North Carolina, and she
was proud of her Southern blood; and the husband and wife did not come
to Kansas to be run over by anybody. Yet they were eminently peaceable
people, if let alone. These gentlemen in Atchison had determined to
disarm the Free State people living in the country; and Mr. Speck,
being a Free State man, open and avowed, they called on him, but he
was not at home. They therefore asked his wife: "Has your husband a
rifle, musket, or fire-arms of any kind?" She brought out an old Queen
Anne's musket, as rusty and worn as if it had been in service ever
since the Revolutionary war. But while they were inspecting the rusty
old thing, whether it was worth carrying away, she took from a closet
a bran span new double-barrel fowling-piece, and, putting her finger
on the trigger, she said, "Now, sir, if you do not lay down that
musket and leave the house, I will shoot you." If this gentleman had
suddenly roused up a female tiger, he would not have been more
terror-stricken than when he found himself facing this woman, blazing
with scorn and irrepressible resentment, and he concluded he did not
want the rusty old musket, _and did not ask to examine the other one._

Mr. S. had threatened to flog one of his Pro-slavery neighbors who had
insulted him, as he alleged, and the man went to Atchison and made
oath that he was in fear of his life, and the Sheriff was sent out
with a warrant to arrest Mr. Speck. But at this time Leavenworth
county was full of murder and bloodshed; guerrilla parties, both Free
State and Pro-slavery, were fighting in many parts of the Territory,
and Lane had returned, and was leading the Free State men in this
warfare, and had threatened with many oaths to wipe out Atchison, and
there were rumors that he was already near at hand. And so, to provide
against all contingencies, the Sheriff was accompanied by a _posse_ of
forty armed men, who took with them a cannon which had been loaned to
Atchison by the people of Missouri.

Mrs. Speck received the Sheriff graciously, explained to him that her
husband was absent, but would soon return, but to all questions as
touching his present whereabouts, she shook her head mysteriously and
refused to explain. The thing looked suspicious. Was it possible that
Lane was even now in the neighborhood? and the Sheriff went back to
his _posse_ to hold a council of war. He had stationed them on a high
bluff on the north bank of the Stranger Creek, and, looking