Dan pedaled away, laughing harshly.
"Fool!" he muttered. "One would think, to hear him, he was the only one not a coward amongst us, when the truth is he's the biggest one of all. Old Tonguey Murfree would cringe to the devil for ten cents worth of patronage, and then cheat him out of half of it, if he could."
He made his wheel fly in a sort of frenzy of disgust, but the fresh wind, sweeping his hot face like the besom of peace, soon drove away this temporary chagrin, bringing to him the best comfort life gave in those days—the gentle influence of Nature. For, just in proportion as Dan shunned humanity he courted her, and though he felt her relentlessness through every fibre of his suffering being, he felt her charm as well, and could not quite resist it.
He rode fast and far, till the level road, through a turn or two, brought him into a well-wooded tract where bluffs and willow clumps suggested running streams. He left the road and, dismounting, guided his wheel between projecting roots and stumps, down through a winding cow-path which led to a lick below. Here, discarding shoes and stockings he waded the stream, and entered a charming dell where nature had been lavish of adornment. In fact, one might almost have thought time and human ingenuity had assisted nature, for a wild grapevine was so linked from bough to bough between two tall trees as to form a perfect bower, and as if to protect the opening from intrusive onlookers, a sort of chevaux-de-frise of tall ferns waved their graceful banners up to meet the drooping lengths of vine waving from the tree.
Toward this bower Dan bent accustomed steps, sliding his wheel into a copse of young oaks that hid it completely, then parting the growing ferns, as if he needed no guide to tell him just where the well-concealed opening might be. As he, stooping, entered, the graceful fronds sprang back to position, like sentinels who have separated an instant to let the master pass, but quickly resume place to guard his hidden presence well.
Inside, Dan glanced about and saw with pleased eyes the undisturbed, familiar aspect of the spot. In one corner was a large heap of dry leaves, which might have drifted there last Fall, but did not, and in any case made an excellent bed for a camper. In another, an innocent-looking tree-root projected from the earth. With a quick jerk Dan dislodged it, showing an excavation below, which had been neatly walled in with stones. Removing the largest one, at the bottom, he disclosed a rough box sunken in the soil, from the compartments of which he drew forth all the articles he needed for his simple supper—an old coffee-pot, an alcohol lamp with its attendant rubber-corked bottle, a frying-pan of small dimensions, a can of shaved bacon, salt, pepper, and so on.
By this time a look of peace, yes, even a sort of tame joy, had replaced Dan's gloomy expression, and one could see that, in a way, he was happy. Getting out his fishing-rod from its enveloping blanket he presently emerged, recrossed the stream, and soon could be seen pushing out into the midst of it, poling an old punt up stream. Anchoring presently in a small cove where the water was deep and cool, he sat in silent watchfulness, occasionally jerking out a perch bass, sometimes a pickerel, but for the most part so still he might have been the occupant of a "painted boat upon a painted" stream. Yet all the time the soft influences of the hour and place were weaving their spell about him. The sun was now only a great half-round of red upon the horizon's line, and way up to the zenith tiny clouds that were like sheep in a meadow caught here and there its scarlet tinge. It was very still, yet all alive with woodsy sounds. Now a belated cicada swung his rattle as if in a fright, next a bull-frog, with hoarse kerchug! took a header for his evening bath. Once, later on, when the shadows were falling, a sleepy thrush settled upon a twig near by, and sang his good-night in sweetest tones. About this time he heard a farm-boy calling anxiously through the neighboring wood for the lost Sukey of the herd, and at times a dusty rumble announced a wagon jolting homeward over the unseen road away to his right. Dan's sense of satisfaction was possibly heightened by this mingling of nearness and remoteness. He had all life at his ear, so to speak, yet held it back by his will, as one might listen at the receiver of a telephone and yet refuse to yield up one's own presence by opening the lips in response. And here there was no "central" to cut him off, though he held the situation long.
At last, in the soft dusk, which wrapped him like a mother's arms, he poled noiselessly down stream, secured the punt, dressed his fish with the dexterity of a practised woodsman, and washing them neatly in the river, waded back to his camp. Again the root handle was lifted, the alcohol lamp filled and lighted, and while the coffee boiled over that, the fish, laid on the slices of bacon, were set to sizzle comfortably over a tiny fire of sticks and leaves built in the stony hollow. Dan was hungry and ate with keen relish. He had produced knife, fork and spoon from his sunken cupboard, but his frying-pan served for both plate and platter, and the cover of his dinner-pail for cup. The bread and doughnuts he had brought from home helped out the repast, which had all the relish and wholesomeness of the out-door meal which has been foraged for by personal effort.
Oddly enough in these tobacco-ridden days, Dan did not smoke. When he had neatly cleaned away the remnants of his feast and replaced root and stone, he spread his blanket out under the stars, and tucking one rolled-up corner under his head for a pillow, lay long into the night, gazing up into the heavens which formed his only roof.
It was a moonlighted evening, and the fleecy clouds we have noted moved in and out of her path in a stately dance, with winning grace, as eastern Nautch girls might dance their way into the favor of a haughty sheik.