and I were helping Mr. Traylor
hitch up his horses. All of a sudden two men came riding up the road
at a fast trot and turned in and come straight toward us and pulled up
by the wagon. One of them was a slim, red cheeked young feller about
twenty-three years old. He wore top boots and spurs and a broad brimmed
black hat and gloves and a fur waistcoat and purty linen. He looked at
the tires of the wagon and said: 'That's the one we've followed.'

"'Which o' you is Samson Traylor?' he asked.

"'I am,' said Traylor.

"The young feller jumped off his horse and tied him to the fence. Then he
went up to Traylor and said:

"What did you do with my niggers, you dirty sucker?'

"Men from Missouri hated the Illinois folks them clays and called 'em
Suckers. We always call a Missouri man a name too dirty to be put in a
letter. He acted like one o' the Roman emperors ye read of.

"'Hain't you a little reckless, young feller?' Traylor says, as cool
as a cucumber.

"I didn't know Traylor them days. If I had, I'd 'a' been prepared for
what was comin'.

"Traylor stood up nigh the barn door, which Brimstead had closed after we
backed the wagon out.

"The young feller stepped close to the New Salem man and raised his whip
for a blow. Quick as lightnin' Traylor grabbed him and threw him ag'in'
the barn door, keewhack! He hit so hard the boards bent and the whole
barn roared and trembled. The other feller tried to get his pistol out of
its holster, but Brimstead, who stood beside him, grabbed it, and I got
his hoss by the bits and, we both held on. The young feller lay on the
ground shakin' as if he had the ague. Ye never see a man so spylt in a
second. Traylor picked him up. His right arm was broke and his face and
shoulder bruised some. Ye'd a thought a steam engyne had blowed up while
he was puttin' wood in it. He was kind o' limp and the mad had leaked out
o' him.

"'I reckon I better find a doctor,' he says.

"'You get into my wagon and I'll take ye to a good one,' says Traylor.

"Just then Stephen Nuckles, the circuit minister, rode in with the big
bloodhound that follers him around.

"The other slaver had got off his hoss in the scrimmage. Traylor started
for him. The slaver began to back away and suddenly broke into a run. The
big dog took after him with a kind of a lion roar. We all began yelling
at the dog. We made more noise than you'd hear at the end of a hoss race.
It scairt the young feller. He put on more ste