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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. Every-where 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 ~lender. 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, Rome Y" 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.