The Man Thou Gavest. Harriet T. Comstock

roaring fire of pine knots and cones. It was a fierce and furious fire but the night was sharp and cold. There was no other light in the room than that of the fire—nor was any needed.

      Jim sat by the table cleaning a gun. Truedale was taking account of himself. He held his long, brown hand up to the blaze; it was as steady as that of a statue! He had walked ten miles that day and felt exhilarated. Night brought sleep, meal time—and often in between times—brought appetite. He had made an immense gain in health.

      “How long have I been here, Jim?” he asked in a slow, calm voice.

      “Come Thursday, three weeks!” When Jim was most laconic he was often inwardly bursting with desire for conversation. After a silence Conning spoke again:

      “Say, Jim, are there any other people in this mountain range, except you and me?”

      “Ugh! just bristlin’ with folks! Getting too darned thick. That’s why I’ve got ter get into the deep woods. I just naturally hate folks except in small doses. Why”—here Jim put the gun down upon the table—“five mile back, up on Lone Dome, is the Greyson’s, and it ain’t nine miles to Jed Martin’s place. Miss Lois Ann’s is a matter o’ sixteen miles; what do you call population if them figures don’t prove it?”

      Something had evidently disturbed White’s ideas of isolation and independence—it would all come out later. Truedale knew his man fairly well by that time; at least he thought he did. Again Jim took up his gun and Con thought lazily that he must get over to his shack. He occupied a small cabin—Dr. McPherson’s property for sleeping purposes.

      “Do yo’ know,” Jim broke in suddenly; “yo’ mind me of a burr runnin’ wild in a flock of sheep—gatherin’ as yo’ go. Yo’ sho are a miracle! Now old Doc McPherson was like a shadder when he headed this way—but he took longer gatherin’, owin’ to age an’ natural defects o’ build. Your frame was picked right close, but a kind o’ flabby layer of gristle and fat hung ter him an’ wasn’t a good foundation to build on.”

      Conning gave a delighted laugh. Once Jim White began to talk of his own volition his discourse flowed on until hunger or weariness overtook him. His silences had the same quality—it was the way Jim began that mattered.

      “When I first took ter handlin’ yo’ for ole Doc McPherson, I kinder hated ter take my eyes off yo’ fearin’ yo’ might slip out, but Gawd! yo’ can grapple fo’ yo’ self now and—I plain hanker fur the sticks.”

      “The sticks?” This was a new expression.

      “Woods!” Jim vouchsafed (he despised the stupidity that required interpretation of perfectly plain English), “deep woods! What with Burke Lawson suspected of bein’ nigh, an’ my duty as sheriff consarnin’ him hittin’ me in the face, I’ve studied it out that it will be a mighty reasonable trick fur this here officer of the law to be somewhere else till Burke settles with his friends an’ foes, or takes himself off, ’fore he’s strung up or shot up.”

      Truedale turned his chair about and faced Jim.

      “Do you know,” he said, “you’ve mentioned more names in the last ten minutes than you’ve mentioned in all the weeks I’ve been here? You give me a mental cramp. Why, I thought you and I had these hills to ourselves; instead we’re threatened on every side, and yet I haven’t seen a soul on my tramps. Where do they keep themselves? What has this Burke Lawson done, to stir the people?”

      “You don’t call your santers real tramps, do you? Why folks is as thick as ticks up here, though they don’t knock elbows like what they do where you cum from. They don’t holler out ter ’tract yer attention, neither. But they’re here.”

      “Let’s hear more of Burke Lawson.” Truedale gripped him from the seething mass of humanity portrayed by White, as the one promising most colour and interest. “Just where does Burke live?”

      “Burke? Gawd! Burke don’t live anywhere. He is a born floater. He scrooges around a place and raises the devil, then he just naturally floats off. But he nearly always comes back. Since the trap-settin’ a time back, he has been mighty scarce in these parts; but any day he may turn up.”

      “The trap, eh? What about that?” With this Truedale turned about again, for Jim, having finished his work on the gun, had placed the weapon on its pegs on the wall and had drawn near the fire. He ran his hand through his crisp, gray hair until it stood on end and gave him a peculiarly bristling appearance. He was about to enjoy himself. He was as keen for gossip as any cabin woman of the hills, but Jim was an artist about sharing his knowledge. However, once he decided to share, he shared royally.

      “I’ve been kinder waitin’ fur yo’ to show some interest in us-all,” he began, “it’s a plain sign of yo’ gettin’ on. I writ the same to old Doc McPherson yesterday! ‘When he takes to noticin’,’ I writ, ‘he’s on the mend.’ ”

      Conning laughed good naturedly. “Oh! I’m on the mend, all right,” he said.

      “Now as to that trap business,” Jim took up the story, “I’ll have to go back some and tell yo’ about the Greysons and Jed Martin—they all be linked like sassages. Pete Greyson lives up to Lone Dome. Pete came from stock; he ain’t trash by a long come, but he can act like it! Pete’s forbears drank wine and talked like lords; Pete has ter rely on mountain dew and that accounts fur the difference in his goin’s-on; but once he’s sober, he’s quality—is Pete. Pete’s got two darters—Marg an’ Nella-Rose. Old Doc McPherson use’ ter call ’em types, whatever that means. Marg is a type, sure and sartin, but Nella-Rose is a little no-count—that’s what I say. But blame it all, it’s Nella-Rose as has set the mountains goin’, so far as I can see. Fellers come courtin’ Marg and they just slip through her fingers an’ Nella-Rose gets ’em. She don’t want ’em ’cept to play with and torment Marg. Gawd! how them two gals do get each other edgy. Round about Lone Dome they call Nella-Rose the doney-gal—that meaning ‘sweetheart’; she’s responsible for more trouble than a b’ar with a sore head, or Burke Lawson on a tear.”

      Conning was becoming vitally interested and showed it, to Jim’s delight; this was a dangerous state for White, he was likely, once started and flattered, to tell more than was prudent.

      “Jed Martin”—Jim gave a chuckle—“has been tossed between them two gals like a hot corn pone. He’d take Nella-Rose quick enough if she’d have him, but barrin’ her, he hangs to Marg so as ter be nigh Nella-Rose in any case. And right here Burke Lawson figgers. Burke’s got two naturs, same as old Satan. Marg can play on one and get him plumb riled up to anythin’; Nella-Rose can twist him around her finger and make him act like the Second Coming.”

      Conning called a halt. “What’s the Second Coming?” he asked, his eyes twinkling.

      “Meaning?—good as a Bible character,” Jim explained huffily. “Gawd, man! do your own thinkin’. I can’t talk an’ splanify ter onct.”

      “Oh! I see. Well, go on, Jim.”

      “There be times of the moon when I declare that no-count Nella-Rose just plain seems possessed; has ter do somethin’ and does it! Three months ago, come Saturday, or thereabouts, she took it into her head to worst Marg at every turn and let it out that she was goin’ to round up all the fellers and take her pick! She had the blazin’ face ter come down here and tell me that! Course Marg knew it, but the two most consarned didn’t—meaning Jed and Burke. Least they suspected—but warn’t sure. Jed meant to get Burke out o’ the way so he could have a clear space to co’t Nella-Rose, so he aimed to shoot one o’ Burke’s feet just enough to lay him up—Jed is the slow, calculatin’ kind and an almighty sure shot. He reckoned Burke couldn’t walk up Lone Dome with a sore foot, so he laid for him, meanin’ afterward to say he was huntin’ an’ took Burke for a ’possum. Well, Burke got wind of the plot; I’m thinkin’ Marg put a flea in his ear, anyway he set a trap just by the path leading from the trail to Lone Dome. Gawd! Jed planted his foot inter it same as if he meant ter,