The Governor had been more influenced by watching the two as they
talked than by what he had heard.
"It seems to me, gentlemen," he suggested quietly, "that you are both
overlooking my presence." He turned to Callomb.
"Your coming, Sid, unless it was prearranged between the two of you
(which, since I know you, I know was not the case) has shed more light
on this matter than the testimony of a dozen witnesses. After all, I'm
still the Governor."
The militiaman seemed to have forgotten the existence of his
distinguished kinsman, and, at the voice, his eyes came away from the
face of the man he had not wanted to capture, and he shook his head.
"You are merely the head of the executive branch," he said. "You are
as helpless here as I am. Neither of us can interfere with the judicial
gentry, though we may know that they stink to high heaven with the
stench of blood. After a conviction, you can pardon, but a pardon won't
help the dead. I don't see that you can do much of anything, Crit."
"I don't know yet what I can do, but I can tell you I'm going to do
something," said the Governor. "You can just begin watching me. In the
meantime, I believe I am Commander-in-Chief of the State troops."
"And I am Captain of F Company, but all I can do is to obey the orders
of a bunch of Borgias."
"As your superior officer," smiled the Governor, "I can give you
orders. I'm going to give you one now. Mr. South has applied to me for
a pardon in advance of trial. Technically, I have the power to grant
that request. Morally, I doubt my right. Certainly, I shall not do it
without a very thorough sifting of evidence and grave consideration of
the necessities of the case--as well as the danger of the precedent.
However, I am considering it, and for the present you will parole your
prisoner in my custody. Mr. South, you will not leave Frankfort without
my permission. You will take every precaution to conceal your actual
identity. You will treat as utterly confidential all that has
transpired here--and, above all, you will not let newspaper men
discover you. Those are my orders. Report here tomorrow afternoon, and
remember that you are my prisoner."
Samson bowed, and left the two cousins together, where shortly they
were joined by the Attorney General. That evening, the three dined at
the executive mansion, and sat until midnight in the Governor's private
office, still deep in discussion. During the long session, Callomb
opened the bulky volume of the Kentucky Statutes, and laid his finger
on Section 2673.
"There's the rub," he protested, reading aloud: "'The military shall
be at all times, and in all cases, in strict subordination to the civil
power.'"
The Governor glanced down to the next paragraph, and read in part:
"'The Governor may direct the commanding officer of the military force
to report to any one of the following-named officers of the district in
which the said force is employed: Mayor of a city, sheriff, jailer or
marshal.'"
"Which list," stormed Callomb, "is the honor roll of the assassins."
"At all events"--the Governor had derived from Callomb much
information as to Samson South which the mountaineer himself had
modestly withheld--"South gets his pardon. That is only a step. I wish
I could make him satrap over his province, and provide him with troops
to rule it. Unfortunately, our form of government has its drawbacks."
"It might be possible," ventured the Attorney General, "to impeach the
Sheriff, and appoint this or some other suitable man to fill the
vacancy until the next election."
"The Legislature doesn't meet until next winter," objected Callomb.
"There is one chance. The Sheriff down there is a sick man. Let us hope
he may die."
One day, the Hixon conclave met in the room over Hollman's Mammoth
Department Store, and with much profanity read a communication from
Frankfort, announcing the pardon of Samson South. In that episode, they
foresaw the beginning of the end for their dynasty. The outside world
was looking on, and their regime could not survive the spotlight of law
-loving scrutiny.
"The fust thing," declared Judge Hollman, curtly, "is to get rid of
these damned soldiers. We'll attend to our own business later, and we
don't want them watchin' us. Just now, we want to lie mighty quiet for
a spell--teetotally quiet until I pass the word."
Samson had won back the confidence of his tribe, and enlisted the
faith of the State administration. He had been authorized to organize a
local militia company, and to drill them, provided he could stand
answerable for their conduct. The younger Souths took gleefully to that
idea. The mountain boy makes a good soldier, once he has grasped the
idea of discipline. For ten weeks, they drilled daily in squads and
weekly in platoons. Then, the fortuitous came to pass. Sheriff Forbin
died, leaving behind him an unexpired term of two years, and Samson was
summoned hastily to Frankfort. He returned, bearing his commission as
High Sheriff, though, when that news reached Hixon, there were few men
who envied him his post, and none who cared to bet that he would live
to take his oath of office.
That August court day was a memorable one in Hixon. Samson South was
coming to town to take up his duties. Every one recognized it as the
day of final issue, and one that could hardly pass without bloodshed.
The Hollmans, standing in their last trench, saw only the blunt
question of Hollman-South supremacy. For years, the feud had flared and
slept and broken again into eruption, but never before had a South
sought to throw his outposts of power across the waters of Crippleshin,
and into the county seat. That the present South came bearing
commission as an officer of the law only made his effrontery the more
unendurable.
Samson had not called for outside troops. The drilling and
disciplining of his own company had progressed in silence along the
waters of Misery. They were a slouching, unmilitary band of uniformed
vagabonds, but they were longing to fight, and Callomb had been with
them, tirelessly whipping them into rudimentary shape. After all, they
were as much partisans as they had been before they were issued State
rifles. The battle, if it came, would be as factional as the fight of
twenty-five years ago, when the Hollmans held the store and the Souths
the court-house. But back of all that lay one essential difference, and
it was this difference that had urged the Governor to stretch the forms
of law and put such dangerous power into the hands of one man. That
difference was the man himself. He was to take drastic steps, but he
was to take them under the forms of law, and the State Executive
believed that, having gone through worse to better, he would maintain
the improved condition.
Early that morning, men began to assemble along the streets of Hixon;
and to congregate into sullen clumps with set faces that denoted a
grim, unsmiling determination. Not only the Hollmans from the town and
immediate neighborhood were there, but their shaggier, fiercer brethren
from remote creeks and coves, who came only at urgent call, and did not
come without intent of vindicating their presence. Old Jake Hollman,
from "over yon" on the headwaters of Dryhole Creek, brought his son and
fourteen-year-old grandson, and all of them carried Winchesters. Long
before the hour for the court-house bell to sound the call which would
bring matters to a crisis, women disappeared from the streets, and
front shutters and doors closed themselves. At last, the Souths began
to ride in by half-dozens, and to hitch their horses at the racks.
They, also, fell into groups well apart. The two factions eyed each
other somberly, sometimes nodding or exchanging greetings, for the time
had not yet come to fight. Slowly, however, the Hollmans began
centering about the court-house. They swarmed in the yard, and entered
the empty jail, and overran the halls and offices of the building
itself. They took their places massed at the windows. The Souths, now
coming in a solid stream, flowed with equal unanimity to McEwer's
Hotel, near the square, and disappeared inside. Besides their rifles,
they carried saddlebags, but not one of the uniforms which some of
these bags contained, nor one of the cartridge belts, had yet been
exposed to view.
Stores opened, but only for a desultory pretense of business. Horsemen
led their mounts away from the more public racks, and tethered them to
back fences and willow branches in the shelter of the river banks,
where stray bullets would not find them.
The dawn that morning had still been gray when Samson South and
Captain Callomb had passed the Miller cabin. Callomb had ridden slowly
on around the turn of the road, and waited a quarter of a mile away. He
was to command the militia that day, if the High Sheriff should call
upon him. Samson went in and knocked, and instantly to the cabin door
came Sally's slender, fluttering figure. She put both arms about him,
and her eyes, as she looked into his face, were terrified, but tearless.
"I'm frightened, Samson," she whispered. "God knows I'm going to be
praying all this day."
"Sally," he said, softly, "I'm coming back to you--but, if I don't"--
he held her very close--"Uncle Spicer has my will. The farm is full of
coal, and days are coming when roads will take it out, and every ridge
will glow with coke furnaces. That farm will make you rich, if we win
to-day's fight."
"Don't!" she cried, with a sudden gasp. "Don't talk like that."
"I must," he said, gently. "I want you to make me a promise, Sally."
"It's made," she declared.
"If, by any chance I should not come back, I want you to hold Uncle
Spicer and old Wile McCager to their pledge. They must not privately
avenge me. They must still stand for the law. I want you, and this is
most important of all, to leave these mountains----"
Her hands tightened on his shoulders.
"Not that, Samson," she pleaded; "not these mountains where we've been
together."
"You promised. I want you to go to the Lescotts in New York. In a
year, you can come back--if you want to; but you must promise that."
"I promise," she reluctantly yielded.
It was half-past nine o'clock when Samson South and Sidney Callomb
rode side by side into Hixon from the east. A dozen of the older
Souths, who had not become soldiers, met them there, and, with no word,
separated to close about them in a circle of protection. As Callomb's
eyes swept the almost deserted streets, so silent that the strident
switching of a freight train could be heard down at the edge of town,
he shook his head. As he met the sullen glances of the gathering in the
court-house yard, he turned to Samson.
"They'll fight," he said, briefly.
Samson nodded.
"I don't understand the method," demurred the officer, with
perplexity. "Why don't they shoot you at once. What are they waiting
for?"
"They want to see," Samson assured him, "what tack I mean to take.
They want to let the thing play itself out, They're inquisitive--and
they're cautious, because now they are bucking the State and the world."
Samson with his escort rode up to the court-house door, and
dismounted. He was for the moment unarmed, and his men walked on each
side of him, while the onlooking Hollmans stood back in surly silence
to let him pass. In the office of the County Judge, Samson said briefly:
"I want to get my deputies sworn in."
"We've got plenty deputy sheriffs," was the quietly insolent rejoinder.
"Not now--we haven't any." Samson's voice was sharply incisive. "I'll
name my own assistants."
"What's the matter with these boys?" The County Judge waved his hand
toward two hold-over deputies.
"They're fired."
The County Judge laughed.
"Well, I reckon I can't attend to that right now."
"Then, you refuse?"
"Mebby you might call it that."
Samson leaned on the Judge's table, and rapped sharply with his
knuckles. His handful of men stood close, and Callomb caught his
breath, in the heavy air of storm-freighted suspense. The Hollman
partisans filled the room, and others were crowding to the doors.
"I'm High Sheriff of this County now," said Samson, sharply. "You are
County Judge. Do we coöperate--or fight?"
"I reckon," drawled the other, "that's a matter we'll work out as we
goes along. Depends on how obedient ye air."
"I'm responsible for the peace and quiet of this County," continued
Samson. "We're going to have peace and quiet."
The Judge looked about him. The indications did not appear to him
indicative of peace and quiet.
"Air we?" he inquired.
"I'm coming back here in a half-hour," said the new Sheriff. "This is
an unlawful and armed assembly. When I get back, I want to find the
court-house occupied only by unarmed citizens who have business here."
"When ye comes back," suggested the County Judge, "I'd advise that ye
resigns yore job. A half-hour is about es long as ye ought ter try ter
hold hit."
Samson turned and walked through the scowling crowd to the court-house
steps.
"Gentlemen," he said, in a clear, far-carrying voice, "there is no
need of an armed congregation at this court-house. I call on you in the
name of the law to lay aside your arms or scatter."
There was murmur which for an instant threatened to become a roar, but
trailed into a chorus of derisive laughter.
Samson went to the hotel, accompanied by Callomb. A half-hour later,
the two were back at the court-house, with a half-dozen companions. The
yard was empty. Samson carried his father's rifle. In that half-hour a
telegram, prepared in advance, had flashed to Frankfort.
"Mob holds court-house--need troops."
And a reply had flashed back:
"Use local company--Callomb commanding." So that form of law was met.
The court-house doors were closed, and its windows barricaded. The
place was no longer a judicial building. It was a fortress. As Samson's
party paused at the gate, a warning voice called:
"Don't come no nigher!"
The body-guard began dropping back to shelter.
"I demand admission to the court-house to make arrests," shouted the
new Sheriff. In answer, a spattering of rifle reports came from the
jail windows. Two of the Souths fell. At a nod from Samson, Callomb
left on a run for the hotel. The Sheriff himself took his position in a
small store across the street, which he reached unhurt under a
desultory fire.
Then, again, silence settled on the town, to remain for five minutes
unbroken. The sun glared mercilessly on clay streets, now as empty as a
cemetery. A single horse incautiously hitched at the side of the
courthouse switched its tail against the assaults of the flies.
Otherwise, there was no outward sign of life. Then, Callomb's newly
organized force of ragamuffin soldiers clattered down the street at
double time. For a moment or two after they came into sight, only the
massed uniforms caught the eyes of the intrenched Hollmans, and an
alarmed murmur broke from the court-house. They had seen no troops
detrain, or pitch camp. These men had sprung from the earth as
startlingly as Jason's crop of dragon's teeth. But, when the command
rounded the shoulder of a protecting wall to await further orders, the
ragged stride of their marching, and the all-too-obvious bearing of the
mountaineer proclaimed them native amateurs. The murmur turned to a
howl of derision and challenge. They were nothing more nor less than
South, masquerading in the uniforms of soldiers.
"What orders?" inquired Callomb briefly, joining Samson in the store.
"Demand surrender once more--then take the courthouse and jail," was
the short reply.
There was little conversation in the ranks of the new company, but
their faces grew black as they listened to the jeers and insults across
the way, and they greedily fingered their freshly issued rifles. They
would be ready when the command of execution came. Callomb himself went
forward with the flag of truce. He shouted his message, and a bearded
man came to the court-house door.
"Tell 'em," he said without redundancy, "thet we're all here. Come an'
git us."
The officer went back, and distributed his forces under such cover as
offered itself, about the four walls. Then, a volley was fired over the
roof, and instantly the two buildings in the public square awoke to a
volcanic response of rifle fire.
All day, the duel between the streets and county buildings went on
with desultory intervals of quiet and wild outbursts of musketry. The
troops were firing as sharpshooters, and the court-house, too, had its
sharpshooters. When a head showed itself at a barricaded window, a
report from the outside greeted it. Samson was everywhere, his rifle
smoking and hot-barreled. His life seemed protected by a talisman. Yet,
most of the firing, after the first hour, was from within. The troops
were, except for occasional pot shots, holding their fire. There was
neither food nor water inside the building, and at last night closed
and the cordon drew tighter to prevent escape. The Hollmans, like rats
in a trap, grimly held on, realizing that it was to be a siege. On the
following morning, a detachment of F Company arrived, dragging two
gatling guns. The Hollmans saw them detraining, from their lookout in
the courthouse cupola, and, realizing that the end had come, resolved
upon a desperate sortie. Simultaneously, every door and lower window of
the court-house burst open to discharge a frenzied rush of men, firing
as they came. They meant to eat their way out and leave as many hostile
dead as possible in their wake. Their one chance now was to scatter
before the machine-guns came into action. They came like a flood of
human lava, and their guns were never silent, as they bore down on the
barricades, where the single outnumbered company seemed insufficient to
hold them. But the new militiamen, looking for reassurance not so much
to Callomb as to the granite-like face of Samson South, rallied, and
rose with a yell to meet them on bayonet and smoking muzzle. The rush
wavered, fell back, desperately rallied, then broke in scattered
remnants for the shelter of the building.
Old Jake Hollman fell near the door, and his grandson, rushing out,
picked up his fallen rifle, and sent farewell defiance from it, as he,
too, threw up both arms and dropped.
Then, a white flag wavered at a window, and, as the newly arrived
troops halted in the street, the noise died suddenly to quiet. Samson
went out to meet a man who opened the door, and said shortly:
"We lays down."
Judge Hollman, who had not participated, turned from the slit in his
shuttered window, through which he had since the beginning been
watching the conflict.
"That ends it!" he said, with a despairing shrug of his shoulders. He
picked up a magazine pistol which lay on his table, and, carefully
counting down his chest to the fifth rib, placed the muzzle against his
breast.