Rayton: A Backwoods Mystery Part 19

"What has Jim to do with it?" repeated Nash sneeringly. "Why, you lobster, he has everything to do with it. He's _it_! What's your head made of, anyway? A block out of the oak walls of old England, I suppose."

Rayton averted his face.

"Do you mean that Jim has anything to do with the marks on those cards?"

he asked, in a faint and unsteady voice.

"You lobster! He marks them, and he deals them!" cried Nash.

Rayton faced him.

"You are a liar," he said quietly. "Not only that, but you are a bounder. Better whip up your nag and drive away, or I'll be tempted to pull you out onto the road and give you what you need. You are a disgrace to this settlement." He stepped back to the edge of the road.

"Drive along, fat head," he commanded.

But Nash did not drive along. He had a great opinion of himself--of his physical as well as his mental powers. He hung the reins on the dashboard.

"Do you mean that?" he asked. "Are you trying to insult me? Or are you drunk?"

"I am not drunk. Yes, I am trying to insult you. It is rather a difficult thing to do, I know."

"Steady, Champion!" cried Nash to his nodding horse. Then he jumped over the wheel, threw aside his hat and overcoat, and plunged at Rayton, with his fists flying. He smote the air. He flailed the sunlight. He punched holes in the out of doors. At last he encountered something hard--not with his fist, however, but with an angle of his face. With a futile sprawl, he measured his considerable length in the mud and slush of the highway. So he lay for a little while, one leg flapping, then scrambled slowly to his feet. He gazed around in a dazed way, and at last rested his glance upon Rayton.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "PLUNGED AT RAYTON, WITH HIS FISTS FLYING"]

"See here!" he exclaimed; "that--that's no way to do! Can't you fight fair? What did you hit me with?"

The Englishman lifted his right fist, and pointed at it with the index finger of his left hand.

"That is what I hit you with," he said in matter-of-fact tones. "But if you don't think that fair, I'll land my left next time."

"Don't trouble," replied Nash. "I'm no match for a professional prize fighter. That's not my line."

"Oh, cheer up! We've just begun."

"I've finished."

"In that case you can take back what you said about Jim Harley."

"What did I say?" asked the doctor, making a furtive step toward his trap.

Rayton advanced. "Quick!" he cried. "Call yourself a liar, or I'll try another prod at you!"

"Leave me alone. D--n you! I'll have the law on you for this. Keep off!

Mind what you're about. Keep your distance, I say. Yes, yes! You're right. I'm a liar. _I'm a liar!_"

He jumped into his buggy, wakened Champion with a cut of the whip, and drove away at a gallop, leaving his hat and overcoat on the side of the road. For a minute Rayton stood and gazed after the bouncing vehicle.

Then he picked up the hat and coat, and placed them on the top rail of the fence.

"That is the worst thing I ever saw in the way of a doctor," he said.

"Most of them are mighty good fellows--and I didn't know before that any of them were quitters. But that chap? Why, he's a disgrace to a pill box. Hope he'll come back for his duds, though."

Mr. Reginald Baynes Rayton turned, and continued on his homeward way, swinging his feet well in front of him, and expanding his chest. But presently he lost the air of the conquering hero. Misgivings a.s.sailed him. He had picked a fight simply because he was in a bad temper. He had called a more or less harmless individual names, and then punched him in the jaw and forced him to call himself a liar.

"I'm ashamed of myself," he murmured. "What has become of my manners?"

He reached his house, and found Mr. Banks in the kitchen, still reflectively consuming tobacco.

"What's the matter with you, Reginald?" inquired the New Yorker. "You look excited."

"I am," replied Rayton, and told frankly but briefly of his talk with Jim Harley and of his fight with Nash.

"I am glad you punched Nash, for I don't like the animal," said Banks.

"But why in thunder didn't you trim Harley first? He insulted you."

"He didn't mean to insult me. He believes in the potency of those red crosses. It is a matter of family pride with him," answered Rayton.

CHAPTER XII

RAYTON IS REMINDED OF THE RED CROSSES

The snow vanished during the day, under the unseasonable glow of the sun; but with evening came a biting frost and a choking, quiet wind out of a clear sky. The next morning lifted bright and cold, with a glint of ice over all the wilderness, but not so much as a patch or tatter of snow anywhere.

Banks and Rayton breakfasted by lamplight, for they had planned a morning after ruffled grouse. The sun was just over the eastern forests when they stepped out from the warm kitchen to the frosted open, b.u.t.toned their fur-lined gloves, and turned up the collars of their blanket "jumpers." They separated at a spur of spruces and firs that thrust itself, like a green b.u.t.tress, into the yellow-brown of a back pasture.

"You can have Turk. He may find you a belated woodc.o.c.k or two," said Rayton.

So Banks swung to the left, and entered the forest, with the obedient, eager dog at his heels, and a trail of fragrant smoke drifting over his shoulder, pure blue in the suns.h.i.+ne.

Rayton entered the woods to the right. He walked carelessly through the underbrush, heedless of everything about him, and of the gun in the hollow of his arm, grieving over his conversation the day before with the brother of the woman he loved. Had Jim really expected him to behave like a coward--to run away from the marked cards? Had Jim no better opinion of him than that? He wondered if Nell knew that the cards had been dealt to him? And if so, how she felt about it? Had Jim told her of their heated argument, and of his--Rayton's--childish exhibition of temper? That would not strengthen his chances with her. And what would she think of him when she heard of his crude outbreak against Doctor Nash? He trembled at the question.

"Those red crosses may be my undoing, after all, in a sneaking roundabout way," he reflected.

A bird went whirring up from close in front of his trampling feet, and got safely away. He halted, leaned his gun against a tree, and lit his pipe.

"I must keep my wits about me," he said, "and stop worrying about those silly cards, or everything will get away from me--birds and everything."

He sat for about half an hour on a convenient stump in a patch of suns.h.i.+ne, smoking, and working himself into his usual happy state of mind. He dreamed of Nell Harley. He had visions of her--and he discovered a golden trail of thought, and followed it into a golden magical future. The cards, the argument with Jim, and the fight with Nash were all forgotten. At the end of the half hour he continued on his aimless way.

The lanes and little clearings of the forest were comfortably warm, for the sunlight filled them, and the wind was walled away from them. The peace of the frost-nipped, sun-steeped wilderness soothed and healed his spirit. He moved slowly, and halted frequently to spy out some twittering chickadee or flitting blue jay, to gaze up at the purple spires of the spruces, or down at some flaming, grotesquely shaped toadstool. He loved it all--every stump, shadow, sound, and soaring wall of it, every flickering wing and furtive call, every scent, tone, and silence.

He tramped onward, comforted, following his whim. At noon he halted beside a brown brook, twisting among cedars here, alders there. He had several thick slices of bread and b.u.t.ter in his pocket. He built a small fire at the edge of the stream, skinned, in woodman's style, a plump partridge that he had shot an hour before, broiled it to a turn, and dined to a wish. After his meal, he spent a dozing hour between the red fire and the brown stream, with the stem of his pipe between his teeth, and great dreams behind his eyes.

"This suits me," he murmured. "I'll make a day of it."

He got to his feet at last, picked up his gun, and followed the course of the stream downward, taking his time, and avoiding all tangles of underbrush and difficult places. He waked up several grouse, and got one clean shot. But he was not keen about making a bag. He was enjoying himself in quite another way. Had there been paper and pencil in his pocket, instead of feathers, crumbs of bread, and shreds of tobacco, it is more than likely he would have tried to write a poem; for Mr.

Reginald Baynes Rayton was in love with a woman, and in love with nature on one and the same golden day. Everything was forgotten but the quiet, magical joy that steeped him to the soul.