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.