When Mr. Butler landed he returned overland to his home near Pardee. On April 30, 1856, he again ventured to make his appearance in Atchison, where he says: “I spoke to no one in town save two merchants of the place with whom I had business transactions since my first arrival in the territory. Having remained only a few minutes I went to my buggy to resume my journey when I was assaulted by Robert S. Kelley, junior editor of the _Squatter Sovereign_; was dragged into a grocery and there surrounded by a company of South Carolinians who are reported to have been sent out by a Southern Emigrant Aid Society. After exposing me to every sort of indignity they stripped me to the waist, covered my body with tar and then for the want of feathers applied cotton wool, having appointed a committee of three to certainly hang me the next time I should come to Atchison. They tossed my clothes into the buggy, put me therein, accompanying me to the suburbs of the town and sent me naked upon the prairie. I adjusted my attire about me as best I could and hastened to rejoin my wife and two little sons on the banks of Stranger creek. It was rather a sorrowful meeting after so long a parting.” The above incident gives some idea of the prevailing sentiment in Atchison county during the period beginning in 1854 and ending in 1857. There was little chance of Free State settlers to avoid trouble except by discreet silence. It would not be just, however, to fail to disclose the fact that the Free State men also had their secret organizations. The Kansas Legion was a military organization for defensive purposes only. Its members were organized into companies, battalions and regiments and were officered and armed with rifles and pistols sent from the East. These organizations were the natural result of the secret pro- slavery organizations of Missouri and were known to exist to protect the Free State settlers against the attacks of the Blue Lodges, Sons of the South, and the Social Bands. A man by the name of Pat Laughlin became a member of the Kansas Legion and was very active in organizing companies of that organization at different points in the territory. He subsequently became a traitor to his associates and gave out information to the enemy, thereby creating great indignation among his former friends whom he had betrayed. Later Laughlin and Samuel Collins, of Doniphan county, became engaged in a fierce altercation and friends of both parties to the dispute were present and armed. Laughlin shot Collins and killed him on the spot and was slightly wounded himself. This affair occurred October 25, 1855. No attempt was made by the appointed peace officers of the territory to bring the guilty parties participating in the Pardee Butler outrage or the murder of Collins to justice. Shortly after Laughlin recovered from his wound he secured a position in a store in Atchison and lived there for many years.