PAINTED ROCK
enemies, and at that time his father was a power in San Antone, and I was no more than an Englishman and the keeper of a store. And if he had killed me I was dead, and the blow would have killed her I loved better than my whole soul, and I took his blow and it broke my heart; and though I was happy I was miserable too, and it was in my mind always that I had been struck and had done nothin', I that had been on the frontier when Hale was a boy, and had earned a just name as a man who was no cur. And a year back my wife died, and I stayed because I had a little girl, and two months ago death took her too; and I went back home after buryin' her and packed up my things, and that very day I started for Texas. I said that I would seek out Hale, and, if he was now a good man, or one that folks loved, or if he had a wife or child that loved him, or if there was a man who stood up for him, I would let him go. I sought out all that I could find about him in Dallas, and in San Antone and in Sweetwater, and here in Painted Rock, and I find no man has a good word for him, no, not one."
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