"Market-shooting is against the law," she said, faintly.
"The law!" he repeated; "it seems to me there is nothing but law in this God-forsaken hole!"
"Can't you live within the law? It is not difficult, is it?" she asked.
"It is difficult for me," he said, sullenly. The dogged brute in him was awaking in its turn. He was already sorry he had promised her to work out his taxes. Then he remembered the penalty. Clearly he would have to work, or she would be held responsible.
"If anybody would take an unskilled man," he began, "I--I would try to get something to do."
He gave a short laugh and stooped to pat the collie, saying, "Don't bother me, little path-master."
She went away in the moonlight, saying good-night and calling her collie, and he walked up the slope to the house, curiously at peace with himself and the dim world hidden in the shadows around.
He was not sleepy. As he had no candles, he sat down in the moonlight, idly balancing his rifle on his knees. From force of habit he loaded it, then rubbed the stock with the palm of his hand, eyes dreaming.
Into the tangled garden a whippoorwill flashed on noiseless wings, rested a moment, unseen, then broke out into husky, breathless calling. A minute later the whispering call came from the forest's edge, then farther away, almost inaudible in the thickening dusk.
And, as he sat there, thinking of the little path-master, he became aware of a man slinking along the moonlit road below. His heart stopped, then the pulses went bounding, and his fingers closed on his rifle.
There were other men in the moonlight now--he counted five--and he called out to them, demanding their business.
"You're our business," shouted back young Byram. "Git up an' dust out o' Foxville, you dirty loafer!"
"Better stay where you are," said McCloud, grimly.
Then old Tansey bawled: "Yew low cuss, git outer this here taown! Yew air meaner 'n pussley an' meaner 'n quack-root, an' we air bound tew run yew into them mountings, b' gosh!"
There was a silence, then the same voice: "Be yew calculatin' tew mosey, Dan McCloud?"
"You had better stay where you are," said McCloud; "I'm armed."
"Ye be?" replied a new voice; "then come aout o' that or we'll snake ye aout!"