The Call of the Cumberlands

"I learned some things down there at school, Samson," said the girl,

slowly, "and I wish--I wish you didn't have to use it."

"Jim Asberry is dead," said the man, gravely.

"Yes," she echoed, "Jim Asberry's dead." She stopped there. Yet, her

sigh completed the sentence as though she had added, "but he was only

one of several. Your vow went farther."

After a moment's pause, Samson added: "Jesse Purvy's dead."

The girl drew back, with a frightened gasp. She knew what this meant,

or thought she did.

"Jesse Purvy!" she repeated. "Oh, Samson, did ye--?" She broke off,

and covered her face with her hands.

"No, Sally," he told her. "I didn't have to." He recited the day's

occurrences, and they sat together on the stile, until the moon had

sunk to the ridge top.

* * * * * Captain Sidney Callomb, who had been despatched in command of a

militia company to quell the trouble in the mountains, should have been

a soldier by profession. All his enthusiasms were martial. His

precision was military. His cool eye held a note of command which made

itself obeyed. He had a rare gift of handling men, which made them

ready to execute the impossible. But the elder Callomb had trained his

son to succeed him at the head of a railroad system, and the young man

had philosophically undertaken to satisfy his military ambitions with

State Guard shoulder-straps.

The deepest sorrow and mortification he had ever known was that which

came to him when Tamarack Spicer, his prisoner of war and a man who had

been surrendered on the strength of his personal guarantee, had been

assassinated before his eyes. That the manner of this killing had been

so outrageously treacherous that it could hardly have been guarded

against, failed to bring him solace. It had shown the inefficiency of

his efforts, and had brought on a carnival of blood-letting, when he

had come here to safeguard against that danger. In some fashion, he

must make amends. He realized, too, and it rankled deeply, that his men

were not being genuinely used to serve the State, but as instruments of

the Hollmans, and he had seen enough to distrust the Hollmans. Here, in

Hixon, he was seeing things from only one angle. He meant to learn

something more impartial.

Besides being on duty as an officer of militia, Callomb was a

Kentuckian, interested in the problems of his Commonwealth, and, when

he went back, he knew that his cousin, who occupied the executive

mansion at Frankfort, would be interested in his suggestions. The

Governor had asked him to report his impressions, and he meant to form

them after analysis.