The farmer, a former Union soldier, had made the mistake of shooting a wandering pig he found on his farm. Now, some men had come to talk it over with him, but they did little talking, even after thefarmer offered to pay for the pig. The men that night were dressed alike – black cloaks with white-stripe trim, skull caps of the same design, masks on their faces. There were sixteen of them and before they rode back into the night they had whipped the Bloomfield farmer to within an inch of his life. The Ku Klux Klan was at large in Missouri.
