"There will soon be a time when the treatment we have received here will be returned with compound interest," said Grundy with a savage and revengeful look on his ill-favored countenance. "You wished to see me; what is your business?" demanded the lieutenant. "I am ready to surrender. You and your gang have murdered nearly all my men here in cold blood. I can do nothing more, and I must yield," replied Grundy. "Are you a lawyer, Captain?" "I am not; I am a horse-dealer." "I should think you might be!" sneered Deck. "Do you think it is right to ride over the State, robbing your fellow-citizens, threatening to hang a planter to a tree for refusing to give up his money?" "In the service of my country, yes! Kentucky belongs to the Confederacy; and those who fight to keep the State in the exploded Union are traitors, and should be treated as enemies of the State and the Confederacy." "Suppose I should visit your house, demand your money, and hang you if you did not give it up? Would that be all right?" "That is another matter," growled Grundy. "Precisely; the same boot don't fit both feet," returned Deck. "I am your prisoner; but you need not thorn me with your Union logic." At this moment the lieutenant heard the voice of Davis Hickman in the hall, talking to his father. He called him into the parlor, and requested him to bring a quantity of cord or straps to him; and he went for them. "What do you want of cords and straps?" asked Grundy. "To bind my prisoner." "Do you mean to hang me?" "I do not; I leave that job to the regular hangman. He will perform it in due time, I have no doubt," replied Deck, as Davis brought in the cords. "I don't mean to be tied up like a wildcat," said the captain doggedly. "Then you do not surrender; and if you wish to do so, you may go up-stairs again." "I surrender; but I will not be bound like a nigger!" exclaimed Captain Grundy, as he sprang away from the lieutenant, and ran into the back room. "What's the matter now, Phil?" demanded the colonel, as the mulatto of this name rushed into the hall, panting more from excitement than physical exertion, for his horse was at the door. Both Deck and Davis pursued the captain; but they were taken off their guard, and neither of them succeeded in getting hold of the ruffian. He fled to a window which some one had left open, leaped out, and ran towards the front of the mansion. Davis fired his rifle at him; but being "on the wing," he failed to bring him down. Deck, believing that the fight was finished, had left his rifle in the parlor. "The Lord save us, Mars'r Cun'l!" shouted Phil, as he broke into the hall. "The ruffians, more'n twenty of 'em, is coming up the road on hossback, at full gallop!" It looked like another fight against great odds. CHAPTER XXXI AN UNEXPECTED RE-ENFORCEMENT