THE population of the region, friends and foes, were now up in alarm. Reports met us of the outrages of the Ruffians upon Free State settlers the night previous.

Here is the story of one of the depredations, detailed to us at one of our halts.

It was upon a stanch old German and his family, settled near the junction of the North and South branches of the Pottawatomie. Old Kepler, as he was nicknamed, had not taken any leading or even active part in the "troubles" (as they were termed), but his strong anti-slavery sentiments had cropped out and were known to the enemy.

They now made directly for his cabin, evidently resolved, as the opportunity might offer, to force him to declare himself for one side or the other. No man, in fact, in those days of the Kansas conflict,—partisan, bitter, bloody,—could long occupy anything like neutral ground. If one undertook to "sit on the fence," he soon became a target for both parties and was relentlessly dislodged.

It was not the nature of the old German to dissemble, when the trial came. On the approach of the Ruffians he prepared for the worst, as he expected no favor. He barricaded his cabin door and refused their demand for admittance. They burned his wheat and hay stacks, and all his outbuildings, and then called upon the besieged to surrender.

It was believed, probably rightly, by the assailants, that the old man was possessed of considerable money, brought with him from the old country. This lent incitement to their attack; while, if true, the fact was undoubtedly an additional motive on his part for keeping the invaders at a distance.

Brave old Kepler was quite advanced in years. He was about three score and ten, but all the old valorous Teutonic blood in his veins was aroused, and he prepared to resist the spoilers even to the death, if need be. His wife, partner of his New World adventures and toils, had succumbed not long before to the frontier hardships and had passed on. He had one son, a chip of the old block, brave, strong, and inured to the rough Western life, equally interested with the father in carving out their fortunes in this new country, and in the making of their Western prairie home.

And there was an only daughter, alike the support and solace of both father and brother;—the light, indeed, of the household and of the neighborhood.

I must interpolate a word here, in passing, descriptive of this daughter,—the worthy heroine of the event, as we shall see. She was a light-haired, blond-complexioned young girl, with all the proverbial German fairness,—bright and handsome as a prairie flower. And she had the German habit of taking a share in the work in the open field. Often was she seen by the passers up and down the creek, "chopping in corn" (as they call it in the West),—keeping even step in the row with her robust brother; or now driving the cattle while he held the plough; then changing work with him, guiding the share while he drove the oxen.

Her household duties, however, were not neglected meanwhile. Doubtless the brother, in return, here gave her a helping hand. Nowhere else on the road (as the writer can testify from personal experience) did the weary and hungry traveler find such bread as when thrown upon the Keplers' hospitality,—bread of this young girl's manufacture.

Besides all this,—and appropriately to be said in this connection,—this fair maiden could handle a rifle on occasion, as we shall presently see. Such ability was often a quite useful accomplishment for the gentler sex on our wild Western border. It proved eminently so in the case before us.

The yelling, hooting, and now drunken mob began at length to fire upon the cabin at its vulnerable points. The heroic inmates returned the shots through the holes between the logs in the loft, and not without effect. One of the assailants was seriously wounded and several others less so. The battle grew warm, the effusion of blood thus far serving only to increase the wild fury of the besiegers.

The father and son stood with their guns at the openings, while the young girl loaded the pieces for them as fast as they were emptied. At length the baffled and maddened crowd changed their tactics. They managed to pile wood, logs, and rubbish against the cabin, hoping to fire the building. There was danger that the dastardly effort would prove only too successful. The flames began to crackle. All now seemed lost, when suddenly the brave daughter unbarred the cabin door and sprang forth with a bucket of water in her hand to dash out the newly kindled flames. This was done from the girl's own impulse at the moment. Had they divined her intention, the father and brother would not have allowed it. The feat, however, strange to say, was as successful as it was heroic and perilous.

The surprised besiegers were not actually cowardly and base enough to fire upon the unarmed, defenseless girl. However, one of them sprang from his covert behind a tree to seize her. But the old backwoodsman father, watching breathlessly the scene below from his post in the loft,—his hand and eye steadied to perfect accuracy by the imminent danger,—sent a rifle-bullet straight to the heart of the venturesome wretch, and he fell forward dead at the maiden's feet.

The girl regained the door and, with the aid of her brother, who hastened to her assistance, rebarred it securely. All was now again safe for the time being,—and permanently, as it proved. The marauders, overawed by this episode and by the generally unexpected course of affairs,—one of their number being actually killed and several others more or less severely wounded,—hastily fell back to a safe distance and finally beat a retreat from the neighborhood.