IT was court-day in Hazlan,but so early in the morning nothing was astir in the town that hinted of its life on such a day.But for the ring of a blacksmith's anvil on the quiet air,and the fact that nowhere was a church-spire visible,a stranger would have thought that the peace of Sabbath overlay a village of God-fearing people.
A burly figure lounged in the porch of a rickety house,and yawned under a swinging sign,the rude letters of which promised"private entertainment "for the traveller unlucky enough to pass that way.
In the one long,narrow main street,closely flanked by log and framed houses,nothing else human was in sight.Out from this street,and in an empty square,stood the one brick building in the place,the court-house,brick without,brick within;unfinished,unpencilled,unpainted;panes out of the windows,a shutter off here and there,or swinging drunkenly on one hinge;the door wide op en,as though there was no privacy within-a poor structure,with the look of a good man gone shiftless and fast going wrong.
Soon two or three lank brown figures appeared from each direction on foot;then a horseman or two,and by and by mountaineers came in groups,on horse and on foot.In time the side alleys and the court-house square were filled with horses and mules,and even steers.The mountaineers crowded the narrow street:idling from side to side;squatting for a bargain on the wooden sidewalks;grouping on the porch of the rickety hotel,and on the court-house steps loitering in and out of the one store in sight.Out in the street several stood about a horse,looking at his teeth,holding his eyes to the sun,punching his ribs,twisting his tail;while the phlegmatic owner sat astride the submissive beast,and spoke short answers to rare questions.Everybody talked politics,the crop failure,or the last fight at the seat of some private war;but nobody spoke of a Lewallen or a Stetson unless he knew his listener's heart,and said it in a whisper.For nobody knew when the powder would flash,or who had taken sides,or that a careless word might not array him with one or the other faction.
A motley throng it was-in brown or gray homespun,with trousers in cowhide boots,and slouched hats with brims curved according to temperament,but with striking figures in it;the patriarch with long,white hair,shorn even with the base of the neck,and bearded only at the throat-a justice of the peace,and the sage of his district;a little mountaineer with curling black hair and beard,and dark,fine features;a grizzled giant with a head rugged enough to have been carelessly chipped from stone;a bragging candidate claiming everybody's notice;a square-shouldered fellow surging through the crowd like a stranger;an open-faced,devil-may-care young gallant on fire with moonshine;a skulking figure with brutish mouth and shifting eyes.Indeed,every figure seemed distinct;for,living apart from his neighbor,and troubling the law but little in small matters of dispute,the mountaineer preserves independence,and keeps the edges of his individuality unworn.Apparently there was not a woman in town.Those that lived there kept housed,and the fact was significant.Still,it was close to noon,and yet not a Stetson or a Lewallen had been seen.The stores of Rufe and old Jasper were at the extremities of the town,and the crowd did not move those ways.It waited in the centre,and whetted impatience by sly trips in twos and three to stables or side alleys for "mountain dew."Now and then the sheriff,a little man with a mighty voice,would appear on the courthouse steps,and summon a witness to court,where a frightened judge gave instructions to a frightened jury.But few went,unless called;for the interest was outside;every man in the streets knew that a storm was nigh,and was waiting to see it burst.
Noon passed.A hoarse bell and a whining hound had announced dinner in the hotel.The guests were coming again into the streets.
Eyes were brighter,faces a little more flushed,and the "moonshine"was passed more openly.Both ways the crowd watched closely.The quiet at each end of the street was ominous,and the delay could last but little longer.The lookers-on themselves were getting quarrelsome.The vent must come soon,or among them there would be trouble.
