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.