"In course hit takes time fer ter tell ye all this, but I acted like I thought. Then ..." he paused, and went on only with a supreme effort, "then, jest as I started the trigger-pull, I seen ... I seen leetle Mike spring out o' the bushes straight at ... at the man. I _seen_ him, I tells ye, erfore I fired. My mind told me not ter pull thet trigger, an' ... an' I done hit. My aim war true, but ..." he stopped altogether. "The man," asked Donald at length, through clenched teeth. "What happened to him?" "He turned et the crack of my gun. He ... he seen me, and run off inter the wood thar." There ensued a long silence. Then Donald's hand stretched out and grasped that of the sorrowing giant. "Jerry," he said steadily. "Don't feel so bad, it wasn't your fault. You did all that man could do. You were trying to ... to save my life, just as ... as Mike was, God bless the little dog. He must have realized that Judd was following me by the exercise of a sense beyond our knowledge, and rushed back to attack him--for my sake." "Yo' said ... yo' said ... 'Judd.' How did yo' come ter know 'twar him?" With new and deepened remorse, Donald sadly outlined the chief incidents of the quarrel, without, however, mentioning the discovery of the still, or the immediate cause of the combat. "Gawd help us all ef er new feud hes broken out hyar," said Jerry solemnly, as he finished. "But yo' air my friend, enjyin' ther hospitality of my roof, an' from this day Judd Amos air my mortal enemy, even though he be my next neighbor." Donald sadly removed his coat, and, wrapping it around the body of his chum, arose, and the silent, painful journey home was begun. CHAPTER XVI THE AFTERMATH Supper was over. With kindly hands night had laid her deep purple mantle over the new-made mound back of the cabin, hiding it from the grieving gaze of the three who sat before the door in painful silence beneath the star-pierced dome of heaven. In the poignancy of her own sorrow, and her overwhelming sympathy for Donald, when she had come to a realization of the meaning of the bundle which he brought out of the woods and laid so tenderly down on the grass before the cabin's stoop, every vestige of Smiles' anger had instantly vanished.