But no shot came and Aaron looked up again, mystified and glaring, but Jason was smiling and walking toward him. "Aaron, there are two or three trifling fellows on our side who hate you and are afraid of you. You know that, don't you?" "Yes." "Well, the same thing is true about me of two or three men on your side, isn't it?" "Yes." "They've been carrying tales from one side to the other. I've never said anything against you." Aaron, genuinely disbelieving, stared questioningly for a moment--and believed. "I've never said anything against you, either." "I believe you. Well, do you see any reason why we should be shooting each other down to oblige a few cowards?" "No, by God, I don't." "Well, I don't want to die and I don't believe you do. There are a lot of things I want to do and a lot that you want to do. We want to help our own people and our own mountains all we can, and the best thing we can do for them and for ourselves is to stop this feud." "It's the God's truth," said Aaron solemnly, but looking still a little incredulous. "You and I can do it." "You bet we can!" "Let's do it. Shake hands." And thus, while the amazed factions looked on the two modern young mountaineers, eye to eye and hand gripping hand, pledged death to the long warfare between their clans and a deathless friendship between themselves. And a little later a group of lounging Hawns and Honeycutts in the porches of the two ancient hostile hotels saw the two riding out of town side by side, unarmed, and on their way to bring old Aaron and old Jason together and make peace between them. The coincidence was curious, but old Aaron, who had started for town, met old Jason coming out of a ravine only a mile from town, for old Jason, with a sudden twitch of memory, had turned to go up a hollow where lived a Hawn he wanted to see and was coming back to the main road again. Both were dim-sighted, both wore spectacles, both of their old nags were going at a walk, making no noise in the deep sand, and only when both horses stopped did either ancient peer forward and see the other. "Well, by God," quavered both in the same voice. And each then forgot his mission of peace, and began to climb, grunting, from his horse, each hitching it to the fence. "This is the fust time in five year, Jason Hawn, you an' me come together, an' you know whut I swore I'd do," cackled old Aaron. Old Jason's voice was still deep. "Well, you've got yo' chance now, you old bag o' bones! Them two boys o' ours air all right but thar hain't no manhood left in this hyeh war o' ours. Hit's just a question of which hired feller gits the man who hired the other feller. We'll fight the ole way. You hain't got a knife--now?" "Damn yo' hide!" cried old Aaron. "Do you reckon I need hit agin you?" He reached in his pocket and tossed a curved-bladed weapon into the bushes. "Well," mumbled old Jason, "I can whoop you, fist an' skull, right now, just as I allers have done."