g the military road that leads from Fort
Leavenworth to Fort Riley, they found a great crowd of people gathered
around a log-house in which the polls were open. Country officers were
to be chosen, and the pro-slavery men, as the Borderers were now
called in this part of the country, had rallied in great numbers to
carry the election for their men. All was confusion and tumult.
Rough-looking men, well armed and generally loud voiced, with slouched
hats and long beards, were galloping about, shouting and making all
the noise possible, for no purpose that could be discovered. "Hooray
for Cap'n Pate!" was the only intelligible cry that the newcomers
could hear; but who Captain Pate was, and why he should be hurrahed
for, nobody seemed to know. He was not a candidate for anything.

"Hullo! there's our Woburn friend, John Clark," said Mr. Howell. Sure
enough, there he was with a vote in his hand going up to the cabin
where the polls were open. A lane was formed through the crowd of men
who lounged about the cabin, so that a man going up to the door to
vote was obliged to run the gauntlet, as it were, of one hundred men,
or more, before he reached the door, the lower half of which was
boarded up and the upper half left open for the election officers to
take and deposit the ballots.

"I don't believe that man has any right to vote here," said Charlie,
with an expression of disgust on his face. "Why, he came into the
Territory with us, only the other day, and he said he was going up on
the Big Blue to settle, and here he is trying to vote!"

"Well," said Uncle Charlie, "I allow he has just as good a right to
vote as any of these men who are running the election. I saw some of
these very men come riding in from Missouri, when we were one day out
of Quindaro." As he spoke, John Clark had reached the voting-place,
pursued by many rough epithets flung after him.

He paused before the half-barricaded door and presented his ballot.
"Let's see yer ticket!" shouted one of the men who stood guard, one
either side of the cabin-door. He snatched it from Clark's hand,
looked at it, and simply said, "H'ist!" The man on the other side of
the would-be voter grinned; then both men seized the Woburn man by his
arms and waist, and, before he could realize what was happening, he
was flung up to the edge of the roof that projected over the low door.
Two other men sitting there grabbed the newcomer by the shoulders and
passed him up the roof to