Men who had, in the past, plotted against each other's lives to-day "met an' made their manners" with all outward guise of complete amity, yet this one figure walked ungreeted or recognized only with the curt nod which was in itself a modified ostracism. It must be said of him that he bore the baleful insistence of public enmity with a half-contemptuous steadiness in his own eyes, and a certain bold dignity of bearing. Mark Tapier—mongrelized by mountain pronunciation into Tapper—was the revenue officer and behind him, though operating from remote distance, lay the power of Washington.
To comprehend the universal hatred of the backwoods highlander for the "revenue" one must step back from to-day's standard of vision into the far past and accept that prejudice which existed when as legalistic a mind as Blackstone said: "From its original to the present time, the very name of excise has been odious to the people of England," and when Dr. Johnson defined the term in his dictionary as: "A hateful tax levied upon commodities ... by wretches hired by those to whom excise is paid."
Such a "wretch" was Mark Tapper in the local forum of public thought; a wretch with an avocation dependent upon stealth and treachery of broken confidences; profiting like Judas Iscariot upon blood-money.
Yet before the first day of "Big Meeting time" had progressed to noon, Mark Tapper sat in close and secret conference with the strongest and most typical exponent of the old order of the hills.
Into the side door of the Court-house strolled Kinnard Towers at ten-thirty in the morning. From the jailer, who was his vassal, he received the key which unlocked the small study giving off from the Circuit Court-room—the judge's chamber—now vacant and cobwebbed.
In this sanctum of the law's ostensible upholding, surrounded by battered volumes of code and precedent, the man who was above the law received first Jud White, the town marshal.
"I reckon sich a gatherin' of folks es this hyar sort of complicates yore job, Jud," he began blandly. "I thought I ought to tell ye thet Ratler Webb's broguein' round town gittin' fuller of licker an' hostility every minute thet goes by."
The town marshal scowled with a joyless foreboding.
"Mebby," he tentatively mused, "hit moutn't be a bad idee ter clap him in ther jail-house right now—afore he gits too pizen mean ter handle."
But with judicial forbearance Kinnard Towers shook his head. "No, I wouldn't counsel ye ter do thet. Hit wouldn't be hardly lawful. I've done instructed Black Tom Carmichael ter kinderly keep an eye on him." After a moment he casually added: "Thar's bad blood betwixt Ratler an' young Bear Cat Stacy. Hit would sarve a better purpose fer ye ter keep a heedful watch on Bear Cat."