He folded his letter and slipped it into his slicker pocket while Weimer urged:
"You was mit dot shack, und dey found you not, hein?"
"But I want to hear about Ross’s––"
"No, no," interrupted Ross. "Finish out your story first. Mine will look like thirty cents at the end of yours. I’m not exactly proud of myself."
"Vilson’s shack," prompted Weimer, pushing his plate back and planting both elbows on the table.
Leslie continued his story in a new exuberance of spirits, occasionally fingering the letter in his pocket. He had foreseen that Wilson’s shack would be searched, and so, trusting to the drifting snow to conceal his trail, he had, during the night, packed provisions into one of the many deserted shacks in the upper camp. He had selected one overlooking the trail up Crosby. It had two rooms, one behind the other, the back room having an outside door and but one small window. Leaving the first room undisturbed, he had stowed his provisions in the back room, which also contained a bunk.
"I can tell you that it was hard sledding for me until after the sheriff and the McKenzies came and went that day," he continued ruefully. "I had brought along my blankets, but I didn’t dare light a fire, and I nearly froze and nearly starved on cold canned stuff. But after the sheriff had gone back–you see I could watch the camp from the back room window–and the McKenzies had passed the shack on the trail over here, I hung blankets over the windows and had a fire nights when the smoke wouldn’t be seen. I could cook at night and early in the morning and so got along fairly well. But I expected them all back again for another search, so mornings I used to vacate the outside room and leave it the same as it had been."
"Why didn’t you come over sooner?" asked Ross.
"Don’t you see that I couldn’t," demanded Leslie, "so long as the McKenzies were here? I knew, though, that they had told Wilson that they were not going to stay all winter. They told him they would go to Cody as soon as they thought the Crosby trail was getting dangerous. So I watched that trail like a cat for them to go and for my chance to get here."
"Vilson he vent out," interrupted Weimer.