“You’re used up, lad, an’ want rest; mayhap you want grub also. Anyhow you look awful bad. No wounds, I hope, or bones broken, eh?”
“No, nothing but a broken heart,” replied Tom with a faint attempt to smile.
“Why, that’s a queer bit o’ you for a b’ar to break. If you had said it was a girl that broke it, now, I could have—”
“Where is Betty?” interrupted the youth, quickly, with an anxious expression.
“In the hut, lookin’ arter the grub. You’ll come in an’ have some, of course. But I’m coorious to hear about that b’ar. Was it far from here you met him?”
“Ay, just a short way this side o’ Pine Tree Diggings.”
“Pine Tree Diggin’s!” repeated Paul in surprise. “Why, then, didn’t you go back to Pine Tree Diggin’s to wash yourself an’ rest, instead o’ comin’ all the way here?”
“Because—because, Paul Bevan,” said Tom with sudden earnestness, as he gazed on the other’s face, “because I’m a thief!”
“You might be worse,” replied Bevan, while a peculiarly significant smile played for a moment on his rugged features.
“What do you mean?” exclaimed Tom, in amazement.