A search for Pate.
Through the whole of that Sunday night did
Captain Brown and Shore's united company hunt for
Captain Pate; but their search was unsuccessful.
As the gray dawn of Monday morning, June 2d, glimmered in, they had returned to
Prairie City, when two scouts brought the tidings that the enemy was encamped on
Black Jack, some four or five miles off. A small party was left to. guard the four prisoners, and the remainder immediately took up their line of march for the enemy.
Of those who thus left
Prairie City,
Captain Shore's company numbered twenty men, himself included; and
Captain Brown had nine men besides himself.
They rode towards the
Black Jack.
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Arrived within a mile of it, they left their horses, and two of their men to guard them.
They despatched two other messengers to distant points for additional assistance, if it should be needed.
The remainder,twenty-six men, all told,--in two divisions, each captain having his own men, marched quietly forward on the enemy.
On Sunday night, there were sixty men in the proslavery camp on the
Black Jack.
Three or four wagons had been drawn up in a line, as a sort of breastwork, several rods out on the prairie from the ravine, and one of the tents was there.
Such was the state of affairs when the outer picket-guard, about seven o'clock in the morning, galloped in and reported, “The abolitionists are coming!”
“Where? How many?”
There was a hurrying to and fro, and seizing of arms.
“Across the prairie — there's a hundred of them,” cried the frightened border ruffians, whose fears had multiplied the approaching force by four, and who probably had never stopped to examine carefully or to count, but had galloped off as soon as he caught the first glimpse of them.
