Part 85 (1/2)
”That isn't a very big wild boar,” observed Scott, critically eyeing the saddle.
”It's a two-year-old,” admitted Geraldine. ”I only shot him because Lacy said we were out of meat.”
”_You_ killed him!” exclaimed Duane.
She gave him a condescending glance; and Scott laughed.
”She and Miller save this establishment from daily famine,” he said.
”You have no idea how many deer and boar it takes to keep the game within limits and ourselves and domestics decently fed. Just look at the heads up there on the walls.” He waved his arm around the oak wainscoting, where, at intervals, the great furry heads of wild boar loomed in the candlelight, ears and mane on end, eyes and white sabre-like tusks gleaming. ”Those are Geraldine's,” he said with brotherly pride.
”I want to shoot one, too!” said Duane firmly. ”Do you think I'm going to let my affianced put it all over me like that?”
”_Isn't_ it like a man?” said Geraldine, appealing to Kathleen. ”They simply can't endure it if a girl ventures compet.i.tion----”
”You talk like a suffragette,” observed her brother. ”Duane doesn't care how many piglings you shoot; he wants to go out alone and get that old grandfather of all boars, the one which kept you on the mountain for the last three days----”
”_My_ boar!” she cried indignantly. ”I won't have it! I won't let him.
Oh, Duane, _am_ I a pig to want to manage this affair when I've been after him all winter?--and he's the biggest, grayest, wiliest thing you ever saw--a perfectly enormous silvery fellow with two pairs of j.a.panese sabre-sheaths for tusks and a mane like a lion, and a double bend in his nose and----”
Shouts of laughter checked her flushed animation.
”Of course I'm not going to sneak out all alone and pot your old pig,”
said Duane; ”I'll find one for myself on some other mountain----”
”But I want you to shoot with me!” she exclaimed in dismay. ”I wanted you to see me stalk this boar and mark him down, and have you kill him.
Oh, Duane, that was the fun. I've been saving him, I really have. Miller knows that I had a shot once--a pretty good one--and wouldn't take it. I killed a four-year near Hurryon instead, just to save that one----”
”You're the finest little sport in the land!” said Duane, ”and we are just tormenting you. Of course I'll go with you, but I'm blessed if I pull trigger on that gentleman pig----”
”You _must_! I've saved him. Scott, make him say he will! Kathleen, this is really too annoying! A girl plans and plans and pictures to herself the happiness and surprise she's going to give a man, and he's too stupid to comprehend----”
”Meaning me!” observed Duane. ”But I leave it to you, Scott; a man can't do such a thing decently----”
”Oh, you silly people,” laughed Kathleen; ”you may never again see that boar. Denman, keeper at Northgate when Mr. Atwood owned the estate, told me that everybody had been after that boar and n.o.body ever got a shot at him. Which,” she added, ”does not surprise me, as there are some hundred square miles of mountain and forest on this estate, and Scott is lazy and aging very fast.”
”By the way, Sis, you say you got a four-year near The Green Pa.s.s?”
She nodded, busy with her bon-bon.
”Was it exciting?” asked Duane, secretly eaten up with pride over her achievements and sportsmans.h.i.+p.
”No, not very.” She went on with her bon-bon, then glanced up at her brother, askance, like a bad child afraid of being reported.
”Old Miller is so fussy,” she said--”the old, spoilt tyrant! He is really very absurd sometimes.”
”Oho!” said Scott suspiciously, ”so Miller is coming to me again!”
”He--I'm afraid he is. Did you,” appealing to Kathleen, ”ever know a more obstinate, unreasoning old man----”