Part 52

"I can't forget them; I try."

"Please don't try any more," he said.

She looked at him, still smiling. She gazed off through the forest, where the men were going home, shovels shouldered, the blades of axe and spade blood-red in the sunset light.

How long they stood there she scarcely reckoned, until a clear primrose light crept in among the trees, and the evening mist rose from an unseen pond, floating through the dimmed avenues of pines.

"Good-night," she said, gathered bridle, hesitated, then held out her ungloved hand.

Galloping homeward, the quick pressure of his hand still burning her palm, she swept along in a maze of disordered thought. And being by circumstances, though not by inclination, an orderly young woman, she attempted a mental reorganization. This she completed as she wheeled her mare into the main forest road; and, her happy, disordered thoughts rearranged with a layer of cold logic to quiet them, reaction came swiftly; her cheeks burned when she remembered her own attitude of half-accepted intimacy with this stranger. How did he regard her? How cheaply did he already hold her--this young man idling here in the forest for his own pleasure?

But she had something more important on hand than the pleasures of remorseful cogitation as she rode up to the store and drew bridle, where in their shirt-sleeves the prominent citizens were gathered. She began to speak immediately. She did not mince matters; she enumerated them by name, dwelt coldly upon the law governing arson, and told them exactly where they stood.

She was, by courtesy of long residence, one of them. She taught their children, she gave them pills and powders, she had stood by them even when they had the law against them--stood by them loyally and in the very presence of Grier, fencing with him at every move, combating his brutality with deadly intelligence.

They collapsed under her superior knowledge; they trusted her, fawned on her, whined when she rebuked them, carried themselves more decently for a day or two when she dropped a rare word of commendation. They respected her in spite of the latent ruffianly instinct which sneers at women; they feared her as a parish fears its priest; they loved her as they loved one another--which was rather toleration than affection; the toleration of half-starved bob-cats.

And now the school-marm had turned on them--turned on them with undisguised contempt. Never before had she betrayed contempt for them. She spoke of cowardice, too. That bewildered them. Nobody had ever suggested that.

She spoke of the shame of jail; they had heretofore been rather proud of it--all this seated there in the saddle, the light from the store lamp shining full in her face; and they huddled there on the veranda, gaping at her, stupefied.

Then she suddenly spoke of Burleson, praising him, endowing him with every quality the nobility of her own mind could compass. She extolled his patience under provocation, bidding them to match it with equal patience. She bad them be men in the face of this Burleson, who was a man; to display a dignity to compare with his; to meet him squarely, to deal fairly, to make their protests to his face and not whisper crime behind his back.

And that was all; she swung her mare off into the darkness; they listened to the far gallop, uttering never a word. But when the last distant hoof-stroke had ceased, Mr. Burleson's life and forests were safe in the country. How safe his game was they themselves did not exactly know.

That night Burleson walked into the store upon the commonplace errand of buying a jack-knife. It was well that he did not send a groom; better still when he explained, "one of the old-fashioned kind--the kind I used as a school-boy."

"To whittle willow whistles," suggested old man Santry. His voice was harsh; it was an effort for him to speak.

"That's the kind," said Burleson, picking out a one-blader.

Santry was coughing; presently Burleson looked around.

"Find swallowing hard?" he asked.

"Swallerin' ain't easy. I ketched cold."

"Let's see," observed Burleson, strolling up to him and deliberately opening the old man's jaws, not only to Santry's astonishment, but to the stupefaction of the community around the unlighted stove.

"Bring a lamp over here," said the young man.

Somebody brought it.

"Tonsilitis," said Burleson, briefly. "I'll send you something to-night?"

"Be you a doctor?" demanded Santry, hoarsely.

"Was one. I'll fix you up. Go home; and don't kiss your little girl. I'll drop in after breakfast."

Two things were respected in Fox Cross-roads--death and a doctor--neither of which the citizens understood.

But old man Santry, struggling obstinately with his awe of things medical, rasped out, "I ain't goin' to pay no doctor's bills fur a cold!"

"Nobody pays me any more," said Burleson, laughing. "I only doctor people to keep my hand in. Go home, Santry; you're sick."