Page:John Brown (1899).pdf/103

 not permit,—which seems very strange (if he had really intended to go) in a man who had resolutely lived an outlaw's life in Kansas while extremely ill with fever, and had then [shown no hesitation about risking his health at every turn. The fact was that he did not wish to put the two hundred precious Sharpe's rifles, which Lane knew he had, and was eagerly trying to get, into the hands of Kansas bushwhackers. He knew that; if he did, he would never get them back again. Nor did he propose to reveal the plan for the Virginia raid to the Kansas people.

The Eastern Anti-slavery folk were also egging Brown on to go to Kansas and "give them some backbone." They were as yet in the dark as to his schemes. These Eastern people had agreed to pay Gerrit Smith one thousand dollars for the farm which Brown's family occupied in the Adirondacks: they did give it at last, but the money came very slowly.