A few razor-backed, long-legged, sharp-nosed porkers are the indispensable adjunct of well-regulated mountaineer families. In those days the farmer marked his hogs and turned them loose in the woods. They soon fattened on the abundant mast and were, late in the fall, driven home to be killed. If one of those marked hogs happened to turn up in the possession of another, woe unto him. Vengeance was visited upon him swiftly, though not as severe as in the case of rustlers in the West. A circuit judge of Kentucky once remarked, very appropriately, that a hog seemed of more value in his district than a human life. There was truth in this bit of sarcasm. More men have been acquitted of murder in Kentucky than of hogstealing. It seems ridiculous that a few of the unseemly brutes should have become the innocent promoters of a feud, but it is true. Innocent or not, the facts are against them. Sometime during the seventies one Floyd Hatfield, afterwards known as "Hog" Floyd, drove a number of hogs from the forests and confined them in a pen at Stringtown. A few days later Randolph McCoy of Kentucky passed the pen in question and upon examination of the animals claimed them as his property and demanded their delivery to him, which Hog Floyd refused to do. McCoy brought an action for their recovery. The trial was held at Raccoon Hollow, a little village some miles down the valley. Deacon Hatfield, Floyd's relative, presided. The McCoys and Hatfields attended the trial in force. Every man was armed. During the short trial many things occurred that convinced those acquainted with the characters of the men composing the factions, that bloody hostilities must result. Randolph McCoy made an impassioned speech to the jury, openly charging several Hatfield witnesses with perjury. Among those so accused was one Stayton who, incensed by the charge, attempted to strike his traducer, but was prevented by Randolph McCoy's son. McCoy lost his case. The Hatfields exulted, jeered and sneered; the McCoys returned home grumbling and threatening. Fists and rocks now gave place to the rifle and repeated long-range shooting matches occurred between the factions. When meeting in the forests, they treed and fought for hours with their old-fashioned muzzle-loaders and cap and ball pistols, without any appreciable result.