The Lady of Big Shanty. F. Berkeley Smith

see—Fourth Avenue, isn't it? As soon as I saw the Park I knew I was on the right trail," he laughed, his white teeth gleaming in contrast with his nut-brown skin.

      "Oh, I'd trust you anywhere in the world, trail or no trail. That's the way you got me out of Bog Eddy that night, and that's the way you saved Sam Thayor. He's coming, you know. Wants to meet you the worst kind. I'm keeping you for a surprise, but he'll hug himself all over when he finds out it's you."

      The young man raised his eyes in doubt.

      "Thayor? I don't know as I—"

      "Why, of course you remember the Thayors, Billy! They were at Long

       Lake three or four summers ago."

      "Oh! a short, thick-set man, with grayish hair?" replied Holcomb in his low, well-modulated voice—the voice of a man used to the silence of the big woods. "Let's see," he mused—"wasn't it he that cut himself so badly with an axe over at Otter Pond? Yes, I remember."

      "So does Thayor, Billy, and it'll be a good many years before he forgets it," declared Jack. "You saved his life, he says. That's one thing he wants to see you for, and another is that he's played out and needs a rest."

      "Bless me!" cried Brompton in the tragic tones of his profession. "You saved his life, me boy?"

      Holcomb, for the first time, appeared embarrassed.

      "Well, that's mighty good of him to think so, but I didn't do much," he replied modestly. "Now I come to think of it, he was badly cut and I helped him down to Doc' Rand's at Bog River. That was, as I figure it, about three years ago—wasn't it, Randall?"

      "You mean," returned Randall, "that you took him down on your back, and if you hadn't Sam Thayor would have bled to death."

      "Bless my soul!" cried the actor.

      "Well, you see," continued Holcomb ignoring the interruption, "there are some that can handle an axe just as easily as some fellows can fiddle, and again there are some that can't. It's just a little knack, that's all, gentlemen, and, of course, Mr. Thayor wasn't used to chopping."

      "The only thing Sam Thayor can handle is money," interposed Keene.

       "He's got millions, Billy—millions!"

      "Millions," chuckled Randall; "I should think so. He owns about five of 'em." As he spoke he half rose from his chair and waved his hand to a well-dressed, gray-haired man whose eyes were searching the crowded hall. "Thayor!" he shouted.

      As the new-comer moved closer the whole group rose to greet him.

      "I'm afraid, my dear Jack, I've kept you all waiting," the banker began. "A special meeting of the Board detained me longer than I had anticipated. I hope you will forgive me. I am not usually late, I assure you, gentlemen. This for me?" and he picked up his waiting cocktail.

      Holcomb, although his eyes had not wavered from Thayor, had not yet greeted him. That a man so quiet and unostentatious belonged to the favoured rich was a new experience to him. He was also waiting for some sign of recognition from the financial potentate, the democracy of the woods being in his blood.

      Randall waited an instant and seeing Thayor's lack of recognition blurted out in his hearty way:

      "Why, it's Holcomb, Sam; Billy Holcomb of Moose River."

      Thayor turned and formally extended his hand.

      "Oh, I beg your pardon! I—" then his whole manner changed. "Why, Holcomb!" he exclaimed with delightful surprise. "Oh, I'm so glad to see you! And—er—your dear father—how is he?"

      "First rate, thank you, Mr. Thayor. It seems kind of natural to see you again. Father was speaking about you the very day he left. 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