border: the one being wholly unable to get or even to get at the other's Soul, and the other in turn being equally unable to get or get into the one's Body, till at last on a day the hour of redemption strikes and the straying Soul (of Right) slips into its bodily counterpart (the Law) and becomes incorporate. Whereof the account is given in a future chapter.

But this happy consummation cannot yet be, the grand Kansas discipline of Soul-wandering is still to continue. A cunning scheme is hatched to rob the Free-State men of their leaders, through a new device of the legal machine which has been so successfully made to work injustice in the name of justice. Then the wolves having banned the shepherds can easily take possession of the flock and wreak their savagery upon it in a fresh invasion of Kansas.

6

The Third Invasion.

The winter of 1855-6 in Kansas seemed to sympathize with the invaders by inflicting hardship and suffering upon the ill-housed and illprepared settlers. Mrs. Robinson, a daughter of New England and used to icy blasts, expressed herself thus: "To face a Missouri mob is nothing to facing these winds which sweep over the prairies." External nature environing man appeared to pre-figure his social condition and even his mental tumult. It is indeed a Perverted World without and within; the violators of Law are its executors, the innocent are the victims, the unjust not only escape but have all the instrumentalities of justice in their power, perverting them to the purpose of injustice. The Judiciary is now to be dragged into conflict, and brought to employ the form of legality for slaying its soul.

The pitiless winter did not wholly stop activity on either side. Robinson wrote in January, 1856, that he had knowledge of extensive preparations in Missouri for the destruction of Lawrence and all the Free-State settlements. He sent his information to the President, to Congress, but especially to the Governors of the Northern States, nearly all of whom were now

sympathetic with the Free-State aspiration of Kansas. Six men went East to buy munitions of war and to raise an army "for the defense of Kansas and the Union." In the spring when the weather had removed its ban, a stream of emigrants from the North began again to flow across the border and spread out over the plains of Kansas, each one taking his place with gun in hand somewhere in that longitudinal line of farms erected as a barrier against Missouri and the South.

But Missouri and the South were not idle. Bands of men from the Southern States began to come, the largest and most notable of which was organized in South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama, by Colonel Buford, consisting of 280 people whom we shall soon find among the invaders. Both sections, North and South, were openly preparing for the contest. Still Robinson hoped and believed that he could conquer without bloodshed" if his suggestions were acted upon in the Northern States. His strategy had

once made the invaders face about and take the back track into Missouri. He thought he could perform the same maneuver again with success and avoid war.

But a blow now descended upon him and his party from a source which he apparently did not take into account. The pro-slavery officials concocted a scheme of getting rid of the Free-State

leaders who had so often baffled them. They utilized for this purpose the Judiciary of the Territory whose Chief Justice, Lecompte, has won the distinction of being called the second Jeffries. He instructed the grand jury that those who resisted the Territorial Legislature were guilty of treason against the United States and were to be proceeded against by law. This was a blow aimed at the entire Topeka movement, and the anti-government of Robinson. The grand jury indicted at once Robinson, Lane, and Reeder, with other prominent FreeState men, for treason. The same grand jury declared two newspapers of Lawrence and its Free-State Hotel to be public nuisances and recommended their abatement. In this way the Federal Marshal was brought into the contest, and opposition meant resistance to the United States. The result is that Lane decamps secretly, Reeder escapes from the Territory in disguise after thrilling adventures, and Robinson is captured on his way to the East at Lexington, Missouri, and is brought back the captive of his foes to Kansas for trial. The work of Lecompte succeeded in making the Free-State men leaderless and hence helpless.

This was the opportunity for a new move against Lawrence, which, being without a head, can now be beheaded by the chivalrous borderThere must be a pretext for the attack,

er's,

and this pretext Sheriff Jones was to furnish. He went to the town for the purpose of arresting Wood, one of the chief rescuers of Branson. He was foiled in the attempt, and then tried his hand on others, one of whom gave him a stinging slap in the face. That was enough. He demanded of the Governor a detachment of Federal soldiers to assist him in executing his writs. He succeeded in heating the enmity of the Free-State community to the boiling point; during the excitement a frenzied youth shot him in the back, the wound not being very serious. Soon the news flew up and down the Missouri border that Sheriff Jones had been killed at Lawrence, rousing an intense feeling of vengeance against the hated town. But the citizens of Lawrence, in town meeting assembled, disowned the act, and offered five hundred dollars reward for the apprehension of the culprit.

At this juncture the United States Marshal, Donaldson, comes upon the stage to play his part. He summons a posse to arrest the traitors of Lawrence, and to abate the condemned nuisances. This was the golden opportunity, and again the Missourians responded, making their third armed Invasion of Kansas. Lawrence, leaderless and utterly paralyzed, offered no resistance and yielded every point with a prayer for mercy.

Some of the citizens charged with