Tombstone epitaph., 1917-03-04
CHAPTER xxIl-Continued.

-1t- Jim Fletcher. a mountain man who had for years drifted between Tribula- l ton and Winchester trading in cattle l and timber. made a journey through the hills that spring, and was every where received as home folks" For him there were no bars of distrust. and he was able for that reason to buy land right and left. Though he had paid for 1t a price above the average, it was a price far below the value of :hc coa, and timber X contained and Jim had picked his land.
 Anse Havey and his associates knew that Jim Fletcher had been subsidized: that the money he spent so lavishly was not his own money; and that he came as a stalking horse. but they did not know that he had been to Louis vile and had conferred there with MT. Trevor. Neither did they know at once that he had visited the cabins of every malcontent among both the for mer factions, and that he was a mis- chiefmaker adroitly laying here in the hills the foundations for a new feud
 Jim had bland tongue and a per suasive manner, and he talked to the mountain men in their own speech, but he was none the less the advance agent of the new enemy from down below: the personal fulhllment of Juanita's prophecy to Roger Malcolm.
 Juanita did not realize how much she was leaning on the strength Of Anse Havey. how she depended on him for counsel and encouragement, which he gave not in behalf of the school, but because he was the school teachers slave. She saw the little hospital rise on the hill and thought of what it would do. and she believed that Anse Havey must be, in his heart, converted. even though his mountain obstinacy would not let him say so.
 Then, while the hillsides were joy ous with spring. came a squad of lads with transit and chain, who began running a tentative line through the land that Jim Fletcher had bought. Anse Havey watched them grimly with folded arms, but said no word until they reached the boundary of his own place.
 There he met them at the border.
 Boys he said. ''ye musnt cross that fence. This is my land, an for bids ye"
 Their foreman argued.
 We only want to take the measure ments necessary to complete our line, Mir Havey. We won't work any in. jury"
 Anse shook his head
 Come in, boys, an eat with me an make yourselves at home" he told them, but leave your tools outside"
 Men from the house patrolled the boundary with rifles and the young men were forced to turn back.
 But later they drew near the house of old Bob McGreegor. and he, steal ing down to the place in the thicket of raododen1ron, saw them perilously near the trich.:.re stream -airn even then bore on its surface little kernels of yellow corn. Deeply and violently old Bob swore as he drank from his little blue keg. and when one day he saw them again he asked counsel of no man. He went down and crept close through the laurel, and when his old rife spoke schoolboy from the Blue Grass fell dead among the rocks of the water course.
 After that death, the first murder of an innocent outsider. the war which Anse Havey had so long foreseen broke furiously and brought the or ders of upland and lowland to the grip of bitter animosity.
 old McGreegor's victim had been young Roy Calvin, the son of Judge Calvin of Lexington, and the name of Calvin in central Kentucky was one associated with the states best tra- ditions.
 It had run in a strong, bright thread through the pattern of Kentucky's achievements, and when news of the wanton assassination came home. the state awoke to a shock of horror. The infamy of the hills was screamed in echo to the mourning, and the name of Bad Anse Havey was once more printed in large type.
 The men whose capital sought to wrest profit from the hills, and whose employee had been slain, were quick to take advantage of this hue and cry of calumny.
 They hurled themselves into the fight for gaining possession Of coveted jand and were not particular as to methods.
 Jim Fletcher came and went con s,antly between the lowlands and highlands. He was all things to all men. and in the hills he cursed the lovIander. but in the lowland he cursed the hills. Miit and Jeb and Anse rode constantly from cabin to eab,n fin their efforts to circumvent inc adroit schemes of the mountain Judas who had sold his soul to the lorIand syndicate.
 Fletcher sought a foothold for capi- ,aI to pierce fields acquired at the price of undeveloped land and then to take the profit of development. An,e sought to hold title until the .ales could be on a fairer basis. and .o ,be issue was made up.
 Capitalists. like Malcolm. who sat in directors rooms launching legfti nate enterprise. had no actual knovi