sation, and Miss Liz, without
suspecting the sting it carried, had launched into a tirade against the
lawlessness of the mountaineers who killed and were killed with an
abandon worthy of Apaches. That he should now be so frantically
signalling, as though he knew in her would be found help, touched the
girl's responsive nature. Brent, seeing this--as he saw much that passed
about him--whispered to her:

"After all's said and done, it's a good feeling--that of being needed,
isn't it?"

"Our mountaineers are not law breakers, Lizzie," the Colonel was saying
with more than ordinary sharpness in defense of his guest--and of his
State. "They keep the law extraordinarily well."

"How can you make such a statement!" the good lady cried. "I constantly
hear of men being killed up in that wicked country!"

"It's very much exaggerated, as Brent would say," he chuckled. "At any
rate," he cleared his throat, "I refer to the common law."

Bob and Brent exchanged winks. They knew the old gentleman was getting
frightfully tangled, and were curious to see how he would work himself
out of it.

"Then I suppose you mean," her voice rang with the challenge, "that
killing people is compatible with the common law?"

"Legal hangings are," he smiled blandly. "But, what I do seriously mean
is this: the common law of a country, and therefore the common law of a
place, is merely--and nothing more than--a common custom plus the power
to change that custom. This being the case, the mountaineer of Kentucky
is within the common law of his section, providing that he kills only
within that section where it is a common custom--plus the power to
change that custom."

Miss Liz sighed. "It doesn't sound like good sense," she said, "but may
be correct. I have always thought that law is law, everywhere."

"Law is law, my dear," he gently explained to her, "until it is changed;
certainly. But it is not always good sense. Take our waterways
hereabouts! They are every one governed by the same old law of riparian
rights which we took from England, whose waterways are no more like
those in this country than threads are like ropes. And, moreover,
England's law was construed long before the dream of artificial power,
having to do merely with streams adapted to navigation. Who cared then
for a falls or rapids? Who would have been mad enough to think of
bridled electricity? So today, these falls and rapids, which are quite
out of the question for navigable p