man gone shiftless and fast going
wrong.

Soon two or three lank brown figures appeared from each direction on
foot; then a horseman or two, and by and by mountaineers came in groups,
on horse and on foot. In time the side alleys and the court-house square
were filled with horses and mules, and even steers. The mountaineers
crowded the narrow street: idling from side to side; squatting for a
bargain on the wooden sidewalks; grouping on the porch of the rickety
hotel, and on the court-house steps loitering in and out of the one
store in sight. Out in the street several stood about a horse, looking
at his teeth, holding his eyes to the sun, punching his ribs, twisting
his tail; while the phlegmatic owner sat astride the submissive beast,
and spoke short answers to rare questions. Everybody talked politics,
the crop failure, or the last fight at the seat of some private war; but
nobody spoke of a Lewallen or a Stetson unless he knew his listener's
heart, and said it in a whisper. For nobody knew when the powder would
flash, or who had taken sides, or that a careless word might not array
him with one or the other faction.

A motley throng it was--in brown or gray homespun, with trousers
in cowhide boots, and slouched hats with brims curved according to
temperament, but with striking figures in it; the patriarch with long,
white hair, shorn even with the base of the neck, and bearded only
at the throat-a justice of the peace, and the sage of his district; a
little mountaineer with curling black hair and beard, and dark, fine
features; a grizzled giant with a head rugged enough to have been
carelessly chipped from stone; a bragging candidate claiming everybody's
notice; a square-shouldered fellow surging through the crowd like a
stranger; an open-faced, devil-may-care young gallant on fire with
moonshine; a skulking figure with brutish mouth and shifting eyes.
Indeed, every figure seemed distinct; for, living apart from his
neighbor, and troubling the law but little in small matters of dispute,
the mountaineer preserves independence, and keeps the edges of his
individuality unworn. Apparently there was not a woman in town. Those
that lived there kept housed, and the fact was significant. Still, it
was close to noon, and yet not a Stetson or a Lewallen had been seen.
The stores of Rufe and old Jasper were at the extremities of the town,
and the crowd did not move those ways. It waited in the centre, and
whetted impatience by