"I reckon it was because he had a young wife an' a little child," the old man answered. "Now Jim Beaupoint, the one that had been away, he come home after a while, an' hadn't happened to hear about the wipin' out o' the Calverns. 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.
"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."
"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.
"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."
"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'."