The Man in Gray: A Romance of North and South Part 47

"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.

Brown collected the slaves and a.s.sured them of protection. When every watch, gun, pistol, and every piece of plate worth carrying had been collected, and the stables stripped of every horse and piece of leather, the old man turned to his victim and coolly remarked:

"Now get your property back if you can. I dare you and the whole United States Army to follow me to-night. And you tell this to your neighbors to-morrow morning."

Hicklin kept silent.

Brown knew that his tongue would be busy with the rising sun. He also knew that his message would be hot on the wires to the East before the sun would set. He could feel the thrill it would give his sentimental friends in Boston. And he could see them reaching for their purses.

The men were still emptying drawers on the floor in a vain search for cash. Hicklin never kept cash over night in his house. He lived too near the border.

Brown called his men from their looting and ordered them to the next house which he had marked for a.s.sault--the house of James Lane, three-quarters of a mile away.

They smashed Lane's door and took him a prisoner with Dr. Erwin, a guest of the family.

From Hicklin he had secured considerable booty and his men were keen for richer spoils. The first attack had netted the raiders two fine horses, a yoke of oxen, a wagon, harness, saddles, watches, a fine collection of jewelry, bacon, flour, meal, coffee, sugar, bedding, clothing, a shotgun, boots, shoes, an overcoat and many odds and ends dumped into the wagon.

From Lane they expected more. They were sore over the results. They got six good horses, their harness and wagons, a lot of bedding, clothing and provisions, but no jewelry except two plain silver watches.

Brown added five negroes to his party and told them he would take them to Canada. Thus far no blood had been shed. The attacks had been made with such quiet skill, the surprise was complete. In spite of all the talk and bl.u.s.ter of frontier politicians no sane man in the State of Missouri could conceive of the possibility of such a daring crime. The victims were utterly unprepared for the a.s.sault. And no defense had been attempted.

Stevens had better luck. His party had encountered David Cruise, a man who was rash enough to resist. He was an old man, too, of quiet, peaceable habits and exemplary character. He proved to be the man who didn't know how to submit to personal insult.

He owned but one slave who did the cooking for his family. When Stevens broke into his house and demanded the woman, he indignantly refused to surrender his cook to a gang of burglars.

The ex-convict, who had served his term for an a.s.sault with intent to kill, didn't pause to ask Cruise any questions.

His revolver clicked, a single shot rang out and the old man dropped on the floor with a bullet through his heart.

Pa.s.sing the body, Stevens looted the house. He made the largest haul of the night. He secured four oxen, eleven mules, two horses, and a wagon load of provisions. Incidentally he picked up a valuable mule from a neighbor of Cruise as they pa.s.sed his house on the way to join Brown.

When Stevens reported the murder and gave the inventory of the valuable goods stolen, "Shubel Morgan" stroked his long gray beard and spoke but one word:

"Good."

In his grim soul he knew that the blood stain left on Cruise's floor would be worth more to his cause than all the stolen jewelry, horses and wagons. Its appeal to the East would be the one secret force needed to rouse the archaic instincts of his pious backers. They would deny with indignation the accusation of murder against his men. They would invent the excuse of self-defense. He did not need to make it. From the deeps of their souls would come the shout of the ancient head-hunter returning with the b.l.o.o.d.y scalp of a foe in his hand. Brown felt this. He knew it, because he felt it in his own heart. He was a Puritan of Puritans.

With deliberate daring the caravan moved back into the Territory. For the moment the audacity of the crime stunned the frontier. He had figured on this hour of uncertainty and amazement to make good his escape. He knew that he could depend on the people along the way to Iowa to protect the ten slaves which he had brought out of Missouri.

The press of Kansas unanimously condemned the outrage. Brown knew they would. He could spit in their faces now. He was done with Kansas. His caravan was moving toward the North; his eyes were fixed on the hills of Virginia.

His experiment had been a success.

The President of the United States, James Buchanan, offered a reward of $250 for his arrest. The Governor of Missouri raised the reward to $3,000. The press flashed the news of the daring rescue of ten slaves by old John Brown. He regained in a day his lost prestige. The stories of the robberies which accompanied the rescue were denied as Border Ruffian lies, as "Shubel Morgan" knew they would be denied.

His enterprise had met every test. He got his slaves safely through to Canada and started a reign of terror. The effect of the raid into a Slave State had tested his theory of direct, bloodstained action as the solution and the only solution of the problem.

The occasional frowns of pious people on his methods caused him no uneasiness or doubt. He was a man of daily prayer. He was on more intimate terms with G.o.d than his critics.