“It is fitten,” said Jack, simply; “fitten that I should die for the law—I who have been so lawless.”
He turned to Margaret Adams: “You are lookin' somethin' you want to say—I can tell by yo' eyes.”
She faltered, then slowly: “Jack, he was not my son—my poor sister—I could not see her die disgraced.”
Jack drew her down and kissed her.
And as his eyes grew dim, a figure, tall and in military clothes, stood before him, shaken with grief and saying, “Jack—Jack, my poor friend—”
Jack's mind was wandering, but a great smile lit up his face as he said: “Bishop—Bishop—is—is—it Cap'n Tom, or—or—Jesus Christ?” And so he passed out.
And up above them all in the belfry, lying prone, but still gripping his rifle's stock which, sweeping the jail with its deadly protruding barrel, had held back hundreds of men, they found Richard Travis, a softened smile on his lips as if he had just entered into the glory of the great Sweet Silence of Things. And by him sat the old preacher, where he had sat since Richard Travis's last shot had saved the jail and the defenders; sat and bound up his wound and gave him the last of his old whiskey out of the little flask, and stopped the flow of blood and saved the life which had nearly bubbled out.
And as they brought the desperately wounded man down to the surgeon and to life, the old governor raised his hat and said: “The Travis blood—the Irish Gray—when it's wrong it is hell—when it's right it is heaven.”
But the old preacher smiled as he helped carry him tenderly down and said: “He is right, forever right, now, Gov'nor. God has made him so. See that smile on his lips! He has laughed before—that was from the body. He is smiling now—that is from the soul. His soul is born again.”
The old governor smiled and turned. Edward Conway, wounded, was sitting up. The governor grasped his hand: “Ned, my boy, I've appointed you sheriff of this county in place of that scallawag who deserted his post. Stand pat, for you're a Conway—no doubt about that. Stand pat.”