“They done what they agreed.  For six months they stuck on the trail of old Piotto and never got in hailin’ distance of him.  Then they come on the gang while they were restin’ up in the house of a squatter.

“That was a pretty night.  Drew and Bard went through that gang.  It sounds like a nice fairy-story, all right, but I know old fellers who’ll swear it’s true.  They killed three of the men with their guns; they knifed another one, an’ they killed Riley with their bare hands.  It wasn’t no pretty sight to see—­the inside of that house.  And last of all they got Piotto, fightin’ like an old wildcat, into a corner with his daughter; and William Drew, he took Piotto into his arms and busted his back.  That don’t sound possible, but when you see Drew you’ll know how it was done.

“The girl, she’d been knocked cold before this happened.  So while Bard and Drew sat together bindin’ up each other’s wounds—­because they was shot pretty near to pieces—­they talked it over and they seen pretty clear that the girl would never marry the man that had killed her father.  Of course, old Bill Drew, he’d done the killing, but that wasn’t any reason why he had to take the blame.

“They made up their minds that right there and then with the dead men lyin’ all around ’em, they’d match coins to see which one would take the blame of havin’ killed Piotto—­meanin’ that the other one would get the girl—­if he could.

“And Bard lost.  So he had to take the credit of havin’ killed old Piotto.  I’d of give something to have seen the two of ’em sittin’ there—­oozin’ blood—­after that marchin’ was decided.  Because they tell me that Bard was as big as Drew and looked pretty much the same.

“Then Bard, he asked Drew to let him have one chance at the girl, lettin’ her know first what he’d done, but jest trustin’ to his power of talk.  Which, of course, didn’t give him no show.  While he was makin’ love to the girl she outs with a knife and tries to stick him—­nice, pleasant sort she must have been—­and Drew, he had to pry the two of ’em apart.

“That made the girl look sort of kind on Drew and she swore that sooner or later she’d have the blood of Bard for what he’d done—­either have it herself or else send someone after him to the end of the world.  She was a wild one, all right.

“She was so wild that Drew, after they got married, took her over on the far side of the range and built that old house that’s rottin’ there now.  Bard, he left the range and wasn’t never seen again, far as I know.”

It was clear to Anthony, bitterly clear.  His father had had a grim scene in parting with Drew and had placed the continent between them.  And in the Eastern states he had met that black-eyed girl, his mother, and loved her because she was so much like the wild daughter of Piotto.  The girl Joan in dying had probably extracted from Drew a promise that he would kill Bard, and that promise he had lived to fulfil.