"I'll take keer
of him. Quick!" and he shook his head as Hale advanced. "He ain't
goin' to shake hands with you."
The two turned back across the bridge and Hale went on to Budd's
office to do what he was setting out to do when young Dave came.
There he had the lawyer make out a deed in which the cabin in
Lonesome Cove and the acres about it were conveyed in fee simple
to June--her heirs and assigns forever; but the girl must not know
until, Hale said, "her father dies, or I die, or she marries."
When he came out the sergeant was passing the door.
"Ain't no use fightin' with one o' them fellers thataway," he
said, shaking his head. "If he whoops you, he'll crow over you as
long as he lives, and if you whoop him, he'll kill ye the fust
chance he gets. You'll have to watch that feller as long as you
live--'specially when he's drinking. He'll remember that lickin'
and want revenge fer it till the grave. One of you has got to die
some day--shore."
And the sergeant was right. Dave was going through the Gap at that
moment, cursing, swaying like a drunken man, firing his pistol and
shouting his revenge to the echoing gray walls that took up his
cries and sent them shrieking on the wind up every dark ravine.
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