THE SHERIFF FORGETS HIS PRISONER
Had Jess remained undiverted when he galloped out of Arden, Brent might
soon have been honorably and apologetically escorted from the Buckville
court house steps; but as he crossed a stream trickling over the
pike--the same spot where Tusk gave battle to Mephisto--his eyes rested
on a bee, a bee which had settled there to drink from the moist earth.
This checked the sheriff, who was ever considerate of his fondness for
wild honey--and this was a wild bee. Moreover, when he had looked again,
he saw other bees in the act of drinking. So he quietly dismounted, gave
his bridle rein to the darky, crouched and crept forward.
There is sometimes found in the realm of man one whom a bee will not
sting. Whether this is in respect for the man, or self-respect, may
still be pronounced an open question. One is inclined to think this way,
or that way, according to the aspect of him who makes the boast. At any
rate, Jess was of this select few, and in another minute he was standing
erect, chuckling, with five little workers buzzing excitedly between his
two palms, held together cup-like.
Now he permitted one to crawl out, and it shot away as a rifle ball
toward a clump of trees some half a mile distant. This was the sheriff's
first clue.
Carefully he climbed the worm fence--for it would not do to crush even
so lightly his four remaining captives--and strode blithely on. But he
was a long time reaching the trees; for a man, holding his two hands out
before him, delicately clasped and protecting bees, who must cross
fences and scramble through ravines, does not travel with the rapidity
of thought.
At the edge of the wood he released a second bee, watching it with the
same intentness as it darted off; and, having walked to about the spot
where it had disappeared, he let out prisoner number three. Of course,
on the same direct line this one went--for wild bees thus captured and
set at liberty abandon all desire for further work, and in a panic rush
headlong to their hive; in this way the wild hives are found. But the
fourth very soon swerved upward into the branches of a hollow black-gum
tree. Chuckling now, Jess indifferently freed the remaining captive; for
the search was ended, the treasure house was his. He pressed his ear
against the bark and listened. A low, incessant buzzing sound was there,
as though these five excited wanderers were recounting their adventure
to the agitated colony.
Having marked the place, the sheriff pressed on through the wood to a
neighboring farm house where he prevailed upon one Hod Fugit, to
accompany him with axe and buckets. The prudent Hod would have brought a
veil had Jess not laughed him out of it--for Jess, secure within
himself, would have the fun go as far as it could be stretched. An hour
later the black-gum tree came ripping, crashing to earth.
The intelligence, or instinct, of the bee has furnished inspiration for
many pens. Centuries prior to Maeterlinck, even before Pliny, Virgil,
Varro and Aristotle, those warmly constructed little insects, hailed by
the ancients as Winged Servants of the Muses, have been immortalized.
But, however much has been extolled their intelligence, or instinct, in
no page is it transcribed that their heads, or brains, or hearts are the
regions wherewith they argue; and, when this honey had been gathered,
Hod's rotundity of countenance was not all cheer. This, because man's
sense of humor is an enigmatical product, afforded Jess many pleasant
chuckles as he trudged, now with a full bucket of the golden prize, back
to his horse; and, in order to portray Hod's antics more vividly to the
several acquaintances he met on his way to town, he not infrequently
dismounted. But, entering the Court House square at sunset, his mirth
sank miserably into his boots; for there upon the steps sat a young man
in smart puttees and riding breeches just finishing his dozenth
cigarette.
Thus it came about that a little bee, athirst and momentarily ceasing
its frenzied toil to drink beside the way, led a sheriff from his duty,
and affected a prisoner's release from voluntary durance at the precise
moment for him to meet, three miles out the pike, a happy girl--herself
hurrying homeward--in whose heart someone's name was ringing with the
beat of her bounding pulses, and in whose cheeks a color flamed as she
recognized him coming.
They reined in gently and stopped. The horses touched noses. For the
merest instant his eyes hungrily devoured her, then for an instant
closed, and after this he smiled politely, asking:
"May I say you're stunning?"
"Flatterer, comforter," she laughed. "But I'm dreadfully in need of it.
I've been--been crying!"
"Yes," he murmured, "I remember; you must have been. Shall I go back
with you as far as Bob's gate?"
"No; it is almost in sight, and you're as late as I. Why do you say you
remember?--that I must have been?"
"Because you just now told me you had been," he smiled again.
"Brent," she leaned over and looked very seriously into his face, "don't
temporize. I'm not in the humor for it! I heard about--something today,
and I want to tell you that you're--that you're splendid!"
"What about?" There was no feigned surprise in his question.
"Oh," she clapped her hands as a delighted child might have done, "he
doesn't know that Tusk is alive!" But added gravely: "Suppose he'd been
dead, Brent!"
He turned away; afraid, in this surprise and strange giddiness which was
enveloping him, to trust himself to speak. There ensued a longer pause,
broken by her wistful voice asking: "Why did you, Brent?"
"Oh, I was just having a little fun with Dale," he answered casually.
"Hurry, it's late! I'll race you to Bob's gate--and leave you!"
Turning his horse to put it in motion, he did not know that she sat
drooping in the saddle, and staring--pale and staring--with a horrified
fear and disappointment in her eyes.
"I'll not race," she faltered. "It is so near, so don't come. Perhaps I
might have guessed--that--you--were--but I just--just hoped--. Good
night. I didn't see the Colonel--please say I send my love."
She was riding away, when he called desperately after her:
"Don't you want Dale to have a little of it?"
That one taunting, trembling, passionate question, hurled at her with
such bitterness of feeling, such hopeless sense of despair, touched a
spring which opened the doors of the heretofore inscrutable, and flooded
her with light. For an instant the pike danced before her eyes as though
it were a road of bejeweled splendor! She wanted to laugh, and she did
laugh; and, if he had guessed the reason, she might have had to use both
whip and spur in a longer race than just to Bob's gate. But he did not
guess, and she did not turn her head nor slacken pace. Unhappily and
sullenly he rode on to Arden.
Several days passed before they met; but in the meanwhile he had spent
not a few nights sitting by that window in his darkened room, building
castles and tearing them down, planning futures and destroying them;
dreaming, dreaming. His attitude had become merely deferential,
requiring a studied reticence upon her own part, and precluding a
reference to their meeting on the road, or any mention of nobility, the
sheriff, Dale or Tusk.