Page:MacLeod Raine - The Sheriff's Son.djvu/371

 got nothing to say but 'God bless you.' You 're a white man. You 're decent. I believe you 'll be kind to her."

"I'm going to try to the best I know, Mr. Rutherford."

"You'd better, young man." The big rancher swallowed a lump in his throat and passed to another phase of the subject. "Boots was telling me about how it kinder stuck in yore craw to marry the daughter of Hal Rutherford, seeing as how things happened the way they did. Well, I'm going to relieve yore mind. She's the one that has got the forgiving to do, not you. She knew it all the time, too, but she did n't tell it. Beulah is the daughter of my brother Anse. I took her from the arms of her dying mother when she was a little trick that could n't crawl. She's not the daughter of the man that shot yore father. She's the daughter of the man yore father shot."

"Oh!" gasped Roy.

Beulah went to her lover arrow-swift.

"My dear … my dear! What does it matter now? Dad says my father was killed in fair fight. He had set himself against the law. It took his life. Your father did n't."

"But—"