The Roof Tree. Charles Neville Buck
right amazin' ter listen at ye," he said at length. "But plentiful amazin' things comes ter pass."
An amazing thing was coming to pass with him at that moment, for his arms were twitching with an eagerness to close about her, and he seemed struggling against forces of impulse stronger than himself.
It was amazing because he had sworn to avoid the folly of chancing everything on too hasty a love declaration, and because the discipline of patient self-control was strong in him. It was amazing, too, because, with a warning recently received and appreciated, his ears had become deaf to all sounds save her voice, and when the thicket stirred some fifty yards away he heard nothing.
Even the girl herself would ordinarily have paused to bend her head and listen to an unaccustomed sound, but in her as well as in him the close-centred magic was working absorption.
Each of them felt the tense, new something that neither fully understood, but which set them vibrating to a single impulse as the two prongs of a tuning fork answer to one note. Neither of them thought of the figure that hitched its way toward them—more cautious after that first warning rustle—to watch and listen—the figure of an armed man.
For the girl reality seemed to recede into the gossamer of dreams. She could fancy herself the other woman who had lived and died before her—and the face of the man in the moonlight might have been that of the pioneer Thornton. Fancy was stronger than actuality.
"Hit almost seems like," she whispered, "that ther old tree's got a spell in hit—ter bewitch folks with."
"Ef hit has … hit's a spell I loves right good," he fervently protested.
He heard her breath come quick and sudden, as if under a hypnotic force, and following the prompting of some instinctive mentor, he held out his arms toward her.
Still she stood with the wide-eyed raptness of a sleepwalker, and when Cal Maggard moved slowly forward, she, who had been so shy an hour ago, made no retreat.
It was all as though each of them reacted to the command of some controlling volition beyond themselves. The man's arms closed about her slender body and pressed it close to his breast. His lips met her upturned ones, and held them in a long kiss that was returned. Each felt the stir of the other's breath. To each came the fluttering tumult of the other's heart. Then after a long while they drew apart, and the girl's hands went spasmodically to her face.
"What hev we been doin', Cal?" she demanded in the bewildered tone of returning realization. "I don't skeercely know ye yit, nuther."
"Mebby hit war ther spell," he answered in a low but triumphant voice. "Ef hit war, I reckon God Hisself worked hit."
The figure in the tangle had drawn noiselessly back now and slipped off into the woods a few hundred yards away where it joined another that stood waiting there.
"I hain't mad with ye, Cal," said Dorothy, slowly. "I hain't even mortified, albeit I reckon I ought ter be sick with shame … but I wants ye ter go home now. I've got need ter think."
As they stood together at the fence they heard Bas Rowlett's voice singing down the road, and soon his figure came striding along and stopped by the stile.
"Howdy, Dorothy," he called, then recognizing that this was a leave-taking he added, "Cal, ef ye're startin' home, I'll go long with ye, fer comp'ny."
The moon was westering when the two men reached the turn of the road and there Rowlett paused and began speaking in a cautious undertone.
"I didn't come along accidental, Cal. I done hit a-purpose. I got ter studyin' 'bout that cracklin' twig we heered in ther bresh an' hit worrited me ter think of yore goin' home by yoreself. I concluded ter tarry fer ye an' guide ye over a trace thet circles round thet gorge without techin' hit."
"I'm right sensibly beholden ter ye," answered Maggard, the more embarrassed because he now knew this generous fellow to be a vanquished rival. "But 'atter ternight ye've got ter suffer me ter take my own chances."
Together they climbed the mountainside until they reached the edge of a thicket that seemed impassable but through which the guide discovered a narrow way. Before they had come far they halted, breathing deep from the steep ascent, and found themselves on a shelf of open rock that commanded a view of the valley and the roof of the Harper house, on which the moonlight slept.
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