y father--but I 'most give up bein'
helped."

"How long have you been in this misery of yours?"

"A long time," he replied nervously; "a long time. Thar's been days
and nights when I wished I was dead."

"After you killed Bailey?" asked Thayor quietly, meeting the eyes of
the outcast. The figure beside him began to tremble, clenching his
bony hands in an effort to steady them; then he looked up.

"You know?" he faltered huskily. "You know?" he repeated.

Thayor nodded.

"You know what I done! God knows I had a right to! They say I ain't
fit to live among men."

Again Thayor stared into the fire.

"How they've hounded me," Dinsmore went on, clearing his thin voice as
best he could--a voice unaccustomed to conversation. "The winter's the
worst; you ain't never been hounded in winter. You ain't never knowed
what it is to go hongry and alone. It'll give ye a new idee consarnin'
folks. I used to think I knew the woods, but I tell ye I know 'em
_now_. I've got friends in 'em now," he went on, as if confiding a
secret; "sometimes a fox will leave me what he ain't ate--I've known a
wolverine git a dum sight more human than them that's been huntin'
me. Him and me shared the same cave--he got to know me--he was a great
fisher. I got him out of a trap twice--he see I warn't goin' to hurt
him."

Thayor sat looking steadily into the hollow, tired eyes like a man in
a dream, forgetting even to question him further. Moreover, he knew he
was telling the truth, and that Dinsmore's frankness was proof enough
that he had much to say to him of importance. Somehow he felt that in
his disconnected narrative he would slowly lead to it. His character
in this respect was much like his father's.

"Winter's the worst," repeated Dinsmore, the effort of speaking
already perceptible in his drawn features--"nights when yer heart
seems froze and ye wait for mornin' and the sun to thaw in; the sun's
most as good as food when yer that way. I tried, twice, to git across
the line into Canady, but I come back. I hadn't no friends thar, and
somehow these here woods I knowed seemed kinder. Besides, I always
had the chance of seein' father and sometimes Billy and Freme; and
sometimes--my little gal." He paused, trying to proceed more directly
with the drift of what he wished to say. For some moments his mind
seemed vacant. At length he resumed:

"I knowed ye couldn't git clear of them fellers by way of Morrison's.
I was layin' hid when I see th