“That would have made it necessary for me to fight him,” said Rod, “and I have my reasons for avoiding anything of that sort. It may make me look like a coward, but if anybody will take the trouble to look up the records of the Grants in Rogers County, Texas, he will find there never was a cowardly drop of blood in one of them. Beginning as a nester or small rancher, my father found himself up against the big ranchers who wanted his acres and were determined to drive him out. He’s there now, and he owns a pretty sizeable ranch for these days. But he had to fight for his rights, and I don’t allow the remembrance of some of the things he went through is any too agreeable. He’s carrying a bullet in his right hip which made him lame for life, and his left arm is gone at the elbow, the result of a gun fight, in which he received a wound that didn’t get proper attention for three days. You haven’t heard me blowing about these things, but they’re straight facts, with no fancy touches added for effect. And as long as I have said this much, let me add that the other man, whose name, by the way, was Jennings, didn’t come out of it as well. There’s been a white stone standing over him for a good many years.”
“Gracious!” muttered Ben.
“This is between us, Stone. I’ll ask you not to repeat it, for if you should, the fellows around here would believe it another of my fanciful fabrications. Things are somewhat more peaceful in Texas these days, but the old grudge, a sort of feud between the Jennings and the Grants, has never died out. I was sent to school in Houston before I came here. Fred, the only son of old man Jennings, attended that same school. I won’t go into detail, but he picked his time to get at me. They took him to a hospital, and I went home to the Star D Ranch in something of a hurry. When a Grant finds it necessary to fight, usually something happens to the other fellow.”
CHAPTER XVI.
INDEPENDENT ROD.
Despite those final words, the boy from Texas had spoken quietly and without giving the impression that he was boasting; indeed, it seemed as if this much had escaped his lips through a sudden impulse, which he now more than half regretted.
“I could tell you something more, Ben,” he said; “but they are things I do not care to talk about, and I’ve said enough already—too much, perhaps.”
“Not too much,” protested the visitor hastily. “For I fancy that I myself am beginning to understand you better than I did. If the fellows knew——”
“I don’t want them to know. Don’t forget I’ve trusted you thus far in strict confidence. I could give you reasons why I don’t play football and why I hold in abhorrence the usual practice of hazing at school or college; but, as I just remarked, I don’t care to talk about those things. I’ve been sent here to attend school, and I reckon I’ll do so for all of the narrow-minded, misguided peanut-heads in Oakdale.”