This question, however, we did often ask ourselves:  “What had we done that we should be made to suffer thus?”

But now there was peace, and Sheriff Jones, breathing out curses against the Governor who had balked him of his anticipated revenge, disbanded his army and went back to his post-office at Westport.  It was past the middle of December, but some lingered on their way, robbing and stealing.  The cold grew intense.  A driving snow came down from the North.  It was one of the coldest winters Kansas had ever known, and there fell one of the deepest snows.  And now, winding through the deep snow, benumbed with cold, and all unprovided with clothing suitable for such inclement weather, the rear guard of the ring-streaked, speckled and spotted regiment of Kansas and Missouri Militia passed out of the Territory.

Thirteen leaders of the “Law and Order” party had met with Lane and Robinson, acting on behalf of the people of Lawrence, and had agreed to the terms of the treaty.  But Sheriff Jones is reported to have said:  “Had not Shannon been a fool I would have wiped out Lawrence.”  It is reported that Stringfellow said that “Shannon had sold himself and disgraced himself and the whole Pro-slavery party.”  Atchison accepted the terms, saying to his followers:  “Boys, we can not fight now.  The position that Lawrence has taken is such that it would not do to make an attack on them.  But boys, we will fight some time!”

The peace was to be broken at the earliest opportunity.

CHAPTER XII.

The winter of 1855-6 that I spent in Illinois was uneventful.  My success was not such as to discourage an evangelist that desires to be useful, neither was it such as to fill him with vanity.  The weather was intensely cold, and the snow was deep.

It is said that before the coming of an earthquake, the sea gives forth deep moanings, as if it felt the approaching convulsion; so at that time there seemed premonitions in the hearts of the people that the whole nation, North, South, East and West, would be swept by a political cyclone that should leave behind it the desolation that is sometimes, in the West India Islands, left in the track of a tropical hurricane.  We had heard of the murder of Dow, the rescue of Branson, and the invasion of Lawrence, and these certainly did not give promise that Kansas would be a favorable field for evangelical work, at least for a time.  The writer had not hitherto spent much of his time in Adams county; he now spent a considerable part of the winter there, and visited the churches of Quincy, Chambersburg, Camp Point, and many others.  The brethren at Quincy were making that experiment of monthly preaching that has been found so hazardous, especially to city churches.  They have since changed the plan with wonderfully good results.  It was at the church at Chambersburg that Bro.  Cottingham who has now won a national reputation, achieved some of his earliest successes.