A Young Man in a Hurry, and Other Short Stories Part 27

The men, ranged in an uneven line, stood stupidly staring at the long vistas of haze. The slim fire-warden wheeled her mare to face them, speaking very quietly, explaining how deep to dig, how far a margin might be left in safety, how many men were to begin there, and at what distances apart.

Then she picked ten men and bade them follow her.

Burleson rode in the rear, motioning Rolfe to his stirrup.

"What do you think of it?" he asked, in a low voice.

"I think, sir, that one of those d.a.m.ned Storms did it--"

"I mean, what do you think about the chances? Is it serious?"

"That young lady ahead knows better than I do. I've seen two of these here underground fires: one was easy killed; the other cleaned out three thousand acres."

Burleson nodded. "I think," he said, "that you had better go back to the lodge and get every spare man. Tell Rudolf to rig up a wagon and bring rations and water for the men. Put in something nice for Miss Elliott--see to that, Rolfe; do you hear?"

"Yes, sir."

"And, Rolfe, bring feed for the horses--and see that there are a couple of men to watch the house and stables--" He broke out, bitterly, "It's a scoundrelly bit of work they've done!--" and instantly had himself under control again. "Better go at once, Rolfe, and caution the men to remain quiet under provocation if any trespa.s.sers come inside."

II

By afternoon they had not found the end of the underground fire. The live trail had been followed and the creeping terror exterminated for half a mile; yet, although two ditches had been dug to cut the fire off from farther progress, always ahead the haze hung motionless, stretching away westward through the pines.

Now a third trench was started--far enough forward this time, for there was no blue haze visible beyond the young hemlock growth.

The sweating men, stripped to their unders.h.i.+rts, swung pick and axe and drove home their heavy shovels. Burleson, his gray flannel s.h.i.+rt open at the throat, arms bared to the shoulder, worked steadily among his men; on a knoll above, the fire-warden sat cross-legged on the pine-needles, her straight young back against a tree. On her knees were a plate and a napkin. She ate bits of cold partridge at intervals; at intervals she sipped a gla.s.s of claret and regarded Burleson dreamily.

To make certain, she had set a gang of men to clear the woods in a belt behind the third ditch; a young growth of hemlock was being sacrificed, and the forest rang with axe-strokes, the cries of men, the splintering crash of the trees.

"I think," said Burleson to Rolfe, who had just come up, "that we are ahead of the trouble now. Did you give my peaceful message to Abe Storm?"

"No, sir; he wasn't to home--d.a.m.n him!"

The young man looked up quickly. "What's the trouble now?" he asked.

"There's plenty more trouble ahead," said the keeper, in a low voice.

"Look at this belt, sir!" and he drew from his pocket a leather belt, unrolled it, and pointed at a name scratched on the buckle. The name was "Abe Storm."

"Where did that come from?" demanded Burleson.

"The man that fired the vlaie gra.s.s dropped it. Barry picked it up on patrol. There's the evidence, sir. The belt lay on the edge of the burning gra.s.s."

"You mean he dropped it last night, and Barry found it where the gra.s.s had been afire?"

"No, sir; that belt was dropped two hours since. _The gra.s.s was afire again._"

The color left Burleson's face, then came surging back through the tightening skin of the set jaws.

"Barry put out the blaze, sir. He's on duty there now with Chase and Connor. G.o.d help Abe Storm if they get him over the sights, Mr.

Burleson."

Burleson's self-command was shaken. He reached out his hand for the belt, flung away his axe, and walked up the slope of the knoll where the fire-warden sat calmly watching him.

For a few moments he stood before her, teeth set, in silent battle with that devil's own temper which had never been killed in him, which he knew now could never be ripped out and exterminated, which must, _must_ lie chained--chained while he himself stood tireless guard, knowing that chains may break.

After a while he dropped to the ground beside her, like a man dead tired. "Tell me about these people," he said.

"What people, Mr. Burleson? My own?"

Her sensitive instinct had followed the little drama from her vantage-seat on the knoll; she had seen the patrol display the belt; she had watched the color die out and then flood the young man's face and neck; and she had read the surface signs of the murderous fury that altered his own visage to a mask set with a pair of blazing eyes. And suddenly, as he dropped to the ground beside her, his question had swept aside formality, leaving them on the very edge of an intimacy which she had accepted, unconsciously, with her low-voiced answer.

"Yes--your own people. Tell what I should know I want to live in peace among them if they'll let me."

She gathered her knees in her clasped fingers and looked out into the forest. "Mr. Burleson," she said, "for every mental, every moral deformity, man is answerable to man. You dwellers in the pleasant places of the world are pitiless in your judgment of the sullen, suspicious, narrow life you find edging forests, clinging to mountain flanks, or stupidly stifling in the heart of some vast plain. I cannot understand the mental cruelty which condemns with contempt human creatures who have had no chance--not one single chance. Are they ignorant? Then bear with them for shame! Are they envious, grasping, narrow? Do they gossip about neighbors, do they slander without mercy? What can you expect from starved minds, human intellects unnourished by all that you find so wholesome? Man's progress only inspires man; man's mind alone stimulates man's mind. Where civilization is, there are many men; where is the greatest culture, the broadest thought, the sweetest toleration, there men are many, teaching one another unconsciously, consciously, always advancing, always uplifting, spite of the shallow tide of sin which flows in the footsteps of all progress--"

She ceased; her delicate, earnest face relaxed, and a smile glimmered for a moment in her eyes, in the pretty curled corners of her parted lips.

"I'm talking very like a school-marm," she said. "I am one, by-the-way, and I teach the children of these people--_my_ people," she added, with an exquisite hint of defiance in her smile.

She rested her weight on one arm and leaned towards him a trifle.

"In Fox Cross-roads there is much that is hopeless, much that is sorrowful, Mr. Burleson; there is hunger, bodily hunger; there is sickness unsolaced by spiritual or bodily comfort--not even the comfort of death! Ah, you should see them--_once_! Once would be enough! And no physician, n.o.body that knows, I tell you--n.o.body through the long, dusty, stifling summers--n.o.body through the lengthening bitterness of the black winters--n.o.body except myself. Mr. Burleson, old man Storm died craving a taste of broth; and Abe Storm trapped a partridge for him, and Rolfe caught him and Grier jailed him--and confiscated the miserable, half-plucked bird!"

The hand which supported her weight was clinched; she was not looking at the man beside her, but his eyes never left hers.

"You talk angrily of market hunting, and the law forbids it. You say you can respect a poacher who shoots for the love of it, but you have only contempt for the market hunter. And you are right sometimes--" She looked him in the eyes. "Old Santry's little girl is bedridden. Santry shot and sold a deer--and bought his child a patent bed. She sleeps almost a whole hour now without much pain."

Burleson, eyes fixed on her, did not stir. The fire-warden leaned forward, picked up the belt, and read the name scratched with a hunting-knife on the bra.s.s buckle.

"Before Grier came," she said, thoughtfully, "there was misery enough here--cold, hunger, disease--oh, plenty of disease always. Their starved lands of sand and rock gave them a little return for heart-breaking labor, but not enough. Their rifles helped them to keep alive; timber was free; they existed. Then suddenly forest, game, vlaie, and lake were taken from them--fenced off, closed to these people whose fathers' fathers had established free thoroughfare where posted warnings and shot-gun patrols now block every trodden trail! What is the sure result?--and Grier was brutal! What could be expected? Why, Mr.

Burleson, these people are Americans!--dwarfed mentally, stunted morally, year by year reverting to primal type--yet the fire in their blood set their grandfathers marching on Saratoga!--marching to accomplish the destruction of all kings! And Grier drove down here with a coachman and footman in livery and furs, and summoned the constable from Brier Bridge, and arrested old man Santry at his child's bedside--the new bed paid for with Grier's buck...."

She paused; then, with a long breath, she straightened up and leaned back once more against the tree.

"They are not born criminals," she said. "See what you can do with them--see what you can do for them, Mr. Burleson. The relative values of a deer and a man have changed since they hanged poachers in England."

They sat silent for a while, watching the men below.

"Miss Elliott," he said, impulsively, "may I not know your father?"

She flushed and turned towards him as though unpleasantly startled. That was only instinct, for almost at the same moment she leaned back quietly against the tree.

"I think my father would like to know you," she said. "He seldom sees men--men like himself."

"Perhaps you would let me smoke a cigarette, Miss Elliott?" he ventured.

"You were very silly not to ask me before," she said, unconsciously falling into his commonplace vein of easy deference.