the hatred of change, characteristic of the mountaineer the world
over, the Lewallens were for the Union. The Stetsons owned a few
slaves, and they fought for them. Peace found both still neighbors
and worse foes. The war armed them, and brought back an
ancestral contempt for human life; it left them a heritage of
lawlessness that for mutual protection made necessary the very
means used by their feudal forefathers; personal hatred supplanted
its dead issues, and with them the war went on. The Stetsons had a
good strain of Anglo-Saxon blood, and owned valley-lands; the
Lewallens kept store and made "moonshine"; so kindred and
debtors and kindred and tenants were arrayed with one or the other
leader, and gradually the retainers of both settled on one or the
other side of the river. In time of hostility the Cumberland came
to be the boundary between life and death for the dwellers on each
shore. It was feudalism born again.

Above one of the spurs each family had its home; the Stetsons,
under the seared face of Thunderstruck Knob; the Lewallens, just
beneath the wooded rim of Wolf's Head. The eaves and chimney
of each cabin were faintly visible from the porch of the other. The
first light touched the house of the Stetsons; the last, the Lewallen
cabin. So there were times when the one could not turn to the
sunrise nor the other to the sunset but with a curse in his heart, for
his eye must fall on the home of his enemy.

For years there had been peace. The death of Rome Stetson's
father from ambush, and the fight in the court-house square, had
forced it. After that fight only four were left-old Jasper Lewallen
and young Jasper, the boy Rome and his uncle, Rufe Stetson.
Then Rufe fled to the West, and the Stetsons were helpless. For