argued away the gross suspicion.

"That settles it." Trenholme said this willingly enough.

"Yes, it settles it; for if there was a place where the earth was loose
I dug with my own hands down to the very rock, and neither man nor woman
lay under it."

Trenholme was affected; he again renounced his suspicion.

"And now I've told ye that," said Bates, "I'll tell ye something else,
for it's right ye should know that when the spring comes it'll not be in
my power to help ye with the logs--not if we should lose the flood and
have to let 'em lie till next year--for when the snow passes, I must be
on the hills seeking her." (He had put a brown, bony hand to shade his
eyes, and from out its shade he looked.) "There were many to help me
seek her alive; I'll take none wi' me when I go to give her burial."

The other saddened; The weary length and uncertainty of such a search,
and its dismal purpose, came to him.

"You've no assurance that she hasn't drowned herself in the lake here,"
he cried, remonstrating.

"But I have that; and as ye'll be naturally concerned at me leaving the
logs, I'll tell ye what it is, if ye'll give me your word as an honest
man that ye'll not repeat it at any time or place whatsoever."

He looked so like a man seeking courage to confess some secret sin that
Trenholme drew back.