But she did not ride him. From the horse corral near the stable she selected a gray, rangy beast, which her father had pointed out to her, recommending him as "reliable." "Silver," Seddon had named him.
Silver was reliable. It did not take the girl long to discover that. She knew horses, and during her rides she tested the gray animal in various ways; and at last patted him admiringly and confided into his ears that he would "do."
The four-year interval of her absence had not made the far timber less alluring; nor had she taken her father's warning seriously. She had never taken the wolf story literally—it had been a childhood bogey by w T hich both her father and mother had tried to keep her from exploring the timber.
For, despite their warnings, she had gone there many times, impressed by its vastness, awed by the solemn silence that reigned there; a religious reverence stealing over her whenever she traversed its majestic aisles, with the towering, tapering trees, like cathedral spires, thrusting into the azure blue above.
On this morning—three days after Seddon had talked to her about Beaudry Rand, she watched her father mount his horse and ride away. Shortly after he vanished westward to join the outfit she saddled Silver and headed him toward the river trail.
Familiar landmarks came into view as she rode. She did not travel fast, for there were some things she wished to see—a shady nook at the edge of a sheer butte that fringed the river, where she had spent many hours; a "hole" in the river, far down in a shallow canon — where she had bathed, with no danger of discovery; and other well-remembered places with which were connected incidents that were still vivid in her recollection.
This tour of memory-exploration took time. It was nearly noon when she reached the edge of the timber, and she smilingly reflected that she had consumed several hours in riding about twelve miles.
Memories thrilled her as she entered the timber—following a faint trail that she remembered well — for she had not seen the timber in four years. Those four years, she saw, had not brought much change in the aspect of the forest. Over here, as she entered a narrow aisle and sent Silver loping along it, descended the atmosphere of mystery that had always encompassed her — the lingering, whispering, sighing voices of the trees, bearing a threat or a promise — she had never been able to decide which.
She spent some hours in the forest; though she penetrated no farther than she had gone many times in the past. For she rode only those trails she remembered — cattle paths, made by refractory steers that insisted upon betraying yearnings to revert to type.
She reflected that some of the most marvelous profanity she had ever heard had been provoked among the Bar S men by the predilection of some range steers for the mazes and tangle of timber. When they went in — as some of them would — the men had to get them out.
It was a vast forest. Eleanor had never ridden far enough eastward to reach its edge in that direction; though she had almost attained its northern radius — and she always entered the timber from the south.
And she did not attempt today to reach the eastern limits; she rode as far as she had ridden other times, and twice almost lost herself— for most of the trails she had known were overgrown with wild brush and carpeted with the fallen leaves of past seasons, and she had some trouble to find them.
She was in no hurry. Her father, she knew, would not return until late in the evening—probably not until late tomorrow, for she had heard him tell the straw-boss that the distance to where the outfit was going was "pretty far." So she had no fear that he would discover where she had gone.
As for that she was nearly twenty, and the spirit of independence in her had grown and flourished during her four years' absence. She had always been self-reliant. Not aggressively self-reliant—she disliked a mannish woman. She preferred to feel that she was merely confident— confident of her ability to take care of herself. Certainly she had spirit enough to demonstrate that trait — her trip to the timber despite her father's warning proved that!
She smiled, remembering her father's gravity.
"Worse than wolves," he had said; "there's Beau Rand!"
Her smile grew. Beau Rand, according to her father, might be some prehistoric monster roaming the timber, seeking to devour pygmy humans — herself especially! She laughed aloud.
Later, reaching a small clearing where some wild flowers grew, delicately tinted, their stems frail and transparent, she dismounted and began to gather them.
Engrossed in the task, the bunch of tinted beauties in her hand growing larger and larger, she spent much time in the clearing — more time than she realized. For when, after a while, she stood erect, satisfied with the size of the fragrant bunch in her hands, she discovered that Silver was nowhere to be seen!
She gasped, astonishment confounding her, until she remembered that she had forgotten to trail the reins over Silver's head!
Every range horse expected that; no range horse would stand if the reins were not trailed, unless he had been carefully trained otherwise. They were taught, during their training days, to fear the rope, and no range horse would walk far with the reins at his hoofs. She had forgotten that; her four years' absence from the Bar S had robbed her of that most essential, and very common, knowledge.
She dropped the flowers — for the stern business of getting out of the timber would fully occupy her mind and energy for some time, if Silver had strayed far—and ran to the western edge of the clearing, leaping to the trunk of a fallen tree.
From this vantage point she looked southward — toward the Bar S — which direction the horse would naturally take had he decided to desert her. Far down a narrow aisle, fully a quarter of a mile away, she saw a gray shape moving among the trees.
It was Silver, idly browsing—she could see his neck slanting downward, and his tail swishing back and forth.
She gulped with thankfulness, leaped down from the fallen tree trunk, and began to run toward Silver, her face a trifle pale and her eyes filled with a wistful expression.
But she had not taken more than three or four steps toward the horse when she halted and stood rigid, catching her breath with a shrill gasp; her face whitening, her eyes filled with horror. For not more than a dozen paces from her, and directly in the narrow aisle through which she must go to reach Silver, stood a huge, gray timber wolf, his mouth open, his jaws agape, slavering; his eyes flaming with a fire which, she knew, was a sign of the malignant ferocity that had set him across her path.
She did not know how long she stood there, watching the great gray beast. She knew that the wolf did not move, but stood there returning her gaze, its sides heaving with its rapid breaths, its tongue hanging far out of its mouth — the fangs bared a little in a hideous, grinning smirk. It seemed to her that the animal knew of her helplessness and was mocking her, content to wait, certain that she could not escape.
She did not move—she was convinced that if she made the slightest motion the beast would leap. Nor did she permit her gaze to wander for the slightest fraction of a second from the beast's eyes. She stood that way for, it seemed, many minutes; her breath catching in her throat, her heart pounding, and her nerves tingling with the horror of it.
And then she heard a sharp sound near—the crackling of a twig or a branch, it seemed. She saw the wolf raise its head, snap its ears erect and look past her — a little to her right. The fur on its neck bristled, as though it saw something that aroused it to a fighting resentment, or a craven, gripping fear. Then it snarled, wheeled, and leaped — away from her.
While its body was in the air the solemn silence of the forest was rent by a splitting, crashing report. The girl saw the wolf collapse in mid-air and come down limply, landing on its head and shoulders; its legs asprawl and jerking spasmodically.
She wheeled, aware that the wolf had received a death wound, to see a man on a big black horse directly behind