the old feud broke loose again. One house was close to the frothing hem
of the flood--a log-hut with a shed of rough boards for a kitchen--the
home of Becky Day.

The other was across the way and was framed and smartly painted. On the
steps sat a woman with her head bare and her hands under her
apron--widow of the Marcum whose death from a bullet one month before
had broken the long truce of the feud. A groaning curse was growled from
the window as the girl drew near, and she knew it came from a wounded
Marcum who had lately come back from the West to avenge his brother's
death.

"Why don't you go over to see your neighbor?" The girl's clear eyes gave
no hint that she knew--as she well did--the trouble between the houses,
and the widow stared in sheer amazement, for mountaineers do not talk
with strangers of the quarrels between them.

"I have nothin' to do with such as her," she said, sullenly; "she ain't
the kind--"

"Don't!" said the girl, with a flush, "she's dying."

"_Dyin?_"

"Yes." With the word the girl sprang from the mule and threw the reins
over the pale of the fence in front of the log-hut across the way. In
the doorway she turned as though she would speak to the woman on the
steps again, but a tall man with a black beard appeared in the low door
of the kitchen-shed.