Franklin. There were certain conservative and unimaginative souls in
this mountain principality who for various reasons held their old
allegiance to the State of North Carolina. One Colonel Tipton led these
loyalist forces, and armed partisans of either side had for some years
ridden up and down the length of the land, burning and pillaging and
slaying. We in Virginia had heard of two sets of courts in Franklin, of
two sets of legislators. But of late the rumor had grown persistently
that Nollichucky Jack was now a kind of fugitive, and that he had passed
the summer pleasantly enough fighting Indians in the vicinity of
Nick-a-jack Cave.

It was court day as I rode into the little town of Jonesboro, the air
sparkling like a blue diamond over the mountain crests, and I drew deep
into my lungs once more the scent of the frontier life I had loved so
well. In the streets currents of excited men flowed and backed and
eddied, backwoodsmen and farmers in the familiar hunting shirts of hide
or homespun, and lawyers in dress less rude. A line of horses stood
kicking and switching their tails in front of the log tavern, rough carts
and wagons had been left here and there with their poles on the ground,
and between these, piles of skins were heaped up and bags of corn and
grain. The log meeting-house was deserted, but the court-house was the
centre of such a swirling crowd as I had often seen at Harrodstown. Now
there are brawls and brawls, and I should have thought with shame of my
Kentucky bringing-up had I not perceived that this was no ordinary court
day, and that an unusual excitement was in the wind.

Tying my horse, and making my way through the press in front of the
tavern door, I entered the common room, and found it stifling, brawling
and drinking going on apace. Scarce had I found a seat before the whole
room was emptied by one consent, all crowding out of the door after two