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 meeting was called that night to consider my case, but I did not know it.

The steamboat was expected about noon the next day.

I had been sitting writing letters at the head of the stairs, in the chamber of the boarding-house where I had slept, and heard some one call my name, and rose up to go down stairs; but was met by six men, bristling with revolvers and bowie-knives, who came up stairs and into my room.
The leader was Robert S.Kelley.They presented me a string of resolutions, denouncing free State men in unmeasured terms, and demanded that I should sign them.

I felt my heart flutter, and knew if I should undertake to speak my voice would tremble, and determined to gain time.
Sitting down I pretended to read the resolutions--they were familiar to me, having been already printed in the _Squatter Sovereign_--and finally I began to read them aloud.

But these men were impatient, and said: "We just want to know will you sign these resolutions ?" I had taken my seat by a window, and looking out and down into the street, had seen a great crowd assembled, and determined to get among them.