“ No man of his people had ever been to jail, and he wasn't going so long as he could avoid it. Then, seeing that he was in no immediate danger of capture—the average down-South sheriff knows the hopelessness of chasing a mountaineer in the laurels—Bentley began to wonder what the small white object was that Garrett Henry had found lying under the safe. Soon he decided that he would strike Baskin's trail in the snow, overtake him and find out. Also, he would bring the little matter of Howling Jim's love-making to Nancy to a show-down. ”

“ Lonesome snapped.
Ashford stared in amazement at having his hand thus called. Then his face clouded.
"I got as good a right to go home with her as you have."
"No, you ain't!" Bentley's low, steely voice cut him off. "You ain't fit!"
The girl was gone. Ashford rose, and his huge and hairy hands curled up into fists. Bentley slipped to his feet without any apparent effort.
"You ain't fit," he reiterated. "Any man what lies and steals and drinks and gambles ain't fit to go with any decent woman anywhere. ”

“ He knows he'll die here, and jail is allus better'n death to a skunk. I got a notion Gid is the robber hisself, Howlin', 'cause he's the only man in the outfit what's low-down enough to pull off a job like that."
"I've wondered ef it could possibly ha' been Billy Allison. He's sort o' light-headed. Lonesome, a-bein' not much more'n a boy. How could Gid ha' got the safe open?"
"Ax somebody else. I don't know. But——"
A jerking, agonized yell from Gideon Ashford cut Bentley's speech short:
"Lonesome, come back! I'll make it safe for ye at the camp!" ”

“ He was at the point of asking Howling Jim what it was that he had snatched from Sheriff Henry's hand, when Baskin said slowly:
"Leather burns quick when it's wet, Lonesome; don't stick 'em too clost. By the way, Lonesome, I got somethin' here what belongs to you."
From an inside coat pocket he drew an opened and unstamped and somewhat crumpled letter that had Bentley's name in a thin, feminine scrawl on the envelope, and this he passed into the hands of his pal. ”

“ They walked a wide circle in the clearing, encompassing both the commissary and the boarding-house without coming upon a single footprint that couldn't be easily accounted for. Which was conclusive proof that both the thief and the money were still in camp.
When they had come to the commissary's front doorway again, Bradshaw turned to Bentley with this:
"One of the loggin'-engines ought to have some fire in it from yesterday, Lonesome. Sneak over to the tracks and take one down to Jonesville and bring the sheriff. It's down-grade nearly all the way, and you can raise steam as you go. Hurry!" ”

“ It wasn't much o' my business, I know, Lonesome, for me to go to Nancy and ax her to take ye back. But—well, I thought mebbe——"
"It's all right," said Lonesome. "I thank ye for that, Howlin'. A man never had a better pal 'an you, Howlin'. I shore beg yer pardon for a bein' so low-down mean to ye! Here's the little picture."
He gave Baskin the tintype and rose. He would go straight back to Garrett Henry and tell him everything, though it surely meant jail for him. Baskin put the picture into his pocket, and he, too, went to his feet. ”

“ I never knowed I'd lost it till Henry found it. I hid the six hundred dollars in the up-stairs o' the boardin'-house. Nancy, she handed me that letter to give to you, Lonesome, and I—I——"
"Opened it and read it," clipped Bentley, "like skunks allus does. Go on wi' the cat-killin'. How did ye git in the safe, Gid?"
"I watched Billy Allison when he put the money in it the night afore," confessed the pain-wracked Ashford, "and he—I seed that the fool boy'd forgot to lock it! Hurry, Lonesome, for I'm a-hurtin' awful, and I'd ruther go to jail 'an to die out here in the cold." ”

“ No, nothin'—only-they arrested me as a pardner in the rob'ry; that's all. And they s'arched me and took my money; that's all. But I got it back. Jail? Not for me, Howlin', ef anybody happens to name it to ye! ”

“ The longest-living author of this work died in 1957, so this work is in the public domain in countries and areas where the copyright term is the author's life plus 65 years or less. This work may be in the public domain in countries and areas with longer native copyright terms that apply the rule of the shorter term to foreign works. ”