musket and proffered it to the gentleman that had been so solicitous to get it. Mr. Speck assured him that Mrs. S. was now willing he should have it, and would not shoot him if he took it.

These gentlemen had been making money out of pocket. They had been frightened out of their wits by a spunky woman; and forty armed mer, with a . loaded cannon, had been stampeded and made to run pell-mell into Atchison by a herd of cattle and two or three men on horseback, riding at full gallop after an old cow.

These men had undertaken to do a wicked thing, and had been made ridiculous in doing so; and this contributed largely to that revolution in the public opinion of the county, which had been going on for eighteen months, and which at the last compelled a radical change in the policy of these "Border Ruffian' leaders. But this again gave the chiefs of this conspiracy abundant experience that it pays to do right, and that a good Providence had brought them prosperity and honor by defeating their original counsels and turning them into foolishness.

But first we must tell of the carnival of riot, ruin, and robbing that had been going on in other parts of the Territory.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Squatter Sovereign, in its issue of July 1st, made the following announcement:

The steamer, Star of the West, having on board seventy-eight Chicago Abolitionists, was overhauled at Lexington, Mo., and the company disarmed. A large number of rifles and pistols were taken at Lexington, and a guard sent upon the boat, to prevent them from landing in the Territory. After leaving Lexington, it was ascertained that they had not given up all arms, but still held possession of a great number of bowie knives and pistols, which were probably secreted while the search was going on at Lexington. At Leavenworth City, Captain Clarkson, with twenty-five men, went on board of the boat and demanded the surrender of all the arms in the possession of the Abolitionists. Like whipped dogs they sneaked up to Clarkson and laid down their weapons to him.

The men thus robbed of their arms give the following version of the matter: They say that at Lexington they were taken by surprise; that their arms were not accessible to them, and that there was nothing to do but to yield. But that a pledge was made to them, that if they would give up their arms, they should be allowed to proceed peaceably to Kansas. They furthermore state that at Kansas City Col. Buford came aboard the boat, accompanied by a company of soldiers; that David R. Atchison and Gen. B. F. Stringfellow came on board, and that after the boat had left the landing these gentlemen informed them that they would in no wise be allowed to enter the

Territory; that after the boat had stopped at Weston, they should be taken back to Alton; but that if they would not accept this arrangement, "they should be hung, every mother's son of them.'

At various times the Squatter Sovereign and Leavenworth Herald report similar outrages. The latter paper reports, July 5th, the sending back seventy-five emigrants that had come upon the steamer Sultan. In reference to this occurrence, the Squatter Sovereign makes the following remark:

We do not fully approve of sending these criminals back to the East, to be reshipped to Kansas-if not through Missouri, through Iowa and Nebraska. We think they should meet a traitor's death; and the world could not censure us if we, in self-protection, have to resort to such ultra measures. We are of the opinion that if the citizens of Leavenworth city, or Weston, would hang one or two boat-loads of Abolitionists, it would do more towards establishing peace in Kansas than all the speeches that have been delivered in Congress during the present ses sion. Let the experiment be tried.

The Missouri River was thus blockaded against the incoming of emigrants from the free States, and this created intense excitement throughout the North. The result was, that the immigration to Kansas, instead of being diminished, was largely increased; but it changed its direction, and Iowa City became the entrepôt for the incoming tide of free State settlers, which now sought an overland route through Iowa and Nebraska, and began to reach Kansas about the 1st of August.

The leaders of the Pro-slavery party made a pathetic appeal to the people of the South to send a corresponding class of emigrants; but the appeal was feebly responded to. Slave-holders would not come, because their slaves would be insecure; and now slave

holders felt that they had small cause to come to fight a battle that was not theirs.

Gov. Shannon held the scepter of power with a more and more feeble hand. He was going to resign, and he was not going to resign. But whether he did or did not resign, the substance of power had already passed into the hands of his secretary, Mr. Woodson, who was hand and glove with his fellows in this conspiracy to make Kansas a slave State.

Meantime Col. Sumner had been superseded in command at Fort Leavenworth by Persifer F. Smith. Col. Sumner had obeyed orders like the brave soldier that he was, but he had shown too much sympathy for these victims of oppression in the discharge of his shameful duties.* He did his appointed work, but he did not do it with an appetite, and he had been succeeded by a man that felt no more pity toward the Free State people than the wolf feels for the lamb out of which he makes his breakfast. The consequences of this state of affairs began soon to appear. The Missouri River had been blockaded. Trains sent to Leavenworth from Lawrence and Topeka were robbed on the public highway of the merchandise and provisions with which they were loaded, and these interior Free State settlements began to feel the sharp pressure of hard necessities, while they a third time saw companies of so-called "Law and Order" militia occupying various points in the Territory which these men proceeded to fortify, and from which they could overawe the inhabitants and make raids on the citizens;

When Col. Sumner's soldiers were asked what they would do if they were ordered to fire on the Free State men, they replied, “We would aim above their heads."

and thus the old business of robbery, murder, spoliation and oppression was again begun.

And now this new immigration of a squatter soldiery, who came bearing their muskets in one hand and their implements of husbandry in the other, and were perfectly indifferent whether it should be work or fight, came pouring over the Nebraska line and into Kansas Territory. A feeble attempt was made to stop them, but it amounted to nothing. They were not now on a Missouri River steamboat. Jim Lane came with them. He remained incognito a few days, and then threw off his disguise, and Capt. Joe Cook was Jim Lane. And now the old, hard rule of the law of Moses, "An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth," was again the law of Kansas. It was, "You have robbed us, and we will rob you; you have subsisted yourselves upon us, and we will subsist ourselves on you; you have blockaded the Missouri River, and waylaid our freighting trains, and pillaged them of their freight, with intent to starve out the Free State people, and all that belongs to you and yours shall be free plunder to us."

The places that had been fortified by this "Law and Order" militia were one by one stormed and the garrisons driven off. Franklin was a second time attacked and its occupants taken prisoners. Col. Titus had fortified his residence in the suburbs of Lecompton, and here he kept a company of men that made raids on the surrounding Free State inhabitants. This fort was taken by assault, and Col. Titus and his men were taken prisoners, while Major Sedjwick, with a company of United States troops, was encamped only two miles away. The citizens of Lecompton were frightened out of their wits, and Gov. Shannon was

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