Under her window she heard somebody moving. It was her father, already returned, and he stood by the door, drawing and plucking half a dozen woodcock.
When she had bathed and dressed, she found the birds on the kitchen-table ready for the oven, and she set about her household duties with a glance through the window where Jocelyn, crouching on the bank of the dark stream, was examining his set-lines one by one.
The sun hung above the forest, sending fierce streams of light over the flaming, frost-ripened foliage. A belt of cloud choked the mountain gorge in the north; the alders were smoking with chilly haze.
As she passed across the yard towards the spring, bucket in hand, her father called out: “I guess we’ll keep Thanksgiving, Jess, after all. I’ve got a five-pounder here!”
He held up a slim, gold-and-green pickerel, then flung the fish on the ground with the laugh of a boy. It was always so; the forest and the pursuit of wild creatures renewed his life. He was born for it; he had lived a hunter and a roamer of the woods; he bade fair to die a poacher—which, perhaps, is no sin in the eyes of Him who designed the pattern of the partridge’s wings and gave two coats to the northern hare.
His daughter watched him with a strained smile. In her bitterness against Gordon, now again in the ascendant, she found no peace of mind.
“Dad,” she said, “I set six deadfalls yesterday. I guess I’ll go and look at them.”
“If you line them too plainly, Gordon’s keepers will save you your trouble,” said Jocelyn.
“Well, then, I think I’ll go now,” said the girl. Her eyes began to sparkle and the wings of her delicate nostrils quivered as she looked at the forest on the hill.
Jocelyn watched her. He noted the finely moulded head, the dainty nose, the clear, fearless eyes. It was the sensitive head of a free woman—a maid of windy hill-sides and of silent forests. He saw the faint quiver of the nostril, and he thought of the tremor that twitches the dainty muzzles of thoroughbred dogs afield. It was in her, the mystery and passion of the forest, and he saw it and dropped his eyes to the fish swinging from his hand.