"I intended to kill him," he replied, "and I would if it had been my luck to come up with him. But I think I am glad, now, that I didn't, though he deserved it. Anyway Paul Sam had the better right."
"The poor old Indian!" Faith said softly.
"Oh, I don't know. If he could talk about it he would say that he couldn't die better. And then he was a very old man."
"But life may be sweet to the old."
"Yes. But when a man is alone, when all of his blood and the friends of his youth and manhood are gone, there can't be much to live for. I would wish to die before that time comes to me."
"Don't talk of dying." She shivered a little. But the chord of melancholy in his being had been struck and vibrated.
"Why not? Talking will not bring death nearer, nor stave it off. 'Crioch onarach!' You have no Gaelic, but it means a good finish—an honorable end to life. And that is the main thing. What does it matter when you die, if you die well? I would not live my last years like a toothless, stiff, old dog, dragging his legs around the house with the sun. I would rather go out with the taste of life sweet in my mouth."
"We have many years before us, you and I," she said. "I think they will be happy years, boy."
"They will be largely what we make them. I remember my father's words when it was near the end with him; and he was a hard man. The things worth least in life, he said, were hate and revenge; and the things worth most in life and more in death were love, and work well done, and a heart clean of bitterness. I did not think so then. But now I am beginning to think he was right."
"Yes, he was right," she said.