ends were there ahead of
him. It was a plucky thing for John to do, considering that his death
would stop the making of the levy for the court-house that was to be
recorded in a few days. But the young man's blood tingled with joy as
he jumped the court-house fence and went back to his men. There was
something like a smile from Jane Mason in his joy, but chiefly it was
the joy that youth has in daring, that thrilled him. And the next day,
or perhaps it was the next,--at any rate, it was a Sunday late in
June,--when an armed posse from Minneola came charging down on the
town at noon, John ran from his office unseen, over the roofs of
buildings upon which as a boy he had romped, and ducking through a
second-story window in Frye's store, got two kegs of powder, ran out
of the back door, under the exposed piling supporting the building,
put the two kegs of powder in a wooden culvert under the ammunition
wagons of the Minneola men, who were battling with the town in the
street, and taking a long fuse in his teeth, crawled back to the
alley, lit the fuse, and ran into the street to look into the revolver
of J. Lord Lee--late of the Red Legs--and warn him to run or be
blown up with the wagons. And when the explosion came, knocking him
senseless, he woke up a hero, with the town bending over him, and
Minneola's forces gone.

And so John and the town had their fling together. And we who sit
among our books or by our fire--or if not that by our iron radiator
exuding its pleasance and comfort--should not sniff at that day when
blood pulsed quicker and joy was keener, and life was more vivid than
it is to-day.

Thirty-five years later--in August, 1908, to be exact--the general,
in his late seventies, sat in McHurdie's harness shop while the poet
worked at his bench. On the floor beside the general was the
historical edition of the Sycamore Ridge _Banner_--rather an
elaborate affair, printed on glossy paper and bedecked with many
photogravures of old scenes and old faces. A page of the paper was
devoted to the County Seat War of '73. The general had furnished the
material for most of the article,--though he would not do the
writing,--and he held the sheet with the story upon it in his hand.
As he read it in the light of that later day, it seemed a sordid story
of chicanery and violence--the sort of an episode that one would
expect to find following a great war. The general read and reread the
old story of the defeat of Minneola,