Part 25 (1/2)

”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.