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"Reloadin' his rifle, Jim Beaupoint rode slowly to whar Hez Calvern was lyin', when suddenly, from a clump o' bushes close by, there come a rifle shot, an' the rider got the bullet in his chest. Befo' fallin' from the saddle, however, the young fellow fired at the bushes from which smoke was driftin', an' a shrill scream told him that the sharpshooter was a woman."

"It was jes' an incident in one o' these feuds that you were talkin' of, an' I'm goin' to tell yo' about it, to show yo' what a mount'neer's idee o' honor is like. Thar was a family livin' on the other side o' the Ridge, not a great ways from hyeh, by the name o' Calvern, an' in some way or other I never heard the rights of it they took to shootin' up the Beaupoints every chance that come along.

"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.

One day Dandie Beaupoint found a little girl that had hurt herself, an' he picked her up in his arms an' was carryin' her home when one o' the Calvern boys shot him in his tracks. One o' the Beaupoint brothers was away at the time, but the others felt that the Calverns hadn't b'n playin' fair, an' they reckoned to lay them all out.

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."

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.

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 against the Beaupoints had he, Uncle Eli?

"Some one who had been with Hez Calvern?" asked Hamilton. "His wife. Well, although Jim was mortally hurt an' sufferin' as the tracks showed afterwards he tried to drag himself to the bushes in order 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.

On his way home, he had to pass the Calvern place, an' so he made a wide cast aroun' the hill to keep out o' sight, when suddenly, up a gully, he saw this Hez Calvern standin' there with his rifle on his arm, an', quick as he could move, Jim grabbed his gun an' fired. It was a long shot an' a sure one." "Was it " the boy began, but the old man waved the interruption aside and proceeded.