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“I am sorry,” said young Burleson; “I had hoped for a fair understanding.”

Nobody answered.

He tucked his riding-crop under one arm and stood watching them, buttoning his tan gloves. Then with the butt of his crop he rubbed a dry spot of mud from his leather puttees, freed the incrusted spurs, and turned towards the door, pausing there to look back.

“I hate to leave it this way,” he said, impulsively. “I want to live in peace with my neighbors. I mean to make no threats–but neither can I be moved by threats…. Perhaps time will aid us to come to a fair understanding; perhaps a better knowledge of one another. Although the shooting and fishing are restricted, my house is always open to my neighbors. You will be welcome when you come–“

The silence was profound as he hesitated, standing there before them in the sunshine of the doorway–a lean, well-built, faultless figure, an unconscious challenge to poverty, a terrible offence to their every instinct–the living embodiment of all that they hated most in all the world.

And so he went away with a brief “Good-morning,” swung himself astride his horse, and cantered off, gathering bridle as he rode, sweeping at a gallop across the wooden bridge into the forest world beyond.

The September woods were dry–dry enough to catch fire. His troubled eyes swept the second growth as he drew bridle at a gate set in a fence eight feet high and entirely constructed of wire net interwoven with barbed wire, and heavily hedged with locust and buck-thorn.

He dismounted, unlocked the iron gate, led his horse through, refastened the gate, and walked on, his horse following as a trained dog follows at heel.

Through the still September sunshine ripened leaves drifted down through interlaced branches, and the whispering rustle of their fall filled the forest silence. The wood road, carpeted with brilliant leaves, wound through second growth, following the edge of a dark, swift stream, then swept westward among the pines, where the cushion of brown needles deadened every step, and where there was no sound save the rustle of a flock of rose-tinted birds half buried in the feathery fronds of a white pine. Again the road curved eastward; skirting a cleft of slate rocks, through which the stream rushed with the sound of a wind-stirred woodland; and by this stream a man stood, loading a rusty fowling-piece.

Young Burleson had retained Grier’s keepers, for obvious reasons; and already he knew them all by name. But this man was no keeper of his; and he walked straight up to him, bidding him a rather sharp good-morning, which was sullenly returned.

Then Burleson told him as pleasantly as he could that the land was preserved, that he could not tolerate armed trespassing, and that the keepers were charged to enforce the laws.

“It is better,” he said, “to have a clear understanding at once. I think the law governing private property is clearly set forth on the signs along my boundary. This preserve is posted and patrolled; I have done all I could to guarantee public rights; I have not made any application to have the public road closed, and I am perfectly willing to keep it open for public convenience. But it is not right for anybody to carry a gun in these preserves; and if it continues I shall surely apply for permission to close the road.”

“I guess you think you’ll do a lot o’ things,” observed the man, stolidly.

“I think I will,” returned Burleson, refusing to take offence at the insolence.

The man tossed his gun to his shoulder and slouched towards the boundary. Burleson watched him in silence until the fellow reached the netted wire fence, then he called out.

“There is a turnstile to the left.”

But the native deliberately drew a hatchet from his belt, opened the wire netting with one heavy slash, and crawled through. Then wheeling in his tracks outside, he cursed Burleson and shook his gun at him, and finally slouched off towards Fox Cross-roads, leaving the master of the forest a trifle white and quivering under the cutting curb of self-control.