Then Abe told Samson what was up.  The men concealed themselves in some bushes by the roadside while the minister sat close against an end of the house with his blood hound beside him.  Before they were settled in their places they heard the regulators coming.  The horses of the latter were walking as they approached.  Not a sound came from the men who rode them.  They proceeded to the grove just beyond the cabin and hitched their horses.  There were eight men in the party according to Abe’s count as they passed.  The men, in concealment, hurried to the cabin and surrounded it, crouched against the walls.  In a moment they could see a big spot, blacker than the darkness, moving toward them.  It was the massed raiders.  They came on with the stealth of a cat nearing its prey.  A lion-like roar broke the silence.  The blood hound leaped forward.  The waiting men sprang to their feet and charged.  The raiders turned and ran, pell mell, in a panic toward their horses.  Suddenly the darkness seemed to fill with moving figures.  One of the fleeing men, whose coat tails the dog had seized, was yelling for help.  The minister rescued him and the dog went on roaring after the others.  When the New Salemites got to the edge of the grove they could hear a number of regulators climbing into the tree tops.  Samson had a man in each hand; Abe had another, while Harry Needles and Alexander Ferguson were in possession of the man whom the dog had captured.  The minister was out in the grove with his blood hound that was barking and growling under a tree.  Jack Kelso arrived with a lantern.  One of Samson’s captives began swearing and struggling to get away.  Samson gave him a little shake and bade him be quiet.  The man uttered a cry of fear and pain and offered no more resistance.  Stephen Nuckles came out of the grove.

“The rest o’ that ar party done gone up-stairs to roost,” said the minister.  “I reckon my dog’ll keep ’em thar.  We better jest tote these men inter the house an’ have a prayin’ bee.  I’ve got a right smart good chanct, now, to whop ol’ Satan.”

They moved the raiders’ horses.  Then the party—­save Harry Needles, who stayed in the grove to keep watch—­took its captives into the cabin.

“You set here with this gun and if any o’ them tries to get away you take a crack at him,” said Samson, as they were leaving, in a voice intended for the men in the tree-tops.

The men and the four dejected raiders crowded into the cabin.

Sarah, who had heard the disturbance and wondered what it meant, met them at the door with a look of alarm.

“These men came to do us harm,” Samson said to Sarah.  “They are good fellows but they got an idea in their heads that we are bad folks.  I hear that young Mr. Biggs set them up against us.  Let’s give them a bite to eat the first thing we do.”

They took a look at the captives.  Three of them were boys from eighteen to twenty years of age.  The other was a lanky, bearded Tennessean some forty years old.  One of the young lads had hurt his hand in the evening’s frolic.  Blood was dripping from it.  The four sat silent and fearful and ashamed.