ou, 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 were
trembling. 'Neither Ed nor I are going to give you away--sit down,'
and I shook Ed. He sat up blinking like an old toad in a hard shower.
'By whimey!' said Ed, staring at Bob as if he had seen a ghost.

"'I'm hongry, Bill,' said Bob. 'Bill, I'm hongry,' and he began to
stagger and cry like a baby. I got hold of his rifle and Ed caught him
just as he fainted.

"By and by he came to and Ed and I fixed up a stiff hooker of liquor
and some hot tea and gave him a mouthful at a time. Just before
daylight he rose on one elbow and lay there following us with his
eyes, for he was too weak to talk. It seemed as if he was clean beat
out and that his nerve was gone. What grit he had he had used up
keeping away from the law."

Again Holcomb paused--t