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!"