after suggestions from the trio of young men, who have now been on guard four nights in this part of the town, making our house head-quarters, "that Shannon will not fight;" that "the Missourians will run at the first fire," and that "they, having been taught to believe the Yankees are cowards, will find their mistake;" that they are expecting to get land-warrants to pay them for their trouble in coming here, but may get an actual preëmption claim six feet by two instead; we are all of our old opinion that there is really very little actual danger. They may take the trouble to come here, some coming hundreds of miles, with their threats, their whiskey and their old shot-guns, — giving them a right to the name with which our guard has christened them, "The Shot-gun Battalion," they may come with their music, in the shape of an old violin, and a rough, fierce-looking biped, to whom soap and a razor are unknown, clad in buckskin breeches, and red shirt; but the inspiration of the "Arkansas Traveller," among these halfdrunken creatures, will never equal the "moral suasion," or the wholesome fear of a few Sharpe's rifles.

Our house was full last night, and of the capacity of our Kansas homes our eastern friends have no idea. Doctor brought several strangers home with him at a very late hour.

A startling incident occurred last night. One of our picket guards was fired upon. Two of the guard were sitting together, when a party of Missourians approached and fired six shots at them. Our men had strict orders not to fire, unless the emergency was desperate, and so bore the insult with remarkable prudence, and obeyed orders.

Our people are acting strictly upon the defensive, and these provocations are continually offered us to provoke a collision. They are endeavoring to draw them from the position which all the world will justify, that they may have a pretext for the destruction of Lawrence, which is really the whole cause of the invasion.

A clergyman was with us last night. He had come in from a neighboring settlement, and has been a resident of Missouri twenty-seven years. He knows them well therefore; their cruel and desperate characters. With the few who came with him to

Lawrence, he was attending a meeting some miles from home, but hearing that Lawrence was in imminent peril, without going to his home, or being sure that the word he sent his family would reach them, he put spurs to his horse and came to our relief.

Another clergyman from Vermont, with others, came in to breakfast this morning. So the time has come again when men, whose vocation it is to preach the word of truth, and to battle heroically in fierce struggles with error, have girded on another sword than that of the spirit; and if the victory is to be won by sharp fighting, while they "pray and watch" they work, too— the working evincing the spirit of the prayer.

The times seem strange! Ministers of the gospel of peace buckling on the armor which is to insure them physical safety! Two thousand years have passed away since the angel-choirs rejoiced together, ushering in the glad news of a new gospel, and the tidings of good-will and peace reverberating over Judea's hills. When will men learn the lesson? With our defence strong and secure, made fully known to our foes, there will be no bloodshed. So we all feel, and things which seem warlike are in reality peacebearing measures.

Another event happened last night, which occasioned uneasiness, viz., the appearance of McCrea, an escaped prisoner, in our midst. His presence, were it known to the enemy, would be a new source of difficulty, and at once cause an outbreak. Few of the citizens knew he was here, and he is already on his way to a land of safety.

How the blood boils in our veins, when we think of all the indignities imposed upon us by the slave power, by the infamous, the execrable corruption of the administration! No words can express the depth of infamy to which it has gone, in endeavoring to crush out on this soil, made sacred to freedom by a pledge inviolate, free speech, free action and free men.

McCrea had been for months imprisoned in a close, ill-ventilated place. A bill was found against him for murder, but a change of venue was at last effected. These men, who saw themselves about to be foiled of their prey for which with unabated eagerness for six months they had hunted, had made preparations

to take him from the jail and lynch him; when, foreseeing this, McCrea escaped. He came to this place, which has been regarded by all our friends as the Sevastopol of Kansas, expecting to find safety and repose. But we can offer none. The same power which sought his life so desperately, seeks ours with the same malignity. We abide the hour with patience, and feel sure that all the tears, the anxieties, the sleepless nights, and weary days, of the heart-stricken wife, now left in uncertainty as to her husband's fate, are all counted by Him, "who seeth the end from the beginning," and that they who have mingled this cup of bitterness will find their reward.

Everything has been so quiet to-day, having no extra company, save some gentlemen to tea, that we forget we may be on the verge of a civil convulsion; that, ere another Sabbath sun arises, we may be homeless, ay, and friendless, if our enemies perform a tithe of that they threaten.

A friend has sat here all day, quietly writing for the eastern press. He takes great interest in the success of the cause, and has several times been in the camp of the enemy, spying out the land. He has brought back interesting "notes of travel," and passed through some hair-breadth escapes. He has a genial, happy nature, peculiar to the Scotch, and, as he tells his adventures with a slight brogue, and a quick, rapid utterance, enlivened by his sense of the ridiculous, one cannot help feeling that he is surrounded by Gov. Shannon's half-tipsy military, or hears the sounds of music drawn out of a violin by some fierce disciple of Paganini, and sees the gaping crowds of men, armed with bowieknives and pistols, nodding their admiration.

To-day was set for the attack, and the day has passed. The weather has become much colder, and I fancy there are some in the camps who would be glad if they were home again, by a cheerful fire. The men in the camps are getting impatient, but slowly are they reinforced in small numbers. They come with an appearance of reluctance, but the offer of a dollar and a half a day and a land warrant is said to be the successful inducement to aid in this infamous invasion, and its author no less infamous.

CHAPTER X.

WAKARUSA WAR-INCIDENTS.

Dec. 3d.- Last evening the governor's proclamation, though issued on the 29th, was received. It is one mass of falsehoods and misstatements, and an incendiary appeal to the bad passions of the border men to come in to assist him in our destruction. Jones goes to him with most malignant untruths of a rescue from his hands of the prisoner, by a band of forty men, etc. (It is now stated that Coleman was with the posse, and armed himself at Franklin with pistols and bowie-knives to act with Jones' posse.) The rescue was ten miles from Lawrence. Two men in the rescue are all who have ever been citizens of Lawrence. Gov. Shannon, without the discretion which a man possessing even a common share of sense would show, issued his bloody proclamation, which deserves no place in the archives of history, against the citizens of Lawrence.

While no effort has been made to make a single arrest, he says they are in a state of rebellion against the laws, and utters fierce cries of "revolution," and "civil war." We would that we had a governor less imbecile and senseless.

On Saturday the immortal Jones came into town. While he sat upon his horse, bolt upright, looking defiant, his eyes wandered restlessly here and there, as if expecting some unseen enemy, and his hands trembled. Some boys, whose fun was brimming over, asked him if he was cold.

His thin lips parted, and an abrupt "No" was uttered.

"Then have you the chills?" asked they in a sympathetic tone. The same sound, and the same monosyllable, only a little more abrupt and stern, was issued.

He evidently did not like the Yankee sympathy when such weighty matters were resting on his shoulders. But, being asked what he wanted in Lawrence, he replied, "I will let you know when I get ready." Then, putting spurs to his horse, he wheeled around, amid the laugh of the three or four frolick some youths, and the blue coat of the Missourian was last seen going over the hill on the way to Lecompton. He had made, in his estimation, no doubt, a fearful escape from the stronghold of the rebels.

Yesterday, the rumors of war being still rife, and so many citizens of the near settlements having come in, arrangements were made for the companies to go into barracks. The large dininghall of the new hotel being fitted up with stoves, several of the companies will occupy it, while others have a "soldier's home" in the hall which has been used for school-room, church, etc. The quartermaster and commissary-general have been appointed. Beef and corn are brought in in large quantities, and preparations are being made for a siege.

The soldiers are drilling out on the prairie, and under the command of Col. Lane, who has seen actual service and hard fighting in Mexico. Their evolutions are well performed. As we look upon them, going through the drill soberly, without noise, and not rabble of boys following, we feel that, before yielding to the unjust exactions of a partisan government, they would meet death.

There is young manhood in the ranks, and some who have not yet counted their score of years; but the mantle of discretion and prudence has fallen upon them. The blood of '76 runs in their veins, and the fires of its unquenched love of liberty sparkle in their eyes.

We are yet in the hollow of His hand who "hates the oppressor," and "the crooked ways before us He will make straight."

A Mr. N., of Vermont, is just in. He called to see doctor a few moments since, and has now returned with him from the council-room, and will make our house his home. He brings news of our pleasant Scotch friend, who left us this morning on another tour of observation, in the enemy's camp. He met him at Fish's," some two miles below the ford, on the Wakarusa, of