The matter was settled, and next morning, bright and early, Sandy was fitted out with his commissions and the money to buy them with. Younkins had agreed to let him have his horse, saddle, and bridle. Work on the farm was now practically over until time for harvesting was come. So the other two boys accompanied Sandy over to the Younkins side of the river and saw him safely off down the river road leading to the post. A meal-sack in which to bring back his few purchases was snugly rolled up and tied to the crupper of his saddle, and feeling in his pocket for the hundredth time to make sure of the ten-dollar gold piece therein bestowed, Sandy trotted gayly down the road. The two other boys gazed enviously after him, and then went home, wondering, as they strolled along, how long Sandy would be away. He would be back by dark at the latest, for the days were now at about their longest, and the long summer day was just begun.

At Younkins's cabin they met Hiram Battles, a neighbor who lived beyond the divide to the eastward, and who had just ridden over in search of some of his cattle that had strayed away, during the night before. Mr. Battles said he was "powerful worrited." Indians had been seen prowling around on his side of the divide: but he had seen no signs of a camp, and he had traced the tracks of his cattle, three head in all, over this way as far as Lone Tree Creek, a small stream just this side of the divide; but there he had unaccountably lost all trace of them.

"Well, as for the Indians," said Charlie, modestly, "we have seen them passing out on the trail. But they were going hunting, and they kept right on to the southward and westward; and we have not seen them go back since."

"The lad's right," said Younkins, slowly, "but still I don't like the stories I hear down the road a piece. They do say that the Shians have riz."

"The Cheyennes have risen!" exclaimed Charlie. "And we have let Sandy go down to the post alone!"

Both of the men laughed—a little unpleasantly, it seemed to the boys, although Younkins was the soul of amiability and mildness. But Charlie thought it was unkind in them to laugh at his very natural apprehensions; and he said as much, as he and Oscar, with their clothes on their heads, waded the Republican Fork on the way home.

"Well, Charlie," was Oscar's comforting remark, as they scrambled up the opposite bank, "I guess the reason why they laughed at us was that if the Cheyennes have gone on the warpath, the danger is out in the west; whereas, Sandy has gone eastward to-day, and that is right in the way of safety, isn't it? He's gone to the post; and you know that the people down at Soldier Creek told us that this was a good place to settle, because the post would be our protection in case of an Indian rising."

Meanwhile, Sandy was blissfully and peacefully jogging along in the direction of the military post. Only one house stood between Younkins's and the fort; and that was Mullett's. They all had occasion to think pleasantly of Mullett's; for whenever an opportunity came for the mail to be forwarded from the fort up to Mullett's, it was sent there; then Sparkins, who was the next neighbor above, but who lived off the road a bit, would go down to Mullett's and bring the mail up to his cabin; when he did this, he left a red flannel flag flying on the roof of his house, and Younkins, if passing along the trail, saw the signal and went out of his way a little to take the mail up to his cabin. Somehow, word was sent across the river to the Whittier boys, as the good Younkins soon learned to call the Boy Settlers, and they went gladly over to Younkins's and got the precious letters and papers from home. That was the primitive way in which the mail for the settlers on the Republican Fork went up the road from Fort Riley, in those days; and all letters and papers designed for the settlers along there were addressed simply to Fort Riley, which was their nearest post-office.

So Sandy, when he reached Mullett's, was not disappointed to be told that there were no letters for anybody up the river. There had been nobody down to the post very lately. Sandy knew that, and he was confident that he would have the pleasure of bringing up a good-sized budget when he returned. So he whipped up his somewhat lazy steed and cantered down toward the fort.

Soon after leaving Mullett's he met a drove of sheep. The drivers were two men and a boy of his own age, mounted on horseback and carrying their provisions, apparently, strapped behind them. When he asked them where they were going, they surlily replied that they were going to California. That would take them right up the road that he had come down, Sandy thought to himself. And he wondered if the boys at home would see the interesting sight of five hundred sheep going up the Republican Fork, bound for California.

He reached the fort before noon; and, with a heart beating high with pleasure, he rode into the grounds and made his way to the well-remembered sutler's store where he had bought the candy, months before. He had a few pennies of his own, and he mentally resolved to spend these for raisins. Sandy had a "sweet tooth", but, except for sugar and molasses, he had eaten nothing sweet since they were last at Fort Riley on their way westward.

It was with a feeling of considerable importance that Sandy surveyed the interior of the sutler's store. The proprietor looked curiously at him, as if wondering why so small a boy should turn up alone in that wilderness; and when the lad asked for letters for the families up the river, Mullett's, Sparkins's, Battles's, Younkins's, and his own people, the sutler said: "Be you one of them Abolitioners that have named your place after that man Whittier, the Abolition poet? I've hearn tell of you, and I've hearn tell of him. And he ain't no good. Do you hear me?" Sandy replied that he heard him, and to himself he wondered greatly how anybody, away down here, ten miles from the new home, could possibly have heard about the name they had given to their cabin.

Several soldiers who had been lounging around the place now went out at the door. The sutler, looking cautiously about as if to be sure that nobody heard him, said: "Never you mind what I said just now, sonny. Right you are, and that man Whittier writes the right sort of stuff. Bet yer life! I'm no Abolitioner; but I'm a free-State man, I am, every time."

"Then what made you talk like that, just now?" asked Sandy, his honest, freckled face glowing with righteous indignation. "If you like Mr. John G. Whittier's poetry, why did you say he wasn't any good?"

"Policy, policy, my little man. This yere's a pro-slavery guv'ment, and this yere is a pro-slavery post. I couldn't keep this place one single day if they thought I was a free-State man. See? But I tell you right here, and don't you fergit it, this yere country is going to be free State. Kansas is no good for slavery; and slavery can't get in here. Stick a pin there, and keep your eye on it."

With some wonder and much disgust at the man's cowardice, Sandy packed his precious letters in the bosom of his shirt. Into one end of his meal-sack he put a pound of soda-biscuit for which his Uncle Charlie had longed, a half-pound of ground ginger with which Charlie desired to make some "molasses gingerbread, like mother's," and a half-pound of smoking-tobacco for his dear father. It seemed a long way off to his father now, Sandy thought, as he tied up that end of the bag. Then into the other end, having tied the bag firmly around, about a foot and a half from the mouth, he put the package of nails and a roll of sheet lead. It had been agreed that if they were to go buffalo-hunting, they must have rifle-balls and bullets for their shot-guns.

The sutler, who had become very friendly, looked on with an amused smile, and said, "'Pears to me, sonny, you got all the weight at one end, haven't you?"

Sandy did not like to be called "sonny," but he good-naturedly agreed that he had made a mistake; so he began all over again and shifted his cargo so that the nails and a box of yeast-powder occupied one end of the meal-sack, and the other articles balanced the other. The load was then tied closely to the crupper of the saddle and the boy was ready to start on his homeward trip. His eyes roved longingly over the stock of goodies which the sutler kept for the children, young and old, of the garrison, and he asked, "How much for raisins?"

"Two bits a pound for box, and fifteen cents for cask," replied the man, sententiously.

"Give me half a pound of cask raisins," said the boy, with some hesitation. He had only a few cents to spare for his own purchases.

The sutler weighed out a half-pound of box raisins, did them up, and handed them across the counter, saying, "No pay; them's for Whittier."

Sandy took the package, shoved it into his shirt-bosom, and, wondering if his "Thank you" were sufficient payment for the gift, mounted his steed, rode slowly up the road to a spring that he had noticed bubbling out of the side of a ravine, and with a thankful heart, turning out the horse to graze, sat down to eat his frugal lunch, now graced with the dry but to him delicious raisins. So the sutler at Fort Riley was a free-State man! Wasn't that funny!

It was a beautifully bright afternoon, and Sandy, gathering his belongings together, started up the river road on a brisk canter. The old horse was a hard trotter, and when he slackened down from a canter, poor Sandy shook in every muscle, and his teeth chattered as if he had a fit of ague. But whenever the lad contrived to urge his steed into an easier gait he got on famously. The scenery along the Republican Fork is (or was) very agreeable to the eye. Long slopes of vivid green stretched off in every direction, their rolling sides dropping into deep ravines through which creeks, bordered with dense growths of alder, birch, and young cottonwood, meandered. The sky was blue and cloudless, and, as the boy sped along the breezy uplands, the soft and balmy air fanning his face, he sung and whistled to express the fervor of his buoyant spirits. He was a hearty and a happy boy.

Suddenly he came to a fork in the road which he had not noticed when he came down that way in the morning. For a moment he was puzzled by the sight. Both were broad and smooth tracks over the grassy prairie, and both rose and fell over the rolling ground; only, one led to the left and somewhat southerly, and the other to the right. "Pshaw!" muttered Sandy, and he paused and rubbed his head for an idea. "That left-hand road must strike off to some ford lower down on the Fork than I have ever been. But I never heard of any ford below ours."



With that, his keen eyes noticed that the right-hand road was cut and marked with the many hoof-tracks of a flock of sheep. He argued to himself that the sheep-drivers had told him that they were going to California. The California road led up the bank of the Republican Fork close to the trail that led him from Younkins's to the ford across the river. The way was plain; so, striking his spur into the old sorrel's side, he dashed on up the right-hand road, singing gayly as he went.

Absorbed in the mental calculation as to the number of days that it would take that flock of sheep to reach California, the boy rode on, hardly noticing the landmarks by the way, or taking in anything but the general beauty of the broad and smiling landscape over which the yellow light of the afternoon sun, sinking in the west, poured a flood of splendor. Slackening his speed as he passed a low and sunken little round valley filled with brush and alders, he heard a queer sound like the playful squealing of some wild animal. Slipping off his saddle and leading his horse by the bridle over the thick turf, Sandy cautiously approached the edge of the valley, the margin of which was steep and well sheltered by a growth of cottonwoods. After peering about for some time, the lad caught a glimpse of a beautiful sight. A young doe and her fawn were playing together in the open meadow below, absolutely unconscious of the nearness of any living thing besides themselves. The mother-deer was browsing, now and again, and at times the fawn, playful as a young kitten, would kick its heels, or butt its head against its mother's side, and both would squeal in a comical way.

Sandy had never seen deer in a state of living wildness before, and his heart thumped heavily in his breast as he gazed on the wonderful sight. He half groaned to himself that he was a great fool to have come away from home without a gun. What an easy shot it was! How nicely he could knock over the mother, if only he had a shot-gun! She was within such short range. Then he felt a sinking of the heart, as he imagined the horror of death that would have overtaken the innocent and harmless creatures, sporting there so thoughtless of man's hunting instincts and cruelty. Would he kill them, if he had the weapon to kill with? He could not make up his mind that he would. So he crouched silently in the underbrush, and watched the pretty sight as if it were a little animal drama enacted here in the wilderness, mother and child having a romp in their wildwood home.

"Well, I'll give them a good scare, anyhow," muttered the boy, his sportive instincts getting the better of his tender-heartedness at last. He dashed up noisily from the underbrush, swung his arms, and shouted, "Boo!" Instantly deer and fawn, with two or three tremendous bounds, were out of the little valley and far away on the prairie, skimming over the rolls of green, and before the boy could catch his breath, they had disappeared into one of the many dells and ravines that interlaced the landscape.

But another animal was scared by the boy's shout. In his excitement he had slipped the bridle-rein from his arm, and the old sorrel, terrified by his halloo, set off on a brisk trot down the road. In vain Sandy called to him to stop. Free from guidance, the horse trotted along, and when, after a long chase, Sandy caught up with his steed, a considerable piece of road had been covered the wrong way, for the horse had gone back over the line of march. When Sandy was once more mounted, and had mopped his perspiring forehead, he cast his eye along the road, and, to his dismay, discovered that the sheep-tracks had disappeared. What had become of the sheep? How could they have left the trail without his sooner noticing it? He certainly had not passed another fork of the road since coming into this at the fork below.

"This is more of my heedlessness, mother would say," muttered Sandy to himself. "What a big fool I must have been to miss seeing where the sheep left the trail! I shall never make a good plainsman if I don't keep my eye skinned better than this. Jingo! it's getting toward sundown!" Sure enough, the sun was near the horizon, and Sandy could see none of the familiar signs of the country round about the Fork.

But he pushed on. It was too late now to return to the fork of the road and explore the other branch. He was in for it. He remembered, too, that two of their most distant neighbors, Mr. Fuller and his wife, lived somewhere back of Battles's place, and it was barely possible that it was on the creek, whose woody and crooked line he could now see far to the westward, that their log-cabin was situated. He had seen Mr. Fuller over at the Fork once or twice, and he remembered him as a gentle-mannered and kindly man. Surely he must live on this creek! So he pushed on with new courage, for his heart had begun to sink when he finally realized that he was far off his road.

The sun was down when he reached the creek. No sign of human habitation was in sight. In those days cabins and settlements were very, very few and far between, and a traveller once off his trail might push on for hundreds of miles without finding any trace of human life.

In the gathering dusk the heavy-hearted boy rode along the banks of the creek, anxiously looking out for some sign of settlers. It was as lonely and solitary as if no man had ever seen its savageness before. Now and then a night-bird called from a thicket, as if asking what interloper came into these solitudes; or a scared jack-rabbit scampered away from his feeding-ground, as the steps of the horse tore through the underbrush. Even the old sorrel seemed to gaze reproachfully at the lad, who had dismounted, and now led the animal through the wild and tangled undergrowths.



When he had gone up and down the creek several times, hunting for some trace of a settlement, and finding none, he reflected that Fuller's house was on the side of the stream, to the west. It was a very crooked stream, and he was not sure, in the darkness, which was west and which was east. But he boldly plunged into the creek, mounting his horse, and urging the unwilling beast across. Once over, he explored that side of the stream, hither and yon, in vain. Again he crossed, and so many times did he cross and recross that he finally had no idea where he was. Then the conviction came fully into his mind: He was lost.

The disconsolate boy sat down on a fallen tree and meditated. It was useless to go farther. He was tired in every limb and very, very hungry. He bethought himself of the soda-biscuits in his sack. He need not starve, at any rate. Dobbin was grazing contentedly while the lad meditated, so slipping off the saddle and the package attached to it, Sandy prepared to satisfy his hunger with what little provisions he had at hand. How queerly the biscuits tasted! Jolting up and down on the horse's back, they were well broken up. But what was this so hot in the mouth? Ginger? Sure enough, it was ginger. The pounding that had crushed the biscuits had broken open the package of ginger, and that spicy stuff was plentifully sprinkled all over the contents of the sack.

"Gingerbread," muttered Sandy, grimly, as he blew out of his mouth some of the powdery spice. "Faugh! Tobacco!" he cried next. His father's package of smoking-tobacco had shared the fate of the ginger. Sandy's supper was spoiled; and resigning himself to spending the night hungry in the wilderness, he tethered the horse to a tree, put the saddle-blanket on the ground, arranged the saddle for a pillow, and, having cut a few leafy boughs from the alders, stuck them into the turf so as to form a shelter around his head, and lay down to pleasant dreams.

"And this is Saturday night, too," thought the lost boy. "They are having beans baked in the ground-oven at home in the cabin. They are wondering where I am. What would mother say if she knew I was lost out here on Flyaway Creek?" And the boy's heart swelled a little, and a few drops of water stood in his eyes, for he had never been lost before in his life. He looked up at the leaden sky, now overcast, and wondered if God saw this lost boy. A few drops fell on his cheek. Tears? No; worse than that; it was rain.

"Well, this is a little too much," said Sandy, stoutly. "Here goes for one more trial." So saying, he saddled and mounted his patient steed, and, at a venture, took a new direction around a bend in the creek. As he rounded the bend, the bark of a dog suddenly rung from a mass of gloom and darkness. How sweet the sound! Regardless of the animal's angry challenge, he pressed on. That mass of blackness was a log-barn, and near by was a corral with cows therein. Then a light shone from the log-cabin, and a man's voice was heard calling the dog.

Fuller's!

The good man of the house received the lad with open arms, and cared for his horse; inside the cabin, Mrs. Fuller, who had heard the conversation without, had made ready a great pan of milk and a loaf of bread, having risen from her bed to care for the young wanderer. Never did bread and milk taste so deliciously to weary traveller as this! Full-fed, Sandy looked at the clock on the wall, and marked with wondering eye that it was past midnight. He had recounted his trials as he ate, and the sympathizing couple had assured him that he had been deceived by the sheep-driver. It was very unlikely that he was driving his flock to California. And it was probable that, coming to some place affording food and water, the sheep had left the main road and had camped down in one of the ravines out of sight.

As Sandy composed his weary limbs in a blanket-lined bunk opposite that occupied by Fuller and his wife, he was conscious that he gave a long, long sigh as if in his sleep. And, as he drifted off into slumber-land, he heard the good woman say, "Well, he's out of his troubles, poor boy!" Sandy chuckled to himself and slept.



CHAPTER XIV.

MORE HOUSE-BUILDING.

It was an anxious and wondering household that Sandy burst in upon next morning, when he had reached the cabin, escorted to the divide above Younkins's place by his kind-hearted host of the night before. It was Sunday morning, bright and beautiful; but truly, never had any home looked so pleasant to his eyes as did the homely and weather-beaten log-cabin which they called their own while they lived in it. He had left his borrowed horse with its owner, and, shouldering his meal-sack, with its dearly bought contents, he had taken a short-cut to the cabin, avoiding the usual trail in order that as he approached he might not be seen from the window looking down the river.

"Oh, Sandy's all right," he heard his brother Charlie say. "I'll stake my life that he will come home with flying colors, if you only give him time. He's lost the trail somehow, and had to put up at some cabin all night. Don't you worry about Sandy."

"But these Indian stories; I don't like them," said his father, with a tinge of sadness in his voice.

Sandy could bear no more; so, flinging down his burden, he bounced into the cabin with, "Oh, I'm all right! Safe and sound, but as hungry as a bear."

The little party rushed to embrace the young adventurer, and, in their first flush of surprise, nobody remembered to be severe with him for his carelessness. Quite the hero of the hour, the lad sat on the table and told them his tale, how he had lost his way, and how hospitably and well he had been cared for at Fuller's.

"Fuller's!" exclaimed his uncle. "What in the world took you so far off your track as Fuller's? You must have gone at least ten miles out of your way."

"Yes, Uncle Charlie," said the boy, "it's just as easy to travel ten miles out of the way as it is to go one. All you have to do is to get your face in the wrong way, and all the rest is easy. Just keep a-going; that's what I did. I turned to the right instead of to the left, and for once I found that the right was wrong."

A burst of laughter from Oscar, who had been opening the sack that held Sandy's purchases, interrupted the story.

"Just see what a hodgepodge of a mess Sandy has brought home! Tobacco, biscuits, ginger, and I don't know what not, all in a pudding. It only lacks milk and eggs to make it a cracker pudding flavored with ginger and smoking-tobacco!" And everybody joined in the laugh that a glance at Sandy's load called forth.

"Yes," said the blushing boy; "I forgot to tie the bag at both ends, and the jouncing up and down of Younkins's old horse (dear me! wasn't he a hard trotter!) must have made a mash of everything in the bag. The paper of tobacco burst, and then I suppose the ginger followed; the jolting of poor old 'Dobbin' did the rest. Ruined, daddy? Nothing worth saving?"

Mr. Howell ruefully acknowledged that the mixture was not good to eat, nor yet to smoke, and certainly not to make gingerbread of. So, after picking out some of the larger pieces of the biscuits, the rest was thrown away, greatly to Sandy's mortification.

"All of my journey gone for nothing," he said, with a sigh.

"Never mind, my boy," said his father, fondly; "since you have come back alive and well, let the rest of the business care for itself. As long as you are alive, and the redskins have not captured you, I am satisfied."

Such was Sandy's welcome home.

With the following Monday morning came hard work,—harder work, so Sandy thought, than miserably trying to find one's way in the darkness of a strange region of country. For another log-house, this time on the prairie claim, was to be begun at once. They might be called on at any time to give up the cabin in which they were simply tenants at will, and it was necessary that a house of some sort be put on the claim that they had staked out and planted. The corn was up and doing well. Sun and rain had contributed to hasten on the corn-field, and the vines of the melons were vigorously pushing their way up and down the hills of grain. Charlie wondered what they would do with so many watermelons when they ripened; there would be hundreds of them; and the mouths that were to eat them, although now watering for the delicious fruit, were not numerous enough to make away with a hundredth part of what would be ripe very soon. There was no market nearer than the post, and there were many melon-patches between Whittier's and the fort.

But the new log-house, taken hold of with energy, was soon built up to the height where the roof was to be put on. At this juncture, Younkins advised them to roof over the cabin slightly, make a corn-bin of it, and wait for developments. For, he argued, if there should be any rush of emigrants and settlers to that part of the country, so that their claims were in danger of dispute, they would have ample warning, and could make ready for an immediate occupation of the place. If nobody came, then the corn-house, or bin, would be all they wanted of the structure.

But Mr. Howell, who took the lead in all such matters, shook his head doubtfully. He was not in favor of evading the land laws; he was more afraid of the claim being jumped. If they were to come home from a hunting trip, some time, and find their log-cabin occupied by a "claim-jumper," or "squatter," as these interlopers are called, and their farm in the possession of strangers, wouldn't they feel cheap? He thought so.

"Say, Uncle Aleck," said Oscar, "why not finish it off as a cabin to live in, put in the corn when it ripens, and then we shall have the concern as a dwelling, in case there is any danger of the claim being jumped?"

"Great head, Oscar," said his uncle, admiringly. "That is the best notion yet. We will complete the cabin just as if we were to move into it, and if anybody who looks like an intended claim-jumper comes prowling around, we will take the alarm and move in. But so far, I'm sure, there's been no rush to these parts. It's past planting season, and it is not likely that anybody will get up this way, now so far west, without our knowing it."

So the log-cabin, or, as they called it, "Whittier, Number Two," was finished with all that the land laws required, with a window filled with panes of glass, a door, and a "stick chimney" built of sticks plastered with clay, a floor and space enough on the ground to take care of a family twice as large as theirs, in case of need. When all was done, they felt that they were now able to hold their farming claim as well as their timber claim, for on each was a goodly log-house, fit to live in and comfortable for the coming winter if they should make up their minds to live in the two cabins during that trying season.

The boys took great satisfaction in their kitchen-garden near the house in which they were tenants; for when Younkins lived there, he had ploughed and spaded the patch, and planted it two seasons, so now it was an old piece of ground compared with the wild land that had just been broken up around it. In their garden-spot they had planted a variety of vegetables for the table, and in the glorious Kansas sunshine, watered by frequent showers, they were thriving wonderfully. They promised themselves much pleasure and profit from a garden that they would make by their new cabin, when another summer should come.

"Younkins says that he can walk all over his melon-patch on the other side of the Fork, stepping only on the melons and never touching the ground once," said Oscar, one day, later in the season, as they were feasting themselves on one of the delicious watermelons that now so plentifully dotted their own corn-field.

"What a big story!" exclaimed both of the other boys at once. But Oscar appealed to his father, who came striding by the edge of the field where they chatted together. Had he ever heard of such a thing?

"Well," said Mr. Bryant, good-naturedly, "I have heard of melons so thick in a patch, and so big around, that the sunshine couldn't get to the ground except at high noon. How is that for a tall story?"

The boys protested that that was only a tale of fancy. Could it be possible that anybody could raise melons so thickly together as Mr. Younkins had said he had seen them? Mr. Bryant, having kicked open a fine melon, took out the heart of it to refresh himself with, as was the manner of the settlers, where the fruit was so plenty and the market so far out of reach; then, between long drafts of the delicious pulp, he explained that certain things, melons for example, flourished better on the virgin soil of the sod than elsewhere.

"Another year or so," he said, "and you will never see on this patch of land such melons as these. They will never do so well again on this soil as this year. I never saw such big melons as these, and if we had planted them a little nearer together, I don't in the least doubt that any smart boy, like Sandy here, could walk all over the field stepping from one melon to another, if he only had a pole to balance himself with as he walked. There would be nothing very 'wonderful-like' about that. It's a pity that we have no use for these, there are so many of them and they are so good. Pity some of the folks at home haven't a few of them—a hundred or two, for instance."

It did seem a great waste of good things that these hundreds and hundreds of great watermelons should decay on the ground for lack of somebody to eat them. In the very wantonness of their plenty the settlers had been accustomed to break open two or three of the finest of the fruit before they could satisfy themselves that they had got one of the best. Even then they only took the choicest parts, leaving the rest to the birds. By night, too, the coyotes, or prairie-wolves, mean and sneaking things that they were, would steal down into the melon-patch, and, in the desperation of their hunger, nose into the broken melons left by the settlers, and attempt to drag away some of the fragments, all the time uttering their fiendish yelps and howls.

Somebody had told the boys that the juice of watermelons boiled to a thick syrup was a very good substitute for molasses. Younkins told them that, back in old Missouri, "many families never had any other kind of sweetenin' in the house than watermelon molasses." So Charlie made an experiment with the juice boiled until it was pretty thick. All hands tasted it, and all hands voted that it was very poor stuff. They decided that they could not make their superabundance of watermelons useful except as an occasional refreshment.



CHAPTER XV.

PLAY COMES AFTER WORK.

The two cabins built, wood for the winter cut and hauled, and the planting all done, there was now nothing left to do but to wait and see the crop ripen. Their good friend Younkins was in the same fortunate condition, and he was ready to suggest, to the intense delight of the boys, that they might be able to run into a herd of buffalo, if they should take a notion to follow the old Indian trail out to the feeding-grounds. In those days there was no hunting west of the new settlement, except that by the Indians. In that vague and mysterious way by which reports travel—in the air, as it were—among all frontier settlements, they had heard that buffalo were plenty in the vast ranges to the westward, the herds moving slowly northward, grazing as they went. It was now the season of wild game, and so the boys were sent across to Younkins's to ask him what he thought of a buffalo-hunting trip.

Reaching his cabin, the good woman of the house told them that he had gone into the tall timber near by, thinking he heard some sort of wild birds in the underbrush. He had taken his gun with him; in fact, Younkins was seldom seen without his gun, except when he was at work in the fields. The boys gleefully followed Younkins's trail into the forest, making for an opening about a half-mile away, where Mrs. Younkins thought he was most likely to be found. "Major," the big yellow dog, a special pet of Sandy's, accompanied them, although his mistress vainly tried to coax him back. Major was fond of boys' society.

"There's Younkins now!" cried Oscar, as they drew near an opening in the wood into which the hot sunlight poured. Younkins was half crouching and cautiously making his way into the nearer side of the opening, and the boys, knowing that he was on the track of game, silently drew near, afraid of disturbing the hunter or the hunted. Suddenly Major, catching sight of the game, bounded forward with a loud bark into the tangle of berry bushes and vines. There was a confused noise of wings, a whistle of alarm which also sounded like the gobble of a turkey, and four tremendous birds rose up, and with a motion, that was partly a run and partly a flying, they disappeared into the depths of the forest. To their intense surprise, the usually placid Younkins turned savagely upon the dog, and saying, "Drat that fool dog!" fired one barrel loaded with fine bird-shot into poor Major.

"Four as fine wild turkeys as you ever saw in your life!" he explained, as if in apology to the boys. "I was sure of at least two of 'em; and that lunkhead of a dog must needs dash in and scare 'em up. It's too pesky blamed bad!"

The boys were greatly mortified at the disaster that they had brought upon Younkins and Major by bringing the dog out with them. But when Charlie, as the eldest, explained that they had no idea that Major would work mischief, Younkins said, "Never mind, boys, for you did not know what was going on-like."

Younkins, ashamed, apparently, of his burst of temper, stooped down, and discovering that Major's wounds were not very serious, extracted the shot, plucked a few leaves of some plant that he seemed to know all about, and pressed the juice into the wounds made by the shot. The boys looked on with silent admiration. This man knew everything, they thought. They had often marvelled to see how easily and unerringly he found his way through woods, streams, and over prairies; now he showed them another gift. He was a "natural-born doctor," as his wife proudly said of him.

"No turkey for supper to-night," said Younkins, as he picked up his shot-gun and returned with the boys to the cabin. He was "right glad," he said, to agree to go on a buffalo hunt, if the rest of the party would like to go. He knew there must be buffalo off to the westward. He went with Mr. Fuller and Mr. Battles last year, about this time, and they had great luck. He would come over that evening and set a date with the other men for starting out together.



Elated with this ready consent of Younkins, the lads went across the ford, eager to tell their elders the story of the wild turkeys and poor Major's exploit. Sandy, carrying his shot-gun on his shoulder, lingered behind while the other two boys hurried up the trail to the log-cabin. He fancied that he heard a noise as of ducks quacking, in the creek that emptied into the Fork just below the ford. So, making his way softly to the densely wooded bank of the creek, he parted the branches with great caution and looked in. What a sight it was! At least fifty fine black ducks were swimming around, feeding and quacking sociably together, entirely unconscious of the wide-open blue eyes that were staring at them from behind the covert of the thicket. Sandy thought them even more wonderful and beautiful than the young fawn and his dam that he had seen on the Fort Riley trail. For a moment, fascinated by the rare spectacle, he gazed wonderingly at the ducks as they swam around, chasing each other, and eagerly hunting for food. It was but for a moment, however. Then he raised his shot-gun, and taking aim into the thickest of the flock, fired both barrels in quick succession. Instantly the gay clamor of the pretty creatures ceased, and the flock rose with a loud whirring of wings, and wheeled away over the tree-tops. The surface of the water, to Sandy's excited imagination, seemed to be fairly covered with birds, some dead, and some struggling with wounded limbs. The other two boys, startled by the double report from Sandy's gun, came scampering down the trail, just as the lad, all excitement, was stripping off his clothes to wade into the creek for his game.

"Ducks! Black ducks! I've shot a million of 'em!" cried the boy, exultingly; and in another instant he plunged into the water up to his middle, gathering the ducks by the legs and bringing them to the bank, where Charlie and Oscar, discreetly keeping out of the oozy creek, received them, counting the birds as they threw them on the grass.

"Eighteen, all told!" shouted Oscar, when the last bird had been caught, as it floundered about among the weeds, and brought ashore.

"Eighteen ducks in two shots!" cried Sandy, his freckled face fairly beaming with delight. "Did ever anybody see such luck?"

They all thought that nobody ever had.

"What's that on your leg?" asked Oscar, stooping to pick from Sandy's leg a long, brown object looking like a flat worm. To the boys' intense astonishment, the thing would not come off, but stretched out several inches in length, holding on by one end.

Sandy howled with pain. "It is something that bites," he cried.

"And there's another,—and another! Why, he's covered all over with 'em!" exclaimed Oscar.

Sure enough, the lad's legs, if not exactly covered, were well sprinkled with the things.

"Scrape 'em off with your knife!" cried Sandy.

Oscar usually carried a sheath-knife at his belt, "more for the style of the thing, than use," he explained; so with this he quickly took off the repulsive creatures, which, loosening their hold, dropped to the ground limp and shapeless.

"Leeches," said Charlie, briefly, as he poked one of them over with a stick. The mystery was explained, and wherever one of them had been attached to the boy's tender skin, blood flowed freely for a few minutes, and then ceased. Even on one or two of the birds they found a leech adhering to the feathers where the poor thing's blood had followed the shot. Picking up the game, the two boys escorted the elated Sandy to the cabin, where his unexpected adventures made him the hero of the day.

"Couldn't we catch some of those leeches and sell them to the doctors?" asked the practical Oscar.

His father shook his head. "American wild leeches like those are not good for much, my son. I don't know why not; but I have been told that only the imported leeches are used by medical men."

"Well," said Sandy, tenderly rubbing his wounded legs, "if imported leeches can bite any more furiously than these Kansas ones do, I don't want any of them to tackle me! I suppose these were hungry, though, not having had a taste of a fresh Illinois boy lately. But they didn't make much out of me, after all."

Very happy were those three boys that evening, as, filled with roast wild duck, they sat by and heard their elders discuss with Younkins the details of the grand buffalo hunt that was now to be organized. Younkins had seen Mr. Fuller, who had agreed to make one of the party. So there would be four men and the three boys to compose the expedition. They were to take two horses, Fuller's and Younkins's, to serve as pack-animals, for the way to the hunting-ground might be long; but the hunting was to be done on foot. Younkins was very sure that they would have no difficulty in getting near enough to shoot; the animals had not been hunted much in those parts at that time, and the Indians killed them on foot very often. If Indians could do that, why could not white men?

The next two days were occupied in preparations for the expedition, to the great delight of the boys, who recalled with amusement something of a similar feeling that they had when they were preparing for their trip to Kansas, long ago, away back in Dixon. How far off that all seemed now! Now they were in the promised land, and were going out to hunt for big game—buffalo! It seemed too good to be true.

Bread was made and baked; smoked side-meat, and pepper and salt packed; a few potatoes taken, as a luxury in camp-life; blankets, guns, and ammunition prepared; and above all, plenty of coffee, already browned and ground, was packed for use. It was a merry and a buoyant company that started out in the early dawn of a September morning, having snatched a hasty breakfast, of which the excited boys had scarcely time to taste. Buffalo beef, they confidently said, was their favorite meat. They would dine on buffalo hump that very day.

Oscar, more cautious than the others, asked Younkins if they were sure to see buffalo soon.

"Surely," replied he; "I was out to the bend of the Fork just above the bluffs, last night, and the plains were just full of 'em, just simply black-like, as it were."

"What?" exclaimed all three boys, in a breath. "Plains full of them, and you didn't even mention it! What a funny man you are."

Mr. Howell reminded them that Mr. Younkins had been accustomed to see buffalo for so long that he did not think it anything worth mentioning that he had seen vast numbers of the creatures already. So, as they pressed on, the boys strained their eyes in the distance, looking for buffalo. But no animals greeted their sight, as they passed over the long green swales of the prairie, mile after mile, now rising to the top of a little eminence, and now sinking into a shallow valley; but occasionally a sneaking, stealthy coyote would noiselessly trot into view, and then, after cautiously surveying them from a distance, disappear, as Sandy said, "as if he had sunk into a hole in the ground." It was in vain that they attempted to get near enough to one of these wary animals to warrant a shot. It is only by great good luck that anybody ever shoots a coyote, although in countries where they abound every man's hand is against them; they are such arrant thieves, as well as cowards.

But at noon, while the little party was taking a luncheon in the shade of a solitary birch that grew by the side of a little creek, or runlet, Sandy, the irrepressible, with his bread and meat in his hand, darted off to the next roll of the prairie, a high and swelling hill, in fact, "to see what he could see." As soon as the lad had reached the highest part of the swale, he turned around and swung his arms excitedly, too far off to make his voice heard. He jumped up and down, whirled his arms, and acted altogether like a young lunatic.

"The boy sees buffalo," said Younkins, with a smile of calm amusement. He could hardly understand why anybody should be excited over so commonplace a matter. But the other two lads were off like a shot in Sandy's direction. Reaching their comrade, they found him in a state of great agitation. "Oh, look at 'em! Look at 'em! Millions on millions! Did anybody ever see the like?"

Perhaps Sandy's estimate of the numbers was a little exaggerated, but it really was a wonderful sight. The rolls of the prairie, four or five miles away, were dark with the vast and slow-moving herds that were passing over, their general direction being toward the spot on which the boys were standing. Now and again, some animals strayed off in broken parties, but for the most part the phalanx seemed to be solid, so solid that the green of the earth was completely hidden by the dense herd.

The boys stood rooted to the spot with the intensity of their wonder and delight. If there were not millions in that vast army of buffalo, there were certainly hundreds of thousands. What would happen if that great mob should suddenly take a notion to gallop furiously in their direction?

"You needn't whisper so," said Charlie, noticing the awe-struck tones of the youngsters. "They can't hear you, away off there. Why, the very nearest of the herd cannot be less than five miles off; and they would run from us, rather than toward us, if they were to see and hear us."

"I asked Younkins if he ever had any trouble with a buffalo when he was hunting, and what do you suppose he said?" asked Oscar, who had recovered his voice. "Well, he said that once he was out on horseback, and had cornered a young buffalo bull in among some limestone ledges up there on the Upper Fork, and 'the critter turned on him and made a nasty noise with his mouth-like,' so that he was glad to turn and run. 'Nasty noise with his mouth,' I suppose was a sort of a snort—a snort-like, as Younkins would say. There come the rest of the folks. My! won't daddy be provoked that we didn't go back and help hitch up!"

But the elders of the party had not forgotten that they were once boys themselves, and when they reached the point on which the lads stood surveying the sight, they also were stirred to enthusiasm. The great herd was still moving on, the dark folds of the moving mass undulating like the waves of a sea, as the buffalo rose and fell upon the surface of the rolling prairie.

As if the leaders had spied the hunters, the main herd now swung away more to the right, or northward, only a few detached parties coming toward the little group of hunters that still watched them silently from its elevated point of observation.

Younkins surveyed the movement critically and then announced it as his opinion that the herd was bound for the waters of the Republican Fork, to the right and somewhat to the northward of the party. The best course for them to take now would be to try and cut off the animals before they could reach the river. There was a steep and bluffy bank at the point for which the buffalo seemed to be aiming; that would divert them further up stream, and if the hunters could only creep along in the low gullies of the prairie, out of the sight of the herd, they might reach the place where the buffalo would cross before they could get there; for the herd moved slowly; an expert walker could far out-travel them in a direct line.

"One of you boys will have to stay here by the stuff; the rest of us will press on in the direction of the river as fast as may be," said Uncle Aleck. The boys looked at each other in dismay. Who would be willing to be left behind in a chase so exciting as this? Sandy bravely solved the puzzle.

"Here, you take my shot-gun, Charlie," he said. "It carries farther than yours; I'll stay by the stuff and the horses; I'm pretty tired, anyhow." His father smiled approvingly, but said nothing. He knew how great a sacrifice the boy was making for the others.

Left alone on the hill-top, for the rest of the party moved silently and swiftly away to the northward, Sandy felt the bitterness of disappointment as well as of loneliness while he sat on the grass watching with absorbed attention the motions of the great herds. All trace of his companions was soon lost as they passed down into the gullies and ravines that broke the ground adjacent to the Fork to the westward of the stream. Once, indeed, he saw the figures of the hunters, painted dark against the sky, rise over a distant swell and disappear just as one of them turned and waved a signal in dumb show to the solitary watcher on the hill.

"If those buffalo should get stampeded," mused Sandy, "and make a break in this way, it would be 'all day' with those horses and the camp stuff. I guess I had better make all fast, for there may be a gale of wind, or a gale of buffalo, which is the same thing." So saying, the thoughtful lad led the animals down into the gully where the noon luncheon had been taken, removed their packs, tethered them to the tree, and then ran back to the hill-top and resumed his watch.

There was no change in the situation except that there were, if possible, more buffalo moving over the distant slopes of the rolling prairie. The boy stood entranced at the sight. More, more, and yet more of the herds were slowly moving into sight and then disappearing in the gullies below. The dark brown folds seemed to envelop the face of the earth. Sandy wondered where so many creatures could find pasturage. Their bodies appeared to cover the hills and valleys, so that there could not be room left for grazing. "They've got such big feet," he soliloquized aloud, "that I should think that the ground would be all pawed up where they have travelled." In the ecstasy of his admiration, he walked to and fro on the hill-top, talking to himself, as was his wont.

"I wonder if the other fellows can see them as I do?" he asked. "I don't believe, after all, that it is one-half so entertaining for them as it is for me. Oh, I just wish the folks at home could be here now, and see this sight. It beats all nature, as Father Dixon used to say. And to think that there are thousands of people in big cities who don't have meat enough to eat. And all this buffalo-meat running wild!" The boy laughed to himself at the comicality of the thought. "Fresh beef running wild!"

The faint report of a gun fired afar off now reached his ear and he saw a blue puff of smoke rising from the crest of a timber-bordered hill far away. The herd in that direction seemed to swerve somewhat and scatter, but, to his intense surprise, there was no hurry in their movements; the brown and black folds of the great mass of animals still slowly and sluggishly spread out and flowed like the tides of the sea, enveloping everything. Suddenly there was another report, then another, and another. Three shots in quick succession.

"Now they are getting in their work!" shouted the boy, fairly dancing up and down in his excitement. "Oh, I wish I was there instead of here looking on!"

Now the herds wavered for a moment, then their general direction was changed from the northward to the eastward. Then there was a swift and sudden movement of the whole mass, and the vast dark stream flowed in a direction parallel with the Fork instead of toward it, as heretofore.

"They are coming this way!" shouted Sandy, to the empty, silent air around him. "I'll get a shot at 'em yet!" Then, suddenly recollecting that his gun had been exchanged for his brother's, he added, "And Charlie's gun is no good!"

In truth, the herd was now bound straight for the hill on which the boy maintained his solitary watch. Swiftly running down to the gully in which the horses were tethered, Sandy got out his brother's gun and carefully examined the caps and the load. They had run some heavy slugs of lead in a rude mould which they had made, the slug being just the size of the barrel of the shot-gun. One barrel was loaded with a heavy charge of buckshot, and the other with a slug. The latter was an experiment, and a big slug like that could not be expected to carry very far; it might, however, do much damage at short range.

Running up to the head of the gully, which was in the nature of a shallow ravine draining the hill above, Sandy emerged on the highest point of land, a few hundred feet to the right and north of his former post of observation. The herd was in full drive directly toward him. Suppose they should come driving down over the hills where he was! They would sweep down into the gully, stampede the horses, and trample all the camp stuff into bits! The boy fairly shook with excitement as the idea struck him. On they came, the solid ground shaking under their thundering tread.

"I must try to head 'em off," said the boy to himself. "The least I can do is to scare them a good bit, and then they'll split in two and the herd will divide right here. But I must get a shot at one, or the other fellows will laugh at me."

The rushing herd was headed right for the spot where Sandy stood, spreading out to the left and right, but with the centre of the phalanx steering in a bee-line for the lad. Thoroughly alarmed now, Sandy looked around, and perceiving a sharp outcropping of the underlying stratum of limestone at the head of the little ravine, he resolved to shelter himself behind that, in case the buffalo should continue to come that way. Notwithstanding his excitement, the lad did not fail to note two discharges, one after the other, in the distance, showing that his friends were still keeping up a fusillade against the flying herds.

At the second shot, Sandy thought that the masses in the rear swung off more to the southward, as if panic-stricken by the firing, but the advance guard still maintained a straight line for him. There was no escape from it now, and Sandy looked down at the two horses tethered in the ravine below, peacefully grazing the short, thick grass, unconscious of the flood of buffalo undulating over the prairie above them, and soon to swoop down over the hill-side where they were. In another instant the lad could see the tossing, shaggy manes of the leaders of the herd, and could even distinguish the redness of their eyes as they swept up the incline, at the head of which he stood. He hastily dodged behind the crag of rock; it was a small affair, hardly higher than his head, but wide enough, he thought, to divide the herd when they came to it. So he ducked behind it and waited for coming events.

Sandy was right. Just beyond the rock behind which he was crouched, the ground fell off rapidly and left a stiff slope, up which even a stampeded buffalo would hardly climb. The ground trembled as the vast army of living creatures came tumbling and thundering over the prairie. Sandy, stooping behind the outcropping, also trembled, partly with excitement and partly with fear. If the buffalo were to plunge over the very small barrier between him and them, his fate was sealed. For an instant his heart stood still. It was but for an instant, for, before he could draw a long breath, the herd parted on the two sides of the little crag. The divided stream poured down on both sides of him, a tumultuous, broken, and disorderly torrent of animals, making no sound except for the ceaseless beat of their tremendous hoofs. Sandy's eyes swam with the bewildering motion of the living stream. For a brief space he saw nothing but a confused mass of heads, backs, and horns, hundreds of thousands flowing tumultuously past. Gradually his sense of security came back to him, and, exulting in his safety, he raised his gun, and muttering under his breath, "Right behind the fore-shoulder-like, Younkins said," he took steady aim and fired. A young buffalo bull tumbled headlong down the ravine. In their mad haste, a number of the animals fell over him, pell-mell, but, recovering themselves with incredible swiftness, they skipped to their feet, and were speedily on their way down the hill. Sandy watched, with a beating heart, the young bull as he fell heels over head two or three times before he could rally; the poor creature got upon his feet, fell again, and while the tender-hearted boy hesitated whether to fire the second barrel or not, finally fell over on his side helpless.

Meanwhile the ranks of buffalo coming behind swerved from the fallen animal to the left and right, as if by instinct, leaving an open space all around the point where the boy stood gazing at his fallen game. He fired, almost at random, at the nearest of the flying buffalo; but the buckshot whistled hurtlessly among the herd, and Sandy thought to himself that it was downright cruelty to shoot among them, for the scattering shot would only wound without killing the animals.

It was safe now for Sandy to emerge from his place of concealment, and, standing on the rocky point behind which he had been hidden, he gazed to the west and north. The tumbling masses of buffalo were scattered far apart. Here and there he could see wide stretches of prairie, no longer green, but trampled into a dull brown by the tread of myriads of hurrying feet; and far to the north the land was clear, as if the main herd had passed down to the southward. Scattered bands still hurried along above him, here and there, nearer to the Fork, but the main herd had gone on in the general direction of the settlers' home.

"What if they have gone down to our cabin?" he muttered aloud. "It's all up with any corn-field that they run across. But, then, they must have kept too far to the south to get anywhere near our claim." And the lad consoled himself with this reflection.

But his game was more engrossing of his attention just now than anything else. He had been taught that an animal should not bleed to death through a gunshot wound. His big leaden slug had gone directly through the buffalo's vitals somewhere, for it was now quite dead. Sandy stood beside the noble beast with a strange elation, looking at it before he could make up his mind to cut its throat and let out the blood. It was a young bull buffalo that lay before him, the short, sharp horns ploughed into the ground, and the massive form, so lately bounding over the rolling prairie, forever still. To Sandy it all seemed like a dream, it had come and gone so quickly. His heart misgave him as he looked, for Sandy had a tender heart. Then he gently touched the animal with the toe of his boot and cried, "All by my own self!"



"Well done, Sandy!" The boy started, turned, and beheld his cousin Oscar gazing open-mouthed at the spectacle. "And did you shoot him all by your very own self? What with? Charlie's gun?" The lad poured forth a torrent of questions, and Sandy proudly answered them all with, "That is what I did."

As the two boys hung with delight over the prostrate beast, Oscar told the tale of disappointment that the others had to relate. They had gone up the ravines that skirted the Fork, prowling on their hands and knees; but the watchers of the herd were too wary to let the hunters get near enough for a good shot. They had fired several times, but had brought down nothing. Sandy had heard the shots? Yes, Sandy had heard, and had hoped that somebody was having great sport. After all, he thought, as he looked at the fallen monarch of the prairie, it was rather cruel business. Oscar did not think so; he wished he had had such luck.

The rest of the party now came up, one after another, and all gave a whoop of astonishment and delight at Sandy's great success as soon as they saw his noble quarry.

The sun was now low in the west; here was a good place for camping; a little brush would do for firing, and water was close at hand. So the tired hunters, after a brief rest, while they lay on the trampled grass and recounted the doings of the day, went to work at the game. The animal was dressed, and a few choice pieces were hung on the tree to cool for their supper. It was dark when they gathered around their cheerful fire, as the cool autumnal evening came on, and cooked and ate with infinite zest their first buffalo-meat. Boys who have never been hungry with the hunger of a long tramp over the prairies, hungry for their first taste of big game of their own shooting, cannot possibly understand how good to the Boy Settlers was their supper on the wind-swept slopes of the Kansas plains.

Wrapping themselves as best they could in the blankets and buffalo-robes brought from home, the party lay down in the nooks and corners of the ravine, first securing the buffalo-meat on the tree that made their camp.

"What, for goodness' sake, is that?" asked Charlie, querulously, as he was roused out of his sleep by a dismal cry not far away in the darkness.

"Wolves," said Younkins, curtly, as he raised himself on one elbow to listen. "The pesky critters have smelt blood; they would smell it if they were twenty miles off, I do believe, and they are gathering round as they scent the carcass."

By this, all of the party were awake except Sandy, who, worn out with excitement, perhaps, slept on through all the fearful din. The mean little prairie-wolves gathered, and barked, and snarled, in the distance. Nearer, the big wolves howled like great dogs, their long howl occasionally breaking into a bark; and farther and farther off, away in the extremest distance, they could hear other wolves, whose hollow-sounding cry seemed like an echo of their more fortunate brethren, nearer the game. A party of the creatures were busy at the offal from the slain buffalo, just without the range of the firelight, for the camp-fire had been kept alight. Into the struggling, snarling group Younkins discharged his rifle. There was a sharp yell of pain, a confused patter of hurrying feet, and in an instant all was still.

Sandy started up. "Who's shot another buffalo?" he asked, as if struggling with a dream. The others laughed, and Charlie explained what had been going on, and the tired boy lay down to sleep again. But that was not a restful night for any of the campers. The wolves renewed their howling. The hunters were able to snatch only a few breaths of sleep from time to time, in moments when the dismal ululation of the wolf-chorus subsided. The sun rose, flooding the rolling prairies with a wealth of golden sunshine. The weary campers looked over the expanse around them, but not a remnant of the rejected remains of the buffalo was to be seen; and in all the landscape about, no sign of any living thing was in sight, save where some early-rising jack-rabbit scudded over the torn sod, hunting for his breakfast.

Fresh air, bright sunlight, and a dip in a cool stream are the best correctives for a head heavy with want of sleep; and the hunters, refreshed by these and a pot of strong and steaming coffee, were soon ready for another day's sport.



CHAPTER XVI.

A GREAT DISASTER.

The hunters had better success on their second day's search for buffalo; for they not only found the animals, but they killed three. The first game of the day was brought down by Younkins, who was the "guide, philosopher, and friend" of the party, and Oscar, the youngest of them all, slew the second. The honor of bringing down the third and last was Uncle Aleck's. When he had killed his game, he was anxious to get home as soon as possible, somewhat to the amusement of the others, who rallied him on his selfishness. They hinted that he would not be so ready to go home, if he yet had his buffalo to kill, as had some of the others.

"I'm worried about the crop, to tell the truth," said Mr. Howell. "If that herd of buffalo swept down on our claim, there's precious little corn left there now; and it seemed to me that they went in that direction."

"If that's the case," said the easy-going Younkins, "what's the use of going home? If the corn is gone, you can't get it back by looking at the place where it was."

They laughed at this cool and practical way of looking at things, and Uncle Aleck was half ashamed to admit he wanted to be rid of his present suspense, and could not be satisfied until he had settled in his mind all that he dreaded and feared.

It was a long and wearisome tramp homeward. But they had been more successful than they had hoped or expected, and the way did not seem so long as it would if they had been empty-handed. The choicest parts of their game had been carefully cooled by hanging in the dry Kansas wind, over night, and were now loaded upon the pack-animals. There was enough and more than enough for each of the three families represented in the party; and they had enjoyed many a savory repast of buffalo-meat cooked hunter-fashion before an open camp-fire, while their expedition lasted. So they hailed with pleasure the crooked line of bluffs that marks the big bend of the Republican Fork near which the Whittier cabin was built. Here and there they had crossed the trail, broad and well pounded, of the great herd that had been stampeded on the first day of their hunt. But for the most part the track of the animal multitude bore off more to the south, and the hunters soon forgot their apprehensions of danger to the corn-fields left unfenced on their claim.

It was sunset when the weary pilgrims reached the bluff that overlooked the Younkins cabin where the Dixon party temporarily dwelt. The red light of the sun deluged with splendor the waving grass of the prairie below them, and jack-rabbits scurrying hither and yon were the only signs of life in the peaceful picture. Tired as he was, Oscar could not resist taking a shot at one of the flying creatures; but before he could raise his gun to his shoulder, the long-legged, long-eared rabbit was out of range. Running briskly for a little distance, it squatted in the tall grass. Piqued at this, Oscar stealthily followed on the creature's trail. "It will make a nice change from so much buffalo-meat," said the lad to himself, "and if I get him into the corn-field, he can't hide so easily."

He saw Jack's long ears waving against the sky on the next rise of ground, as he muttered this to himself, and he pressed forward, resolved on one parting shot. He mounted the roll of the prairie, and before him lay the corn-field. It was what had been a corn-field! Where had stood, on the morning of their departure, a glorious field of gold and green, the blades waving in the breeze like banners, was now a mass of ruin. The tumultuous drove had plunged down over the ridge above the field, and had fled, in one broad swath of destruction, straight over every foot of the field, their trail leaving a brown and torn surface on the earth, wide on both sides of the plantation. Scarcely a trace of greenness was left where once the corn-field had been. Here and there, ears of grain, broken and trampled into the torn earth, hinted what had been; but for the most part hillock, stalk, corn-blade, vine, and melon were all crushed into an indistinguishable confusion, muddy and wrecked.

Oscar felt a shudder pass down his back, and his knees well-nigh gave way under him as he caught a glimpse of the ruin that had been wrought. Tears were in his eyes, and, unable to raise a shout, he turned and wildly waved his hands to the party, who had just then reached the door of the cabin. His Uncle Aleck had been watching the lad, and as he saw him turn he exclaimed, "Oscar has found the buffalo trail over the corn-field!"

The whole party moved quickly in the direction of the plantation. When they reached the rise of ground overlooking the field, Oscar, still unable to speak, turned and looked at his father with a face of grief. Uncle Aleck, gazing on the wreck and ruin, said only, "A whole summer's work gone!"

"A dearly bought buffalo-hunt!" remarked Younkins.

"That's so, neighbor," added Mr. Bryant, with the grimmest sort of a smile; and then the men fell to talking calmly of the wonderful amount of mischief that a drove of buffalo could do in a few minutes, even seconds, of time. Evidently, the animals had not stopped to snatch a bite by the way. They had not tarried an instant in their wild course. Down the slope of the fields they had hurried in a mad rush, plunged into the woody creek below, and, leaving the underbrush and vines broken and flattened as if a tornado had passed through the land, had thundered away across the flat floor of the bottom-land on the further side of the creek. A broad brown track behind them showed that they had then fled into the dim distance of the lands of the Chapman's Creek region.

There was nothing to be done, and not much to be said. So, parting with their kindly and sympathizing neighbors, the party went sorrowfully home.

"Well," said Uncle Aleck, as soon as they were alone together, "I am awful sorry that we have lost the corn; but I am not so sure that it is so very great a loss, after all."

The boys looked at him with amazement, and Sandy said,—

"Why, daddy, it's the loss of a whole summer; isn't it? What are we going to live on this whole winter that's coming, now that we have no corn to sell?"

"There's no market for free-State corn in these parts, Sandy," replied his father; and, seeing the look of inquiry on the lad's face, he explained: "Mr. Fuller tells us that the officer at the post, the quartermaster at Fort Riley who buys for the Government, will buy no grain from free-State men. Several from the Smoky Hill and from Chapman's have been down there to find a market, and they all say the same thing. The sutler at the post, Sandy's friend, told Mr. Fuller that it was no use for any free-State man to come there with anything to sell to the Government, at any price. And there is no other good market nearer than the Missouri, you all know that,—one hundred and fifty miles away."

"Well, I call that confoundedly mean!" cried Charlie, with fiery indignation. "Do you suppose, father, that they have from Washington any such instructions to discriminate against us?"

"I cannot say as to that, Charlie," replied his father; "I only tell you what the other settlers report; and it sounds reasonable. That is why the ruin of the corn-field is not so great a misfortune as it might have been."



CHAPTER XVII.

THE WOLF AT THE DOOR.

Uncle Aleck and Mr. Bryant had gone over to Chapman's Creek to make inquiries about the prospect of obtaining corn for their cattle through the coming winter, as the failure of their own crop had made that the next thing to be considered. The three boys were over at the Younkins cabin in quest of news from up the river, where, it was said, a party of California emigrants had been fired upon by the Indians. They found that the party attacked was one coming from California, not migrating thither. It brought the Indian frontier very near the boys to see the shot-riddled wagons, left at Younkins's by the travellers. The Cheyennes had shot into the party and had killed four and wounded two, at a point known as Buffalo Creek, some one hundred miles or so up the Republican Fork. It was a daring piece of effrontery, as there were two military posts not very far away, Fort Kearney above and Fort Riley below.

"But they are far enough away by this time," said Younkins, with some bitterness. "Those military posts are good for nothin' but to run to in case of trouble. No soldiers can get out into the plains from any of them quick enough to catch the slowest Indian of the lot."

Charlie was unwilling to disagree with anything that Younkins said, for he had the highest respect for the opinions of this experienced old plainsman. But he couldn't help reminding him that it would take a very big army to follow up every stray band of Indians, provided any of the tribes should take a notion to go on the warpath.

"Just about this time, though, the men that were stationed at Fort Riley are all down at Lawrence to keep the free-State people from sweeping the streets with free-State brooms, or something that-a-way," said Younkins, determined to have his gibe at the useless soldiery, as he seemed to think them. Oscar was interested at once. Anything that related to the politics of Kansas the boy listened to greedily.

"It's something like this," explained Younkins. "You see the free-State men have got a government there at Lawrence which is lawful under the Topeka Legislator', as it were. The border-State men have got a city government under the Lecompton Legislatur'; and so the two are quarrelling to see which shall govern the city; 'tisn't much of a city, either."

"But what have the troops from Fort Riley to do with it? I don't see that yet," said Oscar, with some heat.



"Well," said Younkins, "I am a poor hand at politics; but the way I understand it is that the Washington Government is in favor of the border-State fellows, and so the troops have been sent down to stand by the mayor that belongs to the Lecompton fellows. Leastways, that is the way the sutler down to the post put it to me when I was down there with the folks that were fired on up to Buffalo Creek; I talked with him about it yesterday. That's why I said they were at Lawrence to prevent the streets being swept by free-State brooms. That is the sutler's joke. See?"

"That's what I call outrageous," cried Oscar, his eyes snapping with excitement. "Here's a people up here on the frontier being massacred by Indians, while the Government troops are down at Lawrence in a political quarrel!"

The boys were so excited over this state of things that they paid very little attention to anything else while on their way back to the cabin, full of the news of the day. Usually, there was not much news to discuss on the Fork.

"What's that by the cabin-door?" said Sandy, falling back as he looked up the trail and beheld a tall white, or light gray, animal smelling around the door-step of the cabin, only a half-mile away. It seemed to be about as large as a full-grown calf, and it moved stealthily about, and yet with a certain unconcern, as if not used to being scared easily.

"It's a wolf!" cried Oscar. "The Sunday that Uncle Aleck and I saw one from the bluff yonder, he was just like that. Hush, Sandy, don't talk so loud, or you'll frighten him off before we can get a crack at him. Let's go up the trail by the ravine, and perhaps we can get a shot before he sees us."

It was seldom that the boys stirred abroad without firearms of some sort. This time they had a shot-gun and a rifle with them, and, examining the weapons as they went, they ran down into a dry gully, to follow which would bring them unperceived almost as directly to the cabin as by the regular trail. As noiselessly as possible, the boys ran up the gully trail, their hearts beating high with expectation. It would be a big feather in their caps if they could only have a gray wolf's skin to show their elders on their return from Chapman's.

"You go round the upper side of the house with your rifle, Oscar, and I'll go round the south side with the shot-gun," was Charlie's advice to his cousin when they had reached the spring at the head of the gully, back of the log-cabin. With the utmost caution, the two boys crept around opposite corners of the house, each hoping he would be lucky enough to secure the first shot. Sandy remained behind, waiting with suppressed excitement for the shot. Instead of the report of a firearm, he heard a peal of laughter from both boys.

"What is it?" he cried, rushing from his place of concealment. "What's the great joke?"

"Nothing," said Oscar, laughing heartily, "only that as I was stealing around the corner here by the corral, Charlie was tiptoeing round the other corner with his eyes bulging out of his head as if he expected to see that wolf."

"Yes," laughed Charlie, "and if Oscar had been a little quicker, he would have fired at me. He had his gun aimed right straight ahead as he came around the corner of the cabin."

"And that wolf is probably miles and miles away from here by this time, while you two fellows were sneaking around to find him. Just as if he was going to wait here for you!" It was Sandy's turn to laugh, then.

The boys examined the tracks left in the soft loam of the garden by the strange animal, and came to the conclusion that it must have been a very large wolf, for its footsteps were deep as if it were a heavy creature, and their size was larger than that of any wolf-tracks they had ever seen.

When the elders heard the story on their arrival from Chapman's, that evening, Uncle Aleck remarked with some grimness, "So the wolf is at the door at last, boys." The lads by this understood that poverty could not be far off; but they could not comprehend that poverty could affect them in a land where so much to live upon was running wild, so to speak.

"Who is this that rides so fast?" queried Charlie, a day or two after the wolf adventure, as he saw a stranger riding up the trail from the ford. It was very seldom that any visitor, except the good Younkins, crossed their ford. And Younkins always came over on foot.

Here was a horseman who rode as if in haste. The unaccustomed sight drew all hands around the cabin to await the coming of the stranger, who rode as if he were on some important errand bent. It was Battles. His errand was indeed momentous. A corporal from the post had come to his claim, late in the night before, bidding him warn all the settlers on the Fork that the Cheyennes were coming down the Smoky Hill, plundering, burning, and slaying the settlers. Thirteen white people had been killed in the Smoky Hill country, and the savages were evidently making their way to the fort, which at that time was left in an unprotected condition. The commanding officer sent word to all settlers that if they valued their lives they would abandon their claims and fly to the fort for safety. Arms and ammunition would be furnished to all who came. Haste was necessary, for the Indians were moving rapidly down the Smoky Hill.

"But the Smoky Hill is twenty-five or thirty miles from here," said Mr. Bryant; "why should they strike across the plains between here and there?"

Battles did not know; but he supposed, from his talk with the corporal, that it was expected that the Cheyennes would not go quite to the fort, but, having raided the Smoky Hill country down as near to the post as might seem safe, they would strike across to the Republican Fork at some narrow point between the two rivers, travel up that stream, and so go back to the plains from which they came, robbing and burning by the way.

The theory seemed a reasonable one. Such a raid was like Indian warfare.

"How many men are there at the post?" asked Uncle Aleck.

"Ten men including the corporal and a lieutenant of cavalry," replied Battles, who was a pro-slavery man. "The rest are down at Lawrence to suppress the rebellion."

"So the commanding officer at the post wants us to come down and help defend the fort, which has been left to take care of itself while the troops are at Lawrence keeping down the free-State men," said Mr. Bryant, bitterly. "For my part, I don't feel like going. How is it with you, Aleck?"

"I guess we had better take care of ourselves and the boys, Charlie," said Uncle Aleck, cheerily. "It's pretty mean for Uncle Sam to leave the settlers to take care of themselves and the post at this critical time, I know; but we can't afford to quibble about that now. Safety is the first consideration. What does Younkins say?" he asked of Battles.

"A randyvoo has been appointed at my house to-night," said the man, "and Younkins said he would be there before sundown. He told me to tell you not to wait for him; he would meet you there. He has sent his wife and children over to Fuller's, and Fuller has agreed to send them with Mrs. Fuller over to the Big Blue, where there is no danger. Fuller will be back to my place by midnight. There is no time to fool away."

Here was an unexpected crisis. The country was evidently alarmed and up in arms. An Indian raid, even if over twenty miles away, was a terror that they had not reckoned on. After a hurried consultation, the Whittier settlers agreed to be at the "randyvoo," as Battles called it, before daybreak next morning. They thought it best to take his advice and hide what valuables they had in the cabin, make all snug, and leave things as if they never expected to see their home again, and take their way to the post as soon as possible.



It was yet early morning, for Mr. Battles had wasted no time in warning the settlers as soon as he had received notice from the fort. They had all the day before them for their preparations. So the settlers, leaving other plans for the time, went zealously to work packing up and secreting in the thickets and the gully the things they thought most valuable and they were least willing to spare. Clothing, crockery, and table knives and forks were wrapped up in whatever came handy and were buried in holes dug in the ploughed ground. Lead, bullets, slugs, and tools of various kinds were buried or concealed in the forks of trees, high up and out of sight. Where any articles were buried in the earth, a fire was afterwards built on the surface so that no trace of the disturbed ground should be left to show the expected redskins that goods had been there concealed. They lamented that a sack of flour and a keg of molasses could not be put away, and that their supply of side-meat, which had cost them a long journey to Manhattan, must be abandoned to the foe—if he came to take it. But everything that could be hidden in trees or buried in the earth was so disposed of as rapidly as possible.

Perhaps the boys, after the first flush of apprehension had passed, rather enjoyed the novelty and the excitement. Their spirits rose as they privately talked among themselves of the real Indian warfare of which this was a foretaste. They hoped that it would be nothing worse. When the last preparations were made, and they were ready to depart from their home, uncertain whether they would ever see it again, Sandy, assisted by Oscar, composed the following address. It was written in a big, boyish hand on a sheet of letter-paper, and was left on the table in the middle of their cabin:—

GOOD MISTER INDIAN: We are leaving in a hurry and we want you to be careful of the fire when you come. Don't eat the corn-meal in the sack in the corner; it is poisoned. The flour is full of crickets, and crickets are not good for the stomach. Don't fool with the matches, nor waste the molasses. Be done as you would do by, for that is the golden rule.

Yours truly, THE WHITTIER SETTLERS.

Even in the midst of their uneasiness and trouble, their elders laughed at this unique composition, although Mr. Bryant thought that the boys had mixed their version of the golden rule. Sandy said that no Cheyenne would be likely to improve upon it. So, with many misgivings, the little party closed the door of their home behind them, and took up their line of march to the rendezvous.

The shortest way to Battles's was by a ford farther down the river, and not by the way of the Younkins place. So, crossing the creek on a fallen tree near where Sandy had shot his famous flock of ducks, and then steering straight across the flat bottom-land on the opposite side, the party struck into a trail that led through the cottonwoods skirting the west bank of the stream. The moon was full, and the darkness of the grove through which they wended their way in single file was lighted by long shafts of moonbeams that streamed through the dense growth. The silence, save for the steady tramp of the little expedition, was absolute. Now and again a night-owl hooted, or a sleeping hare, scared from its form, scampered away into the underbrush; but these few sounds made the solitude only more oppressive. Charlie, bringing up the rear, noted the glint of the moonlight on the barrels of the firearms carried by the party ahead of him, and all the romance in his nature was kindled by the thought that this was frontier life in the Indian country. Not far away, he thought, as he turned his face to the southward, the cabins of settlers along the Smoky Hill were burning, and death and desolation marked the trail of the cruel Cheyennes.

Now and again Sandy, shivering in the chill and dampness of the wood, fell back and whispered to Oscar, who followed him in the narrow trail, that this would be awfully jolly if he were not so sleepy. The lad was accustomed to go to bed soon after dark; it was now late into the night.

All hands were glad when the big double cabin of the Battles family came in sight about midnight, conspicuous on a rise of the rolling prairie and black against the sky. Lights were burning brightly in one end of the cabin; in the other end a part of the company had gone to sleep, camping on the floor. Hot coffee and corn-bread were ready for the newcomers, and Younkins, with a tender regard for the lads, who were unaccustomed to milk when at home, brought out a big pan of delicious cool milk for their refreshment. Altogether, as Sandy confessed to himself, an Indian scare was not without its fun. He listened with great interest to the tales that the settlers had to tell of the exploits of Gray Wolf, the leader and chief of the Cheyennes. He was a famous man in his time, and some of the elder settlers of Kansas will even now remember his name with awe. The boys were not at all desirous of meeting the Indian foe, but they secretly hoped that if they met any of the redskins, they would see the far-famed Gray Wolf.

While the party, refreshed by their late supper, found a lodging anywhere on the floor of the cabin, a watch was set outside, for the Indians might pounce upon them at any hour of the night or day. Those who had mounted guard during the earlier part of the evening went to their rest. Charlie, as he dropped off to sleep, heard the footsteps of the sentry outside and said to himself, half in jest, "The Wolf is at the door."

But no wolf came to disturb their slumbers. The bright and cheerful day, and the song of birds dispelled the gloom of the night, and fear was lifted from the minds of the anxious settlers, some of whom, separated from wives and children, were troubled with thoughts of homes despoiled and crops destroyed. Just as they had finished breakfast and were preparing for the march to the fort, now only two or three miles away, a mounted man in the uniform of a United States dragoon dashed up to the cabin, and, with a flourish of soldierly manner, informed the company that the commanding officer at the post had information that the Cheyennes, instead of crossing over to the Republican as had been expected, or attacking the fort, had turned and gone back the way they came. All was safe, and the settlers might go home assured that there was no danger to themselves or their families.

Having delivered this welcome message in a grand and semi-official manner, the corporal dismounted from his steed, in answer to a pressing invitation from Battles, and unbent himself like an ordinary mortal to partake of a very hearty breakfast of venison, corn-bread, and coffee. The company unslung their guns and rifles, sat down again, and regaled themselves with pipes, occasional cups of strong coffee, and yet more exhilarating tales of the exploits and adventures of Indian slayers of the earlier time on the Kansas frontier. The great Indian scare was over. Before night fell again, every settler had gone his own way to his claim, glad that things were no worse, but groaning at Uncle Sam for the niggardliness which had left the region so defenceless when an emergency had come.



CHAPTER XVIII.

DISCOURAGEMENT.

Right glad were our settlers to see their log-cabin home peacefully sleeping in the autumnal sunshine, as they returned along the familiar trail from the river. They had gone back by the way of the Younkins place and had partaken of the good man's hospitality. Younkins thought it best to leave his brood with his neighbors on the Big Blue for another day. "The old woman," he said, "would feel sort of scary-like" until things had well blown over. She was all right where she was, and he would try to get on alone for a while. So the boys, under his guidance, cooked a hearty luncheon which they heartily enjoyed. Younkins had milk and eggs, both of which articles were luxuries to the Whittier boys, for on their ranch they had neither cow nor hens.

"Why can't we have some hens this fall, daddy?" asked Sandy, luxuriating in a big bowl of custard sweetened with brown sugar, which the skilful Charlie had compounded. "We can build a hen-house there by the corral, under the lee of the cabin, and make it nice and warm for the winter. Battles has got hens to sell, and perhaps Mr. Younkins would be willing to sell us some of his."

"If we stay, Sandy, we will have some fowls; but we will talk about that by and by," said his father.

"Stay?" echoed Sandy. "Why, is there any notion of going back? Back from 'bleeding Kansas'? Why, daddy, I'm ashamed of you."

Mr. Howell smiled and looked at his brother-in-law. "Things do not look very encouraging for a winter in Kansas, bleeding or not bleeding; do they, Charlie?"

"Well, if you appeal to me, father," replied the lad, "I shall be glad to stay and glad to go home. But, after all, I must say, I don't exactly see what we can do here this winter. There is no farm work that can be done. But it would cost an awful lot of money to go back to Dixon, unless we took back everything with us and went as we came. Wouldn't it?"

Younkins did not say anything, but he looked approvingly at Charlie while the other two men discussed the problem. Mr. Bryant said it was likely to be a hard winter; they had no corn to sell, none to feed to their cattle. "But corn is so cheap that the settlers over on Solomon's Fork say they will use it for fuel this winter. Battles told me so. I'd like to see a fire of corn on the cob; they say it makes a hot fire burned that way. Corn-cobs without corn hold the heat a long time. I've tried it."

"It is just here, boys," said Uncle Aleck. "The folks at home are lonesome; they write, you know, that they want to come out before the winter sets in. But it would be mighty hard for women out here, this coming winter, with big hulking fellows like us to cook for and with nothing for us to do. Everything to eat would have to be bought. We haven't even an ear of corn for ourselves or our cattle. Instead of selling corn at the post, as we expected, we would have to buy of our neighbors, Mr. Younkins here, and Mr. Fuller, and we would be obliged to buy our flour and groceries at the post, or down at Manhattan; and they charge two prices for things out here; they have to, for it costs money to haul stuff all the way from the river."

"That's so," said Younkins, resignedly. He was thinking of making a trip to "the river," as the settlers around there always called the Missouri, one hundred and fifty miles distant. But Younkins assured his friends that they were welcome to live in his cabin where they still were at home, for another year, if they liked, and he would haul from the river any purchases that they might make. He was expecting to be ready to start for Leavenworth in a few days, as they knew, and one of them could go down with him and lay in a few supplies. His team could haul enough for all hands. If not, they could double up the two teams and bring back half of Leavenworth, if they had the money to buy so much. He "hated dreadfully" to hear them talking about going back to Illinois.

But when the settlers reached home and found amusement and some little excitement in the digging up of their household treasures and putting things in place once more, the thought of leaving this home in the Far West obtruded itself rather unpleasantly on the minds of all of them, although nobody spoke of what each thought. Oscar had hidden his precious violin high up among the rafters of the cabin, being willing to lose it only if the cabin were burned. There was absolutely no other place where it would be safe to leave it. He climbed to the loft overhead and brought it forth with great glee, laid his cheek lovingly on its body and played a familiar air. Engrossed in his music, he played on and on until he ran into the melody of "Home, Sweet Home," to which he had added many curious and artistic variations.