cavanagh's attempt to change his hopeless tone proved unavailing. Enfeebled by his hardships and his prison life, he had little reserve force upon which to draw in fighting such an enemy. He sank soon after this little speech into a coma which continued to hold him in its unbroken grasp as night fell.

Meantime, seeing no chance of aiding the ranger, Redfield and the Forester prepared to return, but Lee, reinforced by her mother, refused to accompany them. "I shall stay here," she said, "till he is safely out of it—till I know that he is beyond all danger."

Redfield did not urge her to return as vigorously as Dalton expected him to do, but when he understood the girl's desire to be near her lover, he took off his hat and bowed to her. "You are entirely in the right," he said. "Here is where you belong."

Redfield honored Lize for her sympathetic support of her daughter's resolution, and expressed his belief that Ross would escape the plague. "I feel that his splendid vigor, combined with the mountain air, will carry him through—even if he should prove not to be immune. I shall run up again day after to-morrow. I shall be very anxious. What a nuisance that the telephone-line is not extended to this point. Ross has been insisting on its value for months."

Lee saw the doctor go with some dismay. Young as he was, he was at least a reed to cling to in case the grisly terror seized upon the ranger. "Mr. Redfield, can't you send a real doctor? It seems so horrible to be left here without instructions."

The Forester, before going, again besought Cavanagh not to abandon his work in the Forestry Service, and intimated that at the proper time advancement would be offered him. "The whole policy is but beginning," said he, "and a practical ranger with your experience and education will prove of greatest value."

To this Ross made reply. "At the moment I feel that no promise of advancement could keep me in this country of grafters, poachers, and assassins. I'm weary of it, and all it stands for. However, if I could aid in extending the supervision of the public ranges and in stopping forever this murder and burning that goes on outside the forestry domain, I might remain in the West."

"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.



XV

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.

This leprous plague, this offspring of crowded and dirty tenements and of foul ship-steerages, seemed doubly unholy here in the clean sanity of the hills. It was a profanation, a hideous curse. "If it should seize upon Ross—" Words failed to express her horror, her hate of it. "Oh God, save him!" she prayed a hundred times each day.

Twice in the night she rose from her bed to listen, to make sure that Cavanagh was not calling for help. The last time she looked out, a white veil of frost lay on the grass, and the faint light of morning was in the east, and in the exquisite clarity of the air, in the serene hush of the dawn, the pestilence appeared but as the ugly emanation of disordered sleep. The door of the ranger's cabin stood open, but all was silent. "He is snatching a half-hour's sleep," she decided.

If the guard had carried in his mind the faintest intention of permitting Lize to go to Cavanagh's aid, that intention came to no issue, for with the coming of the third night Wetherford was unconscious and unrecognizable to any one who had known him in the days of "the free range." Lithe daredevil in those days, expert with rope and gun, he was as far from this scarred and swollen body as the soaring eagle is from the carrion which he sees and scorns.

He was going as the Wild West was going, discredited, ulcerated, poisoned, incapable of rebirth, yet carrying something fine to his grave. He had acted the part of a brave man, that shall be said of him. He had gone to the rescue of the poor Basque, instinctively, with the same reckless disregard of consequences to himself which marked his character when as a cow-boss on the range he had set aside the most difficult tasks for his own rope or gun. His regard for the ranger into whose care he was now about to commit his wife and daughter, persisted in spite of his suffering. In him was his hope, his stay. Once again, in a lucid moment, he reverted to the promise which he had drawn from Cavanagh.

"If I go, you must take care—of my girl—take care of Lize, too. Promise me that. Do you promise?" he insisted.

"I promise—on honor," Ross repeated, and, with a faint pressure of his hand (so slender and weak), Wetherford sank away into the drowse which deepened hour by hour, broken now and then by convulsions, which wrung the stern heart of the ranger till his hands trembled for pity.

All day, while the clouds sailed by, white as snow and dazzlingly pure, while the stream roared with joy of exploration, and the sunshine fell in dazzling floods upon the world, the ranger bent above his ward or walked the floor of his cabin marvelling that the air and light of this high place should be so powerless to check the march of that relentless plague. It seemed that to open the doors, to fill the room with radiance, must surely kill the mutinous motes which warred upon the tortured body. But in the midst of nature's sovereign charm the reek of the conflict went up; and he wondered whether even the vigor which his outdoor life had built up could withstand the strain another day.

Once Lee Virginia approached close enough to hear his voice as he warned her to go back. "You can do nothing," he called to her. "Please go away." His face was haggard with weariness, and her heart filled with bitter resentment to think that this repulsive warfare, this painful duty, should be thrust upon one so fine.

He himself felt as though his youth were vanishing, and that in these few days he had entered upon the sober, care-filled years of middle life. The one sustaining thought, his one allurement, lay in the near presence of the girl to whom he could call, but could not utter one tender word. She was there where he could see her watching, waiting at the bridge. "The sound of the water helps me bear the suspense," she said to Swenson, and the occasional sight of her lover, the knowledge that he was still unbroken, kept her from despair.

The day was well advanced when the sound of rattling pebbles on the hill back of his cabin drew his attention, and a few moments later a man on a weary horse rode up to his door and dropped heavily from the saddle. He was a small, dark individual, with spectacles, plainly of the city.

"Beware! Smallpox!" called Ross, as his visitor drew near the door.

The new-comer waved his hand contemptuously. "I've had it. Are you Ross Cavanagh?"

"I am!"

"My name is Hartley. I represent the Denver Round-up. I'm interested in this sheep-herder killing—merely as a reporter," he added, with a fleeting smile. "Did you know old man Dunn, of Deer Creek, had committed suicide?"

Cavanagh started, and his face set. "No!"

"They found him shot through the neck, and dying—this morning. As he was gasping his last breath, he said, 'The ranger knows,' and when they asked, 'What ranger,' he said, 'Cavanagh.' When I heard that I jumped a horse and beat 'em all over here. Is this true? Did he tell you who the murderers are?"

Cavanagh did not answer at once. He was like a man caught on a swaying bridge, and his first instinct was to catch the swing, to get his balance. "Wait a minute! What is it all to you?"

Again that peculiar grin lighted the small man's dark, unwholesome face. "It's a fine detective stunt, and besides it means twenty dollars per column and mebbe a 'boost.' I can't wait, you can't wait! It's up to us to strike now! If these men knew you have their names they'd hike for Texas or the high seas. Come now! Everybody tells me you're one of these idealistic highbrow rangers who care more for the future of the West than most natural-born Westerners. What's your plan? If you'll yoke up with me we'll run these devils into the earth and win great fame, and you'll be doing the whole country a service."

The ranger studied the small figure before him with penetrating gaze. There was deliberative fearlessness in the stranger's face and eyes, and notwithstanding his calm, almost languid movement, restless energy could be detected in his voice.

"What is your plan?" the ranger asked.

"Get ourselves deputized by the court, and jump these men before they realize that there's anything doing. They count the whole country on their side, but they're mistaken. They've outdone themselves this time, and a tremendous reaction has set in. Everybody knows you've held an even hand over these warring Picts and Scots, and the court will be glad to deputize you to bring them to justice. The old sheriff is paralyzed. Everybody knows that the assassins are prominent cattle-ranchers, and yet no one dares move. It's up to you fellows, who represent law and order, to act quick."

Cavanagh followed him with complete comprehension, and a desire to carry out the plan seized upon him.

"I'd do it if I could," he said, "but it happens I am nursing a sick man. I am, perhaps, already exposed to the same disease. I can't leave here for a week or more. It would not be right for me to expose others—"

"Don't worry about that. Take a hot bath, fumigate your clothing, shave your head. I'll fix you up, and I'll get some one to take your place." Catching sight of Swenson and Lize on the bridge, he asked: "Who are those people? Can't they take your nursing job?"

"No!" answered Cavanagh, bluntly. "It's no use, I can't join you in this—at least, not now."

"But you'll give me the names which Dunn gave you?"

"No, I can't do that. I shall tell the Supervisor, and he can act as he sees fit—for the present I'm locked up here."

The other man looked the disappointment he felt. "I'm sorry you don't feel like opening up. You know perfectly well that nothing will ever be done about this thing unless the press insists upon it. It's up to you and me (me representing 'the conscience of the East'"—here he winked an eye—"and you Federal authority) to do what we can to bring these men to their punishment. Better reconsider. I'm speaking now as a citizen as well as a reporter."

There was much truth in what he said, but Cavanagh refused to go further in the matter until he had consulted with Redfield.

"Very well," replied Hartley, "that's settled. By-the-way, who is your patient?"

Eloquently, concisely, Ross told the story. "Just a poor old mounted hobo, a survival of the cowboy West," he said; "but he had the heart of a hero in him, and I'm doing my best to save him."

"Keep him in the dark, that's the latest theory—or under a red light. White light brings out the ulcers."

"He hates darkness; that's one reason why I've opened the doors and windows."

"All wrong! According to Finsen, he wouldn't pit in the dark. However, it doesn't matter on a cowboy. You've a great story yourself. There's a fine situation here which I'll play up if you don't object."

Cavanagh smiled. "Would my objection have any weight?"

The reporter laughed. "Not much; I've got to carry back some sort of game. Well, so long! I must hit the trail over the hill."

Cavanagh made civil answer, and returned to his patient more than half convinced that Hartley was right. The "power of the press" might prove to be a very real force in this pursuit.

As the journalist was about to mount his horse he discovered Lee Virginia on the other side of the creek. "Hello!" said he, "I wonder what this pretty maiden means?" And, dropping his bridle-rein again, he walked down to the bridge.

Swenson interposed his tall figure. "What do you want?" he asked, bluntly. "You don't want to get too close. You've been talking to the ranger."

Hartley studied him coolly. "Are you a ranger, too?"

"No, only a guard."

"Why are you leaving Cavanagh to play it alone in there?"

Lee explained. "He won't let any of us come near him."

"Quite right," retorted Hartley, promptly. "They say smallpox has lost its terrors, but when you're eight hours' hard trail from a doctor, or a hospital, it's still what I'd call a formidable enemy. However, Cavanagh's immune, so he says."

"We don't know that," Lee said, and her hands came together in a spasm of fear. "Are you a doctor?"

"No, I'm only a newspaper man; but I've had a lot of experience with plagues of all sorts—had the yellow fever in Porto Rico, and the typhoid in South Africa; that's why I'm out here richochetting over the hills. But who are you, may I ask? You look like the rose of Sharon."

"My name is Lee Wetherford," she answered, with childish directness, for there was something compelling in the man's voice and eyes. "And this is my mother." She indicated Lize, who was approaching.

"You are not out here for your health," he stated, rather thoughtfully. "How happens it you're here?"

"I was born here—in the Fork."

His face remained expressionless. "I don't believe it. Can such maidens come out of Roaring Fork—nit! But I don't mean that. What are you doing up here in this wilderness?"

Lize took a part in the conversation. "Another inspector?" she asked, as she lumbered up.

"That's me," he replied; "Sherlock Holmes, Vidocque, all rolled into one."

"My mother," again volunteered Lee.

Hartley's eyes expressed incredulity; but he did not put his feelings into words, for he perceived in Lize a type with which he was entirely familiar—one to be handled with care. "What are you two women doing here? Are you related to one of these rangers?"

Lize resented this. "You're asking a good many questions, Mr. Man."

"That's my trade," was the unabashed reply, "and I'm not so old but that I can rise to a romantic situation." Thereupon he dropped all direct interrogation, and with an air of candor told the story of his mission. Lize, entirely sympathetic, invited him to lunch, and he was soon in possession of their story, even to the tender relationship between Lee Virginia and the plague-besieged forest ranger.

"We're not so mighty disinterested," he said, referring to his paper. "The Round-up represents the New West in part, but to us the New West means opportunity to loot water-sites and pile up unearned increment. Oh yes, we're on the side of the fruit and alfalfa grower, because it pays. If the boss of my paper happened to be in the sheep business, as Senator Blank White is, we would sing a different tune. Or if I were a Congressman representing a district of cattle-men, I'd be very slow about helping to build up any system that would make me pay for my grass. As it is, I'm commissioned to make it hot for the ranchers that killed those dagoes, and I'm going to do it. If this country had a man like Cavanagh for sheriff, we'd have the murderers in two days. He knows who the butchers are, and I'd like his help; but he's nailed down here, and there's no hope of his getting away. A few men like him could civilize this cursed country."

Thereupon he drew from three pairs of lips a statement of the kind of man Ross Cavanagh was, but most significant of all were the few words of the girl, to whom this man of the pad and pencil was a magician, capable of exalting her hero and of advancing light and civilization by the mere motion of his hand. She liked him, and grew more and more willing to communicate, and he, perceiving in her something unusual, lingered on questioning. Then he rose. "I must be going," he said to Lee. "You've given me a lovely afternoon."

Lee Virginia was all too ignorant of the ways of reporters to resent his note-taking, and she accepted his hand, believing him to be the sincere admirer of her ranger. "What are you going to do?" she asked.

"I'm going back to Sulphur to spread the report of Cavanagh's quarantine." Again that meaning smile. "I don't want any other newspaper men mixed up in my game. I'm lonesome Ned in stunts like this, and I hope if they do come up you'll be judiciously silent. Good-bye."

Soon after the reporter left, Cavanagh called to Swenson: "The old man can't last through another such a night as last night was, and I wish you would persuade Mrs. Wetherford and her daughter to return to the valley. They can do nothing here—absolutely nothing. Please say that."

Swenson repeated his commands with all the emphasis he could give them, but neither Lize nor Lee would consent to go. "It would be heathenish to leave him alone in this lonesome hole," protested Lize.

"I shall stay till he is free," added Lee. And with uneasy heart she crossed the bridge and walked on and on toward the cabin till she was close enough to detect the lines of care on her lover's haggard face.

"Stop!" he called, sharply. "Keep away. Why don't you obey me? Why don't you go back to the valley?"

"Because I will not leave you alone—I can't! Please let me stay!"

"I beg of you go back."

The roar of the stream made it necessary to speak loudly, and he could not put into his voice the tenderness he felt at the moment, but his face was knotted with pain as he asked: "Don't you see you add to my uneasiness—my pain?"

"We're so anxious about you," she answered. "It seems as though we should be doing something to help you."

He understood, and was grateful for the tenderness which brought her so near to him, but he was forced to be stern.

"There is nothing you can do—nothing more than you are doing. It helps me to know that you are there, but you must not cross the bridge. Please go back!" There was pleading as well as command in his voice, and with a realization of the passion his voice conveyed, she retraced her steps, her heart beating quickly with the joy which his words conveyed.

At sunset Redfield returned, bringing with him medicines but no nurse. "Nobody will come up here," he said. "I reckon Ross is doomed to fight it out alone. The solitude, the long trail, scares the bravest of them away. I tried and tried—no use. Eleanor would have come, of course—demanded to come; but I would not permit that. She commissioned me to bring you both down to the ranch."

Lee Virginia thanked him, but reiterated her wish to stay until all possible danger to Cavanagh was over.

Redfield crossed the bridge, and laid the medicines down outside the door.

"The nurse from Sulphur refused to come when she found that her patient was in a mountain cabin. I'm sorry, old man; I did the best I could."

"Never mind," replied Cavanagh. "I'm still free from any touch of fever. I'm tired, of course, but good for another night of it. My main anxiety concerns Lee—get her to go home with you if you can."

"I'll do the best I can," responded Redfield, "but meanwhile you must not think of getting out of the Forest Service. I have some cheering news for you. The President has put a good man into the chief's place."

Cavanagh's face lighted up. "That'll help some," he exclaimed; "but who's the man?"

Redfield named him. "He was a student under the chief, and the chief says he's all right, which satisfies me. Furthermore, he's a real forester, and not a political jobber or a corporation attorney."

"That's good," repeated Cavanagh; "and yet—" he said, sadly, "it leaves the chief out just the same."

"No, the chief is not out. He's where he can fight for the idea to better advantage than when he was a subordinate under another man. Anyhow, he asks us all to line up for the work and not to mind him. The work, he says, is bigger than any man. Here's that resignation of yours," he said, taking Cavanagh's letter from his pocket; "I didn't put it on file. What shall I do with it?"

"Throw it to me," said Cavanagh, curtly.

Redfield tossed it over the hitching-pole, and Ross took it up, looked at it for a moment in silence, then tore it into bits and threw it on the ground.

"What are your orders, Mr. Supervisor?" he asked, with a faint, quizzical smile around his eyes.

"There's nothing you can do but take care of this man. But as soon as you are able to ride again, I've got some special work for you. I want you to join with young Bingham, the ranger on Rock Creek, and line up the 'Triangle' cattle. Murphy is reported to have thrown on the forest nearly a thousand head more than his permit calls for. I want you to see about that. Then complete your maps so that I can turn them in on the first of November, and about the middle of December you are to take charge of this forest in my stead. Eleanor has decided to take the children abroad for a couple of years, and as I am to be over there part of the time, I don't feel justified in holding down the Supervisor's position. I shall resign in your favor. Wait, now!" he called, warningly. "The District Forester and I framed all this up as we rode down the hill yesterday, and it goes. Oh yes, there's one thing more. Old man Dunn—"

"I know."

"How did you learn it?"

"A reporter came boiling over the ridge about noon to-day, wanting me to give him the names which Dunn had given me. I was strongly tempted to do as he asked me to—you know these newspaper men are sometimes the best kind of detectives for running down criminals; but on second thought I concluded to wait until I had discussed the matter with you. I haven't much faith in the county authorities."

"Ordinarily I would have my doubts myself," replied Redfield, "but the whole country is roused, and we're going to round up these men this time, sure. The best men and the big papers all over the West are demanding an exercise of the law, and the reward we have offered—" He paused, suddenly. "By-the-way, that reward will come to you if you can bring about the arrest of the criminals."

"The reward should go to Dunn's family," replied the ranger, soberly. "Poor chap, he's sacrificed himself for the good of the State."

"That's true. His family is left in bad shape—"

Cavanagh broke off the conversation suddenly. "I must go back to—" he had almost said "back to Wetherford." "My patient needs me!" he exclaimed.

"How does he seem?"

"He's surely dying. In my judgment he can't last the night, but so long as he's conscious it's up to me to be on the spot."

Redfield walked slowly back across the river, thinking on the patient courage of the ranger.

"It isn't the obvious kind of thing, but it's courage all the same," he said to himself.

Meanwhile Lize and Virginia, left alone beside the fire, had drawn closer together.

The girl's face, so sweet and so pensive, wrought strongly upon the older woman's sympathy. Something of her own girlhood came back to her. Being freed from the town and all its associations, she became more considerate, more thoughtful. She wished to speak, and yet she found it very hard to begin. At last she said, with a touch of mockery in her tone: "You like Ross Cavanagh almost as well as I do myself, don't you?"

The girl flushed a little, but her eyes remained steady. "I would not be here if I did not," she replied.

"Neither would I. Well, now, I have got something to tell you—something I ought to have told you long ago—something that Ross ought to know. I intended to tell you that first day you came back, but I couldn't somehow get to it, and I kept putting it off and putting it off till—well, then I got fond of you, and every day made it harder." Here she made her supreme effort. "Child, I'm an old bluff. I'm not your mother at all."

Lee stared at her in amazement. "What do you mean?" she asked.

"I mean your real mother died when you was a tiny little babe. You see, I was your father's second wife; in fact, you weren't a year old when we married. Ed made me promise never to let you know. We were to bring you up just the same as if you was a child to both of us. Nobody knows but Reddy. I told him the day we started up here."

The girl's mind ran swiftly over the past as she listened. The truth of the revelation reached her instantly, explaining a hundred strange things which had puzzled her all her life. The absence of deep affection between herself and Lize was explained. Their difference in habit, temperament, thought—all became plain. "But my mother!" she said, at last. "Who was my mother?"

"I never saw her. You see, Ed came into the country bringing you, a little motherless babe. He always said your mother was a fine woman, but I never so much as saw a picture of her. She was an educated woman, he said—a Southern woman—and her name was Virginia, but that's about all I can tell you of her. Now, I am going to let Ross know all of this as soon as I can. It will make a whole lot of difference in what he thinks of you."

She uttered all this much as a man would have done, with steady voice and with bright eyes, but Lee Virginia could feel beneath her harsh inflections the deep emotion which vibrated there, and her heart went out toward the lonely woman in a new rush of tenderness. Now that she was released from the necessity of excusing her mother's faults—faults she could now ignore; now that she could look upon her as a loyal friend, she was moved to pity and to love, and, rising, she went to her and put her arm about her neck, and said: "This won't make any difference. I am going to stay with you and help you just the same."

The tears came to the old woman's eyes, and her voice broke as she replied: "I knew you would say that, Lee Virginia, but all the same I don't intend to have you do any such thing. You've got to cut loose from me altogether, because some fine chap is going to come along one of these days, and he won't want me even as a step-mother-in-law. No, I have decided that you and me had better live apart. I'll get you a place to live up in Sulphur, where I can visit you now and again; but I guess I am elected to stay right here in the Fork. They don't like me, and I don't like them; but I have kind o' got used to their ways of looking at me sidewise; they don't matter as much as it would up there in the city."

Lee turned back wistfully toward the story of her mother. "Where did my mother meet my father? Do you know that?"

"No, I don't. It was a runaway match, Ed said. I never did know who her folks were—only I know they thought she was marrying the wrong man."

The girl sighed as her mind took in the significance of her mother's coming to this wild country, leaving all that she knew and loved behind. "Poor little mother. It must have been very hard for her."

"I am afraid she did have a hard time, for Ed admitted to me that he hadn't so much as a saddle when he landed in the State. He hadn't much when I met him first, but everybody liked him. He was one of the handsomest men that ever jumped a saddle. But he was close-mouthed. You never could get anything out of him that he didn't want to tell, and I was never able to discover what he had been doing in the southern part of the State."

As she pondered on her changed relationship to Lize, Lee's heart lightened. It would make a difference to Ross. It would make a difference to the Redfields. Traitorous as it seemed, it was a great relief—a joy—to know that her own mother, her real mother, had been "nice." "She must have been nice or Lize would not have said so," she reasoned, recalling that her stepmother had admitted her feeling of jealousy.

At last Lize rose. "Well, now, dearie, I reckon we had better turn in. It is getting chilly and late."

As they were about to part at the door of the tent Virginia took Lize's face between her hands. "Good-night, mother," she said, and kissed her, to show her that what she had said would not make any difference.

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."

Cavanagh resigned Lee with a smile. "Good-night," he said. "Oh, but it's good to remember that I shall see you to-morrow!"

With a happy glance and a low "Good-bye" she turned away.

Laying aside his blanket and his shoes, Cavanagh crept into the snug little camp-bed. "Ah," he breathed, with a delicious sense of relief, "I feel as if I could sleep a week!" And in an instant his eyes closed in slumber so profound that it was barren even of dreams.

When he awoke it was noon, and Swenson, the guard, was standing over him. "I'm sorry, but it's time to be moving," he said; "it's a long ride over there."

"What time is it?" inquired Cavanagh, with some bewilderment.

"Nearly noon. I've got some coffee ready. Want some?"

"Do I? Just watch me!" And he scrambled out of his bed with vigor, and stretched himself like a cat, exclaiming: "Wow! but it does feel good to know that I am out of jail!"

Going down to the stream, he splashed his face and neck in the clear cold water, and the brisk rubbing which followed seemed to clear his thought as well as sharpen his appetite.

"You seem all right so far," hazarded the guide.

"I am all right, and I'll be all right to-morrow, if that's what you mean," replied Cavanagh. "Well, now, pack up, and we'll pull out."

For a few moments after he mounted his horse Cavanagh looked about the place as if for the last time—now up at the hill, now down at the meadow, and last of all at the stream. "I hope you'll enjoy this station as much as I have, Swenson. It's one of the prettiest on the whole forest."

Together they zigzagged up the side of the hill to the north, and then with Cavanagh in the lead (followed by his pack-horse), they set up the long lateral moraine which led by a wide circle through the wooded park toward the pass. The weather was clear and cold. The wind bit, and Cavanagh, scantily clothed as he was, drew his robe close about his neck, saying: "I know now how it feels to be a blanket Indian. I must say I prefer an overcoat."

A little later the keen eyes of the guard, sweeping the mountain-side, were suddenly arrested. "There's a bunch of cowboys coming over the pass!" he called.

"I see them," responded Cavanagh. "Get out your glasses and tell me who they are."

Swenson unslung his field-glasses and studied the party attentively. "Looks like Van Horne's sorrel in the lead, and that bald-face bay just behind looks like the one Gregg rides. The other two I don't seem to know."

"Perhaps it's the sheriff after me for harboring Edwards," suggested Cavanagh.

But Swenson remained sober. He did not see the humor of the remark. "What are they doing on the forest, anyhow?" he asked.

Half an hour later the two parties came face to face on a little stretch of prairie in the midst of the wooded valley. There were four in the sheriff's party: Gregg, the deputy, and a big man who was a stranger to Cavanagh. Their horses were all tired, and the big civilian looked saddle-weary.

"Good evenin', gentlemen!" called the sheriff, in Southern fashion, as he drew near.

"Good evenin', Mr. Sheriff," Cavanagh civilly answered. "What's the meaning of this invasion of my forest?"

The sheriff, for answer, presented the big stranger. "Mr. Cavanagh, this is Mr. Simpson, the county attorney."

Cavanagh nodded to the attorney. "I've heard of Mr. Simpson," he said.

Simpson answered the question Ross had asked. "We were on our way to your station, Mr. Cavanagh, because we understand that this old man Dunn who shot himself had visited you before his death, giving you information concerning the killing of the Mexican sheep-herders. Is that true?"

"It is."

"When did he visit you?"

"Two days ago, or maybe three. I am a little mixed about it. You see, I have been pretty closely confined to my shack for a few days."

Gregg threw in a query. "How is the old man?"

"He's all right; that is to say, he's dead. Died last night."

The sheriff looked at Simpson meaningly. "Well, I reckon that settles his score, judge. Even if he was implicated, he's out of it now."

"He couldn't have been implicated," declared the ranger, "for he was with me at the time the murder was committed. I left him high on the mountain in the Basque herder's camp. I can prove an alibi for him. Furthermore, he had no motive for such work."

"What did Dunn tell you?" demanded the sheriff. "What names did he give you?"

"Wait a moment," replied Cavanagh, who felt himself to be on his own territory, and not to be hurried. "There's a reward offered for the arrest of these men, is there not?"

"There is," replied the attorney.

"Well, before I make my statement I'd like to request that my share of the reward, if there is any coming to me, shall be paid over to the widow of the man who gave me the information. Poor chap, he sacrificed himself for the good of the State, and his family should be spared all the suffering possible."

"Quite right, Mr. Cavanagh. You may consider that request granted. Now for the facts."

"Before going into that, Mr. Attorney, I'd like to speak to you alone."

"Very well, sir," replied the attorney. Then waving his hand toward the others, he said: "Boys, just ride off a little piece, will you?"

When they were alone, Cavanagh remarked: "I don't think it wise to give these names to the wind, for if we do, there will be more fugitives."

"I see your point," Simpson agreed.

Thereupon, rapidly and concisely, the ranger reported what Dunn had said, and the attorney listened thoughtfully without speaking to the end; then he added: "That tallies with what we have got from Ballard."

"Was Ballard in it?" asked Cavanagh.

"Yes, we forced a confession from him."

"If he was in it, it was merely for the pay. He represented some one else."

"What makes you think that?"

"Because he was crazy to return to the show with which he used to perform, and desperately in need of money. Have you thought that Gregg might have had a hand in this affair? Dunn said he had, although he was not present at any of the meetings."

This seemed to surprise the attorney very much. "But he's a sheepman!" he exclaimed.

"I know he is; but he's also a silent partner in the Triangle cattle outfit, and is making us a lot of trouble. And, besides, he had it in for these dagoes, as he calls them, because they were sheeping territory which he wanted himself."

"I don't think he's any too good for it," responded Simpson, "but I doubt if he had any hand in the killing; he's too cunning and too cowardly. But I'll keep in mind what you have said, and if he is involved in any degree, he'll have to go down the road with the others—his money can't save him."

As they came back to the party Cavanagh thought he detected in Gregg's eyes a shifting light that was not there before, but he made no further attempt to impress his opinion upon the attorney or the sheriff. He only said: "Well, now, gentlemen, I must go on over the divide. I have an appointment with the doctor over there; also with a bed and a warmer suit of clothes than I have on. If I can be of any service to you when I am out of quarantine, I hope you will call upon me."

"It is possible that we may need you in order to locate some of the men whose names you have given me."

"Very good," replied Cavanagh. "If they come upon the forest anywhere, the Supervisor and I will find them for you."

So they parted, and Cavanagh and his guard resumed their slow journey across the range.



CONCLUSION

In her career as the wife of a Western rancher, Eleanor Redfield had been called upon to entertain many strange guests, and she made no very determined objection when her husband telephoned that he was bringing Lize as well as Lee Virginia to stay at Elk Lodge for a few days. The revelation of the true relation between the two women had (as Lize put it) made a "whole lot of difference" to Mrs. Redfield. It naturally cleared the daughter of some part of her handicap, and it had also made the mother's attitude less objectionable.

Furthermore, the loyalty of Eliza to Ross, her bravery in defending him from attack, and the love and courage which enabled her to rise from a sick-bed and go to the mountains, ready and insistent on taking his place as nurse—all these were not the traits of a commonplace personality. "I begin to think I've been unjust to Mrs. Wetherford," she admitted to her husband.

She had seen Lize but once, and that was in the distorting atmosphere of the restaurant, and she remembered her only as a lumpy, scowling, loud-voiced creature with blowsy hair and a watchful eye. She was profoundly surprised, therefore, when Lee Virginia introduced a quiet-spoken, rather sad-faced elderly woman as her mother.

"I'm glad to see you, Mrs. Wetherford," Eleanor said, with the courtesy which was instinctive with her.

"I'm mightily obliged for the chance to come," replied Lize. "I told Reddy—I mean the Supervisor—that you didn't want no old-timer like me, but he said 'Come along,' and Lee she fixed me out, and here I am." She uttered this with a touch of her well-known self-depreciation, but she was by no interpretation sordid or common.

She did, indeed, show Lee's care, and her manner, while manifestly formed upon Lee's instructions, was never ludicrous. She was frankly curious about the house and its pretty things, and swore softly in her surprise and pleasure. "Think of an old cow-boss like me living up to these jimmy-cracks!" As they went to their room together, she made a confession: "The thing that scares me worst is eating. I've et at the Alma times enough, but to handle a fork here with El'nor Redfield lookin' on! Great peter! ain't there some way of takin' my meals out in the barn? I wouldn't mind you and Ross and Reddy—it's the missis."

Ross had not yet arrived at the cabin, but Redfield had warned Lee not to expect him till after dark. "He probably slept late, and, besides, there are always delays on the trail. But don't worry. Swenson will ride to the top of the divide with him, and if it seems necessary will come all the way."

This feeling of anxiety helped to steady Lize, and she got through the meal very well. She was unwontedly silent, and a little sad as well as constrained. She could see that Lee fitted in with these surroundings, that she was at home with shining silver and dainty dishes, and she said to herself: "I could have been something like her if I'd had any sort o' raisin', but it's too late now. But oh, Lord! wouldn't Ed like to see her now!"

It was not yet dark when they came out on the veranda to meet the doctor, who had come to meet Ross, and Lee's anxiety led her to say: "Can't we go up to the cabin and wait for him there?"

"I was about to propose that," replied Redfield. "Shall we walk?"

Lee was instant in her desire to be off, but Lize said: "I never was much on foot and now I'm hoof-bound. You go along, and I'll sit on the porch here and watch."

So Lee, the doctor, and Redfield went off together across the meadow toward the little cabin which had been built for the workmen while putting in the dam. It was hardly a mile away, and yet it stood at the mouth of a mighty gorge, out of which the water sprang white with speed.

But Lee had no mind for the scenery, though her eyes were lifted to the meadow's wall, down which the ranger was expected to ride. It looked frightfully steep, and whenever she thought of him descending that trail, worn and perhaps ill, her heart ached with anxiety. But Redfield rambled on comfortably, explaining the situation to the doctor, who, being a most unimaginative person, appeared to take it all as a matter of course.

At the cabin itself Lee transferred her interest to the supper which had been prepared for the ranger, and she went about the room trying to make it a little more comfortable for him. It was a bare little place, hardly more than a camp (as was proper), and she devoutly prayed that he was not to be sick therein, for it stood in a cold and gloomy place, close under the shadow of a great wall of rock.

As it grew dark she lighted a lamp and placed it outside the window in order that its light might catch the ranger's eye, and this indeed it did, for almost instantly a pistol-shot echoed from the hillside, far above, signalling his approach.

"There he is!" she exclaimed, in swift rebound to ecstasy. "Hear him shout?"

His voice could indeed be heard, though faintly, and so they waited while the darkness deepened and the voice of the stream rose like an exhalation, increasing in violence as the night fell.

At last they could hear the sound of his horse's feet upon the rocks, and with girlish impulse Lee raised a musical cry—an invitation as well as a joyous signal.

To this the ranger made vocal answer, and they could soon see him moving athwart the hillsides, zigzagging in the trailer's fashion, dropping down with incredible swiftness. He was alone, and leading his horse, but his celerity of movement and the tones of his voice denoted confidence and health.

The doctor laughed as he said: "I don't think a very sick man could come down a mountain like that."

"Oh, he isn't sick yet," said Redfield. "What we are afraid of is a possible development."

The ranger, as he came rushing down the final slope, found his knees weakened as much by excitement as by weariness. To hear Lee's clear voice down there, to know that she was waiting for him, was to feel himself the luckiest of men. Escaping contagion and being on his way to a larger position were as nothing compared to the lure of that girlish halloo. He saw the lamp shine afar, but he could not distinguish the girl's form till he emerged from the clump of pine-trees which hid the bottom of the trail. Then they all shouted together, and Redfield, turning to Lee, warningly said:

"Now, my dear girl, you and I must not interfere with the doctor. We will start back to the house at once."

"Not yet—not till we've seen him and talked with him," she pleaded.

"I don't think there's a particle of danger," said the doctor, "but perhaps you'd better not wait."

Cavanagh came up with shining eyes and heavy breath. "I made it—but oh, I'm tired! I never was tired like this before in my life." He looked at her as he spoke. "But I'm feeling fine."

"This is Doctor French, Ross."

"How are you doctor? I'm not shaking hands these days."

"Well see about that," replied the physician.

"I met the sheriff on the way, Mr. Supervisor, and I gave him the story Dunn told me, and I made a request that the reward for the information be paid to Dunn's widow."

"I'll see to that," responded Redfield. "And now we'll leave you to the tender mercies of the doctor."

"I made some coffee for you, and you'll find some supper under a napkin on the table," explained Lee.

"Thank you."

"I'm sorry it isn't better. It's only cold chicken and sandwiches—"

"Only cold chicken!" he laughed. "My chief anxiety is lest it should not prove a whole chicken. I'm hungry as a coyote!"

"Well, now, good-night," said Redfield. "Doctor, you'll report as you go by?"

"Yes; expect me in half an hour or so."

And so Lee walked away with Redfield, almost entirely relieved of her care. "He can't be ill, can he?" she asked.

"I don't see how he can. His life has made him as clean and strong as an oak-tree on a windy slope. He is all right, and very happy. Your being there to meet him was very sweet to him, I could see that. If it should turn out that you should be the one to keep him here and in the Forest Service I shall be very grateful to you."

She did not reply to this, but walked along in silence by his side, feeling very small, very humble, but very content.

Lize was on the veranda. "Did he get through?"

"He's all right so far," returned Redfield, cheerily. "We left the doctor about to fly at him. We'll have a report soon."

They had hardly finished telling of how the ranger had descended the hill when the doctor arrived. "He hasn't a trace of it," was his report. "All he needs is sleep. I cut him off from his entire over-the-range outfit, and there's no reason why he should not come down to breakfast with you in the morning."

Mrs. Redfield thanked the doctor as fervently as if he had conferred a personal favor upon her, and the girl echoed her grateful words.

"Oh, that's all right," the doctor replied, in true Western fashion; "I'll do as much more for you any time." And he rode away, leaving at least one person too happy to sleep.

* * * * *

The same person was on the veranda next morning when Cavanagh, dressed in the Supervisor's best suit of gray cassimere, came striding across the lawn—too impatient of the winding drive to follow it. As he came, his face glowing with recovered health, Lee thought him the god of the morning, and went to meet him unashamed, and he took her to his arms and kissed her quite as he had promised himself to do.

"Now I know that I am delivered!" he exclaimed, and together they entered upon the building of a home in the New West.

THE END