rom you daily from now on. Stop your excursions
into the country, except to meet me in broad daylight in the woods this
side of our headquarters. You understand?"

"Yes. You can depend on me."

Brown watched him with grave misgivings. He was the one man on whom
he depended least and yet his life and the life of every one in his
enterprise was in his hands. There were more reasons than one why he
must hasten the final preparations for the Deed.

The suspicions of the neighbors had been roused in spite of the utmost
vigilance. He had increased his disciples to twenty men. He had induced
his younger son, Watson, to leave North Elba and join them. His own
daughter, Annie, and Oliver's wife had come with Watson, and the two
women were doing the work for his band--cooking, washing, and scrubbing
without a murmur.

The men were becoming restless in their close confinement. Five of them
were negroes. Brown's disciples made no objections to living, eating
and sleeping with these blacks. Such equality was one of the cardinal
principles of their creed.

But the danger of the discovery of the presence of freed negroes
living in this farmhouse with two white women and a group of white men
increased each day.

The headquarters had a garrulous old woman for a neighbor. Gradually,
Mrs. Huffmeister became curious about the doings at the farm. She began
to invent daily excuses for a visit. They might be real, of course, but
the old man's daughter became uneasy. As she cleaned the table, washed
the dishes and swept the floors of the rooms and the porch, she was
constantly on the lookout for this woman.

The thing that had fascinated her was the man whom this girl called
father. His name was "Smith," but it didn't seem to fit him. She was an
illiterate German and knew nothing of the stirring events in Kansas. But
her eyes followed the head huntsman with fascinated curiosity.

At this time his personal appearance was startling in its impressive
power, when not on guard or in disguise. His brilliant eyes, his flowing
white beard and stooped shoulders arrested attention instantly and held
it. He was sixty years old by the calendar and looked older. And yet
always the curious thing about him was that the impression of age was on
the surface. It was given only when he was still. The moment he moved
in the quick, wiry, catlike way that was his habit, age vanished. The
observer got the impression of a wild beast crouching to spring.

I