Produced by David Garcia, Mary Meehan 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) The Nightriders' Feud By Walter C. McConnell NEW YORK THE COSMOPOLITAN PRESS 1912 Copyright, 1912, by Walter C. McCONNELL The Nightriders' Feud CHAPTER I John Redmond, the second, had just completed his education in a New York college, having been graduated with high honors, and was therefore prepared to go out into the world and set it on fire with his brilliancy. But the call of the great business world was strangely superseded by the "call of the wild," which had long since taken firm hold upon his young heart. Since his earliest recollections his soul had longed to go out into the wild Western country, and he was now fully determined to appease his adventurous appetite amid the great wild mountains of the West. Thoughts concerning his future flitted fast through his study-ladened brain as the train sped on toward his home. Yes, he would go to the mountains and seek gold or coal where others, with less ability to find, had passed over the immense wealth which must surely lie hid deep beneath the great earthen mounds. This wealth, he thought, had been placed there by the Maker of the mighty earth, that his great skill as an engineer might be made known to the world. It was there for his own pleasure; it had not been intended that others should make the discovery. His training would enable him to make discoveries which others had not been skillful enough to make. The life would be just to his liking, and would fill a long-felt desire to invade the bowels of the hitherto uninvaded depths of rocky earth. It was not his intention to delay one moment; he would go at once. The train sped on, and he reached his home in good time. There he was greeted with the sad news that his uncle, John Redmond, for whom he was named, had been slain by murderous Nightriders over in the valley of Kentucky. His tobacco crop had been utterly destroyed, his barns and out-houses devastated, his home burned to the earth, and as he was fleeing from the burning building, in an effort to save himself from a torturous death, he had been shot down in his tracks like a dog, a forty-four Winchester bullet tearing his heart to pieces. What more would man need to set his soul on fire? What more would he need to raise his ire to the verge of distraction?