been dead; but I'm not trying to give an explanation; I'm just telling
you what occurred. Well, things went on quietly enough for
another month, and on the last night of the old year the place was
snowed up--tracks, roads, everything--and at midnight an old man
came about who answered to the description I had of the dead man,
clothes and all, for it seems they were burying him in his clothes.
He was rather deaf, and blind I think, though I'm not sure, and he
seemed to be wandering in his mind somehow; but he was a fine,
powerful fellow--reminded me a little of father--and the pathetic
thing about it was that he had got the idea into his head--"

Here Alec stopped, and, holding the pen idly in his hand, sat lost in
thought. So wistful did he look, so wrapt, that Bates, glancing
furtively at him, thought the letter had raised associations of his home
and childhood, and took himself off to bed, hoping that the letter would
be more brotherly if the writer was left alone. But when Alec put pen to
paper again he only wrote:--

"Well, I don't know that it matters what he had got into his head;
it hadn't anything to do with whether he was Cameron (the name of the
man supposed dead) or not. I could not get a word out of him as to who
he was or where he came from. I did all I could to get him to come in
and have food and get warmed; but though I went after him and stood with
him a long while, I didn't succeed. He was as strong as a giant. It was
awfully solemn to see an old man like that wandering bareheaded in the
snow at night, so far from any human being. I was forced to leave him,
for the engine came clearing the track. I got some men to come after him
with me, but he was gone, and we never saw him again. I stayed on there
ten days, trying to hear something of him, and after that I came here to
try my hand at lumbering. The owner of this place here was terribly cut