Before the mountain roads were mired with the coming of the rains, and
while the air held its sparkle of autumnal zestfulness, Samson South
wrote to Wilfred Horton that, if he still meant to come to the hills
for his inspection of coal and timber, the time was ripe. Soon, men
would appear bearing transit and chain, drawing a line which a railroad
was to follow to Misery and across it to the heart of untouched forests
and coal-fields. With that wave of innovation would come the
speculators. Besides, Samson's fingers were itching to be out in the
hills with a palette and a sheaf of brushes in the society of George
Lescott.

For a while after the battle at Hixon, the county had lain in a torpid
paralysis of dread. Many illiterate feudists on each side remembered
the directing and exposed figure of Samson South seen through eddies of
gun smoke, and believed him immune from death. With Purvy dead and
Hollman the victim of his own hand, the backbone of the murder
syndicate was broken. Its heart had ceased to beat. Those Hollman
survivors who bore the potentialities for leadership had not only
signed pledges of peace, but were afraid to break them; and the
triumphant Souths, instead of vaunting their victory, had subscribed to
the doctrine of order, and declared the war over.

Souths who broke the
law were as speedily arrested as Hollmans. Their boys were drilling as
militiamen, and--wonder of wonders!--inviting the sons of the enemy to
join them. Of course, these things changed gradually, but the
beginnings of them were most noticeable in the first few months, just
as a newly painted and renovated house is more conspicuous than one
that has been long respectable.