"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 the fire start; I see some fellers from whar I was run across the road; thar was more of 'em sneakin' off back to the camp. They was someways off from me, but I could see 'em plain. I'd hev got to ye then but I dassent run no risk; thar's a reward out on me dead or alive. Bimeby I see ye all cross the brook and I knowed ye was safe and that father'd do the best he knowed how fer ye. When it come night I begun to travel, hopin' to strike yer tracks, but the fire cut me off and I had to lay hid till the wind shifted. Soon's I see it was safe to travel I come along huntin' for ye and father. 'T warn't till I come through the swamp at Bear Pond that I struck yer tracks—seen 'em plain then and the way ye was a-goin'. Long 'bout four o'clock to-day I heared some fellers' voices ahead of me down in a holler. Then I see smoke and knowed they was camped close by. Bimeby I crawled out from whar I was hid and clum a tree. I see 'em plain then—six of 'em; they was eatin' dinner—all of 'em lumber jacks from the lower shanty; one was a Frenchy from his talk. Thar warn't none of 'em I knowed in perticlar 'cept Eph Edmunds, and he was layin' drunk 'longside the fire. I heared one of 'em say thar warn't no use follerin' ye further; that ye'd most likely got to the cars. Then another feller says, says he, "I tell ye we've got to find him; 't won't do to let him git away—there'll be hell to pay."
Thayor shook his head gloomily.