why you should bear the odium of his crimes.
I suppose you don't care for him, though I can see how you might in a
way."

"I don't care for him in the least, though I used to when we were
boys. As to letting myself be blamed for his crimes. I did it because
I couldn't help myself. We look more or less alike, and he was cunning
enough to manufacture evidence against me. We were never seen together,
and so very few know that there are two Bannisters. At first I used to
protest, but I gave it up. There wasn't the least use. I could only wait
for him to be captured or killed. In the meantime it didn't make me any
more popular to be a sheepman."

"Weren't you taking a long chance of being killed first? Some one with a
grudge against him might have shot you."

"They haven't yet," he smiled.

"You might at least have told me how it was," she reproached.

"I started to tell y'u that first day, but it looked so much of a fairy
tale to unload that I passed it up."

"Then you ought not to blame me for thinking you what you were not."

"I don't remember blaming y'u. The fact is I thought it awful white of
y'u to do your Christian duty so thorough, me being such a miscreant,"
he drawled.

"You gave me no chance to think well of you."

"But yet y'u did your duty from A to Z."

"We're not talking about my duty," she flashed back. "My point is that
you weren't fair to me. If I thought ill of you how could I help it?"

"I expaict your Kalamazoo conscience is worryin' y'u because y'u
misjudged me."

"It isn't," she denied instantly.

"I ain't of a revengeful disposition. I'll forgive y'u for doing your
duty and saving my life twice," he said, with a smile of whimsical
irony.

"I don't want your forgiveness."

"Well, then for thinking me a 'bad man.'"

"You ought to beg my pardon. I was a friend, at least you say I acted
like one--and you didn't care enough to right yourself with me."

"Maybe I cared too much to risk trying it. I knew there would be proof
some time, and I decided to lie under the suspicion until I could get
it. I see now that wasn't kind or fair to you. I am sorry I didn't tell
y'u all about it. May I tell y'u the story now?"

"If you wish."

It was a long story, but the main points can be told in a paragraph. The
grandfather of the two cousins, General Edward Bannister, had worn the
Confederate gray for four years, and had lost an arm in the service of
the flag with the stars and bars. After the