Evening Republican, Volume 20, Number 40, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 16 February 1916 — THE BATTLE-CRY [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE BATTLE-CRY

By CHARLES NEVILLE BUCK

1 "AUTHOR of "TTieCALLoj> e ClM3EßLA|®s’’ ILLUSTRATIONS fa- Cl). RHODES life. o£u£.r£ r Dy \\ “

CHAPTER XXll—Continued. —ll— Fletcher, a mountain man who had for years drifted between Tribula tion and 'Winchester trading In cattle and timber, made a Journey through the hills that spring, and was everywhere received as “home folks.” For him there were no bars of distrust, and he was able for that reason to buy land right and left. Though he had paid for It a price above the average., It was a price far below the value of the coal and timber It contained—and Jim had picked his land. Anse Havey and his associates knew that Jim Fletcher bad been subsidised; that the money he spent so lavishly was not his own money; and that he came as a stalking-horse, but they did not know that he had been to Louisville and had conferred there with Mr. Trevor. Neither did they know at once that he had visited the cabins of every malcontent among both the former factions, and that he was a mischlefmaker adroitly laying here in the hills the foundations for a new feud . Jim had a bland tongue and a persuasive manner, and he talked to the mountain men In their own speech, but he was none the less the advance agent of the new enemy from down below: the personal fulfillment of Juanita’s prophecy to Roger Malcolm. Juanita did not realize how much she wsb leaning on the strength of Anse Havey, how she depended on him for oounsel and encouragement, which he gave not in behalf of the school, but because he was the school teacher’s slave. She saw the little hospital rise on the hill and thought of what It would do, and she believed that Anse Havey must be, in his heart, converted, even though his mountain obstinacy would not let him say so. Then, while the hillsides were Joyous with spring, came a squad of lads with transit and chain, who began running a tentative line through the land that Jim Fletcher had bought. Anse Havey watched them grimly with folded arms, but said no word until they reached the boundary of his own place. There he met them at the border. "Boys,” he said, "ye musn’t cross that fence. This is my land, an’ I forbids ye.” Their foreman argued. "We only want to take the measurements necessary to complete our line, - Mr. Havey. We won’t work any injury." Anse shook his head. "Come in, boys, an’ eat with me an’ make yourselves at home,” told them, “but leave your tools outside.” Men from the house patrolled the boundary with rifles and the young men were forced to turn back. But later they drew near the house of old Bob McGreegor, and he, stealing down to the place in the thicket of rhododendron, saw them perilously near the trickling stream which even then bore on its surface little kernels ... of .yellow com. Deeply and violently old Bob swore as he drank from his little blue keg, and when one day he saw them again he asked counsel of no man. He went down and crept close through the laurel, and when his old rifle spoke a schoolboy from the Blue Grass fell dead among the rocks of the water course. After that death, the first murder of an Innocent outsider, the war which Anse Havey had so long foreseen broke furiously and brought the orders of upland and lowland to the grip of bitter animosity. Old McGreegor’s victim had been young Roy Calvin, the son of Judge Calvin of Lexington, and the name of Calvin in central Kentucky was one associated with the state’s best traditions. It had run in a strong, bright thread through the pattern of Kentucky’s achievements, and when neFS of the wanton assassination came home, the state awoke to a shock of horror. The infamy of the hills was screamed in echo to the mourning, and the name of Bad Anse Havey was once more printed in large type. The men whose capital sought to wrest profit from the bills, and whose employee had been slain, were quick to take advantage of this hue and cry of calumny. They hurled themselves Into the fight for gaining possession of coveted lynd and were not particular as to methods. Jim Fletcher caihe and went constantly between the lowlands and highlands. He was all things to all men, and in the hills be cursed the lowlander, but In the lowland he cursed the hills. Milt and Jeb and Anse rode constantly from cabin to cabin in their efforts to circumvent the adroit schemes of the mountain Judas who had sold his soul to the lowland syndicate. Fletcher sought a foothold Tor capital to pierce Jlelda aoquired at the price of undeselopod land and then to tit** the profit of development. ‘ Jiii sought to hold title until the ■ales could be on e fairer basis, and •o the issue was made up, _ Capitalists, like Malcolm, who eat In directors' rooms launching a legitimate enterprise, bad no actual know!ft'. . \

edge of the instrumentalities being employed op the real battlefield. Lawyers tried condemnation suits with indifferent success, and then reached out their hands for a new weapon. Back In the old days, when Kentucky was cot a statu but a county, land patents had been granted by Virginia to men who bad never claimed their property. For two hundred years other men who settled as pioneers had held undisturbed possession, they and their children’s children. Now into the courts piled multitudinous suits of eviction in the names of plaintiffs .whose eyes had never seen the broken Bkyline of the Cumberlands. Their purpose was deceit, since it sought to drag through long and costly litigation pauper landholders and to impose such a galling burden upon their property as should drive them to terms of surrender. Men and women who owned, or thought they owned, a log shack and a tilting cornfield found themselves facing a new and bewildering crisis. Their untaught minds brooded and they talked violently of holding by title of rifle what their fathers had wrested from nature, what they Ijad tended with .sweat and endless toll. But Anse Havey and Milt Mcßriar knew that the day was at hand when the rifle would no longer serve. They employed lawyers fitted to meet those other lawyers and give them battle In the courts, and these lawyers were paid by Anse Havey and Milt McBriar. The two stood stanchly together as a buffer between their almost helpless people and the- encroaching tentacles of the new octopus, while Juanita, looking on at the forming of the battlelines, was torn with anxiety. In Bad Anse Havey the combination of interests recognized its really most formidable foe. In the mountain phrase, he must be “man-powered outen ther way.” And there were still men In the hills who, if other means failed, would sell the service of their “rifle-guns” for money.

With such as these It became the care of certain supernumeraries to establish an understanding. In the last election a thing had happened which had not for many years before happened in Kentucky—a change of par ties had swept from power in Frank fort the administration which owed loyalty to Havey influences. Bad Anse Havey was indicted as an accessory to the murder of young Calvin and he would be tried, not in Peril, but In the Blue Grass.. The prosecution would be able to show- that he had warned the surveyors off his own place and had picketed his fence line with riflemen. They would be able to show that he was the forefront of the fight against innovation and that lesser mountain men followed his counsel blindly and regarded his word as law. But, more than that, the Jurors who passed on his question of life and death would be drawn from a community which knew him only-by his newspaper-made reputation. So it was not long before Anse Havey lay in sr cell in the Winchester jn.iV He had been denied bond and fronted a dreary prespect.

When the trial of Anse Havey began there was one spirit in the land. Here was an exponent of the unjustifiable system of murder from ambush. In the cemetery at Lexington, where sleep the founders of the western empire, lay a boy whose life had Just begun in all the blossom and sunshine of promise—and who had done no wrong. The special term of the court had brought to Winchester a throng of farmer folk and onlookers. Their horses stood hitched at the racks about the square when the sheriff led Anse Havey from- the Jail to the old building where he was to face bis accusers and the Judges who cat on the bench and in the jury box. He took his seat with his counsel at his elbow and listened to the preliminary formalities of impaneling a jury. His face told nothing, but as man after manl was excused because he had formed an opinion, he read little that was hopeful in the outlook. He calmly beard perjured witnesses from his own country testify that he had approached them, offering bribes for the killing of young Calvin which they had righteously refused. He knew that these men had been bought by Jim Fletcher and that they swore for the hire of syndicate money, but be only waited patiently for the defense to open. He saw the scowl on the faces in the jury box deepen tnto conviction as witness after witness took the stand against him. and he saw the faces in the body of the room mirror that scowl. • - ■ * . Then the prosecution rested, and as a few of its perjuries were punctured, the faces in the box lightened their scowl a little—but very little* The tide had set against him, and he knew it. Unless one of those strangely psychological things should occur which sweep Juries suddenly frpm their moorings of fixed opinion, he must be the sacrifice to Blue-Grass wrath, apd on the list of witnesses under the hand of bis attorney there were only s few names left —pitifritv few, .

Then Anse Havey saw his chief oounsel set his Jaw, as he had a trick of setting It when be faced a forlorn hope, and throw the list of names aside as something worthless. As the lawyer spoke Anse Havey’s face for the first time lost its immobility and showed amazement. He bent forward, wondering if his ears had not tricked him. His attorneys had not consulted him as to this step. “Mr. Sheriff," commanded the lawyertor the defense, “caU Miss Juanita Holland to the stand.’’

CHAPTER XXIII. if In the mountains there was one person of whom the Blue Grass knew with favor, it was Juanita Holland. She had worked quietly and without any blare of trumpets. Her efforts had never been advertised, but the thing she was trying to do was too unusual a thing to have escaped public notice and public laudation. That she was spending her life and her own large fortune in a manner of self-sacri-fice and hardship was a thing of which the state had been duly apprised. She, at least, would stand acquitted of feudal passion. She stood as a lone fighter for the spirit of all that was best and most unselfish in Kentucky Ideals and the Ideals of civilization.

If she chose to come now as a witness for Anse Havey, she should have a respectful hearing. The prisoner bent forward and fixed eyes blazing with excitement on the door of the witness room. He Baw it open and saw her pause there, pale and rather perplexed, then Bhe came steadily to the witness stand and asked: “Do l sit here?”

The man had known her always in the calico and gingham of the mountains. This seemed a different woman who took her seat and raised her hand to be sworn. She whs Infinitely more beautiful he thought. In the habiliments of her own world. She seemed a queen who had waived her regal prerogatives and come Into this mean courtroom in his behalf. His heart leaped into tumult. He would not hrve asked her to come: would not have permitted her to submit to the heckling of the prosecutor, whose face was already drawing Into

a vindictive frown, had he known. She had come, however, anyway—perhaps, after all, she cared! If so, It was a revelation worth hanging for. Then he heard her voice low and musically pitched in answer to questions. “I have known Mr. Havey,” she said quietly, “ever since I went to the mountains. He has helped’ me in my work and has been an advocate of peace wherever peace could be had with honor.” At the end of each answer the com-. monwealth’s attorney was on his ieet • with quickly snapped objections. Anse Havey’s heart sank. He knew this man’s reputation for bullying witnesses, and he had never seen a woman who had come through the ordeal unshaken. Yet slowly the anxiety on bis face gave way to a smile of infinite admiration. , Juanita Holland's quiet dignity made the testy wrath of the state’s lawyer seem futile and peevish. The defendant saw the. subtle change of expression on the faces of the jury. He saw them shifting their Sympathy from the lawyer to the woman, and the lawyer saw it, too. They kept her there, grilling her with all the tactics known to artful barristers for an unconscionable length of time, but she was still serene and unconfused. * T "By heaven!” exclaimed Anse Havey to himself, as he leaned forward, “she’s makin’ fools of ’em all—anshe’s doin’ it for me!” v—--Even the Judge, whose face had been sternly set against the defense. shifted in bis chair and his expression Boftened. The commonwealth’s attorney rose and walked and Anse Havey clenched his bands under the table, while his fingers itched to seize the tormentor’s throit. “You don’t know that Anse Havey didn’t incite this murder; You only choose to think so. isn’t that a fact?" stormed the prosecutor,: H'jimm thsi Jam flit gf' |g |ii capable of it.” was the tranquil retort. “How do you know that?" "1 know him." “ _ “Who procured your presence in this covrtroom as a defense witness?” Each interrogation came with rising spleen and accusation of tone. “i asked to bs allowed m» come"

"Why?" "Because 1 know that back of this prosecution lies the trickery of Inter ests seeklqg to dispose of Anse Havey so that they may plunder bis people *’ The lawyer wheeled on the judge. "1 must ask your honor to admon ish this witness against such faliw ahd Improper charges—or to punish her tor contempt.” be biased furiously. But tbe Judge spoke. without great severity as be cautioned: “Yes, tbe witness must not seqa to imply motives to the prosecution.” The attorney took another step for ward with a malicious smile. He paused that the next question and its answer might fall on the emphasis of 'a momentary silence. Then he pointed a finger toward the girl, with the manner of one branding a false witness. .and : 4S—- - "Is there any sentimental attachment between you and this defendant. Anse Havey?” There was a moment’s dead silence In the courtroom, and Anse saw Juanita’s face go white. Then be saw her finger nails whiten as they lay In her> lap and a sudden flush spread to her face. She looked toward the judge, and at once the lawyer for the defense was on his feet with tbe old objection’ “The question is Irrelevant.’’ Then, while counsel tilted with each other, the girl drew a long breath, and the man whose life was in the balance turned pale, too, not because of this, but because the. woman he loved had been asked the question which was more to him than life and death —a question he had never dared to ask himself. ”1 think,” ruled the court, “the question is relevant as going to prove the credibility of the witness.” _ So she must answer. The prisoner’s finger nails bit Into his palms and he smothered a low oath between his clenched teeth, but Juanita Holland only looked at the cross-examiner with a clear-eyed and serene glance of scorn under which he seemed to shrivel She replied with the dignity of a young queen who can afford to ignore insults from the gut ter. “None whatever." The defendant sat back in his chair and the smile left his lips as though he had been struck by a thunderbolt. He knew that his case was won, and yet as he saw her leave the witness stand and the courtroom, he felt sicker at heart than he had felt since he could remember. He would almost have preferred condemnation with the hope against hope left somewhere deep- in his heart that there slept in hers an echo to his unuttered love. The question he had never dared to ask she had answered —answered under oath, and liberty seemed now a very barren gift. When he had been acquitted and was going out he saw a figure in consultation with the prosecutor —a figure which had not been Inside the doors during the trial. It was Mr. Trevor of Louisville and he was testily saying: “Oh, well, there are more ways of killing a cat than by choking it with butter." Anse Havey did not require the Interpretation of an oracle for that cryptic comment He knew that the effort to dispose of him would not end with his acqulttaL

Juanita was going away to enlist her staff of teachers and arrange for the equipment of the little hospital, and Anse did not tell her of his Insecurity. “You'll promise to be very careful while I’m gone, won’t your* she demanded, as they sat together the night before she left “11l try to last till you get back," he smiled. He was sitting with a pipe in his hand—a pipe which had gone out and been forgotten. In the darkness of the porch everything was vague but herself. She seemed to him to be luminous by some light of her own. She was . a very wonderful and desirable star shining far out of reach of his world. Suddenly she laughed, and he asked: “What is it?” “I was just thinking what a fool I was when I came here," she answered. "Did you know that I brought a piano with me as far as Peril! It’s been there over a year." “A piano!” he echoed, then they both laughed. “I might as well have tried to bring along the Philadelphia city hall,” she admitted. “Just the same, there have been times when it would have meant a lot to me, an awful lot, if I could have had that piano. 1 don’t know whether music means so much to yon, hut to me— ’’ “I know," he broke in. "I sometimes ’low'that life ain’t much else except the summin’ up of the things a feller dreams. Music is like dreams —it makes dreams. Yes, I know somethin’ about that” She went away and. though she was not long gone, her absence seemed interminable tb Anse Havey. He met tier at the train on her return with a starved idolatry in his eyes, and together they rode back across the ridge. But when she mitered the. building which had been the first schoolhouse the man drew back a step or two and watched as surreptitiously as a boy who has h} due secrecy planned a surprise. She went in and then suddenly halt edandstood near the threshold in amazement. Her eyes began to dance and she gave a Uttle gasp of delight. There against one wall stood her piano.'* She turned to him. deeply moved, and after the first hush of delight her eyes ware misty. "I wonder bow I aan ever going to ' ''

thank yon—for everythin*.” aba said softlyt • But Bad Anse Havey only answered In an embarrassed voice: ”1 reckon It might be a little Jingiy, so I bad a feller come op from Lexington and tune Jt UP.” ' She werifover ~aril struck acbord. then she came back and a hand 1 on his coat sleeve. “I’m not going to try to thank you at all —now,” she said. “But you go home and oome back this evening and well have a little party. Just you and I—with music.” “Good-by.” he said. “1 reckon ye haven't noticed it —but my rifle’s standin’ there in your rack.” It was a night of starlight, with Just a sickle moon overhead and the musto of the whippoorwills in the air, when Anse presented himself again at the school. He knew that he must break off these visits because while she had been away he had taken due accounting of himself and recognized that the poignant pain of locked lips would drive him beyond control. He could no longer endure “the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin.” Now the sight of her set him Into a palpitating fever and a burning madness. He would Invent some excuse tonight and go away. Then be came to the open door and stood on the threshold transfixed by the sight which greeted his eyes. His hat dropped to the floor and lay there. He thought he knew Juanita. Now he suddenly realized that the real Juanita he bad never seen before, and as he looked at her he felt infinitely far away from her. He was a very dim, faint star in apogee. She sat with her back turned and her fingers Btraying over the keys of the piano—and she was in evening dress? The shaded lamp shone softly on iTory shoulders and a; string of pearls glistened at her throat. Around her slim figure the soft folds of her gown fell like gossamer draperies and, to his eyes, she was utterly and flawlessly beautiful. She had followed a whim that night and “dressed up” to surprise him. She had promised him a party and meant to receive him with as much preparation as she would have made for royalty. But to him it was only a declaration of the difference between them, emphasizing how unattainable she was; how unthinkably remote from him own rough world. Then, as she heard his steps and rose, she was disappointed because in his face, instead of pleasure, she read only a tumult whose dominant note was distress. “Don’t you like me?” she asked, as she gave him her hand and smiled up at him. “Like you!” he burst out, then he caught himself with something like a gasp. “Yes,” he said dully, “I like you.” For a while she played and sang, and then they went out to the porch, where she sank down in the barrelstave hammock which hung there and he sat in a split-bottom chair by her side. He sat very moody and silent, his bands resting on his knees, trying to repress what he could not long hope to keep under. She seemed oblivious to bis deep abstraction. for she was bumming some air low, almost under her breath. But at last she sat up and laughed a silvery and subdued yet happy little laugh. She stretched her arms above her, bead. “It’s good to be back, Anse,” she said softly. ’Tve missed you—lots.” He dared not tell her how be had missed her,’ and he did not recognize the new note in her voice—the heart note. There was a strange silence between them, and as they sat, so close that each could almost feel the other’s breath, their eyes met and held in a locked gaze. Slowly, as though drawn by some occult power over which he held no control, the man bent a little nearer, a little nearer. 81owly the girl’s eyes dilated, and then, with no word, she suddenly gave a low exclamation, half gBB p half appeal, all inarticulate, and both hands went groping out toward him. With something almost like a cry. the man was on his knees by the hammock and both his arms were aronnd her and her head was on his shoulder. Then he was kissing her cheeks and lips, and into his soul was coming a sudden discovery with the softness and coolness of the flesh bis lips touched. It lasted only a moment, then she pushed him back gently and rose, while one bare arm went gropingly across her face and the other hand went out to the porch post for support :« in a voice low and broken she said: “You must go!” “No!” he exclaimed, and took a step toward her, but she retreated a little and shook her bead. “Yes, dear —pleage,” she almost whispered, and the man bowed in acquiescence. “Good night” he said gravely, arid picking up his hat he started across the ridge. But now there were no ghosts in his life, for all the wajf over that rough trail he was looking up at the stars and repeating incredulously over and over to himself; “She loves me!”

CHAPTER XXIV. In a small room over the post office in Peril an attorney, whose professional success bad always been precarious. received those few clients who came to him for consultation. The name was Waiter Hackley, tat he was better known aa Clay heel Hackley. because he never wore socks and bis bare ankles wow tanned to the hue of river-bank mod. *'

His features were wizened %»4 We eyes shifty. He was a coward and an Intriguer by nature and inclination. It was logical enough that when tbe verdict of the director’s table that Bad Anse Havey was a nuisance fib tered down the line the persons ieekIng native methods for abating' tb'i nuisance should come to Claybeel Hackley. One day in August Ibis attorney at law. together with Jim Fletcher and a tricky youth who enjoyed the distinction of holding office as telegraph operator at the Peril station, caucused together in Hackley’s dingy room. In the death of Bad Anse Havey this trio saw a Joint advantage, since tbe abating of such a nuisaace would not go unrewarded. "Gentlemen,” said the attorney, bis wizened face working nervously, “this business has need to be expeditious. Gentlemen—it requires, in its nature, to be expeditions. A few more failures and we are done for." “Well, teH us how ye alms ter do hit,” growled the telegraph operator. “Jim Fletcher has the idea,” replied the lawyer impressively. “Quite the right Idea. How many men can you trust on a Job like this. Jim?” “As many as ye needs." wa* the coafldent response. “A dozen or a score if they're wanted." “Enough to make it sure, but not too many,” urged Hackley. “We should set a day precisely as tbe court would set a day tor —er —an execution. Tbe force you send out should simply stay on the Job until it's done. If Anse Havey can be got alone, so much the better. But above all—” .The lawyer paused and spoke with his most forceful emphasis: ■ £ Just wound this man. See that the thing is finally and definitely settled.” “11l be there myself." Jim Fletcher assured him. “Now when is this day goin' ter be?" • “This is Monday?” reflected the attorney. "There is no advantage in delay. It will take a day or two to get ready. Let the case be docketed, ee l might say—for Thursday.” * • • • * • • Anse Havey had gone to Lexington. Never again did he mean to bold against himself the accusation of “the unlit lamp and the ungirt loin.” He knew that she loved him. In Lexington he had bought a ring and at Peril he had got a marriage license. His camp-following days were over. He had one youth, and he knew that if his enemies succeeded in their designs that might at any moment be snapped short with sudden death. It did not seem to him that one of its golden hours should be wasted. As he came out of the courthouse with the Invaluable piece of paper in his pocket two men, seemingly unarmed. rose from the doorway of the store across the street and drifted toward their hitched horses. Young Milt Me Briar had ridden over to Peril that day with several companions, and Anse Havey went back with them. So it happened that quite accidentally he made this Journey under escort. The men who rode a little way in his rear cursed their luck —end waited. And, though they lurked in hiding all that afternoon dear Anse Havey’s house, they saw nothiag more of their Intended victim. Anse was keenly alive to each day’s Impending threat, arid when be recognized the face of Jim Fletcher In Peril, as be came through, he had read mischief in the eyes and recognized that the menace had drawn closer. So, when he was ready to cross the ridge to the school, he obeyed an old sense of caution and left his horse saddled at the front fence that it miglrt seem as if be were going out—but bad not yet gone. He had sent a messenger for Good Anse Talbot, and tbe preacher arrived while be was at bis supper. "Brother Anse,” he said, "I’m goin’ to need ye some time betwixt now and midnight. 1 want ye to tarry here till 1 come back.” “What’s the nature of business ye needs me fer, Anse?" demanded the missionary. “I hadn’t hardly ought . ter wait. Thar’s a child ailin’ up the top fork of little fork of Turkey-Foot creek." But Bad Anse only shook bis bead. "It’s the best business ye ever did.” he confidently assured the preacher. “But I can't tell ye yet Is the child in any danger?” “I reckon not; hit’s Jest ailin’, but—" The brown-faced man sat dubiously shaking bis head, and Ansels features suddenly set and hardened. “I needs ye.” he said. ’Ain’t that enough? I’m goin’ to need ye bad.” \ “That’s A right strong reason, Ansa, bnt—" S For an instant tbe old dominating will which bad not yet learned to brook mutiny leaped into Anse Havey’s eyes. His words came in a harsher voice: "Will you stay of your own free will because I’m goin’ to need ye. Brother Anse?” he demanded. "Baca use. by God, ye’re goin’ to stay—one way or another.” . “Doei* ye ™ ann f rev hold me hyar by force?" “Not unless ye make me. I wouldn’t hardly like to do that,*, For a moment the missionary debated. He did not reseat the threat of coercion. He believed in Anse Havey, and the form of request convinced him of Its urgency. So he nodded Wi head, ’TU be hyar when ye comes:" he said. T ~ r Anse left his house that night neither by front nor back, but In the da» h shadows at one side, and bis talisman of luck lod hia noiseless feet safely between the scattered sentinels who were watching hia dwelling to km him. ...... : <*o BB COWTWtJWM . . _ ’

When His Old Rifle Spoke a Schoolboy From the Blue Grass Fell Dead.