The cavalry arrived in the nick of time. A battle was imminent that might have ended in a ma.s.sacre. Within striking distance of Brown"s island Colonel Sumner encountered General Whitfield, a Southern Member of Congress, at the head of a squadron of avengers, two hundred and fifty strong, heavily armed and well mounted.
Sumner acted with quick decision. He confronted Whitfield and spoke with a quiet emphasis not to be mistaken:
"By order of the President of the United States and the Governor of the Territory, I am here to disperse all armed bodies a.s.sembled without authority."
"May I see the order of the President, sir?" Whitfield asked.
"You may."
The telegraphic order was handed to the leader. He read it in silence and handed it back without a word.
Colonel Sumner continued:
"My duty is plain and I"ll do it."
He signaled Stuart to draw up his company for action. The Lieutenant promptly obeyed. Fifty regulars wheeled and faced two hundred and fifty rugged hors.e.m.e.n of the plains.
Whitfield consulted his second in command and while they talked Colonel Sumner again addressed him:
"Ask your people to a.s.semble. I wish to read to them the President"s order and the Governor"s proclamation."
Whitfield called his men. In solemn tones Sumner read the doc.u.ments.
Whitfield saw that his men were impressed.
"I shall not resist the authority of the General Government. My party will disperse."
He promptly ordered them to disband. In five minutes they had disappeared.
On the approach of the company of cavalry, John Brown, with a single guard, walked boldly forward to meet them.
Colonel Sumner heard his amazing request with rising wrath. He spoke as one commanding a body of coordinate power.
"I have come to suggest the arrangement of terms between our forces,"
Brown coolly suggested.
"No officer of law, sir," Sumner sternly replied, "can make terms with lawless, armed men. I am here to execute the orders of the President.
You will surrender your prisoners immediately, disarm your men and disperse or take the consequences."
Brown turned without a word and slowly walked back to his camp. The United States cavalry followed close at his heels with drawn sabers, Stuart at their head.
Colonel Sumner summoned Brown before Sedgwick and Stuart and made to him an announcement which he thought but fair.
"I must tell you now that there is with my company a Deputy United States Marshal, who holds warrants for several men in your camp. Those warrants will be served in my presence."
Brown"s glittering eye rested on the Deputy Marshal. He moved uneasily and finally said in a low tone:
"I don"t recognize any one for whom I have warrants."
The grim face of the man of visions never relaxed a muscle.
Sumner turned to the Deputy indignantly.
"Then what are you here for?"
He made no answer. And Stuart laughed in derision.
During this tense moment the keen blue eyes of the Lieutenant of cavalry studied John Brown with the interest of a soldier in the man who knows not fear.
At first glance he was a sorry figure. He was lean and gaunt and looked taller than he was for that reason. His face was deeply sun tanned and seamed. He looked a rough, hard-working old farmer. The decided stoop of his shoulders gave the exaggerated impression of age. His face was shaved. He wore a coa.r.s.e cotton shirt, a clean one that had just been stolen from Bernard"s store. It was partly covered by a vest. His hat was an old slouched felt, well worn. In general appearance he was dilapidated, dusty, and soiled.
The young officer was too keen a judge of character to be deceived by clothes on a Western frontier. The dusty clothes and worn hat he scarcely saw. It was the terrible mouth that caught and held his imagination. It was the mouth of a relentless foe. It was the mouth of a man who might speak the words of surrender when cornered. But he could no more surrender than he could jump out of his skin.
Stuart was willing to risk his life on a wager that if he consented to lay down his arms, he had more concealed and that he would sleep on them that night in the brush.
The low forehead and square, projecting chin caught and held his fancy.
It was the jaw and chin of the fighting animal. No man who studied that jaw would care to meet it in the dark.
But the thing that had put the Deputy out of commission as warrant officer of the Government was the old man"s strange, restless eyes.
Stuart caught their steel glitter with a sense of the uncanny. He had never seen a human eye that threw at an enemy a look quite so disconcerting. He had laughed at the Deputy"s fear to move with fifty dragoons to back him. There was some excuse for it. Back of those piercing points of steel-blue light were one hundred and fifty armed followers. What would happen if he should turn to these men and tell them to fight the cavalry of the United States? It was an open question.
The old man walked toward his men with wiry, springing step.
The prisoners were released.
Stuart shook hands with Pate, who was a Virginian and a former student of the University.
Brown"s men laid down their arms and dispersed.
True to Stuart"s surmise he did not move far from his entrenched camp.
He antic.i.p.ated a fake surrender to the troops. He had concealed weapons for the faithful but half a mile away. With Weiner he built a new camp fire before Stuart"s cavalry had moved two miles.
CHAPTER XXIII
The man with the slouched hat and coa.r.s.e cotton shirt lost no time in grieving over the dispersal of his one hundred and fifty men. It was the largest force he had ever a.s.sembled. His experience in the three days in which he had acted as their commander had greatly angered him. The frontiersman who failed to come under the spell of Brown"s personality by direct contact generally refused to obey his orders.
The crowd of free rangers which his fight with Pate had gathered proved themselves beyond control. They raided the surrounding country without Brown"s knowledge.
They stole from friend and foe with equal impartiality. There was one consolation in his surrender to the United States troops. He got rid of these troublesome followers. They had already robbed him of the spoils of his own successful raids and not one of them had shown any inclination to bring in the enemies" goods for common use.
He began to choose the most faithful among them for a scheme of wider scope and more tragic daring. He was not yet sure of his plan. But G.o.d would reveal it clearly.
He spent a week at his new camp in the woods wandering alone, dreaming, praying, weighing this new scheme from every point of view.
His mind came back again and again to the puzzle of the failure to raise a National Blood Feud.
For a moment his indomitable Puritan soul was discouraged. He had obeyed the command of his G.o.d. He could not have been mistaken in the voice which spoke from Heaven: