The South Carolinian stepped quickly aside, and dexterously threw his foot before the other, who—his blow not meeting the expected resistance—was unable to recover himself, and fell headlong to the floor. The planter turned on his heel, and was walking quietly away, when the sharp report of a pistol sounded through the apartment, and a ball tore through the top of his boot, and lodged in the wall within two feet of where I was standing. With a spring, quick and sure as the tiger's, the Colonel was on the drunken man. Wrenching away the weapon, he seized the fellow by the neck-tie, and drawing him up to nearly his full height, dashed him at one throw to the other end of the room. Then raising the revolver he coolly levelled it to fire!
But a dozen strong men were on him. The pistol was out of his hand, and his arms were pinioned in an instant; while cries of "Fair play, sir!" "He's drunk!" "Don't hit a man when he's down," and other like exclamations, came from all sides.
"Give me fair play, you d——d North Carolina hounds," cried the Colonel, struggling violently to get away, "and I'll fight the whole posse of you."
"One's 'nuff for you, ye d——d fire-eatin' 'ristocrat;" said a long, lean, bushy-haired, be-whiskered individual, who was standing near the counter: "ef ye want to fight, I'll 'tend to yer case to onst. Let him go, boys," he continued as he stepped toward the Colonel, and parted the crowd that had gathered around him: "give him the shootin'-iron, and let's see ef he'll take a man thet's sober."
I saw serious trouble was impending, and stepping forward, I said to the last speaker, "My friend, you have no quarrel with this gentleman. He has treated that man only as you would have done."
"P'raps thet's so; but he's a d——d hound of a Secesherner thet's draggin' us all to h—ll; it'll du the country good to git quit of one on 'em."
"Whatever his politics are, he's a gentleman, sir, and has done you no harm—let me beg of you to let him alone."
"Don't beg any thing for me, Mr. K——," growled the Colonel through his barred teeth, "I'll fight the d——d corn-cracker, and his whole race, at once."
"No you won't, my friend. For the sake of those at home you won't;" I said, taking him by the arm, and partly leading, partly forcing him, toward the door.