“How d’ye know that?”
“I’d figgered out it wasn’t a bear long ago; and to-night I spied the skinned paws under the bunk. It was easy.”
“Jim wasn’t in the woods when that happened,” she whispered. “It was me broke into the camp an’ stole the grub. It was me who cut the paws off that old skin an’ used ’em to fool ye with. Jim was away out to the settlements that day.”
“You, ma’am!”
“That’s Gospel-true. The babies and me hadn’t a bite to eat but some rusty pork. We needed the food bad. It was the first time I ever stole anything.”
“Then why didn’t you upset the molasses jug, like a bear would do? A bear would of upset it an’ then licked the molasses off the floor. If you’d done it that way, m’am—upset the jug, I mean—I wouldn’t of suspicioned the thief wasn’t a bear; and so I wouldn’t of examined the shutter and spotted how the staple had been pried off with the blade of an axe; and so I wouldn’t of taken any stock in the old paws under the bunk.”
“I took enough molasses to fill the bottle I had along with me. I hadn’t the heart to upset the jug an’ waste what I didn’t want. But I kinder thought that’s what a bear would do.”
“Well, that’s all right, anyhow,” said Young Dan. “I don’t blame you a mite for rustlin’ grub for your babies; but if you don’t make that big bluffer get to work, I’ll land him in jail or bust tryin’—and you can bet I won’t bust, m’am!”
