Timber line

CHAPTER VI
DEATH IN THE VALLEY

August was hot and dazzling. Even in the mountains the sun at noonday was more than one could bear with unprotected skin. Yet the rays of light invigorated the very bones with their magic currents of life. Dawn bathed daily in some mountain brook, where it ran deep between rocky files or where the swirling waters had dug a pool that hung clear over a white sandy bottom.

One hot Friday she abandoned the cabin and her fire lookout to Jack’s care and recklessly flung away on Piñon, ostensibly to look down on McGuire’s range for trespassers. But coming back, she took the trail that led past a tiny lake lost in the cup of the peaks. She swam there for an hour in the cold water. The surface current that lay placid under the sun was heated so that it was no longer icy, but a dive down into biting depths brought one up pink and gasping and full of play.

Dawn kept her woolen bathing-suit to slip on when she came out. Then she lay warming and drying on the hot rocks. She would have none of Jack on these swims. She’d tried him once, but some unconquerable fear of the bottomless pools shook him till his teeth chattered. He could not nerve himself to a plunge.

“I don’t believe that Garen Shepherd would be like that,” Dawn thought as she wiggled her toes in the fine silvery sand that rimmed the sapphire cup of waters upheld to the sky. But of course he was no tenderfoot. What had become of Garen Shepherd? She’d been so busy that she hadn’t had time to think of the irrigation engineer.

Had she made a mistake to confide so much of the mountain to him? Suppose he were to attempt some engineering feat with the waterfall below the sacred source, or were to tell what he had learned that day! It was a terrible thought, and she shook it away impatiently as something too disastrous to consider, something of which the man could never be capable.

“That fellow would fight,” she thought. He had a cleft in his chin that meant something. She did not put into words the knowledge that her father would not fight; she would have felt that fighting were not desirable if Damon felt it so. He’d take a last stand, Dad would, but he wouldn’t want to defy. And Jack, he would run. That was right; he’d run. Yet she couldn’t help liking the little cuss for all of that. Poor kid, he didn’t know any better. What could you expect? Such a life as they led down in the cities!

Dawn had been invited down to the sportily outfitted cabin below Benty’s where Mr. Perry had installed his family for the summer, but she did not enjoy it. She had thought she would, had combed her hair carefully, and had Hinray trim it round her neck. She put on a clean pongee shirt with a new tie. But when she sat on the veranda looking at Mrs. Perry’s manicured nails and high-heeled snakeskin shoes, unbelievably tiny they looked, she had become unpleasantly conscious of her own dusty mountain boots. Oiling with neatsfoot hadn’t improved them any. Well, she had some pretty pumps herself, but did they think she was going to walk down the mountain in them!

She was thinking of it now as she lazed in the sunshine. No, she’d not go down there again. Rolling over to look at the sun, Dawn lay for a moment, eyes shaded, staring up into the cloudless sky. Her dazzled vision did not at once take in a haze that lay over the tops of the trees. Suddenly a column of smoke shot up, a slender spiral, but with unmistakable meaning. In a moment she was up, pulling on her clothes.

Fire! Beyond Gonzales’ pasture and the lower lake. Beyond McGuire’s even—and Dad in the other direction! Piñon sensed the reason for his being urged. He slid down short cuts on his haunches without drawing back. Within an hour he trotted down into the clearing on the Cascada, up to the stoop where Dawn tumbled off and raced to the persistently jingling telephone.

There was no sign of Jack about. She lifted the receiver from the hook. Her father’s voice came over the wire.

“Yes, yes, Dad. Oh, I’m so sorry. Did you have to ring long?—I left Jack here. I was up on the west divide looking down at Gonzales’ lease and I went swimming.”

His voice came clearly. “I can’t get away down here. We’re beating back a slow ground fire that’s very persistent. Started by heat lightning, I think. How’s everything up there?”

Quickly Dawn told of the column of smoke in the northeast. “I was just hurrying to the lookout to signal you. I’m so glad you telephoned, Damon.”

“That’s over above the canyon that leads down to James’s ranch,” Damon replied. “There’s some dead timber there in a small patch that was burned over years ago. I’ve been afraid of it. The scrub oak’s very dry too. Well, I can’t get away now. We’re short-handed, as usual. I’ll phone Benty’s for help and you better ride over at once. Take the northeast trail from the head of Amarillo Canyon. Signal me from the northeast lookout if you need help. We’ve got our hands full here and over on the west slope too.

“Be careful, won’t you?” His worried voice lingered on the wire.

“Surely, Dad. Don’t worry about me. It’s an easy ride; you’ll hear from me by four o’clock, I expect. ‘Bye.“

She hung up the receiver, chained Shep to the stoop, setting a pan of water, some stew, and a dog biscuit near, and looked about to see if there was any message from Jack. Yes, a note on the desk. They’d phoned him that a party from home had arrived, and he had to go straight down to the cabin. Dawn read the note again incredulously. He’d gone away, from fire guard at the phone, because visitors had come!

She threw the note down impatiently, rushed into the kitchen for some bread or crackers to thrust into her saddle bag—you couldn’t tell, she might be out all night—then down to the stream where Damon had built a cooling cabin over the rushing water. She was ravenous after her swim, but there was little time to eat. She broke two eggs into a cup of milk, tossed it down, and stuffing two bananas into her shirt, ran back where Piñon was waiting for her. Her slicker, she might need it! She snatched it from the hook inside the door, tied it behind the saddle, and in a moment more they were off, trotting down the trail along the Cascada.

She made speed while she could. The ride was uneventful; she met no one. A slow steady climb up the steeps at the head of the canyon, then a rocky trail over the mountain side, during which she could no longer see the spiral of smoke which she’d spied from Lake Peak. But once in the clear at the top of the mountain she took out her field glasses, and as she brought them down to the right focus the purple layers of atmosphere were dispelled as if by magic, her sharpened vision pierced them, and she could see over one succeeding spur after another to where a column of smoke arose on the east slope.

Dropping down into a box canyon which was the only pass to the northeast slope for which she was bound, Dawn could still see the smoke ascending over the tree tops. The end of the Box Canyon was seemingly a solid wall of weathered rock. Dawn rode straight up to it and squeezed behind one of the rounded conical pillars that stood out from the main cliff. There was just room for Piñon’s plump flanks to push through the passageway.

This trail was Dawn’s secret, her discovery; it had been worn into grooves by Rocky Mountain sheep, and by wild horses, in the days when the Cordilleran passes were threaded by those splendid creatures.

Dawn and Piñon emerged from this granite-walled passageway into a different region. The eastern slope of the mountain was rocky and barren. It had been devastated by fire and erosion. Only a few stanch cypress remained, the tree that is anchored to the rocks. The shallow-rooted hemlock which had formerly covered the slope had been swept away. These steeps swept sheer up to the mountain meadows from which Dawn had driven out the goats at the beginning of the summer. Above them lay the divide, but this slope was the sole watershed into the valley beneath.

Now Dawn could smell the smoke and so could Piñon. They made their way toward the ridge above a canyon that led out through the foothills to the plains below. A crown fire had swept through this region several years before, taking off the Engleman spruce and Douglas fir and leaving the stumps which Damon O’Neill had feared might take fire. These stumps were now smoldering down into the dried cover of the soil. The fire had eaten into what remained of the scant cover about the head of the canyon and might spread through the oak brush to the yellow pines on the far side. Every stick was as dry as tinder.

As she dropped down into the canyon Dawn could see the little forest creatures scurrying from the smoldering area. The small stream which had flowed at the bottom of the canyon even in the driest times had vanished. She could see where the last freshet, that had followed the heavy rain in June, had torn its way, leaving new stones, a high water line, and nothing else. Dawn sighed. It was all gone, the lifegiving water, into the thirsty plain below.

This stream had been fed gradually by melting snows from above, but now the slopes were furrowed with a thousand hurrying lines that showed where rain and snow water had torn their way down the stricken mountain to evaporate or rush to a burning end in the desert. The tragedy was plain to Dawn.

But how was she to stop this crawling fire? With a man or two it could be beaten out. She’d have to cross the canyon to get to the fire signal station anyway. At the foot of the canyon, where it widened out into the plain, she could see a faint thread of blue smoke. She pushed ahead. It came from a house. That must be James’s place. It was closer than the fire signal station on the other side of the canyon. Maybe James would be there and could rustle another man to help root out the burning stumps above.

There was a windmill pump turning fitfully as the slight breeze struck it. Surely there would be men there to beat out the smoldering fire above before it spread. James was a good fellow; strange he hadn’t noticed the smoke himself and put out the fire.

Dawn drew Piñon up on the canyon’s brink to take a quick survey. From the plains that stretched beneath them a hot breath came surging up. Poised almost motionless in the sky, some great condors hovered, waiting for a feast that was still alive on the desert below. An eerie cry from above drew Dawn’s eyes upward. There, so close overhead that she could see its striped fantail, a splendid hawk was winging to the heights, in its talons a writhing rattler five or six feet long.

As she reached the bottom of the canyon Dawn urged Piñon into a canter, but he suddenly stopped and began to back.

“Steady there, old boy. What’s the matter?” His legs stiffened and she knew from experience he was making ready to jump. In the moment of silence a dry rattle sounded and there in the sandy bed of the canyon a great black-tailed rattler was coiled, swaying, ready to strike. Piñon side-stepped, and they raced ahead.

As Piñon clattered out of the canyon’s mouth the James place lay before them. It was strangely quiet. Must be no man about; hard luck. But evidently the womenfolks were inside because smoke still rose from the chimney. As she let herself and Piñon into the corral Dawn saw stretched under the trough below the mill, where water dripped, another snake. After water, of course; dry weather when they’d do that.

She rode across the corral, thinking ranch women were always quiet. A few cattle stood about the trough, and Dawn saw that the reservoir was very low. There was little wind to work the pumps, fortunately at that time, on account of the fire. As she looked toward the house Dawn saw a strange sight.

A woman was creeping on hands and knees across the space between the sheds and the back door of the ranch house. Her head was hanging down, and as Dawn stared her arms gave way, and she fell on her face. Dawn found her voice and called out, but the woman apparently did not hear. She struggled up to a sitting posture and dragged herself on. She reached the corner of the adobe house and disappeared under the porch while Dawn tumbled off Piñon and fumbled with nervous fingers at the corral gate. She flew through and ran after the woman.

Where was she? What could the trouble be? Fear clutched Dawn at the ominous silence. Plunging round the corner, she saw the woman ahead of her. She was on her knees before a window, peering in. Against her shoulder a rifle was pressed; she must have taken it down from the outside of the house, where so many ranch people keep a gun ready loaded, to use against wolf, coyote, snake, or unwelcome visitor in an emergency.

Now she was aiming it at something inside the house. Dawn was afraid to call. Something kept her from screaming aloud. She crept up behind the woman, who did not seem to hear her, and peered over her shoulder. What terrible thing was there? Little children played inside in the cool and darkened room. Two little girls! Good heavens, the woman was aiming to shoot them! With an involuntary shout Dawn threw up the muzzle of the gun, then wrenched the barrel from the unresisting fingers of the woman, who fell forward at Dawn’s feet, her half-glazed eyes closing.

Dawn caught her, laid her flat; the woman was ghastly pale. There had been two pails of water at the back of the house, Dawn remembered. She dashed around the corner, seized a pailful, which she threw over her. In her hip pocket was the thin little flask, long uncorked, which Damon had always insisted on her carrying. Whiskey. Thank God for it. She forced a little down the woman’s throat, then more, till she gasped. Her eyes opened; terror lingered in them. She looked at Dawn heartbrokenly, pitifully.

“Too late.” Her lips were stiff and she barely articulated. “You come too late. I been bit by a rattler. Big fellow.” Her strength seemed to be returning slightly. Leaning sympathetically above her, Dawn heard the story in a few disjointed sentences.

Hal James, her husband, had gone to town to be gone a week or ten days. She’d gone out to the faucet above the trough to get some water. The cows were lowing and she hadn’t heard any rattle; the snake had bit her from behind, in the leg. She’d tried to crank the old car, to take the babies and make it into town. She couldn’t. She felt that she was dying, and that the only thing to do was to shoot the babies first.

She couldn’t leave them there all alone, to starve; just babies, all by themselves, cryin’. Afraid of the wolves and the coyotes. She’d scrawled a note to her husband, begging him to forgive her. Her anguish was pitiable.

“Tell James—take care my babies.” Her head fell back against Dawn’s arm.

Grief and fear came like a chill wave over Dawn. Was this to be death that she had come upon?—death that she had always hated. Oh, help, oh, God, help her! She lifted her eyes to the mountains. What must she do?

The mother’s bare leg thrust out from beneath her calico skirt, the cotton stocking pulled down. An ugly red mark showed, two small indentations. That was where she had been bitten. Dawn pulled off her neckerchief and made a tourniquet about the leg several inches above the marks. She knew what she must do. In the corral a small branding-iron lay beside the gate. She ran and fetched it, and opening the kitchen door, went for the first time into the room where the little girls were playing.

Beans were simmering on the stove and a bed of hard burning embers glowed beneath. She thrust the iron into them. The little girls ran to hide in a corner and would not speak. Dawn spoke to them reassuringly. “I’ll be back in a minute, honey,” she called to the eldest; “stay right here. I’m helping your mamma.”

The iron was glowing in a few moments, and it took but a few moments more to burn out the poison wound. Damon had done this for Hinray once, and she’d never forgotten it. Mrs. James winced and moaned. More whiskey; the curved flask held more than you’d have thought. Well, that was all that could be done. Sudden memory brought her father’s medicine shelf before her. What was that stuff Dad used? She could see the glass-stoppered bottle that stood there. Often she’d read the label. “Potassium Permanganate, rattler antidote.” Into the house, a bedroom; she was searching for a shelf, a likely place. There, above an old bureau, were some dusty bottles. Boracic acid, compound licorice; a faded label, potassium permanganate! Just a little left. Tremblingly she dissolved it in a little water left in the pail, lifted Mrs. James’s head, and poured it down her throat. She poured the last drop down the unconscious woman’s throat, lifted the slender body, not so heavy as her own, and carried her past the two terrified children into the bedroom.

The tragic accident was clear to her now. Since the canyon was dry the snakes had been coming to the trough to drink. Dawn went out to the children, who still cowered in the corner. “Well, honey—” she stooped down to the eldest, who took her hand shyly—“your mamma got hurt, but she’s going to be all right.”

“Going be all right?” the little girl echoed. She came out of her corner, smiling at the bright pretty face of the new lady; but the baby wept inconsolably behind her chair. They were pretty little things, with a fluff of light hair like dandelions. Dawn looked about for something to distract the baby. “You want some chocolate, honey baby?” She ran out and got a bar of milk chocolate from her saddle bag. The novelty and delight of this comforted and diverted the baby. There was very little furniture in the ranch house; the old stove, a few chairs, the clean-scrubbed table. The little white beds were spotless. The children too were clean; they were pale from the heat, but their baby faces were luminous with health and good care.

What could she do with them? Their mother might die, left here alone. Yet she ought to have help, a doctor ought to see her. But the children couldn’t be left, and how could she take them? The fire! Dawn had not thought of it for the past hour. It must be past four o’clock now. What would Damon be thinking? He would be frantic. Through the door she could see a growing cloud of smoke over the foothills.

What could she do? It was impossible to take the mother. Piñon could carry herself and the little girls, but the mother could not hold on to the horse. Well, there were the children to be fed at any rate. The older one was announcing with shy confidence, “I’m hungry.”

“What do you have to eat at night?” Dawn questioned.

“Milk. Mommy lets Dora milk the nanny. And eggs, or mush. Do you got a orange? My Daddy is going to b’ing us back oranges from town.”

No, but she had two bananas still. The goat had come into the house. It was five o’clock and she wanted to be milked. She butted Dora gently. Dora ran to get her pail and knelt down beside the goat, milking her most efficiently, her baby fingers pressing a swift stream that pattered and foamed into the pail. Yet there was barely a quart. Nanny was going dry.

“You cunning!” Dawn knelt by the little girl and hugged her when she pronounced the nanny all milked.

Dawn went into the bedroom and looked anxiously at the mother. She seemed to be asleep now. Her face was flushed as with fever, but she lay quietly.

“I gave her quite a lot of whiskey after all,” Dawn consoled herself. She fed the children and ate an egg herself. When she went out to the windmill to get another pail of water before dusk she stepped carefully. There were two snakes moving across the corral toward the trough, and in a corner a mangled shape. Either some cow had managed to trample it, or Piñon had caught it beneath his sharp little hoofs.

Dawn looked toward the foothills apprehensively. The bank of smoke was mounting, denser than it had been. It was a slow smudge; no telling when it might burst into flame. It wouldn’t come down this way, for there was nothing left to burn, but it might spread back up, and if a wind rose—! She had forgotten about snakes, and there seemed to be an epidemic of them. Dawn returned to the house and told Dora and the baby not to budge through the screen door. She would be back in a few moments.

She took down the gun from the wall, where she had replaced it, and went back to stand on the side of the watering-tank. From there she shot four rattlers, big and little, and stoned one that she had not killed. It was not pleasant, but it made her feel a great deal easier. Poisonous things, hurting mankind. She hadn’t thought much about that side of wild life before.

Piñon came nickering and she took him down to a cluster of giant cottonwood, the only trees as far as the eye could see. Their roots went deep and their branches were above the reach of animals. When she got back to the ranch house both children were crying.

“Wolf get you,” Dora wept. “Coyote eat up my nanny.”

“No, no,” Dawn comforted her; “I won’t let anything hurt you or baby or your mommie.”

The baby kept whimpering for her mother. “I guess it’s time for you and baby to go to bed now.” She must get them to sleep. Who could tell what might happen?

Dora was a biddable little thing and entered into the game to surprise mother by going to sleep before she woke up. After a long hour they finally did fall asleep. It was dark and Mrs. James was stirring restlessly, tossing with fever. Dawn took the only chair that was in the bedroom and sat beside her, bathing her forehead. She thought from time to time of Damon. Well, he would understand tomorrow. Maybe he would be able to come, or send some one to look for her.

Just before dark she went out to gaze longingly at the mountain. The smoke was mounting; no doubt about that. But now she simply could not leave these helpless creatures, no matter what happened up there. Fire on the mountain!

It was a terrible night. Dawn did not undress. She put a folded quilt and some pillows on the floor beside the young mother’s bed, and kept watch there. It had been a long and more than usually active day for her, and she slept in spite of herself. During the night she heard the children’s mother muttering and moaning and jumped up at once. She gave her a drink of water and in covering her touched the injured leg by chance. It was very cold. Had she made the tourniquet too tight? She thought she had been doing the right thing but wasn’t sure. She loosened the tourniquet.

Before five in the morning the children began to chipper like birds. Dawn woke, but was terribly sleepy. Mrs. James was still feverish, and as she leaned over her the poor thing opened bright eyes and rambled deliriously. She was afraid the mountain lion would come in and get her baby. She was afraid they’d lose the ranch and starve this winter; she wanted to go back home down in the Mimbres Valley and go to farmin’.

What would James do to her if she’d shot her babies? She sure didn’t want to do it, but she couldn’t leave them there to be scared and die by themselves. The woman kept tearing at the tourniquet and trying to get it off her leg. Dawn thought it might as well be removed; so she took it off. She bathed Mrs. James’s head and pushed her back on the pillows. Soon she sank into a heavy stupor. Was this to be the end? Now Dawn could do nothing more for her; either she would get well by herself or die.

The nanny did not come around to be milked. Had she wandered away to browse in the foothills or had coyotes got her? Perhaps she thought it was time to wean the children. Dawn remembered how a goat she’d had used to butt her away, gently at first, then with quiet determination, when she tried to milk her. There were a few chickens in an inclosed yard, but not an egg in the nest, nor in the kitchen cupboard. Dawn found a little cornmeal and when she had kindled a fire she made the children some mush which she gave them with a little tin of canned milk that she found on the shelf and that proved to be still sweet.

When she went outdoors again she could see red fire in the mountains. Dawn was frantic. No one had come to their rescue yet, and now you could smell the smoke from the foothills. What a lonely place! When the children had eaten their breakfast Dawn tied on their little bonnets and took them out to the corral where she had already brought Piñon to drink. She was not used to human babies and handled them with the rough fondling she would a puppy or a lion cub. But they liked it, and were delighted when she set them up on Piñon’s neck and mounted behind. She judged it was about eight o’clock.

Once out of the corral she started off at a canter but found that that would not do at all. The little things in front of her bounced about, one up while the other was down; they must slow to a walk. How long would it take to get to the signal station? Damon would see the flag from the eastern lookout.

As they went higher and higher into the hills the smoke became thicker and thicker. The fire was on both sides of the canyon at last, and from the thick humus of the south side the smoke rose like a dense smudge.

Dawn stopped to pull out the wet cloths she had stuffed into the saddle bag; she tied one across the bonnet of each child, covering its face. At last they reached the foot of the ridge on the top of which the station was built in a high tree. Obediently Piñon faced the ascent, although it was plain that he disapproved. When they reached the summit Dawn spoke sternly to Dora.

“Hold on to the horsie,” she said; “don’t budge. Sit right here on the ground and don’t let the baby move while Dawn is up in the tree. Piñon will take care of you.” She kissed the sober little faces looking out from under the cloths and caressed Piñon’s neck. “Don’t stir, old boy. Stay right here, sabe?”

Dawn sprang up the ladder and stopped only when she was so out of breath that she could not climb another foot. Ah, now she was getting above the acrid smoke that choked her. She reached the lookout nest, took the flag from her pocket, shook it out, and raised it to the masthead. She heard the baby crying down below. In her haste to get down she lost her hold for a moment and slipped, held by one hand while she got a footing again. The smoke burned her eyes and stung her throat.

When she reached the foot of the tree she found that the baby had slipped off Piñon and that she had taken off the wet cloth, and dazed by the smoke, was crying bitterly. The trip back was a fearful ordeal, worse than she had imagined it could be. She herself could not see the trail and in her anxiety became confused. Piñon lowered his head to the ground, snorting, but in spite of his fear of fire kept ahead. Had it not been for his surefootedness and sagacity they would never have come out alive. Dawn regretted bitterly that she had tried to put up the signal.

It would have been better to let the mountain side burn while they stayed at the ranch house. At least, there the babies would have been safe. She felt a passionate responsibility for them. She had saved them. And she was still responsible for their baby lives. They were the most important thing of all just now—more important than the mountain.

Piñon was finding the trail by instinct. Dawn had difficulty in keeping little Dora from slipping forward off his neck as they descended the steep incline, with the horse’s neck outstretched, nose to ground. At last, the bottom of the canyon; Piñon broke into a run. They raced the last mile down to the ranch house, Dawn holding the baby tightly before her, while with the other hand she grasped Dora, whose own dimpled hands clutched the pommel firmly.

The corral gate! They had been gone several hours; it must be nearly noon. Dawn lifted the children down; carrying the baby and dragging Dora by the hand, she flew toward the house. What would they find? She was almost afraid to go into the bedroom. Mrs. James lay pale and still on the bed; Dawn thrust Dora behind her, but just then the dark eyes opened. “Dodo, baby,” the mother called. She was all right; weak, but normal, the poison vanquished.

She hugged the children to her silently, then turned her face to the wall so that Dawn would not see the tears that flowed down her cheeks.

“I reckon I owe you a lot, girlie,” she said thickly. “Seems like a bad dream. I sure am sorry to have put you to so much trouble.”

Dawn’s spirits lifted. “Trouble? I guess God struck that fire with lightning on purpose. ’Cause it’s the only time I ever heard of a fire doing any good turn.” She didn’t say that if it hadn’t been for the fire no one would have been likely to pass that way.

The mother told her where to find the cold cellar, where she had some fresh food and her canned goods stored. The trapdoor was covered by the couch so that the baby couldn’t open it and fall through. Dawn got out salt pork, stirred up some batter bread, stewed the carrots.

The little girls were as content as kittens to snuggle beside their mother. They seemed none the worse for their ride, although they were very sleepy—one of the effects of smoke. While she minded the cooking Dawn went every few minutes to the kitchen door and looked anxiously toward the mountain. The smoke was growing denser slowly but surely.

She fed the children and put them on their little cots to sleep in the same room with their mother. Mrs. James dozed but took a cup of tea gratefully. Her leg was now painful and feverish. The warm afternoon passed; outside the sun was high, the desert listless under a dazzling white heat. About four o’clock, while she was watching at the door, she saw red glow. That meant that the fire had burst into flame. Well, there was nothing she could do. She would mind the children. The mother seemed exhausted and had again fallen into a stupor.

About five o’clock she heard the sound of horse’s hoofs and rushed out, her heart pounding. Maybe it was Damon. But it was Hal James. He was covered with dust and nervously flung himself off his horse as he saw Dawn standing in the doorway.

“Afternoon, Miss. Anythin’ wrong with my folks?” he blurted.

Dawn shook her head, smiling. “They’re all right. But your wife had a little accident. I just happened to ride down here; I was on my way to the fire station.”

They glanced toward the mountains. James had heard about the fire and had turned about and come home frantically; he had a lot of cattle loose in the foothills. They went inside, and the cattleman sat with awkward tenderness on the edge of the bed, stroking his wife’s hair. Not a word was said.

After a while he whispered to Dawn, “What you reckon’s the trouble?”

Dawn told him about the rattlesnake bite and what she had done for it. He looked at the painful leg. After a moment he asked, “What were you aimin’ to do, mother?”

Mrs. James seemed dazed by her experience. “I—I didn’t know,” she faltered, “that you’d be back before another ten days. I didn’t rightly know what—to do. Tried to crank the old Ford; she wouldn’t budge. I run around till I dropped. I was plumb crazy, I guess.” She looked pitifully at Dawn. What had the girl told her husband. She put her hands over her eyes and tears streamed from under them.

“Nothin’ to carry on for now,” James said gruffly, squeezing her hand. “I guess Miss Dawn here saved things from bein’ worse.”

“Oh, yes, yes, she did,” the woman on the bed gasped. “She just about saved me from puttin’ a bullet through each of us. But I swear, Hal, I didn’t aim to take the children with me. But what could I do?” She was in a pitiful state of shock and terror, the fruit of long lonely days and nights, silent, isolated.

James sat with one hand over his eyes, the other holding his wife’s. Tears rolled down his lean cheeks. What might he have come home to?

“You know,” he said awkwardly after a moment, “those critters aren’t what you’d call always dead poisonous. They’ll kill a lamb, or a pig, maybe, or a child; but they haven’t usually got enough poison in ’em to get a full-sized human. Leastways, not a man.”

“I guess I was in a poor way, Hal,” Mrs. James faltered. “It took a quick holt on me. And it was so warm. I guess I got frightened.”

James nodded. “This young lady’s whiskey did the trick all right—or maybe that’s what laid you out, old lady?” And the shadow of death was brushed off with a laugh.

“I had to get into town,” he told Dawn, “to arrange for extensions. I lost ten head of sheep the last few weeks,” he said; “coyotes, and maybe lobo. When I was a boy the quail came right up to our door here. And the jacks. My father wouldn’t let any stock pasture about the house. The coyotes were afraid of guns and human habitations then. But now they’re so bold—”

Dawn went out to look toward the mountain and see how the fire had advanced. It appeared to have died down, though there was still heavy smoke lingering over the foothills. Now she must ride back at once. There would be a bright moon tonight; she could find the way easily. James said he had to ride up after some strays anyway, and he’d ride a piece with her. Mrs. James’s eyes wore a beseeching look as they made ready to leave her, but she said nothing. Hal had to think of the cattle first. He came back from the door and patted her head. “So long, mother, don’t get up. I’ll make it back soon’s I can.”

Dawn kissed the little girls good-by and rode quickly away. If she could go straight through she would reach the Cascada by nine or ten. If she had trouble it might be midnight or after before she was home. Why had Damon not come for her or sent for her? She was more worried than she had ever been. There must have been a long hard fight with the big fire on the other side of the mountain. That was the only reason, and Damon probably didn’t even know that she was not at home on the Cascada. Yet it was not like him to fail to have her signal watched for by some one. Thus debating and reasoning out the situation, they came to the canyon’s end.

When Piñon scrambled up the last steep bit of the canyon trail, Dawn saw two figures above, rather hazy through the blue smoke that still lingered on the slopes, coming down the trail. One of them was Damon. Was the other Jack? To her surprise her heart was beating like that of a trapped bird.

CHAPTER VII
FIRE

It was Garen Shepherd who stood at Piñon’s head, cap in hand, as Dawn released Damon from a kangaroo-like hug. Perhaps the Irish in her helped Dawn to recover from her surprise, her disappointment.

“Didn’t you bring any water with you, Mr. Irrigation Expert?” she grinned, taking his outstretched hand. Well, it was rather nice seeing him again. She just hadn’t been expecting him.

“I’m only an engineer, alas!” Garen was frankly smiling his pleasure. “And I don’t seem to be able to engineer much.”

Damon was exhausted, his worried face scorched and smudged with fire-fighting. He had been more upset than he would admit at Dawn’s disappearance. He himself had gone at four of the preceding day to look for her signal. Seeing neither signal nor smoke at the time, he decided that she had found matters not so bad and had returned to the Cascada.

He had fought fire all night and just before sunrise had managed a few hours’ sleep, leaving the conflagration whipped. The fire brigade, made up of specially hired helpers and volunteers from the homesteaders and mountaineers, lay down behind the lines for a well-earned rest. Around ten that morning Damon woke, rode over to the nearest phone, and called his cabin. Hinray answered. He had been at the cabin all night. No, Dawn had not been home.

Then Damon had sent Hinray to Lake Peak lookout, from which point he had seen and reported Dawn’s signal. The next half hour Damon spent calling the different stations for help. Having sent Hinray on ahead, he himself followed to the northeastern slopes. For five hours he and his men had been fighting fire in the ground—ever since noon. They had it beaten out now; just about licked, at any rate, thanks to Garen Shepherd, the four Bentys, and a couple of summer folks who sure were men and had volunteered gladly.

“Let’s get back up the mountain,” Damon concluded the story. “I want to get a fresh breath of air in my lungs.” He turned to thank Hal James for riding up with Dawn.

“Keep a watch on this side of the mountain, now you’re back, James, will you?” he cautioned the ranchman. “Use the fire lookout on the other side the canyon to signal us. And say, can you ride over in the morning first thing and take down the signal Dawn left? This humus is as dry as tinder.” Wearily he remounted Little Sorrel and turned her head back up the trail.

“Oh, James,” Damon remembered and called back over his shoulder, “you can move your stock now, goats too, over to the far side of the canyon.” They rode on. “That’ll please him and help make up for the hard season,” Damon explained in a tired voice to Shepherd, who rode between Dawn and her father. “It takes seventy-five acres to keep one cow alive down on the desert range, but the other side of the canyon’s covered with scrub, fine browse, piñon, juniper, and acorns ripe by now—the best sort of mast. That shows the wisdom of closing the foothill pastures for a while.

“The goats’ll do it good too, for once. They can break up that rocky hard-baked soil with their hoofs so that when it does rain it’ll soak in.”

“Rain, did you say?” Shepherd laughed. “Does it ever rain anywhere? I came back up to the mountains to see if there was such a thing as rain left.”

“I wondered what brought you,” Dawn remarked, meaning to be polite.

“Well, not just the hope of rain, to tell the truth,” Garen replied boldly. “If that were the sole reason I might have joined the Indian dances at any one of the pueblos down below, for they surely are working overtime at their ceremonies, being unable to coax water onto their corn any other way.”

A light wind had risen from the south and was blowing the smoke away from them. As the air cleared the sun sank and they moved through an orchid twilight. The forest ranger was in a tired daze, but Garen felt vitally alive and happy. Dawn was more subdued than she had ever been.

Desolation and the shadow of death on the desert from which she had come, devastation on the mountain side. As the men talked her depression grew.

“Two to three floods a year now,” Garen was saying to her father. “Everywhere that unsupervised cutting has been practiced. Fatal with this soil. Of course the problem this year is no rain.”

Weary as he was, Damon could not let the statement rest undefended. “The average rainfall will be the same,” he persisted. “True, this has been an extraordinary year. You can laugh! But usually at our elevation we have a light rain every afternoon during the summer. There hasn’t been a drop for over four weeks now. But it will come. You’ll see. Under natural conditions dry periods are easily tided over.”

Fanned by the pine-scented southern breeze, they mounted the trail slowly. Gradually the violet light diffused into a mellow glow. The moon was out, riding full and high. Day had exchanged for night without darkness. They were going through the burned-over area and beyond could see the line that had been beaten out by the fire-fighters.

Damon, who was riding ahead, looked back, calling out to ask what had kept Dawn at the James ranch. He stopped to rest his horse, and Dawn and Garen reined up beside him. Dawn explained why she had been unable to put up the fire signal until that morning. “Good girl.” Damon’s tired smile was guerdon for Dawn. “I’m mighty glad you happened by in time. James was trying to cheer his wife, but the things are deadly just the same. Many a grown man’s been laid under grass because of a rattler.”

Dawn’s spirits began to rise, perhaps because they were getting back up on the mountain, or because she could breathe freely. Her heart was light and she whistled gayly, “Oh, Mariana.” Soon they were singing—plaintive Mexican folk airs learned from the despised sheep herders. Garen’s baritone joined the chorus.

“I like love-songs,” Dawn announced in a matter-of-fact way when they had ridden in silence for a while. Garen’s expression quickened hopefully; he reined his shabby pony closer. But at this moment Hinray stepped out from the trees before them. Hinray had been keeping guard, and there was no sign now of any more smoldering. Just the same, young Benty and a couple of the men boarders were going to stay on watch all that night. The other fighters had already left for home.

Garen promptly offered to spend the night on the mountain with the boys, but Damon and Hinray thought that was not necessary. With a word to the three fellows who came down through the pines to hail them, Damon led the way up the trail. They were still quite a way from home. A mile up to Box Canyon Pass, a half mile through to the canyon, a mile over the mountain, three miles down the Amarillo, and another mile up to the cabin on the Cascada. The long ride was made for the most part in silence. Garen rode beside Dawn in a thrall of happiness: he was in love. He had been surprised at the persistence of this attraction, had been tormented to return to the mountains, giving himself a half dozen vague reasons why he should go. Now he knew why he had come.

But he had made up his mind that he would never tell Dawn until he felt sure that she cared a little bit to have him around, that she enjoyed his company. He would keep it a secret until she was older. So much was Garen enjoying the tender discovery that he rode in selfish contentment beside her.

Dawn too was content to ride silently. She was not given to analysis, but the difference between Garen and Jack was plain. As they neared the forks of the Amarillo and the Cascada she asked her father, “Why didn’t some of the folks at Perry’s cabin go?”

Damon was half asleep in the saddle. “Eh?” he queried. “We telephoned Benty’s to send over word if they could lend a hand with the fire, but none of them turned up.” He called out to Garen, who was riding on ahead, “Better come up and stop the night with us, Shepherd. It’s late—and quite a piece yet down to Benty’s.”

Garen hesitated. Would it be putting them out? He would like to accept, but Dawn was already riding ahead. “I’d better go on down,” he said; “it’s easy going, all down hill from here on.” He turned his horse’s head toward the ford, which sparkled and leaped in the brilliant moonlight.

If she’d wanted him to stay she would have stopped and seconded the invitation. As a matter of fact Dawn had not heard her father. She had ridden on, eager to get home, tired out, disappointed in Jack.

Hinray had gone on ahead, making good time on his little mountain “mosquito.” When they dragged themselves into the cabin, after unsaddling Piñon and Little Sorrel, he was already snoring lustily on the swing seat before the fire.

“Even snoring couldn’t keep me awake tonight,” laughed Dawn. “Good night, Damon, dearest. You’re the only man I love!”

“Faith, I thought so!” He brushed her hair back affectionately. Now why did she say that? But Damon was too exhausted to think long about anything. All was soon silent in the aspen log cabin, humble and crude, but shining with a silvery brightness under the moon.

Over on the northeast slope young Benty too slept the sleep of exhaustion. The two tenderfoot lads made the rounds of the fire area, and as they saw no flames, sat down on the soft mattress of pine needles beneath the trees. Relaxed with a sense of security, they too dozed. It was almost dawn. They did not see the slowly creeping ground fire that emerged from the beaten-out area. Fanned by the warm south wind it glowed now, sending out tentative little tongues of flame. Curling about the dry twigs, the new blaze spread slowly through the still hours. There was little for it to feed on yet.