"They lived high in the lumber camps, pop, do you mind?" said Zebedee, smacking his lips. "When a fellow was starvin' the smell just come out to meet him."
"You bet, only you wasn't thar to smell it," said his father, sharply, "you mind that. You young ones takes to the woods too natural."
He surveyed them with mingled pride and dissatisfaction, then came back to his reminiscences. "I vum that was a winter, but the deer would 'a' starved if they hadn't been shot, for the snow was so deep that they couldn't get to their food. That there Perch made a great flurry about gettin' in an' drivin' six deer to a swamp where they could git green stuff, but I don't believe a word of it. I believe he shot and ate them."
"Do you mind the deer that was dogged into our yard, pop?" exclaimed Joe. "I saw 'em as they crossed the river—dog not fifteen foot behind."
"And what became of that deer?" asked 'Tilda Jane, unsteadily.
Lucas winked at his sons and concluded the story himself. "He run across our yard, an' among the bark pilers at Meek an' Sons' tannery. When the animal come runnin' down between the bark piles, some of the crew was for killin' him, but I was workin' thar, an' I wouldn't let 'em. He stayed round close to us all day, an' when any dog come an' sniffed at him, he'd run up close an' tremble, an' ask us to see fair play."
"You killed that deer," exclaimed 'Tilda Jane, bursting into tears. "Oh! why does God let men be so wicked?"
Sobs were almost tearing her little, lean frame to pieces. She had not worked up gradually to a pitch of emotion, but had fallen immediately into it, and Lucas and his sons stared wonderingly at her.
Poor little girl! She looked as if she had come through a sea of troubles, and pity stirred in the man's rough but not unkindly breast.