Evening star., 1923-07-29
FEARLESS FEUD|ST
| FEARS ONLY WIFE
'Two-Gun' Mccoy, West Vir'
ginia Clan Battle Hero,
Found on Arkansas Farm.
gnncial nisnafch to The Star.


LITTLE ROCK, Ark. July Is
1.-TWO Gun" Lee Mccoy, the only Nc
Coy who ever ran away from trouble,
is not dead He has just been found
in hiding-very much alive.
And when this aged veteran OF the
Hatfield Mccoy feud disappeared mys-
teriously from home two months ago
he was not running away from
quick the trigger Hatfield, he was
merely running away from his wite'
So wipe away the blot cast by sus-
picion upon the clan escutcheon.
Today 1.-TWO Gun" Lee, the last OF
his name who can tell the compiete
story of the world-famous mountain
vendetta, is done with attending fu-
nerals in bloody Mingo county, w.
Va He and his son Courtney are
busy attending watermelons on tiny
farm in Arkansas. He is not Tar from
this city. but, ah, he is far from the
maddening crowd of Hatfields. and,
says Lee, Mrs. Mccoy.
Thus are two feuds, mountain ana
domestic. brought to tranquil close.
Worried When Found.
When he was found the two-gun
man mantle silly was worried
so, you please won't let her know
where I'm at, will you? he pleaaeo'
standing with arms akimbo astride a
row of watermelon vines; for sne "a
Jest come right down here TO ar
kansas and there wouldn't be no more
peace for me-. A..
The discoverers reassured nin. AZ
far as they were concerned, MRS. NC
Gov need never know just where her
husband was.
Mccoy has been living in this Sc
cluded spot several weeks. his
neighbors all speak well of him ana
his boy. Maybe they know he pears
the scars of eight bullet wounds ana
has nine Hatfield notches on his gun
and maybe they don't. Maybe they
have heard of the feud-who mas
not?-in which seventy-one Hatnsios
and forty McCoys were dispatched 70
their stone-topped inches in the Mus:
Again, maybe not. Probably II would
not matter. They apparently ike
him and accept him as he Is.
Held in Esteem.
His negro neighbors in particular
hold him in deep esteem. They trem-
BILE and swallow their tobacco upon
mention of his name. This was hot
especially noticeable, however. until
about a week ago when a negro one
night peeped through the back WIN
dow of the Mccoy home. Pausins
between bites of hog jowl and turnip
salad. Lee indifferenty shot MN
ever a negro approaches the conjured
environs of the Mccoy castle he cries
out plaintively:
"It's me, Mr.. Mccoy. rse jes
passin' by"
Yet that brief display of marks.
manship was not an outcropping Of
the hereditary urge-it was but q
warning Indeed, since he left nome
on his hobo hunt for refuge and sur
cease from hen-peckdom, the MCCOY
IL I, ~ Inf once.
Only One Break.
That was in Decatur, Ala Lee had
dropped into a movie palace. Upon
focusing his eyes on the screen he saw
the counterparts of his own clan and
the Hatfields doing new Argonne along
the trail of the Lonesome Pine. II was
photoplay based on the Hatfield-McCoy
feud.
And before the reformed offshoot of
daredevil mountaineerdom could re-
strain himself he had two guns in the
air preparing to give to the silver sheet
a sizzling lead alloy. But the police
stopped him.
TT made me mad" he explained. IT
5es' gittin' back to normalcy, that's
Is Fairly to DO.
Mccoy is fairly well to do. He could
live more comfortably If he went back
to his sixty-fve-acre farm near Will
hanson, in West Virginia, his wife
and his three other boys. 1t was
a controversy over the ownership of
this farm and a sow and eight pigs
that started the feud more than fifty
years ago, he explained. He owns the
farm now, but the pride of battle-won
possession cannot lure him back.
He bears no i'll will against the Hat
fields. So far as he cares. the feud has
bushwhacked its last man. He means
to live in solitude and peace. The gun
Is deserted for the rod.
Come over some time and we'll 60
a-fshin," he suggested. I'm a peace
able enough old man. = And I'll stay
peaceabe if my wife will just leave me
be. I'm a-stayin' right here. Nothin
can make me go back-not even another
hare-up of the feud."