never asked my father for his defense?"

"Do you mean to say a boy like you can take hold of this thing and
understand it?"

"I can," said Paul. "I could almost tell the story myself."

"Put it up then!" said the packer. The fascination of confession was
strong upon him.

"You had been out in the mountains--how long?"

"Two days and three nights, just as I left camp."

"You were crazed with anxiety for us. You came back to find your camp
empty, the wife and baby gone. You had reason to distrust the keeper. Not
for what he did--for what you knew he meant to do."

"For what he meant and tried to do. I seen it in his eye. The devil that
wanted him incited him to play with me and tell me lies about my wife. She
scorned the brute and he took his mean revenge. He kep' back her letter,
and he says to me, leerin' at me out of his wicked eyes, 'Your livestock
seems to be the strayin' kind. The man she went off with give me
that,'--he lugged a gold piece out of his clothes and showed me,--'give me
that,' he says, 'to keep it quiet.' He kep' it quiet! Half starved and
sick's I was, the strength was in me. But vengeance in the hand of a man,
it cuts both ways, my son! His bunk had a sharp edge to it like this. He
fell acrost it with my weight on top of him and he never raised up again.
There wasn't a mark on him. His back was broke. He died slow, his eyes
mocking me.