GGER

_Monday Morning._

Soon after breakfast on Saturday we set out on our sixteen-mile ride to
Trigger Branch, I on Mandy, Nucky walking,--he refused to ride behind,
remarking, "I'm allus used to seeing the women ride there." The day was
glorious, the way more and more beautiful as we proceeded. We crossed
three mountains, stopping on the top of one, where the sunlight sifted
down through translucent beech leaves, to eat our lunch, and then
"followed" Powderhorn, a large creek, two or three miles, finally
turning up Trigger Branch. At its mouth, Nucky pointed out the little
log school-house in which he has received his education up to this term,
and farther on he showed me various rocks and trees where he has
delighted to "layway" and "ambush" infant Cheevers. Trigger Branch is
the most picturesque creek I have yet seen; along its sides cliffs and
"rock-houses" alternate with rich hollows, small strips of bottom, and
steep but flourishing cornfields. All the houses we passed on the lower
reaches belonged to Cheevers, sons of Israel, and last of all was
Israel's home. Three "sights," or about a half-mile above this, is the
disputed boundary-line, which runs down from a mountain spur on the
right hand side, and then across a piece of bottom to the branch. The
bone of contention is a triangular slice of bottom, with its apex at the
foot of the spur, not an acre in extent, all told. As Nucky pointed it
out to me, I looked with mingled curiosity and horror. The fence of
course now stands on the ancient line claimed by the Marrses, where it
has stood for nearly a century and a quarter.

"It is impossible to believe that more than a dozen lives have been
sacrificed for this little piece of land," I said to Nucky, "why, I
doubt if you could raise forty bushels of corn a year on it."

His face flushed. "It haint the money's worth," he said, proudly;
"we don't care nothing about that. But it was granted to my
great-great-great-grandpaw for fighting the British, and me'n' Blant
would ruther die than part with a' inch of it."

He pointed to a thick, dark clump of hemlock near the foot of the spur,
on the Marrs land. "That's where I keep lookout of moonlight nights when
war is on," he said.

[Illustration: "'That's where I keep lookout of moonlight nights when
war is on.'"]

As we advanced, he showed me the steep cornfields tended by Blant and
himself, the almost upright pastures where some cattle and sheep were
fe