Dinsmore, Travilla and Leland were talking together just within the entrance to the avenue at Ion when Wilkins Foster, George Boyd and Calhoun Conly came riding by.
They brought their horses to a walk as they neared the gate, and Foster called out sneeringly, "Two scalawags and a carpet-bagger! fit company for each other." "So we think, sir," returned Travilla coolly, "though we do not accept the epithets you so generously bestow upon us." "It is an easy thing to call names; any fool is equal to that," said Mr.
Leland, in a tone of unruffled good-nature.
"True; and the weapon of vituperation is generally used by those who lack brains for argument or are upon the wrong side," observed Mr.
Dinsmore.
"Is that remark intended to apply to me sir ?" asked Foster, drawing himself up with an air of hauteur and defiance.
"Not particularly: but if you wish to prove yourself skilled in the other and more manly weapon, we are ready to give you the opportunity." "Yes; come in, gentlemen, and let us have a free and friendly discussion," said Mr.Travilla.
Boyd and Conly at once accepted the invitation, but Foster, reining in his horse in the shade of a tree at the gate, said, "No, thank you; I don't care to alight, can talk from the saddle as well as anyway.

I call you scalawags, Messrs.

Dinsmore and Travilla, because though natives of the South, you have turned against her." "Altogether a mistake," observed Travilla.
"I deny the charge and call upon you to prove it," said Mr.Dinsmore.
"Easy task; you kept away and took no part in our struggle for independence." "That is we (I speak for Travilla as well as myself) had no share in the effort to overthrow the best government in the world, the hope of the down-trodden and oppressed of all the earth a struggle which we foresaw would prove, as it has, the almost utter destruction of our beloved South.

They who inaugurated secession were no true friends to her." "Sir!" cried Boyd, with angry excitement, "ours was as righteous a cause as that of our Revolutionary fathers." Mr.Dinsmore shook his head.

"They fought against unbearable tyranny; and that after having exhausted every other means of obtaining a redress of their grievances; and we had suffered no oppression at the hands of the general government." "Hadn't we ?" interrupted Foster fiercely.