The child shook the mass of black hair back from her face, and looked squarely into the old man’s eyes. The concentrated hatred and fury of three generations gave her the appearance of a witch. “Don’t you worry, grandpa. Let daddy and uncle Bob give up if they want to, but no Wait will ever cross the line while I am here to help you.”

Her grandfather patted her head proudly. “That’s the girl. I knew I could count on you, Vic. Now go in the house, and get some lunch. Then we’ll go down to the village again. I want to get a look at that handsome young man myself.”

Vic glared at him angrily. “I had to say that to tell you what he looked like. Let him go into the Wait’s store, and I’ll show you what I think of his looks.” She tossed her head defiantly and stalked into the house with great dignity.

The old man watched her go with a twinkle of pride in his eye and smiled affectionately. Then he turned away and looked sadly down into the valley. These were indeed sad times when the honor of the Morgans rested on a girl of thirteen, and an old man past sixty, but his gaunt frame straightened unconsciously at the thought, and his chin set all the harder. If the Waits thought that they could walk over him because he was old they were surely reckoning without their host.

CHAPTER V
HOPWOOD

While the old man and the child were pledging their everlasting hatred to the Waits, Scott Burton, with puzzled frown, was slowly climbing the mountain road to their cabin. He did not know the location of old Jarred Morgan’s cabin, and probably would have avoided it if he had, for he wanted to think this feud business over before he talked to any of them. Ignorant of how close he was to them, he turned into the woods less than a quarter of a mile below them and sat down with his back against the trunk of a great, wide-spreading beech tree. He was out of sight of the road, and he had purposely chosen the spot in the deep woods to be free from interruption.

So this was the simple little job which the Service had given him to complete before he went back to his old home in the southwest? Why did they always pick him out to unravel some mess? He had never had a job where he could really show what he could do. Always there had been some complication, something outside of the regular line of duty that had taken his whole time and attention. Never had he found himself in a position where he could devote himself to his technical work and show what he knew. Even when he had logged his own land he had found his operations hindered by the bully of the country who had tried to ruin him. His first impulse now was to write to the Service that he did not care to mix up in this mess at all. If they wanted him to go back to his old post, all right; otherwise, he would resign. He had made enough to live on out of his own logging operations, and he could make more the same way. He did not have to worry over these miserable feuds. Two men had already lost their reputations on this job and been run out of the country and....

Right there Scott lost all interest in that line of thought. Was he going to let them run him out of the country? His jaw set at the mere thought of it, and he knew that he would never leave till he had been completely beaten or was carried out in a wooden box. He dropped all idea of giving up the job and settled down to look it squarely in the face.

Just what was this problem anyway? The government owned a big tract of land here, and there was timber on it that was ready to be cut, and it was up to him as supervisor to sell it. It was located on both sides of the valley, part in Wait territory and part in Morgan. Two other men had already tried it, and had failed utterly before they had ever started because they had become involved in this everlasting feud between the Waits and the Morgans.

When he really thought about it, it did not seem to be such an impossible task. Why should he mix up in this feud at all? It looked as though old Foster Wait was to blame for starting it years ago, but it did not matter now who was originally to blame, they were both equally to blame for keeping it up all these years. He would put it up to them squarely that they had to forget the feud, and come together or he would have nothing to do with either of them. Just what could they have to do with it in any event? He did not think, from what he had seen of the country people there, that either family could scrape together enough money to buy the timber on a single acre. He did not see how they could influence the sale one way or the other, and he was not going to let them do it if they could.