Part 48

"I think, sir, that one of those damned Storms did it--"

"I mean, what do you think about the chances? Is it serious?"

"That young lady ahead knows better than I do. I've seen two of these here underground fires: one was easy killed; the other cleaned out three thousand acres."

Burleson nodded. "I think," he said, "that you had better go back to the lodge and get every spare man. Tell Rudolf to rig up a wagon and bring rations and water for the men. Put in something nice for Miss Elliott--see to that, Rolfe; do you hear?"

"Yes, sir."

"And, Rolfe, bring feed for the horses--and see that there are a couple of men to watch the house and stables--" He broke out, bitterly, "It's a scoundrelly bit of work they've done!--" and instantly had himself under control again. "Better go at once, Rolfe, and caution the men to remain quiet under provocation if any trespassers come inside."

By afternoon they had not found the end of the underground fire. The live trail had been followed and the creeping terror exterminated for half a mile; yet, although two ditches had been dug to cut the fire off from farther progress, always ahead the haze hung motionless, stretching away westward through the pines.

Now a third trench was started--far enough forward this time, for there was no blue haze visible beyond the young hemlock growth.

The sweating men, stripped to their undershirts, swung pick and axe and drove home their heavy shovels. Burleson, his gray flannel shirt open at the throat, arms bared to the shoulder, worked steadily among his men; on a knoll above, the fire-warden sat cross-legged on the pine-needles, her straight young back against a tree. On her knees were a plate and a napkin. She ate bits of cold partridge at intervals; at intervals she sipped a glass of claret and regarded Burleson dreamily.

To make certain, she had set a gang of men to clear the woods in a belt behind the third ditch; a young growth of hemlock was being sacrificed, and the forest rang with axe-strokes, the cries of men, the splintering crash of the trees.

"I think," said Burleson to Rolfe, who had just come up, "that we are ahead of the trouble now. Did you give my peaceful message to Abe Storm?"

"No, sir; he wasn't to home--damn him!"

The young man looked up quickly. "What's the trouble now?" he asked.

"There's plenty more trouble ahead," said the keeper, in a low voice. "Look at this belt, sir!" and he drew from his pocket a leather belt, unrolled it, and pointed at a name scratched on the buckle. The name was "Abe Storm."

"Where did that come from?" demanded Burleson.

"The man that fired the vlaie grass dropped it. Barry picked it up on patrol. There's the evidence, sir. The belt lay on the edge of the burning grass."

"You mean he dropped it last night, and Barry found it where the grass had been afire?"

"No, sir; that belt was dropped two hours since. The grass was afire again."

The color left Burleson's face, then came surging back through the tightening skin of the set jaws.

"Barry put out the blaze, sir. He's on duty there now with Chase and Connor. God help Abe Storm if they get him over the sights, Mr. Burleson."

Burleson's self-command was shaken. He reached out his hand for the belt, flung away his axe, and walked up the slope of the knoll where the fire-warden sat calmly watching him.

For a few moments he stood before her, teeth set, in silent battle with that devil's own temper which had never been killed in him, which he knew now could never be ripped out and exterminated, which must, must lie chained--chained while he himself stood tireless guard, knowing that chains may break.

After a while he dropped to the ground beside her, like a man dead tired. "Tell me about these people," he said.

"What people, Mr. Burleson? My own?"

Her sensitive instinct had followed the little drama from her vantage-seat on the knoll; she had seen the patrol display the belt; she had watched the color die out and then flood the young man's face and neck; and she had read the surface signs of the murderous fury that altered his own visage to a mask set with a pair of blazing eyes. And suddenly, as he dropped to the ground beside her, his question had swept aside formality, leaving them on the very edge of an intimacy which she had accepted, unconsciously, with her low-voiced answer.

"Yes--your own people. Tell what I should know I want to live in peace among them if they'll let me."

She gathered her knees in her clasped fingers and looked out into the forest. "Mr. Burleson," she said, "for every mental, every moral deformity, man is answerable to man. You dwellers in the pleasant places of the world are pitiless in your judgment of the sullen, suspicious, narrow life you find edging forests, clinging to mountain flanks, or stupidly stifling in the heart of some vast plain. I cannot understand the mental cruelty which condemns with contempt human creatures who have had no chance--not one single chance. Are they ignorant? Then bear with them for shame! Are they envious, grasping, narrow? Do they gossip about neighbors, do they slander without mercy? What can you expect from starved minds, human intellects unnourished by all that you find so wholesome? Man's progress only inspires man; man's mind alone stimulates man's mind. Where civilization is, there are many men; where is the greatest culture, the broadest thought, the sweetest toleration, there men are many, teaching one another unconsciously, consciously, always advancing, always uplifting, spite of the shallow tide of sin which flows in the footsteps of all progress--"

She ceased; her delicate, earnest face relaxed, and a smile glimmered for a moment in her eyes, in the pretty curled corners of her parted lips.