s brief response.

As the speaker of the moment dropped back, General Prince came to his
feet and with him rose the Circuit Judge who was to introduce him. That
prefatory address was brief, for the infection of restiveness was
spreading and loosely held interests were gravitating to mischief.

Yet as General Prince stood quietly waiting, with his slender and
elderly figure straight poised and his fine face, for all its
intellectuality, remaining the steel-jawed face of a fighter, the
shuffling feet quieted and straying glances came to focus. There was a
commanding light in the unquailing eyes and these men who knew few
celebrities from the world without, knew both his name and his record.
They gazed steadfastly at him because, though he came now as a friend he
had in another day come as a foe, and the weight of his inimical hand
had come down to them through the mists of the past as word-of-mouth. In
the days of the war between the States, the mountains had thrust their
wedge of rock and granite-loyal Unionism through the vitals of
Confederate territory. While the mobility of the gray forces were balked
there to a heavy congestion, one command, bitterly hated and grudgingly
admired, had seemed capable of defying mountain ranges and of laughing
at torrents. Like a scathe that admitted no gainsaying, it came from
nowhere, struck, without warning, and was gone again unpunished. Its
name had been a metaphor for terror.

Morgan's Men! That brilliant organization of partisan raiders who slept
in their saddles and smote Vulcan-like. The world knew of them and the
Cumberlands had felt their blows. General Basil Prince had been one of
their commanders. Now, a recognized authority on the use of cavalry, a
lawyer of distinction, a life-long Democrat, he stood before Republicans
pouring out the vials of his wrath upon the head of the man whom he
charged with having betrayed and disrupted his own party and with
attempting to yoke freedom into bondage.

Faces bent forward with eyes lighting into an altered mood, and the
grimness which spelled danger relaxed grudgingly into attention.

The speaker did not underestimate his task. It was not enough to play
the spell-binder for a definite period. He must unflaggingly hold them
vassals to his voice until the entrance of Asa Gregory gave him pause.

Never had Basil Prince spoken with a more compelling force or a fierier
power of invective, and his voice had rung like a bugle for perha