The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Last Stetson, by John Fox Jr.

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Title: The Last Stetson

Author: John Fox Jr.

Posting Date: February 9, 2009 [EBook #3024]
Release Date: January, 2002

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE LAST STETSON ***

Produced by David Reed

THE LAST STETSON

By John Fox Jr.

I.

A MIDSUMMER freshet was running over old Gabe Bunch's water-wheel into
the Cumberland. Inside the mill Steve Marcum lay in one dark corner with
a slouched hat over his face. The boy Isom was emptying a sack of corn
into the hopper. Old Gabe was speaking his mind.

Always the miller had been a man of peace; and there was one time when
he thought the old Stetson-Lewallen feud was done. That was when Rome
Stetson, the last but one of his name, and Jasper Lewallen, the last
but one of his, put their guns down and fought with bare fists on a high
ledge above old Gabe's mill one morning at daybreak. The man who was
beaten was to leave the mountains; the other was to stay at home and
have peace. Steve Marcum, a Stetson, heard the sworn terms and saw the
fight. Jasper was fairly whipped; and when Rome let him up he proved
treacherous and ran for his gun. Rome ran too, but stumbled and fell.
Jasper whirled with his Winchester and was about to kill Rome where he
lay, when a bullet came from somewhere and dropped him back to the ledge
again. Both Steve Marcum and Rome Stetson said they had not fired the
shot; neither would say who had. Some thought one man was lying, some
thought the other was, and Jasper's death lay between the two. State
troops came then, under the Governor's order, from the Blue Grass, and
Rome had to drift down the river one night in old Gabe's canoe and on
Out of the mountains for good. Martha Lewallen, who, though Jasper's
sister, and the last of the name, loved and believed Rome, went with
him. Marcums and Braytons who had taken sides in the fight hid in the
bushes around Hazlan, or climbed over into Virginia. A railroad started
up the Cumberland. "Furriners came in to buy wild lands and get out
timber." Civilization began to press over the mountains and down on
Haz