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diff --git a/old/crssy10.txt b/old/crssy10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..cec9fd6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/crssy10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,6512 @@ +******The Project Gutenberg Etext of Cressy, by Bret Harte****** +#46 in our series by Bret Harte + + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. Do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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FOR PUBLIC DOMAIN ETEXTS*Ver.04.07.00*END* + + + + + +This etext was prepared by Donald Lainson, charlie@idirect.com + + + + + +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 Etext of Cressy, by Bret Harte + diff --git a/old/crssy10.zip b/old/crssy10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..60e1381 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/crssy10.zip |