"The wage slave is producing more than the chattel slaves ever produced, man for man, and is receiving less than the negro slave of the South is getting for his labor to-day.

"Your system of wage slavery is the cunning trick by which the cruel master finds that he can deny to the worker all rights he ever had as a slave.

"If you doubt its power, look at this bundle of rags in my hands and remember that there are five thousand half-starved children homeless and abandoned in the streets of this city to-night.

"Find for me one ragged, freezing, starving, black baby in the South and I will buy a musket to equip an army for its invasion—"

He paused a moment, turned and gazed at the men on the platform and then faced the crowd in a final burst of triumphant scorn.

"Fools, liars, hypocrites, clean your own filthy house before you weep over the woes of negroes who are singing while they toil—"

A man on an end seat of the middle aisle suddenly sprang to his feet and yelled:

"Put him out!"

Before Gerrit Smith could reach Evans with a gift of five dollars for the sick child which he still held in his arms the crowd had become a mob.

They hustled the labor leader into the street and told him to go back to hell where he came from.

Through it all John Brown sat on the platform with his blue-gray eyes fixed in space. He had seen, heard or realized nothing that had passed. His mind was brooding over the plains of Kansas.



CHAPTER XIII

It was October, 1854, before John Brown's three sons, Owen, Frederick and Salmon, left Ohio for their long journey to Kansas. In April, 1855, they crossed the Missouri river and entered the Territory.

John Brown decided to move his family once more to North Elba before going West. It was June before his people reached this negro settlement in Northern New York. He placed his wife and children in an unplastered, four-roomed house. Through its rough weatherboarding the winds and snows of winter would howl. It had been hurriedly thrown together by his son-in-law, Henry Thompson. Brown had never stayed on one of his little farms long enough to bring order out of chaos.

His restless spirit left him no peace. He was now in Boston, now in Springfield, Massachusetts, now in New York, again in Ohio, or Illinois.

He was giving up the work in Ohio to follow his sons into Kansas. He had planned to move there two years before and abandoned the idea. He had at last fully determined to go.

On October the sixth, his party reached the family settlement at Osawatomie. With characteristic queerness the old man did not enter with his sons, Oliver, Jason and John, Jr., and their caravan. He stopped alone on the roadside two miles away until next day.

The party on arrival had plenty of guns, swords and ammunition but their treasury held but sixty cents.

The family settlement were living in tents around which the chill autumn winds were howling. The poor crops they had raised had not been harvested. The men were ill and discouraged. There was little meat, except game and that was difficult to kill. Their only bread was made from corn meal ground at a hand-turned mill two miles away.

Brown's sons, who had preceded him, had lost all vigor. The old man was not slow to see the way out.

The situation called for Action. He determined to get it. He immediately plunged into Free Soil Politics without pausing to build his first shanty against the coming rains and snows of a terrible winter.



CHAPTER XIV

The race for the lands of the new Territories of Kansas and Nebraska was on to the finish. Nebraska was far North. Kansas only interested the Southerner. The frontiersmen were crossing the boundary lines years before Congress formally opened them for settlement.

After a brief stop in West Tennessee the Doyles had succeeded in reaching Miami County, just beyond the Missouri border, in 1853. They had settled on a fertile quarter section on the Pottawattomie Creek in a small group of people of Southern feeling.

The sun of a new world had begun to shine at last for the humble but ambitious woman who had borne five strong children to be the athletic sons and daughters of a free country. Her soul rose in a triumphant song that made her little home the holy of holies of a new religion. Her husband was the lord of a domain of fertile land. His fields were green with wheat. She loved to look over its acres of velvet carpet. In June her man and three stalwart boys, now twenty, eighteen and fourteen years of age, would swing the reaper into that field and harvest the waving gold without the aid of a hired laborer. She and her little girls would help and sing while they toiled.

There was no debt on their books. They had horses, cows, sheep, pigs, chickens, ducks, turkeys. Their crib was bulging with corn. The bins in their barn were filled with grain.

Their house was still the humble cottage of the prairie pioneer, but her men had made it snug and warm against the winds and snows of winter. Their farm had plenty of timber on the Pottawattomie Creek which flowed through the center of the tract. They had wood for their fires and logs with which to construct their stable and outhouses.

The house they built four-square with sharp gables patterned after the home they had lost. There were no dormers in the attic, but two windows peeped out of the gable beside the stone chimney and gave light and air to the boys' room in the loft. A shed extension in the rear was large enough for both kitchen and dining room.

The home stood close beside the creek, and the murmur of its waters made music for a busy mother's heart.

There was no porch over the front door. But her boys had built a lattice work that held a labyrinth of morning glories in the summer. She had found the gorgeous wild flowers blooming on the prairies and made a hedge of them for the walks. They were sending their shoots up through the soil now to meet the sun of spring. The warm rays had already begun to clothe the prairie world with beauty and fragrance.

The mother never tired of taking her girls on the hill beyond the creek and watching the men at work on the wide sweeping plains that melted into the skyline miles beyond. Something in its vast silence, in its message of the infinite, soothed her spirit. All her life in the East she had been fighting against losing odds. These wide breathing plains had stricken the shackles from her soul.

She was free.

Sometimes she felt like shouting it into the sky. Sometimes she knelt among the trees and thanked God for His mercy in giving her the new lease of life.

The new lease on life had depth and meaning because she lived and breathed in her children. Her man had a man's chance at last. Her boys had a chance.

The one thing that gave her joy day and night was the consciousness of living among the men and women of her own race. There was not a negro in the county, bond or free, and she fervently prayed that there never would be. Now that they were free from the sickening dread of such competition in life, she had no hatred of the race. As a free white woman, the mother of free white men and women, all she asked was freedom from the touch of an inferior. She had always felt instinctively that this physical contact was poison. She breathed deeply for the first time.

There was just one cloud on the horizon which threatened her peace and future. Her husband, after the fashion of his kind, in the old world and the new, had always held political opinions and had dared to express them without fear or favor. In Virginia his vote was sought by the leaders of the county. He had been poor but he had influence because he dared to think for himself.

He was a Southern born white man, and he held the convictions of his birthright. He had never stopped to analyze these faiths. He believed in them as he believed in God. They were things not to be questioned.

Doyle had not hesitated to express his opinions in Kansas as in Virginia. The few Southern settlers on the Pottawattomie Creek were sympathetic and no trouble had come. But the keen ears of the woman had caught ominous rumors on the plains.

The father and mother sat on a rude board settee which John had built. The boy had nailed it against a black jack close beside the bend of the creek where the ripple of the hurrying waters makes music when the stream is low and swells into a roar when gorged by the rains.

The woman's face was troubled as she listened to the waters. She studied the strong lines of her husband's neck, shoulders and head, with a touch of pride and fear. His tongue was long in a political argument. He had a fatal gift of speech. He could say witty, bitter things if stung by an opponent.

She spoke with deep seriousness:

"I wish you wouldn't talk so much, John—"

"And why not?"

"You'll get in trouble."

"Well, I've been in trouble most of my life. There's no use livin' at all, if you live in fear. I ain't never knowed what it is to be afraid. And I'm too old to learn."

"They say, the Northern men that's passin' into the Territory have got guns and swords. And they say they're goin' to use 'em. They outnumber the Southerners five to one."

"What are they goin' to do with their guns and swords? Cut a man's tongue out because he dares to say who he's goin' to vote for next election?"

"You don't have to talk so loud anyhow," his wife persisted.

"Ole woman, I'm free, white, and twenty-one. I've been a-votin' and watchin' the elections in this country for twenty odd years. Ef I've got to tiptoe around, ashamed of my raisin', and ashamed of my principles, I don't want to live. I wouldn't be fit ter live."

"I want ye to live."

"You wouldn't want to live with a coward."

"A brave man can hold his tongue, John."

"I ain't never learnt the habit, Honey."

"Won't you begin?"

"Ye can't learn a old dog new tricks—can they, Jack?"

He stroked his dog's friendly nose suddenly thrust against his knee.

"You know, Honey," he went on laughingly, "we brought this yellow pup from Old Virginia. He's the best rabbit and squirrel dog in the county. I've taught him to stalk prairie chickens out here. I'd be ashamed to look my dog in the face ef I wuz ter tuck my tail between my legs and run every time a fool blows off his mouth about the South—"

He stopped and laughed, his white teeth gleaming through his fine beard.

"Don't you worry, Honey. Those fields are too purty this spring for worrying. We're goin' to send Colonel Lee our last payment this fall and we'll not owe a cent to any man on earth."



CHAPTER XV

John Brown plunged into politics in Kansas under the impression that his will could dominate the rank and file of the Northern party. He quickly faced the fact that the frontiersmen had opinions of their own. And they were not in the habit of taking orders from a master.

His hopes were raised to their highest at the Free State Convention which met at Lawrence on Monday, the twenty-fifth of June, 1855. This Convention spoke in tones that stirred Brown's admiration.

It meant Action.

They elected him a vice president of the body. He had expected to be made president. However, his leadership was recognized. All he needed was the opportunity to take the Action on which his mind had long been fixed. The moment blood began to flow, there would be but one leader. Of that, he felt sure. He could bide his time.

The Convention urged the people to unite on the one issue of making Kansas a Free Soil State. They called on every member of the Shawnee Legislature who held Free Soil views to resign from that body, although it had been recognized by the National Government as the duly authorized law-making assembly of the Territory. They denounced this Legislature as the creature of settlers from Missouri who had crowded over the border before the Northerners could reach their destination. They urged all people to refuse to obey every law passed by the body.

The final resolution was one inspired by Brown himself. It was a bold declaration that if their opponents wished to fight, the Northerners were READY! The challenge was unmistakable. Brown felt that Action was imminent. Only a set of poltroons would fail to accept the gauge of battle thus flung in their faces.

To his amazement the challenge was not received by the rank and file of the Free Soil Party with enthusiasm. Most of these Northerners had moved to Kansas as bona fide settlers. They came to build homes for the women they had left behind. They came to rush their shacks into shape to receive their loved ones. They had been furnished arms and ammunition by enthusiastic friends and politicians in the older States. And they had eagerly accepted the gifts. There were droves of Indians still roaming the plains. There were dangers to be faced.

The Southern ruffians of whom they had heard so much had not materialized. Although the Radical wing of the Northern Party had made Lawrence its Capital and through their paper, the Herald of Freedom, issued challenge after challenge to their enemies.

The Northern settlers began to divide into groups whose purposes were irreconcilable. Six different conventions met in Lawrence on or before the fifteenth of August. Each one of these conventions was divided in councils. In each the cleavage between the Moderates and Radicals became wider.

Out of the six conventions of Northerners at Lawrence, out of resolution and counter resolution, finally emerged the accepted plan of a general convention at Big Springs.

The gathering was remarkable for the surprise it gave to the Radicals of whom Brown was the leader. The Convention adopted the first platform of the Free State party and nominated ex-Governor Reeder as its candidate for delegate to Congress.

For the first time the hard-headed frontiersmen who came to Kansas for honest purposes spoke in plain language. The first resolution settled the Slavery issue. It declared that Slavery was a curse and that Kansas should be free of this curse. But that as a matter of common sense they would consent to any reasonable adjustment in regard to the few slaves that had already been brought into the Territory.

Brown and his followers demanded that Slavery should be denounced as a crime, not a curse, as the sum of all villainies and the Southern master as a vicious and willful criminal. The mild expression of the platform on this issue wrought the old man's anger to white heat. The offer to compromise with the slave holder already in Kansas he repudiated with scorn. But a more bitter draught was still in store for him.

The platform provided that Kansas should be a Free White State. And in no uncertain words made plain that the accent should be on the word WHITE. The document demanded the most stringent laws excluding ALL NEGROES, BOND AND FREE, forever from the Territory.

The old man did not hear this resolution when read. So deep was his brooding anger, the words made no impression. Their full import did not dawn on him until John Brown, Jr., leaned close and whispered:

"Did you hear that?"

The father stirred from his reverie and turned a dazed look on his son.

"Hear what?"

"The infamous resolution demanding that Kansas be made a white man's country and no negro, bond or free, shall ever be allowed to enter it?"

The hard mouth twitched with scorn. And his jaws came together with a snap.

"It doesn't matter what they add to their first maudlin plank on the Slavery issue."

"Will you sit here and see this vile thing done?"

A look of weariness came over the stern face with its deep-cut lines.

"It's a waste of words to talk to politicians."

John, Jr. was grasping at the next resolution which was one surpassing belief. He rubbed his ears to see if he were really hearing correctly.

This resolution denounced the charge that they were Radicals at all. It denounced the attempt of any man to interfere by violence with slaves or Slavery where protected by the supreme law of the land. It repudiated as stale and ridiculous the charge of Abolitionism against them. And declared that such an accusation is without a shadow of truth to support it.

Charles Stearns, the representative of the New England Society, leaped to his feet and denounced the platform in withering tones. He fairly shrieked his final sentence:

"All honest anti-slavery men, here and elsewhere, will spit on your platform!"

He paused and faced the leaders who had drafted it.

"And all pro-slavery men must forever despise the base sycophants who originated it!"

John Brown, Jr., applauded. The crowd laughed.

Old John Brown had paid no further heed to the proceedings of the Convention. His eyelids were drawn half down. Only pin points of glittering light remained.

The resolutions were adopted by an overwhelming majority.

In the East, Horace Greeley in the Tribune reluctantly accepted the platform: "Why free blacks should be excluded it is difficult to understand; but if Slavery can be kept out by compromise of that sort, we shall not complain. An error of this character may be corrected; but let Slavery obtain a foothold there and it is not so easily removed."

Brown's hopes were to be still further dashed by the persistence with which the leaders of this Convention followed up the program of establishing a white man's country on the free plains of the West.

When the Convention met at Topeka on the twenty-third of October, to form a Constitution, the determination to exclude all negroes from Kansas was again sustained. The majority were finally badgered into submitting the issue to a separate vote of the people. On the fifteenth of December, the Northern settlers voted on it and the question was settled.

Negroes were excluded by a three-fourths majority.

Three-fourths of the Free State settlers were in favor of a white man's country and the heaviest vote against the admission of negroes was polled in Lawrence and Topeka, where the Radicals had from the first made the most noise.

The Northern men who had come to Kansas merely to oppose the extension of Slavery were in a hopeless minority in their own party. The American voters still had too much common sense to be led into a position to provoke civil war.

John Brown spent long hours in prayer after the final vote on the negro issue had been counted. He denounced the leaders in politics in Kansas as trimmers, time servers, sycophants and liars. He walked beneath the star-sown skies through the night. He wrestled with his God for a vision.

There must be a way to Action.

He rose from prayer at dawn after a sleepless night and called for his sons, Owen, Oliver, Frederick and Salmon, to get ready for a journey. He had received a first hint of the will of God. He believed it might lead to the way.

He organized a surveyor's party and disguised himself as a United States Surveyor. He had brought to Kansas a complete outfit for surveying land. He instructed Owen and Frederick to act as chain carriers, Salmon as axeman and Oliver as marker. He reached the little Southern settlement on the Pottawattomie Creek the fifteenth of May.

He planted his compass on the bank of the creek near the Doyles' house and proceeded to run a base line.

The father and three boys were in the fields at work beyond the hill.

He raised his compass and followed the chainman to the Doyles' door. The mother and little girl trudged behind, delighted with the diversion of the party, so rare on the lonely prairies. Little could they dream the grim deed that was shaping in the soul of the Surveyor.

When they reached the house she turned to the old man with Southern courtesy:

"Won't you come in, sir, and rest a few minutes?"

The strange, blue-gray eyes glanced restlessly toward the hill and he signaled his sons:

"Rest awhile, boys."

Frederick and Oliver sat down on a pile of logs. Salmon and Owen, at a nod from their father, wandered carelessly toward the stable and outhouses.

Owen found the dog Doyle had brought from Virginia and took pains to make friends with him.

Brown's keen, restless eyes carefully inspected the door, its fastenings and the strength of its hinges. The iron of the hinges was flimsy. The fastening was the old-fashioned wooden shutters hung outside and closed with a single slide. He noted with a quick glance that there was no cross bar of heavy wood nor any sockets in which such a bar could be dropped.

The windows were small. There was no glass. Solid wooden shutters hung outside and closed with a single hook and eye for fastenings.

The sun was setting before the surveying party stopped work. They had run a line close to the house of every Southern settler on the Pottawattomie Creek, noting carefully every path leading to each house. They had carefully mapped the settlement and taken a census of every male inhabitant and every dog attached to each house. They also made an inventory of the horses, saddles and bridles.

Having completed their strange errand, they packed their instruments and rode toward Osawatomie.



CHAPTER XVI

With the opening of the Territory of Kansas the first Regiment of United States Cavalry, commanded by Colonel E.V. Sumner, had been transferred to Fort Leavenworth.

The life of the barracks was young Lieutenant J.E.B. Stuart.

Colonel Lee had been transferred from West Point to the command of the Second United States Cavalry on the Mexican Border at the same time that Stuart's regiment was moved to Kansas.

The rollicking song-loving, banjo-playing Virginian had early distinguished himself as an Indian fighter. He had been dangerously wounded, but recovered with remarkable rapidity. His perfect health and his clean habits stood him in good stead on the day an Indian's bullet crashed through his breast.

He was a favorite with officers and men. As a cadet he had given promise of the coming soldier. At the Academy he was noted for his strict attendance to every military duty, and his erect, soldierly bearing. He was particularly noted for an almost thankful acceptance of a challenge to fight any cadet who might feel himself aggrieved. The boys called him a "Bible Class Man." He was never known to swear or drink. They also called him "Beauty Stuart," in good natured boyish teasing.

He was the best-looking cadet of his class, as he was the best-looking young officer of his regiment. His hair was a reddish brown. His eyes a deep steel blue, his voice clear and ringing.

In his voice the soul of the man spoke to his fellows. He was always singing—always eager for a frolic of innocent fun. Above all, he was always eager for a frolic with a pretty girl. He played both the banjo and the guitar and little he cared for the gathering political feud which old John Brown and his sons had begun to foment on the frontier.

As a Southerner the struggle did not interest him. It was a foregone conclusion that the country would be settled by Northern immigrants. They were pouring into the Territory in endless streams. A colony from New Haven, Connecticut, one hundred strong, had just settled sixty miles above Lawrence on the Kansas River. They knew how to plow and plant their fields and they had modern machinery with which to do it. The few Southerners who came to Kansas were poorly equipped. Lawrence was crowded with immigrants from every section of the North. The fields were white with their tents. A company from Ohio, one from Connecticut, and one from New Hampshire were camping just outside the town. Daily their exploring committees went forth to look at localities. Daily new companies poured in.

Stuart let them pour and asked no questions about their politics. He was keen on one thing only—the pretty girls that might be among them.

When exploring parties came to Fort Leavenworth, the young Lieutenant inspected them with an eye single to a possible dance for the regiment. The number of pretty girls was not sufficient to cause excitement among the officers as yet. The daughters of the East were not anxious to explore Kansas at this moment. The Indians were still troublesome at times.

A rumor spread through the barracks that the prettiest girl in Kansas had just arrived at Fort Riley, sixty-eight miles beyond Topeka. Colonel Phillip St. George Cooke of Virginia commanded the Fort and his daughter Flora had ventured all the way from Harper's Ferry to the plains to see her beloved daddy.

The news thrilled Stuart. He found an excuse to carry a message from Colonel Sumner to Colonel Cooke.

He expected nothing serious, of course. Every daughter of Virginia knew how to flirt. She would know that he understood this from the start. It would be nip and tuck between the Virginia boy and the Virginia girl.

He had always had such easy sailing in his flirtations he hoped Miss Flora would prove a worthy antagonist.

As a matter of course, Colonel Cooke asked the gallant young Virginian to stay as his guest.

"What'll Colonel Sumner say, sir?" Stuart laughed.

"Leave Sumner to me."

"You'll guarantee immunity?"

"Guaranteed."

"Thank you, Colonel Cooke, I'll stay."

Stuart could hardly wait until the hour of lunch to meet the daughter. He was impatient to ask where she was. The Colonel guessed his anxiety and hastened to relieve it, or increase it.

"You haven't met my daughter, Lieutenant?" he asked casually.

"I haven't that honor, Colonel, but this gives me the happy opportunity."

He said it with such boyish fun in his ringing voice that Cooke laughed in spite of his desire to maintain the strictest dignity. He half suspected that the young officer might meet his match in more ways than one.

"She'll be in at noon," the Commander remarked. "Off riding with one of the boys."

"Of course," Stuart sighed.

He began to scent a battle and his spirits rose. He went to his room, took his banjo out of its old leather strapped case and tuned it carefully. He made up his mind to give the young buck out riding with her the fight of his life while there.

He heard the ring of the girl's laughter as she bade her escort goodbye at the door. He started to go down at once and begin the struggle. Something in the ring of her young voice stopped him. There was a joyous strength in it that was disconcerting. A girl who laughed like that had poise. She was an individual. He liked, too, the tones of her voice before he had seen her.

This struck him as odd. Never in his life before had he liked a girl before meeting her just for a tone quality in her voice. This one haunted him the whole time he was changing his uniform.

He decided to shave again. He had shaved the night before very late. He didn't like the suggestion of red stubble on his face. It might put him at a disadvantage.

He resented the name of Beauty Stuart and yet down in his man soul he knew that he was vain.

He began to wonder if she were blonde or brunette, short or tall, petite or full, blue eyes or brown? She must be pretty. Her father was a man of delicate and finely marked features—the type of Scotch-Irish gentlemen who had made the mountains of Virginia famous for pretty women and brainy men.

He heard her softly playing a piano and wondered how on earth they had ever moved a piano to this far outpost of civilization. The cost was enormous. But the motive of her father in making such a sacrifice to please her was more important. His love for her must be unusual. It piqued his interest and roused again his impulse for a battle royal with another elusive daughter of his native state.

He made up his mind not to wait for the call to lunch. He would walk boldly into the reception room and introduce himself. She knew he was there, of course.

At the first sound of his footstep, her hand paused on the keys and she turned to greet him, rising quickly, and easily.

The vision which greeted Stuart stunned him for a moment. A perfect blonde with laughing blue eyes, exactly the color of his own, slim and graceful, a smile that was sunlight, and a step that was grace incarnate.

And yet her beauty was not the thing that stunned him. He had discounted her good looks from a study of her father's delicate face. It was the glow of a charming personality that disarmed him at the first glance.

She extended a slender hand with a smile.

"I'm so glad to meet you, Lieutenant Stuart."

He took it awkwardly, and blushed. He mumbled when he spoke and was conscious that his voice was thick.

"And I'm so glad to see you, Miss Flora."

They had each uttered the most banal greeting. Yet the way in which the words were spoken was significant.

Never in his life had he heard a voice so gentle, so tender, so appealing in its sincerity. All desire to flirt, to match wit against a charming girl vanished. He felt a resistless impulse to protect her from any fool who would dare try to start a flirtation. She was too straightforward, too earnest, too sincere. She seemed a part of his own inmost thought and life.

It was easy to see that while she was the pet of her father, she was unspoiled. Stuart caught himself at last staring at her in a dazed, foolish way. He pulled himself together and wondered how long he had held her hand.

"Won't you play for me, Miss Flora?" he asked at last.

"If you'll sing," she laughed.

"How do you know I sing?"

"How do you know I play?"

"I heard you."

"I heard you, too."

"Upstairs?"

"Just before you came down."

"I had no idea I was so loud."

"Your voice rings. It has carrying power."

He started to say: "I hope you like it," and something inside whispered: "Behave."

She took the seat at the piano and touched the keys with an easy, graceful movement. She looked up and smiled. Her eyes blinded him. They were so bright and friendly.

"What will you sing?"

"Annie Laurie," he answered promptly.

Stuart sang with deep tenderness and passion. He outdid himself. And he knew it. He never knew before that he could sing so well.

On the last stanza the girl softly joined a low, sweet voice with his. As the final note died away in Stuart's voice, hers lingered a caress. The man's heart leaped at its tenderness.

"Why didn't you join me at first?" he asked.

"Nobody axed me, sir!" she said.

"Well, I ask you now—come on—we'll do it together!"

"All right," was the jolly answer.

They sang it in duet to the soft accompaniment which she played.

Never had he heard such singing by a slip of a girl. Her voice was rich, full of feeling and caressing tenderness. He felt his soul dissolving in its liquid depths.

Throughout the lunch he caught himself staring at her in moments of long silence. He had for the first time in his life lost his capacity for silly gaiety.

He roused himself with an effort, and wondered what on earth had come over him. He was too deeply interested in studying the girl to attempt to analyze his own feelings. It never occurred to him to try. He was too busy watching the tender light in her eyes.

He wondered if she could be engaged to the fellow she went riding with? He resented the idea. Of course not. And when he remembered the care-free ring to her laughter when she said goodbye, he was reassured. No girl could laugh a goodbye like that to a man she loved. The tone was too poised and impersonal.

He asked her to ride with him that afternoon.

"On one condition," she smiled.

"What?"

"That you bring your banjo and play for me when I ask you."

"How'd you know I had a banjo?"

"Caught the final twang as you tuned it on my arrival."

"I'll bring it if you like."

"Please."

He hurried to his room, placed the banjo in its case and threw it over his shoulder. She had promised to be ready in ten minutes and have the horses at the door.

She was ready in eight minutes, and leaped into the saddle before he could reach her side. For the life of him he couldn't keep his eye off her exquisite figure.

She rode without effort. She had been born in the saddle.

She led him along the military road to the juncture of the Smoky Hill and Republican rivers. A lover at the Fort had built a seat against a huge rock that crowned the hill overlooking the fork of the rivers.

Stuart hitched the horses and found the seat. For two hours he played his banjo and they sang old songs together.

"I love a banjo—don't you?" she asked enthusiastically.

"It's my favorite music. There's no sorrow in a banjo. You can make it laugh. You can make it shout. You can make it growl and howl and snarl and fight. But you can't make a banjo cry. There are no tears in it. The joy of living is all a banjo knows. Why should we try to know anything else anyhow?"

"We shouldn't," she answered soberly. "The other things will come without invitation sometime."

For an hour they talked of the deep things of life. He told of his high ambitions of service for his country in the dark days that might come in the future. Of the kind of soldier the nation would need, and the ideal he had set for his soul of truth and honor, of high thinking and clean living in the temptations that come to a soldier's daily life.

And she applauded his ideals. She told him they were big and fine and she was proud of him as a true son of Old Virginia.

The sun was sinking behind the dim smoky hills toward the West when she rose.

"We must be going!"

"I had no idea it was so late," he apologized.

It was not until he reached his room at eleven o'clock after three hours more of her in the reception room that he faced the issue squarely.

He stood before the mirror and studied his flushed face. A look of deep seriousness had crept into his jolly blue eyes.

"You're a goner, this time, young man!" he whispered. "You're in love."

He paused and repeated it softly.

"In love—the big thing this time. Sweeping all life before it. Blotting out all that's passed and gripping all that lies beyond—Glory to God!"

For hours he lay awake. The world was made anew. The beauty of the new thought filled his soul with gratitude.

He dared not tell her yet. The stake was too big. He was playing for all that life held worth having. He couldn't rush a girl of that kind. A blunder would be fatal. He had a reputation as a flirt. She had heard it, no doubt. He must put his house in order. His word must ring true. She must believe him.

He made up his mind to return to Fort Leavenworth next day and manage somehow to get transferred to Fort Riley for two weeks.



CHAPTER XVII

The Surveyor of the lands of Pottawattomie Creek was shaping the organization of a band of followers.

To this little group, composed as yet of his own sons in the main, he talked of his work, his great duty, his mission with mystic elation. A single idea was slowly fixing itself in his mind as the purpose of life.

It was fast becoming an obsession.

He slept but little. The night before he had slept but two hours. When the camp supper had been prepared, he stood with bare head in the midst of his followers and thanked God. The meal was eaten to-night in a grim silence which Brown did not break once. The supper over, he rose and again returned thanks to the Bountiful Giver.

And then he left the camp without a word. Alone he tramped the prairie beneath the starlit sky of a beautiful May night. Hour after hour he paused and prayed. Always the one refrain came from his stern lips:

"Give me, oh, Lord God, the Vision!"

And he would wait with eyes set on the stars for its revelation. He crouched at last against the trunk of a tree in a little ravine near the camp. It was past three o'clock. William Walker, who was acting his second in command, was still waiting his orders for the following day. He saw Brown enter the ravine at one o'clock. Impatient of his endless wandering, tired and sleepy, he decided to follow his Chief and ask his orders.

He found him in a sitting posture, leaning against a blackjack, his rifle across his knees. Walker called softly and received no response. He approached and laid his hand on his shoulder.

Instantly he leaped to his feet, his rifle at his follower's breast, his finger on the trigger.

"My God!" Walker yelled.

His speech was too late to stop the pressure of the finger. Walker pushed the muzzle up and the ball grazed his shoulder. The leader gripped his follower's arm, stared at him a moment and merely grunted:

"Oh!"

When the day dawned a new man was found to act as second in command. Walker had deserted his queer chieftain.

The old man entered the camp at dawn, the light of determination in his eyes and a new set to his jaw. His first plan of the Pottawattomie was right. The turn toward Lawrence had been a waste of time. He selected six men to accompany him on his mission, his four sons who had made up the Surveyor's party, his son-in-law, Henry Thompson, and Theodore Weiner. Owen, Salmon, Oliver and Frederick Brown knew every foot of the ground. They had carried the chain, set the markers and flags and kept the records.

He called his men in line and issued his first command:

"To the house of James Townsley."

Townsley belonged to the Pottawattomie Rifles of which organization his son, John Jr., was the Captain.

Arrived at the house, Brown drew Townsley aside and spoke in a vague, impersonal manner.

"I hear there is trouble expected on the Pottawattomie."

"Is there?"

"We hear it."

"What are you going to do?"

"March to their rescue. Will you help us?"

"How?"

"Harness your team of grays and take our party to Pottawattomie."

"All right."

The old man found a grindstone and ordered the ugly cutlasses which he had brought from Ohio to be sharpened. He stood over the stone and watched it turned until each edge was as keen as a butcher's blade.

It began to dawn on the two younger sons before the grinding of the swords was finished what their father had determined.

Frederick asked Oliver tremblingly:

"What do you think of this thing?"

"It looks black to me."

"It looks hellish to me."

"I'm not going."

"Nor am I."

They promptly reported the decision to their father.

His eyes flamed.

"It's too late to retreat now!"

"We're not going," was the sullen answer in chorus.

The father gripped the two with his hard hands and held them as in a vise.

"You will not put me to shame now before these men. You will go with me—do you hear?"

His tones rang with the quiver of steel and the boys' wills weakened.

Frederick said finally:

"We'll go with you then, but we'll take no part in what you do."

"Agreed," was the stern answer.

He turned to Oliver and said:

"Give me your revolver. I may need it."

"It's mine," the boy replied. "I'll not give it up."

The old man looked the stalwart figure over in a quick glance of appraisement. Brown had been a man of iron strength in his day but his shoulders were stooped and he knew he was no match for the fierce strength of youth. Yet his hesitation was only for an instant.

With the sudden spring of a panther he leaped on the boy and attempted to take the pistol by force. The son resisted with fury.

Frederick, alarmed lest the pistol should be discharged in the struggle, managed to slip it from his brother's belt.

The match was not equal.

Youth was master in the appeal to brute strength. At North Elba the father had once thrown thirty lumbermen in a day, one after the other, in a wrestling match. He summoned the last ounce of strength now to subdue his rebellious son.

Frederick watched the contest with painful anxiety. His own mind was not strong. He had already given evidences of insanity that had distressed his brother. If Oliver should kill his father or the old man should kill the brother! He couldn't face the hideous possibility. Yet he couldn't stop them.

Fortunately there were no other witnesses to the fight. Townsley was busy at the stable with the team. Weiner and Thompson had gone into the house to complete their packing of provisions for the journey.

In tones of blind anguish Frederick followed the two desperate struggling men.

"Don't do this, Father!"

The old man made no answer save to swing his agile son's frame to one side in another futile effort to throw him to the ground.

Not a word escaped his lips. His eyes flashed and glittered with the uncertain glare of a maniac in the moments when the iron muscles of the son pinned his arms and held his wiry body rigid.

Again Frederick's low pleading could be heard. This time to his brother:

"Can't you stop it, Oliver?"

"How can I?"

"For God's sake stop it—stop it!"

"I can't stop it. Don't ye see he's got me and I've got to hold him."

The consciousness of failing strength drove the father to fury. His breath was coming now in shorter gasps. He knew his chances of success were fading. He yielded for a moment, and ceased to struggle. A cunning look crept into his eyes.

The boy relaxed his vigilance. The old man felt the boy's grip ease. With a sudden thrust of his body he summoned the last ounce of strength, and threw his son to the ground.

The boy laughed a devilish cry of the strong with the weak as he fell. Before he touched the ground he had deftly turned the father's body beneath his and the full weight of his two hundred pounds fairly crushed the breath from the older man.

A groan of rage and despair was wrung from his stern lips. But no word escaped him. Frederick rushed to the prostrate figures, seized Oliver by the shoulders and tore his grip loose.

"This is foolish!" he stormed.

No sooner had Brown risen than he plunged again at his son. The boy had been playing with him to this time. The half of his strength was yet in reserve. A little angry grunt came from his lips, and his father was a child in his hands. With sure, quick movement he pinioned both arms and jammed him against the wheel of the wagon. He held him there for an instant helpless to resist or move.

The last cry of despairing command came from Brown's soul.

"Let go of me, sir!"

The boy merely growled a bulldog's answer.

"Not till you agree to behave yourself."

Another desperate contraction of muscles and the order came more feebly.

"Will you let go of me, sir?"

"Will you behave yourself?"

"Yes," came the sullen answer.

The boy relaxed his grip and stood ready for action.

"All right, then."

"You can keep your pistol."

"I intend to."

"But you are not to use it, sir, without my orders."

"I am not going to use it at all, except in self-defense."

"You will not be called upon to defend yourself. I am going on a divine mission. God has shown me the way in a Vision. I wish no man's help who must be driven."

"You'll not get any help, sir. I wouldn't have gone on that survey with you if I'd known what was in your mind."

Brown searched his son's eyes keenly.

"You will not betray me to my enemies?"

"I can't do that. You're my father."

He turned to Frederick.

"Nor you?"

The tears were streaming down the boy's face. He was hysterical from the strain of the fight.

"You heard me, sir," the father stormed.

"What did you say?" Frederick stammered.

Oliver explained.

"He asked if you were going to betray his plans to those people on the Pottawattomie."

A far-away expression came into his eyes.

"No—no—not that."

"Then you'll both follow and keep out of my way until we have finished the work and then come back with me?"

"Yes," Oliver answered.

"Yes," Frederick echoed vaguely.

Townsley and Weiner were coming with the pair of grays to be hitched to the wagon. Weiner led his own pony already saddled. When they reached the wagon all signs of rebellion had passed.

"Are you ready?" Townsley asked.

"Ready." Brown's metallic voice rang.

The horses were hitched to the wagon, the provisions and equipment loaded. Brown turned to his loyal followers:

"Arm yourselves."

Owen, Salmon, Henry Thompson, Theodore Weiner and John Brown each buckled a loaded revolver about his waist, and seized a rifle and cutlass.

Weiner mounted his pony as an outpost rider and the others climbed into the wagon. Oliver and Frederick agreed to follow on foot. The expedition moved toward the Southern settlement on Pottawattomie Creek.

Brown crouched low in the wagon as it moved slowly forward and a look of cunning marked his grim face.

He was the Witch Hunter now. The chase was on. And the game was human.

As the sun was setting behind the Western horizon in a glow of orange and purple glory the strange expedition drove down to the edge of the timber between two deep ravines and camped a mile above Dutch Henry's Crossing of the Pottawattomie.

The scene was one of serene beauty. The month of May—Saturday, the twenty-third. Nature was smiling in the joy of her happiest hour. Peace on earth, plenty, good will and happiness breathed from every bud and leaf and song of bird.

The broad prairies of the Territory were fertile and sunny. They stretched away in unbroken, sublime loveliness until the land kissed the infinite of the skies. Unless one had the feeling for this suggestion of an inland sea the view might be depressing and the eye of the traveler weary.

The spot which John Brown picked for his camp was striking in its beauty and picturesque appeal. Winding streams, swelling hills, and steep ravines broke the monotony of the plains.

The streams were bordered by the rich foliage of noble trees. The streams were called "Creeks." In reality, they were beautiful rivers in the month of May—the Marais des Cygnes and the Pottawattomie. They united near Osawatomie to form the Osage River, the largest tributary to the Missouri below its mountain sources. Each river had its many tributaries winding gracefully along wood-fringed banks.

Beyond these ribbons of beautiful foliage stretched the gorgeous carpet of the grass-matted, flower-strewn prairies.

The wild flowers were in full bloom, pushing their red, white, yellow, blue and pink heads above the grass. The wind was blowing a steady life-giving gale. The fields of flowers bowed and swayed and rose again at its touch. Their perfume filled the air. The perfume of the near-by fields was mingled with the odor of thousands of miles of prairie gardens to the south and west. A peculiar clearness in the atmosphere gave the widest range to vision. Brown climbed the hill alone while his men were unpacking. From the hilltop, even in the falling twilight, he could see clearly for thirty or forty miles.

He swept the horizon for signs of the approach of a party which might interfere with his plan.

He knelt again and prayed to his God, as the twilight deepened into darkness. The stars came out one by one and blinked down at his bent figure still in prayer, his eyes uplifted in an uncanny glare.

As he slowly moved back to his camp he met Townsley.

Frederick and Oliver had reached camp and Townsley had caught a note of the sinister in their whispered talk. He didn't like the looks of it. Brown had told him there was trouble brewing on the Pottawattomie. He had supposed, as a matter of course, that it was the long-threatened attack of enemies on Weiner's store. Weiner, a big, quarrelsome Austrian, had been in more than one fist fight with his neighbors.

Brown studied Townsley and decided to give him but a hint of his true purpose. He didn't like this sign of weakness on the eve of great events.

Townsley took the hint with a grain of salt, but what he heard was enough to bring alarm. The thing Brown had hinted was incredible.

But as Townsley looked at the leader he realized that he was not an ordinary man. There was something extraordinary about him. He either commanded the absolute obedience of men who came near him or he sent them from him with a repulsion as strong as the attraction to those who liked him.

He felt the smothering power of this spell over his own mind now and tried to break it.

"Mr. Brown," Townsley began haltingly, "I've brought you here now. You are snug in camp. I'd like to take my team back home."

"To-night?"

"To-night."

"It won't do."

"Why not?"

"I won't allow this party to separate until the work to which God has called me is done."

"I've done my share."

"No. It will not do for you to go yet."

"I'm going—"

"You're not!"

Brown faced the man and held him in a silent look of his blue-gray eyes.

Townsley quailed before it.

"Whatever happens, you brought me here. You are equally responsible with me."

Townsley surrendered.

The threat was unmistakable. He saw that he was trapped. Whether he liked it or not, he had packed his camp outfit, harnessed his horses and driven over the trail on a hunting expedition. He knew now that they were stalking human game. It sent the chills down his spine. But there was no help for it. He had to stick.

Brown spent the night alone reconnoitering the settlement of the Pottawattomie, marking the place of his game and making sure that no alarm could be given. All was still. There was nowhere the rustle of a leaf along a roadway that approached the unsuspecting quarry.

Saturday dawned clear and serene. His plans required that he lie concealed the entire day. He could stalk his prey with sure success on the second night. The first he had to use in reconnoitering.

When breakfast had been eaten and Brown had finished his morning prayers, he ordered his men to lie low in the tall grass and give no sign of life until the shadows of night should again fall. They were not allowed to kindle another fire. The fires of the breakfast had been extinguished at daylight.

The wind rose with the sun and the tall wild flowers swayed gracefully over the dusty figures of the men. They lay in a close group with Brown in the center leading the low-pitched conversation which at times became a debate.

As the winds whispered through the moving masses of flowers, the old man would sometimes stop his talk suddenly and an ominous silence held the group. He had the strange power of thus imposing his will on the men about him. They watched the queer light in his restless eyes as he listened to the voices within.

Suddenly he awaked from his reverie and began an endless denunciation of both parties in Kansas. Northern and Southern factions had become equally vile. The Southerners were always criminals. Their crime was now fully shared by the time servers, trimmers and liars in the Free State party.

His eyelids suddenly closed halfway and his eyes shone two points of light as his metallic voice rang without restraint:

"They're all crying peace, peace!"

He paused and hissed his words through the grass.

"There shall be no peace!"



CHAPTER XVIII

Brown lay flat on his belly the last hour of the day catching moments of fitful sleep. At sunset he lifted his small head above the grass and scanned the horizon. There might be the curling smoke of a camp in sight. A relief party might be on his trail.

He breathed a sigh of satisfaction. All was well. The sun was fast sinking beneath the hills, the prey was in sight and no hand could be lifted to help.

The moment the shadows closed over the ravine he rose, stretched his cramped body and turned to Thompson.

"Build your fire for supper."

Thompson nodded.

"And give our men all they can eat."

"Yes, sir."

"They'll need their strength to-night."

"I understand."

The supper ready, Brown gathered his band around the camp fire and offered thanks to his God. The meal was eaten in silence. The tension of an imperious mind had gripped the souls of his men. They moved as if stalking game at close quarters.

And they were doing this exactly.

The last pot and pan had been cleaned and packed. The fire was extinguished. Brown issued his first order of the deed.

"Lie down flat in the grass now."

The men dropped one by one. Brown was the last.

"When I give the word, see that your arms are in trim and march single file fifty yards apart and beat the brush as you go. If you come on a cabin in our path not marked in our survey, it is important. Do not pass it. Report to me immediately."

There was no response. He had expected none. The order was final.

The first move in the man hunt was carefully planned.

The instinct to kill is the elemental force, beneath our culture, which makes the hunter. The strongest personalities of our world-conquering race of Nordic freemen are always hunters. If they do not practice the chase the fact is due to an accident of position in life. The opportunity has not been given.

Beneath the skin of the man of the College, the Council Table, the Forum, the Sacred Altar, of Home, and the Church slumbers this elemental beast.

Culture at best is but a few hundred years old and it has probably skipped several generations in its growth. The Archaic instinct in man to kill reaches back millions of years into the past. The only power on earth to restrain that force is Law. The rules of life, embodied in law are the painful results of experience in killing and the dire effects which follow, both to the individual and the race. Law is a force only so long as reverence for law is made the first principle of man's social training. The moment he lifts his individual will against the embodied experience of humanity, he is once more the elemental beast of the prehistoric jungle—the Hunter.

And when the game is human and the hunter is a man of prayer, we have the supreme form of the beast, the ancient Witch Hunter. It is a fact that the pleasure of killing is universal in man. Our savage ancestors for millions of years had to kill to live. We have long ago outgrown this necessity in the development of civilization. But the instinct remains.

We are human as we restrain this instinct and bring it under the dominion of Law. We still hunt the most delicate and beautiful animals, stalk and kill them, driven by the passionate secret pleasure of the act of murder. With bated breath and glittering eyes we press our advantage until the broken wing ceases to flutter and the splintered bone to crawl.

This imperious atavism the best of us cannot or will not control in the pursuit of animals. When man has lifted his arm in defiance of Tradition and Law, this impulse is the dominant force which sweeps all else as chaff before it.

John Brown was the apostle of the sternest faith ever developed in the agonies of our history. To him life had always been a horror.

There was no hesitation, no halting, no quiver of maudlin pity, when he slowly rose from his grass-covered lair in the darkness and called his men at ten o'clock:

"Ready!"

Single file, moving silently and swiftly they crept through the night, only the sharpened swords clanking occasionally broke the silence. Their tread was soft as the claws of panthers. The leader's spirit gripped mind and body of his followers.

They moved northward from the camp in the ravine and crossed the Mosquito Creek just above the home of the Doyles. Once over the creek, the hunters again spread out single file fifty yards apart.

They had gone but two hundred yards when the signal to halt was whispered along the line. Owen Brown reported to his father:

"There's a cabin just ahead."

"We haven't charted it in our survey?"

"No."

"It will not do to pass it," said Brown.

"They might give the alarm."

"Surround it and do your duty," was the stern command.

Owen called three men, cautiously approached the door and knocked.

Something moved inside and a gun was suddenly rammed through a chink in the walls. The muzzle line could be seen in the flash of a star's light.

The four men broke and scattered in the brush. They reported to the leader.

"We want no fight with this fool. No gun play if we can avoid it. We'll take our chances and let him alone. He'll think we're a bunch of sneak thieves. I don't see how we missed this man's place. It can't be five hundred yards from the Doyles'. Back to your places and swing round his cabin."

Owen quickly gave the order and the hunters passed on. The first one of the marked prey had shown teeth and claws and the hunters slipped on under the cover of the darkness to easier game.

The Doyles were not armed.

At least the chances were the old shotgun was not loaded, as it was used only for hunting.

The hunters crouched low and circled the Doyle house, crawling through the timber and the brush.

A hundred yards from the stable, a dog barked. Owen had carefully marked this dog on the day of the survey. He was merely a faithful yellow cur which Doyle had brought from Virginia. He looked about seven years old. If crossed he might put up a nasty fight. If approached with friendly word by a voice he had once heard, the rest would be easy.

The signal was given to halt. The hunters paused and stood still in their tracks. Owen had taken pains to be friendly with this dog on the day of the survey. He had called him a number of times and had given him a piece of bread from his pocket. He was sure he could manage him.

In a low tone he whistled and called the dog by name. He had carefully recalled it.

"Jack!"

He listened intently and heard the soft step of a paw rustling the leaves. The plan was working.

The dog pushed his way into an open space in the brush and stopped.

The hunter called softly:

"Jack, old boy!"

The dog wagged his tail. The man could see the movement of kindly greeting in the starlight, and ventured close. He bent low and called again:

"Come on, boy!"

The dog answered with a whine, wagged his tail, came close and thrust his nose against the man's arm in a welcome greeting. With his left hand the man stroked the warm, furry head, while his right slowly slipped the ugly sharpened cutlass from its scabbard.

Still stroking the dog's head and softly murmuring words of endearment, he straightened his body:

"Bully old dog! Fine old doggie—"

The dog's eyes followed the rising form with confidence, wagging his tail in protest against his going.

The hand gripped the brass hilt of the cutlass, the polished steel whizzed through the air and crashed into the yellow mass of flesh and bones.

His aim was bad in the dark. He missed the dog's head and the sword split the body lengthwise. To the man's amazement a piercing howl of agony rang through the woods.

He dropped his sword and gripped the quivering throat and held it in a vise of steel until the writhing body was still at last.

Inside the darkened cabin, the mother stirred from an uneasy sleep. She shook her husband and listened intently. The only sound that came from without was the chirp of crickets and the distant call of a coyote from the hill across the creek.

She held her breath and listened again. The man by her side slept soundly. She couldn't understand why her heart persisted in pounding. There wasn't the rustle of a leaf outside. The wind had died down with the falling night. It couldn't be more than eleven o'clock.

Her husband's breathing was deep and regular. His perfect rest and the sense of strength in his warm body restored her poise. She felt the slender forms of her little girls in the trundle bed and tried to go back to sleep.

It was useless. In spite of every effort her eyes refused to close. Again she was sure she had heard the dog's cry in the night. She believed that it was an ugly dream. The dawn of a beautiful Sunday morning would find all well in the little home and her faithful dog again wagging his tail at the door asking for breakfast.

She listened to the beating of her foolish heart. Wide awake, she began to murmur a prayer of thanks to God for all His goodness and mercy in the new home He had given.

As Owen's hands slowly relaxed from the throat of the lifeless body he seized a handful of leaves and wiped the blood from the blade and replaced it in the scabbard.

He rose quickly and gave the signal to advance. Again crouching low, moving with the soft tread of beasts of prey, the hunters closed in on the settler's home.

The keen ears of the mother, still wide awake, caught the crunch of feet on the gravel of the walk. With a heart pounding again in alarm she raised her head and listened. From the other side of the house came the rustle of leaves stirred by another swiftly approaching footstep. It was so still she could hear her own heart beat again. There could be no mistake about it this time.

She gripped her husband's arm:

"John!"

He moaned drowsily.

"John—John—"

"What's matter?" he murmured without lifting his head from the pillow.

"Get up quick!"

"What for?" he groaned.

"There's somebody around the house."

"Na."

"I tell you—yes!"

"Hit's the dawgs."

"I heard a man's step on the path, I tell you."

"Yer dreamin', ole woman—"

"I'm not, I tell ye."

"Go back to sleep."

The man settled again and breathed deeply.

The woman remained on her elbow, listening with every nerve strained in agony.

Again she heard a step on the gravel. This time another footfall joined the first. She gripped her husband's shoulders and shook him violently.

"John, John!" she whispered.

He had half roused himself this time, shocked into consciousness by her trembling grip on his shoulders. But above all by the tremor in her whispered call.

"What is it, Mahala?"

"For God's sake, get up quick and call the boys down outen the loft."

"No!" he growled.

"I tell you, there's somebody outside—"

They were both sitting on the edge of the bed now, speaking in whispers.

"You're dreamin', ole 'oman," he persisted.

"I heard 'em. There's more'n one. I heard some on the other side of the house. I heard two in front. Call the boys down—"

"Don't wake the boys up fer nothin—"

"Is yer gun loaded?"

"No."

"Oh, my God."

"I ain't got no powder. I don't kill game in the springtime."

They both listened. All was still. They could hear the breathing of the little girls in the trundle bed.

The crunch of feet suddenly came to the doorstep. The woman's hand gripped her husband's arm in terror. He heard it now.

"That's funny," he mused.

"Call the boys!" the mother pleaded.

"Wait till we find out what it is—"

A firm knock on the door echoed through the darkened room.

"God save us!" the woman breathed.

Doyle rose and quietly walked to the door.

"What is it?" he called in friendly tones.

"We're lost in the woods," a voice answered.

His wife had followed and gripped his arm.

"Don't open that door."

"Wait, Mother—"

"We're trying to find the way to Mr. Wilkinson's—can you tell us?"

"Sure I can."

He moved to open the door. Again his wife held him.

"Don't do it!"

Doyle brushed her aside.

"Don't be foolish, Mahala," he protested indignantly. "I'm a poor sort o' man if I can't tell a lost traveler the way out of the woods."

"They're lyin'!"

"We'll see."

He raised the latch and six men crashed their way through the door. John Brown led the assault. He held a dim lantern in his hand which he lifted above his head, as he surveyed the room. He kept his own face in shadow.

With a smothered cry, the mother backed against the trundle bed instinctively covering the sleeping figures of the girls.

Brown pointed a cocked revolver at Doyle's breast and said in cold tones:

"Call those three boys down."

Doyle hesitated.

Brown's eye glanced down the barrel of his revolver:

"Quick!"

The man saw he had no chance.

He mounted the ladder, the revolver following him. The mother's terror-stricken eyes saw that each man was armed with two revolvers, a bowie knife and cutlass.

"Don't you scare 'em," Brown warned.

"I won't."

"Tell 'em to come down and show us the way to Wilkinson's."

"Boys!" the father called.

There was no answer at first, and the father wondered if they had heard and gotten weapons of some kind. He hoped not. It would be a useless horror to try to defend themselves before a mother's eyes, and those little girls screaming beside her.

He hastened to call a second time and reassure their fears.

"Boys!"

William, the older one, answered drowsily:

"Yessir—"

"Come down, all of you. Some travelers are here who've lost the way. They want you to help them get to Mr. Wilkinson's."

"All right, sir."

The boys hastily slipped on their trousers and shoes.

"Tell 'em to hurry," Brown ordered.

"Jest slip on yer shoes and britches," Doyle called.

The Surveyor held the lantern behind his body until the three sons had come down the ladder and he saw that they were unarmed.

He stepped to the fireplace, took the shotgun from the rack and handed it to Weiner.

The boys, startled at the group of stern armed men, instinctively moved toward their father, dazed by the assault.

Brown faced the group.

"You four men are my prisoners."

The mother left the trundle bed and faced the leader.

"Who are you?"

Brown dropped his lantern, fixed her with his eyes.

"I am the leader of the Northern Army."

"What are you doing here to-night?"

"I have come on a divine mission."

"Who sent you?"

"The Lord of Hosts in a Vision—"

"What are you going to do?"

"The will of God."

"What are you going to do?" she fairly screamed in his face.

"That is not for your ears, woman," was the stern answer. "I have important business with Southern settlers on the Pottawattomie to-night."

The woman's intuition saw in a flash the hideous tragedy. With a cry of anguish she threw her arms around her husband's neck, sobbing.

"Oh, John, John, my man, I told ye not to talk—but ye would tell folks what ye believed. Why couldn't ye be still? Oh, my God, my God, it's come to this!"

The man soothed her with tender touch.

"Hush, Mother, hush. You mustn't take on."

"I can't help it—I just can't. God have mercy on my poor lost soul—"

She paused and looked at her boys.

With a scream she threw herself first on one and then on the other.

"Oh, my big fine boy! I can't let you go! Where is God to-night? Is He dead? Has He forgotten me?"

The father drew her away and shook her sternly.

"Hush, Mother, hush! Yer can't show the white feather like this!"

"I can't help it. I can't give up my boys!"

She paused and looked at Doyle.

"And I can't give you up, my man—I just can't!"

"Don't, don't—" the husband commanded. "We've got to be men now."

She fought hard to control her tears. The little girls began to sob. She rushed to the trundle bed and soothed them.

"Keep still, babies. They won't hurt you. Keep still!"

The children choked into silence and she leaped toward Brown and tried to seize his hand. He repulsed her and she went on frantically.

"Please, for God's sake, man, have mercy on a wife and mother, if you ain't got no pity in your heart for my men! Surely you have women home. Their hearts can break like mine. My man's only been talkin' as politicians talk. It was nothing. Surely it's no crime."

Brown drew a notebook from his pocket and held it up.

"I have the record in this book of your husband's words against the men of our party, Madame. He stands convicted of murder in his heart. His sons are not of age. Their opinions are his."

For a moment the mother forgot her pleading and shrieked her defiance into the stern face before her.

"And who made you a judge o' life and death for my man and my sons? I bore these boys of the pains of my body. God gave them to me. They are mine, not yours!"

Brown brushed her aside.

"That's enough from you. Those men are my prisoners. Bring them on!"

He moved toward the door and the guards with drawn swords closed in on the group.

The mother leaped forward and barred the way to the door. She faced Brown with blanched face. Her breath came in short gasps. She fought desperately for control of her voice, failed to make a sound, staggered to the old man, grasped blindly his body and sank to her knees at his feet.

At last she managed to gasp:

"Just one of my boys—then—my baby boy! He's a big boy—but look at his smooth face—he ain't but fourteen years old. Hit don't seem but yistiday that he wuz just a laughin' baby in my arms! And I've always been that proud of him. He's smart. He's always been smart—and God forgive me—I've loved him better'n all the others—hit—wuzn't—right— fer—a—mother—to—love one of her—children—more—than—the—others— but I couldn't help it! If ye'll just spare him—hit's all I'll ask ye now"—her voice sank into a sob as her face touched the floor.

The dark figure above her did not move and she lifted her head with desperate courage.

"I'll be all alone here—a broken-hearted woman with two little gals and nobody to help me—or work fer me—ef you'll just spare my baby boy—"

She sprang to her feet and threw her arms around the youngest boy's neck.

"Oh, my baby, my baby, I can't let ye go—I can't—I can't!"

She lifted her tear-streaming eyes to the dark face again.

"Please, please, for the love of God—you—say—you—believe—in—God—leave me this one!"

Brown moved his head in a moment's uncertainty. He turned to Owen.

"Leave him and come on with the others."

With a desperate cry, the mother closed her eyes and clung to the boy.

She dared not lift them in prayer for the others as they passed out into the night.

The armed men had seized her husband and her two older sons, William and Drury, and hustled them through the door. The mother drew the boy back on the trundle bed and held him in her arms. The little girls crouched close and began to sob.

"Hush—don't make a noise. They won't hurt you. I want to hear what they do—maybe—"

The mother stopped short, fascinated by the horror of the tragedy she knew would take place outside her door. The darkness gave no token of its progress. A cricket was chirping in the chimney just awakened by the noise.

She held her breath and listened. Not a sound. The silence was unbearable. She sprang to her feet in a moment's fierce rebellion against the crime of such an infamous attack. A roused lioness, she leaped to the mantel to seize the shotgun.

John followed and caught her.

"The gun's gone, Ma," he cried.

"Yes, yes, I forgot," she gasped. "They took it, the damned fiends!"

"Ma, Ma, be still!" the boy pleaded. He was horror-stricken at the oath from her lips. In all his life he had never heard her use a vulgar word.

"Yes, of course," she faltered. "I mustn't try to do anything. They might come back and kill you—my baby boy!"

She pressed him again to her heart and held him. She strained her ears for the first signal of the deed the darkness shrouded.

The huntsmen dragged the father and two sons but a hundred and fifty yards from the door and halted beside the road. Brown faced the father in the dim starlight.

"You are a Southern white man?"

"I am, sir."

"You are pro-Slavery?"

"I hate the sight and sound of a slave."

"But you believe in the institution?"

"I hate it, I tell you."

Brown paused as if his brain had received a shock. The answer had been utterly unexpected. The man was in earnest. He meant what he said. And he was conscious of the solemnity of the trial on which his life hung.

Brown came back to his cross examination, determined to convict him on the grounds he had fixed beforehand.

"What do you mean when you say that you hate the institution of Slavery?"

"Exactly what I say."

"You do not believe in owning slaves?"

"I do not."

"Did you ever own one?"

"No!"

"And you never expect to own one?"

"Never."

"Why did you rush into this Territory among the first to cross the border?"

"I come West to get away from niggers, and bring my children up in a white man's country."

Quick as a flash came the crucial question from lips that had never smiled. It was the triumphant scream of an eagle poised to strike. He had him at last.

"Then you don't believe the negro to be your brother and your equal—do you?"

The poor white man's body suddenly stiffened and his chin rose:

"No, by God, I don't believe that!"

John Brown lifted his hand in a quick signal and Owen stepped stealthily behind Doyle. The sharpened cutlass whistled through the air and crashed into Doyle's skull. His helpless hands were lifted instinctively as he staggered. The swift descending blade split the right hand open and severed the left from the body before he crumpled in a heap on the ground. The assassin placed his knee on the prostrate figure and plunged his knife three times in the breast,—once through the heart and once through each lung. He had learned the art in butchering cattle.

Fifty yards away the mangled bodies of William and Drury Doyle lay on the ground with the dim figure of the assassin bending low to make sure that no sign of life remained.

John Brown raised the wick of his lantern and walked coolly up to the body of the elder Doyle. He flashed the lantern on the distorted features. A look of religious ecstasy swept the stern face of the Puritan and his eyes glittered with an unearthly glare.

He uttered a sound that was half a laugh and half a religious shout, snatched his pistol from his belt, placed the muzzle within an inch of the dead skull and fired. The brains of the corpse splashed the muzzle of the revolver.

The trembling mother inside the cabin uttered a low cry of horror and crumpled in the arms of her son.

The boy dragged her to the bed and rushed to the kitchen for a cup of water. He dashed it in her face and cried for joy when she breathed again. He didn't mind the moans and sobs. The thought that she, too, might be dead had stopped his very heartbeat.

He soothed her at last and sat holding her hand in the dark. The girls nestled against her side. The mother gave no sign that she was conscious of their presence.

Her spirit was outside the cabin now, hovering in the darkness mourning her dead. Through the dread hours of the night she sat motionless, listening, dreaming.

No sounds came from the darkness. The coyote had ceased to call. The cricket in the chimney slept at last.



CHAPTER XIX

The dark figures secured the horses, bridles and saddles and moved to the next appointed crime.

The stolen horses were put in charge of the two sons, who had refused to take part in the events of the night. They were ordered to follow the huntsmen carefully.

Again they crept through the night and approached the home of Wilkinson, the member of the Legislature from the County. Brown had carefully surveyed his place and felt sure of a successful attack unless the house should be alarmed by a surly dog which no member of his surveying party had been able to approach.

When they arrived within two hundred yards of the gate, it was one o'clock. Brown carefully watched the house for ten minutes to see that no light gleamed through a window or a chink. The wife had been sick with the measles when the survey was made. There was no sign of a light.

Salmon and Owen Brown were sent by the men on a protest to Brown.

Salmon was spokesman.

"We've got something to say to you, Father, before we take out Wilkinson—"

"Well?" the old man growled.

"You gave every man strict orders to fire no guns or revolver unless necessary—didn't you?"

"I did."

"You fired the only shot heard to-night."

"I'll not do it again. I didn't intend to. I don't know why I did it. Stick to my order."

"See that you stick to it," the boy persisted.

"I will. Use only your knives and cutlasses. The cutlass first always."

The men began to move slowly forward.

Brown called softly.

"Just a minute. This dog of Wilkinson's is sure to bark. Don't stop to try to kill him. Rush the house double quick and pay no attention to his barking—"

"If he bites?" Owen asked.

"Take a chance, don't try to kill him—Wilkinson might wake. Now, all together—rush the house!"

They rushed the, house at two hundred yards. They had taken but ten steps when the dog barked so furiously Brown called a halt. They waited.

Then, minutes later the dog raged, approaching the house and retreating. His wild cry of alarm rang with sinister echo through the woods. The faithful brute was calling his master and mistress to arms.

Still the man inside slept. The Territory of Kansas to this time had been as free from crime as any state on its border. The lawmaker had never felt a moment's uneasiness.

Footsteps approached the door. The sick woman saw the shadow of a man pass the window. The starlight sharply silhouetted his face against the black background.

Some one knocked on the door.

The woman asked:

"Who's that?"

No one answered.

"Henry, Henry!" she called tensely.

"Well?" the husband answered.

"There's somebody knocking at the door."

Wilkinson half raised in bed.

"Who is that?"

A voice replied:

"We've lost the road. We want you to tell us the way to Dutch Henry's."

Wilkinson began to call the directions.

"We can't understand—"

"You can't miss the way."

"Come out and show us!"

The request was given in tones so sharp there could be no mistake. It was a command not a plea.

"I'll have to go and tell them," he said to his wife.

"For God's sake, don't open that door," she whispered.

"It's best."

She seized and held him.

"You shall not go!"

Wilkinson sought to temporize.

"I'm not dressed," he called. "I can tell you the way as well without going outdoors."

The men stepped back from the door and held a consultation. John Brown at once returned and began his catechism:

"You are Wilkinson, the Member of the Legislature?"

"I am, sir."

"You are opposed to the Free Soil Party?"

"I am."

The answers were sharp to the point of curtness and his daring roused the wrath of Brown to instant action.

"You're my prisoner, sir."

He waited an instant for an answer and, getting none, asked:

"Do you surrender?"

"Gentlemen, I do."

"Open the door!"

"In just a minute."

"Open it—"

"When I've made a light."

"We've got a light. Open that door or we'll smash it!"

Again the sick woman caught his arm.

"Don't do it!"

"It's better not to resist," he answered, opening the door.

Brown held the lantern in his face.

"Put on your clothes."

Wilkinson began to dress.

The men covered him with drawn revolvers. The sick woman sank limply on the edge of the bed.

"Are there any more men in this house?" Brown asked sharply.

"No."

"Have you any arms?"

"Only a quail gun."

"Search the place."

The guard searched the rooms, ransacking drawers and chests. They took everything of value they could find, including the shotgun and powder flask.

The sick woman at length recovered her power of speech and turned to Brown.

"If you've arrested my husband for anything, he's a law-abiding man. You can let him stay here with me until morning."

"No!" Brown growled.

"I'm sick and helpless. I can't stay here by myself."

"Let me stay with my wife, gentlemen," Wilkinson pleaded, "until I can get some one to wait on her and I'll remain on parole until you return or I'll meet you anywhere you say."

Brown looked at the woman and at the little children trembling by her side and curtly answered:

"You have neighbors."

"So I have," Wilkinson agreed, "but they are not here and I cannot go for them unless you allow me."

"It matters not," Brown snapped. "Get ready, sir."

Wilkinson took up his boots to pull them on when Brown signaled his men to drag him out.

Without further words they seized him and hurried into the darkness. They dragged him a few yards from the house into a clump of dead brush.

Weiner was the chosen headsman. He swung his big savage figure before Wilkinson and his cutlass flashed in the starlight.

The woman inside the darkened house heard the crash of the blade against the skull and the dying groan from the lips of the father of her babies.

When the body crumpled, Weiner knelt, plunged his knife into the throat, turned it and severed the jugular vein.

Standing over the body John Brown spoke to one of his men.

"The horses, saddles and bridles from the stable—quick!"

The huntsman hurried to the stable and took Wilkinson's horse.

It was two o'clock before they reached the home of James Harris on the other side of the Pottawattomie. Harris lived on the highway and kept a rude frontier boarding place where travelers stopped for the night.

With him lived Dutch Henry Sherman and his brother, William.

Brown had no difficulty in entering this humble one-room house. It was never locked. The latch string was outside.

Without knocking Brown lifted the latch and sprang into the room with his son, Owen, and another armed huntsman.

He surveyed the room. In one bed lay Harris, his wife and child. In two other beds were three men, William Sherman, John Whitman and a stranger who had stopped for the night and had given no name.

"You are our prisoners," Brown announced. "It is useless for you to resist."

The old man stood by one bed with drawn saber and Owen stood by the other while Weiner searched the room. He found two rifles and a bowie knife which he passed through the door to the guard outside.

Brown ordered the stranger out first. He kept him but a few minutes and brought him back. He next ordered Harris to follow him.

Brown confronted his prisoner in the yard. A swordsman stood close by his side to catch his nod.

"Where is Dutch Henry Sherman?"

"On the plains hunting for lost cattle."

"You are telling me the truth?" Brown asked, boring him through with his terrible eyes.

"The truth, sir!"

He studied Harris by the light of his lantern.

"Have you ever helped a Southern settler to enter the Territory of Kansas?"

"No."

"Did you take any hand in the troubles at Lawrence?"

"I've never been to Lawrence."

"Have you ever done the Free State Party any harm?"

"No. I don't take no part in politics."

"Have you ever intended to do that party any harm?"

"I don't know nothin' about politics or parties."

"What are you doing living here among these Southern settlers?"

"Because I can get better wages."

"Any horses, bridles, or saddles?"

"I've one horse."

"Saddle him and bring him here."

A swordsman walked by his side while he caught and saddled his horse and delivered him to his captors.

Brown went back into the house and brought out William Sherman. Harris was ordered back to bed, and a new guard was placed inside until the ceremony with Sherman should be ended.

It was brief.

Brown had no questions to ask this man. He was the brother of Henry Sherman, the most hated member of the settlement. Brown called Thompson and Weiner and spoke in tones of quick command.

"Take him down to the Pottawattomie Creek. I want this man's blood to mingle with its waters and flow to the sea!"

The doomed man did not hear the sentence of his judge. The two huntsmen caught his arms and rushed him to the banks of the creek. He stood for a moment trembling and dazed. Not a word had passed his lips. Not one had passed his guards.

They loosed their grip on his arms, stepped back and two cutlasses whistled through the air in a single stroke. The double blow was so swiftly and evenly delivered that the body stood erect until the second stroke of the sharpened blades had cut off one hand and split open the breast.

When the body fell at the feet of the huntsmen they seized the quivering limbs and hurled them into the creek.

They reported at once to their Captain. He stood in front of the house with his restless gaze sweeping the highway for any possible, belated traveler. The one hope uppermost in his mind was that Dutch Henry Sherman might return with his lost cattle in time.

He raised his lantern and looked at his watch. The men who had butchered William Sherman stood with red swords for orders.

Brown had not yet uttered a word. He knew that the work on the bank of the Pottawattomie was done. The attitude of his swordsmen was sufficient.

He asked but one question.

"You threw him into the water?"

"Yes."

"Good."

He closed his silver watch with a snap.

"It's nearly four o'clock. We have no more time for work to-night. Back to camp."

The men turned to repeat his orders.

"Wait!"

His order rang like vibrant metal.

The men stopped.

"We'll mount the horses we have taken, and march single file. I'll ride the horse taken here. Bring him to the door."

With quick springing step Brown entered the house where the husband and wife and the two lodgers were still shivering under the eye of the guard with drawn sword.

The leader's voice rang with a note of triumph.

"You people whose lives have been spared will stay in this house until sunrise. And the less you say about what's happened to-night the longer you'll live."

He turned to his guard.

"Come on."

Brown had just mounted his horse to lead the procession back to the camp in the ravine, when the first peal of thunder in a spring shower crashed overhead.

He glanced up and saw that the sky was being rapidly overcast by swiftly moving clouds. A few stars still glimmered directly above.

The storm without was an incident of slight importance. The rain would give him a chance to test the men inside. He ordered his followers to take refuge in the long shed under which Harris stabled the horses and vehicles of travelers.

He stationed a sentinel at the door of the house.

His orders were clear.

"Cut down in his tracks without a word, the man who dares to come out."

The swordsman threw a saddle blanket around his shoulders and took his place at the doorway.

The storm broke in fury. In five minutes the heavens were a sea of flame. The thunder rolled over the ravine, the hills, the plains in deafening peals. Flash after flash, roar after roar, an endless throb of earth and air from the titanic bombardment from the skies. The flaming sky was sublime—a changing, flashing, trembling splendor.

Townsley was the only coward in the group of stolid figures standing under the shed. He watched by the lightning the expression of Brown's face with awe. There was something terrible in the joy that flamed in his eyes. Never had he seen such a look on human face. He forgot the storm and forgot his fears of cyclones and lightning strokes in the fascination with which he watched the seamed, weather-beaten features of the man who had just committed the foulest deed in the annals of American frontier life. There was in his shifting eyes no shadow of doubt, of fear, of uncertainty. There was only the look of satisfaction, of supreme triumph. The coward caught the spark of red that flashed from his soul.

For a moment he regretted that he had not joined the bloody work with his own hand. He was ashamed of his pity for the stark masses of flesh that still lay on the deluged earth. In spite of the contagion of Brown's mind which he felt pulling him with resistless power, his own weaker intellect kept playing pranks with his memory.

He recalled the position of the bodies which they had left in the darkness. He had seen them by the light of the lantern which Brown had flashed each time before leaving. He remembered with a shiver that the two Doyle boys had died with their big soft blue eyes wide open, staring upward at the starlit skies. He wondered if the rain had beaten their eyelids down.

A blinding flash filled the sky and lighted every nook and corner of the woods and fields. He shook at its glare and put his hand over his eyes. For a moment he could see nothing but the wide staring gaze upward of those stalwart young bodies. He shivered and turned away from the leader.

The next moment found him again watching the look of victory on the terrible face.

As the lightning played about Brown's form he wondered at the impression of age he gave with his face turned away and his figure motionless. He was barely fifty-seven and yet he looked seventy-five, until he moved.

The moment his wiry body moved there was something uncanny in the impression he gave of a wild animal caught in human form.

Brown had tired waiting for the shower to pass and had begun to pace back and forth with his swinging, springy step. When he passed, Townsley instinctively drew aside. He knew that he was a coward and yet he couldn't feel the consciousness of cowardice in giving this man room. It was common sense.

The storm passed as swiftly as it came.

Without a word the leader gave the signal. His men mounted the stolen horses. With Townsley's grays and Weiner's pony the huntsmen returned to the camp in the ravine, a procession of cavalry.

The eastern sky was whitening with the first touch of the coming sun when they dismounted.

The leader ordered the fire built and a hearty breakfast cooked for each man. As was his custom he wandered from the camp alone, his arms gripped behind his stooped back. He climbed the hill, stood on its crest and watched the prairie.

The storm had passed from west to east. On the eastern horizon a low fringe of clouds was still slowly moving. They lay in long ribbons of dazzling light. The sun's rays flashed through them every color of the rainbow. Now they were a deep purple, growing brighter with each moment, until every flower in the waving fields was touched with its glory. The purple melted into orange; the waving fields were set with dazzling buttercups; the buttercups became poppies. And then the mounting sun kissed the clouds again. They blushed scarlet, and the fields were red.

The grim face gave no sign that he saw the glory and beauty of a wonderful Sabbath morning. His figure was rigid. His eyes set. A sweet odor seemed to come from the scarlet rays of the sun. The man lifted his head in surprise to find the direction from which the perfume came.

He looked at the ground and saw that he was standing in a bed of ripening wild strawberries.

He turned from the sunrise, stooped and ate the fruit. He was ravenously hungry. His hunger satisfied, he walked deliberately back to camp as the white light of day flooded the clean fields and woods.

He called his men about the fire and searched for marks of the night's work. As the full rim of the sun crept over the eastern hills and its first rays quivered on the surface of the water, the huntsmen knelt by the bank of the Pottawattomie and washed the stains from their swords, hands and clothes.

Breakfast finished, the leader divided among his headsmen the goods stolen from his victims and called his men to Sunday prayers.

With folded hands and head erect in the attitude of victory he read from memory a passage from the old Hebrew prophet, singing in triumph over the enemies of the Lord. From the scripture recitation, given in tones so cold and impersonal that they made Townsley shiver, his voice drifted into prayer:

"We thank thee, oh, Lord, God of Hosts, for the glorious victory Thou hast given us this night over Thy enemies. We have heard Thy voice. We have obeyed Thy commands. The wicked have been laid low. And Thy glory shines throughout the world on this beautiful Sabbath morning. Make strong, oh, God, the arms of Thy children for the work that is yet before them. Thou art a jealous God. Thou dost rejoice always in blood offerings on Thy altars. We have this night brought to Thee and laid before Thy face the five offerings which the sins of man have demanded. May this blood seem good in Thy sight, oh, God, as it is glorious in the eyes of Thy servant whom Thou hast anointed to do Thy will. May it be as seed sown in good ground. May it bring forth a harvest whose red glory shall cover the earth, even as the rays of the sun have baptized our skies this morning. We wait the coming of Thy Kingdom, oh, Lord, God of Hosts. Speed the day we humbly pray. Amen."

Townsley's eyes had gradually opened at the tones of weird, religious ecstasy with which the last sentences of the prayer were spoken. He was staring at Brown's face. It was radiant with a strange joy. He had not smiled; but he was happy for a moment. His happiness was so unusual, so sharply in contrast with his habitual mood, the sight of it chilled Townsley's soul.



CHAPTER XX

Stuart succeeded in securing from Colonel Sumner a leave of absence of two weeks to visit Fort Riley. The Colonel suspected the truth and teased the gallant youngster until he confessed.