ly
and kept on.

However, when the two men drew near each other Burr kept well to his
side of the road and strode on rapidly, hoping his cousin might not
recognize him. But Lot, with a hoarse laugh and another cough,
swerved after him and jostled him roughly.

"Can't cheat me, Burr Gordon," said he.

"I don't want to cheat you," returned Burr, in a surly tone.

"You can't if you do. Set me down anywhere in the woods when there's
a wind, and I'll tell ye what the trees are if it's so dark you can't
see a leaf by the way the boughs blow. The maples strike out stiff
like dead men's arms, and the elms lash like live snakes, and the
pines stir all together like women. I can tell the trees no matter
how dark 'tis by the way they move, and I can tell a Gordon by the
swing of his shoulders, no matter how fast he slinks by on the other
side in the shadow. You don't set much by me, Burr, and I don't set
any too much by you, but we've got to swing our shoulders one way,
whether we will or no, because our father and our grandfather did
before us. Good Lord, aren't men in leading-strings, no matter how
high they kick!"

"I can't stand here in the snow talking," said Burr, and he tried to
push past. But the other man stood before him with another laugh and
cough. "You aren't talking, Burr; I'm the one that's talking, and
I've heard stuff that was worse to listen to. You'd better stand
still."

"I tell you I'm going," said Burr, with a thrust of his elbow in his
cousin's side.

"Well," said Lot, "go if you want to, or go if you don't want to.
That last is what you're doing, Burr Gordon."

"What do mean by that?"

"You're going to see Dorothy Fair when you want to see Madelon
Hautville, because you don't want to do what you want to. Well, go
on. I'm going to see Madelon and hear her sing. I've given up trying
to work against my own motions. It's no use; when you think you've
done it, you haven't. You never can get out of this one gait that you
were born to except in your own looking-glass. Go and court Dorothy
Fair, and in spite of yourself you'll kiss the other girl when you're
kissing her. Well, I sha'n't cheat Madelon Hautville that way."

"You know--she will not--you know Madelon Hautville never--"
stammered Burr Gordon, furiously.

Lot laughed again. "You think she sets so much by you she'll never
kiss me," said he. "Don't be too sure, Burr. Nature's nature, and the
best of us come under it. Madelon Hautville's got