"Will you pay the bill I have brought to you?" demanded Sandy Lyon, who was the principal aggressor in the assault. "Dr. Falkirk paid you over fifty dollars to-day, and you have got the money to pay the bill, which has been standing two years."

Swin Pickford made no reply to this statement; but just at that moment he heard the clippetty-clip of a galloping horse in the road in front of the house. With the foot of one of his assaulters on his chest, and the other with an old gun in his hand at his side, Pickford realized that nothing could be done but submit. Shooting in that locality and at that time was no uncommon occurrence; for there seemed to be no law in the land, and men generally settled their own grievances, or submitted to them.

"Help! Help!" shouted the victim of the present outrage, with all the strength of his lungs, which gave him voice enough to make him heard a quarter of a mile distant.

"Shut up your head!" savagely yelled Sandy Lyon, as he pressed his foot down with all his might by throwing all his weight upon the breast of the prostrate farmer.

The sound of the horse's feet in the road seemed to give the victim a new hope, and he tried to shout again. But Sandy flew at his throat like a wolf, and choked him into silence.

"Find a couple of ropes or cords, Orly, and we will tie his hands behind him!" called Sandy to his brother.

"'Help! Help!' shouted the victim."

The younger brother hastened to obey the order. Finding nothing of the description required, he rushed into the rear room of the house. The pressure of the assailant's hands upon his throat, and the hope of assistance from outside, stimulated the victim to further resistance, for the gun in the hands of Orly no longer threatened him. With a desperate struggle he threw Sandy over backwards, and sprang to his feet. His persecutor picked himself up, and was about to throw himself upon him again. Pickford, who was nearly exhausted by the struggle and the choking, rushed to the open door; and as he was about to pass out he encountered a young man in the uniform of a cavalryman, with a sabre dangling at his side, and a carbine slung on his back.

At the moment when the cry for help came from the house, the young man, mounted on a spirited horse, was riding along the Spring Road. He was a stout fellow, not more than eighteen years old, with a pleasant face, though a physiognomist would have observed upon it a look of determination, indicating that he could not be trifled with on a serious occasion. Neither the house nor the man who occupied it would have tempted the soldier to enter it for any other reason than the call that had just come from it.

The cavalryman reined in his steed, and halted him with his head to a post in front of the dwelling. Dismounting in haste, he threw the reins over the hitching-hook and hurried to the front door, just in time to encounter Pickford as he was rushing out. The victim of the outrage was gasping for breath, and presented a really pitiable aspect to the young soldier, to whom he was not a stranger, though they had met as enemies and not as friends.

"What's the trouble?" asked Deck Lyon, the cavalryman, as he encountered the owner of the miniature plantation.

"I have been set upon, and nearly killed by your cousins, Sandy and Orly Lyon, and one of them has nearly choked me to death," gasped Pickford.

"By my cousins!" exclaimed Deck Lyon, astonished at the reply of the victim.

"Yes; both on 'em," groaned Swin, as he was generally called.

"I supposed you had gone to the county town with the Home Guards," added Deck.

"No; I never 'listed, 'cause I have a family to take care on."

"Come in, and let me see what the trouble is," continued Deck, as he pushed Swin in ahead of him.

Sandy had been in the act of throwing himself upon his victim again, when he discovered his cousin in the person of the cavalryman. The sight of him caused the angry young man to fall back; and Deck entered the room just as Orly appeared at the rear door with a piece of bed-cord in his hand.

"Good-morning, Sandy," said Deck, as pleasantly as though nothing had called for his interference. "There seems to be some trouble here."

"Trouble enough," replied Sandy in a sulky tone.

"Swin Pickford calls for help as though you intended to murder him," continued Deck, as he looked from one to the other of the belligerents, and took in Orly with the cord at the same time. "You are all on the same side of the national fight, and you ought to be friends."

"We are not on the same side, for Pickford is a traitor," answered Sandy.

"I'm no traitor!" protested Swin. "But I should like to ask what you and Orly are, if I'm one. I was willing to join the Home Guards for home service; but when they started to go inter the Confederate army, I took off my name, for I didn't j'in for no sech work. But Sandy and Orly went off with the company, and then deserted and come home. What's the sense of them callin' me a traitor when I'm not one, and they be."

"If they deserted, they did a sensible thing," said Deck with a smile, as he glanced at his two cousins. "But I am not here to settle any such quarrel as this; for I don't care how much you ruffians fight among yourselves."

"The trouble here has nothing to do with politics or the Home Guards," replied Sandy.

"Nothing at all, Deck," added Orly.

"What is it all about, then?" inquired Deck. "I came in because a cry was heard from the house which made me think a murder was going on here."

"That's jest what was goin' on here!" exclaimed Pickford.

"Nothing of the sort," protested Sandy. "Not a word has been said here about the army or the Home Guards."

"But your father has marched his company farther south, to join General Buckner's army."

"That had nothing to do with our business here. Swin Pickford owes father twenty-seven dollars for building the chimney of this house, and he has owed it for about two years, and it is time the bill was paid."

"That's all so, Deck Lyon; I don't deny none on't," added Pickford, who had recovered his breath and his temper by this time. "But I hain't had the money to pay the bill. I'm an honest man, and I allus pay my debts when I ken. Times have been hard with me for the last two years. Folks has been all over inter politics, and I couldn't hardly git money enough to pay for the bread and butter of my wife and children; for there wasn't next to no work at all."

"That's a poor excuse in your case, Swin," added Sandy.

"I went to Cap'n Titus more'n a year ago, and talked to him about that debt," continued Pickford, without heeding the remark of Sandy. "He got heaps of money out of his brother's property, and I didn't s'pose he needed the money. I offered him five dollars, and told him I'd try to pay him five every month. But he didn't want me to do it that way, and told me I could pay it all to once, when I had the money. Then he wanted me to help him git up the company, and I did; I hoofed it all over the county for him, sometimes when I might have worked."

"But he has got money now!" Sandy broke in. "Dr. Falkirk paid him fifty dollars this morning at the grocery; for I saw him do it, and heard him say how much it was."

"I don't deny that, nuther," said the unfortunate debtor. "But I haven't got three dollars