mountains only. That must be for crimes in the cities and all sorts of
things. You can't make the feuds responsible for those."

"Not altogether," the mountaineer agreed, "the real ol'-time feud is
peterin' out, an' it's mainly due to the schoolin'. The young folks
ain't ready fo' revenge now, an' that sort o' swings the women around.
An' up hyeh in the mount'ns, same as everywhar else, I reckon, the idees
o' the women make a pile o' difference."

"But I should have thought the women would always have been against the
feuds," said Hamilton.

"Yo'd think so, but they weren't. They helped to keep up the grudges a
whole lot."

"Aunt Ab hasn't changed much," volunteered the lad.

"She hasn't for a fact. Ab is powerful sot. She holds the grudge against
the Howkles in the ol' style. But the feelin' is dyin' out fast, an'
soon it'll be like history,--only jes' read of in books."

"What I never could see," remarked Hamilton, "was what started it all.
It isn't as if the people in the mountains had come from some part of
the world where vendettas and that sort of thing had been going on for
generations. There must have been some kind of reason for it in this
section of the country. Feuds don't spring up just for nothing."

"Thar was a while once we had a powerful clever talker up hyeh," the
Kentuckian answered, "actin' as schoolmaster for a few weeks. I reckon
he'd offered to substitute jes' to get a chance to see for himself what