knew the huge frame and gray beard of old Jasper Lewallen. The
blood beat in a sudden tide at his temples, and, half by instinct, he
knelt behind a rock, and, thrusting his rifle through a crevice,
cocked it softly.

Again the curse of impatience came over the still water, and old
Jasper rose and turned toward him. The glistening sight caught in
the centre of his beard. That would take him in the throat; it might
miss, and he let the sight fall till the 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, who had threatened his life, and the father of the girl whose
contempt had cut him to the quick twice that day. Again her taunt
leaped through his heated brain, and his boast to the old miller
followed it. His finger trembled at the trigger.

"No; by--, no! "he breathed between his teeth; and old Jasper
passed on, unharmed.

VII

NEXT day the news of Rufe Stetson's flight went down the river
on the wind, and before nightfall the spirit of murder was loosed
on both shores of the Cumberland. The more cautious warned old
Jasper. The Stetsons were gaining strength again, they said; so
were their feudsmen, the Marcums, enemies of the Braytons, old
Jasper's kinspeople. Keeping store, Rufe had made money in the
West, and money and friends right and left through the mountains.
With all his good-nature, he was a persistent hater, and he was