The Call of the Cumberlands

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.