ntime, he issued his first
order of the Great Deed. He selected John E. Cook as his scout and spy
and dispatched him to Harper's Ferry, Virginia, to map its roads, study
its people and reconnoiter the surrounding territory.

He raised the money to pay Cook's fare and saw him on the train for
Virginia before he started for Kansas to spring his second national
sensation.

CHAPTER XXV

Brown's scout reached the town of Harper's Ferry on June 5, 1858. The
magnificent view which greeted his vision as he stepped from the
train took his breath. The music of trembling waters seemed a grand
accompaniment to an Oratorio of Nature.

The sensitive mind of the young Westerner responded to its soul appeal.
He stood for half an hour enraptured with its grandeur. Two great
rivers, the Potomac and the Shenandoah, rushing through rock-hewn gorges
to the sea, unite here to hurl their tons of foaming waters against the
last granite wall of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Beyond the gorge, through which the roaring tide has cut its path, lies
the City of Washington on the banks of the Potomac, but sixty miles
away--a day's journey on a swift horse; an hour and a half by rail.

Cook at first had sharply criticized Brown's selection of such a place
for the scene of the Great Deed. As he stood surveying in wonder the
sublimity of its scenery he muttered softly:

"The old man's a wizard!"

The rugged hills and the rush of mighty waters called the soul to great
deeds. There was something electric in the air. The town, the rivers,
the mountains summoned the spirit to adventure. The tall chimneys of the
United States Arsenal and Rifle Works called to war. The lines of hills
were made for the emplacement of guns. The roaring waters challenged the
skill of generals.

The scout felt his heart beat in quick response. The more he studied the
hills that led to High Knob, a peak two thousand four hundred feet in
height, the more canny seemed the choice of Brown. From the top of this
peak stretches the county of Fauquier, the beginning of the Black Belt
of the South. Fauquier County contained more than ten thousand Slaves
and seven hundred freed negroes. There were but nine thousand eight
hundred whites. From this county to the sea lay a series of adjoining
counties in which the blacks outnumbered the whites. These counties
contained more than two hundred and sixty thousand negroes.

The Black Belt of Virginia touched the Black Belts of North