He held his armed band in camp under the sternest discipline to await this call of the blood.
The Southern avengers who swarmed across the Missouri border into the region of Osawatomie accepted Brown's standards of justice and mercy without question. A few men of education among them were the only restraining influence.
Through these exciting days the old man would show himself at daylight in different places removed from his camp in the woods. While squadrons of avengers were scouring the ravines, the river bottoms and the tangled underbrush, he was lying quietly on his arms. Sometimes his pursuers camped within hearing and got their water from the same spring.
With all his indomitable courage he was unable to rally sufficient men to afford protection to his people. He was a fugitive from justice with a price on his head. Yet, armed and surrounded by a small band of faithful followers, he led a charmed life.
His deed on the Pottawattomie made murder the chief sport of the unhappy Territory. The life of the frontier was reduced to anarchy. Outrages became so common it was impossible to record them. Murder was a daily incident. Many of them passed in secret. Many were not revealed for days and weeks after they had been committed—then, only by the discovery of the moldering remains of the dead. Two men were found hanging on a tree near Westport. They were ill-fated Free State partisans who had fallen by the hand of the avengers. The troops buried them in a grave so shallow that the prairie wolves had half devoured them before they were again found and re-buried.
The Free Soil men organized guerrilla bands for retaliation. John E. Cook, a daring young adventurer, the brother-in-law of Governor Willard of Indiana, early distinguished himself in this work. He put himself at the head of a group of twenty young "Cavalry Scouts" who ranged the country, asking no quarter and giving none.
A squadron of avengers invaded Brown's settlement at Osawatomie, sacked and partly destroyed it, and killed his son, Frederick, whose mind had been in a state of collapse since the night of the murders on the Pottawattomie.
John Brown rallied a group of sympathizers and fought a pitched battle with the invaders but was defeated with bloody losses and compelled to retreat.
He was followed by Deputy United States Marshal, Henry C. Pate. Brown turned and boldly attacked Pate's camp and another battle ensued. The Deputy Marshal, wishing to avoid useless bloodshed, sent out a flag of truce and asked an interview with the guerrilla commander. Brown answered promptly, advanced and sent for Pate.
Pate, trusting the flag of truce, approached the old man.