II
A RIDE IN THE RAIN

There are two Colorados within the boundaries of the state of that name, distinct, almost irreconcilable. One is a plain (smooth, dry, monotonous), gently declining to the east, a land of sage-brush, wheat-fields, and alfalfa meadows – a rather commonplace region now, given over to humdrum folk intent on digging a living from the soil; but the other is an army of peaks, a region of storms, a spread of dark and tangled forests. In the one, shallow rivers trickle on their sandy way to the Gulf of Mexico; from the other, the waters rush, uniting to make the mighty stream whose silt-laden floods are slowly filling the Gulf of California.

If you stand on one of the great naked crests which form the dividing wall, the rampart of the plains, you can see the Colorado of tradition to the west, still rolling in wave after wave of stupendous altitudes, each range cutting into the sky with a purple saw-tooth edge. The landscape seems to contain nothing but rocks and towering crags, a treasure-house for those who mine. But this is illusive. Between these purple heights charming valleys wind and meadows lie in which rich grasses grow and cattle feed.

On certain slopes – where the devastating miners have not yet played their relentless game – dark forests rise to the high, bold summits of the chiefest mountains, and it is to guard these timbered tracts, growing each year more valuable, that the government has established its Forest Service to protect and develop the wealth-producing power of the watersheds.

Chief among the wooded areas of this mighty inland empire of crag and stream is the Bear Tooth Forest, containing nearly eight hundred thousand acres of rock and trees, whose seat of administration is Bear Tooth Springs, the small town in which our young traveler found himself.

He carefully explained to the landlord of the Cottage Hotel that he had never been in this valley before, and that he was filled with astonishment and delight of the scenery.

“Scenery! Yes, too much scenery. What we want is settlers,” retorted the landlord, who was shabby and sour and rather contemptuous, for the reason that he considered Norcross a poor consumptive, and a fool to boot – “one of those chaps who wait till they are nearly dead, then come out here expecting to live on climate.”

The hotel was hardly larger than the log shanty of a railway-grading camp; but the meat was edible, and just outside the door roared Bear Creek, which came down directly from Dome Mountain, and the young Easterner went to sleep beneath its singing that night. He should have dreamed of the happy mountain girl, but he did not; on the contrary, he imagined himself back at college in the midst of innumerable freshmen, yelling, “Bill McCoy, Bill McCoy!”

He woke a little bewildered by his strange surroundings, and when he became aware of the cheap bed, the flimsy wash-stand, the ugly wallpaper, and thought how far he was from home and friends, he not only sighed, he shivered. The room was chill, the pitcher of water cold almost to the freezing-point, and his joints were stiff and painful from his ride. What folly to come so far into the wilderness at this time.

As he crawled from his bed and looked from the window he was still further disheartened. In the foreground stood a half dozen frame buildings, graceless and cheap, without tree or shrub to give shadow or charm of line – all was bare, bleak, sere; but under his window the stream was singing its glorious mountain song, and away to the west rose the aspiring peaks from which it came. Romance brooded in that shadow, and on the lower foot-hills the frost-touched foliage glowed like a mosaic of jewels.

Dressing hurriedly he went down to the small bar-room, whose litter of duffle-bags, guns, saddles, and camp utensils gave evidence of the presence of many hunters and fishermen. The slovenly landlord was poring over a newspaper, while a discouraged half-grown youth was sludging the floor with a mop; but a cheerful clamor from an open door at the back of the hall told that breakfast was on.

Venturing over the threshold, Norcross found himself seated at table with some five or six men in corduroy jackets and laced boots, who were, in fact, merchants and professional men from Denver and Pueblo out for fish and such game as the law allowed, and all in holiday mood. They joked the waiter-girls, and joshed one another in noisy good-fellowship, ignoring the slim youth in English riding-suit, who came in with an air of mingled melancholy and timidity and took a seat at the lower corner of the long table.

The landlady, tall, thin, worried, and inquisitive, was New England – Norcross recognized her type even before she came to him with a question on her lips. “So you’re from the East, are you?”

“I’ve been at school there.”

“Well, I’m glad to see you. My folks came from York State. I don’t often get any one from the real East. Come out to fish, I s’pose?”

“Yes,” he replied, thinking this the easiest way out.

“Well, they’s plenty of fishing – and they’s plenty of air, not much of anything else.”

As he looked about the room, the tourist’s eye was attracted by four young fellows seated at a small table to his right. They wore rough shirts of an olive-green shade, and their faces were wind-scorched; but their voices held a pleasant tone, and something in the manner of the landlady toward them made them noticeable. Norcross asked her who they were.

“They’re forestry boys.”

“Forestry boys?”

“Yes; the Supervisor’s office is here, and these are his help.”

This information added to Norcross’s interest and cheered him a little. He knew something of the Forest Service, and had been told that many of the rangers were college men. He resolved to make their acquaintance. “If I’m to stay here they will help me endure the exile,” he said.

After breakfast he went forth to find the post-office, expecting a letter of instructions from Meeker. He found nothing of the sort, and this quite disconcerted him.

“The stage is gone,” the postmistress told him, “and you can’t get up till day after to-morrow. You might reach Meeker by using the government ’phone, however.”

“Where will I find the government ’phone?”

“Down in the Supervisor’s office. They’re very accommodating; they’ll let you use it, if you tell them who you want to reach.”

It was impossible to miss the forestry building for the reason that a handsome flag fluttered above it. The door being open, Norcross perceived from the threshold a young clerk at work on a typewriter, while in a corner close by the window another and older man was working intently on a map.

“Is this the office of the Forest Supervisor?” asked the youth.

The man at the machine looked up, and pleasantly answered: “It is, but the Supervisor is not in yet. Is there anything I can do for you?”

“It may be you can. I am on my way to Meeker’s Mill for a little outing. Perhaps you could tell me where Meeker’s Mill is, and how I can best get there.”

The man at the map meditated. “It’s not far, some eighteen or twenty miles; but it’s over a pretty rough trail.”

“What kind of a place is it?”

“Very charming. You’ll like it. Real mountain country.”

This officer was a plain-featured man of about thirty-five, with keen and clear eyes. His voice, though strongly nasal, possessed a note of manly sincerity. As he studied his visitor, he smiled.

“You look brand-new – haven’t had time to season-check, have you?”

“No; I’m a stranger in a strange land.”

“Out for your health?”

“Yes. My name is Norcross. I’m just getting over a severe illness, and I’m up here to lay around and fish and recuperate – if I can.”

“You can – you will. You can’t help it,” the other assured him. “Join one of our surveying crews for a week and I’ll mellow that suit of yours and make a real mountaineer of you. I see you wear a Sigma Chi pin. What was your school?”

“I am a ‘Son of Eli.’ Last year’s class.”

The other man displayed his fob. “I’m ten classes ahead of you. My name is Nash. I’m what they call an ‘expert.’ I’m up here doing some estimating and surveying for a big ditch they’re putting in. I was rather in hopes you had come to join our ranks. We sons of Eli are holding the conservation fort these days, and we need help.”

“My knowledge of your work is rather vague,” admitted Norcross. “My father is in the lumber business; but his point of view isn’t exactly yours.”

“He slays ’em, does he?”

“He did. He helped devastate Michigan.”

“After me the deluge! I know the kind. Why not make yourself a sort of vicarious atonement?”

Norcross smiled. “I had not thought of that. It would help some, wouldn’t it?”

“It certainly would. There’s no great money in the work; but it’s about the most enlightened of all the governmental bureaus.”

Norcross was strongly drawn to this forester, whose tone was that of a highly trained specialist. “I rode up on the stage yesterday with Miss Berrie McFarlane.”

“The Supervisor’s daughter?”

“She seemed a fine Western type.”

“She’s not a type; she’s an individual. She hasn’t her like anywhere I’ve gone. She cuts a wide swath up here. Being an only child she’s both son and daughter to McFarlane. She knows more about forestry than her father. In fact, half the time he depends on her judgment.”

Norcross was interested, but did not want to take up valuable time. He said: “Will you let me use your telephone to Meeker’s?”

“Very sorry, but our line is out of order. You’ll have to wait a day or so – or use the mails. You’re too late for to-day’s stage, but it’s only a short ride across. Come outside and I’ll show you.”

Norcross followed him to the walk, and stood in silence while his guide indicated the pass over the range. It all looked very formidable to the Eastern youth. Thunderous clouds hung low upon the peaks, and the great crags to left and right of the notch were stern and barren. “I think I’ll wait for the stage,” he said, with candid weakness. “I couldn’t make that trip alone.”

“You’ll have to take many such a ride over that range in the night– if you join the service,” Nash warningly replied.

As they were standing there a girl came galloping up to the hitching-post and slid from her horse. It was Berea McFarlane. “Good morning, Emery,” she called to the surveyor. “Good morning,” she nodded at Norcross. “How do you find yourself this morning?”

“Homesick,” he replied, smilingly.

“Why so?”

“I’m disappointed in the town.”

“What’s the matter with the town?”

“It’s so commonplace. I expected it to be – well, different. It’s just like any other plains town.”

Berrie looked round at the forlorn shops, the irregular sidewalks, the grassless yards. “It isn’t very pretty, that’s a fact; but you can always forget it by just looking up at the high country. When you going up to the mill?”

“I don’t know. I haven’t had any word from Meeker, and I can’t reach him by telephone.”

“I know, the line is short-circuited somewhere; but they’ve sent a man out. He may close it any minute.”

“Where’s the Supervisor?” asked Nash.

“He’s gone over to Moore’s cutting. How are you getting on with those plats?”

“Very well. I’ll have ’em all in shape by Saturday.”

“Come in and make yourself at home,” said the girl to Norcross. “You’ll find the papers two or three days old,” she smiled. “We never know about anything here till other people have forgotten it.”

Norcross followed her into the office, curious to know more about her. She was so changed from his previous conception of her that he was puzzled. She had the directness and the brevity of phrase of a business man, as she opened letters and discussed their contents with the men.

“Truly she is different,” thought Norcross, and yet she lost something by reason of the display of her proficiency as a clerk. “I wish she would leave business to some one else,” he inwardly grumbled as he rose to go.

She looked up from her desk. “Come in again later. We may be able to reach the mill.”

He thanked her and went back to his hotel, where he overhauled his outfit and wrote some letters. His disgust of the town was lessened by the presence of that handsome girl, and the hope that he might see her at luncheon made him impatient of the clock.

She did not appear in the dining-room, and when Norcross inquired of Nash whether she took her meals at the hotel or not, the expert replied: “No, she goes home. The ranch is only a few miles down the valley. Occasionally we invite her, but she don’t think much of the cooking.”

One of the young surveyors put in a word: “I shouldn’t think she would. I’d ride ten miles any time to eat one of Mrs. McFarlane’s dinners.”

“Yes,” agreed Nash with a reflective look in his eyes. “She’s a mighty fine girl, and I join the boys in wishing her better luck than marrying Cliff Belden.”

“Is it settled that way?” asked Norcross.

“Yes; the Supervisor warned us all, but even he never has any good words for Belden. He’s a surly cuss, and violently opposed to the service. His brother is one of the proprietors of the Meeker mill, and they have all tried to bulldoze Landon, our ranger over there. By the way, you’ll like Landon. He’s a Harvard man, and a good ranger. His shack is only a half-mile from Meeker’s house. It’s a pretty well-known fact that Alec Belden is part proprietor of a saloon over there that worries the Supervisor worse than anything. Cliff swears he’s not connected with it; but he’s more or less sympathetic with the crowd.”

Norcross, already deeply interested in the present and future of a girl whom he had met for the first time only the day before, was quite ready to give up his trip to Meeker. After the men went back to work he wandered about the town for an hour or two, and then dropped in at the office to inquire if the telephone line had been repaired.

“No, it’s still dead.”

“Did Miss McFarlane return?”

“No. She said she had work to do at home. This is ironing-day, I believe.”

“She plays all the parts, don’t she?”

“She sure does; and she plays one part as well as another. She can rope and tie a steer or bake a cake as well as play the piano.”

“Don’t tell me she plays the piano!”

Nash laughed. “She does; but it’s one of those you operate with your feet.”

“I’m relieved to hear that. She seems almost weirdly gifted as it is.” After a moment he broke in with: “What can a man do in this town?”

“Work, nothing else.”

“What do you do for amusement?”

“Once in a while there is a dance in the hall over the drug-store, and on Sunday you can listen to a wretched sermon in the log church. The rest of the time you work or loaf in the saloons – or read. Old Nature has done her part here. But man – ! Ever been in the Tyrol?”

“Yes.”

“Well, some day the people of the plains will have sense enough to use these mountains, these streams, the way they do over there.”

It required only a few hours for Norcross to size up the valley and its people. Aside from Nash and his associates, and one or two families connected with the mill to the north, the villagers were poor, thriftless, and uninteresting. They were lacking in the picturesque quality of ranchers and miners, and had not yet the grace of town-dwellers. They were, indeed, depressingly nondescript.

Early on the second morning he went to the post-office – which was also the telephone station – to get a letter or message from Meeker. He found neither; but as he was standing in the door undecided about taking the stage, Berea came into town riding a fine bay pony, and leading a blaze-face buckskin behind her.

Her face shone cordially, as she called out: “Well, how do you stack up this morning?”

“Tip-top,” he answered, in an attempt to match her cheery greeting.

“Do you like our town better?”

“Not a bit! But the hills are magnificent.”

“Anybody turned up from the mill?”

“No, I haven’t heard a word from there. The telephone is still out of commission.”

“They can’t locate the break. Uncle Joe sent word by the stage-driver asking us to keep an eye out for you and send you over. I’ve come to take you over myself.”

“That’s mighty good of you; but it’s a good deal to ask.”