“Westley, give Proutt your gun.”
Westley did not speak. He was immensely sorry for Proutt, and all his anger at the man had gone. Proutt looked old, and shaken, and weary; and he had dropped his heavy hand across Dan’s neck. He caught Westley’s eye and said harshly: “To hell with your gun. I’ll use my own.”
An instant more they stood; then Westley turned to Saladine. “Jim, let’s go,” he said. And Saladine nodded, and they moved away, Reck at Westley’s heels. After a moment, an odd panic in his voice, Proutt called after them: “Wait, I’ll ride you home.”
But Saladine answered: “I’ll walk!” And Westley did not speak at all. He and Reck and the deer hunter went steadily upon their way.
The sun was setting; and dark shadows filtered through the trees to hide old Proutt where he still stood close beside his dog.
“JESHURUN WAXED FAT”
I
IT was an evening at Chet McAusland’s farm, on the hill above Fraternity. Chet and I had been all day in the woodcock covers with the dogs, Reck and Frenchy, and with the ghost of old Tantrybogus going on before us. We had come home to a heaping supper of fried woodcock, boiled potatoes, sweet salt pork, squash, doughnuts, cheese, and Mrs. McAusland’s incomparable biscuits, with pie to follow after. When Chet’s chores were done, we went down to Will Bissell’s store to brag about our day’s bag and get the mail; and now we were at home again, and Chet, to confirm his recollection in connection with an ancient catch of trout of which he spoke, brought from the desk in the front room an old leather-backed account-book and conned its yellowing pages.
When he had found that which he sought, he laid the book down between us, and as he talked, I picked it up and looked it through, idly. The covers were worn and ragged with age, and there was a flap upon the one that entered a slit upon the other, holding the book securely closed. The pages were filled with entries in pencil or in pen, and some of these were concerned with matters of business concluded twenty years before; and some recorded the results of days with rod or gun; while here and there, dropped at random, were paragraphs or pages devoted to casual incidents that had struck Chet’s fancy through a space of forty years. On one such series I chanced, and read the entries through, first to myself, and then, with some amusement, aloud. They ran in this wise:
June 6, 1883. Jed was taken sick to-day with a pain in his stomach. He seems very weak. The old man won’t last long.