illness. His health, was "some improved" in May, 1857, but soon he lost a week "with ague and fever and left home feeble." In August he wrote of "ill health" and "repeated returns of fever and ague." In September and October his health was "poor." The spring and summer of 1858 found him "not very stout," and in July and August he was "down with ague" and "too sick" to write. In September he was "still weak," and, although "some improved" in December, the following spring found him "not very strong." In April, amid the feverish activity of his fatal year, he was "quite prostrated," with "the difficulty in my head and ear and with the ague in consequence." Late in July he was "delayed with sickness" amd there can be little doubt that it was an ill and pain-racked body which his indomitable will forced into the raid of Harper's Ferry.
Having collected a part of the funds and organized the band, John Brown was about to strike his blow in the early summer of 1858, as we have seen, when the Forbes disclosures compelled him to hide in Kansas, where the last massacre on the Swamp of the Swan invited him. He left Canada for Kansas in June, 1858. Cook, somewhat against the wishes of Brown who feared his garrulity, went to Harper's Ferry, worked as book agent and canal keeper, made love to a maid and married her and then acted as advance agent awaiting the main band. Ten months after leaving Canada, and in mid-March, 1859, John Brown appeared again in
