"That's whar she was from--I seen her many a time. My old shanty
warn't more 'n forty rod from where Morrison's gang built the new
one."

Thayor's delighted ears drank in every word. The perfunctory
discussion of a Board of Directors issuing a new mortgage was so many
dull words compared with this human kind of speech.

"And now ye are here whar I kin get at ye, Billy," continued the
trapper, "let me tell ye how bad I feel when I think ye never been
over to see me, or stopped even for a night. Why it actually sets my
blood a-bilin'--makes me mad, as the feller said--" Here he nodded
toward Thayor--"Some folks is that way, Mr. Thayor."

"I'd like to have come," pleaded Holcomb, "but somehow, Hite, I never
managed to get over your way. You see I live so far off now, and yet
when I come to think of it, I must have passed close by it when I was
gunning last fall over by Bear Pond."

"Yes--I knowed ye was gunnin', and we cal'lated ye'd come in with them
fellers what was workin' for Joe Dubois. Me and the old dog never give
up lookin' for ye. The dog said he seen ye once, but you was too fur
off to yell to."

"I want to know!" exclaimed the Clown, as he re-crossed his long legs.

"Goll--I felt sorry for the cuss; he took it so hard," Hite went on.
"Then he owned up--tellin' me that when he see I felt so lonesome and
disappointed at ye not comin', he'd be daddinged if he could hold out
any longer and see me so miserable; so he jest ris his ears and made