Sydney had been feeling very much without occupation since the Baron had gone home, and the anticipation of seeing him again this afternoon had been pleasant to her. He never had made love to her more definitely than on the morning after his interview with Dr. Morgan, but to herself she acknowledged that he admired her, and while she was not sure of his entertaining a more pronounced feeling, up to this time she had known, at least, that his eyes were only for her. And here he was revelling—she underlined the word in her thought—in Katrina's vivacity and charm. The sensation of rivalry was new to her and not pleasant.

As for Bob, she had a feeling of warm affection for dear old Bob, and a desire to be useful to him, and she meant to make her influence over him one for good, if that were possible. She was thoroughly glad in the news that had come to her that Bob had not been drinking for several months now. But how he could help referring to the passage that had occurred between them she could not understand. She didn't really want him to make love to her,—that was a notion altogether too unmaidenly,—but she did feel as if an expression of affection from somebody would be very comforting.

She turned to John Wendell, who rode beside her, and gave him a more generous smile than it had been his lot to receive while Sydney was the possessor of those agreeable anticipations of the early afternoon.

"You like it? All this?" She waved her hand comprehensively.

"I love it," he answered, promptly, looking at her clear-cut face with its frame of red hair under her sailor hat, and at the well-made linen habit.

"It must be novel to you."

"Not very." He pulled his moustache to conceal an amused smile. "It depends upon where new ends and old begins, you see. Now, I came down here in April, so my feeling is not 'the last cry.'"

"But at that time of year you didn't see—oh, how foolish you are!" she cried, and touched Johnny with her spur. His response brought him near the phaeton, which seemed a focal point for a general movement.

"They're going to have the gander-pulling now," exclaimed Bob, who had come with Susy to join the group. "The best view will be from this side."

"Are you going to ride, Mr. Morgan?" asked Katrina.

"Yes, I think so."

"Bob never can resist any game that's played with a horse," said Sydney, laughing.

"You know you'd like right well to try it yourself," he retorted.

Baron von Rittenheim gave his seat beside Mrs. Schuyler to Miss McRae, and went to Sydney's side.

"At last the sun begins to shine," he said, in a low voice, smiling up at her and patting Johnny's neck.

"Your universe has many suns, I'm afraid," responded Sydney, a trifle pettishly, yet swiftly, scanning his face for signs of returning health. She was not unobservant, either, of his new white summer clothes.

Friedrich glanced across the horse to Mrs. Schuyler.

"I find agr-reeable the light of the lesser planets," he said, "but—there is only one Sun."

Looking up at her, he laughed again, so heartily and with such genuine pleasure at seeing her that Sydney melted.

"You look so well," she cried. "It is a delight to see you. But it's not a compliment to our care that you grow better so fast when you leave us."

"R-rather is it a tr-ribute to your so admirable nursing that has pr-repared me to r-recover with speed, even though I have it no longer."

"Will you ride, Baron?" asked Bob. "You're welcome to Gray Eagle if you will."

"I thank you, gr-reatly, but I dare not. The eye of my care-taker is upon me, and your Herr Father is here somewhere. No, decidedly, I am afraid," and he leaned with every appearance of contentment against Johnny's shoulder.

"How about you, Mr. Wendell?"

"I think I will, if Miss Sydney will trust me with the horse."

"Of course; and I'll give you a lovely prize if you bring me the head."

"It's yours," cried John, while Friedrich bit his lip, in annoyance, and thought on the Ewigweibliche.

"Can you find me something, Mr. Morgan?" cried Schuyler. "I really can't stand here and see you fellows having this fun without me."

"What's Mr. Schuyler driving, Sydney? 'Possum? She'll do, if you don't mind. I'll swipe a saddle off of one of those mules over there." And he and Tom fell to unharnessing the useful 'Possum, while the Baron held Gray Eagle and commented on Bob's resource.

"He is full of device," he said, heartily, "and r-ready, always, to think and to do." And Sydney remembered some of the things he had done, and nodded with misty eyes.



XV

The Gander-Pulling

Under all the trees where horses had been hitched, the mountaineers were tightening girths, mending unsound bridles, and pulling down stirrups from the saddles across which they had been flung to be safe from fly-kicking hoofs.

Some men had switches tucked under their saddle-flaps. Others, less provident, swung on to their beasts, and, heavily elastic, trotted across to the brush to cut a "hickory" from a sourwood-tree.

Pete was testing the strength of a stout oak pole driven into the ground, across whose fork was lashed, like the cross-bar of a "T," a leaf-stripped sapling. To the tip of this rod the negro was tying the legs of a big, white goose, whose extended wings and pendant head betrayed compliance with inexorable law.

"Hit's a damn shame," Pete murmured, as he anointed the creature's neck and head with liberal smearings of lard. "Whar de fun o' pullin' on a ole daid t'ing lak dis? But Ah hope dey'll tink hit's great!" And he beat vigorously on a pan to attract the attention of all hearers.

"Gen'lemen. O-oh, gen'lemen!" he cried, at the top of his lungs. "Now fo' a great ole gander-pullin'! De only one we've had in dis settle-ment fo' t'ree year. Every gen'leman as craves to enter dis gander-pullin' will kin'ly ride up here and de-posit a quarter 'f a dollar. Only twenty-five cen's fo' de priv'lege o' takin' a pull at dis yer goose,—warranted a tasty goose! One-half dis sum o' money goes to de gen'leman who succeeds in re-movin' de haid from dis fowl, an' also de goose hitself, which sho' do look lak good eatin'!"

Pete's old hat soon sagged with the coins that were tossed into it, while his keen eye noted each entry as surely as if he wrote the name in black and white. It would have been useless for anyone to try to enter the lists without paying the proper fee.

Two lines of excited onlookers served at once to define a lane, whose ultimate point was the gallows whereon hung the goose, and to rouse to excitement the horses, whose overworked spirits did not respond promptly to the sudden stimulus.

They cheered the aspirants with jovial condemnation.

"Show us what yo' ole plug c'n do, 'Gene."

"Sho', Alf, you-all ain' goin' to ride that po' critter!"

"He's powerful gaunted up, yo' war-horse, Bud."

"Mighty strength'nin' ploughin' is, but not stimmerlatin'!"

"High-strung animal, that clay-bank o' Pink's."

Pink's temper was in that state where he enjoyed hugely gibes at his friends' expense, but was in no mood to receive amiably jests directed against himself.

"Whar's you-all's horse?" he shouted, in exasperation, to one of his tormentors. "Ah reckon no one would len' you anythin' mo' vallyble 'n a billy-goat. Now dry up. Pete, start this thing."

He rode to the end of the passage where the horsemen were gathering. Alf Lance, Melissa's father, whose horses Bud and Pink were riding, scanned them both to make sure that they were not too drunk to be trusted with his animals.

Pete fussed about nervously.

"Which o' you gents will begin dis pullin'?" he called. "Now, sahs, come on."

Pink pushed his horse towards the edge of the crowd, but he was hailed with dissuasive cries.

"Aw, hold on, Pink."

"Don' be so bigoty."

"Who you-all think ye are?"

"Where's Bob Morgan?"

"Yes, Bob's the feller!"

"O-oh, Bob!"

It was their tribute to the Doctor, this giving precedence to his son, and Bob so understood it. It was, therefore, irritating to have Pink thrust forward his red face and look him over sneeringly.

"Aw, gwan," he cried, "lessee what you-all c'n do."

The bunch of horsemen fell to one side, and Bob started Gray Eagle from well back in the field near the deserted wagons. He passed the mounted men and thundered through the lines of standing howlers. The gray had been his master's coadjutor in so many situations of excitement and even peril, that the cheering mob did not provoke him unduly. He galloped, unswervingly, up to the hanging goose, though his ears were pricked forward, and he shuddered as the instinctive repulsion from death pulsed through him. Bob's outstretched hand grasped the long and slippery neck, while the inarticulate yell with which the Southern farmer calls his dogs and chases his cows and terrifies his enemies went up from the onlookers. Tightly he clutched the greasy thing, and tried to give a sharp twist that should break the vertebrae. But his hand slipped swiftly down to the flat head, which offered no hold for his grasp, the beak ripped through his fingers, and the sapling, which had bent and followed him as Gray Eagle dashed on, snapped back, waving triumphantly its unharmed burden.

"Hard lines, old man, but the fun lasts longer so," cried Wendell, as Bob pulled up beside him after circling the spectators.

"Who's that?" the New Yorker asked, as a lank country horse plunged down the lane, shied violently at the feathered horror, threw his rider into the crowd, and galloped with flapping stirrups over the field.

"'Gene Frady. He never can stay on anything. He's all right, dad," to the Doctor, who was moving towards the upper end. "See, he's chasing his horse now."

With a drunken whoop, Pink Pressley rushed his animal towards the prize; but his condition, combined with twitches and jerks of the bridle, and rakings of the spur, had acted upon his mount's usually stolid nerves, and half-way up the alley he whirled about and tore back, carrying his cursing rider far up the road before he calculated the probable results to himself of this outburst, and consented to return.

Bud Yarebrough was more fortunate. He leaned far forward and succeeded in getting a firm grasp of the neck, but he had guided his horse too close to the bird, and his jerk drew it directly over his face, blinding him with grease and feathers.

His plight was greeted with howls of derision, which fell into silence as John Wendell made the trial. His unpractised hand in some way pulled down the goose, and the rebound of the sapling plucked the booty out of his grasp, and flung it high above his head.

Tom Schuyler was equally unlucky.

Alf Lance forgot that he was left-handed until he was close upon his quarry, when he dropped his reins and pawed vaguely at the air as his horse carried him on.

Another yell announced Pink Pressley's return. Now his chastened steed bore him straight enough to the goal, but by that time Pink was too drunk to distinguish the goose he was after from the flock that swirled and dipped before his eyes, and he never touched a feather.

"Doctor, you-all'll have to show us how," said Alf Lance.

"Come on, Doctor."

"Yes, yo' the feller."

"Bob, give yo' father yo' horse and let him larn ye what's what."

"Oh, I hope he'll do it," cried Sydney. "He's capital at it!"

"Fo' the Lawd's sake!" ejaculated Mrs. Morgan, rising to her feet in the carriage and steadying herself by an informal hand on Mrs. Carroll's shoulder. "Fo' the Lawd's sake, if that ain't Henry Morgan! Well, did you ever!" And her fat body trembled with pride and excitement.

Gray Eagle took his second turn with the same equanimity as if his own master were on his back. He galloped handsomely towards the goose; there was a quick snatch and a snap, and the old man turned short and came back, holding aloft his trophy.

"Wah, wah, wah!"

Yells, whistles, and cat-calls greeted his success. Sydney and Katrina and Mrs. Carroll clapped their hands, and the Doctor, folding in his handkerchief the somewhat dubious treasure, rode over to the apple-tree and presented it to his wife.

During the confusion attendant upon the harnessing of horses and mules, Bob, restoring 'Possum's saddle to the mule from which he had borrowed it, heard Pink Pressley's voice on the other side of the big oak by which he was working.

"Howdy, Mr. Baron," he was saying.

"Howdee," responded von Rittenheim, with an accent that made Bob throw back his head and laugh silently. "You had bad fortune with your horse this afternoon."

"Correct. Damn pore horse. Some day Ah'll have a good horse o' mah own, not a ole borrowed plug. Ah'm goin' to be rich some day. You-all know how, eh? Say,"—he was wagging his head solemnly to and fro, disgustingly near von Rittenheim's face,—"Ah reckon you'd like to go into business with me now ye made a start at hit."

Bob remained behind his shield, hoping that Pressley would go away before von Rittenheim had the mortification of seeing him.

"Ah reckon you-all need money mahty bad," drawled the drunken voice. "A feller always does when he wants to get married, 'n hit's clear what yo' after with Miss Sydney."

Like bolts from heaven, two blows fell upon him simultaneously, and von Rittenheim and Bob faced each other over his fallen body.

"Leave him alone," said Bob, hoarsely. "He'll sleep it off."

Then he strolled over to his father.

"Dad, I suspect you'd better take a look at Pink Pressley under the big oak-tree. I've just given him a biff in the solar plexus, or mighty near it."



XVI

On the Bridge

All through July the growing heat of summer forced the people of the low country up into the mountains in search of an altitude where humidity is not a factor in the sum total of suffering. Every evening's six o'clock train brought families of travellers, glad to escape from the steaming heat of Charleston or Savannah, or ready to run the risk of the fever-killing frost coming too late for the beginning of the New Orleans schools. They emerged dishevelled and weary from the hot cars. The elders counted children, nurses, and luggage; the children sat down at once upon the ground and took off their shoes and stockings.

By the first of August the whole Asheville plateau was transformed from its winter state.

The large towns were filled with pretty, pale girls, gay in muslins and ribbons and big hats, who danced and drank soda-water in the mornings and danced again in the evenings, or went on drag-rides, and flirted at all hours.

The small hotels in the country were full of the same girls, chaperoned by gay mammas, who played whist six hours a day, while their charges found temperate amusement in walking to the post-office in the cool, purple dusk, and in dancing—chiefly with each other—after supper.

The proportion of men to girls was the usual summer ratio. Nice discriminations of extreme age or extreme youth counted for little against ability to dance. The girl with brothers of almost any size was popular among her kind, and the girl who "grabbed" was held in cordial contempt.

Woe be unto the youth who really fell in love. His courtship was the cynosure of all eyes. Its progress was reported hourly. His presence was noted and his absence commented upon. His ardor was gauged by the thermometer of many eyes, and the barometer of hotel partisanship betrayed the storms of love.

The Neighborhood awoke from its winter sleep. Every house had its guests, and there were constant gayeties both by day and evening.

The first moon of August, by lighting the dark forest roads, became responsible for nightly festivities. On one of the earliest evenings of the month she looked down upon carriages and horsemen making their way to the French Broad, where Fletcher's Bridge crosses the river. The Schuylers, with Sydney and John, were in the Oakwood surrey, while Vandeborough cantered behind to take care of the horses "while de white folkses eats."



The Cotswold party filled a three-seated buckboard and a surrey, and rejoiced further in outriders. Baron von Rittenheim bestrode his mule. The Delaunays brought a carriage-load of girls, who laughed a great deal in the soft, full voices the far South gives her daughters. From the Hugers' party came scraps of talk about "the City," and the "Isle of Palms."

There was a wagon-load of people from the Buck Mountain House, too, friends of the Hugers.

By Sydney's command the picnic fire was built by the river's bank in a large field, whose openness showed the quick march across the heavens of the rising moon.

Every one brought a stick to lay on the blazing pile. Bob and one of the Delaunay girls fetched water from a spring that hid its coolness under a shelving rock in the forest across the road. Susy McRae made the coffee, hindered by John's advice, more voluble than useful. Tom Schuyler was instructed in the proper method of propping up a broiler before the blaze, so that the chicken might cook without exacting a human burnt offering. Patton volunteered for the task of getting the potatoes into the ashes. The rest of the girls laid the table-cloths on the ground, and opened the baskets, and the rest of the men hunted up logs for seats, and brought the cushions and rugs from the carriages.

Sydney dominated the scene, giving a clever suggestion to Tom, encouraging Susy to disregard John's teasing, which threatened some harm to the coffee, sympathizing with Patton over a burn, and showing Katrina how to cook bacon on a long forked stick.

After the meal was eaten and complacency filled them, she it was who sent their suppers to the coachmen, and who packed up baskets and folded cloths, aided by von Rittenheim and Bob.

"Oh, do stop doing that, Sydney," cried Mildred Huger. "You make us all feel so mean not to be helping you, and you know it isn't necessary right now."

"Yes, come and sit by me, Sydney," said John. "I've been saving a place, and it'll be a treat for you."

"Wait a few minutes, Sydney," said Tom, "and you shall have my valuable help."

"There, it's all done, dear people," cried Sydney, "and we can watch the moon with a clear conscience."

"Will you not come with me to the bridge to see it?" begged Friedrich, in a low voice. "Ah, do come!"

Bob, who had been about to ask the same thing, turned away and stretched himself at Mildred Huger's feet. Susy softly touched her guitar, suggesting popular airs, and voices took up the tunes, now stopping to say something funny and to laugh while others carried on the song, now joining in an energetic chorus. On the outskirts of the circle farthest from the dying fire sat the couples in whom the soft night and the moonlight and the music were arousing sentiment. More than one young fellow watched Friedrich and Sydney as they disappeared behind the willows on the bank, and wished that he had been the first to suggest the bridge, and envied the two their vantage point.

They stood side by side upon its hoof-worn planks. Under their feet swept the musical flow of the stream, molten silver in the moonlight as it slid towards them, a sparkling, dancing mist of tossing diamonds as it fled away over the stones of the rough bottom.

They faced the wonderful glory of the moon. Her hand was on the bar at first, and his beside it. After a moment he glanced at the tempting nearness, and put his in the pocket of his jacket. Then he turned his back upon the moon, and leaned on the railing by her, facing the lesser splendor that was to him as dazzling.

"Will you for-rgive me if I spoil the beauty of this per-rfect night by speaking to you a little about—myself?"

His voice was serious. Sydney looked at him and turned away her head. Her lips trembled.

"I have not the r-right to force upon you a subject so unwor-rthy. But I think it is just that you should know—that all my friends should know—what work I am going to tr-ry now to do to retr-rieve myself. Ah, you make the little gesture that means 'Say not that word.' But you will let me say just this one time ever-ything I want to, if you please. When I say 'retr-rieve myself,' I understand well that nothing can destr-roy the fact that my name is wr-ritten on those books over there,"—he waved his hand in the direction of Asheville,—"and I know well that for my fault all my life I shall suffer in one way or another. But I can tr-ruly say, in God's sight,"—he stood bareheaded, and faced again the heaven's pomp,—"that I have r-repented my weakness most bitterly, both for what it did lead me to, and because such weakness in itself is shameful."

Sydney lifted to his her eyes blurred with tears.

"Don't," she whispered, hoarsely.

"Ach, Heaven help me, look not at me like that," he cried; "I cannot bear ever-ything!"

Silence lay between them after this cry of pain. Friedrich began again, very low.

"I see now clearly what I saw not at the time,—that my weakness came upon me fr-rom my own lack of str-rength to make an effort. I was cr-rushed by a gr-rief when I left my land to come to America. I allowed it to paralyze my will. I let myself dr-rift, not caring enough about what became of me to exert myself to ward off poverty. Poverty never had been mine,—I did not r-realize it, but I did know well the meaning of self-r-respect and honor, and it was base of me to permit my will so to sink."

Again he paused.

"I tire you? You let me go on?"

Sydney's face looked white in the moonlight. She assented by a motion of the head.

"Even when I knew—you—"

Sydney gazed down at the scintillant water. Von Rittenheim did not turn to her, and went on, steadily,—

"—and admired your beauty and your sweetness—for-rgive me that I say these things so baldly—and wondered at the r-responsibilities you assumed, and at the care you took of every needing person who came near you—even fr-rom you whom I admired and—whom I admired with all my str-rength, I did not learn the lesson that was before my eyes."

"How can you say all this to me, Baron? You must not."

"You will do me the justice to listen just a pair of minutes longer. Now I see it all clearly; now I have a purpose in my life. It is to make you look upon me with r-respect,—with so much r-respect that you will for-rget that on one of those turned-over pages of my life there is a blot."

"And you have chosen to seek your salvation through work! It is a fine spirit, Baron, and the American gospel—though perhaps you may not like it the more on that account."

"You are an American."

Sydney blushed and laughed,—her sweet, rich laugh. She was glad to be a little farther away from tragedy.

"Shall I tell you my plan? You will see how I am practical! My salvation lies in the unpoetic shape of—cattle."

"Cattle?"

"I have some money for which I sent to Germany; some that I felt it r-right to use if I should be in gr-reat need of it, but which I should not have sent for except that I was ill. With this money and my little farm I go into partnership with young Mr. McRae. His father gives to him one-half of his so large estate. On his place and mine we r-raise a cr-rop which we feed to our cr-reatures."

"Where are they to come from?"

"Some we do r-raise ourselves, and some we buy here and there, every-where in these mountains where we can find two or three colts—no, calves."

"Will there be a sufficient market to justify you?"

"How wonderful for business are you! Yes, we think so. Alr-ready have we an or-rder to send a whole carload of steers to R-richmond."

"Really? You've really begun?"

"Yes, I take much pr-ride to say that we have begun two days ago. Patton is to buy the calves at first, he does so well understand the folk of the mountains; and later, when I talk more accurately English, then I shall help him. Until then my part is on the farms."

"I think it is admirable! It will give you so much to do and to interest you. You are sure to succeed."

She smiled at him generously and with perfect sympathy. Her white dress shone cool against the purple sky, and her face rose radiant above.

Von Rittenheim leaned over her as she sat on the bridge's railing. On the road, not far away Susy McRae's guitar betrayed her approach, and John Wendell's barytone hummed the air that she was picking. Von Rittenheim put his foot on the topmost bar and leaned his elbow on his uplifted knee. By his position Sydney was screened entirely from the oncomers.

"I seem to have a gr-reat deal to say to-night. Now I shall tell you a little stor-ry."

His tone was gay, but Sydney saw that his eyes were grave.

"Does it begin 'Once upon a time'?" she fenced.

"Ja. Es war einmal a knight, who led a happy life in his own country until a gr-rief came to him which he thought the most ter-rible sorrow that could come to anybody. He learned better afterwards, but at the time it seemed to him not to be endured. So he left his home and became a wanderer over the earth. And for many months he r-roamed, and nothing ever made him for-rget his tr-rouble until one day he saw a beautiful pr-rincess. Ah, she was a most lovely pr-rincess, with a face like a r-rose, and teeth like pearls, and a heart that was a tr-reasure of goodness."

Friedrich warmed with his subject. He was looking his fill on the downcast face before him, while Sydney pulled at the little handkerchief in her lap, and carefully smoothed out a corner of it on her knee.

"As soon as he saw her the knight knew that his old tr-rouble was not what he had thought it. And he knew also at once what would be the gr-reatest happiness that life could give him. He determined to win this happiness if he could, but first he had to pr-rove himself to the pr-rincess that he was a knight of cour-rage and not a weakling. So he told her of his purpose and begged of her a favor that he might wear it on his heart."

There was a pause, so long that Sydney asked, still with downcast head,—

"How does the story end?"

"I know not."

"You don't know?"

"I never learned it any farther. What do you think comes next?"

"I don't—I think——"

Bravely she raised her eyes to his, and stood before him, blushing divinely.

"I think she gave him a token and bade him Godspeed." And Friedrich found himself with a morsel of cambric in his hand, which he kissed passionately, while Sydney was walking towards the bridge's end, answering Susy's cry.

"Here I am. Is it time to go?"

And John was answering,—

"Mrs. Carroll warned us to go home early on account of the dance to-morrow night."

Laughing and singing they went through the moonlight, some with the happy hearts they had brought, others saddened by some of the whimsies of Fortune that seem lurking to spoil our joy when most we exult. Gladdest of all the blissful ones rode Friedrich von Rittenheim. At the cross-roads he waved a gay "good-by" to the Oakwood surrey as it bore away from him the lady of his love. He stopped his mule and looked long after it, and threw a kiss at its bulky form as it plunged into the wood.

He did not put on his cap again, but stuffed it into his pocket, and trotted on towards home with the moonlight shining on his fair hair. The good creature between his knees felt his exhilaration and broke into a short canter as an expression of sympathy with his master's humor. The negroes whose cabins he passed pulled the clothes over their heads, whispering "Hants!" as he galloped by, singing "Dixie" at the top of his lungs.

Sydney had taught it to him, the stirring song, and he brought it out roundly,—

"Oh, I wees' I was in the land of cotton, The good old times are not for-rgotten, Look away, look away, look away, Deexie Land."



XVII

Out of a Clear Sky

There came to von Rittenheim as he stabled his mule, with many a tender pat upon his coarse coat, one of those times of spiritual insight when we see ourselves as after a long absence we look with scrutiny upon once familiar objects. A perception of new growth filled him with surprise, as we look at the seedling under the window, and notice of a sudden that it has grown to be a sapling. With the scrutiny and the perception came a comprehension of new power, such as we feel objectively when our child asserts himself, and we understand in a flash that the man is born within him, and that the days of childhood are past.

The remembrance of the months of regret and sorrow that had followed upon his coming to America struck him with nausea. The thought of his long ineptitude for the life which he had adopted voluntarily gave him a feeling of self-contempt. The inertness of his will disgusted him.

And then all this disgust and contempt was swept away by a great wave of courage and determination and strength. He tingled with the consciousness that once more there had come to him the intrepidity with which his youth had faced the future, the will-power to take up life again, and the force to work and to win.

Reverently he thanked God for each increment of might that pulsed through him, as he struck a match and lighted his lamp,—so automatically the commonplace actions of life are performed while the spirit surges within.

Reverently he thanked God for the love that filled him, and for the hope of return that had come to him. Then he stretched his arms upward to their fullest height, merely for the sake of feeling his physical strength, and broke into a torrent of tender German epithets,—Englein Geliebte, Herzenfreude, Liebling. He took out the little handkerchief and kissed it again and again, and walked restlessly about his room, too glad and too happy to be quiet.

The nickel clock upon the mantel-shelf struck eleven, and at the same time something like the sound of wheels penetrated his exaltation. He stopped in his march and listened. No one could have turned by mistake into his road in such brilliant moonlight, yet he knew no one who would visit him at that hour. He thought it possible that some one was taking the back road to Bud's cabin, so he made no move until the vehicle stopped before his house. Then he stepped hastily into his bedroom and slipped his revolver into his pocket before he responded to a gentle rap.

Flinging back the door he saw standing on the porch a woman, a girl, about whom the breeze blew a scarf of thin black stuff. Two trembling hands were held out to him as if to implore a greeting, and a white face looked up from its dark inwrapment like the face of a wistful child. The moon, sailing high in the zenith, cast no light beneath the porch's roof, and von Rittenheim stood unrecognizing.

She spoke in German.

"Friedrich, you do not know me?"

"Hilda!"

There was dismay in his tone and surprise unspeakable. He made no offer to take her hands, and they sank at her side. The driver seeing that his fare had found whom she sought, deposited her trunk and a valise upon the floor of the porch, with a succession of heavy thumps, and drove off with a relieved "Good-night," to which he received no response.

"Friedrich, your welcome is not cordial. Surely you know me? You called me 'Hilda.'"

"Yes, I know you. You are Hilda," he repeated, dully. "Why are you here?"

"Won't you ask me in and let me tell you?"

"I beg your pardon." He stepped back that she might pass him. "You have surprised me almost out of my senses—entirely out of my manners, as you see."

He gave her a splint chair—one of the two which were the room's complement—and stood before her. His arm lay on the mantel-shelf, his fingers clutching its edge until the nails grew white. The girl took off her heavy black bonnet and laid it on the table. The lamp behind her shone through the golden hair that made a halo around her face, the face of a child, unworldly, confiding. The only mark of maturity about her was the straight line of a determined mouth.

Friedrich spoke first.

"You are wearing black. Is it Max?"

The great, innocent blue eyes filled with tears.

"Yes, it is Max."

"Poor child!"

A shiver passed over the girl.

"And poor Max! When was it?"

"Five months ago."

"Five months ago? You can't mean that! Five months ago! Why wasn't I told?"

"I hadn't your address."

"Max had it."

"I looked through all his papers and found nothing."

"Herr Stapfer, my lawyer, had it."

"I applied to him, and he gave me an address in Texas that you had sent him a year ago."

"It is true. I believe I never wrote to him after I settled here until last June."

"Yes, it was in June that I heard from him again that you were here, and ill. I begged him not to tell you of Max's death. I did not know how ill you were, and I feared for you. Then I decided to come myself to find you—and care for you if you needed care."

"Your aunt?"

"She is dead. I have no one now—but you."

Silence fell on them. The little figure with the dark robes of her mourning clinging about her, rose and stood before him, her linked fingers twisting nervously together.

"You will let me stay? You told me once—you swore it, do you remember?—that your life was mine; that I had but to tell you of my need. You remember?"

"Yes, I remember."

His eyes were on the ground and never met her steady gaze, but she seemed satisfied with what she saw. Her hands stopped their nervous play.

She looked curiously about the room.

"This is a hunting-lodge, I suppose. But you must not think I care. I shall get on very well. And may I go to my room now?"

Von Rittenheim was startled into activity by the simple request.

"I think you must wait until some preparation is made. I will go and fetch a woman who will look after you. You will not be afraid if I leave you alone for a few minutes?"

"Entirely alone?"

"Yes. There is no one here. But see, I leave you my pistol, and you can lock the door on the inside, and when I come back I will call in German. No one else near here knows a word of German."

"Shall I be safe?"

"Perfectly—even without those precautions. I will hurry."

He stood an instant outside the door listening to the noise of the key in the lock. Then he turned in the direction of the Yarebroughs', and ran feverishly along the path.

His knock upon the door was answered by a sleepy "Who's that?" and the click of a gun's hammer. Von Rittenheim explained his identity, and Bud responded by opening the door an ungenerous crack. The Baron told his necessity,—how his sister-in-law had arrived unexpectedly, and would Mrs. Yarebrough be so good, so very good, as to go back with him and see if she could make her comfortable, and spend the rest of the night there?

Bud shut the door, and Friedrich heard the sound of discussion. Kindness of heart and curiosity to see the strange lady triumphed over the claims of sleep, and Bud opened the door again to call through the crevice,—

"She'll go, Mr. Baron."

It was almost midnight when they reached the cabin, Friedrich and the whole Yarebrough family; for Sydney Melissa could not be left behind, and Bud had a curiosity of his own. Von Rittenheim spoke in German and the door was unlocked. He made a hasty explanation to Hilda concerning the number of his escort.

Melissa stared with all her eyes at the childish beauty before her.

"Oh, Mr. Baron," she cried, with sudden courage, "Ah'd like to take care of her, she's so little an' pretty. Ah don' min' hit a bit, Bud; truly Ah'm honin' to," in unconscious confession of her previous timidity. "You-all go long back with Bud, Mr. Baron, 'n Ah'll make her comfortable. Will ye have yo' trunk in here, ma'am?"

To Hilda's answer, "Yes, if you please," in faltering English, Melissa cried, in ecstasy,—

"Don' she speak pretty! Now, Bud, you tote in the lady's trunk, 'n then go. She's tired." And the usually timid country girl entered into her new role of care-taker with extraordinary zest.

Friedrich approached his sister-in-law.

"Good-night," he said. "You will be quite safe. Have no fear."

She held out her hand to him. He hesitated a moment, and then took it in a brief clasp.

"Good-night," was all she said.

Declining Bud's offer of shelter, von Rittenheim bade him farewell, and strode into the darkness of the forest. Yarebrough looked after him, puzzled and disapproving.

"He ain' none so glad to see his sister-in-law," he pondered. "Ah wonner what hit all means."

Friedrich took no heed of his way beyond a numb feeling of pleasure when it grew steeper and rougher. He had left the trail long since, but he was stayed by no obstacle, was arrested by no barrier of Nature's make. A lizard asleep on a tiny ledge of rock, jutting from a cliff, scuttled away in fright as a man in sudden onslaught scaled its face. A pair of cotton-tails bobbed from one thicket to another in wildest terror as he came breaking through. A trout, floating in a rocky basin of the brook, fled with a dexterous flip of fin and tail to the protecting shelter of an overhanging root, as the placid pool was agitated by the passage of an enemy, following the course of the stream as the path of least resistance.

To all these sights and sounds Friedrich was blind and deaf. He spoke no word. It was as if he were deprived of every power but that of motion. He plunged on like a man of old pursued by the Erinyes.

Though he was unconscious of fatigue, the mad pace began to tell on him, and his muscles cried for quarter. At such times he rushed either to the right or left, going along the side of the mountain until he found an easier upward passage, but always ascending, never turning down the slope; always fleeing from the pursuing wretchedness; always subtly conscious of the futility of flight.

So mounts a small bird into the air, pursued by a hawk. Higher and higher he flies, straight up into the blue, hoping that the wind may blow him far beyond his pursuer's reach, believing that the light atmosphere that suffices to support his frail body may be too tenuous to uphold his heavier enemy. Hoping thus and believing; but realizing at last the unequal contests between their strengths, the failing of his own force, the fateful, certain, deadly approach of the antagonist whose power it is useless to oppose.

One above the other two shelves of rock arose, like two steps of a giant's staircase. Friedrich's exhausted body sank upon the moss of the upper, and the bracken and small shrubs closed over him, as if to shield him in their gentle embrace from the trouble that had driven him to their care. He lay on his back, staring with unseeing eyes at the tree-leaves far above his head, black against the sky's purple.

His mind seemed to be exhausted with his body. It moved with painful slowness, and groped vaguely after the things of memory.

Was it yesterday—when was it that he had seen Sydney moving about in the yellow firelight? Had he not—yes, he was sure he had—led her under the willow-trees and on to the old bridge, with the glistering glory under their feet, and the moon in splendor above them? And had she given him—no, of course not—but yes, what was this? He pressed to his lips the scrap of lace from his pocket. And there had been one splendid hour of hope and strength and courage—one hour when the past had fallen away from him and the future opened to his sight a not impassable avenue.

The moon cast level shadows as the great planet rolled towards the western hills. Friedrich fancied himself in Germany, far back in the long ago, when he was madly in love with Hilda. The story unfolded before him like a panorama of some one else's life. It was, indeed, he who had loved Hilda, but he felt not a flutter of the emotion now. Now he knew what real love was. Yet this ardent, jealous lover was he, and she had jilted him for Maximilian. He went over again the old arguments in her behalf. Why shouldn't she prefer Max—gay, handsome old Max? He was nearer her age, and he had just had a legacy from his Aunt Brigitta, whose favorite he had been. Of course, that reason did not count. But he was gay and handsome and younger. Surely those three excuses were enough.

That wedding day! Should he ever forget it? He had thought to go away, but that would have been unkind to Max, and perhaps have put Hilda in a wrong light in the eyes of those who knew them. No, he was the head of the family. His duty was to sit through the wedding-breakfast which her aunt gave to the bride, and to preside at the feast that welcomed the pair to Schloss Rittenheim. Though the old love could not enter him again, the old torture came back poignantly.

After the feast was over and the guests had gone, he had found himself with her in a recessed window, looking down upon a carriage rolling away in the moonlight. He had taken her hands, and had compelled her gaze. She looked so fragile, so helpless, as he thought of his brother's carelessness and love of self, and he swore a solemn oath to stand ready to help her and to care for her, if ever need should be. Max, a little uncertain in speech and gait, had called her then, and Friedrich had ordered a horse, and had ridden recklessly into the forest—on and on and on.

For a whole month he had endured the torture of greeting her calmly every morning, and of lifting her tiny white hand to his lips every night, and then he had decided that there was no reason for such crucifixion, and he had come to America.

And in America he had met the princess—the splendid princess!

The moon sank behind the mountains, and with its disappearance Friedrich slept.



XVIII

Business Plans

Through the early morning's shifting mist—the haze that foretells a fine day—two men felt their way up the side of Buzzard Mountain. They followed no path,—indeed, there are few trails to follow,—but they climbed steadily on, as if they knew well their way, and as if speed were of importance.

With all their perseverance they could not cover much ground, for the ascent is sharp enough to clutch the lungs, and the mist covered for them a world of stumbling-blocks.

"H'm," grunted the leader, Pink Pressley. "They oughter be a black oak about here with a varmint hole in hit."

He stopped and peered about him through the gloom, while Bud, his companion, took the opportunity to lay his burden upon the ground while he wiped his forehead with a blue handkerchief. He made no response to his friend's remarks, but wore the air of one who does what he is bid, and follows where he is led. Pink swung himself into motion again.

"Ah reckon we ain' high enough, yet," he growled, and swore softly as he struck his foot against an unseen stone.

"Hang ye, don' do that," he cried, angrily, as he heard the breaking of a branch behind him. "Why don' ye blaze yo' way right along, or mark yo' path with a rope? Do you wan' the whole settle-ment follerin' us up here?"

With praiseworthy discretion Bud still refrained from speech. A particularly steep bit of climbing silenced his companion as well. Yarebrough was the first to discover the landmark.

"Is that the black oak?" he asked.

"Where?"

He pointed above them and a little to the right, to a veteran whose side had been cut by hunters for the discomfiture of a 'coon or 'possum that had taken refuge within.

"Yep."

They climbed to it, and both men set their heavy loads upon the ground.

"Much further?" asked Bud.

"No, come on. Sun'll be up soon 'n we'll be late gettin' down."

Pressley pointed to the east, where a sort of inner glow seemed to illuminate the haze and make it thinner and more penetrable. They shouldered their packs and again Pink led the way. He advanced, now, with a certain care. From the tree he counted a hundred paces to the right, and called Bud's attention to the number.

"That brings ye to this hickory—see?—with a rock under hit. Now, then, straight up from this is the place we's after, twenty-five steps, about; but hit's hard to tell, hit's so steep."

He deposited his load upon a flat platform of rock, above which, at a height of a dozen feet, the bank overhung. Under the bank was a hole, not clear enough to be called a cave, nor of any great size. Bud sank down, gratefully, beside his leader, and scrutinized the place.

"Not overly large," he commented, "but Ah 'low hit 'll be right smart bigger when hit's cleaned out."

"Hit is," returned Pressley, laconically. He spoke with so much decision that Bud looked at him sharply.

"You-all ain' ever——?" He hesitated.

"Used hit before? Not much! Ah ain' a plumb fool! But they's nothing like comin' from a fam'ly that's observin' an' contrivin'."

A smile of self-appreciation swept over his face.

"Ah've knowed about this place ever since Ah was fryin' size. In fact, mah father—well, never min' him. Only you'll fin' they's plenty o' room inside to stow away that rubbish an' all our little do-es beside."

"Whereaway's the water?"

"They's a spring over yonder a little bit."

Bud stared at the hole sullenly, and slowly scratched his head. Pressley, unlashing a mattock and shovel from his pack, did not notice him.

"Ah swear, Pink," broke out Yarebrough, in puzzled indecision, "Ah swear Ah donno's Ah like this business."

Pressley sneered.

"Don' talk so loud. Yo' rather late findin' hit out."

"No, Ah ain'. Ah ain' never been sho'."

"Sho' 'bout what?"

"Oh, Ah donno. Kin' o' hard to say. You-all don' think we'll get caught?"

"Not 'f you keep that big mouth o' yo's shut."

"Mr. Baron did."

"Mr. Baron's a fool. He trusted a stranger."

"Hit'll kin'er make ye uneasy 'bout talkin' to fellers on the road, won' hit?" said Bud, who was the most sociable man in the settlement.

"Hit'll sharpen yo' judg-ment. The way you-all go on now you ain' fur off Mr. Baron fo' never suspectin' nobody."

It was this very quality in Bud that was playing into Pink's hands. Yarebrough, however, felt properly rebuked.

"Ah ain' had yo' experience, ye know. Ah never see but one marshal to know him."

"When ye do see one, an' yo' sho', never forget him. Hit's the only way. Here, take this mattock 'n pull those small rocks out, 'n pile 'em on this crocus-sack so's they won' make any trash on this-yer platform."

Bud did as he was bid, and the men worked quietly and steadily for ten minutes.

"Here she is," Pink whispered, at last, and peered excitedly into the cavern.

It was, as he had said, not very large, but large enough.

"Now pick up that sack with me an' tote hit in here. We mus'n' leave anythin' roun'. Here, this corner 'll do. Now bring me in that pipe 'n the little keg. We c'n leave all the tools here ex-ceptin' our axes. Axes looks well 'f we meet anybody goin' down."

"H'm," grunted Yarebrough once more, and scratched his head again. He stepped out of the cave on to the platform that Nature's hand had laid. The brightening light indicated the approach of dawn, though the sun had not yet risen. The mist was not dispelled, but it had grown thinner, and trees at some distance down the mountain began to have individual shape through the veil of dry haze that inwrapped them. The air was cool and sweet. The birds were singing, though still sleepily, but one in a tree over his head burst into a glorious heralding of the morning. Bud thrust his hands into his pockets and whistled softly. Pink roused him roughly from his reverie.

"Come, boy, we gotter fix up this yer openin' somehow."

Bud answered irrelevantly:

"Ah wisht Ah was certain about M'lissy."

Pressley let fly the bush that he was bending across the mouth of the cave.

"What about her?" he asked, sharply.

"Oh, everythin'!"

Explanation was difficult to his slowness of thought.

"She'll be wonderin' what takes me away from home so much at night; an' Ah don' much like to leave her alone, neither."

"Cain' ye trust her?" jeered Pink, with an evil scowl, but Bud turned on him so fiercely that he added, hastily,—"to keep still if ye tell her?"

"Tell her? Tell M'lissy! Ah wouldn' tell her fo' a good deal! You-all don' know M'lissy."

"She'd jump ye, Ah reckon."

"No, Ah don' allow she'd say much. The way hit is, ye see, M'lissy,—hit's foolish 'f her,—but M'lissy kinder thinks Ah ain' a right bad feller, an' Ah sorter hate to disabuse her min' o' that opinion."

"She mus' know you-all drinks."

"Yes, Ah 'low she do."

"An' ye play craps."

"Oh, well, that ain' anythin'."

"An' ye fight chickens."

"Of co'se; everybody does that."

"'N you've killed paddidges befo' the law was off."

"Who hasn'?"

"If she knows all those things she sho' cain' think yo' a plumb angel."

"Ah don' s'pose she's lookin' fo' wings. All the same, Ah do hate to have her know Ah'm about to do this."

"Oh, this is all right. She don' know yo' in debt an' need the money."

"No, she don'."

"Would that worry her?"

"Ah reckon hit would, specially if——"

"If what?"

"You seem powerful eager to know what'll worry M'lissy."

"If ye don' know what worries people ye cain' know how to help 'em." Pink was suavity itself. "If what?"

"Ah was goin' to say, specially 'f she knowed it was you-all Ah owed hit to."

"Lemme tell ye somethin' right now, Bud: M'lissy wouldn' fin' everybody clever 'nough to len' money to a no-'count feller like you. She better like me 'f she don'."

"She don' know hit, ye see. 'N she never shall 'f Ah c'n help hit."

Pressley grunted and seemed to reflect. Then he shook his head and muttered to himself.

"Hit might spoil the other."

"What ye say?" asked Bud.

"Nothin'. Ah'm studyin' 'bout fixin' a sort o' do' fo' here, so's the light won' shine out none when we-uns is workin'."

"Where's the smoke goin' to?"

"They's a split in that upper rock, fur back, we c'n run a bit o' pipe through. Leastways, they was when Ah was a kid."

"'N 's they ain' been no con-vulsion o' nature since that happy time, you 'low hit's still there."

"May be filled up; 'twan' overly big. But that's easy fixed."

"Say, Pink, don' you think we'd make any money—jus' as much money—'f we paid the tax, 'n could retail openly?"

"Paid the tax? Paid—— Fo' the Lawd's sakes! Pink Pressley payin' the gover'men' tax!"

He gave a great burst of laughter, which he quickly strangled, looking about suspiciously, and shook and shook with suppressed mirth. Bud stared at him seriously, and with some offence.

"Ah don' see nothin' e'er so ludicrous about that suggestion."

"Oh, Lawd!" Pink was rocking gently from side to side. "You don'? Jus' look yere, then. Have you-all got twenty-five dollars to pay the Federal gover'men' fo' this privilege? 'N fifty to pay the State? 'N fifty to pay the county? 'F you got a hundred 'n twenty-five dollars to spen' so free, Ah'd like to see hit!"

Bud rubbed his head and said nothing.

"'N who'd ye get to go on yo' bond? Mrs. Carroll 'n Miss Sydney, Ah s'pose! Oh, dear!"

Again he laughed, soundlessly.

"If ye go into hit so expensive, ye gotter have the plant to do a big business, 'n where'd ye get that? 'N ye'd have to get mo' co'n 'n you 'n me c'n make ourselves, 'n that'd mean ye gotter buy hit, or rent mo' lan' 'n hire niggers to work hit, 'n how'd ye pay fo' that?"

Bud listened gloomily, chewing the side of his finger.

"Them gover'men' fellers cain' make nothin'," went on Pink. "Firs' place they's co'n at fifty cen's a bushel. One bushel o' co'n makes about two gallons o' whisky; they's an ex-pense o' nigh twenty-five cen's a gallon to begin with. Then the gauger comes 'roun', 'n ye have to pay a tax on all he's smart enough to fin',—a dollar 'n ten cen's a gallon. They's a dollar 'n thirty-five cen's a gallon befo' the stuff's lef' yo' sto'house. 'N what payin' market c'n ye fin' fo' hit when any feller who wan's c'n get all the moonshine he needs fo' a dollar or a dollar 'n a quarter a gallon? Oh, Ah tell you, 'f ye wan' to make any money with a gover'men' still ye gotter have a switch-off that the gauger cain' fin. 'N 'f ye do that, ye might's well's, far's yo' morals is concerned, do hit all moonshine 'n save those ex-penses Ah listed fo' ye right now."

"Ah s'pose yo' right," assented Bud. "Blockadin's blockadin', whether ye do hit by moon or day. Do you-all 'low Calkins might inform on us?"

"Him's runs the still back o' Buck? Ah don' guess so. He knows Ah could tell the sto'keeper the whereabouts o' a pipe in his still-house that don' run into no sto'house. Oh, no, he won' inform on us."

"Ah hope not," said Bud, dismally. "Anyway, you-all better come on down now. Gimme that axe, will ye?"

"We gotter be right careful not to make no path comin' here. We better never come twict the same way."

Bud nodded his understanding.

"Come on," he urged. "Ah'm's empty 's a gun."



XIX

Hilda

Pink roses and red swung to and fro in the sunshine as they climbed the Doctor's whitewashed porch. Big bees hummed their sleepy drone from the fragrant hearts of the flowers, and a humming-bird whirred busily in and out in search of the honeysuckle that he loved. Up-stairs Mrs. Morgan was darning stockings in the coolest room in the house,—a bedroom with a northern exposure. A white shirt-waist gave a puffy look to a body that could ill endure such appearance of enlargement, and a black belt accentuated the amplitude of girth that it encircled. The good lady sat in an armless rocking-chair, or rather on it, for she was by no means contained therein, but bulged over and beyond at all points. Her feet, shod in heelless black slippers, above which puffed white stockings, rested upon a low footstool, and her widespread knees provided a generous lap for the support of her supply of socks and her implements,—her needle-book' and darning-gourd and balls of cotton. She had that look of comfort that fat people seem to radiate even when it is evident that physical annoyance is their own share.



Discomfort had no part in the picture that Mrs. Morgan presented, however, for a cool breeze gently ruffled her hair, and her eyes, when she lifted them from her work, rested contentedly on the fertile fields of the Doctor's farm, which were thriving, under Bob's management. She nodded with, pursed-up lips, as she wove her little lattices in heel and toe.

"He's doing better than ever Ah thought he would," she murmured. "Better, even, than Ah dared to hope,—thank God!"

Up and down, over and under, in and out went her needle.

"It's such a joy to Henry to have him so."

The scissors snipped a thread at the end of a darn, and a new hole displayed its ravage over the yellow surface of the gourd.

"It's been going on some months now, bless him! Ah'd like to know how he started in. Ah believe mahself it's Sydney."

The work sank into her lap for a space, while her shrewd eyes roamed over the fields, and sought Buck Mountain beyond, thrusting its topmost clump of chestnut-trees against the sky. She nodded to her thoughts as she picked up the unfinished sock.

"She's a wise mother who knows where her son ties his horse, and Ah confess Ah haven't always known, but it strikes me it's mostly the Oakwood hitching-post."

She smiled at her own sagacity.

"Not that Sydney'd have him. Though she might do a great deal worse, a great deal worse," she added, loyally. "But he cares for her enough to want to please her, and it takes the best to satisfy Sydney."

A step on the stairs outside made itself heard.

"Come in, dear. Ah was just thinking about you."

Bob flung his cap on the bed, sat down on a cricket beside his mother, and leaned his head against her shoulder.

"Tired, dear?"

"No, just hot. I've been over every field on the farm since breakfast."

"In all this sun!"

"Do you think it ought to cease to shine to shade your boy? There'll be a right smart crop this year."

"So your father was telling me yesterday."

"I've got better hands than usual."

"And they have a better overseer."

She let fall the stocking from her left hand and patted the shock of black hair resting on her shoulder. Silence fell between them—the embarrassment that comes from the broaching of a delicate subject.

"It's hard work," he sighed, and her mother-love knew that he did not refer to the management of the farm.

"We all have our dragons to fight, and yours is one of the hardest kind. Ah'm sure he's growing weaker, though."

"But he's still in the ring," groaned Bob, with a comical look, and they laughed in sympathy.

"I ought to have begun on him long years ago for your sake, ma dear, but—it wasn't you!" he blurted out, and hastened to kiss her, lest she be offended.

She could not help just a little sigh.

"It's what happens to most mothers, and we are thankful for the result, and put our vanity into our pocket."

"I don't want you to suppose that I'm such a puppy as to believe that she—you know who—cares for me—that way, you know. But I happened to think one day when—well, never mind what happened—I just thought that while she might never care anyway, she was dead sure not to if I went on being the kind of thing I was."

"True, dear, and even if she never did,"—how she longed to give him hope, as she had given him every toy he asked for in his baby days! But wisdom came to her now, and love gave her strength,—"even if she never did, the victory would still be a victory."

"And you'd care, anyway. Oh, mothers are good things! Do you mind my telling you-all this?"

He was sitting before her now, with his elbows on his knees and his chin in his hands. She leaned forward and kissed him.

"You've given me the greatest happiness Ah've known for years, dear."

He pulled at the stockings in her lap.

"I don't think I've had much show lately, do you?"

"You mean——?"

"Oh, well, I reckon I don't mean anything. It's all in the game. There's father," as a cry of "O-oh, Sophy!" was heard below. "Sophy's up here in the north room, dad," he called, eliciting from his mother the expected—

"You impertinent boy!"

The Doctor came in, bringing with him an air of excitement that made Bob cry,—

"What's up?"

Mrs. Morgan laid down her half-darned sock in anticipation.

"You never can guess the latest development."

"Ah've no desire to, Henry. Ah'd rather hear it at once."

"Who do you think's come?"

"Where?"

"To the Neighborhood."

"Henry, don't be so aggravating! Why don't you-all tell what you've got to tell, if you have got anything to tell."

This sarcasm drove on the Doctor to disclosure.

"Baron von Rittenheim's sister-in-law."

"His sister-in-law!" cried Bob.

"What in the world will he do with her in that cabin of his?" ejaculated Mrs. Morgan.

"Is she pretty?" This from Bob.

The Doctor was quite satisfied with the sensation he had aroused, and sat down to tell his story comfortably.

"Ah've just come from Oakwood, and Sydney told me. It seems she turned up last night after the Baron got home from the picnic; drove out from Asheville. He had to go and get Melissa Yarebrough to come and look after her."

"He wasn't expecting her, then?"

"Sydney says no. Of course he couldn't ask visitors to that shack of his."

"Ah suppose she hadn't any idea he was living that-a-way."

"Ah reckon not. She's his brother Maximilian's wife, or widow, rather, for she brought him the news of his brother's death. Sydney says he was quite broken up about it when he came over soon this morning to ask Mrs. Carroll if she would take her in. The old lady'd gone to fetch her when Ah got there."

"Did you wait?"

"You bet!"

"Is she pretty?" Bob asked again, with some insistence. Perhaps the Baron—how could he, though? But there was at least a chance of his falling in love with his own countrywoman.

"Pretty? I should say so! She looks like a lovely child, or an angel on a Christmas card, or something. Oh, you needn't grin. She won't look at you!"

"Saving all her looks for you, I suppose! Can she speak English?"

"Yes; but not enough to hurt anything. You'd ought to have seen her run up to Sydney, just like a little girl, and cry out, 'Oh, I thank you for that you have been so kind, every one, to my dear Friedrich!'"

"How did Sydney take that?" Mrs. Morgan could not resist a glance at her son.

"Oh, Sydney always does everything all right."

"What did she say to you, dad?"

"Oh, something about Friedrich telling her that Mrs. Carroll and Ah were his best friends."

"How long's she going to stay?"

"Ah don't know. Ah came away right off."

At Oakwood Baroness Hilda von Rittenheim's coming partook of the nature of an event. Sydney, who never had happened to hear even her name mentioned, went about during the time of her grandmother's absence in a state of agreeable anticipation. She was curious to see this unexpected arrival, and she took pleasure in arranging flowers in her room, and in shading the windows to produce the most desirable light.

"It will please him," she thought, "for us to be nice to her. Poor thing, she's lost all she cared for in the world; everybody ought to be nice to her." And she thought how happy she was herself, and resolved to be as kind as she knew how to be to the new-comer.

Sydney had a strong reluctance to face emotional or spiritual crises, and not even after her conversation on the bridge did she acknowledge to herself that von Rittenheim loved her, or that she cared for him. She was content to feel the glow that warmed her when she knew that she was the princess of his fable, and not to analyze her own feeling further, or to posit in him more than admiration.

Americans usually think of German women as fat and affectionate, or, if they are extremists, as "fit only to propagate their own undesirable race." Sydney formulated no idea of Hilda's appearance, but she found herself none the less surprised when she and Dr. Morgan watched from the window the tiny figure in its black robes, descending from the carriage.

"Why, the Baron said she was twenty-five, but she doesn't look any older than I do," she cried, and she flew down the steps to welcome her.

Hilda's little speech of thanks was natural and pretty, and Sydney liked her at once because she liked Friedrich. Katrina was delighted with her. Tom declared that he could listen to that accent forever, and John went into absurd raptures that were more serious than they sounded. Even Mrs. Carroll, usually not enthusiastic, granted her to be "Pretty? Yes, even lovely. And charming? Very."

Hilda must have felt herself to be under scrutiny during the day, yet she betrayed no knowledge of it. Her behavior was perfect. Several times she alluded to Max.

"Poor Max! The shock of his death was to me severe. Have I known Friedrich long? Oh, yes, indeed. Before ever I met Maximilian. I was living with my aunt in Heidelberg when he was at the University. I was a little girl then. Ah, yes, Friedrich always was nett to me, even so before Max. Yes, always shall I love Friedrich."

It occurred to Sydney that there was a shade too much insistence on this mutual affection, but she berated herself for a "jealous piece," and ordered Uncle Jimmy to bring out on the lawn coffee as well as tea, in deference to her guest's probable predilection.

"Yes, dear Frau Carroll," said Hilda, in answer to a question. "Indeed, have I much to talk with him. He comes this evening to see me. I have much to tell him and to hear from him."

Over her cup she glanced shrewdly at Sydney, who was enraged to feel herself blushing.

When Baron von Rittenheim appeared in the evening, Sydney and the Schuylers and John were just starting for the Hugers' dance.

"Surely you will go," the little Baroness had said, "and you will not think of me one time."

"You ask too much," murmured John.

She glanced at her mourning with a look that might have meant yearning for Max, or a desire to go to the ball.

Then she raised her eyes to Friedrich's, and Sydney was surprised to see a look of anger sweep over her childish face. Seeking its cause she found von Rittenheim's eyes fixed on herself, so full of love and longing and sadness that her one wish was to comfort him. Involuntarily she took a step towards him, and held out her hands. Then she remembered herself, and swept him a low courtesy, as if in thanks for the admiration of his gaze.

"You like my frock, M. le Baron?" she asked.

Von Rittenheim's eyes went to the fluffy white mass lying on the floor, and rose again to her face.

"He's speechless with rapture, Sydney," said John.

"I am, indeed," said Friedrich, bowing with his hand on his heart.

"Then come on, Sydney, and let language flow once more." And Tom dexterously threw her cape over her shoulders.

"See that? I've learned to do that really well since I was married. I've been practising in private. Mrs. Schuyler, allow me." And he repeated his performance and swept his flock before him to the door.



XX

Sacrifice

"I know that you two have much to say to each other," said Mrs. Carroll, when the noise of departing wheels had died away. "Ring the bell, Baron, please, and tell James to light the lamp in the little sitting-room. And in considering your plans, let me beg both of you to remember that it will be a pleasure to us all if the Baroness will stay at Oakwood as long as she wishes."

Hilda ran to the elder woman in her childish, impulsive way, and thanked her with many little German phrases of gratitude. Von Rittenheim raised her hand to his lips and murmured,—

"You make my decision easier, dear lady."

In the little sitting-room Hilda established herself in a huge arm-chair, whose high back cast a shadow on her face, and Friedrich, at the window, drew in great breaths of sweet summer air. He turned to her when Uncle Jimmy had gone.

"First tell me about Max."

"Yes, I must tell you about Max. I am afraid it will be an added grief to you to know that Max——"

"What is it?" he asked, sharply and apprehensively, as she hesitated. How familiar to him was that feeling of apprehension about his brother. Hilda was sitting erect in the big chair, looking at him fixedly.

"Max—shot himself."

"My God! Shot himself! Poor girl!"

The expression on Hilda's face changed to one of relief—almost of joy. After all, his first thought had been for her.

"Why did he—how did it happen?"

"He had had troubles——"

"Money?"

She nodded.

"I think they distressed him more than usual. And he was—he wasn't quite himself."

Von Rittenheim stared persistently out of the window, his face almost entirely turned away from her. He lost not a word of what she said, and at the same time there ran through his mind memories of their boyhood days together, and of their adventures at the gymnasium and the university. Then their rivalry over Hilda. With what careless ease Maximilian had won her away from his brother, just for the pleasure of victory. He felt again a dash of the old bitterness.

"You mean he was drunk?" he asked, bluntly.

She raised her tiny hands before her face as if she were warding off a blow. Friedrich hardly could hear her "Yes."

Her action suggested an idea to von Rittenheim.

"Tell me, Hilda." He stammered over the question. "Did he—did Max ever strike you?"

Without a word Hilda pushed back the hair that fell over her forehead at one side, and showed, close to the roots, a scar.

Friedrich gazed at her in horror.

"You poor, poor girl!"

Again the glow of satisfaction warmed her face.

"Where was he when he—when he died?"

"At the Schloss—in my dressing-room."

"You were there?"

"My dress was wet with his blood."

Over Friedrich there rushed man's protective feeling, the desire to shield a woman from pain; his own yearning of not so many months ago, to fend this one fragile creature from the world. He drew nearer to her, and she leaned back in her chair and looked up at him out of the shadow.

"I could not bear to live at the Schloss any longer—there were horrible memories, and I was alone; I told you my aunt had died. You know she was my only relative."

Von Rittenheim knew. It was at her aunt's house in Heidelberg that he had met Hilda.

"Then Maximilian had told me that we could not live in the Schloss if you did not supply the money to carry it on. After he died I could not feel myself indebted for that to you when I had treated you so badly."

She hung her head. Von Rittenheim made a gesture of polite dissent, and walked again to the window.

"You always had enough money, I hope?"

"No sum ever was large enough for Max." They both smiled. "But a piece of great good fortune came to me just after you went away."

Von Rittenheim turned again to the window and betrayed some embarrassment, but Hilda was intent upon her story, and noticed nothing.

"Some of the investments into which my dowry had been put appreciated enormously in value."

So that was the way Herr Stapfer had explained it. Friedrich nodded approvingly.

"So I always had enough for my needs, even when——"

"When what?"

"Forgive me. I did not mean to say it."

"You were going to say, 'Even when Maximilian took it?'"

She hung her head again, like a sorry child. He noticed how her neck and arms shone white through the thin black of her gown.

"After all, you are his brother. Perhaps I should tell you. At the end—it was because of that that he shot himself, poor Max! He came to me in my room and asked me for money, and I told him I had none. Indeed, he had taken the last I had a few days before. He did not believe me, and he threatened to shoot himself if I did not give it to him."

"Coward!"

"Of course, I did not think that it was more than—excitement. How could I believe that he was in earnest? But he kept crying, 'Give it up, give it up!' The servants heard him. And then——"

Friedrich crossed quickly to her and leaned over the chair as she sat with her face buried in her handkerchief.

"Hilda, it seems to me no woman ever needed pity and comfort more than you. You have come many thousands of miles to claim it from me, and I will not fail you. You reminded me last night of my oath to you. I repeat it now. My life is at your service if it can bring you happiness."

The words sounded forced and stilted to his ears, even while he pressed the little white hand that she put out blindly towards him. He was not sorry for his pledge; he felt that he could have done no less; but Sydney's proud, earnest face flashed before him, and his memory saw it soften and flush with the happy shyness that covered it when she gave him her handkerchief,—and he wondered to what extent Hilda would consider that his promise bound him.

A few days made it clear that he had committed himself to no mere form of words. She received the admiration of every man in the Neighborhood. Patton McRae's elastic heart added another to its list of occupants, and John Wendell fell seriously in love with her. But always in the foreground she placed von Rittenheim. It was not alone that she looked for his coming, and monopolized him when he arrived; that she deferred to him, and did half a hundred tell-tale things; but in some way, by a hint here and a phrase there, she made every one understand how it had been with them in the past,—how madly he had loved her; how foolish she had been to break the engagement; how worse than foolish, for she had broken his great, noble heart, too. But, now—with a pretty sigh and an appealing look—now was her opportunity to remedy the harm she had done. When one or two of the bolder ones hinted at an engagement, she denied it, with a rebuking glance at her black gown, her fascinating, floating diaphanous black gown. Still, it became evident to every one that when a proper time had elapsed after Maximilian's death, her consolation would be even more remedial.

John haunted her steps, and left her only when the Baron came. Then he disappeared until his rival's departure. Sydney grew distant in manner to von Rittenheim, and often he did not see her at all when he went to Oakwood. Hilda's visit to Mrs. Carroll was prolonged on the ground that seemed to have place in every one's mind, though no one could trace its origin, that she would stay on near Friedrich until it was time to go home to Germany to begin her wedding preparations,—say, until after Christmas,—and that they would be married as soon as the year of mourning was over.

"It would be disgracefully soon if her husband had been a good man, of course, but he was such a beast!" And a shrug made all the necessary condonement for the hastening of the marriage.

By September the whole neighborhood was converted to this belief, all except John, who would not believe, and Sydney, who had not trusted herself to think.

The compulsion of thought seized her in her own room one night, after a day when it had been forced upon her that there could be but one truth, and that the conclusion to which her friends had come. From window to window she walked, dragging her trailing draperies, softly blue in the moonlight. She was fretted into constant motion by the impelling might of a desire to do something that would put off the moment when she must stop and think out the situation. She tried to divert her fancy to the channels of her daily life. She decided what colts should be broken next summer. She devised a new plan for keeping Bob employed and happy when the dull days of winter should come. She endeavored to be grateful that her grandmother was less harassed by pain than usual. Yet through all wreathed the insistent cry, "Face it. You must face it."

That compelling threat she knows who recognizes that the one dearest to her on earth must die. It commands the scrutiny of facts, and an end to the glossing of truth. It rings the knell of hope. Later comes the sustaining reflection of the future life,—its opportunities for work and its attendant happiness for him who enters upon it. But now is self's confrontment with loneliness, with sorrow, with despair.

The cry became insistent in Sydney's ears. Face it she must.

She stepped through the long window upon the balcony which commanded west and south. The moon swam cold in the steel-blue sky. The ribbon of low-lying mist betrayed the devious winding of the creek. On the horizon swung the gray masses of the mountains, their hardness veiled in the tender light of distance. Sydney fell on her knees and twisted her hands one within the other. She spoke in a whisper.

"I cannot bear it! I cannot bear it! Oh, I cannot bear it!" she repeated over and over.

Then stung to openness by the lash of the constant inward cry—

"I love him! Oh, I love him! Oh, I cannot bear it!" she moaned yet again.

She rocked to and fro upon her knees, and hid her face in her hands to shut out the glory of beauty and calm that lay before and around her.

"I never thought that love would be like this. To feel it—to be sure of it—and to have to give him to another woman!" She began to cry weakly.

The moon flooded the gallery with its light. A diamond on one of Sydney's clasped hands winked as gayly as if a tragedy were not filling the girl's heart. Then oft-read words came to her lips:

"Nothing is sweeter than love, nothing more courageous, nothing higher; nothing wider, nothing more pleasant; nothing fuller nor better in heaven and earth."

"For it carries a burden which is no burden, and makes everything that is bitter sweet and savory."

"He that loveth flieth, runneth and rejoiceth; he is free and is not bound."

"He giveth all for all."

"He giveth all for all." She repeated it again and again.

She had, indeed, dreamed of a love for which sacrifice should be a joy. But that this should be the kind of sacrifice! Even through her wretchedness the humor of it penetrated, and a woe-begone smile fluttered over her lips.

The singing words came to her again.

"Let me be possessed by love, mounting above myself."

"Let me love thee more than myself, and love myself only for thee."

She kneeled upright and rested her folded arms upon the railing. Peace seemed to be flowing in upon her, and a purpose grew into form within her mind. With increasing control she rose to her feet.

"If my love is worth anything it can do even that."

Her uplifted face shone strong and beautiful as she left the splendor without, and knelt beside her bed.

"O God, I thank thee that thou hast granted me the power to love. Help me now, I implore thee, to make use of this, my dearest treasure, for the joy of others."



XXI

A Poke Party

Friedrich was sitting at his solitary breakfast. He had grown expert in the daily preparation of bacon, eggs, cornbread, and coffee; but that is a poor feast which is denied the sauce of companionship, and he dallied with his spoon, while he stared gloomily through the open door. The jaded green of the late September foliage harmonized with his mood of depression.

He went to Oakwood now only so often as courteous attention to his sister-in-law—poor little girl!—seemed to demand. Sydney avoided him; and John, who still lingered, although the Schuylers had gone north long before, gave him the black looks of a jealous rival. Hilda, though never assuming before him the part of betrothed which every one assigned to her, nevertheless made him feel the bond by which he had engaged himself,—a net as fine as silk and as strong as steel; an enmeshment of chivalry and sympathy and love for his good word.

He made his new business the excuse for his infrequent visits. It was no subterfuge, for even in the short period of two months the "McRae Cattle" were earning encomiums, from those who knew stock, for their good condition and the flavor of their beef. Both on the Baron's place and at Cotswold long shelter-sheds were being erected for winter protection; and at Cotswold, whose larger size warranted the establishment of a more extensive plant, the firm had put in a small stationary engine to cut the feed, and was building a silo for the preservation of the winter supplies. A dehorning machine, which caused a moment of present torture for the sake of months of future peace, served an additional purpose as an advertisement. Farmers came from far back in the mountains to see the inhuman weapon, and incidentally brought along a calf or two to sell as an excuse for their waste of time. Their denunciations sent more of the curious, who were not deterred by motives of tenderness from submitting their creatures to the operation, provided they received a good price.

When Hilda had discovered her brother-in-law's straitened circumstances she had offered to him a part of her income, deploring his evident poverty with real distress of voice and manner.

"I don't understand why it is so,—you are not extravagant, like Max,—but I can see the fact plainly enough, and I beg you to take it, dear Friedrich."

Friedrich kissed her hand in gratitude, but refused, explaining that he had enough capital for the undertaking of his business venture, and that his personal wants were of the simplest.

"But your house, Friedrich. It is not fitting that a von Rittenheim should live in a cabin like that."



"Man makes the house, Hilda, and I don't feel that my dignity is hurt. I am comfortable, and that is all that is necessary."

He happened to think of this conversation as he drank the last of his coffee, and he realized that Hilda's offer was another of the tiny threads that linked him to her. He thought how true it was now that, so long as he could make his living out of his new business, he cared nothing for the roof that sheltered him; while on that golden night of happiness when Sydney and he had watched the river flow under the bridge, he had been glad of his new prosperity because he could build for her a house such as she should fancy.

He did not allow himself to think often of Sydney. He was glad that he had had the strength to refrain from asking her to be his wife until he had something more substantial than his name to offer her. It relieved somewhat the present situation. Yet her avoidance of him he could construe only as contempt for a man who had played with her while bound by other ties. Sometimes he felt that he must explain to her how intangible were those bonds. Yet he was sufficiently conscious of their actual existence to feel that the difficulties of explanation were almost insurmountable. And Hilda, poor child, took his devotion entirely for granted.

His thoughts were leading him in a circle, and it was a relief when Melissa appeared in the doorway. He sprang up to welcome her.

"Come in, Mrs. Yare-brough. How do you do?"

"Ah'm well, thank ye. How are you?" returned Melissa, in the polite formula of her kind.

"Won't you have a cup of coffee?"

"No, Ah thank you. How's Mrs. Baron?"

"Mrs. Baron? Oh! She was very well the last time I was at Oakwood. She asks fr-requently for you and the baby."

"Mrs. Baron's so sweet! Ah never 'lowed to like anybody's much's Miss Sydney, but Mrs. Baron's jus' splendid."

With a woman's care-taking instinct, she began to gather together the dishes on the table and prepare them for washing.

"No, let me," she said, in response to von Rittenheim's objection. "Jus' while Ah'm talkin'. Ah stopped by to tell ye that Ah'm goin' to have a party to-night, an' Ah'd be proud to have you-all come to hit."

Her interest in him was so evident, and her desire to give him pleasure so real, that Friedrich responded, heartily,—

"Certainly, I shall go. It will give me delight. It is kind of you to ask me."

Melissa turned away, and rattled the knives and forks in gratified embarrassment.

"Hit's goin' to be to mother's 'cos her house is larger. You know where hit is?"

"Yes, indeed. Is it a dance?"

"Hit's a poke party, but there'll be dancin', too."

"A poke party! What is that?"

"Don't you-all know what a poke party is?"

"Poke? That is what I do with my finger at the baby."

Melissa laughed aloud.

"You wait 'n see, then. Ah reckon hit'll be a surprise party fo' you as well as a poke party."

It was clear that Melissa had imparted to her friends the Baron's guess as to the probable nature of a poke party, for he was greeted with broad smiles as he made his way through the crowd of men and boys about Mrs. Lance's door into the room where dancing was going on. Melissa came to him and proposed a seat beside Mrs. 'Gene Frady until the cotillon should be ended, but von Rittenheim preferred to go about the room as dexterously as he might in avoidance of the dancers, speaking to his acquaintances among the women and girls who lined its walls. There was space upon the floor for only two sets, and the lookers-on gossiped patiently, until such time as Alf Lance, the fiddler, should grow weary and let fall his bow.

"They's fo' blue waistes here to-night. Ollie Warson looks mahty sweet in her's."

"Do you think so? Hit seems like she favored her paw too much."

"Well, Bill Warson 'lows that if they's any good looks in the family, they come from him."

"Maw, you-all got a hairpin? Give hit to me next time I turn co'ners."

"Look at Evvie Williams! She always gets a seat nex' the window, so's she c'n talk to some feller out o' hit."

"Ah did, too, when Ah was that age."

"Yes, Ah remember you did. Ah don' guess Hamp Pinner's goin' to dance with Ollie tonight."

"Yes, he is. He jus' ast her in through the window."

"Sh, sh, sh. Will you hush yo' fuss!"

"Ah'm well, thank ye, Mr. Baron. How are you?"

"Look at Drusilla Pinner cross her feet, an' her a church-member, too!"

"Ah been lookin'. She's awful careless about her dancin'."

"This child'll have to go to bed in the other room. He's yellin' jus' tur'ble."

"Ah 'low M'lissy 'll make some money out o' this. They's right smart here."

Von Rittenheim made his rounds and joined the group of men at the door. They received him pleasantly, for he was a favorite among them. Indeed, since his misfortune in the spring he had noticed an added warmth in their attitude, and a certain intimacy of approach. As he talked to them the music stopped abruptly, and with its last note he found himself alone, for the youths about him had precipitated themselves into the room to secure their partners for the next cotillon. The enterprising Hamp came in through the window, by which port of entry the orchestra departed in search of the reviving pail on the back porch.

Melissa came timidly to von Rittenheim.

"Won't you-all dance this nex' one, Mr. Baron? Ah'll get ye a partner."

"I fear I should make too many mistakes. I do not understand well enough English to know quickly what says the director."

"Oh, yo' partner 'll tell ye all that."

"Then, if you will be that partner, will I try."

"Oh, no. Hit looks like Ah'd been askin' you."

"But no, Mrs. Yare-brough, for I would not tr-rust myself to the care of anybody whom I knew less well."

"Truly? Then we'll stand here?" And Friedrich, looking at her beaming face, did not regret the effort.

The other participants in the cotillon gained no praise from the spectators, for every eye was upon their unexpected guest. They applauded his successes and smiled encouragingly upon his mistakes. They admired his good looks in pleased undertones, and secretly urged Alf to prolong the dance and their pleasure until it seemed to Friedrich that he had been on the floor for hours.

When at last the music stopped, Bud's voice was heard calling, loudly,—

"Come in yere, boys, 'n get yo' pokes."

The girls found seats for themselves, while the men crowded into the other room.

"Hit's supper," said Melissa, giving Friedrich a little shove towards the door. "You'll see now."

"May I have the honor of bringing yours to you?"

"No, Ah thank ye, Mr. Baron. Ah always eats mine with Bud. But you-all go in an' get some, an' you'll fin' somebody to eat hit with when ye come back."

In the other room the men crowded before a table upon which were piled paper bags of different sizes. Each man was taking two, one for himself and one for his partner.

"This size poke is ten cents," insisted Bud, in the uproar, "'n this size is fifteen. They's good things in 'em all. The quality's the same, hit's the quantity makes the difference. Yes, they's devil ham san'wich. Ah know they is, 'cos Ah cut mah finger openin' a can fo' M'lissy this mo'nin'. Yes, they's cake, too. You, Hamp, that size is fifteen!"

As Friedrich approached, a laugh went up at the expense of 'Gene Frady, who had taken a bag of each size.

"Watch out which one 'Gene gives his wife," cried Bud, sarcastically.

The babies on the bed, four of them, were aroused by the noise, and joined their voices thereto. Three older children, who were sleeping rosily under the covers, slumbered on peacefully.

"One poke, or two, Mr. Baron? Ah'm proud to see you-all here," said Bud.

"A poke is a bag, eh? Give me two pokes, if you please, Bud. Yes, the large ones."

Returning to the dancing-room, he made his way to Mrs. Lance, Melissa's mother, who was sitting near the window. She was flattered into silence by the attention of the offered poke, and they ate the contents of their bags with solemnity.

A figure moving in the dim light outside attracted Friedrich's attention. He put his head out of the window. The man came directly beneath, and looked up.

"Ah, Pink, I thought that was you. I want to see you at some time."

"Ah'll watch out fo' ye when you-all's unhitchin' yo' mule."

"Very well. I'm going in a few minutes. You do not come in?"

"No. Hit's M'lissy's party, 'n she 'n me ain' friends."

"Here, take this, then."

Friedrich dropped his partly filled poke into the ready, uplifted hand.

"I had my supper very late to-night," he explained to Mrs. Lance, "and a man outside a party looks so forlorn, don't you think so?"

"Some of 'em deserves hit," returned Mrs. Lance, laconically. "He's one."

Von Rittenheim was fumbling with the halter-strap of his mule, when Pressley appeared beside him out of the shadow of a pine-tree.

"Is that you, Pr-ressley? Do you r-ride or walk?"

"Ah'm walkin'."

"Then will I not mount."

Friedrich slipped the reins over the mule's head, and led him out on to the highway. Pressley walked beside him. The stars shone brightly enough to make visible the open road.

"Are you-all goin' to ask me about the rent, Mr. Baron? Bud 'n me's been pullin' fodder fo' a week. Hit's all ready in the upper field, 'n you c'n take yo' choice any time. They's good bundles, fo' han's to the bundle."

"Thank you. No, it was not of that I was going to speak. I want to tell you that about six weeks ago—it was in August—I was up on Buzzard Mountain one night, and I fell asleep there."

Pink looked at him suspiciously in the darkness, and put a piece of the road between them.

"I fell asleep on a ledge of r-rock, and when I woke up I heard voices just under me."

"The hell ye did!"

"It was you and Bud."

"Well, what ye goin' to do about hit? Hit ain' befittin' you to squeal on us."

Von Rittenheim turned hot in the darkness, and made an impulsive motion that induced a corresponding disturbance in his companion.

"If I had thought of doing that I should not have spoken to you to-night."

Pressley nodded, and came across the intervening space.

"You-all wan' to come into the game, eh?"

"No, I do not want to join you, if that is what you mean."

"Well, what do ye want, anyway?"

"I wees' to say a few things to you. I do not ask you to stop moonshining. You are old enough to decide for yourself what kind of life you pr-refer to lead, though you know well that the life of a law-br-reaker is not the r-right sort."

"Oh, quit preachin', Mr. Baron. You-all's a law-breaker, yo'self."

Friedrich clutched the reins with a jerk that made the mule give a disgusted snort. The justice of the retort compelled him to self-control, as well as the knowledge that a giving way to rage would accomplish nothing, whereas coolness might do something.

"You know as well as I do the penalty of br-reaking the law. You've suffered it more than once, they tell me."

"Ah reckon Ah've cost 'em right smart mo'n they ever got out o' me," chuckled Pink.

"So I do not ask you to face the r-results of what you do, because you know well what they are, and you have made your choice. But I do ask you to think carefully before you undertake the r-responsibility of making Bud a criminal."

Pink's eyes shone cruelly in the darkness, but he only said, "Seems like you-all been a long time startin' on this yere work o' reform. You said hit was six weeks ago you heard us a-talkin'."

"Perhaps I have been wrong to delay. But that morning Bud seemed not sure and determined about joining you, and I hoped that he might make up his mind to refr-rain."

"How do you know he ain'?"

"Oh, by the grape-vine telegraph. Those things always are known. Also have I heard the men at the party to-night talking about it."

"Bud ain' no boy. Don' you think he's old enough to decide fo' himself fo' or ag'in' the life of a law-breaker, as you call hit."

"No, I do not. Bud is several years younger than you in r-real age, and he is a child beside you in deter-rmination. Also, he admires you."

"Ah'm grateful for the compliment!"

"You could do anything with him."

"Ah'm doin' what Ah wan' to with him."

Von Rittenheim looked at his opponent in disgust, and fell back upon his last argument.

"You know well what are the chances of your getting caught. You've been caught before."

"Yes, but Ah won' be this time. Hit was fellers that was mad with me who told on me befo', 'n Ah've fixed hit this time so Ah ain' got no enemies. They's only one feller that might inform."

"Who's that?"

"You."

The Baron flung up his head in quick scorn, and Pressley noted the gesture shrewdly, and nodded in satisfaction. Still he drove in another nail.

"A feller who'll listen will tell."

Friedrich colored angrily.

"You mean me? It does not sound well to hear—that! At first when I awoke on the mountain I was sleepy. I r-realized not what it meant. When I did know, I had no wees' to die at once. I was unarmed myself, and a man in your position would shoot deter-rmined to kill."

Pressley smiled at this tribute to his quickness and resolve.

"But it is not a question of me. What I was going to say was that you know there's a chance of your being arrested, and surely you would not care to feel that it was through you that Bud had br-rought that shame and disgr-race upon his wife."

"His wife?"

The ejaculation sounded to von Rittenheim like the hiss of a snake, and he drew away from Pressley as from a reptile.

"You have no r-relatives to suffer; alone you bear the bur-rden of your misdeeds. But if Bud goes wr-rong consider of the gr-rief of that poor Melissa, and think of the baby gr-rowing up to know that her father is a cr-riminal!"

"You-all think you got a mahty strong argyment there, Mr. Baron, don' you? But let me tell you, that's the weakest one you could bring. M'lissy Lance told me 'No' when she was a girl, an' M'lissy Yarebrough's never spoke a decent word to me since she's been married, 'n 'f unhappiness comes on her, Ah'll be glad of hit; 'n 'f hit comes through mah doin', hit's only what Ah'm aimin' at."

"'Aimin' at?' What mean you by that?"

"Ah mean Ah'll be gladder still 'f she's hurt through me."

"Know you not that it is a coward who takes pleasure in the pain of women and children?"

"So be," returned Pink, cheerfully. "A coward Ah am, then, fo' that's the way Ah feel."

"I warn you I shall speak to Bud."

"Talk yo' hatful, Ah don' care. Ah got a pull on him. Talk all you please so long's ye don' talk to the marshal."

"An' Ah ain' afraid o' yo' doin' that," he continued to himself, as he turned into the side road that led to his cabin. "You-all's had enough o' them folkses; an' you ain' that kind, either."



XXII

Von Rittenheim Collects his Rent

It was in the cool of the next day's afternoon that von Rittenheim, with 'Gene Frady, who was working for him, drove up to the field where was piled his rent corn. Bud was awaiting him there, and after he had chosen his heap from the three which were as nearly alike as it was possible to make them, he sat on a fallen tree and idly watched the two men loading the wagon. The western sky gave prophecy of a cloudless sunset, and Friedrich wished that his own path towards oblivion were as free and clear, and smiled faintly at the triteness of his comparison.

He owned to himself as he sat there that he was contented. He had entered upon his business with the desire to retrieve his past, and to make for himself a future that might be worthy for Sydney to share. Now the latter spur to ambition was gone, but it was replaced by an urgent desire to forget in work the bitter disappointment that had befallen him. Pushed by that incentive his venture could not long remain a venture. Such energy was bound to bring success. And the victory, which was daily more evident and more substantial, combined with the feeling that he was doing his duty as he saw it, to produce content.

But happiness? No. Never while—— Oh, what was the use of thinking about it? He rose impatiently, and walked through the brush at the top of the field, slapping at the leaves with a switch that he had been stripping.

Of a sudden he stopped and sat down on a stump.

"Goin' down with me, Mr. Baron?" called 'Gene from the top of the loaded wagon.

"No, I think not. I'll stay and talk with Bud a while. Come up here, Yare-brough," he added, as Frady drove off, whistling.

Bud approached, wiping the perspiration from his forehead with his shirt sleeve.

"Bud, did you know this was here?"

Von Rittenheim reached behind him and tapped something that gave forth a sound of earthenware.

"Know what was there?"

"Come and see."

Yarebrough stepped behind the stump, upon whose top the Baron swung around so as to keep his face in view.

"Whose jug?" asked Bud.

"I know not. I thought you might know."

Bud picked it up, disclosing a silver half-dollar upon which it had been resting. He looked at it as if afraid, and then glanced sheepishly at Friedrich.

"A half a gallon," remarked the German, dryly.

The mountaineer reddened and stooped for the coin.

"Wait!" commanded von Rittenheim. "Before you touch that, I want to ask you if you would be willing that your wife should know how you ear-rned that money?"

Yarebrough changed his weight uneasily from one foot to the other, and then sat down suddenly, as if his legs were not equal to his support.

"Well, Ah wasn' fixin' to tell M'lissy," he acknowledged.

"Know you not that that so good little woman would r-rather be hungr-ry than have you give her money that you gained by br-reaking the law?"

"Well, Ah wasn' fixin' to give hit to her."

"You weren't? What are you going to do with it?"

Unfortunately for the success of Friedrich's plan for Bud's moral regeneration, Yarebrough's affection for the Baron made him reticent on the fact of his debt to Pressley.

"For," he thought, sagely, "if Ah tell him Ah owe Pink, he'll go to lend me the money, 'n Ah know he cain' afford hit. Would he ever 'a' gone into sellin' blockade himself if he hadn' been as pore as a crow?"

His wit not being very ready, however, he offered no excuse, but said,—

"Ah reckon Ah don' care to tell ye."

Friedrich laid his hand on the young man's shoulder as he sat beside him on the ground.

"Think what it means, Bud, to do what now you do. You put yourself in the class of wr-rongdoers instead of in the r-ranks of those who do r-right. You will br-reak Melissa's heart if she finds it out, as certainly she will. And think of the baby. You want her to have an honest father, don't you?"

Bud was ground between the upper and the nether millstone. On one side of his weak will was his affection for his wife and child, and his desire to please the Baron. On the other was his fear of Pressley's sneers and his habit of submission to the older man's domination. And since his inclination towards good was not assisted by the mighty lever of a love of good for virtue's sake, the millstones clung close together, and the grinding still went on.

To compromise with a disagreeable present is a desire which it takes a stronger man than Bud to shake off. His inner light showed him no reason for making such an effort.

"Ah s'pose Ah hadn' oughter do hit," he admitted, "but hit's mahty temptin'. Now that there's the first money Ah seen from hit yet. Hit's all been hard work up to now, an' nothin' comin' in."