Men who casually estimated the respective representation of the Joslins and the Gannts thought there were forty or fifty men on each side. It was doubted if half of these would ever get out of town unhurt. The sheriff was somewhere far to the west, at the county seat. There was no peace officer, nor would it have been a good place for one. It was a meeting of the clans. The Cumberlands were going about their ancient business in their own ancient way.
Some, fitfully interested, spoke of the new railway now advancing from the Middle Fork up Hell-fer-Sartin. There was talk that a pike road had been built in as far as the county seat from somewhere very far in the west, as much as twenty miles. In a general way there seemed to hang in the air an unsettled feeling, as though all knew great events yet might happen. The war Outside—the railroad now impending—the old feud now about to break aflame again—it was a grave time for these strange, somber folk.
But a day passed, two days, and nothing broke. The leaders studiously kept away from the young men all that fiery liquor which, would be certain to set them beyond control. The tenseness of the long hours began to tell on all. Men became restless—boys stood here and there in groups, talking sullenly, looking this way and that, nodding a head hither or yon. But after their old and usual fashion, the leaders of both factions held them together—old Absalom Gannt and Chan Bullock and their respective attendants. “Wait, fellers,” was the arresting word that went around. “Come to the meetin’ at the mill.”
The main floor of the mill building at the Forks afforded a room perhaps fifty feet in one dimension, low-ceiled and dark. The reticent postmaster and the blacksmith had provided a few flickering lamps. And finally thither, soon after twilight of the appointed day, the mountaineers turned, group by group, man after man, silently, two score Joslins and as many or more of the Gannts, all of them too proud to stay away even though a stern mystery lay ahead. Every man of them was armed, every one of them ready for what might come. The old mill building, the only meeting place tacitly held neutral and the only practical town hall available, bade fair to see red history this night.
And there was history done that very night. They had all gathered, the men of both clans, thronging the dark interior. For half an hour they had sat, silent and alert, squatting here or there on their heels, slouching on sacks of grain or something of the sort. The Gannts were on the left-hand side, the Joslins on the right, as one entered the door. No one seemed to know what was expected. There still was mystery as to what had brought them here. Perhaps the postmaster and the blacksmith knew. If so, they would tell in time. That word had been passed to the Gannts that the Joslins would be here, and to the Joslins that the Gannts would come, was the only sure thing; and it was quite enough.
The blacksmith and the postmaster passed here and there, setting alight their lamps. No man spoke on either side. Both factions sat looking across the little white-floored lane of No Man’s Land which lay between them. A quick motion, a shout, the sound of a shot, would have been fatal to half the men present here; but if any one of them felt agitation, it was not manifest by any word or sign, by any paling of the face or trembling of the hand. Unagitated, calm, they sat, each with his eye on his own selected man, ready for what might happen.
What did happen was this: The door darkened against the pale starlight. There stepped slowly into the interior, where the shadows lay heavy upon the floor, the figure of a tall man.
It was a man whom they all knew. As he came into the circle lighted by the lamps, a sort of sigh went up, audible in its united volume.
It was David Joslin!
Now they knew why they were to come here. The leader of the Joslins had come back! That meant trouble. He had not died—everybody knew that—everybody had heard from down the river that he had run out and left the country. But now he had got courage to come back!