On the afternoon of Christmas day, as Boone stood by the gate of Saul's
rented patch, looking off across the wet bareness of the fields to the
gray and shallow skyline, he was more than a little homesick for the
accustomed thickness of forest and peak. He at last saw two mounted
figures coming toward him, and recognized General Prince and Anne
Masters.
"We rode by to wish you a very merry Christmas," announced the girl, and
the General added his smile and greeting.
"I'm--I'm obleeged ter both of you-all," stammered Boone as Anne,
leaning over, handed him a package.
"I thought maybe you'd like that. It's a fruit-cake," she informed him,
"I brought it because we think our cook makes it just a little bit
better than anybody else."
Something told Boone Wellver that the girl, despite her fine clothes and
manners, was almost as shy with him as he felt toward her, and in the
thought was a sort of reassurance.
"Hit's right charitable-like of ye ter fotch hit ter me," he responded,
slowly, and the child hastened to make a denial.
"Oh, no, please don't think that. It wasn't charity at all. It was
just--" But as she paused, General Prince interrupted her with a hearty
laugh.
"Yes, it was, Anne," he announced. "The word is like the dances. It has
a different significance in the hills. For instance when you go to visit
your father in Marlin County, Boone will be charitable to you too--or,
as we would say, courteous."
"Be ye comin' ter ther mountains?" demanded Boone, and the sudden
interest which rang in his voice surprised himself.
Fearful lest he had displayed too much enthusiasm, he withdrew
cautiously into his almost stolid manner again. "I'm beholden ter ye fer
this hyar sweet cake," he said. "Hit's ther fust Christmas gift I ever
got."
The house party ended a few days after that, so the mansion became again
a building of shuttered windows and closed doors, and as the old year
died and the new one dawned, Saul himself was frequently absent on
mysterious journeys to Frankfort.
Sometimes he returned home with a smoulder in his eyes, and once or
twice he brought with him a companion, who sat broodingly across the
hearth from him and discussed politics, not after the fashion of frank
debate but in the sinister undertones of furtiveness. On one particular
night in the first week of January, while Saul was entertaining such a
visitor, a knock sounded on the door, and when it was opened a man
entered, whose dress and bearing were of the more prosperous strata and
who seemed to be expected.
Boone overheard the conversation which followed from the obscurity of
the chimney corner, where he appeared to be napping and was overlooked.
"I'm right sorry you was called on to journey all the way here from
Frankfort," began Saul apologetically, but the other cut him short with
a crisp response.
"Don't let that worry you. There are too many eyes and ears in
Frankfort. You know what the situation is now, don't you?"
"I knows right well thet ther Democrat aims ter hev ther legislater seat
him. He's been balked by ther people an' his own commission--an' now
thet's his only chanst."
"The Governor says that if he leaves the state house it will be on a
stretcher," announced the visitor defiantly. "But there are more
conspiracies against us on foot than I have leisure to explain. The time
has come for you mountain men to make good."
Saul rose and paced the floor for a minute, then halted and jerked his
head toward the companion whom he had brought home with him that
evening.
"Shake hands with Jim Hollins of Clay County," he said briefly. "We've
done talked it all over and he understands."
"All right. It's agreed then that you take Marlin and Mr. Hollins takes
Clay. I have representatives in the other counties arranged for. These
men who come will be fed and housed all right. There'll be special
trains to bring them, and ahead of each section will be a pilot engine,
in case the news leaks out and anybody tries to use dynamite."
"All right, then. We'll round ye up ther proper kind of men--upstandin'
boys thet ain't none timorous."
The man in good clothes dropped his voice to an impressive undernote.
"Have them understand clearly that if they are asked why they come, they
shall all make the same response: that in accordance with their
constitutional rights, they are in Frankfort to petition the
legislature--but above all have them well armed."
Saul scratched his chin with a new doubt. "Most mountain men hev guns,
but some of 'em air mighty ancient. I misdoubts ef I kin arm all ther
fellers I kin bring on."
"Then don't bring them." The man, issuing instructions, raspingly barked
out his mandate. "Unarmed men aren't worth a damn to us. If anybody
wants to hedge or back down, let him stay at home. After they get to
Frankfort, it will be too late."
"And when they does git thar," inquired the man from Clay County
incisively, "what then?"
"They will receive their instructions in due time--and don't bring any
quitters," was the sharply snapped response.
* * * * *
Bev. Jett was the High Sheriff of Martin County, for in unaltered
Appalachia, with its quaint survivals of Elizabethan speech, where jails
are jail-houses and dolls are puppets, the sheriff is still the High
Sheriff.
Now on a bleak January day, when snow-freighted clouds obscured the
higher reaches of the hills, he was riding along sloppy ways, cut off
from outer life by the steep barrier of Cedar Mountain.
Eventually he swung himself down from his saddle before Asa Gregory's
door and tossed his bridle-rein over a picket of the fence, shouting,
according to custom, his name and the assurance that he came upon a
mission of friendliness.
Bev. Jett remembered that when last he had dismounted at this door there
had been in his mind some apprehension as to the spirit of his
reception. On that occasion he had been the bearer of an indictment
which, in the prolix phrases of the law, made allegation that the
householder had "with rifle or pistol or other deadly weapon loaded with
powder and leaden bullet or other hard and combustible substance,
wilfully, feloniously and against the peace and dignity of the
Commonwealth of Kentucky," accomplished a murder. Now his mission was
more diplomatic, and Asa promptly threw open the door and invited him to
"light down and enter in."
"Asa," said the officer, when he had paid his compliments to the wife
and admired the baby, "Jedge Beard sent me over hyar ter hev speech with
ye. Hit hes ter do with ther matter of yore askin' fer a pardon. Of
course, though, hit's a right mincy business an' must be undertook in
heedful fashion."
Judge Baird, whose name the Sheriff pronounced otherwise, had occupied
the bench when Asa had been less advantageously seated in the prisoner's
dock.
Reflecting now upon the devious methods and motives of mountain
intrigue, Gregory's eyes grew somewhat flinty as he bluntly inquired,
"How does ye mean hit's a mincy business?"
"Hit's like this. Jedge Beard figgers thet atter all this trouble in
Frankfort, with you an' ther Carr boys both interested in ther same
proposition, they mout be willin' ter drap yore prosecution of thar own
will."
Asa Gregory broke into a low laugh and a bitter one.
"So thet's how ther land lays, air hit? He 'lows they'll feel friendly
ter me, does he? Did ye ever see a rattlesnake thet could he gentled
inter a pet?"
"Ye've got ther wrong slant on ther question, Asa," the sheriff hastened
to explain. "The Jedge don't 'low thet ye ought ter _depend_ on no sich
an outcome--an' he hain't dodgin'. None-the-less while he's on ther
bench he's obleeged ter seem impartial. His idee is ter try ter git ye
thet pardon right now if so be hit's feasible--but he counsels thet if
ye does git hit ye'd better jest fold hit up an' stick hit in yore pants
pocket an' keep yore mouth tight. If ther Carrs draps ther prosecution,
then ye won't hev ter show hit at all, an' they won't be affronted
neither. Ef they does start doggin' ye afresh, ye kin jest flash hit
when ye comes ter co'te, an' thet'd be ther end of ther matter. Don't
thet strike ye as right sensible?"
"Thet suits me all right," acceded the indicted man slowly, "provided
I've got a pardon ter flash."
Once more the sheriff's head nodded in reflective acquiescence.
"Thet's why ye'd better hasten like es if ye war goin' down ter
Frankfort ter borry fire. They're liable ter throw our man out--an' then
hit'll be too late." After a pause for impressiveness, the Sheriff
continued,
"Hyar's a letter of introduction from ther Jedge ter ther Governor, an'
another one from ther Commonwealth's attorney. They both commends ye ter
his clemency."
"I'd heered tell thet Saul Fulton an' one or two other fellers aimed
ter take a passel of men ter Frankfort, ter petition ther legislater,"
suggested Asa thoughtfully. "I'd done studied some erbout goin' along
with 'em."
"Don't do hit," came the quick and positive reply. "Ef them fellers gits
inter any manner of trouble down thar ther Governor couldn't hardly
pardon ye without seemin' ter be rewardin' lawlessness. Go by
yoreself--an' keep away from them others."
* * * * *
On the evening of the twenty-fifth of January Colonel Tom Wallifarro
stepped from the Louisville train at Frankfort and turned his steps
toward the stone-pillared front of the Capitol Hotel. Across the width
of Main Street, behind its iron fence, loomed the ancient pile of the
state house with its twilight frown of gray stone. The three-storied
executive building lay close at its side. Over the place, he fancied,
gloomed a heavy spirit of suspense. The hills that fringed the city were
ragged in their wintriness, and ash-dark with the thickening dusk.
Bearing a somewhat heavy heart, the Colonel registered and went direct
to his room. Like drift on a freshet, elements of irreconcilable
difference were dashing pell-mell toward catastrophe. Colonel
Wallifarro's mission here was a conference with several cool hands of
both political creeds, actuated by an earnest effort to forestall any
such overt act as might end in chaos.
But the spirit of foreboding lay onerously upon him, and he slept so
fitfully that the first gray of dawn found him up and abroad. River
mists still held the town, fog-wrapped and spectral of contour, and the
Colonel strolled aimlessly toward the station. As he drew near, he heard
the whistle of a locomotive beyond the tunnel, and knowing of no train
due of arrival at that hour, he paused in his walk in time to see an
engine thunder through the station without stopping. It carried neither
freight cars nor coaches, but it was followed after a five-minute
interval by a second locomotive, which panted and hissed to a grinding
stop, with the solid curve of a long train strung out behind it--a
special.
Vestibule doors began straightway to vomit a gushing, elbowing multitude
of dark figures to the station platform, where the red and green
lanterns still shone with feeble sickliness, catching the dull glint of
rifles, and the high lights on faces that were fixed and sinister of
expression.
The dark stream of figures flowed along with a grim monotony and an
almost spectral silence across the street and into the state house
grounds.
There was a steadiness in that detraining suggestive of a matter well
rehearsed and completely understood, and as the light grew clearer on
gaunt cheekbones and swinging guns an almost terrified voice exclaimed
from somewhere, "The mountaineers have come!"