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“If you are so poor–” she began.

“Poor!” he cut in, with a mirthless laugh; “it’s only a word to you, I suppose.”

He had forgotten her ragged and outgrown clothing, her shabby shoes, in the fresh beauty of her face. In every pulse-beat that stirred her white throat, in every calm breath that faintly swelled the faded pink calico over her breast, he felt that he had proved his own vulgarity in the presence of his betters. A sullen resentment arose in his soul against her.

“I don’t know what you mean,” she said; “I also am terribly poor. If you mean that I am not sorry for you, you are mistaken. Only the poor can understand each other.”

“I can’t understand you,” he sneered. “Why do you come and ask me to pay money to your road-master when I have no money?”

“Because I am path-master. I must do my duty. I won’t ask you for any money, but I must ask you to work out your tax. I can’t help it, can I?”

He looked at her in moody, suspicious silence.

Idle, vicious, without talent, without ambition, he had drifted part way through college, a weak parody on those wealthy young men who idle through the great universities, leaving unsavory records. His father had managed to pay his debts, then very selfishly died, and there was nobody to support the son and heir, just emerging from a drunken junior year.

Creditors made a clean sweep in Albany; the rough shooting-lodge in the Fox Hills was left. Young McCloud took it.

The pine timber he sold as it stood; this kept him in drink and a little food. Then, when starvation looked in at his dirty window, he took his rifle and shot partridges.

Now, for years he had been known as a dealer in game out of season; the great hotels at Saratoga paid him well for his dirty work; the game-wardens watched to catch him. But his ice-house was a cave somewhere out in the woods, and as yet no warden had been quick enough to snare McCloud red-handed.

Musing over these things, the young fellow leaned on the rotting fence, staring vacantly at the collie dog, who, in turn stared gravely at him.

The path-master, running her tanned fingers through her curls, laid one hand on her dog’s silky head and looked up at him.

“I do wish you would work out your tax,” she said.

Before McCloud could find voice to answer, the alder thicket across the road parted and an old man shambled forth on a pair of unsteady bowed legs.

“The kid’s right,” he said, with a hoarse laugh; “git yewr pick an’ hoe, young man, an’ save them two dollars tew pay yewr pa’s bad debts!”

It was old Tansey, McCloud’s nearest neighbor, loaded down with a bundle of alder staves, wood-axe in one hand, rope in the other, supporting the heavy weight of wood on his bent back.

“Get out of that alder-patch!” said McCloud, sharply.

“Ain’t I a-gittin’?” replied Tansey, winking at the little path-master.

“And keep out after this,” added McCloud. “Those alders belong to me!”

“To yew and the blue-jays,” assented Tansey, stopping to wipe the sweat from his heavy face.

“He’s only cutting alders for bean-poles,” observed the path-master, resting her slender fingers on her hips.

“Well, he can cut his bean-poles on his own land hereafter,” said McCloud.

“Gosh!” observed Tansey, in pretended admiration. “Ain’t he neighborly? Cut ’em on my own land, hey? Don’t git passionate,” he added, moving off through the dust; “passionate folks is liable to pyralyze their in’ards, young man!”

“Don’t answer!” said the path-master, watching the sullen rage in McCloud’s eyes.

“Pay yewr debts!” called out Tansey at the turn of the road. “Pay yewr debts, an’ the Lord will pay yewr taxes!”

“The Lord can pay mine, then,” said McCloud to the path-master, “for I’ll never pay a cent of taxes in Foxville. Now what do you say to that?”

The path-master had nothing to say. She went away through the golden dust, one slim hand on the head of her collie dog, who trotted beside her waving his plumy tail.