"That was it—that's what caused it. We were engaged to be married, but we belonged to opposing clans. She was a Randolph, you see, and I'm a McIvor——"
"Ah!" exclaimed Meshackatee, "I'm beginning to savvy. The Randolph-McIvor feud—back in Kaintuck!"
"Yes, that's it," went on McIvor feverishly, "but let me explain it to you. Our families have been at war for over twenty years, and each year the feud becomes worse. It's cost the Randolph faction over four hundred dead and the McIvors over three hundred that we know of. Men are found dead in the woods, just as I was left for dead, and others are never found. All our relatives are engaged in it, and hundreds of outsiders who hardly know what they're fighting for. All they think of is free whiskey and midnight raids and a chance to get revenge on some enemy; and so it goes until the mountains are a battle-ground and men have turned to brutes. And there's no power that can stop it, neither the courts nor the militia, because we live far back in the hills; but if I could marry Allifair, then the blood-feud would be ended and the Randolphs and McIvors would be friends."
"I understand," murmured Meshackatee, and sat smiling benevolently as the young man gazed off into space.
"We met by accident," he went on at last, "while I was scouting in their country. But she spared my life, she did not report me, and the next time we met we were friends. She's such a gentle creature—and I had turned rough, from living out and fighting for years—but somehow she learned to love me and the dream came to both of us to marry and end the feud. I was building a cabin, far up in the hills where no one would ever find us, when a dirty little spy discovered our meeting place and the Randolphs became aware of our plans. They watched us—and the next time I went to our tree there was no one there, she was gone. They reported her dead—shot down by the McIvors, for our womenfolks make war among themselves—but I asked all our women and none of them had done it, though many of them would gladly have done so.
"Can you imagine such conditions—gentle women, well-educated, going out like wild animals to strike down a woman like Allifair? I must have gone mad, for I went back to our meeting place, and there this dirty spy shot me. He shot me clean through the heart, or so it appeared, but the bullet went low and after they had left me I came to life and crept to a cave. There I lived on pure water for eleven days and as my body became purified I had visions and dreams, such as no man ever had before. And when I was well I crept up by night and listened at a camp of the Randolphs. That was where I heard that Allifair still lived and had been sent out to her aunt in Arizona.
"But what her aunt's name was, or where her husband lived, was something I never could learn; so I left and came out here, determined to find her if it took the rest of my life."
"Well, you've found her," observed Meshackatee, apparently unruffled by the harrowing tale of his friend, "so what's the next thing now?"
"They'll kill her!" he groaned, "they'll actually kill her before they'll consent to her marrying a McIvor. So if you want to kill me too and ruin both our lives, just tell who I am to the Scarboroughs."
"Oh, no! Oh, no!" replied Meshackatee reassuringly, "that won't be necessary at all. Of course I'm working for Isham, and when I take a man's money, I aim to give him my best; but it won't be necessary—that is, always provided you're willing to help me out?"