The end of the story is best told in Old Ben’s words.  He was never tired of telling it.

“I never heered exactly the hull partikelers,” he said, “for they’d gone long before we got back, and the folks she was with wa’n’t the kind that talks much; but I could see they set a store by her.  They’d always liked Steve, too, up here’s a guide.  They niver know’d him while he was a-livin’ with her, else they’d ha’ know’d him here; but he hadn’t lived with her but a mighty little while’s near’s I could make out.  Yer see, she was powerful rich, an’ he hadn’t but little; ‘n’ for all she was so much in love with him, she couldn’t help a-throwin’ it up to him, sort o’, an’ he couldn’t stan’ it.  So he jest lit out; an’ he’d never ha’ gone back to her,—­never under the shining sun.  He’d got jest that grit in him.  She’d been a-huntin’ everywhere, they said,—­all over Europe, ‘n’ Azhay, ‘n’ Africa, till she’d given up huntin’; an’ he was right close tu hum all the time.  He was a first-rate feller, ‘n’ we was all glad when his luck come ter him ‘t last.  I wished I could ha’ seen him to ’ve asked him if he didn’t b’leeve in luck now!  Me ‘n’ him was talkin’ about luck that very mornin’ while she was a-steppin’ down the landin’ towards him’s fast ’s ever she could go!  My eyes! how that woman did come a runnin’, an’ a-callin’, ‘Guide! guide!’ I sha’n’t never forgit it.  I asked some o’ the fellers how she looked when they went off, an’ they said her eyes was shinin’ like stars; but there wasn’t any more of her face to be seen, for she was rolled up in a big red shawl, It gits hoppin’ cold here in September.  I’ve always thought’t was that same red shawl he had in his cabin; but I dunno’s ’twas.”

“Wall, I bet they had a fust-rate time on that weddin’ journey o’ theirn,” said one of Ben’s rougher cronies one day at the end of the narrative; “‘t ain’t every feller gets the chance o’ two honeymoons with the same woman.”

Old Ben looked at him attentively.  “Youngster,” said he, “’t ain’t strange, I suppose, young’s you be, th’t ye should look at it that way; but ye’re off, crony.  Ye don’t seem ter recolleck ’bout all them years they’d lost out of their lives.  I tell ye, it’s kind o’ harrowin’ ter me.  Old’s I am, and hain’t never felt no call ter be married nuther, it’s kind o’ harrowin’ ter me yit ter think o’ that woman’s yell she giv’ when she seed Steve’s face.  If thar warn’t jest a hull lifetime o’ misery in’t, ‘sides the joy o’ findin’ him, I ain’t no jedge.  I haven’t never felt no call ter marry, ‘s I sed; but if I had I wouldn’t ha’ been caught cuttin’ up no sech didos’s that,—­a-throwin’ away years o’ time they might ha’ hed together ‘z well’s not!  Ther’ ain’t any too much o’ this life, anyhow; ’t kinder looks ter you youngsters’s ef ’t ’d last forever.  I know how ‘tis.  I hain’t forgot nothin’, old’s I am.  But I tell you, when ye’re old’s I am, ‘n’ look back on ’t, ye’ll be s’prised ter see how short ‘tis, an’ ye’ll reelize more what a fool a man is, or a woman too,—­an’ I do s’pose they’re the foolishest o’ ther two,—­ter waste a minnit out on ‘t on querrils, or any other kind o’ foolin’.”