I own to a large curiosity to behold this hero--more than ever since I heard what Nucky told me to-day. I am glad that the visit to Trigger comes the end of this week. XI OVER ON TRIGGER _Monday Morning._ Soon after breakfast on Saturday we set out on our sixteen-mile ride to Trigger Branch, I on Mandy, Nucky walking,--he refused to ride behind, remarking, "I'm allus used to seeing the women ride there." The day was glorious, the way more and more beautiful as we proceeded. We crossed three mountains, stopping on the top of one, where the sunlight sifted down through translucent beech leaves, to eat our lunch, and then "followed" Powderhorn, a large creek, two or three miles, finally turning up Trigger Branch. At its mouth, Nucky pointed out the little log school-house in which he has received his education up to this term, and farther on he showed me various rocks and trees where he has delighted to "layway" and "ambush" infant Cheevers. Trigger Branch is the most picturesque creek I have yet seen; along its sides cliffs and "rock-houses" alternate with rich hollows, small strips of bottom, and steep but flourishing cornfields. All the houses we passed on the lower reaches belonged to Cheevers, sons of Israel, and last of all was Israel's home. Three "sights," or about a half-mile above this, is the disputed boundary-line, which runs down from a mountain spur on the right hand side, and then across a piece of bottom to the branch. The bone of contention is a triangular slice of bottom, with its apex at the foot of the spur, not an acre in extent, all told. As Nucky pointed it out to me, I looked with mingled curiosity and horror. The fence of course now stands on the ancient line claimed by the Marrses, where it has stood for nearly a century and a quarter. "It is impossible to believe that more than a dozen lives have been sacrificed for this little piece of land," I said to Nucky, "why, I doubt if you could raise forty bushels of corn a year on it." His face flushed. "It haint the money's worth," he said, proudly; "we don't care nothing about that. But it was granted to my great-great-great-grandpaw for fighting the British, and me'n' Blant would ruther die than part with a' inch of it." He pointed to a thick, dark clump of hemlock near the foot of the spur, on the Marrs land. "That's where I keep lookout of moonlight nights when war is on," he said. [Illustration: "'That's where I keep lookout of moonlight nights when war is on.'"] As we advanced, he showed me the steep cornfields tended by Blant and himself, the almost upright pastures where some cattle and sheep were feeding, and above, the virgin forest where Blant gets out yellow poplar and other fine timber, and on the very crest of the ridge, the gray, forbidding "high rocks" that are so fine for fox-hunts, and also, he says, for "hiding out" in if officers get too troublesome.