he round table was as silent as a court room
before a verdict.

"Neither Ed nor I liked the idea of being caught with Dinsmore," he
resumed, "with three counties after him harder than an old dog after a
five-pronged buck, so when it came daylight we shifted camp over back
of a fire-slash where I knew all hell couldn't find him. We had to
carry him most of the way. That was on a Wednesday. We never said
anything to him about his killing Bailey--he knew we knew. We fed him
the best we knew how. Saturday, 'long toward night, I killed a small
deer, and the broth did him good.

"In a couple of days--Hold on, I've got ahead of my story; it was
_Sunday_ night when Bob said: 'Boys' said he, as near as I can repeat
it in his dialect--'you've treated me like a humin, but I dassent stay
here. It ain't fair to you. What I done I done with a reason. You've
heard tell, most likely, that I been seen in Lower Saranac 'bout three
weeks ago, ain't ye?'

"'Yes,' said Ed, 'we heard something about it. That Jew horse-trader,
Bergstein, told us, but there warn't nobody that seen ye, that was
sure it was you.'

"'They lied then,' said Bob, 'for there was more'n a dozen in the
village that day that knowed me and warn't mistook 'bout who I was.
As to that red-nosed Jew, Bergstein, he'll quit talkin' 'bout me and
everythin' else if I kin ever draw a bead on him.'

"Then Bob began to tell us how he walked into the big hotel at Saranac
about noon and flung a hind-quarter of venison on the counter in front
of the clerk and said: 'What I come for is a decent meal; I ain't got
no money, but I guess that'll pay for it.' The clerk got white around
the gills, but he didn't say anything; he just took the venison and
showed Bob into the big dining hall. Bob says they gave him the meal,
and he kept eating everything around him with his Winchester across
his knees. There wasn't a soul that spoke to him except the hired girl
that waited on him, although the dining room was crowded with summer
boarders.

"'Tea or coffee?' asked the hired girl when he had eaten his pie.

"'No, thank ye,' says Bob, 'but I won't never forgit ye if ye can git
me four boxes of matches.' Bob said she was gone a minute and when she
came back she had the matches for him under her apron. 'Good luck to
ye, Bob,' she says--her cheeks red, and her mouth trembling. It was
Myra Hathaway--he'd known her since she was a little girl. 'Bob,
for God's sake go,' she begged--'there's tro