His eyes followed those of Boy, who was gazing on the smaller of two rifles hanging above the fireplace.
“You’ve often wondered why I never use that little gun,” he remarked, drawing his chair forward and leaning upon the table, “and I’ve never told you. I’m goin’ to tell you now. I won that rifle from a man down near Sandwich. He was a bad man all round, and up until I met him just about made the laws of his community. I happened along there one night, and bein’ in no hurry, made up my mind to stay around for a time. The feller I speak of owned that rifle. He was a big chap, about five years older than me, and was supposed to be a fisherman. In reality he was a smuggler, and he was a slick one, and no mistake. When he wasn’t smugglin’ he was gamblin’ with the sailors and passengers of the lake boats. A poor little hunchbacked sister kept house for him, and he used to ill-treat her. Once I happened along and stopped him from strikin’ her with a whip. Of course, he always hated me after that. One afternoon there was a shootin’-match in the neighborhood, and he beat me shootin’.”
Paisley sat back and smiled.
“Yes, he beat me shootin’, Boy. Then he got boastin’; but I didn’t say a word. He finally offered to bet his rifle against mine that he could beat me again. I didn’t want more hard feelin’s; but I simply had to be game. A man couldn’t just take a dare in that wild country, so we had the match right there, and I won his rifle. He didn’t say anythin’, but he looked murder. I left the place soon after that, and about a year later I came along that way again. I heard then that the fisherman chap had cleared out to no one knew where, and left his sister sick and in want.
“I went over to their shanty and found the little woman dyin’. She knew me, and she seemed to want to tell me somethin’. But the end came before she could say it.”
Paisley nodded toward the rifle.
“I’ve never shot that gun since, and I won’t. I’d be ashamed to shoot a gun that belonged to a man who’d leave his crippled sister to starve.”
“Did the sister know where her brother had gone?” asked Boy.
“No; or if she did she couldn’t tell me.”
Boy pushed back his chair and arose from the table.