He stopped a moment to think. The men's breathing could be
heard, so quiet was the room, and Rufe went on telling in detail,
slowly, as if to himself, the wrongs the Lewallens had done his
people. When he came to old Jasper his voice was low, and his
manner was quieter than ever.

"Now old Jas have got to the p'int whar he says as how nobody in
this county kin undersell him 'n' stay hyeh. Old Jas druv Bond
Vickers out'n the mount 'ins fer tryin' hit. He druv Jess Hale away;
'n' them two air our kin."

The big mountaineer turned then, and knocked the ashes from his
pipe. His eyes grew a little brighter, and his nostrils spread, but
with a sweep of his arm he added, still quietly:

"Y' all know whut he's done."

The gesture lighted memories of personal wrongs in every breast;
he had tossed a fire-brand among fagots, and an angry light began
to burn from the eyes that watched him.

"Ye know, too, that he thinks he has played the same game with
me; but ye don't know, I reckon, that he had ole Jim Stover 'n' that
mis'-able Eli Crump a-hidin' in the bushes to shoot me "-again he
grasped the torn lapel; "that a body warned me to git away from
Hazlan; n' the night I left home they come thar to kill me, 'n'
s'arched the house, 'n' skeered Mollie n' the leetle gal 'most to
death."

The mountaineer's self-control was lost suddenly in a furious oath.