ood over it and plot patiently to get his
enemy at a disadvantage. Some mountaineers always fight fair; but many
of them prefer to wait and watch quietly until the foe gets drunk and
unwary, or until he is engaged in some illegal or scandalous act, or
until he is known to be carrying a concealed weapon, whereupon he can be
shot down unexpectedly and his assailant can "prove" by friendly
witnesses that he acted in self-defense. So, if a man be involved in
feud, he may be assassinated from ambush by someone who is not concerned
in the clan trouble, but who has hated him for years on another account,
and who knows that his death now will be charged up to the opposing
faction.

From the earliest times it has been customary for our highlanders to go
armed most of the time. This was a necessity in the old Indian-fighting
days, and throughout the kukluxing and white-capping era following the
Civil War. Such a habit, once formed, is hard to eradicate. Even to-day,
in all parts of Appalachia that I am familiar with, most of the young
men, I judge, and many of the older ones, carry concealed weapons.

Among them I have never seen a stand-up and knock-down fight according
to the rules of the ring. They have many rough-and-tumble brawls, in
which they slug, wrestle, kick, bite, strangle, until one gets the other
down, whereat the one on top continues to maul his victim until he cries
"Enough!" Oftener a club or stone will be used in mad endeavor to knock
the opponent senseless at a blow. There is no compunction about striking
foul and very little about "double-teaming." Let us pause long enough to
admit that this was the British and American way of man-handling,
universal among the common people, until well into the nineteenth
century--and the mountaineers are still ignorant of any other, except
fighting with weapons.

Many of the young men carry home-made billies or "brass knucks." Every
man and boy has at least a pocket-knife with serviceable blade. Fights
with such crude weapons are frequent. There are few spectacles more
sickening than two powerful but awkward men slashing each other with
common jack-knives, though the fatalities are much less frequent than in
gun-fighting. I have known two old mountain preachers to draw knives on
each other at the close of a sermon.

The typical highland bravo always carries a revolver or an automatic
pistol. This is likely to be a weapon of large bore and good
stopping-power that is worn