Frederick Schiller Faust

“ Who shall look on the stars without knowing the vanity of fact and the dear reality of dreams?
So it chanced that when Brent, standing under a willow by the river on a morning, heard the light drip of water from suspended oars, and looking up and saw a skiff take the bend close to the shore, and in the skiff a girl who smiled for the joy of the rowing and the splendor of the spring morning, he looked upon her not as a picture, but as beauty which had lived beyond the dream for the golden reality of wind and sun and laughter. ”

“ She began to understand that if she lived to be a hundred, she would never find that memory dimmer. Men had made love to her, had poured out their hearts before her, but only once she had seen the soul of a man. And very naturally she kept thinking: What did he see in return? No, he had not seen the truth, but he had taken away a picture to worship. It was not strange that she did not hold this against young Lanning.
When her eyes were misty with this thought, and a half-sad, half-happy smile was touching the corners of her mouth, Charles Merchant knocked at her door. ”

“ And it chanced that on a morning the gambler went down by the riverside, and as he stood there under a tree he saw a girl in a boat float around the bend of the river. She had turned in the boat, letting it drift, and as she grew out upon him with the sun blindingly white upon her throat and arms and making a golden fire of her hair, it seemed to the gambler that a new sense of beauty and a strange sense of pain and bitterness drifted into his life. ”

“ In the open door of the cabin appeared a man so huge that he had to bend his head to look out, and Andrew's heart fell. It was not the slender, rawboned youth of whom Uncle Jasper had told him, but a hulking giant. And then he remembered that twenty years had passed since Uncle Jasper rode that way, and in twenty years the gaunt body might have filled out, the shock of bright-red hair of which Jasper spoke might well have been the original of the red flood which now covered the face and throat of the big man. ”

“ I have always felt that a man can teach a woman to love him.”
“Surely he can,” said Brent, “just as a fire can always teach a mirror to give back his reflection—unless the mirror is too dull. You can't warm your hands in front of the mirror, but on the whole it's a pleasant delusion.”
“By Jove, you're a heartless chap,” mused Winton.
“Not at all—merely reasonable,” said Brent. “I think the metaphor holds. That's why marriages are unhappy. They get along well enough as long as the man is afire, but when the passion dies out on his side there is absolute darkness. ”

“ His voice became thin and rose as he spoke; his breath was a series of gasps, and Hal Dozier changed color.
"I think," said Andrew, regaining his self-control, "that I'd kill you. I think I'm just a split second surer and faster than you are with a gun. But don't you see, Dozier?"
He cast out his left hand, but his right hand held the revolver like a rock.
"Don't you see? I've got the taint in me. I've killed my man. If I kill another I'll go bad. I know it. Life will mean nothing to me. I can feel it in me." ”

“ It was a fine, young chestnut gelding with a Roman nose and long, mulish ears. His head was not beautiful to see from any angle, but Andrew saw only the long, powerful, sloping shoulders, the long neck, burdened by no spare flesh, the legs fine-drawn as hammered bronze, and appearing fully as strong. Every detail of the body spelled speed, and speed meant safety. From the famous gray stallion of Hal Dozier this gelding could never escape, Andrew knew, but the chestnut could undoubtedly distance any posse which had no greater speed than the pace of its slowest horse. ”

“ Brent did not rise, but his hand fell lightly on his hip. The smile remained, and his voice came velvet smooth, but something in that purring sound made the group about the table draw back.
“Cards are a gentleman's game, Mr. Cransion,” he said. “They were never meant for yellow dogs. Take your hands off the money, or I'll forget that you have a man's name and remember that you have a dog's heart!”
Cransion straightened as if he had received a blow, glared at Brent for a moment, through narrowing eyes, and then whirled and left the room. ”

“ It was like a picture of a dog rather than a reality to Andrew. He heeded it only with a glance from the corner of his eye. And then, his dull brain clearing, he realized that the dog no longer howled at him or showed his teeth, but was walking beside him, licking his hand and whining with sympathy.
"Oh, Lord," thought Andrew, "if I could find one human being with a heart as kind as that dog's!" ”

“ I remember your words, sir.”
“Very well,” said Brent. “Raise the curtain, Harwood. This room is dim enough to put me to sleep again whether I will or no.”
He drew himself up on one elbow as the light slanted into the room, struck a glimmering reflection from the tall mirror, and glinted on the polished woodwork of the foot of the bed. It fell upon Brent, and showed a lean, pallid face, square chinned, with expressionless eyes.
He was one of those men who at thirty-five look twenty-five, and who at twenty-five might well be considered thirty-five. ”

“ Dozier was coming, fresh from another kill.
"Only one man I'd think twice about meeting," Allister had said in the old days, and he had been right. Yet there were thousands who had sworn that Allister was invincible—that he would never fall before a single man.
He thought, too, of the lean face and the peculiar, set eye of Dozier. The man had no fear, he had no nerves; he was a machine, and death was his business.
And was he, Andrew Lanning, unknown until the past few months, now going down to face destruction, as full of fear as a girl trembling at the dark? ”

“ All hair, whether black or yellow, grows gray in time. All lips are apt to grow thin and wrinkled.
“If she were cross-eyed you would never think of her as an angel. When you talk with her try to picture her as she will be ten years from to-day. I have found it an excellent antidote against pretty women. The angelic part of women stops with the glow and the bloom of youth. We imagine they have souls till the wrinkles begin to write something else on their faces.”
“But she doesn't love him,” said Cransion half to himself.
“All the better,” said Brent. ”

“ The old rooster was so accustomed to his master, indeed, that he allowed himself to be taken from the perch without a single squawk, and there was no sound except the rushing of his wings as he regained his balance on the wrist of Jud. The boy took his captive beyond the pen. Once, when the big rooster canted his head and looked into his face with his courageous red eyes, the boy had to wink away the tears; but he thought of the man so near death in the attic, he felt the clumsy boots on his feet, and his heart grew strong again. ”

“ BESIDE the rear window of the blacksmith shop Jasper Lanning held his withered arms folded against his chest. With the dispassionate eye and the aching heart of an artist he said to himself that his life work was a failure. That life work was the young fellow who swung the sledge at the forge, and truly it was a strange product for this seventy-year-old veteran with his slant Oriental eyes and his narrow beard of white. Andrew Lanning was not even his son, but it came about in this way that Andrew became the life work of Jasper. ”

“ You must be right. A woman is like a mirror—and the fire of a man's love can fill her with light.”
Brent walked across the room and stared out the window.
“Don't take me too seriously,” he said. “It is the curse of our times that an epigram is taken for a prophecy. Our words are building-blocks. God knows we can build them into wonderful toy castles, but unless they are cemented together with vital emotion our thoughts lack substance, and the first wind of human passion will blow down our play-houses! Pah! I am growing old!”
He turned and faced his guest with a smile. ”

“ Everybody in the mountains, every puncher on the range knows that Hal Dozier has started on a new trail, and every man of them knows that I've never failed before. Andy, I can't give it up. You see, I've got no shame before you. I tell you the straight of it. I tell you that I'm a bought man. But I can't leave this trail to go back and face the boys. If one of them was to shake his head and say on the side that I'm no longer the man I used to be, I'd shoot him dead as sure as there's a reckoning that I'm bound for. It isn't you, Andy; it's my reputation that makes me go on. ”

“ Romance, my dear Cransion, is the invention of poets, and is far better left to books.
“Far better that your sister should marry with her eyes unblinded by illusion. Lovers take happiness for granted and are horrified by disappointment. A marriage of convenience presupposes nothing but automobiles and a good cook. It is better to expect nothing and get a little than to expect everything and get a morning after.”
“I can't do it,” muttered Cransion, wringing his hands. “Dear God, I wish that I could!”
“Very well, then,” said Brent. “Then you know what to expect. ”

“ It seemed to Andrew that a buzz of comment and warning preceded him and closed behind him. He felt sure that the children stood and gaped at him from behind, but he dared not turn in his saddle to look back.
At all costs he must get into the heart of this place, hear men talk, learn if those placards were up, and discover if any posses were out to search the road for the wanderer. And he kept on, reining in the gelding, and probing every face with one swift, resistless glance that went to the heart. He had been accustomed, in the old days, to look straight before him, and see no one. ”