Part 68

"Eh? Elton's?"

"Yes."

"Your path-master?"

"Well, what of it?"

"Nuthin'--she's good-lookin'--for a path-master," said the warden, with a vicious leer intended for a compliment.

"What of it?" demanded Byram, harshly.

"Be you fixin' to splice with that there girl some day?" asked the game-warden, jocosely.

"What of it?" repeated Byram, with an ugly stare.

"Oh," said the warden, hastily, "I didn't know nothin' was goin' on; I wasn't meanin' to rile nobody."

"Oh, you wasn't, wasn't you?" said Byram, in a rage. "Now you can jest git your pa'tridges by yourself an' leave me to git my road-tax. I'm done with you."

"How you do rile up!" protested the warden. "How was I to know that you was sweet on your path-master when folks over to Spencers say she's sweet on Dan McCloud--"

"It's a lie!" roared young Byram.

"Is it?" asked the warden, with interest. "He's a good-lookin' chap, an' folks say--"

"It's a damn lie!" yelled Byram, "an' you can tell them folks that I say so. She don't know Dan McCloud to speak to him, an' he's that besotted with rum half the time that if he spoke to her she'd die o' fright, for all his good looks."

"Well, well," said the game-warden, soothingly; "I guess he ain't no account nohow, an' it's jest as well that we ketch him with them birds an' run him off to jail or acrost them mountains yonder."

"I don't care where he is as long as I git my tax," muttered Byram.

But he did care. At the irresponsible suggestion of the gossiping game-warden a demon of jealousy had arisen within him. Was it true that Dan McCloud had cast his sodden eyes on Ellie Elton? If it were true, was the girl aware of it? Perhaps she had even exchanged words with the young man, for McCloud was a gentleman's son and could make himself agreeable when he chose, and he could appear strangely at ease in his ragged clothes--nay, even attractive.

All Foxville hated him; he was not one of them; if he had been, perhaps they could have found something to forgive in his excesses and drunken recklessness.

But, though with them, he was not of them; he came from the city--Albany; he had been educated at Princeton College; he neither thought, spoke, nor carried himself as they did. Even in his darkest hours he never condescended to their society, nor, drunk as he was, would he permit any familiarities from the inhabitants.

Byram, who had been to an agricultural college, and who, on his return to Foxville had promptly relapsed into the hideous dialect which he had imbibed with his mother's milk, never forgave the contempt with which McCloud had received his advances, nor that young man's amused repudiation of the relationship which Byram had ventured to recall.

So it came about that Byram at length agreed to aid the game-warden in his lawful quest for the ice-box, and he believed sincerely that it was love of law and duty which prompted him.

But their quest was fruitless; McCloud met them at the gate with a repeating-rifle, knocked the game-warden down, took away his revolver, and laughed at Byram, who stood awkwardly apart, dazed by the business-like rapidity of the operation.

"Road-tax?" repeated McCloud, with a sneer. "I guess not. If the roads are good enough for cattle like you, pay for them yourselves! I use the woods and I pay no road-tax."

"If you didn't have that there rifle--" began Byram, sullenly.

"It's quite empty; look for yourself!" said McCloud, jerking back the lever.

The mortified game-warden picked himself out of the nettle-choked ditch where he had been painfully squatting and started towards Foxville.

"I'll ketch you at it yet!" he called back; "I'll fix you an' your ice-box!"

McCloud laughed.