The Call of the Cumberlands

In the course of five years, several South adherents, who had crossed

Hollman's path, became victims of the laurel ambuscade. The theory of

coincidence was strained. Slowly, the rumor grew and persistently

spread, though no man would admit having fathered it, that before each

of these executions star-chamber conferences had been held in the rooms

above Micah Hollman's "Mammoth Department Store." It was said that

these exclusive sessions were attended by Judge Hollman, Sheriff Purvy

and certain other gentlemen selected by reason of their marksmanship.

When one of these victims fell, John South had just returned from a law

school "down below," wearing "fotched-on" clothing and thinking

"fotched-on" thoughts. He had amazed the community by demanding the

right to assist in probing and prosecuting the affair. He had then

shocked the community into complete paralysis by requesting the Grand

Jury to indict not alone the alleged assassin, but also his employers,

whom he named as Judge Hollman and Sheriff Purvy. Then, he, too, fell

under a bolt from the laurel.

That was the first public accusation against the bland capitalist, and

it carried its own prompt warning against repetition. The Judge's High

Sheriff and chief ally retired from office, and went abroad only with a

bodyguard. Jesse Purvy had built his store at a cross roads twenty-five

miles from the railroad. Like Hollman, he had won a reputation for open

-handed charity, and was liked--and hated. His friends were legion. His

enemies were so numerous that he apprehended violence not only from the

Souths, but also from others who nursed grudges in no way related to

the line of feud cleavage. The Hollman-Purvy combination had retained

enough of its old power to escape the law's retribution and to hold its

dictatorship, but the efforts of John South had not been altogether

bootless. He had ripped away two masks, and their erstwhile wearers

could no longer hold their old semblance of law-abiding

philanthropists. Jesse Purvy's home was the show place of the country

side. To the traveler's eye, which had grown accustomed to hovel life

and squalor, it offered a reminder of the richer Bluegrass. Its walls

were weather-boarded and painted, and its roof two stories high.

Commodious verandahs looked out over pleasant orchards, and in the same

enclosure stood the two frame buildings of his store--for he, too,

combined merchandise with baronial powers. But back of the place rose

the mountainside, on which Purvy never looked without dread. Twice, its

impenetrable thickets had spat at him. Twice, he had recovered from

wounds that would have taken a less-charmed life. And in grisly

reminder of the terror which clouded the peace of his days stood the

eight-foot log stockade at the rear of the place which the proprietor

had built to shield his daily journeys between house and store. But

Jesse Purvy was not deluded by his escapes. He knew that he was "marked

down." For years, he had seen men die by his own plotting, and he

himself must in the end follow by a similar road. Rumor had it that he

wore a shirt of mail, certain it is that he walked in the expectancy of

death.