The Lady of Big Shanty | Page 3

make a quick trip to the Lake with Holcomb as guide.
If the luncheon that followed was a surprise to the stranger from Moose River, Holcomb's modest naturalness and innate good breeding were a revelation to Randall's friends. This increased to positive enthusiasm when one of the actor's massive turquoise rings struck the rim of the stranger's wine glass, nearly spilling the contents into Holcomb's lap, and which Holcomb's deft touch righted with the quickness of a squirrel, before a drop left its edge, a feat of dexterity which brought from the actor in his best stage voice:
"Zounds, sir! A little more and I should have deluged you"--Holcomb answering with a smile:
"Don't mention it. I saw it coming my way."
Even those at the adjoining tables caught the dominating influence of the man as they watched him sitting easily in his chair listening to the stories of the Emperor of the First Empire--as Brompton was called, he having played the part--the young woodsman joining in with experiences of his own as refreshing in tone and as clear in statement as a mountain spring.
Suddenly, and apparently without anything leading up to it, and as if some haunting memory of his own had prompted it, Thayor leaned forward and touched Billy's arm, and with a certain meaning in his voice asked:
"There is something I have wanted to ask you ever since I came, Holcomb. Tell me about that poor hide-out--the man your father fed in the woods that night. Did he get away?"
Holcomb straightened up and his face became suddenly grave. The subject was evidently a distasteful one.
"Whom do you mean, Mr. Thayor?"
"I don't know his name; I only remember the incident, but it has haunted me ever since."
"You mean Dinsmore."
"What has become of him?"
"I haven't heard lately." He evidently did not want to discuss it further--certainly not in a crowded room full of strangers.
"But you must have learned something of him. Tell me--I want to know. I never felt so sorry for anyone in my life."
Holcomb looked Thayor squarely in the face, read its sincerity and said slowly, lowering his voice:
"He is still in hiding--was the last time I saw him."
"When was that?" asked Thayor, his eyes boring into the young woodsman's.
"About a month ago--Ed Munsey and I were cutting a trail at the time."
"Would you mind telling me?" persisted Thayor. "I have always thought that poor fellow was ill treated. Your father thought so too."
Holcomb dropped his eyes to the cloth, rolled a crumb of bread between his fingers and said, as if he was thinking aloud:
"Ill treated! I should say so!" Then he lifted his head, drew his chair closer to the group, ran his eyes around the room to be sure of his audience, and said in still lower tones:
"What I'm going to tell you, gentlemen, is between us, remember. None of you, I am sure, would want to get him into any more trouble, if you knew the circumstances as I do. One night about nine o'clock, during a pouring rain, Ed and I lay in a swamp under a lean-to. Ed was asleep, and I was dozing off, when I heard something step in the brush on the other side of the fire. I couldn't see anything, it was so dark, but it sounded just like an animal slouching and stepping about as light as it could. It would stop suddenly and then I'd hear the brush crack again on the left."
Thayor was leaning now with his elbows on the table, as absorbed as a child listening to a fairy tale. The others sat with their eyes fixed on the speaker.
"Any unusual noise at night must be looked into, and I threw a handful of birch bark on the fire and reached for Ed's Winchester. I had to crawl over him to get it, and when I got my hand on it and turned around a sandy-haired fellow was standing over me with a gun cocked and pointed at my head.
"I knew him the minute I laid eyes on him. It was Bob Dinsmore, who killed Jim Bailey over at Long Pond. He'd been hiding out for months. He was not more than thirty years old, but he looked fifty; there was a warrant out for him and a reward to take him dead or alive. He kept the gun pointed, drawing a fine sight on a spot between my left eye and my ear.
"'Hold on, Bob!' said I; 'sit down.' He didn't speak, but he lifted the muzzle of his gun a little, and there was a look came into his eyes, half crying, half like a dog cornered to fight.
"'S-s-h!' said I; 'you'll wake up Ed.'
"'I got to kill ye, Bill,' said he.
"'Sit down,' I said, for I saw he was so weak his thin legs