The Path-Master
by
“The bankrupt can always pay one debt, but neither
God nor man can credit him with the payment.”
I
When Dingman, the fate game-warden, came panting over the mountain from Spencers to confer with young Byram, road-master at Foxville, he found that youthful official reshingling his barn.
The two men observed each other warily for a moment; Byram jingled the shingle-nails in his apron-pocket; Dingman, the game-warden, took a brief but intelligent survey of the premises, which included an unpainted house, a hen-yard, and the newly shingled barn.
“Hello, Byram,” he said, at length.
“Is that you?” replied Byram, coldly.
He was a law-abiding young man; he had not shot a bird out of season for three years.
After a pause the game-warden said, “Ain’t you a-comin’ down off’n that ridge-pole?”
“I’m a-comin’ down when I quit shinglin’,” replied the road-master, cautiously. Dingman waited; Byram fitted a shingle, fished out a nail from his apron-pocket, and drove it with unnecessary noise.
The encircling forest re-echoed the hammer strokes; a squirrel scolded from the orchard.
“Didn’t I hear a gun go off in them alder bushes this morning?” inquired the game-warden. Byram made no reply, but hammered violently. “Anybody got a ice-house ’round here?” persisted the game-warden.
Byram turned a non-committal eye on the warden.
“I quit that business three years ago, an’ you know it,” he said. “I ‘ain’t got no ice-house for to hide no pa’tridges, an’ I ain’t a-shootin’ out o’ season for the Saratogy market!”
The warden regarded him with composure.
“Who said you was shootin’ pa’tridges?” he asked. But Byram broke in:
“What would I go shootin’ them birds for when I ‘ain’t got no ice-box?”
“Who says you got a ice-box?” replied the warden, calmly. “There is other folks in Foxville, ain’t there?”
Byram grew angrier. “If you want to stop this shootin’ out o’ season,” he said, “you go to them rich hotel men in Saratogy. Are you afraid jest because they’ve got a pull with them politicians that makes the game-laws and then pays the hotel men to serve ’em game out o’ season an’ reason? Them’s the men to ketch; them’s the men that set the poor men to vi’latin’ the law. Folks here ‘ain’t got no money to buy powder ‘n’ shot for to shoot nothin’. But when them Saratogy men offers two dollars a bird for pa’tridge out o’ season, what d’ye think is bound to happen?”
“Shootin’,” said the warden, sententiously. “An’ it’s been did, too. An’ I’m here for to find out who done that shootin’ in them alders.”
“Well, why don’t you find out, then?” sneered young Byram from his perch on the ridge-pole.
“That’s it,” said the warden, bitterly; “all you folks hang together like bees in a swarm-bunch. You’re nuthin’ but a passel o’ critters that digs ginseng for them Chinese an’ goes gunnin’ for pa’tridges out o’ season–“
“I’ll go gunnin’ for you!” shouted Byram, climbing down the ladder in a rage. “I am going to knock your head off, you darned thing!”
Prudence halted him; the game-warden, who had at first meditated flight, now eyed him with patronizing assurance.
“Don’t git riled with me, young man,” he said. “I’m a ‘fical of this State. Anyway, it ain’t you I’m lookin’ for–“
“Well, why don’t you say so, then?” broke in Byram, with an oath.
“But it’s one o’ your family,” added the warden.
“My family!” stammered Byram, in genuine surprise. Then an ugly light glimmered in his eyes. “You mean Dan McCloud?”
“I do,” said the warden, “an’ I’m fixed to git him, too.”
“Well, what do you come to me for, then?” demanded Byram.
“For because Dan McCloud is your cousin, ain’t he? An’ I jest dropped in on you to see how the land lay. If it’s a fight it’s a fight, but I jest want to know how many I’m to buck against. Air you with him? I’ve proofs. I know he’s got his ice-box stuffed full o’ pa’tridges an’ woodcock. Air you with him?”