Again Thayor looked up in surprise.
"I had hoped as much," he said slowly, shaking his head. "There was not one of them, however, that came forward to help us—I am excepting, you understand, your father, Freme, and Holcomb. I owe them a debt of gratitude which I can never repay. Why have you come, Dinsmore?" he added, turning abruptly, with something of the briskness of his old business-like manner.
"Because ye've been good to me," replied the hide-out; "that's why I come; I wanted to do ye a good turn—I ain't got nothin' else to give ye."
"Good to you—I don't understand."
"I come to thank ye, Mr. Thayor. I see ye once the day ye got the buck. Father told me your name after ye'd gone. He and me eat up what ye left, and I got the money ye left fer me—Myra Hathaway's takin' care of it—she's got my leetle gal. Yes—I seen ye more 'n once. You ain't never seen me—folks don't see me as a rule; but I've seen you many a time when ye've stepped by me and I've been layin' hid out; times when I'd starved if it hadn't been for him"—and he nodded across the fire to Blakeman.
"I caught a partridge once he'd winged," he went on, "and give it to him, seein' he was a city man and wouldn't know me. He see I was poor—thought I had run away from some gov'ment place and I let it go at that. He used to give me what was left from the kitchen; he'd come out and leave it hid for me 'long 'bout dark—your hired man asleep over thar, I'm talkin' 'bout. He said you wouldn't mind—not if you knowed how bad off I was for a snack to eat. I might hev stole it from ye more'n once, but I ain't never stole nothin'—I ain't a thief, Mr. Thayor."
"Why didn't you come to me?" asked Thayor, after a moment's pause.
He was strangely moved at the man's story. "I would have helped you,
Dinsmore. I have told Holcomb repeatedly I wanted to help you."
"So Billy told me, and so did my 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."