ared no effort in obtaining evidence in his brother's behalf when
young Tom was tried for killing Ben Hargis in the blind tiger.

Under cover of darkness Curt Jett and his companions were spirited away
from the courthouse on horseback and no arrests were made.

In the meantime the trial of young Tom Cockrell for killing Ben Hargis
was moved to Campton, but Judge Jim Hargis and his brother, Senator Alex
Hargis, declared that they'd never reach Campton alive if they should go
there to prosecute young Tom. So the case was dismissed. "Our enemies
would kill us somewhere along the mountain road," the Hargises declared.

Jim Hargis loved his wife and children. He idolized his son Beach, who
spent his days hanging around his father's store and squandering money
that the doting parent supplied.

Up to November 9, 1902, according to information supplied by J. B.
Marcum, there had been thirty persons killed in Breathitt County as a
result of the feeling between the factions and to quote Marcum's own
words, "the Lord only knows how many wounded."

After Marcum's assassination on May 4, 1903, his widow wrote the
_Lexington Herald_ that there had been thirty-eight homicides in
Breathitt County during the time James Hargis presided as county judge.
J. B. Marcum and his wife both had known for a long time that he was a
marked man. Indeed, ever since he had represented the Fusionists in
contesting the election of Jim Hargis as county judge, it was an open
secret that Marcum would meet his doom sooner or later. Added to this
was the animosity aroused on the Hargis side by Marcum's defense of
young Tom Cockrell for killing Jim Hargis's brother Ben.

Marcum made an affidavit which he filed in the Breathitt Circuit Court
declaring that he was marked for death. Others substantiated his
statement by swearing to various plots that had been concocted to
assassinate him. As a matter of fact while the feeling was raging high
in the contest case he was a prisoner in his own home for seventy-two
days, afraid to step out on his own porch. To protect himself against
bullets he had a barricade built joining the rear of his house with a
small yard. Whenever he left his home, which was seldom, he was
accompanied by his wife and he carried one of his small children.

Once he went to Washington and stayed a month. It was during that time
that his friend Dr. Cox was assassinated. A client of Marcum's by the
name of Mose Feltner came to his home to a