GENERAL DISCOMFORT — MURDER OF DOW. 109 
to dismount, which order likewise he obeyed. With threats of 
aid from Missouri, which long ago became stereotyped, Jones and 
his party wheeled about, leaving the few unarmed footmen the 
winners of the night. Not a word was lisped of the rare “ sport ” 
they would have had if they could have found the one hundred 
assembled men; and now, when the party was smaller than their 
own, Jones shook nervously, and offered nothing but wordy vio¬ 
lence. Jones and party rode on to Franklin, the little village 
below Lawrence. The whole matter, the rescue, etc., was talked 
over there, Jones standing by. It was suggested that a decision 
be made as to the propriety of sending for aid to Col. Boone, of 
Westport, Mo., Jones’ father-in-law, or to Gov. Shannon. The 
question seemed to be, which would be most likely to furnish the 
desired assistance in demolishing the doomed town of Lawrence. 
Now was the time for the war. The time specified by the Blue 
Lodges, two months since, had arrived. The harvests in Missouri 
were in, and the people there could, without injury to their busi¬ 
ness,- attend to the matter; and navigation on the Missouri river 
had closed for the season. Jones therefore wrote a despatch, and 
sent it by a messenger, remarking, as he started, “ That man is 
taking my despatch to Missouri, and, by G—d ! I will have 
revenge before I see Missouri.” Some complaint was made by a 
bystander that this despatch was not sent to the governor, where¬ 
upon he sent one to him, Hargous being the messenger. 
Early on the morning of the 27th, the drum-beat, calling the 
citizens together, was heard in the little town of Lawrence. The 
noise of the hammer was still; but in the firm tread and thought¬ 
ful countenances of the men, as they walked up the stairway to 
the hall where the meeting for consultation was to be held, the 
spirit of ’76 was visible, and a determination, if they must fight 
against oppression as our fathers did, that a new Lexington or 
Concord on Kansas plains should go down to posterity with the 
unsullied honor of her defenders. 
S. N. Wood, Esq., was appointed chairman of the meeting. 
He spoke briefly of the murder, of the meeting of the day before 
in the same neighborhood, of the arrest of Mr. Branson, with 
whom Mr. Dow had lived, of the rescue of the prisoner without 
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