The McCoy homestead was a double log house, separating the two houses was a wide passage, and all under one roof. On one side of the building a match is struck. The next moment a pine torch casts a lurid glare into the darkness. The hand that holds it reaches upward and touches the low board roof. It sets it on fire in a dozen places. The family is suddenly awakened by the yells of exultation from the savages without. Shots pour into the houses through doors and windows. Calvin McCoy, the son, who slept upstairs, dresses hurriedly, grasps his rifle and cartridges and descends to the lower floor. He approaches the bed of his terror-stricken, aged mother, pats her gently on her cheek, cautions her to lie still, telling her to fear not, though in his heart he has no hope. He returns to his room and opens fire upon the outlaws. His father, cool and undaunted, fights the flames devouring the roof from the loft. The water becomes exhausted. He resorts to buttermilk, of which there happened to be large quantities in churns. The fire is about conquered. An outlaw hand reaches up to rekindle it with another torch. Randolph McCoy takes up his gun, aims and shatters the hand that holds it. A curse and loud imprecations come to his ears, and tell him that the shot went true. In the room across the passage between the two houses slept the rest of the family, two daughters and two grandchildren. The unmarried daughter, Allifair, frightened and dazed, hears a knock at the door and opens it. She is requested to make a light. She replies that she has neither fire nor matches. The command is repeated; again she refuses to comply. Jim Vance, Sr., the grey-haired outlaw, commands Ellison Mount to shoot her. She prays for them to spare her, but their hearts were strangers to pity. Mount fires point-blank at her breast and she falls to the floor with a cry. The mother from her own room across the passage hears the expiring scream of her child, the dull thud upon the floor. Oh, the horror of it! Surrounded on every hand by devils in human shape; the house on fire over their heads; the husband and son fighting heroically, but only prolonging the useless, inevitably useless struggle; in the other room lies the body of Allifair. She hears the others screaming for help. Will she dare to go to them? Yes. A true mother's love fears no dangers. Where men shrink back in fear and terror a mother will rush into the jaws of death to defend and save her offspring. She opens the door wide and is greeted with bullets. She cares nothing for their vicious hiss. She goes on. Already she has crossed half the space that separates her from her children, when she is confronted by the wretch Vance. He orders her to return to her room. Upon her refusal he strikes blow upon blow with the butt of his gun upon the head and body of the grey-haired woman and frenzied mother. She falls badly injured upon the floor. He kicks her into merciful insensibility.