'The Able McLaughlins' Summary

Wully McLaughlin, doughty but inarticulate young hero, returns from Grant's army to find that his sweetheart, Christie McNair, has fallen a victim, against her will, to the scapegrace of the community, Peter Keith. She has concealed her plight from every one, but cannot conceal it from him. Wully grasps the situation with masterful promptness. He makes Peter leave under threat of death, marries Christie, and accepts the paternity of her child and the blame for its disgracefully early birth. Peter steals back to see the woman he violated, at a time when the anger of Wully and Christie against him has not lost a degree of its incandescence. Wully hunts him with a shotgun, but he has disappeared. Then, a few weeks later, Wully suddenly finds him–and revenge and forgiveness are reconciled in Miss Wilson's last pages with surprising convincingness.