The morning came with a crystal clarity and hills locked in a grip of ice, but the army whose marching song had startled sleeping cabins into wakefulness had dissolved as though its ghostly existence could not survive the light of day. Yet behind that appearance and disappearance had been left an impression so profound that the life of the community would never again be precisely what it had been before.
A new power had arisen, inexplicable and mysterious—but one that could no longer be ignored.
With bated breath, around their hearth fires, the timorous and ignorant gossiped of witchcraft, and sparking swains were already singing to the accompaniment of banjo and "dulcimore" ballads of home-made minstrelsy, celebrating the unparalleled achievements of the young avenger of wrong-doings and his summary punishment of miscreants. They sang of the man who:
"Riz outen ther night with black specters at his back,
Ter ther numbers of scores upon scores,
An' rid straightway ter ther dwellin' house of Bad Jim Towers,
Who treemored es they battered down ther doors."
More than one mountain girl bent forward listening with heightened pulses as the lad who had come "sweet-heartin'" her shrilled out his chorus.
"So his debt fer thet evil Jim Towers hed ter pay,
Fer they driv him outen old Kaintuck, afore ther break of day.