The house was old, and had a history—­an exciting one, too, as any one could have told after examining it closely.  The walls bore numerous scars, which had been made by bullets, and the trees surrounding the dwelling were marked in the same manner.  The grove had not always been as peaceful and quiet as we found it.  Its echoes had been awakened by the yells of infuriated men and the reports of hostile rifles, and the very sod upon which Frank sometimes stretched himself after dinner, to while away an hour with some favorite author, had been wet with blood.

When the house was built, there was not another human habitation within a circle of twenty miles.  The country was an unbroken wilderness.  Mr. Winters’s nearest neighbors were bands of roving freebooters, who robbed all who came in their way.  They did not, however, content themselves with waylaying solitary travelers.  They frequently made organized attacks upon remote farm-houses, and one night they made a sudden descent upon Mr. Winters’s rancho.  But the old frontiersman had lived too long in that country, and was too well acquainted with the character of his neighbors, to be caught napping.  He and his Rancheros were armed to the teeth, and prepared for a fight; and, after a siege of two days, during which time the robbers poured an almost constant shower of bullets against the walls of the house, they withdrew, after shooting and dispersing the cattle, and destroying the crops.  Not one of Mr. Winters’s party was injured; but the outlaws suffered so severely, that they never repeated the attempt to rob that rancho.

Frank and Archie never grew tired of hearing Uncle James tell the story of that fight, and nearly every day they examined the marks of the bullets on the logs, sometimes being foolish enough to wish that they had been there to take part in those exciting scenes, or that the robbers would return and make another attack on the house, so that they might be able to say that they had been in a real battle.  Then they should have a story to tell that would be worth listening to.  They never imagined that, before they were many years older, they could recount adventures quite as exciting as their uncle’s.

The interior of the house presented a strange contrast to the outside.  When one crossed the threshold, he found himself surrounded with all the comforts of civilization.  There were fine carpets on the floors, oil paintings on the walls, and easy chairs, sofas, and musical instruments in abundance.  The room the boys occupied was the only one in which could be found any traces of the backwoods.  It was a pleasant, cheerful apartment, quite as nicely furnished as the other rooms in the house, and every thing about it bespoke the taste and character of its young masters.  A stranger, having taken a single glance at the numerous articles hung upon the walls, and scattered about over the floor—­some of them useful and ornamental, others apparently of no value or service to any one—­could have told that its presiding geniuses were live, wide-awake, restless boys.