"Don't you think we can scare him off? Killing's a nasty word."

"My father was with John Brown; he helped kill a man. He never lost no
sleep about it; I shan't neither. Look here, Mr. Robbins, I got lots of
time to think, winters--lots. Remorse and all them fine feelings you
read of, they don't belong to folks that are way down in the dirt. You
got to have something to eat and wear, and not have your stomach sassing
you, and you half froze most of the time; when your body is in sech a
fix it's keeping your mind so full there ain't any show for any other
feelings. And look a' here, there's worse"--his voice sank. "Why, you
git to that pass you ain't able to feel for your own wife and babies.
When this morning Peggy kept hushing the baby, and she was fretting and
moaning, and Peggy says to me, couldn't I git a little crackers in town;
maybe the baby could eat them? I didn't feel nothing 'cept a numb
aching. I kept saying, 'I'd 'a' felt that, once!' But I didn't feel it
now. And, all of a sudden, it come to me 'twas because I was gitting
_past_ feeling--like you do when you're froze, jest before you die. I
read a story once, when I was a little shaver, that kept me awake nights
many a time. It was about a Russian nobleman out sleigh-riding with his
children, three of 'em, on one of them steppes; and the wolves chased
them. The father had a pistol, and he would shoot one of the wolves, and
then the cowardly cusses would stop to tear the wounded critter to
pieces and eat him, giving the folks in the sleigh a little more time;
but every time the distance between the wolves and them when they
stopped was a little smaller; but they were getting closer to the town,
and they could see the lights. So the father, he kept on shooting, until
the wolves were jumping up and grabbing at the sleigh, and the last time
he shot a wolf he used up his last cartridge; then, when they come after
him again, when the lights were nearer, and he knew if he could stop 'em
once more he could escape, he--he throwed out one of the children;
because it was this way: if he jumped out himself the children were so
little they couldn't drive, and they'd be tipped up, and all three of
them lost, so he throwed out the child he loved the best, and they got
to town safely; but he went raving crazy. Well, I thought of him, and I
said, if baby died there'd be the more chance for the others--"

"Look here, Wesley," his companion interrupted, "_quit it_! You're
g