From that hour the evil
hatred of his cousin, always dormant in the heart, flamed into
active heat. The disowned youth swore to be revenged. A short
time later the general died, leaving what little property he had
entirely to the one grandson. This stirred again the bitter rage
of the other. He set fire to the house that had been willed his
cousin, and took a train that night for Wyoming. By a strange
irony of fate they met again in the West years later, and the
enmity between them was renewed, growing every month more bitter
on the part of the one who called himself the King of the Bighorn
Country.
She broke the silence after his story with a gentle "Thank you. I
can understand why you don't like to tell the story."
"I am very glad of the chance to tell it to you," he answered.
"When you were delirious you sometimes begged some one you called
Ned not to break his mother's heart. I thought then you might be
speaking to yourself as ill people do. Of course I see now it was
your cousin that was on your mind."
"When I was out of my head I must have talked a lot of nonsense,"
he suggested, in the voice of a question. "I expect I had
opinions I wouldn't have been scattering around so free if I'd
known what I was saying.
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