Argosy, Vol. 120, No. 1 — page 31: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

-THE. DEBT. | joyfully since he could remember, but never had he violated that somewhat loose code that the mountains taught him and his kind—such of them as cared to learn. To be strong, to be fair to men and kind to women, and to be utterly faithful to a friend—these things were among the foun- dation-stones. Reason told him that he had been faithful, but despite that he could not understand how it had come about that he and Molly loved each other. Being wife and friend to the same man, they had no right to; but they did. Their love was as sure as it was certain that the trees would bud and bear their richness of beauty. All that remained to him was to live up to the letter of his self-made law. He knew that never again even by a glance would she reveal herself to him and he understood clearly that it was his part to keep away from her. Not to him or to her was given the right to shape events. That right was vested in Harry Stowe. If he should fling her away, like a wornout garment— David pulled himself back from thinking further in that direction. And yet a hope as faint as the first hint of a winter dawn com- forted him minutely, although even as he took comfort in it he realized the folly of cherishing- any hope. He must. stand on his feet and play the game with the score against him. _ That was what he did through the months of spring ang early summer, with a labor of spirit new and torturing to him. He worked in the same gang with Stowe, and often helped roll the same log into the river. All one day they struggled with a jam within sight of the log-house on Mink Hill—Molly went in and out about her duties gracefully and Burns cursed the fate that had sent the Skeene River flowing that way. Between him and Stowe there was civil- ity, neither more nor less. It required no eye of great discernment to see that his former partner hated him with a repressed hatred, but Burns, believing that it sought no outlet in action, gave it small thought. He was concerted solely with being more than fair to Stowe in their work and with settling up the partnership as quickly as it ‘could be done without loss to either. d 21 So he welcomed the return to the Mink Hill. neighborhood and the opportunity to make woods and water yield all that was in them. They fished with considerable suc- cess, dug ‘ginseng with profit, and even took to farm labor through the haying season in order the sooner to settle their affairs. They worked together without friction because neither spoke many words and each seemed to be intent upon his own end—David knew that his own was liberty, and supposed that the same was the sole desire of Stowe. On a sweltering morning in August they met in the village, according to their cus- tom when there was no particular work planned for the day. Stowe wiped his bead- ed face with a hand that trembled lightly: there was a bruised look about his eyes, and Burns guessed inwardly that his part- ner had been where boot-leg whisky was plenty the night before, but he kept his thoughts to himself. Harry it was who proposed, after a desultory curse at the weather, that they forget work for the day. “Tm a going to work anyway,” Burns told him, “ because it’s just the blazing hot kind of weather I’ve been looking for. I’m going over to Red Rocks.” : “Red Rocks?” stared Harry. “ There ain’t nothing there but rattlesnakes?” “ That’s it—rattlesnakes!”’ “A rattlesnake ain’t good for anything but an excuse to take a drink!” “ There’s a bounty of a dollar apiece,” said David. “ They’ll be lying out all over the rocks to-day and if we can’t make fif- teen or twenty dollars before night Ill eat a rattler! Nobody’s thought of hunting ’em for a dozen years, not that I know of.” “Im game!” cried Stowe, with a flush of enthusiasm. ‘“ They ain’t as thick as you think for, but we’ll make good money. 9. ‘So they started, with their rifles in the crooks of their arms and their steps swift along the highway. That pace, however, did not last. At the end of a few miles Stowe lagged and more than once Burns halted to tet him catch up. It was after an hour of this kind of progress that Stowe broke the silence which always enveloped their joint undertakings. “Got any booze?” he ask, puffing. . “We'd ought to have some for snake-bite.” COMmiclbooa CO@