for college in the Blue-grass.  On the way he had stayed all night in a little mountain town in the foot-hills.  He had got up at dawn, but already, to escape the hot rays of an August sun, mountaineers were coming in on horseback from miles and miles around to hear the opening blast of the trumpet that was to herald forth their wrongs.  Under the trees and along the fences they picketed their horses, thousands of them, and they played simple games patiently, or patiently sat in the shade of pine and cedar waiting, while now and then a band made havoc with the lazy summer air.  And there, that morning, Jason had learned from a red-headed orator that “a vicious body of deformed Democrats and degenerate Americans” had passed a law at the capital that would rob the mountaineers of the rights that had been bought with the blood of their forefathers in 1776, 1812, 1849, and 1865.  Every ear caught the emphasis on “rob” and “rights,” the patient eye of the throng grew instantly alert and keen and began to burn with a sinister fire, while the ear of it heard further how, through that law, their ancient Democratic enemies would throw their votes out of the ballot-box or count them as they pleased—­even for themselves.  If there were three Democrats in a mountain county—­ and the speaker had heard that in one county there was only one—­ that county could under that law run every State and national election to suit itself.  Would the men of the mountains stand that?—­No!  He knew them—­that orator did.  He knew that if the spirit of liberty, that at Jamestown and Plymouth Rock started blazing its way over a continent, lived unchanged anywhere, it dwelt, however unenlightened and unenlightening, in a heart that for an enemy was black with hate, red with revenge, though for the stranger, white and kind; that in an eagle’s isolation had kept strung hard and fast to God, country, home; that ticking clock-like for a century without hurry or pause was beginning to quicken at last to the march-rhythm of the world—­the heart of the Southern hills.  Now the prophecy from the flaming tongue of that red-headed orator was coming to pass, and the heart of the Kentucky hills was making answer.

It was just before noon when the boy reached the hill overlooking the capital.  He saw the gleam of the river that came down from the mountains, and the home-thrill of it warmed him from head to foot.  Past the cemetery he went, with a glimpse of the statue of Daniel Boone rising above the lesser dead.  A little farther down was the castle-like arsenal guarded by soldiers, and he looked at them curiously, for they were the first his had ever seen.  Below him was the gray, gloomy bulk of the penitentiary, which was the State building that he used to hear most of in the mountains.  About the railway station he saw men slouching whom he knew to belong to his people, but no guns were now in sight, for the mountaineers had checked them at the adjutant-general’s office,