Part 47 (1/2)

”Come here, stranger man, and tell me who you are, where you came from, where you're going, and what's your hurry.”

There was nothing immodest or forward in them. They just kept calling him.

She was exactly the type of girl he had dreamed he would like to marry some day when life had quieted down. She was of the spirit, not the flesh. Yet she was beautiful to look upon. Her hair was a dark, curling brown, full of delicate waves even on the top of her head. Her hands were dainty. Her body was a slender poem in willowy, graceful lines. Her voice was the softest Southern drawl.

The Kennedys were not slave holders. The pretty daughter joyfully helped her mother when she came home from school. Her sentiments were Southern without the over emphasis sometimes heard among the prouder daughters of the old regime. These Southern sentiments formed another impa.s.sable barrier. Cook said this a hundred times to himself and sought to make the barrier more formidable by repeating aloud his own creed when in his room alone.

The fight was vain. He drifted into seeing her a few minutes alone each day. She had liked him from the first. He felt it. He knew it. He had liked her from the first, and she knew it.

Each night he swore he'd go to bed without seeing her and each night he laughed and said:

”Just this once more and it won't count.”

He felt himself drifting into a tragedy. Yet to save his life he couldn't lay hold of anything that would stand the strain of the sweet invitation in those brown eyes.

To avoid her he spent days tramping over the hills. And always he came back more charmed than ever. The spell she was weaving about his heart was resistless.

CHAPTER XXVI

Brown returned to Kansas with Stevens and Kagi, his two bravest and most intelligent disciples.

If he could make the tryout of his plan sufficiently sensational, his prestige would be restored, his chief disciples become trained veterans and his treasury be filled.

When he arrived, the Free State forces had again completely triumphed at the ballot box. They had swept the Territory by a majority of three to one in the final test vote on the new Const.i.tution. The issue of Slavery in Kansas was dead. It had been settled for all time.

Such an inglorious end for all his dreams of bloodshed did not depress the man of visions. Kansas no longer interested him except as a rehearsal ground for the coming drama of the Great Deed.

He had carefully grown a long gray beard for the make-up of his new role. It completely changed his appearance. He not only changed his make-up, but he also changed his name. The t.i.tle he gave to the new character which he had come to play was, ”Shubel Morgan.”

The revelation of his ident.i.ty would be all the more dramatic when it came.

When his men and weapons had been selected, he built his camp fire on the Missouri Border. His raid was carefully planned in consultation with Stevens, Kagi and Tidd. With these trusted followers he had rallied a dozen recruits who could be depended on to obey orders. Among them was a notorious horse thief and bandit known in the Territory by the t.i.tle of ”Pickles.”

As they entered the State of Missouri on the night of the twenty-fifth of January, Brown divided his forces. Keeping the main division under his personal command, he despatched Stevens with a smaller force to raid the territory surrounding the two plantations against which he was moving.

Between eleven and twelve o'clock Brown reached the home of Harvey G.

Hicklin, the first victim marked on his list.

Without the formality of a knock he smashed his door down and sprang inside with drawn revolver.

Hicklin surrendered.

”We have come to take your slaves and such property as we need,” the old man curtly answered.

”I am at your mercy, gentlemen,” Hicklin replied.

Gill was placed in charge of the robbers who ransacked the bureau drawers, closets and chests for valuables.