A Young Man in a Hurry, and Other Short Stories Part 41

When for the third time the memory of the little path-master returned, he glanced up as though he could see her in the flesh standing in the road before his house. She _was_ there--in the flesh.

The moonlight silvered her hair, and her face was the face of a spirit; it quickened the sluggish blood in his veins to see her so in the moonlight.

She said: "I thought that if you knew I should be obliged to pay your road-tax if you do not, you would pay. Would you?"

A shadow glided across the moonlight; it was the collie dog, and it came and looked up into McCloud's shadowy eyes.

"Yes--I would," he said; "but I cannot."

His heart began to beat faster; a tide of wholesome blood stirred and flowed through his veins. It was the latent decency within him awaking.

"Little path-master," he said, "I am very poor; I have no money. But I will work out my taxes because you ask me."

He raised his head and looked at the spectral forest where dead pines towered, ghastly in the moon's beams. That morning he had cut the last wood on his own land; he had nothing left to sell but a patch of brambles and a hut which no one would buy.

"I guess I'm no good," he said; "I can't work."

"But what will you do?" she asked, with pitiful eyes raised.

"Do? Oh, what I have done. I can shoot partridges."

"Market-shooting is against the law," she said, faintly.

"The law!" he repeated; "it seems to me there is nothing but law in this G.o.d-forsaken hole!"

"Can't you live within the law? It is not difficult, is it?" she asked.

"It is difficult for me," he said, sullenly. The dogged brute in him was awaking in its turn. He was already sorry he had promised her to work out his taxes. Then he remembered the penalty. Clearly he would have to work, or she would be held responsible.

"If anybody would take an unskilled man," he began, "I--I would try to get something to do."

"Won't they?"

"No. I tried it--once."

"Only once?"

He gave a short laugh and stooped to pat the collie, saying, "Don't bother me, little path-master."

"No--I won't," she replied, slowly.

She went away in the moonlight, saying good-night and calling her collie, and he walked up the slope to the house, curiously at peace with himself and the dim world hidden in the shadows around.

He was not sleepy. As he had no candles, he sat down in the moonlight, idly balancing his rifle on his knees. From force of habit he loaded it, then rubbed the stock with the palm of his hand, eyes dreaming.

Into the tangled garden a whippoorwill flashed on noiseless wings, rested a moment, unseen, then broke out into husky, breathless calling.

A minute later the whispering call came from the forest's edge, then farther away, almost inaudible in the thickening dusk.

And, as he sat there, thinking of the little path-master, he became aware of a man slinking along the moonlit road below. His heart stopped, then the pulses went bounding, and his fingers closed on his rifle.

There were other men in the moonlight now--he counted five--and he called out to them, demanding their business.

"You're our business," shouted back young Byram. "Git up an' dust out o'

Foxville, you dirty loafer!"

"Better stay where you are," said McCloud, grimly.

Then old Tansey bawled: "Yew low cuss, git outer this here taown! Yew air meaner 'n pussley an' meaner 'n quack-root, an' we air bound tew run yew into them mountings, b' gos.h.!.+"

There was a silence, then the same voice: "Be yew calculatin' tew mosey, Dan McCloud?"

"You had better stay where you are," said McCloud; "I'm armed."

"Ye be?" replied a new voice; "then come aout o' that or we'll snake ye aout!"

Byram began moving towards the house, shot-gun raised.

"Stop!" cried McCloud, jumping to his feet.

But Byram came on, gun levelled, and McCloud retreated to his front door.

"Give it to him!" shouted the game-warden; "shoot his windows out!"

There was a flash from the road and a load of buckshot crashed through the window overhead.

Before the echoes of the report died away, McCloud's voice was heard again, calmly warning them back.

Something in his voice arrested the general advance.

"I don't know why I don't kill you in your tracks, Byram," said McCloud; "I've wanted the excuse often enough. But now I've got it and I don't want it, somehow. Let me alone, I tell you."

"He's no good!" said the warden, distinctly. Byram crept through the picket fence and lay close, hugging his shot-gun.

"I tell you I intend to pay my taxes," cried McCloud, desperately.

"Don't force me to shoot!"

The sullen rage was rising; he strove to crush it back, to think of the little path-master.

"For G.o.d's sake, go back!" he pleaded, hoa.r.s.ely.

Suddenly Byram started running towards the house, and McCloud clapped his rifle to his cheek and fired. Four flashes from the road answered his shot, but Byram was down in the gra.s.s screaming, and McCloud had vanished into his house.

Charge after charge of buckshot tore through the flimsy clapboards; the moonlight was brightened by pale flashes, and the timbered hills echoed the cracking shots.

After a while no more shots were fired, and presently a voice broke out in the stillness:

"Be yew layin' low, or be yew dead, Dan McCloud?"

There was no answer.