. Her
voice was the softest Southern drawl.

The Kennedys were not slave holders. The pretty daughter joyfully helped
her mother when she came home from school. Her sentiments were Southern
without the over emphasis sometimes heard among the prouder daughters
of the old regime. These Southern sentiments formed another impassable
barrier. Cook said this a hundred times to himself and sought to make
the barrier more formidable by repeating aloud his own creed when in his
room alone.

The fight was vain. He drifted into seeing her a few minutes alone each
day. She had liked him from the first. He felt it. He knew it. He had
liked her from the first, and she knew it.

Each night he swore he'd go to bed without seeing her and each night he
laughed and said:

"Just this once more and it won't count."

He felt himself drifting into a tragedy. Yet to save his life he
couldn't lay hold of anything that would stand the strain of the sweet
invitation in those brown eyes.

To avoid her he spent days tramping over the hills. And always he came
back more charmed than ever. The spell she was weaving about his heart
was resistless.

CHAPTER XXVI

Brown returned to Kansas with Stevens and Kagi, his two bravest and most
intelligent disciples.

If he could make the tryout of his plan sufficiently sensational, his
prestige would be restored, his chief disciples become trained veterans
and his treasury be filled.

When he arrived, the Free State forces had again completely triumphed at
the ballot box. They had swept the Territory by a majority of three to
one in the final test vote on the new Constitution. The issue of Slavery
in Kansas was dead. It had been settled for all time.

Such an inglorious end for all his dreams of bloodshed did not depress
the man of visions. Kansas no longer interested him except as a
rehearsal ground for the coming drama of the Great Deed.

He had carefully grown a long gray beard for the make-up of his new
role. It completely changed his appearance. He not only changed his
make-up, but he also changed his name. The title he gave to the new
character which he had come to play was, "Shubel Morgan."

The revelation of his identity would be all the more dramatic when it
came.

When his men and weapons had been selected, he built his camp fire on
the Missouri Border. His raid was carefully planned in consultation with
Stevens, Kagi and Tidd. With these trusted followers he had rallied a
do