from.  Pocahontas, and that he therefore had Indian blood in his veins.  Born and reared on the frontier, tall, muscular, and raw-boned, an utter stranger to fear, a dead shot with pistol or rifle, cool and self-possessed in danger, he had become known far and near as a desperate and dangerous man when meddled with.  But he had been converted, and had become a member of the Christian Church, and according to the light that was in him he did his best to conform his life to the maxims of the New Testament, and conscientiously sought to confine all exhibition of “physical force” to such occasions as those in which he might be compelled to defend himself.  Then it was not likely to be a healthy business for his antagonist.

After securing my claim, and commencing to build a cabin, I began to look around me.  Fully three-fourths of the squatters of this whole region were from the border counties of Missouri.  But in Western Missouri the percentage of Disciples was perhaps larger than in any other portion of the United States, consequently I had brethren on every side of me.  These men certainly were not refined and educated men, as the phrase goes, still they had the qualities that our Lord found in the fisherman of Galilee.

One thought was in every man’s heart, and on every man’s tongue.  The name Squatter Sovereign, that had been given to the Atchison newspaper, indicated the trend of public opinion.  They had been flattered with the idea that if they would come to Kansas they should be “Squatter Sovereigns,” that the domestic institutions of the infant Territory should be determined not by the nation, nor by Congress, but by themselves.  And yet, when the election day came, every election precinct in the Territory, except one, was taken possession of by bodies of men from Missouri, and the elections had been carried, not by bona side citizens, but by an outside invasion.  With pain and shame, and bitter resentment, my neighbors told me how they had driven their wagons to the place of voting, on the prairie, and hitched their horses to their wagons, and were quietly going about their business, when with a great whoop and hurrah, which frightened their horses and made them break loose from their wagons, a company of men came in sight, and with swagger and bluster, took possession of the polls, and proceeded to do the voting.  Meantime whisky flowed like water, and the men, far gone in liquor, turned the place into a bedlam.  In utter humiliation and disgust many of the squatters went home.  Caleb May did not get into the neighborhood till afternoon.  Before he got to the place of voting, he met Joseph Potter, and on hearing what was done he threw his hat on the ground, and in a towering rage protested he would no longer vote with a party that would treat the people of the Territory in such a way as that.  This was done in March, but so far as any public expression of sentiment was concerned, the people seemed dumb.  No public meeting was called in the way of protest till the next September, and that meeting was held at Big Springs, sixty miles from Atchison.