ickness of
motion and cracked with seemingly no interval of aim-taking, and the
bird fell as the squirrel had done.

Rowlett flushed to his high cheekbones. This was a country of riflemen
where skill was the rule and its lack the exception, yet even here few
men could duplicate that achievement, or, without seeing it, believe it
possible. It had been characterized, too, by the incredible swiftness of
a sleight-of-hand performance.

"Hell's red hole," came the visitor's eruptive outburst of amazement.
"Ef ther man-person thet used ter dwell in this hyar house, and his
kinfolks, hed of shot thet fashion, I reckon mebby ther Rowletts
wouldn't never hev run old Burrell Thornton outen these mountings."

"Did they run him out?"

Rowlett studied his companion much as he might have studied someone who
calmly admits a stultifying ignorance.

"Hain't ye nuver heered tell of ther Harper-Doane war?" he demanded and
Maggard shook an unabashed head.

"I hain't nuver heered no jedgmatic details," he amended, "I knowed
thar was sich-like warfare goin' on here one time. My folks used ter
dwell in Kaintuck onc't but hit war afore my own day."

"Come on over hyar," prompted Rowlett, and he led the way to the back of
the house where half-buried in the tangle that had overrun the place
stood the ruins of a heavy and rotting log stockade.

"Old Burrell Thornton dwelt hyar in ther old days," he vouchsafed, "an'
old Burrell bore ther repute of being ther meanest man in these parts.
He dastn't walk in his own backyard withouten he kept thet log wall
betwixt hisself an' ther mounting-side. So long as him an' old Mose
Rowlett both lived thar warn't no peace feasible nohow. Cuss-fights an'
shootin's an' laywayin's went on without no eend, twell finely hit come
on ter be sich a hell-fired mommick thet ther two outfits met up an' fit
a master battle in Claytown. Hit lasted nigh on ter two days."

"What war ther upcome of ther matter?" inquired the householder, and the
narrator went on:

"Ther Harpers an' Thorntons went inside ther co'te house an' made a
pint-blank fort outen hit, an' ther Rowletts tuck up _thar_ stand in
ther stores an' streets. They frayed on, thet fashion, twell ther Doanes
wearied of hit an' sot ther co'te house afire. Some score of fellers war
shot, countin' men an' boys, and old Mose Rowlett, thet was headin' ther
Doanes, war kilt dead. Then--when both sides war plum frazzled ragged
they patched up a truce betwixt '