ow soon that room was emptied! Harkins took after the
fugitive, and had a wild chase; but he got him."

* * * * *

It was my good fortune, a few evenings later, to have a long talk with
Mr. Harkins himself. He was a fine giant of a man, standing six feet
three, and symmetrically proportioned. No one looking into his kindly
gray eyes would suspect that they belonged to one who had seen as hard
and dangerous service in the Revenue Department as any man then living.
In an easy, unassuming way he told me many stories of his own adventures
among moonshiners and counterfeiters in the old days when these southern
Appalachians fairly swarmed with desperate characters. One grim affair
will suffice to give an impression of the man, and of the times in which
his spurs were won.

There was a man on South Mountain, South Carolina, whom, for the sake of
relatives who may still be living, we will call Lafonte. There was
information that Lafonte was running a blind tiger. He got his whiskey
from four brothers who were blockading near his father's house, just
within the North Carolina line. The Government had sent an officer named
Merrill to capture Lafonte, but the latter drove Merrill away with a
shotgun. Harkins then received orders to make the arrest. Taking Merrill
with him as guide, Harkins rode to the father's house, and found Lafonte
himself working near a high fence. As soon as the criminal saw the
officers approaching, he ran for the house to get his gun. Harkins
galloped along the other side of the fence, and, after a
rough-and-tumble fight, captured his man. The officers then carried
their prisoner to the house of a man whose name I have forgotten--call
him White--who lived about two miles away. Meantime they had heard
Lafonte's sister give three piercing screams as a signal to his
confederates in the neighborhood, and they knew that trouble would
quickly brew.

Breakfast was ready in White's home when the mob arrived. Harkins sent
Merrill in to breakfast, and himself went out on the porch, carbine in
hand, to stand off the thoroughly angry gang. White also went out,
beseeching the mob to disperse. Matters looked squally for a time, but
it was finally agreed that Lafonte should give bond, whereupon he was
promptly released.

The two officers then finished their breakfast, and shortly set out for
the Blue House, an abandoned schoolhouse about forty miles distant,
where the trial was to be