Newspaper Page Text
12
THE SUNNY SOUTH, ATLANTA, GEORGIA, NOVEMBER 26, 1892.
THROUGH A BREACH IN THE
WALL.
A Graphic Sketch of Life in
Mountains.
the
‘Surrender!”
The command cut the air like a knife.
Surrender; who could tell all that
word meant to the man sta dnijr at
hay, upon the very verge of the preci
pice overlooking that wild current, the
most turbulent of Tennessee’s stormy
streams, the Caney Fork.
He had been chased for three days
and nights by the sheriff’s posse. He
had thrown the bloodhounds off the
scent by taking to the river; but at
daybreak they had found the trail
again and had run him down at home.
He had instantly taken to the woods,
and they had chased him, making for
the river, to the great bluff. Trapped,
like a wild beast in its lair.
“Surrender! ”
Again the command rang out upon
the morning; the morning that was
flooding the free old river intoa quiver
ing, crimson glory. He looked before
him; only the still dark current far be
low'. Fartherup, it was white, boiling,
foaming white, where the water beat
against the rocks. Behind him were
five men, armed, and the dogs, weary
with the chase, resting on the ground,
tongues lolling, or licking their thin,
fleet legs.
One man stood apart from the others,
within ten feet of the fugitive : it w r as
the sheriff: he had covered him with
his pistol when he first called for sur
render. The weapon was still over
him; so close that he heard the click of
the trigger, when the officer cocked it.
“Will you surrender?”
The man ground his teeth and look
ed at the river. Would he? “No, by
heaven, never/” he told himself, “not
with that,” (again he glanced at the wa
ter,) “ in reach.”
He made oue short quick movement
toward the bluff, when crack! the
sheriff’s pistol sent a ball whizzing
within an inch of his head. He groan
ed and threw up his hands. There
was nothing else left him.
While the men were advancing to
take him, he glanced across at the
friendly covert of tangled laurel and
wild grape, crowding the further banks
of the river.
“Ef I cud a retched that 1 God hisse’f
cudu't a foun me,” he said, as he ex
tended his hands. The next moment
the click of handcuffs announced to the
posse, that at fast, Jim Rogers, wanted
at the county seat for the murder of
Bob Jeffreys, had been captured.
“ He aint a bad lot, Jim aint,” the
sheriff told the men, as he rode behind
his prisoner down the mountain.
“He’s alius bore a name for clever; a
leetle wild, maybe, but not bad, not
vicious. I’m proper sorry Jim got
inter this scrape, and I hated like fury
-to arrest him. But then, duty’s duty,
ye know.”
It was true. Jim wasn’t “a bad lot,”
albeit a murderer. The story of the
murderers in the State prison is pretty
much the same. Not a bad lot; the of
ficials will tell you they are a better
class of prisoners; victims to passion,
or to drink, whose deed was done in a
moment of irresponsibility, without
thought, and when reason was
blinded by rage, or by liquor. With
the prison comes grief, remorse, but not
viciousness. They are easily controlled;
it is the little thieves who need the
lash. No, Rogers was not bad ; there
was something, even, about the killing
of Jeffreys to be admired, if one eon-1
aiders Jim was young, wild as a buck!
in his mountains, ignorant, only as |
nature had dealt him knowedge. be-i
longing to that class to whom the laws ;
of society as well as the civil laws, !
are well nigh a dead letter; born, j
reared and triumphing in the broad
self-asserted creed of the mountaineer,
he had, not unnaturally fallen upon evil
and notw ithstanding the fact that half
the mountain had come down to the
trial to testify to his “quietness,” his
“sociableness,” his “helpfulness,” and
his numerous commendable traits of
character, Jim was sentenced to the
penitentiary for life. Yet it didn’t seem
such a bad case to his friends during the
trial. It didn’t seem so hard to Jim
until he went to tell his young wife
and boy good-bye. Then he broke!
down, though he patted her on the
head and said :
“Don’t you fret, Zalea”—she was
named Azalea from a girl, after the
pretty mountain wild flower that she
had been said to resemble. “Don’t ye
fret, Zalea, hit ware no fault o’ your’n.
Keep good care o’ de baby—granoy’ll
help ye ter raise ’im. Ef I hed a
heeded you-uns I’d a been ther’ to
help ye myse’f.”
It was true, as it came out in the
trial, that if Jim had listened to his
young wife’s insistence, he would not
have been in his present trouble. She
was always opposed, “agin” fire-arms;
and witli a fervor that was almost au
ger at times, she had insisted that he
would “come ter harm yit, iu them
caperins over the mount’ll fur days en
days with Bob Jeffreys en Tip
drews, a hunt’n uv deer en sech.”
Her forecasts and opposition became
annoying, so that in order to avoid
them, Jim had left home that morning
of the fatal hunt before his wife was
awake. He glanced at her as he passed
night; the hurried flight at daybreak ;
the pursuit; his wife’s agony; his
mother’s tears; the baying of the
hounds upon his track; the cool, dark
waters of the Caney Fork, and then the
sheriff’s command to “surreudtr.”
Then had come the long trial, and the
would “jest almost efforts of his old neighbors to save his
on ray goin’,” he neck. It was Andrew’s story had bet n
given
young, both so pretty, they might both
have passed for children, both those
pretty pink-white faces nestled cheek
to cheek on the coarse white pillow.
He was tempted to kiss the dainty, red
lips and risk their upbraiding. But he
was passionately fond of hunting, and
those pretty lips
up en set down
mused. He touched his lips to the I his salvation, and had given him his
boy’s tousled hair, however, and went j .'■entence of imprisonment instead ot
out, gently closing the cabin door be- the gallows.
hind him. There was a smile on his! " For the term of your natural life."
face, his beardless boyi-h lace, as he : It sounded in'his ears always-; his
passed out into the crisp, clear morn- pick repeated the sentence while he
ing. Only the day before tliat boy had dug in ihe coal bank along with his fel-
called him father for the first time, j low convicts; for, being strong, able-
The world might hold trials for him, bodied and young, he had been sent to
troubles past healing; it could never | the branch prison iu the mountains,
cheat him of that exquisite memory, i The iron shoes of the mine mules
All day the hunters had scoured the ! striking the rock-bedded tramway held
woods and started nothing. At four but one sound for him—“For the term
AN
'COULD
. No Remedy ,,
,t Uout RealM^'
Have Survived For
EightyYearJ
o’clock Jeffries scented, with the
hounds, a trail. It proved to be a cold
one however, so Andrews agreed to
drive, and went off into the brush
with the dogs while the others took
stands at short range along the sup
posed run of the deer.
Jim felt vaguely that he ought to go
home—then he consoled himself with
the promise of a deer skin for the boy.
“That’ll tickle Zalea ter death, mighty
nigh,” he told himself: “en ter go
home now, empty handed ivaalV’
He knew what that meant; more
over he had honestly desired the skin
for the boy who had called him fa I her.
The hide to the first drawer of blood,
is a custom as old as the chase itseK.
In this case it had been disputt d as to
who had drawn the blood.
The deer had passed Jeffrey’s stand,
not before the hounds, but trippiny
down, unconscious of danger, to the
lick in the gorge. Taken by surprise,
Jeffreys had forgotten to fire, until
suddenly, scenting a foe, the animal
lifted its antlered head, and with a
snort went bounding out of rifle range
at the moment Bob fired, only to be
brought down a moment later by a
shot from Rogers at the next stand.
“ Surrender.”
Then a dispute had ensued. Jeffreys
swore his shot had gone home; Rogers,
with an oath, required him to prove it.
There was but one wound, in the deer’s
brain—he could not have run to Rog
ers’ stand had the fatal shot been fired
by Jeffreys. Jim claimed the hide as
his by right of first blood. Jeffreys
swore he lied. Lied! the mountaineer
who prefers that charge is always call
ed upon to "eat" it. When Andrews
i reached the spot, Bob was lying beside
j the dead buck with a hole in his breast,
j and Rogers was telling him that it was
j he who did it,“count o’ bein’ named a
i liar.”
Andrews heard the story through.
Jim had done him a favor once. The
mountaineer never forgets. When it
w r as finished he said :
“Jim, you-uns ud hang fur this; the
law ain’t furbidd’n a man bein’ named
a liar. Ef it tetched yer it ud hang
yer. You-uns hev got a wife an baby
up ter the house. Nobody knows this
but we-uns. Jim, the killen o’ Bob
ware a accident.”
strange blood courses the veins of
those old mountaineers. Jim slowly
shook his head.
“Naw,” said he, “I shot him. He
named me a liar, en afore I knowed it
I had put a bullet in him. Ef I ware
ter say it ware a accident I ud be what
he named me, a liar. I killed him, but
I ben’t a liar. I won’t tell one, ef j.
hang fur it. I hates a lie like pizen.”
“Mebbe ye likes the pris’n more
better,” Andrews had said, and then
Jim “allowed” he could run away,
d dge, and after awhile Azalea and the
boy could come to him. Or, he could
come back, when the thing died out.
He could never be “satisfied away
from the mount’n,” the mountain that
he knew by heart, every lick, and cave,
every trail of deer or hiding place of
bear"; every herb and flower and tree,
from the big oaks to the pretty azaleas
growing round the cabin where he
“ A n" i lived ; the cabin where his wife was
! born, and had been given her pretty
name for these same sweet flowers.—
Leave them ? Better the gallows;
better anything than the dull, dark
prison
Then had followed that wild race for
the bed, lyiug asleep, the boy’swhite' freedom; then the longing for his loved
head pressed against her own, both so ones; the visit home under cover ot
of your natural life!” The rattle ol
the chain when he put the mule to the
car, the rush of the coal into the chute,
the blacksmith’s hammer when his
pick n« eded mending, all! all! every
thing repeated to his anguished brain,
the words, “For the term of your nat
ural life!"
Life! why he was little more than
twenty-and-two. His grandmother,
“still gaily,” was with Azalea iu tiie
cabin on the mountain, and his great
grandfather died only the year before;
one huudred and three years old, they
caid; he might Jive as long! who could
tell? In that case he would be iu
prison—he made the calculation with a
piece of chalk on the wall ot the mine,
by the light of his miner’s lamp—one
hundred and time; subtract twenty-
two—two irom three leaves one—two
from ten leaves eight; eighty-one
years.” In prison eighty-one years!
“Gre’t God, I can’t! ” he cried aloud,
his whole soul rising iu rebellion. He
didn’t deserve his sentence; he hadn’t
been a bad man. Had not his old
mother walked all the way to tow.n,
twelve miles, to tell that fool jury that
he had always been a loving son, a
careful husband and father. Even
Bob Jeffreys, were he alive, would be
bound to testify that he had ridden
five miles iu a midnight storm “to
fetch a doctor so’s Bob wouldn’t die iu
a drunken stupor.” “I wish ’t he
had,” he groaned. “Oh, I wish’t ter
God he had, en saved all o’ thi3 on-
Justice.”
Unjust he felt it to be, and he never
lost an opportunity of telling the war
den so.
Surrender! surrender! he heard the
command always iu his soul; the sher
iff’s command in the voice of fate.
Surrender! and as before, he answered^
"never."
To escape ; that) was his one hope; it
never for an instant slipped him. His
keen eye was always watching for the
coveted opportunity. Oh, for the
chance of the “Trusty” going into the
village! oh, for one hour in the prison
blacksmith’s place at the forge, with
only one guard in rifle range, and all
that wilderness of mountains so near.
He envied the very dogs, the prison
bloodhounds, lyiug under the guard
shack, free. Oh, for one chance, one
moment to set forth in the laurel jungle
among the azalea bushes, growing on
the mountains around the mine. He
watched them mornings when coming
down from the stockade to the mine
with the convicts, nodding their pale
pink faces to him as they had used to
do at home. They were fading now,
pretty blossoms; they had a pallid
look, such a look as was on his wife’s
face w hen he kissed her good-bye. &'he
was fading too, his sweet young moun
tain flower, his pretty azalea. “I don’t
deserve it,” he repeated his complaint
to the warden one day. “I didn’t de
serve to spend my life here, Cap’ll
Blivins.”
“Then you w T on’t,” the warden toid
him. “Folks generally get what they
deserve in this world.”
The next day he tried to make his
escape by remaining in a deserted tun
nel of the mines until they should
abandon the search for him and with
draw the guard. They waited two days
then put the dogs upon his track and
captured him. The next week he tried
it again, with the same resu t. When
he tried it the third time the warden,
whose keenest sympathy had been
aroused, gave him a quiet talk, full of
kind words and safe advice.
“Better give it up, Jim,” he said.
“Surrender ; you cau’t make it, and I’d
hate to see you hurt. And if you suc
ceeded it would only mean to be cap
tured again. This old ball aint big
enough to hide a runaway. Give it up
my man, surrender to fate, surrender.”
And Jim set his teeth iu that hard way
that had come to him of late and said,
“Never, never, Cap’n.”
All he asked was a ten foot start
toward the mountain.
“An’ I’ll make it yit, Cap’n,” he in
sisted, “I’ll make my escape yit.”
“You’ll make your own grave,” the
warden replied; but in his heart he
almost hoped he would, as he said
“make it.”
One morning he went down to the
miue feeling more gloomy, more
unbearably homesick than ever. He
had received a letter from his mother,
and there was trouble at home. Azalea
was “dow r n from pinin’ so constant.”
Tnere had been a rise in the Caney
Fork and their newly planted corn had
been “washed up.” The steer had
died, and the horse would have to be
sold to buy corn to plant again. Gran-
£s^\$\0-
V A S MUCH FOR 1 ^Jby'anOld Fami? y p ^ TERN ALUSEy
0**"^ -^ ,0 >AN
SOLD EVERYWHERE. .
clPampw let
id
Dropped on Sugar, Children love to take it.
p w _ IWintiiai* Should have Johnson’s
CL very IVI UIIICI Anodyne Liniment in the
house for Croup, Colds, Sore-Throat, Tonsilitis, Colie,
Cuts, Bruises, Bums, Cramps and Pains liable to occur in
any family without notice. Soothing, Healing and Pene
trating. When once used always called for.
E ,. Q . Qiiffnrer From Rheumatism,Sci-
V “ I y W U I Iwl VI auca, Neuralgia, Nerv
ous Headache. Diphtheria, Coughs, Catarrh, Bronchitis,
Asthma, Cholera-Morbus Diarrhoea, lameness, or Soie-
nessin Body or Limbs Stiff Joints or Strains, will find
in this old Anodyne relief and speedy cure.
Send for our Illustrated Book. I. S. JOHNSON & CO.. 22 Custom House Street, Boston, Mass.
Keeps Your Chickens
STRONG AND HEALTHY!
Sheridan’s Condition Powder
Prevents all Disease; Cholera, Roup, Leg’ Weakness, Etc.
noT HING ON Earth
^ WILL
^Heridan’S
CONDITION POWDER
SHERIDAN’S CONDITION POWDER
Is needed with it to assure perfect assimilation of the food elements necessary to produce eggs.
Small
Package,
FIVE
for
One Dollar.
Large
Five Dollars.
It is absolutely pur. ; Hiirhly concentrated; Most Economical, because such small doses; No other kind one-
fourth as strong; In quantity costs less than one tenth ct. a day per hen; Use freely when hens are moulting;
Strictly a Medicine; Not a Food; You can bu , r or raise food as cheap as we can; “One large can saved me 84u,
send sit more to prevent roup this winter,” says a customer: Will make your pullets lay when eggs are high.
Sold by druggists, grocers and feed dealers; No other ever made like it: Large cans most economical to buy.
Sf You Can’t Get it Near Home, Send to Us. Ask first.
We send postpaid one pack for 25c; Five §1. A 2 1-4 lb. can fcl.20; Six cans $5, express paid. Sample copy of
■’ v RM-POULTRY, “ the best poultry paper ” published, sent free. One large can and a year’s .subscription to
rm-Poultry sent for §1.50. cash or stamps, f S. JOHNSON v CO., 22 Custom House Street, Boston, Mass.
TAKE
21,000
BEAUTIFUL f
YOUNG GIRLSi
And then consider that of this large number 7,000 will, accord
ing to med.cal statistics, Die of Consumption.
One-third of the human race dies of Consumption; facts,
and figures back of facts, show it. Preventive medicine is
doing much now. AERATED OXYGEN stands Kins of
preventive agents. It removes impurities, makes bright, rich,
* v health-giving blood, heals ulcerated lungs, strengthens the res
piratory system, and makes iron nerves.
Generous breathers of pure air are useful people, because
healthy; AERATED OXYGEN inspires voice, and bTightens
energy. Its record and testimonials justify every claim made.
Its history is interesting ; its efficacy marvelous. Send lor pamphlet.
Treatment sufficient for the Winter, $3. Inhaler, 5Cc. extra.
For those who are skep^cal, we put up a trial size, which we shall
be pleased to send lor b... Home Office,
AERATED OXYGEN COMPOUND CO., Nashua, N. H.
Chicago Office :t£i4 Ccn.ral Music Hall. New York Office: 19 beekman street.
a WE 00 II EVERY TIME! 8 g° §50 to 8200
HOW X>Q WE DO IT?
Y, T e sell from our factory at wholesale prices direct to the public,
’ saving them all agent3’ and dealers’ exorbitant profits. We are doing a mar
vellous business. One thousand Pianos and Organs ner month.
WtirfDUltFDD, but true! _To prove it, send for our
new catalogue, illustrated in. colors. It is FJEEE
to any address. Exatniue it. and you will see that we are selling
ORGANS and PIANOS M h yS? s °
at prices that arc cimply WONDERFULLY LOW. We
. have now some of thefi ..est styles cf Organs and Pianos ever man-
’ ufactured. Our new catalogue shows an lhe_ latest. Our twenty-
sixth annual special oliers are now ready. \Ve_have bargains in ail
styles and at a.i prices. Organs from ©So. i iaiiom from
8175, for casli cr on easy paycent. We have the
largest direct trade in the world. We have a larger factory and
employ more men than any firm doing a direct business.
! You can visit our factory FRJEE if _vuu live within
200 miles of us*