The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-03-01
BY BOOTH TARKINGTON.

As they beheld the hated settlement,
1 the heretofore orderly ranks showed a
! disposition to depart from the steady
| advance and rush the shanties. VIII
let's, the Bowlders, Parker. Ross Scho-
field, and fifty others did in fact,
| break way and set sharp pace up the
| slope.
Watts tried to call them back.
whats the use your ge4tin' killed."
he shouted.
'Why not?" answered Lige, who.
like others. was increasing his speed
| when old Windy" rose up suddenly
from the roadside ahead of them, and
motioned them frantically to go back.
They're laid out along the fence,
waitin fer ye," he warned them. Cit
/ out the road. Come to the fields. Fer
the Lords sake, spread" Then, as
| suddenly as he had appeared, he drop
ped down into the weeds again Lige
| and those with him paused, and the
whole body came to a ham while the
leaders consulted. There was a sound
| of metallic clicking and a thin rattle
of steel. From far to the rear came
| the voice of old Wilkerson:
John Browns body lies a-mouldering
| in the ground,
John Browns body lies a-mouldering
in the ground"
A few near him, as they stood wait
! ing, began to take up the burden of the
! song, singing in slow time like a dirge;
! then those further away took il up; il
spread reached the leaders: they. too,
! began to sing, taking off their hats as
| they Joined in; and soon the whole con-
| course, solemn, earnest and uncovered,
| was singipg-a thunderous requiem for
John Harkless.
! The sun was swinging lower and the
edges of the world were embroidered
with gold while that deep volume of
1 sound shook the air, the song of
stern, savage, just cause-sung, per-
! haps, as some of the ancestors of these
men sang with Hampden before the
bristling walls of a hostile city. 1t had
iron and steel in ii. The men lying
on their guns in the ambuscade along
the fence heard the dirge rise and grow
to its mighty fulness, and they shiv-
| cred. One of them, posted nearest the
advance, had his rifle carefully leveled
at Lige Willets, fair target I'm the
road. When he heard the singing, he
turned to the man next behind him and
laughed harshly: II reckon Wen see
big jamboree in hell tonight, huh?"
The huge murmur of the chorus ex-
banded. and gathered in rhythmic
strength, and swelled to power, and
rolled and Numbered across the plain.
John Browns body lies a-mouldering
in the ground,
John Browns body lies a-mouldering
in the ground
John Browns body lies a-mouldering
in the ground.
His soul goes marching on!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallelujah!
Glory! Glory! Hallemjah!
His soul goes marching on"
A gun spat fire from the higher ground
and Willetts dropped where he stood,
but was up again in a second with a
red line across his forehead where the
ball grazed his temple. Then the mob
spread out like fan, hundreds of men
climbing the fence and beginning the
advance through the fields. closing on
the ambuscade from both sides. Mr..
Watts, wading through the high grass
in the field north of the road, perceived
the barrel of gun shining from a
bush some distance in front of him,
and, although in the same second no
weapon was seen in his hand, discharg-
ed q revolver at the bush behind the
gun. Instantly ten or twelve men leap
ed from their hiding places along the
fences of both fields, and, firing hur-
riedly and harmlessly into the scat
tered ranks of the oncoming mob,
broke for the shelter of the houses,
where their fellows were posted. Taken
on the TANKS and from the rear, there
was but one thing for them to do to
keep from being hemmed in and shot
or captured. (They excessively prefer
red being shot) With a wild, high,
joyous yell, sounding like the bay of
young hounds breaking into view of
their quarry, the Plattville men eol-
lowed. The most eastward of the de-
bilitated edifices of Six-CrosS-Roads
was the saloon, which bore the painted
legends; On the west wall, Last
Chance" on the east wall, First
Chance" Next to this, and separated
by two of three acres of weedy va
cancy from the corners where the pop
| ulation centered thickest stood-if one
| may so predicate a building which
| leaned in seven direetions-the house
| of MIR. Robert Skillet, the proprie tor
| of the saloon. Both buildings We're shut
| up as tight as their state of repair
| permitted AS they were furthest to
| the east, they formed the nearest shell
| ter and to them the Cross Roade b;
| bent their flight, though they stopped
not here, but disappeared behind Skill
| lett's shanty, putting it between them
| and their pursuers, whose guns were
| beginning to speak. The fugitiVes had
| good start, and, being the picked
| runners of the Cross Roads, they cross
| ed the open, weedy acres in safety and
made for their homes. Every house
| had become a fort, and the defenders
would have to be fought and torn out
| one by one. AS the guns sounded, a
| woman in a shanty near the forge be-
gan to scream, and kept on. screaming.
On came the farmers and the men
| of Plattville. They took the saloon at
| a run; battered down the crazy doors
J with a fence rail. and swarmed inside