Page:Randall Parrish--My Lady of the South.djvu/175

RELEASED FOR A PURPOSE drawn into the controversy. Bitterness increased, at new causes for anger arose, until the original cause was forgotten, and children were born, taught from the cradle to hate the other faction. The Danielses were the more numerous, the more ignorant, the more vindictive. They would stoop to any crime, conﬁdent of their strength of numbers for protection. Colonel Donald saw them kill his father and burn his own home to the ground. But he was of a different nature; he realized the wickedness, the brutality, of continuing such a struggle. He sought earnestly to compromise, to make peace. The others laughed, thought him a coward, and became bolder than ever in their outrages. Finally they burned his home for the second time, twenty of them, at midnight, Bill Daniels at their head. They left him seriously wounded, and drove his wife and children into the night and storm."

She leaned back against the door, trembling from head to foot, yet went on steadily.

"His wife and one child died of the exposure. He lay for weeks in this house delirious with fever, and twice those fiends sought him even then. When he recovered he was another man—living for no other purpose than to clear this region of that scum. He was ﬁve years at it, night and day, tireless as a bloodhound. He had with him every law-abiding man between the two rivers, and it became so hot for Daniels and his gang that they began to clear out. Some were imprisoned. some shot, others left the country. Bill Daniels himself was brought into court, tried for murder, and convicted. He escaped from jail two years ago, and since then, until the [ 165 ]