690 
FOREST AND STREAM. 
[Nov. 3, 1906. 
found themselves unsupported in the execution 
of the laws by a healthy state of public opinion. 
The distillers—ever ready to forcibly resist the 
officers—were, I have no doubt, at times treated 
with harshne.ss. This occasioned much indigna¬ 
tion on the part of those who sympathized with 
the lawbreakers * * ” 
The commissioner recommended, in the re¬ 
port, the passage of a law “expressly providing 
that where a person is caught in the act of 
operating an illicit still, he may be arrested with¬ 
out warrant.” In conclusion he said: “At this 
time not only is the United States defrauded of 
its revenues, and its officers openly resisted, 
but when arrests are made it often occurs that 
prisoners are rescued by mob violence, and 
officers and witnesses are often at night dragged 
from their homes and cruelly beaten, or way¬ 
laid and assassinated." 
One day I asked a mountain man, “How about 
the revenue officers? What sort of men are 
they?” 
“Torn-down scoundrels, every one.” 
“Oh, come, now!” 
“Yes, they are; plumb onery—lock, stock, 
barrel and gun-stick." 
“Consider what they have to go through." I 
remarked. “Like other detectives, they can¬ 
not secure evidence without practicing decep¬ 
tion. Their occupation is hard and dangerous. 
Here in the mountains, every man's hand is 
against them.” 
“Why is it again them? We ain't all block¬ 
aders; yet you can sarch these mountains 
through with a fine-tooth comb and you wunt 
find ary critter as has a good word to say for 
the revenoo. The reason is 't we know them 
men from ’way back; we know whut they uster 
do afore they jined the sarvice, and why they 
did it. Most of them were blockaders their own 
selves, till they saw how they could make more 
money turncoatin’. They use their authority 
to abuse people who ain’t never done nothin’ 
nohow. Dangerous business? Shucks! There’s 
Jim Cody, for a sample [I suppress the real 
name]; he was principally raised in this coun¬ 
ty, and I’ve known him from a boy. He’s 
been eight years in the government sarvice, and 
hain't never been shot at once. But he’s killed 
a blockader—oh yes! He arrested Tom Hay¬ 
ward, a chunk of a boy, that was scared most 
fitified and never resisted more’n a mouse. 
Cody, who was half drunk his-self, handcuffed 
Tom, quarreled with him, and shot the boy dead 
while the handcuffs was on him! Tom’s rela¬ 
tions sued Cody in the county court, but he 
carried the case to the federal court, and they 
were too poor to follow it up. I tell you, 
though, thar’s a settlement less ’n a thousand 
mile from the river whar Jim Cody ain’t never 
showed his nose sence. He knows there’d be 
another revenoo ‘murdered’.” 
“It must be ticklish business for an officer to 
prowl about the headwaters of these mountain 
streams, looking for ‘sign’.” 
“Hell’s melodeon! they don’t go prodjectin’ 
around looking for stills. They set at home on 
their hunkers till some feller comes and in¬ 
forms.” 
“What class of people does the informing?” 
“Oh, sometimes hit’s some pizen old bum 
who’s been refused credit. Sometimes hit’s the 
wife or mother of some feller who’s drinkin’ too 
much (that kind of informin’’s all right). Then, 
again, hit may be some rival blockader who 
aims to cut off the other feller’s trade, and, same 
time, divert suspicion from his own self. More 
oftener hit’s jest somebody who has a gredge 
agin the blockader fer family reasons, or busi¬ 
ness reasons, and turns informer to git even.” 
It is only fair to present this side of the case, 
because there is some truth in it, and because it 
goes far to explain the bitter feeling against 
revenue agents personally that is almost uni¬ 
versal in the mountains, and is shared even by 
the mountain preachers. It should be under¬ 
stood. too, in this connection, that the southern 
highlander has a long memory. Slights and 
injuries suffered by one generation have their 
scars transmitted to sons and grandsons. There 
is no denying that there have been officers in 
the revenue service who, stung by the contempt 
in which they were held as renegades from their 
own people, have used their authority in settling 
private scores, and have inflicted grievous 
wrongs upon innocent people. This is matter 
of official record. In his report for 1882, the 
Commissioner of Internal Revenue himself de¬ 
clared that “Instances have been brought to my 
attention where numerous prosecutions have 
been instituted for the most trivial violations of 
law, and the arrested parties taken long dis¬ 
tances and subjected to great inconveniences 
and expense, not in the interest of the govern¬ 
ment, but apparently for no other reason than 
to make costs.” 
An ex-United States Commissioner has told 
me that, in the darkest days of this struggle, 
when he himself was obliged to buckle on a 
revolver every time he put his head out of 
doors, he had more trouble with his own 
deputies than with the moonshiners. “As a 
rule, none but desperadoes could be hired for 
the service,” he declared. “For example, one 
time my deputy in your county wanted some 
liquor for himself. He and two of his cronies 
crossed the line' into South Carolina, raided a 
still, and got beastly drunk. The blockaders 
bushwhacked them, riddled a mule and its rider 
with buckshot, and shot my deputy through the 
brain with a squirrel rifle. We went over there 
and buried the victims a few days later, during 
a snow storm, working with our holster flaps 
unbuttoned. I had all that work and worry 
simply because that rascal was bent on getting 
drunk .without paying for it. However, it cost 
him his life. * * * 
“They were not all like that, though,” con¬ 
tinued the Judge. “Now and then there would 
turn up in the service a man who had entered 
it from the honorable motives of a soldier, and 
whose conduct, at all times, was chivalric and 
clean. There was Hersh Harkins, for example, 
now United States Collector at Asheville. I 
had many cases in which Harkins figured.” 
“Tell me of one,” I urged. 
“Well, one time there was a man named Jenks 
[that was not the real name, but it will serve], 
who was too rich to be suspected of blockading. 
Jenks had a license to make brandy, but not 
whiskey. One day Harkins was visiting his 
still-house, and he noticed something dubious. 
Thrusting his arm down through the peach 
pomace, he found mash underneath. It is a 
penitentiary offense to mix the two. Harkins 
procured more evidence from Jenk’s distiller, 
and haled the offender before me. The trial 
was conducted in a hotel room, full of people. 
We were not very formal in those days — kept 
our hats on. There was no thought of Jenks 
trying to run away, for he was well-to-do; so 
he was given the freedom of the room. He 
paced nervously back and forth between my 
desk and the doOr, growing more restless as the 
trial proceeded. A clerk sat near me, writing 
a bond, and Harkins stood behind him dictating 
its terms. Suddenly Jenks wheeled around, near 
the door, jerked out a navy revolver, fired and 
bolted. It is hard to say whom he shot at, for 
the bullet went through Harkins’ coat, through 
the clerk’s hat, and through my hat. too. I 
ducked under the desk to get my revolver, aind 
Harkins, thinking that I was killed, sprang to 
pick me up; but I came up firing. It was won¬ 
derful how soon that room was emptied! 
Harkins took after the fugitive, and had a wild 
chase; but he got him.” 
iji ifc >[? >{« ijC 
It was my good fortune, a few evenings later, 
to have a long talk with Mr. Harkins himself, at 
Jarrett’s cosy hostelry in Dilfsboro. He is a 
fine giant of a man, standing six feet three, and 
symmetrically proportioned. No one looking 
into his kindly gray eyes would suspect that they 
belong to one who has seen as hard and danger¬ 
ous service in the revenue department as any 
man now living. In an easy, unassuming way, 
he told me many stories of his own adventures 
among moonshiners and counterfeiters in the 
old days when these southern Appalachians 
fairly swarmed with desperate characters. One 
grim affair will suffice to give an impression of 
the man, and of the times in which his spurs 
were won. 
There was a man on South Mountain, South 
Carolina, whom, for the sake of relatives who 
may still be living, we will call Lafonte. There 
was information that Lafonte was running a 
blind.tiger. He got his whiskey from four 
brothers who were blockading near his father’s 
hou,se. just within the North Carolina line. The 
government had sent an officer named Merrill 
to capture Lafonte, but the latter drove Merrill 
away with a shotgun. Harkins then received 
orders to make the arrest. Taking Merrill with 
him as guide, Harkins rode to the father’s house, 
and found Lafonte himself working near a high 
fence. As soon as the criminal saw the officers 
approaching, he ran for the house to get his 
gun. Harkins galloped along the other side of 
the fence, and. after a rought-and-tumble fight, 
captured his man. The officers then carried 
their prisoner to the house of a man whose name 
I have forgotten—call him White^-who lived 
about two miles away. Meantime they had 
heard Lafonte’s sister give three piercing 
screams as a signal to his confederates in the 
neighborhood, and they knew that trouble would 
quickly brew. 
Breakfast was ready in White’s home when 
the mob arrived. Harkins sent Merrill in to 
breakfast, and himself went out on the porch, 
carbine in hand, to stand off the thoroughly 
angry gang. White also went out, beseeching 
the mob to disperse. Matters looked squally 
for a time, but it was finally agreed that La¬ 
fonte should give bond, whereupon he was re¬ 
leased. 
The two officers then finished their breakfast, 
and shortly set out for the Blue House, an 
abandoned schoolhouse about forty miles dis¬ 
tant, where the trial was to be conducted. They 
were followed at a distance by Lafonte’s half- 
drunken champions, who were by no means 
placated, owing to the fact that the Blue House 
was in a neighborhood friendly to the govern¬ 
ment. Harkins and Merrill soon dodged to one 
side in the forest, until the rioters had passed 
them, and then proceeded leisurely in the rear. 
On their way to the Blue House they cut up 
four stills, destroyed a furnace, and made sev¬ 
eral arrests. 
The next day three United States commis¬ 
sioners opened court in the old schoolhouse. 
The room was crowded by curious spectators. 
The trial had not proceeded beyond prelim¬ 
inaries when shots and shouts from the pursuing 
mob were heard in the distance. Immediately 
the room was emptied of both crowd and com¬ 
missioners, who fled in all directions, leaving 
Harkins and Merrill to fight their battle alone. 
There were thirteen men in the moonshiners’ 
mob. They surrounded the house, and im¬ 
mediately began shooting in through the win¬ 
dows. The officers returned the fire, but a hard- 
pine ceiling in the room caused the bullets of 
the attacking party to ricochet in all directions 
and made the place untenable. Harkins and 
his comrade sprang out through the windows, 
but from opposite sides of the house. Merrill 
ran; but Harkins grappled with the men nearest 
to him, and in a moment the whole force of 
desperadoes was upon him like a swarm of bees. 
Unfortunately, the brave fellow had left his 
carbine at the house where he had spent the 
night. His only weapon was a revolver that 
had only three cartridges in the cylinder. Each 
of these shots dropped a man; but there were 
ten men left. Nothing but Harkins’ gigantic 
strength saved him, that day. from immediate 
death. His long arms tackled three or four men 
at once, and all went down in a bunch. Others 
fell on top, as in a college cane-rush. There 
had been swift shooting, hitherto, but now it 
was. mostly knife and pistol-butt. It is almost 
incredible, but it is true, that this extraordinary 
battle waged for three-quarters of an hour. At 
its end only one man faced the now thoroughly 
exhausted and badly wounded, but indomitable 
officer. At this fellow, Harkins hurled his 
pistol; it struck him full in the forehead, and the 
battle was won. 
A thick overcoat that Mr. Harkins wore was 
pierced by twenty-one bullets, seven of which 
