g a church at Mt. Pleasant with such men to take the lead in
it.

CHAPTER VII.

It was now the middle of August. My cabin was completed, and I was ready
to go back and bring Mrs. Butler and the children to Kansas. Bro.
Elliott accompanied me to Atchison, where I intended to take a steamboat
to St. Louis, thence going up the Illinois River to Fulton county,
Illinois, where Mrs. Butler had been stopping with her sister.

The things that had been happening in the Territory had been so strange
and unheard of, and the threats of the _Squatter Sovereign_ had been so
savage and barbarous, that I wanted to carry back to my friends in
Illinois some evidence of what was going on. I went, therefore, with
Bro. Elliott to the _Squatter Sovereign_ printing office to purchase
extra copies of that paper. I was waited on by Robert S. Kelley. After
paying for my papers I said to him: "I should have become a subscriber
to your paper some time ago only there is one thing I do not like about
it." Mr. Kelley did not know me, and asked: "What is it?"

I replied: "I do not like the spirit of violence that characterizes
it."

He said: "I consider all Free-soilers rogues, and they are to be treated
as such."

I looked him for a moment steadily in the face, and then said to him:
"Well, sir, I am a Free-soiler; and I intend to vote for Kansas to be a
free State."

He fiercely replied: "You will not be allowed to vote."

When Bro. Elliott and myself had left the house, and were in the open
air, he clutched me nervously by the arm and said: "Bro. Butler! Bro.
Butler! You must not do such things; they will kill you!"

I replied: "If they do I can not help it."

Bro. E. was now to go home. But before going he besought me with earnest
entreaty not to bring down on my own head the vengeance of these men. I
thanked him for his regard for me, and we bade each other good-by.

Bro. E. had come to feel that my life was precious to the Christian
brethren in Atchison county. Except myself they had no preacher, and
they needed a preacher.

The steamboat bound for St. Louis that day had been detained, and would
not arrive until the next day. I must, therefore, stay over night in
Atchison. I conversed freely with the people that afternoon, and said to
them: "Under the Kansas-Nebraska bill, we that are free State men have
as good a right to come to Kansas as you have; and we have as good a
right to speak our sentiments as you have."

A public