-looking man of the woods,
who has been left in charge of the horses, comes riding upon a pony
none too large for its ungainly burden. He waves his long arms,
shouting, 'Come on, boys, we've got 'em surrounded and cut off their
communications.' The enemy are scared at the apparition, and their
captain, thinking there is no fathoming the plots of these Browns,
sends a lieutenant forward with a flag of truce. John Brown asks, 'Are
you captain!' 'No.' 'I will talk with him, not with you.' Captain
Fate advances with much parley. 'Any proposition to make?'
impatiently asks John Brown. 'No.' Then he (John Brown) has
one--unconditional surrender; and with eight men he has soon secured
twenty prisoners. So all through that summer Brown was wellnigh
ubiquitous in harassing the enemy, and their dispatches betray their
terror of him by ludicrous exaggerations of his achievements. But it
is certain he lived as nearly up to his terrible reputation as he
could. At Franklin, at Washington Creek, and at Osawatomie we find him
in evidence. Here are extracts from his letters in reference to the
attack made by the pro-slavery men at the last-mentioned place. 'On
the morning of August 30 an attack was made by the ruffians on
Osawatomie, numbering some 400, by whose scouts our dear Frederick was
shot dead.' (This was his son, and it was by a Methodist preacher's
rifle he was killed. Such was the support which the pulpit sometimes
gave in those turbulent days to the slavery cause.) 'At this time I was
about three miles off, where I had some fourteen or fifteen men
over-night that had just enlisted under me. These I collected with
some twelve or fifteen more, and in about three-quarters of an hour I
attacked them from a wood with thick undergrowth.

'With this force we threw them into confusion for about fifteen or
twenty minutes, during which time we killed or wounded from seventy to
eighty of the enemy--as they say--and then we escaped as we could with
one killed, two or three wounded, and as many more missing. Jason
(another son) fought bravely by my side. I was struck by a partly
spent shot which bruised me some, but did not injure me seriously.
"Hitherto the Lord has helped me, notwithstanding my afflictions."'

Later there was a futile attack upon Lawrence by 2,700 Of the Border
ruffians, and while the governor claimed afterwards the credit for the
failure of the attack, it is certain that his dilatory intervention had