Page:Morley roberts--Painted Rock.djvu/56

 you'd better go back to Virginia to your sister."

To say so was to ease his mind of a hard duty. Bill Davies felt much easier after it.

"I'm goin' back soon," said Jeff.

And he rode through the moonlight to the town. He sent the pony back as soon as he found his father's body, which lay in the back store of the man they usually dealt with. And the funeral was next day. Walker did not pay for it, for Jeff sent him a message.

"He looked tolerable wicked," said the man who took it to the slayer.

"Did he?" sneered Walker. "You can tell him to keep out of my way. See?"

Walker felt an injured man.

"Good God!" said Walker, "shall I have to kill a boy?"

But Jeff went back to his place on Double Mountain Creek, and, the memories of men in the West being short, the death of old Jefferson Dexter was a thing forgotten in a week. But the young one didn't forget. And perhaps Walker did not, for the pride of a man who kills and is not tried, or who is