"Al, you make me ashamed," said Dale, hoarsely. "I can't come. I've no nerve.""You've no what?"
"Al, I don't know what's wrong with me. But I'm afraid I'd find out if I came down there.""A-huh! It's the girl!"
"I don't know, but I'm afraid so. An' I won't come.""Aw yes, you will --"
Helen rose with beating heart and tingling ears, and moved away out of hearing. She had listened too long to what had not been intended for her ears, yet she could not be sorry.
She walked a few rods along the brook, out from under the pines, and, standing in the open edge of the park, she felt the beautiful scene still her agitation. The following moments, then, were the happiest she had spent in Paradise Park, and the profoundest of her whole life.
Presently her uncle called her.
"Nell, this here hunter wants to give you thet black hoss.
An' I say you take him."
"Ranger deserves better care than I can give him," said Dale. "He runs free in the woods most of the time. I'd be obliged if she'd have him. An' the hound, Pedro, too."Bo swept a saucy glance from Dale to her sister.
"Sure she'll have Ranger. Just offer him to ME!"Dale stood there expectantly, holding a blanket in his hand, ready to saddle the horse. Carmichael walked around Ranger with that appraising eye so keen in cowboys.
"Las Vegas, do you know anything about horses?" asked Bo.
"Me! Wal, if you ever buy or trade a hoss you shore have me there," replied Carmichael.
"What do you think of Ranger?" went on Bo.
"Shore I'd buy him sudden, if I could."
"Mr. Las Vegas, you're too late," asserted Helen, as she advanced to lay a hand on the horse.
"Ranger is mine."
Dale smoothed out the blanket and, folding it, he threw it over the horse; and then with one powerful swing he set the saddle in place.
"Thank you very much for him," said Helen, softly.
"You're welcome, an' I'm sure glad," responded Dale, and then, after a few deft, strong pulls at the straps, he continued. "There, he's ready for you."With that he laid an arm over the saddle, and faced Helen as she stood patting and smoothing Ranger. Helen, strong and calm now, in feminine possession of her secret and his, as well as her composure, looked frankly and steadily at Dale.
He seemed composed, too, yet the bronze of his fine face was a trifle pale.
"But I can't thank you -- I'll never be able to repay you --for your service to me and my sister," said Helen.
"I reckon you needn't try," Dale returned. "An' my service, as you call it, has been good for me.""Are you going down to Pine with us?"
"No."
"But you will come soon?"
"Not very soon, I reckon," he replied, and averted his gaze.
"When?"
"Hardly before spring."
"Spring? . . . That is a long time. Won't you come to see me sooner than that?""If I can get down to Pine."
"You're the first friend I've made in the West," said Helen, earnestly.
"You'll make many more -- an' I reckon soon forget him you called the man of the forest.""I never forget any of my friends. And you've been the --the biggest friend I ever had."
"I'll be proud to remember."
"But will you remember -- will you promise to come to Pine?""I reckon."
"Thank you. All's well, then. . . . My friend, goodby.""Good-by," he said, clasping her hand. His glance was clear, warm, beautiful, yet it was sad.
Auchincloss's hearty voice broke the spell. Then Helen saw that the others were mounted. Bo had ridden up close; her face was earnest and happy and grieved all at once, as she bade good-by to Dale. The pack-burros were hobbling along toward the green slope. Helen was the last to mount, but Roy was the last to leave the hunter. Pedro came reluctantly.
It was a merry, singing train which climbed that brown odorous trail, under the dark spruces. Helen assuredly was happy, yet a pang abided in her breast.
She remembered that half-way up the slope there was a turn in the trail where it came out upon an open bluff. The time seemed long, but at last she got there. And she checked Ranger so as to have a moment's gaze down into the park.
It yawned there, a dark-green and bright-gold gulf, asleep under a westering sun, exquisite, wild, lonesome. Then she saw Dale standing in the open space between the pines and the spruces. He waved to her. And she returned the salute.
Roy caught up with her then and halted his horse. He waved his sombrero to Dale and let out a piercing yell that awoke the sleeping echoes, splitting strangely from cliff to cliff .
"Shore Milt never knowed what it was to be lonesome," said Roy, as if thinking aloud. "But he'll know now."Ranger stepped out of his own accord and, turning off the ledge, entered the spruce forest. Helen lost sight of Paradise Park. For hours then she rode along a shady, fragrant trail, seeing the beauty of color and wildness, hearing the murmur and rush and roar of water, but all the while her mind revolved the sweet and momentous realization which had thrilled her -- that the hunter, this strange man of the forest, so deeply versed in nature and so unfamiliar with emotion, aloof and simple and strong like the elements which had developed him, had fallen in love with her and did not know it.
