It was one of these that precipitated the result. The flag which waved over the head of the advancing column had been visible from the town for some time as now and then it passed over the successive ridges to the eastward. The sound of fife and drum had become more and more distinct, and a great portion of the white male population, together with those who had come in to the election from the surrounding country, had gathered about the bridge spanning the swift river which flowed between Melton and the hosts of the barbarous and bloodthirsty "niggers" of the Red Wing country. Several of the young scouts had ridden close up to the column with tantalizing shouts and insulting gestures and then dashed back to recount their own audacity; until, just as the Stars and Stripes began to show over the last gullied hill, one of them, desirous of outdoing his comrades in bravado, drew his revolver, flourished it over his head, and cast a shower of insulting epithets upon the colored pilgrims to the shrine of ballatorial power. He was answered from the dusky crowd with words as foul as his own. Such insult was not to be endured. Instantly his pistol was raised, there was a flash, a puff of fleecy smoke, a shriek from amid the crowd.
At once all was confusion. Oaths, cries, pistol-shots, and a shower of rocks filled the air as the young man turned and spurred back to the town. In a moment the long covered-bridge was manned by a well-armed crowd, while others were seen running toward it. The town was in an uproar.
The officers of election had left the polls, and in front of the bridge could be seen Hesden Le Moyne and the burly sheriff striving to keep back the angry crowd of white men. On the hill the colored men, for a moment struck with amazement, were now arming with stones, in dead earnest, uttering loud cries of vengeance for one of their number who, wounded and affrighted, lay groaning and writhing by the roadside. They outnumbered the whites very greatly, but the latter excelled them in arms, in training, and in position. Still, such was their exasperation at what seemed to them a wanton and unprovoked attack, that they were preparing to charge upon the bridge without delay. Nimbus especially was frantic with rage.
"It's the flag!" he shouted; "the damned rebels are firing on the flag!" He strode back and forth, waving an old cavalry sabre which he had brought to mark his importance as marshal of the day, and calling on his followers to stand by him and they would "clean out the murderous crowd." A few pistol shots which were fired from about the bridge but fell far short, added to their excitement and desperation.
Just as they were about to rush down the hillside, Mollie Ainslie, with a white set face, mounted on her black horse, dashed in front of them, and cried,
"Halt!"
Eliab Hill had long been imploring them with upraised hands to be calm and listen to reason, but his voice was unheeded or unheard in the wild uproar. The sight of the woman, however, whom all of them regarded so highly, reining in her restive horse and commanding silence, arrested the action of all. But Nimbus, now raging like a mad lion, strode up to her, waving his sword and cursing fearfully in his wild wrath, and said hoarsely:
"You git out o' de way, Miss Mollie! We all tinks a heap ob you, but yer hain't got no place h'yer! De time's come for men now, an' dis is men's wuk, an' we's gwine ter du it, too! D'yer see dat man dar, a-bleedin' an' a-groanin'? Blood's been shed! We's been fired into kase we wuz gwine ter exercise our rights like men under de flag ob our kentry, peaceable, an' quiet, an' disturbin' nobody! 'Fore God, Miss Mollie, ef we's men an' fit ter hev enny rights, we won't stan' dat! We'll hev blood fer blood! Dat's what we means! You jes git outen de way!" he added imperiously. "We'll settle dis yer matter ourselves!" He reached out his hand as he spoke to take her horse by the bit.
"Stand back!" cried the brave girl. "Don't you touch him, sir!" She urged her horse forward, and Nimbus, awed by her intensity, slowly retreated before her, until she was but a pace or two in front of the line which stretched across the road. Then leaning forward, she said,
"Nimbus, give me your sword!"