for whom? That was the great question.

Jack Wade had gone to visit the city, Nora Judson was busy with her
domestic duties, and Tom had gone on a jaunt over the hill, while the
warehouse operator remarked to his companion that he had been appointed
special officer, that the regular officers were afraid of their shadows,
and would not move a peg, and the Nightriders were gathering again and
destruction was imminent. It had been mere chance that had put him next
to the business that bid fair to bring much sport, and he was going with
his trusty rifle and faithful horse to see if he couldn't arrest a Rider
before morning. As he was in sore need of a companion, he invited his
friend to accompany him. The matter looked so feasible, and as the
Riders had given both of them so much trouble, he consented to go along
as an assistant to the appointed officer. Of what was to happen he
received perfect knowledge from the warehouse man.

Wade also was deeply interested. A certain barn with its contents of
high-priced tobacco was to be burned by two lone Nightriders, and this
fact--that there would be only two--was hailed with great pleasure, for
the chances would not only be equal, but the advantage was decidedly
with the officers, as they were cognizant of the raid contemplated,
while the Riders were totally in the dark regarding their knowledge or
identity.

The arrangement was that they should meet at a certain place and proceed
out of Guthrie to a given point some distance out and some distance
still on the other side of the mountain. Wade knew the exact spot where
they were to locate themselves in hiding until the Nightriders should
pass, and he also knew what their intentions were after that. His great
longing to learn something more of the terrible Nightriders, and of the
manner in which it was expected they would be handled on this occasion,
caused him to make a hurried trip back to his own cabin to make hasty
arrangements for a long ride through the darkness of night. When his
clock tolled the hour nine he began that tedious lonesome ride down the
valley. Uppermost in his mind was the movements and actions of the
Nightriders, who had become active again and who were threatening with
utter destruction the entire country, composed of twenty-two counties of
the richest soil in Kentucky and Tennessee. Notices had been posted
everywhere, giving warning to the open raisers, stating that no man
should attempt to sell tobacco