From eminences of the hills that crowded this town into a mere ragged plot, the most prominent institutions observable were the Courthouse and the graveyard, with the second look favoring the latter. One marvelled at the population of this habitat of the dead, sprawling on the side of a hill. Their countless pale hands thrust up out of the ground, seemed to have frightened the river, for here it turned sharply and dodged away between the mountains. The Courthouse was in the upper end of the town. It was framed and roofed with clapboards. In front, a crude attempt of hypostyle was visible in the two huge pillars of poplar logs that supported a balcony. The structure bellied out at the sides and oddly, at each corner of the roof, two mansard windows projected like ears, while above all a pigmy dome arose covered with unpainted tin. Withal, from afar the Courthouse looked like a decrepit bull dog squatting amidst a scattered litter of pups. The dome of this temple of justice looked up askew at the sun with the bluish-yellow glaze of a blind eye. Topographically, young Sap McGill and old Hank Eversole owned this town. Morally and spiritually they were paupers, and their souls were as pitted and yellow and gray as the town looked to be. Moreover, the McGills "said" they owned five thousand acres in the Southpaw range abutting Hellsfork, where they lived. Their verbal deed to these acres was sustained by a cavalcade of rifle men and a squad of wary, creeping bush-whackers. Old McGill and old Eversole had fought the Lutts faction for twenty years, but old Lutts had ever proved a most formidable antagonist, and when he brought the fearful Johnse Hatfield up to Moon mountain as aide, there was both renewed caution and consternation in the McGill camp. Then, when old Cap Lutts finally killed the elder Sap McGill on Hellsfork, one Sunday morning, they foresaw an eclipse that would bedim their day of power and their impotent chagrin and rage was unbounded. Where his father had left off, young Sap then took up the feud with a re-enforced vengeance. Then one day when the tidings came down to Junction City that the old King of Moon mountain had been killed by a revenuer, the exultation of the McGill faction was unconfined. Following closely upon this, a traitor sneaked down from Hellsfork and whispered to old Eversole the news of the arrest and spiriting away of Lem Lutts. The accrued glee of Eversole and young Sap with this opportune turn of affairs reached a stage that demanded expression. Wherefore, they celebrated with a public barbecue on the Courthouse lawn, and great rejoicing was mingled with sanguine prophecies, and the drunker Sap became the louder his avowals to annihilate the Lutts faction.