Archimedes Speck lived on the Stranger Creek, several miles below the residence of the writer.

He was a man of magnificent physical development, and was a pronounced Free State man.

His wife's people originally came from North Carolina, and she was proud of her Southern blood; and the husband and wife did not come to Kansas to be run over by anybody.

Yet they were eminently peaceable people, if let alone.

These gentlemen in Atchison had determined to disarm the Free State people living in the country; and Mr.Speck, being a Free State man, open and avowed, they called on him, but he was not at home.