y. A man from McDowell's Creek, about six miles from Flora,
took his first train-ride since the road was put through, fifteen years
ago."

"How extraordinary that seems! It was the day of his life, I suppose."
Katrina's eyes were large with amazement.

"In a way it was," said Bob, dryly, "for in Asheville he celebrated his
adventures not wisely, but too well, and on the way out he fell from
the platform and was killed."

"Bob, how can you be so flippant?" objected Sydney to the crestfallen
young man. "It seems a terrible end."

"All sudden deaths seem terrible to us who are left behind," said Mrs.
Carroll; "but even such an ending does not give us the shock that it
would if we did not live in a community accustomed to the accidents
consequent upon every man's carrying a revolver. It's a bad habit. I
hope you boys don't do it."

"No, indeed, Mrs. Carroll," they both replied, with suspicious
promptness, and they sat up very straight, so that the backs of their
coats presented an unbroken line.

John smiled at them.

"Are they often used?" he asked.

"Quite too often," answered Sydney, gravely. "As grandmother says, we
do, indeed, live close to nature. If a man is angry with his neighbor,
he calls him to his door on some moonless night and shoots him."

"In primitive society the primitive wants of man are satisfied in
primitive ways," remarked Bob.

"Moses ought to have put the Ten Commandments on something stronger
than stone if he meant them to be unbroken," added Patton.

Mrs. Carroll shook her head at him.

"I don't see how you can be so very primitive," insisted Katrina. "Now
this----" She glanced expressively about the room, where old portraits
surmounted the dark panelling and heavy rugs glowed warmly in the
firelight.

"Oh, we are as composite in our mountains as are the people of any
other part of these composite United States," said Sydney. "The
mountaineers themselves are a mixture. There are men in coves distant
from the railroad who are living on land to which their ancestors drove
up their cattle from the low country three or four generations ago.
These men are a law unto themselves. They have no opportunities for
educating their children, and once in a while you hear of a family that
never has heard the name of God."

"My great-grandfather came here in the early eighteen hundreds," said
Bob, "and a queer lot he must have found. They say that there was a
crop of younger sons of good English