Part 22 (2/2)
”I will tell you in good time. First, I want you to fix up those plans.”
”Hadn't I better git about it right now?”
”Yes. I think you had. And I will remain here with you while you do it in order that you may explain things to me as you work upon them.”
”That's a good idee, too. I can make you know them mountings as well as I do, in a short time. I knows 'em so well----”
”That reminds me. Do you happen to know by sight, or have an acquaintance with, any of the members of that gang?”
The old man s.h.i.+fted uneasily in his chair, and at last he replied:
”I know one of them--purty well. He calls himself Handsome.”
”Good! What does Handsome know about you, Bill?”
”He don't know nothin' about me, 'cept that I'm a woodsman, and that I'm too old to do him any harm. I helped him once, and once he helped me a leetle, and we're sort of friends. But I ain't never seen him but twice in my life, and then both times I met him in the woods, so I ain't never mentioned nothin' about him to other folks.”
”That's splendid! It is just what I hoped. It couldn't be better! I want you now to tell me what you talked about when you and Handsome met each other those two times in the woods.”
”That's easy. The first time, I was walking through the woods, up about where you are going--that is, it was in that region--when I heard somebody hollerin' fur help. At first I couldn't tell for the life of me where the hollerin' come from; but after a leetle I located it up on the side of one of them steep hills, and so I crawled up there. Well, when I got there, I found that a man had slid into a hole in the rocks, and that he couldn't git out nohow. If I hadn't happened along the chances are that he'd starved before he'd ha' been helped out.”
”And as it was--what?”
”I helped him out. I didn't have no hatchet, but I had a good huntin'
knife along with me, and I managed to whittle down a good-sized spruce, which I trimmed so's to make a sort of ladder of it. When that was done I lowered the b.u.t.t end of it into the hole, and Handsome--that was who it was in the bottom of the hole--he climbed up so's I could get hold of him, and then I pulled him out. There wasn't much to that, was there?”
”It saved his life.”
”Probably.”
”Wasn't he grateful?”
”Suttingly.”
”What did you talk about after that?”
”We sot down there a spell and chinned, that's all. He axed me who I was, and I told him. He axed me if I was long in these parts, and I told him allers. He axed me where I lived, and I told him about this cottage.
That's all--only he said he was a hobo, and that he was called Handsome.
I allowed that the people who called him that lied mightily; but I didn't say so jest then.”
”What more was talked about?”
”Nothin'.”
”When was the next time you saw him?”
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