A Cumberland Vendetta

shadows as Rome stepped on the porch, and Rufe Ste

rching look. "Wasn't lookin' for me? I reck

of appreciation through the porch,

ayed 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 i

oy," he said; "I reckon he'll

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

quickened, for every eye was upon him. "Thar's goin' to be trouble now. I hear as how

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 broadc

action of the Winchester with a kindling look, as the

Breathitt, at the e

'u've been g

travel atter dark comm' back, 'n' lay out'n the

ore nobody

e, and several laughed. Rufe threw back his dusty c

n 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

, 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

Rufe went on telling in detail, slowly, as if to himself, the wrongs the Lewallens had done h

ty kin undersell him 'n' stay hyeh. Old Jas druv Bond Vickers out'n the mo

his pipe. His eyes grew a little brighter, and his nostrils

now whut

breast; he had tossed a fire-brand among fagots, and an

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 Hazl

isted 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

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 c

to leave as long as ole Jas is hyeh, 'n' I want ye all to know it. Ole Jas hev got to go

chair. Rufe himself took up the spirit o

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

Rome's Winchester in one hand and a clasp-knife in the other. Every man was on his feet; the door was op

the time, right h

f the point on the hard steel went twice through the stillness-"one mo

e 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 oa