For a moment the girl did not answer, and Rome waited, breathless. “Wasn't the mill runnin'? Whyn't ye go on 'cross the river? “That's whut I did,” said the girl, quietly. “Uncle Gabe wasn't thar, 'n' Rome Stetson was. I wouldn't 'low him to grin' the co 'n, 'n' so I toted hit back.” “Rome Stetson!” The voice was lost in a volley of oaths. The two passed out of hearing, and Rome went plunging down the mountain, swinging recklessly from one little tree to another, and wrenching limbs from their sockets out of pure physical ecstasy. When he reached his horse he sat down, breathing heavily, on a bed of moss, with a strange new yearning in his heart. If peace should come! Why not peace, if Rufe should not come back? He would be the leader then, and without him there could be no war. Old Jasper had killed his father. He was too young at the time to feel poignant sorrow now, and somehow he could look even at that death in a fairer way. His father had killed old Jasper's brother. So it went back: a Lewallen killed a Stetson; that Stetson had killed a Lewallen, until one end of the chain of deaths was lost, and the first fault could not be placed, though each clan put it on the other. In every generation there had been compromises--periods of peace; why not now? Old Gabe would gladly help him. He might make friends with young Jasper; he might even end the feud. And then-he and Martha-why not? He closed his eyes, and for one radiant moment t all seemed possible. And then a gaunt image rose in the dream, and only the image was left. It was the figure of his mother, stern and silent through the years, opening her grim lips rarely without some curse against the Lewallen race. He remembered she had smiled for the first time when she heard of the new trouble-the flight of his uncle and the hope of conflict. She had turned to him with her eyes on fire and her old hands clinched. She had said nothing, but he understood her look. And now-Good God! what would she think and say if she could know what he had done? His whole frame twitched at the thought, and, with a nervous spring to escape it, he was on his feet, and starting down the mountain. Close to the river he heard voices below him, and he turned his horse quickly aside into the bushes. Two women who had been washing clothes passed, carrying white bundles home. They were talking of the coming feud. “That ar young Stetson ain't much like his dad,” said one. “Young Jas has been a-darin' 'n' a-banterin' him, 'n' he won't take it up. They say he air turnin' out a plumb coward.” When he reached the Stetson cabin three horses with drooping heads were hitched to the fence. All had travelled a long way. One wore a man's saddle; on the others were thick blankets tied together with leathern thongs.