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 brass 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.