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.