"I know a man," observed Burleson, deliberately, "who would buy that mare in about nine-tenths of a second."

"Oh, I'll concede him the other tenth!" cried the girl, laughing. It was the first clear, care-free laugh he had heard from her—and so fascinating, so delicious, that he sat there silent in entranced surprise.

"About the value of the mare," she suggested, diffidently, "you may tell your friend that she is only worth what father paid for her—"

"Good Lord!" he said, "that's not the way to sell a horse!"

"Why not? Isn't she worth that much?"

"What did your father pay for her?"

The girl named the sum a trifle anxiously. "It's a great deal, I know—"

"It's about a third what she's worth," announced Burleson. "If I were you, I'd add seventy-five per cent., and hold out like—like a demon for it."

"But I cannot ask more than we paid—"

"Why not?"

"I—don't know. Is it honorable?"

They looked at each other for a moment, then he began to laugh. To her surprise, she felt neither resentment nor chagrin, although he was plainly laughing at her. So presently she laughed, too, a trifle uncertainly, shy eyes avoiding his, yet always returning curiously. She did not know just why; she was scarcely aware that she took pleasure in this lean-faced young horseman's company.

"I have always believed," she began, "that to sell anything for more than its value was something as horrid as—as usury."

"Such a transaction resembles usury as closely as it does the theory of Pythagoras," he explained; and presently their laughter aroused the workmen, who looked up, leaning on spade and pick.

"I cannot understand," she said, "why you make such silly remarks or why I laugh at them. A boy once affected me in the same way—years ago."

She sat up straight, a faint smile touching her mouth and eyes. "I think that my work is about ended here, Mr. Burleson. Do you know that my pupils are enjoying a holiday—because you choose to indulge in a forest-fire?"

He strove to look remorseful, but he only grinned.

"I did not suppose you cared," she said, severely, but made no motion to rise.

Presently he mentioned the mare again, asking if she really desired to sell her; and she said that she did.

"Then I'll wire to-night," he rejoined. "There should be a check for you day after to-morrow."

"But suppose the man did not wish to buy her?"

"No chance of that. If you say so, the mare is sold from this moment."

"I do say so," she answered, in a low voice, "and thank you, Mr. Burleson. You do not realize how astonished I am—how fortunate—how deeply happy—"

"I can only realize it by comparison," he said.

What, exactly, did he mean by that? She looked around at him; he was absorbed in scooping a hole in the pine-needles with his riding-crop.

She made up her mind that his speech did not always express his thoughts; that it was very pleasant to listen to, but rather vague than precise.

"It is quite necessary," he mused aloud, "that I meet your father—"

She looked up quickly. "Oh! have you business with him?"

"Not at all," said Burleson.

This time the silence was strained; Miss Elliott remained very still and thoughtful.

"I think," he said, "that this country is only matched in paradise. It is the most beautiful place on earth!"

To this astonishing statement she prepared no answer. The forest was attractive, the sun perhaps brighter than usual—or was it only her imagination due to her own happiness in selling The Witch?

"When may I call upon Mr. Elliott?" he asked, suddenly. "To-night?"

No; really he was too abrupt, his conversation flickering from one subject to another without relevance, without logic. She had no time to reflect, to decide what he meant, before, crack! he was off on another trail—and his English no vehicle for the conveyance of his ideas.

"There is something," he continued, "that I wish to ask you. May I?"

She bit her lip, then laughed, her gray eyes searching his. "Ask it, Mr. Burleson, for if I lived a million years I'm perfectly certain I could never guess what you are going to say next."

"It's only this," he said, with a worried look, "I don't know your first name."

"Why should you?" she demanded, amused, yet instinctively resentful. "I don't know yours, either, Mr. Burleson—and I don't even ask you."

"Oh, I'll tell you," he said; "my name is only John William. Now will you tell me yours?"

She remained silent, coping with a candor that she had not met with since she went to parties in a muslin frock. She remembered one boy who had proposed elopement on ten minutes' acquaintance. Burleson, somehow or other, reminded her of that boy.

"My name," she said, carelessly, "is Constance."

"I like that name," said Burleson.

It was pretty nearly the last straw. Never had she been conscious of being so spontaneously, so unreasonably approved of since that wretched boy had suggested flight at her first party. She could not separate the memory of the innocent youth from Burleson; he was intensely like that boy; and she had liked the boy, too—liked him so much that in those ten heavenly minutes' acquaintance she was half persuaded to consent—only there was nowhere to fly to, and before they could decide her nurse arrived.

"If you had not told me your first name," said Burleson, "how could anybody make out a check to your order?"

"Is that why—" she began; and without the slightest reason her heart gave a curious little tremor of disappointment.

"You see," he said, cheerfully, "it was not impertinence—it was only formality."

"I see," she said, approvingly, and began to find him a trifle tiresome.

Meanwhile he had confidently skipped to another subject. "Phosphates and nitrogen are what those people need for their farms. Now if you prepare your soil—do your own mixing, of course—then begin with red clover, and plough—"

Her gray eyes were so wide open that he stopped short to observe them; they were so beautiful that his observation continued until she colored furiously. It was the last straw.

"The fire is out, I think," she said, calmly, rising to her feet; "my duty here is ended, Mr. Burleson."

"Oh—are you going?" he asked, with undisguised disappointment. She regarded him in silence for a moment. How astonishingly like that boy he was—this six-foot—

"Of course I am going," she said, and wondered why she had said "of course" with emphasis. Then she whistled to her mare.

"May I ride with you to the house?" he asked, humbly.

She was going to say several things, all politely refusing. What she did say was, "Not this time."

Then she was furious with herself, and began to hate him fiercely, until she saw something in his face that startled her. The mare came up; she flung the bridle over hastily, set foot to metal, and seated herself in a flash. Then she looked down at the man beside her, prepared for his next remark.

It came at once. "When may we ride together, Miss Elliott?"

She became strangely indulgent. "You know," she said, as though instructing youth, "that the first proper thing to do is to call upon my father, because he is older than you, and he is physically unable to make the first call."

"Then by Wednesday we may ride?" he inquired, so guilessly that she broke into a peal of delicious laughter.

"How old are you, Mr. Burleson? Ten?"

"I feel younger," he said.

"So do I," she said. "I feel like a little girl in a muslin gown." Two spots of color tinted her cheeks. He had never seen such beauty in human guise, and he came very near saying so. Something in the aromatic mountain air was tempting her to recklessness. Amazed, exhilarated by the temptation, she sat there looking down at him; and her smile was perilously innocent and sweet.

"Once," she said, "I knew a boy—like you—when I wore a muslin frock, and I have never forgotten him. He was extremely silly."

"Do you remember only silly people?"

"I can't forget them; I try."

"Please don't try any more," he said.

She looked at him, still smiling. She gazed off through the forest, where the men were going home, shovels shouldered, the blades of axe and spade blood-red in the sunset light.

How long they stood there she scarcely reckoned, until a clear primrose light crept in among the trees, and the evening mist rose from an unseen pond, floating through the dimmed avenues of pines.

"Good-night," she said, gathered bridle, hesitated, then held out her ungloved hand.

Galloping homeward, the quick pressure of his hand still burning her palm, she swept along in a maze of disordered thought. And being by circumstances, though not by inclination, an orderly young woman, she attempted a mental reorganization. This she completed as she wheeled her mare into the main forest road; and, her happy, disordered thoughts rearranged with a layer of cold logic to quiet them, reaction came swiftly; her cheeks burned when she remembered her own attitude of half-accepted intimacy with this stranger. How did he regard her? How cheaply did he already hold her—this young man idling here in the forest for his own pleasure?

But she had something more important on hand than the pleasures of remorseful cogitation as she rode up to the store and drew bridle, where in their shirt-sleeves the prominent citizens were gathered. She began to speak immediately. She did not mince matters; she enumerated them by name, dwelt coldly upon the law governing arson, and told them exactly where they stood.

She was, by courtesy of long residence, one of them. She taught their children, she gave them pills and powders, she had stood by them even when they had the law against them—stood by them loyally and in the very presence of Grier, fencing with him at every move, combating his brutality with deadly intelligence.

They collapsed under her superior knowledge; they trusted her, fawned on her, whined when she rebuked them, carried themselves more decently for a day or two when she dropped a rare word of commendation. They respected her in spite of the latent ruffianly instinct which sneers at women; they feared her as a parish fears its priest; they loved her as they loved one another—which was rather toleration than affection; the toleration of half-starved bob-cats.

And now the school-marm had turned on them—turned on them with undisguised contempt. Never before had she betrayed contempt for them. She spoke of cowardice, too. That bewildered them. Nobody had ever suggested that.

She spoke of the shame of jail; they had heretofore been rather proud of it—all this seated there in the saddle, the light from the store lamp shining full in her face; and they huddled there on the veranda, gaping at her, stupefied.

Then she suddenly spoke of Burleson, praising him, endowing him with every quality the nobility of her own mind could compass. She extolled his patience under provocation, bidding them to match it with equal patience. She bad them be men in the face of this Burleson, who was a man; to display a dignity to compare with his; to meet him squarely, to deal fairly, to make their protests to his face and not whisper crime behind his back.

And that was all; she swung her mare off into the darkness; they listened to the far gallop, uttering never a word. But when the last distant hoof-stroke had ceased, Mr. Burleson's life and forests were safe in the country. How safe his game was they themselves did not exactly know.

That night Burleson walked into the store upon the commonplace errand of buying a jack-knife. It was well that he did not send a groom; better still when he explained, "one of the old-fashioned kind—the kind I used as a school-boy."

"To whittle willow whistles," suggested old man Santry. His voice was harsh; it was an effort for him to speak.

"That's the kind," said Burleson, picking out a one-blader.

Santry was coughing; presently Burleson looked around.

"Find swallowing hard?" he asked.

"Swallerin' ain't easy. I ketched cold."

"Let's see," observed Burleson, strolling up to him and deliberately opening the old man's jaws, not only to Santry's astonishment, but to the stupefaction of the community around the unlighted stove.

"Bring a lamp over here," said the young man.

Somebody brought it.

"Tonsilitis," said Burleson, briefly. "I'll send you something to-night?"

"Be you a doctor?" demanded Santry, hoarsely.

"Was one. I'll fix you up. Go home; and don't kiss your little girl. I'll drop in after breakfast."

Two things were respected in Fox Cross-roads—death and a doctor—neither of which the citizens understood.

But old man Santry, struggling obstinately with his awe of things medical, rasped out, "I ain't goin' to pay no doctor's bills fur a cold!"

"Nobody pays me any more," said Burleson, laughing. "I only doctor people to keep my hand in. Go home, Santry; you're sick."

Mr. Santry went, pausing at the door to survey the gathering with vacant astonishment.

Burleson paid for the knife, bought a dozen stamps, tasted the cheese and ordered a whole one, selected three or four barrels of apples, and turned on his heel with a curt good-night.

"Say!" broke out old man Storm as he reached the door; "you wasn't plannin' to hev the law on Abe, was you?"

"About that grass fire?" inquired Burleson, wheeling in his tracks. "Oh no; Abe lost his temper and his belt. Any man's liable to lose both. By-the-way"—he came back slowly, buttoning his gloves—"about this question of the game—it has occurred to me that it can be adjusted very simply. How many men in this town are hunters?"

Nobody answered at first, inherent suspicion making them coy. However, it finally appeared that in a community of twenty families there were some four of nature's noblemen who "admired to go gunnin' with a smell-dog."

"Four," repeated Burleson. "Now just see how simple it is. The law allows thirty woodcock, thirty partridges, and two deer to every hunter. That makes eight deer and two hundred and forty birds out of the preserve, which is very little—if you shoot straight enough to get your limit!" he laughed. "But it being a private preserve, you'll do your shooting on Saturdays, and check off your bag at the gate of the lodge—so that you won't make any mistakes in going over the limit." He laughed again, and pointed at a lean hound lying under the counter.

"Hounds are barred; only 'smell-dogs' admitted," he said. "And"—he became quietly serious—"I count on each one of you four men to aid my patrol in keeping the game-laws and the fire-laws and every forest law on the statutes. And I count on you to take out enough fox and mink pelts to pay me for my game—and you yourselves for your labor; for though it is my game by the law of the land, what is mine is no source of pleasure to me unless I share it. Let us work together to keep the streams and coverts and forests well stocked. Good-night."

About eleven o'clock that evening Abe Storm slunk into the store, and the community rose and fell on him and administered the most terrific beating that a husky young man ever emerged from alive.

III

In October the maple leaves fell, the white birches showered the hill-sides with crumpled gold, the ruffed grouse put on its downy stockings, the great hare's flanks became patched with white. Cold was surely coming; somewhere behind the blue north the Great White Winter stirred in its slumber.

As yet, however, the oaks and beeches still wore their liveries of rustling amber, the short grass on hill-side pastures was intensely green, flocks of thistle-birds disguised in demure russet passed in wavering flight from thicket to thicket, and over all a hot sun blazed in a sky of sapphire, linking summer and autumn together in the magnificence of a perfect afternoon.

Miss Elliott, riding beside Burleson, had fallen more silent than usual. She no longer wore her sombrero and boy's clothes; hat, habit, collar, scarf—ay, the tiny polished spur on her polished boot—were eloquent of Fifth Avenue; and she rode a side-saddle made by Harrock.

"Alas! alas!" said Burleson; "where is the rose of yesterday?"

"If you continue criticising my habit—" she began, impatiently.

"No—not for a minute!" he cried. "I didn't mention your habit or your stock—"

"You are always bewailing that soiled sombrero and those unspeakable breeches—"

"I never said a word—"

"You did. You said, 'Where is the rose of yesterday?'"

"I meant the wild rose. You are a cultivated rose now, you know—"

She turned her face at an angle which left him nothing to look at but one small, close-set ear.

"May I see a little more of your face by-and-by?" he asked.

"Don't be silly, Mr. Burleson."

"If I'm not, I'm afraid you'll forget me."

They rode on in silence for a little while; he removed his cap and stuffed it into his pocket.

"It's good for my hair," he commented, aloud; "I'm not married, you see, and it behooves a man to keep what hair he has until he's married."

As she said nothing, he went on, reflectively: "Eminent authorities have computed that a man with lots of hair on his head stands thirty and nineteen-hundredths better chance with a girl than a man who has but a scanty crop. A man with curly hair has eighty-seven chances in a hundred, a man with wavy hair has seventy-nine, a man—"

"Mr. Burleson," she said, exasperated, "I am utterly at a loss to understand what it is in you that I find attractive enough to endure you."

"Seventy-nine," he ventured—"my hair is wavy—"

She touched her mare and galloped forward, and he followed through the yellow sunshine, attendant always on her caprice, ready for any sudden whim. So when she wheeled to the left and lifted her mare over a snake-fence, he was ready to follow; and together they tore away across a pasture, up a hill all purple with plumy bunch-grass, and forward to the edge of a gravel-pit, where she whirled her mare about, drew bridle, and flung up a warning hand just in time. His escape was narrower; his horse's hind hoofs loosened a section of undermined sod; the animal stumbled, sank back, strained with every muscle, and dragged himself desperately forward; while behind him the entire edge of the pit gave way, crashing and clattering into the depths below.

They were both rather white when they faced each other.

"Don't take such a risk again," he said, harshly.

"I won't," she answered, with dry lips; but she was not thinking of herself. Suddenly she became very humble, guiding her mare alongside of his horse, and in a low voice asked him to pardon her folly.

And, not thinking of himself, he scored her for the risk she had taken, alternately reproaching, arguing, bullying, pleading, after the fashion of men. And, still shaken by the peril she had so wilfully sought, he asked her not to do it again, for his sake—an informal request that she accepted with equal informality and a slow droop of her head.

Never had she received such a thorough, such a satisfying scolding. There was not one word too much—every phrase refreshed her, every arbitrary intonation sang in her ears like music. And so far not one selfish note had been struck.

She listened, eyes downcast, face delicately flushed—listened until it pleased him to make an end, which he did with amazing lack of skill:

"What do you suppose life would hold for me with you at the bottom of that gravel-pit?"

The selfish note rang out, unmistakable, imperative—the clearest, sweetest note of all to her. But the question was no question and required no answer. Besides, he had said enough—just enough.

"Let us ride home," she said, realizing that they were on dangerous ground again—dangerous as the gravel-hill.

And a few moments later she caught a look in his face that disconcerted and stampeded her. "It was partly your own fault, Mr. Burleson. Why does not your friend take away the mare he has bought and paid for?"

"Partly—my—fault!" he repeated, wrathfully.

"Can you not let a woman have that much consolation?" she said, lifting her gray eyes to his with a little laugh. "Do you insist on being the only and perfect embodiment of omniscience?"

He said, rather sulkily, that he didn't think he was omniscient, and she pretended to doubt it, until the badinage left him half vexed, half laughing, but on perfectly safe ground once more.

Indeed, they were already riding over the village bridge, and he said: "I want to stop and see Santry's child for a moment. Will you wait?"

"Yes," she said.

So he dismounted and entered the weather-battered abode of Santry; and she looked after him with an expression on her face that he had never surprised there.

Meanwhile, along the gray village thoroughfare the good folk peeped out at her where she sat her mare, unconscious, deep in maiden meditation.

She had done much for her people; she was doing much. Fiction might add that they adored her, worshipped her very footprints!—echoes all of ancient legends of a grateful tenantry that the New World believes in but never saw.

After a little while Burleson emerged from Santry's house, gravely returning the effusive adieus of the family.

"You are perfectly welcome," he said, annoyed; "it is a pleasure to be able to do anything for children."

And as he mounted he said to Miss Elliott, "I've fixed it, I think."

"Fixed her hip?"

"No; arranged for her to go to New York. They do that sort of thing there. I see no reason why the child should not walk."

"Oh, do you think so?" she exclaimed, softly. "You make me very happy, Mr. Burleson."

He looked her full in the face for just the space of a second.

"And you make me happy," he said.

She laughed, apparently serene and self-possessed, and turned up the hill, he following a fraction of a length behind.

In grassy hollows late dandelions starred the green with gold, the red alder's scarlet berries flamed along the road-side thickets; beyond, against the sky, acres of dead mullein stalks stood guard above the hollow scrub.

"Do you know," she said, over her shoulder, "that there is a rose in bloom in our garden?"

"Is there?" he asked, without surprise.

"Doesn't it astonish you?" she demanded. "Roses don't bloom up here in October."

"Oh yes, they do," he muttered.

At the gate they dismounted, he silent, preoccupied, she uneasily alert and outwardly very friendly.

"How warm it is!" she said; "it will be like a night in June with the moon up—and that rose in the garden.... You say that you are coming this evening?"

"Of course. It is your last evening."

"Our last evening," she repeated, thoughtfully.... "You said ..."

"I said that I was going South, too. I am not sure that I am going."

"I am sorry," she observed, coolly. And after a moment she handed him the bridle of her mare, saying, "You will see that she is forwarded when your friend asks for her?"

"Yes."

She looked at the mare, then walked up slowly and put her arms around the creature's silky neck. "Good-bye," she said, and kissed her. Turning half defiantly on Burleson, she smiled, touching her wet lashes with her gloved wrist.

"The Arab lady and the faithful gee-gee," she said. "I know The Witch doesn't care, but I can't help loving her.... Are you properly impressed with my grief?"

There was that in Burleson's eyes that sobered her; she instinctively laid her hand on the gate, looking at him with a face which had suddenly grown colorless and expressionless.

"Miss Elliott," he said, "will you marry me?"

The tingling silence lengthened, broken at intervals by the dull stamping of the horses.

After a moment she moved leisurely past him, bending her head as she entered the yard, and closing the gate slowly behind her. Then she halted, one gloved hand resting on the closed gate, and looked at him again.

There is an awkwardness in men that women like; there is a gaucherie that women detest. She gazed silently at this man, considering him with a serenity that stunned him speechless.

Yet all the while her brain was one vast confusion, and the tumult of her own heart held her dumb. Even the man himself appeared as a blurred vision; echoes of lost voices dinned in her ears—the voices of children—of a child whom she had known when she wore muslin frocks to her knees—a boy who might once have been this man before her—this tall, sunburned young man, awkward, insistent, artless—oh, entirely without art in a wooing which alternately exasperated and thrilled her. And now his awkwardness had shattered the magic of the dream and left her staring at reality—without warning, without the courtesy of a "garde a vous!"

And his answer? He was waiting for his answer. But men are not gods to demand!—not highwaymen to bar the way with a "Stand and deliver!" And an answer is a precious thing—a gem of untold value. It was hers to give, hers to withhold, hers to defend.

"You will call on us to say good-bye this evening?" she asked, steadying her voice.

A deep color stung his face; he bowed, standing stiff and silent until she had passed through the open door of the veranda. Then, half blind with his misery, he mounted, wheeled, and galloped away, The Witch clattering stolidly at his stirrup.

Already the primrose light lay over hill and valley; already the delicate purple net of night had snared forest and marsh; and the wild ducks were stringing across the lakes, and the herons had gone to the forest, and plover answered plover from swamp to swamp, plaintive, querulous, in endless reiteration—"Lost! lost! she's lost—she's lost—she's lost!"

But it was the first time in his life that he had so interpreted the wild crying of the killdeer plover.

* * * * *

There was a gown that had been packed at the bottom of a trunk; it was a fluffy, rather shapeless mound of filmy stuff to look at as it lay on the bed. As it hung upon the perfect figure of a girl of twenty it was, in the words of the maid, "a dhream an' a blessed vision, glory be!" It ought to have been; it was brand-new.



At dinner, her father coming in on crutches, stared at his daughter—stared as though the apparition of his dead wife had risen to guide him to his chair; and his daughter laughed across the little table—she scarcely knew why—laughed at his surprise, at his little tribute to her beauty—laughed with the quick tears brimming in her eyes.

Then, after a silence, and thinking of her mother, she spoke of Burleson; and after a while of the coming journey, and their new luck which had come up with the new moon in September—a luck which had brought a purchaser for the mare, another for the land—all of it, swamp, timber, barrens—every rod, house, barn, garden, and stock.

Again leaning her bare elbows on the cloth, she asked her father who the man could be that desired such property. But her father shook his head, repeating the name, which was, I believe, Smith. And that, including the check, was all they had ever learned of this investor who had wanted what they did not want, in the nick of time.

"If he thinks there is gas or oil here he is to be pitied," said her father. "I wrote him and warned him."

"I think he replied that he knew his own business," said the girl.

"I hope he does; the price is excessive—out of all reason. I trust he knows of something in the land that may justify his investment."

After a moment she said, "Do you really think we may be able to buy a little place in Florida—a few orange-trees and a house?"

His dreamy eyes smiled across at her.

"Thank God!" she thought, answering his smile.

There was no dampness in the air; she aided him to the garden, where he resumed his crutches and hobbled as far as the wonderful bush that bore a single belated rose.

"In the South," he said, under his breath, "there is no lack of these.... I think—I think all will be well in the South."

He tired easily, and she helped him back to his study, where young Burleson presently found them, strolling in with his hands in the pockets of his dinner-jacket.

His exchange of greetings with Miss Elliott was quietly formal; with her father almost tender. It was one of the things she cared most for in him; and she walked to the veranda, leaving the two men alone—the man and the shadow of a man.

Once she heard laughter in the room behind her; and it surprised her, pacing the veranda there. Yet Burleson always brought a new anecdote to share with her father—and heretofore he had shared these with her, too. But now!—

Yet it was by her own choice she was alone there, pacing the moonlit porches.

The maid—their only servant—brought a decanter; she could hear the ring of the glasses, relics of better times.... And now better times were dawning again—brief, perhaps, for her father, yet welcome as Indian summer.

After a long while Burleson came to the door, and she looked up, startled.

"Will you sing? Your father asks it."

"Won't you ask me, too, Mr. Burleson?"

"Yes."

"But I want to show you my rose first. Will you come?—it is just a step."

He walked out into the moonlight with her; they stood silently before the bush which had so capriciously bloomed.

"Now—I will sing for you, Mr. Burleson," she said, amiably. And they returned to the house, finding not a word to say on the way.

The piano was in decent tune; she sat down, nodding across at her father, and touched a chord or two.

"The same song—the one your mother cared for," murmured her father.

And she looked at Burleson dreamily, then turned, musing with bent head, sounding a note, a tentative chord. And then she sang.

A dropping chord, lingering like fragrance in the room, a silence, and she rose, looking at her father. But he, dim eyes brooding, lay back unconscious of all save memories awakened by her song. And presently she moved across the room to the veranda, stepping out into the moonlit garden—knowing perfectly well what she was doing, though her heart was beating like a trip-hammer, and she heard the quick step on the gravel behind her.

She was busy with the long stem of the rose when he came up; she broke it short and straightened up, smiling a little greeting, for she could not have spoken for her life.

"Will you marry me?" he asked, under his breath.

Then the slow, clear words came, "I cannot."

"I love you," he said, as though he had not heard her. "There is nothing for me in life without you; from the moment you came into my life there was nothing else, nothing in heaven or earth but you—your loveliness, your beauty, your hair, your hands, the echo of your voice haunting me, the memory of your every step, your smile, the turn of your head—all that I love in you—and all that I worship—your sweetness, your loyalty, your bravery, your honor. Give me all this to guard, to adore—try to love me; forget my faults, forgive all that I lack. I know—I know what I am—what little I have to offer—but it is all that I am, all that I have. Constance! Constance! Must you refuse?"

"Did I refuse?" she faltered. "I don't know why I did."

With bare arm bent back and hand pressed over the hand that held her waist imprisoned, she looked up into his eyes. Then their lips met.

"Say it," he whispered.

"Say it? Ah, I do say it: I love you—I love you. I said it years ago—when you were a boy and I wore muslin gowns above my knees. Did you think I had not guessed it?... And you told father to-night—you told him, because I never heard him laugh that way before.... And you are Jack—my boy that I loved when I was ten—my boy lover? Ah, Jack, I was never deceived."

He drew her closer and lifted her flushed face. "I told your father—yes. And I told him that we would go South with him."

"You—you dared assume that!—before I had consented!" she cried, exasperated.

"Why—why, I couldn't contemplate anything else."

Half laughing, half angry, she strained to release his arm, then desisted, breathless, gray eyes meeting his.

"No other man," she breathed—"no other man—" There was a silence, then her arms crept up closer, encircling his neck. "There is no other man," she sighed.



THE MARKET-HUNTER

A warm October was followed by a muggy, wet November. The elm leaves turned yellow but did not fall; the ash-trees lighted up the woods like gigantic lanterns set in amber; single branches among the maples slowly crimsoned. As yet the dropping of acorns rarely broke the forest silence in Sagamore County, although the blue-jays screamed in the alders and crows were already gathering for their annual caucus.

Because there had been as yet no frost the partridges still lurked deep in the swamps, and the woodcock skulked, shunning the white birches until the ice-storms in the north should set their comrades moving southward.

There was little doing in the feathered world. Of course the swallows had long since departed, and with the advent of the blue-jays and golden-winged wood peckers a few heavy-pinioned hawks had appeared, wheeling all day over the pine-woods, calling querulously.

Then one still night the frost silvered the land, and the raccoons whistled from the beach-woods on the ridges, and old man Jocelyn's daughter crept from her chilly bed to the window which framed a staring, frosty moon.

Through the silence she heard a whisper like the discreet rustle of silken hangings. It was the sound of leaves falling through the darkness. She peered into the night, where, unseen, the delicate fingers of the frost were touching a million leaves, and as each little leaf was summoned she heard it go, whispering obedience.

Now the moonlight seemed to saturate her torn, thin night-gown and lie like frost on her body; and she crept to the door of her room, shivering, and called, "Father!"

He answered heavily, and the bed in the next room creaked.

"There is a frost," she said; "shall I load the cartridges?"

She could hear him stumble out of bed and grope for the window.

Presently he yawned loudly and she heard him tumble back into bed.

"There won't be no flight to-night," he said; "the birds won't move for twenty-four hours. Go to bed, Jess."

"But there are sure to be a few droppers in to-night," she protested.

"Go to bed," he said, shortly.

After a moment she began again: "I don't mind loading a dozen shells, dad."

"What for?" he said. "It's my fault I ain't ready. I didn't want you foolin' with candles around powder and shot."

"But I want you to have a good time to-morrow," she urged, with teeth chattering. "You know," and she laughed a mirthless laugh, "it's Thanksgiving Day, and two woodcock are as good as a turkey."

What he said was, "Turkey be darned!" but, nevertheless, she knew he was pleased, so she said no more.

There was a candle on her bureau; she lighted it with stiff fingers, then trotted about over the carpetless floor, gathering up the loading-tools and flimsy paper shells, the latter carefully hoarded after having already served.

Sitting there at the bedside, bare feet wrapped in a ragged quilt, and a shawl around her shoulders, she picked out the first shell and placed it in the block. With one tap she forced out the old primer, inserted a new one, and drove it in. Next she plunged the rusty measuring-cup into the black powder and poured the glistening grains into the shell, three drams and a half. On this she drove in two wads. Now the shell was ready for an ounce and an eighth of number nine shot, and she measured it and poured it in with practised hand. Then came the last wad, a quick twirl of the crimper, and the first shell lay loaded on the pillow.

Before she finished her hands were numb and her little feet like frozen marble. But at last two dozen cartridges were ready, and she gathered them up in the skirt of her night-gown and carried them to her father's door.

"Here they are," she said, rolling them in a heap on the floor; and, happy at his sleepy protest, she crept back to bed again, chilled to the knees.

At dawn the cold was intense, but old man Jocelyn, descending the dark stairway gun in hand, found his daughter lifting the coffee-pot from the stove.

"You're a good girl, Jess," he said. Then he began to unwind the flannel cover from his gun. In the frosty twilight outside a raccoon whistled from the alders.

When he had unrolled and wiped his gun he drew a shaky chair to the pine table and sat down. His daughter watched him, and when he bent his gray head she covered her eyes with one delicate hand.

"Lord," he said, "it being Thanksgiving, I do hereby give Thee a few extry thanks." And "Amen" they said together.

Jess stood warming herself with her back to the stove, watching her father busy with his bread and coffee. Her childish face was not a sad one, yet in her rare smile there was a certain beauty which sorrow alone brings to young lips and eyes.

Old man Jocelyn stirred his sugarless coffee and broke off a lump of bread.

"One of young Gordon's keepers was here yesterday," he said, abruptly.

His daughter slowly raised her head and twisted her dishevelled hair into a great, soft knot. "What did Mr. Gordon's keeper want?" she asked, indifferently.

"Why, some one," said old man Jocelyn, with an indescribable sneer—"some real mean man has been and shot out them swales along Brier Brook."

"Did you do it?" asked the girl.

"Why, come to think, I guess I did," said her father, grinning.

"It is your right," said his daughter, quietly; "the Brier Brook swales were yours."

"Before young Gordon's pa swindled me out o' them," observed Jocelyn, tearing off more bread. "And," he added, "even old Gordon never dared post his land in them days. If he had he'd been tarred 'n' feathered."

His daughter looked grave, then a smile touched her eyes, and she said: "I hear, daddy, that young Gordon gives you cattle and seeds and ploughs."

Jocelyn wheeled around like a flash. "Who told you that?" he demanded, sharply.

The incredulous smile in her eyes died out. She stared at him blankly.

"Why, of course it wasn't true," she said.

"Who told you?" he cried, angrily.

"Murphy told me," she stammered. "Of course it is a lie! of course he lied, father! I told him he lied—"

With horror in her eyes she stared at her father, but Jocelyn sat sullenly brooding over his coffee-cup and tearing bit after bit from the crust in his fist.

"Has young Gordon ever said that to you?" he demanded, at length.

"I have never spoken to him in all my life," answered the girl, with a dry sob. "If I had known that he gave things to—to—us—I should have died—"

Jocelyn's eyes were averted. "How dare he!" she went on, trembling. "We are not beggars! If we have nothing, it is his father's shame—and his shame! Oh, father, father! I never thought—I never for one instant thought—"

"Don't, Jess!" said Jocelyn, hoarsely.

Then he rose and laid a heavy hand on the table. "I took his cows and his ploughs and his seed. What of it? He owes me more! I took them for your sake—to try to find a living in this bit of flint and sand—for you. Birds are scarce. They've passed a law against market-shooting. Every barrel of birds I send out may mean prison. I've lived my life as a market-hunter; I ain't fitted for farming. But you were growing, and you need schooling, and between the game-warden and young Gordon I couldn't keep you decent—so I took his damned cattle and I dug in the ground. What of it!" he ended, violently. And, as she did not speak, he gave voice to the sullen rage within him—"I took his cattle and his ploughs as I take his birds. They ain't his to give; they're mine to take—the birds are. I guess when God set the first hen partridge on her nest in Sagamore woods he wasn't thinking particularly about breeding them for young Gordon!"

He picked up his gun and started heavily for the door. His eyes met the eyes of his daughter as she drew the frosty latch for him. There was a pause, then he pulled his cap over his eyes with a long grunt.

"Dear dad," she said, under her breath.

"I guess," he observed unsteadily, "you're ashamed of me, Jess."

She put both arms around his neck and laid her head against his.

"I think as you do," she said; "God did not create the partridges for Mr. Gordon—but, darling dad, you will never, never again take even one grain of buckwheat from him, will you?"

"His father robbed mine," said Jocelyn, with a surly shrug. But she was content with his answer and his rough kiss, and when he had gone out into the gray morning, calling his mongrel setter from its kennel, she went back up the stairs and threw herself on her icy bed. But her little face was hot with tearless shame, and misery numbed her limbs, and she cried out in her heart for God to punish old Gordon's sin from generation to generation—meaning that young Gordon should suffer for the sins of his father. Yet through her torture and the burning anger of her prayer ran a silent undercurrent, a voiceless call for mercy upon her and upon all she loved, her father and—young Gordon.

After a while she fell asleep dreaming of young Gordon. She had never seen him except Sundays in church, but now she dreamed he came into her pew and offered her a hymn-book of ivory and silver; and she dreamed they sang from it together until the church thrilled with their united voices. But the song they sang seemed to pain her, and her voice hurt her throat. His voice, too, grew harsh and piercing, and—she awoke with the sun in her eyes and the strident cries of the blue-jays in her ears.

Under her window she heard somebody moving. It was her father, already returned, and he stood by the door, drawing and plucking half a dozen woodcock.

When she had bathed and dressed, she found the birds on the kitchen-table ready for the oven, and she set about her household duties with a glance through the window where Jocelyn, crouching on the bank of the dark stream, was examining his set-lines one by one.

The sun hung above the forest, sending fierce streams of light over the flaming, frost-ripened foliage. A belt of cloud choked the mountain gorge in the north; the alders were smoking with chilly haze.

As she passed across the yard towards the spring, bucket in hand, her father called out: "I guess we'll keep Thanksgiving, Jess, after all. I've got a five-pounder here!"

He held up a slim, gold-and-green pickerel, then flung the fish on the ground with the laugh of a boy. It was always so; the forest and the pursuit of wild creatures renewed his life. He was born for it; he had lived a hunter and a roamer of the woods; he bade fair to die a poacher—which, perhaps, is no sin in the eyes of Him who designed the pattern of the partridge's wings and gave two coats to the northern hare.

His daughter watched him with a strained smile. In her bitterness against Gordon, now again in the ascendant, she found no peace of mind.

"Dad," she said, "I set six deadfalls yesterday. I guess I'll go and look at them."

"If you line them too plainly, Gordon's keepers will save you your trouble," said Jocelyn.

"Well, then, I think I'll go now," said the girl. Her eyes began to sparkle and the wings of her delicate nostrils quivered as she looked at the forest on the hill.

Jocelyn watched her. He noted the finely moulded head, the dainty nose, the clear, fearless eyes. It was the sensitive head of a free woman—a maid of windy hill-sides and of silent forests. He saw the faint quiver of the nostril, and he thought of the tremor that twitches the dainty muzzles of thoroughbred dogs afield. It was in her, the mystery and passion of the forest, and he saw it and dropped his eyes to the fish swinging from his hand.

"Your mother was different," he said, slowly.

Instinctively they both turned towards the shanty. Beside the doorstep rose a granite headstone.

After a while Jocelyn drew out his jack-knife and laid the fish on the dead grass, and the girl carried the bucket of water back to the house. She reappeared a moment later, wearing her father's shooting-jacket and cap, and with a quiet "good-bye" to Jocelyn she started across the hill-side towards the woods above.

Jocelyn watched her out of sight, then turning the pickerel over, he slit the firm, white belly from vent to gill.

About that time, just over the scrubby hill to the north, young Gordon was walking, knee deep in the bronzed sweet fern, gun cocked, eyes alert. His two beautiful dogs were working close, quartering the birch-dotted hill-side in perfect form. But they made no points; no dropping woodcock whistled up from the shelter of birch or alder; no partridge blundered away from bramble covert or willow fringe. Only the blue-jays screamed at him as he passed; only the heavy hawks, sailing, watched him with bright eyes.

He was a dark-eyed, spare young man, with well-shaped head and a good mouth. He wore his canvas shooting-clothes like a soldier, and handled his gun and his dogs with a careless ease that might have appeared slovenly had the results been less precise. But even an amateur could see how thoroughly the ground was covered by those silent dogs. Gordon never spoke to them; a motion of his hand was enough.

Once a scared rabbit scuttled out of the sweet fern and bounded away, displaying the piteous flag of truce, and Gordon smiled to himself when his perfectly trained dogs crossed the alluring trail without a tremor, swerving not an inch for bunny and his antics.

But what could good dogs do, even if well handled, when there had been no flight from the north? So Gordon signalled the dogs and walked on.

That part of his property which he had avoided for years he now came in sight of from the hill, and he halted, gun under his arm. There was the fringe of alders, mirrored in Rat's Run; there was Jocelyn's shanty, the one plague-spot in his estate; there, too, was old man Jocelyn, on his knees beside the stream, fussing with something that glistened, probably a fish.

The young man on the hill-top tossed his gun over his shoulder and called his two silvery-coated dogs to heel; then he started to descend the slope, the November sunlight dancing on the polished gun-barrels. Down through the scrubby thickets he strode; burr and thorn scraped his canvas jacket, blackberry-vines caught at elbow and knee. With an unfeigned scowl he kept his eyes on Jocelyn, who was still pottering on the stream's bank, but when Jocelyn heard him come crackling through the stubble and looked up the scowl faded, leaving Gordon's face unpleasantly placid.

"Good-morning, Jocelyn," said the young man, stepping briskly to the bank of the stream; "I want a word or two with you."

"Words are cheap," said Jocelyn, sitting up on his haunches; "how many will you have, Mr. Gordon?"

"I want you," said Gordon, slowly emphasizing each word, "to stop your depredations on my property, once and for all."

Squatting there on the dead grass, Jocelyn eyed him sullenly without replying.

"Do you understand?" said Gordon, sharply.

"Well, what's the trouble now—" began Jocelyn, but Gordon cut him short.

"Trouble! You've shot out every swale along Brier Brook! There isn't a partridge left between here and the lake! And it's a shabby business, Jocelyn—a shabby business."

He flung his fowling-piece into the hollow of his left arm and began to walk up and down the bank.

"This is my land," he said, "and I want no tenants. There were a dozen farms on the property when it came to me; I gave every tenant a year's lease, rent free, and when they moved out I gave them their houses to take down and rebuild outside of my boundary-lines. Do you know any other man who would do as much?"

Jocelyn was silent.

"As for you," continued Gordon, "you were left in that house because your wife's grave is there at your very threshold. You have your house free, you pay no rent for the land, you cut your wood without payment. My gardener has supplied you with seed, but you never cultivate the land; my manager has sent you cows, but you sell them."

"One died," muttered Jocelyn.

"Yes—with a cut throat," replied Gordon. "See here, Jocelyn, I don't expect gratitude or civility from you, but I do expect you to stop robbing me!"

"Robbing!" repeated Jocelyn, angrily, rising to his feet.

"Yes, robbing! My land is posted, warning people not to shoot or fish or cut trees. The land, the game, and the forests are mine, and you have no more right to kill a bird or cut a tree on my property than I have to enter your house and steal your shoes!"

Gordon's face was flushed now, and he came and stood squarely in front of Jocelyn. "You rob me," he said, "and you break not only my own private rules, but also the State laws. You shoot for the market, and it's a dirty, contemptible thing to do!"

Jocelyn glared at him, but Gordon looked him straight in the eye and went on, calmly: "You are a law-breaker, and you know it! You snare my trout, you cover the streams with set-lines and gang-hooks, you get more partridges with winter grapes and deadfalls than you do with powder and shot. As long as your cursed poaching served to fill your own stomach I stood it, but now that you've started wholesale game slaughter for the market I am going to stop the whole thing."

The two men faced each other in silence for a moment; then Jocelyn said: "Are you going to tear down my house?"

Gordon did not answer. It was what he wanted to do, but he looked at the gaunt, granite headstone in the door-yard, then dropped the butt of his gun to the dead sod again. "Can't you be decent, Jocelyn?" he asked, harshly.

Jocelyn was silent.

"I don't want to turn you out," said Gordon. "Can't you let my game alone? Come, let's start again; shall we? I'll send Banks down to-morrow with a couple of cows and a crate or two of chickens, and Murphy shall bring you what seeds you want for late planting—"

"To hell with your seeds!" roared Jocelyn, in a burst of fury. "To hell with your cows and your Murphys and your money and yourself, you loafing millionaire! Do you think I want to dig turnips any more than you do? I was born free in a free land before you were born at all! I hunted these swales and fished these streams while you were squalling for your pap!"

With blazing eyes the ragged fellow shook his fist at Gordon, cursing him fiercely, then with a violent gesture he pointed at the ground under his feet: "Let those whose calling is to dig, dig!" he snarled. "I've turned my last sod!"

Except that Gordon's handsome face had grown a little white under the heavy coat of tan, he betrayed no emotion as he said: "You are welcome to live as you please—under the law. But if you fire one more shot on this land I shall be obliged to ask you to go elsewhere."

"Keep your ears open, then!" shouted Jocelyn, "for I'll knock a pillowful of feathers out of the first partridge I run over!"

"Better not," said Gordon, gravely.

Jocelyn hitched up his weather-stained trousers and drew his leather belt tighter. "I told you just now," he said, "that I'd never turn another sod. I'll take that back."

"I am glad to hear it," said Gordon, pleasantly.

"Yes," continued Jocelyn, with a grim gesture, "I'll take it back. You see, I buried my wife yonder, and I guess I'm free to dig up what I planted. And I'll do it."

After a pause he added: "Tear the house down. I'm done with it. I guess I can find room somewhere underground for her, and a few inches on top of the ground for me to sit down on."

"Don't talk like that," said Gordon, reddening to the roots of his hair. "You are welcome to the house and the land, and you know it. I only ask you to let my game alone."

"Your game?" retorted Jocelyn. "They're wild creatures, put there by Him who fashioned them."

"Nonsense!" said Gordon, dryly. "My land is my own. Would you shoot the poultry in my barn-yard?"

"If I did," cried Jocelyn, with eyes ablaze, "I'd not be in your debt, young man. You are walking on my father's land. Ask your father why! Yes, go back to the city and hunt him up at his millionaire's club and ask him why you are driving Tom Jocelyn off of his old land!"

"My father died three years ago," said Gordon, between his set teeth. "What do you mean?"

Jocelyn looked at him blankly.

"What do you mean?" repeated Gordon, with narrowing eyes.

Jocelyn stood quite still. Presently he looked down at the fish on the ground and moved it with his foot. Then Gordon asked him for the third time what he meant, and Jocelyn, raising his eyes, answered him: "With the dead all quarrels die."

"That is not enough!" said Gordon, harshly. "Do you believe my father wronged you?"

"He's dead," said Jocelyn, as though speaking to himself.

Presently he picked up the fish and walked towards his house, gray head bent between his shoulders.

For a moment Gordon hesitated, then he threw his gun smartly over his shoulder and motioned his dogs to heel. But his step had lost something of its elasticity, and he climbed the hill slowly, following with troubled eyes his own shadow, which led him on over the dead grass.

The edge of the woods was warm in the sunshine. Faint perfumes of the vanished summer lingered in fern and bramble.

He did not enter the woods. There was a fallen log, rotten and fragrant, half buried in the briers, and on it he found a seat, calling his dogs to his feet.

In the silence of morning he could hear the pine-borers at work in the log he was sitting on, scra-ape! scra-ape! scr-r-rape! deep in the soft, dry pulp under the bark. There were no insects abroad except the white-faced pine hornets, crawling stiffly across the moss. He noticed no birds, either, at first, until, glancing up, he saw a great drab butcher-bird staring at him from a dead pine.

At first that inert oppression which always came when the memory of his father returned to him touched his fine lips with a gravity too deep for his years. No man had ever said that his father had dealt unfairly with men, yet for years now his son had accumulated impressions, vague and indefinable at first, but clearer as he grew older, and the impressions had already left the faintest tracery of a line between his eyebrows. He had known his father as a hard man; he knew that the world had found him hard and shrewd. And now, as he grew older and understood what the tribute of honest men was worth, even to the dead, he waited to hear one word. But he never heard it. He had heard other things, however, but always veiled, like the menacing outbreak of old man Jocelyn—nothing tangible, nothing that he could answer or refute. At times he became morbid, believing he could read reproach in men's eyes, detect sarcasm in friendly voices. Then for months he would shun men, as he was doing now, living alone month after month in the great, silent house where his father and his grandfather's father had been born. Yet even here among the Sagamore Hills he had found it—that haunting hint that honor had been moulded to fit occasions when old Gordon dealt with his fellow-men.

He glanced up again at the butcher-bird, and rose to his feet. The bird's cruel eyes regarded him steadily.

"You wholesale murderer," thought Gordon, "I'll just give you a charge of shot."

But before he could raise his gun, the shrike, to his amazement, burst into an exquisite song, sweet and pure as a thrush's melody, and, spreading its slaty wings, it sailed off through the sunshine.

"That's a new trick to me," said Gordon, aloud, wondering to hear such music from the fierce feathered criminal. But he let it go for the sake of its song, and, lowering his gun again, he pushed into the underbrush.

The yellow beech leaves illuminated the woods above and under foot; he smelled the scent of ripened foliage, he saw the purple gentians wistfully raising their buds which neither sun nor frost could ever unseal.

In a glade where brambles covered a tiny stream, creeping through layers of jewel-weed and mint, the white setter in the lead swung suddenly west, quartered, wheeled, crept forward and stiffened to a point. Behind him his mate froze into a silvery statue. But Gordon walked on, gun under his arm, and the covey rose with a roar of heavy wings, driving blindly through the tangle deep into the dim wood's depths.

Gordon was not in a killing mood that morning.

When the puzzled dogs had come wagging in and had been quietly motioned to heel, Gordon stood still and looked around at the mottled tree-trunks glimmering above the underbrush. The first beechnuts had dropped; a few dainty sweet acorns lay under the white oaks. Somewhere above a squirrel scolded incessantly.

As he was on the point of moving forward, stooping to avoid an ozier, something on the edge of the thicket caught his eye. It was a twig, freshly broken, hanging downward by a film of bark.

After he had examined it he looked around cautiously, peering into the thicket until, a few yards to the right, he discovered another twig, freshly broken, hanging by its film of bark.

An ugly flush stained his forehead; he set his lips together and moved on noiselessly. Other twigs hung dangling every few yards, yet it took an expert's eye to detect them among the tangles and clustering branches. But he knew what he was to find at the end of the blind trail, and in a few minutes he found it. It was a deadfall, set, and baited with winter grapes.

Noiselessly he destroyed it, setting the heavy stone on the moss without a sound; then he searched the thicket for the next "line," and in a few moments he discovered another broken twig leading to the left.

He had been on the trail for some time, losing it again and again before the suspicion flashed over him that there was somebody ahead who had either seen or heard him and who was deliberately leading him astray with false "lines" that would end in nothing. He listened; there was no sound either of steps or of cracking twigs, but both dogs had begun growling and staring into the demi-light ahead. He motioned them on and followed. A moment later both dogs barked sharply.

As he stepped out of the thicket on one side, a young girl, standing in the more open and heavier timber, raised her head and looked at him with grave, brown eyes. Her hands were on the silky heads of his dogs; from her belt hung a great, fluffy cock-partridge, outspread wings still limber.

He knew her in an instant; he had seen her often in church. Perplexed and astonished, he took off his cap in silence, finding absolutely nothing to say, although the dead partridge at her belt furnished a text on which he had often displayed biting eloquence.

After a moment he smiled, partly at the situation, partly to put her at her ease.

"If I had known it was you," he said, "I should not have followed those very inviting twigs I saw dangling from the oziers and moose-vines."

"Lined deadfalls are thoroughfares to woodsmen," she answered, defiantly. "You are as free as I am in these woods—but not more free."

The defiance, instead of irritating him, touched him. In it he felt a strange pathos—the proud protest of a heart that beat as free as the thudding wings of the wild birds he sometimes silenced with a shot.

"It is quite true," he said, gently; "you are perfectly free in these woods."

"But not by your leave!" she said, and the quick color stung her cheeks.

"It is not necessary to ask it," he replied.

"I mean," she said, desperately, "that neither I nor my father recognize your right to these woods."

"Your father?" he repeated, puzzled.

"Don't you know who I am?" she said, in surprise.

"I know you sing very beautifully in church," he said, smiling.

"My name," she said, quietly, "is the name of your father's old neighbor. I am Jessie Jocelyn."

His face was troubled, even in his surprise. The line between his eyes deepened. "I did not know you were Mr. Jocelyn's daughter," he said, at last.

Neither spoke for a moment. Presently Gordon raised his head and found her brown eyes on him.

"I wish," he said, wistfully, "that you would let me walk with you a little way. I want to ask your advice. Will you?"

"I am going home," she said, coldly.

She turned away, moving two or three paces, then the next step was less hasty, and the next was slower still. As he joined her she looked up a trifle startled, then bent her head.

"Miss Jocelyn," he said, abruptly, "have you ever heard your father say that my father treated him harshly?"

She stopped short beside him. "Have you?" he repeated, firmly.

"I think," she said, scornfully, "your father can answer that question."

"If he could," said Gordon, "I would ask him. He is dead."

She was listening to him with face half averted, but now she turned around and met his eyes again.

"Will you answer my question?" he said.

"No," she replied, slowly; "not if he is dead."

Young Gordon's face was painfully white. "I beg you, Miss Jocelyn, to answer me," he said. "I beg you will answer for your father's sake and—in justice to my father's son."

"What do you care—" she began, but stopped short. To her surprise her own bitterness seemed forced. She saw he did care. Suddenly she pitied him.

"There was a promise broken," she said, gravely.

"What else?"

"A man's spirit."

They walked on, he clasping his gun with nerveless hands, she breaking the sapless twigs as she passed, with delicate, idle fingers.

Presently he said, as though speaking to himself: "He had no quarrel with the dead, nor has the dead with him—now. What my father would now wish I can do—I can do even yet—"

Under her deep lashes her brown eyes rested on him pitifully. But at his slightest motion she turned away, walking in silence.

As they reached the edge of the woods in a burst of sunshine he looked up at her and she stopped. Below them the smoke curled from her weather-racked house. "Will you have me for a guest?" he said, suddenly.

"A guest!" she faltered.

A new mood was on him; he was smiling now.

"Yes, a guest. It is Thanksgiving Day, Miss Jocelyn. Will you and your father forget old quarrels—and perhaps forgive?"

Again she rested her slender hands on his dogs' heads, looking out over the valley.

"Will you forgive?" he asked, in a low voice.

"I? Yes," she said, startled.

"Then," he went on, smiling, "you must invite me to be your guest. When I look at that partridge, Miss Jocelyn, hunger makes me shameless. I want a second-joint—indeed I do!"

Her sensitive lips trembled into a smile, but she could not meet his eyes yet.

"Our Thanksgiving dinner would horrify you," she said—"a pickerel taken on a gang-hook, woodcock shot in Brier Brook swales, and this partridge—" She hesitated.

"And that partridge a victim to his own rash passion for winter grapes," added Gordon, laughing.

The laugh did them both good.

"I could make a chestnut stuffing," she said, timidly.

"Splendid! Splendid!" murmured Gordon.

"Are you really coming?" she asked.

Something in her eyes held his, then he answered with heightened color, "I am very serious, Miss Jocelyn. May I come?"

She said "Yes" under her breath. There was color enough in her lips and cheeks now.

So young Gordon went away across the hills, whistling his dogs cheerily on, the sunlight glimmering on the slanting barrels of his gun. They looked back twice. The third time she looked he was gone beyond the brown hill's crest.

She came to her own door all of a tremble. Old man Jocelyn sat sunning his gray head on the south porch, lean hands folded over his stomach, pipe between his teeth.

"Daddy," she said, "look!" and she held up the partridge. Jocelyn smiled.

All the afternoon she was busy in the kitchen, and when the early evening shadows lengthened across the purple hills she stood at the door, brown eyes searching the northern slope.

The early dusk fell over the alder swales; the brawling brook was sheeted with vapor.

Up-stairs she heard her father dressing in his ancient suit of rusty black and pulling on his obsolete boots. She stole into the dining-room and looked at the table. Three covers were laid.

She had dressed in her graduating gown—a fluffy bit of white and ribbon. Her dark soft hair was gathered simply; a bunch of blue gentian glimmered at her belt.

Suddenly, as she lingered over the table, she heard Gordon's step on the porch, and the next instant her father came down the dark stairway into the dining-room just as Gordon entered.

The old man halted, eyes ablaze. But Gordon came forward gravely, saying, "I asked Miss Jocelyn if I might come as your guest to-night. It would have been a lonely Thanksgiving at home."

Jocelyn turned to his daughter in silence. Then the three places laid at table and the three chairs caught his eye.

"I hope," said Gordon, "that old quarrels will be forgotten and old scores wiped out. I am sorry I spoke as I did this morning. You are quite right, Mr. Jocelyn; the land is yours and has always been yours. It is from you I must ask permission to shoot."

Jocelyn eyed him grimly.

"Don't make it hard for me," said Gordon. "The land is yours, and that also which you lost with it will be returned. It is what my father wishes—now."

He held out his hand. Jocelyn took it as though stunned.

Gordon, still holding his hard hand, drew him outside to the porch.

"How much did you have in the Sagamore & Wyandotte Railway before our system bought it?" asked Gordon.

"All I had—seven thousand dollars—" Suddenly the old man's hand began to tremble. He raised his gray head and looked up at the stars.

"That is yours still," said Gordon, gently, "with interest. My father wishes it."

Old man Jocelyn looked up at the stars. They seemed to swim in silver streaks through the darkness.

"Come," said Gordon, gayly, "we are brother sportsmen now—and that sky means a black frost and a flight. Will you invite me to shoot over Brier Brook swales to-morrow?"

As he spoke, high in the starlight a dark shadow passed, coming in from the north, beating the still air with rapid wings. It was a woodcock, the first flight bird from the north.

"Come to dinner, young man," said Jocelyn, excited; "the flight is on and we must be on Brier Brook by daybreak."

In the blaze of a kerosene-lamp they sat down at table. Gordon looked across at Jocelyn's daughter; her eyes met his, and they smiled.

Then old man Jocelyn bent his head on his hard clasped hands.

"Lord," he said, tremulously, "it being Thanksgiving, I gave Thee extry thanks this A.M. It being now P.M., I do hereby double them extry thanks"—his mind wandered a little—"with interest to date. Amen."



THE PATH-MASTER

"The bankrupt can always pay one debt, but neither God nor man can credit him with the payment."

I

When Dingman, the fate game-warden, came panting over the mountain from Spencers to confer with young Byram, road-master at Foxville, he found that youthful official reshingling his barn.

The two men observed each other warily for a moment; Byram jingled the shingle-nails in his apron-pocket; Dingman, the game-warden, took a brief but intelligent survey of the premises, which included an unpainted house, a hen-yard, and the newly shingled barn.

"Hello, Byram," he said, at length.

"Is that you?" replied Byram, coldly.

He was a law-abiding young man; he had not shot a bird out of season for three years.

After a pause the game-warden said, "Ain't you a-comin' down off'n that ridge-pole?"

"I'm a-comin' down when I quit shinglin'," replied the road-master, cautiously. Dingman waited; Byram fitted a shingle, fished out a nail from his apron-pocket, and drove it with unnecessary noise.

The encircling forest re-echoed the hammer strokes; a squirrel scolded from the orchard.

"Didn't I hear a gun go off in them alder bushes this morning?" inquired the game-warden. Byram made no reply, but hammered violently. "Anybody got a ice-house 'round here?" persisted the game-warden.

Byram turned a non-committal eye on the warden.

"I quit that business three years ago, an' you know it," he said. "I 'ain't got no ice-house for to hide no pa'tridges, an' I ain't a-shootin' out o' season for the Saratogy market!"

The warden regarded him with composure.

"Who said you was shootin' pa'tridges?" he asked. But Byram broke in:

"What would I go shootin' them birds for when I 'ain't got no ice-box?"

"Who says you got a ice-box?" replied the warden, calmly. "There is other folks in Foxville, ain't there?"

Byram grew angrier. "If you want to stop this shootin' out o' season," he said, "you go to them rich hotel men in Saratogy. Are you afraid jest because they've got a pull with them politicians that makes the game-laws and then pays the hotel men to serve 'em game out o' season an' reason? Them's the men to ketch; them's the men that set the poor men to vi'latin' the law. Folks here 'ain't got no money to buy powder 'n' shot for to shoot nothin'. But when them Saratogy men offers two dollars a bird for pa'tridge out o' season, what d'ye think is bound to happen?"

"Shootin'," said the warden, sententiously. "An' it's been did, too. An' I'm here for to find out who done that shootin' in them alders."

"Well, why don't you find out, then?" sneered young Byram from his perch on the ridge-pole.

"That's it," said the warden, bitterly; "all you folks hang together like bees in a swarm-bunch. You're nuthin' but a passel o' critters that digs ginseng for them Chinese an' goes gunnin' for pa'tridges out o' season—"

"I'll go gunnin' for you!" shouted Byram, climbing down the ladder in a rage. "I am going to knock your head off, you darned thing!"

Prudence halted him; the game-warden, who had at first meditated flight, now eyed him with patronizing assurance.

"Don't git riled with me, young man," he said. "I'm a 'fical of this State. Anyway, it ain't you I'm lookin' for—"

"Well, why don't you say so, then?" broke in Byram, with an oath.

"But it's one o' your family," added the warden.

"My family!" stammered Byram, in genuine surprise. Then an ugly light glimmered in his eyes. "You mean Dan McCloud?"

"I do," said the warden, "an' I'm fixed to git him, too."

"Well, what do you come to me for, then?" demanded Byram.

"For because Dan McCloud is your cousin, ain't he? An' I jest dropped in on you to see how the land lay. If it's a fight it's a fight, but I jest want to know how many I'm to buck against. Air you with him? I've proofs. I know he's got his ice-box stuffed full o' pa'tridges an' woodcock. Air you with him?"

"No," said Byram, with a scowl; "but I ain't with you, neither!"

"Don't git riled," said the warden. "I'm that friendly with folks I don't wanter rile nobody. Look here, friend, you an' me is 'ficials, ain't we?"

"I'm road-master of Foxville," said Byram, aggressively.

"Well, then, let's set down onto this bunch o' shingles an' talk it over 'ficially," suggested the warden, suavely.

"All right," said Byram, pocketing his hammer; "if you're out to ketch Dan McCloud I don't care. He's a low-down, shifty cuss, who won't pay his road-tax, an' I say it if he is my cousin, an' no shame to me, neither."

The warden nodded and winked.

"If you he'p me ketch Dan McCloud with them birds in his ice-box, I'll he'p you git your road-tax outen him," he proposed. "An' you git half the reward, too."

"I ain't no spy," retorted Byram, "an' I don't want no reward outen nobody."

"But you're a 'ficial, same as me," persisted the warden. "Set down onto them shingles, friend, an' talk it over."

Byram sat down, fingering the head of his hammer; the warden, a fat, shiny man, with tiny, greenish eyes and an unshaven jaw, took a seat beside him and began twisting a greasy black mustache.

"You an' me's 'ficials," he said, with dignity, "an' we has burdens that folks don't know. My burden is these here folks that shoots pa'tridges in July; your burdens is them people who don't pay no road-tax."

"One o' them people is Dan McCloud, an' I'm goin' after that road-tax to-night," said Byram.

"Can't you wait till I ketch McCloud with them birds?" asked the warden, anxiously.

"No, I can't," snapped Byram; "I can't wait for no such thing!" But he spoke without enthusiasm.

"Can't we make it a kind o' 'ficial surprise for him, then?" suggested the warden. "Me an' you is 'ficials; your path-masters is 'ficials. We'll all go an' see Dan McCloud, that's what we'll do. How many path-masters hev you got to back you up?"

Byram's face grew red as fire.

"One," he said; "we ain't a metropolipus."

"Well, git your path-master an' come on, anyhow," persisted the game-warden, rising and buttoning his faded coat.

"I—I can't," muttered Byram.

"Ain't you road-master?" asked Dingman, astonished.

"Yes."

"Then, can't you git your own path-master to do his dooty an' execoote the statoots?"

"You see," stammered Byram, "I app'inted a—a lady."

"A what!" cried the game-warden.

"A lady," repeated Byram, firmly. "Tell the truth, we 'ain't got no path-master; we've got a path-mistress—Elton's kid, you know—"

"Elton?"

"Yes."

"What hung hisself in his orchard?"

"Yes."

"His kid? The girl that folks say is sweet on Dan McCloud?"

A scowl crisped Byram's face.

"It's a lie," he said, thickly.

After a silence Byram spoke more calmly. "Old man Elton he didn't leave her nothin'. She done chores around an' taught school some, down to Frog Holler. She's that poor—nothin' but pertaters an' greens for to eat, an' her a-savin' her money for to go to one o' them female institoots where women learn to nurse sick folks."

"So you 'pinted her path-master to kinder he'p her along?"

"I—I kinder did."

"She's only a kid."

"Only a kid. 'Bout sixteen."

"An' it's against the law?"

"Kinder 'gainst it."

The game-warden pretended to stifle a yawn.

"Well," he said, petulantly. "I never knowed nothin' about it—if they ask me over to Spencers."

"That's right! An' I'll he'p you do your dooty regardin' them pa'tridges," said Byram, quickly. "Dan McCloud's a loafer an' no good. When he's drunk he raises hell down to the store. Foxville is jest plumb sick o' him."

"Is it?" inquired the game-warden, with interest.

"The folks is that sick o' him that they was talkin' some o' runnin' him acrost the mountains," replied Byram; "but I jest made the boys hold their horses till I got that there road-tax outen him first."

"Can't you git it?"

"Naw," drawled Byram. "I sent Billy Delany to McCloud's shanty to collect it, but McCloud near killed Bill with a axe. That was Tuesday. Some o' the boys was fixin' to run McCloud outer town, but I guess most of us ain't hankerin' to lead the demonstration."

"'Fraid?"

"Ya-as," drawled Byram.

The game-warden laboriously produced a six-shooter from his side pocket. A red bandanna handkerchief protected the shiny barrel; he unwrapped this, regarded the weapon doubtfully, and rubbed his fat thumb over the butt.

"Huh!" ejaculated Byram, contemptuously, "he's got a repeatin'-rifle; he can cut a pa'tridge's head off from here to that butternut 'cross the creek!"

"I'm goin' to git into his ice-house all the same," said the warden, without much enthusiasm.

"An' I'm bound to git my road-tax," said Byram, "but jest how I'm to operate I dunno."

"Me neither," added the warden, musingly. "God knows I hate to shoot people."

What he really meant was that he hated to be shot at.

A young girl in a faded pink sunbonnet passed along the road, followed by a dog. She returned the road-master's awkward salutation with shy composure. A few moments later the game-warden saw her crossing the creek on the stepping-stones; her golden-haired collie dog splashed after her.

"That's a slick girl," he said, twisting his heavy black mustache into two greasy points.

Byram glanced at him with a scowl.

"That's the kid," he said.

"Eh? Elton's?"

"Yes."

"Your path-master?"

"Well, what of it?"

"Nuthin'—she's good-lookin'—for a path-master," said the warden, with a vicious leer intended for a compliment.

"What of it?" demanded Byram, harshly.

"Be you fixin' to splice with that there girl some day?" asked the game-warden, jocosely.

"What of it?" repeated Byram, with an ugly stare.

"Oh," said the warden, hastily, "I didn't know nothin' was goin' on; I wasn't meanin' to rile nobody."

"Oh, you wasn't, wasn't you?" said Byram, in a rage. "Now you can jest git your pa'tridges by yourself an' leave me to git my road-tax. I'm done with you."

"How you do rile up!" protested the warden. "How was I to know that you was sweet on your path-master when folks over to Spencers say she's sweet on Dan McCloud—"

"It's a lie!" roared young Byram.

"Is it?" asked the warden, with interest. "He's a good-lookin' chap, an' folks say—"

"It's a damn lie!" yelled Byram, "an' you can tell them folks that I say so. She don't know Dan McCloud to speak to him, an' he's that besotted with rum half the time that if he spoke to her she'd die o' fright, for all his good looks."

"Well, well," said the game-warden, soothingly; "I guess he ain't no account nohow, an' it's jest as well that we ketch him with them birds an' run him off to jail or acrost them mountains yonder."

"I don't care where he is as long as I git my tax," muttered Byram.

But he did care. At the irresponsible suggestion of the gossiping game-warden a demon of jealousy had arisen within him. Was it true that Dan McCloud had cast his sodden eyes on Ellie Elton? If it were true, was the girl aware of it? Perhaps she had even exchanged words with the young man, for McCloud was a gentleman's son and could make himself agreeable when he chose, and he could appear strangely at ease in his ragged clothes—nay, even attractive.

All Foxville hated him; he was not one of them; if he had been, perhaps they could have found something to forgive in his excesses and drunken recklessness.

But, though with them, he was not of them; he came from the city—Albany; he had been educated at Princeton College; he neither thought, spoke, nor carried himself as they did. Even in his darkest hours he never condescended to their society, nor, drunk as he was, would he permit any familiarities from the inhabitants.

Byram, who had been to an agricultural college, and who, on his return to Foxville had promptly relapsed into the hideous dialect which he had imbibed with his mother's milk, never forgave the contempt with which McCloud had received his advances, nor that young man's amused repudiation of the relationship which Byram had ventured to recall.

So it came about that Byram at length agreed to aid the game-warden in his lawful quest for the ice-box, and he believed sincerely that it was love of law and duty which prompted him.

But their quest was fruitless; McCloud met them at the gate with a repeating-rifle, knocked the game-warden down, took away his revolver, and laughed at Byram, who stood awkwardly apart, dazed by the business-like rapidity of the operation.

"Road-tax?" repeated McCloud, with a sneer. "I guess not. If the roads are good enough for cattle like you, pay for them yourselves! I use the woods and I pay no road-tax."

"If you didn't have that there rifle—" began Byram, sullenly.

"It's quite empty; look for yourself!" said McCloud, jerking back the lever.

The mortified game-warden picked himself out of the nettle-choked ditch where he had been painfully squatting and started towards Foxville.

"I'll ketch you at it yet!" he called back; "I'll fix you an' your ice-box!"

McCloud laughed.

"Gimme that two dollars," demanded Byram, sullenly, "or do your day's stint on them there public roads."

McCloud dropped his hands into the pockets of his ragged shooting-jacket.

"You'd better leave or I'll settle you as I settled Billy Delany."

"You hit him with a axe; that's hommycide assault; he'll fix you, see if he don't!" said Byram.

"No," said McCloud, slowly; "I did not hit him with an axe. I had a ring on my finger when I hit him. I'm sorry it cut him."

"Oh, you'll be sorrier yet," cried Byram, turning away towards the road, where the game-warden was anxiously waiting for him.

"We'll run you outer town!" called back the warden, waddling down the road.

"Try it," replied McCloud, yawning.

II

McCloud spent the afternoon lolling on the grass under the lilacs, listlessly watching the woodpeckers on the dead pines. Chewing a sprig of mint, he lay there sprawling, hands clasping the back of his well-shaped head, soothed by the cadence of the chirring locusts. When at length he had drifted pleasantly close to the verge of slumber a voice from the road below aroused him.

He listened lazily; again came the timid call; he arose, brushing his shabby coat mechanically.

Down the bramble-choked path he slouched, shouldering his wood-axe as a precaution. Passing around the rear of his house, he peered over the messed tangle of sweetbrier which supported the remains of a rotting fence, and he saw, down in the road below, a young girl and a collie dog, both regarding him intently.

"Were you calling me?" he asked.

"It's only about your road-tax," began the girl, looking up at him with pleasant gray eyes.

"What about my road-tax?"

"It's due, isn't it?" replied the girl, with a faint smile.

"Is it?" he retorted, staring at her insolently. "Well, don't let it worry you, young woman."

The smile died out in her eyes.

"It does worry me," she said; "you owe the path-master two dollars, or a day's work on the roads."

"Let the path-master come and get it," he replied.

"I am the path-master," she said.

He looked down at her curiously. She had outgrown her faded pink skirts; her sleeves were too short, and so tight that the plump, white arm threatened to split them to the shoulder. Her shoes were quite as ragged as his; he noticed, however, that her hands were slender and soft under their creamy coat of tan, and that her fingers were as carefully kept as his own.

"You must be Ellice Elton," he said, remembering the miserable end of old man Elton, who also had been a gentleman until a duel with drink left him dangling by the neck under the new moon some three years since.

"Yes," she said, with a slight drawl, "and I think you must be Dan McCloud."

"Why do you think so?" he asked.

"From your rudeness."

He gave her an ugly look; his face slowly reddened.

"So you're the path-master?" he said.

"Yes."

"And you expect to get money out of me?"

She flushed painfully.

"You can't get it," he said, harshly; "I'm dog poor; I haven't enough to buy two loads for my rifle. So I'll buy one," he added, with a sneer.

She was silent. He chewed the mint-leaf between his teeth and stared at her dog.

"If you are so poor—" she began.

"Poor!" he cut in, with a mirthless laugh; "it's only a word to you, I suppose."

He had forgotten her ragged and outgrown clothing, her shabby shoes, in the fresh beauty of her face. In every pulse-beat that stirred her white throat, in every calm breath that faintly swelled the faded pink calico over her breast, he felt that he had proved his own vulgarity in the presence of his betters. A sullen resentment arose in his soul against her.

"I don't know what you mean," she said; "I also am terribly poor. If you mean that I am not sorry for you, you are mistaken. Only the poor can understand each other."

"I can't understand you," he sneered. "Why do you come and ask me to pay money to your road-master when I have no money?"

"Because I am path-master. I must do my duty. I won't ask you for any money, but I must ask you to work out your tax. I can't help it, can I?"

He looked at her in moody, suspicious silence.

Idle, vicious, without talent, without ambition, he had drifted part way through college, a weak parody on those wealthy young men who idle through the great universities, leaving unsavory records. His father had managed to pay his debts, then very selfishly died, and there was nobody to support the son and heir, just emerging from a drunken junior year.

Creditors made a clean sweep in Albany; the rough shooting-lodge in the Fox Hills was left. Young McCloud took it.

The pine timber he sold as it stood; this kept him in drink and a little food. Then, when starvation looked in at his dirty window, he took his rifle and shot partridges.

Now, for years he had been known as a dealer in game out of season; the great hotels at Saratoga paid him well for his dirty work; the game-wardens watched to catch him. But his ice-house was a cave somewhere out in the woods, and as yet no warden had been quick enough to snare McCloud red-handed.

Musing over these things, the young fellow leaned on the rotting fence, staring vacantly at the collie dog, who, in turn stared gravely at him.

The path-master, running her tanned fingers through her curls, laid one hand on her dog's silky head and looked up at him.

"I do wish you would work out your tax," she said.

Before McCloud could find voice to answer, the alder thicket across the road parted and an old man shambled forth on a pair of unsteady bowed legs.

"The kid's right," he said, with a hoarse laugh; "git yewr pick an' hoe, young man, an' save them two dollars tew pay yewr pa's bad debts!"

It was old Tansey, McCloud's nearest neighbor, loaded down with a bundle of alder staves, wood-axe in one hand, rope in the other, supporting the heavy weight of wood on his bent back.

"Get out of that alder-patch!" said McCloud, sharply.

"Ain't I a-gittin'?" replied Tansey, winking at the little path-master.

"And keep out after this," added McCloud. "Those alders belong to me!"

"To yew and the blue-jays," assented Tansey, stopping to wipe the sweat from his heavy face.

"He's only cutting alders for bean-poles," observed the path-master, resting her slender fingers on her hips.

"Well, he can cut his bean-poles on his own land hereafter," said McCloud.

"Gosh!" observed Tansey, in pretended admiration. "Ain't he neighborly? Cut 'em on my own land, hey? Don't git passionate," he added, moving off through the dust; "passionate folks is liable to pyralyze their in'ards, young man!"

"Don't answer!" said the path-master, watching the sullen rage in McCloud's eyes.

"Pay yewr debts!" called out Tansey at the turn of the road. "Pay yewr debts, an' the Lord will pay yewr taxes!"

"The Lord can pay mine, then," said McCloud to the path-master, "for I'll never pay a cent of taxes in Foxville. Now what do you say to that?"

The path-master had nothing to say. She went away through the golden dust, one slim hand on the head of her collie dog, who trotted beside her waving his plumy tail.

That evening at the store where McCloud had gone to buy cartridges, Tansey taunted him, and he replied contemptuously. Then young Byram flung a half-veiled threat at him, and McCloud replied with a threat that angered the loungers around the stove.