She was to him what your boy was to you. There
she was like you, ready to give everything up for her father."
"I tell y' I don't want to hear about her," said Buckmaster, getting to
his feet and setting his jaws. "You needn't talk to me about her. She'll
git over it. I'll never git over what Greevy done to me or to Clint--jest
twenty, jest twenty! I got my work to do."
He took his gun from the wall, slung it into the hollow of his arm, and
turned to look up the valley through the open doorway.
The morning was sparkling with life--the life and vigour which a touch of
frost gives to the autumn world in a country where the blood tingles to
the dry, sweet sting of the air. Beautiful, and spacious, and buoyant,
and lonely, the valley and the mountains seemed waiting, like a new-born
world, to be peopled by man. It was as though all had been made ready for
him--the birds whistling and singing in the trees, the whisk of the
squirrels leaping from bough to bough, the peremptory sound of the
woodpecker's beak against the bole of a tree, the rustle of the leaves as
a wood-hen ran past--a waiting, virgin world.
Its beauty and its wonderful dignity had no appeal to Buckmaster. His
eyes and mind were fixed on a deed which would stain the virgin wild with
the ancient crime that sent the first marauder on human life into the
wilderness.
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