The story that Ferne Yarnell told them in the parlor of the hotel had its beginnings far back in the days before the great war. They had been neighbors, these three families, had settled side by side in this new land of Arkansas, had hunted and feasted together in amity. In an hour had arisen the rift between them that was to widen to a chasm into which much blood had since been spilt. It began with a quarrel between hotheaded young men. Forty years later it was still running its blind wasteful course.

Even before the war the Boones had begun to go down hill rapidly. Cad Boone, dissipated and unprincipled, had found even the lax discipline of the Confederate army too rigid and had joined the guerrillas, that band of hangers-on which respected neither flag and developed a cruelty that was appalling. Falling into the hands of Captain Ransom Yarnell, he had been tried by drumhead courtmartial and executed within twenty four hours of his capture.

The boast of the Boones was that they never 192 forgot an injury. They might wait many years for the chance, but in the end they paid their debts. Twenty years after the war Sugden Boone shot down Colonel Yarnell as he was hitching his horse in front of the courthouse at Nemo. Next Christmas eve a brother of the murdered man—Captain Tom, as his old troopers still called him—met old Sugden in the postoffice and a revolver duel followed. From it Captain Tom emerged with a bullet in his arm. Sugden was carried out of the store feet first to a house of mourning.

The Boones took their time. Another decade passed. Old Richard Bellamy, father of the young man, was shot through the uncurtained window of his living rooms while reading the paper one night. Though related to the Yarnells, he had never taken any part in the feud beyond that of expressing his opinion freely. The general opinion was that he had been killed by Dunc Boone, but there was no conclusive evidence to back it. Three weeks later another one of the same faction met his fate. Captain Tom was ambushed while riding from his plantation to town and left dead on the road. Dunc Boone had been seen lurking near the spot, and immediately after the killing he was met by two hunters as he was slipping through the underbrush for the swamps. There was no direct evidence against the young man, but Captain Tom had been the most popular man in the county. Reckless though he was, Duncan Boone had been forced 193 to leave the country by the intensity of the popular feeling against him.

Again the feud had slumbered. It was understood that the Yarnells and the Bellamys were ready to drop it. Only one of the opposite faction remained on the ground, a twin brother of Duncan. Shep Boone was a drunken ne’er-do-well, but since he now stood alone nothing more than empty threats was expected of him. He spent his time idly with a set of gambling loafers, but he lacked the quality of active malice so pronounced in Dunc.

A small part of the old plantation, heavily mortgaged, still belonged to Shep and was rented by him to a tenant, Jess Munro. He announced one day that he was going to collect the rent due him. Having been drinking heavily, he was in an abusive frame of mind. As it chanced he met young Hal Yarnell, just going into the office of his kinsman Dick Bellamy, with whom he was about to arrange the details of a hunting trip they were starting upon. Shep emptied his spleen on the boy, harking back to the old feud and threatening vengeance at their next meeting. The boy was white with rage, but he shut his teeth and passed upstairs without saying a word.

The body of Shep Boone was found next day by Munro among the blackberry bushes at the fence corner of his own place. No less than four witnesses had seen young Yarnell pass that way with a rifle in his hand about the same time that Shep 194 was riding out from town. They had heard a shot, but had thought little of it. Munro had been hoeing cotton in the field and had seen the lad as he passed. Later he had heard excited voices, and presently a shot. Other circumstantial evidence wound a net around the boy. He was arrested. Before the coroner held an inquest a new development startled the community. Dick Bellamy fled on a night train, leaving a note to the coroner exonerating Hal. In it he practically admitted the crime, pleading self defence.

This was the story that Ferne Yarnell told in the parlor of the Palace Hotel to Jack Flatray and the Lees.

Melissy spoke first. “Did Mr. Bellamy kill the man to keep your brother from being killed?”

“I don’t know. It must have been that. It’s all so horrible.”

The deputy’s eyes gleamed. “Think of it another way, Miss Yarnell. Bellamy was up against it. Your brother is only a boy. He took his place. A friend couldn’t have done more for another.”

The color beat into the face of the Arkansas girl as she looked at him. “No. He sacrificed his career for him. He did a thing he must have hated to do.”

“He’s sure some man,” Flatray pronounced.

A young man, slight, quick of step, and erect as a willow sapling, walked into the room. He looked 195 from one to another with clear level eyes. Miss Ferne introduced him as her brother.

A thought crossed the mind of the deputy. Perhaps this boy had killed his enemy after all and Bellamy had shouldered the blame for him. If the mine owner were in love with Ferne Yarnell this was a hypothesis more than possible. In either case he acquitted the slayer of blame. In his pocket was a letter from the sheriff at Nemo, Arkansas, stating that his county was well rid of Shep Boone and that the universal opinion was that neither Bellamy nor young Yarnell had been to blame for the outcome of the difficulty. Unless there came to him an active demand for the return of Bellamy he intended to let sleeping dogs lie.

No such demand came. Within a month the mystery was cleared. The renter Munro delivered himself to the sheriff at Nemo, admitting that he had killed Shep Boone in self defence. The dead man had been drinking and was exceedingly quarrelsome. He had abused his tenant and at last drawn on him. Whereupon Munro had shot him down. At first afraid of what might happen to him, he had stood aside and let the blame be shouldered upon young Yarnell. But later his conscience had forced him to a confession. It is enough here to say that he was later tried and acquitted, thus closing the chapter of the wastrel’s tragic death.

The day after the news of Munro’s confession reached Arizona Richard Bellamy called upon Flatray 196 to invite him to his wedding. As soon as his name was clear he had asked Ferne Yarnell to marry him.