after the arrival of the Leavenworth contingent and while sitting in his office Judge Adams noticed a crowd gathering on Commercial street, near Fifth. Suspecting that the crowd had gathered for no good purpose, Judge Adams and six of his friends started for the scene of what appeared to him to be a disturbance. On their way they met Caleb A. Woodworth, Sr., hatless and apparently in trouble. As Judge Adams stopped to make inquiries of Mr. Woodworth regarding his trouble somebody from the rear assaulted him with a heavy blow on the cheek. Instead of following the Biblical injunction he did not turn his other cheek, but swung quickly in his tracks and levelled a pistol at his assailant, who was accompanied by a crowd of his friends, all armed and with blood in their eyes. As Judge Adams was about to pull the trigger of his gun a friend of Judge Adams shouted, “Don’t shoot yet!” following which admonition all of the crowd displayed cocked revolvers and aimed them in the direction of Judge Adams and his crowd. Observing that the Free Soilers meant business, the pro-slavery men discreetly withdrew without further trouble, and the Free Soil men returned to the office of Judge Adams. It was then determined that the meeting should be an out-of-door one, and as they passed out into the street, again the pro-slavery advocates mixed freely with the Free Soilers. A. J. W. Westbrook, of the “Home Guards,” mounted on a prancing horse, rode among the crowd, flourishing a cocked gun, apparently seeking to kill Judge Adams at the first favorable opportunity. It has been doubted that Westbrook meant business, but his conduct had the effect of stirring up his followers who avowed that Jim Lane should not speak in Atchison that night. His threatening attitude apparently had the desired effect, for the Free Soil men decided that it was not necessary for the existence of their cause that Jim Lane should speak and therefore postponed the speaking. Judge Adams was not altogether pleased but he was finally prevailed upon to return home without attempting further trouble. Later in the day a party of Free Soil men met General Lane on the outskirts of the city, returning from Doniphan where he had been speaking, and prevailed upon him not to come to Atchison. This was not the first attempt of Lane to visit Atchison county. He was entertained at dinner in 1855 at the home of Dr. J. H. Stringfellow, whose house occupied the site where the home of Ex-Governor W. J. Bailey now stands. The fact that Lane was a guest of Dr. Stringfellow will appear strange to those who knew nothing of the Stringfellow family. While they were belligerent pro-slavery advocates, they were always high class men with decent instincts and therefore it would not be unusual for them to open their home to so violent an opponent of theirs as Lane was. The eastern papers, in giving an account of Lane’s entertainment at the Stringfellow home, stated that the dinner