See him making his way with
twelve fugitive slaves from Missouri, through Kansas, Nebraska,
Iowa, Illinois, and Michigan to Canada. It is the dead of
winter, and the rough wagons travel heavily and slowly along the
drifted roads. There is a price on his head in these Southern
States--3,250 dollars offered conjointly by the Governor of
Missouri and President Pierce--and the stations are sometimes
thirty miles apart. They come to a creek, and there is the State
Marshal awaiting them with eighty armed men--for he thought he
had better have a good force, as he heard it was John Brown he
might encounter. John puts his host of twenty-three men all told
into battle array in front of the wagons, and gives the laconic
order, 'Now go straight at 'em, boys, they are sure to run.'
Into the water his men charge--but the baptism of water is all
they are fated to pass through; there is no baptism of fire to
follow, for, scared at the impulsive charge, and filled with
vague terror at that irrepressible John Brown, the Marshal
springs upon his horse and skedaddles. His men scramble to their
horses. Some cannot untie them from the shrubs quickly enough;
several animals carry two men, and, to complete the ludicrousness
of the scene, one man, fearing he might be too late, grips fast
the tail of the steed to which the proper rider has just set
spurs, and, vainly trying to spring on behind, is seen with his
feet off the ground, being whirled through the air.
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