Apple jack, fatigue and a hearty supper together made a narcotic too potent to resist.
Fortner rose, spread a few blankets on the floor, added a sack of bran for a pillow, and with some difficulty induced the two sleepers to lie down and take their slumbers in a more natural position.
"I'll find ye a gun," said Aunt Debby, as this operation was finished, and walking to a farther corner of the room, she came back bearing in her hand a rifle very similar to the one Fortner carried.
"Thar," she said, setting the delicately-curved brazen heel down upon the hearth, and holding the muzzle at arm's length while she gazed at the gun with the admiration one can not help feeling for a magnificent weapon, "is ez true a rifle ez ever a man put to his shoulder.

Ef I didn't b'lave ye ter be ez true ez steel ye shouldn't tech hit, fur hit b'longed ter the truest man in this livin' world." "Hit wuz her husband's," explained Fortner, as her lips met firmly, as if choking down bitter memories.
"I'm givin' hit ter ye ter use ez he'd a-used hit ef he war a-livin'," she said, steadying her tones with a perceptible effort.

"I'm glad thet my hands can put inter yours the means ter avenge him." Harry tried in vain to make an appropriate response.
"I'll clean hit up for ye," she said to Harry, as she saw Fortner beginning to furbish up his own rifle for the next day's duties.
That she was no stranger to the work was shown by the skill with which she addressed herself to it.

Nothing that a Kentucky mountaineer does has more of the aspect of a labor of love, than his caring for a find rifle, and any of them would have been put to shame by the deftness of Aunt Debby's supple hands.

Removing the leathern hood which protected the lock, she carefully rubbed off the hammer and nipple with a wisp of soft fine tow, and picked out the tube with a needle.