aster's face. Thayor could hardly
believe the dog did not understand.

Hite paused in his narrative for breath. When these men of the woods,
living often for weeks and months with no fellow-being to talk to,
loosen up they run on as unceasingly as a brook.

"But dang yer old hide, Billy, what I got most again' ye is that ye
ain't writ afore," and he slapped his young friend Holcomb vigorously
on the back. "'Twarn't a night that passed when I was to hum in the
valley last winter, but what I'd kinder slink away from the store
arter they'd sorted out what mail thar was, feelin' ashamed, julluk
the old dog does when he's flambussled into a trout hole ahead of ye.
'Why, how you take it,' my old woman would say; 'like as not Billy's
been so busy he hain't had time to write ye and it hain't come,' says
she. 'No,' said I, 'if he's writ I'd had it 'fore this. United States
mail don't lie,' says I."

"But I did write you," declared Holcomb earnestly.

"Yes, so ye did, for I hadn't more'n said it 'fore down comes Dave
Brown and says: 'Eke says thar's a letter come for ye in to-night's
mail,' 'Why, haow you talk!' says I, and I reached for my tippet and
drawed on my boots and started for Munsey's. 'For the land's sakes!'
my old woman yelled arter me. 'Whar are ye a-goin' a night like this,
Hite Holt?' 'Don't stop me,' says I, 'the old cuss has writ--the old
cuss has writ--jest as I knowed he would. Most likely,' says I, 'he's
broke his leg or couldn't git out to the settlement 'count the snow,
or he'd writ 'fore this. Don't stop me,' says I, and aout I went
and tramped through four feet of snow to the store and there lay yer
welcome wad as neat as a piney in a little box over the caounter, and
the lamp throwin' a pinky glow over its side, and that scratchy old
handwritin' o' yourn I'd knowed three rod off. Thar it lay kinder
laughin' at me and slanted so's I could jest read it. Gosh! but I was
tickled!"

The trapper drew a sliver of wood from the stove, shielded its yellow
flame in the hollow of his hand and re-lit his pipe.

Back in the shadow of the bunk lay Thayor drinking in every word of
the strange talk so full of human kindness and so simple and genuine.
For some moments his gray eyes rested on the gentle face of the
old trapper, the wavering firelight lighting up the weather-beaten
wrinkles.

Soon he straightened up, threw the white ash of his cigar toward the
stove and slid gingerly to the dirt floor, his muscles