CHAPTER Twelfth.
"If thou neglect'st, or dost unwillingly What I command, I'll rack thee with old cramps, Fill all thy bones with aches; make thee roar, That beasts shall tremble at thy din." -- SHAKESPEARE'S TEMPEST.
The Ion family were spending the day at the Oaks.

It was now early in the fall of 1868 and political excitement ran high over the coming presidential election.

There had been as yet no effectual check given to the lawless proceedings of the Ku Klux, and their frequent raids and numerous deeds of violence had inaugurated a reign of terror that was a shame and reproach to our boasted civilization and free institutions.
Many of the poorer class, both blacks and whites, dared not pass the night in their houses, but when darkness fell, fled for safety to the shelter of the nearest woods, carrying their beds with them, and sleeping in the open air.
That the Ku Klux Klan was a political organization working in the interests of the Democratic party, their words to their victims left no doubt.

The latter were told that they were punished for belonging to the Union League or for favoring the Republican party or using their influence in its behalf, and threatened with severer treatment if they dared vote its ticket or persuade others to do so.
The outrages were highly disapproved by all Republicans and by most of the better class in the opposite party; but many were afraid to express their opinions of the doings of the Klan, lest they should be visited with its terrors; while for the same reason, many of its victims preferred to suffer in silence rather than institute proceedings, or testify against their foes.
It was a state of things greatly deplored by our friends of the Oaks and Ion, and Messrs.

Dinsmore and Travilla, who were not of the timid sort, had been making efforts to bring some of the guilty ones to justice; though thus far with very little success.
Such an errand had taken them to the town on this particular day.
They were returning late in the afternoon and were still several miles from home, when, passing through a bit of woods, a sudden turn of the road brought them face to face with a band of mounted men, some thirty or forty in number, not disguised but rough and ruffianly in appearance and armed with clubs, pistols and bowie knives.
The encounter was evidently a surprise to both parties, and reining in their steeds, they regarded each other for a moment in grim silence.
Then the leader of the band, a profane, drunken wretch, who had been a surgeon in the Confederate army, scowling fiercely upon our friends and laying his hand on a pistol in his belt, growled out, "A couple of scalawags! mean dirty rascals, what mischief have you been at now, eh ?" Disdaining a reply to his insolence, the gentlemen drew their revolvers, cocked them ready for instant use, and whirling their horses half way round and backing them out of the road so that they faced it, while leaving room for the others to pass, politely requested them to do so.
"Not so fast!" returned the leader, pouring out a torrent of oaths and curses; "we've a little account to settle with you two, and no time's like the present." "Yes, shoot 'em down!" cried a voice from the crowd.
"Hang 'em!" yelled another, "the -- -- -- -- rascals!" "Yes," roared a third, "pull 'em from their horses and string 'em up to the limb o' that big oak yonder." Our friends faced them with dauntless air.
"You will do neither," said Mr.Dinsmore, in a firm, quiet tone; "we are well armed and shall defend ourselves to the last extremity." Travilla threw his riding whip into the road a foot or two in front of his horse's head, saying, as he looked steadily into the leader's eyes, "The first one who passes that to come nearer to us is that instant a dead man." The two were well known in the community as men of undoubted courage and determination; also as excellent marksmen.
A whisper ran along the lines of their opponents.
"He's a dead shot; and so's Dinsmore; and they're not afraid o' the devil himself.