Page:John Brown (W. E. B. Du Bois).djvu/312

302 schoolhouse, and the folks left at home forgot to keep a sharp lookout for Mrs. Heiffmaster, and she stole into the house before they saw her, and saw Shields Green (that must have been in September), Barclay Coppoc, and Will Leeman. And another time after that she saw C. P. Tidd standing on the porch. She thought these strangers were running off negroes to the North. I used to give her everything she wanted     or asked for to keep her on good terms, but we were in constant fear that she was either a spy or would betray us. It was like standing on a powder magazine, after a slow match had been lighted."

Despite all precautions, rumor began to get in the air. A Prussian Pole was among the Kansas co-operators invited. He had been in Kansas in 1856 and was known to Brown and Kagi. After hearing from Brown in August, 1859, the Pole disclosed their plans to Edmund Babb, a correspondent of the Cincinnati Gazette. It was probably Babb who thereupon wrote to the United States Secretary of War: "I have discovered the existence of a secret association, having for its object the liberation of the slaves at the South and by a general insurrection. The leader of the movement is 'old John Brown,' late of Kansas." Approximately correct details of the plot followed; but Secretary Floyd was lolling at a summer resort and had some little conspiracies of his own in hand not unconnected with United States arsenals. Being, therefore, as he said magniloquently, "satisfied in my own mind