"Well, now, we'll suppose, for instance, the girl to be you," began the Squire, argumentatively. "You and your mother are depending on the toll-gate for a living, and it makes you a comfortable one, at any rate. Did you know the toll-gate raiders were at work?" asked the Squire, abruptly. The girl caught her breath with a quick start. "No," she answered, quickly. "Where?" "Right here in this very county. They burned a toll-house just on the boundary line only the other night, and cut down the pole of one gate in the edge of this county last night, so I was told today," said the Squire, impressively. "I'm afraid we're going to have a deal of trouble over the matter before it's ended," he continued, thoughtfully, shrewdly following the impression he had evidently made on the mind of his hearer. "The spirit of lawlessness seems to be widely spreading." "Do you think there's any danger of the raiders payin' a visit to the New Pike Gate?" questioned Sally, anxiously. "I shouldn't be the least surprised," answered her companion, with a dubious shake of the head. "The night-riders seem determined to make way with all the toll-gates in this part of the country if they can." "I can't think they would harm us," insisted Sally, "two poor, helpless women." "Likely not, but if the raiders have made up their minds to have free roads, as they appear to have done, they would not hesitate to burn the toll-house over your heads, which would leave you and your mother without a shelter, don't you see?" The Squire paused, and the girl sat buried in deep thought for some moments. "In that case, what could you do or where could you go?" asked the Squire, at last breaking the silence that had fallen between them. "Heaven only knows!" cried the girl, earnestly. "Now, affairs stand just in this way," continued the Squire, craftily. "If the raiders should burn the toll-house--and it is a most probable thing, I fear--it would leave you two women in rather a bad plight. But if you'll only agree to marry me, why, there's a nice home waiting for you, and your mother will also have a comfortable shelter in her old age, and neither of you will have cause to worry about the future." The Squire paused, but Sally made no answer. She knew full well that his words were quite true concerning the dependence of her mother and herself on the toll-gate for a living. She also knew that as long as the Squire entertained the faintest hope of ultimately winning her the gate was secured to her mother, and therefore she had not felt troubled on this score; but now that a new and unlooked-for danger threatened in the unusual and unexpected presence of the raiders, she tremulously asked herself, "What, indeed, if the toll-houses were destroyed, would become of her and her mother?"