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About Vernonia eagle. (Vernonia, Or.) 1922-1974 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 8, 1937)
VERNONIA EAGLE, VERNONIA, OREGON 4 GUNLOCK RANCH '■ Copyright Frank H. Spearman CHAPTER VII—Continued —9— 4 1 i She remounted and rode tip the Divide trail. The smoke was so dense that it cut off hope of see ing the valley, and, spurred by the determination to see by riding high er, she rode on and on till she found herself at the foot of Gun lock Knob. Jane headed the pony up the mountain. The summit had never seemed so hard to reach but, panting and exhausted, the pony carried Jane to the summit, and she rode out on the table to look. The scene below was terrifying. Huge clouds of smoke billowed and spread, only to boil up anew and race on the wind. It seemed as if the whole country were in flames. Here and there tongues of fire shot from the rolling smoke. Weary, at length, and depressed, Jane turned her pony’s head to ride home. Gunlock itself might be In danger. Even the pony took the down ward trail reluctantly. Jane could not tell why until, rounding a shoulder of the Knob, she saw be low lier a Are sweeping across the trail she was following. Worse than that, the Are was spurting through the brush, up the moun tain. In front of her. The pony balked. Thoroughly frightened, Jane turned him up the narrow trail and headed for the summit. Even the few moments she had been away from the top had changed the scene. Overwhelmed with consternation, she began to think anew of her own safety. She urged the pony swiftly down the trail again, hoping faintly to find some hidden by-pass. Her path was blocked. The hot air of the tire below was catching at her throat; gusts of smoke burned in to her eyes. She reined about to return, despairing, to the summit. Once again the level rock afford ed her temporary refuge. She dis mounted. The pony was growing unmanageable. He snorted, stamped, flung his head up and down and chewed frantically at his bit. Hope deserted her. She sank to her knees and fell forward, covering her face with her arms. For a moment her mind was a blank. She heard nothing of a frantic calling of her name, when a singed and blackened horseman spurred and lashed his pony toward her, sprang from the saddle, and caught her up in his arms. “Jane!” he cried, as he looked Into her face and shook her In his effort to restore consciousness. “Jane! Open your eyes! Speak to me! It's Bill, Jane, Bill! Can't you hear me? Speak I" Her eyes opened; she looked in a daze at him. “It’s Bill, Jane!” She threw her arms convulsively around bis neck. “Oh, Bill, Bill! What can we do? Must we die, Bill, in this horror?” “No1" he exclaimed. “We can get through. But we mustn’t lose a minute, not a second. Come!" He half carried her to an edge of the summit, where a rock crevice gave a slight footing a few feet be low. Into this he lowered himself and raised his arms to Jane. “But the horses. Bill?” she cried. “Leave them,’ he called back. “They may escape. There’s no footing for horses where we're go ing. Quick, Jane! Jump!” He caught her in his arms, steadied her, showed her how to secure herself in the precarious footing, and lowered himself to another slender ledge to brace himself, bade her spring, and caught her again in his arms. Her heart beat so violently, he seemed to feel It as she hugged close to him. There was barely room for the two to stand. “Keep cool, Jane. We can make it, but be very, very careful of your foot ing, darling Jane. The Are hasn't touched this side of the mountain WNU Service yet, but If you fell it would be a hundred feet." Spurned to superhuman effort, Denison achieved the almost impos sible, and by sliding, clinging with fingers, hands and arms, and by carefully using his lariat, he man aged to bring Jane down unharmed to the foot of the precipitous wall that had given him the bare chance to save her life. He held out his arms to catch her for the Anal jump. “Bill!” she exclaimed, breathing hard and looking tip in sheer amazement at the precipice down which be bad brought her. “How did we ever get down there alive?” He was still very anxious—the wrinkled veins of his smoked fore head plainly mirrored that She waited for orders. “We must run through that grove of quaking asp and try to get away from the Knob. This will all be burning in a few minutes. Are you able to run?” “1’11 bet I can run faster than you, Bill.” The laughing tone of her words thrilled and cheered him. He knew better than she what still lay between them and safety. They hastened on through the light tim ber; then, running a broad shoul der, they saw a vast panorama of smoke, lighted In places by flames. Denison hurried on, Jane briskly keeping pace with him. But when they neared the smoking pine, she felt dismayed. "Bill, it’s all on fire, yet—look at the little blazes. See the ground pine, and the trees are smoking and burning yet. Bill! See the deer running, too—why, every animal you can think of—” “They'd better run,” said Denison grimly. “We must do some more running ourselves, Jane. There’s very little danger crossing this strip. But I w’ant to get across it quick.” They dashed into the fire area to gether. Little tongues of flame darted from the still burning ground, but nothing to threaten Jane’s stout laced boots or leather trousers. They crossed the burned strip and broke together down a long slope that bordered another forest of pine. Denison paused and looked anx iously at Jane. “How are you standing it, girl?” She was panting, but game. Her high-colored cheeks, the flashing brightness of her eyes, her parted eager lips, made her a picture. “Fine, Bill. Are we out of dan ger?” They were standing together In the wind and smoke that swirled and eddied up the mountain. His hand was at her back as she leaned on his arm. Perhaps overwhelmed by the thought of what he must say, he hugged her close and, drawing her unresisting lips to his own, held them in a long kiss. “I wish we were, Jane. We’re going only now into danger—I wish it weren’t so, Jane.” “Oh, Bill!” said Jane. “Don't think of me—do just as if I were not here.” She threw her own arms around his neck, and their lips met again in passionate appeal. “Then come, Jane. We must dash through this pine before that fire you hear roaring catches up to us.” “Is that awful roar from a fire, Bill?” “It is. It’s our worst danger. Let’s go, Jane.* To cross the wide belt of pine their course lay obliquely downhill If anything were needed to spur them on, the thunder of the Are sweeping down the forest behind served as a dread warning that they had only minutes left to escape dis aster. Halfway down the ridge, Denison paused to rest Jane in his arms. She was panting like an antelope. "Brave girl!” he murmured. “Not a sob—not a tear—" “But we must burry, Bill,” she panted. “Get a little breath for the next run.” “Can we make it, Bill, dear?” “We’ve got to make it," he mut tered. “I’ll save you, Jane, if it’s the last thing I do in life.” “Don't save me unless you save yourself—remember that!" “Come! We must make the spring—the spring!” The timber was thinning, the ground growing rougher. The frontiersman and cowman who had gone through every adventure that befalls a man in a life of danger and escape made little of finding safe footing from rock to rock. He himself saw, before Jane real ized it, that the end of her strength was at hand. Striving vainly to keep up she stumbled and with a little moan fell forward on the ground. Denison picked her up in bls arms. She could not speak , only panted. “Put me down, Bill! Put me down!" she sob6ed when she could With their trial of endurance al most at an end, a sudden explosion burst In the air above them. Den ison, forgetting his caution, opened his eyes in the fear that a tree was falling. His eyeballs were scorched in a fraction of a second. He dashed ills face back into the wa ter; but mischief had been done. At last the terrific outburst abat ed. With the hope of life reanimat ed, the two rose in the pool in their steaming clothing. Darkness fell from the sky above, but the forest was lighted with smoking and burn ing tree torches, the afterglow of its destruction. The two who had passed through and escaped a hideous catastrophe stood clasped in each other’s arms thanking God and dellrous in a new found, intimate happiness. “Water!" exclaimed Denison. “I’m perishing, in spite of my cold bath. Aren't you thirsty?" “Yes, but not suffering. I didn’t have to carry you, you know." Moving a few feet up to the basin of the spring itself, they pushed aside debris from the water's sur face, drank from their cupped hands, and dashed water over their faces. “Jane,” said Denison when he rose again, “it was almost worth it for the way it's brought you and me together.” “It was," she whispered. “I've given you my trust.” “For all time, Jane?” “For all time, Bill. Nothing shall ever part us, now." I CHAPTER VIII ICKING their way haltingly and cautiously down through smok P ing pines, dodging burning limbs “We Must Do Some More Running Ourselves, Jane.” breathe and form the words. “You must save yourself! Is the spring far, now?” “Not far. Clasp your arms tight around my neck,” was all he said, leaping along. “You can’t save us both; save yourself. You are dearer to me than my life, Bill.” “So are you to me. Hang on," he panted. “I’ll never put you down 1” After another run be paused. "Bill, I can run a little now. Let me try it. Please, dear! Let me try 1” He shook his head and struggled on. The fire was only minutes be hind him, its roar deafening. A cry roused Jane in bis arms. “The spring!” She cried to him in happy an swer. There was not an Instant to spare. He slid down the steep side of the hollow that enclosed tbe spring. Jane, still In his arms, he rolled into the pool and lay pant ing beside her. The shock of the icy water revived her. He soused her head into the water. The pool was wide enough to submerge Jane, but not himself. He rolled In tbe shallower edge, wet himself all over and, holding her head just clear of the surface as she sputtered and coughed, gave her orders: "Keep your face down. Don’t, don’t open your eyes. You're safe if you do exactly as I say.” Tbe heart of the fire was on them. They could no longer hear or think. Flame bellied and danced. Tongues of fire licked at their hid ing heads. Denison mechanically dipped water into Jane’s hair. Con sciousness was nearly gone. Only tbe effort to live and the fleree in stinct to protect animated him. that snapped and crackled menac ingly overhead or crashed to the ground about them, the refugees emerged from the forest and could see that Denison’s ranch buildings had escaped the flames. The instant they reached the ranch house, Denison ran to the well, Ailed tbe water bucket, and carried it to Jane. Sitting on the ground, bareheaded, they slaked their thirst out of the dipper to gether. Denison turned to the corral. Jane, who had gone into the house, had got the fire going and was slic ing bacon when she heard the clat ter of hoofs outside, and angry voices. "Where’s my daughter, you damned scoundrel?” were the first words she made out The sound of the voice that uttered them sent her running, tbe knife still in her hand, to the door. Amazed to dumbness, she saw her father and McCrossen in the saddle, facing Denison, who stood at the gate of his corral. "Van Tambel,” Denison spoke carefully, “you're too old a man for me to quarrel with. Just remem ber you’re on my property and keep a civil tongue in your head." “I don’t want no truck with you, Denison," shouted Van Tambel, rag ing. “Where’s my girl?" McCrossen had reined about and was starting for tbe house. “Swing back here, McCrossen,” Denison sang out sharply. “Stop right where you are. My cabin's not open to public Inspection!" “I don't give a damn for your cabin. There’s Jane.” tbe foreman shouted, “standing In the doorway.” Jane ran across the yard to the angry men. “Father!” she cried. “What in the world are you doing here? What brought you from the hospital?” Her father's deep-set, piggy eyes flashed his fury on her. “You wench! Living with this man, are you ?" “Father!” Outraged womanhood never spoke the word more stlng- ingly. “Is it possible you insult me so vilely before you have heard a single word?" she said. “What have I to do with your grudges and quarrels?" Rigid and erect, storming within and striking with white-hot words at tier parent's base Intimation, Jane silenced tbe men about her by her outraged dignity. “What shameful words have you heard—and from whom”—she bare ly Indicated her father’s companion by a lightning flash of her eye— “that put such vile thoughts into your head?” She waited for no an swer. “I rode to the peak of Gun lock Knob to see how the fire was heading—it has threatened Gun lock Ranch for two days. When I tried to ride down this afternoon, the fire cut me off. I should have been burned to death where I stood on the peak if Bill Denison hadn’t ridden up through another fire to save me. And now after fighting our way for hours through smoke and flame, he brings me down by the only possible way, to hear me foully insulted by my own father. This is too much!” “Look here, Jane!” bellowed her father in retreat. “You come out here for your health, didn't you?” "i didn’t come out here to be grossly Insulted,” she retorted. “Where’s your pony?” “Heavens knows where it Is, or where Bill Denison's is. 1 hope they’re not burned up.” “Well, come along home. Mc Crossen will lend you his horse.” “He needn’t. I will walk borne just as soon ns I have cooked some bacon for Bill Denison." “Come along now.” “Did you hear me? I’ll come home”—each word was defiantly emphasized—“when I have made coffee and cooked bacon for Bill Denison. When you get home, be kind enough to ask Bull Page to saddle a horse for me and bring it over.” With this, Jane walked swiftly back to the cabin. Van Tambel, In a muttering rage, fol lowed by McCrossen, started home. A slender supper was at length got together. Then Jane made Denison lie back in a chair and submit to cold compresses on bls eyes. Waiting for Bull Page proved no hardship, but when the hands of Denison's little alarm lock pointed to midnight it dawned on Jane that her request had been ignored and that her father or McCrossen had meant she should walk home or compromise herself by staying all night at Denison’s. She boiled a bit inside when she realized the situation, but prepared to walk. To this Denison would not listen. He got up two ponies— he had but one extra saddle—and, despite her objections and protests, insisted on riding home with her. It needed no announcer in the morning to tell Jane that her fa ther had come home. She lay, ex hausted and with every bone in her body aching, beyond her usual ris ing time. But there was an un usual scurrying about outside her room. Jane came to the table as her fa ther was leaving IL “I want to see you after breakfast,” was the gruff greeting he vouchsafed Jane. She found Van Tambel seated at his desk in his bedroom, looking over bills. Jane went up to him. “I could hardly believe my eyes when I saw you yesterday, father,” she said coldly. “Did the doctor give you permission to come home?” After a shuffling of papers came the first shot at Jane: “What did you fire McCrossen for?” "Because he refused to obey or ders," she retorted instantly. “Whose orders?" “My orders.” “Who owns this ranch?” “You do. And,” she added, keen eyed. “you made me manager.” “I’ll take that job off your shoul ders. McCrossen is foreman here now. And I am boss. Now what about this skunk, Denison?” “What about Mr. Denison, fa ther?” “He’s a crook. And as long as you live, keep away from him.” “What has he ever done to you that's wrong, father?” “He and his brother’s been trying for Ave years to beat me out of Gunlock Spring and all that ranch land back of it. (TO BE CONTINUED)
