the spur above and full in the rich yellow light, she halted, half
turning in her saddle. He rose to his feet, to his full height, his
head bare, and thrown far back between his big shoulders, and,
still as statues, the man and the woman looked at each other across
the gulf of darkening air. A full minute the woman sat motionless,
then rode on. At the edge of the woods she stopped and turned
again.

The eagle under Rome leaped one stroke in the air, and dropped
like a clod into the sea of leaves. The report of the gun and a faint
cry of triumph rose from below. It was good marksmanship, but
on the cliff Rome did not heed it. Something had fluttered in the
air above the girl's head, and he laughed aloud. She was waving
her bonnet at him.

II

JUST where young Stetson stood, the mountains racing along each
bank of the Cumberland had sent out against each other, by mutual
impulse, two great spurs. At the river's brink they stopped sheer,
with crests uplifted, as though some hand at the last moment had
hurled them apart, and had led the water through the breach to
keep them at peace. To-day the crags looked seamed by thwarted
passion; and, sullen with firs, they made fit symbols of the human
hate about the base of each.

When the feud began, no one knew. Even the original cause was
forgotten. Both families had come as friends from Virginia long
ago, and had lived as enemies nearly half a century. There was
hostility before the war, but, until then, little bloodshed. Through