The Hays free press. [volume] (Hays, Kan.) 1908-1924, 1916-01-22

edge OF the instrum being
employed on the real battlefield Law
yers tried condemnation suits with in
different success, and then reached
out their hands for new weapon.
Back in the old days. when Ken
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 undisturbed posses
sion, they and their children's chill
dren. Now into the courts piled multi
tud1nous 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
fitting cornfield found themselves fac
ing new and bewildering crisis.
Their untaught minds brooded and
they talked violently Of holding by
title of rife what their fathers had
wrested from nature, what they had
tended with sweat and endless toll.
But Anse Havey and Milt McBriar
knew that the day was at hand when
the rife would no longer serve. They
employed lawyers fitted to meet those
otter 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 their almost help
| less people and the encroaching ten
tacles of the new octopus, while Juan
| ita, looking on at the forming of the
battlelines. was torn with anxiety.
In Bad Anse Havey the combination
| of interests recognized its really most
| formidable foe. In the mountain
i phrase. he must be "man-powered out
en- Their way" And there were still
men in the hills who, if other means
| failed. would sell the service of their
'rifie-guns'' for money.
With such as these it became the
care of certain supernumeraries to es-
| tablish an understanding. In the last
election thing had happened which
had not for many years before hap
pened in Kentucky-a change of par
| ties had swept from power in Frank
fort the administration which owed
! loyalty to Havey influences.
Bad Anse Havey was indicted as an
accessory to the murder Of young Cal
vim and he would be tried, not in Peril,
but in the Blue Grass. The prosecu-
! ton would be able to show that he
| had warned the surveyors off his own
place and had picketed his fence line
with rif1emen. They would be 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 had been denied bond and
fronted a dreary prospect.
When the trial of Anse Havey be-
gan there was one spirit in 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-
pire, lay boy whose life had Just be-
gun in all the blossom and sunshine
of promise-aRd who had done no
wrong.
The special term of the court had
brought to Winchester a throng OF
farmer folk and onlookers. Their
horses stood hitched at the racks
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 box.
He took his seat with his counsel al
his elbow and listened to the pre-.
liminary 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 brides
for the killing of young Calvin which
they had righteOusly refused. He knew
that these men had been bought BY
Jim Fletcher and that they swore for
the hire of syndicate money. but he
only waited patiently 70! the defense
to open. He saw the 1cowl on the
faces in the jury box deepen into con.
viction 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
a few of its perjuries were punctured
the faces in the box lightened their
scowl 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
moorings of fixed opinion. he must be
the sacrifice to Blue Grass wrath. and
on the list of witnesses under the
hand of his attorney there were only q
few names left-pitifully few.