, he is regarded as a busybody or suspected
as a spy, and is likely to be run out of the country or even "laywayed"
and silenced forever.

What causes feuds?

Some of them start in mere drunken rows or in a dispute over a game of
cards; others in quarrels over land boundaries or other property. The
Hatfield-McCoy feud started because Randolph McCoy penned up two wild
hogs that were claimed by Floyd Hatfield. The spite over these hogs
broke out two years later, and one partisan was killed from ambush. The
feud itself began in 1882 over a debt of $1.75, with the hogs and the
bushwhacking brought up in recrimination. Love of women is the primary
cause, or the secondary aggravation, of many a feud. Some of the most
widespread and deadliest vendettas have originated in political strifes.

It should be understood that national and state politics cut little or
no figure in these "wars." Local politics in most of the mountain
counties is merely a factional fight, in which family matters and
business interests are involved, and the contest becomes bitterly
personal on that account. This explains most of the collusion or
partisanship of county officers and their remissness in enforcing the
law in murder cases. Family ties or political alliances override even
the oath of office.

Within the past year I have heard a deputy sheriff admit nonchalantly,
on the stand, that when a homicide was committed near him, and he was
the only officer in the vicinity, he advised the slayer to take to the
mountains and "hide out." The judge questioned him sharply on this
point, was reassured by the witness that it was so, and then--offered no
comment at all. Within the same period, in another but not distant
court, a desperado from the Shelton Laurel, on trial for murder,
admitted that he had shot six men since he moved over from Tennessee to
North Carolina, and swore that while he was being held in jail pending
trial for this last offense the sheriff permitted him to "keep a gun in
his cell, drink whiskey in the jail, and eat at table with the family of
the sheriff."

Feuds spread not only through clan fealty but also because they offer
excellent chances to pay off old scores. The mountaineer has a long
memory. The average highlander is fiery and combative by nature, but at
the same time cunning and vindictive. If publicly insulted he will
strike at once, but if he feels wronged by some act that does not demand
instant retaliation he will br