Kentuckian, he said,
from the Bluegrass region, and he was buying timber through the hills.
He volunteered this, but the New England man made no self-revealment.
Instead he burst out:

"_How_ do these people live this way?"

"They have to--they're pretty poor."

"They don't have to keep--dirty."

"They've got used to it, and so would you if your folks had been living
out in this wilderness for a hundred years."

From a yard that they passed, a boy with a vacant face and retreating
forehead dropped his axe to stare at them.

"That's the second one I've seen," said the professor.

"Yes, idiots are not unusual in these mountains--inbreeding!"

"Do they still have moonshining and feuds and all that yet?"

"Plenty of moonshining. The feuds are all over practically,
though I did hear that the big feud over the mountain was
likely to be stirred up again--the old Camp and Adkin feud."
A question came faintly from behind:

"Do you know any of the Camps?"

"Used to know old Red King Camp, the leader. He's in the penitentiary
now for killing a man. What's the matter?" He turned in his saddle,
but the New Englander had recovered himself.

"Nothing--nothing. It seems awful to a Northern man."

The stranger thought he had heard a groan behind him, and he had--King Camp
was the name of the Northern man's father-in-law. Ah, he was beginning to
understand; but why did Juno not want him to come for five years?

"Is--is Red King Camp--how long was his sentence?"

"Let's see--he's been in two years, and I heard he had three years more.
Yes, I remember--he got five years."

Once more the Bluegrass man thought he heard a groan, but the other
was only clearing his throat. The New Englander asked no more questions,
and about two hours by sun they rode over a ridge and down to the bed of
Clover Fork.

"Well, stranger, we part here. You go up to the head of the creek, and
anybody'll tell you where Red King lives. There's plenty of moonshining
up that way, and if anybody asks your name and your business--tell 'em
quick. They won't bother you. And if I were you I wouldn't criticise these
people to _anybody_. They're morbidly sensitive, and you never know when
you are giving mortal offense. And, by the way, most offenses _are_ mortal
in these hills."

"Thank you. Good-by--and thank you."

Everybody knew where old King Camp lived--"Fust house a leetle way down
t'other side o' the mountain from the head of Clover." And nobody