Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1915-11-27

the front of her often bereayed house:
| There is no place like home" The
/ sequel tells that a cynical traveller
passing that way reflected on the an
mails of that dwelling and added in
| postscript: -Leastways not this side
J of hell"
The story of the Hatfield Mccoy
feud is in many ways that of other
wars" which have made of the roof
tree of the eastern divide land be-
1eaguered and unique.
In the war between the Haveys and
the McBriars there was more than the
! forgotten episode of stray razorback
| which was not surrendered to it's law
| full owners. They had for decades
| hated and killed each other with a
fidelity of bitterness that made all
their truces and intermarriages fail of
permanent peace.
Between the territories where they
| had originally settled stretched bar
rier of hills broken by only one gap.
The McBriars had made their first
| habitations east of that ridge and gap
where the waters ran toward the sea.
The Haveys had set up their power
to the west, where the creeks and
springs fed the rivers that went down
/ " Tie olu0-0IdSS anu u 10uHSSSS0
Had the two clans been content to re-
main respectively on the sunrise and
sunset slopes of the backbone, they
might never have clashed, but there
| were bright-eyed women to the west
and east Feminine Havey eyes lured
McBriar suitors, and McBriar girls
| seemed TO the Havey men worth any
| dare that fate might set So it has
been since young Montagues and
1 Capulets ignored deadlines-and long
| before. Smoke went up from cabins
| on both sides that housed men and
| women of both clans. Hatred scat
| tered and set up new points of infec-
| ton all along Tribulation and beyond
| it's headwaters.
In Civil war and subsequent politics
a line of fierce cleavage had yawned
| between them-and each faction had
been a power.
1t was to the leadership of such a
clan that Bad Anse had succeeded
when hardly twenty-one by the death
| of father whose end had not come
upon a bed of illness.
1t was to the herding of such flock
that he had ridden away from the
cabin of fetch McNash on the night
when the girls scornful taunt fol-
lowed him.
1t was an unfortunate thing that
| Cal Douglas should, on a February
/ afternoon, have shot to death his
brother-in-law, Noah Watt, even if, as
Cal earnestly assured the jury. "he
was jest obleeged an beholden ter do
| it." All the circumstances of the af-
fair were inopportune for his kinsman
and the kinsmen of the man who died
with a bullet through his vitals.
Cal bore a name for surly character,
and even in land where grudge-bear-
ing is religion he was deemed ultra
fanatical in tanning the flame of ha
tired. Noah Watt himself was little
| loved by either the Haveys, into whose
family he had married, or the McBri-
ars, from whom he sprang. Neigh
bors told of frequent and violent bick-
erings between the man and his
! shrewish wife./who was the twin Sis
ter of Cal Douglas
Cal Douglas an Noey Watts wom-
an air es much alike es two peas in a
pod" went neighborhood pronounce
ment. They air both soured on
mankind an they glories in human
misery"
Had the fight on that winter eve
ming ended in the death of both par
Elephants, McBriars and Haveys would
alike have called it a gentle radiance
and dropped the matter where it stood.
But since a Havey had slain a Nc
Briar and the Havey still lived it
could not, in honor. be so dropped. 1t
4 left an uneven score.
Since the mountaineer has little to
do in the winter and spring save Cos
! sip. the affair grew in Importance
with rehearsing, and to each telling
was added new features. 1t was sig
nificantly pointed out east of the ridge
that Noah had incurred the displeas-
ure of Bad Anse Havey by the suspi
cion of tale-bearing to old Milt Nc
Briar. 1t was argued that the particu
lar wife-beating which led to the trag
edy might have passed as uneventfully
as several similar episodes heretofore
had not the heads of the Haveys made
, | it a pretext for eliminating a McBrial
who dwelt in their midst and carried
news across the ridge to his OWE
people.
/ For several years the feud had
: slept. not the complete sleep of death
| | but the fitful. simm eri1g sleep of eau
r tious animosity. But neither clan felt
, so Overwhelmingly strong as to couri
an issue just yet and. realizing the
! desperate quality of any outbreak
| both Milt McBriar over yon" ane
E Anse Havey over here had guarded