The Elk Mountain pilot., 1917-02-01


There is no place like home" The
sequel tells that a cynical traveller
passing that way reflected on the an.
nails of that dwelling and added in
postscript: "Leastways not this side
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 a land be-
leaguered and unique.
In the war between the Haveys and
the McBriars there was more than the
forgotten episode of a stray razorback
which was not surrendered to its 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
to the BLUEGRASS and to Tennessee.
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
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
its headwaters.
In Civil war and subsequent politics
line of fierce cleavage had yawned
between them-and each faction had
been a power.
II was to the leadership of such a
clan that Bad Anse had succeeded
when hardly twenty-one by the death
upon bed Of illness.
1t was to the herding of such flock
that he had ridden away from the
cabin of Fletch McNash on the night
when the girls scornful taunt fol-
lowed him.
1t was an unfortunate thing that
Cal Douglas should, on a February
eh - to
brother-in-law, Noah Watt, even IL, 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 kinsmah
and the kinsmen of the man who died
with bullet through his vitals.
Cal bore a name for surly character,
and even in a land where grudge-bear-
ing is a 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.
Gal Douglas an Noey Watts wom-
an air es much alike es two peas in a
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
ticipants, McBriars and Haveys would
alike have called it gentle riddance
and dropped the matter where 1t stood.
But since a Havey had slain Nc
Briar and the Havey still lived 1t
could not, in honor, be so dropped. 1t
left an uneven score.
Since the mountaineer has little to
do in the winter and spring save gos-
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
1t pretext for eliminating a McBriar
I who dwelt In their midst and carried
news across the ridge to his own
people.
For several years the feud had
slept, not the complete sleep of death
/ hut tho fitfu1 eipprp cIaap of COW
tious animosity. But neither clan felt
so overwhelmingly strong as to court
an issue just yet and, realizing the
desperate quality of any outbreak
both Milt McBriar over yon" and
| Anse Havey over here had guarded
the. more belligerent kinsmen with