I guess we'll keep Thanksgiving, Jess, after all.
I've got a five-pounder here!"

He held up a slim, gold-and-green pickerel, then flung the fish on the
ground with the laugh of a boy. It was always so; the forest and the
pursuit of wild creatures renewed his life. He was born for it; he had
lived a hunter and a roamer of the woods; he bade fair to die a
poacher--which, perhaps, is no sin in the eyes of Him who designed the
pattern of the partridge's wings and gave two coats to the northern
hare.

His daughter watched him with a strained smile. In her bitterness
against Gordon, now again in the ascendant, she found no peace of mind.

"Dad," she said, "I set six deadfalls yesterday. I guess I'll go and
look at them."

"If you line them too plainly, Gordon's keepers will save you your
trouble," said Jocelyn.

"Well, then, I think I'll go now," said the girl. Her eyes began to
sparkle and the wings of her delicate nostrils quivered as she looked at
the forest on the hill.

Jocelyn watched her. He noted the finely moulded head, the dainty nose,
the clear, fearless eyes. It was the sensitive head of a free woman--a
maid of windy hill-sides and of silent forests. He saw the faint quiver
of the nostril, and he thought of the tremor that twitches the dainty
muzzles of thoroughbred dogs afield. It was in her, the mystery and
passion of the forest, and he saw it and dropped his eyes to the fish
swinging from his hand.

"Your mother was different," he said, slowly.

Instinctively they both turned towards the shanty. Beside the doorstep
rose a granite headstone.

After a while Jocelyn drew out his jack-knife and laid the fish on the
dead grass, and the girl carried the bucket of water back to the house.
She reappeared a moment later, wearing her father's shooting-jacket and
cap, and with a quiet "good-bye" to Jocelyn she started across the
hill-side towards the woods above.

Jocelyn watched her out of sight, then turning the pickerel over, he
slit the firm, white belly from vent to gill.

About that time, just over the scrubby hill to the north, young Gordon
was walking, knee deep in the bronzed sweet fern, gun cocked, eyes
alert. His two beautiful dogs were working close, quartering the
birch-dotted hill-side in perfect form. But they made no points; no
dropping woodcock whistled up from the shelter of birch or alder; no
partridge blundered away from bramble covert or willow fringe. Only the
blue-jays screamed at hi