yesterday, was it?--he asked to see her alone. Said he had something
particular to say to her about her son. We thought it a queer start, but
she was willing to humor him. Well, she wasn't in there above ten minutes,
but in that time something passed between them that hit her very hard, no
doubt of that! Now, Bogardus holds his tongue like a gentleman as to what
happened in the woods. He doesn't mention his comrades' names. And the
packer has disappeared; so he can't be questioned. Seems to me a little
bird told me there was an attachment between one of those Bowen boys and
Miss Christine?

"Now we, who know what brutes brute fear will make of men, are not going
to deny that those boys behaved badly. There are some things that can't be
acknowledged among men, you know, if there is a hole to crawl out of.
Cowardice is one of them. Well then, they lied, that's the whole of it.
The little boys lied. They wrote Mrs. Bogardus a long letter from
Lemhi,"--the doctor was reviewing now for Mrs. Creve's benefit,--"when
they first got out. They probably judged, by the time they had had, that
Paul and the packer would never tell their own story. Very well: it
couldn't hurt Paul, it might be the saving of them, if they could show
that something had queered him in the woods. They asked his mother if she
had heard of the effects of altitude upon highly sensitive organizations.
They recounted some instances--I will mention them later. One of the boys
is a lawyer, isn't he? They are a pair of ingenious youths. Bogardus, they
claim, avoided them almost from the time they entered the woods,--almost
lived with the packer, behaved like a crank about the shooting. Whereas
they had gone there to kill things, he made it a personal matter whenever
they pursued this intention in a natural and undisguised manner. He had
pangs, like a girl, when the creatures expired. He hated the carcases, the
blood--forgive me, Mrs. Creve. In short, he called the whole business
butchery."