ee muskrats, a mink, and a string of steel traps
when I caught him--"

"Rolfe, you go to Abe Storm and tell him I give him leave to take
muskrat and mink along Spirit Creek, and that I'll allow him a quarter
bounty on every unmarked pelt, and he may keep the pelts, too."

The keeper looked blankly at the master: "Why--why, Mr. Burleson, he's
the dirtiest, meanest market hunter in the lot!"

"You do as I say, Rolfe," said the master, amiably.

"Yes, sir--but--"

"Did you deliver my note to the fire-warden?"

"Yes, sir. The old man's abed with miseries. He said he'd send his
deputy at noon."

Burleson laid his gloved hand on his horse's saddle, looking sharply at
the keeper.

"They tell me that Mr. Elliott has seen better fortune, Rolfe."

"Yes, sir. When the Cross-roads went to pot, he went too. He owned a
piece o' land that was no good only for the timber. He's like the rest
o' them, I guess--only he had more to lose--an' he lost it same as all
o' them."

Burleson drew out his watch, glanced at it, and then mounted.

"Try to make a friend of Abe Storm," he said; "that is my policy, and
you all know it. Help me to keep the peace, Rolfe. If I keep it, I don't
see how they're going to break it."

"Very well, sir. But it riles me to--"

"Nonsense! Now tell me where I'm to meet the fire-warden's deputy. Oh!
then I'll jump him somewhere before long. And remember, Rolfe, that it's
no more pleasure for me to keep my temper than it is for anybody. But
I've got to do it, and so have you. And, after all, it's more fun to
keep it than to let it loose."

"Yes, sir," said Rolfe, grinning like a dusty fox in July.

So Burleson rode on at a canter, presently slacking to a walk, arguing
with himself in a low, calm voice:

"Poor devils--poor, half-starved devils! If I could afford to pay their
prices I'd do it.... I'll wink at anything short of destruction; I can't
let them cut the pine; I can't let them clean out the grouse and deer
and fish. As for law-suits, I simply won't! There must be some decent
way short of a shot-gun."

He stretched out a hand and broke a flaming maple leaf from a branch in
passing, drew it through his button-hole, thoughtful eyes searching the
road ahead, which now ran out through long strips of swale bordered by
saplings.

Presently a little breeze stirred the foliage of the white birches to a
sea of tremulous gold; and at the same moment a rider appeared in the
marsh beyond, galloping