James Redpath, The Public Life of Captain John Brown

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[111] of the soldiery, to which the horses, traced by a squatter, had been returned, I sat down and wrote a description of the adventure, which I entitled the Confessions of a Horse Thief. Now, how to send it? The mails were not safe ; the country was covered with guerillas; Leavenworth was in the hands of the ruffians; to send it from Lawrence was impossible. I heard of an old preacher, who lived a few miles off, and who was going to Kansas City in Missouri. I went to find him. His house was situated on the southern side of a creek, which is two or three miles from Prairie City. I was advised to seek the cabin of Captain Carpenter; and there, where armed men were constantly on guard, they would lead me to “Old Moore, the minister.”

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In camp.

The creeks of Kansas are all fringed with wood. I lost my way, or got off the path that crosses the creek above alluded to, when, suddenly, thirty paces before me, I saw a wild-looking man, of fine proportions, with half a dozen pistols of various sizes stuck in his belt, and a large Arkansas bowie-knife prominent among them. His head was uncovered; his hair was uncombed; his face had not been shaved for many months. We were similarly dressed — with red-topped boots worn over the pantaloons, a coarse blue shirt, and a pistol belt. This was the usual fashion of the times.

“Hullo!” he cried, “you're in our camp!”

He had nothing in his right hand — he carried a water-pail in his left; but, before he could speak again, I had drawn and cocked my eight-inch Colt.