he only evidence in this case. There was a well-authenticated tale of a
brilliant red shawl--a woman's shawl--and a pair of silver bangles once
seen in Dandy Steve's cabin. A man had gone in upon him suddenly one
evening without the formality of knocking. Such foolish
conventionalities were not in vogue on the Saranac; this was before
Steve took to guiding. It was in the first year after he appeared in
that region, while he was living like a hermit alone, or supposed to be
alone, in a tiny log cabin on an island not much bigger than his cabin.

This man--old Ben, the oldest guide there--having been hindered at some
of the portages, and finding himself too late to reach his destination
that night, seeing the glimmer of light from Steve's cabin, had rowed to
the island, landed, and, with the thoughtless freedom of the country,
walked in at the half-open door.

He was fond of telling the story of his reception; and as he told it, it
had a suspicious sound, and no mistake. Steve was sitting in a big
arm-chair before his table; over the arm of the chair was flung the red
shawl. On the table lay an open book and the silver bangles in it, as if
some one had just thrown them off. At sound of entering footsteps Steve
sprang up, with an angry oath, and hastily closing the book threw it and
the bangles into the chair from which he had risen, then crowded the
shawl down upon them into as small a compass as possible.

"His eyes blazed like lightnin', or sharper," said old Ben, "an' I
declare t' ye I was skeered. Fur a minut I thought he was a loonatic,
sure's death. But in a minut more he was all right, an' there couldn't
nobody treat a feller handsomer than he did me that night an' the next
mornin'; but I took notice that the fust thing he done was to heave a
big blanket kind o' careless like into the chair, an' cover the things
clean up; an' then in a little while he says, a-sweepin' the whole
bundle up in his arms, 'I'll just clear up this little mess, an' give ye
a comfortable chair to sit in;' an' he carried it all--blanket, book,
bracelets, shawl, an' all--into the next room, an' throwed 'em on the
floor in a pile in one corner. There wa'n't but them two rooms to the
cabin, so that wa'n't any place for her to be hid, if so be 's there was
any woman 'round; an' he said he was livin' alone, an' had been ever
since he come. An' it was nigh a year then since he come, so I never
know'd what to make on 't, an' I don't suppose there