Gov.

Geary had won ripe and rich honors from the people of this nation in the official positions he had heretofore held, and which he had discharged with such eminent ability.

The position of the Governor of Kansas, as seen from afar, and under the _glamour_ that surrounded it, was a position of high honor.
Every child has heard the story of old "Blue Beard," how that, having married a number of wives who had mysteriously disappeared, he courted and married a beautiful young lady, possessing every accomplishment that can give grace and attractiveness to a woman, and had carried her to his castle, where she should have at her disposal an unlimited amount of money and be served by obsequious servants, and stand on a level with all the fine ladies and gentlemen in the land.

Old Blue Beard gave to her the keys unlocking all the rooms in his castle, but said to her, "There is one key, unlocking one door, into one room, and into that room you must in nowise enter." But, overcome by her woman's curiosity, she did unlock that door and enter that room, and there she beheld the horrid sight of all the murdered wives of the wicked old Blue Beard, hanging and rotting on its walls, and now this was also to be her sad fate.
Kansas was becoming the graveyard of Territorial Governors.

Reeder and Shannon had already lost their official heads.