.

"Why must there be 'blood feud' now? Why can't you go on in the old
way?"

"Hit's Frale done hit. He an' Ferd'nan' Teasley, they set up 'stillin'
ovah in Dark Cornder yandah. Hit do work a heap o' trouble, that thar. I
reckon you-uns don't have nothin' sich whar you come from?"

"We have things quite as bad. So they quarrelled, did they?"

"Yaas, they quarrelled, an' they fit."

"No doubt they had been drinking."

"Yas, I reckon."

"But just a drunken quarrel between those two ought not to affect all
the rest. Couldn't you patch it up among you, and keep the boy at home?
You must need his help on the place."

"We need him bad here, but the' is no way fer to make up an' right a
blood feud. Frale done them mean. He lifted his hand an' killed his
friend. Hit war Sunday evenin' he done hit. They had been havin' a
singin' thar at the mill, an' preachah, he war thar too, an' all war
kind an' peaceable; an' Ferd an' Frale, they sot out fer thar
'still'--Ferd on foot an' Frale rid'n' his horse--the one you have
now--they used to go that-a-way, rid'n' turn about--one horse with them
an' one horse kep' alluz hid nigh the 'still' lest the gov'nment men
come on 'em suddent like. Frale, he war right cute, he nevah war come up
with.

"'Pears like they stopped 'fore they'd gone fer, disputin' 'bouts
somethin'. Ol' Miz Teasley say she heered ther voices high an' loud, an'
then she heered a shot right quick, that-a-way, an' nothin' more; an'
she sont ol' man Teasley an' the preachah out, an' the hull houseful
follered, an' thar they found Ferd lyin' shot dade--an' Frale--he an'
the horse war gone. Ferd, he still held his own gun in his hand tight,
like he war goin' to shoot, with the triggah open an' his fingah on
hit--but he nevah got the chance. Likely if he had, hit would have been
him a-hidin' now, an' Frale dade. I reckon so."

Thryng listened in silence. It made him think of the old tales of the
Scottish border. So, in plain words, the young man was a murderer. With
deep pity he recalled the haunted look in Frale's eyes, and the sadness
that trembled around Cassandra's lips as she said, "I reckon there is no
trouble worse than ours." A thought struck him, and he asked:--

"Do you know what they quarrelled about?"

"He nevah let on what-all was the fuss. Likely he told Cass, but she is
that still. Hit's right hard to raise a blood feud thar when we-uns an'
the Teasleys alluz war friends. She took keer o' me when m