The Firing Line

They seemed to be conversing very earnestly; once she threw back her pretty head and laughed unrestrainedly, and the clear sound of it floated up to him through the late sunshine; and once she shook her head emphatically, and once he saw her lay her hand on Hamil's arm—an impulsive gesture, as though to enforce her words, but it was more like a caress.

A tinge of malice altered Malcourt's smile as he watched them; the stiffening grin twitched at his cheeks.

"Now I wonder," he thought to himself, "whether it is the right way after all!… I don't think I'll threaten her again with—alternatives. There's no telling what a fool might do in a panic." Then, as though the spectacle bored him, he yawned, stretched his arms and back gracefully, turned and touched the button that summoned his servant.

"Order the horses and pack as usual, Simmons," he said with another yawn. "I'm going to New York. Isn't Mr. Portlaw here yet?"

"No, sir."

"Did you say he went away on horseback?"

"Yes, sir, this morning."

"And you don't know where?"

"No, sir. Mr. Portlaw took the South Road."

Malcourt grinned again, perfectly certain, now, of Portlaw's destination; and thinking to himself that unless his fatuous employer had been landed in a ditch somewhere, en route, he was by this time returning from Pride's Fall with considerable respect for Mrs. Ascott.

As a matter of fact, Portlaw had already started on his way back. Mrs. Ascott was not at Pride's Hall—her house—when he presented himself at the door. Her servant, evidently instructed, did not know where Mrs. Ascott and Miss Palliser had gone or when they might return.

So Portlaw betook himself heavily to the village inn, where he insulted his astonished stomach with a noonday dinner, and found the hard wooden chairs exceedingly unpleasant.

About five o'clock he got into his saddle with an unfeigned groan, and out of it again at Mrs. Ascott's door. They told him there that Mrs. Ascott was not at home.

Whether this might be the conventional manner of informing him that she declined to receive him, or whether she really was out, he had no means of knowing; so he left his cards for Mrs. Ascott and Miss Palliser, also the note which young Mrs. Malcourt had given him; clambered once more up the side of his horse, suppressing his groans until out of hearing and well on his way toward the fatal boundary.

In the late afternoon, sky and water had turned to a golden rose hue; clouds of gnats danced madly over meadow pools, calm mirrors of the sunset, save when a trout sprang quivering, a dark, slim crescent against the light, falling back with a mellow splash that set the pool rocking.

At gaze a deer looked at him from sedge, furry ears forward; stamped, winded him, and, not frightened very much, trotted into the dwarf willows, halting once or twice to look around.

As he advanced, his horse splashing through the flooded land fetlock-deep in water, green herons flapped upward, protesting harshly, circled overhead with leisurely wing-beats, and settled on some dead limb, thin, strange shapes against the deepening orange of the western heavens.

Portlaw, sitting his saddle gingerly, patronized nature askance; and he saw across the flooded meadow where the river sand had piled its smothering blanket—which phenomenon he was guiltily aware was due to him.

Everywhere were signs of the late overflow—raw new gravel channels for Painted Creek; river willows bent low where the flood had winnowed; piles of driftwood jammed here and there; a single stone pier stemming mid-stream, ancient floor and cover gone. More of his work—or the consequences of it—this desolation; from which, under his horse's feet, rose a hawk, flapping, furious, a half-drowned snake dangling from the talon-clutch.

"Ugh!" muttered Portlaw, bringing his startled horse under discipline; then forged forward across the drowned lands, sorry for his work, sorry for his obstinacy, sorrier for himself; for Portlaw, in some matters was illogically parsimonious; and it irked him dreadfully to realise how utterly indefensible were his actions and how much they promised to cost him.

"Unless," he thought cannily to himself, "I can fix it up with her—for old friendship's sake—bah!—doing the regretful sinner business—"

As the horse thrashed out of the drowned lands up into the flat plateau where acres of alders, their tops level as a trimmed hedge, stretched away in an even, green sea, a distant, rapping sound struck his ear, sharp, regular as the tree-tapping of a cock-o'-the-woods.

Indifferently convinced that the great, noisy woodpecker was the cause of the racket, he rode on toward the hard-wood ridge dominating this plateau where his guests, last season, had shot woodcock—one of the charges in the suit against him.

"The thing to do," he ruminated, "is to throw myself gracefully on her mercy. Women like to have a chance to forgive you; Louis says so, and he ought to know. What a devilishly noisy woodpecker!"

And, looking up, he drew bridle sharply.

For there, on the wood's edge, stood a familiar gray mare, and in the saddle, astride, sat Alida Ascott, busily hammering tacks into a trespass notice printed on white muslin, and attached to the trunk of a big maple-tree.

So absorbed was she in her hammering that at first she neither heard nor saw Portlaw when he finally ventured to advance; and when she did she dropped the tack hammer in her astonishment.

He dismounted, with pain, to pick it up, presented it, face wreathed in a series of appealing smiles, then, managing to scale the side of his horse again, settled himself as comfortably as possible for the impending conflict.

But Alida Ascott, in her boyish riding breeches and deep-skirted coat, merely nodded her thanks, took hold of the hammer firmly, and drove in more tacks, paying no further attention to William Van Beuren Portlaw and his heart-rending smiles.

It was very embarrassing; he sidled his horse around so that he might catch a glimpse of her profile. The view he obtained was not encouraging.

"Alida," he ventured plaintively.

"Mr. Portlaw!"—so suddenly swinging on him that he lost all countenance and blurted out:

"I—I only want to make amends and be friends."

"I expect you to make amends," she said in a significantly quiet voice, which chilled him with the menace of damages unlimited. And even in his perturbation he saw at once that it would never do to have a backwoods jury look upon the fascinating countenance of this young plaintiff.

"Alida," he said sorrowfully, "I am beginning to see things in a clearer light."

"I think that light will grow very much clearer, Mr. Portlaw."

He repressed a shudder, and tried to look reproachful, but she seemed to be very hard-hearted, for she turned once more to her hammering.

"Alida!"

"What?"—continuing to drive tacks.

"After all these years of friendship it—it is perfectly painful for me to contemplate a possible lawsuit—"

"It will be more painful to contemplate an actual one, Mr. Portlaw."

"Alida, do you really mean that you—my neighbour and friend—are going to press this unnatural complaint?"

"I certainly do."

Portlaw shook his head violently, and passed his gloved hand over his eyes as though to rouse himself from a distressing dream; all of which expressive pantomime was lost on Mrs. Ascott, who was busy driving tacks.

"I simply cannot credit my senses," he said mournfully.

"You ought to try; it will be still more difficult later," she observed, backing her horse so that she might inspect her handiwork from the proper point of view.

Portlaw looked askance at the sign. It warned people not to shoot, fish, cut trees, dam streams, or build fires under penalty of the law; and was signed, "Alida Ascott."

"You didn't have any up before, did you?" he asked innocently.

"By advice of counsel I think I had better not reply, Mr. Portlaw. But I believe that point will be brought out by my lawyers—unless"—with a brilliant smile—"your own counsel sees fit to discuss it."

Portlaw was convinced that his hair was stirring under his cap. He was horribly afraid of the law.