had left his brother, or a girl had married a young man in the neighborhood, and as the young folks were poor, they had left the old folks and had gone to seek their fortune in the new Territory.  Of course the old folks would still have a care for the young couple.  They were in easy reach of each other, and would still visit back and forth.  Now who does not see that to touch any one of these was to touch all?  It was like touching a nest of hornets.  The reader will observe that these people had no quarrel with the people of the South:  they were bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh.  Neither had they any special quarrel with Southern institutions; only this, that they would rather live in a free State.  They did feel that way, and they could not help it.  But in one thing they had been sorely wounded.  In the invasion of Kansas, and in the carrying the elections by violence, their personal rights had been invaded, and they did resent that.  And now here were some Yankee neighbors whom they knew to be kindly and peaceable people, and whose help they needed in building up their churches; and yet these were to be murdered or driven out of the Territory for nothing! and it touched their Southern blood.  It was neither just nor right, and they would not allow it; and in such an issue there would be a common bond of sympathy on both sides of the river.  Moreover, such men as Oliver Steele, Judge Tutt and the Irvings and Harts and Christophers had grave misgivings what would be the final issue of this system of murder and violence that had been adopted to make Kansas a slave State.

And so it was that the leaders in this conspiracy, right here in this city and county of Atchison, which was their headquarters, found themselves strangely embarrassed and handicapped.  Their will was good enough, but how to carry out their purpose?—­that was the pinch.  A private assassination was a thing that looked easy enough at the first sight, but it might turn out that they had undertaken an ugly job for themselves.

A meeting of the Disciples was held at the house of Archibald Elliott in the month of June.  It was called quietly, and no noise made about it.  There was a large attendance, and it was evident that if we could hold regular meetings great good would be done.  But the neighborhood was soon filled with alarming rumors.  It was said that a company of South Carolinians were seen to go into a grove of bushes, about nightfall, where the writer would be expected to pass, and that they were seen to emerge from the same place the next morning.  One event, however, adjourned our meetings without date.  There was a man living in the western part of the county named Barnett, who was a man of considerable attainment, and had been a member of the Christian Church.  But he was given to drink.  His wife, however, who was an excellent Christian woman, remained steadfast to the church, and Barnett, as he saw his hold on the church and his hope of heaven slipping away from