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In Breathitt the feud was long past, and with good reason old Gabe thought that it was done in Hazlan. But that autumn a panic started over from England. It stopped the railroad far down the Cumberland; it sent the "furriners" home, and drove civilization back. Marcums and Braytons came in from hiding, and drifted one by one to the old fighting-ground.

Each leader trading in Hazlan had debtors scattered through the mountains, and these rallied to aid the man who had befriended them. Political rivalry had wedged apart two strong families, the Marcums and Braytons; a boundary line in dispute was a chain of bitterness; a suit in a country court had sown seeds of hatred.

He stood in the doorway, looking long and perplexedly towards Hazlan; he finally saw, he thought, just what the lad's trouble was. He could give him some comfort, and he got his chair and dragged it out to the door across the platform, and sat down in silence. "Isom," he said at last, "the Spent air shorely a-workin' ye, 'n' I'm glad of it.

'Pears like Abe had foun' a streak o' iron ore on the lan', an' had racked his jinny right down to Hazlan an' tol' the furriner, who was thar a-buyin' wild lands right an' left. Co'se, Abe was goin' to make the furriner whack up fer gittin' the lan' so cheap.

Certain men were looking for each other, and it was a question of "draw-in' quick 'n' shootin' quick" when the two met by accident, or of getting the advantage "from the bresh." In time Steve Marcum had come face to face with old Steve Brayton in Hazlan, and the two Steves, as they were known, drew promptly.

"Ye know, too, that he thinks he has played the same game with me; but ye don't know, I reckon, that he had ole Jim Stover 'n' that mis'able Eli Crump a-hidin' in the bushes to shoot me" again he grasped the torn lapel; "that a body warned me to git away from Hazlan; n' the night I left home they come thar to kill me, 'n' s'arched the house, 'n' skeered Mollie n' the leetle gal 'most to death."

A few days later he went to Hazlan of his own accord and gave up his gun to Raines. He wouldn't shake hands with old Brayton, he said, nor with any other man who would hire another man to do his "killin';" but he promised to fight no more, and he kept his word. A flood followed on New Year's day.

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 Hazlan, as it had pressed in on Breathitt, the seat of another feud, in another county.

"I hain't afeerd o' nothin' nor nobody;" but he lay brooding until his head throbbed, until darkness filled the narrow gorge, and the strip of dark blue up through the trees was pointed with faint stars. He was troubled when he rose, and climbed on Rome's horse and rode homeward so troubled that he turned finally and started back in a gallop for Hazlan. It was almost as Crump had said.

Her sudden anger was significant, as was the sight of the Lewallens going armed to court, and Rome rode on, uneasy. When he reached Troubled Fork, in sight of Hazlan, he threw a cartridge into place and shifted the slide to see that it was ready for use.