“May God curse old Absalom Gannt an’ all his kin,” she said at last, shaking a skinny hand toward heaven. “I pledge ye to it, Davy. Tell the last one of them all’s gone, we’ll not fergit. Oh, Davy, it was fer this that ye was borned!” They stood thus, a grim enough group, when the sound of hoofs in the creek bed intruded. Bullock stepped to the door and accosted the newcomer. “Howdy, Cal,” said he. “Light down an’ come in.” The rider dismounted, casting his bridle rein across the top of a picket. “Andy home?” asked he. “Well, he is an’ he hain’t,” said Bullock. “Come on in.” “Well, I thought I’d come in an’ see him——” “Come in. Ye can see all thar is of him,” and he led the way. “Good God A’mighty! God damn _me_!” exclaimed the visitor, as he caught sight of what lay on the bed in the room to which they led him. “Granny, how come this? He’s daid!” “Yes, he’s daid,” said Granny Joslin calmly. “He hung hisself down below by the spring right now. Ye kin see whar the rope cut in his neck. He was a-breathin’ when they put him thar. If that fool boy Chan had had any sense at all he’d of cut him down an’ done saved him.” “Well, now, Granny,” began the accused one. “Well, now——” “Wait!” David Joslin raised his own hand. “Granny, don’t say that. Hit’s the wish of the Lord. Blessed be the name of the Lord. I think my father is better off. Sence he wished it, let’s call it well an’ good. I reckon it all got too much fer him.” “Well, I was just a-comin’ down,” said the newcomer, Calvin Trasker, “to ask ye all out fer a little frolic to-night over to Semmes’ Cove. They’re a-goin’ to draw out this evening, an’ a lot of the neighbors’ll be thar, like enough.” “Old Absalom?” asked the tall young man, unemotionally. “Yes,” he nodded, “him an’ his boys.” “Not all of ‘em,” said the old dame suddenly. “My boy fixed a couple of them people yesterday afore they got him. Lookahere, whar old Absalom cut him”—her long, bony finger pointed out the spot. “Spite of ‘em he wouldn’t of died. He killed _hisself_, an’ he died in his own bed. Thar kain’t no Gannt on airth say they killed my boy.” David Joslin quietly walked over to the foot of the bedstead and unbuckled the belt of the heavy, worn revolver which he found hanging there—the revolver without which his father rarely had traveled in his circuit riding. This he fastened about his own waist, accepting the burden of his father’s feud. He made no comment. “Well, now, how come that diffikilty, Granny? Whar were it?” asked Trasker. “War he hurt bad?” “He got worse along towards mornin’,” said the dead man’s mother. “I seen myself that he war cut deep in his innards, an’ couldn’t live long noways. He lay all night a-beggin’ me to see that case he died the rest of us would kerry on the quarl fer him. Now ye say Absalom an’ some of his folks is a-goin’ to be over thar to-night?” The visitor nodded.