ions. The reaction was overwhelming. He was correct in his faith
that a blood feud once raised, all appeal to reason and common sense,
all appeal to law, order, tradition, religion would be vain babble. But
he had failed to gauge the moral sense of his own party. They had not
yet accepted the theory which he held with such passionate conviction.

Brown's moral code was summed up in one passage from the Bible which he
quoted and brooded over daily:

"WITHOUT THE SHEDDING OF BLOOD THERE IS NO REMISSION OF SINS."

But he had made a mistake in the spot chosen for rousing the Blood Feud.
Men had instantly seen red. They sprang to their arms. They leaped as
tigers leap on their prey. But his own people were the prey. He had
miscalculated the conditions of frontier life, though he had not yet
realized it. His stubborn, restless mind clung to the idea that the
stark horror of the crimes which he had committed in the name of Liberty
would call at last all men who stood for Freedom.

He held his armed band in camp under the sternest discipline to await
this call of the blood.

The Southern avengers who swarmed across the Missouri border into the
region of Osawatomie accepted Brown's standards of justice and mercy
without question. A few men of education among them were the only
restraining influence.

Through these exciting days the old man would show himself at daylight
in different places removed from his camp in the woods. While squadrons
of avengers were scouring the ravines, the river bottoms and the tangled
underbrush, he was lying quietly on his arms. Sometimes his pursuers
camped within hearing and got their water from the same spring.

With all his indomitable courage he was unable to rally sufficient men
to afford protection to his people. He was a fugitive from justice
with a price on his head. Yet, armed and surrounded by a small band of
faithful followers, he led a charmed life.

His deed on the Pottawattomie made murder the chief sport of the unhappy
Territory. The life of the frontier was reduced to anarchy. Outrages
became so common it was impossible to record them. Murder was a daily
incident. Many of them passed in secret. Many were not revealed for days
and weeks after they had been committed--then, only by the discovery of
the moldering remains of the dead. Two men were found hanging on a tree
near Westport. They were ill-fated Free State partisans who had fallen
by the hand of the avengers. The troops