“Winter’s the worst,” repeated Dinsmore, the effort of speaking already perceptible in his drawn features—­“nights when yer heart seems froze and ye wait for mornin’ and the sun to thaw in; the sun’s most as good as food when yer that way.  I tried, twice, to git across the line into Canady, but I come back.  I hadn’t no friends thar, and somehow these here woods I knowed seemed kinder.  Besides, I always had the chance of seein’ father and sometimes Billy and Freme; and sometimes—­my little gal.”  He paused, trying to proceed more directly with the drift of what he wished to say.  For some moments his mind seemed vacant.  At length he resumed: 

“I knowed ye couldn’t git clear of them fellers by way of Morrison’s.  I was layin’ hid when I see the fire start; I see some fellers from whar I was run across the road; thar was more of ’em sneakin’ off back to the camp.  They was someways off from me, but I could see ’em plain.  I’d hev got to ye then but I dassent run no risk; thar’s a reward out on me dead or alive.  Bimeby I see ye all cross the brook and I knowed ye was safe and that father’d do the best he knowed how fer ye.  When it come night I begun to travel, hopin’ to strike yer tracks, but the fire cut me off and I had to lay hid till the wind shifted.  Soon’s I see it was safe to travel I come along huntin’ for ye and father.  ’T warn’t till I come through the swamp at Bear Pond that I struck yer tracks—­seen ’em plain then and the way ye was a-goin’.  Long ’bout four o’clock to-day I heared some fellers’ voices ahead of me down in a holler.  Then I see smoke and knowed they was camped close by.  Bimeby I crawled out from whar I was hid and clum a tree.  I see ’em plain then—­six of ’em; they was eatin’ dinner—­all of ’em lumber jacks from the lower shanty; one was a Frenchy from his talk.  Thar warn’t none of ’em I knowed in perticlar ‘cept Eph Edmunds, and he was layin’ drunk ’longside the fire.  I heared one of ’em say thar warn’t no use follerin’ ye further; that ye’d most likely got to the cars.  Then another feller says, says he, “I tell ye we’ve got to find him; ’t won’t do to let him git away—­there’ll be hell to pay.”

Thayor shook his head gloomily.

“What have I done, Dinsmore, that I should be hunted even like you?” he sighed.  For some moments the hide-out did not speak.  Finally he continued: 

“I had a reason for what I done,” and a strange glitter came into his eyes.  “See here, Mr. Thayor, you’re human and maybe you’ll understand; I’m goin’ to tell ye the truth.  I give Bailey all the chance in the world; I even come to him like a friend and says to him what’s mine ain’t yours; I ain’t never troubled ye nor your woman—­we was happy—­me and my wife, ’fore he begun to put notions in her head.  ’T warn’t long ’fore she begun to think thar warn’t nobody like Bailey.  He kep’ store then close by whar we lived, and he give her most anythin’ she wanted.  She called it ‘credit’.