“There certainly couldn’t be anything squarer than that!” exclaimed Hamilton.  “And he gave the boy the farm, too?”

“Every inch of it.  Jed Beaupoint was a squar’ man, cl’ar through.  An’ he said to the boy—­he tol’ me the story himself—­’Johnny Calvern, thar’s yo’ farm an’ yo’ rifle.  Now, if yo’re willin’, I’ll see that thar’s no trouble until yo’re twenty-one, an’ then yo’ c’n go huntin’ revenge if yo’ve a mind to, or, if you’re willin’, we’ll call the trouble off now, an’ thar won’t be any need o’ rakin’ it up again.’”

“He made it up on the spot, of course?” questioned Hamilton.

The Kentuckian shook his head.

“He did not,” he replied.  “The boy thought a minute or two an’ then said he’d wait until he was grown up, an’ let him know then.”

“Although he had been brought up by the Beaupoints!” exclaimed the boy in surprise.  “But surely it never came up again.”

“Well, not exac’ly.  When Johnny Calvern was about nineteen he got married, an’ a few days befo’ the time when he would be twenty-one, he rode up to the Beaupoint place, an’ tol’ the ol’ man that he was willin’ to let the feud rest another ten years, because of his wife an’ little baby, but that he would be ready to resume shootin’ at that time.”

“But he had no real grudge against the Beaupoints had he, Uncle Eli?  They had always been kind to him, you said.”

“Not a bit o’ grudge,” the mountaineer answered, “they were good friends.  An’ I reckon it wasn’t Johnny that wanted the trouble to begin again, but thar’s always a lot o’ hotheads pryin’ into other folks’ business.  However, ol’ Jed Beaupoint didn’t mind; he agreed to another ten years’ truce, an’ all went on peacefully as befo’.  Durin’ those ten years, however, Johnny’s wife died, an’ he got married again, this time to the sister o’ a wanderin’ preacher, a girl who had once lived in cities, an’ she soon showed him that the ol’ feud business must be forgotten.  But it is a mite unusual, even hyeh, to farm a man’s land an’ bring up his child fo’ thirteen years, an’ then give him everythin’ yo’ can with the privilege o’ shootin’ yo’ at sight for all the favors done.”

“It doesn’t sound a bit like the usual feud story,” said Hamilton, “one always thinks of those as being cold-blooded and cruel.”

“Thar an’t a mite o’ intentional cruelty in them; it’s jes’ that life is held cheap.  Most o’ them begun over some small thing like an election.”

“There were quite a number of them, Uncle Eli, weren’t there?”

“One ran into the other so easily that one feud would often look like half a dozen, an’ trouble would be goin’ on in various places.  But there were really seven of them, all big ones.”

[Illustration:  Kentucky mountaineer family.  In the heart of the feud district, where the rifle is never out of reach. (Courtesy of the Spirit of Missions.)]

“What were they, Uncle Eli?”