"
"Why was he let off?" queried Hamilton.
"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.
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