ATLANTA CONSTITUTION
ATLANTA GEORGIA
15 FEB 1903

 

" SECTION CALLED THE SUNNY SOUTH "

 

RE:   "BAD LEWIS" HALL

 

Contrary to mountaineer custom, very few greetings were exchanged along the road, and my somewhat foreign appearance seemed to __? suspicion.  

 

One old fellow, however, with a very long red nose, and wearing an ancient shotgun over his shoulder, instead of the customary sidearms, walked with me for several miles.

 

He was, as I discovered afterwards, one of the "bad ones," but thoroughly harmless in his badness and most enjoyable as a companion.

 

"BAD LEWIS" HALL he is called, and the shotgun that he carries is famous throughout the mountains for its exploits.   Most men of his type carry rifles, but BAD LEWIS will trust nothing but this old - fashioned gun of his.   I innocently asked him if he had killed any game with it and the question appeared to amuse him greatly, confirming him in the opinion that I was a tenderfoot.

 

Then he explained that he was a "bad man" and reputed to have committed eighteen murders in the various "troubles" in which he had been engaged.   He was a near relative to "TALT" HALL, who was brought to the gallows in Wise County, Virginia, by the "Red Fox of the Mountains" a few months before the latter suffered the death penalty for his own misdeeds.   "BAD LEWIS," with becoming modesty, assured me, however, that his own record was too highly colored by popular tradition.

 

"I ain't killed mo' than three in my day and time," he declared, "an' I jest had ter kill them.   They was no account, triflin' folks, they was, an' 'peared like they would be plum better off whar they   kaint do no mo' whar they be now."

 

Singularly enough, "BAD LEWIS" is at present on the side of the law, and has no use for the Kuklux Gang, in this quarrel appearing to side altogether with JOHN WRIGHT.   He expressed considerable solicitude, also, as to my welfare while tramping through the kuklux land, and gave me a sort of way bill to the houses that would be best for my health to leave severely alone.   Considering the source, the advice was not without a touch of grim humor.

 

"Ef yo' meets up wi' one o' them lawbreakers, " he said as we were parting not far from the Pound Gap, "don't meddle nor make wi'   him.   He mought be a kukluxer, an' he mought not.   Ef he ain't   a kukluxer he mought have a trouble o' his'n, an' then ef yo' meddle wi' him, his trouble will be yourn.   An' ef he be a kukluxer, atter all, he's lookin' fer trouble wi' you an' eve'r man he meets.   So, the best thing fer you, stranger, is to keep yo' gun handy, yo' feet squar' en the road, an' yo'   mouth shet so tight, th' devil hiss'ef couldn't squeeze out o' hit."

 

And I did.