Released from further responsibility for his fugitive wards, and wearing the laurels of his recent adventures, Brown began the reorganization of his forces for the final hazard. Arriving at Cleveland March 15th, he proceeded to sell, publicly, what remained of his share of the Kansas-Missouri plunder which had been forwarded to that point from Springdale: two horses and a mule. Brown announced that, notwithstanding the Missouri origin of the stock, they were now "Abolition" animals; explaining his metaphor by the statement that he had "converted" them. A pen picture of Brown by _Artemus Ward_, reads as follows:[355] He is a medium sized, compactly-built and wiry man, as quick as a cat in his movements. His hair is of a salt and pepper hue and as stiff as bristles; he has a long, waving, milk white goatee which gives him a somewhat patriarchal appearance. A man of pluck, is Brown. You may bet on that. He shows it in his walk, talk and actions. He must be rising sixty and yet we believe he could lick a yard full of wild cats before breakfast and without taking off his coat. Turn him into a ring with nine Border ruffians, four bears, six injuns and a brace of bull pups and we opine that "the eagles of victory would perch on his banner." We don't mean by this that he looks like a professional bruiser, who hits from the shoulder, but he looks like a man of iron and one that few men would like to "sail into." Kagi appeared to him "like a melancholy brigand, some of whose statements were no doubt false and some shamefully true." A summary of the lecture Brown delivered at Cleveland reads as follows:[356] Brown's description of his trip to Westport and capture of eleven niggers was refreshingly cool, and it struck us, while he was giving it, that he would make his jolly fortune by letting himself out as an Ice Cream Freezer. He meant this invasion as a direct blow at slavery. He did not disguise it--he wanted the audience to distinctly understand it. With a few picked men, he visited Westport in the night and liberated eleven slaves. He also "liberated" a large number of horses, oxen, mules and furniture at the same time. In this speech Brown made the only acknowledgment of record, of his relation to the Pottawatomie assassinations. The _Leader_, which was friendly to Brown, quoted him as saying,[357] that "he had never killed anybody, although on some occasions he had _shown his young men with him_, how some things might be done as well as others and they had done the business." Brown also impressed Mr. Alcott, who said of him after hearing his lecture at Concord, May 8th:[358]