Blue Kingdom by Max Brand Page B

that his heels hit hard when he walks. He goes upstairs like he was carryin’ a hod. Come on along, Carrie. You might as well get in on some of it as the next gent, eh?”
    A whirl of wind raised the dust on the road before them and whirled it into the face of Carrick Dunmore. It was very hot, and the way dipped up and down interminably, and, after all, a man about to undertake such an important enterprise ought to relax a little. . . .
    â€œThere’s snow on old Digger Mountain, ain’t there?” asked one of the pair who had overhauled him.
    He looked in that direction and saw the gleam of the snow strike through the horizon blue of his new-found land, his own country. Suddenly he touched the mare with his heels, and she bounded away like a deer. That was his answer. A very rude one, and one that allowed no answer, for the pair could not match strides for one minute with the gallop of Excuse Me.

N INE
    It had just rained in Harpersville, and Chuck Harper, builder, proprietor, and manager of the town hotel, author, also, of its name and principal reason for its existence, came out from his hostelry and sat in a chair that he gripped with his knees, as though it were a horse. In this position, with his hat on the back of his head, he set to work whittling a stick of sugar pine, and to this he gave his utmost attention. He was not trying to reduce the stick to any definite design; he was working with such pains merely to see how thin a slice he could remove with the knife, which was sharp as a razor. The long, translucent whittlings were so light that they almost floated in the wind, and they fell one by one about his feet.
    Every ten minutes, punctually, he raised his head and showed a massive, sullen face. He cast a gloomy look up and down the roads that here wound about the mountainside and entered the village, and, bending his thick neck, he returned to his whittling.
    There was a rattling of rain among the trees everytime the wind slapped them, but the clouds had long ago melted, and the sun was raising steam from the pools and the silver streaks of water that lay in the ruts along the road. Chuck Harper gave no heed to the face and form of nature. He watched the road and communed with his own dark mind.
    Presently the door of the hotel banged. His wife, a raw-boned half-breed of his own age—which was less than forty—sang out in a nasal voice: “Hey, Paw!”
    He did not answer.
    â€œPaw!” she shouted.
    A touch of contentment appeared upon the savage face of Chuck Harper.
    â€œPaw!” she screamed. “Are you gonna hear me?”
    â€œI hear you,” said the giant, without turning.
    â€œYou hear me, do you? Then I wanna know, are you gonna cut that wood for me?”
    He squinted down the stick and removed a shaving as thin as a feather.
    â€œPaw, I’m askin’ ye, are you gonna cut that wood for me?”
    He raised his head but did not answer.
    â€œPaw, confound you, are you gonna cut that wood?” she shrieked.
    â€œNaw,” he said, and resumed his whittling.
    This brief answer brought the woman to the verge of a veritable insanity of rage. For a time she lingered at the door, her clenched hands raised above her head, speechless with the imprecations that crowded up into her throat. Then the door crashed heavily as she went inside.
    Her husband raised his head again, and there was almost a smile of contentment upon his face.
    At this moment, a rider came about the bend of the road on a dark, dappled chestnut mare, a thing of such deer-like beauty that even the brutal eyes of Chuck Harper glimmered a little as he watched the animal come closer. She trotted with a movement so sweeping and soft that the rider hardly stirred in the saddle, and Chuck Harper turned his attention to the face of that rider for a single moment and saw a man who smiled as he came.
    Down dropped the head of Chuck again, and once more he whittled.
    â€œWhoa, girl,”