Isabel noticed that the Winchester no longer reposed on the wagon-floor, and asked the reason.
"We passed the county line when we crossed White Doe last night," Uncle Adam said. "Hit's only in Bloody Breathitt that a weepon is called for."
"They have no wars, then, in this county?"
"Oh, yes, they got one; but hit's more open and fa'r and squar—not laywaying and ambushing and sech, like in Breathitt, whar the wrong man gets kilt often as not. Life is tolable safe in this county, and talking hain't so dangerous, neither. I allus keep my mouth shet in Breathitt—have follered hit sence I were young. But here I can speak freer. Now this here war on Troublesome—"
"Oh, do you actually mean there is a war where Cousin Amy and the tents are?" cried Isabel, delightedly.
"Right thar at the Forks of Troublesome," replied Uncle Adam; "Fallons and Kents, they both live thar, and for nigh thirty year thar's been a sight of hate and bloodshed betwixt 'em. But they have fit in the open, and done their own killing, mostly—not hired hit done, like they foller doing in Breathitt; and so a man has more respects for 'em. Sence the two main heads, Fighting Fult Fallon and Red Rafe Kent, got kilt off things hain't been quite so bad. You see, Red Rafe he finally kilt Fighting Fult; and then young Fult you might say had a bound to revenge his paw, and he kilt Rafe; and then there was a spell of peace whilst young Fult was down at Frankfort a year—"
"Do you mean in the penitentiary?"
"Yes; and then whilst he fit a year in Cuby. But when he come home, 'peared like he was kindly wild-turned, and hit wa'n't no time till him and Rafe's boy, Darcy, started the war all over again. The two boys don't hardly ever meet without shooting, and they've wounded each other time and again, though not fatal; and t'other boys that runs with 'em has been kilt and wounded, and things is pretty bad. But I heared tell that at a picnic the quare women give on the hill last Thursday, nigh all the county being thar, old Uncle Ephraim Kent, the grand-daddy of Troublesome, some way or 'nother persuaded Fult and Darcy to call a truce for the time the women stayed. I allow hit's true. But of course hit won't last—there's too long-lived a hate betwixt Kents and Fallons ever to raly die down."
He was interrupted by the stopping of the wagon, the bed of which had caught on a large boulder, hidden by the muddy water.
Without a word, or the least show of annoyance, Uncle Adam got out, waded the creek to the bank, climbed to a rail-fence not far away, and returned with a rail, with which, almost thigh-deep in water all the time, he prized and tugged till the wagon was detached from the rock.