The men that had settled in Kansas were generally poor, and few had any reserved fund from which to draw their support, but were literally dependent for their daily bread on their labor day by day; and to take away the horses of such a man was literally to take the bread out of the mouths of his children.

Free State men and Pro-slavery men had each in turn been thus despoiled and compelled to flee the Territory; or if they remained they were paralyzed and unfitted for work.
But the spring and summer of 1857 had brought a new order of things.
Gov.

Geary had put an end to these disorders, and the presence of S.
C.Pomeroy and other Free State men in Atchison was an additional guarantee of peace and security.

As a result the Kansas squatters had gone to work with a will.

Old things had passed away, and all things had become new.