Luke Breckinridge, his rifle on his shoulder, Slipped through green forest alleys toward the town, A gawky boy with smoldering eyes, whose feet Whispered the crooked paths like moccasins. He wasn’t looking for trouble, going down, But he was on guard, as always. When he stopped To scoop some water in the palm of his hand From a sweet trickle between moss-grown rocks, You might have thought him careless for a minute, But when the snapped stick cracked six feet behind him He was all sudden rifle and hard eyes. The pause endured a long death-quiet instant, Then he knew who it was. “Hi, Jim,” he said, Lowering his rifle. The green laurel-screen Hardly had moved, but Jim was there beside him. The cousins looked at each other. Their rifles seemed To look as well, with much the same taut silentness.