TWO WEEKS IN JUNE ON THE MISSOURI BORDER. 291 
Committee. For many days the ferry-boat had been plying 
busily backwards and forth across the river, bringing over the 
Clay County boys. As they landed but a few rods below the, 
house, and I saw their besotted, rough, unintelligent faces, I 
wondered less at the barbarities we heard daily. The intellectual 
was blotted out, the animal, the sensual part of human nature 
alone remaining, rendering them fit instruments, in the hands of a 
corrupt administration, in aiding and abetting the interests of the 
slave power. They came back in two days, and went on the boat 
quietly, no yells resounding through the grand old woods on the 
further shore, as when they came over. Col. Sumner had at last 
driven them out. There were Wyandots returning drunk, who 
yelled in front of the hotel, and brandished their pistols, daring 
one another to fight. One of my husband’s guard at Westport 
was at the hotel, and desired to see me. He seemed to be a man 
of kind heart, and evidently thought he was conferring a favor 
by telling me how much “ the guard thought of Gov. Robinson ; 
that he was a gentleman, and they treated him as such; that 
Capt. Martin was very much attached to him, and declared no 
injury should come to the governor in which he did not share.” 
As we were talking familiarly, I asked him “ how it happened 
that Gov. Shannon was so long in sending for my husband.” 
He said, “ I suppose they had to wait for papers to be made out.” 
“ Then they found there was no indictment w T hen we left Law¬ 
rence ? ” And he was forced to say there was none at that time. 
He was very anxious to get to Lecompton, but pretended to think 
the people of Lawrence would attack him if he attempted to pass 
there, and, if I would go with him, he would protect me by their 
camps, while my presence would be a safeguard for him at Law¬ 
rence. The mutual advantages of the arrangement did noLstrike 
me so forcibly as him, and I preferred to stay longer here to 
getting into a worse place. Gov. Shannon came to Kansas city 
on the 9th. It was known that he met a large party of Georgians 
at Westport, just arrived ; and the streets were full of the noisy, 
drunken crowd. He stated his intention to go down the river. 
Poor man ! he feared for his own safety. He was despised by 
both parties, and a curse to himself. As a man who had lost his 
