“I don’t believe Sherwood did it,” said Ben. “He was my father’s friend once and Uncle Jim says he was a good sportsman, so I don’t believe he would ever be coward enough to shoot an unarmed man.”
“Ye never can tell,” returned Ian, wagging his head. “Louis Balenger led him a dog’s life for years, so I’ve heard tell, an’ I reckon his spirit was jist about broke by the time Louis shot a hole in him an’ beat it. He lived quiet enough an’ law-abidin’ all the years Balenger was away, I guess; an’ now it looks like Balenger had come back to French River to start some more divilment an’ Sherwood had up an’ shot ’im. Sure it was cowardly—but once ye break a man’s spirit, no matter how brave he was once, ye make a coward of him. If he didn’t do it, why did he run away?”
“That’s what I can’t figure out, Uncle Ian—but it seems to me a good sportsman might be broken down to some kinds of cowardice and not others. His nerves might get so’s they’d fail him without his—well, without his soul turning coward—or even his heart. There’s many a good horse that shies at a bit of paper on the road that has the heart to pull on a load till it drops.”
“Mighty deep reasonin’,” said Ian McAllister. “That’s what comes of schoolin’. We’ll chaw it over, me an’ Archie; but whatever kind of coward Richard Sherwood may be, I’ll look after yer ma an’ the little girl while yer away.”
Ben and Uncle Jim set out for French River next morning at an early hour in the canvas canoe. They made ten miles by noon, poling close inshore all the way. They boiled the teakettle, ate the plentiful cold luncheon with which Mrs. O’Dell had supplied them and rested for an hour and a half. Six miles farther up they came to heavy rapids around which they were forced to carry their dunnage and canoe.
“Here’s where he left her and the pirogue, I wouldn’t wonder,” said McAllister. “Once clear of the rapids, she’d be safe to make the point. But if she was my daughter, I’d take her all the way to wherever she was going, no matter what was chasing me! He ain’t the man he was when I first knew him, I guess.”
“Why didn’t you stick to him then?” asked Ben. “What did you all drop him for, just because he got mixed up with a bad crowd? That was no way to treat a friend.”
“John kept after him eight or nine years. Once a year, year after year, yer father made the trip to French River and tried to get him to break with the Balengers and offered him land and a house down to the point.”
“But what did you do? You didn’t do anything, Uncle Jim.”
“I was leery about visiting French River, in those days. I’d seen just enough of that outfit to guess how easy it would be to get mixed up with them. And Sherwood wasn’t encouraging. All he’d do would be to cuss John out for a prig and a busybody. And it’s a long way between his clearing and O’Dell’s Point.”