Mrs. Speck received the Sheriff graciously, explained to him that her husband was absent, but would soon return, but to all questions as touching his present whereabouts, she shook her head mysteriously and refused to explain.  The thing looked suspicious.  Was it possible that Lane was even now in the neighborhood? and the Sheriff went back to his posse to hold a council of war.  He had stationed them on a high bluff on the north bank of the Stranger Creek, and, looking across the wide timbered bottom to the opposite bluff, they could dimly see a large number of objects approaching through the brush-wood.  What could it be?  Was it Lane coming to attack him?  And now two horsemen emerged from the brush and rode on a full gallop down the bluff.

“It is Lane!  It is Lane!” they cried.  “Let us ride back to Atchison and get ready to defend the town,” and on a gallop they skedaddled back to Atchison.

Mr. Speck had been with some of his neighbors to bring home a herd of cattle.  An old cow had broken from the herd, intending to get back to her former grazing ground, and Mr. Speck and his neighbors had ridden full gallop to head her off.  On reaching home, and learning of the visit of the Sheriff, he went at once to Atchison to give bonds to keep the peace; and to make all things square, he took with him the rusty old musket and proffered it to the gentleman that had been so solicitous to get it.  Mr. Speck assured him that Mrs. S. was now willing he should have it, and would not shoot him if he took it.

These gentlemen had been making money out of pocket.  They had been frightened out of their wits by a spunky woman; and forty armed men, with a loaded cannon, had been stampeded and made to run pell-mell into Atchison by a herd of cattle and two or three men on horseback, riding at full gallop after an old cow.

These men had undertaken to do a wicked thing, and had been made ridiculous in doing so; and this contributed largely to that revolution in the public opinion of the county, which had been going on for eighteen months, and which at the last compelled a radical change in the policy of these “Border Ruffian” leaders.  But this again gave the chiefs of this conspiracy abundant experience that it pays to do right, and that a good Providence had brought them prosperity and honor by defeating their original counsels and turning them into foolishness.

But first we must tell of the carnival of riot, ruin, and robbing that had been going on in other parts of the Territory.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The Squatter Sovereign, in its issue of July 1st, made the following announcement: