Collected Works of Zane Grey, page 1362
“Wal, you can see from hyar,” said Vince. “I could drive a wagon up thet slope without any road.”
“It does look pretty good going,” replied Linc squinting up the sage slope. “But it may be pretty rough over the hill.”
“What do you aim to do?” asked Thatcher.
“Find the easiest way we can to get in and out of that valley over there.”
“How far is it?”
“It’s eighteen miles or so from the Bandon ranch up the river, but I calculate it’s farther than that from here. Anyway we want to cut across the pass and work along the western rim just far enough so we see that we can cut a road down to the valley.”
“That sure will be fine,” declared Thatcher. “New job all by ourselves, a lot of pioneer work, plenty of game to hunt, log cabins to run up — I sure like the prospect.”
“I’ll be glad to quit this loafing spell, myself,” replied Bradway.
CHAPTER XIII
AT SUNRISE THE next morning Lincoln and his two comrades climbed the slope from South Pass to the summit of the hill. The day promised to be fair. The early morning air was cold and fresh, and there was just a touch of white frost on the sage. Once on top the eagle-eyed Vince pointed to a buckboard pulled by four horses winding up the road out of town toward the west.
“Wonder who that is?” queried Lincoln. “Hitting it up pretty fast on the grade.”
“I’ve seen thet buckboard before,” said Vince thoughtfully.
They rode on, finding the going fairly easy on top, with a slight upgrade, and straggling bits of brush and pine scattered over the terrain. Clumps of aspen and oak could be seen in the distance. The frosty sage took on a tinge of red, and the black stands of timber and the walls of gray rock and the long white slopes leading to the distant peaks all played a varicolored tribute to the sunrise. Lincoln found to his satisfaction that to make a road across the pass would require comparatively little labor. They kept to a course quartering away from a direct route across the pass. The thickets and the little groves of aspens and oaks increased with the altitude. A ride of perhaps five or six miles brought them to the narrow valley of the Sweetwater, which here was merely a wide ravine with shallow slopes choked with green timber so thick that the noisy river could be heard but not seen.
“Well, it’s easy enough to grade a road down here,” said Bradway. “I’ll tell you what, boys, I’ll go down and take the trail so as to save time. You work along this slope till you come to the valley, then look over the lay of the land and pick out the most suitable place westward to cut the road up to the level.”
“Pretty far, I’d say,” replied Vince. “I cain’t see the valley from hyah.”
“Well, you can figure on me riding up out of the valley some time this afternoon. You can keep your eyes peeled for me and I’ll do the same for you.”
The Nebraskan bade them good-by and urged his horse down the slope and into the brush. It was easy going underfoot but he had to twist and lay low in the saddle to keep from being brushed off by the low branches. As he descended, the thickets grew more and more open; presently he reached the level that he had calculated was several hundred yards across to the other slope. Groves of willows lined the bank of the sparkling and swift-flowing river. He rode out into a well-defined trail, in which he espied fresh pony tracks made no longer ago than that morning. They gave Lincoln an exuberant feeling of happiness. Assuredly these tracks had been made by Lucy’s pony swinging along at a good fast lope. He put Bay to a like gait and soon was flying along the cool, shady trail. The ravine grew more picturesque as he rode along, the trail twisting along a serpentine course, fording the river often over gravelly bars. There appeared to be a scarcity of birds, but deer, rabbits, and other small game were constantly springing across the clearings into the brush as he went by. On the rim of the slopes he saw antelope silhouetted against the blue sky and occasionally coyotes standing boldly watching him.
Presently the trail rounded a higher eminence on the valley slope, from which Linc was suddenly confronted by a breath-taking view of the length and breadth of Lucy’s wonderful valley. He stopped his horse, gazing spellbound out over the most beautiful valley he had ever seen in his life. He was eager to find Lucy, yet the scenic wonder of the vista before him compelled him to linger. He looked this way and that up the length of the long valley and across its wide breadth, along the precipitous walls. His quick eye saw slopes along which a road could be dug up to the top. The valley slopes on each side were gray and purple with sage with a fringe of golden willow at the base. Here and there were outcroppings of craggy rocks and vine-covered cliffs crowned with patches of green pine. A belt of bright green aspens with their white stems alternating with a rough border of oaks ran along the top of the farther wall. The sheltered valley under the looming mountains was of a deceptive size and dimension which Linc tried to estimate. He felt sure that it was at least four or five miles wide in the center and perhaps twice that long. Its floor was a level area of gold and green, along which meandered a stream shining like a ribbon bordered by willows and low bushes. As far as he could see the valley’s steep western slope consisted of gray sage and glistening rock forming cape after cape and scallop after scallop until they emerged in one magnificent escarpment which seemed to run up under the brow of the mountain. Now and again he caught glimpses of waterfalls, like white plumes against the blue and gray of the distant palisade.
With one last lingering look Linc set off up the trail again. As he rode along this lonely and beautiful valley he kept a sharp lookout for Lucy. It was several miles, however, before he caught a glimpse of her. The trail had borne somewhat to the left along a long bench leading down from the great escarpment. There was something familiar about this plateau above the river, and then it came to him that this was the homesite Lucy had described to him so enthusiastically. As he gazed upward at the bench his quick eye sighted something red glinting in the sunlight. In another instant he made out Lucy standing out on a rocky eminence waving her red scarf at him. As he spurred Bay along the trail at a reckless pace he seized his Stetson and waved it with boyish exhilaration. He found a fairly steep trail with two long zigzags leading up to the level bench. Reaching the level ground he halted Bay there, and as he leaped off he saw Lucy running toward him, her bare fair head shining in the sunlight, the red scarf streaming out behind. She was wearing her riding garb and looked like a slender graceful boy bounding forward to meet him. Her face was rosy, laughing, inexpressively sweet.
“Oh, Lincoln,” she screamed. “Here you are! In my valley! I saw you — all the way — from the entrance.”
He took her in his arms and held her, murmuring over and over again, “My wife, my darling Lucy.”
“Tell me quick,” she pleaded pantingly. “What do you think — of my — of our valley?”
“I haven’t had a good look yet,” replied Lincoln, “but from what little I saw it tops any place I ever saw.”
“Hurry then and take a hundred looks,” she commanded laughingly. “Stop looking at me. I want to know — if this is to be our home.”
“Lucy, I don’t have to see any more to decide that. Thatcher and Vince are on the other side somewhere, farther down from here, looking for a place to build a road.”
“Oh, we’ve got all that settled!” she exclaimed.
“We? Who’s we?”
“My old trapper friend, Ben Thorpe. His cabin is up here a ways. We’ll ride up to see him presently. He has trapped twenty- two hundred beaver skins this winter.”
“That’s something!” exclaimed her husband, though he hadn’t heard a word, so entranced was he looking at Lucy’s happy countenance. “I saw beaver dams down below.”
“The valley and the streams that run into it are thick with them.”
“Perhaps we’d do better trapping than ranching.”
“I don’t approve of trapping,” said Lucy. “Come, let me show you where we can build our homestead. If you ever saw a more beautiful location I won’t believe you. See, this bench is level and has about ten or a dozen acres. It’s steep in front and on the side you enter, but the other slope has a gradual slant where we can grade a wagon road. It will run straight across the valley from here and up through the only outlet except the gateway through which you entered. Ben says if we fence that gateway, not a head of stock can ever climb out. What do you think of that?”
“I think it grows more wonderful all the time,” responded Lincoln.
“Now come this way,” she said, eagerly dragging him by one arm. “Did anyone ever have such a backyard as we are going to have? Look! There’s where our brook comes tumbling out over the rocks and runs around in a circle. Back here it forms a beautiful pool that’s actually so cram-jammed with big trout that there’s barely room for us to swim in it, even if the water were warm enough, and then it runs across the bench to cascade off the rocks just where you see the pines out there.” She finished out of breath, and Linc seized his advantage and kissed her again.
She led him several hundred yards back over the green sage and flower-dotted plateau. The rocky wall extended up rather high from that point in successive ledges and low vine-covered cliffs, over which an amber stream came tumbling down, skirted by tiny aspen thickets and clumps of oak, to enter the circle and pool Lucy had described. Then it emerged, plunged over a little waterfall, and took its merry and melodious way as a narrow stream that murmured gently out across the bench.
“Look!” exclaimed Lucy, clapping her hands and pointing like a little girl. “Look at that big trout! The pool is full of them. Ben says there are even more in this stream up above and down below the falls than in any other branch of the Sweetwater.”
“Say!” ejaculated Linc. “This just ain’t so. This is a dream.”
“Yes, it’s a dream come true, Lincoln. If only we can have the luck — Never mind, I just know everything’s going to turn out happily. Now look over here. Do you see those clouds of white steam? No, this way. About five hundred yards back and a little higher than we’re standing.”
“Oh, yes, I see it now,” replied Lincoln. “What’s that from? A geyser?”
“No, but it’s a spring of hot water, boiling water in fact, clean and pure without alkali or sulphur that can be piped right down to the house.”
“Well!” exclaimed Lincoln. “All made to order for us.”
“Think what boiling hot water will mean to a pioneer wife in the winter time.”
“Great!” agreed Lincoln.
“And Ben Thorpe says this valley is protected in winter,” continued Lucy. “It never gets terribly cold as it does out on the pass. We can put in a big garden here, irrigate it with cold or warm water, and grow more things to eat than anywhere else in this country.”
“You’ve had that all figured out a long time, haven’t you, Lucy?” queried her husband, with a gentle smile.
“Yes, I have. Oh, Lincoln, it’s been such great happiness to dream and plan.”
“Did you figure on any special kind of a pioneer to share this paradise with you?” he asked.
Lucy blushed. “I used to have visions of a husband,” she admitted, “but they sort of faded until — quite miraculously, I just stumbled onto one.... I think you know him! Oh, Lincoln, when do you think we can come up here and start making a home?”
“Lord, I don’t know. But soon — I hope soon. We might run off and leave an explanation for Kit, put some men to work here, and then come back. What could she do then, what can she do now? — We’re married and we have the certificate to prove it. Lucy, I think the time has come — not to run away, but to face your aunt with the truth and get it over with. After all, you’re my job now, not solving a mystery which had better remain unsolved.”
“Don’t ask me. When I think of what she’ll do when she finds out — Oh, Lincoln, let’s not think about it now. Kit is selling the ranch and the stock she has on hand and she’s determined to leave Wyoming. She still thinks you are going with her.”
“Not any longer does she think so! I told her I was a married man, Lucy.”
“Oh, you didn’t!” she cried, terrified.
“I didn’t tell her to whom I was married,” he reassured her with a grin.
“Lincoln, if we have a honeymoon, I want it to be up here.”
“That suits me fine! We could live in a tent while we were building a cabin. By the way, that cabin is going to be no pioneer shack, but big, with living room and open fireplace, bedroom, storeroom, kitchen and a wide porch running all along the southern and western exposures....” And so they talked for hours, arms about each other, as they walked to and fro over the bench, blissfully oblivious of everything save their cherished hopes and plans for the future.
Finally Lucy said, “Lincoln, I have one more sight to show you: the one I’ve reserved for the last. But first we must ride up to see Ben Thorpe.”
Linc secured Bay, and mounting, met her at the upper end of the bench. Once off the level they turned a corner of the bulging stone rampart and there before them the upper part of the valley lay spread out before their view. The valley rounded to an apex which was formed by a sheer black mass of rock, split in the middle, and through the cleft between the sheer slopes fringed with timber tumbled a magnificent waterfall between five hundred and a thousand feet high. Sliding out of a V-shaped notch to fall downward, the water was feathered by the wind into white lace and iridescent spray, later striking a great ledge of rock, sheering outward and down like a colossal snowy mushroom. Below, the stream spread in many little rivulets to foam down the stony slopes beyond the timber and converge with the source of the Sweetwater.
“Glorious!” exclaimed Lincoln, his voice filled with awe. “Lucy, I took you at your word, but I was not prepared for this.”
He was so struck through and through with the grandeur of this unspoiled wonderland that he had no fitting words for another and smaller waterfall across the valley, for the numerous beaver dams at the head of the stream, the enormous herd of elk that he saw down the slope, or the natural amphitheater which circled the head of the valley and sent its perpendicular walls aloft almost to the sky. Snowy canyons and black ridges led up to the far peaks where all was pure glistening white.
In a sheltered place now close at hand Lucy pointed out the trapper’s little cabin. They rode up to it and dismounted, at the open door. It was a crude but comfortable little habitation, the front of which was adorned with the bleached antlers of elk. At one side a roofed structure housed bundles of beaver hides. A column of blue smoke rose from the stone chimney; at Lucy’s gay call a black dog came bounding toward her and the spare form of the buckskin-clad trapper emerged from the doorway. His shaggy head bore a great shock of silver and tawny hair, but unlike most trappers, he wore no beard. His visage was lined and weather- beaten, with the clear gray eyes of the wilderness man.
“Ben, you did not really think I was serious, yesterday,” Lucy said laughingly. “But he did come. This is my husband, Lincoln Bradway... Lincoln, my friend, Ben Thorpe.”
They shook hands with each other and exchanged greetings. The Nebraskan was impressed by the trapper’s striking appearance. He was not a young man by any means, but he did not seem old. It was easy to discern the affection he held for Lucy. Before they seated themselves on the rude bench, Linc peered into the comfortable cabin and the shed full of beaver hides.
“Wal, young man, is it true you are goin’ to throw up a cabin an’ homestead this valley?”
Lincoln laughed happily. “Ha! My mind was made up before I ever saw this valley and now I’m ten thousand times more set on it. Will you be glad to have company?”
“I shore will be,” replied the trapper puffing at his pipe. “It didn’t used to be so lonesome but I guess I’m growin’ old an’ have a hankerin’ for human voices an’ faces. This is only a day’s long ride from South Pass but from one year’s end to another I never see any but a few Shoshone Injuns. You see, there’s so much game in this country that in the fall hunters don’t have to go a mile from South Pass to kill all the deer an’ elk they could pack.”
“Well,” said Lincoln, “let’s get down to business. How about a road into this valley? Lucy tells me you have it all figured out.”
“Right across there,” replied the trapper, rising and pointing. “See that break? We can grade out a road there in a few days. Not so easy out on top but a roundabout road through the rocks and trees would not be more than thirty miles from South Pass.”
“How about your working for me?” asked Lincoln. “I’ve got four cowboys hired. We can build the road, then two of you can haul in supplies while the others cut and snake down timber for the cabins and corrals. It will take until the snow flies for me to build what I want. I will pay good wages.”
“Never mind the wages, son. I’ve got four good horses that I’ve packed for years, but they’re broke to a wagon.”
“Have you got a wagon and tools?” asked Lincoln.
“No wagon and I’m about out of tools,” said Thorpe apologetically. “Son, it’ll take a good deal of money to do this thing the way I reckon you would want to.”
“I have plenty of money,” replied Lincoln cheerfully. “When can you begin?”
“Right away,” said the trapper. “Can’t start too soon for me. I’ll wrangle my horses, pack my beaver skins to town, ship them to Cheyenne and be ready to haul anything back you want.”
“That’s fine,” responded Lincoln giving Lucy’s arm a squeeze. “I’ll look for you in town in two or three days. We’ll buy two wagons and all the tools they’ll hold. Also camp outfits and supplies. We’ll work in from the other direction. My four men under your directions can cut the road down the hill and across the valley while I pack in tents, grub, and whatever Lucy and I will need to start our homesteading, because we certainly are going to be here to boss this job.”
