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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of A Cumberland Vendetta, by John Fox, Jr.
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: A Cumberland Vendetta
+
+Author: John Fox, Jr.
+
+Release Date:  January, 2002  [Etext #3022]
+Posting Date: October 9, 2009
+Last Updated: March 14, 2018
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: UTF-8
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK A CUMBERLAND VENDETTA ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Reed
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+A CUMBERLAND VENDETTA
+
+By John Fox Jr.
+
+
+TO MINERVA AND ELIZABETH
+
+
+
+
+I
+
+THE cave had been their hiding-place as children; it was a secret refuge
+now against hunger or darkness when they were hunting in the woods. The
+primitive meal was finished; ashes were raked over the red coals; the
+slice of bacon and the little bag of meal were hung high against
+the rock wall; and the two stepped from the cavern into a thicket of
+rhododendrons.
+
+Parting the bushes toward the dim light, they stood on a massive
+shoulder of the mountain, the river girding it far below, and the
+afternoon shadows at their feet. Both carried guns-the tall mountaineer,
+a Winchester; the boy, a squirrel rifle longer than himself. Climbing
+about the rocky spur, they kept the same level over log and bowlder and
+through bushy ravine to the north. In half an hour, they ran into a path
+that led up home from the river, and they stopped to rest on a cliff
+that sank in a solid black wall straight under them. The sharp edge of a
+steep corn-field ran near, and, stripped of blade and tassel, the stalks
+and hooded ears looked in the coming dusk a little like monks at prayer.
+In the sunlight across the river the corn stood thin and frail. Over
+there a drought was on it; and when drifting thistle-plumes marked the
+noontide of the year, each yellow stalk had withered blades and an empty
+sheath. Everywhere a look of vague trouble lay upon the face of the
+mountains, and when the wind blew, the silver of the leaves showed
+ashen. Autumn was at hand.
+
+There was no physical sign of kinship between the two, half-brothers
+though they were. The tall one was dark; the boy, a foundling, had
+flaxen hair, and was stunted and slender. He was a dreamy-looking little
+fellow, and one may easily find his like throughout the Cumberland-paler
+than his fellows, from staying much indoors, with half-haunted face, and
+eyes that are deeply pathetic when not cunning; ignorantly credited with
+idiocy and uncanny powers; treated with much forbearance, some awe, and
+a little contempt; and suffered to do his pleasure-nothing, or much that
+is strange-without comment.
+
+“I tell ye, Rome,” he said, taking up the thread of talk that was broken
+at the cave, “when Uncle Gabe says he's afeard thar's trouble comm',
+hit's a-comm'; 'n' I want you to git me a Winchester. I'm a-gittin' big
+enough now. I kin shoot might' nigh as good as you, 'n' whut am I fit
+fer with this hyeh old pawpaw pop-gun?”
+
+“I don't want you fightin', boy, I've told ye. Y'u air too little 'n'
+puny, 'n' I want ye to stay home 'n' take keer o' mam 'n' the cattle-ef
+fightin' does come, I reckon thar won't be triuch.”
+
+“Don't ye?” cried the boy, with sharp contempt--“with ole Jas Lewallen
+a-devilin' Uncle Rufe, 'n' that blackheaded young Jas a-climbin' on
+stumps over thar 'cross the river, n' crowin' n' sayin' out open in
+Hazlan that ye air afeard o him? Yes; 'n' he called me a idgit.” The
+boy's voice broke into a whimper of rage.
+
+“Shet up, Isom! Don't you go gittin' mad now. You'll be sick ag'in. I'll
+tend to him when the time comes.” Rome spoke with rough kindness, but
+ugly lines had gathered at his mouth and forehead. The boy's tears came
+and went easily. He drew his sleeve across his eyes, and looked up the
+river. Beyond the bend, three huge birds rose into the sunlight and
+floated toward them. Close at hand, they swerved side-wise.
+
+“They hain't buzzards,” he said, standing up, his anger gone; “look at
+them straight wings!”
+
+Again the eagles swerved, and two shot across the river. The third
+dropped with shut wings to the bare crest of a gaunt old poplar under
+them.
+
+“Hit's a young un, Romey,” said the boy, excitedly. “He's goin' to wait
+thar tell the old uns come back. Gimme that gun!”
+
+Catching up the Winchester, he slipped over the ledge; and Rome leaned
+suddenly forward, looking down at the river.
+
+A group of horsemen had ridden around the bend, and were coming at
+a walk down the other shore. Every man carried something across his
+saddle-bow. There was a gray horse among them--young Jasper's--and an
+evil shadow came into Rome's face, and quickly passed. Near a strip of
+woods the gray turned up the mountain from the party, and on its back he
+saw the red glint of a woman's dress. With a half-smile he watched the
+scarlet figure ride from the woods, and climb slowly up through the
+sunny corn. On the spur above and full in the rich yellow light, she
+halted, half turning in her saddle. He rose to his feet, to his full
+height, his head bare, and thrown far back between his big shoulders,
+and, still as statues, the man and the woman looked at each other across
+the gulf of darkening air. A full minute the woman sat motionless, then
+rode on. At the edge of the woods she stopped and turned again.
+
+The eagle under Rome leaped one stroke in the air, and dropped like a
+clod into the sea of leaves. The report of the gun and a faint cry of
+triumph rose from below. It was good marksmanship, but on the cliff Rome
+did not heed it. Something had fluttered in the air above the girl's
+head, and he laughed aloud. She was waving her bonnet at him.
+
+
+
+
+II
+
+JUST where young Stetson stood, the mountains racing along each bank of
+the Cumberland had sent out against each other, by mutual impulse,
+two great spurs. At the river's brink they stopped sheer, with crests
+uplifted, as though some hand at the last moment had hurled them apart,
+and had led the water through the breach to keep them at peace. To-day
+the crags looked seamed by thwarted passion; and, sullen with firs, they
+made fit symbols of the human hate about the base of each.
+
+When the feud began, no one knew. Even the original cause was forgotten.
+Both families had come as friends from Virginia long ago, and had lived
+as enemies nearly half a century. There was hostility before the
+war, but, until then, little bloodshed. Through the hatred of change,
+characteristic of the mountaineer the world over, the Lewallens were for
+the Union. The Stetsons owned a few slaves, and they fought for them.
+Peace found both still neighbors and worse foes. The war armed them,
+and brought back an ancestral contempt for human life; it left them a
+heritage of lawlessness that for mutual protection made necessary the
+very means used by their feudal forefathers; personal hatred supplanted
+its dead issues, and with them the war went on. The Stetsons had a good
+strain of Anglo-Saxon blood, and owned valley-lands; the Lewallens
+kept store and made “moonshine”; so kindred and debtors and kindred and
+tenants were arrayed with one or the other leader, and gradually the
+retainers of both settled on one or the other side of the river. In time
+of hostility the Cumberland came to be the boundary between life and
+death for the dwellers on each shore. It was feudalism born again.
+
+Above one of the spurs each family had its home; the Stetsons, under
+the seared face of Thunderstruck Knob; the Lewallens, just beneath the
+wooded rim of Wolf's Head. The eaves and chimney of each cabin were
+faintly visible from the porch of the other. The first light touched the
+house of the Stetsons; the last, the Lewallen cabin. So there were times
+when the one could not turn to the sunrise nor the other to the sunset
+but with a curse in his heart, for his eye must fall on the home of his
+enemy.
+
+For years there had been peace. The death of Rome Stetson's father from
+ambush, and the fight in the court-house square, had forced it. After
+that fight only four were left-old Jasper Lewallen and young Jasper, the
+boy Rome and his uncle, Rufe Stetson. Then Rufe fled to the West, and
+the Stetsons were helpless. For three years no word was heard of him,
+but the hatred burned in the heart of Rome's mother, and was traced deep
+in her grim old face while she patiently waited the day of retribution.
+It smouldered, too, in the hearts of the women of both clans who had
+lost husbands or sons or lovers; and the friends and kin of each had
+little to do with one another, and met and passed with watchful eyes.
+Indeed, it would take so little to turn peace to war that the wonder was
+that peace had lived so long. Now trouble was at hand. Rufe Stetson had
+come back at last, a few months since, and had quietly opened store at
+the county-seat, Hazlan-a little town five miles up the river, where
+Troubled Fork runs seething into the Cumberland-a point of neutrality
+for the factions, and consequently a battle-ground. Old Jasper's store
+was at the other end of the town, and the old man had never been known
+to brook competition. He had driven three men from Hazlan during the
+last term of peace for this offence, and everybody knew that the fourth
+must leave or fight. Already Rufe Stetson had been warned not to appear
+outside his door after dusk. Once or twice his wife had seen skulking
+shadows under the trees across the road, and a tremor of anticipation
+ran along both banks of the Cumberland.
+
+
+
+
+III
+
+A FORTNIGHT later, court came. Rome was going to Hazlan, and the feeble
+old Stetson mother limped across the porch from the kitchen, trailing a
+Winchester behind her. Usually he went unarmed, but he took the gun now,
+as she gave it, in silence.
+
+The boy Isom was not well, and Rome had told him to ride the horse. But
+the lad had gone on afoot to his duties at old Gabe Bunch's mill, and
+Rome himself rode down Thunderstruck Knob through the mist and dew of
+the early morning. The sun was coming up over Virginia, and through a
+dip in Black Mountain the foot-hills beyond washed in blue waves against
+its white disk. A little way down the mountain, the rays shot through
+the gap upon him, and, lancing the mist into tatters, and lighting the
+dew-drops, set the birds singing. Rome rode, heedless of it all,
+under primeval oak and poplar, and along rain-clear brooks and happy
+waterfalls, shut in by laurel and rhododendron, and singing past mossy
+stones and lacelike ferns that brushed his stirrup. On the brow of every
+cliff he would stop to look over the trees and the river to the other
+shore, where the gray line of a path ran aslant Wolf's Head, and was
+lost in woods above and below.
+
+At the river he rode up-stream, looking still across it. Old Gabe Bunch
+halloed to him from the doorway of the mill, as he splashed through the
+creek, and Isom's thin face peered through a breach in the logs. At the
+ford beyond, he checked his horse with a short oath of pleased surprise.
+Across the water, a scarlet dress was moving slowly past a brown field
+of corn. The figure was bonneted, but he knew the girl's walk and the
+poise of her head that far away. Just who she was, however, he did
+not know, and he sat irresolute. He had seen her first a month since,
+paddling along the other shore, erect, and with bonnet off and hair
+down; she had taken the Lewallen path up the mountain. Afterward, he saw
+her going at a gallop on young Jasper's gray horse, bareheaded again,
+and with her hair loose to the wind, and he knew she was one of his
+enemies. He thought her the girl people said young Jasper was going
+to marry, and he had watched her the more closely. From the canoe she
+seemed never to notice him; but he guessed, from the quickened sweep
+of her paddle, that she knew he was looking at her, and once, when he
+halted on his way home up the mountain, she half turned in her saddle
+and looked across at him. This happened again, and then she waved her
+bonnet at him. It was bad enough, any Stetson seeking any Lewallen for a
+wife, and for him to court young Jasper's sweetheart-it was a thought to
+laugh at. But the mischief was done. The gesture thrilled him, whether
+it meant defiance or good-will, and the mere deviltry of such a
+courtship made him long for it at every sight of her with the river
+between them. At once he began to plan how he should get near her, but,
+through some freak, she had paid no further heed to him. He saw her less
+often-for a week, in-deed, he had not seen her at all till this day-and
+the forces that hindrance generates in an imperious nature had been at
+work within him. The chance now was one of gold, and with his life in
+his hand he turned into the stream. Across, he could see something white
+on her shoulder-an empty bag. It was grinding-day, and she was going to
+the mill--the Lewallen mill. She stopped as he galloped up, and turned,
+pushing back her bonnet with one hand; and he drew rein. But the
+friendly, expectant light in her face kindled to such a blaze of anger
+in her eyes that he struck his horse violently, as though the beast
+had stopped of its own accord, and, cursing himself, kept on. A little
+farther, he halted again. Three horsemen, armed with Winchesters, were
+jogging along toward town ahead of him, and he wheeled about sharply.
+The girl, climbing rapidly toward Steve Bray-ton's cabin, was out of the
+way, but he was too late to reach the ford again. Down the road two
+more Lewallens with guns were in sight, and he lashed his horse into the
+stream where the water was deep. Old Gabe, looking from the door of his
+mill, quit laughing to himself; and under cover of the woods, the girl
+watched man and horse fighting the tide. Twice young Stetson turned his
+head. But his enemies apparently had not seen him, and horse and rider
+scrambled up the steep bank and under shelter of the trees. The girl had
+evidently learned who he was. Her sudden anger was significant, as
+was the sight of the Lewallens going armed to court, and Rome rode on,
+uneasy.
+
+When he reached Troubled Fork, in sight of Hazlan, he threw a cartridge
+into place and shifted the slide to see that it was ready for use.
+Passing old Jasper's store on the edge of the town, he saw the old man's
+bushy head through the open door, and Lewallens and Braytons crowded out
+on the steps and looked after him. All were armed. Twenty paces farther
+he met young Jasper on his gray, and the look on his enemy's face made
+him grip his rifle. With a flashing cross-fire from eye to eye, the two
+passed, each with his thumb on the hammer of his Winchester. The groups
+on the court-house steps stopped talking as he rode by, and turned to
+look at him. He saw none of his own friends, and he went on at a gallop
+to Rufe Stetson's store. His uncle was not in sight. Steve Marcum and
+old Sam Day stood in the porch, and inside a woman was crying. Several
+Stetsons were near, and all with grave faces gathered about him.
+
+He knew what the matter was before Steve spoke. His uncle had been
+driven from town. A last warning had come to him on the day before. The
+hand of a friend was in the caution, and Rufe rode away at dusk. That
+night his house was searched by men masked and armed. The Lewallens were
+in town, and were ready to fight. The crisis had come.
+
+
+
+
+IV
+
+
+BACK at the mill old Gabe was troubled. Usually he sat in a
+cane-bottomed chair near the hopper, whittling, while the lad tended the
+mill, and took pay in an oaken toll-dish smooth with the use of half a
+century. But the incident across the river that morning had made the old
+man uneasy, and he moved restlessly from his chair to the door, and back
+again, while the boy watched him, wondering what the matter was, but
+asking no questions. At noon an old mountaineer rode by, and the miller
+hailed him.
+
+“Any news in town?” he asked.
+
+“Hain't been to town. Reckon fightin' 's goin' on thar from whut I
+heerd.” The careless, high-pitched answer brought the boy with wide eyes
+to the door.
+
+“Whut d'ye hear?” asked Gabe. “Jes heerd fightin' 's goin' on!”
+
+Then every man who came for his meal brought a wild rumor from town,
+and the old miller moved his chair to the door, and sat there whittling
+fast, and looking anxiously toward Hazlan. The boy was in a fever of
+unrest, and old Gabe could hardly keep him in the mill. In the middle of
+the afternoon the report of a rifle came down the river, breaking into
+echoes against the cliffs below, and Isom ran out the door, and stood
+listening for another, with an odd contradiction of fear and delight on
+his eager face. In a few moments Rome Stetson galloped into sight, and,
+with a shrill cry of relief, the boy ran down the road to meet him,
+and ran back, holding by a stirrup. Young Stetson's face was black with
+passion, and his eyes were heavy with drink. At the door of the mill
+he swung from his horse, and for a moment was hardly able to speak from
+rage. There had been no fight. The Stetsons were few and unprepared.
+They had neither the guns nor, without Rufe, the means to open the war,
+and they believed Rufe had gone for arms. So they had chafed in the
+store all day, and all day Lewallens on horseback and on foot were in
+sight; and each was a taunt to every Stetson, and, few as they were,
+the young and hot-headed wanted to go out and fight. In the afternoon
+a tale-bearer had brought some of Jasper's boasts to Rome, and, made
+reckless by moonshine and much brooding, he sprang up to lead them.
+Steve Marcum, too, caught up his gun, but old Sam's counsel checked him,
+and the two by force held Rome back. A little later the Lewallens left
+town. The Stetsons, too, disbanded, and on the way home a last drop of
+gall ran Rome's cup of bitterness over. Opposite Steve Brayton's cabin
+a jet of smoke puffed from the bushes across the river, and a bullet
+furrowed the road in front of him. That was the shot they had heard at
+the mill. Somebody was drawing a dead-line, and Rome wheeled his horse
+at the brink of it. A mocking yell came over the river, and a gray horse
+flashed past an open space in the bushes. Rome knew the horse and
+knew the yell; young Jasper was “bantering” him. Nothing maddens the
+mountaineer like this childish method of insult; and telling of it, Rome
+sat in a corner, and loosed a torrent of curses against young Lewallen
+and his clan.
+
+Old Gabe had listened without a word, and the strain in his face was
+eased. Always the old man had stood for peace. He believed it had come
+after the court-house fight, and he had hoped against hope, even
+when Rufe came back to trade against old Jasper; for Rufe was big and
+good-natured, and unsuspected of resolute purpose, and the Lewallens'
+power had weakened. So, now that Rufe was gone again, the old miller
+half believed he was gone for good. Nobody was hurt; there was a chance
+yet for peace, and with a rebuke on his tongue and relief in his face,
+the old man sat back in his chair and went on whittling. The boy
+turned eagerly to a crevice in the logs and, trembling with excitement,
+searched the other bank for Jasper's gray horse, going home.
+
+“He called me a idgit,” he said to himself, with a threatening shake of
+his head. “Jes wouldn't I like to hev a chance at him! Rome ull git him!
+Rome ull git him!”
+
+There was no moving point of white on the broad face of the mountains
+nor along the river road. Jasper was yet to come and, with ears alert
+to every word behind him, the lad fixed his eyes where he should see him
+first.
+
+“Oh, he didn't mean to hit me. Not that he ain't mean enough to shoot
+from the bresh,” Rome broke out savagely. “That's jes whut I'm afeard
+he will do. Thar was too much daylight fer him. Ef he jes don't come
+a-sneakin' over hyeh, 'n' waitin' in the lorrel atter dark fer me, it's
+all I axe.”
+
+“Waitin' in the lorrel!” Old Gabe could hold back no longer. “Hit's a
+shame, a burn-in' shame! I don' know whut things air comm' to! 'Pears
+like all you young folks think about is killin' somebody. Folks usen
+to talk about how fer they could kill a deer; now it's how fer they kin
+kill a man. I hev knowed the time when a man would 'a' been druv out
+o' the county fer drawin' a knife ur a pistol; 'n' ef a feller was ever
+killed, it was kinder accidental, by a Barlow. I reckon folks got use'
+to weepons 'n' killin' 'n' bushwhackin' in the war. Looks like it's been
+gittin' wuss ever sence, 'n' now hit's dirk 'n' Winchester, 'n' shootin'
+from the bushes all the time. Hit's wuss 'n stealin' money to take a
+feller-creetur' s life that way!”
+
+The old miller's indignation sprang from memories of a better youth. For
+the courtesies of the code went on to the Blue Grass, and before the
+war the mountaineer fought with English fairness and his fists. It was a
+disgrace to use a deadly weapon in those days; it was a disgrace now not
+to use it.
+
+“Oh, I know all the excuses folks make,” he went on: “hit's fa'r fer one
+as 'tis fer t'other; y'u can't fight a man fa'r 'n' squar' who'll shoot
+you in the back; a pore man can't fight money in the couhts; 'n' thar
+hain't no witnesses in the lorrel but leaves; 'n' dead men don't hev
+much to say. I know it all. Hit's cur'us, but it act'-ally looks like
+lots o' decent young folks hev got usen to the idee-thar's so much of
+it goin' on, 'n' thar's so much talk 'bout killin' 'n' layin' out in the
+lorrel. Reckon folks 'll git to pesterm' women n' strangers bimeby, 'n'
+robbin' 'n' thievin'. Hit's bad enough thar's so leetle law thet folks
+hev to take it in their own hands oncet in a while, but this shootin'
+from the bresh-hit's p'int'ly a sin 'n' shame! Why,” he concluded,
+pointing his remonstrance as he always did, “I seed your grandad and
+young Jas's fight up thar in Hazlan full two hours 'fore the war-fist
+and skull-'n' your grandad was whooped. They got up and shuk hands. I
+don't see why folks can't fight that way now. I wish Rufe 'n' old Jas
+'n' you 'n' young Jas could have it out fist and skull, 'n' stop this
+killin' o' people like hogs. Thar's nobody left but you four. But thar's
+no chance o' that, I reckon.”
+
+“I'll fight him anyway, 'n' I reckon ef he don't die till I lay out in
+the lorrel fer him, he'll live a long time. Ef a Stetson ever done sech
+meanness as that I never heerd it.”
+
+“Nother hev I,” said the old man, with quick justice. “You air a
+over-bearin' race, all o' ye, but I never knowed ye to be that mean.
+Hit's all the wus fer ye thet ye air in sech doin's. I tell ye, Rome--”
+
+A faint cry rose above the drone of the millstones, and old Gabe stopped
+with open lips to listen. The boy's face was pressed close to the logs.
+A wet paddle had flashed into the sunlight from out the bushes across
+the river. He could just see a canoe in the shadows under them, and with
+quick suspicion his brain pictured Jasper's horse hitched in the bushes,
+and Jasper stealing across the river to waylay Rome. But the canoe moved
+slowly out of sight downstream and toward the deep water, the paddler
+unseen, and the boy looked around with a weak smile. Neither seemed to
+have heard him. Rome was brooding, with his sullen face in his hands;
+the old miller was busy with his own thoughts; and the boy turned again
+to his watch.
+
+Jasper did not come. Isom's eyes began to ache from the steady gaze, and
+now and then he would drop them to the water swirling beneath. A slow
+wind swayed the overhanging branches at the mouth of the stream, and
+under them was an eddy. Escaping this, the froth and bubbles raced out
+to the gleams beating the air from the sunlit river. He saw one tiny
+fleet caught; a mass of yellow scum bore down and, sweeping through
+bubbles and eddy, was itself struck into fragments by something afloat.
+A tremulous shadow shot through a space of sunlight into the gloom cast
+by a thicket of rhododendrons, and the boy caught his breath sharply. A
+moment more, and the shape of a boat and a human figure quivered on the
+water running under him. The stern of a Lewallen canoe swung into the
+basin, and he sprang to his feet.
+
+“Rome!” The cry cut sharply through the drowsy air. “Thar he is! Hit's
+Jas!”
+
+The old miller rose to his feet. The boy threw himself behind the sacks
+of grain. Rome wheeled for his rifle, and stood rigid before the door.
+There was a light step without, the click of a gun-lock within; a shadow
+fell across the doorway, and a girl stood at the threshold with an empty
+bag in her hand.
+
+
+
+
+V
+
+WITH a little cry she shrank back a step. Her face paled and her lips
+trembled, and for a moment she could not speak. But her eyes swept the
+group, and were fixed in two points of fire on Rome.
+
+“Why don't ye shoot!” she asked, scornfully.
+
+“I hev heerd that the Stetsons have got to makin war on women-folks, but
+I never believed it afore.” Then she turned to the miller.
+
+“Kin I git some more meal hyeh?” she asked. “Or have ye stopped sellin'
+to folks on t'other side?” she added, in a tone that sought no favor.
+
+“You kin have all ye want,” said old Gabe, quietly.
+
+“The mill on Dead Crick is broke ag'in,” she continued, “'n' co'n is
+skeerce on our side. We'll have to begin buyin' purty soon, so I thought
+I'd save totin' the co'n down hyeh.” She handed old Gabe the empty bag.
+
+“Well,” said he, “as it air gittin' late, 'n' ye have to climb the
+mountain ag'in, I'll let ye have that comm' out o' the hopper now. Take
+a cheer.”
+
+The girl sat down in the low chair, and, loosening the strings of her
+bonnet, pushed it back from her head. An old-fashioned horn comb dropped
+to the floor, and when she stooped to pick it up she let her hair fall
+in a head about her shoulders. Thrusting one hand under it, she calmly
+tossed the whole mass of chestnut and gold over the back of the chair,
+where it fell rippling like water through a bar of sunlight. With head
+thrown back and throat bared, she shook it from side to side, and,
+slowly coiling it, pierced it with the coarse comb. Then passing her
+hands across her forehead and temples, as women do, she folded them in
+her lap, and sat motionless. The boy, crouched near, held upon her the
+mesmeric look of a serpent. Old Gabe was peering covertly from under the
+brim of his hat, with a chuckle at his lips. Rome had fallen back to a
+corner of the mill, sobered, speechless, his rifle in a nerveless hand.
+The passion that fired him at the boy's warning had as swiftly gone down
+at sight of the girl, and her cutting rebuke made him hot again with
+shame. He was angry, too-more than angry-because he felt so helpless,
+a sensation that was new and stifling. The scorn of her face, as he
+remembered it that morning, hurt him again while he looked at her. A
+spirit of contempt was still in her eyes, and quivering about her thin
+lips and nostrils. She had put him beneath further notice, and yet every
+toss of her head, every movement of her hands, seemed meant for him,
+to irritate him. And once, while she combed her hair, his brain whirled
+with an impulse to catch the shining stuff in one hand and to pinion
+both her wrists with the other, Just to show her that he was master, and
+still would harm her not at all. But he shut his teeth, and watched her.
+Among mountain women the girl was more than pretty; elsewhere only her
+hair, perhaps, would have caught the casual eye. She wore red homespun
+and coarse shoes; her hands were brown and hardened. Her arms and
+shoulders looked muscular, her waist was rather large-being as nature
+meant it-and her face in repose had a heavy look. But the poise of her
+head suggested native pride and dignity; her eyes were deep, and full of
+changing lights; the scarlet dress, loose as it was, showed rich curves
+in her figure, and her movements had a certain childlike grace. Her brow
+was low, and her mouth had character; the chin was firm, the upper lip
+short, and the teeth were even and white.
+
+“I reckon thar's enough to fill the sack, Isom,” said the old miller,
+breaking the strained silence of the group. The girl rose and handed him
+a few pieces of silver.
+
+“I reckon I'd better pay fer it all,” she said. “I s'pose I won't be over
+hyeh ag'in.”
+
+Old Gabe gave some of the coins back.
+
+“Y'u know whut my price al'ays is,” he said.
+
+“I'm obleeged,” answered the girl, flushing.
+
+“Co'n hev riz on our side. I thought mebbe you charged folks over thar
+more, anyways.”
+
+“I sells fer the same, ef co'n is high ur low,” was the answer. “This
+side or t'other makes no diff'unce to me. I hev frien's on both sides,
+'n' I take no part in sech doin's as air a shame to the mountains.”
+
+There was a quick light of protest in the girl's dark eyes; but the old
+miller was honored by both factions, and without a word she turned to
+the boy, who was tying the sack.
+
+“The boat's loose!” he called out, with the string between his teeth;
+and she turned again and ran out. Rome stood still.
+
+“Kerry the sack out, boy, 'n' holp the gal.” Old Gabe's voice was stern,
+and the young mountaineer doggedly swung the bag to his shoulders. The
+girl had caught the rope, and drawn the rude dugout along the shore.
+
+“Who axed ye to do that?” she asked, angrily.
+
+Rome dropped the bag into the boat, and merely looked her in the face.
+
+“Look hyeh, Rome Stetson”--the sound of his name from her lips almost
+startled him--“I'll hev ye understan' that I don't want to be bounden to
+you, nor none o' yer kin.”
+
+Turning, she gave an impatient sweep with her paddle. The prow of the
+canoe dipped and was motionless. Rome had caught the stern, and the girl
+wheeled in hot anger. Her impulse to strike may have been for the
+moment and no longer, or she may have read swiftly no unkindness in the
+mountaineer's steady look; for the uplifted oar was stayed in the air,
+as though at least she would hear him.
+
+“I've got nothin' ag'in' you,” he said, slowly, “Jas Lewallen hev been
+threatenin' me, 'n' I thought it was him, 'n' I was ready fer him, when
+you come into the mill. I wouldn't hurt you nur no other woman. Y'u
+ought to know it, 'n' ye do know it.”
+
+The words were masterful, but said in a way that vaguely soothed the
+girl's pride, and the oar was let slowly into the water.
+
+“I reckon y'u air a friend o' his,” he added, still quietly. “I've seed
+ye goin' up thar, but I've got nothin' ag'in' ye, whoever ye be.”
+
+She turned on him a sharp look of suspicion. “I reckon I do be a friend
+o' hisn,” she said, deliberately; and then she saw that he was in
+earnest. A queer little smile went like a ray of light from her eyes
+to her lips, and she gave a quick stroke with her paddle. The boat shot
+into the current, and was carried swiftly toward the Cumberland. The
+girl stood erect, swaying through light and shadow like a great scarlet
+flower blowing in the wind; and Rome watched her till she touched the
+other bank. Swinging the sack out, she stepped lightly after it, and,
+without looking behind her, disappeared in the bushes.
+
+The boy Isom was riding away when Rome, turned, and old Gabe was
+watching from the door of the mill.
+
+“Who is that gal?” he asked, slowly. It seemed somehow that he had known
+her a long while ago. A puzzled frown overlay his face, and the old
+miller laughed.
+
+“You a-axin' who she be, 'n' she a-axin who you be, 'n' both o' ye
+a-knowin' one 'nother sence ye was knee-high. Why, boy, hit's old
+Jasper's gal--Marthy!”
+
+
+
+
+VI
+
+IN a flash of memory Rome saw the girl as vividly as when he last saw
+her years ago. They had met at the mill, he with his father, she with
+hers. There was a quarrel, and the two men were held apart. But the old
+sore as usual was opened, and a week later Rome's father was killed
+from the brush. He remembered his mother's rage and grief, her calls for
+vengeance, the uprising, the fights, plots, and ambushes. He remembered
+the look the girl had given him that long ago, and her look that day was
+little changed.
+
+When fighting began, she had been sent for safety to the sister of her
+dead mother in another county. When peace came, old Jasper married again
+and the girl refused to come home. Lately the step-mother, too, had
+passed away, and then she came back to live. All this the old miller
+told in answer to Rome's questions as the two walked away in the
+twilight. This was why he had not recognized her, and why her face yet
+seemed familiar even when he crossed the river that morning.
+
+“Uncle Gabe, how do you reckon the gal knowed who I was?”
+
+“She axed me.”
+
+“She axed you! Whar?”
+
+“Over thar in the mill.” The miller was watching the young mountaineer
+closely. The manner of the girl was significant when she asked who Rome
+was, and the miller knew but one reason possible for his foolhardiness
+that morning.
+
+“Do you mean to say she have been over hyeh afore?”
+
+“Why, yes, come to think about it, three or four times while Isom was
+sick, and whut she come fer I can't make out. The mill over thar wasn't
+broke long, 'n' why she didn't go thar or bring more co'n at a time, to
+save her the trouble o' so many trips, I can't see to save me.”
+
+Young Stetson was listening eagerly. Again the miller cast his bait.
+
+“Mebbe she's spyin'.”
+
+Rome faced him, alert with suspicion; but old Gabe was laughing
+silently.
+
+“Don't you be a fool, Rome. The gal comes and goes in that boat, 'n'
+she couldn't see a soul without my knowin' it. She seed ye ridin' by one
+day, 'n' she looked mighty cur'us when I tole her who ye was.”
+
+Old Gabe stopped his teasing, Rome's face was so troubled, and himself
+grew serious.
+
+“Rome,” he said, earnestly, “I wish to the good Lord ye wasn't in sech
+doin's. Ef that had been young Jas 'stid o' Marthy, I reckon ye would
+'a' killed him right thar.”
+
+“I wasn't going to let him kill me,” was the sullen answer.
+
+The two had stopped at a rickety gate swinging open on the road. The
+young mountaineer was pushing a stone about with the toe of his boot.
+He had never before listened to remonstrance with such patience, and old
+Gabe grew bold.
+
+“You've been drinkin' ag'in, Rome,” he said, sharply, “'n' I know it.
+Hit's been moonshine that's whooped you Stetsons, not the Lewallens,
+long as I kin rickollect, 'n' it ull be moonshine ag'in ef ye don't let
+it alone.”
+
+Rome made no denial, no defence. “Uncle Gabe,” he said slowly, still
+busied with the stone, “hev that gal been over hyeh sence y'u tol' her
+who I was?”
+
+The old man was waiting for the pledge that seemed on his lips, but he
+did not lose his temper.
+
+“Not till to-day,” he said, quietly.
+
+Rome turned abruptly, and the two separated with no word of parting.
+For a moment the miller watched the young fellow striding away under his
+rifle.
+
+“I have been atter peace a good while,” he said to himself, “but I
+reckon thar's a bigger hand a-workin' now than mine.” Then he lifted his
+voice. “Ef Isom's too sick to come down to the mill to-morrer, I wish
+you'd come 'n' holp me.”
+
+Rome nodded back over his shoulder, and went on, with head bent, along
+the river road. Passing a clump of pines at the next curve, he pulled a
+bottle from his pocket.
+
+“Uncle Gabe's about right, I reckon,” he said, half aloud; and he raised
+it above his head to hurl it away, but checked it in mid-air. For a
+moment he looked at the colorless liquid, then, with quick nervousness,
+pulled the cork of sassafras leaves, gulped down the pale moonshine, and
+dashed the bottle against the trunk of a beech. The fiery stuff does
+its work in a hurry. He was thirsty when he reached the mouth of a brook
+that tumbled down the mountain along the pathway that would lead him
+home, and he stooped to drink where the water sparkled in a rift of
+dim light from overhead. Then he sat upright on a stone, with his wide
+hat-brim curved in a crescent over his forehead, his hands caught about
+his knees, and his eyes on the empty air.
+
+He was scarcely over his surprise that the girl was young Lewallen's
+sister, and the discovery had wrought a curious change. The piquant
+impulse of rivalry was gone, and something deeper was taking its place.
+He was confused and a good deal troubled, thinking it all over. He
+tried to make out what the girl meant by looking at him from the
+mountain-side, by waving her bonnet at him, and by coming to old Gabe's
+mill when she could have gone to her own. To be sure, she did not know
+then who he was, and she had stopped coming when she learned; but why
+had she crossed again that day? Perhaps she too was bantering him, and
+he was at once angry and drawn to her; for her mettlesome spirit touched
+his own love of daring, even when his humiliation was most bitter-when
+she told him he warred on women; when he held out to her the branch
+of peace and she swept it aside with a stroke of her oar. But Rome was
+little conscious of the weight of subtle facts like these. His unseeing
+eyes went back to her as she combed her hair. He saw the color in her
+cheeks, the quick light in her eyes, the naked, full throat once more,
+and the wavering forces of his unsteady brain centred in a stubborn
+resolution-to see it all again. He would make Isom stay at home, if need
+be, and he would take the boy's place at the mill. If she came there no
+more, he would cross the river again. Come peace or war, be she friend
+or enemy, he would see her. His thirst was fierce again, and, with this
+half-drunken determination in his heart, he stooped once more to drink
+from the cheerful little stream. As he rose, a loud curse smote the air.
+The river, pressed between two projecting cliffs, was narrow at that
+point, and the oath came across the water. An instant later a man led a
+lamed horse from behind a bowlder, and stooped to examine its leg. The
+dusk was thickening, but Rome knew the huge frame and gray beard of old
+Jasper Lewallen. The blood beat in a sudden tide at his temples, and,
+half by instinct, he knelt behind a rock, and, thrusting his rifle
+through a crevice, cocked it softly.
+
+Again the curse of impatience came over the still water, and old Jasper
+rose and turned toward him. The glistening sight caught in the centre of
+his beard. That would take him in the throat; it might miss, and he let
+the sight fall till the bullet would cut the fringe of gray hair into
+the heart. Old Jasper, so people said, had killed his father in just
+this way; he had driven his uncle from the mountains; he was trying
+now to revive the feud. He was the father of young Jasper, who had
+threatened his life, and the father of the girl whose contempt had cut
+him to the quick twice that day. Again her taunt leaped through his
+heated brain, and his boast to the old miller followed it. His finger
+trembled at the trigger.
+
+“No; by ----, no!” he breathed between his teeth; and old Jasper passed on,
+unharmed.
+
+
+
+
+VII
+
+NEXT day the news of Rufe Stetson's flight went down the river on the
+wind, and before nightfall the spirit of murder was loosed on both
+shores of the Cumberland. The more cautious warned old Jasper. The
+Stetsons were gaining strength again, they said; so were their feudsmen,
+the Marcums, enemies of the Braytons, old Jasper's kinspeople. Keeping
+store, Rufe had made money in the West, and money and friends right
+and left through the mountains. With all his good-nature, he was a
+persistent hater, and he was shrewd. He had waited the chance to put
+himself on the side of the law, and now the law was with him. But old
+Jasper laughed contemptuously. Rufe Stetson was gone again, he said, as
+he had gone before, and this time for good. Rufe had tried to do
+what nobody had done, or could do, while he was alive. Anyway, he was
+reckless, and he cared little if war did come again. Still, the old man
+prepared for a fight, and Steve Marcum on the other shore made ready for
+Rufe's return.
+
+It was like the breaking of peace in feudal days. The close kin of each
+leader were already about him, and now the close friends of each took
+sides. Each leader trading in Hazlan had debtors scattered through the
+mountains, and these rallied to aid the man who had befriended them.
+There was no grudge but served a pretext for partisanship in the coming
+war. Political rivalry had wedged apart two strong families, the Marcums
+and Braytons; a boundary line in dispute was a chain of bitterness; a
+suit in a country court had sown seeds of hatred. Sometimes it was a
+horse-trade, a fence left down, or a gate left open, and the trespassing
+of cattle; in one instance, through spite, a neighbor had docked the
+tail of a neighbor's horse--had “muled his critter,” as the owner
+phrased the outrage. There was no old sore that was not opened by the
+crafty leaders, no slumbering bitterness that they did not wake to life.
+“Help us to revenge, and we will help you,” was the whispered promise.
+So, had one man a grudge against another, he could set his foot on one
+or the other shore, sure that his enemy would be fighting for the other.
+
+Others there were, friends of neither leader, who, under stress of
+poverty or hatred of work, would fight with either for food and clothes;
+and others still, the ne'er-do-wells and outlaws, who fought by the day
+or month for hire. Even these were secured by one or the other faction,
+for Steve and old Jasper left no resource untried, knowing well that the
+fight, if there was one, would be fought to a quick and decisive end.
+The day for the leisurely feud, for patient planning, and the slow
+picking off of men from one side or the other, was gone. The people in
+the Blue Grass, who had no feuds in their own country, were trying
+to stop them in the mountain. Over in Breathitt, as everybody knew,
+soldiers had come from the “settlemints,” had arrested the leaders,
+and had taken them to the Blue Grass for the feared and hated ordeal
+of trial by a jury of “bigoted furriners.” On the heels of the soldiers
+came a young preacher up from the Jellico hills, half “citizen,” half
+“furriner,” with long black hair and a scar across his forehead, who was
+stirring up the people, it was said, “as though Satan was atter them.”
+ Over there the spirit of the feud was broken, and a good effect was
+already perceptible around Hazlan. In past days every pair of lips was
+sealed with fear, and the non-combatants left crops and homes, and moved
+down the river, when trouble began. Now only the timid considered this
+way of escape. Steve and old Jasper found a few men who refused to enter
+the fight. Several, indeed, talked openly against the renewal of the
+feud, and somebody, it was said, had dared to hint that he would send to
+the Governor for aid if it should break out again. But these were rumors
+touching few people.
+
+For once again, as time and time again before, one bank of the
+Cumberland was arrayed with mortal enmity against the other, and old
+Gabe sat, with shaken faith, in the door of his mill. For years he had
+worked and prayed for peace, and for a little while the Almighty seemed
+lending aid. Now the friendly grasp was loosening, and yet the miller
+did all he could. He begged Steve Marcum to urge Rufe to seek aid from
+the law when the latter came back; and Steve laughed, and asked what
+justice was possible for a Stetson, with a Lewallen for a judge and
+Braytons for a jury. The miller pleaded with old Jasper, and old Jasper
+pointed to the successes of his own life.
+
+“I hev triumphed ag'in' my enemies time 'n' ag'in,” he said. “The Lord
+air on my side, 'n' I gits a better Christian ever' year.” The old man
+spoke with the sincerity of a barbarism that has survived the dark ages,
+and, holding the same faith, the miller had no answer. It was old Gabe
+indeed who had threatened to send to the Governor for soldiers, and this
+he would have done, perhaps, had there not been one hope left, and only
+one. A week had gone, and there was no word from Rufe Stetson. Up on
+Thunderstruck Knob the old Stetson mother was growing pitiably eager and
+restless. Every day she slipped like a ghost through the leafless woods
+and in and out the cabin, kindling hatred. At every dawn or dusk she
+was on her porch peering through the dim light for Rufe Stetson. Steve
+Marcum was ill at ease. Rome Stetson alone seemed unconcerned, and his
+name was on every gossiping tongue.
+
+He took little interest and no hand in getting ready for the war. He
+forbade the firing of a gun till Rufe came back, else Steve should fight
+his fight alone. He grew sullen and morose. His old mother's look was a
+thorn in his soul, and he stayed little at home. He hung about the mill,
+and when Isom became bedfast, the big mountaineer, who had never handled
+anything but a horse, a plough, or a rifle, settled him-self, to the
+bewilderment of the Stetsons, into the boy's duties, and nobody dared
+question him. Even old Gabe jested no longer. The matter was too
+serious.
+
+Meanwhile the winter threw off the last slumbrous mood of autumn, as a
+sleeper starts from a dream. A fortnight was gone, and still no message
+came from the absent leader. One shore was restive, uneasy; the other
+confident, mocking. Between the two, Rome Stetson waited his chance at
+the mill.
+
+
+
+
+VIII.
+
+DAY was whitening on the Stetson shore. Across the river the air was
+still sharp with the chill of dawn, and the mists lay like flocks of
+sheep under shelter of rock and crag. A peculiar cry radiated from the
+Lewallen cabin with singular resonance on the crisp air-the mountain cry
+for straying cattle. A soft low came from a distant patch of laurel, and
+old Jasper's girl, Martha, folded her hands like a conch at her mouth,
+and the shrill cry again startled the air.
+
+“Ye better come, ye pieded cow-brute.” Picking up a cedar piggin, she
+stepped from the porch toward the meek voice that had answered her.
+Temper and exertion had brought the quick blood to her face. Her head
+was bare, her thick hair was loosely coiled, and her brown arms were
+naked almost to the shoulder. At the stable a young mountaineer was
+overhauling his riding-gear.
+
+“Air you goin' to ride the hoss to-day, Jas?” she asked, querulously.
+
+“That's jes whut I was aimin' to do. I'm a-goin' to town.”
+
+“Well, I 'lowed I was goin' to mill to-day. The co'n is 'mos' gone.”
+
+“Well, y'u 'lowed wrong,” he answered, imperturbably.
+
+“Y'u're mean, Jas Lewallen,” she cried, hotly; “that's whut ye air,
+mean--dog-mean!”
+
+The young mountaineer looked up, whistled softly, and laughed. But when
+he brought his horse to the door an hour later there was a bag of corn
+across the saddle.
+
+“As ye air so powerful sot on goin' to mill, whether or no, I'll leave
+this hyeh sack at the bend O' the road, 'n' ye kin git it thar. I'll
+bring the meal back ef ye puts it in the same place. I hates to see
+women-folks a-ridin' this horse. Hit spiles him.”
+
+The horse was a dapple-gray of unusual beauty, and as the girl reached
+out her hand to stroke his throat, he turned to nibble at her arm.
+
+“I reckon he'd jes as lieve have me ride him as you, Jas,” she said.
+“Me 'n' him have got to be great friends. Ye orter n't to be so stingy.”
+
+“Well, he ain't no hoss to be left out'n the bresh now, 'n' I hain't
+goin' to 'low it.”
+
+Old Jasper had lounged out of the kitchen door, and stood with his huge
+bulk against a shrinking pillar of the porch. The two men were much
+alike. Both had the same black, threatening brows meeting over the
+bridge of the nose. A kind of grim humor lurked about the old man's
+mouth, which time might trace about young Jasper's. The girl's face had
+no humor; the same square brows, apart and clearly marked, gave it a
+strong, serious cast, and while she had the Lewallen fire, she favored
+her mother enough, so the neighbors said, “to have a mighty mild, takin'
+way about her ef she wanted.”
+
+“You're right, Jas,” the old mountaineer said; “the hoss air a sin 'n'
+temptation. Hit do me good ever' time I look at him. Thar air no sech
+hoss, I tell ye, this side o' the settlements.”
+
+The boy started away, and the old man followed, and halted him out of
+the girl's hearing.
+
+“Tell Eli Crump 'n' Jim Stover to watch the Breathitt road close now,”
+ he said, in a low voice. “See all them citizens I tol' ye, 'n' tell
+'em to be ready when I says the word. Thar's no tellin' whut's goin' to
+happen.”
+
+Young Jasper nodded his head, and struck his horse into a gallop. The
+old man lighted his pipe, and turned back to the house. The girl, bonnet
+in hand, was starting for the valley.
+
+“Thar ain't no use goin' to Gabe Bunch's fer yer grist,” he said. “The
+mill on Dead Crick's a-runnin' ag'in, 'n' I don't want ye over thar axin
+favors, specially jes now.”
+
+“I lef' somethin' fer ye to eat, dad,” she replied, “ef ye gits hungry
+before I git back.”
+
+“You heerd me?” he called after her, knitting his brows.
+
+“Yes, dad; I heerd ye,” she answered, adding to herself, “But I don't
+heed ye.” In truth, the girl heeded nobody. It was not her way to ask
+consent, even her own, nor to follow advice. At the bend of the road she
+found the bag, and for an instant she stood wavering. An impulse turned
+her to the river, and she loosed the boat, and headed it across the
+swift, shallow water from the ford and straight toward the mill. At
+every stroke of her paddle the water rose above the prow of the boat,
+and, blown into spray, flew back and drenched her; the wind loosed her
+hair, and, tugging at her skirts, draped her like a statue; and she
+fought them, wind and water, with mouth set and a smile in her eyes.
+One sharp struggle still, where the creek leaped into freedom; the mouth
+grew a little firmer, the eyes laughed more, the keel grated on pebbles,
+and the boat ran its nose into the withered sedge on the Stetson shore.
+
+A tall gray figure was pouring grain into the hopper when she reached
+the door of the mill. She stopped abruptly, Rome Stetson turned, and
+again the two were face to face. No greeting passed. The girl lifted
+her head with a little toss that deepened the set look about the
+mountaineer's mouth; her lax figure grew tense as though strung suddenly
+against some coming harm, and her eyes searched the shadows without once
+resting on him.
+
+“Whar's Uncle Gabe?” She spoke shortly, and as to a stranger.
+
+“Gone to town,” said Rome, composedly. “He had schooled himself for this
+meeting.”
+
+“When's he comm' back?”
+
+“Not 'fore night, I reckon.”
+
+“Whar's Isom?”
+
+“Isom's sick.”
+
+“Well, who's tendin' this mill?”
+
+For answer he tossed the empty bag into the corner and, without looking
+at her, picked up another bag.
+
+“I reckon ye see me, don't ye?” he asked, coolly. “Hev a cheer, and
+rest a spell. Hit's a purty long climb whar you come from.”
+
+The girl was confused. She stayed in the doorway, a little helpless
+and suspicious. What was Rome Stetson doing here? His mastery of the
+situation, his easy confidence, puzzled and irritated her. Should she
+leave? The mountaineer was a Stetson, a worm to tread on if it crawled
+across the path. It would be like backing down before an enemy. He might
+laugh at her after she was gone, and, at that thought, she sat down in
+the chair with composed face, looking through the door at the tumbling
+water, which broke with a thousand tints under the sun, but able still
+to see Rome, sidewise, as he moved about the hopper, whistling softly.
+
+Once she looked around, fancying she saw a smile on his sober face.
+Their eyes came near meeting, and she turned quite away.
+
+“Ever seed a body out'n his head?”
+
+The girl's eyes rounded with a start of surprise.
+
+“Well, it's plumb cur'us. Isom's been that way lately. Isom's sick, ye
+know. Uncle Gabe's got the rheumatiz, 'n' Isom's mighty fond o' Uncle
+Gabe, 'n' the boy pestered me till I come down to he'p him. Hit p'int'ly
+air strange to hear him talkin'. He's jes a-ravin' 'bout hell 'n'
+heaven, 'n' the sin o' killin' folks. You'd ha' thought he hed been
+convicted, though none o' our fambly hev been much atter religion. He
+says as how the wrath uv a livin' God is a-goin' to sweep these mount
+ins, ef some mighty tall repentin' hain't done. Of co'se he got all them
+notions from Gabe. But Isom al'ays was quar, 'n' seed things hisself. He
+ain't no fool!”
+
+The girl was listening. Morbidly sensitive to the supernatural, she had
+turned toward him, and her face was relaxed with fear and awe.
+
+“He's havin' dreams 'n' sech-like now, 'n' I reckon thar's nothing he's
+seed or heerd that he don' talk about. He's been a-goin' on about you,”
+ he added, abruptly. The girl's hands gave a nervous twitch. “Oh, he
+don't say nothin' ag'in' ye. I reckon he tuk a fancy to ye. Mam was
+plumb distracted, not knowin' whar he had seed ye. She thought it was
+like his other talk, 'n' I never let on-a-knowin' how mam was.” A flush
+rose like a flame from the girl's throat to her hair. “But hit's this,”
+ Rome went on in an unsteady tone, “that he talks most about, 'n' I'm
+sorry myself that trouble's a-comm'.” He dropped all pretence now. “I've
+been a-watchin' fer ye over thar on t' other shore a good deal lately. I
+didn't know ye at fust, Marthy”--he spoke her name for the first time--
+“'n' Gabe says y'u didn't know me. I remembered ye, though, 'n' I want
+to tell ye now what I tol' ye then: I've got nothin' ag'in you. I was
+hopin' ye mought come over ag'in--hit was sorter cur'us that y'u was the
+same gal--the same gal--”
+
+His self-control left him; he was halting in speech, and blundering
+he did not know where. Fumbling an empty bag at the hopper, he had not
+dared to look at the girl till he heard her move. She had risen, and
+was picking up her bag. The hard antagonism of her face calmed him
+instantly.
+
+“Hain't ye goin' to have yer grist ground?”
+
+“Not hyeh,” she answered, quickly.
+
+“Why, gal--” He got no further. Martha was gone, and he followed her to
+the bank, bewildered.
+
+The girl's suspicion, lulled by his plausible explanation, had grown
+sharp again. The mountaineer knew that she had been coming there. He was
+at the mill for another reason than to take the boy's place; and with
+swift intuition she saw the truth.
+
+He got angry as she rode away--angry with himself that he had let her go;
+and the same half-tender, half-brutal impulse seized him as when he saw
+her first. This time he yielded. His horse was at hand, and the river
+not far below was narrow. The bridle-path that led to the Lewallen
+cabin swerved at one place to a cliff overlooking the river, and by hard
+riding and a climb of a few hundred feet on foot he could overtake her
+half-way up the mountain steep.
+
+The plan was no more than shaped before he was in the saddle and
+galloping down the river. The set of his face changed hardly a line
+while he swam the stream, and, drenched to the waist, scaled the cliff.
+When he reached the spot, he found the prints of a woman's shoe in the
+dust of the path, going down. There were none returning, and he had
+not long to wait. A scarlet bit of color soon flashed through the gray
+bushes below him. The girl was without her bag of corn. She was climbing
+slowly, and was looking at the ground as though in deep thought.
+Reckless as she was, she had come to realize at last just what she had
+done. She had been pleased at first, as would have been any woman, when
+she saw the big mountaineer watching her, for her life was lonely.
+She had waved her bonnet at him from mere mischief. She hardly knew it
+herself, but she had gone across the river to find out who he was. She
+had shrunk from him as from a snake thereafter, and had gone no more
+until old Jasper had sent her because the Lewallen mill was broken, and
+because she was a woman, and would be safe from harm. She had met him
+then when she could not help herself. But now she had gone of her own
+accord. She had given this Stetson, a bitter enemy, a chance to see her,
+to talk with her. She had listened to him; she had been on the point of
+letting him grind her corn. And he knew how often she had gone to the
+mill, and he could not know that she had ever been sent. Perhaps he
+thought that she had come to make overtures of peace, friendship, even
+more. The suspicion reddened her face with shame, and her anger at him
+was turned upon herself. Why she had gone again that day she hardly
+knew. But if there was another reason than simple perversity, it was the
+memory of Rome Stetson's face when he caught her boat and spoke to her
+in a way she could not answer. The anger of the moment came with every
+thought of the incident afterward, and with it came too this memory of
+his look, which made her at once defiant and uneasy. She saw him now
+only when she was quite close, and, startled, she stood still; his stern
+look brought her the same disquiet, but she gave no sign of fear.
+
+“Whut's the matter with ye?”
+
+The question was too abrupt, too savage, and the girl looked straight at
+him, and her lips tightened with a resolution not to speak. The movement
+put him beyond control.
+
+“Y'u puts hell into me, Marthy Lewallen; y'u puts downright hell into
+me.” The words came between gritted teeth. “I want to take ye up 'n'
+throw ye off this cliff clean into the river, 'n' I reckon the next
+minute I'd jump off atter ye. Y'u've 'witched me, gal! I forgits who ye
+air 'n' who I be, 'n' sometimes I want to come over hyeh 'n' kerry
+ye out'n these mountins, n' nuver come back. You know whut I've been
+watchin' the river fer sence the fust time I seed ye. You know whut I've
+been a-stayin' at the mill fer, 'n' Steve mad 'n' mam a-jowerin'--'n'
+a-lookin' over hyeh fer ye night 'n' day! Y'u know whut I've jes swum
+over hyeh fer! Whut's the matter with ye?”
+
+Martha was not looking for a confession like this. It took away
+her shame at once, and the passion of it thrilled her, and left her
+trembling. While he spoke her lashes drooped quickly, her face softened,
+and the color came back to it. She began intertwining her fingers, and
+would not look up at him.
+
+“Ef y'u hates me like the rest uv ye, why don't ye say it right out? 'N'
+ef ye do hate me, whut hev you been lookin' 'cross the river fer, 'n'
+a-shakin' yer bonnet at me, 'n' paddlin' to Gabe's fer yer grist, when
+the mill on Dead Crick's been a-runnin', 'n' I know it? You've been
+banterin' me, hev ye?”--the blood rose to his eyes again. “Ye mustn't
+fool with me, gal, by ----, ye mustn't. Whut hev you been goin' over thar
+fer?” He even took a threatening step toward her, and, with a helpless
+gesture, stopped. The girl was a little frightened. Indeed, she smiled,
+seeing her power over him; she seemed even about to laugh outright;
+but the smile turned to a quick look of alarm, and she bent her
+head suddenly to listen to something below. At last she did speak.
+“Somebody's comm'!” she said. “You'd better git out o' the way,” she
+went on, hurriedly. “Somebody's comm', I tell ye! Don't ye hear?”
+
+It was no ruse to get rid of him. The girl's eyes were dilating.
+Something was coming far below. Rome could catch the faint beats of a
+horse's hoofs. He was unarmed, and he knew it was death for him to be
+seen on that forbidden mountain; but he was beyond caution, and ready to
+welcome any vent to his passion, and he merely shook his head.
+
+“Ef it's Satan hisself, I hain't goin' to run.” The hoof-beats came
+nearer. The rider must soon see them from the coil below.
+
+“Rome, hit's Jas! He's got his rifle, and he'll kill ye, 'n' me too!”
+ The girl was white with distress. She had called him by his name, and
+the tone was of appeal, not anger. The black look passed from his face,
+and he caught her by the shoulders with rough tenderness; but she pushed
+him away, and without a word he sprang from the road and let himself
+noiselessly down the cliff. The hoof-beats thundered above his head, and
+Young Jasper's voice hailed Martha.
+
+“This hyeh's the bigges' meal I ever straddled. Why d'n't ye git the
+grist ground?”
+
+For a moment the girl did not answer, and Rome waited, breathless.
+“Wasn't the mill runnin'? Whyn't ye go on 'cross the river?
+
+“That's whut I did,” said the girl, quietly. “Uncle Gabe wasn't thar, 'n'
+Rome Stetson was. I wouldn't 'low him to grin' the co 'n, 'n' so I toted
+hit back.”
+
+“Rome Stetson!” The voice was lost in a volley of oaths.
+
+The two passed out of hearing, and Rome went plunging down the mountain,
+swinging recklessly from one little tree to another, and wrenching limbs
+from their sockets out of pure physical ecstasy. When he reached his
+horse he sat down, breathing heavily, on a bed of moss, with a strange
+new yearning in his heart. If peace should come! Why not peace, if Rufe
+should not come back? He would be the leader then, and without him there
+could be no war. Old Jasper had killed his father. He was too young at
+the time to feel poignant sorrow now, and somehow he could look even at
+that death in a fairer way. His father had killed old Jasper's brother.
+So it went back: a Lewallen killed a Stetson; that Stetson had killed a
+Lewallen, until one end of the chain of deaths was lost, and the first
+fault could not be placed, though each clan put it on the other. In
+every generation there had been compromises--periods of peace; why not
+now? Old Gabe would gladly help him. He might make friends with young
+Jasper; he might even end the feud. And then-he and Martha-why not? He
+closed his eyes, and for one radiant moment t all seemed possible. And
+then a gaunt image rose in the dream, and only the image was left.
+It was the figure of his mother, stern and silent through the years,
+opening her grim lips rarely without some curse against the Lewallen
+race. He remembered she had smiled for the first time when she heard of
+the new trouble-the flight of his uncle and the hope of conflict. She
+had turned to him with her eyes on fire and her old hands clinched. She
+had said nothing, but he understood her look. And now-Good God! what
+would she think and say if she could know what he had done? His whole
+frame twitched at the thought, and, with a nervous spring to escape it,
+he was on his feet, and starting down the mountain.
+
+Close to the river he heard voices below him, and he turned his horse
+quickly aside into the bushes. Two women who had been washing clothes
+passed, carrying white bundles home. They were talking of the coming
+feud.
+
+“That ar young Stetson ain't much like his dad,” said one. “Young Jas
+has been a-darin' 'n' a-banterin' him, 'n' he won't take it up. They say
+he air turnin' out a plumb coward.”
+
+When he reached the Stetson cabin three horses with drooping heads were
+hitched to the fence. All had travelled a long way. One wore a man's
+saddle; on the others were thick blankets tied together with leathern
+thongs.
+
+In the dark porch sat several men. Through the kitchen door he could see
+his mother getting supper. Inside a dozen rifles leaned against the wall
+in the firelight, and about their butts was a pile of ammunition. In the
+doorway stood Rufe Stetson.
+
+
+
+
+IX
+
+ALL were smoking and silent. Several spoke from the shadows as Rome
+stepped on the porch, and Rufe Stetson faced him a moment in the
+doorway, and laughed.
+
+“Seem kinder s'prised?” he said, with a searching look. “Wasn't lookin'
+for me? I reckon I'll s'prise sev'ral ef I hev good-luck.”
+
+The subtlety of this sent a chuckle of appreciation through the porch,
+but Rome passed in without answer.
+
+Isom lay on his bed within the circle of light, and his face in the
+brilliant glow was white, and his eyes shone feverishly. “Rome,” he
+said, excitedly, “Uncle Rufe's hyeh, 'n' they laywayed him, 'n'----”
+ He paused abruptly. His mother came in, and at her call the mountaineers
+trooped through the covered porch, and sat down to supper in the
+kitchen. They ate hastily and in silence, the mother attending their
+wants, and Rome helping her. The meal finished, they drew their chairs
+about the fire. Pipes were lighted, and Rufe Stetson rose and closed the
+door.
+
+“Thar's no use harryin' the boy,” he said; “I reckon he'll be too puny to
+take a hand.”
+
+The mother stopped clearing the table, and sat on the rock hearth close
+to the fire, her withered lips shut tight about a lighted pipe, and her
+sunken eyes glowing like the coal of fire in its black bowl. Now and
+then she would stretch her knotted hands nervously into the flames, or
+knit them about her knees, looking closely at the heavy faces about her,
+which had lightened a little with expectancy. Rufe Stetson stood before
+the blaze, his hands clasped behind him, and his huge figure bent in
+reflection. At intervals he would look with half-shut eyes at Rome, who
+Sat with troubled face outside the firelight. Across the knees of Steve
+Marcum, the best marksman in the mountains, lay the barrel of a new
+Winchester. Old Sam Day, Rufe's father-in-law and counsellor to the
+Stetsons for a score of years, sat as if asleep on the opposite side of
+the fireplace from the old mother, with his big square head pressed down
+between his misshapen shoulders.
+
+“The time hev come, Rome.” Rufe spoke between the puffs of his pipe, and
+Rome's heart quickened, for every eye was upon him. “Thar's goin' to
+be trouble now. I hear as how young Jasper hev been talkin' purty tall
+about ye--'lowin' as how ye air afeard O' him.”
+
+Rome felt his mother's burning look. He did not turn toward her nor
+Rufe, but his face grew sullen, and his voice was low and harsh.
+“I reckon he'll find out about that when the time comes,” he said,
+quietly-too quietly, for the old mother stirred uneasily, and
+significant glances went from eye to eye. Rufe did not look up from the
+floor. He had been told about Rome's peculiar conduct, and, while the
+reason for it was beyond guessing, he knew the temper of the boy and
+how to kindle it. He had thrust a thorn in a tender spot, and he let it
+rankle. How sorely it did rankle he little knew. The voice of the woman
+across the river was still in Rome's ears. Nothing cuts the mountaineer
+to the quick like the name of coward. It stung him like the lash of
+an ox-whip then; it smarted all the way across the river and up the
+mountain. Young Jasper had been charging him broadcast with cowardice,
+and Jasper's people no doubt believed it. Perhaps his own did--his
+uncle, his mother. The bare chance of such a humiliation set up an
+inward rage. He wondered how he could ever have been such a fool as to
+think of peace. The woman's gossip had swept kindly impulses from his
+heart with a fresh tide of bitterness, and, helpless now against its
+current, he sullenly gave way, and let his passions loose to drift with
+it.
+
+“Whar d' ye git the guns, Rufe?” Steve was testing the action of the
+Winchester with a kindling look, as the click of the locks struck softly
+through the silence.
+
+“Jackson; 'way up in Breathitt, at the eend of the new road.”
+
+“No wonder y'u've been gone so long.”
+
+“I had to wait thar fer the guns, 'n' I had to travel atter dark comm'
+back, 'n' lay out'n the bresh by day. Hit's full eighty mile up thar.”
+
+“Air ye shore nobody seed ye?”
+
+The question was from a Marcum, who had come in late, and several
+laughed. Rufe threw back his dusty coat, which was ripped through the
+lapel by a bullet.
+
+“They seed me well 'nough fer that,” he said, grimly, and then he looked
+toward Rome, who thought of old Jasper, and gave back a gleam of fierce
+sympathy. There were several nods of approval along with the laugh that
+followed. It was a surprise--so little consideration of an escape so
+narrow--from Rufe; for, as old Gabe said, Rufe was big and good-natured,
+and was not thought fit for leadership. But there was a change in him
+when he came back from the West. He was quieter; he laughed less No one
+spoke of the difference; it was too vague; but every one felt it, and it
+had an effect. His flight had made many uneasy, but his return, for that
+reason, brought a stancher fealty from these; and this was evident now.
+All eyes were upon him, and all tongues, even old Sam's, waited now for
+his to speak.
+
+“Whut we've got to do, we've got to do mighty quick,” he began, at last.
+“Things air changin'. I seed it over thar in Breathitt. The soldiers
+'n' that scar-faced Jellico preacher hev broke up the fightin' over
+thar, 'n' ef we don't watch out, they'll be a-doin' it hyeh, when we
+start our leetle frolic. We hain't got no time to fool. Old Jas knows
+this as well as me, 'n' thar's goin' to be mighty leetle chance fer
+'em to layway 'n' pick us off from the bresh. Thar's goin' to be fa'r
+fightin' fer once, thank the Lord. They bushwhacked us dunn' the war,
+'n' they've laywayed us 'n' shot us to pieces ever sence; but now, ef
+God A'mighty's willin', the thing's a-goin' to be settled one way or
+t'other at last, I reckon.”
+
+He stopped a moment to think. The men's breathing could be heard, so
+quiet was the room, and Rufe went on telling in detail, slowly, as if to
+himself, the wrongs the Lewallens had done his people. When he came to
+old Jasper his voice was low, and his manner was quieter than ever.
+
+“Now old Jas have got to the p'int whar he says as how nobody in this
+county kin undersell him 'n' stay hyeh. Old Jas druv Bond Vickers out'n
+the mount 'ins fer tryin' hit. He druv Jess Hale away; 'n' them two air
+our kin.”
+
+The big mountaineer turned then, and knocked the ashes from his pipe.
+His eyes grew a little brighter, and his nostrils spread, but with a
+sweep of his arm he added, still quietly:
+
+“Y' all know whut he's done.”
+
+The gesture lighted memories of personal wrongs in every breast; he had
+tossed a fire-brand among fagots, and an angry light began to burn from
+the eyes that watched him.
+
+“Ye know, too, that he thinks he has played the same game with me; but
+ye don't know, I reckon, that he had ole Jim Stover 'n' that mis'able
+Eli Crump a-hidin' in the bushes to shoot me”--again he grasped the torn
+lapel; “that a body warned me to git away from Hazlan; n' the night I
+left home they come thar to kill me, 'n' s'arched the house, 'n' skeered
+Mollie n' the leetle gal 'most to death.”
+
+The mountaineer's self-control was lost suddenly in a furious oath. The
+men did know, but in fresh anger they leaned forward in their chairs,
+and twisted about with smothered curses. The old woman had stopped
+smoking, and was rocking her body to and fro. Her lips were drawn in
+upon her toothless gums, and her pipe was clinched against her sunken
+breast. The head of the old mountaineer was lifted, and his eyes were
+open and shining fiercely.
+
+“I hear as how he says I'm gone fer good. Well, I have been kinder
+easy-goin', hatin' to fight, but sence the day I seed Rome's dad thar
+dead in his blood, I hev had jes one thing I wanted to do. Thar wasn't
+no use stayin' hyeh; I seed that. Rome thar was too leetle, and they was
+too many fer me. I knowed it was easier to git a new start out West,
+'n' when I come back to the mount'in, hit was to do jes-whut
+I'm--going--to--do--now.” He wheeled suddenly upon Rome, with one huge
+hand lifted. Under it the old woman's voice rose in a sudden wail:
+
+“Yes; 'n' I want to see it done befoh I die. I hain't hyeh fer long, but
+I hain't goin' to leave as long as ole Jas is hyeh, 'n' I want ye all to
+know it. Ole Jas hev got to go fust. You hear me, Rome? I'm a-talkin' to
+you; I'm a-talkin' to you. Hit's yo' time now!”
+
+The frenzied chant raised Rome from his chair. Rufe himself took up the
+spirit of it, and his voice was above all caution.
+
+“Yes, Rome! They killed him, boy. They sneaked on him, 'n' shot him to
+pieces from the bushes. Yes; hit's yo' time now! Look hyeh, boys!”
+ He reached above the fireplace and took down an old rifle--his
+brother's--which the old mother had suffered no one to touch. He held
+it before the fire, pointing to two crosses made near the flash-pan.
+“Thar's one fer ole Jim Lewallen! Thar's one fer ole Jas! He got Jim,
+but ole Jas has got him, 'n' thar's his cross thar yit! Whar's yo' gun,
+Rome? Shame on ye, boy!”
+
+The wild-eyed old woman was before him. She had divined Rufe's purpose,
+and was already at his side, with Rome's Winchester in one hand and a
+clasp-knife in the other. Every man was on his feet; the door was open,
+and the boy Isom was at the threshold, his eyes blazing from his white
+face. Rome had strode forward.
+
+“Yes, boy; now's the time, right hyeh before us all!”
+
+The mother had the knife outstretched. Rome took it, and the scratch of
+the point on the hard steel went twice through the stillness--“one more
+fer the young un;” the voice was the old mother's--then twice again.
+
+The moon was sinking when Rome stood in the door alone. The tramp of
+horses was growing fainter down the mountain. The trees were swaying in
+the wind below him, and he could just see the gray cliffs on the other
+shore. The morning seemed far away; it made him dizzy looking back to it
+through the tumult of the day. Somewhere in the haze was the vision of
+a girl's white face--white with distress for him. Her father and her
+brother he had sworn to kill. He had made a cross for each, and each
+cross was an oath. He closed the door; and then he gave way, and sat
+down with his head in both hands. The noises in the kitchen ceased. The
+fire died away, and the chill air gathered about him. When he rose, the
+restless eyes of the boy were upon him from the shadows.
+
+
+
+
+X
+
+IT was court-day in Hazlan, but so early in the morning nothing was
+astir in the town that hinted of its life on such a day. But for the
+ring of a blacksmith's anvil on the quiet air, and the fact that nowhere
+was a church-spire visible, a stranger would have thought that the
+peace of Sabbath overlay a village of God-fearing people. A burly figure
+lounged in the porch of a rickety house, and yawned under a swinging
+sign, the rude letters of which promised “private entertainment” for
+the traveller unlucky enough to pass that way. In the one long, narrow
+main street, closely flanked by log and framed houses, nothing else
+human was in sight. Out from this street, and in an empty square, stood
+the one brick building in the place, the court-house, brick without,
+brick within; unfinished, unpencilled, unpainted; panes out of the
+windows, a shutter off here and there, or swinging drunkenly on one
+hinge; the door wide op en, as though there was no privacy within--a poor
+structure, with the look of a good man gone shiftless and fast going
+wrong.
+
+Soon two or three lank brown figures appeared from each direction on
+foot; then a horseman or two, and by and by mountaineers came in groups,
+on horse and on foot. In time the side alleys and the court-house square
+were filled with horses and mules, and even steers. The mountaineers
+crowded the narrow street: idling from side to side; squatting for a
+bargain on the wooden sidewalks; grouping on the porch of the rickety
+hotel, and on the court-house steps loitering in and out of the one
+store in sight. Out in the street several stood about a horse, looking
+at his teeth, holding his eyes to the sun, punching his ribs, twisting
+his tail; while the phlegmatic owner sat astride the submissive beast,
+and spoke short answers to rare questions. Everybody talked politics,
+the crop failure, or the last fight at the seat of some private war; but
+nobody spoke of a Lewallen or a Stetson unless he knew his listener's
+heart, and said it in a whisper. For nobody knew when the powder would
+flash, or who had taken sides, or that a careless word might not array
+him with one or the other faction.
+
+A motley throng it was--in brown or gray homespun, with trousers
+in cowhide boots, and slouched hats with brims curved according to
+temperament, but with striking figures in it; the patriarch with long,
+white hair, shorn even with the base of the neck, and bearded only
+at the throat-a justice of the peace, and the sage of his district; a
+little mountaineer with curling black hair and beard, and dark, fine
+features; a grizzled giant with a head rugged enough to have been
+carelessly chipped from stone; a bragging candidate claiming everybody's
+notice; a square-shouldered fellow surging through the crowd like a
+stranger; an open-faced, devil-may-care young gallant on fire with
+moonshine; a skulking figure with brutish mouth and shifting eyes.
+Indeed, every figure seemed distinct; for, living apart from his
+neighbor, and troubling the law but little in small matters of dispute,
+the mountaineer preserves independence, and keeps the edges of his
+individuality unworn. Apparently there was not a woman in town. Those
+that lived there kept housed, and the fact was significant. Still, it
+was close to noon, and yet not a Stetson or a Lewallen had been seen.
+The stores of Rufe and old Jasper were at the extremities of the town,
+and the crowd did not move those ways. It waited in the centre, and
+whetted impatience by sly trips in twos and three to stables or side
+alleys for “mountain dew.” Now and then the sheriff, a little man with a
+mighty voice, would appear on the courthouse steps, and summon a witness
+to court, where a frightened judge gave instructions to a frightened
+jury. But few went, unless called; for the interest was outside; every
+man in the streets knew that a storm was nigh, and was waiting to see it
+burst.
+
+Noon passed. A hoarse bell and a whining hound had announced dinner
+in the hotel. The guests were coming again into the streets. Eyes were
+brighter, faces a little more flushed, and the “moonshine” was passed
+more openly. Both ways the crowd watched closely. The quiet at each end
+of the street was ominous, and the delay could last but little longer.
+The lookers-on themselves were getting quarrelsome. The vent must come
+soon, or among them there would be trouble.
+
+“Thar comes Jas Lewallen!” At last. A dozen voices spoke at once. A
+horseman had appeared far down the street from the Lewallen end. The
+clouds broke from about the sun, and a dozen men knew the horse that
+bore him; for the gray was prancing the street sidewise, and throwing
+the sunlight from his flanks. Nobody followed, and the crowd was
+puzzled. Young Jasper carried a Winchester across his saddle-bow, and,
+swaying with the action of his horse, came on.
+
+“What air he about?”
+
+“He's a plumb idgit.”
+
+“He mus' be crazy.”
+
+“He's drunk!”
+
+The wonder ceased. Young Jasper was reeling. Two or three Stetsons
+slipped from the crowd, and there was a galloping of hoofs the other
+way. Another horseman appeared from the Lewallen end, riding hastily.
+The new-comer's errand was to call Jasper back. But the young dare-devil
+was close to the crowd, and was swinging a bottle over his head.
+
+“Come back hyeh, Jas! Come hyeh!” The new-comer was shouting afar off
+while he galloped. Horses were being untethered from the side alleys.
+Several more Lewallen riders came in sight. They could see the gray
+shining in the sunlight amid the crowd, and the man sent after him
+halted at a safe distance, gesticulating; and they, too, spurred
+forward.
+
+“Hello, boys!” young Jasper was calling out, as he swayed from side to
+side, the people everywhere giving him way.
+
+“Fun to-day, by ----! fun to-day! Who'll hev a drink? Hyeh's hell to the
+Stetsons, whar some of 'em 'll be afore night!”
+
+With a swagger he lifted the bottle to his lips, and, stopping short,
+let it fall untouched to the ground. He had straightened in his saddle,
+and was looking up the street. With a deep curse he threw the Winchester
+to his shoulder, fired, and before his yell had died on his lips horse
+and rider were away like a shaft of light. The crowd melted like magic
+from the street. The Stetsons, chiefly on foot, did not return the
+fire, but halted up the street, as if parleying. Young Jasper joined his
+party, and they, too, stood still a moment, puzzled by the irresolution
+of the other side.
+
+“Watch out! they're gittin' round ye! Run for the court-house, ye
+fools!-ye, run!” The voice came in a loud yell from somewhere down the
+street, and its warning was just in time.
+
+A wreath of smoke came about a corner of the house far down the street,
+and young Jasper yelled, and dashed up a side alley with his followers.
+A moment later judge, jury, witnesses, and sheriff were flying down the
+court-house steps at the point of Lewallen guns; the Lewallen horses,
+led by the gray, were snorting through the streets; their riders,
+barricaded in the forsaken court-house, were puffing a stream of fire
+and smoke from every window of court-room below and jury-room above.
+
+The streets were a bedlam. The Stetsons were yelling with triumph. The
+Lewallens were divided, and Rufe placed three Stetsons with Winchesters
+on each side of the courthouse, and kept them firing. Rome, pale and
+stern, hid his force between the square and the Lewallen store. He
+was none too quick. The rest were coming on, led by old Jasper. It was
+reckless, riding that way right into death; but the old man believed
+young Jasper's life at stake, and the men behind asked no questions when
+old Jasper led them. The horses' hoofs beat the dirt street like
+the crescendo of thunder. The fierce old man's hat was gone, and his
+mane-like hair was shaking in the wind. Louder-and still the Stetsons
+were quiet-quiet too long. The wily old man saw the trap, and, with
+a yell, whirled the column up an alley, each man flattening over his
+saddle. From every window, from behind every corner and tree, smoke
+belched from the mouth of a Winchester. Two horses went down; one
+screamed; the other struggled to his feet, and limped away with an empty
+saddle. One of the fallen men sprang into safety behind a house, and one
+lay still, with his arms stretched out and his face in the dust.
+
+From behind barn, house, and fence the Lewallens gave back a scattering
+fire; but the Stetsons crept closer, and were plainly in greater
+numbers. Old Jasper was being surrounded, and he mounted again, and all,
+followed by a chorus of bullets and triumphant yells, fled for a wooded
+slope in the rear of the court-house. A dozen Lewallens were prisoners,
+and must give up or starve. There was savage joy in the Stetson crowd,
+and many-footed rumor went all ways that night.
+
+Despite sickness and Rome's strict order, Isom had ridden down to the
+mill. Standing in the doorway, he and old Gabe saw up the river, where
+the water broke into foam over the ford, a riderless gray horse plunging
+across. Later it neighed at a gate under Wolf's Head, and Martha
+Lewallen ran out to meet it. Across under Thunderstruck Knob that
+night the old Stetson mother listened to Isom's story of the fight with
+ghastly joy in her death-marked face.
+
+
+
+
+XI
+
+ALL night the court-house was guarded and on guard. At one corner of
+the square Rufe Stetson, with a few men, sat on watch in old Sam Day's
+cabin--the fortress of the town, built for such a purpose, and used for
+it many times before. The prisoners, too, were alert, and no Stetson
+ventured into the open square, for the moon was high; an exposure
+anywhere was noted instantly by the whistle of a rifle-ball, and the
+mountaineer takes few risks except under stress of drink or passion.
+Rome Stetson had placed pickets about the town wherever surprise was
+possible. All night he patrolled the streets to keep his men in such
+readiness as he could for the attack that the Lewallens would surely
+make to rescue their living friends and to avenge the dead ones.
+
+But the triumph was too great and unexpected. Two Braytons were dead;
+several more were prisoners with young Jasper in the courthouse; and
+drinking began.
+
+As the night deepened without attack the Stetsons drank more, and grew
+reckless. A dance was started. Music and “moonshine” were given to every
+man who bore a Winchester. The night was broken with drunken yells, the
+random discharge of fire-arms, and the mono-tone of heavy feet. The two
+leaders were helpless, and the inaction of the Lewallens puzzled them.
+Chafed with anxiety, they kept their eyes on the court-house or on the
+thicket of gloom where their enemies lay. But the woods were as quiet
+as the pall of shadows over them. Once Rome, making his rounds, saw a
+figure crawling through a field of corn. It looked like Crump's, but
+before he could fire the man rolled like a ball down the bushy bank
+to the river. An instant later some object went swiftly past a side
+street-somebody on horseback-and a picket fired an alarm. The horse
+kept on, and Rome threw his rifle on a patch of moonlight, but when the
+object flashed through, his finger was numbed at the trigger. In the
+moonlight the horse looked gray, and the rider was seated sidewise. A
+bullet from the court-house clipped his hat-brim as he ran recklessly
+across the street to where Steve Marcum stood in the dark behind old
+Sam's cabin.
+
+“Jim Hale 'll git him as he goes up the road,” said Steve, calmly--and
+then with hot impatience, “Why the hell don't he shoot?”
+
+Rome started forward in the moonlight, and Steve caught his arm. Two
+bullets hissed from the court-house, and he fell back.
+
+A shot sounded from the bushes far away from the road. The horse kept
+on, and splashed into Troubled Fork, and Steve swore bitterly.
+
+“Hit hain't Jim. Hit's that mis'able Bud Vickers; he's been a-stan din'
+guard out'n the bushes 'stid o' the road. That was a spy, I tell ye, 'n'
+the coward let him in and let him out. They'll know now we're all drunk!
+Whut's the matter?”
+
+Rome's mouth was half open. He looked white and sick, and Steve thought
+he had been hit, but he took off his hat. “Purty close!” he said, with
+a laugh, pointing at the bullet-hole through the brim.
+
+Steve, unsuspicious, went on: “Hit was a spy, I tell ye. Bud was afeard
+to stan' in the road, 'n' I'm goin' out thar 'n' twist his damned neck.
+We've got 'em, Rome! I tell ye, we've got 'em! Ef we kin git through
+this night, and git the boys sober in the morning, we've got 'em shore!”
+
+The night did pass in safety, darkness wore away without attack, and
+morning broke on the town in its drunken stupor. Then the curious
+silence of the Lewallens was explained. The rumor came that old Jasper
+was dead, and it went broadcast. Later, friends coming to the edge of
+the town for the bodies of the dead Lewallens confirmed it. A random
+ball had passed through old Lewallen's body in the wild flight for the
+woods, and during the night he had spent his last breath in a curse
+against the man who fired it.
+
+Then each Stetson, waked from his drunken sleep, drank again when he
+heard of the death. The day bade fair to be like the night, and again
+the anxiety of the leaders was edged with fear. Old Jasper dead and
+young Jasper a prisoner, the chance was near to end the feud, or there
+would be no Lewallen left to lead their enemies. But, again, they were
+well-nigh helpless. Already they had barely enough men to guard their
+prisoners. Of the Marcums, Steve alone was able to handle a Winchester,
+and outside the sounds of the carousal were in the air and growing
+louder. In a little while, if the Lewallens but knew it, escape would be
+easy and the Stetsons could be driven from the town.
+
+“Oh, they know it,” said Steve. “They'll be a-whoopin' down out O' them
+woods purty soon, 'n' we re goin to ketch hell. I'd like to know mighty
+well who that spy was last night. That cussed Bud Vickers says it was a
+ha'nt, on a white hoss, with long hair flyin' in the wind, 'n' that he
+shot plumb through it. I jus' wish I'd a had a chance at it.”
+
+Still, noon came again without trouble, and the imprisoned Lewallens
+had been twenty-four hours without food. Their ammunition was getting
+scarce. The firing was less frequent, though the watch was as close as
+ever, and twice a Winchester had sounded a signal of distress. All knew
+that a response must come soon; and come it did. A picket, watching the
+river road, saw young Jasper's horse coming along the dark bushes far up
+the river, and brought the news to the group standing behind old Sam's
+cabin. The gray galloped into sight, and, skirting the woods, came
+straight for the town-with a woman on his back. The stirrup of a man's
+saddle dangled on one side, and the woman's bonnet had fallen from her
+head. Some one challenged her.
+
+“Stop, I tell ye! Don't ye go near that courthouse! Stop, I tell ye! I'll
+shoot! Stop!”
+
+Rome ran from the cabin with a revolver in each hand. A drunken
+mountaineer was raising a Winchester to his shoulder, and, springing
+from the back of the gray at the court-house steps, was Martha Lewallen.
+
+“I'll kill the fust man that lifts his finger to hurt the gal,” Rome
+said, knocking the drunken man's gun in the air. “We hain't fightin'
+women!”
+
+It was too late to oppose her, and the crowd stood helplessly watching.
+No one dared approach, so, shielding with her body the space of the
+opening door, she threw the sack of food within. Then she stood a moment
+talking and, turning, climbed to her saddle. The gray was spotted with
+foam, and showed the red of his nostrils with every breath as, with face
+flushed and eyes straight before her, she rode slowly toward the crowd.
+What was she about? Rome stood rigid, his forgotten pistols hanging at
+each side; the mouth of the drunken mountaineer was open with stupid
+wonder; the rest fell apart as she came around the corner of the cabin
+and, through the space given, rode slowly, her skirt almost brushing
+Rome, looking neither to the right nor to the left; and when she had
+gone quite through them all, she wheeled and rode, still slowly, through
+the open fields toward the woods which sheltered the Lewallens, while
+the crowd stood in bewildered silence looking after her. Yells of
+laughter came from the old court-house. Some of the Stetsons laughed,
+too; some swore, a few grumbled; but there was not one who was not
+stirred by the superb daring of the girl, though she had used it only to
+show her contempt.
+
+“Rome, you're a fool; though, fer a fac', we can't shoot a woman; 'n'
+anyways I ruther shoot her than the hoss. But lemme tell ye, thar was
+more'n sump'n to eat in that bag! They air up to some dodge.”
+
+Rufe Stetson had watched the incident through a port-hole of the cabin,
+and his tone was at once jesting and anxious.
+
+“That grub won't last more'n one day, I reckon,” said the drunken
+mountaineer. “We'll watch out fer the gal nex' time. We're boun' to git
+'em one time or t'other.”
+
+“She rid through us to find out how many of us wasn't dead drunk,” said
+Steve Marcum, still watching the girl as she rode on, toward the woods;
+“'n' I'm a-thinkin' they'll be down on us purty soon now, 'n' I reckon
+we'll have to run fer it. Look thar boys!”
+
+The girl had stopped at the edge of the woods; facing the town, she
+waved her bonnet high above her head.
+
+“Well, whut in the--!” he said, with slow emphasis, and then he leaped
+from the door with a yell. The bonnet was a signal to the beleaguered
+Lewallens. The rear door of the courthouse had been quietly opened, and
+the prisoners were out in a body and scrambling over the fence before
+the pickets could give an alarm. The sudden yells, the crack of
+Winchesters, startled even the revellers and all who could, headed by
+Rome and Steve Marcum, sprang into the square, and started in pursuit.
+But the Lewallens had got far ahead, and were running in zigzag lines to
+dodge the balls flying after them. Half-way to the woods was a gully
+of red clay, and into this the fleetest leaped, and turned instantly to
+cover their comrades. The Winchesters began to rattle from the woods,
+and the bullets came like rain from everywhere.
+
+“T-h-up! T-h-up! T-h-up!” there were three of them--the peculiar soft,
+dull messages of hot lead to living flesh. A Stetson went down; another
+stumbled; Rufe Stetson, climbing the fence, caught at his breast with
+an oath, and fell back. Rome and Steve dropped for safety to the ground.
+Every other Stetson turned in a panic, and every Lewallen in the gully
+leaped from it, and ran under the Lewallen fire for shelter in the
+woods. The escape was over.
+
+“That was a purty neat trick,” said Steve, wiping a red streak from his
+cheek. “Nex' time she tries that, she'll git herself into trouble.”
+
+At nightfall the wounded leader and the dead one were carried up the
+mountain, each to his home; and there was mourning far into the night
+on one bank of the Cumberland, and, serious though Rufe Stetson's wound
+was, exultation on the other. But in it Rome could take but little part.
+There had been no fault to find with him in the fight. But a reaction
+had set in when he saw the girl flash in the moonlight past the sights
+of his Winchester, and her face that day had again loosed within him a
+flood of feeling that drove the lust for revenge from his veins. Even
+now, while he sat in his own cabin, his thoughts were across the river
+where Martha, broken at last, sat at her death vigils. He knew what her
+daring ride that day had cost her, with old Jasper dead out there in the
+woods; and as she passed him he had grown suddenly humbled, shamed. He
+grew heart-sick now as he thought of it all; and the sight of his mother
+on her bed in the corner, close to death as she was, filled him with
+bitterness. There was no help for him. He was alone now, pitted against
+young Jasper alone. On one bed lay his uncle-nigh to death. There
+was the grim figure in the corner, the implacable spirit of hate and
+revenge. His rifle was against the wall. If there was any joy for him in
+old Jasper's death, it was that his hand had not caused it, and yet--God
+help him!--there was the other cross, the other oath.
+
+
+
+
+XII
+
+THE star and the crescent were swinging above Wolf's Head, and in the
+dark hour that breaks into dawn a cavalcade of Lewallens forded the
+Cumberland, and galloped along the Stetson shore. At the head rode young
+Jasper, and Crump the spy.
+
+Swift changes had followed the court-house fight. In spite of the death
+of Rufe Stetson from his wound, and several other Stetsons from ambush,
+the Lewallens had lost ground. Old Jasper's store had fallen into
+the hands of creditors--“furriners”--for debts, and it was said his
+homestead must follow. In a private war a leader must be more than
+leader. He must feed and often clothe his followers, and young Jasper
+had not the means to carry on the feud. The famine had made corn dear.
+He could feed neither man nor horse, and the hired feudsmen fell away,
+leaving the Lewallens and the Braytons and their close kin to battle
+alone. So Jasper avoided open combat and resorted to ambush and
+surprise; and, knowing in some way every move made by the Stetsons, with
+great daring and success. It was whispered, too, that he no longer cared
+who owned what he might want for himself. Several dark deeds were traced
+to him. In a little while he was a terror to good citizens, and finally
+old Gabe asked aid of the Governor. Soldiers from the settlements were
+looked for any day, and both factions knew it. At the least this would
+delay the war, and young Jasper had got ready for a last fight, which
+was close at hand.
+
+Half a mile on the riders swerved into a wooded slope. There they hid
+their horses in the brush, and climbed the spur stealthily. The naked
+woods showed the cup-like shape of the mountains there-a basin from
+which radiated upward wooded ravines, edged with ribs of rock. In this
+basin the Stetsons were encamped. The smoke of a fire was visible in the
+dim morning light, and the Lewallens scattered to surround the camp, but
+the effort was vain. A picket saw the creeping figures; his gun echoed
+a warning from rock to rock, and with yells the Lewallens ran forward.
+Rome sprang from his sleep near the fire, bareheaded, rifle in hand, his
+body plain against a huge rock, and the bullets hissed and spat about
+him as he leaped this way and that, firing as he sprang, and shouting
+for his men. Steve Marcum alone answered. Some, startled from sleep,
+had fled in a panic; some had run deeper into the woods for shelter. And
+bidding Steve save himself, Rome turned up the mountain, running
+from tree to tree, and dropped unhurt behind a fallen chestnut. Other
+Stetsons, too, had turned, and answering bullets began to whistle to
+the enemy, but they were widely separated and ignorant of one another's
+position, and the Lewallens drove them one by one to new hiding-places,
+scattering them more. To his right Rome saw Steve Marcum speed like
+a shadow up through a little open space, but he feared to move, for
+several Lewallens had recognized him, and were watching him alone. He
+could not even fire; at the least exposure there was a chorus of bullets
+about his ears. In a moment they began to come obliquely from each
+side-the Lewallens were getting around him. In a moment more death was
+sure there, and once again he darted up the mountain. The bullets sang
+after him like maddened bees. He felt one cut his hat and another sting
+his left arm, but he raced up, up, till the firing grew fainter as he
+climbed, and ceased an instant altogether. Then, still farther below,
+came a sudden crash of reports. Stetsons were pursuing the men who were
+after him, but he could not join them. The Lewallens were scattered
+everywhere between him and his own man, and a descent might lead him to
+the muzzle of an enemy's Winchester. So he climbed over a ledge of rock
+and lay there, peeping through a crevice between two bowlders, gaining
+his breath. The firing was far below him now, and was sharp. Evidently
+his pursuers were too busy defending themselves to think further of him,
+and he began to plan how he should get back to his friends. But he kept
+hidden, and, searching the cliffs below him for a sheltered descent, he
+saw something like a slouched hat just over a log, scarcely fifty feet
+below him. Presently the hat was lifted a few inches; a figure rose
+cautiously and climbed toward the ledge, shielding itself behind rock
+and tree. Very quietly Rome crawled back to the face of the cliff behind
+him, and crouched behind a rock with his cocked rifle across his knees.
+The man must climb over the ledge; there would be a bare, level floor
+of rock between them-the Lewallen would be at his mercy--and Rome, with
+straining eyes, waited. There was a footfall on the other side of the
+ledge; a soft clink of metal against stone. The Lewallen was climbing
+slowly-slowly. Rome could hear his heavy breathing. A grimy hand slipped
+over the sharp comb of the ledge; another appeared, clinched about a
+Winchester--then the slouched hat, and under it the dark, crafty face of
+young Jasper. Rome sat like the stone before him, with a half-smile on
+his lips. Jasper peered about with the sly caution of a fox, and his
+face grew puzzled and chagrined as he looked at the cliffs above him.
+
+“Stop thar!”
+
+He was drawing himself over the ledge, and the low, stern voice startled
+him, as a knife might have done, thrust suddenly from the empty air at
+his breast. Rome rose upright against the cliff, with his resolute face
+against the stock of a Winchester.
+
+“Drap that gun!”
+
+The order was given along Stetson's barrel, and the weapon was dropped,
+the steel ringing on the stone floor. Rome lowered his gun to the hollow
+of his arm, and the two young leaders faced each other for the first
+time in the life of either.
+
+“Seem kinder s'prised to see me,” said the Stetson, grimly. “Hev ye got
+a pistol?”
+
+Young Jasper glared at him in helpless ferocity.
+
+“Naw!”
+
+“Knife?”
+
+He drew a long-bladed penknife from his pocket, and tossed it at Rome's
+feet.
+
+“Jes' move over thar, will ye?”
+
+The Lewallen took his stand against the cliff. Rome picked up the fallen
+rifle and leaned it against the ledge.
+
+“Now, Jas Lewallen, thar's nobody left in this leetle trouble 'cept you
+'n' me, 'n' ef one of us was dead, I reckon t'other could live hyeh, 'n'
+thar'd be peace in these mount'ins. I thought o' that when I had ye at
+the eend o' this Winchester. I reckon you would 'a' shot me dead ef I
+had poked my head over a rock as keerless as you.” That is just what
+he would have done, and Jasper did not answer. “I've swore to kill ye,
+too,” added Rome, tapping his gun; “I've got a cross fer ye hyeh.”
+
+The Lewallen was no coward. Outcry or resistance was useless. The
+Stetson meant to taunt him, to make death more bitter; for Jasper
+expected death, and he sullenly waited for it against the cliff.
+
+“You've been banterin me a long time now, 'lowin' as how ye air the
+better man o' the two; n' I've got a notion o' givin' ye a chance to
+prove yer tall talk. Hit's not our way to kill a man in cold blood, 'n'
+I don't want to kill ye anyways ef I kin he'p it. Seem s'prised ag'in.
+Reckon ye don't believe me? I don't wonder when I think o' my own dad,
+'n' all the meanness yo folks have done mine; but I've got a good reason
+fer not killin' ye--ef I kin he'p it. Y'u don't know what it is, 'n'
+y'u'll never know; but I'll give yer a chance now fer yer life ef y'u'll
+sw'ar on a stack o' Bibles as high as that tree thar that y'u'll leave
+these mount'ins ef I whoops ye, 'n' nuver come back ag'in as long as you
+live. I'll leave, ef ye whoops me. Now whut do ye say? Will ye sw'ar?
+
+“I reckon I will, seem' as I've got to,” was the surly answer. But
+Jasper's face was dark with suspicion, and Rome studied it keenly. The
+Lewallens once had been men whose word was good, but he did not like
+Jasper's look.
+
+“I reckon I'll trust ye,” he said, at last, more through confidence in
+his own strength than faith in his enemy; for Jasper whipped would be as
+much at his mercy as he was now. So Rome threw off his coat, and began
+winding his homespun suspenders about his waist. Watching him closely,
+Jasper did the same.
+
+The firing below had ceased. A flock of mountain vultures were sailing
+in great circles over the thick woods. Two eagles swept straight from
+the rim of the sun above Wolf's Head, beating over a turbulent sea
+of mist for the cliffs, scarcely fifty yards above the ledge, where
+a pine-tree grew between two rocks. At the instant of lighting, they
+wheeled away, each with a warning scream to the other. A figure lying
+flat behind the pine had frightened them, and now a face peeped to one
+side, flushed with eagerness over the coming fight. Both were ready now,
+and the Lewallen grew suddenly white as Rome turned again and reached
+down for the guns.
+
+“I reckon I'll put 'em a leetle furder out o' the way,” he said, kicking
+the knife over the cliff; and, standing on a stone, he thrust them into
+a crevice high above his head.
+
+“Now, Jas, we'll fight this gredge out, as our grandads have done afore
+us.”
+
+Lewallen and Stetson were man to man at last. Suspicion was gone now,
+and a short, brutal laugh came from the cliff.
+
+“I'll fight ye! Oh, by God, I'll fight ye!”
+
+The ring of the voice struck an answering gleam from Rome's gray eyes,
+and the two sprang for each other. It was like the struggle of primeval
+men who had not yet learned even the use of clubs. For an instant both
+stood close, like two wild beasts crouched for a spring, and circling
+about to get at each other's throats, with mouths set, eyes watching
+eyes, and hands twitching nervously. Young Jasper leaped first, and the
+Stetson, wary of closing with him, shrank back. There were a few quick,
+heavy blows, and the Lewallen was beaten away with blood at his lips.
+Then each knew the advantage of the other. The Stetson's reach was
+longer; the Lewallen was shorter and heavier, and again he closed in.
+Again Rome sent out his long arm. A turn of Jasper's head let the heavy
+fist pass over his shoulder. The force of the blow drove Rome forward;
+the two clinched, and Jasper's arms tightened about the Stetson's waist.
+With a quick gasp for breath Rome loosed his hold, and, bending his
+enemy's head back with one hand, rained blow after blow in his face
+with the other. One terrible stroke on the jaw, and Jasper's arms were
+loosed; the two fell apart, the one stunned, the other breathless. One
+dazed moment only, and for a third time the Lewallen came on. Rome had
+been fighting a man; now he faced a demon. Jasper's brows stood out like
+bristles, and the eyes under them were red and fierce like a mad bull's.
+Again Rome's blows fell, but again the Lewallen reached him, and this
+time he got his face under the Stetson's chin,--'id the heavy fist fell
+upon the back of his head, and upon his neck, as upon wood and leather.
+Again Rome had to gasp for breath, and again the two were fiercely
+locked-their corded arms as tense as serpents. Around and around they
+whirled, straining, tripping, breaking the silence only with deep, quick
+breaths and the stamping of feet, Jasper firm on the rock, and Rome's
+agility saving him from being lifted in the air and tossed from the
+cliff. There was no pause for rest. It was a struggle to the end, and
+a quick one; and under stress of excitement the figure at the pine-tree
+had risen to his knees--jumping even to his feet in plain view, when
+the short, strong arms of the Lewallen began at last to draw Rome closer
+still, and to bend him backward. The Stetson was giving way at last.
+The Lewallen's vindictive face grew blacker, and his white teeth showed
+between his snarling lips as he fastened one leg behind his enemy's,
+and, with chin against his shoulder, bent him slowly, slowly back. The
+two breathed in short, painful gasps; their swollen muscles trembled
+under the strain as with ague. Back--back--the Stetson was falling;
+he seemed almost down, when--the trick is an old one-whirling with the
+quickness of light, he fell heavily on his opponent, and caught him by
+the throat with both hands.
+
+“'Nough?” he asked, hoarsely. It was the first word uttered.
+
+The only answer was a fierce struggle. Rome felt the Lewallen's teeth
+sinking in his arm, and his fingers tightened like twisting steel, till
+Jasper caught his breath as though strangling to death.
+
+“'Nough?” asked the hoarse voice again.
+
+No answer; tighter clinched the fingers. The Lewallen shook his head
+feebly; his purple face paled suddenly as Rome loosed his hold, and his
+lips moved in a whisper.
+
+“'Nough!”
+
+Rome rose dizzily to one knee. Jasper turned, gasping, and lay with his
+face to the rock. For a while both were quiet, Rome, panting with
+open mouth and white with exhaustion, looking down now and then at the
+Lewallen, whose face was turned away with shame.
+
+The sun was blazing above Wolf's Head now, and the stillness about them
+lay unbroken on the woods below.
+
+“I've whooped ye, Jas,” Rome said, at last; “I've whooped ye in a fa'r
+fight, 'n' I've got nothin' now to say 'bout yer tall talk, 'n' I reckon
+you hevn't nuther. Now, hit's understood, hain't it, that y'u'll leave
+these mount'ins?
+
+“Y'u kin go West,” he continued, as the Lewallen did not answer. “Uncle
+Rufe used to say thar's a good deal to do out thar, 'n' nobody axes
+questions. Thar's nobody left hyeh but you 'n' me, but these mount'ins
+was never big 'nough fer one Lewallen 'n' one Stetson, 'n' you've got to
+go. I reckon ye won't believe me, but I'm glad I didn't hev to kill
+ye. But you've promised to go, now, 'n' I'll take yer word fer it.”
+ He turned his face, and the Lewallen, knowing it from the sound of his
+voice, sprang to his feet.
+
+“Oh--!”
+
+A wild curse burst from Rome's lips, and both leaped for the guns. The
+Lewallen had the start of a few feet, and Rome, lamed in the fight,
+stumbled and fell. Before he could rise Jasper had whirled, with one of
+the Winchesters above his head and his face aflame with fury. Asking no
+mercy, Rome hid his face with one arm and waited, stricken faint all at
+once, and numb. One report struck his ears, muffled, whip-like. A dull
+wonder came to him that the Lewallen could have missed at such close
+range, and he waited for another. Some one shouted--a shrill hallo. A
+loud laugh followed; a light seemed breaking before Rome's eyes, and
+he lifted his head. Jasper was on his face again, motionless; and Steve
+Marcum's tall figure was climbing over a bowlder toward him.
+
+“That was the best fight I've seed in my time, by God,” he said, coolly,
+“'n', Rome, y'u air the biggest fool this side o' the settlements, I
+reckon. I had dead aim on him, 'n' I was jest a-thinkin' hit was a purty
+good thing fer you that old long-nosed Jim Stover chased me up hyeh,
+when, damn me, ef that boy up thar didn't let his ole gun loose. I'd
+a-got Jas myself ef he hadn't been so all-fired quick o' trigger.”
+
+Up at the root of the pine-tree Isom stood motionless, with his long
+rifle in one hand and a little cloud of smoke breaking above his white
+face. When Rome looked up he started down without a word. Steve swung
+himself over the ledge.
+
+“I heerd the shootin',” said the boy, “up thar at the cave, 'n' I
+couldn't stay thar. I knowed ye could whoop him, Rome, 'n' I seed Steve,
+too, but I was afeard--” Then he saw the body. His tongue stopped, his
+face shrivelled, and Steve, hanging with one hand to the ledge, watched
+him curiously.
+
+“Rome,” said the boy, in a quick whisper, “is he daid?”
+
+“Come on!” said Steve, roughly. “They'll be up hyeh atter us in a
+minute. Leave Jas's gun thar, 'n' send that boy back home.”
+
+That day the troops came--young Blue Grass Kentuckians. That night,
+within the circle of their camp-fires, a last defiance was cast in the
+teeth of law and order. Flames rose within the old court-house, and
+before midnight the moonlight fell on four black walls. That night, too,
+the news of young Jasper's fate was carried to the death-bed of Rome's
+mother, and before day the old woman passed in peace. That day Stetsons
+and Lewallens disbanded. The Lewallens had no leader; the Stetsons,
+no enemies to fight. Some hid, some left the mountains, some gave
+themselves up for trial. Upon Rome Stetson the burden fell. Against him
+the law was set. A price was put on his head, his house was burned--a
+last act of Lewallen hate--and Rome was homeless, the last of his race,
+and an outlaw.
+
+
+
+
+XIII
+
+WITH the start of a few hours and the sympathy of his people one
+mountaineer can defy the army of the United States; and the mountaineers
+usually laugh when they hear troops are coming. For the time they stop
+fighting and hide in the woods; and when the soldiers are gone, they
+come out again, and begin anew their little pleasantries. But the
+soldiers can protect the judge on his bench and the county-seat in time
+of court, and for these purposes they serve well.
+
+The search for Rome Stetson, then, was useless. His friends would aid
+him; his enemies feared to betray him. So the soldiers marched away one
+morning, and took their prisoners for safe-keeping in the Blue Grass,
+until court should open at Hazlan.
+
+Meantime, spring came and deepened the mountain spring. The berries of
+the wintergreen grew scarce, and Rome Stetson, “hiding out,” as the
+phrase is, had to seek them on the northern face of the mountains. The
+moss on the naked winter trees brightened in color, and along the river,
+where willows drooped, ran faint lines of green. The trailing arbutus
+gave out delicate pink blossoms, and the south wind blew apart the
+petals of the anemone. Soon violets unfolded above the dead leaves;
+azaleas swung their yellow trumpets through the undergrowth; over-head,
+the dogwood tossed its snow-flakes in gusts through the green and gold
+of new leaves and sunlight; and higher still waved the poplar blooms,
+with honey ready on every crimson heart for the bees. Down in the valley
+Rome Stetson could see about every little cabin pink clouds and
+white clouds of peach and of apple blossoms. Amid the ferns about him
+shade-loving trilliums showed their many-hued faces, and every opening
+was thickly peopled with larkspur seeking the sun. The giant magnolia
+and the umbrella-tree spread their great creamy flowers; the laurel
+shook out myriads of pink and white bells, and the queen of mountain
+flowers was stirring from sleep in the buds of the rhododendron.
+
+With the spring new forces pulsed the mountain air. The spirit of the
+times reached even Hazlan. A railroad was coming up the river, so the
+rumor was. When winter broke, surveyors had appeared; after them, mining
+experts and purchasers of land. New ways of bread-making were open to
+all, and the feudsman began to see that he could make food and clothes
+more easily and with less danger than by sleeping with his rifle in the
+woods, and by fighting men who had done him no harm. Many were tired of
+fighting; many, forced into the feud, had fought unwillingly. Others had
+sold their farms and wild lands, and were moving toward the Blue Grass
+or westward. The desperadoes of each faction had fled the law or were
+in its clutches. The last Lewallen was dead; the last Stetson was hidden
+away in the mountains. There were left Mareums and Braytons, but only
+those who felt safest from indictment; in these a spirit of hostility
+would live for years, and, roused by passion or by drink, would do
+murder now on one side of the Cumberland and now on the other; but the
+Stetson-Lewallen feud, old Gabe believed, was at an end at last.
+
+All these things the miller told Rome Stetson, who well knew what they
+meant. He was safe enough from the law while the people took no part
+in his capture, but he grew apprehensive when he learned of the changes
+going on in the valley. None but old Gabe knew where he was, to be sure,
+but with his own enemies to guide the soldiers he could not hope
+to remain hidden long. Still, with that love of the mountains
+characteristic of all races born among them, he clung to his own land.
+He would rather stay where he was the space of a year and die, he told
+old Gabe passionately, than live to old age in another State.
+
+But there was another motive, and he did not hide it. On the other side
+he had one enemy left--the last, too, of her race--who was more to him
+than his own dead kindred, who hated him, who placed at his door all her
+sorrows. For her he was living like a wolf in a cave, and old Gabe knew
+it. Her he would not leave.
+
+“I tell ye, Rome, you've got to go. Thar's no use talkin'. Court comes
+the fust Monday in June. The soldiers ull be hyeh. Hit won't be safe.
+Thar's some that s'picions I know whar ye air now, 'n' they'll be
+spyin', 'n' mebbe hit'll git me into trouble, too, aidin' 'n' abettin' a
+man to git away who air boun' to the law.”
+
+The two were sitting on the earthen floor of the cave before a little
+fire, and Rome, with his hands about his knees and his brows knitted,
+was staring into the yellow blaze. His unshorn hair fell to his
+shoulders; his face was pale from insufficient food and exercise, and
+tense with a look that was at once caged and defiant.
+
+“Uncle Gabe,” he asked, quietly, for the old man's tone was a little
+querulous, “air ye sorry ye holped me? Do ye blame me fer whut I've
+done?”
+
+“No,” said the old miller, answering both questions; “I don't. I believe
+whut ye tol' me. Though, even ef ye had 'a' done it, I don't know as I'd
+blame ye, seem' that it was a fa'r fight. I don't doubt he was doin' his
+best to kill you.”
+
+Rome turned quickly, his face puzzled and darkening.
+
+“Uncle Gabe, whut air you drivin' at?” The old man spat into the fire,
+and shifted his position uneasily, as Rome's hand caught his knee.
+
+“Well, ef I have to tell ye, I s'pose I must. Thar's been nothin'
+pertickler ag'in ye so fer, 'cept fer breakin' that confederatin'
+statute 'bout bandin' fightin' men together; 'n' nobody was very anxious
+to git hol' o' ye jes fer that, but now”--the old man stopped a moment,
+for Rome's eyes were kindling--“they say that ye killed Jas Lew allen,
+'n' that ye air a murderer; 'n' hit air powerful strange how all of
+a suddint folks seem to be gittin' down on a man as kills his
+fellow-creetur; 'n' now they means to hunt ye til they ketch ye.”
+
+It was all out now, and the old man was relieved. Rome rose to his feet,
+and in sheer agony of spirit paced the floor.
+
+“I tol' ye, Uncle Gabe, that I didn't kill him.”
+
+“So ye did, 'n' I believe ye. But a feller seed you 'n' Steve comm'
+from the place whar Jas was found dead, 'n' whar the dirt 'n' rock was
+throwed about as by two bucks in spring-time. Steve says he didn't
+do it, 'n' he wouldn't say you didn't. Looks to me like Steve did the
+killn', 'n' was lyin' a leetle. He hain't goin' to confess hit to
+save your neck; 'n' he can't no way, fer he hev lit out o' these
+mount'ins--long ago.”
+
+If Steve was out of danger, suspicion could not harm him, and Rome said
+nothing.
+
+“Isom's got the lingerin' fever ag'in, 'n' he's outin his head. He's
+ravin' 'bout that fight. Looks like ye tol' him 'bout it. He says,'
+Don't tell Uncle Gabe'; 'n' he keeps sayin' it. Hit'll 'most kill him
+ef you go 'way; but he wants ye to git out o' the mount'ins; 'n', Rome,
+you've got to go.”
+
+“Who was it, Uncle Gabe, that seed me 'n' Steve comm' 'way from thar?”
+
+“He air the same feller who hev been spyin' ye all the time this war's
+been goin' on; hit's that dried-faced, snaky Eli Crump, who ye knocked
+down 'n' choked up in Hazlan one day fer sayin' something ag'in Isom.”
+
+“I knowed it--I knowed it--oh, ef I could git my fingers roun' his throat
+once more--jes once more--I'd be 'mos' ready to die.”
+
+He stretched out his hands as he strode back and forth, with his fingers
+crooked like talons; his shadow leaped from wall to wall, and his voice,
+filling the cave, was, for the moment, scarcely human. The old man
+waited till the paroxysm was over and Rome had again sunk before the
+fire.
+
+“Hit 'u'd do no good, Rome,” he said, rising to go. “You've got enough
+on ye now, without the sin o' takin' his life. You better make up yer
+mind to leave the mountins now right 'way. You're a-gittin' no more'n
+half-human, livin' up hyeh like a catamount. I don't see how ye kin
+stand it. Thar's no hope o' things blowin' over, boy, 'n' givin' ye a
+chance o' comm' out ag'in, as yer dad and yer grandad usen to do afore
+ye. The citizens air gittin' tired o' these wars. They keeps out the
+furriners who makes roads 'n' buys lands; they air ag'in' the law,
+ag'in' religion, ag'in' yo' pocket, 'n' ag'in' mine. Lots o' folks hev
+been ag'in' all this fightin' fer a long time, but they was too skeery
+to say so. They air talkin' mighty big now, seem' they kin git soldiers
+hyeh to pertect 'em. So ye mought as well give up the idea o' staying
+hyeh, 'less'n ye want to give yourself up to the law.”
+
+The two stepped from the cave, and passed through the rhododendrons till
+they stood on the cliff overlooking the valley. The rich light lay like
+a golden mist between the mountains, and through it, far down, the river
+moaned like the wind of a coming storm.
+
+“Did ye tell the gal whut I tol' ye?”
+
+“Yes, Rome; hit wasn't no use. She says Steve's word's as good as yourn;
+'n' she knowed about the crosses. Folks say she swore awful ag'in' ye
+at young Jas's burial, 'lowin' that she'd hunt ye down herse'f, ef the
+soldiers didn't ketch ye. I hain't seed her sence she got sick; 'pears
+like ever'body's sick. Mebbe she's a leetle settled down now--no tellin'.
+No use foolin' with her, Rome. You git away from hyeh. Don't you worry
+'bout Isom--I'll take keer o' him, 'n' when he gits well, he'll want to
+come atter ye, 'n' I'll let him go. He couldn't live hyeh without you.
+But y'u must git away, Rome, 'n' git away mighty quick.”
+
+With hands clasped behind him, Rome stood and watched the bent figure
+slowly pick its way around the stony cliff.
+
+“I reckon I've got to go. She's ag'in' me; they're all ag'in' me. I
+reckon I've jes got to go. Somehow, I've been kinder hopin'--” He closed
+his lips to check the groan that rose to them, and turned again into the
+gloom behind him.
+
+
+
+
+XIV
+
+JUNE came. The wild rose swayed above its image along every little
+shadowed stream, and the scent of wild grapes was sweet in the air and
+as vagrant as a bluebird's note in autumn. The rhododendrons burst into
+beauty, making gray ridge and gray cliff blossom with purple, hedging
+streams with snowy clusters and shining leaves, and lighting up
+dark coverts in the woods as with white stars. The leaves were full,
+woodthrushes sang, and bees droned like unseen running water in the
+woods.
+
+With June came circuit court once more-and the soldiers. Faint music
+pierced the dreamy chant of the river one morning as Rome lay on a
+bowlder in the summer sun; and he watched the guns flashing like another
+stream along the water, and then looked again to the Lewallen cabin.
+Never, morning, noon, or night, when he came from the rhododendrons, or
+when they closed about him, did he fail to turn his eyes that way. Often
+he would see a bright speck moving about the dim lines of the cabin,
+and he would scarcely breathe while he watched it, so easily would it
+disappear. Always he had thought it was Martha, and now he knew it was,
+for the old miller had told him more of the girl, and had wrung his
+heart with pity. She had been ill a long while. The “furriners” had
+seized old Jasper's cabin and land. The girl was homeless, and she did
+not know it, for no one had the heart to tell her. She was living
+with the Braytons; and every day she went to the cabin, “moonin'n'
+sorrowin' aroun',” as old Gabe said; and she was much changed.
+
+Once more the miller came-for the last time, he said, firmly. Crump had
+trailed him, and had learned where Rome was. The search would begin next
+day-perhaps that very night-and Crump would guide the soldiers. Now he
+must go, and go quickly. The boy, too, sent word that unless Rome went,
+he would have something to tell. Old Gabe saw no significance in the
+message; but he had promised to deliver it, and he did. Rome wavered
+then; Steve and himself gone, no suspicion would fall on the lad. If he
+were caught, the boy might confess. With silence Rome gave assent, and
+the two parted in an apathy that was like heartlessness. Only old Gabe's
+shrunken breast heaved with something more than weariness of descent,
+and Rome stood watching him a long time before he turned back to the
+cave that had sheltered him from his enemies among beasts and men. In
+a moment he came out for the last time, and turned the opposite way.
+Climbing about the spur, he made for the path that led down to the
+river. When he reached it he glanced at the sun, and stopped in
+indecision. Straight above him was a knoll, massed with rhododendrons,
+the flashing leaves of which made it like a great sea-wave in the
+slanting sun, while the blooms broke slowly down over it like foam.
+Above this was a gray sepulchre of dead, standing trees, more gaunt and
+spectre-like than ever, with the rich life of summer about it. Higher
+still were a dark belt of stunted firs and the sandstone ledge, and
+above these-home. He was risking his liberty, his life. Any clump of
+bushes might bristle suddenly with Winchesters. If the soldiers sought
+for him at the cave they would at the same time guard the mountain
+paths; they would guard, too, the Stetson cabin. But no matter-the sun
+was still high, and he turned up the steep. The ledge passed, he stopped
+with a curse at his lips and the pain of a knife-thrust at his heart.
+A heap of blackened stones and ashes was before him. The wild
+mountain-grass was growing up about it. The bee-gums were overturned and
+rifled. The garden was a tangled mass of weeds. The graves in the little
+family burying-ground were unprotected, the fence was gone, and no
+boards marked the last two ragged mounds. Old Gabe had never told him.
+He, too, like Martha, was homeless, and the old miller had been kind to
+him, as the girl's kinspeople had been to her.
+
+For a long while he sat on the remnant of the burned and broken fence,
+and once more the old tide of bitterness rose within him and ebbed away.
+There were none left to hate, to wreak vengeance on. It was hard to
+leave the ruins as they were; and yet he would rather leave weeds and
+ashes than, like Martha, have some day to know that his home was in the
+hands of a stranger. When he thought of the girl he grew calmer; his own
+sorrows gave way to the thought of hers; and half from habit he raised
+his face to look across the river. Two eagles swept from a dark ravine
+under the shelf of rock where he had fought young Jasper, and made for
+a sun-lighted peak on the other shore. From them his gaze fell to Wolf's
+Head and to the cabin beneath, and a name passed his lips in a whisper.
+
+Then he took the path to the river, and he found the canoe where old
+Gabe had hidden it. Before the young moon rose he pushed into the stream
+and drifted with the current. At the mouth of the creek that ran over
+old Gabe's water-wheel he turned the prow to the Lewallen shore.
+
+“Not yit! Not yit!” he said.
+
+
+
+
+XV
+
+THAT night Rome passed in the woods, with his rifle, in a bed of
+leaves. Before daybreak he had built a fire in a deep ravine to cook his
+breakfast, and had scattered the embers that the smoke should give no
+sign. The sun was high when he crept cautiously in sight of the Lewallen
+cabin. It was much like his own home on the other shore, except that the
+house, closed and desolate, was standing, and the bees were busy. At the
+corner of the kitchen a rusty axe was sticking in a half-cut piece of
+timber, and on the porch was a heap of kindling and fire wood-the last
+work old Jasper and his son had ever done. In the Lewallens' garden,
+also, two graves were fresh; and the spirit of neglect and ruin overhung
+the place.
+
+All the morning he waited in the edge of the laurel, peering down the
+path, watching the clouds race with their shadows over the mountains, or
+pacing to and fro in his covert of leaves and flowers. He began to fear
+at last that she was not coming, that she was ill, and once he started
+down the mountain toward Steve Brayton's cabin. The swift descent
+brought him to his senses, and he stopped half-way, and climbed back
+again to his hiding-place. What he was doing, what he meant to do, he
+hardly knew. Mid-day passed; the sun fell toward the mountains, and once
+more came the fierce impulse to see her, even though he must stalk into
+the Brayton cabin. Again, half-crazed, he started impetuously through
+the brush, and shrank back, and stood quiet. A little noise down the
+path had reached his ear. In a moment he could hear slow foot-falls, and
+the figure of the girl parted the pink-and-white laurel blossoms, which
+fell in a shower about her when she brushed through them. She passed
+quite near him, walking slowly, and stopped for a moment to rest against
+a pillar of the porch. She was very pale; her face was traced deep with
+suffering, and she was, as old Gabe said, much changed. Then she went
+on toward the garden, stepping with an effort over the low fence, and
+leaned as if weak and tired against the apple-tree, the boughs of which
+shaded the two graves at her feet. For a few moments she stood there,
+listless, and Rome watched her with hungry eyes, at a loss what to do.
+She moved presently, and walked quite around the graves without looking
+at them; then came back past him, and, seating herself in the porch,
+turned her face to the river. The sun lighted her hair, and in the
+sunken, upturned eyes Rome saw the shimmer of tears.
+
+“Marthy!” He couldn't help it--the thick, low cry broke like a groan
+from his lips, and the girl was on her feet, facing him. She did not
+know the voice, nor the shaggy, half-wild figure in the shade of the
+laurel; and she started back as if to run; but seeing that the man did
+not mean to harm her, she stopped, looking for a moment with wonder and
+even with quick pity at the hunted face with its white appeal. Then a
+sudden spasm caught her throat, and left her body rigid, her hands shut,
+and her eyes dry and hard--she knew him. A slow pallor drove the flush of
+surprise from her face, and her lips moved once, but there was not even
+a whisper from them. Rome raised one hand before his face, as though to
+ward off something. “Don't look at me that way, Marthy--my God, don't! I
+didn't kill him. I sw'ar it! I give him a chance fer his life. I know,
+I know--Steve says he didn't. Thar was only us two. Hit looks ag'in'
+me; but I hain't killed one nur t'other. I let 'em both go. Y'u don't
+believe me?” He went swiftly toward her, his gun outstretched. “Hyeh,
+gal! I heerd ye swore ag' in' me out thar in the gyarden--'lowin' that
+you was goin' to hunt me down yerself if the soldiers didn't. Hyeh's yer
+chance!”
+
+The girl shrank away from him, too startled to take the weapon; and he
+leaned it against her, and stood away, with his hands behind him.
+
+“Kill me ef ye think I'm a-lyin' to ye,” he said. “Y'u kin git even with
+me now. But I want to tell ye fust”--the girl had caught the muzzle of
+the gun convulsively, and was bending over it, her eyes burning, her
+face inscrutable--“hit was a fa'r fight betwixt us, 'n' I whooped him. He
+got his gun then, 'n' would 'a' killed me ag'in' his oath ef he hadn't
+been shot fust. Hit's so, too, 'bout the crosses. I made 'em; they're
+right thar on that gun; but whut could I do with mam a-standin' right
+thar with the gun 'n' Uncle Rufe a-tellin' 'bout my own dad layin' in
+his blood, 'n' Isom 'n' the boys lookin' on! But I went ag'in' my oath;
+I gave him his life when I had the right to take it. I could 'a' killed
+yer dad once, 'n' I had the right to kill him, too, fer killin' mine;
+but I let him go, 'n' I reckon I done that fer ye, too. 'Pears like I
+hain't done nothin' sence I seed ye over thar in the mill that day that
+wasn't done fer ye. Somehow ye put me dead ag'in' my own kin, 'n' tuk
+away all my hate ag'in' yourn. I couldn't fight fer thinkin' I was
+fightin' you, 'n' when I seed ye comm' through the bushes jes now, so
+white 'n' sickly-like, I couldn't hardly git breath, a-thinkin' I was
+the cause of all yer misery. That's all!” He stretched out his arms.
+“Shoot, gal, ef ye don't believe me. I'd jes as lieve die, ef ye thinks
+I'm lyin' to ye, 'n' ef ye hates me fer whut I hain't done.”
+
+The gun had fallen to the earth. The girl, trembling at the knees, sank
+to her seat on the porch, and, folding her arms against the pillar,
+pressed her forehead against them, her face unseen. Rome stooped to pick
+up the weapon.
+
+“I'm goin' 'way now,” he went on, slowly, after a little pause, “but I
+couldn't leave hyeh without seem' you. I wanted ye to know the truth,
+'n' I 'lowed y'u'd believe me ef I tol' ye myself. I've been a-waitin'
+thar in the lorrel fer ye sence mornin'. Uncle Gabe tol' me ye come hyeh
+ever' day. He says I've got to go. I've been hopin' I mought come out o'
+the bushes some day. But Uncle Gabe says ever'body's ag'in' me more' n
+ever, 'n' that the soldiers mean to ketch me. The gov'ner out thar in
+the settlements says as how he'll give five hundred dollars fer me,
+livin' or dead. He'll nuver git me livin'--I've swore that--'n' as I hev
+done nothin' sech as folks on both sides hev done who air walkin'
+roun' free, I hain't goin' to give up. Hit's purty hard to leave these
+mount'ins. Reckon I'll nuver see 'em ag'in. Been livin' like a catamount
+over thar on the knob. I could jes see you over hyeh, 'n' I reckon
+I hain't done much 'cept lay over thar on a rock 'n' watch ye movin'
+round. Hit's mighty good to feel that ye believe me, 'n' I want ye to
+know that I been stayin' over thar fer nothin' on earth but jes to see
+you ag'in; 'n' I want ye to know that I was a-sorrowin' fer ye when
+y'u was sick, 'n' a-pinin' to see ye, 'n' a-hopin' some day y'u
+mought kinder git over yer hate fer me.” He had been talking with low
+tenderness, half to himself, and with his face to the river, and he did
+not see the girl's tears falling to the porch. Her sorrow gave way in
+a great sob now, and he turned with sharp remorse, and stood quite near
+her.
+
+“Don't cry, Marthy,” he said. “God knows hit's hard to think I've
+brought all this on ye when I'd give all these mount'ins to save ye
+from it. Whut d' ye say? Don't cry.”
+
+The girl was trying to speak at last, and Rome bent over to catch the
+words.
+
+“I hain't cryin' fer myself,” she said, faintly, and then she said no
+more; but the first smile that had passed over Rome's face for many a
+day passed then, and he put out one big hand, and let it rest on the
+heap of lustrous hair.
+
+“Marthy, I hate to go 'way, leavin' ye hyeh with nobody to take keer o'
+ye. You're all alone hyeh in the mount'ins; I'm all alone; 'n' I reckon
+I'll be all alone wharever I go, ef you stay hyeh. I got a boat down
+thar on the river, 'n' I'm goin' out West whar Uncle Rufe use to live. I
+know I hain't good fer nothin' much”--he spoke almost huskily; he could
+scarcely get the words to his lips--“but I want ye to go with me. Won't
+ye?”
+
+The girl did not answer, but her sobbing ceased slowly, while Rome
+stroked her hair; and at last she lifted her face, and for a moment
+looked to the other shore. Then she rose. There is a strange pride in
+the Kentucky mountaineer.
+
+“As you say, Rome, thar's nobody left but you, 'n' nobody but me; but
+they burned you out, we hain't even--yit.” Her eyes were on Thunderstruck
+Knob, where the last sunlight used to touch the Stetson cabin.
+
+“Hyeh, Rome!” He knew what she meant, and he kneeled at the pile of
+kindling-wood near the kitchen door. Then they stood back and waited.
+The sun dipped below a gap in the mountains, the sky darkened, and the
+flames rose to the shingled porch, and leaped into the gathering dusk.
+On the outer edge of the quivering light, where it touched the blossomed
+laurel, the two stood till the blaze caught the eaves of the cabin; and
+then they turned their faces where, burning to ashes in the west, was
+another fire, whose light blended in the eyes of each with a light older
+and more lasting than its own--the light eternal.
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of A Cumberland Vendetta, by John Fox, Jr.
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