"I suppose your grandmother is right--I had better not attempt too much climbing the first day," smiled Isabel. Very reluctantly, Fult departed; and when he was at a safe distance, Aunt Ailsie began, in a low voice, the "Ballad of the Fallon-Kent War":-- "Come all young men and maidens fair And hear a tale of trouble. Take warning, boys, shun packing guns, And likewise liquor's bubble. "Red Rafe and Fighting Fult, when young, Both follered driving cattle Down to the level land; a word Did plunge them into battle. "Both being drunk, a brindle steer Hit sarved as cause for quarrel; The lie was give, then weepons drawed, Then two smoking gun-bar'ls. "Both being wounded bad, hate kept A-working like slow pizen: Each vowed that t'other he would kill The minute he laid eyes on. "Fult's friends was quick to take his part, The Kent clan strong did rally, And War hit fell on Troublesome Like a land-slip down a valley. "O Lord, I hate to tell the tale Of all the woes that followed. Twenty-five year in troubles sore The county hit was swallowed. "For both was men of high degree, With office in the county; Fult to the Jail-house held the key, Rafe drawed the Sheriff's bounty. "And more and more, as years went by, Outsiders in hit mingled; And worse and worse, each day, the war With politics got tangled. "See at the Forks the two sides meet, At Christmas or Election. The nags they plunge, the bullets whiz, The guns they bark destruction. "Beneath the beds the women-folks And babes they go a-diving, And all the folks that follers peace In corners dark are hiving. "Oh, hear the wounded yell, and see The nags in franzy tromping All on the dying men beneath, Their foamy bits a-chomping. "And now the battle's over, see The dead lay cold and torn there, And hear the women's shrieks and prayers Upon the breezes borne there. "Again, Rafe's crew besiege the Jail, With many a shot and shell, sir; Fult and his fighting men within, They shorely give 'em hell, sir. "Or maybe in the courthouse, when The proof one side again' goes, The war busts forth, and jury, judge, And lawyers seek the windows. "The years pass on, but not the hate; Death keeps his toll a-taking; Rafe's brothers two, and brothers' sons And many more in-raking. "And Fult his kin and friends sees die For him, but still he lingers, A rifle ever on his arm, Three pistols nigh his fingers. "They cannot whip him in fair fray, So strategy they hatch up. Rafe feigns to go a journey far, A bad man for to catch up. "Him and his men ride off by day, But back by night they crawl, oh, And hide away by the main road, All in a spruce-pine hollow. "Fult, breathing free at last, rides out, His thoughts removed from danger; Both mind and body take the rest To which they are a stranger.