The bugles at Fort Leavenworth sounded Boots and Saddles for the march
on Brown and his guerrillas. The barracks were early astir with the
excitement. Stern work might be ahead. Outlaws who would dare violate a
flag of truce, to take a United States Marshal and his posse would
have no more respect for cavalry. The men and officers were tired of
disorder. They were eager for a stand up and knock down fight. They
expected it and they were ready for it.
Stuart's bride was crying. In spite of her young husband's gay banter,
she persisted in being serious.
"There's no danger, honey girl!" he laughed.
She touched the big cavalry pistol in its holster, her lips still
trembling.
"No--you're just galloping off on a picnic."
"That's all it will be--"
"Then you can take me with you."
Stuart's brow clouded.
"Well, no, not just that kind of a picnic."
"There may be a nasty fight and you know it."
"Nonsense."
"It may, too."
"Don't be silly, little bride," he pleaded. "You're a soldier's wife
now. The bullet hasn't been molded that's going to get me. I feel it. I
know it."
She threw her arms around his neck and held him in a long silence. Only
a sob broke the stillness. He let her cry. His arms merely tightened
their tender hold, as he caressed her fair head and kissed it.
"There, there, now. That's enough. It's hard, this first parting. It's
hard for me. You mustn't make it harder."
"We've just begun to live, dearest," she faltered. "I can't let you go.
I can't stand it for an hour and you'll be gone for days and days--"
She paused and sobbed.
"Why did I marry a soldier-man?"
"You had to, honey. It was fate. God willed it."
He spoke with deep reverence. She lifted her lips for his goodbye kiss.
He turned quickly to go and she caught him again and smothered him with
kisses.
"I can't help it, darling man," she sobbed. "I didn't mean to make it
hard for you--but--I've an awful presentiment that I shall lose you--"
Her voice died again in a pathetic whisper.
Stuart laughed softly and kissed the tears from her eyes.
"So has every soldier's wife, honey girl. The silly old presentiment is
overworked. It will pass bye and bye--when you see me coming home so
many, many times to play that old banjo for you and sing our songs over
again."
She shook her head and smiled.
"Go now--quick," she said, "before I break down again."
He swung out the door, his sword clanking and his arm waving. She
watched him from the window, crying. She saw him mount his horse with a
graceful swing. His figure on horseback was superb. Horse and man seemed
one.
He looked over his shoulder, saw her at the window and waved again. She
ran to her room, closed the door, took his picture to bed with her and
cried herself to sleep.
The thing that had so worried her was that Colonel Sumner was taking
Major Sedgwick with him for conference and a single squadron of fifty
men under Stuart's command. The little bride had found out that he was
the sole leader of the fifty fighting men and her quick wit had sensed
the danger of the possible extermination of such a force in a battle
with desperadoes. She was ashamed of her breakdown. But she knew her man
was brave and that he loved a fight. She would count the hours until his
return.
Brown rallied a hundred and fifty men when the squadron of cavalry was
ordered to the rescue of Pate and his posse. He entrenched himself on an
island in Middle Ottawa Creek and from this stronghold raided and robbed
the stores within range of his guerrillas. On June 3rd, he successfully
looted the store of J. M. Bernard at Centropolis and secured many
valuables, particularly clothing.
The raiding party was returning from the looted store as Stuart's
cavalry troop was approaching Brown's camp.
The cavalry arrived in the nick of time. A battle was imminent that
might have ended in a massacre. Within striking distance of Brown's
island Colonel Sumner encountered General Whitfield, a Southern Member
of Congress, at the head of a squadron of avengers, two hundred and
fifty strong, heavily armed and well mounted.
Sumner acted with quick decision. He confronted Whitfield and spoke with
a quiet emphasis not to be mistaken:
"By order of the President of the United States and the Governor of the
Territory, I am here to disperse all armed bodies assembled without
authority."
"May I see the order of the President, sir?" Whitfield asked.
"You may."
The telegraphic order was handed to the leader. He read it in silence
and handed it back without a word.
Colonel Sumner continued:
"My duty is plain and I'll do it."
He signaled Stuart to draw up his company for action. The Lieutenant
promptly obeyed. Fifty regulars wheeled and faced two hundred and fifty
rugged horsemen of the plains.
Whitfield consulted his second in command and while they talked Colonel
Sumner again addressed him:
"Ask your people to assemble. I wish to read to them the President's
order and the Governor's proclamation."
Whitfield called his men. In solemn tones Sumner read the documents.
Whitfield saw that his men were impressed.
"I shall not resist the authority of the General Government. My party
will disperse."
He promptly ordered them to disband. In five minutes they had
disappeared.
On the approach of the company of cavalry, John Brown, with a single
guard, walked boldly forward to meet them.
Colonel Sumner heard his amazing request with rising wrath. He spoke as
one commanding a body of coordinate power.
"I have come to suggest the arrangement of terms between our forces,"
Brown coolly suggested.
"No officer of law, sir," Sumner sternly replied, "can make terms with
lawless, armed men. I am here to execute the orders of the President.
You will surrender your prisoners immediately, disarm your men and
disperse or take the consequences."
Brown turned without a word and slowly walked back to his camp. The
United States cavalry followed close at his heels with drawn sabers,
Stuart at their head.
Colonel Sumner summoned Brown before Sedgwick and Stuart and made to him
an announcement which he thought but fair.
"I must tell you now that there is with my company a Deputy United
States Marshal, who holds warrants for several men in your camp. Those
warrants will be served in my presence."
Brown's glittering eye rested on the Deputy Marshal. He moved uneasily
and finally said in a low tone:
"I don't recognize any one for whom I have warrants."
The grim face of the man of visions never relaxed a muscle.
Sumner turned to the Deputy indignantly.
"Then what are you here for?"
He made no answer. And Stuart laughed in derision.
During this tense moment the keen blue eyes of the Lieutenant of cavalry
studied John Brown with the interest of a soldier in the man who knows
not fear.
At first glance he was a sorry figure. He was lean and gaunt and looked
taller than he was for that reason. His face was deeply sun tanned and
seamed. He looked a rough, hard-working old farmer. The decided stoop
of his shoulders gave the exaggerated impression of age. His face was
shaved. He wore a coarse cotton shirt, a clean one that had just been
stolen from Bernard's store. It was partly covered by a vest. His hat
was an old slouched felt, well worn. In general appearance he was
dilapidated, dusty, and soiled.
The young officer was too keen a judge of character to be deceived
by clothes on a Western frontier. The dusty clothes and worn hat he
scarcely saw. It was the terrible mouth that caught and held his
imagination. It was the mouth of a relentless foe. It was the mouth of a
man who might speak the words of surrender when cornered. But he could
no more surrender than he could jump out of his skin.
Stuart was willing to risk his life on a wager that if he consented to
lay down his arms, he had more concealed and that he would sleep on them
that night in the brush.
The low forehead and square, projecting chin caught and held his fancy.
It was the jaw and chin of the fighting animal. No man who studied that
jaw would care to meet it in the dark.
But the thing that had put the Deputy out of commission as warrant
officer of the Government was the old man's strange, restless eyes.
Stuart caught their steel glitter with a sense of the uncanny. He
had never seen a human eye that threw at an enemy a look quite so
disconcerting. He had laughed at the Deputy's fear to move with fifty
dragoons to back him. There was some excuse for it. Back of those
piercing points of steel-blue light were one hundred and fifty armed
followers. What would happen if he should turn to these men and tell
them to fight the cavalry of the United States? It was an open question.
The old man walked toward his men with wiry, springing step.
The prisoners were released.
Stuart shook hands with Pate, who was a Virginian and a former student
of the University.
Brown's men laid down their arms and dispersed.
True to Stuart's surmise he did not move far from his entrenched camp.
He anticipated a fake surrender to the troops. He had concealed weapons
for the faithful but half a mile away. With Weiner he built a new camp
fire before Stuart's cavalry had moved two miles.