on. "Young lady, I don't believe you'd be afraid of many things, would
you? You don't look like it. Besides, the Cross-Roads isn't Plattville,
and the White-Caps have been too scared to do anything much, except try to
get even with the 'Herald,' for the last two years; ever since it went for
them. They're laying for Harkless partly for revenge and partly because
they daren't do anything until he's out of the way."

The girl gave a low cry with a sharp intake of breath. "Ah! One grows
tired of this everlasting American patience! Why don't the Plattville
people do something before they----"

"It's just as I say," Briscoe answered; "our folks are sort of used to
them. I expect we do about all we can; the boys look after him nights, and
the main trouble is that we can't make him understand he ought to be more
afraid of them. If he'd lived here all his life he would be. You know
there's an old-time feud between the Cross-Roads and our folks; goes way
back into pioneer history and mighty few know anything of it. Old William
Platt and the forefathers of the Bardlocks and Tibbses and Briscoes and
Schofields moved up here from North Carolina a good deal just to get away
from some bad neighbors, mostly Skilletts and Johnsons--one of the
Skilletts had killed old William Platt's two sons. But the Skilletts and
Johnsons followed all the way to Indiana to join in making the new
settlement, and they shot Platt at his cabin door one night, right where
the court-house stands to-day. Then the other settlers drove them out for
good, and they went seven miles west and set up a still. A band of
Indians, on the way to join the Shawnee Prophet at Tippecanoe, came down
on the Cross-Roads, and the Cross-Roaders bought them off with bad whiskey
and sent them over to Plattville. Nearly all the Plattville men were away,
fighting under Harrison, and when they came back there were only a few
half-crazy women and children left. They'd hid in the woods.