He thought he had done a great and philosophically noble deed--remember, this was but a boy little over twenty--and he slept like a lamb.

And next evening he went over to Woodell's home and said he wanted some supper, and after the meal laughed at Woodell, and said he was going off to another farm to pitch quoits until it got too dark, and the two young men walked down the road together and exchanged some confidences, and when they parted each was on good terms with the other.

This was strange, following an attempted murder, but such things happen in real life.

And it may be that Woodell had the worst of the bargain in that conversation.
He was better equipped for the winning of Jenny, but the troubled man with whom he had been talking had reached out blindly for aid in another direction.

Not much satisfaction was the result.