Back to the people of the inaccessible hills, living apart, aloof and neglected, came some of the murmurs of the tempest that shook the lowlands. Here at the edge of a normally Democratic State which had in earlier times held slaves and established an aristocracy, the hillsmen living by the moil of their own sweat had hated alike slave and slave-holder and had remained solidly Republican. For them it was enough that William Goebel was not of their party. Basing their judgment on that premise, they passed on with an uncomplicated directness to the conclusion that the deleterious things said of him by envenomed orators were assertions of gospel truth. Now that man was carrying his campaign into the enemy's country. Realizing without illusion the temper of the audience which would troop in from creek-bed and cove and the branch-waters "back of beyond," he was to speak in Marlin Town where the cardinal faith of the mountains is, "hate thine enemy!" In the court-house square of Marlin Town, under the shadow of high-flung hills, had gathered close-packed battalions of listeners. Some there were who carried with them their rifles and some who looked as foreign to even these rude streets as nomads ridden in from the desert. A brass band had come with the candidate's special train and blared out its stirring message. There was a fluttering of flags and a brave showing of transparencies, and to Boone Wellver, aged fifteen, as he hung shadow-close at Asa Gregory's elbow, it all seemed the splendour of panoply and the height of pageantry. From the hotel door, as the man and boy passed it, emerged two gentlemen who were clothed in the smoother raiment of "Down below," and Boone pointed them out to his companion. "Who _air_ they, Asa?" he whispered, and his kinsman carelessly responded: "One of 'em's named Masters. He's a coal-mine boss--but I hain't never seed t'other one, afore now." Strolling along the narrow plank runway that did service as a sidewalk, the boy glimpsed also the mysterious stranger who had ridden in on a mule, with a canvas-covered sword at his saddle ring. Then the fanfare of the band fell silent and a thin figure in an ancient frock coat stepped forward on the platform itself and raised its hands to shout: "Fellow Citizens and Kentuckians of Marlin County!" Ranged importantly behind the draped bunting stood the corporal's guard of native Democratic leaders--leaders who were well-nigh without followers--and who now stood as local sponsors for the Candidate himself. Boone caught his breath and listened, his eager eyes conspicuous among the immobile and stolid faces of the unresponsive throng as the speaker let flow his words of encomium.