provoke civil war.

John Brown spent long hours in prayer after the final vote on the negro
issue had been counted. He denounced the leaders in politics in Kansas
as trimmers, time servers, sycophants and liars. He walked beneath
the star-sown skies through the night. He wrestled with his God for a
vision.

There must be a way to Action.

He rose from prayer at dawn after a sleepless night and called for his
sons, Owen, Oliver, Frederick and Salmon, to get ready for a journey. He
had received a first hint of the will of God. He believed it might lead
to the way.

He organized a surveyor's party and disguised himself as a United States
Surveyor. He had brought to Kansas a complete outfit for surveying land.
He instructed Owen and Frederick to act as chain carriers, Salmon as
axeman and Oliver as marker. He reached the little Southern settlement
on the Pottawattomie Creek the fifteenth of May.

He planted his compass on the bank of the creek near the Doyles' house
and proceeded to run a base line.

The father and three boys were in the fields at work beyond the hill.

He raised his compass and followed the chainman to the Doyles' door. The
mother and little girl trudged behind, delighted with the diversion of
the party, so rare on the lonely prairies. Little could they dream the
grim deed that was shaping in the soul of the Surveyor.

When they reached the house she turned to the old man with Southern
courtesy:

"Won't you come in, sir, and rest a few minutes?"

The strange, blue-gray eyes glanced restlessly toward the hill and he
signaled his sons:

"Rest awhile, boys."

Frederick and Oliver sat down on a pile of logs. Salmon and Owen, at
a nod from their father, wandered carelessly toward the stable and
outhouses.

Owen found the dog Doyle had brought from Virginia and took pains to
make friends with him.

Brown's keen, restless eyes carefully inspected the door, its fastenings
and the strength of its hinges. The iron of the hinges was flimsy. The
fastening was the old-fashioned wooden shutters hung outside and closed
with a single slide. He noted with a quick glance that there was no
cross bar of heavy wood nor any sockets in which such a bar could be
dropped.

The windows were small. There was no glass. Solid wooden shutters hung
outside and closed with a single hook and eye for fastenings.

The sun was setting before the surveying party stopped work. They
had run a line close to the house of e