I
WHEN Dingman, the fate game-warden, came panting over the mountain from Spencers to confer with young Byram, road-master at Foxville, he found that youthful official reshingling his barn.
The two men observed each other warily for a moment; Byram jingled the shingle-nails in his apron-pocket; Dingman, the game-warden, took a brief but intelligent survey of the premises, which included an unpainted house, a hen-yard, and the newly shingled barn.
“Hello, Byram,” he said, at length.
“Is that you?” replied Byram, coldly.
He was a law-abiding young man; he had not shot a bird out of season for three years.
After a pause the game-warden said, “Ain’t you a-comin’ down off’n that ridge-pole?”
“I’m a-comin’ down when I quit shinglin’,” replied the road-master, cautiously. Dingman waited; Byram fitted a shingle, fished out a nail from his apron-pocket, and drove it with unnecessary noise.
The encircling forest re-echoed the hammer strokes; a squirrel scolded from the orchard.
“Didn’t I hear a gun go off in them alder bushes this morning?” inquired the game-warden. Byram made no reply, but hammered violently. “Anybody got a ice-house ’round here?” persisted the game-warden.
Byram turned a non-committal eye on the warden.
“I quit that business three years ago, an’ you know it,” he said. “I ’ain’t got no ice-house for to hide no pa’tridges, an’ I ain’t a-shootin’ out o’ season for the Saratogy market!”
The warden regarded him with composure.
“Who said you was shootin’ pa’tridges?” he asked. But Byram broke in:
“What would I go shootin’ them birds for when I ’ain’t got no ice-box?”
“Who says you got a ice-box?” replied the warden, calmly. “There is other folks in Foxville, ain’t there?”
Byram grew angrier. “If you want to stop this shootin’ out o’ season,” he said, “you go to them rich hotel men in Saratogy. Are you afraid jest because they’ve got a pull with them politicians that makes the game-laws and then pays the hotel men to serve ’em game out o’ season an’ reason? Them’s the men to ketch; them’s the men that set the poor men to vi’latin’ the law. Folks here ’ain’t got no money to buy powder ’n’ shot for to shoot nothin’. But when them Saratogy men offers two dollars a bird for pa’tridge out o’ season, what d’ye think is bound to happen?”
“Shootin’,” said the warden, sententiously. “An’ it’s been did, too. An’ I’m here for to find out who done that shootin’ in them alders.”
“Well, why don’t you find out, then?” sneered young Byram from his perch on the ridge-pole.
“That’s it,” said the warden, bitterly; “all you folks hang together like bees in a swarm-bunch. You’re nuthin’ but a passel o’ critters that digs ginseng for them Chinese an’ goes gunnin’ for pa’tridges out o’ season—”
“I’ll go gunnin’ for you!” shouted Byram, climbing down the ladder in a rage. “I am going to knock your head off, you darned thing!”
Prudence halted him; the game-warden, who had at first meditated flight, now eyed him with patronizing assurance.
“Don’t git riled with me, young man,” he said. “I’m a ’fical of this State. Anyway, it ain’t you I’m lookin’ for—”
“Well, why don’t you say so, then?” broke in Byram, with an oath.
“But it’s one o’ your family,” added the warden.
“My family!” stammered Byram, in genuine surprise. Then an ugly light glimmered in his eyes. “You mean Dan McCloud?”
“I do,” said the warden, “an’ I’m fixed to git him, too.”
“Well, what do you come to me for, then?” demanded Byram.
“For because Dan McCloud is your cousin, ain’t he? An’ I jest dropped in on you to see how the land lay. If it’s a fight it’s a fight, but I jest want to know how many I’m to buck against. Air you with him? I’ve proofs. I know he’s got his ice-box stuffed full o’ pa’tridges an’ woodcock. Air you with him?”
“No,” said Byram, with a scowl; “but I ain’t with you, neither!”
“Don’t git riled,” said the warden. “I’m that friendly with folks I don’t wanter rile nobody. Look here, friend, you an’ me is ’ficials, ain’t we?”
“I’m road-master of Foxville,” said Byram, aggressively.
“Well, then, let’s set down onto this bunch o’ shingles an’ talk it over ’ficially,” suggested the warden, suavely.
“All right,” said Byram, pocketing his hammer; “if you’re out to ketch Dan McCloud I don’t care. He’s a low-down, shifty cuss, who won’t pay his road-tax, an’ I say it if he is my cousin, an’ no shame to me, neither.”
The warden nodded and winked.
“If you he’p me ketch Dan McCloud with them birds in his ice-box, I’ll he’p you git your road-tax outen him,” he proposed. “An’ you git half the reward, too.”
“I ain’t no spy,” retorted Byram, “an’ I don’t want no reward outen nobody.”
“But you’re a ’ficial, same as me,” persisted the warden. “Set down onto them shingles, friend, an’ talk it over.”
Byram sat down, fingering the head of his hammer; the warden, a fat, shiny man, with tiny, greenish eyes and an unshaven jaw, took a seat beside him and began twisting a greasy black mustache.
“You an’ me’s ’ficials,” he said, with dignity, “an’ we has burdens that folks don’t know. My burden is these here folks that shoots pa’tridges in July; your burdens is them people who don’t pay no road-tax.”
“One o’ them people is Dan McCloud, an’ I’m goin’ after that road-tax to-night,” said Byram.
“Can’t you wait till I ketch McCloud with them birds?” asked the warden, anxiously.
“No, I can’t,” snapped Byram; “I can’t wait for no such thing!” But he spoke without enthusiasm.
“Can’t we make it a kind o’ ’ficial surprise for him, then?” suggested the warden. “Me an’ you is ’ficials; your path-masters is ’ficials. We’ll all go an’ see Dan McCloud, that’s what we’ll do. How many path-masters hev you got to back you up?”
Byram’s face grew red as fire.
“One,” he said; “we ain’t a metropolipus.”
“Well, git your path-master an’ come on, anyhow,” persisted the game-warden, rising and buttoning his faded coat.
“I—I can’t,” muttered Byram.
“Ain’t you road-master?” asked Dingman, astonished.
“Yes.”
“Then, can’t you git your own path-master to do his dooty an’ execoote the statoots?”
“You see,” stammered Byram, “I app’inted a—a lady.”
“A what!” cried the game-warden.
“A lady,” repeated Byram, firmly. “Tell the truth, we ’ain’t got no path-master; we’ve got a path-mistress—Elton’s kid, you know—”
“Elton?”
“Yes.”
“What hung hisself in his orchard?”
“Yes.”
“His kid? The girl that folks say is sweet on Dan McCloud?”
“It’s a lie,” he said, thickly.
After a silence Byram spoke more calmly. “Old man Elton he didn’t leave her nothin’. She done chores around an’ taught school some, down to Frog Holler. She’s that poor—nothin’ but pertaters an’ greens for to eat, an’ her a-savin’ her money for to go to one o’ them female institoots where women learn to nurse sick folks.”
“So you ’pinted her path-master to kinder he’p her along?”
“I—I kinder did.”
“She’s only a kid.”
“Only a kid. ’Bout sixteen.”
“An’ it’s against the law?”
“Kinder ’gainst it.”
The game-warden pretended to stifle a yawn.
“Well,” he said, petulantly. “I never knowed nothin’ about it—if they ask me over to Spencers.”
“That’s right! An’ I’ll he’p you do your dooty regardin’ them pa’tridges,” said Byram, quickly. “Dan McCloud’s a loafer an’ no good. When he’s drunk he raises hell down to the store. Foxville is jest plumb sick o’ him.”
“Is it?” inquired the game-warden, with interest.
“The folks is that sick o’ him that they was talkin’ some o’ runnin’ him acrost the mountains,” replied Byram; “but I jest made the boys hold their horses till I got that there road-tax outen him first.”
“Can’t you git it?”
“Naw,” drawled Byram. “I sent Billy Delany to McCloud’s shanty to collect it, but McCloud near killed Bill with a axe. That was Tuesday. Some o’ the boys was fixin’ to run McCloud outer town, but I guess most of us ain’t hankerin’ to lead the demonstration.”
“‘Fraid?”
“Ya-as,” drawled Byram.
The game-warden laboriously produced a six-shooter from his side pocket. A red bandanna handkerchief protected the shiny barrel; he unwrapped this, regarded the weapon doubtfully, and rubbed his fat thumb over the butt.
“Huh!” ejaculated Byram, contemptuously, “he’s got a repeatin’-rifle; he can cut a pa’tridge’s head off from here to that butternut ’cross the creek!”
“I’m goin’ to git into his ice-house all the same,” said the warden, without much enthusiasm.
“An’ I’m bound to git my road-tax,” said Byram, “but jest how I’m to operate I dunno.”
“Me neither,” added the warden, musingly. “God knows I hate to shoot people.”
What he really meant was that he hated to be shot at.
A young girl in a faded pink sunbonnet passed along the road, followed by a dog. She returned the road-master’s awkward salutation with shy composure. A few moments later the game-warden saw her crossing the creek on the stepping-stones; her golden-haired collie dog splashed after her.
“That’s a slick girl,” he said, twisting his heavy black mustache into two greasy points.
Byram glanced at him with a scowl.
“That’s the kid,” he said.
“Eh? Elton’s?”
“Yes.”
“Well, what of it?”
“Nuthin’—she’s good-lookin’—for a path-master,” said the warden, with a vicious leer intended for a compliment.
“What of it?” demanded Byram, harshly.
“Be you fixin’ to splice with that there girl some day?” asked the game-warden, jocosely.
“What of it?” repeated Byram, with an ugly stare.
“Oh,” said the warden, hastily, “I didn’t know nothin’ was goin’ on; I wasn’t meanin’ to rile nobody.”
“Oh, you wasn’t, wasn’t you?” said Byram, in a rage. “Now you can jest git your pa’tridges by yourself an’ leave me to git my road-tax. I’m done with you.”
“How you do rile up!” protested the warden. “How was I to know that you was sweet on your path-master when folks over to Spencers say she’s sweet on Dan McCloud—”
“It’s a lie!” roared young Byram.
“Is it?” asked the warden, with interest. “He’s a good-lookin’ chap, an’ folks say—”
“It’s a damn lie!” yelled Byram, “an’ you can tell them folks that I say so. She don’t know Dan McCloud to speak to him, an’ he’s that besotted with rum half the time that if he spoke to her she’d die o’ fright, for all his good looks.”
“Well, well,” said the game-warden, soothingly; “I guess he ain’t no account nohow, an’ it’s jest as well that we ketch him with them birds an’ run him off to jail or acrost them mountains yonder.”
“I don’t care where he is as long as I git my tax,” muttered Byram.
But he did care. At the irresponsible suggestion of the gossiping game-warden a demon of jealousy had arisen within him. Was it true that Dan McCloud had cast his sodden eyes on Ellie Elton? If it were true, was the girl aware of it? Perhaps she had even exchanged words with the young man, for McCloud was a gentleman’s son and could make himself agreeable when he chose, and he could appear strangely at ease in his ragged clothes—nay, even attractive.
All Foxville hated him; he was not one of them; if he had been, perhaps they could have found something to forgive in his excesses and drunken recklessness.
But, though with them, he was not of them; he came from the city—Albany; he had been educated at Princeton College; he neither thought, spoke, nor carried himself as they did. Even in his darkest hours he never condescended to their society, nor, drunk as he was, would he permit any familiarities from the inhabitants.
Byram, who had been to an agricultural college, and who, on his return to Foxville had promptly relapsed into the hideous dialect which he had imbibed with his mother’s milk, never forgave the contempt with which McCloud had received his advances, nor that young man’s amused repudiation of the relationship which Byram had ventured to recall.
So it came about that Byram at length agreed to aid the game-warden in his lawful quest for the ice-box, and he believed sincerely that it was love of law and duty which prompted him.
But their quest was fruitless; McCloud met them at the gate with a repeating-rifle, knocked the game-warden down, took away his revolver, and laughed at Byram, who stood awkwardly apart, dazed by the business-like rapidity of the operation.
“Road-tax?” repeated McCloud, with a sneer. “I guess not. If the roads are good enough for cattle like you, pay for them yourselves! I use the woods and I pay no road-tax.”
“If you didn’t have that there rifle—” began Byram, sullenly.
“It’s quite empty; look for yourself!” said McCloud, jerking back the lever.
The mortified game-warden picked himself out of the nettle-choked ditch where he had been painfully squatting and started towards Foxville.
“I’ll ketch you at it yet!” he called back; “I’ll fix you an’ your ice-box!”
McCloud laughed.
“Gimme that two dollars,” demanded Byram, sullenly, “or do your day’s stint on them there public roads.”
McCloud dropped his hands into the pockets of his ragged shooting-jacket.
“You’d better leave or I’ll settle you as I settled Billy Delany.”
“You hit him with a axe; that’s hommycide assault; he’ll fix you, see if he don’t!” said Byram.
“No,” said McCloud, slowly; “I did not hit him with an axe. I had a ring on my finger when I hit him. I’m sorry it cut him.”
“Oh, you’ll be sorrier yet,” cried Byram, turning away towards the road, where the game-warden was anxiously waiting for him.
“We’ll run you outer town!” called back the warden, waddling down the road.
“Try it,” replied McCloud, yawning.