Dunc.

A small part of the old plantation, heavily mortgaged, still belonged to
Shep and was rented by him to a tenant, Jess Munro. He announced one day
that he was going to collect the rent due him. Having been drinking
heavily, he was in an abusive frame of mind. As it chanced he met young
Hal Yarnell, just going into the office of his kinsman Dick Bellamy, with
whom he was about to arrange the details of a hunting trip they were
starting upon. Shep emptied his spleen on the boy, harking back to the old
feud and threatening vengeance at their next meeting. The boy was white
with rage, but he shut his teeth and passed upstairs without saying a
word.

The body of Shep Boone was found next day by Munro among the blackberry
bushes at the fence corner of his own place. No less than four witnesses
had seen young Yarnell pass that way with a rifle in his hand about the
same time that Shep was riding out from town. They had heard a shot, but
had thought little of it. Munro had been hoeing cotton in the field and
had seen the lad as he passed. Later he had heard excited voices, and
presently a shot. Other circumstantial evidence wound a net around the
boy. He was arrested. Before the coroner held an inquest a new development
startled the community. Dick Bellamy fled on a night train, leaving a note
to the coroner exonerating Hal. In it he practically admitted the crime,
pleading self defence.

This was the story that Ferne Yarnell told in the parlor of the Palace
Hotel to Jack Flatray and the Lees.

Melissy spoke first. "Did Mr. Bellamy kill the man to keep your brother
from being killed?"

"I don't know. It must have been that. It's all so horrible."

The deputy's eyes gleamed. "Think of it another way, Miss Yarnell. Bellamy
was up against it. Your brother is only a boy. He took his place. A friend
couldn't have done more for another."

The color beat into the face of the Arkansas girl as she looked at him.
"No. He sacrificed his career for him. He did a thing he must have hated
to do."

"He's sure some man," Flatray pronounced.

A young man, slight, quick of step, and erect as a willow sapling, walked
into the room. He looked from one to another with clear level eyes. Miss
Ferne introduced him as her brother.

A thought crossed the mind of the deputy. Perhaps this boy had killed his
enemy after all and Bellamy had shouldered the blame for him. If the mine
owner were in love with Ferne Yarnell this was a hypothes