Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/347

 under heaven outside ourselves? By God, no! That's a solemn oath, Roy Beaudry. I 'll not let you go."

He did not argue with her. Instead, he began to tell her of his father and his mother. As well as he could remember it he related to her the story of that last ride he had taken with John Beaudry. The girl found herself visioning the pathetic tenderness of the father singing the "li'l'-ole-hawss" song under the stars of their night camp. There flashed to her a picture of him making his stand in the stable against the flood of enemies pouring toward him.

When Roy had finished, she spoke softly. "I'm glad you told me. I know now the kind of man your father was. He loved you more than his own life. He was brave and generous and kind. Do you think he would have nursed a grudge for seventeen years? Do you think he would have asked you to give up your happiness to carry on a feud that ought never to have been?"

"No, but—"

"You are going to marry me, not Hal Rutherford. He is a good man now, however wild he may have been once. But you need n't believe that just because I say so. Wait and see. Be to