William Hepworth Dixon, White Conquest: Volume 1

[244] States in which White women are in great demand, the White males being nearly a hundred thousand in excess of the White females. A house in which three or four pretty girls are growing up, is a centre of much resort, and the scene of many jealousies. Sallie and Nellie Stocks were sisters, and the elder sister, Sallie, was a great coquette. Sallie kept company with Jack Bulliner, while Nellie was adored by his brother Dave. So far, these strangers from Kentucky seemed to carry the field; but things were not so smooth as they appeared. Sallie, liking to have more than one string to her bow, began to flirt with Tom Russell. Tom was her cousin. People said he was her “ choice,” and though she smiled on Jack Bulliner, shrewd gossips held that she would end by marrying her cousin Tom.

A question rose between these neighbours as to the ownership of a parcel of oats. Sisney had these oats in his barn ; Bulliner asserted that he had paid for them. A reference to the local courts supported Sisney's claim. Soon after the decision, Dave Bulliner dropped into a blacksmith's forge which stood on Sisney's farm, and finding Sisney there, he accused him of having won his cause by