Samson was far too young to vote, but he was old enough to fight, and
the account he had given of himself, with the inherited rifle smoking,
gave augury of fighting effectiveness. So sanguinary had been this
fight, and so dangerously had it focused upon the warring clans the
attention of the outside world, that after its indecisive termination,
they made the compact of the present truce. By its terms, the Hollmans
held their civil authority, and the Souths were to be undisturbed
dictators beyond Misery. For some years now, the peace had been
unbroken save by sporadic assassinations, none of which could be
specifically enough charged to the feud account to warrant either side
in regarding the contract as broken. Samson, being a child, had been
forced to accept the terms of this peace bondage.

The day would come
when the Souths could agree to no truce without his consent. Such was,
in brief, the story that the artist heard while he painted and rested
that day on the rock. Had he heard it in New York, he would have
discounted it as improbable and melodramatic. Now, he knew that it was
only one of many such chapters in the history of the Cumberlands. The
native point of view even became in a degree acceptable. In a system of
trial by juries from the vicinage, fair and bold prosecutions for crime
were impossible, and such as pretended to be so were bitterly tragic
farces. He understood why the families of murdered fathers and brothers
preferred to leave the punishment to their kinsmen in the laurel,
rather than to their enemies in the jury-box.