Jack smiled grimly. He understood some things that were hidden from Lee.
CHAPTER XIV
CONCERNING THE BOONE-BELLAMY-YARNELL FEUD
The story that Ferne Yarnell told them in the parlor of the hotel had its beginnings far back in the days before the great war. They had been neighbors, these three families, had settled side by side in this new land of Arkansas, had hunted and feasted together in amity. In an hour had arisen the rift between them that was to widen to a chasm into which much blood had since been spilt. It began with a quarrel between hotheaded young men. Forty years later it was still running its blind wasteful course.
Even before the war the Boones had begun to go down hill rapidly. Cad Boone, dissipated and unprincipled, had found even the lax discipline of the Confederate army too rigid and had joined the guerrillas, that band of hangers-on which respected neither flag and developed a cruelty that was appalling. Falling into the hands of Captain Ransom Yarnell, he had been tried by drumhead courtmartial and executed within twenty four hours of his capture.
The boast of the Boones was that they never 192 forgot an injury. They might wait many years for the chance, but in the end they paid their debts. Twenty years after the war Sugden Boone shot down Colonel Yarnell as he was hitching his horse in front of the courthouse at Nemo. Next Christmas eve a brother of the murdered man—Captain Tom, as his old troopers still called him—met old Sugden in the postoffice and a revolver duel followed. From it Captain Tom emerged with a bullet in his arm. Sugden was carried out of the store feet first to a house of mourning.
The Boones took their time. Another decade passed. Old Richard Bellamy, father of the young man, was shot through the uncurtained window of his living rooms while reading the paper one night. Though related to the Yarnells, he had never taken any part in the feud beyond that of expressing his opinion freely. The general opinion was that he had been killed by Dunc Boone, but there was no conclusive evidence to back it. Three weeks later another one of the same faction met his fate. Captain Tom was ambushed while riding from his plantation to town and left dead on the road. Dunc Boone had been seen lurking near the spot, and immediately after the killing he was met by two hunters as he was slipping through the underbrush for the swamps. There was no direct evidence against the young man, but Captain Tom had been the most popular man in the county. Reckless though he was, Duncan Boone had been forced 193 to leave the country by the intensity of the popular feeling against him.
Again the feud had slumbered. It was understood that the Yarnells and the Bellamys were ready to drop it. Only one of the opposite faction remained on the ground, a twin brother of Duncan. Shep Boone was a drunken ne’er-do-well, but since he now stood alone nothing more than empty threats was expected of him. He spent his time idly with a set of gambling loafers, but he lacked the quality of active malice so pronounced in Dunc.