At the end of the street were two houses that seemed to front each other with unmistakable enmity. In them were two men who had wounded each other only the day before, and who that day would lead the factions, if the old feud broke loose again. One house was close to the frothing hem of the flood--a log-hut with a shed of rough boards for a kitchen--the home of Becky Day. The other was across the way and was framed and smartly painted. On the steps sat a woman with her head bare and her hands under her apron--widow of the Marcum whose death from a bullet one month before had broken the long truce of the feud. A groaning curse was growled from the window as the girl drew near, and she knew it came from a wounded Marcum who had lately come back from the West to avenge his brother's death. "Why don't you go over to see your neighbor?" The girl's clear eyes gave no hint that she knew--as she well did--the trouble between the houses, and the widow stared in sheer amazement, for mountaineers do not talk with strangers of the quarrels between them. "I have nothin' to do with such as her," she said, sullenly; "she ain't the kind--" "Don't!" said the girl, with a flush, "she's dying." "_Dyin?_" "Yes." With the word the girl sprang from the mule and threw the reins over the pale of the fence in front of the log-hut across the way. In the doorway she turned as though she would speak to the woman on the steps again, but a tall man with a black beard appeared in the low door of the kitchen-shed. "How is your--how is Mrs. Day?" "Mighty puny this mornin'--Becky is." The girl slipped into the dark room. On a disordered, pillowless bed lay a white face with eyes closed and mouth slightly open. Near the bed was a low wood fire. On the hearth were several thick cups filled with herbs and heavy fluids and covered with tarpaulin, for Becky's "man" was a teamster. With a few touches of the girl's quick hands, the covers of the bed were smooth, and the woman's eyes rested on the girl's own cloak. With her own handkerchief she brushed the death-damp from the forehead that already seemed growing cold. At her first touch, the woman's eyelids opened and dropped together again. Her lips moved, but no sound came from them. In a moment the ashes disappeared, the hearth was clean and the fire was blazing. Every time the girl passed the window she saw the widow across the way staring hard at the hut. When she took the ashes into the street, the woman spoke to her. "I can't go to see Becky--she hates me." "With good reason." The answer came with a clear sharpness that made the widow start and redden angrily; but the girl walked straight to the gate, her eyes ablaze with all the courage that the mountain woman knew and yet with another courage to which the primitive creature was a stranger--a courage that made the widow lower her own eyes and twist her hands under her apron. "I want you to come and ask Becky to forgive you." The woman stared and laughed.