Andrew the Glad

Suddenly she laid her cheek against the arm of the sweater and sniffed it

with her delicate nose--yes, there was the undeniable fragrance of the

major's Seven Oaks heart-leaf. "He steals the tobacco, too," she again

remarked to herself as she caught sight of him skirting the fires as

he returned.

Just at this moment a pandemonium of yelps, barks, bays and yells broke

forth up the ravine and declared the hunt on.

"Everybody follow the dogs and keep within hearing distance! We'll wait

for the trailers to come up when we tree before we shake down!" shouted

David as with one accord the whole company plunged into the woods.

Away from the fire, the starlight, which was beginning to be reinforced

by the glow from a late old moon, was bright enough to keep the rush up

the ravine, over log and boulder, through tangle and across open, a not

too dangerous foray.

The first hurdle was a six-rail fence that snaked its way between a

frozen meadow and a woods lot. David stationed himself on the far side of

the lowest and strongest panel and proceeded to swing down the girls whom

Hob and Tom persuaded to the top rail.

The champion for the rights of women took long and much assistance for

the mount and entrusted her somewhat bulky self to the strong arms of

David Kildare with a feminine dependence that almost succeeded in

cracking those stalwart supports.

Polly climbed two rails, put her hand on the top and vaulted like a boy

almost into the embrace of young Massachusetts and together they raced

after the dogs, who were adding tumult to the hitherto pandemonium of the

hot trail.

Tom Cantrell managed Mrs. Cherry most deftly and seemed anxious to direct

David in the landing though she was most willing to trust it entirely to

him. After hurrying Phoebe to the top rail he vaulted lightly to the side

of David and departed in haste, taking the reluctant widow with him by

main force.

Phoebe perched herself on the top of the fence, which brought her head

somewhat above the level of David's, and seemed in no hurry to descend in

order to be at the shake-down, which from the shouts and yelps seemed

imminent.

"Ready, or want to rest a minute?" asked David gently; but his eyes

looked past hers and there was the shadow of reserve in his voice.

"No," answered Phoebe, "but you must be tired so I'll just slip down,"

and she essayed to cheat him with the utmost treachery. David neither

spoke nor looked at her directly but took her quietly in his arms and

swung her to the ground beside him.

Now this was not the first pursuit of the possum that had been attended

by Phoebe in the company of David Kildare, and she was prepared for the

audacious hint of a squeeze, with which he usually took his toll and

which she always ignored utterly with reproving intent; the more

reproving on the one or two occasions when she had been tempted into

yielding to the caress for the remotest fraction of a second. But for

every snub in the fence events that had been pulled off between them in

the past years, David was fully revenged by the impassive landing of

Phoebe on the dry and frozen grass at his side. Revenged--and there was

something over that was cutting into her adamant heart like a two-edge

marble saw.