"You see," explained Kirkby, "we was all mighty fond of Louise Rosser. The hull camp was actin' like a father to her at the time, so long's she hadn't nobody else. We was all at the weddin', too, some six months afore. The gal married him on her own hook, of course, nobody makin' her, but somehow she didn't seem none too happy, although Newbold, who was a perfect gent, treated her white as far as we knowed." The old man stopped again and resumed his pipe. "Kirkby, you tell the story," said Maitland. "Not me," said Kirkby. "I have seen men shot afore for takin' words out'n other men's mouths an' I ain't never done that yit." "You always were one of the most silent men I ever saw," laughed George. "Why, that day Pete yere got shot accidental an' had his whole breast tore out w'en we was lumbering over on Black Mountain, all you said was, 'Wash him off, put some axle grease on him an' tie him up.'" "That's so," answered Pete, "an' there must have been somethin' powerful soothin' in that axle grease, for here I am, safe an' sound, to this day." "It takes an old man," assented Kirkby, "to know when to keep his mouth shet. I learned it at the muzzle of a gun." "I never knew before," laughed Maitland, "how still a man you can be. Well, to resume the story, having nothing to do, I went out with the posse the sheriff gathered up--" "Him not thinkin' there had been any foul play," ejaculated the old man. "No, certainly not." "Well, what happened, Uncle Bob," inquired Enid. "Just you wait," said young Bob, who had heard the story. "This is an awful good story, Cousin Enid." "I can't wait much longer," returned the girl. "Please go on." "Two days after we left the camp, we came across an awful figure, ragged, blood stained, wasted to a skeleton, starved--" "I have seen men in extreme cases afore," interposed Kirkby, "but never none like him." "Nor I," continued Maitland. "Was it Newbold?" asked Enid. "Yes." "And what had happened to him?" "He and his wife had been prospecting in these very mountains, she had fallen over a cliff and broken herself so terribly that Newbold had to shoot her." "What!" exclaimed Bradshaw. "You don't mean that he actually killed her?" "That's what he done," answered old Kirkby. "Poor man," murmured Enid. "But why?" asked Phillips. "They were five days away from a settlement, there wasn't a human being within a hundred and fifty miles of them, not even an Indian," continued Maitland. "She was so frightfully broken and mangled that he couldn't carry her away." "But why couldn't he leave her and go for help?" asked Bradshaw. "The wolves, the bears, or the vultures would have got her. These woods and mountains were full of them then and there are some of them, left now, I guess." The two little girls crept closer to their grown up cousin, each casting anxious glances beyond the fire light.