Mountain advocate., 1916-01-28

BACK In the OLD days, when heh-
lucky was not a state but a county,
land patents had been granted by
Virginia to men who had never
claimed their property. For two hun
dred years other men who settled as
pioneers had held undlsturbed posses
sion, they and their children's chill
dren. Now into the courts piled multi
tudinohs suits OF eviction In the names
of plaintiffs whose eyes had never
seen the broken skyline of the Cum.
berlands. Their purpose was deceit,
since it sought to drag through long
and costly litigation pauper landhold'
ers and to impose such a calling bur.
den upon their property as should
drive them to terms of surrender
Men and women who owned. or
thought they owned, log shack and a
fitting cornGcld found themselves fac.
ire new and bcwildcrinS crisis.
Their Gutaught minds brooded and
they talked violently of holding by
title Of rifle what their fathers mad
wrCsted from nature, what they had
tended with sweat and endless toll.
But Anse Havey and Mill McBriar
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 Nc.
Briar.
The two stood stanchly together as
buffer between thoic almost help.
,oss people and the encrUaching ten
tac.,g OF The new octopus, while Juan
tia, ioUairS on at the forming of the
battlelines, W. 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-powCged out
en- Their way" And there were still
men IN the hills who, if other means
failed, would sell the service OF their
g. To- Inns" for money
With such Us t.ysl L became the
care of certain supcrnumeraries 10 es-
tabliEh an undc standing. In the last
election a thing hgd happened which
had not for many years before hap
pCHcd III Kentucky change of par
tics had swept from power in Frank
fort the administration which owed
loyalty to Hayey influences.
Bad Anse Havey was indicted as an
accessory to the murder of young Cal
win and he would be tried. not in Peril
but in the Blue Grass. The prosccu-
ton would be able to show that he
had warned the surveyors of hic own
place and had picketeG his fence line
with riflemen. They would &c 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 com
munity which knew him only by his
newspaper.made reputation.
So it was not long before Anse
Havey lay in cell in the Winchester
Jail. He kaG been denied bond and
frcnted a dreary prospect.
When the trial of AGse Havey be.
gan there was one spirit IL the land
Here was an exponent of the unjusti.
fable system of murder from ambush
In the cemetery at Lexington. where
sleep the founders of the western EN-.
pre, lay a boy whose life had Just be.
gun in all the blossom and sunshine
OF promise-and who had done no
wrong.
The special term of the cert had
brought to Winchester a throl. of
farmer folk and onlcokers. Tcair
horses stood hitched at the rash
about the square when the sheriff led
Anse Havey from the Jail to the old
building where he was to face his &C.
cusers and the judges who sat on the
bench and in the jury hox.
He took his seat with his counsel at
his elbow and listened to the pre-
limipary formalities of impaneling a
jury. His face told nothing, but as
man after man was excused because
he had formed an opinion, he read lit.
tie that was hopeful in the outlook
He calmly heard perjured witnesses
from his own country testify that he
had approached them, offering Eribes
Ior the killing of young Calvin which
they had righteously refused. He knew
that these men had been bought b>
Jim Fletcher and that they swore for
the hire OF syndicate money. but he
only waited patiently for the defense
to open. lie saw the scowl on tae
races in the jury box deepen into con
yiction 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
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 psyche
logical things should occur which
sweep juries suddenly from their
moorngs of fixed opinion. he must be
the sacrifice IN Rlue Grass wrath and