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The Heart of the Hills by John Fox
page 48 of 342 (14%)
left the floor to Jason. Just then there was the crack of a
Winchester from the darkness outside. Simultaneously, as far as
the ear could detect, there was a sharp rap on a window-pane, as a
bullet sped cleanly through, and in front of the fire old Jason's
mighty head sagged suddenly and he crumbled into a heap on the
floor. Arch Hawn had carried his business deal through. The truce
was over and the feud was on again.




VII

Knowing but little of his brother in the hills, the man from the
lowland Blue-grass was puzzled and amazed that all feeling he
could observe was directed solely at the deed itself and not at
the way it was done. No indignation was expressed at what was to
him the contemptible cowardice involved--indeed little was said at
all, but the colonel could feel the air tense and lowering with a
silent deadly spirit of revenge, and he would have been more
puzzled had he known the indifference on the part of the Hawns as
to whether the act of revenge should take precisely the same form
of ambush. For had the mountain code of ethics been explained to
him--that what was fair for one was fair for the other; that the
brave man could not fight the coward who shot from the brush and
must, therefore, adopt the coward's methods; that thus the method
of ambush had been sanctioned by long custom--he still could never
have understood how a big, burly, kind-hearted man like Jason Hawn
could have been brought even to tolerance of ambush by
environment, public sentiment, private policy, custom, or any
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