"But I know such thoughts are foolish," she said drearily. "He got away.
A girl can't carry on a feud alone, nohow. There's nothin' I can do."

Again, now, with a passing thought, her features lighted as another
maiden's, whose young life had been cast by fate in gentler places might
have lighted at the thought of some great pleasure pending in the
future.

"There is a chance, though," she said, with a fierce joy, "that Lem
Lindsay, if he is alive, 'll git th' bullet that he earned that day. Joe
Lorey's livin'--that's Ben's son--an' he--well, maybe, some time--ah, he
can shoot as straight as anybody in these mountings!"

The look of a young tigress was on her face.

It made the young man who was listening to her shudder--the look upon
her face, the voice with which she said "And he can shoot as straight as
anybody in these mountings!" For a second it revolted him. Then,
getting a fairer point of view, he smiled at her with a deep sympathy,
and waited.

He had not to wait long before a gentler mood held dominance. It came,
indeed, almost at once.

"No," she said slowly, "a girl can't carry on a feud alone, nohow....
And, somehow, when I think of it most times, I really don't want to.
It's only now an' then I get stirred up, like this. Most times I'd
rather learn than--go on fightin' like we-all always have.... I'd rather
learn, somehow.... An'--an'--an' that's been mighty hard--_is_ mighty