Picture Play Magazine (Oct-Nov 1915)

NOV 12 1915 « ;bci.B3429iO The Code of the Mountains By Matthew Allison Ask one hundred persons to tell you something about our Southern mountaineers, and ninety-nine will answer with tales of bloody feuds. One, perhaps, will tell of a new order of things, brought about by the young women who have been educated in the schools of the valley and carried back to their people the lessons of forgiving and forgetting; of the young mountain men who, in our war with Spain, learned in the fighting of real battles to forget petty disputes and went home to start anew, acknowledging that the ways of their fathers were wrong. Such is this "different" story of the Kentucky mountains, based on the World Film Corporation's picture play, with the following cast: Minerva Rawlins Mollie King Newt Spooner Douglas McLean McAllister Falkins E. M. Kimball Lucinda Mertch Lillian Cook I^OU'RE free," said the warden. "Now what are you aimin' to do?" J ^ Sullenly the mountain boy answered : Thet ain't nobuddy's business but i ? line." "Newt Spooner, you'll end up at the i ?md of a rope." "Mabbe — but not afore I git Henry ■Calkins." The boy's eyes blazed evilly. He was a product of the Kentucky mountains, this lanky, hollow-cheeked, ■allid youth. His childhood days had |;«een filled with tales of feuds and killings. He had been told that the Spoonrs loved as one and hated as one ; they tiad one hate, and one alone — the Faluns clan. ' The feud had begun in the early thiries over so small a thing as a quarrel >etween two boys — a Falkins and a j spooner. ; One of the Spooners had witnessed •he quarrel, and, intervening, had knocked down the Falkins boy. Soon after a Falkins had pointed a gun at the head of the Spooner who had interfered in the boys' quarrel. He had not "got his man," but a bullet had knocked off his hat, and from that far-distant day to the time when Newt Spooner stepped out of the penitentiary there had been a long series of killings. Newt himself, poorly educated, knowing little of anything save his own hills and the people there, never tried to reason why he should hate a Falkins, but it was part of the creed of his clan, and he was ready to act when called upon. And act he did, to such purpose that, instigated by others, he trained his rifle on a "marked man" of the Falkins clan, and a penitentiary sentence had been imposed on him. It was the first time any of the feuds had been interfered with by the law courts, and Newt did not understand why the long arm of the law had been stretched out in this instance. The men of the Cumberlands had lived isolated lives for hundreds of years. "Let us alone" had been their cry to the world. They had been accustomed to settle their quarrels in their own way without aid of lawyers. But gradually civilization had closed in upon them, and with it had come the enforcement of the State law. Newt Spooner was the first sacrifice to the changing order of things. He had "got his man," but instead of the Falkins clan taking reprisal with a rifle, they had haled him to court, and Henry Falkins had given testimony that he had been squirrel hunting and had seen Newt do the shooting. That testimony had condemned the mountain boy. But the governor had taken into consideration his youth and environment and pardoned him, even restoring to him his civil rights. And now he was free, and the only thought in his mind was that he must "get" Henry Falkins. "Don't do it !" pleaded the warden. "There's no good to be gotten out of it. It only means that somebody else