They found the dead in a pool of blood, lying within a few feet of each other. They discovered Eversole’s pockets turned inside out. Nick Combs’ horse was found, shot, in a little meadow by the side of the road, while Eversole’s horse was afterwards caught some miles further down the stream.
The news of the tragedy aroused the people to instant action. A force of men was assembled, who started upon the trail of the murderers. The place of ambush was found. It was located exactly sixty-one feet from the point where the bodies had been found, in a dense spruce-pine thicket. Several of the pine bushes had been bent over and the tops tied together, thus forming a complete screen and shelter.
Behind this blind or screen they found a considerable depression in the earth, a natural rifle pit. This had been filled with leaves and appeared packed and trodden into the ground. Numerous footprints were plainly visible. Remnants of meals were also found. Everything tended to confirm the theory that the assassins had been there for at least two days before the killing. From this screen the trail was followed up the hill until it divided. One of the trails led to the top of a high ridge, one turned to the right, another to the left. This discovery proved that there had been at least three assassins. When this fact became known the pursuers retreated, seemingly afraid of an ambush. They reasoned that three or more men so desperate as to commit a cold-blooded double murder in the broad-open light of day, almost in sight of human habitation, would and could, in this wild mountain region, successfully fight an even larger force than was at the command of the pursuers.
The bodies of Eversole and Combs were conveyed to Hazard in the afternoon and consigned to their graves amid a great concourse of sorrowing people.
Thus the bloody drama ends. The sombre curtain of mourning falls. The story of the brutal assassination is finished. Justice hides her head in shame for no one has ever been punished for it.
The French faction was at once openly charged with responsibility for the outrage. French himself was indicted. So boldly and undisguised were these accusations circulated that French feared for his safety and again surrounded himself with men. He almost immediately withdrew from town and scouted through the country.
If those who committed the murder of Eversole, or their accessaries, had hoped to thereby crush the enemy, they found themselves sadly mistaken. The vacancy created by the death of Joe Eversole was quickly and ably filled by John Campbell, a man of acknowledged bravery, as well as caution, and well-fitted as a leader in such a struggle.
He surrounded the town with guards; squads of men patrolled the streets; his force made repeated scouts into the neighboring hills. No man not in possession of the password could enter town. An unauthorized attempt to do so drew upon the rash one the fire of many guns. Campbell had been for days in hourly expectation of an attack by French. He, therefore, believed it wise to resort to military methods and discipline. The rigid order to shoot any one who dared to pass into town without first giving the pass-word resulted in his own death.
He was returning one night from his usual rounds when, on approaching a sentry, he found him asleep. He ordered him harshly to arise, when the man, half asleep, and dazed, threw the gun to his shoulder and fired. Campbell uttered a groan and fell heavily to the ground.
The sentry, on perceiving his mistake, gave the alarm; the wounded chieftain was carried to his home, where an examination of his wound by the surgeons disclosed the fact that he had been fatally wounded. He lingered, however, for more than thirty days in intense agony before he died—the victim of his own precautions.