"No!" yelled the messenger, as he fired his revolver at the spokesman. At the same moment he drove his heels into the flanks of his spirited steed, giving him the rein as he did so. The horse darted ahead like a shot from a gun, and choosing his way between the men, he knocked two of them over, and galloped on his way. The sudden movement of the animal had prevented the men from bringing their guns to bear upon him. The man on his feet fired, and the rider heard a ball whistle near him. In a minute he was out of the range of such weapons, and reached Riverlawn in season for supper. He delivered the bills to the lieutenant, and told his story. The next morning the early risers saw these placards posted all over Barcreek village, and along the roads for five miles in all directions. CHAPTER XXXIV THE FIRE THAT WAS STARTED AT RIVERLAWN Levi and Deck were the bill-stickers, and the night was chosen as the time to post them, in order that the paste might be well dried and hardened before they were seen. They had taken a wagon, and with the coachman for driver they had gone their round after people generally were asleep. Wherever a flat surface could be found by the light of a lantern, on barns, fences, rocks, and shops, a placard was posted. It would take the ruffian brigade a long time to pull them all down, after the paste was dry; and the very wrath of these men would assist in advertising the recruiting office at Riverlawn. The fact that the papers were ready for signature could hardly fail to be known all over the vicinity early in the morning, and all over the county in a day or two. The information was already circulating in Bowling Green; for the editor of _The Planter_, at whose office Artie had applied to have the bills printed, had made it known soon enough to enable the three ruffians to make an attempt to suppress the placards. _The Kentuckian_ was the loyal paper, and would doubtless make at least an item of the fact that the recruiting office had been established. Possibly the other journal would make a "dastardly outrage" of the shot which Artie had fired at the three ruffians who beset him on the road. There was no doubt in the minds of the active men at Riverlawn that the recruiting office would be known to the fullest extent even the day after the bills were posted; for even the women would gossip about it as they went from house to house, and the loafers in the "corner grocery" would have an exciting theme for discussion. The people had been terrorized by the ruffians, who had banded together as Home Guards in this locality; and they had made noise enough to create the belief among the less demonstrative citizens that the Secessionists were in a majority. But Squire Truman had punctured this bubble by an actual canvass of the inhabitants, and proved, as did the vote of the Legislature, that loyalty was the predominant sentiment.