"You won't believe me when I say that I'm almost sorry I sent for you." She spoke almost breathlessly. "I didn't know that it would be like this. That you would come with a smile on your face and a light in your eyes, looking for happiness. And instead of happiness--to find _all this_!" She stretched her arms to the forests. Bruce understood her perfectly. She did not mean the woods in the literal sense. She meant the primal emotions that were their spirit. She went on with lowered tones. "May Heaven forgive me if I have done wrong to bring you here," she told him. "To show you--all that I have to show--you who are a city man and a gentleman. But, Bruce, I couldn't fight alone any more. I had to have help. "To know the rest, you've got to go back a whole generation. Bruce, have you heard of the terrible blood-feuds that the mountain families sometimes have?" "Of course. Many times." "These mountains of Trail's End have been the scene of as deadly a blood-feud as was ever known in the West. And for once, the wrong was all on one side. "A few miles from here there is a wonderful valley, where a stream flows. There is not much tillable land in these mountains, Bruce, but there, along that little stream, there are almost five sections--three thousand acres--of as rich land as was ever plowed. And Bruce--the home means something in the mountains. It isn't just a place to live in, a place to leave with relief. I've tried to tell you that emotions are simple and direct up here, and love of home is one of them. That tract of land was acquired long ago by a family named Ross, and they got it through some kind of grant. I can't be definite as to the legal aspects of all this story. They don't matter anyway--only the results remain. "These Ross men were frontiersmen of the first order. They were virtuous men too--trusting every one, and oh! what strength they had! With their own hands they cleared away the forest and put the land into rich pasture and hay and grain. They built a great house for the owner of the land, and lesser houses for his kinsfolk that helped him work it on shares. Then they raised cattle, letting them range on the hills and feeding them in winter. You see, the snow is heavy in winter, and unless the stock are fed many of them die. The Rosses raised great herds of cattle and had flocks of sheep too. "It was then that dark days began to come. Another family--headed by the father of the man I call Simon--migrated here from the mountain districts of Oklahoma. But they were not so ignorant as many mountain people, and they were _killers_. Perhaps that's a word you don't know. Perhaps you didn't know it existed. A killer is a man that has killed other men. It isn't a hard thing to do at all, Bruce, after you are used to it. These people were used to it. And because they wanted these great lands--my own father's home--they began to kill the Rosses.