"Yes. I swear!"
"Good. I want a report from you daily from now on. Stop your excursions into the country, except to meet me in broad daylight in the woods this side of our headquarters. You understand?"
"Yes. You can depend on me."
Brown watched him with grave misgivings. He was the one man on whom he depended least and yet his life and the life of every one in his enterprise was in his hands. There were more reasons than one why he must hasten the final preparations for the Deed.
The suspicions of the neighbors had been roused in spite of the utmost vigilance. He had increased his disciples to twenty men. He had induced his younger son, Watson, to leave North Elba and join them. His own daughter, Annie, and Oliver's wife had come with Watson, and the two women were doing the work for his band—cooking, washing, and scrubbing without a murmur.
The men were becoming restless in their close confinement. Five of them were negroes. Brown's disciples made no objections to living, eating and sleeping with these blacks. Such equality was one of the cardinal principles of their creed.
But the danger of the discovery of the presence of freed negroes living in this farmhouse with two white women and a group of white men increased each day.
The headquarters had a garrulous old woman for a neighbor. Gradually, Mrs. Huffmeister became curious about the doings at the farm. She began to invent daily excuses for a visit. They might be real, of course, but the old man's daughter became uneasy. As she cleaned the table, washed the dishes and swept the floors of the rooms and the porch, she was constantly on the lookout for this woman.
The thing that had fascinated her was the man whom this girl called father. His name was "Smith," but it didn't seem to fit him. She was an illiterate German and knew nothing of the stirring events in Kansas. But her eyes followed the head huntsman with fascinated curiosity.
At this time his personal appearance was startling in its impressive power, when not on guard or in disguise. His brilliant eyes, his flowing white beard and stooped shoulders arrested attention instantly and held it. He was sixty years old by the calendar and looked older. And yet always the curious thing about him was that the impression of age was on the surface. It was given only when he was still. The moment he moved in the quick, wiry, catlike way that was his habit, age vanished. The observer got the impression of a wild beast crouching to spring.