Old Buck accompanied, or rather guided, me back to the hamlet, and June went along oblivious to crowding brush and prickly brambles. Once she really startled me by calling, “Rattlesnakes!” But she played the trick too much, as children will, and I became a model of courage, heedless of her warnings.
The last I saw of the two of them, they stood near my car where it was parked in a sort of alcove in the country road, and they made a very pretty picture—June and December. As I rode away I saw them return along the trail until their own familiar woodland again closed in about them. Then I was sorry I had not asked old Buck about the story of the girl’s parents. I have never known where they lived nor how and when they died.
I had now, as they say, to go all around the mulberry bush again, or part way at least, and as I drove up what they call the Haverstraw road toward the headquarters lake (as I called it) the thought that was uppermost in my mind was that a lucky chance had put me in the way of meeting, and even visiting, one of the picturesque old settlers of that region.
As sure as I am sitting here writing, old Buck’s rather dubious reminiscence of his former glory and his clashes with the authorities did not greatly interest me. Certainly I was not greatly prejudiced against him because he had circumvented one or another good regulation of the state, goodness knows how many years ago. I have yet to hear anybody denounce Robin Hood for his outlawry; I know that the modern world thinks only of his romance. A few bears or deer or wildcats more or less before I was born are not worrying me now.
But Long Buck Sanderson is one of my treasured memories. I confess that I could not help wondering whether this shrewd, hardy old woodsman had perhaps regarded the laws of civilization rather lightly; that would not necessarily conflict with a sturdy sense of private honor—the fine, crude honor of pioneers. As I drove along part of an old stanza came jumping into my head.
For why? Because the good old rule,
Sufficeth them. The simple plan.
That he shall take who has the power,
And he shall keep who can.
And anyway, the most conspicuous thing about Long Buck Sanderson was his love for his little orphan granddaughter, and his concern for her when she should find herself alone in the world. So I think he could never have been very bad, any way you look at it....