| Show 4 aw in M M 0 ai g 40 true stories IMP e 13 ULM e of at the federal e greatest ON in 0 in ff agency detective the j N wt N W we bureau information 49 breau of r 4 U S D dept ept ai of justice ot i N by WILLIAM DU PUY V 04 it za ri fa the conscience of the Cum berlands 1 copyright by W 0 chapman on the face of it one might have questioned the wisdom of bf selecting for a task so difficult a man who knew absolutely nothing about it when the work in hand was the apprehension of a band of I 1 violators of the law who had for years defied and intimidated timi dated the whole countryside this bourse course seemed even more unusual but the wonder would have still further multiplied itself it if the casual ob could have given billy gard the once over as he sat nervously on the edge of the caie cane seat of the day coach as the accommodation train pulled into thel the hill lill country foradis for this special agent of the department of justice mind you was waa to take lake nip mp a piece of work upon which local constables and sheriffs united states inars marshals hals and revenue agents had jailed failed there was murder at one end of the road he was to travel and the gallows av at the other and gard was a nondescript young youngster ster who looked ness than thirty neither light nor dark large larg e nor small mall ln inconspicuous conspicuous easily lost jost in a crowd the careful observer might have noticed the breadth of abrow and the wrinkles that come to the man who thinks or the tenseness of hie slim form that indicated physical fitness for to be sure these federal sleuths of the new school are mostly college men lawyers expert accountants as was gard but youngsters in whom Is to be found th elove af pf a bit af adventure and the steel bof of a set determination and now this slip of a lad was going back into the Cum berlands where the whisky still whispers its secret to tile th mountaineer where the revenue agent penetrates at his peril and the long tom speaks from the thickets where the clansman sets what he considers his rights above the law of the land and stands ready bolay tolay to lay his life or that of any who oppose him sn on the altar he has built gard was after a community of moon shiners oho iho had defied all local authority and thrown down the gaunt gauntlet letto to the fed eral government itself he came alono alond with a little wicker grip 1 I am looking tor for a place to board the special agent told todd the livery stable man at wheeler the mountain evoi town at which he had stopped off 1 I have beeri been clerking in a store in atlanta and got pretty well run down the doctor said I 1 ought to stay in the mountains for a month or two in 0 how much can you pay asked todd I 1 q 1 I would like to get it as cheap as aa five dollars a week said eald gard card you can buy a farm up here for five dollars a week said todd well I 1 want good board where I 1 can get lots of milk to drink and eggs end and where I 1 can tramp around and shoot squirrels do you know such a place the liveryman was accustomed to driving summer boarders out to the few places where they might stay in the Cum berlands he sketched ek etched these possibilities lied and told of the location ot of each gard already had the map of the country well in mind and selected the farm near sam Luns fords he being the mountaineer whom the agent most wanted to cultivate todd reviewed the situation as aa between the mountaineers and the government as he be drove his bis customer out to the tenney teffiney farm where he be was to ask to be put up you see he said they have al made moonshine whisky around here fiere and they just wont stop tor for nobody they aint many ideas gits into the head bead of a man who lives antho mountains and when oile oue gi gits as set there you cant betit get it out they think they got a right to make whisky and whisky they are goin to make or DUBI then along comes tom reynolds and sam lunsford and aid me and some more ofus or us we see that it aint right to fight the government andt and that bat whisky Is no good anyhow so BO whenever we flod find out where there is a still ive we tell the revenue agents about it well we git war that we vis better not do it no more but them tellers fellers cant ike er us so BO we go right ahead then one night tom reynolds starts home from wheeler late in the evenin ev eniti but he dont never get there next mornin we find his wagon off to the side elde of the road and tom is down in front of the seat dead altha nath a load of buckshot jn in his head sara sam luncford has still stil g got ot 1 the h e adea though th that A the ibe boys ought n not t to make moonshine so he goes goas right saheed re report ln every every still he finds so things goes on for two months then one night sam was up late with one of ills ilia babies that had the colic lie he was settle before the fire a nl the baby when somebody shoots lilan through the well that thai shot didia autta got get fiam did you ever try to shoot the head bead off of a chicken as it walked across the bardi yard its head moves ford and back and it is mighty hard to hit bit it the themay way with sam the baby I 1 reckon anyway the buckshot just got sam ln in the back part of his bis head and kill him next day hla his old woman picked the buckshot a pocket knife because the doctor was afraid to go now sam ji ls as heeve hoever was andee and he aint clanged changed hla his mind mandi about abou t the stills a him and me reported two of them last week this story was about in accordance with the information gard received from washington the reven revenue tio agents were too well known to work off effectually in the cumber cumb lands any more so the depar department conent of justice had taken over the case the murderers and those who attempted murder should be apprehended As the wagon wound along the country road todd called the special agents attention to the report of a rifle from a hillside to the right soon another gun was discharged further ahead and a third still further on this the liveryman said was waa a system of signals that told of their pres ence A little further along the road wound into a hollow down which flowed a farook out of the brush in this hollow stepped the form of a mountaineer with a rifle across his arm todd drew up his team what have you got there asked the man in the road summer boar boarder dei 11 said todd wheres Wb eres he golno was the query to tenness Ten answered todd I 1 the mountaineer walked around to the back of the wagon where gards cards little wicker grip was carried with 1 out a word lie he opened the grip andi and carefully examined everything in it alti i seemingly satisfied he waved permission tor for them to proceed young feller he said to gard card in parting you are in durn dum bad company you cant never tell whether you will git back when you start out with that skunk to which todd grinned as he be drove on they aint never made tho the bullet kill me he said it was three days later thit that billy gard squirrel rifle on his shoulder walked into the clearing about the house of Sam Lunsford the man who had survived the charge of buckshot in the back of his head the luns ford house consisted of ono one log room with a leanto lean to addition at the back there was a clearing of some thirty acres where bliefe grew a most indifferent sprinkling of forn corn and cotton thero was a crib forthe corn il a ramshackle wagon a absteen gray horse and some hogs bogs running wild in the woods i such w was as estate presided d over by this huge mountaineer and to which his eleven children were heir seldom did an echo of the outside world reach this home in the tae woods not a member of the family was able to read every sunday sam lunsford drove the flea bitten gray or walked twelve miles to td a little mountain ch where was preached a gospel of hell bell fire and brimstone aa was hated by his neighbors and constantly in the shadow of death yet he went unswervingly on the tha way of his duty in accordance with his bis lights gard card already had bad the measure of his man no sooner had he presented himself than he buthis business up to the he mountaineer cold i turkey as the agents say when they I 1 y r all the cards on the table would lunsford help the government in getting the facts that would bring the murders of tom reynolds and the tha men who shot him to justice lunsford would do all he could whom do you suspect the agent asked there are so BO many of them agin me said lunsford that iti itis bard shard to tell which ones don it t will you show me just how bow you were sitting when you were shot the mountaineer placed the rocking chair in front of the fire directly between a hole in the be window and a spot in the opposite wall where the bucks buckshot bot had bad lodged themselves peppering up a surface two feet square thus was it easy to trace the flight pi ot the shot through the room the special agen agent f examined both window pane and wall could you tell where abe man stood when he bo fired he ha asked yes said lunsford 1 I looked locked ator bor I 1 tracks next day let me show you he led the way aay into the yard and there pointed out a stout peg which had bad been driven into the ground enot not a dozen feet from the window the tracks camo caine up to therland there and stopped be said 1 did you measure the tracks ackal tr asked the special agent the mountaineer had bad done io BO and had bad cut a stick just the length of tits the track this stick had been carefully preserved did yau find any of the gun wadding asked the agent even this precaution was taken by lunsford these men 0 of f the m mountains oun mostly load their own shells and the wads in this case had been made by cutting pieces out of a pasteboard box so there were a number of clues at hand special agent billy gard card stood on the spot from which the shot had been fired from this point to that at which the buckshot had entered the wall of the cabin was not more than thirty feet an ordinary shotgun at thirty feet he reflected remembering his squirrel hunting days almost like a rino rifle the tha shot at that distance are all in a bunch not bigger than your fist yot yet the shot in the cabin wall were scattered the man with the gun must have been further away gard card stated athla view of the in matter atter to the mountaineer but that individual showed how it would have been impossible for the shot to have been fired from a greater distance because there was waa a depression that would have placed I 1 the man atlan with the gun too low down to see in at the window windo wi the shot co could uld have been fired from but the one spot the window pane through which the shot had passed was about half way between the peg and the wall where the charge had lodged the hole in the window was not more than half as large as the wa wall 11 surface peppered by the shot this scatter of shot at such short range was significant the shot must have been fired from froma sawed off shotgun said the special agent only a short shori gun would have scattered so much at this short range he meditated a moment and then asked who is there around here who has haa a sawed off shotgun tejones ty jones has got one said sam Is he friendly to you askegard asked gard no was the reply the revenue agents chopped up his still after I 1 reported it did hoever threaten you he said const at the crossroads that he knew a bear with a sore head that would soon be feelen almighty com frable cause it was coln to lose that head ol 01 here was a probable case ot of ty jones being the man guilty of tho the attempt on the life of lunsford there was aboss a possibility as gard saw it of getting this suspicion confirmed despite the animosity that existed between the heads beads of the families the jo jones ties youngsters and the lunsford Lun stord youngsters were playmates so BO does the sociability of youth break down the birs bars set up by maturity lunsford had a boy ten who was wise with the cunning of the woods and trustworthy in lending a hand band in the feuds to which he was born this boy in playing about the tha jones household was instructed to pickup every piece of pasteboard box he ha could find and bring those pieces home likewise was he be to measure the shoes of the jones household when an opportunity offered and tie knots in ii a string boin to indicate their length it was a week before this task had been completed by the boy but the results indicated that the foot of a c ertain certain pair of shoes in the jones home was like unto that of the he na man an of the sawed off shotgun scraps of cutup cut up shoo shoe boxes had been found white on one side and brown on the other and from these had evidently been made wads for reloading shells thus far was special agent gard able to carry his case casa toward a solution there were twenty men in tho neighborhood who might have hava been implicated with jonea if he were guilty in this attempt and in the killing of tom reynolds there were twenty and more makers of moon shine chine who had bad been reported dr or strod stood in danger it was hard to determine which of the twenty any actually guilty the suspicions against jones were not evidence after a month on tho the case gard decided that a complete solution ortho of the mystery was possible only through working in with the moon shiners themselves yea and gaining their confidence f so the summer boarder left the tenney farm statin stating g that his health was greatly improved but that he would come back two months later for another stay A week after this there was nailed up at every post office and courthouse within a hundred miles of wheeler a notice amutice of reward for an escaped convict A short stout curly headed young outlaw had broken jail jall in south carolina and when last heard of was bearing in this direction fifty dollars reward would be paid tor for his capture hla his picture appeared with the notice after still another week the jonis jones children were playing in the woods back of their house when a strange man called them from a distance the youngsters approached cautiously the man was waa no less cautious he was a short curly headed beaded young fellow with a stubby beard with his clothing in shreds and very dirty he looked as though ho be had slept in the woods 1 tor for a month there were stripes across an under garment that showed through hiso his ocen iDen shirt ado 1 do you suppose said the man of rags that your maw could stake a i hungry man to six or seven dollars worth of bread and bacon and wait for remuneration until the executors eze cutora of his estate act yuh dont mean yuh want some come thin to eat do yuh sald said young lem jones son said the curly headed one your instincts are clairvoyant you have demonstrated a hypothesis confirmed a rumor hit upon a great truth sleuthed sleuther sleuth ed a primal fact to its lair the plain truth is that I 1 had bad anything to eat in aneo so long that I 1 have forgotten my last meal I 1 am the hungriest man in the world I 1 could eat tacks with a spoon come on said lem a bit dizzy with the th e unusual words but anxious to please lie he led the way to the house where mra afro Jon jones esmet met the hungry man man at the door madam said the hungry one most courteously 1 I am needing a little something to eat I 1 have been lost in the tha woods and without food are they after you for young feller inquired mrs jones incisively she who had spent a life in these VA VV V V abi THE JAIL BIRD AND THE RIBBON COUNTER CLERK TALKED LONG TOGETHER TOGETHER mountains where the sympathy was all with the man whose hand was turned against authority and where many fugitives from the law had found refuge have you found me out so soon boon grinned the fugitive well if I 1 must tell I 1 will say that I 1 just knocked a hole bole in a jail down south carolina way cracked the heads of a couple |
