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284

YANKEES, MISSOURIANS AND 'CRICKS.' [1860.

'Mr. Brown, this man came here hunting negroes; do what you please with him.'

After searching him for concealed weapons Brown took a rope from his pocket, tied the prisoner's hands and feet, and then requested him to take a seat. He kept him confined four days reasoning with him about slavery and the wickedness of negro hunting. When set at liberty the discomfited foe seemed thoroughly converted, and manifested genuine regard for the wonderful old man.

Here came the United States marshal with a posse of thirty, to arrest Brown's party. The three dauntless pilots waited at the windows with leveled rifles to receive them, and Stephens called out cheerfully:

'Come on gentlemen; we are ready whenever you are.'

Their proverbial daring was terrible as an army with banners. The negro hunters were fully persuaded that dwellings, out-buildings, and hay lofts swarmed with fighting men. So they left without firing a gun; and when the creek fell the negroes continued on unmolested toward the North Star. All which our host related by his evening fireside. At breakfast he devoutly asked a blessing upon the meal, and a few minutes later coolly remarked:

'I should not be sorry to see the troubles break out again. I know of a few scoundrels who have harrassed Free State men beyond all endurance, and who ought to be killed. But of course we don't want to shoot them unless they give us due provoca tion.'

When we parted he said:

'Keep this road north for two miles, and then take the one leading eastward.'

This alone would have revealed the Yankee. Missourians never gave the point of compass but only directed the traveler to 'Follow up the crick for two miles and then cross over to the next crick.' In the belts of timber along streams they invariably settled, while northerners made their homes upon high open prairie. The 'crick' lands were prolific of fever-and-ague and democratic voters.

The Missourians were accustomed to letting their swine run at

1860.]

A LETTER FROM JOHN BROWN.

285

supply

Albony M 2, 28. th April, 1857. My Dean Sin

The Woncerter Sun Betong connot me with Revolvers in time; but the Mass, Arms, Co; (whose Revolvers I have used; + which are much the some as bolts) of fix to let me have what I need being 200 for $1300, Thirteen Hundred Dollows.

*

*

*

*

I

He did not vont the thing to be made public. Now if Reve d Panken, & other good people at Boston, would make up that amount; I might at least be well ar med. best wisher to yourself

My

and

Please write Matson

Family. Very Respectfully Tour Friend John Brown

286

ONE OF JOHN BROWN'S FOLLOWERS. [1860. large. In Brown county we found one intensely disgusted, because the voters of his township had decided that the animals must be shut up to save fencing-in the grain and potatoes. He complained:

'I don't mind so much getting along without negroes; but next year I will move out of this d-d Yankee neighborhood where a man is compelled to shut up his hogs.'

The death of John Brown on a Virginia gibbet had already canonized him. Almost every Free State settler gave some reminiscences of the stanch old martyr. Among his enthusiastic followers was young Kagi, very modest and quiet, a correspondent of the New York Evening Post. He had criticised a United States district judge of Buchanan's appointment. Soon after, when he chanced to enter the temple of justice, the court adjourned, and several official desperadoes attacked him with revolvers. Like most quiet men, when excited he proved an ugly customer. He answered their shots with great promptness, giving the judge a wound so serious that it made him helpless for months. When his revolver barrels were emptied, Kagi jumped out of a window and escaped unharmed. He finally fell pierced by scores of

bullets, on the bridge at Harper's Ferry.

Nominally, slavery still existed. In Atchison county I found some old southern neighbors greatly exercised over the loss of their chattels. One African, up to the night of his flight, expressed many fears that the Abolitionists might catch and kill him! The incredible depravity of another, a favorite house-maid was thus set forth by her owner:

'Why the ungrateful hussy! Only the week before she ran away I offered her herself for twelve hundred dollars, with the privilege of paying by installments too!'

'Mary Ann,' added the really kind-hearted mistress, 'was raised like one of the family. I took care of her when she was a baby, and always dressed and treated her well. Many and many a time she attended me when I was sick, lifting and moving me as though I was a child. She was a good girl, and I never counted the money before giving her my purse to buy any thing. Poor thing! I reckon she has hard masters now. Perhaps they have dashed her brains out already. I know she would not have

1860.]

AN EXTINGUISHING RETORT.

287

left me of her own accord; the Abolitionists must have stolen. her.'

In Atchison county, the republican party had nominated John J. Ingalls, a young gentleman from Massachusetts, for the Wyandotte constitutional convention. At a democratic meeting John W. Stringfellow, forgetful that Border Ruffian days were over, spoke of the Yankee with traditional contempt:

Who knew any thing about this young man? How old was he? How long had he lived in the Territory?

The next evening, with Stringfellow sitting prominently beside him, Ingalls repaid the debt with usurious interest. He had been charged with two heinous crimes: short residence in Kansas, and personal obscurity. He could not deny the first, but only urged that it was an offense of which most citizens had once been guilty, and one which time usually cured. He added:

'The allegation of obscurity is yet more aggravated and fearful. Mr. President, most men are obscure once in a lifetime. Some always remain in that obscurity. Others emerge from it to an infamous notoriety compared with which obscurity were the kindest gift that charity could bestow!'

This extinguishing retort elicited roars of applause, and shouts of 'Stringfellow,' 'Stringfellow,' which finally drove him discomfited from the stage. Ingalls was triumphantly elected.

On the nineteenth of May, Knox and myself left Atchison in the two-horse wagon of a pioneer, who had contracted to board us on the way and deliver us in Denver for forty dollars each. The swift mail coach was the aristocratic mode; the horse wagon the respectable; and the ox-wagon, known as the 'ox telegraph' or 'prairie-schooner,' the plebian. Oxen traveled about fifteen miles per day; horses twenty to thirty; footmen twenty-five.

As we passed through Kennekuck an emigrant, who had left Atchison without satisfying his creditors, suddenly discovered the sheriff at his heels. Putting spurs to his horse he dashed off at a swift run while the officer pursued. The fugitive dropped overcoat and blanket, but Gilpin-like did not stop for trifles. At last, barely one length ahead, his panting horse crossed the line into the next county. Here, fearless of the sheriff, he turned around, begged that officer to accept his lost blanket as a faint token of

288

ALONG THE EMIGRANT ROAD.

[1860, regard, and present his love to inquiring friends at home! Scattered among the honest folk migrating to the mountains were adventurers like those facetious scoundrels in the convict colony at New South Wales, who proclaimed themselves:

'True patriots all; for be it understood,

We left our country for our country's good!'

At Ash Point one of the little groceries springing up like mushrooms bore the sign: 'BUTTE, REGGS, FLOWER AND MELE.' There were long droves of cattle for California whose drivers expected to be six months on the way, and thousands of weary oxen coming in from Salt Lake whose thinly clad bones made the buz zards look wistfully. In Marshall county at the crossing of the Big Blue, the clear. est stream in Kansas, we passed Marys

[graphic]

'DO THEY MISS ME AT HOME?'

ville founded by Colonel Frank Marshall, a Border Ruffian, of some notoriety. He had a passion for the name of Mary, and called the embryo city in honor of his wife. It had fifty houses and was famed for whisky and shooting affrays. The grand jury had indicted a dozen inhabitants for horse racing, and the criminals were in great glee because the district judge by whom they must be tried had also been a judge at the race in question!

Beyond Fort Kearney a sudden night-storm blew down our Sibley tent. To replace it was impossible; no man could stand against the bleak desert wind. So we shivered through the long hours till daylight found us half covered with sand, which had permeated all our clothing. At midnight a drove of stampeding cattle came rushing toward us. Frightened by the heap of canvas they divided and ran by without trampling upon us..

We often encamped with old friends, and beguiled the evening

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