Читать книгу The Deer Stalker - Zane Grey - Страница 4

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Eburne’s slumbers did not clarify in any degree the rather dubious relation between Dyott and the cattleman or inspire him with any wonderful ideas as to the best method of trapping deer.

He got out before sunrise and walked around the station, through the edge of the forest. Not one deer rewarded his roving eye. The morning was clear and cold. Bluebells peeped up wanly from the frost-whitened grass that he brushed as he strode along. There was no sound. The forest seemed a dead wilderness. He found his horse at the far end of the pasture and was glad to see that the grass there afforded better grazing than in the open forest.

The sun came up, rosy and bright, illuminating the steely blue scene. Thad returned to the cabin, where he helped get breakfast. His conversation with Blakener soon reverted to the deer question.

“Forgot to tell you,” said Blakener with animation. “Cassell’s goin’ to send out two deer traps. Cleveland somethin’ or other he called them—made in Michigan. Said he had some comin’ from Ogden. Looks to me that he’s had this trappin’ stunt in his mind for some time.”

“Probably he means to stick the dirty job on other rangers too,” replied Eburne.

“Sure, I heard him tell Judson he’d had several orders for live deer.”

“Humph! The more I think of it the more absurd it seems,” said Thad forcefully. “Still, to be honest, I really don’t know. I think deer will kill themselves if trapped in close quarters. But thinking isn’t knowing. This is a chance for me to find out. I’ve my orders and I’ve got to carry them out or quit. As I won’t quit, I’ll just have to swallow my feelings and meanwhile add to my knowledge of deer.”

“Sure. Now you’re talkin’,” rejoined his comrade heartily. “I’ll tell you what, Thad, I’ll help you all I can. But you’ve got to do the figurin’.”

Eburne was quite conscious that it would take a good deal of mental and physical effort if there were to be even anything approaching success. To that end he set out on the unwelcome task. In the shed he found several bales of wire and a quantity of old lumber, slabs with the bark on one side. These would come in handy when the time arrived to build fences and pens. Then he walked down the park to look over the ground around the spring. The season had been the driest for years. Water was far from abundant. The spring was lower than Eburne had ever seen it. As far as he knew there were only four other springs on that side of Buckskin.

After carefully getting the lay of the land, Thad decided to fence in the water and have the wings converge into a narrow chute that led into a corral around the spring. He did not know how many deer watered at this place, but he believed they might number over a thousand. There was no other water near, and the deer in the vicinity had become used to this spring and they would not readily abandon it.

He spent the day watching and planning. About three o’clock, deer began to come down into the park to drink. Often as Thad had watched them, he seemed never to have seen them as gaunt as now. They were as tame as cattle yet were really wild deer. They came in troops, by twos and threes, and in sizable herds; and now and then a lordly stag, almost as big and stately as an elk, walked in alone. The little fawns caught Eburne’s eye and delighted him. Some does had twin fawns, graceful, beautiful spotted little creatures, as playful as kittens.

These deer were all lean, and they somehow lacked the sleek, velvety, rich gray usually common to deer on the plateau. The bucks appeared to be in the best condition, as was natural. Sometimes there would be forty or fifty at a time around the water hole. They did not linger long, however, and soon worked off into the woods, plainly aware of Thad’s presence. The newcomers would come in, scent or see him, stand with long ears erect, motionless as statues for moments, and then go on for their drink. Still, they were uneasy. If Thad had been on horseback or even moving along on foot, they would have shown less interest.

By sunset, Thad calculated that more than six hundred deer had come in to drink. No doubt many more came after it was too dark to see them.

“Well, Blakener,” announced Eburne upon his return to the cabin, “if deer can be trapped this is the best place ever, and the most propitious time. They are hungry and thirsty. With water and hay we can coax them anywhere. Oh, we can trap them easily enough. But what they’ll do the moment they’re trapped! That’s the rub.”

“I saw one old buck walk by here,” commented Blakener. “Say, he was as big as a steer. Now, I wonder what he’d do in a trap.”

“He’d make us climb the fence,” replied Thad. “An old buck is bad medicine, unless you’re on a horse. . . . Well, tomorrow we’ll begin to stretch wire. I don’t believe we’ll have to put in many posts. There’re a lot of trees except down in the meadow. And I think it’ll be best to do this work only in the mornings. I don’t want to scare the deer before we get the trap built.”

Next morning, while the deer stalker was laboriously stretching wire, a horseman rode into the park. He was leading a pack-horse, behind which trotted a number of hounds. The ranger did not need to look twice. The visitor was his old friend Jim Evers, the former predatory game hunter for the government.

“Hello there, old-timer,” called the ranger heartily as his friend rode up.

“Howdy, Thad,” drawled Evers, reaching out to grasp the proffered hand.

The Texan was a striking figure, despite the bowed shoulders that told of encroaching age. His face was lean, red, keen as an Indian’s, and remarkable for the long sloping lines and the narrow slits from which his blue eyes flashed. His garb, his weapons, the trappings of his horses, his pack—all showed long service in the open.

“Blakener told me you’d ridden down to look over your buffalo,” said Thad. “I’m glad I didn’t miss you today. How’d you find the herd, Jim?”

“Wal, they wintered fine,” replied the hunter. “Got twelve new calves. But I reckon I’m aboot ready to sell out. I cain’t take care of thet herd. They shore ain’t never been nothin’ in it for me. I’m goin’ to sell—one hundred dollars a head. Mebbe I can get the government to take them off my hands.”

“Jim, I’m inclined to think the government already has one white elephant on its hands here—this tame deer herd.”

“Great guns, yes,” mildly exploded Jim. “It’s a shame aboot these deer—Thad, I’m invitin’ myself to eat with you an’ stay all night.”

“Old-timer, you’re welcome as the flowers in May,” responded Thad warmly, “Let’s go up to the cabin and throw your pack. You can turn the horses loose in the corral.”

“What you all doin’ with this heah wire? Son, don’t you calkilate fences is as bad as them automobiles?”

“Indeed I do, Jim. But I’ve my orders. And I’m supposed to trap some of these deer. Trap them alive to ship out of Arizona!”

“Wal, jumpin’ juniper!” drawled the old hunter. “Who and what and why now?”

Eburne briefly explained the situation and was not a little gratified to have Evers forcefully deliver himself of views that coincided with his own.

“Wal, it’s this way,” continued the hunter, “these government fellars air all right an’ want to do good, but they jest don’t know. It takes a lifetime to learn anythin’. Now, I’ve been huntin’ on Buckskin for twenty years. I’ve seen this deer herd grow from five to fifty thousand. You rangers say twenty thousand, but you don’t see the deer us hunters see. Why, down in the brakes of the Siwash where you never get, there’s ten deer to one thet’s in heah. . . . Wal, killin’ off the varmints, specially the cougars, has broken the balance of nature so far as these deer are concerned. Herds of deer, runnin’ free, will never thrive whar the cougars have been killed off. The price of healthy life in the open is eternal vigilance—eternal watch an’ struggle against death by violence. Man cain’t remove thet balance an’ expect nature to correct it. These heah deer ain’t had nothin’ to check their overbreedin’ an’ inbreedin’. They jest doubled an’ trebled. Buckskin is a queer sort of range. Canyon on one side an’ bare desert all around. The deer cain’t migrate as they do in other places. They just eat up everythin’. An’ now they’re goin’ to starve or die of disease.”

“Something must be done before it’s too late,” asserted Eburne.

“Wal, Thad, it’s most too late now. For part of the herd, anyhow. Conditions ain’t favorable. There wasn’t much snow last winter. Thet means poor grazin’. An’ it’ll be a dry summer. The deer air eatin’ the aspens, junipers, buckbrush. You cain’t find an aspen saplin’. Why, the deer seem turnin’ into beavers. Then the government’s goin’ to let a jam of hunters come in this fall to kill deer.”

“So Blakener told me. But I can’t believe it, Jim. That would be such a rotten thing to do. After developing this wonderful herd, taming them almost to eat out of your hand, advertising them to thousands of tourists as the greatest sight in the west—to let hunters murder them! It’s pretty low-down.”

“Shore is. An’ I’m not thinkin’ much of the kind of hunters who’d shoot tame deer for sport. But I’m givin’ you a hunch, Eburne: thet very stunt is comin’ off. I’m on the inside. I’ve got friends in Kanab—they’re Mormons—an’ they tipped me off. They’re all smackin’ their lips at the prospect of venison all winter. An’ laughin’ up their sleeves because Arizona hunters won’t be permitted to shoot on Buckskin.”

“Well, I’ll be hanged!” ejaculated Eburne, confounded. “Jim, you’re hinting that the government will permit hunters to shoot deer this fall and the State will oppose it.”

“Shore. An’ the funny part will be to see you rangers helpin’ the hunters avoid arrest.”

“I’ll do nothing of the sort,” declared Thad stoutly.

“Wal, then you’ll get fired,” drawled Jim complacently. “It’ll be a healthy mess, an’ you can gamble I’m glad I’m out of the service.”

“Come along. Let’s go to the cabin,” said the ranger shortly. He strode off, leading Jim’s pack-horse. The long-eared hounds trotted beside him, wagging their tails and begging with solemn eyes. They had visited Eburne before. When the men reached the cabin, Blakener called out a cheery welcome to dinner. Thad helped the old hunter unpack and carry his effects inside. They had dinner, and an interesting talk in the pleasant living room. Later, as the afternoon advanced, Evers accompanied Eburne out to watch the deer come in.

“Wal, Thad, the particular reason I dropped in on you today I ain’t told yet,” said the hunter.

“Oh, you haven’t?” returned Thad with curiosity. “Out with it, Jim. I hope to goodness you’ve saved the best for the last.”

“Wal, it’s only an idee, an’ it’s not mine, but it shore is amazin’,” rejoined Evers thoughtfully.

Eburne did not importune the old hunter, though he sensed something out of the ordinary. They found a seat under a pine tree above the spring, so situated that they could watch the deer come to the spring without being seen. Already a few deer had entered the meadow and at the moment were standing motionless, long ears erect, gazing at the edge of the forest where the men were hidden. Evers lighted his pipe.

“Thad, you’re well acquainted with Bill McKay?” he queried finally, with deliberation.

“Indeed I am. We’re good friends. I think a heap of Bill. But I haven’t seen him since he began boring for oil out on the Indian reservation.”

“Wal, thet fell through like so many things Mac has tackled. He’s onlucky. . . . I met him yesterday packin’ across Houserock Valley. He’s workin’ a mine down in the canyon. Somewhere near the foot of Tanner’s trail, but on this side of the river. Says there’s copper, gold, an’ silver. Wal, me an’ Bill had a bite of grub together, an’ we talked a lot. Naturally I touched on this heah deer problem, which is really close to my heart. I told Bill the conditions an’ how they had riled up government, forest officers, rangers, Mormons, an’ everybody generally. Then Bill whacked me with his sledge-hammer fist so hard he near knocked me flat. ‘Jim,’ he says, ‘I’ve an idee!’ ”

“McKay always was full of ideas,” rejoined Eburne as Jim paused to take a puff on his pipe and to allow time for suspense to take hold of his listener. “In fact he’s a far-sighted man.”

“Heah is what he said: ‘Jim, you know the deer herd splits in winter, part goin’ down off the mountain in the west brakes, an’ part on this east slope. There’s ten or fifteen thousand deer winter on these cedar an’ sage slopes. Now you know there’s a wall of rock reachin’ from the Cocks Combs to the Saddle Gap, an’ another wall runnin’ off the other side under Saddle Mountain. These heah walls form a fence up which no deer can climb. An’ they head up where the Saddle trail goes through the Gap an’ down into the canyon.’—Mac dropped down on his knee when he was tellin’ me all this, an’ he drawed maps on the ground. An’ I said yes, I agreed aboot the lay of the land.”

Here Evers paused again, but he was too thrilled or obsessed by the information he had to impart to remember his pipe.

“ ‘Jim,’ says Mac, ‘give me a hundred Indians an’ fifty cowboys an’ I can drive ten thousand deer through the Saddle Gap, down the canyon, across the Colorado River, an’ up Tanner’s trail to the rim—right into forest ranges where feed an’ water are aplenty.’ ”

Eburne stared. His jaw dropped. The idea was amazing.

“Drive ten thousand deer!” he exclaimed finally.

“Shore. Thet’s what Mac said. First off I gave him the laugh. But the idee got me. It’s great. I know the country. The deer are tame. They might drive. The more I thought aboot it the bigger the idee got. An’ now I’m stuck on it. Shore it’s grand.”

“Drive ten thousand deer!” echoed Thad incredulously. “Through the saddle—down the canyon—up the rim.”

“Shore. You’re locoed now. But wait till thet idee soaks in,” replied Jim with glee, nodding his gray old head. “It’ll shore get you. Because it’s a way to save the deer without trappin’ or killin’. An’ it’ll be good for other ranges on the south side. Deer used to be thick in the Coconino Basin, around the San Francisco Peaks, an’ south toward the Mogollons. Now they’re gone. This drive would restock those ranges.”

“Wonderful, but impossible!” ejaculated Eburne, breathing hard.

“No it ain’t impossible,” returned the old hunter stoutly. “I’d bet a million dollars if Buffalo Jones was heah he could drive them deer. He understood wild animals. But McKay will have the Indians to help. Navajos he wants—drivin’ on foot with cowbells to ring.”

“Jim, I tell you it’s impossible,” protested Thad, regretting that he must take this negative viewpoint. “Deer won’t drive. You might move them, gradually work them into a great herd. But then! The instant they found you wanted them to go in any one direction, they’d bolt. They’d spill like ants over the ground. They’d scatter like a flock of quail. They’d run over horses and men. No, deer won’t drive.”

That was Eburne’s intuitive reaction to McKay’s astounding idea.

It was what he felt. He had been a deer stalker for many years, at first as a hunter, and then as a watcher, and finally as a lover of nature and of the most beautiful and graceful wild creatures in the woods.

“Wal, now, how do you know they won’t drive?” demanded Jim persistently.

“I don’t know. I just feel they won’t,” replied Eburne.

“Let’s stick to what we know. Take for instance last month when Lee Daley an’ a couple of cowboys drove them ten buffalo yearlin’s of mine into an automobile truck. Who’d have thunk it could be done? Wal, it was, an’ them buff calves went clear to Mexico where I sold them. Look how cowboys can drive wild steers. I reckon a bunch of wild steers is wuss than a herd of elephants. I remember them Stewart boys, wild hoss hunters years ago. They could drive anythin’ on four legs. Wal, we never heerd of deer bein’ drove, an it’s good figurin’ to believe it can be done till we find out for shore.”

“Jim, you’re right. I’ve nothing to stand on. I admit it might be done. How I hope it could!”

“Wal, McKay wants you to submit his proposition to the forest service an’ to the government, with your approval,” drawled Jim confidently, as if there were no question of Eburne’s stand.

“By thunder, I’ll do it!” burst out the ranger, suddenly elated. “Sure as you’re born they’ll fall for it. And then what a row with the opposing side who’ll want to kill the deer! It tickles me, Jim, it’s fascinating. It grows on me.”

“Wal, I was plumb shore it would,” replied Evers mildly. “Now let’s get down to brass tacks. McKay wants to make money on the drive. He wants to ask the government two dollars an’ fifty cents a head for deer drove across the canyon, an’ thet much more a head for deer drove to other ranges.”

“Little enough. He can get it,” said Eburne.

“Wal, it’s going to cost a lot to make the drive. The Indians an’ cowboys will have to be paid wages an’ fed. Outfits will have to be packed. Trucks to haul grain for horses an’ supplies for camps. Mac’s no hand at figgerin’, but I calkilated somethin’ like five hundred dollars a day.”

“That’s a lot of money,” replied the ranger, seriously.

“Shore is. An’ Mac hasn’t got a dollar. He’ll have to have backin’.”

“He’s welcome to all I have. But it’s not enough.”

“I’ll chip in a little to help Mac. An’ his friends in Flagstaff will donate. Shore he’ll raise the money. You jest go ahead an’ get a strong bid ready for the drive.”

“Jim, wouldn’t it be wise to go slow on approaching the government?” queried Eburne thoughtfully. “It’s over four months till time for the deer to work down off the mountain. If we sprang this idea at once wouldn’t that give our opponents too much time to work in their propaganda?”

“Reckon I’d wait till you’ve given this trappin’ deer a good tryout. It’s shore bound to be a failure, an’ when you send in your reports to thet effect you can inclose McKay’s proposition. Thet’d be a favorable time to hit them. But on the other hand you don’t want to wait too long an’ give the deer-killin’ crowd a chance to get set. For that matter, they are set, but this new idee may throw them out. I shore hope so.”

“Well, it’s settled,” returned Eburne with satisfaction. “Now Jim, let’s sneak up closer to that bunch of deer coming in. Let’s watch them. And you can work out your idea of what a trap corral should be like.”

* * * * *

The ranger and the hunter spent the remainder of that afternoon spying upon the deer. By sunset about five hundred had come in to drink. The wire fence Eburne had already erected did not appear to interest the deer to any appreciable extent. It was evident that they would come in to drink if they had to pass through open gates and down a narrow aisle. The matter of their entering a trap, then, as Eburne had surmised, was not a difficult question. Indeed, though he had no definite plans formulated for traps, he had not been in the least concerned about his ability to construct them. Jim Evers hit the nail on the head when he drawled out, “Wal, it shore ain’t gettin’ deer alive in a trap thet’ll stump you; it’s gettin’ them out alive!”

Traps and deer occupied the fireside talk for an hour after supper. Then Blakener sounded out the old hunter on the well-known controversy between cattlemen and forest service. Evers had served on both sides. He had lived on and around Buckskin for twenty years. It was his humble opinion that the government should never have coddled the deer herd to grow into such unmanageable numbers. The little ranchers and sheepmen, of whom there had formerly been many and now were few, had been dependent on the grass of the plateau. Many of them had been ruined by the multiplication of the deer and the consequent restrictions. Then, for fifteen years, non-native cattle companies had obtained the best of the grazing that had once belonged to the local ranchers. The company that at the present time and for the last six or eight years held the balance of power on Buckskin was composed of absentee owners and headed by the Californian, Settlemire. According to the hunter, Settlemire had neither legal nor moral right to the privileges he enjoyed. Apparently he was not a Mormon, which fact made his influence all the more astonishing. It had been Settlemire who had claimed he would see to it that the deer preserve should be opened to hunters in the early fall.

“Jim, why is it when the rangers order Settlemire’s cowboys to drive their stock off the range they roll their cigarettes and grin and say: ‘Reckon we gotta ride out on that job pronto,’ and then never even make the attempt?”

“Wal, boys, don’t ask me thet,” drawled Evers. “But I’ve always wondered why you rangers didn’t get together and drive Settlemire’s stock off the range.”

“We act under orders. We have but little leeway,” replied Eburne. “I put that very proposition up to headquarters.”

“An’ what come off?” queried Evers, knowingly.

“I got disliked for my pains and called down for my suggestions,” replied Thad tersely.

“Wal, boys, it’s no wuss heah than anywheres,” said Evers. “Reckon life is aboot the same wherever you go. I remember Texas when I was a boy. This heah Utah, is a picnic to live in compared to my home State then. Rich men do things that poor men cain’t. There’s always men in high positions thet oughtn’t to be there. Or so it seems to us poor devils who have to hold the sack. But after you live a long while, like me, an’ can look back a ways, you see thet everythin’ happens for the best an’ things work out better than if you done it yourself.”

“Jim, your philosophy is fine,” rejoined Eburne. “I wish I could accept it. But I’m still full of protest and fight—at this particular time against both the forest service officials, high and low, and the outside cattlemen.”

“Thad, where’d it ever get you?” asked Evers with blunt kindness.

“Nowhere, materially. But I don’t live just to get on and up in the world. If my conscience tells me a thing is wrong I’m against it. That’s all. And I’ll say so.”

“Wal, a fellar’s conscience can feel somethin’s wrong, like what we was hintin’ aboot Settlemire. But thet ain’t proof. An’ thet’s why it’ll be wise to keep your mouth shut. No one ever caught Settlemire even on the edge of a shady deal. Either he’s honest or hard business or just slick.”

“Jim, you know Bing Dyott, don’t you?” queried Thad.

“I shore do. I knowed him in Texas thirty years ago. If all I know aboot thet hombre was told he’d go to jail for the rest of his life an’ then hang. . . . But what’s Dyott got to do with this argyment? He’s different.”

“Blakener saw Dyott meet Settlemire in these woods and hold a conference that was sure serious, if no more.”

Evers looked astounded and had to hear Eburne’s account of the rendezvous witnessed by Blakener, after which he lapsed into silence.

“Wal,” he said at length, “thet has a queer look. There’s no mebbe aboot it. Dyott was foreman of an outfit in Utah some years ago. Settlemire bought it. He let Dyott run it. Then, a year or more ago, when the law went off grazin’ permits, Dyott showed up heah on this range. Looks queer!”