Page:Six months in Kansas.djvu/136

132 another band of ruffians. He seemed very tired, anxious, and uncertain for a time what course to pursue. He thought it very important for some one to go east for assistance. No one offered to go ; and early in the afternoon he started off on this eastern enterprise, taking quite another route from that which passes the Missourian camps, and is usually travelled, as being the most direct to Kansas City. He crossed the Kansas river from the foot of Massachusetts street, landing in the Delaware country, intending to go down the course of the river on that side. But we have some Missourians living in this town who act as spies; and the General had gone but a short distance before he was captured. So much Typhoid has communicated; adding, that rumor said he was murdered. But I do not believe a word of that part. The idea of lynching a man so wide-awake and strong as he is, with his mild, clear eyes, his brown, good-humored face, reminding me always (I hope it won't look disrespectful to you, I'm quite sure it does not seem so to me) of the unreddened jams of the old, time-honored fire-places, such as were, in the time of wood, before coal was hoisted