A Silver Girdle

By Claire W. Noall

(Previous chapter)

Chapter 3

Synopsis: Mr. Tom Reynolds, a Westerner by birth, but a New Yorker by business, loses his fortune in the depression, and decides to take his family out to their Utah ranch which bordered the Uinta Mountains. They intend to establish a guide camp at Mirror Lake in the Uintas to take fishermen into the primitive areas. The title to the ranch has been threatened by Adams, one of Tom’s creditors. Tom has to establish the fact that he had deeded the property to his daughter Eileen in good faith in order to save the ranch.

The Reynolds family leave their beautiful home in New York to commence life in the West. Eileen becomes interested in the forest Ranger who is stationed at Rainbow Lake in the Uintas when she sees him in the office of the supervisor in Provo. But he does not return her interest. Rebuffed, she fancies there may be developments when they meet at Rainbow. To her surprise, the developments occur before that time. She meets him in an isolated spot on her own ranch. Again the sparks fly, and Eileen leaves abruptly.

CAMP REYNOLDS
Saddle-Horses — Pack-Horses —
Guides
To the Interior of the
UINTAS
Fishing Parties a Specialty

“THERE! How do you like that?” exclaimed Tom, cocking one eye at the newly painted sign he had just set up at the side of the road where the highway dips down to Mirror Lake.

“Snorky, Daddy. That ought to bring ’em in,” said Eileen.

“Gimminy, that’s swell, Daddy! Did Uncle Sam tell you to put up that sign?” asked Jimmie.

“Don’t be naive, Jim,” said Eileen with a superior air.

“What’s naive?”

“Simple!”

“Uncle Sam gave me permission to put it up, son.”

“Well, at any rate, it can be seen,” was Dadai’s comment on the family enterprise.

They had arrived at their new camp-site but recently.

One day, while they were still over at Timber Toes, late spring had stolen in and lifted winter’s mantle from the shoulders of the hills before their very eyes. With a rush and a heave great masses of solid snow were released from high passes to settle in drifts of powdery white below. And then, they too, disappeared. Gray branches were spattered with green. And Dadai had smiled as her mountain eyrie was warmed with new sunshine.

The horses were brought in from the range and picketed, in readiness for their climb up to Mirror. Tom, McClain, Slim, one of the cowboys, Eileen, and Jimmie were to cross the ridge. They hoped to get twelve saddle horses and fourteen pack animals over by riding their own mounts and leading the others.

Mac was to return to the ranch. Tom felt uneasy about Adams’ claim, and he would leave the place with no less a man than McClain. As busy as Reynolds was, working out his scheme for the guide-camp, he was forever searching in his mind for added means of proof to establish his integrity and good intentions about the deed. He’d had no word in answer to a letter he’d written to Ming Low. And Adams was being nasty.

Tom planned to send a sheep-wagon thirty miles down the Weber River to Oakley with Squint, another horse-wrangler who was to help at camp. Dadai was to ride in the wagon. Her heart fluttered so from the natural terror which assails so many easterners in the presence of high mountains and great open spaces it would have been most inadvisable for her to drive over the steep narrow road to Mirror. Tom could come down for the car later. Two good milk cows were to follow the wagon in which would be packed the tent top, an iron stove, and the kitchen utensils. The pack train would carry everything but the bulkiest of their belongings. The party would have to stay all night in Oakley; the distance from Timber Toes to Mirror is too great for one day’s trip by team. Here Dadai intended to shop for a big order of groceries. Not for nothing had Florella McClain been teaching her the lore of the mountain woman. After her arrival at the ranch, when Dadai’s meals had not been seasoned with the salt from her tears, they had hardly been seasoned at all; but she was trying to get the upper hand of this life for Tom’s sake.

She set out in the wagon with just one hope, that she really would live to see the camp-site beyond the ridge at Mirror Lake. Tom and the others expected to leave by horseback twenty-four hours later.

NOW, at Mirror, as they surveyed the sign, she put her arm through her husband’s and walked away from the highway down the side road to their new camp.

She refused to wear trousers except when she took her riding lesson from Tom. Eileen was at home in nothing else. Cords, boots, flannel shirt, ten-gallon hat — her regular habit.

“Oh Tom, do you think she’ll ever be a lady again?” asked Dadai mournfully as Eileen and Jimmie went skipping down the road, followed by Chance and Spot barking at their heels.

“Of course, Eileen’s always a lady. Aren’t you her mother?” “Sweet.”

Tom took up his hammer and nails. He was putting their furniture together with lumber he had hauled from the CCC camp on the other side of the divide. Slim and Squint were driving fence posts to picket the corral. Tom was fixing for real outdoor comfort. Dadai had not yet seen the meaning of that word in these surroundings.

He had laid their tent floor with broad planks, and covered the upright beams with canvas. He had set up a bed of rough pine boards and had made a crude cupboard. In the corner stood the stove. There was space for a table and benches. Eileen and Jimmie had their beds in the sheep wagon. Slim and Squint occupied a tent. They had all been busy building a trough to bring down their spring water, constructing a “desert refrigerator” of gunny sacks for their mountain habitat, and making one enclosure for the cows and another for the horses. Eileen was so handy with the axe, hammer, and saw, the cooking was left pretty much to Dadai.

No one said a word if the fish or the meat was raw in the middle or the bread was burned black on the outside.

“Delicious!” pronounced the family.

“Thanks,” nodded Dadai — and not a smile was feigned.

One evening, just as she dropped the last piece of cheese in a kettle of campers’ goulash the dogs began to bark with a note of greeting in their husky voices.

Looking out of the tent door, she saw Tom going to meet a little man coming down the road on horseback.

“Dave!” she heard him say, “I knew you’d come.”

Tom grasped Morley’s hand, and walked back down the road beside the horse. “Man, you’re just in time. Can you sit around with a plate on your lap?

“Dadai,” he called, as he saw her in the doorway. “Our first guest. You remember Dave Morley. He’s come to pay us a woodsman’s call.”

“How nice. Do come in, Mr. Morley,” said Dadai, as if she were inviting him into her drawing room.

A gleam shot from Morley’s smiling eyes as he shook her hand. It was not lost on Dadai. Are you amused? thought she. But his friendship was so sincere and hearty her trust in him grew, and her confidence in herself strengthened as she uncovered a dutch oven of steaming beans she took from a bean-hole in the ground.

“Boy, does that make a man hungry!” said Morley. “But I’m not eating ’til I’ve said ‘howdy’ to that little dog of yours. Where’s he hiding?”

“Pim’s curled up under the blanket on the bed in the tent. Are you laughing up your sleeve, Mr. Morley?” asked Dadai, as Morley’s grin crept into full being.

“Can you ask an honest man a question like that? But I do want a look at that dog.”

Just then Eileen and Jimmie came running up the path in answer to the ringing sound of the iron pipe Tom lightly touched as their call to supper. In came Slim and Squint — they all ate together.

Greetings over,

Dadai dished up the beans and goulash as Eileen passed the plates; they all sat around with one on their laps; the table had not yet been built.

“I’m on my way over to Rainbow, to meet Baring. He guards this water-shed and keeps on the lookout for fire. It’s a great life fer a young feller like him. The Gov-mint’s mighty good to them that works fer the U. S. A.”

“Just what are the opportunities in the Forestry Service?” asked Dadai.

“Wood chem’stry, prevent’n the spread o’ disease ‘n blight. Canyon nurs’ries, eggsec’tive jobs. Much more’n yu’d think. Baring’s got a good chance. He’s a stoodent o’ for’stry over at the Col’rado Aggies. He’s doin’ his field work up here ‘fore he goes back t’ gradeate school at Yale. Baring won a scholarship, he did.”

Eileen dropped the salt shaker.

“What’s the matter with that girl?” thought Tom.

“He might know forestry — he doesn’t know English,” snapped Eileen.

“What do you know about him?” exclaimed Tom. “I was just going to ask Morley when we might meet Baring.”

“I don’t know much about him, but I do know more about some things than he does.”

“Eileen,” protested her mother, “what about a little explanation?”

“There isn’t anything to explain, Mother. Never mind.” Eileen walked over to the refrigerator for some more milk.

“You’ll shore like that boy, Tom. It’ll be a pleasure t’ be in the same forest with him.”

“Come on, Jim; you’ve got to wipe these dishes for me,” ordered Eileen, as she rattled the plates and cups into a dishpan she had plumped down on a stool.

As the shadows deepened, the air was crisp and cold. The brittle stars glittered as they hung like ornaments on the primeval pines that stood around them in silence, reaching into the heavens. Everybody bundled up in sweaters and blankets, and sat around a crackling pine blaze while Tom and Dave swapped stories of the range and the woods. Eileen’s mood gradually gave way to a great dreaminess.

“Tom, don’t you feel concerned to have Eileen riding about alone in this wooded maze?” asked Dadai, late the next afternoon.

“No, Dadai. It’s no longer a maze to her. She’s sensing the feel of the contour remarkably well.”

“But, dear, we seem so utterly apart from everything human. I worry about her, being out alone.”

“She’s not alone. She’s with Nitana. That mare’s better protection than most humans — she’s got horse-sense,” Tom casually observed with a sideward glance at his wife as he pounded another nail into the pine table.

“Meaning what?” huffied she.

“Oh, my dear! No allusions. My mind’s as free from guile as this furniture. How’s that for style?” He plumbed the table.

“For camp style, it’s perfect. It trims the trees.”

“Meaning what?” he puzzled.

“The table’s appropriate for the setting.”

“Dadai! That lets you out as a tenderfoot. You’ll be a camper, yet.”

“No, I won’t, Tom; I’ll never make a camper!” Her mood changed like wind on water. “When we lie down to sleep at night I feel as if I’m cloistered in a solitary world. I’ve never known such aloneness. The soughing of the wind in the pines is like a long tragic moan rending the heart of the forest. And there’s no one to ease its suffering.”

“Oh my darling, do you really feel that way? Is that what I’ve brought you to?” Tom knelt on the ground beside her stool. Taking her hands in his, he looked searchingly into her face.

“That’s why I’m afraid for Eileen when she rides off by herself. Every ravine and valley looks like a blind ally to me; they run in such random directions.”

“Honey, there’s nothing to fear for one who senses the spirit of the forest. You’re right; it has got a great heart, but it throbs in unison with its lover’s own. Here, in the High Uintas, there’s almost no wild life of any kind. Even with this wonderful forage, the barriers are so high and the summer season is so short that only a very few mountain sheep, deer, and cougar find their way up here. And, you know, dear, that all wild animals remain under cover unless forced into the open. A few stunted chippies and these camprobber birds are your only company.”

“You certainly said it! There is no company. I never dreamed we’d be so utterly alone. I miss Florella; she was like a mother to me over at Timber Toes.”

“We won’t be alone when the Lodge is opened. There’ll be ever so many people coming in here for a week or two at a time. And that’s where we’ll get a lot of our patronage. Many of the lodgers will want us to take them over to the Granddaddies for fishing.”

“Where are the Granddaddies?”

“Twelve miles over. The Big Granddaddy cups the cirque at the base of a high ridge in the south rim. It’s only one of many beautiful lakes in that basin. When will you let me take you into the forest, dearest? If you once get the lay-out of these mountains, they won’t depress you any more,” he said tenderly.

A LITTLE quivering shudder crept over Dadai. “Oh Tom, if I just could turn woodsman.”

“It takes time, darling. You’ve been a butterfly resting in the lap of luxury for a long time. But you’ve been wonderful out here; I’m proud of you!”

“It doesn’t seem hard for Eileen and Jimmie.”

“You forget that Eileen spent several summers at Camp Andre in New York learning these tricks while you were in Europe. And Jim’s just a kid. Youngsters can take to anything. Besides, I’ve had them both out West with me a couple of times before this.”

Dadai sighed.

“Discouraged sweetheart?” Tom lifted her chin with his hand. “I’ll tell you — you be Princess With-Red-Gold-In-Your-Hair! And I? I’ll be heap big chief Strongheart! How’s that?” he challenged as he kissed her.

“I’ll try, Tom. I’ll do my best. If it weren’t for these beastly mosquitoes. You forgot to mention them when you were speaking of the wild life around here. Just look at my skin!”

“I’ll burn sweet-grass for incense; that’ll keep them away. Skin or no skin, you’re more beautiful than ever, little red-head.

“Ridiculous one.”

“Well, being ridiculous doesn’t buy shoes for the horses. Let’s get this outdoor cupboard done, and then for another riding lesson.”

“I’m too stiff from yesterday’s workout.”

“Another little canter will help to limber you up. I want to get you on top of Baldy. A bird’s eye view of these woods and lakes, ravines and peaks will straighten you out like a dose of — .”

“Tom, is that nice?” Dadai intercepted his pass.

“No, honey, but I’ve got to clear your mind of all doubts and fears.” “I’m for the top of Baldy, then, if you have to carry me.”

“You can look out over all creation from up there. There are hundreds of lakes in sight. Away to the west, you see two great gorges in the Wasatch Mountains, carved by the Provo and the Weber Rivers. They rise within a stone’s throw of each other at Baldy’s foot, but they spread far apart in finding their way to Great Salt Lake. The gorge of the Bear is off to the north; it flows into the Salt Lake, too. Then, when you turn, and look to the east, you see where the Duchesne cuts through the Uintas. The North Fork of the Duchesne rises in Mirror Lake, but it finds its way to the sea through the Green and the Colorado Rivers. All the waters on this side of Baldy feed the Pacific.” “That little trickle, meandering out of Mirror Lake! It doesn’t look as if it could ever get to the ocean.”

“You’d be surprised how soon that trickle becomes a river. Just
over there, about five miles from here, it is a swift stream, flowing through a deep impassable gorge.” “It is these sudden changes and impassable places that haunt me. I wish Eileen were home.”

“Surely, she won’t go far. I’ve cautioned her about wearing her courage on her sleeve.”

“Caution isn’t in her language, Tom. That girl knows no fear!” “She isn’t afraid because she understands Nature’s signs. She interprets the small landmarks in relation to the large.”

“I suppose Nature is an open book to you and her.”

“Hardly. I’ve been teaching Eileen and Jim the lay of the Uintas a step at a time. Our next lesson is to be from the top of Agassiz, a nice little pinnacle, more than thirteen thousand feet high. If we look out over the range from that point in the high line on the north . . .”

“Tom! That’s where Eileen’s gone. I heard her tell Slim, just before you came back from the CCC camp, that she was going to take the short cut over to the high line.”

“Oh no, Dadai! She isn’t ready for the short cut, alone. I’ve only had her over it once. Even Eileen could become confused and never find the trail. You must be mistaken, dear.”

“No, Tom. I heard her say she was going to try Agassiz’s fourth rib. 4 It hasn’t a stitch of verdure on it,’ she said. ‘But I’ll not scale the summit without Dad.’ Of course I thought she had your permission.”

“Permission, nothing! It’s much farther away than the child realizes.” Tom’s anxiety was plain to Dadai.

“Oh Tom, I’d rather have gone clerking in New York than to go mad out here. I can’t stand it!”

“Listen, Dadai! You find yourself something to do. You said you’d plant a row of radishes and carrots in our experimental garden. Just as soon as I’ve seen the men I’m expecting from the hatchery I’ll start out to meet her.”

“Go now! Slim can talk to the men.”

“No. It’s my first job, and it’s a big one. They want an outfit for several days to go down to a little known basin south of here. Nine chances to ten Eileen’s all right. But I will start as soon as I can.” Tom looked anxiously at Agassiz. Clouds had been gathering for some time behind the mountain. Tom’s attention was called to some work that Slim and Squint were doing about the corral.

As the day grew late, Jimmie asked his mother to help him get the pails for the milking. He had learned quickly to fill them with the foaming fluid and he was as proud as the frog that went a-wooing. Dadai started supper. All at once, as though a great black hand had smitten the earth with a hideous shadow, the golden light of the slanting sun was ominously darkened.

Looking up, she saw enormous mounds of leaden clouds piling into the sky from behind the broken peaks and ridges on the north.

Suddenly, the wind whistled through her clothing. The air changed abruptly. It grew damp and cold. Great drops of water splashed on the grass at her feet. The balsamy fragrance of the forest retreated from the moist odor of dusty earth wet by the rain.

The tall pines swayed; their branches tossed; little chippies scurried for shelter; Dadai shivered.

“Go into the tent, darling! I must see to the horses,” shouted Tom, trying to be heard above the uproar of the storm. “Where’s Jim?”

Tom raced over to the horses. They had backed against the wind, but their manes and tails were beating wildly in the rushing air like weird brooms of the devil.

“Jimmie! Jimmie!” called Dadai. She threw on a coat and ran out to fetch her boy, as she remembered he was milking.

Peals of thunder crashed from jagged clouds, split by lightning.

The rain tore down in volleys. And then it suddenly ceased. But as Dadai looked off in the direction of Agassiz she saw the mountain veiled in nebulous white. It was snowing up there. Agassiz’s summit was no longer naked, sharp, and piercing, but diaphanously softened through sifting flakes. “Father in Heaven — Eileen!” she supplicated.

“Mama! Daddy!” shrieked Jim.

“Where are you!” called Dadai. Her concern for Jimmie had been momentarily lost in her consuming anxiety for Eileen.

She rushed over to meet her child. There he came, gouging his eyes with his fists, trying to shove back the tears. He was spattered with white, himself, but not with snow. “Bammie kicked the bucket,” he said as if his heart would break. “I fell off the stool. I’m all covered with milk.” He choked on a big sob.

As Dadai took Jimmie into the tent, Tom galloped up on Onesta, his buckskin thoroughbred. “Keep the men from the hatchery here, Dadai. I’m going out for Eileen!”

MANY hours earlier, Eileen had picked her way through the forest exulting in the freedom of the woods. She rode Indian fashion, gripping Nitana’s shoulders with her knees, and letting her body ease freely into the horse’s motion.

What I don’t know, Nitana does, she thought, retracing the short cut which her father had showed her from camp to the highline running to the east. I must learn my way about if I’m going to be a real help to Dad.

The first gentians were opening their blue campanulas to the sky. Star flowers were shooting upward. Along the banks of dimpling streams stalks of tiny white orchids starred the deep grass. In the shadow of the trees spring beauty and dog tooth violets were poking their heads through the last snows.

Eileen looked with delight at these first flowers. She sniffed the scent of the pines; lodge-pole, “jack,” and white. Her thoughts went back to her life in New York as she rode on in this all-pervading green. Wayne . . . dances . . . parties. There was no regret, although Wayne was ever in her mind. No mail was delivered at Mirror Lake until the Lodge opened. But Slim had been down to the Kamas post office to get the Reynolds mail; however, there was no letter from Wayne.

It will come, thought Eileen. That is … it should come; Wayne won’t forget. He might renege. She denied the doubt. Brent, she thought of him so, wouldn’t renounce his sweetheart if she went to China. But he isn’t quite nice . . . female … if his eyes are true . . . those gray. . .”

Nitana jostled her leg against the trunk of a tree in clearing a boulder. Eileen’s thoughts were suddenly recalled to the steepness of her way. The undulations were very rough and irregular. Then the trees became sparse, and here Nitana had to step warily over a white band of shattered rocks. A rising cross-fold deflected her from her forward direction.

“I remember this,” said Eileen aloud. “And you, Nitana, do you see that fallen timber? Take your time to pick your way through that. As we come out of the thicket we’ll hit the trail. I know we will.”

It never dawned on her that she could be causing any anxiety to her parents.

AS she expected, she found the trail. She followed the blaze, an unmistakable gash in the trunks of the trees every sixty feet or so. Soon it skirted the timber line. Then she struck the first steep flank of Agassiz, rising abruptly from the uppermost fringe of pines. Dismounting, she hobbled Nitana and ran forward. As she measured the height of the mountain with her eye, she ran back and tethered her horse with a long rope she always carried. “If I can just climb this first flank, I’ll get an idea of the range from here. I can’t see through the forest. I want to see over it — my wooded paradise!”

The altitude stimulated her to quick rapid climbing, although the mountain was frightfully steep and difficult. She pulled herself over giant boulders and up vertical steps. When she stopped for breath her heart surged up in her throat, so rapid was its pounding. However, she struggled upward for a long time, never realizing how the time was passing.

She picked her way over the upturned strata until the angle of ascent suddenly increased from forty-five to nearly eighty degrees. Eileen stood upon a narrow shelving rock. She was far from the top, but she had a magnificent view as she looked out over the living-green waves of the forest and the serrated rows of hills. She could see a chain of lakes linking the mountain floor like a girdle of irregular silver coins. Rainbow; she thought. You’re nestled right in the heart of these high mountains. She smiled radiantly. Pushing upward again, she was oblivious to the lowering storm.

Suddenly, with no warning whatever, the breeze, ever-present on all high mountains, whipped into a strong wind. The heavy clouds that had been forming back of the mountain rolled into the sky over Agassiz’s peak — Eileen was caught in the downpour.

The thunder crashed above her head; the lightning sizzled as it snapped. The rain stung her face like hissing pelts. It beat her. It turned to hail — frozen bullets from the sky — and then snow, so thick she was blinded.

She began to feel her way down
the rocks. But they were wet and slippery. Through the whiteness of the snow the gloom of the day’s last light penetrated.

Eileen was numb with cold. She was no longer sure of her footing. “What shall I do? What shall I do?” her voice rose in a hysterical slant. “Oh no! I mustn’t go there. I came up this ridge! I must go down the same way.” Her progress was painfully slow. As the snow thickened she hesitated more and more.

“Go on — go on! Keep your head!” she said, as if urging someone else. She felt giddy. She brushed her forehead with the back of her hand. She staggered and lost her balance. Stumbling she fell and wrenched her ankle. Stunned by the sickening pain, as the snowy flakes spun around her head, she sank to the ground in a dizzy faint.

(To be continued)