But daylight had already begun to dawn.  Some of the wisest Pro-slavery men in the Territory were beginning to call a halt, and to say:  “We will travel no further in this road in which we are being led by these desperate and scheming adventurers.”

CHAPTER XXII.

Gov.  Geary had won ripe and rich honors from the people of this nation in the official positions he had heretofore held, and which he had discharged with such eminent ability.  The position of the Governor of Kansas, as seen from afar, and under the glamour that surrounded it, was a position of high honor.

Every child has heard the story of old “Blue Beard,” how that, having married a number of wives who had mysteriously disappeared, he courted and married a beautiful young lady, possessing every accomplishment that can give grace and attractiveness to a woman, and had carried her to his castle, where she should have at her disposal an unlimited amount of money and be served by obsequious servants, and stand on a level with all the fine ladies and gentlemen in the land.  Old Blue Beard gave to her the keys unlocking all the rooms in his castle, but said to her, “There is one key, unlocking one door, into one room, and into that room you must in nowise enter.”  But, overcome by her woman’s curiosity, she did unlock that door and enter that room, and there she beheld the horrid sight of all the murdered wives of the wicked old Blue Beard, hanging and rotting on its walls, and now this was also to be her sad fate.

Kansas was becoming the graveyard of Territorial Governors.  Reeder and Shannon had already lost their official heads.  Within six months Gov.  Geary’s head was also to drop into the basket.  Three more governors were to succeed him, each one of whom should in his turn lose his official head.  Gov.  Geary’s position was indeed very like that of the wife of the wicked Blue Beard, only that she had certainly some advantages over the Governor.  She had a great and fine castle, rich and costly dresses, many servants ready to come and go at her beck and call, and the company of great lords and fine ladies; but when Gov.  Geary came to his castle, his private Secretary shall tell us what he found: 

Lecompton is situated on the south side of the Kansas River, upon as inconvenient and inappropriate a site for a town as any in the Territory.  It was chosen simply for speculative purposes.  It contained, at the time of Gov.  Geary’s arrival, some twenty or more houses, the majority of which were employed as groggeries of the lowest description.  It was the residence of the celebrated Sheriff Jones, who is one of the leading members of this town association, and was the resort of horse-thieves and ruffians of the most desperate character.  Its drinking saloons were infested by these characters, whose drunkenness, gambling, fighting, and all sorts of crime, were indulged in with impunity.