The Trumpeter Swan Part 25

"Yes."

"I could kill him, Becky."

She laughed, ruefully. "For what? Perhaps he thinks I'm not a nice sort of girl--like the one you kissed----"

"For G.o.d's sake, Becky."

He sat down on a flat rock. He was white, and shaking a little. He wanted more than anything else in the wide world to kill George Dalton.

Of course in these days such things were preposterous. But he had murder in his heart.

"I blame myself," Becky said, _tap-tap_, "I should have known that a man doesn't respect," _tap-tap_, "a woman he can kiss."

He took the riding crop forcibly out of her hands. "Look at me, look at me, Becky, do you love him?"

She whispered, "Yes."

"Then he's got to marry you."

But her pride was up. "Do you think I want him if he doesn't want--me?"

"He shall want you," said Randy Paine; "the day shall come when he shall beg on his knees."

Randy had studied law. But there are laws back of the laws of the white man. The Indian knows no rest until his enemy is in his hands.

Randy lay awake late that night thinking it out. But he was not thinking only of Georgie. He was thinking of Becky and her self-respect. "She will never get it back," he said, "until that dog asks her to marry him."

He had faith enough in her to believe that she would not marry Dalton now if he asked her. But she must be given the chance.

CHAPTER VIII

ANCESTORS

I

The Judge and Mr. Flippin were fis.h.i.+ng, with gra.s.shoppers for bait.

The fish that they caught they called "s.h.i.+ners." As an edible product "s.h.i.+ners" were of little account. But the Judge and Mr. Flippin did not fish for food, they fished for sport. It was mild sport compared to the fis.h.i.+ng of other days when the Judge had waded into mountain streams with the water coming up close to the pocket of his flannel s.h.i.+rt where he kept his cigars, or had been poled by Bob Flippin from "riffle" to pool. Those had been the days of speckled trout and small-mouthed ba.s.s, and Bob had been a boy and the Judge at middle age.

Now Bob Flippin had reached the middle years, and the Judge was old, but they still fished together. They were comrades in a very close and special sense. What Bob Flippin lacked in education and culture he made up in wisdom and adoration of the Judge. When he talked he had something to say, but as a rule he let the Judge talk and was always an absorbed listener.

There was in their relations, however, a complete adjustment to the cla.s.s distinctions which separated them. The Judge accepted as his right the personal service with which Bob Flippin delighted to honor him. It was always Bob who pulled the boat and carried the basket. It was Bob who caught the gra.s.shoppers and cooked the lunch.

There was one dish dedicated to a day's fis.h.i.+ng--fried ham and eggs.

Bob had a long-handled frying-pan, and the food was seasoned with the salt and savor of the out-of-doors.

There were always several dogs to bear their masters company. The Judge's three were beagles--tireless hunters of rabbits, and somewhat in disgrace as a species since Germany had gone to war with the world.

Individually, however, they were beloved by the Judge because they were the children and grandchildren of a certain old Dinah who had slept in a basket by his bed until she died.

Bob Flippin had a couple of setters, and the five canines formed a wistful semicircle around the lunch basket.

The lunch basket was really a fis.h.i.+ng-basket, lined with tin. In one end was a receptacle for ice. After the lunch was eaten, the fish were put next to the ice, and the basket thus served two purposes.

Among the other edibles there were always corncakes for the dogs. They knew it, and had the patience of a.s.sured expectation.

"Truxton comes on Sat.u.r.day," said the Judge as he watched Bob turn the eggs expertly in the long-handled pan, "and Claudia. I told Becky to ride over this morning and ask your wife if she could help Mandy.

Mandy's all right when there's n.o.body but the family, but when there's company in prospect she moans and groans."

"Mollie's up at the Watermans'; Mrs. Waterman is worse. They expected to take her to New York, but she is too ill, and they are going to have the doctors bring another nurse."

"I had a note from Mr. Dalton," said the Judge, "saying they were going. It was rather sudden, and he was sorry. Nice fellow. He liked to come over and look at my birds."

Bob Flippin's eyes twinkled. "I reckon he liked to look at a pretty girl----"

The Judge stared at him. "At Becky?"

Flippin nodded. "Didn't you know it?"

"Bless my soul." The Judge was unquestionably startled. "But I don't know anything about him. I can't have him running after Becky."

"Seems to me he's been a-runnin'."

"But what would Claudia say? I don't know anything about his family.

Maybe he hasn't any family. How do I know he isn't a fortune-hunter?"

"Well, he isn't a bird hunter, I can tell you that. I saw him kick one of your dogs. A man that will kick a dog isn't fit to hold a gun."

"No, he isn't," said the Judge, soberly. "I'm upset by what you've said, Flippin. Dalton's all right as far as I can see as a friend of mine. But when anybody comes courting at Huntersfield he's got to show credentials."

He ate his lunch without much appet.i.te. He was guiltily aware of what Claudia would say if she knew what had happened.

But perhaps nothing had happened and perhaps she need not know. He cheered up and threw a bit of ham to the waiting dogs. Perhaps Becky wasn't interested. Perhaps, after all, Dalton had been genuine in his interest in the stuffed birds.

"Becky's too young for things like that," he began hopefully.

But Bob Flippin shook his head. "Girls are queer, Judge, and you never can tell what they're goin' to do next. Now, there's my Mary--running off and getting married, and coming home and not talking much about it.

She--didn't even bring her marriage certificate. Said that he had kept it. But she's never lied to me, and I know when she says she's married, she's--married--but it's queer. He ain't written now for weeks, but she ain't worried. She says she knows the reason, but she can't tell me. And when I try to ask questions, she just looks me straight in the eye and says, 'I never lied to you, Father, did I? And it's all right.'"

"He has a good name," said the Judge. "Branch--it's one of our names--my wife's family."

"But I reckon there ain't never been any Truelove Branches in your family tree. I laugh at Mary when she calls him that. '"Truelove"

ain't any name for a man, Mary,' I tell her. But she says there couldn't be a better one. And she insisted on naming the child 'Fidelity.' But if anybody had told me that my little Mary--would take things into her own hands like that--why, Judge, before she went away to teach school, she leaned on me and her mother--and now she's as stiff as a poker when we try to ask about her affairs----"

"Does he support her?" the Judge asked.

"Sends her plenty of money. She always seems to have enough, even when he doesn't write. He'll be coming one of these days--and then we'll get the thing straight, but in the meantime there ain't any use in asking Mary."

He brought out the bag of corn-cakes and fed the dogs. They were a well-bred crew and took their share in turn, sitting in a row and going through the ceremony with an air of enjoying not only the food but the attention they attracted front the two men.

"Of course," said Mr. Flippin as he gathered, up the lunch things, "I'm saying to you what I wouldn't say to another soul. Mary's my girl, and she's all right. But I naturally have the feelings of a father."