Works of Robert W Chambers

by Robert W. Chambers

  And at last the aged parson kissed her and shook hands with her husband and shambled away across the meadows.

  Slowly northward through the dusk stole the canoe once more, bearing the bride of an hour, her head on her husband’s knees. The stars came out to watch them; a necklace of bubbles trailed in the paddle’s wake, stringing away, twinkling in the starlight.

  Slowly through the perfumed gloom they glided, her warm head on his knees, his eyes fixed on the vague water ahead.

  A stag crashed through the reeds ashore; the June fawn stared with eyes like rubies in the dark.

  Onward, onward, through the spell-bound forest; and at last the windows of the house glimmered, reflected in the water.

  Garcide and Crawford awaited them on the veranda as they came up, rising in chilling silence, ignoring the offered hands of greeting.

  “I’ve a word to say to you,” snarled the Hon. John Garcide, in his ward’s ear— “and another word for your fool of an aunt!”

  She shrank back against her husband, amazed and hurt. “What do you mean?” she stammered; “we — we are married. Will you not speak to my — my husband?”

  A silence, too awful to last, was broken by a hoarse laugh.

  “You’re all right, Jim,” said the elder Crawford, slowly. “Ophir Steel won’t slip through your fingers when I’m under the sod. Been married long, Jim?”

  Contents

  THE FIRE-WARDEN

  I

  AND of course what I buy is my own,” continued Burleson, patiently. “No man here will question that, I suppose?”

  For a moment there was silence in the cross-roads store; then a lank, mud-splashed native arose from behind the stove, shoving his scarred hands deep into the ragged pockets of his trousers.

  “Young man,” he said, harshly, “there’s a few things you can’t buy; you may think you can buy ’em — you may pay for ‘em, too — but they can’t be bought an’ sold. You thought you bought Grier’s tract; you thought you bought a lot o’ deer an’ birds an’ fish, several thousand acres in timber, and a dozen lakes. An’ you paid for ‘em, too. But, sonny, you was took in; you paid for ‘em, but you didn’t buy ‘em, because Grier couldn’t sell God’s free critters. He fooled ye that time.”

  “Is that the way you regard it, Santry?” asked Burleson. “Is that the way these people regard private property?”

  “I guess it is,” replied the ragged man, resuming his seat on the flour-barrel. “I cal’late the Lord A’mighty fashioned His wild critters f’r to peramble round about, offerin’ a fair mark an’ no favor to them that’s smart enough to git ’em with buck, bird-shot, or bullet. Live wild critters ain’t for sale; they never was made to buy an’ sell. The spryest gits ’em — an’ that’s all about it, I guess, Mister Burleson.”

  A hard-faced young man leaning against the counter, added significantly: “We talked some to Grier, an’ he sold out. He come here, too, just like you.”

  The covert menace set two spots of color deepening in young Burleson’s lean cheeks; but he answered calmly:

  “What a man believes to be his own he seldom abandons from fear of threats.”

  “That’s kinder like our case,” observed old man Santry, chewing vigorously.

  Another man leaned over and whispered to a neighbor, who turned a grim eye on Burleson without replying.

  As for Burleson and his argument, a vicious circle had been completed, and there was little chance of an understanding; he saw that plainly, but, loath to admit it, turned towards old man Santry once more.

  “If what has been common rumor is true,” he said, “Mr. Grier, from whom I bought the Spirit Lake tract, was rough in defending what he believed to be his own. I want to be decent; I desire to preserve the game and the timber, but not at the expense of human suffering. You know better than I do what has been the history of Fox Cross-roads. Twenty-five years ago your village was a large one; you had tanneries, lumber-mills, paper-mills — even a newspaper. To-day the timber is gone, and so has the town except for your homes — twenty houses, perhaps. Your soil is sand and slate, fit only for a new forest; the entire country is useless for farming, and it is the natural home of pine and oak, of the deer and partridge.”

  He took one step nearer the silent circle around the stove. “I have offered to buy your rights; Grier hemmed you in on every side to force you out. I do not want to force you; I offer to buy your land at a fair appraisal. And your answer is to put a prohibitive price on the land.”

  “Because,” observed old man Santry, “we’ve got you ketched. That’s business, I guess.”

  Burleson flushed up. “Not business; blackmail, Santry.”

  Another silence, then a man laughed: “Is that what they call it down to York, Mr. Burleson?”

  “I think so.”

  “When a man wants to put up a skyscraper an’ gits all but the key-lot, an’ if the owner of the key-lot holds out for his price, do they call it blackmail?”

  “No,” said Burleson; “I think I spoke hastily.”

  Not a sound broke the stillness in the store. After a moment old man Santry opened his clasp-knife, leaned forward, and shaved off a thin slice from the cheese on the counter. This he ate, faded eyes fixed on space. Men all around him relaxed in their chairs, spat, recrossed their muddy boots, stretching and yawning. Plainly the conference had ended.

  “I am sorry,” said young Burleson; “I had hoped for a fair understanding.”

  Nobody answered.

  He tucked his riding-crop under one arm and stood watching them, buttoning his tan gloves. Then with the butt of his crop he rubbed a dry spot of mud from his leather puttees, freed the incrusted spurs, and turned towards the door, pausing there to look back.

  “I hate to leave it this way,” he said, impulsively. “I want to live in peace with my neighbors. I mean to make no threats — but neither can I be moved by threats.… Perhaps time will aid us to come to a fair understanding; perhaps a better knowledge of one another. Although the shooting and fishing are restricted, my house is always open to my neighbors. You will be welcome when you come—”

  The silence was profound as he hesitated, standing there before them in the sunshine of the doorway — a lean, well-built, faultless figure, an unconscious challenge to poverty, a terrible offence to their every instinct — the living embodiment of all that they hated most in all the world.

  And so he went away with a brief “Good-morning,” swung himself astride his horse, and cantered off, gathering bridle as he rode, sweeping at a gallop across the wooden bridge into the forest world beyond.

  The September woods were dry — dry enough to catch fire. His troubled eyes swept the second growth as he drew bridle at a gate set in a fence eight feet high and entirely constructed of wire net interwoven with barbed wire, and heavily hedged with locust and buck-thorn.

  He dismounted, unlocked the iron gate, led his horse through, refastened the gate, and walked on, his horse following as a trained dog follows at heel.

  Through the still September sunshine ripened leaves drifted down through interlaced branches, and the whispering rustle of their fall filled the forest silence. The wood road, carpeted with brilliant leaves, wound through second growth, following the edge of a dark, swift stream, then swept westward among the pines, where the cushion of brown needles deadened every step, and where there was no sound save the rustle of a flock of rose-tinted birds half buried in the feathery fronds of a white pine. Again the road curved eastward; skirting a cleft of slate rocks, through which the stream rushed with the sound of a wind-stirred woodland; and by this stream a man stood, loading a rusty fowling-piece.

  Young Burleson had retained Grier’s keepers, for obvious reasons; and already he knew them all by name. But this man was no keeper of his; and he walked straight up to him, bidding him a rather sharp good-morning, which was sullenly returned.

  Then Burleson told him as pleasantly as he could that the land was preserved, that he could not tolerate
armed trespassing, and that the keepers were charged to enforce the laws.

  “It is better,” he said, “to have a clear understanding at once. I think the law governing private property is clearly set forth on the signs along my boundary. This preserve is posted and patrolled; I have done all I could to guarantee public rights; I have not made any application to have the public road closed, and I am perfectly willing to keep it open for public convenience. But it is not right for anybody to carry a gun in these preserves; and if it continues I shall surely apply for permission to close the road.”

  “I guess you think you’ll do a lot o’ things,” observed the man, stolidly.

  “I think I will,” returned Burleson, refusing to take offence at the insolence.

  The man tossed his gun to his shoulder and slouched towards the boundary. Burleson watched him in silence until the fellow reached the netted wire fence, then he called out.

  “There is a turnstile to the left.”

  But the native deliberately drew a hatchet from his belt, opened the wire netting with one heavy slash, and crawled through. Then wheeling in his tracks outside, he cursed Burleson and shook his gun at him, and finally slouched off towards Fox Cross-roads, leaving the master of the forest a trifle white and quivering under the cutting curb of self-control.

  Presently his spasmodic grip on the riding-crop relaxed; he looked about him with a long, quiet breath, flicked a burr from his riding-breeches, and walked on, head lowered and jaw set. His horse followed at his heels.

  A mile beyond he met a keeper demolishing a deadfall along the creek, and he summoned him with a good-humored greeting.

  “Rolfe, we’re headed for trouble, but it must not come — do you hear? I won’t have it if it can be avoided — and it must be avoided. These poor devils that Grier hemmed in and warned off with his shot-gun patrol are looking for that same sort of thing from me. Petty annoyance shall not drive me into violence; I’ve made it plain to every keeper, every forester, every man who takes wages from me. If I can stand insolence from people I am sorry for, my employés can and must.… Who was that man I met below here?”

  “Abe Storm, sir.”

  “What was he doing — building deadfalls?”

  “Seven, sir. He had three muskrats, a mink, and a string of steel traps when I caught him—”

  “Rolfe, you go to Abe Storm and tell him I give him leave to take muskrat and mink along Spirit Creek, and that I’ll allow him a quarter bounty on every unmarked pelt, and he may keep the pelts, too.”

  The keeper looked blankly at the master: “Why — why, Mr. Burleson, he’s the dirtiest, meanest market hunter in the lot!”

  “You do as I say, Rolfe,” said the master, amiably.

  “Yes, sir — but—”

  “Did you deliver my note to the fire-warden?”

  “Yes, sir. The old man’s abed with miseries. He said he’d send his deputy at noon.”

  Burleson laid his gloved hand on his horse’s saddle, looking sharply at the keeper.

  “They tell me that Mr. Elliott has seen better fortune, Rolfe.”

  “Yes, sir. When the Cross-roads went to pot, he went too. He owned a piece o’ land that was no good only for the timber. He’s like the rest o’ them, I guess — only he had more to lose — an’ he lost it same as all o’ them.”

  Burleson drew out his watch, glanced at it, and then mounted.

  “Try to make a friend of Abe Storm,” he said; “that is my policy, and you all know it. Help me to keep the peace, Rolfe. If I keep it, I don’t see how they’re going to break it.”

  “Very well, sir. But it riles me to—”

  “Nonsense! Now tell me where I’m to meet the fire-warden’s deputy. Oh! then I’ll jump him somewhere before long. And remember, Rolfe, that it’s no more pleasure for me to keep my temper than it is for anybody. But I’ve got to do it, and so have you. And, after all, it’s more fun to keep it than to let it loose.”

  “Yes, sir,” said Rolfe, grinning like a dusty fox in July.

  So Burleson rode on at a canter, presently slacking to a walk, arguing with himself in a low, calm voice:

  “Poor devils — poor, half-starved devils! If I could afford to pay their prices I’d do it.… I’ll wink at anything short of destruction; I can’t let them cut the pine; I can’t let them clean out the grouse and deer and fish. As for law-suits, I simply won’t! There must be some decent way short of a shot-gun.”

  He stretched out a hand and broke a flaming maple leaf from a branch in passing, drew it through his button-hole, thoughtful eyes searching the road ahead, which now ran out through long strips of swale bordered by saplings.

  Presently a little breeze stirred the foliage of the white birches to a sea of tremulous gold; and at the same moment a rider appeared in the marsh beyond, galloping through the blanched swale-grass, which rose high as the horse’s girth.

  Young Burleson drew bridle; the slim youth who sat his saddle so easily must be the deputy of the sick fire-warden; this was the time and the place.

  As the young rider galloped up, Burleson leaned forward, offering his hand with an easy, pleasant greeting. The hand was unnoticed, the greeting breathlessly returned; two grave, gray eyes met his, and Burleson found himself looking into the flushed face of a young girl.

  When he realized this, he took off his cap, and she inclined her head, barely acknowledging his salute.

  “I am Mr. Elliott’s daughter,” she said; “you are Mr. Burleson?”

  Burleson had the honor of presenting himself, cap in hand.

  “I am my father’s deputy,” said the girl, quietly, gathering her bridle and wheeling her horse. “I read your note. Have you reason to believe that an attempt has been made to fire the Owl Vlaie?”

  There was a ring of business in her voice that struck him as amusingly delightful — and such a sweet, clear voice, too, untinged with the slightest taint of native accent.

  “Yes,” said Burleson, gravely, “I’m afraid that somebody tried to burn the vlaie. I think that a change in the wind alone saved us from a bad fire.”

  “Shall we ride over?” inquired the girl, moving forward with unconscious grace.

  Burleson ranged his big horse alongside; she set her mount at a gallop, and away they went, wheeling into the swale, knee-deep in dry, silvery grasses, until the deputy fire-warden drew bridle with a side-flung caution: “Muskrats! Look out for a cropper!”

  Now, at a walk, the horses moved forward side by side through the pale, glistening sea of grass stretching out on every side.

  Over a hidden pond a huge heron stood guard, stiff and shapeless as a weather-beaten stake. Blackbirds with crimson-slashed shoulders rose in clouds from the reeds, only to settle again as they passed amid a ceaseless chorus of harsh protest. Once a pair of summer duck came speeding overhead, and Burleson, looking up, exclaimed:

  “There’s a bird I never shoot at. It’s too beautiful.”

  The girl turned her head, serious gray eyes questioning his.

  “Have you ever seen a wood-duck? — a drake? in full plumage?” he asked.

  “Often — before Mr. Grier came.”

  Burleson fell silent, restless in his saddle, then said:

  “I hope you will see many wood-duck now. My boats on Spirit Water are always at Mr. Elliott’s disposal — and at yours.”

  She made the slightest sign of acknowledgment, but said nothing. Once or twice she rose upright, standing straight in her stirrups to scan the distance under a small, inverted hand. East and north the pine forest girdled the vlaie; west and south hardwood timber laced the sky-line with branches partly naked, and the pine’s outposts of white birch and willow glimmered like mounds of crumpled gold along the edges of the sea of grass.

  “There is the stream!” said Burleson, suddenly.

  “AWAY THEY WENT, KNEE-DEEP IN DRY SILVERY GRASSES”

  She saw it at the same moment, touched her mare with spurred heels, and lifted her clean over with a grace that
set Burleson’s nerves thrilling.

  He followed, taking the water-jump without effort; and after a second’s hesitation ventured to praise her horse.

  “Yes,” she said, indifferently, “The Witch is a good mare.” After a silence, “My father desires to sell her.”

  “I know a dozen men who would jump at the chance,” said the young fellow. “But” — he hesitated— “it is a shame to sell such a mare—”

  The girl colored. “My father will never ride again,” she said, quietly. “We should be very glad to sell her.”

  “But — the mare suits you so perfectly—”

  She turned her head and looked at him gravely. “You must be aware, Mr. Burleson, that it is not choice with us,” she said. There was nothing of bitterness in her voice; she leaned forward, patting the mare’s chestnut neck for a moment, then swung back, sitting straight as a cavalryman in her saddle. “Of course,” she said, smiling for the first time, “it will break my heart to sell The Witch, but” — she patted the mare again— “the mare won’t grieve; it takes a dog to do that; but horses — well, I know horses enough to know that even The Witch won’t grieve.”

  “That is a radical theory, Miss Elliott,” said Burleson, amused. “What about the Arab and his loving steed?”

  “That is not a legend for people who know horses,” she replied, still smiling. “The love is all on our side. You know horses, Mr. Burleson. Is it not the truth — the naked truth, stripped of poetry and freed from tradition?”

  “Why strip poetry from anything?” he asked, laughing.

  She rode on in silence for a while, the bright smile fading from lips and eyes.

  “Oh, you are quite right,” she said; “let us leave what romance there may be in the world. My horse loves me like a dog. I am very happy to believe it, Mr. Burleson.”

  From the luminous shadow of her sombrero she looked out across the stretch of marsh, where from unseen pools the wild-duck were rising, disturbed by the sound of their approach. And now the snipe began to dart skyward from under their horses’ feet, filling the noon silence with their harsh “squak! squak!”