Produced by David Garcia, Moti Ben-Ari and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Kentuckiana Digital Library) YOUR UNCLE SAM OWNS A GREAT NAVY A very important adjunct of Government.--You and everybody must be interested in it. [Illustration: A Submarine Boat. A new "wrinkle" in warfare.] THE AMERICAN BATTLESHIP AND LIFE IN THE NAVY By THOS. BEYER, a Bluejacket is the most authoritative as well as the most readable book published on the subject. Also Humorous Man-o'-War Yarns. =40 full-page half-tones, including Rear-Admiral Evans' flagship "Connecticut," and a lithographed map, in four colors, of the cruise around the world by the U. S. fleet, 1907-1908.= EXTRA SILK CLOTH, GOLD TITLE, $1.25 At all bookstores and book supply houses, or sent postpaid, on receipt of price, by LAIRD & LEE, Publishers, 263-265 Wabash Avenue, CHICAGO [Illustration: DRESSED IN HER HUSBAND'S CLOTHES, SHE LED THEM TO THE TOBACCO BARN.] "_A fence between makes love more keen_." THE NIGHT RIDERS A Thrilling Story of Love, Hate and Adventure, graphically depicting the Tobacco Uprising in Kentucky BY HENRY C. WOOD "_Who warms in his bosom the eggs of hatred hatches a nest of snakes_." [Illustration: Publisher's logo.] CHICAGO LAIRD & LEE, PUBLISHERS Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1908, BY WILLIAM H. LEE, in the office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. DRAMATIC RIGHTS RESERVED BY THE AUTHOR. _Preface_ _The author has cleverly interwoven a tale of absorbing heart interest with a graphically depicted view of the present Tobacco Troubles in Kentucky and the exciting times when the people formed into bands, known as THE NIGHT RIDERS, to protest against what they considered the unjust tax of the Toll Gate System. These protests were of a strenuous nature, not unlike those of the tobacco-growing section today, and as the characters in the story are real, live beings, who did things, the reader's interest never flags._ _THE PUBLISHERS._ [Illustration: A troop of riders] [Illustration: BRACING HIMSELF IN HIS STIRRUPS, MILT CRIED HURRIEDLY TO JUDSON: "LEAP UP BEHIND ME!"--_Page 130_.] [Illustration: Title and author with the image of a rider.] THE NIGHT RIDERS By Henry Cleveland Wood CHAPTER I. The early morning sunlight entered boldly through the small panes of glass into the kitchen of the toll-house and fell in a checkered band across the breakfast table set against the sill of the one long, low window. The meal was a simple one, plainly served, but a touch of gold and purple--royal colors of the season--was given it by a bunch of autumn flowers, golden-rod and wild aster, stuck in a glass jar set on the window sill.