ditches, trickled musically down the other side of the terrace in little life-giving cascades, and so finally, reunited in a single current, fell away into the creek. It was plain that loving care, and much of it, had been given to this tiny system of irrigation.
The cabin’s interior pleased Wayland almost as much as the garden. It was built of pine logs neatly matched and hewed on one side. There were but two rooms – one which served as sleeping-chamber and office, and one which was at once kitchen and dining-room. In the larger room a quaint fireplace with a flat arch, a bunk, a table supporting a typewriter, and several shelves full of books made up the furnishing. On the walls hung a rifle, a revolver in its belt, a couple of uniforms, and a yellow oilskin raincoat.
The ranger, spurred and belted, with his cuffs turned back, was pounding the typewriter when Wayland appeared at the open door; but he rose with grave courtesy. “Come in,” he said, and his voice had a pleasant inflection.
“I’m interrupting.”
“Nothing serious, just a letter. There’s no hurry. I’m always glad of an excuse to rest from this job.” He was at once keenly interested in his visitor, for he perceived in him the gentleman and, of course, the alien.
Wayland, with something of the feeling of a civilian reporting to an officer, explained his presence in the neighborhood.
“I’ve heard of you,” responded the ranger, “and I’ve been hoping you’d look in on me. The Supervisor’s daughter has just written me to look after you. She said you were not very well.”
Again Wayland protested that he was not a consumptive, only a student who needed mountain air; but he added: “It is very kind of Miss McFarlane to think of me.”
“Oh, she thinks of everybody,” the young fellow declared. “She’s one of the most unselfish creatures in the world.”
Something in the music of this speech, and something in the look of the ranger’s eyes, caused Wayland to wonder if here were not still another of Berrie’s subjects. He became certain of it as the young officer went on, with pleasing frankness, and it was not long before he had conveyed to Wayland his cause for sadness. “She’s engaged to a man that is not her equal. In a certain sense no man is her equal; but Belden is a pretty hard type, and I believe, although I can’t prove it, that he is part owner of the saloon over there.”
“How does that saloon happen to be here?”
“It’s on patented land – a so-called ‘placer claim’ – experts have reported against it. McFarlane has protested against it, but nothing is done. The mill is also on deeded land, and together they are a plague spot. I’m their enemy, and they know it; and they’ve threatened to burn me out. Of course they won’t do that, but they’re ready to play any kind of trick on me.”
“I can well believe that, for I am getting my share of practical jokes at Meeker’s.”
“They’re not a bad lot over there – only just rowdy. I suppose they’re initiating you,” said Landon.
“I didn’t come out here to be a cowboy,” responded Norcross. “But Frank Meeker seems to be anxious to show me all the good old cowboy courtesies. On Monday he slipped a burr under my horse’s saddle, and I came near to having my neck broken. Then he or some one else concealed a frog in my bed, and fouled my hair-brushes. In fact, I go to sleep each night in expectation of some new attack; but the air and the riding are doing me a great deal of good, and so I stay.”
“Come and bunk with me,” urged Landon. “I’ll be glad to have you. I get terribly lonesome here sometimes, although I’m supposed to have the best station in the forest. Bring your outfit and stay as long as you like.”
This offer touched Norcross deeply. “That’s very kind of you; but I guess I’ll stick it out. I hate to let those hoodlums drive me out.”
“All right, but come and see me often. I get so blue some days I wonder what’s the use of it all. There’s one fatal condition about this ranger business – it’s a solitary job, it cuts out marriage for most of us. Many of the stations are fifteen or twenty miles from a post-office; then, too, the lines of promotion are few. I guess I’ll have to get out, although I like the work. Come in any time and take a snack with me.”
Thereafter Wayland spent nearly every day with the ranger, either in his cabin or riding the trail, and during these hours confidence grew until at last Landon confessed that his unrest arose from his rejection by Berrie.
“She was not to blame. She’s so kind and free with every one, I thought I had a chance. I was conceited enough to feel sorry for the other fellows, and now I can’t even feel sorry for myself. I’m just dazed and hanging to the ropes. She was mighty gentle about it – you know how sunny her face is – well, she just got grave and kind o’ faint-voiced, and said – Oh, you know what she said! She let me know there was another man. I didn’t ask her who, and when I found out, I lost my grip entirely. At first I thought I’d resign and get out of the country; but I couldn’t do it – I can’t yet. The chance of seeing her – of hearing from her once in a while – she never writes except on business for her father; but – you’ll laugh – I can’t see her signature without a tremor.” He smiled, but his eyes were desperately sad. “I ought to resign, because I can’t do my work as well as I ought to. As I ride the trail I’m thinking of her. I sit here half the night writing imaginary letters to her. And when I see her, and she takes my hand in hers – you know what a hand she has – my mind goes blank. Oh, I’m crazy! I admit it. I didn’t know such a thing could happen to me; but it has.”
“I suppose it’s being alone so much,” Wayland started to argue, but the other would not have it so.
“No, it’s the girl herself. She’s not only beautiful in body, she’s all sweetness and sincerity in mind. There isn’t a petty thing about her. And her happy smile – do you know, I have times when I resent that smile? How can she be so happy without me? That’s crazy, too, but I think it, sometimes. Then I think of the time when she will not smile – when that brute Belden will begin to treat her as he does his sisters – then I get murderous.”
As Wayland listened to this outpouring he wondered at the intensity of the forester’s passion. He marveled, too, at Berrie’s choice, for there was something fine and high in Landon’s worship. A college man with a mining engineer’s training, he should go high in the service. “He made the mistake of being too precipitate as a lover,” concluded Wayland. “His forthright courtship repelled her.”
Meanwhile his own troubles increased. Frank’s dislike had grown to an impish vindictiveness, and if the old man Meeker had any knowledge of his son’s deviltries, he gave no sign. Mrs. Meeker, however, openly reproved the scamp.
“You ought to be ashamed of worrying a sick man,” she protested, indignantly.
“He ain’t so sick as all that; and, besides, he needs the starch taken out of him,” was the boy’s pitiless answer.
“I don’t know why I stay,” Wayland wrote to Berea. “I’m disgusted with the men up here – they’re all tiresome except Landon – but I hate to slink away, and besides, the country is glorious. I’d like to come down and see you this week. May I do so? Please send word that I may.”
She did not reply, and wondering whether she had received his letter or not, he mounted his horse one beautiful morning and rode away up the trail with a sense of elation, of eager joy, with intent to call upon her at the ranch as he went by.
Hardly had he vanished among the pines when Clifford Belden
