A Cumberland Vendetta

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

fused 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

you reckon the gal

axe

ed you!

ely. The manner of the girl was significant when she asked who Rome was, an

ay she have been

e fer I can't make out. The mill over thar wasn't broke long, 'n' why she didn't go thar or

ening eagerly. Again t

she's s

th suspicion; but old Ga

she couldn't see a soul without my knowin' it. She seed ye ridin' b

, Rome's face was so trouble

wasn't in sech doin's. Ef that had been young Jas 'stid

let him kill me," w

mountaineer was pushing a stone about with the toe of his boot. He had neve

's been moonshine that's whooped you Stetsons, not the Lewallens, long as

said slowly, still busied with the stone, "hev tha

pledge that seemed on his lips

-day," he sa

no word of parting. For a moment the miller watch

's a bigger hand a-workin' now than mine." Then he lifted his voice. "Ef Isom'

ead bent, along the river road. Passing a clump of pine

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 h

uched 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 o

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,

d between his teeth; and ol