der to help the woman who had shot him an' who he had shot unknowin';
but he was too badly hurt, an' he died twenty yards from the place whar
he fell."

"Was the woman dead, too?" asked Hamilton.

"No, but terrible badly hurt. What I was wantin' to tell yo', though,
was the result of all this. Wa'al, the Beaupoints took the woman to
their home an' nursed her night an' day for five long years. She was
helpless, only for her tongue, an' she lashed an' abused them till the
day she died, an' never once, in all those years, did any one o' the
Beaupoints reproach her in return."

"And the youngster?"

"They took the boy, too, an' reared him the bes' they knew how, jes' the
same as one o' their own. One o' the Beaupoint boys went an' lived on
the Calvern place, an' worked it,--worked it fair an' squar', an' put
aside every cent that come out o' the farm. For thirteen years the
Beaupoints looked after the farm an' reared the boy. On the day he was
fourteen year old, Jed Beaupoint--that was the father--called the lad,
told him the whole story, give him a new rifle an' a powder horn, an'
handed over the little bag o' coin that represented thirteen years o'
work on the Calvern holdin'."

"There certainly couldn't be anything squarer than that!" exclaimed
Hamilton. "And he gave the boy the farm, too?"

"Every inch of it. Jed Beaupoint was a squar' man, cl'ar through. An' he
said to the boy--he tol' me the story himself--'Johnny Calvern, thar's
yo' farm an' yo' rifle. Now, if yo're willin', I'll see that thar's no
trouble until yo're twenty-one, an' then yo' c'n go huntin' revenge if
yo've a mind to, or, if you're willin', we'll call the trouble off now,
an' thar won't be any need o' rakin' it up again.'"

"He made it up on the spot, of course?" questioned Hamilton.

The Kentuckian shook his head.

"He did not," he replied. "The boy thought a minute or two an' then said
he'd wait until he was grown up, an' let him know then."

"Although he had been brought up by the Beaupoints!" exclaimed the boy
in surprise. "But surely it never came up again."

"Well, not exac'ly. When Johnny Calvern was about nineteen he got
married, an' a few days befo' the time when he would be twenty-one, he
rode up to the Beaupoint place, an' tol' the ol' man that he was willin'
to let the feud rest another ten years, because of his wife an' little
baby, but that he would be ready to resume shootin' at that time."

"But he had no real grudge aga