first in consternation and loudly, then faintly, disclaimed the deed. Suddenly they saw and laid the lie aside, and seized their Sharps rifles. There was war in Kansas—a quick sweeping change from the passive appeal to law and justice which did not respond, to the appeal to force and blood. The deed did not make Kansas free—no one, least of all John Brown, dreamed that it would. But it brought to the fore in free state councils the men who were determined to fight for freedom, and it meant the end of passive resistance. The carnival of crime and rapine that ensued was a disgrace to civilization but it was the cost of freedom, and it was less than the price of repression. There were pitched battles, the building and besieging of forts, the burning of homes, stealing of property, raping of women and murder of men, until the scared governor signed a truce, exchanged prisoners and fled for his life. The wildest pro-slavery elements, now loosed from all restraint, planned a last desperate blow. Nearly 3,000 men were mustered in Missouri. The new governor, whose cortège barely escaped highway robbery, found "desolation and ruin" on every hand; "homes and firesides were deserted; the smoke of burning dwellings darkened the atmosphere: women and children, driven from their habitations, wandered over the prairies and among the woodlands, or sought refuge and protection even among the Indian tribes; the highways were infested with numerous predatory bands, and the towns were fortified and garrisoned by armies of
