A Young Man in a Hurry, and Other Short Stories

“Often – before Mr. Grier came.”

Burleson fell silent, restless in his saddle, then said:

“I hope you will see many wood-duck now. My boats on Spirit Water are always at Mr. Elliott’s disposal – and at yours.”

She made the slightest sign of acknowledgment, but said nothing. Once or twice she rose upright, standing straight in her stirrups to scan the distance under a small, inverted hand. East and north the pine forest girdled the vlaie; west and south hardwood timber laced the sky-line with branches partly naked, and the pine’s outposts of white birch and willow glimmered like mounds of crumpled gold along the edges of the sea of grass.

“There is the stream!” said Burleson, suddenly.

She saw it at the same moment, touched her mare with spurred heels, and lifted her clean over with a grace that set Burleson’s nerves thrilling.

He followed, taking the water-jump without effort; and after a second’s hesitation ventured to praise her horse.

“Yes,” she said, indifferently, “The Witch is a good mare.” After a silence, “My father desires to sell her.”

“I know a dozen men who would jump at the chance,” said the young fellow. “But” – he hesitated – “it is a shame to sell such a mare – ”

The girl colored. “My father will never ride again,” she said, quietly. “We should be very glad to sell her.”

“But – the mare suits you so perfectly – ”

She turned her head and looked at him gravely. “You must be aware, Mr. Burleson, that it is not choice with us,” she said. There was nothing of bitterness in her voice; she leaned forward, patting the mare’s chestnut neck for a moment, then swung back, sitting straight as a cavalryman in her saddle. “Of course,” she said, smiling for the first time, “it will break my heart to sell The Witch, but” – she patted the mare again – “the mare won’t grieve; it takes a dog to do that; but horses – well, I know horses enough to know that even The Witch won’t grieve.”

“That is a radical theory, Miss Elliott,” said Burleson, amused. “What about the Arab and his loving steed?”

“That is not a legend for people who know horses,” she replied, still smiling. “The love is all on our side. You know horses, Mr. Burleson. Is it not the truth – the naked truth, stripped of poetry and freed from tradition?”

“Why strip poetry from anything?” he asked, laughing.

She rode on in silence for a while, the bright smile fading from lips and eyes.

“Oh, you are quite right,” she said; “let us leave what romance there may be in the world. My horse loves me like a dog. I am very happy to believe it, Mr. Burleson.”

From the luminous shadow of her sombrero she looked out across the stretch of marsh, where from unseen pools the wild-duck were rising, disturbed by the sound of their approach. And now the snipe began to dart skyward from under their horses’ feet, filling the noon silence with their harsh “squak! squak!”

“It’s along here somewhere,” said Burleson, leaning forward in his saddle to scan the swale-grass. A moment later he said, “Look there, Miss Elliott!”

In the tall, blanched grasses a velvety black space marked the ashes of a fire, which had burned in a semi-circle, then westward to the water’s edge.

“You see,” he said, “it was started to sweep the vlaie to the pine timber. The wind changed, and held it until the fire was quenched at the shore.”

“I see,” she said.

He touched his horse, and they pressed forward along the bog’s edge.

“Here,” he pointed out, “they fired the grass again, you see, always counting on the west wind; and here again, and yonder too, and beyond that, Miss Elliott – in a dozen places they set the grass afire. If that wet east wind had not come up, nothing on earth could have saved a thousand acres of white pine – and I’m afraid to say how many deer and partridges and woodcock… It was a savage bit of business, was it not, Miss Elliott?”

She sat her horse, silent, motionless, pretty head bent, studying the course of the fire in the swale. There was no mistaking the signs; a grass fire had been started, which, had the west wind held, must have become a brush fire, and then the most dreaded scourge of the north, a full-fledged forest-fire in tall timber. After a little while she raised her head and looked full at Burleson, then, without comment, she wheeled her mare eastward across the vlaie towards the pines.

“What do you make of it?” he asked, pushing his horse forward alongside of her mare.

“The signs are perfectly plain,” she said. “Whom do you suspect?”

He waited a moment, then shook his head.

“You suspect nobody?”

“I haven’t been here long enough. I don’t exactly know what to do about this. It is comparatively easy to settle cases of simple trespass or deer-shooting, but, to tell the truth, Miss Elliott, fire scares me. I don’t know how to meet this sort of thing.”

She was silent.

“So,” he added, “I sent for the fire-warden. I don’t know just what the warden’s duties may be.”

“I do,” she said, quietly. Her mare struck solid ground; she sent her forward at a gallop, which broke into a dead run. Burleson came pounding along behind, amused, interested at this new caprice. She drew bridle at the edge of the birches, half turned in her saddle, bidding him follow with a gesture, and rode straight into the covert, now bending to avoid branches, now pushing intrusive limbs aside with both gloved hands.

Out of the low bush pines, heirs of the white birches’ heritage, rabbits hopped away; sometimes a cock grouse, running like a rat, fled, crested head erect; twice twittering woodcock whirred upward, beating wings tangled for a moment in the birches, fluttering like great moths caught in a net.

And now they had waded through the silver-birches which fringed the pines as foam fringes a green sea; and before them towered the tall timber, illuminated by the sun.

In the transparent green shadows they drew bridle; she leaned forward, clearing the thick tendrils of hair from her forehead, and sat stock-still, intent, every exquisite line and contour in full relief against the pines.

At first he thought she was listening, nerves keyed to sense sounds inaudible to him. Then, as he sat, fascinated, scarcely breathing lest the enchantment break, leaving him alone in the forest with the memory of a dream, a faint aromatic odor seemed to grow in the air; not the close scent of the pines, but something less subtle.

“Smoke!” he said, aloud.

She touched her mare forward, riding into the wind, delicate nostrils dilated; and he followed over the soundless cushion of brown needles, down aisles flanked by pillared pines whose crests swam in the upper breezes, filling all the forest with harmony.

And here, deep in the splendid forest, there was fire, – at first nothing but a thin, serpentine trail of ashes through moss and bedded needles; then, scarcely six inches in width, a smouldering, sinuous path from which fine threads of smoke rose straight upward, vanishing in the woodland half-light.

He sprang from his horse and tore away a bed of green moss through which filaments of blue smoke stole; and deep in the forest mould, spreading like veins in an autumn leaf, fire ran underground, its almost invisible vapor curling up through lichens and the brown carpet of pine-needles.

At first, for it was so feeble a fire, scarcely alive, he strove to stamp it out, then to smother it with damp mould. But as he followed its wormlike course, always ahead he saw the thin, blue signals rising through living moss – everywhere the attenuated spirals creeping from the ground underfoot.

“I could summon every man in this town if necessary,” she said; “I am empowered by law to do so; but – I shall not – yet. Where could we find a keeper – the nearest patrol?”

“Please follow me,” he said, mounting his horse and wheeling eastward.

In a few moments they came to a foot-trail, and turned into it at a canter, skirting the Spirit Water, which stretched away between two mountains glittering in the sun.

“How many men can you get?” she called forward.

“I don’t know; there’s a gang of men terracing below the lodge – ”

“Call them all; let every man bring a pick and shovel. There is a guard now!”

Burleson pulled up short and shouted, “Murphy!”

The patrol turned around.