CHAPTER XXXI.
Ten Years After
"Sally, those awful Night Riders are around again."
"No, Milt, you don't really mean it?"
Sally looked up quickly from her sewing across the hearth to where herstalwart husband sat with crossed legs, making of his swinging rightfoot a make-believe skittish horse for Milton, junior, age three.
"Father, what does Night Riders mean?" asked a young girl of nine or tenstanding near, who had her mother's fair complexion and richly tintedhair, but her father's dark and expressive eyes.
"They are men who band together and ride through the country at nightfor the purpose of forcing people to do certain things that the banddemands. The members usually go masked so that they may not berecognized."
"Then they must be wicked men," continued Alice frankly, "if they are soafraid they will be seen. Did you ever see a Night Rider, father?"
"A long time ago," answered Milt soberly, but with a mischievous twinklein his eye as he glanced across at his wife, "and he was a pretty sorrysight, I must say."
"Has ma seen one, too?" persisted Alice, with the insistence ofchildhood.
"Yes, dear, when I was a girl and lived with your grandma before shedied, at a toll-gate just down the road apiece, I saw a Night Riderthen."
"What was he like?" questioned Alice, deeply interested, "Was he scarylooking?"
"No," said her mother hesitatingly, "I thought him rather good-lookingat the time," and she smiled over at her husband.
"Was he as good-looking as father?" asked Alice, following the glancewith her keen young eyes.
"Nothing like," affirmed Sally emphatically, and then she and Milt bothlaughed.
"What are the Night Riders after now?" she inquired some time later,after the children had gone to bed, and the two sat talking by the fire."There are no more toll-gates to be raided."
"It's the tobacco question now, instead of free roads, and it's becominga very serious one."
"I knew that in some parts of the old Blue Grass State the tobaccogrowers were having considerable trouble, but I hadn't heard thatmischief was brewing in this quarter."
"Yes, the trouble is spreading generally throughout the tobacco growingregions of the State. Successful raids have been made on several citiesand towns, and the large independent warehouses burned; buyers for someof these houses have been severely whipped, and in some cases ordered toleave the State. Troops have been ordered to several points to protectproperty and maintain order, and the Governor has been called upon tosuppress the lawlessness that is abroad."
"Why, this is worse than during the toll-gate troubles," said Sally.
"Much worse," assented her husband. "The loss of property is very muchgreater. Barns have been burned filled with tobacco, and hundreds ofplant beds scraped, and a promise is being exacted from the growers notto produce a crop this present season. It's a sort of triangular war inwhich the grasping Trust--the pooled Tobacco Association and theIndependent growers, all figure," added Milt.
"And have you agreed to pool your tobacco?" asked Sally, when theserious situation had been more fully discussed.
"No, I think I have the right to dispose of it as I see fit. I am a freeman, and live in a free country, and I don't intend to be coerced. Ihave sold my last year's crop to an independent buyer, and will begindelivering it sometime within the next few days."
"I hope there'll be no trouble over it if you do," said his wifeearnestly. "I have had quite enough experience along the line of nightriding to last me for several years to come."
"I scarcely think any attempt will be made to intimidate _me_" assertedMilt confidently. "In some places threatening letters and warnings havebeen sent to persons who have fallen under the displeasure of the band,but nothing of the kind has occurred about here."
"Don't you think it would have been a wise plan to let the growing oftobacco alone until these troubles are settled?" inquired his wife.
"No, I do not. They are trying to force the farmer to cut out his cropof tobacco this year, but--as I have said before--this is a freecountry, and it seems to me a man should be allowed to grow what hechooses on his own land."
"It would seem so, and yet when to do this is to invite trouble, itappears to me that the wisest thing would be to leave the matter alone."
"I hate to be driven against my will," argued Milt. "I have set out toraise a crop of tobacco this season, and I don't want to back down. Thatis why I have put my plant bed in the garden near the house, so I canprotect it, if necessary. I think, though, there need be no uneasinessalong this line."
The next morning on going to his barn, Milton Derr found tied to thebarn-door a bundle of switches and a crudely written note to which wasfastened some matches and a cartridge.
DERR FOUND A BUNDLE OF SWITCHES AND A CRUDE NOTE ON HISTOBACCO BARN DOOR.]
The note ran as follows:
"Milt derr, you'r bein watched, we have an eye on you, we hear you airgoin' to turn dumper an' sell yore crop to independents, also air fixin'to raise another crop. Better not, these three things air for sech asyou. Yore weed may go up in smoke before it's ready for the pipe. Goslow. N. R."
Milton Derr slowly read over this illiterate note some two or threetimes before he seemed to gather its full meaning, then he carefullyfolded it up and put it in his pocket. Surely someone must be trying toplay a practical joke on him by sending such a communication as this,and yet, taking into consideration the numerous rumors of happenings inother localities, this ill-spelled epistle possessed all the ear marksof a genuine note of warning from the terrible Night Riders.
"I must keep this from Sally," he muttered, "at least until I can get mytobacco safely delivered, and it's up to me to deliver it at once,before the Night Riders conclude to pay me a visit, as this noteintimates they may do in the near future."
"Sally was not so far from wrong after all, when she said trouble wouldcome of this," he added. "When once I can get my crop safely deliveredand out of my barn, there is little further danger to apprehend."
Acting on this supposition, Milt immediately after breakfast beganpreparations for removing his crop, and with the aid of two hired menwas ready by noon to start for the point of delivery some miles distant,telling his wife that he would return sometime during the night.
After supper Sally sat down to do some mending, and among other thingsto fix the pocket-linings of the coat her husband had laid aside for aheavier one during his long drive, and this note of warning, which heintended to keep from her knowledge for the present was the first thingshe came across during her self-imposed task.