I think you may be right, and that I have been
all wrong. I give it up. But I do know that a fellow can't make any
mistake if he tries to do what is right, and, in figuring out the
thing, takes the side that seems to be against him. He can fight, he
can do anything better after he feels that he has done that. Hold on."

Woodell stopped, wonderingly. Harlson unbuckled the strap about the
man's hands and threw it into the bushes at the roadside.

The farmer straightened himself up, reached out his arms, clutched his
palms together, and looked at the other man. Harlson spoke bluntly.

"Yes, I know you want to try it again. But, as I feel now, it could
only end one way. I don't mind. I only wanted to loose you before I
say what I wanted to say, so that you wouldn't think I was making terms
on my own account."

"Go on," said Woodell, gruffly, still stretching his arms.

"Well, it is just this. I don't think I've been doing the right thing.
I am going to leave Jenny Bierce to you. She will not care much, and
it will be all right in a little time. That is all. No, not quite!
You tried to kill me. Maybe I would have been as big a fool, just such
a crazy, jealous man as you, if things had been the other way. I don't
know. But I do know this, that your coming here to-night, except that
it has made me think, has nothing to do with what I have made up my
mind to. Here we are in the road. I don't want to sleep uneasily in
the barn. You tried to kill me. I have tried to decide on what is
right, and I will do it. Now, I want it settled with you. Here I am!
Do you want to fight?"

Woodell's face had been something worth seeing while Harlson was
speaking. He had followed the words of his late antagonist closely.
He grasped in a general way the intent expressed. There was a radiance
on his rough features.

"Do you really mean that?"

"Of course I do. What should I say it for if I didn't?"

"Then it will be all right."

"But do you want to fight?"

"No, I don't. I won't say you could lick me. It was partly luck
before. I won't give up that way. But you might. That doesn't
matter. I'm sorry I tried to kill you. I was crazy. You would have
been, in my place. And you won't have anything to do with Jenny again?
Oh, Harlson!"

And the two shook hands, and Harlson went back to his bed on the
clover-mow. He thought he had done a great and philosophically noble
deed--remember, this was but a boy l