A VANISHING ROMANCE 207 
bullet, and it was as apt to come from behind as any- 
where else, such "varmint" not being considered 
worth a fair fight. The life of an informer, if he was 
discovered, was worth considerably less than the 
sum he got for informing. Sooner or later he came to 
grief. Of course the law made an effort to apprehend 
the transgressor in such cases, but the forest is vast, 
and the quest was about as hopeless as hunting for 
a very small needle in a very large haystack. The 
woods tell no tales, nor do good people very much 
regret the untimely end of the "informer," for usu- 
ally his kind is more detrimental to a community 
than is an honest outlaw. 
The moonshiner defended his still as other men do 
their hearths. When two moonshiners fell out, they 
got their deepest revenge by betraying each other's 
still. This was generally followed by the shooting of 
one by the other, when vengeance was sure to descend 
upon the slayer, the avenger in his turn being shot 
by a member of the first victim's family. Thus was 
sometimes started a blood feud that lasted for gen- 
erations, or until the death of the last male on one 
side. These deeds sound wild, but they were not of 
common occurrence, and all shooting was strictly 
confined to quarrels among themselves. A stranger 
might go into the home of a man red-handed with 
the blood of his foe and be received so cordially that 
he would never suspect his frank host of being 
"wanted " in the criminal court. Such lawless deeds, 
although they sometimes occurred, were not fre- 
quent in the North Carolina mountains, nor were 
