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diff --git a/2858.txt b/2858.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..89c6dde --- /dev/null +++ b/2858.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6267 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Cressy, by Bret Harte + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Cressy + +Author: Bret Harte + +Release Date: May 27, 2006 [EBook #2858] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRESSY *** + + + + +Produced by Donald Lainson + + + + + +CRESSY + + +By Bret Harte + + + + +CRESSY + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +As the master of the Indian Spring school emerged from the pine woods +into the little clearing before the schoolhouse, he stopped whistling, +put his hat less jauntily on his head, threw away some wild flowers he +had gathered on his way, and otherwise assumed the severe demeanor of +his profession and his mature age--which was at least twenty. Not that +he usually felt this an assumption; it was a firm conviction of his +serious nature that he impressed others, as he did himself, with the +blended austerity and ennui of deep and exhausted experience. + +The building which was assigned to him and his flock by the Board of +Education of Tuolumne County, California, had been originally a church. +It still bore a faded odor of sanctity, mingled, however, with a later +and slightly alcoholic breath of political discussion, the result of its +weekly occupation under the authority of the Board as a Tribune for the +enunciation of party principles and devotion to the Liberties of the +People. There were a few dog-eared hymn-books on the teacher's desk, and +the blackboard but imperfectly hid an impassioned appeal to the citizens +of Indian Spring to "Rally" for Stebbins as Supervisor. The master had +been struck with the size of the black type in which this placard +was printed, and with a shrewd perception of its value to the round +wandering eyes of his smaller pupils, allowed it to remain as a pleasing +example of orthography. Unfortunately, although subdivided and spelt by +them in its separate letters with painful and perfect accuracy, it was +collectively known as "Wally," and its general import productive of +vague hilarity. + +Taking a large key from his pocket, the master unlocked the door and +threw it open, stepping back with a certain precaution begotten of his +experience in once finding a small but sociable rattlesnake coiled up +near the threshold. A slight disturbance which followed his intrusion +showed the value of that precaution, and the fact that the room had been +already used for various private and peaceful gatherings of animated +nature. An irregular attendance of yellow-birds and squirrels dismissed +themselves hurriedly through the broken floor and windows, but a golden +lizard, stiffened suddenly into stony fright on the edge of an +open arithmetic, touched the heart of the master so strongly by its +resemblance to some kept-in and forgotten scholar who had succumbed over +the task he could not accomplish, that he was seized with compunction. + +Recovering himself, and re-establishing, as it were, the decorous +discipline of the room by clapping his hands and saying "Sho!" he passed +up the narrow aisle of benches, replacing the forgotten arithmetic, and +picking up from the desks here and there certain fragmentary pieces of +plaster and crumbling wood that had fallen from the ceiling, as if +this grove of Academus had been shedding its leaves overnight. When he +reached his own desk he lifted the lid and remained for some moments +motionless, gazing into it. His apparent meditation however was simply +the combined reflection of his own features in a small pocket-mirror in +its recesses and a perplexing doubt in his mind whether the sacrifice of +his budding moustache was not essential to the professional austerity +of his countenance. But he was presently aware of the sound of small +voices, light cries, and brief laughter scattered at vague and remote +distances from the schoolhouse--not unlike the birds and squirrels he +had just dispossessed. He recognized by these signs that it was nine +o'clock, and his scholars were assembling. + +They came in their usual desultory fashion--the fashion of country +school-children the world over--irregularly, spasmodically, and always +as if accidentally; a few hand-in-hand, others driven ahead of or +dropped behind their elders; some in straggling groups more or less +coherent and at times only connected by far-off intermediate voices +scattered on a space of half a mile, but never quite alone; always +preoccupied by something else than the actual business on hand; +appearing suddenly from ditches, behind trunks, and between fence-rails; +cropping up in unexpected places along the road after vague and +purposeless detours--seemingly going anywhere and everywhere but to +school! So unlooked-for, in fact, was their final arrival that the +master, who had a few moments before failed to descry a single torn +straw hat or ruined sun-bonnet above his visible horizon, was always +startled to find them suddenly under his windows, as if, like the birds, +they had alighted from the trees. Nor was their moral attitude towards +their duty any the more varied; they always arrived as if tired and +reluctant, with a doubting sulkiness that perhaps afterwards beamed into +a charming hypocrisy, but invariably temporizing with their instincts +until the last moment, and only relinquishing possible truancy on the +very threshold. Even after they were marshalled on their usual +benches they gazed at each other every morning with a perfectly fresh +astonishment and a daily recurring enjoyment of some hidden joke in this +tremendous rencontre. + +It had been the habit of the master to utilize these preliminary +vagrancies of his little flock by inviting them on assembling to recount +any interesting incident of their journey hither; or failing this, from +their not infrequent shyness in expressing what had secretly interested +them, any event that had occurred within their knowledge since they last +met. He had done this, partly to give them time to recover themselves +in that more formal atmosphere, and partly, I fear, because, +notwithstanding his conscientious gravity, it greatly amused him. It +also diverted them from their usual round-eyed, breathless contemplation +of himself--a regular morning inspection which generally embraced every +detail of his dress and appearance, and made every change or deviation +the subject of whispered comment or stony astonishment. He knew that +they knew him more thoroughly than he did himself, and shrank from the +intuitive vision of these small clairvoyants. + +"Well?" said the master gravely. + +There was the usual interval of bashful hesitation, verging on nervous +hilarity or hypocritical attention. For the last six months this +question by the master had been invariably received each morning as a +veiled pleasantry which might lead to baleful information or conceal +some query out of the dreadful books before him. Yet this very element +of danger had its fascinations. Johnny Filgee, a small boy, blushed +violently, and, without getting up, began hurriedly in a high key, "Tige +ith got," and then suddenly subsided into a whisper. + +"Speak up, Johnny," said the master encouragingly. + +"Please, sir, it ain't anythin' he's seed--nor any real news," said +Rupert Filgee, his elder brother, rising with family concern and +frowning openly upon Johnny; "it's jest his foolishness; he oughter be +licked." Finding himself unexpectedly on his feet, and apparently at the +end of a long speech, he colored also, and then said hurriedly, "Jimmy +Snyder--HE seed suthin'. Ask HIM!" and sat down--a recognized hero. + +Every eye, including the master's, was turned on Jimmy Snyder. But that +youthful observer, instantly diving his head and shoulders into his +desk, remained there gurgling as if under water. Two or three nearest +him endeavored with some struggling to bring him to an intelligible +surface again. The master waited patiently. Johnny Filgee took advantage +of the diversion to begin again in a high key, "Tige ith got thix," and +subsided. + +"Come, Jimmy," said the master, with a touch of peremptoriness. Thus +adjured, Jimmy Snyder came up glowingly, and bristling with full stops +and exclamation points. "Seed a black b'ar comin' outer Daves' woods," +he said excitedly. "Nigh to me ez you be. 'N big ez a hoss; 'n snarlin'! +'n snappin'!--like gosh! Kem along--ker--clump torords me. Reckoned he'd +skeer me! Didn't skeer me worth a cent. I heaved a rock at him--I did +now!" (in defiance of murmurs of derisive comment)--"'n he slid. Ef +he'd kem up furder I'd hev up with my slate and swotted him over the +snoot--bet your boots!" + +The master here thought fit to interfere, and gravely point out that +the habit of striking bears as large as a horse with a school-slate was +equally dangerous to the slate (which was also the property of Tuolumne +County) and to the striker; and that the verb "to swot" and the noun +substantive "snoot" were likewise indefensible, and not to be tolerated. +Thus admonished Jimmy Snyder, albeit unshaken in his faith in his own +courage, sat down. + +A slight pause ensued. The youthful Filgee, taking advantage of it, +opened in a higher key, "Tige ith"--but the master's attention was here +diverted by the searching eyes of Octavia Dean, a girl of eleven, who +after the fashion of her sex preferred a personal recognition of her +presence before she spoke. Succeeding in catching his eye, she threw +back her long hair from her shoulders with an easy habitual gesture, +rose, and with a faint accession of color said: + +"Cressy McKinstry came home from Sacramento. Mrs. McKinstry told mother +she's comin' back here to school." + +The master looked up with an alacrity perhaps inconsistent with his +cynical austerity. Seeing the young girl curiously watching him with +an expectant smile, he regretted it. Cressy McKinstry, who was sixteen +years old, had been one of the pupils he had found at the school when +he first came. But as he had also found that she was there in the +extraordinary attitude of being "engaged" to one Seth Davis, a +fellow-pupil of nineteen, and as most of the courtship was carried on +freely and unceremoniously during school-hours with the full permission +of the master's predecessor, the master had been obliged to point out +to the parents of the devoted couple the embarrassing effects of this +association on the discipline of the school. The result had been the +withdrawal of the lovers, and possibly the good-will of the parents. The +return of the young lady was consequently a matter of some significance. +Had the master's protest been accepted, or had the engagement itself +been broken off? + +Either was not improbable. His momentary loss of attention was Johnny +Filgee's great gain. + +"Tige," said Johnny, with sudden and alarming distinctness, "ith got +thix pupths--mothly yaller." + +In the laugh which followed this long withheld announcement of an +increase in the family of Johnny's yellow and disreputable setter +"Tiger," who usually accompanied him to school and howled outside, +the master joined with marked distinctness. Then he said, with equally +marked severity, "Books!" The little levee was ended, and school began. + +It continued for two hours with short sighs, corrugations of small +foreheads, the complaining cries and scratchings of slate pencils over +slates, and other signs of minor anguish among the more youthful of the +flock; and with more or less whisperings, movements of the lips, and +unconscious soliloquy among the older pupils. The master moved slowly up +and down the aisle with a word of encouragement or explanation here and +there, stopping with his hands behind him to gaze abstractedly out of +the windows to the wondering envy of the little ones. A faint hum, as +of invisible insects, gradually pervaded the school; the more persistent +droning of a large bee had become dangerously soporific. The hot breath +of the pines without had invaded the doors and windows; the warped +shingles and weather-boarding at times creaked and snapped under the +rays of the vertical and unclouded sun. A gentle perspiration broke +out like a mild epidemic in the infant class; little curls became damp, +brief lashes limp, round eyes moist, and small eyelids heavy. The master +himself started, and awoke out of a perilous dream of other eyes and +hair to collect himself severely. For the irresolute, half-embarrassed, +half-lazy figure of a man had halted doubtingly before the porch and +open door. Luckily the children, who were facing the master with their +backs to the entrance, did not see it. + +Yet the figure was neither alarming nor unfamiliar. The master at +once recognized it as Ben Dabney, otherwise known as "Uncle Ben," a +good-humored but not over-bright miner, who occupied a small cabin on an +unambitious claim in the outskirts of Indian Spring. His avuncular title +was evidently only an ironical tribute to his amiable incompetency and +heavy good-nature, for he was still a young man with no family ties, and +by reason of his singular shyness not even a visitor in the few families +of the neighborhood. As the master looked up, he had an irritating +recollection that Ben had been already haunting him for the last two +days, alternately appearing and disappearing in his path to and from +school as a more than usually reserved and bashful ghost. This, to the +master's cynical mind, clearly indicated that, like most ghosts, he had +something of essentially selfish import to communicate. Catching the +apparition's half-appealing eye, he proceeded to exorcise it with a +portentous frown and shake of the head, that caused it to timidly wane +and fall away from the porch, only however to reappear and wax larger a +few minutes later at one of the side windows. The infant class hailing +his appearance as a heaven-sent boon, the master was obliged to walk to +the door and command him sternly away, when, retreating to the fence, he +mounted the uppermost rail, and drawing a knife from his pocket, cut +a long splinter from the rail, and began to whittle it in patient and +meditative silence. But when recess was declared, and the relieved +feelings of the little flock had vent in the clearing around the +schoolhouse, the few who rushed to the spot found that Uncle Ben had +already disappeared. Whether the appearance of the children was too +inconsistent with his ghostly mission, or whether his heart failed him +at the last moment, the master could not determine. Yet, distasteful +as the impending interview promised to be, the master was vaguely and +irritatingly disappointed. + +A few hours later, when school was being dismissed, the master +found Octavia Dean lingering near his desk. Looking into the girl's +mischievous eyes, he good-humoredly answered their expectation by +referring to her morning's news. "I thought Miss McKinstry had been +married by this time," he said carelessly. + +Octavia, swinging her satchel like a censer, as if she were performing +some act of thurification over her completed tasks, replied demurely: +"Oh no! dear no--not THAT." + +"So it would seem," said the master. + +"I reckon she never kalkilated to, either," continued Octavia, slyly +looking up from the corner of her lashes. + +"Indeed!" + +"No--she was just funning with Seth Davis--that's all." + +"Funning with him?" + +"Yes, sir. Kinder foolin' him, you know." + +"Kinder foolin' him!" + +For an instant the master felt it his professional duty to protest +against this most unmaidenly and frivolous treatment of the matrimonial +engagement, but a second glance at the significant face of his youthful +auditor made him conclude that her instinctive knowledge of her own sex +could be better trusted than his imperfect theories. He turned towards +his desk without speaking. Octavia gave an extra swing to her satchel, +tossing it over her shoulder with a certain small coquettishness and +moved towards the door. As she did so the infant Filgee from the safe +vantage of the porch where he had lingered was suddenly impelled to a +crowning audacity! As if struck with an original idea, but apparently +addressing himself to space, he cried out, "Crethy M'Kinthry likth +teacher," and instantly vanished. + +Putting these incidents sternly aside, the master addressed himself to +the task of setting a few copies for the next day as the voices of his +departing flock faded from the porch. Presently a silence fell upon the +little school-house. Through the open door a cool, restful breath stole +gently as if nature were again stealthily taking possession of her own. +A squirrel boldly came across the porch, a few twittering birds charging +in stopped, beat the air hesitatingly for a moment with their wings, and +fell back with bashfully protesting breasts aslant against the open door +and the unlooked-for spectacle of the silent occupant. Then there was +another movement of intrusion, but this time human, and the master +looked up angrily to behold Uncle Ben. + +He entered with a slow exasperating step, lifting his large boots very +high and putting them down again softly as if he were afraid of some +insecurity in the floor, or figuratively recognized the fact that the +pathways of knowledge were thorny and difficult. Reaching the master's +desk and the ministering presence above it, he stopped awkwardly, and +with the rim of his soft felt hat endeavored to wipe from his face the +meek smile it had worn when he entered. It chanced also that he had +halted before the minute stool of the infant Filgee, and his large +figure instantly assumed such Brobdingnagian proportions in contrast +that he became more embarrassed than ever. The master made no attempt to +relieve him, but regarded him with cold interrogation. + +"I reckoned," he began, leaning one hand on the master's desk with +affected ease, as he dusted his leg with his hat with the other, "I +reckoned--that is--I allowed--I orter say--that I'd find ye alone at +this time. Ye gin'rally are, ye know. It's a nice, soothin', restful, +stoodious time, when a man kin, so to speak, run back on his eddication +and think of all he ever knowed. Ye're jist like me, and ye see I sorter +spotted your ways to onct." + +"Then why did you come here this morning and disturb the school?" +demanded the master sharply. + +"That's so, I sorter slipped up thar, didn't I?" said Uncle Ben with +a smile of rueful assent. "You see I didn't allow to COME IN then, but +on'y to hang round a leetle and kinder get used to it, and it to me." + +"Used to what?" said the master impatiently, albeit with a slight +softening at his intruder's penitent expression. + +Uncle Ben did not reply immediately, but looked around as if for a seat, +tried one or two benches and a desk with his large hand as if testing +their security, and finally abandoning the idea as dangerous, seated +himself on the raised platform beside the master's chair, having +previously dusted it with the flap of his hat. Finding, however, that +the attitude was not conducive to explanation, he presently rose again, +and picking up one of the school-books from the master's desk eyed it +unskilfully upside down, and then said hesitatingly,-- + +"I reckon ye ain't usin' Dobell's 'Rithmetic here?" + +"No," said the master. + +"That's bad. 'Pears to be played out--that Dobell feller. I was brought +up on Dobell. And Parsings' Grammar? Ye don't seem to be a using +Parsings' Grammar either?" + +"No," said the master, relenting still more as he glanced at Uncle Ben's +perplexed face with a faint smile. + +"And I reckon you'd be saying the same of Jones' 'Stronomy and Algebry? +Things hev changed. You've got all the new style here," he continued, +with affected carelessness, but studiously avoiding the master's eye. +"For a man ez wos brought up on Parsings, Dobell, and Jones, thar don't +appear to be much show nowadays." + +The master did not reply. Observing several shades of color chase each +other on Uncle Ben's face, he bent his own gravely over his books. The +act appeared to relieve his companion, who with his eyes still turned +towards the window went on: + +"Ef you'd had them books--which you haven't--I had it in my mind to +ask you suthen'. I had an idea of--of--sort of reviewing my eddication. +Kinder going over the old books agin--jist to pass the time. Sorter +running in yer arter school hours and doin' a little practisin', eh? You +looking on me as an extry scholar--and I payin' ye as sich--but keepin' +it 'twixt ourselves, you know--just for a pastime, eh?" + +As the master smilingly raised his head, he became suddenly and +ostentatiously attracted to the window. + +"Them jay birds out there is mighty peart, coming right up to the +school-house! I reckon they think it sort o' restful too." + +"But if you really mean it, couldn't you use these books, Uncle Ben?" +said the master cheerfully. "I dare say there's little difference--the +principle is the same, you know." + +Uncle Ben's face, which had suddenly brightened, as suddenly fell. He +took the book from the master's hand without meeting his eyes, held it +at arm's length, turned it over and then laid it softly down upon the +desk as if it were some excessively fragile article. "Certingly," he +murmured, with assumed reflective ease. "Certingly. The principle's +all there." Nevertheless he was quite breathless and a few beads of +perspiration stood out upon his smooth, blank forehead. + +"And as to writing, for instance," continued the master with increasing +heartiness as he took notice of these phenomena, "you know ANY copy-book +will do." + +He handed his pen carelessly to Uncle Ben. The large hand that took it +timidly not only trembled but grasped it with such fatal and hopeless +unfamiliarity that the master was fain to walk to the window and observe +the birds also. + +"They're mighty bold--them jays," said Uncle Ben, laying down the pen +with scrupulous exactitude beside the book and gazing at his fingers as +if he had achieved a miracle of delicate manipulation. "They don't seem +to be afeared of nothing, do they?" + +There was another pause. The master suddenly turned from the window. +"I tell you what, Uncle Ben," he said with prompt decision and unshaken +gravity, "the only thing for you to do is to just throw over Dobell and +Parsons and Jones and the old quill pen that I see you're accustomed +to, and start in fresh as if you'd never known them. Forget 'em all, +you know. It will be mighty hard of course to do that," he continued, +looking out of the window, "but you must do it." + +He turned back, the brightness that transfigured Uncle Ben's face at +that moment brought a slight moisture into his own eyes. The humble +seeker of knowledge said hurriedly that he would try. + +"And begin again at the beginning," continued the master cheerfully. +"Exactly like one of those--in fact, as if you REALLY were a child +again." + +"That's so," said Uncle Ben, rubbing his hands delightedly, "that's me! +Why, that's jest what I was sayin' to Roop"-- + +"Then you've already been talking about it?" intercepted the master in +some surprise. "I thought you wanted it kept secret?" + +"Well, yes," responded Uncle Ben dubiously. "But you see I sorter agreed +with Roop Filgee that if you took to my ideas and didn't object, I'd +give him two bits* every time he'd kem here and help me of an arternoon +when you was away and kinder stand guard around the school-house, you +know, so as to keep the fellows off. And Roop's mighty sharp for a boy, +ye know." + + * Two bits, i. e., twenty-five cents. + +The master reflected a moment and concluded that Uncle Ben was probably +right. Rupert Filgee, who was a handsome boy of fourteen, was also a +strongly original character whose youthful cynicism and blunt, +honest temper had always attracted him. He was a fair scholar, with a +possibility of being a better one, and the proposed arrangement with +Uncle Ben would not interfere with the discipline of school hours +and might help them both. Nevertheless he asked good-humoredly, "But +couldn't you do this more securely and easily in your own house? I might +lend you the books, you know, and come to you twice a week." + +Uncle Ben's radiant face suddenly clouded. "It wouldn't be exactly the +same kind o' game to me an' Roop," he said hesitatingly. "You see thar's +the idea o' the school-house, ye know, and the restfulness and the +quiet, and the gen'ral air o' study. And the boys around town ez +wouldn't think nothin' o' trapsen' into my cabin if they spotted what I +was up to thar, would never dream o' hunting me here." + +"Very well," said the master, "let it be here then." Observing that his +companion seemed to be struggling with an inarticulate gratitude and an +apparently inextricable buckskin purse in his pocket, he added quietly, +"I'll set you a few copies to commence with," and began to lay out a few +unfinished examples of Master Johnny Filgee's scholastic achievements. + +"After thanking YOU, Mr. Ford," said Uncle Ben, faintly, "ef you'll jest +kinder signify, you know, what you consider a fair"-- + +Mr. Ford turned quickly and dexterously offered his hand to his +companion in such a manner that he was obliged to withdraw his own +from his pocket to grasp it in return. "You're very welcome," said the +master, "and as I can only permit this sort of thing gratuitously, you'd +better NOT let me know that you propose giving anything even to Rupert." +He shook Uncle Ben's perplexed hand again, briefly explained what he had +to do, and saying that he would now leave him alone a few minutes, he +took his hat and walked towards the door. + +"Then you reckon," said Uncle Ben slowly, regarding the work before him, +"that I'd better jest chuck them Dobell fellers overboard?" + +"I certainly should," responded the master with infinite gravity. + +"And sorter waltz in fresh, like one them children?" + +"Like a child," nodded the master as he left the porch. + +A few moments later, as he was finishing his cigar in the clearing, he +paused to glance in at the school-room window. Uncle Ben, stripped of +his coat and waistcoat, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up on his powerful +arms, had evidently cast Dobell and all misleading extraneous aid aside, +and with the perspiration standing out on his foolish forehead, and his +perplexed face close to the master's desk, was painfully groping along +towards the light in the tottering and devious tracks of Master Johnny +Filgee, like a very child indeed! + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +As the children were slowly straggling to their places the next morning, +the master waited for an opportunity to speak to Rupert. That beautiful +but scarcely amiable youth was, as usual, surrounded and impeded by a +group of his small female admirers, for whom, it is but just to add, +he had a supreme contempt. Possibly it was this healthy quality that +inclined the master towards him, and it was consequently with some +satisfaction that he overheard fragments of his openly disparaging +comments upon his worshippers. + +"There!" to Clarinda Jones, "don't flop! And don't YOU," to Octavia +Dean, "go on breathing over my head like that. If there's anything I +hate it's having a girl breathing round me. Yes, you were! I felt it in +my hair. And YOU too--you're always snoopin' and snoodgin'. Oh, yes, +you want to know WHY I've got an extry copy-book and another 'Rithmetic, +Miss Curiosity. Well, what would you give to know? Want to see if +they're PRETTY" (with infinite scorn at the adjective). "No, they ain't +PRETTY. That's all you girls think about--what's PRETTY and what's +curious! Quit now! Come! Don't ye see teacher lookin' at you? Ain't you +ashamed?" + +He caught the master's beckoning eye and came forward, slightly abashed, +with a flush of irritation still on his handsome face, and his chestnut +curls slightly rumpled. One, which Octavia had covertly accented by +twisting round her forefinger, stood up like a crest on his head. + +"I've told Uncle Ben that you might help him here after school hours," +said the master, taking him aside. "You may therefore omit your writing +exercise in the morning and do it in the afternoon." + +The boy's dark eyes sparkled. "And if it would be all the same to you, +sir," he added earnestly, "you might sorter give out in school that I +was to be kept in." + +"I'm afraid that would hardly do," said the master, much amused. "But +why?" + +Rupert's color deepened. "So ez to keep them darned girls from foolin' +round me and followin' me back here." + +"We will attend to that," said the master smiling; a moment after he +added more seriously, "I suppose your father knows that you are to +receive money for this? And he doesn't object?" + +"He! Oh no!" returned Rupert with a slight look of astonishment, and +the same general suggestion of patronizing his progenitor that he had +previously shown to his younger brother. "You needn't mind HIM." In +reality Filgee pere, a widower of two years' standing, had tacitly +allowed the discipline of his family to devolve upon Rupert. Remembering +this, the master could only say, "Very well," and good-naturedly dismiss +the pupil to his seat and the subject from his mind. The last laggard +had just slipped in, the master had glanced over the occupied benches +with his hand upon his warning bell, when there was a quick step on the +gravel, a flutter of skirts like the sound of alighting birds, and a +young woman lightly entered. + +In the rounded, untouched, and untroubled freshness of her cheek and +chin, and the forward droop of her slender neck, she appeared a girl +of fifteen; in her developed figure and the maturer drapery of her full +skirts she seemed a woman; in her combination of naive recklessness +and perfect understanding of her person she was both. In spite of a few +school-books that jauntily swung from a strap in her gloved hand, she +bore no resemblance to a pupil; in her pretty gown of dotted muslin with +bows of blue ribbon on the skirt and corsage, and a cluster of roses +in her belt, she was as inconsistent and incongruous to the others as +a fashion-plate would have been in the dry and dog-eared pages before +them. Yet she carried it off with a demure mingling of the naivete of +youth and the aplomb of a woman, and as she swept down the narrow aisle, +burying a few small wondering heads in the overflow of her flounces, +there was no doubt of her reception in the arch smile that dimpled her +cheek. Dropping a half curtsey to the master, the only suggestion of her +equality with the others, she took her place at one of the larger desks, +and resting her elbow on the lid began to quietly remove her gloves. It +was Cressy McKinstry. + +Irritated and disturbed at the girl's unceremonious entrance, the master +for the moment recognized her salutation coldly, and affected to ignore +her elaborate appearance. The situation was embarrassing. He could not +decline to receive her as she was no longer accompanied by her lover, +nor could he plead entire ignorance of her broken engagement; while +to point out the glaring inappropriateness of costume would be a fresh +interference he knew Indian Spring would scarcely tolerate. He could +only accept such explanation as she might choose to give. He rang his +bell as much to avert the directed eyes of the children as to bring the +scene to a climax. + +She had removed her gloves and was standing up. + +"I reckon I can go on where I left off?" she said lazily, pointing to +the books she had brought with her. + +"For the present," said the master dryly. + +The first class was called. Later, when his duty brought him to her +side, he was surprised to find that she was evidently already prepared +with consecutive lessons, as if she were serenely unconscious of any +doubt of her return, and as coolly as if she had only left school +the day before. Her studies were still quite elementary, for Cressy +McKinstry had never been a brilliant scholar, but he perceived, with a +cynical doubt of its permanency, that she had bestowed unusual care upon +her present performance. There was moreover a certain defiance in it, as +if she had resolved to stop any objection to her return on the score of +deficiencies. He was obliged in self-defence to take particular note of +some rings she wore, and a large bracelet that ostentatiously glittered +on her white arm--which had already attracted the attention of her +companions, and prompted the audible comment from Johnny Filgee that +it was "truly gold." Without meeting her eyes he contented himself with +severely restraining the glances of the children that wandered in her +direction. She had never been quite popular with the school in her +previous role of fiancee, and only Octavia Dean and one or two older +girls appreciated its mysterious fascination; while the beautiful +Rupert, secure in his avowed predilection for the middle-aged wife +of the proprietor of the Indian Spring hotel, looked upon her as a +precocious chit with more than the usual propensity to objectionable +"breathing." Nevertheless the master was irritatingly conscious of her +presence--a presence which now had all the absurdity of her ridiculous +love-experiences superadded to it. He tried to reason with himself that +it was only a phase of frontier life, which ought to have amused him. +But it did not. The intrusion of this preposterous girl seemed to +disarrange the discipline of his life as well as of his school. The +usual vague, far-off dreams in which he was in the habit of indulging +during school-hours, dreams that were perhaps superinduced by the +remoteness of his retreat and a certain restful sympathy in his little +auditors, which had made him--the grown-up dreamer--acceptable to them +in his gentle understanding of their needs and weaknesses, now seemed to +have vanished forever. + +At recess, Octavia Dean, who had drawn near Cressy and reached up +to place her arm round the older girl's waist, glanced at her with +a patronizing smile born of some rapid free-masonry, and laughingly +retired with the others. The master at his desk, and Cressy who had +halted in the aisle were left alone. + +"I have had no intimation yet from your father or mother that you were +coming back to school again," he began. "But I suppose THEY have decided +upon your return?" + +An uneasy suspicion of some arrangement with her former lover had +prompted the emphasis. + +The young girl looked at him with languid astonishment. "I reckon paw +and maw ain't no objection," she said with the same easy ignoring of +parental authority that had characterized Rupert Filgee, and which +seemed to be a local peculiarity. "Maw DID offer to come yer and see +you, but I told her she needn't bother." + +She rested her two hands behind her on the edge of a desk, and leaned +against it, looking down upon the toe of her smart little shoe which was +describing a small semicircle beyond the hem of her gown. Her attitude, +which was half-defiant, half-indolent, brought out the pretty curves of +her waist and shoulders. The master noticed it and became a trifle more +austere. + +"Then I am to understand that this is a permanent thing?" he asked +coldly. + +"What's that?" said Cressy interrogatively. + +"Am I to understand that you intend coming regularly to school?" +repeated the master curtly, "or is this merely an arrangement for a few +days--until"-- + +"Oh," said Cressy comprehendingly, lifting her unabashed blue eyes +to his, "you mean THAT. Oh, THAT'S broke off. Yes," she added +contemptuously, making a larger semicircle with her foot, "that's +over--three weeks ago." + +"And Seth Davis--does HE intend returning too?" + +"He!" She broke into a light girlish laugh. "I reckon not much! S'long's +I'm here, at least." She had just lifted herself to a sitting posture +on the desk, so that her little feet swung clear of the floor in their +saucy dance. Suddenly she brought her heels together and alighted. "So +that's all?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"Kin I go now?" + +"Yes." + +She laid her books one on the top of the other and lingered an instant. + +"Been quite well?" she asked with indolent politeness. + +"Yes--thank you." + +"You're lookin' right peart." + +She walked with a Southern girl's undulating languor to the door, opened +it, then charged suddenly upon Octavia Dean, twirled her round in a +wild waltz and bore her away; appearing a moment after on the playground +demurely walking with her arm around her companion's waist in an +ostentatious confidence at once lofty, exclusive, and exasperating to +the smaller children. + +When school was dismissed that afternoon and the master had remained to +show Rupert Filgee how to prepare Uncle Ben's tasks, and had given his +final instructions to his youthful vicegerent, that irascible Adonis +unburdened himself querulously: + +"Is Cressy McKinstry comin' reg'lar, Mr. Ford?" + +"She is," said the master dryly. After a pause he asked, "Why?" + +Rupert's curls had descended on his eyebrows in heavy discontent. "It's +mighty rough, jest ez a feller reckons he's got quit of her and her +jackass bo', to hev her prancin' back inter school agin, and rigged out +like ez if she'd been to a fire in a milliner's shop." + +"You shouldn't allow your personal dislikes, Rupert, to provoke you to +speak of a fellow-scholar in that way--and a young lady, too," corrected +the master dryly. + +"The woods is full o' sich feller-scholars and sich young ladies, if +yer keer to go a gunning for 'em," said Rupert with dark and slangy +significance. "Ef I'd known she was comin' back I'd"--he stopped and +brought his sunburnt fist against the seam of his trousers with a boyish +gesture, "I'd hev jist"-- + +"What?" said the master sharply. + +"I'd hev played hookey till she left school agin! It moutn't hev bin so +long, neither," he added with a mysterious chuckle. + +"That will do," said the master peremptorily. "For the present you'll +attend to your duty and try to make Uncle Ben see you're something more +than a foolish, prejudiced school-boy, or," he added significantly, "he +and I may both repent our agreement. Let me have a good account of you +both when I return." + +He took his hat from its peg on the wall, and in obedience to a suddenly +formed resolution left the school-room to call upon the parents of +Cressy McKinstry. He was not quite certain what he should say, but, +after his habit, would trust to the inspiration of the moment. At the +worst he could resign a situation that now appeared to require more +tact and delicacy than seemed consistent with his position, and he was +obliged to confess to himself that he had lately suspected that his +present occupation--the temporary expedient of a poor but clever young +man of twenty--was scarcely bringing him nearer a realization of his +daily dreams. For Mr. Jack Ford was a youthful pilgrim who had sought +his fortune in California so lightly equipped that even in the matter of +kin and advisers he was deficient. That prospective fortune had already +eluded him in San Francisco, had apparently not waited for him in +Sacramento, and now seemed never to have been at Indian Spring. +Nevertheless, when he was once out of sight of the school-house he lit a +cigar, put his hands in his pockets, and strode on with the cheerfulness +of that youth to which all things are possible. + +The children had already dispersed as mysteriously and completely as +they had arrived. Between him and the straggling hamlet of Indian Spring +the landscape seemed to be without sound or motion. The wooded upland or +ridge on which the schoolhouse stood, half a mile further on, began +to slope gradually towards the river, on whose banks, seen from that +distance, the town appeared to have been scattered irregularly or thrown +together hastily, as if cast ashore by some overflow--the Cosmopolitan +Hotel drifting into the Baptist church, and dragging in its tail +of wreckage two saloons and a blacksmith's shop; while the County +Court-house was stranded in solitary grandeur in a waste of gravel half +a mile away. The intervening flat was still gashed and furrowed by the +remorseless engines of earlier gold-seekers. + +Mr. Ford was in little sympathy with this unsuccessful record of +frontier endeavor--the fortune HE had sought did not seem to lie in that +direction--and his eye glanced quickly beyond it to the pine-crested +hills across the river, whose primeval security was so near and yet so +inviolable, or back again to the trail he was pursuing along the ridge. +The latter prospect still retained its semi-savage character in spite +of the occasional suburban cottages of residents, and the few outlying +farms or ranches of the locality. The grounds of the cottages were yet +uncleared of underbrush; bear and catamount still prowled around the +rude fences of the ranches; the late alleged experience of the infant +Snyder was by no means improbable or unprecedented. + +A light breeze was seeking the heated flat and river, and thrilling the +leaves around him with the strong vitality of the forest. The vibrating +cross-lights and tremulous chequers of shade cast by the stirred foliage +seemed to weave a fantastic net around him as he walked. The quaint +odors of certain woodland herbs known to his scholars, and religiously +kept in their desks, or left like votive offerings on the threshold of +the school-house, recalled all the primitive simplicity and delicious +wildness of the little temple he had left. Even in the mischievous +glances of evasive squirrels and the moist eyes of the contemplative +rabbits there were faint suggestions of some of his own truants. The +woods were trembling with gentle memories of the independence he had +always known here--of that sweet and grave retreat now so ridiculously +invaded. + +He began to hesitate, with one of those revulsions of sentiment +characteristic of his nature: Why should he bother himself about +this girl after all? Why not make up his mind to accept her as +his predecessor had done? Why was it necessary for him to find her +inconsistent with his ideas of duty to his little flock and his mission +to them? Was he not assuming a sense of decorum that was open +to misconception? The absurdity of her school costume, and any +responsibility it incurred, rested not with him but with her parents. +What right had he to point it out to them, and above all how was he to +do it? He halted irresolutely at what he believed was his sober second +thought, but which, like most reflections that take that flattering +title, was only a reaction as impulsive and illogical as the emotion +that preceded it. + +Mr. McKinstry's "snake rail" fence was already discernible in the +lighter opening of the woods, not far from where he had halted. As he +stood there in hesitation, the pretty figure and bright gown of Cressy +McKinstry suddenly emerged from a more secluded trail that intersected +his own at an acute angle a few rods ahead of him. She was not alone, +but was accompanied by a male figure whose arm she had evidently +just dislodged from her waist. He was still trying to resume his lost +vantage; she was as resolutely evading him with a certain nymph-like +agility, while the sound of her half-laughing, half-irate protest could +be faintly heard. Without being able to identify the face or figure of +her companion at that distance, he could see that it was NOT her former +betrothed, Seth Davis. + +A superior smile crossed his face; he no longer hesitated, but at once +resumed his former path. For some time Cressy and her companion moved on +quietly before him. Then on reaching the rail-fence they turned abruptly +to the right, were lost for an instant in the intervening thicket, and +the next moment Cressy appeared alone, crossing the meadow in a shorter +cut towards the house, having either scaled the fence or slipped through +some familiar gap. Her companion had disappeared. Whether they had +noticed that they were observed he could not determine. He kept steadily +along the trail that followed the line of fence to the lane that +led directly to the farm-building, and pushed open the front gate as +Cressy's light dress vanished round an angle at the rear of the house. + +The house of the McKinstrys rose, or rather stretched, itself before +him, in all the lazy ungainliness of Southwestern architecture. A +collection of temporary make-shifts of boards, of logs, of canvas, +prematurely decayed, and in some instances abandoned for a newer +erection, or degraded to mere outhouses--it presented with singular +frankness the nomadic and tentative disposition of its founder. It had +been repaired without being improved; its additions had seemed only +to extend its primitive ugliness over a larger space. Its roofs were +roughly shingled or rudely boarded and battened, and the rafters of +some of its "lean-to's" were simply covered with tarred canvas. As if +to settle any doubt of the impossibility of this heterogeneous mass +ever taking upon itself any picturesque combination, a small building of +corrugated iron, transported in sections from some remoter locality, had +been set up in its centre. The McKinstry ranch had long been an eyesore +to the master: even that morning he had been mutely wondering from what +convolution of that hideous chrysalis the bright butterfly Cressy had +emerged. It was with a renewal of this curiosity that he had just seen +her flutter back to it again. + +A yellow dog who had observed him hesitating in doubt where he should +enter, here yawned, rose from the sunlight where he had been blinking, +approached the master with languid politeness, and then turned towards +the iron building as if showing him the way. Mr. Ford followed him +cautiously, painfully conscious that his hypocritical canine introducer +was only availing himself of an opportunity to gain ingress into the +house, and was leading him as a responsible accomplice to probable +exposure and disgrace. His expectation was quickly realized: a lazily +querulous, feminine outcry, with the words, "Yer's that darned hound +agin!" came from an adjacent room, and his exposed and abashed companion +swiftly retreated past him into the road again. Mr. Ford found himself +alone in a plainly-furnished sitting-room confronting the open door +leading to another apartment at which the figure of a woman, preceded +hastily by a thrown dishcloth, had just appeared. It was Mrs. McKinstry; +her sleeves were rolled up over her red but still shapely arms, and as +she stood there wiping them on her apron, with her elbows advanced, +and her closed hands raised alternately in the air, there was an odd +pugilistic suggestion in her attitude. It was not lessened on her sudden +discovery of the master by her retreating backwards with her hands up +and her elbows still well forward as if warily retiring to an imaginary +"corner." + +Mr. Ford at once tactfully stepped back from the doorway. "I beg your +pardon," he said, delicately addressing the opposite wall, "but I found +the door open and I followed the dog." + +"That's just one of his pizenous tricks," responded Mrs. McKinstry +dolefully from within. "On'y last week he let in a Chinaman, and in the +nat'ral hustlin' that follered he managed to help himself outer the pork +bar'l. There ain't no shade o' cussedness that or'nary hound ain't up +to." Yet notwithstanding this ominous comparison she presently made +her appearance with her sleeves turned down, her black woollen +dress "tidied," and a smile of fatigued but not unkindly welcome and +protection on her face. Dusting a chair with her apron and placing it +before the master, she continued maternally, "Now that you're here, set +ye right down and make yourself to home. My men folks are all out o' +door, but some of 'em's sure to happen in soon for suthin'; that day +ain't yet created that they don't come huntin' up Mammy McKinstry every +five minutes for this thing or that." + +The glow of a certain hard pride burned through the careworn languor of +her brown cheek. What she had said was strangely true. This raw-boned +woman before him, although scarcely middle-aged, had for years occupied +a self-imposed maternal and protecting relation, not only to her husband +and brothers, but to the three or four men, who as partners, or hired +hands, lived at the ranch. An inherited and trained sympathy with what +she called her "boys's" and her "men folk," and their needs had +partly unsexed her. She was a fair type of a class not uncommon on the +Southwestern frontier; women who were ruder helpmeets of their rude +husbands and brothers, who had shared their privations and sufferings +with surly, masculine endurance, rather than feminine patience; women +who had sent their loved ones to hopeless adventure or terrible vendetta +as a matter of course, or with partisan fury; who had devotedly nursed +the wounded to keep alive the feud, or had received back their dead +dry-eyed and revengeful. Small wonder that Cressy McKinstry had +developed strangely under this sexless relationship. Looking at the +mother, albeit not without a certain respect, Mr. Ford found himself +contrasting her with the daughter's graceful femininity, and wondering +where in Cressy's youthful contour the possibility of the grim figure +before him was even now hidden. + +"Hiram allowed to go over to the schoolhouse and see you this mornin'," +said Mrs. McKinstry, after a pause; "but I reckon ez how he had to +look up stock on the river. The cattle are that wild this time o' +year, huntin' water, and hangin' round the tules, that my men are nigh +worrited out o' their butes with 'em. Hank and Jim ain't been off +their mustangs since sun up, and Hiram, what with partrollen' the West +Boundary all night, watchin' stakes whar them low down Harrisons hev +been trespassin'--hasn't put his feet to the ground in fourteen hours. +Mebbee you noticed Hiram ez you kem along? Ef so, ye didn't remember +what kind o' shootin' irons he had with him? I see his rifle over yon. +Like ez not he'z only got his six-shooter, and them Harrisons are mean +enough to lay for him at long range. But," she added, returning to the +less important topic, "I s'pose Cressy came all right." + +"Yes," said the master hopelessly. + +"I reckon she looked so," continued Mrs. McKinstry, with tolerant +abstraction. "She allowed to do herself credit in one of them new store +gownds that she got at Sacramento. At least that's what some of our +men said. Late years, I ain't kept tech with the fashions myself." She +passed her fingers explanatorily down the folds of her own coarse gown, +but without regret or apology. + +"She seemed well prepared in her lessons," said the master, abandoning +for the moment that criticism of his pupil's dress, which he saw was +utterly futile, "but am I to understand that she is coming regularly to +school--that she is now perfectly free to give her entire attention to +her studies--that--that--her--engagement is broken off?" + +"Why, didn't she tell ye?" echoed Mrs. McKinstry in languid surprise. + +"SHE certainly did," said the master with slight embarrassment, "but"-- + +"Ef SHE said so," interrupted Mrs. McKinstry abstractedly, "she oughter +know, and you kin tie to what she says." + +"But as I'm responsible to PARENTS and not to scholars for the +discipline of my school," returned the young man a little stiffly, "I +thought it my duty to hear it from YOU." + +"That's so," said Mrs. McKinstry meditatively; "then I reckon you'd +better see Hiram. That ar' Seth Davis engagement was a matter of hern +and her father's, and not in MY line. I 'spose that Hiram nat'rally +allows to set the thing square to you and inquirin' friends." + +"I hope you understand," said the master, slightly resenting the +classification, "that my reason for inquiring about the permanency of +your daughter's attendance was simply because it might be necessary to +arrange her studies in a way more suitable to her years; perhaps even +to suggest to you that a young ladies' seminary might be more +satisfactory"-- + +"Sartain, sartain," interrupted Mrs. McKinstry hurriedly, but whether +from evasion of annoying suggestion or weariness of the topic, the +master could not determine. "You'd better speak to Hiram about it. +On'y," she hesitated slightly, "ez he's got now sorter set and pinted +towards your school, and is a trifle worrited with stock and them +Harrisons, ye might tech it lightly. He oughter be along yer now. +I can't think what keeps him." Her eye wandered again with troubled +preoccupation to the corner where her husband's Sharps' rifle stood. +Suddenly she raised her voice as if forgetful of Mr. Ford's presence. + +"O Cressy!" + +"O Maw!" + +The response came from the inner room. The next moment Cressy appeared +at the door with an odd half-lazy defiance in her manner, which the +master could not understand except upon the hypothesis that she had +been listening. She had already changed her elaborate toilet for a long +clinging, coarse blue gown, that accented the graceful curves of her +slight, petticoat-less figure. Nodding her head towards the master, she +said, "Howdy?" and turned to her mother, who practically ignored their +personal acquaintance. "Cressy," she said, "Dad's gone and left his +Sharps' yer, d'ye mind takin' it along to meet him, afore he passes the +Boundary corner. Ye might tell him the teacher's yer, wantin' to see +him." + +"One moment," said the master, as the young girl carelessly stepped to +the corner and lifted the weapon. "Let ME take it. It's all on my way +back to school and I'll meet him." + +Mrs. McKinstry looked perturbed. Cressy opened her clear eyes on the +master with evident surprise. "No, Mr. Ford," said Mrs. McKinstry, with +her former maternal manner. "Ye'd better not mix yourself up with these +yer doin's. Ye've no call to do it, and Cressy has; it's all in the +family. But it's outer YOUR line, and them Harrison whelps go to your +school. Fancy the teacher takin' weppins betwixt and between!" + +"It's fitter work for the teacher than for one of his scholars, and a +young lady at that," said Mr. Ford gravely, as he took the rifle from +the hands of the half-amused, half-reluctant girl. "It's quite safe with +me, and I promise I shall deliver it into Mr. McKinstry's hands and none +other." + +"Perhaps it wouldn't be ez likely to be gin'rally noticed ez it would +if one of US carried it," murmured Mrs. McKinstry in confidential +abstraction, gazing at her daughter sublimely unconscious of the +presence of a third party. + +"You're quite right," said the master composedly, throwing the +rifle over his shoulder and turning towards the door. "So I'll say +good-afternoon, and try and find your husband." + +Mrs. McKinstry constrainedly plucked at the folds of her coarse gown. +"Ye'll like a drink afore ye go," she said, in an ill-concealed tone of +relief. "I clean forgot my manners. Cressy, fetch out that demijohn." + +"Not for me, thank you," returned Mr. Ford smiling. + +"Oh, I see--you're temperance, nat'rally," said Mrs. McKinstry with a +tolerant sigh. + +"Hardly that," returned the master, "I follow no rule, I drink +sometimes--but not to-day." + +Mrs. McKinstry's dark face contracted. "Don't you see, Maw," struck in +Cressy quickly. "Teacher drinks sometimes, but he don't USE whiskey. +That's all." + +Her mother's face relaxed. Cressy slipped out of the door before the +master, and preceded him to the gate. When she had reached it she turned +and looked into his face. + +"What did Maw say to yer about seein' me just now?" + +"I don't understand you." + +"To your seein' me and Joe Masters on the trail?" + +"She said nothing." + +"Humph," said Cressy meditatively. "What was it you told her about it?" + +"Nothing." + +"Then you DIDN'T see us?" + +"I saw you with some one--I don't know whom." + +"And you didn't tell Maw?" + +"I did not. It was none of my business." + +He instantly saw the utter inconsistency of this speech in connection +with the reason he believed he had in coming. But it was too late +to recall it, and she was looking at him with a bright but singular +expression. + +"That Joe Masters is the conceitedest fellow goin'. I told him you could +see his foolishness." + +"Ah, indeed." + +Mr. Ford pushed open the gate. As the girl still lingered he was obliged +to hold it a moment before passing through. + +"Maw couldn't quite hitch on to your not drinkin'. She reckons you're +like everybody else about yer. That's where she slips up on you. And +everybody else, I kalkilate." + +"I suppose she's somewhat anxious about your father, and I dare say is +expecting me to hurry," returned the master pointedly. + +"Oh, dad's all right," said Cressy mischievously. "You'll come across +him over yon, in the clearing. But you're looking right purty with that +gun. It kinder sets you off. You oughter wear one." + +The master smiled slightly, said "Good-by," and took leave of the girl, +but not of her eyes, which were still following him. Even when he had +reached the end of the lane and glanced back at the rambling dwelling, +she was still leaning on the gate with one foot on the lower rail and +her chin cupped in the hollow of her hand. She made a slight gesture, +not clearly intelligible at that distance; it might have been a +mischievous imitation of the way he had thrown the gun over his +shoulder, it might have been a wafted kiss. + +The master however continued his way in no very self-satisfied mood. +Although he did not regret having taken the place of Cressy as the +purveyor of lethal weapons between the belligerent parties, he knew he +was tacitly mingling in the feud between people for whom he cared little +or nothing. It was true that the Harrisons sent their children to his +school, and that in the fierce partisanship of the locality this simple +courtesy was open to misconstruction. But he was more uneasily conscious +that this mission, so far as Mrs. McKinstry was concerned, was a +miserable failure. The strange relations of the mother and daughter +perhaps explained much of the girl's conduct, but it offered no hope of +future amelioration. Would the father, "worrited by stock" and boundary +quarrels--a man in the habit of cutting Gordian knots with a bowie +knife--prove more reasonable? Was there any nearer sympathy between +father and daughter? But she had said he would meet McKinstry in the +clearing: she was right, for here he was coming forward at a gallop! + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +When within a dozen paces of the master, McKinstry, scarcely checking +his mustang, threw himself from the saddle, and with a sharp cut of +his riata on the animal's haunches sent him still galloping towards the +distant house. Then, with both hands deeply thrust in the side pockets +of his long, loose linen coat, he slowly lounged with clanking spurs +towards the young man. He was thick-set, of medium height, densely and +reddishly bearded, with heavy-lidded pale blue eyes that wore a look of +drowsy pain, and after their first wearied glance at the master, seemed +to rest anywhere but on him. + +"Your wife was sending you your rifle by Cressy," said the master, "but +I offered to bring it myself, as I thought it scarcely a proper errand +for a young lady. Here it is. I hope you didn't miss it before and don't +require it now," he added quietly. + +Mr. McKinstry took it in one hand with an air of slightly embarrassed +surprise, rested it against his shoulder, and then with the same hand +and without removing the other from his pocket, took off his soft felt +hat, showed a bullet-hole in its rim, and returned lazily, "It's about +half an hour late, but them Harrisons reckoned I was fixed for 'em and +war too narvous to draw a clear bead on me." + +The moment was evidently not a felicitous one for the master's purpose, +but he was determined to go on. He hesitated an instant, when his +companion, who seemed to be equally but more sluggishly embarrassed, in +a moment of preoccupied perplexity withdrew from his pocket his right +hand swathed in a blood-stained bandage, and following some instinctive +habit, attempted, as if reflectively, to scratch his head with two +stiffened fingers. + +"You are hurt," said the master, genuinely shocked, "and here I am +detaining you." + +"I had my hand up--so," explained McKinstry, with heavy deliberation, +"and the ball raked off my little finger after it went through my hat. +But that ain't what I wanted to say when I stopped ye. I ain't just kam +enough yet," he apologized in the calmest manner, "and I clean forgit +myself," he added with perfect self-possession. "But I was kalkilatin' +to ask you"--he laid his bandaged hand familiarly on the master's +shoulder--"if Cressy kem all right?" + +"Perfectly," said the master. "But shan't I walk on home with you, and +we can talk together after your wound is attended to?" + +"And she looked purty?" continued McKinstry without moving. + +"Very." + +"And you thought them new store gownds of hers right peart?" + +"Yes," said the master. "Perhaps a little too fine for the school, you +know," he added insinuatingly, "and"-- + +"Not for her--not for her," interrupted McKinstry. "I reckon thar's more +whar that cam from! Ye needn't fear but that she kin keep up that gait +ez long ez Hiram McKinstry hez the runnin' of her." + +Mr. Ford gazed hopelessly at the hideous ranch in the distance, at the +sky, and the trail before him; then his glance fell upon the hand still +upon his shoulder, and he struggled with a final effort. "At another +time I'd like to have a long talk with you about your daughter, Mr. +McKinstry." + +"Talk on," said McKinstry, putting his wounded hand through the master's +arm. "I admire to hear you. You're that kam, it does me good." + +Nevertheless the master was conscious that his own arm was scarcely as +firm as his companion's. It was however useless to draw back now, +and with as much tact as he could command he relieved his mind of its +purpose. Addressing the obtruding bandage before him, he dwelt upon +Cressy's previous attitude in the school, the danger of any relapse, the +necessity of her having a more clearly defined position as a scholar, +and even the advisability of her being transferred to a more advanced +school with a more mature teacher of her own sex. "This is what I wished +to say to Mrs. McKinstry to-day," he concluded, "but she referred me to +you." + +"In course, in course," said McKinstry, nodding complacently. "She's a +good woman in and around the ranch, and in any doin's o' this kind," he +lightly waved his wounded arm in the air, "there ain't a better, tho' +I say it. She was Blair Rawlins' darter; she and her brother Clay bein' +the only ones that kem out safe arter their twenty years' fight with the +McEntees in West Kaintuck. But she don't understand gals ez you and me +do. Not that I'm much, ez I orter be more kam. And the old woman jest +sized the hull thing when she said SHE hadn't any hand in Cressy's +engagement. No more she had! And ez far ez that goes, no more did me, +nor Seth Davis, nor Cressy." He paused, and lifting his heavy-lidded +eyes to the master for the second time, said reflectively, "Ye mustn't +mind my tellin' ye--ez betwixt man and man--that THE one ez is most +responsible for the makin' and breakin' o' that engagement is YOU!" + +"Me!" said the master in utter bewilderment. + +"You!" repeated McKinstry quietly, reinstalling the hand Ford had +attempted to withdraw. "I ain't sayin' ye either know'd it or kalkilated +on it. But it war so. Ef ye'd hark to me, and meander on a little, I'll +tell ye HOW it war. I don't mind walkin' a piece YOUR way, for if we go +towards the ranch, and the hounds see me, they'll set up a racket and +bring out the old woman, and then good-by to any confidential talk +betwixt you and me. And I'm, somehow, kammer out yer." + +He moved slowly down the trail, still holding Ford's arm confidentially, +although, owing to his large protecting manner, he seemed to offer a +ridiculous suggestion of supporting HIM with his wounded member. + +"When you first kem to Injin Spring," he began, "Seth and Cressy was +goin' to school, boy and girl like, and nothin' more. They'd known each +other from babies--the Davises bein' our neighbors in Kaintuck, and +emigraten' with us from St. Joe. Seth mout hev cottoned to Cress, and +Cress to him, in course o' time, and there wasn't anythin' betwixt the +families to hev kept 'em from marryin' when they wanted. But there never +war any words passed, and no engagement." + +"But," interrupted Ford hastily, "my predecessor, Mr. Martin, distinctly +told me that there was, and that it was with YOUR permission." + +"That's only because you noticed suthin' the first day you looked over +the school with Martin. 'Dad,' sez Cress to me, 'that new teacher's very +peart; and he's that keen about noticin' me and Seth that I reckon you'd +better giv out that we're engaged.' 'But are you?' sez I. 'It'll come to +that in the end,' sez Cress, 'and if that yer teacher hez come here with +Northern ideas o' society, it's just ez well to let him see Injin Spring +ain't entirely in the woods about them things either.' So I agreed, and +Martin told you it was all right; Cress and Seth was an engaged couple, +and you was to take no notice. And then YOU ups and objects to the hull +thing, and allows that courtin' in school, even among engaged pupils, +ain't proper." + +The master turned his eyes with some uneasiness to the face of Cressy's +father. It was heavy but impassive. + +"I don't mind tellin' you, now that it's over, what happened. The +trouble with me, Mr. Ford, is--I ain't kam! and YOU air, and that's +what got me. For when I heard what you'd said, I got on that mustang and +started for the school-house to clean you out and giv' you five minutes +to leave Injin Spring. I don't know ez you remember that day. I'd +kalkilated my time so ez to ketch ye comin' out o' school, but I was too +airly. I hung around out o' sight, and then hitched my hoss to a buckeye +and peeped inter the winder to hev a good look at ye. It was very quiet +and kam. There was squirrels over the roof, yellow-jackets and bees +dronin' away, and kinder sleeping-like all around in the air, and +jay-birds twitterin' in the shingles, and they never minded me. You were +movin' up and down among them little gals and boys, liftin' up their +heads and talkin' to 'em softly and quiet like, ez if you was one of +them yourself. And they looked contented and kam. And onct--I don't +know if YOU remember it--you kem close up to the winder with your +hands behind you, and looked out so kam and quiet and so far off, ez if +everybody else outside the school was miles away from you. It kem to me +then that I'd given a heap to hev had the old woman see you thar. It kem +to me, Mr. Ford, that there wasn't any place for ME thar; and it kem +to me, too--and a little rough like--that mebbee there wasn't any place +there for MY Cress either! So I rode away without disturbin' you nor the +birds nor the squirrels. Talkin' with Cress that night, she said ez how +it was a fair sample of what happened every day, and that you'd always +treated her fair like the others. So she allowed that she'd go down to +Sacramento, and get some things agin her and Seth bein' married next +month, and she reckoned she wouldn't trouble you nor the school agin. +Hark till I've done, Mr. Ford," he continued, as the young man made a +slight movement of deprecation. "Well, I agreed. But arter she got to +Sacramento and bought some fancy fixin's, she wrote to me and sez ez how +she'd been thinkin' the hull thing over, and she reckoned that she and +Seth were too young to marry, and the engagement had better be broke. +And I broke it for her." + +"But how?" asked the bewildered master. + +"Gin'rally with this gun," returned McKinstry with slow gravity, +indicating the rifle he was carrying, "for I ain't kam. I let on to +Seth's father that if I ever found Seth and Cressy together again, I'd +shoot him. It made a sort o' coolness betwixt the families, and hez +given some comfort to them low-down Harrisons; but even the law, I +reckon, recognizes a father's rights. And ez Cress sez, now ez Seth's +out o' the way, thar ain't no reason why she can't go back to school and +finish her eddication. And I reckoned she was right. And we both agreed +that ez she'd left school to git them store clothes, it was only fair +that she'd give the school the benefit of 'em." + +The case seemed more hopeless than ever. The master knew that the man +beside him might hardly prove as lenient to a second objection at his +hand. But that very reason, perhaps, impelled him, now that he knew his +danger, to consider it more strongly as a duty, and his pride revolted +from a possible threat underlying McKinstry's confidences. Nevertheless +he began gently: + +"But you are quite sure you won't regret that you didn't avail yourself +of this broken engagement, and your daughter's outfit--to send her to +some larger boarding-school in Sacramento or San Francisco? Don't +you think she may find it dull, and soon tire of the company of mere +children when she has already known the excitement of"--he was about to +say "a lover," but checked himself, and added, "a young girl's freedom?" + +"Mr. Ford," returned McKinstry, with the slow and fatuous misconception +of a one-ideaed man, "when I said just now that, lookin' inter that kam, +peaceful school of yours, I didn't find a place for Cress, it warn't +because I didn't think she OUGHTER hev a place thar. Thar was that thar +wot she never had ez a little girl with me and the old woman, and that +she couldn't find ez a grownd up girl in any boarding-school--the home +of a child; that kind o' innocent foolishness that I sometimes reckon +must hev slipped outer our emigrant wagon comin' across the plains, or +got left behind at St. Joe. She was a grownd girl fit to marry afore she +was a child. She had young fellers a-sparkin' her afore she ever played +with 'em ez boy and girl. I don't mind tellin' you that it wern't in the +natur of Blair Rawlins' darter to teach her own darter any better, for +all she's been a mighty help to me. So if it's all the same to you, +Mr. Ford, we won't talk about a grownd up school; I'd rather Cress be +a little girl again among them other children. I should be a powerful +sight more kam if I knowed that when I was away huntin' stock or +fightin' stakes with them Harrisons, that she was a settin' there with +them and the birds and the bees, and listenin' to them and to you. +Mebbee there's been a little too many scrimmages goin' on round the +ranch sence she's been a child; mebbee she orter know suthin' more of a +man than a feller who sparks her and fights for her." + +The master was silent. Had this dull, narrow-minded partisan stumbled +upon a truth that had never dawned upon his own broader comprehension? +Had this selfish savage and literally red-handed frontier brawler been +moved by some dumb instinct of the power of gentleness to understand his +daughter's needs better than he? For a moment he was staggered. Then +he thought of Cressy's later flirtations with Joe Masters, and her +concealment of their meeting from her mother. Had she deceived her +father also? Or was not the father deceiving him with this alternate +suggestion of threat and of kindliness--of power and weakness. He had +heard of this cruel phase of Southwestern cunning before. With the +feeble sophistry of the cynic he mistrusted the good his scepticism +could not understand. Howbeit, glancing sideways at the slumbering +savagery of the man beside him, and his wounded hand, he did not care +to show his lack of confidence. He contented himself with that +equally feeble resource of weak humanity in such cases--good-natured +indifference. "All right," he said carelessly; "I'll see what can be +done. But are you quite sure you are fit to go home alone? Shall I +accompany you?" As McKinstry waived the suggestion with a gesture, he +added lightly, as if to conclude the interview, "I'll report progress to +you from time to time, if you like." + +"To ME," emphasized McKinstry; "not over THAR," indicating the ranch. +"But p'rhaps you wouldn't mind my ridin' by and lookin' in at the +school-room winder onct in a while? Ah--you WOULD," he added, with the +first deepening of color he had shown. "Well, never mind." + +"You see it might distract the children from their lessons," explained +the master gently, who had however contemplated with some concern the +infinite delight which a glimpse of McKinstry's fiery and fatuous face +at the window would awaken in Johnny Filgee's infant breast. + +"Well, no matter!" returned McKinstry slowly. "Ye don't keer, I s'pose, +to come over to the hotel and take suthin'? A julep or a smash?" + +"I shouldn't think of keeping you a moment longer from Mrs. McKinstry," +said the master, looking at his companion's wounded hand. "Thank you all +the same. Good-by." + +They shook hands, McKinstry transferring his rifle to the hollow of his +elbow to offer his unwounded left. The master watched him slowly resume +his way towards the ranch. Then with a half uneasy and half pleasurable +sense that he had taken some step whose consequences were more important +than he would at present understand, he turned in the opposite direction +to the school-house. He was so preoccupied that it was not until he had +nearly reached it that he remembered Uncle Ben. With an odd recollection +of McKinstry's previous performance, he approached the school from the +thicket in the rear and slipped noiselessly to the open window with the +intention of looking in. But the school-house, far from exhibiting that +"kam" and studious abstraction which had so touched the savage breast +of McKinstry, was filled with the accents of youthful and unrestrained +vituperation. The voice of Rupert Filgee came sharply to the master's +astonished ears. + +"You needn't try to play off Dobell or Mitchell on ME--you hear! Much +YOU know of either, don't you? Look at that copy. If Johnny couldn't do +better than that, I'd lick him. Of course it's the pen--it ain't your +stodgy fingers--oh, no! P'r'aps you'd like to hev a few more boxes +o' quills and gold pens and Gillott's best thrown in, for two bits a +lesson? I tell you what! I'll throw up the contract in another minit! +There goes another quill busted! Look here, what YOU want ain't a pen, +but a clothes-pin and a split nail! That'll about jibe with your dilikit +gait." + +The master at once stepped to the window and, unobserved, took a +quick survey of the interior. Following some ingenious idea of his own +regarding fitness, the beautiful Filgee had induced Uncle Ben to seat +himself on the floor before one of the smallest desks, presumably +his brother's, in an attitude which, while it certainly gave him +considerable elbow-room for those contortions common to immature +penmanship, offered his youthful instructor a superior eminence, from +which he hovered, occasionally swooping down upon his grown-up pupil +like a mischievous but graceful jay. But Mr. Ford's most distinct +impression was that, far from resenting the derogatory position and the +abuse that accompanied it, Uncle Ben not only beamed upon his persecutor +with unquenchable good humor, but with undisguised admiration, and +showed not the slightest inclination to accept his proposed resignation. + +"Go slow, Roop," he said cheerfully. "You was onct a boy yourself. +Nat'rally I kalkilate to stand all the damages. You've got ter waste +some powder over a blast like this yer, way down to the bed rock. Next +time I'll bring my own pens." + +"Do. Some from the Dobell school you uster go to," suggested the darkly +ironical Rupert. "They was iron-clad injin-rubber, warn't they?" + +"Never you mind wot they were," said Uncle Ben good-humoredly. "Look at +that string of 'C's' in that line. There's nothing mean about THEM." + +He put his pen between his teeth, raised himself slowly on his legs, and +shading his eyes with his hand from the severe perspective of six feet, +gazed admiringly down upon his work. Rupert, with his hands in +his pockets and his back to the window, cynically assisted at the +inspection. + +"Wot's that sick worm at the bottom of the page?" he asked. + +"Wot might you think it wos?" said Uncle Ben beamingly. + +"Looks like one o' them snake roots you dig up with a little mud stuck +to it," returned Rupert critically. + +"That's my name." + +They both stood looking at it with their heads very much on one side. +"It ain't so bad as the rest you've done. It MIGHT be your name. That +ez, it don't look like anythin' else," suggested Rupert, struck with a +new idea that it was perhaps more professional occasionally to encourage +his pupil. "You might get on in course o' time. But what are you doin' +all this for?" he asked suddenly. + +"Doin' what?" + +"This yer comin' to school when you ain't sent, and you ain't got no +call to go--you, a grown-up man!" + +The color deepened in Uncle Ben's face to the back of his ears. "Wot +would you giv' to know, Roop? S'pose I reckoned some day to make a +strike and sorter drop inter saciety easy--eh? S'pose I wanted to be +ready to keep up my end with the other fellers, when the time kem? To be +able to sling po'try and read novels and sich--eh?" + +An expression of infinite and unutterable scorn dawned in the eyes of +Rupert. "You do? Well," he repeated with slow and cutting deliberation, +"I'll tell you what you're comin' here for, and the only thing that +makes you come." + +"What?" + +"It's--some--girl!" + +Uncle Ben broke into a boisterous laugh that made the roof shake, +stamping about and slapping his legs till the crazy floor trembled. +But at that moment the master stepped to the perch and made a quiet but +discomposing entrance. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +The return of Miss Cressida McKinstry to Indian Spring and her +interrupted studies was an event whose effects were not entirely +confined to the school. The broken engagement itself seemed of little +moment in the general estimation compared to her resumption of her +old footing as a scholar. A few ill-natured elders of her own sex, +and naturally exempt from the discriminating retort of Mr. McKinstry's +"shot-gun," alleged that the Seminary at Sacramento had declined to +receive her, but the majority accepted her return with local pride as a +practical compliment to the educational facilities of Indian Spring. +The Tuolumne "Star," with a breadth and eloquence touchingly +disproportionate to its actual size and quality of type and paper, +referred to the possible "growth of a grove of Academus at Indian +Spring, under whose cloistered boughs future sages and statesmen +were now meditating," in a way that made the master feel exceedingly +uncomfortable. For some days the trail between the McKinstrys' ranch and +the school-house was lightly patrolled by reliefs of susceptible young +men, to whom the enfranchised Cressida, relieved from the dangerous +supervision of the Davis-McKinstry clique, was an object of ambitious +admiration. The young girl herself, who, in spite of the master's +annoyance, seemed to be following some conscientious duty in +consecutively arraying herself in the different dresses she had bought, +however she may have tantalized her admirers by this revelation of +bridal finery, did not venture to bring them near the limits of the +play-ground. It struck the master with some surprise that Indian Spring +did not seem to trouble itself in regard to his own privileged relations +with its rustic enchantress; the young men clearly were not jealous of +him; no matron had suggested any indecorum in a young girl of Cressy's +years and antecedents being intrusted to the teachings of a young man +scarcely her senior. Notwithstanding the attitude which Mr. Ford had +been pleased to assume towards her, this implied compliment to his +supposed monastic vocations affected him almost as uncomfortably as the +"Star's" extravagant eulogium. He was obliged to recall certain +foolish experiences of his own to enable him to rise superior to this +presumption of his asceticism. + +In pursuance of his promise to McKinstry, he had procured a few +elementary books of study suitable to Cressy's new position, without, +however, taking her out of the smaller classes or the discipline of the +school. In a few weeks he was enabled to further improve her attitude by +making her a "monitor" over the smaller girls, thereby dividing certain +functions with Rupert Filgee, whose ministrations to the deceitful and +"silly" sex had been characterized by perhaps more vigilant scorn and +disparagement than was necessary. Cressy had accepted it as she had +accepted her new studies, with an indolent good-humor, and at times a +frankly supreme ignorance of their abstract or moral purpose that was +discouraging. "What's the good of that?" she would ask, lifting her +eyes abruptly to the master. Mr. Ford, somewhat embarrassed by her look, +which always, sooner or later, frankly confessed itself an excuse for a +perfectly irrelevant examination of his features in detail, would end in +giving her some severely practical answer. Yet, if the subject appealed +to any particular idiosyncrasy of her own, she would speedily master +the study. A passing predilection for botany was provoked by a single +incident. The master deeming this study a harmless young-lady-like +occupation, had one day introduced the topic at recess, and was met by +the usual answer. "But suppose," he continued artfully, "somebody sent +you anonymously some flowers." + +"Her ho!" suggested Johnny Filgee hoarsely, with bold bad recklessness. +Ignoring the remark and the kick with which Rupert had resented it on +the person of his brother, the master continued: + +"And if you couldn't find out who sent them, you would want at least to +know what they were and where they grew." + +"Ef they grew anywhere 'bout yer we could tell her that," said a chorus +of small voices. + +The master hesitated. He was conscious of being on delicate ground. He +was surrounded by a dozen pairs of little keen eyes from whom Nature had +never yet succeeded in hiding her secrets--eyes that had waited for +and knew the coming up of the earliest flowers; little fingers that had +never turned the pages of a text-book, but knew where to scrape away the +dead leaves above the first anemone, or had groped painfully among the +lifeless branches in forgotten hollows for the shy dog-rose; unguided +little feet that had instinctively made their way to remote southern +slopes for the first mariposas, or had unerringly threaded the +tule-hidden banks of the river for flower-de-luce. Convinced that he +could not hold his own on their level, he shamelessly struck at once +above it. + +"Suppose that one of those flowers," he continued, "was not like the +rest; that its stalks and leaves, instead of being green and soft, were +white and stringy like flannel as if to protect it from cold, wouldn't +it be nice to be able to say at once that it had lived only in the snow, +and that some one must have gone all that way up there above the snow +line to pick it?" The children, taken aback by this unfair introduction +of a floral stranger, were silent. Cressy thoughtfully accepted botany +on those possibilities. A week later she laid on the master's desk a +limp-looking plant with a stalk like heavy frayed worsted yarn. "It +ain't much to look at after all, is it?" she said. "I reckon I could cut +a better one with scissors outer an old cloth jacket of mine." + +"And you found it here?" asked the master in surprise. + +"I got Masters to look for it when he was on the Summit. I described it +to him. I didn't allow he had the gumption to get it. But he did." + +Although botany languished slightly after this vicarious effort, it +kept Cressy in fresh bouquets, and extending its gentle influence to her +friends and acquaintances became slightly confounded with horticulture, +led to the planting of one or two gardens, and was accepted in school +as an implied concession to berries, apples, and nuts. In reading and +writing Cressy greatly improved, with a marked decrease in grammatical +solecisms, although she still retained certain characteristic words, and +always her own slow Southwestern, half musical intonation. This languid +deliberation was particularly noticeable in her reading aloud, and +gave the studied and measured rhetoric a charm of which her careless +colloquial speech was incapable. Even the "Fifth Reader," with its +imposing passages from the English classics carefully selected with a +view of paralyzing small, hesitating, or hurried voices, in Cressy's +hands became no longer an unintelligible incantation. She had quietly +mastered the difficulties of pronunciation by some instinctive sense of +euphony if not of comprehension. The master with his eyes closed hardly +recognized his pupil. Whether or not she understood what she read he +hesitated to inquire; no doubt, as with her other studies, she knew +what attracted her. Rupert Filgee, a sympathetic if not always a correct +reader, who boldly took four and five syllabled fences flying only to +come to grief perhaps in the ditch of some rhetorical pause beyond, +alone expressed his scorn of her performance. Octavia Dean, torn between +her hopeless affection for this beautiful but inaccessible boy, and +her soul-friendship for this bigger but many-frocked girl, studied the +master's face with watchful anxiety. + +It is needless to say that Hiram McKinstry was, in the intervals of +stake-driving and stock-hunting, heavily contented with this latest +evidence of his daughter's progress. He even intimated to the master +that her reading being an accomplishment that could be exercised at home +was conducive to that "kam" in which he was so deficient. It was also +rumored that Cressy's oral rendering of Addison's "Reflections in +Westminster Abbey" and Burke's "Indictment of Warren Hastings," had +beguiled him one evening from improving an opportunity to "plug" one of +Harrison's boundary "raiders." + +The master shared in Cressy's glory in the public eye. But although Mrs. +McKinstry did not materially change her attitude of tolerant good-nature +towards him, he was painfully conscious that she looked upon her +daughter's studies and her husband's interests in them as a weakness +that might in course of time produce infirmity of homicidal purpose and +become enervating of eye and trigger-finger. And when Mr. McKinstry got +himself appointed as school-trustee, and was thereby obliged to mingle +with certain Eastern settlers,--colleagues on the Board,--this possible +weakening of the old sharply drawn sectional line between "Yanks" and +themselves gave her grave doubts of Hiram's physical stamina. + +"The old man's worrits hev sorter shook out a little of his sand," she +had explained. On those evenings when he attended the Board, she sought +higher consolation in prayer meeting at the Southern Baptist Church, in +whose exercises her Northern and Eastern neighbors, thinly disguised as +"Baal" and "Astaroth," were generally overthrown and their temples made +desolate. + +If Uncle Ben's progress was slower, it was no less satisfactory. +Without imagination and even without enthusiasm, he kept on with a dull +laborious persistency. When the irascible impatience of Rupert Filgee +at last succumbed to the obdurate slowness of his pupil, the master +himself, touched by Uncle Ben's perspiring forehead and perplexed +eyebrows, often devoted the rest of the afternoon to a gentle +elucidation of the mysteries before him, setting copies for his heavy +hand, or even guiding it with his own, like a child's, across the paper. +At times the appalling uselessness of Uncle Ben's endeavors reminded +him of Rupert's taunting charge. Was he really doing this from a genuine +thirst for knowledge? It was inconsistent with all that Indian Spring +knew of his antecedents and his present ambitions; he was a simple +miner without scientific or technical knowledge; his already slight +acquaintance with arithmetic and the scrawl that served for his +signature were more than sufficient for his needs. Yet it was with this +latter sign-manual that he seemed to take infinite pains. The master, +one afternoon, thought fit to correct the apparent vanity of this +performance. + +"If you took as much care in trying to form your letters according to +copy, you'd do better. Your signature is fair enough as it is." + +"But it don't look right, Mr. Ford," said Uncle Ben, eying it +distrustfully; "somehow it ain't all there." + +"Why, certainly it is. Look, D A B N E Y--not very plain, it's true, but +there are all the letters." + +"That's just it, Mr. Ford; them AIN'T all the letters that ORTER be +there. I've allowed to write it D A B N E Y to save time and ink, but it +orter read DAUBIGNY," said Uncle Ben, with painful distinctness. + +"But that spells d'Aubigny!" + +"It are." + +"Is that your name?" + +"I reckon." + +The master looked at Uncle Ben doubtfully. Was this only another form of +the Dobell illusion? "Was your father a Frenchman?" he asked finally. + +Uncle Ben paused as if to recall the trifling circumstances of his +father's nationality. "No." + +"Your grandfather?" + +"I reckon not. At least ye couldn't prove it by me." + +"Was your father or grandfather a voyageur or trapper, or Canadian?" + +"They were from Pike County, Mizzoori." + +The master regarded Uncle Ben still dubiously. "But you call yourself +Dabney. What makes you think your real name is d'Aubigny?" + +"That's the way it uster be writ in letters to me in the States. Hold +on. I'll show ye." He deliberately began to feel in his pockets, finally +extracting his old purse from which he produced a crumpled envelope, and +carefully smoothing it out, compared it with his signature. + +"Thar, you see. It's the same--d'Aubigny." + +The master hesitated. After all, it was not impossible. He recalled +other instances of the singular transformation of names in the +Californian emigration. Yet he could not help saying, "Then you +concluded d'Aubigny was a better name than Dabney?" + +"Do YOU think it's better?" + +"Women might. I dare say your wife would prefer to be called Mrs. +d'Aubigny rather than Dabney." + +The chance shot told. Uncle Ben suddenly flushed to his ears. + +"I didn't think o' that," he said hurriedly. "I had another idee. I +reckoned that on the matter o' holdin' property and passin' in money +it would be better to hev your name put on the square, and to sorter go +down to bed rock for it, eh? If I wanted to take a hand in them lots or +Ditch shares, for instance--it would be only law to hev it made out in +the name o' d'Aubigny." + +Mr. Ford listened with certain impatient contempt. It was bad enough for +Uncle Ben to have exposed his weakness in inventing fictions about his +early education, but to invest himself now with a contingency of +capital for the sake of another childish vanity, was pitiable as it +was preposterous. There was no doubt that he had lied about his school +experiences; it was barely probable that his name was really d'Aubigny, +and it was quite consistent with all this--even setting apart the fact +that he was perfectly well known to be only a poor miner--that he should +lie again. Like most logical reasoners Mr. Ford forgot that humanity +might be illogical and inconsistent without being insincere. He turned +away without speaking as if indicating a wish to hear no more. + +"Some o' these days," said Uncle Ben, with dull persistency, "I'll tell +ye suthen'." + +"I'd advise you just now to drop it and stick to your lessons," said the +master sharply. + +"That's so," said Uncle Ben hurriedly, hiding himself as it were in +an all-encompassing blush. "In course lessons first, boys, that's the +motto." He again took up his pen and assumed his old laborious attitude. +But after a few moments it became evident that either the master's curt +dismissal of his subject or his own preoccupation with it, had somewhat +unsettled him. He cleaned his pen obtrusively, going to the window for +a better light, and whistling from time to time with a demonstrative +carelessness and a depressing gayety. He once broke into a murmuring, +meditative chant evidently referring to the previous conversation, in +its--"That's so--Yer we go--Lessons the first, boys, Yo, heave O." +The rollicking marine character of this refrain, despite its utter +incongruousness, apparently struck him favorably, for he repeated it +softly, occasionally glancing behind him at the master who was coldly +absorbed at his desk. Presently he arose, carefully put his books away, +symmetrically piling them in a pyramid beside Mr. Ford's motionless +elbow, and then lifting his feet with high but gentle steps went to the +peg where his coat and hat were hanging. As he was about to put them on +he appeared suddenly struck with a sense of indecorousness in dressing +himself in the school, and taking them on his arm to the porch resumed +them outside. Then saying, "I clean disremembered I'd got to see a man. +So long, till to-morrow," he disappeared whistling softly. + +The old woodland hush fell back upon the school. It seemed very quiet +and empty. A faint sense of remorse stole over the master. Yet he +remembered that Uncle Ben had accepted without reproach and as a good +joke much more direct accusations from Rupert Filgee, and that he +himself had acted from a conscientious sense of duty towards the man. +But a conscientious sense of duty to inflict pain upon a fellow-mortal +for his own good does not always bring perfect serenity to the +inflicter--possibly because, in the defective machinery of human +compensation, pain is the only quality that is apt to appear in the +illustration. Mr. Ford felt uncomfortable, and being so, was naturally +vexed at the innocent cause. Why should Uncle Ben be offended because +he had simply declined to follow his weak fabrications any further? This +was his return for having tolerated it at first! It would be a lesson to +him henceforth. Nevertheless he got up and went to the door. The figure +of Uncle Ben was already indistinct among the leaves, but from the +motion of his shoulders he seemed to be still stepping high and softly +as if not yet clear of insecure and engulfing ground. + +The silence still continuing, the master began mechanically to look +over the desks for forgotten or mislaid articles, and to rearrange +the pupils' books and copies. A few heartsease gathered by the devoted +Octavia Dean, neatly tied with a black thread and regularly left in the +inkstand cavity of Rupert's desk, were still lying on the floor where +they had been always hurled with equal regularity by that disdainful +Adonis. Picking up a slate from under a bench, his attention was +attracted by a forgotten cartoon on the reverse side. Mr. Ford at once +recognized it as the work of that youthful but eminent caricaturist, +Johnny Filgee. Broad in treatment, comprehensive in subject, liberal +in detail and slate-pencil--it represented Uncle Ben lying on the floor +with a book in his hand, tyrannized over by Rupert Filgee and regarded +in a striking profile of two features by Cressy McKinstry. The +daring realism of introducing the names of each character on their +legs--perhaps ideally enlarged for that purpose--left no doubt of their +identity. Equally daring but no less effective was the rendering of +a limited but dramatic conversation between the parties by the aid of +emotional balloons attached to their mouths like a visible gulp bearing +the respective legends: "I luv you," "O my," and "You git!" + +The master was for a moment startled at this unlooked-for but graphic +testimony to the fact that Uncle Ben's visits to the school were +not only known but commented upon. The small eyes of those youthful +observers had been keener than his own. He had again been stupidly +deceived, in spite of his efforts. Love, albeit deficient in features +and wearing an improperly short bell-shaped frock, had boldly re-entered +the peaceful school, and disturbing complications on abnormal legs were +following at its heels. + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +While this simple pastoral life was centred around the school-house in +the clearing, broken only by an occasional warning pistol-shot in the +direction of the Harrison-McKinstry boundaries, the more business part +of Indian Spring was overtaken by one of those spasms of enterprise +peculiar to all Californian mining settlements. The opening of the +Eureka Ditch and the extension of stagecoach communication from Big +Bluff were events of no small importance, and were celebrated on the +same day. The double occasion overtaxing even the fluent rhetoric of +the editor of the "Star" left him struggling in the metaphorical +difficulties of a Pactolian Spring, which he had rashly turned into +the Ditch, and obliged him to transfer the onerous duty of writing the +editorial on the Big Bluff Extension to the hands of the Honorable Abner +Dean, Assemblyman from Angel's. The loss of the Honorable Mr. Dean's +right eye in an early pioneer fracas did not prevent him from looking +into the dim vista of the future and discovering with that single +unaided optic enough to fill three columns of the "Star." "It is not too +extravagant to say," he remarked with charming deprecation, "that +Indian Spring, through its own perfectly organized system of inland +transportation, the confluence of its North Fork with the Sacramento +River, and their combined effluence into the illimitable Pacific, is +thus put not only into direct communication with far Cathay but even +remoter Antipodean markets. The citizen of Indian Spring taking the 9 A. +M. Pioneer Coach and arriving at Big Bluff at 2.40 is enabled to connect +with the through express to Sacramento the same evening, reaching San +Francisco per the Steam Navigation Company's palatial steamers in time +to take the Pacific Mail Steamer to Yokohama on the following day at +8.30 P. M." Although no citizen of Indian Spring appeared to avail +himself of this admirable opportunity, nor did it appear at all likely +that any would, everybody vaguely felt that an inestimable boon lay +in the suggestion, and even the master professionally intrusting the +reading aloud of the editorial to Rupert Filgee with ulterior designs +of practice in the pronunciation of five-syllable words, was somewhat +affected by it. Johnny Filgee and Jimmy Snyder accepting it as a +mysterious something that made Desert Islands accessible at a moment's +notice and a trifling outlay, were round-eyed and attentive. And +the culminating information from the master that this event would +be commemorated by a half-holiday, combined to make the occasion as +exciting to the simple school-house in the clearing as it was to the +gilded saloon in the main street. + +And so the momentous day arrived, with its two new coaches from Big +Bluff containing the specially invited speakers--always specially +invited to those occasions, and yet strangely enough never before +feeling the extreme "importance and privilege" of it as they did then. +Then there were the firing of two anvils, the strains of a brass band, +the hoisting of a new flag on the liberty-pole, and later the +ceremony of the Ditch opening, when a distinguished speaker in a most +unworkman-like tall hat, black frock coat, and white cravat, which gave +him the general air of a festive grave-digger, took a spade from the +hands of an apparently hilarious chief mourner and threw out the first +sods. There were anvils, brass bands, and a "collation" at the hotel. +But everywhere--overriding the most extravagant expectation and even +the laughter it provoked--the spirit of indomitable youth and resistless +enterprise intoxicated the air. It was the spirit that had made +California possible; that had sown a thousand such ventures +broadcast through its wilderness; that had enabled the sower to stand +half-humorously among his scant or ruined harvests without fear and +without repining, and turn his undaunted and ever hopeful face to +further fields. What mattered it that Indian Spring had always before +its eyes the abandoned trenches and ruined outworks of its earlier +pioneers? What mattered it that the eloquent eulogist of the Eureka +Ditch had but a few years before as prodigally scattered his adjectives +and his fortune on the useless tunnel that confronted him on the +opposite side of the river? The sublime forgetfulness of youth ignored +its warning or recognized it as a joke. The master, fresh from his +little flock and prematurely aged by their contact, felt a stirring +of something like envy as he wandered among these scarcely older +enthusiasts. + +Especially memorable was the exciting day to Johnny Filgee, not only for +the delightfully bewildering clamor of the brass band, in which, between +the trombone and the bass drum, he had got inextricably mixed; not only +for the half-frightening explosions of the anvils and the maddening +smell of the gunpowder which had exalted his infant soul to sudden and +irrelevant whoopings, but for a singular occurrence that whetted his +always keen perceptions. Having been shamelessly abandoned on the +veranda of the Eureka Hotel while his brother Rupert paid bashful court +to the pretty proprietress by assisting her in her duties, Johnny gave +himself up to unlimited observation. The rosettes of the six horses, the +new harness, the length of the driver's whiplash, his enormous buckskin +gloves and the way he held his reins; the fascinating odor of shining +varnish on the coach, the gold-headed cane of the Honorable Abner Dean: +all these were stored away in the secret recesses of Johnny's memory, +even as the unconsidered trifles he had picked up en route were +distending his capacious pockets. But when a young man had alighted +from the second or "Truly" coach among the REAL passengers, and strolled +carelessly and easily in the veranda as if the novelty and the occasion +were nothing to him, Johnny, with a gulp of satisfaction, knew that +he had seen a prince! Beautifully dressed in a white duck suit, with a +diamond ring on his finger, a gold chain swinging from his fob, and a +Panama hat with a broad black ribbon jauntily resting on his curled +and scented hair, Johnny's eyes had never rested on a more resplendent +vision. He was more romantic than Yuba Bill, more imposing and less +impossible than the Honorable Abner Dean, more eloquent than the +master--far more beautiful than any colored print that he had ever seen. +Had he brushed him in passing Johnny would have felt a thrill; had he +spoken to him he knew he would have been speechless to reply. Judge +then of his utter stupefaction when he saw Uncle Ben--actually +Uncle Ben!--approach this paragon of perfection, albeit with some +embarrassment, and after a word or two of unintelligible conversation +walk away with him! Need it be wondered that Johnny, forgetful at once +of his brother, the horses, and even the collation with its possible +"goodies," instantly followed. + +The two men turned into the side street, which, after a few hundred +yards, opened upon the deserted mining flat, crossed and broken by +the burrows and mounds made by the forgotten engines of the early +gold-seekers. Johnny, at times hidden by these irregularities, kept +closely in their rear, sauntering whenever he came within the range of +their eyes in that sidelong, spasmodic and generally diagonal fashion +peculiar to small boys, but ready at any moment to assume utter +unconsciousness and the appearance of going somewhere else or of +searching for something on the ground. In this way appearing, if noticed +at all, each time in some different position to the right or left of +them, Johnny followed them to the fringe of woodland which enabled him +to draw closer to their heels. + +Utterly oblivious of this artistic "shadowing" in the insignificant +person of the small boy who once or twice even crossed their path with +affected timidity, they continued an apparently confidential previous +interview. The words "stocks" and "shares" were alone intelligible. +Johnny had heard them during the day, but he was struck by the fact +that Uncle Ben seemed to be seeking information from the paragon and was +perfectly submissive and humble. But the boy was considerably mystified +when after a tramp of half an hour they arrived upon the debatable +ground of the Harrison-McKinstry boundary. Having been especially warned +never to go there, Johnny as a matter of course was perfectly familiar +with it. But what was the incomprehensible stranger doing there? Was he +brought by Uncle Ben with a view of paralyzing both of the combatants +with the spectacle of his perfections? Was he a youthful sheriff, a +young judge, or maybe the son of the Governor of California? Or was it +that Uncle Ben was "silly" and didn't know the locality? Here was an +opportunity for him, Johnny, to introduce himself, and explain and even +magnify the danger, with perhaps a slight allusion to his own fearless +familiarity with it. Unfortunately, as he was making up his small mind +behind a tree, the paragon turned and with the easy disdain that so well +became him, said: + +"Well, I wouldn't offer a dollar an acre for the whole ranch. But if YOU +choose to give a fancy price--that's your lookout." + +To Johnny's already prejudiced mind, Uncle Ben received this just +contempt submissively, as he ought, but nevertheless he muttered +something "silly" in reply, which Johnny was really too disgusted to +listen to. Ought he not to step forward and inform the paragon that he +was wasting his time on a man who couldn't even spell "ba-ker," and who +was taught his letters by his, Johnny's, brother? + +The paragon continued: + +"And of course you know that merely your buying the title to the land +don't give you possession. You'll have to fight these squatters and +jumpers just the same. It'll be three instead of two fighting--that's +all!" + +Uncle Ben's imbecile reply did not trouble Johnny. He had ears now only +for the superior intellect before him. IT continued coolly: + +"Now let's take a look at that yield of yours. I haven't much time to +give you, as I expect some men to be looking for me here--and I suppose +you want this thing still kept a secret. I don't see how you've managed +to do it so far. Is your claim near? You live on it--I think you said?" + +But that the little listener was so preoccupied with the stranger, this +suggestion of Uncle Ben's having a claim worth the attention of that +distinguished presence would have set him thinking; the little that he +understood he set down to Uncle Ben's "gassin'." As the two men moved +forward again, he followed them until Uncle Ben's house was reached. + +It was a rude shanty of boards and rough boulders, half burrowing in one +of the largest mounds of earth and gravel, which had once represented +the tailings or refuse of the abandoned Indian Spring Placer. In fact +it was casually alleged by some that Uncle Ben eked out the scanty "grub +wages," he made by actual mining, in reworking and sifting the tailings +at odd times--a degrading work hitherto practised only by Chinese, and +unworthy the Caucasian ambition. The mining code of honor held that a +man might accept the smallest results of his daily labor, as long as he +was sustained by the prospect of a larger "strike," but condemned his +contentment with a modest certainty. Nevertheless a little of this +suspicion encompassed his dwelling and contributed to its loneliness, +even as a long ditch, the former tail-race of the claim, separated him +from his neighbors. Prudently halting at the edge of the wood, Johnny +saw his resplendent vision cross the strip of barren flat, and enter the +cabin with Uncle Ben like any other mortal. He sat down on a stump and +awaited its return, which he fondly hoped might be alone! At the end +of half an hour he made a short excursion to examine the condition of a +blackberry bramble, and returned to his post of observation. But there +was neither sound nor motion in the direction of the cabin. When +another ten minutes had elapsed, the door opened and to Johnny's intense +discomfiture, Uncle Ben appeared alone and walked leisurely towards the +woods. Burning with anxiety Johnny threw himself in Uncle Ben's way. +But here occurred one of those surprising inconsistencies known only +to children. As Uncle Ben turned his small gray eyes upon him in a +half astonished, half questioning manner, the potent spirit of childish +secretiveness suddenly took possession of the boy. Wild horses could not +now have torn from him that question which only a moment before was on +his lips. + +"Hullo, Johnny! What are ye doin' here?" said Uncle Ben kindly. + +"Nothin'." After a pause, in which he walked all round Uncle Ben's large +figure, gazing up at him as if he were a monument, he added, "Huntin' +blackberrieth." + +"Why ain't you over at the collation?" + +"Ruperth there," he answered promptly. + +The idea of being thus vicariously present in the person of his brother +seemed a sufficient excuse. He leap-frogged over the stump on which he +had been sitting as an easy unembarrassing pause for the next question. +But Uncle Ben was apparently perfectly satisfied with Johnny's reply, +and nodding to him, walked away. + +When his figure had disappeared in the bushes, Johnny cautiously +approached the cabin. At a certain distance he picked up a stone and +threw it against the door, immediately taking to his heels and the +friendly copse again. No one appearing he repeated the experiment twice +and even thrice with a larger stone and at a nearer distance. Then he +boldly skirted the cabin and dropped into the race-way at its side. +Following it a few hundred yards he came upon a long disused shaft +opening into it, which had been covered with a rough trap of old planks, +as if to protect incautious wayfarers from falling in. Here a sudden and +inexplicable fear overtook Johnny, and he ran away. When he reached +the hotel, almost the first sight that met his astounded eyes was the +spectacle of the paragon, apparently still in undisturbed possession +of all his perfections--driving coolly off in a buggy with a fresh +companion. + +Meantime Mr. Ford, however touched by the sentimental significance of +the celebration, became slightly wearied of its details. As his own room +in the Eureka Hotel was actually thrilled by the brass band without and +the eloquence of speakers below, and had become redolent of gunpowder +and champagne exploded around it, he determined to return to the +school-house and avail himself of its woodland quiet to write a few +letters. + +The change was grateful, the distant murmur of the excited settlement +came only as the soothing sound of wind among the leaves. The pure air +of the pines that filled every cranny of the quiet school-room, +and seemed to disperse all taint of human tenancy, made the far-off +celebrations as unreal as a dream. The only reality of his life was +here. + +He took from his pocket a few letters one of which was worn and soiled +with frequent handling. He re-read it in a half methodical, half patient +way, as if he were waiting for some revelation it inspired, which +was slow that afternoon in coming. At other times it had called up +a youthful enthusiasm which was wont to transfigure his grave and +prematurely reserved face with a new expression. To-day the revelation +and expression were both wanting. He put the letter back with a slight +sigh, that sounded so preposterous in the silent room that he could +not forego an embarrassed smile. But the next moment he set himself +seriously to work on his correspondence. + +Presently he stopped; once or twice he had been overtaken by a vague +undefinable sense of pleasure, even to the dreamy halting of his pen. +It was a sensation in no way connected with the subject of his +correspondence, or even his previous reflections--it was partly +physical, and yet it was in some sense suggestive. It must be the +intoxicating effect of the woodland air. He even fancied he had noticed +it before, at the same hour when the sun was declining and the fresh +odors of the undergrowth were rising. It certainly was a perfume. He +raised his eyes. There lay the cause on the desk before him--a little +nosegay of wild Californian myrtle encircling a rose-bud which had +escaped his notice. + +There was nothing unusual in the circumstance. The children were in the +habit of making their offerings generally without particular reference +to time or occasion, and it might have been overlooked by him during +school-hours. He felt a pity for the forgotten posy already beginning +to grow limp in its neglected solitude. He remembered that in some +folk-lore of the children's, perhaps a tradition of the old association +of the myrtle with Venus, it was believed to be emblematic of the +affections. He remembered also that he had even told them of this +probable origin of their superstition. He was still holding it in his +hand when he was conscious of a silken sensation that sent a magnetic +thrill through his fingers. Looking at it more closely he saw that +the sprigs were bound together, not by thread or ribbon, but by long +filaments of soft brown hair tightly wound around them. He unwound a +single hair and held it to the light. Its length, color, texture, +and above all a certain inexplicable instinct, told him it was Cressy +McKinstry's. He laid it down quickly, as if he had, in that act, +familiarly touched her person. + +He finished his letter, but presently found himself again looking at +the myrtle and thinking about it. From the position in which it had been +placed it was evidently intended for him; the fancy of binding it with +hair was also intentional and not a necessity, as he knew his feminine +scholars were usually well provided with bits of thread, silk, or +ribbon. If it had been some new absurdity of childish fashion introduced +in the school, he would have noticed it ere this. For it was this +obtrusion of a personality that vaguely troubled him. He remembered +Cressy's hair; it was certainly very beautiful, in spite of her +occasional vagaries of coiffure. He recalled how, one afternoon, it had +come down when she was romping with Octavia in the play-ground, and was +surprised to find what a vivid picture he retained of her lingering in +the porch to put it up; her rounded arms held above her head, her pretty +shoulders, full throat, and glowing face thrown back, and a wisp of the +very hair between her white teeth! He began another letter. + +When it was finished the shadow of the pine-branch before the window, +thrown by the nearly level sun across his paper, had begun slowly to +reach the opposite wall. He put his work away, lingered for a moment in +hesitation over the myrtle sprays, and then locked them in his desk +with an odd feeling that he had secured in some vague way a hold upon +Cressy's future vagaries; then reflecting that Uncle Ben, whom he had +seen in town, would probably keep holiday with the others, he resolved +to wait no longer, but strolled back to the hotel. The act however had +not recalled Uncle Ben to him by any association of ideas, for since his +discovery of Johnny Filgee's caricature he had failed to detect anything +to corroborate the caricaturist's satire, and had dismissed the subject +from his mind. + +On entering his room at the hotel he found Rupert Filgee standing +moodily by the window, while his brother Johnny, overcome by a repletion +of excitement and collation, was asleep on the single arm-chair. Their +presence was not unusual, as Mr. Ford, touched by the loneliness of +these motherless boys, had often invited them to come to his rooms to +look over his books and illustrated papers. + +"Well?" he said cheerfully. + +Rupert did not reply or change his position. Mr. Ford, glancing at +him sharply, saw a familiar angry light in the boy's beautiful eyes, +slightly dimmed by a tear. Laying his hand gently on Rupert's shoulder +he said, "What's the matter, Rupert?" + +"Nothin'," said the boy doggedly, with his eyes still fixed on the pane. + +"Has--has--Mrs. Tripp" (the fair proprietress) "been unkind?" he went on +lightly. + +No reply. + +"You know, Rupe," continued Mr. Ford demurely, "she must show SOME +reserve before company--like to-day. It won't do to make a scandal." + +Rupert maintained an indignant silence. But the dimple (which he usually +despised as a feminine blot) on the cheek nearer the master became +slightly accented. Only for a moment; the dark eyes clouded again. + +"I wish I was dead, Mr. Ford." + +"Hallo!" + +"Or--doin' suthin'." + +"That's better. What do you want to do?" + +"To work--make a livin' myself. Quit toten' wood and water at home; quit +cookin' and makin' beds, like a yaller Chinaman; quit nussin' babies and +dressin' 'em and undressin' 'em, like a girl. Look at HIM now," pointing +to the sweetly unconscious Johnny, "look at him there. Do you know what +that means? It means I've got to pack him home through the town jist ez +he is thar, and then make a fire and bile his food for him, and wash +him and undress him and put him to bed, and 'Now I lay me down to sleep' +him, and tuck him up; and Dad all the while 'scootin' round town with +other idjits, jawin' about 'progress' and the 'future of Injin Spring.' +Much future we've got over our own house, Mr. Ford. Much future he's got +laid up for me!" + +The master, to whom those occasional outbreaks from Rupert were not +unfamiliar, smiled, albeit with serious eyes that belied his lips, and +consoled the boy as he had often done before. But he was anxious to +know the cause of this recent attack and its probable relations to the +fascinating Mrs. Tripp. + +"I thought we talked all that over some time ago, Rupe. In a few months +you'll be able to leave school, and I'll advise your father about +putting you into something to give you a chance for yourself. Patience, +old fellow; you're doing very well. Consider--there's your pupil, Uncle +Ben." + +"Oh, yes! That's another big baby to tot round in school when I ain't +niggerin' at home." + +"And I don't see exactly what else you could do at Indian Spring," +continued Mr. Ford. + +"No," said Rupert gloomily, "but I could get away to Sacramento. Yuba +Bill says they take boys no bigger nor me in thar express offices or +banks--and in a year or two they're as good ez anybody and get paid +as big. Why, there was a fellow here, just now, no older than you, Mr. +Ford, and not half your learnin', and he dressed to death with jewelry, +and everybody bowin' and scrapin' to him, that it was perfectly +sickenin'." + +Mr. Ford lifted his eyebrows. "Oh, you mean the young man of Benham and +Co., who was talking to Mrs. Tripp?" he said. + +A quick flush of angry consciousness crossed Rupert's face. "Maybe; he +has just cheek enough for anythin'." + +"And you want to be like him?" said Mr. Ford. + +"You know what I mean, Mr. Ford. Not LIKE him. Why YOU'RE as good as +he is, any day," continued Rupert with relentless naivete; "but if a +jay-bird like that can get on, why couldn't I?" + +There was no doubt that the master here pointed out the defectiveness +of Rupert's logic and the beneficence of patience and study, as became +their relations of master and pupil, but with the addition of a certain +fellow sympathy and some amusing recital of his own boyish experiences, +that had the effect of calling Rupert's dimples into action again. At +the end of half an hour the boy had become quite tractable, and, getting +ready to depart, approached his sleeping brother with something +like resignation. But Johnny's nap seemed to have had the effect of +transforming him into an inert jelly-like mass. It required the joint +exertions of both the master and Rupert to transfer him bodily into the +latter's arms, where, with a single limp elbow encircling his brother's +neck, he lay with his unfinished slumber still visibly distending his +cheeks, his eyelids, and even lifting his curls from his moist forehead. +The master bade Rupert "good-night," and returned to his room as the boy +descended the stairs with his burden. + +But here Providence, with, I fear, its occasional disregard of mere +human morality, rewarded Rupert after his own foolish desires. Mrs. +Tripp was at the foot of the stairs as Rupert came slowly down. He saw +her, and was covered with shame; she saw him and his burden, and was +touched with kindliness. Whether or not she was also mischievously aware +of Rupert's admiration, and was not altogether displeased with it, I +cannot say. In a voice that thrilled him, she said:-- + +"What! Rupert, are you going so soon?" + +"Yes, ma'am---on account of Johnny." + +"But let me take him--I can keep him here to-night." + +It was a great temptation, but Rupert had strength to refuse, albeit +with his hat pulled over his downcast eyes. + +"Poor dear, how tired he looks." + +She approached her still fresh and pretty face close to Rupert and laid +her lips on Johnny's cheek. Then she lifted her audacious eyes to his +brother, and pushing back his well-worn chip hat from his clustering +curls, she kissed him squarely on the forehead. + +"Good-night, dear." + +The boy stumbled, and then staggered blindly forward into the outer +darkness. But with a gentleman's delicacy he turned almost instantly +into a side street, as if to keep this consecration of himself from +vulgar eyes. The path he had chosen was rough and weary, the night was +dark, and Johnny was ridiculously heavy, but he kept steadily on, the +woman's kiss in the fancy of the foolish boy shining on his forehead and +lighting him onward like a star. + + + + +CHAPTER VI. + + +When the door closed on Rupert the master pulled down the blind, and, +trimming his lamp, tried to compose himself by reading. Outside, the +"Great Day for Indian Spring" was slowly evaporating in pale mists from +the river, and the celebration itself spasmodically taking flight here +and there in Roman candles and rockets. An occasional outbreak from +revellers in the bar-room below, a stumbling straggler along the +planked sidewalk before the hotel, only seemed to intensify the rustic +stillness. For the future of Indian Spring was still so remote that +Nature insensibly re-invested its boundaries on the slightest relaxation +of civic influence, and Mr. Ford lifted his head from the glowing +columns of the "Star" to listen to the far-off yelp of a coyote on the +opposite shore. + +He was also conscious of the recurrence of that vague, pleasurable +recollection, so indefinite that, when he sought to identify it with +anything--even the finding of the myrtle sprays on his desk--it evaded +him. He tried to work, with the same interruption. Then an uneasy +sensation that he had not been sufficiently kind to Rupert in his +foolish love-troubles remorsefully seized him. A half pathetic, half +humorous picture of the miserable Rupert staggering under the double +burden of his sleeping brother and a misplaced affection, or possibly +abandoning the one or both in the nearest ditch in a reckless access +of boyish frenzy and fleeing his home forever, rose before his eyes. He +seized his hat with the intention of seeking him--or forgetting him +in some other occupation by the way. For Mr. Ford had the sensitive +conscience of many imaginative people; an unfailing monitor, it was +always calling his whole moral being into play to evade it. + +As he crossed the passage he came upon Mrs. Tripp hooded and elaborately +attired in a white ball dress, which however did not, to his own fancy, +become her as well as her ordinary costume. He was passing her with a +bow, when she said, with complacent consciousness of her appearance, +"Aren't you going to the ball to-night?" + +He remembered then that "an opening ball" at the Court-house was a part +of the celebration. "No," he said smiling; "but it is a pity that Rupert +couldn't have seen you in your charming array." + +"Rupert," said the lady, with a slightly coquettish laugh; "you have +made him as much a woman-hater as yourself. I offered to take him in +our party, and he ran away to you." She paused, and giving him a furtive +critical glance said, with an easy mingling of confidence and audacity, +"Why don't YOU go? Nobody'll hurt you." + +"I'm not so sure of that," replied Mr. Ford gallantly. "There's the +melancholy example of Rupert always before me." + +Mrs. Tripp tossed her chignon and descended a step of the stairs. "You'd +better go," she continued, looking up over the balusters. "You can look +on if you can't dance." + +Now Mr. Ford COULD dance, and it so chanced, rather well, too. With this +consciousness he remained standing in half indignant hesitation on the +landing as she disappeared. Why shouldn't he go? It was true, he had +half tacitly acquiesced in the reserve with which he had been treated, +and had never mingled socially in the gatherings of either sex at Indian +Spring--but that was no reason. He could at least dress himself, walk to +the Court-house and--look on. + +Any black coat and white shirt was sufficiently de rigueur for Indian +Spring. Mr. Ford added the superfluous elegance of a forgotten white +waistcoat. When he reached the sidewalk it was only nine o'clock, but +the windows of the Court-house were already flaring like a stranded +steamer on the barren bank where it had struck. On the way thither he +was once or twice tempted to change his mind, and hesitated even at the +very door. But the fear that his hesitation would be noticed by the +few loungers before it, and the fact that some of them were already +hesitating through bashfulness, determined him to enter. + +The clerks' office and judges' chambers on the lower floor had been +invaded by wraps, shawls, and refreshments, but the dancing was +reserved for the upper floor or courtroom, still unfinished. Flags, +laurel-wreaths, and appropriate floral inscriptions hid its bare walls; +but the coat of arms of the State, already placed over the judges' dais +with its illimitable golden sunset, its triumphant goddess, and its +implacable grizzly, seemed figuratively to typify the occasion better +than the inscriptions. The room was close and crowded. The flickering +candles in tin sconces against the walls, or depending in rude +chandeliers of barrel-hoops from the ceiling, lit up the most astounding +diversity of female costume the master had ever seen. Gowns of bygone +fashions, creased and stained with packing and disuse, toilets of +forgotten festivity revised with modern additions; garments in and out +of season--a fur-trimmed jacket and a tulle skirt, a velvet robe under +a pique sacque; fresh young faces beneath faded head-dresses, and mature +and buxom charms in virgin' white. The small space cleared for the +dancers was continually invaded by the lookers-on, who in files of three +deep lined the room. + +As the master pushed his way to the front, a young girl, who had been +standing in the sides of a quadrille, suddenly darted with a nymph-like +quickness among the crowd and was for an instant hidden. Without +distinguishing either face or figure, Mr. Ford recognized in the +quick, impetuous action a characteristic movement of Cressy's; with an +embarrassing instinct that he could not account for, he knew she had +seen him, and that, for some inexplicable reason, he was the cause of +her sudden disappearance. + +But it was only for a moment. Even while he was vaguely scanning +the crowd she reappeared and took her place beside her mystified +partner--the fascinating stranger of Johnny's devotion and Rupert's +dislike. She was pale; he had never seen her so beautiful. All that he +had thought distasteful and incongruous in her were but accessories of +her loveliness at that moment, in that light, in that atmosphere, in +that strange assembly. Even her full pink gauze dress, from which her +fair young shoulders slipped as from a sunset cloud, seemed only the +perfection of virginal simplicity; her girlish length of limb and the +long curves of her neck and back were now the outlines of thorough +breeding. The absence of color in her usually fresh face had been +replaced by a faint magnetic aurora that seemed to him half spiritual. +He could not take his eyes from her; he could not believe what he saw. +Yet that was Cressy McKinstry--his pupil! Had he ever really seen her? +Did he know her now? Small wonder that all eyes were bent upon her, that +a murmur of unspoken admiration, or still more intense hush of silence +moved the people around him. He glanced hurriedly at them, and was oddly +relieved by this evident participation in his emotions. + +She was dancing now, and with that same pale restraint and curious +quiet that had affected him so strongly. She had not even looked in +his direction, yet he was aware by the same instinct that had at first +possessed him that she knew he was present. His desire to catch her eye +was becoming mingled with a certain dread, as if in a single interchange +of glances the illusions of the moment would either vanish utterly or +become irrevocably fixed. He forced himself, when the set was finished, +to turn away, partly to avoid contact with some acquaintances who had +drifted before him, and whom politeness would have obliged him to ask to +dance, and partly to collect his thoughts. He determined to make a tour +of the rooms and then go quietly home. Those who recognized him made +way for him with passive curiosity; the middle-aged and older adding a +confidential sympathy and equality that positively irritated him. For an +instant he had an idea of seeking out Mrs. Tripp and claiming her as a +partner, merely to show her that he danced. + +He had nearly made the circuit of the room when he was surprised by the +first strains of a waltz. Waltzing was not a strong feature of Indian +Spring festivity, partly that the Church people had serious doubts if +David's saltatory performances before the Ark included "round dances," +and partly that the young had not yet mastered its difficulties. When he +yielded to his impulse to look again at the dancers he found that only +three or four couples had been bold enough to take the floor. Cressy +McKinstry and her former partner were one of them. In his present +exaltation he was not astonished to find that she had evidently picked +up the art in her late visit, and was now waltzing with quiet grace +and precision, but he was surprised that her partner was far from being +equally perfect, and that after a few turns she stopped and smilingly +disengaged her waist from his arm. As she stepped back she turned with +unerring instinct to that part of the room where the master stood, and +raised her eyes through the multitude of admiring faces to his. Their +eyes met in an isolation as supreme as if they had been alone. It was an +attraction the more dangerous because unformulated--a possession without +previous pledge, promise, or even intention--a love that did not require +to be "made." + +He approached her quietly and even more coolly than he thought possible. +"Will you allow me a trial?" he asked. + +She looked in his face, and as if she had not heard the question but was +following her own thought, said, "I knew you would come; I saw you when +you first came in." Without another word she put her hand in his, and +as if it were part of an instinctive action of drawing closer to him, +caught with her advancing foot the accent of the waltz, and the next +moment the room seemed to slip away from them into whirling space. + +The whole thing had passed so rapidly from the moment he approached +her to the first graceful swing of her full skirt at his side, that it +seemed to him almost like the embrace of a lovers' meeting. He had +often been as near her before, had stood at her side at school, and even +leaned over her desk, but always with an irritated instinct of reserve +that had equally affected her, and which he now understood. With her +conscious but pale face so near his own, with the faint odor of her hair +clinging to her, and with the sweet confusion of the half lingering, +half withheld contact of her hand and arm, all had changed. He did not +dare to reflect that he could never again approach her except with this +feeling. He did not dare to think of anything; he abandoned himself to +the sense that had begun with the invasion of her hair-bound myrtle in +the silent school-room, and seemed to have at last led her to his arms. +They were moving now in such perfect rhythm and unison that they seemed +scarcely conscious of motion. Once when they neared the open window he +caught a glimpse of the round moon rising above the solemn heights of +the opposite shore, and felt the cool breath of mountain and river sweep +his cheek and mingle a few escaped threads of her fair hair with +his own. With that glimpse and that sensation the vulgarity and the +tawdriness of their surroundings, the guttering candles in their +sconces, the bizarre figures, the unmeaning faces seemed to be whirled +far into distant space. They were alone with night and nature; it was +they who were still; all else had receded in a vanishing perspective of +dull reality, in which they had no part. + +Play on, O waltz of Strauss! Whirl on, O love and youth! For you cannot +whirl so swiftly but that this receding world will return again with +narrowing circle to hem you in. Faster, O cracked clarionet! Louder, +O too brazen bassoon! Keep back, O dull and earthy environment, till +master and pupil have dreamed their foolish dream! + +They are in fancy alone on the river-bank, only the round moon above +them and their linked shadows faintly fluttering in the stream. They +have drawn so closely together now that her arm is encircling his neck, +her soft eyes uplifted like the moon's reflection and drowning into his; +closer and closer till their hearts stop beating and their lips have met +in a first kiss. Faster, O little feet! swing clear, O Cressy's skirt +and keep the narrowing circle back! . . . They are again alone; the +judges' dais and the emblazoning of the State caught in a single +whirling flash of consciousness are changed to an altar, seen dimly +through the bridal veil that covers her fair head. There is the murmur +of voices mingling two lives in one. They turn and pass proudly down +between the aisles of wondering festal faces. Ah! the circle is drawing +closer. One more quick whirl to keep them back, O flying skirt and +dainty-winged feet! Too late! The music stops. The tawdry walls shut in +again, the vulgar crowds return, they stand pale and quiet, the centre +of a ring of breathless admiring, frightened, or forbidding faces. Her +arms fold like wings at her side. The waltz is over. + +A shrill feminine chorus assail her with praises, struck here and +there with a metallic ring of envy; a dozen all-daring cavaliers, made +reckless by her grace and beauty, clamor for her hand in the next waltz. +She replies, not to them, but to him, "Not again," and slips away in +the crowd with that strange new shyness that of all her transformations +seems the most delicious. Yet so conscious are they of their mutual +passion that they do not miss each other, and he turns away as if their +next meeting were already an appointed tryst. A few congratulate him on +his skill. Johnny's paragon looks after him curiously; certain +elders shake hands with him perplexedly, as if not quite sure of the +professional consistency of his performance. Those charming tide-waiters +on social success, the fair, artfully mingling expectation with +compliment, only extract from him the laughing statement that this +one waltz was the single exception allowed him from the rule of his +professional conduct, and he refers them to his elder critics. A single +face, loutish, looming, and vindictive, stands on among the crowd--the +face of Seth Davis. He had not seen him since he left the school; he had +forgotten his existence; even now he only remembered his successor, Joe +Masters, and he looked curiously around to see if that later suitor of +Cressy's was present. It was not until he reached the door that he began +to think seriously of Seth Davis's jealous face, and was roused to a +singular indignation. "Why hadn't this great fool vented his jealousy on +the openly compromising Masters," he thought. He even turned and walked +back with some vaguely aggressive instinct, but the young man had +disappeared. With this incident still in his mind he came upon Uncle Ben +and Hiram McKinstry standing among the spectators in the doorway. Why +might not Uncle Ben be jealous too? and if his single waltz had really +appeared so compromising why should not Cressy's father object? But both +men--albeit, McKinstry usually exhibited a vague unreasoning contempt +for Uncle Ben--were unanimous in their congratulations and outspoken +admiration. + +"When I see'd you sail in, Mr. Ford," said Uncle Ben, with abstract +reflectiveness, "I sez to the fellers, 'lie low, boys, and you'll see +style.' And when you put on them first steps, I sez, 'that's French--the +latest high-toned French style--outer the best masters, and--and outer +the best books. For why?' sez I. 'It's the same long, sliding stroke you +see in his copies. There's that long up sweep, and that easy curve +to the right with no hitch. That's the sorter swing he hez in readin' +po'try too. That's why it's called the po'try of motion,' sez I. 'And +you ken bet your boots, boys, it's all in the trainin' o' education.'" + +"Mr. Ford," said Mr. McKinstry gravely, slightly waving a +lavender-colored kid glove, with which he had elected to conceal his +maimed hand, and at the same moment indicate a festal occasion: "I hev +to thank ye for the way you took out that child o' mine, like ez she woz +an ontried filly, and put her through her paces. I don't dance myself, +partikly in that gait--which I take to be suthin' betwixt a lope and a +canter and I don't get to see much dancin' nowadays on account o' bein' +worrited by stock, but seein' you two together just now, suthin' came +over me, and I don't think I ever felt so kam in my life." + +The blood rushed to the master's cheek with an unexpected consciousness +of guilt and shame. "But," he stammered awkwardly, "your daughter dances +beautifully herself; she has certainly had practice." + +"That," said McKinstry, laying his gloved hand impressively on the +master's shoulder, with the empty little finger still more emphasized by +being turned backward in the net; "that may be ez it ez, but I wanted +to say that it was the simple, easy, fammily touch that you gev it, that +took me. Toward the end, when you kinder gathered her up and she sorter +dropped her head into your breast-pocket, and seemed to go to sleep, +like ez ef she was still a little girl, it so reminded me of the times +when I used to tote her myself walkin' by the waggin at Platt River, +that it made me wish the old woman was here to see it." + +Still coloring, the master cast a rapid, sidelong glance at McKinstry's +dark red face and beard, but in the slow satisfaction of his features +there was no trace of that irony which the master's self-consciousness +knew. + +"Then your wife is not here?" said Mr. Ford abstractedly. + +"She war at church. She reckoned that I'd do to look arter Cressy--she +bein', so to speak, under conviction. D'ye mind walkin' this way a bit; +I want to speak a word with ye?" He put his maimed hand through the +master's arm, after his former fashion, and led him to a corner. + +"Did ye happen to see Seth Davis about yer?" + +"I believe I saw him a moment ago," returned Mr. Ford half +contemptuously. + +"Did he get off anythin' rough on ye?" + +"Certainly not," said the master haughtily. "Why should he dare?" + +"That's so," said McKinstry meditatively. "You had better keep right on +in that line. That's your gait, remember. Leave him--or his father--it's +the same thing--to ME. Don't YOU let yourself be roped in to this yer +row betwixt me and the Davises. You ain't got no call to do it. It's +already been on my mind your bringin' that gun to me in the Harrison +row. The old woman hadn't oughter let you--nor Cress either. Hark to me, +Mr. Ford! I reckon to stand between you and both the Davises till the +cows come home--only--mind YOU give him the go-by when he happens to +meander along towards you." + +"I'm very much obliged to you," said Ford with disproportionately +sudden choler; "but I don't propose to alter my habits for a ridiculous +school-boy whom I have dismissed." The unjust and boyish petulance of +his speech instantly flashed upon him, and he felt his cheek burn again. + +McKinstry regarded him with dull, red, slumbrous eyes. "Don't you go to +lose your best holt, Mr. Ford--and that's kam. Keep your kam--and you've +allus got the dead wood on Injin Springs. I ain't got it," he continued, +in his slowest, most passionless manner, "and a row more or less ain't +much account to me--but YOU, you keep your kam." He paused, stepped +back, and regarding the master, with a slight wave of his crippled hand +over his whole person, as if indicating some personal adornment, said, +"It sets you off!" + +He nodded, turned, and re-entered the ball-room. Mr. Ford, without +trusting himself to further speech, elbowed his way through the crowded +staircase to the street. But even there his strange anger, as well +as the equally strange remorse, which had seized him in McKinstry's +presence, seemed to evaporate in the clear moonlight and soft summer +air. There was the river-bank, with the tremulous river glancing through +the dreamy mist, as they had seen it from the window together. He even +turned to look back on the lighted ball-room, as if SHE might have been +looking out, too. But he knew he should see her again to-morrow, and +he hurriedly put aside all reserve, all thought of the future, all +examination of his conduct, to walk home enwrapped in the vaguer +pleasure of the past. Rupert Filgee, to whom he had never given a second +thought, now peacefully slumbering beside his baby brother, had not gone +home in more foolish or more dangerous company. + +When he reached the hotel, he was surprised to find it only eleven +o'clock. No one had returned, the building was deserted by all but the +bar-keeper and a flirting chambermaid, who regarded him with aggrieved +astonishment. He began to feel very foolish, and half regretted that +he had not stayed to dance with Mrs. Tripp; or, at least, remained as +a quiet onlooker apart from the others. With a hasty excuse about +returning to write letters for the morning's post, he took a candle +and slowly remounted the stairs to his room. But on entering he found +himself unprepared for that singular lack of sympathy with which +familiar haunts always greet our new experiences; he could hardly +believe that he had left that room only two hours before; it seemed so +uncongenial and strange to the sensation that was still possessing him. +Yet there were his table, his books, his arm-chair, his bed as he had +left them; even a sticky fragment of gingerbread that had fallen from +Johnny's pocket. He had not yet reached that stage of absorbing passion +where he was able to put the loved one in his own surroundings; she +as yet had no place in this quiet room; he could scarcely think of +her here, and he MUST think of her, if he had to go elsewhere. An +extravagant idea of walking the street until his restless dream was over +seized him, but even in his folly the lackadaisical, moonstruck quality +of such a performance was too obvious. The school-house! He would go +there; it was only a pleasant walk, the night was lovely, and he could +bring the myrtle-spray from his desk. It was too significant now--if not +too precious--to be kept there. Perhaps he had not examined it closely, +nor the place where it had lain; there might be an additional sign, +word, or token he had overlooked. The thought thrilled him, even while +he was calmly arguing to himself that it was an instinct of caution. + +The air was quieter and warmer than usual, though still characteristic +of the locality in its dry, dewless clarity. The grass was yet warm +from the day-long sun, and when he entered the pines that surrounded +the schoolhouse, they had scarcely yet lost their spicy heat. The moon, +riding high, filled the dark aisles with a delicious twilight that lent +itself to his waking dreams. It was not long before to-morrow; he could +easily manage to bring her here in the grove at recess, and would speak +with her there. It did not occur to him what he should say, or why he +should say it; it did not occur to him that he had no other provocation +than her eyes, her conscious manner, her eloquent silence, and her +admission that she had expected him. It did not occur to him that +all this was inconsistent with what he knew of her antecedents, her +character, and her habits. It was this very inconsistency that charmed +and convinced him. We are always on the lookout for these miracles +of passion. We may doubt the genuineness of an affection that is +first-hand, but never of one that is transferred. + +He approached the school-house and unlocking the door closed it behind +him, not so much to keep out human intrusion as the invasion of bats +and squirrels. The nearly vertical moon, while it perfectly lit the +playground and openings in the pines around the house, left the interior +in darkness, except the reflection upon the ceiling from the shining +gravel without. Partly from a sense of precaution and partly because +he was familiar with the position of the benches, he did not strike a +light, and reached his own desk unerringly, drew his chair before it and +unlocked it, groped in its dark recess for the myrtle spray, felt its +soft silken binding with an electrical thrill, drew it out, and in the +security of the darkness, raised it to his lips. + +To make room for it in his breast pocket he was obliged to take out his +letters--among them the well-worn one he had tried to read that morning. +A mingling of pleasure and remorse came over him as he felt that it was +already of the past, and as he dropped it carelessly into the empty desk +it fell with a faint, hollow sound as if it were ashes to ashes. + +What was that? + +The noise of steps upon the gravel, light laughter, the moving of two or +three shadows on the ceiling, the sound of voices, a man's, a child's, +and HERS! + +Could it be possible? Was not he mistaken? No! the man's voice was +Masters'; the child's, Octavia's; the woman's, HERS. + +He remained silent in the shadow. The school-room was not far from the +trail where she would have had to pass going home from the ball. But +why had she come there? had they seen him arrive? and were mischievously +watching him? The sound of Cressy's voice and the lifting of the +unprotected window near the door convinced him to the contrary. + +"There, that'll do. Now you two can step aside. 'Tave, take him over to +yon fence, and keep him there till I get in. No--thank you, sir--I can +assist myself. I've done it before. It ain't the first time I've been +through this window, is it, 'Tave?" + +Ford's heart stopped beating. There was a moment of laughing +expostulation, the sound of retreating voices, the sudden darkening of +the window, the billowy sweep of a skirt, the faint quick flash of +a little ankle, and Cressy McKinstry swung herself into the room and +dropped lightly on the floor. + +She advanced eagerly up the moonlit passage between the two rows of +benches. Suddenly she stopped; the master rose at the same moment with +outstretched warning hand to check the cry of terror he felt sure would +rise to her lips. But he did not know the lazy nerves of the girl before +him. She uttered no outcry. And even in the faint dim light he could see +only the same expression of conscious understanding come over her face +that he had seen in the ball-room, mingled with a vague joy that parted +her breathless lips. As he moved quickly forward their hands met; she +caught his with a quick significant pressure and darted back to the +window. + +"Oh, 'Tave!" (very languidly.) + +"Yes." + +"You two had better wait for me at the edge of the trail yonder, and +keep a lookout for folks going by. Don't let them see you hanging round +so near. Do you hear? I'm all right." + +With her hand still meaningly lifted, she stood gazing at the two +figures until they slowly receded towards the distant trail. Then she +turned as he approached her, the reflection of the moonlit road striking +up into her shining eyes and eager waiting face. A dozen questions were +upon his lips, a dozen replies were ready upon hers. But they were never +uttered, for the next moment her eyes half closed, she leaned forward +and fell--into a kiss. + +She was the first to recover, holding his face in her hands, turned +towards the moonlight, her own in passionate shadow. "Listen," she said +quickly. "They think I came here to look for something I left in my +desk. They thought it high fun to come with me--these two. I did come to +look for something--not in my desk, but yours." + +"Was it this?" he whispered, taking the myrtle from his breast. She +seized it with a light cry, putting it first to her lips and then to +his. Then clasping his face again between her soft palms, she turned it +to the window and said: "Look at them and not at me." + +He did so--seeing the two figures slowly walking in the trail. And +holding her there firmly against his breast, it seemed a blasphemy to +ask the question that had been upon his lips. + +"That's not all," she murmured, moving his face backwards and forwards +to her lips as if it were something to which she was giving breath. +"When we came to the woods I felt that you would be here." + +"And feeling that, you brought HIM?" said Ford, drawing back. + +"Why not?" she replied indolently. "Even if he had seen you, I could +have managed to have you walk home with me." + +"But do you think it's quite fair? Would he like it?" + +"Would HE like it?" she echoed lazily. + +"Cressy," said the young man earnestly, gazing into her shadowed face. +"Have you given him any right to object? Do you understand me?" + +She stopped as if thinking. "Do you want me to call him in?" she said +quietly, but without the least trace of archness or coquetry. "Would you +rather he were here--or shall we go out now and meet him? I'll say you +just came as I was going out." + +What should he say? "Cressy," he asked almost curtly, "do you love me?" + +It seemed such a ridiculous thing to ask, holding her thus in his arms, +if it were true; it seemed such a villainous question, if it were not. + +"I think I loved you when you first came," she said slowly. "It must +have been that that made me engage myself to him," she added simply. "I +knew I loved you, and thought only of you when I was away. I came back +because I loved you. I loved you the day you came to see Maw--even when +I thought you came to tell her of Masters, and to say that you couldn't +take me back." + +"But you don't ask me if I love you?" + +"But you do--you couldn't help it now," she said confidently. + +What could he do but reply as illogically with a closer embrace, albeit +a slight tremor as if a cold wind had blown across the open window, +passed over him. She may have felt it too, for she presently said, "Kiss +me and let me go." + +"But we must have a longer talk, darling--when--when--others are not +waiting." + +"Do you know the far barn near the boundary?" she asked. + +"Yes." + +"I used to take your books there, afternoons to--to--be with you," she +whispered, "and Paw gave orders that no one was to come nigh it while I +was there. Come to-morrow, just before sundown." + +A long embrace followed, in which all that they had not said seemed, +to them at least, to become articulate on their tremulous and clinging +lips. Then they separated, he unlocking the door softly to give her +egress that way. She caught up a book from a desk in passing, and +then slipped like a rosy shaft of the coming dawn across the fading +moonlight, and a moment after her slow voice, without a tremor of +excitement, was heard calling to her companions. + + + + +CHAPTER VII. + + +The conversation which Johnny Filgee had overheard between Uncle Ben and +the gorgeous stranger, although unintelligible to his infant mind, was +fraught with some significance to the adult settlers of Indian Spring. +The town itself, like most interior settlements, was originally a +mining encampment, and as such its founders and settlers derived their +possession of the soil under the mining laws that took precedence of all +other titles. But although that title was held to be good even after +the abandonment of their original occupation, and the establishment of +shops, offices, and dwellings on the site of the deserted places, the +suburbs of the town and outlying districts were more precariously held +by squatters, under the presumption of their being public land open to +preemption, or the settlement of school-land warrants upon them. Few of +the squatters had taken the trouble to perfect even these easy titles, +merely holding "possession" for agricultural or domiciliary purposes, +and subject only to the invasion of "jumpers," a class of adventurers +who, in the abeyance of recognized legal title, "jumped" or forcibly +seized such portions of a squatter's domains as were not protected by +fencing or superior force. It was therefore with some excitement that +Indian Spring received the news that a Mexican grant of three square +leagues, which covered the whole district, had been lately confirmed by +the Government, and that action would be taken to recover possession. It +was understood that it would not affect the adverse possessions held +by the town under the mining laws, but it would compel the adjacent +squatters like McKinstry, Davis, Masters, and Filgee, and jumpers like +the Harrisons, to buy the legal title, or defend a slow but +losing lawsuit. The holders of the grant--rich capitalists of San +Francisco--were open to compromise to those in actual possession, and +in the benefits of this compromise the unscrupulous "jumper," who had +neither sown nor reaped, but simply dispossessed the squatter who had +done both, shared equally with him. + +A diversity of opinion as to the effect of the new claim naturally +obtained; the older settlers still clung to their experiences of an +easy aboriginal holding of the soil, and were sceptical both as to +the validity and justice of these revived alien grants; but the newer +arrivals hailed this certain tenure of legal titles as a guarantee to +capital and an incentive to improvement. There was also a growing and +influential party of Eastern and Northern men, who were not sorry to see +a fruitful source of dissension and bloodshed removed. The feuds of the +McKinstrys and Harrisons, kept alive over a boundary to which neither +had any legal claim, would seem to bring them hereafter within +the statute law regarding ordinary assaults without any ethical +mystification. On the other hand McKinstry and Harrison would each be +able to arrange any compromise with the new title holders for the +lands they possessed, or make over that "actual possession" for a +consideration. It was feared that both men, being naturally lawless, +would unite to render any legal eviction a long and dangerous process, +and that they would either be left undisturbed till the last, or would +force a profitable concession. But a greater excitement followed when it +was known that a section of the land had already been sold by the owners +of the grant, that this section exactly covered the debatable land of +the McKinstry-Harrison boundaries, and that the new landlord would at +once attempt its legal possession. The inspiration of genius that had +thus effected a division of the Harrison-McKinstry combination at its +one weak spot excited even the admiration of the sceptics. No one in +Indian Spring knew its real author, for the suit was ostensibly laid in +the name of a San Francisco banker. But the intelligent reader of +Johnny Filgee's late experience during the celebration will have already +recognized Uncle Ben as the man, and it becomes a part of this +veracious chronicle at this moment to allow him to explain, not only +his intentions, but the means by which he carried them out, in his own +words. + +It was one afternoon at the end of his usual solitary lesson, and the +master and Uncle Ben were awaiting the arrival of Rupert. Uncle Ben's +educational progress lately, through dint of slow tenacity, had somewhat +improved, and he had just completed from certain forms and examples in +a book before him a "Letter to a Consignee" informing him that he, Uncle +Ben, had just shipped "2 cwt. Ivory Elephant Tusks, 80 peculs of rice +and 400bbls. prime mess pork from Indian Spring;" and another beginning +"Honored Madam," and conveying in admirably artificial phraseology the +"lamented decease" of the lady's husband from yellow fever, contracted +on the Gold Coast, and Uncle Ben was surveying his work with critical +satisfaction when the master, somewhat impatiently, consulted his watch. +Uncle Ben looked up. + +"I oughter told ye that Rupe didn't kalkilate to come to day." + +"Indeed--why not?" + +"I reckon because I told him he needn't. I allowed to--to hev a little +private talk with ye, Mr. Ford, if ye didn't mind." + +Mr. Ford's face did not shine with invitation. "Very well," he said, +"only remember I have an engagement this afternoon." + +"But that ain't until about sundown," said Uncle Ben quietly. "I won't +keep ye ez long ez that." + +Mr. Ford glanced quickly at Uncle Ben with a rising color. "What do you +know of my engagements?" he said sharply. + +"Nothin', Mr. Ford," returned Uncle Ben simply; "but hevin' bin layin' +round, lookin' for ye here and at the hotel for four or five days allus +about that time and not findin' you, I rather kalkilated you might hev +suthin' reg'lar on hand." + +There was certainly nothing in his face or manner to indicate the least +evasion or deceit, or indeed anything but his usual naivete, perhaps a +little perturbed and preoccupied by what he was going to say. "I had an +idea of writin' you a letter," he continued, "kinder combinin' practice +and confidential information, you know. To be square with you, Mr. Ford, +in pint o' fact, I've got it HERE. But ez it don't seem to entirely gibe +with the facts, and leaves a heap o' things onsaid and onseen, perhaps +it's jest ez wall ez I read it to you myself--putten' in a word here and +there, and explainin' it gin'rally. Do you sabe?" + +The master nodded, and Uncle Ben drew from his desk a rude portfolio +made from the two covers of a dilapidated atlas, and took from between +them a piece of blotting-paper, which through inordinate application +had acquired the color and consistency of a slate, and a few pages +of copy-book paper, that to the casual glance looked like sheets +of exceedingly difficult music. Surveying them with a blending of +chirographic pride, orthographic doubt, and the bashful consciousness of +a literary amateur, he traced each line with a forefinger inked to the +second joint, and slowly read aloud as follows:-- + +"'Mr. Ford, Teacher. + +"'DEAR SIR,--Yours of the 12th rec'd and contents noted.'" ("I did'nt," +explained Uncle Ben parenthetically, "receive any letter of yours, but I +thought I might heave in that beginning from copy for practice. The +rest is ME.") "'In refference to my having munney,"' continued Uncle Ben +reading and pointing each word as he read, "'and being able to buy Ditch +Stocks an' Land'"-- + +"One moment," said Mr. Ford interrupting, "I thought you were going to +leave out copy. Come to what you have to say." + +"But I HEV--this is all real now. Hold on and you'll see," said Uncle +Ben. He resumed with triumphant emphasis:-- + +"'When it were gin'rally allowed that I haddent a red cent, I want to +explain to you Mister Ford for the first time a secret. This here is how +it was done. When I first came to Injian Spring, I settled down into +the old Palmetto claim, near a heap of old taillings. Knowin' it were +against rools, and reg'lar Chinyman's bizness to work them I diddn't +let on to enyboddy what I did--witch wos to turn over some of the quarts +what I thought was likely and Orrifferus. Doing this I kem uppon some +pay ore which them Palmetto fellers had overlookt, or more likely had +kaved in uppon them from the bank onknown. Workin' at it in od times by +and large, sometimes afore sun up and sometimes after sundown, and all +the time keeping up a day's work on the clame for a show to the boys, I +emassed a honist fortun in 2 years of 50,000 dolers and still am. But +it will be askd by the incredjulos Reeder How did you never let out +anything to Injian Spring, and How did you get rid of your yeald? Mister +Ford, the Anser is I took it twist a month on hoss back over to La +Port and sent it by express to a bank in Sacramento, givin' the name of +Daubigny, witch no one in La Port took for me. The Ditch Stok and the +Land was all took in the same name, hens the secret was onreviled to +the General Eye--stop a minit,'" he interrupted himself quickly as the +master in an accession of impatient scepticism was about to break in +upon him, "it ain't all." Then dropping his voice to a tremulous and +almost funereal climax, he went on:-- + +"'Thus we see that pashent indurstry is Rewarded in Spite of Mining +Rools and Reggylashuns, and Predgudisses agin Furrin Labor is played out +and fleeth like a shad-or contenueyeth not long in One Spot, and that a +Man may apear to be off no Account and yet Emass that witch is far abov +rubles and Fadith not Away. + +"'Hoppin' for a continneyance + +"'of your fevors I remain, + +"'Yours to command, + +"'BENJ D'AUBIGNY."' + + +The gloomy satisfaction with which Uncle Ben regarded this peroration--a +satisfaction that actually appeared to be equal to the revelation +itself--only corroborated the master's indignant doubts. + +"Come," he said, impulsively taking the paper from Uncle Ben's reluctant +hand, "how much of this is a concoction of yours and Rupe's--and how +much is a true story? Do you really mean?"-- + +"Hold on, Mr. Ford!" interrupted Uncle Ben, suddenly fumbling in the +breast-pocket of his red shirt, "I reckoned on your being a little hard +with me, remembering our first talk 'bout these things--so I allowed I'd +bring you some proof." Slowly extracting a long legal envelope from his +pocket, he opened it, and drew out two or three crisp certificates of +stock, and handed them to the master. + +"Ther's one hundred shares made out to Benj Daubigny. I'd hev brought +you over the deed of the land too, but ez it's rather hard to read +off-hand, on account of the law palaver, I've left it up at the shanty +to tackle at odd times by way of practising. But ef you like we'll go up +thar, and I'll show it to you." + +Still haunted by his belief in Uncle Ben's small duplicities, Mr. Ford +hesitated. These were certainly bona fide certificates of stock made out +to "Daubigny." But he had never actually accepted Uncle Ben's +statement of his identity with that person, and now it was offered as a +corroboration of a still more improbable story. He looked at Uncle Ben's +simple face slightly deepening in color under his scrutiny--perhaps with +conscious guilt. + +"Have you made anybody your confidant? Rupe, for instance?" he asked +significantly. + +"In course not," replied Uncle Ben with a slight stiffening of wounded +pride. "On'y yourself, Mr. Ford, and the young feller Stacey from the +bank--ez was obligated to know it. In fact, I wos kalkilatin' to ask you +to help me talk to him about that yer boundary land." + +Mr. Ford's scepticism was at last staggered. Any practical joke or +foolish complicity between the agent of the bank and a man like +Uncle Ben was out of the question, and if the story were his own sole +invention, he would have scarcely dared to risk so accessible and +uncompromising a denial as the agent had it in his power to give. + +He held out his hand to Uncle Ben. "Let me congratulate you," he said +heartily, "and forgive me if your story really sounded so wonderful I +couldn't quite grasp it. Now let me ask you something more. Have you had +any reason for keeping this a secret, other than your fear of confessing +that you violated a few bigoted and idiotic mining rules--which, after +all, are binding only upon sentiment--and which your success has proved +to be utterly impractical?" + +"There WAS another reason, Mr. Ford," said Uncle Ben, wiping away an +embarrassed smile with the back of his hand, "that is, to be square with +you, WHY I thought of consultin' you. I didn't keer to have McKinstry, +and"--he added hurriedly, "in course Harrison, too, know that I bought +up the title to thur boundary." + +"I understand," nodded the master. "I shouldn't think you would." + +"Why shouldn't ye?" asked Uncle Ben quickly. + +"Well--I don't suppose you care to quarrel with two passionate men." + +Uncle Ben's face changed. Presently, however, with his hand to his face, +he managed to manipulate another smile, only it appeared for the purpose +of being as awkwardly wiped away. + +"Say ONE passionate man, Mr. Ford." + +"Well, one if you like," returned the master cheerfully. "But for the +matter of that, why any? Come--do you mind telling me why you bought +the land at all? You know it's of little value to any but McKinstry and +Harrison." + +"Soppose," said Uncle Ben slowly, with a great affectation of wiping his +ink-spotted desk with his sleeve, "soppose that I had got kinder tired +of seein' McKinstry and Harrison allus fightin' and scrimmagin' over +their boundary line. Soppose I kalkilated that it warn't the sort o' +thing to induce folks to settle here. Soppose I reckoned that by gettin' +the real title in my hands I'd have the deadwood on both o' them, and +settle the thing my own way, eh?" + +"That certainly was a very laudable intention," returned Mr. Ford, +observing Uncle Ben curiously, "and from what you said just now about +one passionate man, I suppose you have determined already WHO to favor. +I hope your public spirit will be appreciated by Indian Spring at +least--if it isn't by those two men." + +"You lay low and keep dark and you'll see," returned his companion with +a hopefulness of speech which his somewhat anxious eagerness however did +not quite bear out. "But you're not goin' yet, surely," he added, as the +master again absently consulted his watch. "It's on'y half past four. +It's true thar ain't any more to tell," he added simply, "but I had an +idea that you might hev took to this yer little story of mine more than +you 'pear to be, and might be askin' questions and kinder bedevlin' me +with jokes ez to what I was goin' to do--and all that. But p'raps it +don't seem so wonderful to you arter all. Come to think of it--squarely +now," he said, with a singular despondency, "I'm rather sick of it +myself--eh?" + +"My dear old boy," said Ford, grasping both his hands, with a swift +revulsion of shame at his own utterly selfish abstraction, "I am +overjoyed at your good luck. More than that, I can say honestly, old +fellow, that it couldn't have fallen in more worthy hands, or to any one +whose good fortune would have pleased me more. There! And if I've been +slow and stupid in taking it in, it is because it's so wonderful, so +like a fairy tale of virtue rewarded--as if you were a kind of male +Cinderella, old man!" He had no intention of lying--he had no belief +that he was: he had only forgotten that his previous impressions +and hesitations had arisen from the very fact that he DID doubt the +consistency of the story with his belief in Uncle Ben's weakness. But he +thought himself now so sincere that the generous reader, who no doubt +is ready to hail the perfect equity of his neighbor's good luck, will +readily forgive him. + +In the plenitude of this sincerity, Ford threw himself at full length +on one of the long benches, and with a gesture invited Uncle Ben to make +himself equally at his ease. "Come," he said with boyish gayety, "let's +hear your plans, old man. To begin with, who's to share them with +you? Of course there are 'the old folks at home' first; then you have +brothers--and perhaps sisters?" He stopped and glanced with a smile +at Uncle Ben; the idea of there being a possible female of his species +struck his fancy. + +Uncle Ben, who had hitherto always exercised a severe restraint--partly +from respect and partly from caution--over his long limbs in the +school-house, here slowly lifted one leg over another bench, and sat +himself astride of it, leaning forward on his elbow, his chin resting +between his hands. + +"As far as the old folks goes, Mr. Ford, I'm a kind of an orphan." + +"A KIND of orphan?" echoed Ford. + +"Yes," said Uncle Ben, leaning heavily on his chin, so that the action +of his jaws with the enunciation of each word slightly jerked his head +forward as if he were imparting confidential information to the bench +before him. "Yes, that is, you see, I'm all right ez far as the old man +goes--HE'S dead; died way back in Mizzouri. But ez to my mother, it's +sorter betwixt and between--kinder unsartain. You see, Mr. Ford, she +went off with a city feller--an entire stranger to me--afore the old +man died, and that's wot broke up my schoolin'. Now whether she's here, +there, or yon, can't be found out, though Squire Tompkins allowed--and +he were a lawyer--that the old man could get a divorce if he wanted, and +that you see would make me a whole orphan, ef I keerd to prove title, +ez the lawyers say. Well--thut sorter lets the old folks out. Then +my brother was onc't drowned in the North Platt, and I never had any +sisters. That don't leave much family for plannin' about--does it?" + +"No," said the master reflectively, gazing at Uncle Ben, "unless you +avail yourself of your advantages now and have one of your own. I +suppose now that you are rich, you'll marry." + +Uncle Ben slightly changed his position, and then with his finger and +thumb began to apparently feed himself with certain crumbs which had +escaped from the children's luncheon-baskets and were still lying on +the bench. Intent on this occupation and without raising his eyes to the +master, he returned slowly, "Well, you see, I'm sorter married already." + +The master sat up quickly. + +"What, YOU married--now?" + +"Well, perhaps that's a question. It's a good deal like my beein' an +orphan--oncertain and onsettled." He paused to pursue an evasive crumb +to the end of the bench and having captured it, went on: "It was when I +was younger than you be, and she warn't very old neither. But she knew +a heap more than I did; and ez to readin' and writin', she was thar, +I tell you, every time. You'd hev admired to see her, Mr. Ford." As +he paused here as if he had exhausted the subject, the master said +impatiently, "Well, where is she now?" + +Uncle Ben shook his head slowly. "I ain't seen her sens I left Mizzouri, +goin' on five years ago." + +"But why haven't you? What was the matter?" persisted the master. + +"Well--you see--I runned away. Not SHE, you know, but I--I scooted, +skedaddled out here." + +"But what for?" asked the master, regarding Uncle Ben with hopeless +wonder. "Something must have happened. What was it? Was she"-- + +"She WAS a good schollard," said Uncle Ben gravely, "and allowed to be +sech, by all. She stood about so high," he continued, indicating with +his hand a medium height. "War little and dark complected." + +"But you must have had some reason for leaving her?" + +"I've sometimes had an idea," said Uncle Ben cautiously, "that mebbee +runnin' away ran in some fam'lies. Now, there war my mother run off with +an entire stranger, and yer's me ez run off by myself. And what makes +it the more one-like is that jest as dad allus allowed he could get a +devorce agin mother, so my wife could hev got one agin me for leavin' +her. And it's almost an evenhanded game that she hez. It's there where +the oncertainty comes in." + +"But are you satisfied to remain in this doubt? or do you propose, now +that you are able, to institute a thorough search for her?" + +"I was kalkilatin' to look around a little," said Uncle Ben simply. + +"And return to her if you find her?" continued the master. + +"I didn't say that, Mr. Ford." + +"But if she hasn't got a divorce from you that's what you'll have to do, +and what you ought to do--if I understand your story. For by your own +showing, a more causeless, heartless, and utterly inexcusable desertion +than yours, I never heard of." + +"Do you think so?" said Uncle Ben with exasperating simplicity. + +"Do I think so?" repeated Mr. Ford, indignantly. "Everybody'll think so. +They can't think otherwise. You say you deserted her, and you admit she +did nothing to provoke it." + +"No," returned Uncle Ben quickly, "nothin'. Did I tell you, Mr. Ford, +that she could play the pianner and sing?" + +"No," said Mr. Ford, curtly, rising impatiently and crossing the room. +He was more than half convinced that Uncle Ben was deceiving him. Either +under the veil of his hide-bound simplicity he was an utterly selfish, +heartless, secretive man, or else he was telling an idiotic falsehood. + +"I'm sorry I can neither congratulate you nor condole with you on what +you have just told me. I cannot see that you have the least excuse for +delaying a single moment to search for your wife and make amends for +your conduct. And if you want my opinion it strikes me as being a much +more honorable way of employing your new riches than mediating in your +neighbors' squabbles. But it's getting late and I'm afraid we must +bring our talk to an end. I hope you'll think this over before we meet +again--and think differently." + +Nevertheless, as they both left the schoolhouse, Mr. Ford lingered over +the locking of the door to give Uncle Ben a final chance for further +explanation. But none came. The new capitalist of Indian Spring regarded +him with an intensification of his usual half sad, half embarrassed +smile, and only said: "You understand this yer's a secret, Mr. Ford?" + +"Certainly," said Ford with ill-concealed irritation. + +"'Bout my bein' sorter married?" + +"Don't be alarmed," he responded dryly; "it's not a taking story." + +They separated; Uncle Ben, more than ever involved in his usual +unsatisfactory purposes, wending his way towards his riches; the master +lingering to observe his departure before he plunged, in virtuous +superiority, into the woods that fringed the Harrison and McKinstry +boundaries. + + + + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +The religious attitude which Mrs. McKinstry had assumed towards her +husband's weak civilized tendencies was not entirely free from human +rancor. That strong loyal nature which had unsexed itself in the one +idea of duty, now that duty seemed to be no longer appreciated took +refuge in her forgotten womanhood and in the infinitesimally small +arguments, resources, and manoeuvres at its command. She had conceived a +singular jealousy of this daughter who had changed her husband's nature, +and who had supplanted the traditions of the household life; she had +acquired an exaggerated depreciation of those feminine charms which +had never been a factor in her own domestic happiness. She saw in her +husband's desire to mitigate the savage austerities of their habits +only a weak concession to the powers of beauty and adornment--degrading +vanities she had never known in their life-long struggle for frontier +supremacy--that had never brought them victorious out of that struggle. +"Frizzles," "furblows," and "fancy fixin's" had never helped them in +their exodus across the plains; had never taken the place of swift eyes, +quick ears, strong hands, and endurance; had never nursed the sick or +bandaged the wounded. When envy or jealousy invades the female heart +after forty it is apt to bring a bitterness which knows no attenuating +compensation in that coquetry, emulation, passionate appeal, or innocent +tenderness, which makes tolerable the jealous caprices of the younger +woman. The struggle for rivalry is felt to be hopeless, the power of +imitation is gone. Of her forgotten womanhood Mrs. McKinstry revived +only a capacity to suffer meanly and inflict mean suffering upon others. +In the ruined castle of her youth, and the falling in of banqueting hall +and bower, the dungeon and torture-chamber appeared to have been left, +or, to use her own metaphor, she had querulously complained to the +parson that, "Accordin' to some folks, she mout hev bin the barren +fig-tree e-lected to bear persimmums." + +Her methods were not entirely different from those employed by her +suffering sisterhood in like emergencies. The unlucky Hiram, "worrited +by stock," was hardly placated or consoled by learning from her that it +was only the result of his own weakness, acting upon the 'cussedness of +the stock-dispersing Harrisons; the perplexity into which he was thrown +by the news of the new legal claim to his land was not soothed by the +suggestion that it was a trick of that Yankee civilization to which he +was meanly succumbing. She who had always been a rough but devoted nurse +in sickness was now herself overtaken by vague irregular disorders which +involved the greatest care and the absence of all exciting causes. +The attendance of McKinstry and Cressy at a "crazy quilting party" had +brought on "blind chills;" the importation of a melodeon for Cressy to +play on had superinduced an "innerd rash," and a threatened attack of +"palsy creeps" had only been warded off by the timely postponement of +an evening party suggested by her daughter. The old nomadic instinct, +morbidly excited by her discontent, caused her to lay artful plans for +a further emigration. She knew she had the germs of "mash fever" caught +from the adjacent river; she related mysterious information, gathered +in "class meeting," of the superior facilities for stock raising on the +higher foot-hills; she resuscitated her dead and gone Missouri relations +in her daily speech, to a manifest invidious comparison with the living; +she revived even the incidents of her early married life with the same +baleful intent. The acquisition of a few "biled shirts" by Hiram for +festive appearances with Cressy painfully reminded her that he had +married her in "hickory;" she further accented the change by herself +appearing in her oldest clothes, on the hypothesis that it was necessary +for some one to keep up the traditions of the past. + +Her attitude towards Cressy would have been more decided had she ever +possessed the slightest influence over her, or had even understood her +with the intuitive sympathies of the maternal relations. Yet she went +so far as to even openly regret the breaking off of the match with Seth +Davis, whose family, at least, still retained the habits and traditions +she revered; but she was promptly silenced by her husband informing her +that words "that had to be tuk back" had already passed between him and +Seth's father, and that, according to those same traditions, blood was +more likely to be spilled than mingled. Whether she was only withheld +from attempting a reconciliation herself through lack of tact and +opportunity remains to be seen. For the present she encouraged Masters's +attentions under a new and vague idea that a flirtation which distracted +Cressy from her studies was displeasing to McKinstry and inimical to +his plans. Blindly ignorant of Mr. Ford's possible relations to her +daughter, and suspecting nothing, she felt towards him only a dull +aversion as being the senseless pivot of her troubles. Seeing no one, +and habitually closing her ears to any family allusion to Cressy's +social triumphs, she was unaware of even the popular admiration their +memorable waltz had excited. + +On the morning of the day that Uncle Ben had confided to the master +his ingenious plan for settling the boundary disputes, the barking +of McKinstry's yellow dog announced the approach of a stranger to the +ranch. It proved to be Mr. Stacey--not only as dazzlingly arrayed +as when he first rose above Johnny Filgee's horizon, but wearing, in +addition to his jaunty business air, a look of complacent expectation of +the pretty girl whom he had met at the ball. He had not seen her for a +month. It was a happy inspiration of his own that enabled him to present +himself that morning in the twin functions of a victorious Mercury and +Apollo. + +McKinstry had to be summoned from an adjacent meadow, while Cressy, in +the mean time, undertook to entertain the gallant stranger. This was +easily done. It was part of her fascinations that, disdaining the +ordinary real or assumed ignorance of the ingenue of her class, she +generally exhibited to her admirers (with perhaps the single exception +of the master) a laughing consciousness of the state of mind into which +her charms had thrown them. She understood their passion if she could +not accept it. This to a bashful rustic community was helpful, but in +the main unsatisfactory; with advances so promptly unmasked, the most +strategic retreat was apt to become an utter rout. Leaning against the +lintel of the door, her curved hand shading the sparkling depths of +her eyes, and the sunlight striking down upon the pretty curves of her +languid figure, she awaited the attack. + +"I haven't seen you, Miss Cressy, since we danced together--a month +ago." + +"That was mighty rough papers," said Cressy, who was purposely +dialectical to strangers, "considering that you trapsed up and down the +lane, past the house, twice yesterday." + +"Then you saw me?" said the young man, with a slightly discomfited +laugh. + +"I did. And so did the hound, and so, I reckon, did Joe Masters and the +hired man. And when you pranced back on the home stretch, there was +the hound, Masters, the hired man, and Maw all on your trail, and Paw +bringin' up the rear with a shot-gun. There was about a half a mile of +you altogether." She removed her hand from her eyes to indicate with a +lazily graceful sweep this somewhat imaginative procession, and laughed. + +"You are certainly well guarded," said Stacey hesitatingly; "and looking +at you, Miss Cressy," he added boldly, "I don't wonder at it." + +"Well, it IS reckoned that next to Paw's boundaries I'm pretty well +protected from squatters and jumpers." + +Forceful and quaint as her language was, the lazy sweetness of her +intonation, and the delicate refinement of her face, more than atoned +for it. It was unconventional and picturesque as her gestures. So at +least thought Mr. Stacey, and it emboldened him to further gallantry. + +"Well, Miss Cressy, as my business with your father to-day was to try to +effect a compromise of his boundary claims, perhaps you might accept my +services in your own behalf." + +"Which means," responded the young lady pertly, "the same thing to ME +as to Paw. No trespassers but yourself. Thank you, sir." She twirled +lightly on her heel and dropped him that exaggerated curtsey known to +the school-children as a "cheese." It permitted in its progress the +glimpse of a pretty little slipper which completed his subjugation. + +"Well, if it's only a fair compromise," he began laughingly. + +"Compromise means somebody giving up. Who is it?" she asked. + +The infatuated Stacey had reached the point of thinking this repartee if +possible more killing than his own. + +"Ha! That's for Miss Cressy to say." + +But the young lady leaning back against the lintel with the comfortable +ease of being irresponsibly diverted, sagely pointed out that that was +the function of the arbitrator. + +"Ah well, suppose we begin by giving up Seth Davis, eh? You see that I'm +pretty well posted, Miss Cressy." + +"You alarm me," said Cressy sweetly. "But I reckon he HAD given up." + +"He was in the running that night at the ball. Looked half savage while +I was dancing with you. Wanted to eat me." + +"Poor Seth! And he used to be SO particular in his food," said the witty +Cressy. + +Mr. Stacey was convulsed. "And there's Mr. Dabney--Uncle Ben," he +continued, "eh? Very quiet but very sly. A dark horse, eh? Pretends to +take lessons for the sake of being near some one, eh? Would he were a +boy again because somebody else is a girl?" + +"I should be frightened of you if you lived here always," returned +Cressy with invincible naivete; "but perhaps then you wouldn't know so +much." + +Stacey simply accepted this as a compliment. "And there's Masters," he +said insinuatingly. + +"Not Joe?" said Cressy with a low laugh, turning her eyes to the door. + +"Yes," said Stacey with a quick, uneasy smile. "Ah! I see we mustn't +drop HIM. Is he out THERE?" he added, trying to follow the direction of +her eyes. + +But the young girl kept her face studiously averted. "Is that all?" she +asked after a pause. + +"Well--there's that solemn school-master, who cut me out of the waltz +with you--that Mr. Ford." + +Had he been a perfectly cool and impartial observer he would have seen +the slight tremor cross Cressy's soft eyelids even in profile, followed +by that momentary arrest of her whole face, mouth, dimples, and eyes, +which had overtaken it the night the master entered the ball-room. But +he was neither, and it passed quickly and unnoticed. Her usual lithe but +languid play of expression and color came back, and she turned her head +lazily towards the speaker. "There's Paw coming. I suppose you wouldn't +mind giving me a sample of your style of arbitrating with him, before +you try it on me?" + +"Certainly not," said Stacey, by no means displeased at the prospect of +having so pretty and intelligent a witness in the daughter of what he +believed would form an attractive display of his diplomatic skill and +graciousness to the father. "Don't go away. I've got nothing to say Miss +Cressy could not understand and answer." + +The jingling of spurs, and the shadow of McKinstry and his shot-gun +falling at this moment between the speaker and Cressy, spared her +the necessity of a reply. McKinstry cast an uneasy glance around the +apartment, and not seeing Mrs. McKinstry looked relieved, and even the +deep traces of the loss of a valuable steer that morning partly faded +from his Indian-red complexion. He placed his shot-gun carefully in the +corner, took his soft felt hat from his head, folded it and put it in +one of the capacious pockets of his jacket, turned to his daughter, and +laying his maimed hand familiarly on her shoulder, said gravely, without +looking at Stacey, "What might the stranger be wantin', Cress?" + +"Perhaps I'd better answer that myself," said Stacey briskly. "I'm +acting for Benham and Co., of San Francisco, who have bought the Spanish +title to part of this property. I"-- + +"Stop there!" said McKinstry, in a voice dull but distinct. He took his +hat from his pocket, put it on, walked to the corner and took up his +gun, looked at Stacey for the first time with narcotic eyes that +seemed to drowsily absorb his slight figure, then put the gun back half +contemptuously, and with a wave of his hand towards the door, said: +"We'll settle this yer outside. Cress, you stop in here. There's man's +talk goin' on." + +"But, Paw," said Cressy, laying her hand languidly on her father's +sleeve without the least change of color or amused expression. "This +gentleman has come over here on a compromise." + +"On a--WHICH?" said McKinstry, glancing scornfully out of the door for +some rare species of mustang vaguely suggested to him in that unfamiliar +word. + +"To see if we couldn't come to some fair settlement," said Stacey. "I've +no objection to going outside with you, but I think we can discuss this +matter here just as well." His fine feathers had not made him a +coward, although his heart had beaten a little faster at this sudden +recollection of the dangerous reputation of his host. + +"Go on," said McKinstry. + +"The plain facts of the case are these," continued Stacey, with more +confidence. "We have sold a strip of this property covering the land in +dispute between you and Harrison. We are bound to put our purchaser +in peaceable possession. Now to save time we are willing to buy that +possession of any man who can give it. We are told that you can." + +"Well, considerin' that for the last four years I've been fightin' night +and day agin them low-down Harrisons for it, I reckon you've been lied +to," said McKinstry deliberately. "Why--except the clearing on the north +side, whar I put up a barn, thar ain't an acre of it as hasn't been +shifted first this side and then that as fast ez I druv boundary stakes +and fences, and the Harrisons pulled 'em up agin. Thar ain't more than +fifty acres ez I've hed a clear hold on, and I wouldn't hev had that ef +it hadn't bin for the barn, the raisin' alone o' which cost me a man, +two horses, and this yer little finger." + +"Put us in possession of even that fifty acres, and WE'LL undertake +to hold the rest and eject those Harrisons from it," returned Stacey +complacently. "You understand that the moment we've made a peaceable +entrance to even a foothold on your side, the Harrisons are only +trespassers, and with the title to back us we can call on the whole +sheriff's posse to put them off. That's the law." + +"That ar the law?" repeated McKinstry meditatively. + +"Yes," said Stacey. "So," he continued, with a self-satisfied smile +to Cressy, "far from being hard on you, Mr. McKinstry, we're rather +inclined to put you on velvet. We offer you a fair price for the only +thing you can give us--actual possession; and we help you with your old +grudge against the Harrisons. We not only clear them out, but we pay YOU +for even the part they held adversely to you." + +Mr. McKinstry passed his three whole fingers over his forehead and +eyes as if troubled by a drowsy aching. "Then you don't reckon to hev +anythin' to say to them Harrisons?" + +"We don't propose to recognize them in the matter at all," returned +Stacey. + +"Nor allow 'em anythin'?" + +"Not a cent! So you see, Mr. McKinstry," he continued magnanimously, yet +with a mischievous smile to Cressy, "there is nothing in this amicable +discussion that requires to be settled outside." + +"Ain't there?" said McKinstry, in a dull, deliberate voice, raising his +eyes for the second time to Stacey. They were bloodshot, with a heavy, +hanging furtiveness, not unlike one of his own hunted steers. "But I +ain't kam enuff in yer." He moved to the door with a beckoning of his +fateful hand. "Outside a minit--EF you please." + +Stacey started, shrugged his shoulders, and half defiantly stepped +beyond the threshold. Cressy, unchanged in color or expression, lazily +followed to the door. + +"Wot," said McKinstry, slowly facing Stacey; "wot ef I refoose? Wot ef I +say I don't allow any man, or any bank, or any compromise, to take up +my quo'r'lls? Wot ef I say that low-down and mean as them Harrisons is, +they don't begin to be ez mean, ez low-down, ez underhanded, ez sneakin' +ez that yer compromise? Wot ef I say that ef that's the kind o' hogwash +that law and snivelization offers me for peace and quietness, I'll take +the fightin', and the law-breakin', and the sheriff, and all h-ll for +his posse instead? Wot ef I say that?" + +"It will only be my duty to repeat it," said Stacey, with an affected +carelessness which, however, did not conceal his surprise and his +discomfiture. "It's no affair of mine." + +"Unless," said Cressy, assuming her old position against the lintel of +the door, and smoothing the worn bear-skin that served as a mat with +the toe of her slipper, "unless you've mixed it up with your other +arbitration, you know." + +"Wot other arbitration?" asked McKinstry suddenly, with murky eyes. + +Stacey cast a rapid, half indignant glance at the young girl, who +received it with her hands tucked behind her back, her lovely head bent +submissively forward, and a prolonged little laugh. + +"Oh nothing, Paw," she said, "only a little private foolishness betwixt +me and the gentleman. You'd admire to hear him talk, Paw--about other +things than business. He's just that chipper and gay." + +Nevertheless, as with a muttered "Good-morning" the young fellow turned +away, she quietly brushed past her father, and followed him--with her +hands still penitently behind her, and the rosy palms turned upward--as +far as the gate. Her single long Marguerite braid of hair trailing down +her back nearly to the hem of her skirt, appeared to accent her demure +reserve. At the gate she shaded her eyes with her hand, and glanced +upward. + +"It don't seem to be a good day for arbitrating. A trifle early in the +season, ain't it?" + +"Good-morning, Miss McKinstry." + +She held out her hand. He took it with an affected ease but cautiously, +as if it had been the velvet paw of a young panther who had scratched +him. After all, what was she but the cub of the untamed beast, +McKinstry? He was well out of it! He was not revengeful--but business +was business, and he had given them the first chance. + +As his figure disappeared behind the buckeyes of the lane, Cressy cast a +glance at the declining sun. She re-entered the house, and went directly +to her room. As she passed the window, she could see her father already +remounted galloping towards the tules, as if in search of that riparian +"kam" his late interview had disturbed. A few straggling bits of color +in the sloping meadows were the children coming home from school. She +hastily tied a girlish sun-bonnet under her chin, and slipping out of +the back door, swept like a lissom shadow along the line of fence +until she seemed to melt into the umbrage of the woods that fringed the +distant north boundary. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +Meanwhile, unaware of her husband's sudden relapse to her old border +principles and of the visit that had induced it, Mrs. McKinstry was +slowly returning from a lugubrious recital of her moods and feelings +at the parson's. As she crossed the barren flat and reached the wooded +upland midway between the school-house and the ranch, she saw before +her the old familiar figure of Seth Davis lounging on the trail. In her +habitual loyalty to her husband's feuds she would probably have stalked +defiantly past him, notwithstanding her late regrets of the broken +engagement, but Seth began to advance awkwardly towards her. In fact, he +had noticed the tall, gaunt, plaid-shawled and holland-bonneted figure +approaching, and had waited for it. + +As he seemed intent upon getting in her way she stopped and raised +her right hand warningly before her. In spite of the shawl and the +sun-bonnet, suffering had implanted a rude Runic dignity to her +attitude. "Words that hev to be took back, Seth Davis," she said +hastily, "hev passed between you and my man. Out of my way, then, that I +may pass, too." + +"Not much betwixt you and me, Aunt Rachel," he said with slouching +deprecation, using the old household title by which he had familiarly +known her. "I've nothin agin you--and I kin prove it by wot I'm yer +to say. And I ain't trucklin' to yer for myself, for ez far ez me and +your'n ez concerned," he continued, with a malevolent glance, "thar +ain't gold enough in Caleforny to mak the weddin' ring that could hitch +me and Cress together. I want to tell you that you're bein' played; that +you're bein' befooled and bamboozled and honey-fogled. Thet while +you're groanin' at class-meetin' and Hiram's quo'llin' with Dad, and +Joe Masters waitin' round to pick up any bone that's throwed him, that +sneakin', hypocritical Yankee school-master is draggin' your daughter to +h-ll with him on the sly." + +"Quit that, Seth Davis," said Mrs. McKinstry sternly, "or be man enough +to tell it to a man. That's Hiram's business to know." + +"And what if he knows it well enough and winks at it? What if he's +willin' enough to truckle to it, to curry favor with them sneakin' +Yanks?" said Seth malignantly. + +A spasm of savage conviction seized Mrs. McKinstry. But it was more +from her jealous fears of her husband's disloyalty than concern for her +daughter's transgression. Nevertheless, she said desperately, "It's a +lie. Where are your proofs?" + +"Proofs?" returned Seth. "Who is it sneaks around the school-house to +have private talks with the school-master, and edges him on with Cressy +afore folks? Your husband. Who goes sneakin' off every arternoon with +that same cantin' hound of a school-master? Your daughter. Who's been +carryin' on together, and hidin' thick enough to be ridden out on a rail +together? Your daughter and the school-master. Proofs?--ask anybody. Ask +the children. Look yar--you, Johnny--come here." + +He had suddenly directed his voice to a blackberry bush near the trail, +from which the curly head of Johnny Filgee had just appeared. That +home-returning infant painfully disengaged himself, his slate, his +books, and his small dinner-pail half filled with fruit as immature as +himself, and came towards them sideways. + +"Yer's a dime, Johnny, to git some candy," said Seth, endeavoring to +distort his passion-set face into a smile. + +Johnny Filgee's small, berry-stained palm promptly closed over the coin. + +"Now, don't lie. Where's Cressy?" + +"Kithin' her bo." + +"Good boy. What bo?" + +Johnny hesitated. He had once seen the school-master and Cressy +together; he had heard it whispered by the other children that they +loved each other. But looking at Seth and Mrs. McKinstry he felt that +something more tremendous than this stupid fact was required of him for +grown-up people, and being honest and imaginative, he determined that it +should be worth the money. + +"Speak up, Johnny, don't be afeard to tell." + +Johnny was not "afeard"--he was only thinking. He had it! He remembered +that he had just seen his paragon, the brilliant Stacey, coming from +the boundary woods. What more poetical and startlingly effective than to +connect him with Cressy? He replied promptly:-- + +"Mithter Thtathy. He gived her a watch and ring of truly gold. Goin' to +be married at Thacramento." + +"You lyin' limb," said Seth, seizing him roughly. But Mrs. McKinstry +interposed. + +"Let that brat go," she said with gleaming eyes. "I want to talk to +you." Seth released Johnny. "It's a trick," he said, "he's bin put up to +it by that Ford." + +But Johnny, after securing a safe vantage behind the blackberry bush, +determined to give them another trial--with facts. + +"I know mor'n that," he called out. + +"Git--you measly pup," said Seth savagely. + +"I know Theriff Briggth, he rid over the boundary with a lot o' men and +horthes," said Johnny, with that hurried delivery with which he was able +to estop interruption. "Theed 'em go by. Maur Harrithon theth his dad's +goin' to chuck out ole McKinthtry. Hooray!" + +Mrs. McKinstry turned her dark face sharply on Seth. "What's that he +sez?" + +"Nothin' but children's gassin'," he answered, meeting her eyes with an +evil consciousness half loutish, half defiant, "and ef it war true, it +would only sarve Hiram McKinstry right." + +She laid her hand upon his shoulder with swift suspicion. "Out o' my +way, Seth Davis," she said suddenly, pushing him aside. "Ef this ez any +underhanded work of yours, you'll pay for it." + +She strode past him in the direction of Johnny, but at the approach +of the tall woman with the angry eyes, the boy flew. She hesitated a +moment, turned again with a threatening wave of the hand to Seth, and +started off rapidly in the direction of the boundary. + +She had not placed so much faith in the boy's story as in the vague +revelation of evil in Davis's manner. If there was any "cussedness" +afoot, Seth, convinced of Cressy's unfaithfulness, and with no further +hope of any mediation from the parents, would know it. Unless Hiram had +been warned, he was still lulled in his fatuous dream of civilization. +At that time he and his men were in the tules with the stock; to be +satisfied, she herself must go to the boundary. + +She reached the ridge of the cottonwoods and sycamores, and a few +hundred yards further brought her to the edge of that gentle southern +slope which at last sank into the broad meadow of the debatable ground. +In spite of Stacey's invidious criticism of its intrinsic value, this +theatre of savage dissension, violence, and bloodshed was by some irony +of nature a pastoral landscape of singular and peaceful repose. The soft +glacis stretching before her was in spring cerulean with lupins, and +later starred with mariposas. The meadow was transversely crossed by a +curving line of alders that indicated a rare water-course, of which in +the dry season only a single pool remained to flash back the unvarying +sky. There had been no attempt at cultivation of this broad expanse; +wild oats, mustard, and rank grasses left it a tossing sea of turbulent +and variegated color whose waves rode high enough to engulf horse and +rider in their choking depths. Even the traces of human struggle, +the uprooted stakes, scattered fence-rails, and empty post-holes were +forever hidden under these billows of verdure. Midway of the field +and near the water-course arose McKinstry's barn--the solitary human +structure whose rude, misshapen, bulging sides and swallow-haunted eaves +bursting with hay from the neighboring pasture, seemed however only +an extravagant growth of the prolific soil. Mrs. McKinstry gazed at it +anxiously. There was no sign of life or movement near or around it; it +stood as it had always stood, deserted and solitary. But turning her +eyes to the right, beyond the water-course, she could see a slight +regular undulation of the grassy sea and what appeared to be the +drifting on its surface of half a dozen slouched hats in the direction +of the alders. There was no longer any doubt; a party from the other +side was approaching the border. + +A shout and the quick galloping of hoofs behind her sent a thrill of +relief to her heart. She had barely time to draw aside as her husband +and his followers swept past her down the slope. But it needed not +his furious cry, "The Harrisons hev sold us out," to tell her that the +crisis had come. + +She held her breath as the cavalcade diverged, and in open order +furiously approached the water-course, and she could see a sudden check +and hesitation in the movement in the meadow at that unlooked-for onset. +Then she thought of the barn. It would be a rallying-point for them if +driven back--a tower of defence if besieged. There were arms secreted +beneath the hay for such an emergency. She would run there, swing-to its +open doors, and get ready to barricade them. + +She ran crouchingly, seeking the higher grasses and brambles of the +ridge to escape observation from the meadow until she could descend upon +the barn from the rear. She threw aside her impeding shawl; her brown +holland sun-bonnet, torn off her head and hanging by its strings from +her shoulders, let her coarse silver-threaded hair stream like a mane +over her back; her face and hands were bleeding from thorns and whitened +by dust. But she struggled on fiercely like some hunted animal until +she reached the descending trail, when, letting herself go blindly, only +withheld by the long grasses she clutched at wildly on either side, she +half fell, half stumbled down the slope and emerged beside the barn, +breathless and exhausted. + +But what a contrast was there! For an instant she could scarcely believe +that she had left the ridge with her husband's savage outcry in her +ears, and in her eyes the swift vision of his furious cavalcade. The +boundary meadow was hidden by the soft lines of graceful willows in +whose dim recesses the figures of the passionate horsemen seemed to have +melted forever. There was nothing now to interrupt the long vista of +peaceful beauty that stretched before her through this lonely hollow to +the distant sleeping hills. The bursting barn in the foreground, heaped +with grain that fringed its eaves and bristled from its windows and +doors until its unlovely bulk was hidden in trailing feathery outlines; +the gentle flutter of wings and soothing twitter of swallows and jays +around its open rafters, and the drifting shadows of a few circling +crows above it; the drowsy song of bees on the wild mustard that half +hid its walls with yellow bloom; the sound of faintly-trickling water in +one of those old Indian-haunted springs that had given its name to the +locality; all these for an instant touched the senses of this hard, +fierce woman as she had not been touched since she was a girl. For one +brief moment the joys of peace and that matured repose that never had +been hers flashed upon her; but with it came the savage consciousness +that even now it was being wrested away, and the thought fired her blood +again. She listened eagerly for a second in the direction of the meadow; +there was no report of fire-arms--there was yet time to prepare the barn +for defence. She ran to the front of the building and seized the latch +of the half-closed door. A little feminine cry that was half a laugh +came from within, with the rapid rustle of a skirt and as the door +swung open a light figure vanished through the rear window. The slanting +sunlight falling in the shadowed interior disclosed only the single +erect figure of the school-master John Ford. + +The first confusion and embarrassment of an interrupted rendezvous that +had colored Ford's cheeks, gave way to a look of alarm as he caught +sight of the bleeding face and dishevelled figure of Mrs. McKinstry. She +saw it. To her distorted fancy it seemed only a proof of deeper guilt. +Without a word she closed the heavy door behind her and swung the huge +cross-bar unaided to its place. She then turned and confronted him, +wiping the dust from her face and arms with her torn and dangling +sun-bonnet in a way that recalled her attitude on the first day he had +met her. + +"That was Cress with ye?" she said. + +He hesitated, still gazing at her in wonder. + +"Don't lie." + +He started. "I don't propose to," he retorted indignantly. "It was"-- + +"I don't ask ye how long this yer's bin goin' on," she said, pointing +to Cressy's sun-bonnet, a few books, and a scattered nosegay of wild +flowers lying on the hay; "and I don't want to know. In five minutes +either her father will be here, or them hell-hounds of Harrison's who've +sold him out will swarm round this barn to git possesshun. Ef +this yer"--she again pointed contemptuously to the objects just +indicated--"means that you've cast your lot with US and kalkilate to +take our bitter with our sweet, ye'll lift up that stack of hay and +bring out a gun to help defend it. Ef you're meanin' anythin' else, +Ford, you'll hide yourself in that hay till Hiram comes and has time +enough to attend to ye." + +"And if I choose to do neither?" he said haughtily. + +She looked at him in unutterable scorn. "There's the winder--take it +while there's time, afore I bar it. Ef you see Hiram, tell him ye left +an old woman behind ye to defend the place whar you uster hide with her +darter." + +Before he could reply there was a distant report, followed almost +directly by another. With a movement of irritation he walked to the +window, turned and looked at her--bolted it, and came back. + +"Where's that gun?" he said almost rudely. + +"I reckon's that would fetch ye," she said, dragging away the hay and +disclosing a long trough-like box covered with tarpaulin. It proved to +contain powder, shot, and two guns. He took one. + +"I suppose I may know what I am fighting for?" he said dryly. + +"Ye might say 'Cress' ef they"--indicating the direction of the +reports--"happen to ask ye," she returned with equal sobriety. "Jess now +ye kin take your stand up thar in the loft and see what's comin'." + +He did not linger, but climbed to the place assigned him, glad to escape +the company of the woman who at that moment he almost hated. In his +unreflecting passion for Cressy he had always evaded the thought of this +relationship or propinquity; the mother had recalled it to him in a way +that imperilled even his passion for the daughter; his mind was wholly +preoccupied with the idiotic, exasperating, and utterly hopeless +position that had been forced upon him. In the bitterness of his spirit +his sense of personal danger was so far absorbed that he speculated on +the chance bullet in the melee that might end his folly and relieve him +of responsibility. Shut up in a barn with a furious woman, in a lawless +defence of questionable rights--with the added consciousness that an +equally questionable passion had drawn him into it, and that SHE knew +it--death seemed to offer the only escape from the explanation he could +never give. If another sting could have been added it was the absurd +conviction that Cressy would not appreciate his sacrifice, but was +perhaps even at that moment calmly congratulating herself on the +felicitousness of the complication in which she had left him. + +Suddenly he heard a shout and the tramping of horse. The sides of the +loft were scantily boarded to allow the extension of the pent-up grain, +and between the interstices Ford, without being himself seen, had an +uninterrupted view of the plain between him and the line of willows. +As he gazed, five men hurriedly issued from the extreme left and ran +towards the barn. McKinstry and his followers simultaneously broke from +the same covert further to the right and galloped forward to intercept +them. But although mounted, the greater distance they had to traverse +brought them to the rear of the building only as the Harrison party came +to a sudden halt before the closed and barricaded doors of the usually +defenceless barn. The discomfiture of the latter was greeted by a +derisive shout from the McKinstry party--albeit, equally astonished. But +in that brief moment Ford recognized in the leader of the Harrisons the +well-known figure of the Sheriff of Tuolumne. It needed only this to cap +the climax of the fatality that seemed to pursue him. He was no longer a +lawless opposer of equally lawless forces, but he was actually resisting +the law itself. He understood the situation now. It was some idiotic +blunder of Uncle Ben's that had precipitated this attack. + +The belligerents had already cocked their weapons, although the barn +was still a rampart between the parties. But an adroit flanker of +McKinstry's, creeping through the tall mustard, managed to take up an +enfilading position as the Harrisons advanced to break in the door. A +threatening shout from the ambuscaded partisans caused them to hurriedly +fall back towards the rear of the barn. There was a pause, and then +began the usual Homeric chaff,--with this Western difference that it was +cunningly intended to draw the other's fire. + +"Why don't you blaze away at the door, you ---- ----! It won't hurt ye!" + +"He's afraid the bolt will shoot back!" Laughter from the McKinstrys. + +"Come outer the tall grass and show yourself, you black, mud-eating +gopher." + +"He can't. He's dropped his grit and is sarchin' for it." Goading +laughter from the Harrisons. + +Each man waited for that single shot which would precipitate the fight. +Even in their lawlessness the rude instinct of the duello swayed them. +The officer of the law recognized the principle as well as its practical +advantage in a collision, but he hesitated to sacrifice one of his men +in an attack on the barn, which would draw the fire of McKinstry at that +necessarily fatal range. As a brave man he would have taken the risk +himself, but as a prudent one, he reflected that his hurriedly collected +posse were all partisans, and if he fell the conflict would resolve +itself into a purely partisan struggle without a single unprejudiced +witness to justify his conduct in the popular eye. The master also knew +this; it had checked his first impulse to come forward as a mediator; +his only reliance now was on Mrs. McKinstry's restraint and the +sheriff's forbearance. The next instant both seemed to be imperilled. + +"Well, why don't you wade in?" sneered Dick McKinstry; "who do you +reckon's hidden in the barn?" + +"I'll tell ye," said a harsh, passionate voice from the hill-side. "It's +Cressy McKinstry and the school-master hidin' in the hay." + +Both parties turned quickly towards the intruder who had approached them +unperceived. But the speech was followed by a more startling revulsion +of sentiment as Mrs. McKinstry's voice rang out from the barn, "You lie, +Seth Davis!" + +The brief advantage offered to the sheriff in Davis's advent as a +neutral witness, was utterly lost by this unlooked-for revelation of +Mrs. McKinstry's presence in the barn! The fates were clearly against +him! A woman in the fight, and an old one at that! A white woman to be +forcibly ejected! In the whole unwritten code of Southwestern chivalry +there was no such precedent. + +"Stand back," he said disgustedly to his followers, "stand back and +let the d----d barn slide. But you, Hiram McKinstry, I'll give YOU five +minutes to shake yourself clear of your wife's petticoats and git!" His +blood was up now--the quicker from his momentary weakness and the trick +of which he thought himself a dupe. + +Again the fatal signal seemed imminent, again it was delayed. For Hiram +McKinstry, with clanking spurs and rifle in hand stepped from behind the +barn, full in the presence of his antagonists. + +"Ez to my gitten in five minits," he began in his laziest, drowsiest +manner, "we'll see when the time's up. But jest now words hev passed +betwixt my wife and Seth Davis. Afore anythin' else goes on yer, he's +got to take HIS back. My wife allows he lies; I allow he lies too, and I +stan' here to say it." + +The right of personal insult to precedence of redress was too old a +frontier principle to be gainsaid now. Both parties held back and +every eye was turned to where Seth Davis had been standing. But he had +disappeared. + +Where? + +When Mrs. McKinstry hurled her denial from the barn, he had taken +advantage of the greater surprise to leap to one of the trusses of +hay that projected beyond the loft, and secure a footing from which he +quickly scrambled through the open scantling to the interior. The master +who, startled by his voice, had made his way through the loose grain to +the rear, reached it as Seth half crawled, half tumbled through. Their +eyes met in a single flash of rage, but before Seth could utter an +outcry, the master had dropped his gun, seized him around the neck and +crammed a thick handful of the soft hay he had hurriedly snatched up +into his face and gasping mouth. A furious but silent struggle ensued; +the yielding hay on which they both fell deadened all sound of a scuffle +and concealed them from view; masses of it, already loosened by the +intruder's entrance, and dislodged in their contortions began to slip +through the opening to the ground. The master, still uppermost and +holding Seth firmly down, allowed himself to slip with them, shoving +his adversary before him; the maddened Missourian detecting his purpose, +made a desperate attempt to change his position, and succeeded in +raising his knee against the master's chest. Ford, guarding against what +seemed to be only a wrestler's strategy, contented himself by locking +the bent knee firmly in that position, and thus unwittingly gave Seth +the looked-for opportunity of drawing the bowie-knife concealed in his +boot leg. He knew his mistake only as Seth violently freed his arm, and +threw it upward for the blow. He heard the steel slither like a scythe +through the hay, and unlocking his hold desperately threw himself on +the uplifted arm. The movement saved him. For the released body of Seth +slipped rapidly through the opening, upheld for a single instant on the +verge by the grasp of the master's two hands on the arm that still held +the knife, and then dropped heavily downward. Even then, the hay that +had slipped before him would have broken his fall, but his head came in +violent contact with some farming implements standing against the wall, +and without a cry he was stretched senseless on the ground. The whole +occurrence passed so rapidly and so noiselessly that not only did +McKinstry's challenge fall upon his already unconscious ears, but the +loosened hay which in the master's struggles to recover himself still +continued to slide gently from the loft, actually hid him from the eyes +of the spectators who sought him a moment afterwards. A mass of hay +and wild oats, dislodged apparently by Mrs. McKinstry in securing +her defences, was all that met their eyes; even the woman herself was +unconscious of the deadly struggle that had taken place above her. + +The master staggered to an upright position half choked and half blinded +with dust, turgid and bursting with the rush of blood to his head, but +clear and collected in mind, and unremorsefully triumphant. Unconscious +of the real extent of Seth's catastrophe he groped for and seized his +gun, examined the cap and eagerly waited for a renewed attack. "He tried +to kill me; he would have killed me; if he comes again I must kill him," +he kept repeating to himself. It never occurred to him that this was +inconsistent with his previous thought--indeed with the whole tenor of +his belief. Perhaps the most peaceful man who has been once put in peril +of life by an adversary, who has recognized death threatening him in the +eye of his antagonist, is by some strange paradox not likely to hold his +own life or the life of his adversary as dearly as before. Everything +was silent now. The suspense irritated him, he no longer dreaded but +even longed for the shot that would precipitate hostilities. What were +they doing? Guided by Seth, were they concerting a fresh attack? + +Listening more intently he became aware of a distant shouting, and even +more distinctly, of the dull, heavy trampling of hoofs. A sudden angry +fear that the McKinstrys had been beaten off and were flying--a fear and +anger that now for the first time identified him with their cause--came +over him, and he scrambled quickly towards the opening below. But the +sound was approaching and with it came a voice. + +"Hold on there, sheriff!" + +It was the voice of the agent Stacey. + +There was a pause of reluctant murmuring. But the warning was enforced +by a command from another voice--weak, unheroic, but familiar, "I order +this yer to stop--right yer!" + +A burst of ironical laughter followed. The voice was Uncle Ben's. + +"Stand back! This is no time for foolin'," said the sheriff roughly. + +"He's right, Sheriff Briggs," said Stacey's voice hurriedly; "you're +acting for HIM; he's the owner of the land." + +"What? That Ben Dabney?" + +"Yes; he's Daubigny, who bought the title from us." + +There was a momentary hush, and then a hurried murmur. + +"Which means, gents," rose Uncle Ben's voice persuasively, "that this +yer young man, though fair-minded and well-intended, hez bin a leetle +too chipper and previous in orderin' out the law. This yer ain't no +law matter with ME, boys. It ain't to be settled by law-papers, nor +shot-guns and deringers. It's suthin' to be chawed over sociable-like, +between drinks. Ef any harm hez bin done, ef anythin's happened, I'm yer +to 'demnify the sheriff, and make it comf'ble all round. Yer know me, +boys. I'm talkin'. It's me--Dabney, or Daubigny, which ever way you like +it." + +But in the silence that followed, the passions had not yet evidently +cooled. It was broken by the sarcastic drawl of Dick McKinstry: "If +them Harrisons don't mind heven had their medders trampled over by a few +white men, why"-- + +"The sheriff ez 'demnified for that," interrupted Uncle Ben hastily. + +"'N ef Dick McKinstry don't mind the damage to his pants in crawlin' out +o' gunshot in the tall grass"--retorted Joe Harrison. + +"I'm yer to settle that, boys," said Uncle Ben cheerfully. + +"But who'll settle THIS?" clamored the voice of the older Harrison from +behind the barn where he had stumbled in crossing the fallen hay. "Yer's +Seth Davis lyin' in the hay with the top of his head busted. Who's to +pay for that?" + +There was a rush to the spot, and a quick cry of reaction. + +"Whose work is this?" demanded the sheriff's voice, with official +severity. + +The master uttered an instinctive exclamation of defiance, and dropping +quickly to the barn floor, would the next moment have opened the door +and declared himself, but Mrs. McKinstry, after a single glance at his +determined face, suddenly threw herself before him with an imperious +gesture of silence. Then her voice rang clearly from the barn:-- + +"Well, if it's the hound that tried to force his way in yer, I reckon ye +kin put that down to ME!" + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +It was known to Indian Spring, the next day, amid great excitement, that +a serious fracas had been prevented on the ill-fated boundary by the +dramatic appearance of Uncle Ben Dabney, not only as a peacemaker, but +as Mr. Daubigny the bona fide purchaser and owner of the land. It was +known and accepted with great hilarity that "old marm McKinstry" had +defended the barn alone and unaided, with--as variously stated--a +pitchfork, an old stable-broom, and a pail of dirty water, against +Harrison, his party, and the entire able posse of the Sheriff of +Tuolumne County, with no further damage than a scalp wound which the +head of Seth Davis received while falling from the loft of the barn from +which he had been dislodged by Mrs. McKinstry and the broom aforesaid. +It was known with unanimous approbation that the acquisition of the +land-title by a hitherto humble citizen of Indian Spring was a triumph +of the settlement over foreign interference. But it was not known that +the school-master was a participant in the fight, or even present on the +spot. At Mrs. McKinstry's suggestion he had remained concealed in +the loft until after the withdrawal of both parties and the still +unconscious Seth. When Ford had remonstrated, with the remark that Seth +would be sure to declare the truth when he recovered his senses, Mrs. +McKinstry smiled grimly: "I reckon when he comes to know I was with ye +all the time, he'd rather hev it allowed that I licked him than YOU. I +don't say he'll let it pass ez far ez you're concerned or won't try to +get even with ye, but he won't go round tellin' WHY. However," she +added still more grimly, "if you think you're ekul to tellin' the hull +story--how ye kem to be yer and that Seth wasn't lyin' arter all when he +blurted it out afore 'em--why I sha'n't hinder ye." The master said no +more. And indeed for a day or two nothing transpired to show that Seth +was not equally reticent. + +Nevertheless Mr. Ford was far from being satisfied with the issue of +his adventure. His relations with Cressy were known to the mother, and +although she had not again alluded to them, she would probably inform +her husband. Yet he could not help noticing, with a mingling of +unreasoning relief and equally unreasoning distrust, that she exhibited +a scornful unconcern in the matter, apart from the singular use to which +she had put it. He could hardly count upon McKinstry, with his heavy, +blind devotion to Cressy, being as indifferent. On the contrary, he had +acquired the impression, without caring to examine it closely, that +her father would not be displeased at his marrying Cressy, for it would +really amount to that. But here again he was forced to contemplate +what he had always avoided, the possible meaning and result of their +intimacy. In the reckless, thoughtless, extravagant--yet thus far +innocent--indulgence of their mutual passion, he had never spoken of +marriage, nor--and it struck him now with the same incongruous mingling +of relief and uneasiness--had SHE! Perhaps this might have arisen from +some superstitious or sensitive recollection on her part of her previous +engagement to Seth, but he remembered now that they had not even +exchanged the usual vows of eternal constancy. It may seem strange that, +in the half-dozen stolen and rapturous interviews which had taken place +between these young lovers, there had been no suggestion of the future, +nor any of those glowing projects for a united destiny peculiar to their +years and inexperience. They had lived entirely in a blissful present, +with no plans beyond their next rendezvous. In that mysterious and +sudden absorption of each other, not only the past, but the future +seemed to have been forgotten. + +These thoughts were passing through his mind the next afternoon to +the prejudice of that calm and studious repose which the deserted +school-house usually superinduced, and which had been so fondly noted +by McKinstry and Uncle Ben. The latter had not arrived for his usual +lesson; it was possible that undue attention had been attracted to his +movements now that his good fortune was known; and the master was alone +save for the occasional swooping incursion of a depredatory jay in +search of crumbs from the children's luncheons, who added apparently +querulous insult to the larcenous act. He regretted Uncle Ben's absence, +as he wanted to know more about his connection with the Harrison attack +and his eventual intentions. Ever since the master emerged from the barn +and regained his hotel under cover of the darkness, he had heard only +the vaguest rumors, and he purposely avoided direct inquiry. + +He had been quite prepared for Cressy's absence from school that +morning--indeed in his present vacillating mood he had felt that her +presence would have been irksome and embarrassing; but it struck +him suddenly and unpleasantly that her easy desertion of him at that +critical moment in the barn had not since been followed by the least +sign of anxiety to know the result of her mother's interference. What +did she imagine had transpired between Mrs. McKinstry and himself? Had +she confidently expected her mother's prompt acceptance of the situation +and a reconciliation? Was that the reason why she had treated that +interruption as lightly as if she were already his recognized betrothed? +Had she even calculated upon it? had she--? He stopped, his cheek +glowing from irritation under the suspicion, and shame at the disloyalty +of entertaining it. + +Opening his desk, he began to arrange his papers mechanically, when +he discovered, with a slight feeling of annoyance, that he had placed +Cressy's bouquet--now dried and withered--in the same pigeon-hole with +the mysterious letters with which he had so often communed in former +days. He at once separated them with a half bitter smile, yet after a +moment's hesitation, and with his old sense of attempting to revive a +forgotten association, he tried to re-peruse them. But they did not +even restrain his straying thoughts, nor prevent him from detecting a +singular occurrence. The nearly level sun was, after its old fashion, +already hanging the shadowed tassels of the pine boughs like a garland +on the wall. But the shadow seemed to have suddenly grown larger +and more compact, and he turned, with a quick consciousness of some +interposing figure at the pane. Nothing however was to be seen. Yet so +impressed had he been that he walked to the door and stepped from the +porch to discover the intruder. The clearing was deserted, there was a +slight rustling in the adjacent laurels, but no human being was visible. +Nevertheless the old feeling of security and isolation which had never +been quite the same since Mr. McKinstry's confession, seemed now to have +fled the sylvan school-house altogether, and he somewhat angrily closed +his desk, locked it, and determined to go home. + +His way lay through the first belt of pines towards the mining-flat, but +to-day from some vague impulse he turned and followed the ridge. He had +not proceeded far when he perceived Rupert Filgee lounging before him +on the trail, and at a little distance further on his brother Johnny. At +the sight of these two favorite pupils Mr. Ford's heart smote him with +a consciousness that he had of late neglected them, possibly because +Rupert's lofty scorn of the "silly" sex was not as amusing to him as +formerly, and possibly because Johnny's curiosity had been at times +obtrusive. He however quickened his pace and joined Rupert, laying +his hand familiarly as of old on his shoulder. To his surprise the boy +received his advances with some constraint and awkwardness, glancing +uneasily in the direction of Johnny. A sudden idea crossed Mr. Ford's +mind. + +"Were you looking for me at the schoolroom just now?" + +"No, sir." + +"You didn't look in at the window to see if I was there?" continued the +master. + +"No, sir." + +The master glanced at Rupert. Truth-telling was a part of Rupert's +truculent temper, although, as the boy had often bitterly remarked, it +had always "told agin' him." + +"All right," said the master, perfectly convinced. "It must have been my +fancy; but I thought somebody looked in--or passed by the window." + +But here Johnny, who had overheard the dialogue and approached them, +suddenly threw himself upon his brother's unoffending legs and commenced +to beat and pull them about with unintelligible protests. Rupert, +without looking down, said quietly, "Quit that now--I won't, I tell ye," +and went through certain automatic movements of dislodging Johnny as if +he were a mere impeding puppy. + +"What's the matter, Johnny?" said the master, to whom these gyrations +were not unfamiliar. + +Johnny only replied by a new grip of his brother's trousers. + +"Well, sir," said Rupert, slightly recovering his dimples and his +readiness, "Johnny, yer, wants me to tell ye something. Ef he wasn't +the most original self-cocking, God-forsaken liar in Injin Spring--ef +he didn't lie awake in his crib mornin's to invent lies fer the day, I +wouldn't mind tellin' ye, and would hev told you before. However, since +you ask, and since you think you saw somebody around the school-house, +Johnny yer allows that Seth Davis is spyin' round and followin' ye +wherever you go, and he dragged me down yer to see it. He says he saw +him doggin' ye." + +"With a knife and pithtolth," added Johnny's boundless imagination, to +the detriment of his limited facts. + +Mr. Ford looked keenly from the one to the other, but rather with a +suspicion that they were cognizant of his late fracas than belief in the +truth of Johnny's statement. + +"And what do YOU think of it, Rupert?" he asked carelessly. + +"I think, sir," said Rupert, "that allowin'--for onct--that Johnny ain't +lying, mebbee it's Cressy McKinstry that Seth's huntin' round, and +knowin' that she's always runnin' after you"--he stopped, and reddening +with a newborn sense that his fatal truthfulness had led him into a +glaring indelicacy towards the master, hurriedly added: "I mean, sir, +that mebbee it's Uncle Ben he's jealous of, now that he's got rich +enough for Cressy to hev him, and knowin' he comes to school in the +afternoon perhaps"-- + +"'Tain't either!" broke in Johnny promptly. "Theth's over ther beyond +the thchool, and Crethy's eatin' ithecream at the bakerth with Uncle +Ben." + +"Well, suppose she is, Seth don't know it, silly!" answered Rupert, +sharply. Then more politely to the master: "That's it! Seth has seen +Uncle Ben gallivanting with Cressy and thinks he's bringing her over +yer. Don't you see?" + +The master however did not see but one thing. The girl who had only two +days ago carelessly left it to him to explain a compromising situation +to her mother--this girl who had precipitated him into a frontier fight +to the peril of his position and her good name, was calmly eating ices +with an available suitor without the least concern of the past! The +connection was perhaps illogical, but it was unpleasant. It was the more +awkward from the fact that he fancied that not only Rupert's beautiful +eyes, but even the infant Johnny's round ones, were fixed upon him with +an embarrassed expression of hesitating and foreboding sympathy. + +"I think Johnny believes what he says--don't you, Johnny?" he smiled +with an assumption of cheerful ease, "but I see no necessity just yet +for binding Seth Davis over to keep the peace. Tell me about yourself, +Rupe. I hope Uncle Ben doesn't think of changing his young tutor with +his good fortune?" + +"No, sir," returned Rupert brightening; "he promises to take me to +Sacramento with him as his private secretary or confidential clerk, you +know, ef--ef"--he hesitated again with very un-Rupert-like caution, +"ef things go as he wants 'em." He stopped awkwardly and his brown +eyes became clouded. "Like ez not, Mr. Ford, he's only foolin' +me--and--HIMSELF." The boy's eyes sought the master's curiously. + +"I don't know about that," returned Mr. Ford uneasily, with a certain +recollection of Uncle Ben's triumph over his own incredulity; "he +surely hasn't shown himself a fool or a boaster so far. I consider your +prospect a very fair one, and I wish you joy of it, my boy." He ran his +fingers through Rupert's curls in his old caressing fashion, the more +tenderly perhaps that he fancied he still saw symptoms of stormy and wet +weather in the boy's brown eyes. "Run along home, both of you, and don't +worry yourselves about me." + +He turned away, but had scarcely proceeded half a dozen yards before +he felt a tug at his coat. Looking down he saw the diminutive Johnny. +"They'll be comin' home thith way," he said, reaching up in a hoarse +confidential whisper. + +"Who?" + +"Crethy and 'im." + +But before the master could make any response to this presumably +gratifying information, Johnny had rejoined his brother. The two boys +waved their hands towards him with the same diffident and mysterious +sympathy that left him hesitating between a smile and a frown. Then he +proceeded on his way. Nevertheless, for no other reason than that he +felt a sudden distaste to meeting any one, when he reached the point +where the trail descended directly to the settlement, he turned into a +longer and more solitary detour by the woods. + +The sun was already so low that its long rays pierced the forest from +beneath, and suffused the dim colonnade of straight pine shafts with a +golden haze, while it left the dense intercrossed branches fifty feet +above in deeper shadow. Walking in this yellow twilight, with his feet +noiselessly treading down the yielding carpet of pine needles, it seemed +to the master that he was passing through the woods in a dream. There +was no sound but the dull intermittent double knock of the wood-pecker, +or the drowsy croak of some early roosting bird; all suggestion of the +settlement, with all traces of human contiguity, were left far behind. +It was therefore with a strange and nervous sense of being softly hailed +by some woodland sprite that he seemed to hear his own name faintly +wafted upon the air. He turned quickly; it was Cressy, panting behind +him! Even then, in her white closely gathered skirts, her bared head +and graceful arching neck bent forward, her flying braids freed from +the straw hat which she had swung from her arm so as not to impede her +flight, there was so much of the following Maenad about her that he was +for an instant startled. + +He stopped; she bounded to him, and throwing her arms around his neck +with a light laugh, let herself hang for a moment breathless on his +breast. Then recovering her speech she said slowly:-- + +"I started on an Injin trot after you, just as you turned off the trail, +but you'd got so far ahead while I was shaking myself clear of Uncle Ben +that I had to jist lope the whole way through the woods to catch up." +She stopped, and looking up into his troubled face caught his cheeks +between her hands, and bringing his knit brows down to the level of her +humid blue eyes said, "You haven't kissed me yet. What's the matter?" + +"Doesn't it strike you that I might ask that question, considering that +it's three days since I've seen you, and that you left me, in a rather +awkward position, to explain matters to your mother?" he said coldly. +He had formulated the sentence in his mind some moments before, but now +that it was uttered, it appeared singularly weak and impotent. + +"That's so," she said with a frank laugh, burying her face in his +waistcoat. "You see, dandy boy"--his pet name--"I reckoned for that +reason we'd better lie low for a day or two. Well," she continued, +untying his cravat and retying it again, "how DID you crawl out of it?" + +"Do you mean to say your mother did not tell you?" he asked indignantly. + +"Why should she?" returned Cressy lazily. "She never talks to me of +these things, honey." + +"And you knew nothing about it?" + +Cressy shook her head, and then winding one of her long braids around +the young man's neck, offered the end of it to his mouth, and on his +sternly declining it, took it in her own. + +Yet even her ignorance of what had really happened did not account +to the master for the indifference of her long silence, and albeit +conscious of some inefficiency in his present unheroic attitude, he +continued sarcastically, "May I ask WHAT you imagined would happen when +you left me?" + +"Well," said Cressy confidently, "I reckoned, chile, you could lie as +well as the next man, and that, being gifted, you'd sling Maw something +new and purty. Why, I ain't got no fancy, but I fixed up something +against Paw's questioning ME. I made that conceited Masters promise to +swear that HE was in the barn with me. Then I calculated to tell Paw +that you came meandering along just before Maw popped in, and that I +skedaddled to join Masters. Of course," she added quickly, tightening +her hold of the master as he made a sudden attempt at withdrawal, "I +didn't let on to Masters WHY I wanted him to promise, or that you were +there." + +"Cressy," said Ford, irritated beyond measure, "are you mad, or do you +think I am?" + +The girl's face changed. She cast a half frightened, half questioning +glance at his eyes and then around the darkening aisle. "If we're going +to quarrel, Jack," she said hurriedly, "don't let's do it BEFORE FOLKS." + +"In the name of Heaven," he said, following her eyes indignantly, "what +do you mean?" + +"I mean," she said, with a slight shiver of resignation and scorn, +"if you--oh dear! if IT'S ALL going to be like THEM, let's keep it to +ourselves." + +He gazed at her in hopeless bewilderment. Did she really mean that she +was more frightened at the possible revelation of their disagreement +than of their intimacy? + +"Come," she continued tenderly, still glancing, however, uneasily around +her, "come! We'll be more comfortable in the hollow. It's only a step." +Still holding him by her braid she half led, half dragged him away. To +the right was one of those sudden depressions in the ground caused by +the subsidence of the earth from hidden springs and the uprooting of one +or two of the larger trees. When she had forced him down this declivity +below the level of the needle-strewn forest floor, she seated him upon +a mossy root, and shaking out her skirts in a half childlike, half +coquettish way, comfortably seated herself in his lap, with her arm +supplementing the clinging braid around his neck. + +"Now hark to me, and don't holler so loud," she said turning his face to +her questioning eyes. "What's gone of you anyway, nigger boy?" It +should be premised that Cressy's terms of endearment were mainly +negro-dialectical, reminiscences of her brief babyhood, her slave-nurse, +and the only playmates she had ever known. + +Still implacable, the master coldly repeated the counts of his +indictment against the girl's strange indifference and still stranger +entanglements, winding up by setting forth the whole story of his +interview with her mother, his forced defence of the barn, Seth's +outspoken accusation, and their silent and furious struggle in the loft. +But if he had expected that this daughter of a Southwestern fighter +would betray any enthusiasm over her lover's participation in one of +their characteristic feuds--if he looked for any fond praise for his own +prowess, he was bitterly mistaken. She loosened her arm from his neck +of her own accord, unwound the braid, and putting her two little hands +clasped between her knees, crossed her small feet before her, and, +albeit still in his lap, looked the picture of languid dejection. + +"Maw ought to have more sense, and you ought to have lit out of the +window after me," she said with a lazy sigh. "Fightin' ain't in your +line--it's too much like THEM. That Seth's sure to get even with you." + +"I can protect myself," he said haughtily. Nevertheless he had a +depressing consciousness that his lithe and graceful burden was somewhat +in the way of any heroic expression. + +"Seth can lick you out of your boots, chile," she said with naive +abstraction. Then, as he struggled to secure an upright position, "Don't +git riled, honey. Of course you'd let them kill you before YOU'D give +in. But that's their best holt--that's their trade! That's all they can +do--don't you see? That's where YOU'RE not like THEM--that's why you're +not their low down kind! That's why you're my boy--that's why I love +you!" + +She had thrown her whole weight again upon his shoulders until she had +forced him back to his seat. Then, with her locked hands again around +his neck, she looked intently into his face. The varying color dropped +from her cheeks, her eyes seemed to grow larger, the same look of rapt +absorption and possession that had so transfigured her young face at +the ball was fixed upon it now. Her lips parted slightly, she seemed to +murmur rather than speak:-- + +"What are these people to us? What are Seth's jealousies, Uncle Ben's +and Masters's foolishness, Paw and Maw's quarr'ls and tantrums to you +and me, dear? What is it what THEY think, what they reckon, what they +plan out, and what they set themselves against--to us? We love each +other, we belong to each other, without their help or their hindrance. +From the time we first saw each other it was so, and from that time Paw +and Maw, and Seth and Masters, and even YOU and ME, dear, had nothing +else to do. That was love as I know it; not Seth's sneaking rages, and +Uncle Ben's sneaking fooleries, and Masters's sneaking conceit, but +only love. And knowing that, I let Seth rage, and Uncle Ben dawdle, and +Masters trifle--and for what? To keep them from me and my boy. They were +satisfied, and we were happy." + +Vague and unreasoning as he knew her speech to be, the rapt and perfect +conviction with which it was uttered staggered him. + +"But how is this to end, Cressy?" he said passionately. + +The abstracted look passed, and the slight color and delicate mobility +of her face returned. "To end, dandy boy?" she repeated lazily. "You +didn't think of marrying me--did you?" + +He blushed, stammered, and said "Yes," albeit with all his past +vacillation and his present distrust of her, transparent on his cheek +and audible in his voice. + +"No, dear," she said quietly, reaching down, untying her little shoe and +shaking the dust and pine needles from its recesses, "no! I don't know +enough to be a wife to you, just now, and you know it. And I couldn't +keep a house fit for you, and you couldn't afford to keep ME without it. +And then it would be all known, and it wouldn't be us two, dear, and our +lonely meetings any more. And we couldn't be engaged--that would be too +much like me and Seth over again. That's what you mean, dandy boy--for +you're only a dandy boy, you know, and they don't get married to +backwood Southern girls who haven't a nigger to bless themselves with +since the war! No," she continued, lifting her proud little head so +promptly after Ford had recovered from his surprise as to make the ruse +of emptying her shoe perfectly palpable, "no, that's what we've both +allowed, dear, all along. And now, honey, it's near time for me to go. +Tell me something good--before I go. Tell me that you love me as you +used to--tell me how you felt that night at the ball when you first +knew we loved each other. But stop--kiss me first--there, once more--for +keeps." + + + + +CHAPTER XI. + + +When Uncle Ben, or "Benjamin Daubigny, Esq.," as he was already known in +the columns of the "Star," accompanied Miss Cressy McKinstry on her +way home after the first display of attention and hospitality since +his accession to wealth and position, he remained for some moments in a +state of bewildered and smiling idiocy. It was true that their meeting +was chance and accidental; it was true that Cressy had accepted his +attention with lazy amusement; it was true that she had suddenly and +audaciously left him on the borders of the McKinstry woods in a way +that might have seemed rude and abrupt to any escort less invincibly +good-humored than Uncle Ben, but none of these things marred his fatuous +felicity. It is even probable that in his gratuitous belief that his +timid attentions had been too marked and impulsive, he attributed +Cressy's flight to a maidenly coyness that pleasurably increased his +admiration for her and his confidence in himself. In his abstraction of +enjoyment and in the gathering darkness he ran against a fir-tree very +much as he had done while walking with her, and he confusedly apologized +to it as he had to her, and by her own appellation. In this way +he eventually overran his trail and found himself unexpectedly and +apologetically in the clearing before the school-house. + +"Ef this ain't the singlerest thing, miss," he said, and then stopped +suddenly. A faint noise in the school-house like the sound of splintered +wood attracted his attention. The master was evidently there. If he was +alone he would speak to him. + +He went to the window, looked in, and in an instant his amiable +abstraction left him. He crept softly to the door, tried it, and then +putting his powerful shoulder against the panel, forced the lock from +its fastenings. He entered the room as Seth Davis, frightened but +furious, lifted himself from before the master's desk which he had just +broken open. He had barely time to conceal something in his pocket and +close the lid again before Uncle Ben approached him. + +"What mouut ye be doin' here, Seth Davis?" he asked with the slow +deliberation which in that locality meant mischief. + +"And what mouut YOU be doin' here, Mister Ben Dabney?" said Seth, +resuming his effrontery. + +"Well," returned Uncle Ben, planting himself in the aisle before his +opponent, "I ain't doin' no sheriff's posse business jest now, but I +reckon to keep my hand in far enuff to purtect other folks' property," +he added, with a significant glance at the broken lock of the desk. + +"Ben Dabney," said Seth in snarling expostulation, "I hain't got no +quar'll with ye!" + +"Then hand me over whatever you took just now from teacher's desk and +we'll talk about that afterwards," said Uncle Ben advancing. + +"I tell ye I hain't got no quar'll with ye, Uncle Ben," continued Seth, +retreating with a malignant sneer; "and when you talk of protectin' +other folks' property, mebbe ye'd better protect YOUR OWN--or what ye'd +like to call so--instead of quar'llin' with the man that's helpin' +ye. I've got yer the proofs that that sneakin' hound of a Yankee +school-master that Cress McKinstry's hell bent on, and that the old +man and old woman are just chuckin' into her arms, is a lyin', +black-hearted, hypocritical seducer"-- + +"Stop!" said Uncle Ben in a voice that made the crazy casement rattle. + +He strode towards Seth Davis, no longer with his habitual careful, +hesitating step, but with a tread that seemed to shake the whole +school-room. A single dominant clutch of his powerful right hand on the +young man's breast forced him backwards into the vacant chair of the +master. His usually florid face had grown as gray as the twilight; +his menacing form in a moment filled the little room and darkened the +windows. Then in some inexplicable reaction his figure slightly drooped, +he laid one heavy hand tremblingly on the desk, and with the other +affected to wipe his mouth after his old embarrassed fashion. + +"What's that you were sayin' o' Cressy?" he said huskily. + +"Wot everybody says," said the frightened Seth, gaining a cowardly +confidence under his adversary's emotion. "Wot every cub that sets yer +under his cantin' teachin', and sees 'em together, knows. It's wot you'd +hev knowed ef he and Roop Filgee hadn't played ye fer a softy all the +time. And while you've bin hangin' round yer fer a flicker of Cressy's +gownd as she prances out o' school, he's bin lyin' low and laffin' at +ye, and while he's turned Roop over to keep you here, pretendin' to give +ye lessons, he's bin gallivantin' round with her and huggin' and kissin' +her in barns and in the brush--and now YOU want to quar'll with me." + +He stopped, panting for breath, and stared malignantly in the gray face +of his hearer. But Uncle Ben only lifted his heavy hand mildly with +an awkward gesture of warning, stepped softly in his old cautious +hesitating manner to the open door, closed it, and returned gently:-- + +"I reckon ye got in through the winder, didn't ye, Seth?" he said, with +a labored affectation of unemotional ease, "a kind o' one leg over, and +one, two, and then you're in, eh?" + +"Never you mind HOW I got in, Ben Dabney," returned Seth, his hostility +and insolence increasing with his opponent's evident weakness, "ez long +ez I got yer and got, by G-d! what I kem here fer! For whiles all +this was goin' on, and whiles the old fool man and old fool woman was +swallowin' what they did see and blinkin' at what they didn't, and +huggin' themselves that they'd got high-toned kempany fer their darter, +that high-toned kempany was playin' THEM too, by G-d! Yes, Sir! that +high-toned, cantin' school-teacher was keepin' a married woman in +'Frisco, all the while he was here honey-foglin' with Cressy, and I've +got the papers yer to prove it." He tapped his breast-pocket with a +coarse laugh and thrust his face forward into the gray shadow of his +adversary's. + +"An' you sorter spotted their bein' in this yer desk and bursted it?" +said Uncle Ben, gravely examining the broken lock in the darkness as if +it were the most important feature of the incident. + +Seth nodded. "You bet your life. I saw him through the winder only this +afternoon lookin over 'em alone, and I reckoned to lay my hands on 'em +if I had to bust him or his desk. And I did!" he added with a triumphant +chuckle. + +"And you did--sure pop!" said Uncle Ben with slow deliberate admiration, +passing his heavy hand along the splintered lid. "And you reckon, Seth, +that this yer showin' of him up will break off enythin' betwixt him +and this yer--this yer Miss--Miss McKinstry?" he continued with labored +formality. + +"I reckon ef the old fool McKinstry don't shoot him in his tracks +thar'll be white men enough in Injin Springs to ride this high-toned, +pizenous hypocrit on a rail outer the settlement!" + +"That's so!" said Uncle Ben musingly, after a thoughtful pause, in +which he still seemed to be more occupied with the broken desk than his +companion's remark. Then he went on cautiously: "And ez this thing orter +be worked mighty fine, Seth, p'r'aps, on the hull, you'd better let me +have them papers." + +"What! YOU?" snarled Seth, drawing back with a glance of angry +suspicion; "not if I know it!" + +"Seth," said Uncle Ben, resting his elbows on the desk confidentially, +and speaking with painful and heavy deliberation, "when you first +interdoosed this yer subject you elluded to my hevin', so to speak, +rights o' preemption and interference with this young lady, and that +in your opinion, I wasn't purtectin' them rights. It 'pears to me +that, allowin' that to be gospel truth, them ther papers orter be in MY +possession--you hevin' so to speak no rights to purtect, bein' off the +board with this yer young lady, and bein' moved gin'rally by free and +independent cussedness. And ez I sed afore, this sort o' thing havin' +to be worked mighty fine, and them papers manniperlated with judgment, I +reckon, Seth, if you don't objeck, I'll hev--hev--to trouble you." + +Seth started to his feet with a rapid glance at the door, but Uncle Ben +had risen again with the same alarming expression of completely filling +the darkened school-room, and of shaking the floor beneath him at the +slightest movement. Already he fancied he saw Uncle Ben's powerful arm +hovering above him ready to descend. It suddenly occurred to him that if +he left the execution of his scheme of exposure and vengeance to Uncle +Ben, the onus of stealing the letters would fall equally upon their +possessor. This advantage seemed more probable than the danger of Uncle +Ben's weakly yielding them up to the master. In the latter case he, +Seth, could still circulate the report of having seen the letters which +Uncle Ben had himself stolen in a fit of jealousy--a hypothesis the more +readily accepted from the latter's familiar knowledge of the schoolhouse +and his presumed ambitious jealousy of Cressy in his present attitude +as a man of position. With affected reluctance and hesitation he put his +hand to his breast-pocket. + +"Of course," he said, "if you're kalkilatin' to take up the quar'll on +YOUR rights, and ez Cressy ain't anythin' more to me, YOU orter hev the +proofs. Only don't trust them into that hound's hands. Once he gets 'em +again he'll secure a warrant agin you for stealin'. That'll be his game. +I'd show 'em to HER first--don't ye see?--and I reckon ef she's old +Ma'am McKinstry's darter, she'll make it lively for him." + +He handed the letters to the looming figure before him. It seemed to +become again a yielding mortal, and said in a hesitating voice, "P'r'aps +you'd better make tracks outer this, Seth, and leave me yer to put +things to rights and fix up that door and the desk agin to-morrow +mornin'. He'd better not know it to onct, and so start a row about bein' +broken into." + +The proposition seemed to please Seth; he even extended his hand in the +darkness. But he met only an irresponsive void. With a slight shrug of +his shoulders and a grunting farewell, he felt his way to the door +and disappeared. For a few moments it seemed as if Uncle Ben had also +deserted the schoolhouse, so profound and quiet was the hush that fell +upon it. But as the eye became accustomed to the shadow a grayish bulk +appeared to grow out of it over the master's desk and shaped itself into +the broad figure of Uncle Ben. Later, when the moon rose and looked in +at the window, it saw him as the master had seen him on the first day +he had begun his lessons in the school-house, with his face bent forward +over the desk and the same look of child-like perplexity and struggle +that he had worn at his allotted task. Unheroic, ridiculous, and no +doubt blundering and idiotic as then, but still vaguely persistent in +his thought, he remained for some moments in this attitude. Then rising +and taking advantage of the moonlight that flooded the desk, he set +himself to mend the broken lock with a large mechanical clasp-knife +he produced from his pocket, and the aid of his workmanlike thumb +and finger. Presently he began to whistle softly, at first a little +artificially and with relapses of reflective silence. The lock of the +desk restored, he secured into position again that part of the door-lock +which he had burst off in his entrance. This done, he closed the door +gently and once more stepped out into the moonlit clearing. In replacing +his knife in his pocket he took out the letters which he had not touched +since they were handed to him in the darkness. His first glance at the +handwriting caused him to stop. Then still staring at it, he began to +move slowly and automatically backwards to the porch. When he reached +it he sat down, unfolded the letter, and without attempting to read it, +turned its pages over and over with the unfamiliarity of an illiterate +man in search of the signature. This when found apparently plunged him +again into motionless abstraction. Only once he changed his position +to pull up the legs of his trousers, open his knees, and extend the +distance between his feet, and then with the unfolded pages carefully +laid in the moonlit space thus opened before him, regarded them with +dubious speculation. At the end of ten minutes he rose with a sigh +of physical and mental relaxation, refolded the letter, put it in his +pocket, and made his way to the town. + +When he reached the hotel he turned into the bar-room, and observing +that it happened to be comparatively deserted, asked for a glass of +whiskey. In response to the barkeeper's glance of curiosity--as Uncle +Ben seldom drank, and then only as a social function with others--he +explained:-- + +"I reckon straight whiskey is about ez good ez the next thing for blind +chills." + +The bar-keeper here interposed that in his larger medical experience he +had found the exhibition of ginger in combination with gin attended +with effect, although it was evident that in his business capacity he +regarded Uncle Ben, as a drinker, with distrust. + +"Ye ain't seen Mr. Ford hanging round yer lately?" continued Uncle Ben +with laborious ease. + +The bar-keeper, with his eye still scornfully fixed on his customer, but +his hands which were engaged in washing his glasses under the +counter giving him the air of humorously communicating with a hidden +confederate, had not seen the school-master that afternoon. + +Uncle Ben turned away and slowly mounted the staircase to the master's +room. After a moment's pause on the landing, which must have been +painfully obvious to any one who heard his heavy ascent, he gave two +timid raps on the door which were equally ridiculous in contrast with +his powerful tread. The door was opened promptly by the master. + +"Oh, it's you, is it?" he said shortly. "Come in." + +Uncle Ben entered without noticing the somewhat ungracious form +of invitation. "It war me," he said, "dropped in, not finding ye +downstairs. Let's have a drink." + +The master gazed at Uncle Ben, who, owing to his abstraction, had not +yet wiped his mouth of the liquor he had imperfectly swallowed, and was +in consequence more redolent of whiskey than a confirmed toper. He rang +the bell for the desired refreshment with a slightly cynical smile. He +was satisfied that his visitor, like many others of humble position, was +succumbing to his good fortune. + +"I wanted to see ye, Mr. Ford," he began, taking an unproffered chair +and depositing his hat after some hesitation outside the door, "in +regard to what I onct told ye about my wife in Mizzouri. P'r'aps you +disremember?" + +"I remember," returned the master resignedly. + +"You know it was that arternoon that fool Stacey sent the sheriff and +the Harrisons over to McKinstry's barn." + +"Go on!" petulantly said the master, who had his own reasons for not +caring to recall it. + +"It was that arternoon, you know, that you hadn't time to hark to +me--hevin' to go off on an engagement," continued Uncle Ben with +protracted deliberation, "and"-- + +"Yes, yes, I remember," interrupted the master exasperatedly, "and +really unless you get on faster, I'll have to leave you again." + +"It was that arternoon," said Uncle Ben without heeding him, "when +I told you I hadn't any idea what had become o' my wife ez I left in +Mizzouri." + +"Yes," said the master sharply, "and I told you it was your bounden duty +to look for her." + +"That's so," said Uncle Ben nodding comfortably, "them's your very +words; on'y a leetle more strong than that, ef I don't disremember. +Well, I reckon I've got an idee!" The master assumed a sudden expression +of interest, but Uncle Ben did not vary his monotonous tone. + +"I kem across that idee, so to speak, on the trail. I kem across it in +some letters ez was lying wide open in the brush. I picked em up and +I've got 'em here." + +He slowly took the letters from his pocket with one hand, while he +dragged the chair on which he was sitting beside the master. But with a +quick flush of indignation Mr. Ford rose and extended his hand. + +"These are MY letters, Dabney," he said sternly, "stolen from my desk. +Who has dared to do this?" + +But Uncle Ben had, as if accidentally, interposed his elbow between the +master and Seth's spoils. + +"Then it's all right?" he returned deliberately. "I brought 'em here +because I thought they might give an idee where my wife was. For them +letters is in her own handwrite. You remember ez I told ez how she was a +scollard." + +The master sat back in his chair white and dumb. Incredible, +extraordinary, and utterly unlooked for as was this revelation, he felt +instinctively that it was true. + +"I couldn't read it myself--ez you know. I didn't keer to ax any one +else to read it for me--you kin reckon why, too. And that's why I'm +troublin' you to-night, Mr. Ford--ez a friend." + +The master with a desperate effort recovered his voice. "It is +impossible. The lady who wrote those letters does not bear your name. +More than that," he added with hasty irrelevance, "she is so free that +she is about to be married, as you might have read. You have made a +mistake, the handwriting may be like, but it cannot be really your +wife's." + +Uncle Ben shook his head slowly. "It's her'n--there's no mistake. When +a man, Mr. Ford, hez studied that handwrite--havin', so to speak, +knowed it on'y from the OUTSIDE--from seein' it passin' like between +friends--that man's chances o' bein' mistook ain't ez great ez the man's +who on'y takes in the sense of the words that might b'long to everybody. +And her name not bein' the same ez mine, don't foller. Ef she got a +divorce she'd take her old gal's name--the name of her fammerly. And +that would seem to allow she DID get a divorce. What mowt she hev called +herself when she writ this?" + +The master saw his opportunity and rose to it with a chivalrous +indignation, that for the moment imposed even upon himself. "I decline +to answer that question," he said angrily. "I refuse to allow the name +of any woman who honors me with her confidence to be dragged into the +infamous outrage that has been committed upon me and common decency. And +I shall hold the thief and scoundrel--whoever he may be--answerable to +myself in the absence of her natural protector." + +Uncle Ben surveyed the hero of these glittering generalities with +undisguised admiration. He extended his hand to him gravely. + +"Shake! Ef another proof was wantin', Mr. Ford, of that bein' my wife's +letter," he said, "that high-toned style of yours would settle it. For, +ef thar was one thing she DID like, it was that sort of po'try. And one +reason why her and me didn't get on, and why I skedaddled, was because +it wasn't in my line. Et's all in trainin'! On'y a man ez had the Fourth +Reader at his fingers' ends could talk like that. Bein' brought up on +Dobell--ez is nowhere--it sorter lets me outer you, ez it did outer HER. +But allowin' it ain't the square thing for YOU to mention her name, that +wouldn't be nothin' agin' MY doin' it, and callin' her, well--Lou Price +in a keerless sort o' way, eh?" + +"I decline to answer further," replied the master quickly, although his +color had changed at the name. "I decline to say another word on the +matter until this mystery is cleared up--until I know who dared to break +into my desk and steal my property, and the purpose of this unheard-of +outrage. And I demand possession of those letters at once." + +Uncle Ben without a word put them in the master's hand, to his slight +surprise, and it must be added to his faint discomfiture, nor was it +decreased when Uncle Ben added, with grave naivete and a patronizing +pressure of his hand on his shoulder,--"In course ez you're taken' it +on to yourself, and ez Lou Price ain't got no further call on ME, they +orter be yours. Ez to who got 'em outer the desk, I reckon you ain't got +no suspicion of any one spyin' round ye--hev ye?" + +In an instant the recollection of Seth Davis's face at the window and +the corroboration of Rupert's warning flashed across Ford's mind. The +hypothesis that Seth had imagined that they were Cressy's letters, and +had thrown them down without reading them when he had found out his +mistake, seemed natural. For if he had read them he would undoubtedly +have kept them to show to Cressy. The complex emotions that had +disturbed the master on the discovery of Uncle Ben's relationship to the +writer of the letters were resolving themselves into a furious rage at +Seth. But before he dared revenge himself he must be first assured that +Seth was ignorant of their contents. He turned to Uncle Ben. + +"I have a suspicion, but to make it certain I must ask you for the +present to say nothing of this to any one." + +Uncle Ben nodded. "And when you hev found out and you're settled in your +mind that you kin make my mind easy about this yer Lou Price, ez we'll +call her, bein' divorced squarely, and bein', so to speak, in the way o' +gettin' married agin, ye might let me know ez a friend. I reckon I won't +trouble you any more to-night--onless you and me takes another sociable +drink together in the bar. No? Well, then, good-night." He moved slowly +towards the door. With his hand on the lock he added: "Ef yer writin' to +her agin, you might say ez how you found ME lookin' well and comf'able, +and hopin' she's enjyin' the same blessin'. 'So long." + +He disappeared, leaving the master in a hopeless collapse of +conflicting, and, it is to be feared, not very heroic emotions. +The situation, which had begun so dramatically, had become suddenly +unromantically ludicrous, without, however, losing any of its +embarrassing quality. He was conscious that he occupied the singular +position of being more ridiculous than the husband--whose invincible and +complacent simplicity stung him like the most exquisite irony. For an +instant he was almost goaded into the fury of declaring that he had +broken off from the writer of the letters forever, but its inconsistency +with the chivalrous attitude he had just taken occurred to him in time +to prevent him from becoming doubly absurd. His rage with Seth Davis +seemed to him the only feeling left that was genuine and rational, and +yet, now that Uncle Ben had gone, even that had a spurious ring. It was +necessary for him to lash himself into a fury over the hypothesis that +the letters MIGHT have been Cressy's, and desecrated by that scoundrel's +touch. Perhaps he had read them and left them to be picked up by others. +He looked over them carefully to see if their meaning would, to the +ordinary reader, appear obvious and compromising. His eye fell on the +first paragraph. + +"I should not be quite fair with you, Jack, if I affected to disbelieve +in your faith in your love for me and its endurance, but I should be +still more unfair if I didn't tell you what I honestly believe, that at +your age you are apt to deceive yourself, and, without knowing it, to +deceive others. You confess you have not yet decided upon your career, +and you are always looking forward so hopefully, dear Jack, for a change +in the future, but you are willing to believe that far more serious +things than that will suffer no change in the mean time. If we continued +as we were, I, who am older than you and have more experience, might +learn the misery of seeing you change towards ME as I have changed +towards another, and for the same reason. If I were sure I could keep +pace with you in your dreams and your ambition, if I were sure that I +always knew WHAT they were, we might still be happy--but I am not sure, +and I dare not again risk my happiness on an uncertainty. In coming to +my present resolution I do not look for happiness, but at least I know +I shall not suffer disappointment, nor involve others in it. I confess I +am growing too old not to feel the value to a woman--a necessity to her +in this country--of security in her present and future position. Another +can give me that. And although you may call this a selfish view of our +relations, I believe that you will soon--if you do not, even as you read +this now--feel the justice of it, and thank me for taking it." + +With a smile of scorn he tore up the letter, in what he fondly believed +was the bitterness of an outraged trustful nature, forgetting that for +many weeks he had scarcely thought of its writer, and that he himself in +his conduct had already anticipated its truths. + + + + +CHAPTER XII. + + +The master awoke the next morning, albeit after a restless night, with +that clarity of conscience and perception which it is to be feared is +more often the consequence of youth and a perfect circulation than of +any moral conviction or integrity. He argued with himself that as the +only party really aggrieved in the incident of the previous night, the +right of remedy remained with him solely, and under the benign influence +of an early breakfast and the fresh morning air he was inclined to +feel less sternly even towards Seth Davis. In any event, he must first +carefully weigh the evidence against him, and examine the scene of the +outrage closely. For this purpose, he had started for the school-house +fully an hour before his usual time. He was even light-hearted enough to +recognize the humorous aspect of Uncle Ben's appeal to him, and his +own ludicrously paradoxical attitude, and as he at last passed from the +dreary flat into the fringe of upland pines, he was smiling. Well for +him, perhaps, that he was no more affected by any premonition of the +day before him than the lately awakened birds that lightly cut the still +sleeping woods around him in their long flashing sabre-curves of flight. +A yellow-throat, destined to become the breakfast of a lazy hawk still +swinging above the river, was especially moved to such a causeless and +idiotic roulade of mirth that the master listening to the foolish bird +was fain to whistle too. He presently stopped, however, with a slight +embarrassment. For a few paces before him Cressy had unexpectedly +appeared. + +She had evidently been watching for him. But not with her usual indolent +confidence. There was a strained look of the muscles of her mouth, as of +some past repression, and a shaded hollow under her temples beneath the +blonde rings of her shorter hair. Her habitually slow, steady eye was +troubled, and she cast a furtive glance around her before she searched +him with her glance. Without knowing why, yet vaguely fearing that +he did, he became still more embarrassed, and in the very egotism of +awkwardness, stammered without a further salutation: "A disgraceful +thing has happened last night, and I'm up early to find the perpetrator. +My desk was broken into, and"-- + +"I know it," she interrupted, with a half-impatient, half uneasy putting +away of the subject with her little hand--"there--don't go all over it +again. Paw and Maw have been at me about it all night--ever since those +Harrisons in their anxiousness to make up their quarrel, rushed over +with the news. I'm tired of it!" + +For an instant he was staggered. How much had she learned! With the +same awkward indirectness, he said vaguely, "But it might have been YOUR +letters, you know?" + +"But it wasn't," she said, simply. "It OUGHT to have been. I wish it +had"--She stopped, and again regarded him with a strange expression. +"Well," she said slowly, "what are you going to do?" + +"To find out the scoundrel who has done this," he said firmly, "and +punish him as he deserves." + +The almost imperceptible shrug that had raised her shoulders gave way as +she regarded him with a look of wearied compassion. + +"No," she said, gravely, "you cannot. They're too many for you. You must +go away, at once." + +"Never," he said indignantly. "Even if it were not a cowardice. It would +be more--a confession!" + +"Not more than they already know," she said wearily. "But, I tell you, +you MUST go. I have sneaked out of the house and run here all the way to +warn you. If you--you care for me, Jack--you will go." + +"I should be a traitor to you if I did," he said quickly. "I shall +stay." + +"But if--if--Jack--if"--she drew nearer him with a new-found +timidity, and then suddenly placed her two hands upon his shoulders: +"If--if--Jack--I were to go with you?" + +The old rapt, eager look of possession had come back to her face now; +her lips were softly parted. Yet even then she seemed to be waiting some +reply more potent than that syllabled on the lips of the man before her. + +Howbeit that was the only response. "Darling," he said kissing her, "but +wouldn't that justify them"-- + +"Stop," she said suddenly. Then putting her hand over his mouth, she +continued with the same half-weary expression: "Don't let us go over all +that again either. It is SO tiresome. Listen, dear. You'll do one or +two little things for me--won't you, dandy boy? Don't linger long at the +school-house after lessons. Go right home! Don't look after these men +TO-DAY--to-morrow, Saturday, is your holiday--you know--and you'll have +more time. Keep to yourself to-day as much as you can, dear, for twelve +hours--until--until--you hear from me, you know. It will be all right +then," she added, lifting her eyelids with a sudden odd resemblance to +her father's look of drowsy pain, which Ford had never noticed before. +"Promise me that, dear, won't you?" + +With a mental reservation he promised hurriedly--preoccupied in his +wonder why she seemed to avoid his explanation, in his desire to know +what had happened, in the pride that had kept him from asking more or +volunteering a defence, and in his still haunting sense of having been +wronged. Yet he could not help saying as he caught and held her hand:-- + +"YOU have not doubted me, Cressy? YOU have not allowed this infamous +raking up of things that are past and gone to alter your feelings?" + +She looked at him abstractedly. "You think it might alter ANYBODY'S +feelings, then?" + +"Nobody's who really loved another"--he stammered. + +"Don't let us talk of it any more," she said suddenly stretching out +her arms, lifting them above her head with a wearied gesture, and then +letting them fall clasped before her in her old habitual fashion. "It +makes my head ache; what with Paw and Maw and the rest of them--I'm sick +of it all." + +She turned away as Ford drew back coldly and let her hand fall from +his arm. She took a few steps forward, stopped, ran back to him again, +crushed his face and head in a close embrace, and then seemed to dip +like a bird into the tall bracken, and was gone. + +The master stood for some moments chagrined and bewildered; it was +characteristic of his temperament that he had paid less heed to what +she told him than what he IMAGINED had passed between her mother and +herself. She was naturally jealous of the letters--he could forgive her +for that; she had doubtless been twitted about them, but he could easily +explain them to her parents--as he would have done to her. But he was +not such a fool as to elope with her at such a moment, without first +clearing his character--and knowing more of hers. And it was equally +characteristic of him that in his sense of injury he confounded her with +the writer of the letters--as sympathizing with his correspondent in her +estimate of his character, and was quite carried away with the belief +that he was equally wronged by both. + +It was not until he reached the schoolhouse that the evidences of +last night's outrage for a time distracted his mind from his singular +interview. He was struck with the workmanlike manner in which the locks +had been restored, and the care that had evidently been taken to remove +the more obvious and brutal traces of burglary. This somewhat staggered +his theory that Seth Davis was the perpetrator; mechanical skill and +thoughtfulness were not among the lout's characteristics. But he was +still more disconcerted on pushing back his chair to find a small +india-rubber tobacco pouch lying beneath it. The master instantly +recognized it: he had seen it a hundred times before--it was Uncle +Ben's. It was not there when he had closed the room yesterday afternoon. +Either Uncle Ben had been there last night, or had anticipated him this +morning. But in the latter case he would scarcely have overlooked his +fallen property--that, in the darkness of the night, might have readily +escaped detection. His brow darkened with a sudden conviction that +it was Uncle Ben who was the real and only offender, and that his +simplicity of the previous night was part of his deception. A sickening +sense that he had been again duped--but why or to what purpose he hardly +dared to think--overcame him. Who among these strange people could he +ever again trust? After the fashion of more elevated individuals, he had +accepted the respect and kindness of those he believed his inferiors as +a natural tribute to his own superiority; any change in THEIR feelings +must therefore be hypocrisy or disloyalty; it never occurred to him that +HE might have fallen below their standard. + +The arrival of the children and the resumption of his duties for a time +diverted him. But although the morning's exercise restored the master's +self-confidence, it cannot be said to have improved his judgment. +Disdaining to question Rupert Filgee, as the possible confidant of Uncle +Ben, he answered the curious inquiries of the children as to the broken +doorlock with the remark that it was a matter that he should have to +bring before the Trustees of the Board, and by the time that school was +over and the pupils dismissed he had quite resolved upon this formal +disposition of it. In spite of Cressy's warning--rather because of +it--in the new attitude he had taken towards her and her friends, he +lingered in the school-house until late. He had occupied himself +in drawing up a statement of the facts, with an intimation that his +continuance in the school would depend upon a rigid investigation of the +circumstances, when he was aroused by the clatter of horses' hoofs. The +next moment the school-house was surrounded by a dozen men. + +He looked up; half of them dismounted and entered the room. The other +half remained outside darkening the windows with their motionless +figures. Each man carried a gun before him on the saddle; each man wore +a rude mask of black cloth partly covering his face. + +Although the master was instinctively aware that he was threatened by +serious danger, he was far from being impressed by the arms and disguise +of his mysterious intruders. On the contrary, the obvious and glaring +inconsistency of this cheaply theatrical invasion of the peaceful +school-house; of this opposition of menacing figures to the scattered +childish primers and text-books that still lay on the desks around him, +only extracted from him a half scornful smile as he coolly regarded +them. The fearlessness of ignorance is often as unassailable as the +most experienced valor, and the awe-inspiring invaders were at first +embarrassed and then humanly angry. A lank figure to the right made a +forward movement of impotent rage, but was checked by the evident leader +of the party. + +"Ef he likes to take it that way, there ain't no Regulators law agin it, +I reckon," he said, in a voice which the master instantly recognized as +Jim Harrison's, "though ez a gin'ral thing they don't usually find it +FUN." Then turning to the master he added, "Mister Ford, ef that's the +name you go by everywhere, we're wantin' a man about your size." + +Ford knew that he was in hopeless peril. He knew that he was physically +defenceless and at the mercy of twelve armed and lawless men. But he +retained a preternatural clearness of perception, and audacity born +of unqualified scorn for his antagonists, with a feminine sharpness of +tongue. In a voice which astonished even himself by its contemptuous +distinctness, he said: "My name IS Ford, but as I only SUPPOSE your name +is Harrison perhaps you'll be fair enough to take that rag from your +face and show it to me like a man." + +The man removed the mask from his face with a slight laugh. + +"Thank you," said Ford. "Now, perhaps you will tell me which one of you +gentlemen broke into the school-house, forced the lock of my desk, +and stole my papers. If he is here I wish to tell him he is not only a +thief, but a cur and a coward, for the letters are a woman's--whom he +neither knows nor has the right to know." + +If he had hoped to force a personal quarrel and trust his life to the +chance of a single antagonist, he was disappointed, for although his +unexpected attitude had produced some effect among the group, and even +attracted the attention of the men at the windows, Harrison strode +deliberately towards him. + +"That kin wait," he said; "jest now we propose to take you and your +letters and drop 'em and you outer this yer township of Injin Springs. +You kin take 'em back to the woman or critter you got 'em of. But we +kalkilate you're a little too handy and free in them sorter things to +teach school round yer, and we kinder allow we don't keer to hev our +gals and boys eddicated up to your high-toned standard. So ef you choose +to kem along easy we'll mak' you comf'ble on a hoss we've got waitin' +outside, an' escort you across the line. Ef you don't--we'll take you +anyway." + +The master cast a rapid glance around him. In his quickness of +perception he had already noted that the led horse among the cavalcade +was fastened by a lariat to one of the riders so that escape by flight +was impossible, and that he had not a single weapon to defend himself +with or even provoke, in his desperation, the struggle that could +forestall ignominy by death. Nothing was left him but his voice, clear +and trenchant as he faced them. + +"You are twelve to one," he said calmly, "but if there is a single man +among you who dare step forward and accuse me of what you only TOGETHER +dare do, I will tell him he is a liar and a coward, and stand here ready +to make it good against him. You come here as judge and jury condemning +me without trial, and confronting me with no accusers; you come here as +lawless avengers of your honor, and you dare not give ME the privilege +of as lawlessly defending my own." + +There was another slight murmur among the men, but the leader moved +impatiently forward. "We've had enough o' your preachin': we want YOU," +he said roughly. "Come." + +"Stop," said a dull voice. + +It came from a mute figure which had remained motionless among the +others. Every eye was turned upon it as it rose and lazily pushed the +cloth from its face. + +"Hiram McKinstry!" said the others in mingled tones of astonishment and +suspicion. + +"That's me!" said McKinstry, coming forward with heavy deliberation. "I +joined this yer delegation at the crossroads instead o' my brother, who +had the call. I reckon et's all the same--or mebbe better. For I perpose +to take this yer gentleman off your hands." + +He lifted his slumbrous eyes for the first time to the master, and at +the same time put himself between him and Harrison. "I perpose," he +continued, "to take him at his word; I perpose ter give him a chance to +answer with a gun. And ez I reckon, by all accounts, there's no man +yer ez hez a better right than ME, I perpose to be the man to put +that question to him in the same way. Et may not suit some gents," +he continued slowly, facing an angry exclamation from the lank figure +behind him, "ez would prefer to hev eleven men to take up THEIR private +quo'lls, but even then I reckon that the man who is the most injured hez +the right to the first say and that man's ME." + +With a careful deliberation that had a double significance to the +malcontents, he handed his own rifle to the master and without looking +at him continued: "I reckon, sir, you've seen that afore, but ef it +ain't quite to your hand, any of those gents, I kalkilate, will be +high-toned enuff to giv you the chyce o' theirs. And there's no need o' +trapsin' beyon' the township lines, to fix this yer affair; I perpose to +do it in ten minutes in the brush yonder." + +Whatever might have been the feelings and intentions of the men around +him, the precedence of McKinstry's right to the duello was a principle +too deeply rooted in their traditions to deny; if any resistance to it +had been contemplated by some of them, the fact that the master was now +armed, and that Mr. McKinstry would quickly do battle at his side with a +revolver in defence of his rights, checked any expression. They +silently drew back as the master and McKinstry slowly passed out of the +school-house together, and then followed in their rear. In that interval +the master turned to McKinstry and said in a low voice: "I accept +your challenge and thank you for it. You have never done me a greater +kindness--whatever I have done to YOU--yet I want you to believe that +neither now nor THEN--I meant you any harm." + +"Ef you mean by that, sir, that ye reckon ye won't return my fire, ye're +blind and wrong. For it will do you no good with them," he said with a +significant wave of his crippled hand towards the following crowd, "nor +me neither." + +Firmly resolved, however, that he would not fire at McKinstry, and +clinging blindly to this which he believed was the last idea of his +foolish life, he continued on without another word until they reached +the open strip of chemisal that flanked the clearing. + +The rude preliminaries were soon settled. The parties armed with rifles +were to fire at the word from a distance of eighty yards, and then +approach each other, continuing the fight with revolvers until one +or the other fell. The selection of seconds was effected by the elder +Harrison acting for McKinstry, and after a moment's delay by the +volunteering of the long, lank figure previously noted to act for the +master. Preoccupied by other thoughts, Mr. Ford paid little heed to his +self-elected supporter, who to the others seemed to be only taking that +method of showing his contempt for McKinstry's recent insult. The master +received the rifle mechanically from his hand and walked to position. +He noticed, however, and remembered afterwards that his second was half +hidden by the trunk of a large pine to his right that marked the limit +of the ground. + +In that supreme moment it must be recorded, albeit against all +preconceived theory, that he did NOT review his past life, was NOT +illuminated by a flash of remorseful or sentimental memory, and did NOT +commend his soul to his Maker, but that he was simply and keenly alive +to the very actual present in which he still existed and to his one idea +of not firing at his adversary. And if anything could render his conduct +more theoretically incorrect it was a certain exalted sense that he was +doing quite right and was not only NOT a bad sort of fellow, but one +whom his survivors might possibly regret! + +"Are you ready, gentlemen? One--two--three--fi . . . !" + +The explosions were singularly simultaneous--so remarkable in fact that +it seemed to the master that his rifle, fired in the air, had given a +DOUBLE report. A light wreath of smoke lay between him and his opponent. +He was unhurt--so evidently was his adversary, for the voice rose again. + +"Advance! . . . Hallo there! Stop!" + +He looked up quickly to see McKinstry stagger and then fall heavily to +the ground. + +With an exclamation of horror, the first and only terrible emotion he +had felt, he ran to the fallen man, as Harrison reached his side at the +same moment. + +"For God's sake," he said wildly, throwing himself on his knees beside +McKinstry, "what has happened? For I swear to you, I never aimed at you! +I fired in the air. Speak! Tell him, you," he turned with a despairing +appeal to Harrison, "you must have seen it all--tell him it was not me!" + +A half wondering, half incredulous smile passed quickly over Harrison's +face. "In course you didn't MEAN it," he said dryly, "but let +that slide. Get up and get away from yer, while you kin," he added +impatiently, with a significant glance at one or two men who lingered +after the sudden and general dispersion of the crowd at McKinstry's +fall. "Get--will ye!" + +"Never!" said the young man passionately, "until he knows that it was +not my hand that fired that shot." + +McKinstry painfully struggled to his elbow. "It took me yere," he said +with a slow deliberation, as if answering some previous question, and +pointing to his hip, "and it kinder let me down when I started forward +at the second call." + +"But it was not I who did it, McKinstry, I swear it. Hear me! For God's +sake, say you believe me." + +McKinstry turned his drowsy troubled eyes upon the master as if he were +vaguely recalling something. "Stand back thar a minit, will ye," he said +to Harrison, with a languid wave of his crippled hand; "I want ter speak +to this yer man." + +Harrison drew back a few paces and the master sought to take the wounded +man's hand, but he was stopped by a gesture. "Where hev you put Cressy?" +McKinstry said slowly. + +"I don't understand you," stammered Ford. + +"Where are you hidin' her from me?" repeated McKinstry with painful +distinctness. "Whar hev you run her to, that you're reckonin' to jine +her arter--arter--THIS?" + +"I am not hiding her! I am not going to her! I do not know where she is. +I have not seen her since we parted early this morning without a word +of meeting again," said the master rapidly, yet with a bewildered +astonishment that was obvious even to the dulled faculties of his +hearer. + +"That war true?" asked McKinstry, laying his hand upon the master's +shoulder and bringing his dull eyes to the level of the young man's. + +"It is the whole truth," said Ford fervently, "and true also that I +never raised my hand against you." + +McKinstry beckoned to Harrison and the two others who had joined him, +and then sank partly back with his hand upon his side, where the slow +empurpling of his red shirt showed the slight ooze of a deeply-seated +wound. + +"You fellers kin take me over to the ranch," he said calmly, "and let +him," pointing to Ford, "ride your best hoss fer the doctor. I don't," +he continued in grave explanation, "gin'rally use a doctor, but this yer +is suthin' outside the old woman's regular gait." He paused, and then +drawing the master's head down towards him, he added in his ear, "When +I get to hev a look at the size and shape o' this yer ball that's in +my hip, I'll--I'll--I'll--be--a--little more kam!" A gleam of dull +significance struggled into his eye. The master evidently understood +him, for he rose quickly, ran to the horse, mounted him and dashed +off for medical assistance, while McKinstry, closing his heavy lids, +anticipated this looked-for calm by fainting gently away. + + + + +CHAPTER XIII. + + +Of the various sentimental fallacies entertained by adult humanity +in regard to childhood, none are more ingeniously inaccurate and +gratuitously idiotic than a comfortable belief in its profound ignorance +of the events in which it daily moves, and the motives and characters +of the people who surround it. Yet even the occasional revelations of an +enfant terrible are as nothing compared to the perilous secrets which +a discreet infant daily buttons up, or secures with a hook-and-eye, +or even fastens with a safety-pin across its gentle bosom. Society can +never cease to be grateful for that tact and consideration--qualities +more often joined with childish intuition and perception than with +matured observation--that they owe to it; and the most accomplished +man or woman of the great world might take a lesson from this little +audience who receive from their lips the lie they feel too palpable, +with round-eyed complacency, or outwardly accept as moral and genuine +the hollow sentiment they have overheard rehearsed in private for their +benefit. + +It was not strange therefore that the little people of the Indian Spring +school knew perhaps more of the real relations of Cressy McKinstry to +her admirers than the admirers themselves. Not that this knowledge was +outspoken--for children rarely gossip in the grown-up sense--or even +communicable by words intelligent to the matured intellect. A whisper, +a laugh that often seemed vague and unmeaning, conveyed to each other +a world of secret significance, and an apparently senseless burst of +merriment in which the whole class joined and that the adult critic set +down to "animal spirits"--a quality much more rare with children than +generally supposed--was only a sympathetic expression of some discovery +happily oblivious to older preoccupation. The childish simplicity +of Uncle Ben perhaps appealed more strongly to their sympathy, and +although, for that very reason, they regarded him with no more respect +than they did each other, he was at times carelessly admitted to their +confidence. It was especially Rupert Filgee who extended a kind of +patronizing protectorate over him--not unmixed with doubts of his +sanity, in spite of the promised confidential clerkship he was to +receive from his hands. + +On the day of the events chronicled in the preceding chapter, Rupert on +returning from school was somewhat surprised to find Uncle Ben perched +upon the rail-fence before the humble door of the Filgee mansion +and evidently awaiting him. Slowly dismounting as Rupert and Johnny +approached, he beamed upon the former for some moments with arch and yet +affable mystery. + +"Roopy, old man, I s'pose ye've got yer duds all ready in yer pack, eh?" + +A flush of pleasure passed over the boy's handsome face. He cast, +however, a hurried look down on the all-pervading Johnny. + +"'Cause ye see we kalkilate to take the down stage to Sacramento at +four o'clock," continued Uncle Ben, enjoying Rupert's half sceptical +surprise. "Ye enter into office, so to speak, with me at that hour, +when the sellery, seventy-five dollars a month and board, ez private and +confidential clerk, begins--eh?" + +Rupert's dimples deepened in charming, almost feminine, embarrassment. +"But dad--?" he stammered. + +"Et's all right with HIM. He's agreeable." + +"But--?" + +Uncle Ben followed Rupert's glance at Johnny, who however appeared to be +absorbed in the pattern of Uncle Ben's new trousers. + +"That's fixed," he said with a meaning smile. "There's a sort o' bonus +we pays down, you know--for a Chinyman to do the odd jobs." + +"And teacher--Mr. Ford--did ye tell him?" said Rupert brightening. + +Uncle Ben coughed slightly. "He's agreeable, too, I reckon. That is," +he wiped his mouth meditatively, "he ez good ez allowed it in gin'ral +conversation a week ago, Roop." + +A swift shadow of suspicion darkened the boy's brown eyes. "Is anybody +else goin' with us?" he said quickly. + +"Not this yer trip," replied Uncle Ben complacently. "Ye see, Roop," he +continued, drawing him aside with an air of comfortable mystery, "this +yer biz'ness b'longs to the private and confidential branch of the +office. From informashun we've received"-- + +"WE?" interrupted Rupert. + +"'We,' that's the OFFICE, you know," continued Uncle Ben with a heavy +assumption of business formality, "wot we've received per several hands +and consignee--we--that's YOU and ME, Roop--we goes down to Sacramento +to inquire into the standin' of a certing party, as per invoice, and ter +see--ter see--ter negotiate you know, ter find out if she's married or +di-vorced," he concluded quickly, as if abandoning for the moment his +business manner in consideration of Rupert's inexperience. "We're to +find out her standin', Roop," he began again with a more judicious +blending of ease and technicality, "and her contracts, if any, and where +she lives and her way o' life, and examine her books and papers ez +to marriages and sich, and arbitrate with her gin'rally in +conversation--you inside the house and me out on the pavement, ready to +be called in if an interview with business principals is desired." + +Observing Rupert somewhat perplexed and confused with these +technicalities, he tactfully abandoned them for the present, and +consulting a pocket-book said, "I've made a memorandum of some pints +that we'll talk over on the journey," again charged Rupert to be +punctually at the stage office with his carpetbag, and cheerfully +departed. + +When he had disappeared Johnny Filgee, without a single word of +explanation, fell upon his brother, and at once began a violent attack +of kicks and blows upon his legs and other easily accessible parts +of his person, accompanying his assault with unintelligible gasps and +actions, finally culminating in a flood of tears and the casting of +himself on his back in the dust with the copper-fastened toes of his +small boots turning imaginary wheels in the air. Rupert received these +characteristic marks of despairing and outraged affection with +great forbearance, only saying, "There, now, Johnny, quit that," and +eventually bearing him still struggling into the house. Here Johnny, +declaring that he would kill any "Chinyman" that offered to dress him, +and burn down the house after his brother's infamous desertion of it, +Rupert was constrained to mingle a few nervous, excited tears with his +brother's outbreak. Whereat Johnny, admitting the alleviation of an +orange, a four-bladed knife, and the reversionary interest in much of +Rupert's personal property, became more subdued. Sitting there with +their arms entwined about each other, the sunlight searching the +shiftless desolation of their motherless home, the few cheap playthings +they had known lying around them, they beguiled themselves with +those charming illusions of their future intentions common to their +years--illusions they only half believed themselves and half accepted of +each other. Rupert was quite certain that he would return in a few days +with a gold watch and a present for Johnny, and Johnny, with a baleful +vision of never seeing him again, and a catching breath, magnificently +undertook to bring in the wood and build the fire and wash the dishes +"all of himself." And then there were a few childish confidences +regarding their absent father--then ingenuously playing poker in the +Magnolia Saloon--that might have made that public-spirited, genial +companion somewhat uncomfortable, and more tears that were half smiling +and some brave silences that were wholly pathetic, and then the hour +for Rupert's departure all too suddenly arrived. They separated with +ostentatious whooping, and then Johnny, suddenly overcome with +the dreadfulness of all earthly things, and the hollowness of life +generally, instantly resolved to run away! + +To do this he prepared himself with a purposeless hatchet, an +inconsistent but long-treasured lump of putty and all the sugar that was +left in the cracked sugar-bowl. Thus accoutred he sallied forth, first +to remove all traces of his hated existence that might be left in his +desk at school. If the master were there he would say Rupert had sent +him; if he wasn't, he would climb in at the window. The sun was already +sinking when he reached the clearing and found a cavalcade of armed men +around the building. + +Johnny's first conviction was that the master had killed Uncle Ben +or Masters, and that the men, taking advantage of the absence of +his--Johnny's--big brother, were about to summarily execute him. +Observing no struggle from within, his second belief was that the master +had been suddenly elected Governor of California and was about to start +with a state escort from the school-house, and that he, Johnny, was in +time to see the procession. But when the master appeared with McKinstry, +followed by part of the crowd afoot, this quick-witted child of the +frontier, from his secure outlook in the "brush," gathered enough from +their fragmentary speech to guess the serious purport of their errand, +and thrill with anticipation and slightly creepy excitement. + +A duel! A thing hitherto witnessed only by grown-up men, afterwards +swaggering with importance and strange technical bloodthirsty words, and +now for the first time reserved for a BOY--and that boy him, Johnny!--to +behold in all its fearful completeness! A duel! of which, he, Johnny, +meanly abandoned by his brother, was now exalted perhaps to be the only +survivor! He could scarcely credit his senses. It was too much! + +To creep through the brush while the preliminaries were being settled, +reach a certain silver fir on the appointed ground, and with the aid of +his now lucky hatchet, climb unseen to its upper boughs, was an exciting +and difficult task, but one eventually overcome by his short but +energetic legs. Here he could not only see all that occurred, but by +a fortunate chance the large pine next to him had been selected as the +limit of the ground. The sharp eyes of the boy had long since penetrated +the disguises of the remaining masked men, and when the long, lank +figure of the master's self-appointed second took up its position +beneath the pines in full view of him, although hidden from the +spectators, Johnny instantly recognized it to be none other than Seth +Davis. The manifest inconsistency of his appearance as Mr. Ford's second +with what Johnny knew of his relations to the master was the one thing +that firmly fixed the incident in the boy's memory. + +The men were already in position. Harrison stepped forward to give the +word. Johnny's down-hanging legs tingled with cramp and excitement. +Why didn't they begin? What were they waiting for? What if it were +interrupted, or--terrible thought--made up at the last moment? Would +they "holler" out when they were hit, or stagger round convulsively as +they did at the "cirkiss"? Would they all run away afterwards and leave +Johnny alone to tell the tale? And--horrible thought!--would any +body believe him? Would Rupert? Rupert, had he "on'y knowed this," he +wouldn't have gone away. + +"One"-- + +With a child's perfect faith in the invulnerable superiority of his +friends, he had not even looked at the master, but only at his destined +victim. Yet as the word "two" rang out Johnny's attention was suddenly +attracted to the surprising fact that the master's second, Seth Davis, +had also drawn a pistol, and from behind his tree was deliberately +and stealthily aiming at McKinstry! He understood it all now--he was a +friend of the master's. Bully for Seth! + +"Three!" + +Crack! Z-i-i-p! Crackle! What a funny noise! And yet he was obliged to +throw himself flat upon the bough to keep from falling. It seemed to +have snapped beneath him and benumbed his right leg. He did not know +that the master's bullet, fired in the air, had ranged along the bough, +stripping the bark throughout its length, and glancing with half-spent +force to inflict a slight flesh wound on his leg! + +He was giddy and a little frightened. And he had seen nobody hit, nor +nothin'. It was all a humbug! Seth had disappeared. So had the others. +There was a faint sound of voices and something like a group in the +distance--that was all. It was getting dark, too, and his leg was still +asleep, but warm and wet. He would get down. This was very difficult, +for his leg would not wake up, and but for the occasional support he got +by striking his hatchet in the tree he would have fallen in descending. +When he reached the ground his leg began to pain, and looking down he +saw that his stocking and shoe were soaked with blood. + +His small and dirty handkerchief, a hard wad in his pocket, was +insufficient to staunch the flow. With a vague recollection of a certain +poultice applied to a boil on his father's neck, he collected a quantity +of soft moss and dried yerba buena leaves, and with the aid of his check +apron and of one of his torn suspenders tightly wound round the whole +mass, achieved a bandage of such elephantine proportions that he could +scarcely move with it. In fact, like most imaginative children, he +became slightly terrified at his own alarming precautions. Nevertheless, +although a word or an outcry from him would have at that moment brought +the distant group to his assistance, a certain respect to himself and +his brother kept him from uttering even a whimper of weakness. + +Yet he found refuge, oddly enough, in a suppressed but bitter +denunciation of the other boys of his acquaintance. What was Cal. +Harrison doing, while he, Johnny, was alone in the woods, wounded in a +grown-up duel--for nothing would convince this doughty infant that +he had not been an active participant? Where was Jimmy Snyder that he +didn't come to his assistance with the other fellers? Cowards all; they +were afraid. Ho, ho! And he, Johnny, wasn't afraid! ho--he didn't mind +it! Nevertheless he had to repeat the phrase two or three times until, +after repeated struggles to move forward through the brush, he at last +sank down exhausted. By this time the distant group had slowly moved +away, carrying something between them, and leaving Johnny alone in the +fast coming darkness. Yet even this desertion did not affect him as +strongly as his implicit belief in the cowardly treachery of his old +associates. + +It grew darker and darker, until the open theatre of the late conflict +appeared enclosed in funereal walls; a cool searching breath of air that +seemed to have crept through the bracken and undergrowth like a stealthy +animal, lifted the curls on his hot forehead. He grasped his hatchet +firmly as against possible wild beasts, and as a medicinal and remedial +precaution, took another turn with his suspender around his bandage. +It occurred to him then that he would probably die. They would all feel +exceedingly sorry and alarmed, and regret having made him wash himself +on Saturday night. They would attend his funeral in large numbers in +the little graveyard, where a white tombstone inscribed to "John Filgee, +fell in a duel at the age of seven," would be awaiting him. He would +forgive his brother, his father, and Mr. Ford. Yet even then he vaguely +resented a few leaves and twigs dropped by a woodpecker in the tree +above him, with a shake of his weak fist and an incoherent declaration +that they couldn't "play no babes in the wood on HIM." And then having +composed himself he once more turned on his side to die, as became the +scion of a heroic race! The free woods, touched by an upspringing wind, +waved their dark arms above him, and higher yet a few patient stars +silently ranged themselves around his pillow. + +But with the rising wind and stars came the swift trampling of horses' +hoofs and the flashing of lanterns, and Doctor Duchesne and the master +swept down into the opening. + +"It was here," said the master quickly, "but they must have taken him on +to his own home. Let us follow." + +"Hold on a moment," said the doctor, who had halted before the tree. +"What's all this? Why, it's baby Filgee--by thunder!" + +In another moment they had both dismounted and were leaning over the +half conscious child. Johnny turned his feverishly bright eyes from the +lantern to the master and back again. + +"What is it, Johnny boy?" asked the master tenderly. "Were you lost?" + +With a gleam of feverish exaltation, Johnny rose, albeit wanderingly, to +the occasion! + +"Hit!" he lisped feebly, "Hit in a doell! at the age of theven." + +"What!" asked the bewildered master. + +But Doctor Duchesne, after a single swift scrutiny of the boy's face, +had unearthed him from his nest of leaves, laid him in his lap, and +deftly ripped away the preposterous bandage. "Hold the light here. By +Jove! he tells the truth. Who did it, Johnny?" + +But Johnny was silent. In an interval of feverish consciousness and +pain, his perception and memory had been quickened; a suspicion of the +real cause of his disaster had dawned upon him--but his childish lips +were heroically sealed. The master glanced appealingly at the Doctor. + +"Take him before you in the saddle to McKinstry's," said the latter +promptly. "I can attend to both." + +The master lifted the boy tenderly in his arms. Johnny, stimulated by +the prospect of a free ride, became feebly interested in his fellow +sufferer. + +"Did Theth hit him bad?" he asked. + +"Seth?" echoed the master, wildly. + +"Yeth. I theed him when he took aim." + +The master did not reply, but the next moment Johnny felt himself +clasped in his arms in the saddle before him, borne like a whirlwind in +the direction of the McKinstry ranch. + + + + +CHAPTER XIV. + + +They found the wounded man lying in the front room upon a rudely +extemporized couch of bear-skins, he having sternly declined the +effeminacy of his wife's bedroom. In the possibility of a fatal +termination to his wound, and in obedience to a grim frontier tradition, +he had also refused to have his boots removed in order that he might +"die with them on," as became his ancestral custom. Johnny was therefore +speedily made comfortable in the McKinstry bed, while Dr. Duchesne gave +his whole attention to his more serious patient. The master glanced +hurriedly around for Mrs. McKinstry. She was not only absent from the +room, but there seemed to be no suggestion of her presence in the house. +To his greater surprise the hurried inquiry that rose to his lips was +checked by a significant warning from the attendant. He sat down beside +the now sleeping boy, and awaited the doctor's return with his mind +wandering between the condition of the little sufferer and the singular +revelation that had momentarily escaped his childish lips. If Johnny had +actually seen Seth fire at McKinstry, the latter's mysterious wound +was accounted for--but not Seth's motive. The act was so utterly +incomprehensible and inconsistent with Seth's avowed hatred of the +master that the boy must have been delirious. + +He was roused by the entrance of the surgeon. "It's not so bad as I +thought," he said, with a reassuring nod. "It was a mighty close shave +between a shattered bone and a severed artery, but we've got the ball, +and he'll pull through in a week. By Jove! though--the old fire-eater +was more concerned about finding the ball than living or dying! Go in +there--he wants to see you. Don't let him talk too much. He's called +in a lot of his friends for some reason or other--and there's a regular +mass-meeting in there. Go in, and get rid of 'em. I'll look after baby +Filgee--though the little chap will be all right again after another +dressing." + +The master cast a hurried look of relief at the surgeon, and re-entered +the front room. It was filled with men whom the master instinctively +recognized as his former adversaries. But they gave way before him with +a certain rude respect and half abashed sympathy as McKinstry called him +to his side. The wounded man grasped his hand. "Lift me up a bit," he +whispered. The master assisted him with difficulty to his elbow. + +"Gentlemen!" said McKinstry, with a characteristic wave of his crippled +hand towards the crowd as he laid the other on the master's shoulder. +"Ye heerd me talkin' a minit ago; ye heer me now. This yer young man as +we've slipped up on and meskalkilated has told the truth--every time! +Ye ken tie to him whenever and wherever ye want to. Ye ain't expected to +feel ez I feel, in course, but the man ez goes back on HIM--quo'lls with +me. That's all--and thanks for inquiring friends. Ye'll git now, boys, +and leave him a minit with me." + +The men filed slowly out, a few lingering long enough to shake the +master's hand with grave earnestness, or half smiling, half abashed +embarrassment. The master received the proffered reconciliation of +these men, who but a few hours before would have lynched him with equal +sincerity, with cold bewilderment. As the door closed on the last of the +party he turned to McKinstry. The wounded man had sunk down again, but +was regarding with drowsy satisfaction a leaden bullet he was holding +between his finger and thumb. + +"This yer shot, Mr. Ford," he said in a slow voice, whose weakness was +only indicated by its extreme deliberation, "never kem from the gun I +gave ye--and was never fired by you." He paused and then added with his +old dull abstraction, "It's a long time since I've run agin anythin' +that makes me feel more--kam." + +In Mr. McKinstry's weak condition the master did not dare to make +Johnny's revelation known to him, and contented himself by simply +pressing his hand, but the next moment the wounded man resumed,-- + +"That ball jest fits Seth's navy revolver--and the hound hes made tracks +outer the country." + +"But what motive could he have in attacking YOU at such a time?" asked +the master. + +"He reckoned that either I'd kill you and so he'd got shut of us both in +that way, without it being noticed; or if I missed you, the others would +hang YOU--ez they kalkilated to--for killing ME! The idea kem to him +when he overheard you hintin' you wouldn't return my fire." + +A shuddering conviction that McKinstry had divined the real truth +passed over the master. In the impulse of the moment he again would have +corroborated it by revealing Johnny's story, but a glance at the growing +feverishness of the wounded man checked his utterance. "Don't talk of it +now," he said hurriedly. "Enough for me to know that you acquit ME. I +am here now only to beg you to compose yourself until the doctor comes +back--as you seemed to be alone, and Mrs. McKinstry"--he stopped in +awkward embarrassment. + +A singular confusion overspread the invalid's face. "She hed steppt out +afore this happened, owin' to contrairy opinions betwixt me and her. Ye +mout hev noticed, Mr. Ford, that gin'rally she didn't 'pear to cotton to +ye! Thar ain't a woman a goin' ez is the ekal of Blair Rawlins' darter +in nussin' a man and keeping him in fightin' order, but in matters like +things that consarn herself and Cress, I begin to think, Mr. Ford, +that somehow, she ain't exakly--kam! Bein' kam yourself, ye'll put any +unpleasantness down to that. Wotever you hear from HER, and, for +the matter o' that, from her own darter too--for I'm takin' back +the foolishness I said to ye over yon about your runnin' off with +Cress--you'll remember, Mr. Ford, it warn't from no ill feeling to YOU, +in her or Cress--but on'y a want of kam! I mout hev had MY idees about +Cress, you mout hev had YOURS, and that fool Dabney mout hev had HIS; +but it warn't the old woman's--nor Cressy's--it warn't Blair Rawlins' +darter's idea--nor yet HER darter's! And why? For want o' kam! Times +I reckon it was left out o' woman's nater. And bein' kam yourself, you +understand it, and take it all in." + +The old look of drowsy pain had settled so strongly in his red eyes +again that the master was fain to put his hand gently over them, and +with a faint smile beg him to compose himself to sleep. This he finally +did after a whispered suggestion that he himself was feeling "more kam." +The master sat for some moments with his hand upon the sleeping man's +eyes, and a vague and undefinable sense of loneliness seemed to fall +upon him from the empty rafters of the silent and deserted house. The +rising wind moaned fitfully around its bleak shell with the despairing +sound of far and forever receding voices. So strong was the impression +that when the doctor and McKinstry's attending brother re-entered the +room, the master still lingered beside the bed with a dazed sensation +of abandonment that the doctor's practical reassuring smile could hardly +dispel. + +"He's doing splendidly now," he said, listening to the sleeper's more +regular respiration: "and I'd advise you to go now, Mr. Ford, before +he wakes, lest he might be tempted to excite himself by talking to you +again. He's really quite out of danger now. Good-night! I'll drop in on +you at the hotel when I return." + +The master, albeit still confused and bewildered, felt his way to +the door and out into the open night. The wind was still despairingly +wrestling with the tree-tops, but the far receding voices seemed to be +growing fainter in the distance, until, as he passed on, they too seemed +to pass away forever. + +***** + +Monday morning had come again, and the master was at his desk in the +school house early, with a still damp and inky copy of the Star fresh +from the press before him. The free breath of the pines was blowing in +the window, and bringing to his ears the distant voices of his slowly +gathering flock, as he read as follows:-- + +"The perpetrator of the dastardly outrage at the Indian Spring Academy +on Thursday last--which, through unfortunate misrepresentation of +the facts, led to a premature calling out of several of our most +public-spirited citizens, and culminated in a most regrettable encounter +between Mr. McKinstry and the accomplished and estimable principal of +the school--has, we regret to say, escaped condign punishment by leaving +the country with his relations. If, as is seriously whispered, he was +also guilty of an unparalleled offence against a chivalrous code which +will exclude him in the future from ever seeking redress at the Court +of Honor, our citizens will be only too glad to get rid of the +contamination of being obliged to arrest him. Those of our readers who +know the high character of the two gentlemen who were thus forced into +a hostile meeting, will not be surprised to know that the most ample +apologies were tendered on both sides, and that the entente cordiale has +been thoroughly restored. The bullet--which it is said played a highly +important part in the subsequent explanation, proving to have come +from a REVOLVER fired by some outsider--has been extracted from Mr. +McKinstry's thigh, and he is doing well, with every prospect of a speedy +recovery." + +Smiling, albeit not uncomplacently, at this valuable contribution to +history from an unfettered press, his eye fell upon the next paragraph, +perhaps not so complacently:-- + +"Benjamin Daubigny, Esq., who left town for Sacramento on important +business, not entirely unconnected with his new interests in Indian +Springs, will, it is rumored, be shortly joined by his wife, who has +been enabled by his recent good fortune to leave her old home in +the States, and take her proper proud position at his side. Although +personally unknown to Indian Springs, Mrs. Daubigny is spoken of as a +beautiful and singularly accomplished woman, and it is to be regretted +that her husband's interests will compel them to abandon Indian Springs +for Sacramento as a future residence. Mr. Daubigny was accompanied by +his private secretary Rupert, the eldest son of H. G. Filgee, Esq., who +has been a promising graduate of the Indian Spring Academy, and offers a +bright example to the youth of this district. We are happy to learn +that his younger brother is recovering rapidly from a slight accident +received last week through the incautious handling of firearms." + +The master, with his eyes upon the paper, remained so long plunged in a +reverie that the school-room was quite filled and his little flock was +wonderingly regarding him before he recalled himself. He was hurriedly +reaching his hand towards the bell when he was attracted by the rising +figure of Octavia Dean. + +"Please, sir, you didn't ask if we had any news!" + +"True--I forgot," said the master smiling. "Well, have you anything to +tell us?" + +"Yes, sir. Cressy McKinstry has left school." + +"Indeed!" + +"Yes, sir; she's married." + +"Married," repeated the master with an effort, yet conscious of the eyes +concentrated upon his colorless face. "Married--and to whom?" + +"To Joe Masters, sir, at the Baptist Chapel at Big Bluff, Sunday, an' +Marm McKinstry was thar with her." + +There was a momentary and breathless pause. Then the voices of his +little pupils--those sage and sweet truants from tradition, those gentle +but relentless historians of the future--rose around him in shrill +chorus--"WHY, WE KNOWED IT ALL ALONG, SIR!" + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Cressy, by Bret Harte + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK CRESSY *** + +***** This file should be named 2858.txt or 2858.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + http://www.gutenberg.org/2/8/5/2858/ + +Produced by Donald Lainson + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. 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