better
after that.

"I'd have turned back more than once, but I thought I'd meet up with
some of the sheriff's party. I didn't do that, but I stumbled on a
trail on the third day, toward evening. It was the trail made by John
Donaldson, as I learned later. I followed it, but I concluded after a
while that whoever made it was lost, too. It seemed to be going in a
circle. I was in bad shape and had frozen a part of my right hand, when
I saw a cabin, and there was smoke coming out of the chimney."

From that time on David's statement dealt with the situation in the
cabin; with Jud Clark and the Donaldsons, and with the snow storm, which
began again and lasted for days. He spoke at length of his discovery of
Clark's identity, and of the fact that the boy had lost all memory of
what had happened, and even of who he was. He went into that in detail;
the peculiar effect of fear and mental shock on a high-strung nature,
especially where the physical condition was lowered by excess and
wrong-living; his early attempts, as the boy improved, to pierce the
veil, and then his slow-growing conviction that it were an act of mercy
not to do so. The Donaldsons' faithfulness, the cessation of the search
under the conviction that Clark was dead, both were there, and also
David's growing liking for Judson himself. But David's own psychology
was interesting and clearly put.

"First of all," he dictated, in his careful old voice, "it must be
remembered that I was not certain that the boy had committed the crime.
I believed, and I still believe, that Lucas was shot by Clifton Hines,
probably through an open window. There were no powder marks on the body.
I believed, too, and still believe, that Hines had fled after the crime,
either to Hattie Thorwald's house or to the mountains. In one case he
had escaped and could not be brought to justice, and in the other he was
dead, and beyond conviction.

"But there is another element which I urge, not in defense but in
explanation. The boy Judson Clark was a new slate to write on. He had
never had a chance. He had had too much money, too much liberty, too
little responsibility. His errors had been wiped away by the loss of his
memory, and he had, I felt, a chance for a new and useful life.

"I did not come to my decision quickly. It was a long fight for his
life, for he had contracted pneumonia, and he had the drinker's heart.
But in the long days of his convalescence while Maggie worked in
the