“That’s a mighty good thing,” said Granny Joslin, nodding her own approval. “Go on over, Davy. See what ye kin do. Will ye promise me ye’ll go?” “I promise ye, yes, Granny,” replied David Joslin slowly. “But I’ll tell ye now, it hain’t to my likin’. I’m only goin’ fer one reason.” Seeing that they all three stood looking at him in silence, he went on. “I don’t believe in these fights and feuds no more. I don’t believe in it even now that it’s come closeter than ever to me. I don’t believe I’d orter go over thar an’ kill nobody else jest because they killed my daddy. Hit hain’t right.” They looked at him in cold silence. He raised his hand. “But because I know ye’d all call me a coward if I didn’t go, I’m a-goin’ over thar with you-all. I’m a-goin’ over thar before my own daddy is real daid and buried. I’ll face Absalom Gannt an’ ary of his kin. I reckon you-all will ride with me. Ye needn’t have no doubt that I’ll flicker—I won’t—none of us nuvver did. But I’m a-tellin’ ye now I don’t believe in it, an’ I don’t want to go. I pray on my knees I’ll not have to kill no man, no matter what happens.” He felt the strong clutch of a skinny hand at his arm. His grandmother whirled him about and looked into his eyes with her own blazing orbs. “My God, I more’n half believe ye’re a-skeered, Dave Joslin. God!—have I fetched into the world ary one of my name that’s afeerd to kill a rattlesnake like ary one of them Gannts? I wish to God I was a man my own self—I’d show ye. I thought ye was a man, Dave. Hain’t ye—tell me—hain’t ye, David Joslin?” “No,” said Joslin, “I don’t think ... a coward! But I believe the law orter have charge of all these things. If I kill ary man over thar to-night, I’m a-goin’ to give myself up to the law.” “Listen at the fool talk!” broke out his fierce grandma. “Listen at him. Law?—law?—what’s the law got to do with a thing like this? I reckon we-all know well enough what the law is.” “I hope to live to see the real law come into these mountings yit,” said David Joslin solemnly. “Only question is, what’s the law? I hope I’ll live to see a different way of figgerin’ in these hills.” “Then ye’ll wait till hell freezes,” said Granny Joslin, savagely. “Hit’ll take more’n ye to reform the people in these mountings from real men inter yaller cowards.” “Come in an’ eat, men,” she added, and led the way to the side of the table, where presently she brought a few half-empty dishes—the same table which soon would hold the body of the dead man. “What we got ye’re welcome to. I reckon somehow I kin run this farm alone an’ make a livin’ here, an’ while I run it I’ll feed the friends of my fam’ly an’ I’ll shoot the enemies of my fam’ly that comes, free as if I’d been a man. God knows I’d orter been, with the trouble I’ve had to carry. Set up an’ eat.”