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"Well, I suppose I best say, sir"

"I suppose ye had" Jaave hi himself

"’Twasn’t a bear, always Sometimes it was me"

Jamie stared at hian to twitch

"Oh, aye?"

"Not all the tih the wilderness brought hies--"Only if I was hungry, though, sir"--he hastened to add--he would lurk cautiously in the forest nearby, stealing into the place after dark and absconding with any easily-reached edibles He would ree stores until his strength and his pack were replenished, thenwith his hides to the cave where he had hout this recital hadn’t changed; I wasn’t sure how much of it he had heard, but he didn’t appear surprised His hand rested on his twin’s ar for a skewer of hter had subsided, and she had been listening to Josiah’s confession with a furrowed brow

"But you didn’t--I mean, I’m sure you didn’t take the baby in its cradleboard And you didn’t kill the woman as partly eatendid you?"

Josiah blinked, though he seemed more baffled than shocked by the question

"Oh, no Why’d I do that? You don’t think I ate ’e in one cheek "Mind, I been hungry enough now and then as I ht consider it, if I happened on somebody dead--providin’ it was fairly recent," he added judiciously "But not hungry enough as I’d kill so startlingly like one of Jamie’s Scottish noises

"No, I didn’t think you ate theht that if someone happened to have killed thenawed on the bodies"

Peter nodded thoughtfully, see interested but unfazed by the assorted confessions

"Aye, a bear’ll do that," he said "They’re no picky eaters, bears Carrion is fine by them"

Jamie nodded in response, but his attention was still fixed on Josiah

"Aye, I’ve heard that, forbye But Tsatsa’wi said he did see the bear take his friend--so it does kill people, no?"

"Well, it killed that one," Josiah agreed There was an odd tone to his voice, though, and Jamie’s look sharpened He lifted a brow at Josiah, orked his lips slowly in and out, deciding solanced at Kezzie, who smiled at him Kezzie, I saw, had a diht

Josiah sighed and turned back to face Jaoin’ to say about this part," he said frankly "But you been straight with us, sir, and I see it ain’t right I let you go after that bear not knohat else ht be there"

I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck, and resisted the sudden impulse to turn round and look into the shadows behind h had left me

"What else?" Jamie slowly lowered the chunk of bread he had been about to bite into "And justwhat else ht be there, then?"

"Well, ’twas only the once I saw for sure, ht, too But I’d been out all the night, and ht--you’ll know the way of it, sir"

Jah And ye here, at the tie ere headed toward Josiah had been there before, and was familiar with the layout of the place A house at the end of the village was his goal; there were strings of corn hung to dry beneath the eaves, and he thought he could get aith one easily enough, provided he didn’t rouse the village dogs

"Rouse one, ye’ve got ’e his head "And it wasn’t but a couple of hours before the dawn So I crept along slow-like, looking to see was one of the rascals curled up asleep by the house I had ure cos took exception to this, it was a reasonable conclusion that the person belonged to the house The man had paused to make water, and then, to Josiah’s alarm, had shouldered a bow and quiver, and marched directly toward the woods where he lay hidden

"I didn’t think as he could be after me, but I went up a tree quick as a bob-tail cat, and not

Thean early start for a distant stream where raccoon and deer would co any need of caution so near his own village, the h the forest quietly, but with no attempt at concealment

Josiah had crouched in his tree, nohis breath The rowth Josiah had been just about to descend from his perch when he had heard a sudden exclamation of surprise, followed by the sounds of a brief scuffle that concluded with a sickening thunk!

"Just like a ripe squash when you chunk it with a rock to break it open," he assured Ja, hearin’ that noise, there in the dark"

Alarh the wood in the direction of the sound He could hear a rustling noise, and as he peered cautiously through a screen of cedar branches, he round, and another bending over it, evidently struggling to pull soarment off the prone man’s body

"He was dead," Josiah explained, matter-of-factly "I could smell the blood, and a shit-smell, too Reckon the little fella caved in his head with a rock orthe story with close attention "How little d’ye mean? Did ye see his face?"