The Kentucky Ranger | Page 9

whom the apostle described as
"filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness,
maliciousness; full of envy, murder, deceit, malignity--implicable,

unmerciful."
Strangely enough, one of the moonshiners had read Shakespeare's
"Tempest," and gave Caliban's title of "monster" to Zibe Turner. From
that day he was generally nicknamed "Monster Turner."
"Always stick to dat," repeated Turner in his deep, gutteral voice. "Let's
drink to de health of all moonshiners and to de defeat an' death of all
revenue spies. Dat's my holt (hold)." Suiting the action to the words, he
raised a stone jug nearly full of spirits to his lips and taking a long
draught, handed it to the next, and so it went the rounds. The liquor,
which would have made an ordinary drinker intoxicated in a few
minutes, had no perceptible effect upon these men, who scarcely ever
tasted water, so commonly did they drink the product of their stills; but
it perhaps raised their feelings a trifle and loosened their tongues to
speak other words and strengthened their purposes to perform unlawful
acts.
Sam Wiles then spoke: "Next to these officer dorgs who hunt us on the
hills and mountains, I hate them shoutin' hypercrits who air holdin' that
camp meetin' near Poplar Crick. They're tryin' to make the whul county
pious, and you fellers know how their head men have jined with others
around here to appint a vigilance committee to drive all such as we'uns
air out'n the State. Because we believe in pursonal liberty, because we
think it right to make our own whisky and to race our hosses, because
we sometimes try our luck at cards and win money from the young
fools in the valley, they want to put the law on our tracks. Now the
more camp meetin's we have around here, the less pursonal liberty we
shall have; and I propose to you'ns that we jine with the boys on Honey
Crick and bust up the camp meetin'."
This proposition was hailed with delight by all the company except
Long Tom. When he had cleared his mouth of juice, he drawled out:
"Byes, none of ye would like to see that meetin' capsized better nor I
would. But we must be sure of our ground. I have hearn that the star
preacher there--what's his name? Jasper Hurry? No. Very? That's it,
Jasper Very. I have hearn that he is almighty strong and brave, and we
had better be keerful how we tackle 'im."

"Shucks," said Wiles, "they air all cowards, and their magistrates will
run at the first attack; and I say it is to our interest to break up that
meetin', and do it right away. What do you say, byes?"
They all consented to the attack, and took another swig around from the
big jug to seal the agreement.
"Now," said their leader, "it's time you'ns went to yer homes. Zibe
Turner will stay, and we'uns will tend de fire. Long Tom, tomorrow
you go to Bert Danks, the captain of the Honey Crick crowd, and ask
him and his pals to meet us here in de evenin'."
CHAPTER V.
Rowdies in Camp.
Sam Wiles and Zibe Turner attended to the still while the day began to
wane, and shadows cast by the tall hills were lengthening over the
plain.
When darkness finally came Wiles continued to replenish the fire and
supply the necessary water from a running stream. His boon companion
threw himself down on some cedar boughs within the cave's mouth and
was soon asleep. His watch would come later on.
While this precious pair of "wildcatters" are thus employed, a good
opportunity is given us to describe their retreat.
Their rendezvous was called Wind Cave, and was discovered a few
years before by a young brother of Sam Wiles. The boy, Ephraim Wiles,
one day was hunting stray cattle on some hills skirting the
Cumberlands River, when he came to the top of a hill which was nearly
bare of timber and whose southern side was a sheer perpendicular of
rock for several feet down. The boy stood looking over this precipice,
lost his footing, and fell down the cliff. He was unhurt, for about fifteen
feet below was a level place a few feet across covered with leaves and
moss and upon this he landed. When he had recovered from his surprise,
he looked about him and saw that the hillside below him was very steep,

with trees and bushes growing thickly in the soil. Then he turned his
eyes toward the rock, and beheld an aperture of considerable size partly
covered by bushes and decayed vegetation. With a boy's curiosity and
daring he crawled into the opening, and found himself in a cave of
moderate dimensions. Finding in it nothing but broken rocks and white
walls and