The Lady of Big Shanty | Page 3

He went on
Monday to Fort Ti' with my mother for a visit."
"Ah, indeed!" returned Thayor, drawing up a chair beside the boy, and
before even the glasses were entirely emptied the two had begun

talking of the woods and all it held in store for them, the banker
declaring, as he followed Randall into the dining room, that if he could
arrange his business he would 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