IV
A Siege and its Heroine
THE population of the region, friends and foes, were now up in alarm. Reports met us of the outrages of the Ruffians upon Free State settlers the night previous.
Here is the story of one of the depredations, detailed to us at one of our halts.
It was upon a stanch old German and his family, settled near the junction of the North and South branches of the Pottawatomie. Old Kepler, as he was nicknamed, had not taken any leading or even active part in the "troubles" (as they were termed), but his strong anti-slavery sentiments had cropped out and were known to the enemy.
They now made directly for his cabin, evidently resolved, as the opportunity might offer, to force him to declare himself for one side or the other. No man, in fact, in those days of the Kansas conflict,—partisan, bitter, bloody,—could long occupy anything like neutral ground. If one undertook to "sit on the fence," he soon became a target for both parties and was relentlessly dislodged.
It was not the nature of the old German to dissemble, when the trial came. On the approach of the Ruffians he prepared for the worst, as he expected no favor. He barricaded his cabin door and refused their demand for admittance. They burned his wheat and hay stacks, and all his outbuildings, and then called upon the besieged to surrender.
It was believed, probably rightly, by the assailants, that the old man was possessed of considerable money, brought with him from the old country. This lent incitement to their attack; while, if true, the fact was undoubtedly an additional motive on his part for keeping the invaders at a distance.
Brave old Kepler was quite advanced in years. He was about three score and ten, but all the old valorous Teutonic blood in his veins was aroused, and he prepared to resist the spoilers even to the death, if need be. His wife, partner of his New World adventures and toils, had succumbed not long before to the frontier hardships and had passed on. He had one son, a chip of the old block, brave, strong, and inured to the rough Western life, equally interested with the father in carving out their fortunes in this new country, and in the making of their Western prairie home.
And there was an only daughter, alike the support and solace of both father and brother;—the light, indeed, of the household and of the neighborhood.