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he has also brung me the means of doing it. Joe,' he says, 'when you stepped in the door there, I could have shot you dead with my forty-five.' He stepped aside from the window, where the pistol was laying. 'Take it, Joe,' he says, 'I refuse to touch it; I have shot my last shoot!' Joe come acrost the room white as a sheet. 'That's mighty fair of you, Blant,' he says, putting it in his pocket; 'you held my life in your hand.' 'If it was the life of my worst enemy,--if it was all the Cheevers put together--it would be the same,' says Blant; 'I am cured of killing; Rich's death has showed me the terribleness of it; I shoot no more!' And then seemed like I would choke if I looked at him another minute, and I run off. And now nothing haint no use,--Blant's lost his senses, and nothing can't bring him to 'em!" Again he beat the floor despairingly. [Illustration: "'Take it, Joe, I refuse to touch it, I have shot my last shoot!'"] "So far from losing his senses," I said, "he has just come to them. It took the terrible death of his friend to show him the sacredness of human life, and the worthlessness of pride, freedom, or land in comparison with it. This is hard for you to understand, Nucky; but be sure that this evening Blant has done the greatest, most heroic act of his life." The storm of disappointment and anger was too great, however; it continued to sweep him until he heard the boys coming and hurried away to bed. XXVII TRANSFORMATION _Wednesday._ Sad news again from Trigger about the babe. "Nothing but a pitiful little passel of bones," said the mail-boy; "purely dying for lack of Blant." Blant's refusal to use his gun last night has spread abroad, and creates great excitement. "Trojan fotch him his revolver and he wouldn't tech it or use it," is the talk flying about among the boys. "Aiming to let the Cheevers keep his land." "Done give up the war." "Haint going to make no effort to break prison." "Never heared tell of no hero doing such a way!" "Achilles wouldn't," "Nor Hector, neither." Evidently they feel bitter disappointment. They do not dare show it before Nucky, however, or even broach the subject in his presence. I called them in to-night and talked to them about the superiority of moral courage to physical,--with, I fear, no great result. How terribly true are Paul's words, "First the natural man, then"--after what awful birth-pangs, sometimes as cruel as those Blant is experi
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