in the
woods daytimes, and balls at the house nights. These people was mostly
kinfolks of the family. The men brought their guns with them. It was a
handsome lot of quality, I tell you.

There was another clan of aristocracy around there--five or six
families--mostly of the name of Shepherdson. They was as high-toned
and well born and rich and grand as the tribe of Grangerfords. The
Shepherdsons and Grangerfords used the same steamboat-landing, which
was about two mile above our house; so sometimes when I went up there
with a lot of our folks I used to see a lot of the Shepherdsons there
on their fine horses.

One day Buck and me was away out in the woods hunting, and heard a
horse coming. We was crossing the road. Buck says:

"Quick! Jump for the woods!"

We done it, and then peeped down the woods through the leaves. Pretty
soon a splendid young man came galloping down the road, setting his
horse easy and looking like a soldier. He had his gun across his
pommel. I had seen him before. It was young Harney Shepherdson. I
heard Buck's gun go off at my ear, and Harney's hat tumbled off from
his head. He grabbed his gun and rode straight to the place where we
was hid. But we didn't wait. We started through the woods on a run.
The woods warn't thick, so I looked over my shoulder to dodge the
bullet, and twice I seen Harney cover Buck with his gun; and then he
rode away the way he come--to get his hat, I reckon, but I couldn't
see. We never stopped running till we got home. The old gentleman's
eyes blazed a minute--'twas pleasure, mainly, I judged--then his face
sort of smoothed down, and he says, kind of gentle:

"I don't like that shooting from behind a bush. Why didn't you step
into the road, my boy?"

"The Shepherdsons don't, father. They always take advantage."

Miss Charlotte she held her head up like a queen while Buck was
telling his tale, and her nostrils spread and her eyes snapped. The
two young men looked dark, but never said nothing. Miss Sophia she
turned pale, but the color come back when she found the man warn't
hurt.

Soon as I could get Buck down by the corn-cribs under the trees by
ourselves, I says:

"Did you want to kill him, Buck?"

"Well, I bet I did."

"What did he do to you?"

"Him? He never done nothing to me."

"Well, then, what did you want to kill him for?"

"Why, nothing--only it's on account of the feud."

"What's a feud?"

"Why, where was you raised? Don't you know what a