"Don't play that, Oscar; you make me homesick!" cried Charlie, with a suspicious moisture in his eyes. "It was all very well for us to hear that when this was the only home we had or expected to have; but daddy and Uncle Charlie have set us to thinking about the home in Illinois, and that will make us all homesick, I really believe."

"Here is all my 'funny business' wasted," cried Sandy. "No Indian came to read my comic letter, after all. I suppose the mice and crickets must have found some amusement in it; I saw any number of them scampering away when I opened the door; but I guess they are the only living things that have been here since we went away."

"Isn't it queer that we should be gone like this for nearly two days," said Oscar, "leaving everything behind us, and come back and know that nobody has been any nearer to the place than we have, all the time? I can't get used to it."

"My little philosopher," said his Uncle Charlie, "we are living in the wilderness; and if you were to live here always, you would feel, by and by, that every newcomer was an interloper; you would resent the intrusion of any more settlers here, interfering with our freedom and turning out their cattle to graze on the ranges that seem to be so like our own, now. That's what happens to frontier settlers, everywhere."

"Why, yes," said Sandy, "I s'pose we should all be like that man over on the Big Blue that Mr. Fuller tells about, who moved away when a newcomer took up a claim ten miles and a half from him, because, as he thought, the people were getting too thick. For my part, I am willing to have this part of Kansas crowded to within, say, a mile and a half of us, and no more. Hey, Charlie?"



But the prospect of that side of the Republican Fork being over-full with settlers did not seem very imminent about that time. From parts of Kansas nearer to the Missouri River than they were, they heard of a slackening in the stream of migration. The prospect of a cold winter had cooled the ardor of the politicians who had determined, earlier in the season, to hold the Territory against all comers. Something like a truce had been tacitly agreed on, and there was a cessation of hostilities for the present. The troops had been marched back from Lawrence to the post, and no more elections were coming on for the present in any part of the Territory. Mr. Bryant, who was the only ardent politician of the company, thought that it would be a good plan to go back to Illinois for the winter. They could come out again in the spring and bring the rest of the two families with them. The land would not run away while they were gone.

It was with much reluctance that the boys accepted this plan of their elders. They were especially sorry that it was thought best that the two men should stay behind and wind up affairs, while the three lads would go down to the river with Younkins, and thence home by steamer from Leavenworth down the Missouri to St. Louis. But, after a few days of debate, this was thought to be the best thing that could be done. It was on a dull, dark November day that the boys, wading for the last time the cold stream of the Fork, crossed over to Younkins's early in the morning, while the sky was red with the dawning, carrying their light baggage with them. They had ferried their trunks across the day before, using the oxcart for the purpose and loading all into Younkins's team, ready for the homeward journey.

Now that the bustle of departure had come, it did not seem so hard to leave the new home on the Republican as they had expected. It had been agreed that the two men should follow in a week, in time to take the last steamboat going down the river in the fall, from Fort Benton, before the closing of navigation for the season. Mr. Bryant, unknown to the boys, had written home to Dixon directing that money be sent in a letter addressed to Charlie, in care of a well-known firm in Leavenworth. They would find it there on their arrival, and that would enable them to pay their way down the river to St. Louis and thence home by the railroad.

"But suppose the money shouldn't turn up?" asked Charlie, when told of the money awaiting them. He was accustomed to look on the dark side of things, sometimes, so the rest of them thought. "What then?"

"Well, I guess you will have to walk home," said his uncle, with a smile. "But don't worry about that. At the worst, you can work your passage to St. Louis, and there you will find your uncle, Oscar G. Bryant, of the firm of Bryant, Wilder & Co. I'll give you his address, and he will see you through, in case of accidents. But there will be no accidents. What is the use of borrowing trouble about that?"

They did not borrow any trouble, and as they drove away from the scenes that had grown so familiar to them, they looked forward, as all boys would, to an adventurous voyage down the Missouri, and a welcome home to their mothers and their friends in dear old Dixon.

The nights were now cold and the days chilly. They had cooked a goodly supply of provisions for their journey, for they had not much ready money to pay for fare by the way. At noon they stopped by the roadside and made a pot of hot coffee, opened their stores of provisions and lunched merrily, gypsy-fashion, caring nothing for the curious looks and inquisitive questions of other wayfarers who passed them. For the first few nights they attempted to sleep in the wagon. But it was fearfully cold, and the wagon-bed, cluttered up with trunks, guns, and other things, gave them very little room. Miserable and sore, they resolved to spend their very last dollar, if need be, in paying for lodging at the wayside inns and hospitable cabins of the settlers along the road. The journey homeward was not nearly so merry as that of the outward trip. But new cabins had been built along their route, and the lads found much amusement in hunting up their former camping-places as they drove along the military road to Fort Leavenworth.

In this way, sleeping at the farm-houses and such casual taverns as had grown up by the highway, and usually getting their supper and breakfast where they slept, they crept slowly toward the river. Sandy was the cashier of the party, although he had preferred that Charlie, being the eldest, should carry their slender supply of cash. Charlie would not take that responsibility; but, as the days went by, he rigorously required an accounting every morning; he was very much afraid that their money would not hold out until they reached Leavenworth.

Twenty miles a day with an ox-team was fairly good travelling; and it was one hundred and fifty miles from the Republican to the Missouri, as the young emigrants travelled the road. A whole week had been consumed by the tedious trip when they drove into the busy and bustling town of Leavenworth, one bright autumnal morning. All along the way they had picked up much information about the movement of steamers, and they were delighted to find that the steamboat "New Lucy" was lying at the levee, ready to sail on the afternoon of the very day they would be in Leavenworth. They camped, for the last time, in the outskirts of the town, a good-natured border-State man affording them shelter in his hay-barn, where they slept soundly all through their last night in "bleeding Kansas."

The "New Lucy," from Fort Benton on the upper Missouri, was blowing off steam as they drove down to the levee. Younkins helped them unload their baggage, wrung their hands, one after another, with real tears in his eyes, for he had learned to love these hearty, happy lads, and then drove away with his cattle to pen them for the day and night that he should be there. Charlie and Oscar went to the warehouse of Osterhaus & Wickham, where they were to find the letter from home, the precious letter containing forty dollars to pay their expenses homeward.

Sandy sat on the pile of trunks watching with great interest the novel sight of hurrying passengers, different from any people he ever saw before; black "roustabouts," or deck-hands, tumbling the cargo and the firewood on board, singing, shouting, and laughing the while, the white mates overseeing the work with many hard words, and the captain, tough and swarthy, superintending from the upper deck the mates and all hands. A party of nice-looking, citified people, as Sandy thought them, attracted his attention on the upper deck, and he mentally wondered what they could be doing here, so far in the wilderness.

"Car' yer baggage aboard, boss?" asked a lively young negro, half-clad and hungry-looking.

"No, not yet," answered Sandy, feeling in his trousers pocket the last two quarters of a dollar that was left them. "Not yet. I am not ready to go aboard till my mates come." The hungry-looking darky made a rush for another more promising passenger and left Sandy lounging where the other lads soon after found him. Charlie's face was a picture of despair. Oscar looked very grave, for him.

"What's up?" cried Sandy, starting from his seat. "Have you seen a ghost?"

"Worse than that," said Charlie. "Somebody's stolen the money!"

"Stolen the money?" echoed Sandy, with vague terror, the whole extent of the catastrophe flitting before his mind. "Why, what on earth do you mean?"

Oscar explained that they had found the letter, as they expected, and he produced it, written by the two loving mothers at home. They said that they had made up their minds to send fifty dollars, instead of the forty that Uncle Charlie had said would be enough. It was in ten-dollar notes, five of them; at least, it had been so when the letter left Dixon. When it was opened in Leavenworth, it was empty, save for the love and tenderness that were in it. Sandy groaned.

The lively young darky came up again with, "Car' yer baggage aboard, boss?"

It was sickening.

"What's to be done now?" said Charlie, in deepest dejection, as he sat on the pile of baggage that now looked so useless and needless. "I just believe some of the scamps I saw loafing around there in that store stole the money out of the letter. See here; it was sealed with that confounded new-fangled 'mucilage'; gumstickum I call it. Anybody could feel those five bank-notes inside of the letter, and anybody could steam it open, take out the money, and seal it up again. We have been robbed."

"Let's go and see the heads of the house there at Osterhaus & Wickham's. They will see us righted," cried Sandy, indignantly. "I won't stand it, for one."

"No use," groaned Charlie. "We saw Mr. Osterhaus. He was very sorry—oh, yes!—awfully sorry; but he didn't know us, and he had no responsibility for the letters that came to his place. It was only an accommodation to people that he took them in his care, anyhow. Oh, it's no use talking! Here we are, stranded in a strange place, knowing no living soul in the whole town but good old Younkins, and nobody knows where he is. He couldn't lend us the money, even if we were mean enough to ask him. Good old Younkins!"

"Younkins!" cried Sandy, starting to his feet. "He will give us good advice. He has got a great head, has Younkins. I'll go and ask him what to do. Bless me! There he is now!" and as he spoke, the familiar slouching figure of their neighbor came around the corner of a warehouse on the levee.

"Why don't yer go aboard, boys? The boat leaves at noon, and it's past twelve now. I just thought I'd come down and say good-by-like, for I'm powerful sorry to have ye go."

The boys explained to the astonished and grieved Younkins how they had been wrecked, as it were, almost in sight of the home port. The good man nodded his head gravely, as he listened, softly jingled the few gold coins in his trousers pocket, and said: "Well, boys, this is the wust scald I ever did see. If I wasn't so dreadful hard up, I'd give ye what I've got."

"That's not to be thought of, Mr. Younkins," said Charlie, with dignity and gratitude, "for we can't think of borrowing money to get home with. It would be better to wait until we can write home for more. We might earn enough to pay our board." And Charlie, with a sigh, looked around at the unsympathetic and hurrying throng.

"You've got baggage as security for your passage to St. Louis. Go aboard and tell the clerk how you are fixed. Your pa said as how you would be all right when you got to St. Louis. Go and 'brace' the clerk."

This was a new idea to the boys. They had never heard of such a thing. Who would dare to ask such a great favor? The fare from Leavenworth to St. Louis was twelve dollars each. They had known all about that. And they knew, too, that the price included their meals on the way down.

"I'll go brace the clerk," said Sandy, stoutly; and before the others could put in a word, he was gone.

The clerk was a handsome, stylish-looking man, with a good-natured countenance that reassured the timid boy at once. Mustering up his waning courage, Sandy stated the case to him, telling him that that pile of trunks and guns on the levee was theirs, and that they would leave them on board when they got to St. Louis until they had found their uncle and secured the money for their fares.

The handsome clerk looked sharply at the lad while he was telling his story. "You've got an honest face, my little man. I'll trust you. Bring aboard your baggage. People spar their way on the river every day in the year; you needn't be ashamed of it. Accidents will happen, you know." And the busy clerk turned away to another customer.

With a light heart Sandy ran ashore. His waiting and anxiously watching comrades saw by his face that he had been successful, before he spoke.

"That's all fixed," he cried, blithely.

"Bully boy!" said Younkins, admiringly.

"Car' yer baggage aboard, boss?" asked the lively young darky.

"Take it along," said Sandy, with a lordly air. They shook hands with Younkins once more, this time with more fervor than ever. Then the three lads filed on board the steamboat. The gang-plank was hauled in, put out again for the last tardy passenger, once more taken aboard, and then the stanch steamer "New Lucy" was on her way down the turbid Missouri.

"Oh, Sandy," whispered Charlie, "you gave that darky almost the last cent we had for bringing our baggage on board. We ought to have lugged it aboard ourselves."

"Lugged it aboard ourselves? And all these people that we are going to be passengers with for the next four or five days watching us while we did a roustabout's work? Not much. We've a quarter left."

Charlie was silent. The great stern-wheel of the "New Lucy" revolved with a dashing and a churning sound. The yellow banks of the Missouri sped by them. The sacred soil of Kansas slid past as in a swiftly moving panorama. One home was hourly growing nearer, while another was fading away there into the golden autumnal distance.



CHAPTER XIX.

DOWN THE BIG MUDDY.

It is more than six hundred miles from Leavenworth to St. Louis by the river. And as the river is crooked exceedingly, a steamboat travelling that route points her bow at every point of the compass, north, south, east, and west, before the voyage is finished. The boys were impatient to reach home, to be back in dear old Dixon, to see the mother and the fireside once more. But they knew that days must pass before they could reach St. Louis. The three lads settled themselves comfortably in the narrow limits of their little stateroom; for they found that their passage included quarters really more luxurious than they had been accustomed to in their Kansas log-cabin.

"Not much army blanket and buffalo-robe about this," whispered Oscar, pressing his toil-stained hand on the nice white spread of his berth. "Say, wouldn't Younkins allow that this was rather comfortable-like, if he was to see it and compare it with his deerskin coverlet that he is so proud of?"

"Well, Younkins's deerskin coverlet is paid for, and this isn't," said Charlie, grimly.

But the light-hearted younger boys borrowed no trouble on that score. As Sandy said, laughingly, they were all fixed for the trip to St. Louis, and what was the use of fretting about the passage money until the time came to pay it?

When the lads, having exchanged their flannel shirts for white cotton ones, saved up for this occasion, came out from their room, they saw two long tables covered with snowy cloths set for the whole length of the big saloon. They had scanned the list of meal hours hanging in their stateroom, and were very well satisfied to find that there were three meals served each day. It was nearly time for the two o'clock dinner, and the colored servants were making ready the tables. The boat was crowded with passengers, and it looked as if some of them would be obliged to wait for the "second table." On board of a steamboat, especially in those days of long voyages, the matter of getting early to the table and having a good seat was of great concern to the passengers. Men stood around, lining the walls of the saloon and regarding with hungry expectation the movements of the waiters who were making ready the tables. When the chairs were placed, every man laid his hand on the top of the seat nearest him, prepared, as one of the boys privately expressed it, to "make a grab."

"Well, if we don't make a grab, too, we shall get left," whispered Sandy, and the boys bashfully filed down the saloon and stood ready to take their seats when the gong should sound.

To eyes unused to the profuseness of living that then prevailed on the best class of Western steamboats, the display on the dining-tables of the "New Lucy" was very grand indeed. The waiters, all their movements regulated by something like military discipline, filed in and out bearing handsome dishes for the decoration of the board.

"Just look at those gorgeous flowers! Red, white, blue, purple, yellow! My! aren't they fine?" said Sandy, under his breath.

Oscar giggled. "They are artificial, Sandy. How awfully green you are!"

Sandy stoutly maintained that they were real flowers. He could smell them. But when one of the waiters, having accidentally overturned one of the vases and knocked a flaming bouquet on the carpeted floor of the cabin, snatched it up and dusted it with his big black hand, Sandy gave in, and murmured, "Tis true; they're false."

But the boys' eyes fairly stood out with wonder and admiration when a procession of colored men came out of the pantry, bearing a grand array of ornamental dishes. Pineapples, bananas, great baskets of fancy cakes, and other dainties attracted their wonder-stricken gaze. But most of all, numerous pyramids of macaroons, two or three feet high, with silky veils of spun sugar falling down from summit to base, fascinated their attention. They had never seen the like at a public table; and the generous board of the "New Lucy" fairly groaned with good things when the gong somewhat superfluously announced to the waiting throng that dinner was served.

"No plates, knives, or forks," said Sandy, as, amid a great clatter and rush, everybody sat down to the table. Just then a long procession of colored waiters emerged from the pantry, the foremost man carrying a pile of plates, and after him came another with a basket of knives, after him another with a basket of forks, then another with spoons, and so on, each man carrying a supply of some one article for the table. With the same military precision that had marked all their movements, six black hands were stretched at the same instant over the shoulders of the sitting passengers, and six articles were noiselessly dropped on the table; then, with a similar motion, the six black hands went back to their respective owners, as the procession moved along behind the guests, the white-sleeved arms and black hands waving in the air and keeping exact time as the procession moved around the table.

"Looks like a white-legged centipede," muttered Sandy, under his breath. But more evolutions were coming. These preliminaries having been finished, the solemn procession went back to the kitchen regions, and presently came forth again, bearing a glittering array of shining metal covered dishes. At the tap of the pompous head-waiter's bell, every man stood at "present arms," as Oscar said. Then, at another tap, each dish was projected over the white cloth to the spot for which it was designed, and held an inch or two above the table. Another tap, and every dish dropped into its place with a sound as of one soft blow. The pompous head-waiter struck his bell again, and every dish-cover was touched by a black hand. One more jingle, and, with magical swiftness and deftness, each dish-cover was lifted, and a delightful perfume of savory viands gushed forth amidst the half-suppressed "Ahs" of the assembled and hungry diners. Then the procession of dark-skinned waiters, bearing the dish-covers, filed back to the pantry, and the real business of the day began. This was the way that dinners were served on all the first-rate steamboats on Western rivers in those days.

To hungry, hearty boys, used of late to the rough fare of the frontier, and just from a hard trip in an ox-wagon, with very short rations indeed, this profusion of good things was a real delight. Sandy's mouth watered, but he gently sighed to himself, "'Most takes away my appetite." The polite, even servile, waiters pressed the lads with the best of everything on the generous board; and Sandy's cup of happiness was full when a jolly darky, his ebony face shining with good-nature, brought him some frosted cake, charlotte russe, and spun sugar and macaroons from one of the shattered pyramids.

"D'ye s'pose they break those up every day?" whispered Sandy to the more dignified Charlie.

"Suttinly, suh," replied the colored man, overhearing the question; "suttinly, suh. Dis yere boat is de fastest and de finest on de Big Muddy, young gent; an' dere's nuttin' in dis yere worl' that the 'New Lucy' doan have on her table; an' doan yer fergit it, young mas'r," he added, with respectful pride in his voice.

"My! what a tuck-out! I've ate and ate until I'm fairly fit to bust," said Sandy, as the three boys, their dinner over, sauntered out into the open air and beheld the banks of the river swiftly slipping by as they glided down the stream.

Just then, glancing around, his eye caught the amused smile of a tall and lovely lady who was standing near by, chatting with two or three rather superior-looking young people whom the lad had first noticed when the question of having the baggage brought on board at Leavenworth was under discussion. Sandy's brown cheek flushed; but the pretty lady, extending her hand, said: "Pardon my smiling, my boy; but I have a dear lad at home in Baltimore who always says just that after his Christmas dinner, and sometimes on other occasions, perhaps; and his name is Sandy, too. I think I heard your brother call you Sandy? This is your brother, is it not?" And the lady turned towards Charlie.

The lad explained the relationship of the little party, and the lady from Baltimore introduced the members of her party. They had been far up the river to Fort Benton, where they had spent some weeks with friends who were in the military garrison at that post. The young men, of whom there were three in the party, had been out hunting for buffalo, elk, and other big game. Had the boys ever killed any buffalo? The pleasant-faced young gentleman who asked the question had noticed that they had a full supply of guns when they came aboard at Leavenworth.

Yes, they had killed buffalo; at least, Sandy had; and the youngster's exploit on the bluff of the Republican Fork was glowingly narrated by the generous and manly Charlie. This story broke the ice with the newly met voyagers and, before the gong sounded for supper, the Whittier boys, as they still called themselves, were quite as well acquainted with the party from Baltimore, as they thought, as they would have been if they had been neighbors and friends on the banks of the Republican.

The boys looked in at the supper-table. They only looked; for although the short autumnal afternoon had fled swiftly by while they were chatting with their new friends or exploring the steamboat, they felt that they could not possibly take another repast so soon after their first real "tuck-out" on the "New Lucy." The overloaded table, shining with handsome glass and china and decked with fancy cakes, preserves, and sweetmeats, had no present attractions for the boys. "It's just like after Thanksgiving dinner," said Oscar. "Only we are far from home," he added, rather soberly. And when the lads crawled into their bunks, as Sandy insisted upon calling their berths, it would not surprise one if "thoughts of home and sighs disturbed the sleeper's long-drawn breath."

Time and again, in the night-watches, the steamer stopped at some landing by the river-side. Now it would be a mere wood-pile, and the boat would be moored to a cottonwood tree that overhung the stream. Torches of light-wood burning in iron frames at the end of a staff stuck into the ground or lashed to the steamer rail shed a wild, weird glare on the hurrying scene as the roustabouts, or deck-hands, nimbly lugged the wood on board, or carried the cargo ashore, singing plaintive melodies as they worked. Then again, the steamer would be made fast to a wharf-boat by some small town, or to the levee of a larger landing-place, and goods went ashore, passengers flitted on and off, baggage was transferred, the gang-plank was hauled in with prodigious clatter, the engineer's bell tinkled, and, with a great snort from her engines, the "New Lucy" resumed her way down the river. Few passengers but those who were to go ashore could be seen on the upper deck viewing the strange sights of making a night-landing. And through the whole racket and din, three lads slept the sleep of the young and the innocent in room Number 56. "Just the number of the year with the eighteen knocked off," Sandy had said when they were assigned to it.

When the boys had asked in Leavenworth how long the trip to St. Louis would be, they were told, "Three or four days, if the water holds." This they thought rather vague information, and they had only a dim idea of what the man meant by the water holding. They soon learned. The season had been dry for the time of year. Although it was now November, little or no autumnal rains had fallen. Passengers from Fort Benton said that the lands on the Upper Missouri were parched for want of water, and the sluggish currents of the Big Muddy were "as slow as cold molasses," as one of the deck-hands said to Sandy, when he was peering about the lower deck of the steamboat. It began to look as if the water would not hold.

On the second afternoon out of Leavenworth, as the "New Lucy" was gallantly sweeping around Prairie Bend, where any boat going down stream is headed almost due north, the turn in the river revealed no less than four other steamers hard and fast on the shoals that now plentifully appeared above the surface of the yellow water. Cautiously feeling her way along through these treacherous bars and sands, the "New Lucy," with slackened speed, moved bravely down upon the stranded fleet. Anxious passengers clustered on the forward part of the steamer, watching the course of events. With many a cough and many a sigh, the boat swung to the right or left, obedient to her helm, the cry of the man heaving the lead for soundings telling them how fast the water shoaled or deepened as they moved down stream.

"We are bound to get aground," said Oscar, as he scanned the wide river, apparently almost bare to its bed. "I suppose there is a channel, and I suppose that pilot up there in the pilot-house knows where it is, but I don't see any." Just then the water before them suddenly shoaled, there was a soft, grating sound, a thud, and the boat stopped, hard and fast aground. The "New Lucy" had joined the fleet of belated steamers on the shoals of Prairie Bend.

The order was given for all passengers to go aft; and while the lads were wondering what they were so peremptorily sent astern for, they saw two tall spars that had been carried upright at the bow of the boat rigged into the shape of a V upside down, and set on either side of the craft, the lower ends resting on the sand-bar each side of her. A big block and tackle were rigged at the point where the spars crossed each other over the bow of the boat, and from these a stout cable was made fast to the steamer's "nose," as the boys heard somebody call the extreme point of the bow.

"They are actually going to hoist this boat over the sand-bar," said Sandy, excitedly, as they viewed these preparations from the rear of the boat.

"That is exactly what they are going to do," said the pleasant-faced young man from Baltimore. "Now, then!" he added, with the air of one encouraging another, as the crew, laying hold of the tackle, and singing with a queer, jerky way, began to hoist. This would not avail. The nose of the boat was jammed deep into the sand, and so the cable was led back to a windlass, around which it was carried. Then, the windlass being worked by steam, the hull of the steamer rose very slightly, and the bottom of the bow was released from the river-bottom. The pilot rang his bell, the engine puffed and clattered, and the boat crept ahead for a few feet, and then came to rest again. That was all that could be done until the spars were reset further forward or deep water was reached. It was discouraging, for with all their pulling and hauling, that had lasted for more than an hour, they had made only four or five feet of headway.

"At the rate of five feet an hour, how long will it take us to spar our way down to St. Louis?" asked Charlie, quizzically.

"Oh, Charlie," cried Sandy, "I know now why the clerk said that there were plenty of fellows who had to spar their way on the river. It is hard work to pull this steamer over the sand-bars and shoals, and when a man is busted and has to work his way along, he's like a steamboat in a fix, like this one is. See? That's the reason why they say he is sparring his way, isn't it?"

"You are quite correct, youngster," said the young man from Baltimore, regarding Sandy's bright face with pleasure. "Correct you are. But I never knew what the slang meant until I came out here. And, for that matter, I don't know that I ever heard the slang before. But it is the jargon of the river men."

By this time, even sparring was of very little use, for the spars only sank deep and deeper into the soft river-bottom, and there was no chance to raise the bow of the boat from its oozy bed. The case for the present was hopeless; but the crew were kept constantly busy until nightfall, pulling and hauling. Some were sent ashore in a skiff, with a big hawser, which was made fast to a tree, and then all the power of the boat, men and steam, was put upon it to twist her nose off from the shoal into which it was stuck. All sorts of devices were resorted to, and a small gain was made once in a while; but it looked very much as if the calculation of Charlie, five feet in an hour, was too liberal an allowance for the progress towards St. Louis.

Just then, from the boat furthest down the river rose a cloud of steam, and the astonished lads heard a most extraordinary sound like that of a gigantic organ. More or less wheezy, but still easily to be understood, the well-known notes of "Oh, Susannah!" came floating up the river to them. Everybody paused to listen, even the tired and tugging roustabouts smiling at the unwonted music.

"Is it really music?" asked Oscar, whose artistic ear was somewhat offended by this strange roar of sounds. The young man from Baltimore assured him that this was called music; the music of a steam-organ or calliope, then a new invention on the Western rivers. He explained that it was an instrument made of a series of steam-whistles so arranged that a man, sitting where he could handle them all very rapidly, could play a tune on them. The player had only to know the key to which each whistle was pitched, and, with a simple arrangement of notes before him, he could make a gigantic melody that could be heard for many miles away.

"You are a musician, are you not?" asked the young man from Baltimore. "Didn't I hear you playing a violin in your room last night? Or was it one of your brothers?"

Oscar, having blushingly acknowledged that he was playing his violin for the benefit of his cousins, as he explained, his new-found acquaintance said, "I play the flute a little, and we might try some pieces together some time, if you are willing."

As they were making ready for bed that night, the pleasant-faced young man from Baltimore, who had been playing whist with his mother and sister, and the "military man," as the boys had privately named one of the party, came to their door with his flute. The two musicians were fast friends at once. Flute and violin made delicious harmony, in the midst of which Sandy, who had slipped into his bunk, drifted off into the land of dreams with confused notions of a giant band somewhere up in the sky playing "Oh, Susannah!" "Love's Last Greeting," and "How Can I Leave Thee?" with occasional suggestions of the "Song of the Kansas Emigrants."

Another morning came on, cold, damp, and raw. The sky was overcast and there were signs of rain. "There's been rain to the nor'rard," said Captain Bulger, meditatively. Now Captain Bulger was the skipper of the "New Lucy," and when he said those oracular words, they were reported about the steamboat, to the great comfort of all on board. Still the five boats stuck on the shoals; their crews were still hard at work at all the devices that could be thought of for their liberation. The "War Eagle"—for they had found out the name of the musical steamer far down stream—enlivened the tedious day with her occasional strains of martial and popular music, if the steam-organ could be called musical.

In the afternoon, Oscar and the amiable young man from Baltimore shut themselves in their stateroom and played the flute and violin. The lovely lady who had made Sandy's acquaintance early in the voyage asked him if he could make one at a game of whist. Sandy replied that he could play "a very little." The thought of playing cards here on a steamboat, in public, as he said to himself, was rather frightful. He was not sure if his mother would like to have him do that. He looked uneasily around to see what Charlie would say about it. But Charlie was nowhere in sight. He was wandering around, like an uneasy ghost, watching for signs of the rising of the river, now confidently predicted by the knowing ones among the passengers.

"My boys all play whist," said the lady, kindly; "but if you do not like to play, I will not urge you. We lack one of making up a party."

Sandy had been told that he was an uncommonly good player for one so young. He liked the game; there would be no stakes, of course. With his ready habit of making up his mind, he brightly said, "I'll play if you like, but you must know that I am only a youngster and not a first-rate player." So they sat down, the lovely lady from Baltimore being Sandy's partner, and the military gentleman and the young daughter of the lady from Baltimore being their opponents. Sandy had great good luck. The very best cards fell to him continually, and he thought he had never played so well. He caught occasional strains of music from room Number 56, and he was glad that Oscar was enjoying himself. From time to time the lovely lady who was his partner smiled approvingly at him, and once in a while, while the cards were being dealt, she said, "How divinely those dear boys are playing!"

The afternoon sped on delightfully, and Sandy's spirits rose. He thought it would be fine if the "New Lucy" should stay stuck on a sand-bar for days and days, and he should have such a good game of whist, with the lovely lady from Baltimore for a partner. But the military gentleman grew tired. His luck was very poor, and when the servants began to rattle dishes on the supper-table, he suggested that it would be just as well perhaps if they did not play too much now; they would enjoy the game better later on. They agreed to stop with the next game.

When they had first taken their places at the card-table, the military gentleman had asked Sandy if he had any cards, and when he replied that he had none, the military gentleman, with a very lordly air, sent one of the cabin waiters to the bar for a pack of cards. Now that they were through with the game, Sandy supposed that the military gentleman would put the cards into his pocket and pay for them. Instead of that he said, "Now, my little man, we will saw off to see who shall pay for the cards."

"Saw off?" asked Sandy, faintly, with a dim notion of what was meant.

"Yes, my lad," said the military gentleman. "We will play one hand of Old Sledge to see who shall pay for the cards and keep them."

With a sinking heart, but with a brave face, Sandy took up the cards dealt to him and began to play. It was soon over. Sandy won one point in the hand; the military gentleman had the other three.

"Take care of your cards, my son," said the military gentleman; "we may want them again. They charge the extravagant price of six bits for them on this boat, and these will last us to St. Louis."

Six bits! Seventy-five cents! And poor Sandy had only twenty-five cents in his pocket. That silver quarter represented the entire capital of the Boy Settlers from Kansas. Looking up, he saw Charlie regarding him with reproachful eyes from a corner of the saloon. With great carefulness, he gathered up his cards and rose, revolving in his mind the awful problem of paying for seventy-five cents' worth of cards with twenty-five cents.

"Well, you've got yourself into a nice scrape," tragically whispered Charlie, in his ear, as soon as the two boys were out of earshot of the others. "What are you going to do now? You can spar your way down to St. Louis, but you can't spar your way with that barkeeper for a pack of cards."

"Let me alone, Charlie," said Sandy, testily. "You haven't got to pay for these cards. I'll manage it somehow. Don't you worry yourself the least bit."

"Serves you right for gambling. What would mother say if she knew it? If you hadn't been so ready to show off your whist-playing before these strangers, you wouldn't have got into such a box."

"I didn't gamble," replied Sandy, hotly. "It isn't gambling to play a hand to see who shall pay for the cards. All men do that. I have seen daddy roll a game of tenpins to see who should pay for the alley."

"I don't care for that. It is gambling to play for the leastest thing as a stake. Nice fellow you are, sitting down to play a hand of seven-up for the price of a pack of cards! Six bits at that!"

"A nice brotherly brother you are to nag me about those confounded cards, instead of helping a fellow out when he is down on his luck."

Charlie, a little conscience-stricken, held his peace, while Sandy broke away from him, and rushed out into the chilly air of the after-deck. There was no sympathy in the dark and murky river, none in the forlorn shore, where rows of straggling cottonwoods leaned over and swept their muddy arms in the muddy water. Looking around for a ray of hope, a bright idea struck him. He could but try one chance. The bar of the "New Lucy" was a very respectable-looking affair, as bars go. It opened into the saloon cabin of the steamer on its inner side, but in the rear was a small window where the deck passengers sneaked up, from time to time, and bought whatever they wanted, and then quietly slipped away again, unseen by the more "high-toned" passengers in the cabin. Summoning all his courage and assurance, the boy stepped briskly to this outside opening, and, leaning his arms jauntily on the window-ledge, said, "See here, cap, I owe you for a pack of cards."

"Yep," replied the barkeeper, holding a bottle between his eye and the light, and measuring its contents.

This was not encouraging. Sandy, with a little effort, went on: "You see we fellows, three of us, are sparring our way down to St. Louis. We have got trusted for our passage. We've friends in St. Louis, and when we get there we shall be in funds. Our luggage is in pawn for our passage money. When we come down to get our luggage, I will pay you the six bits I owe you for the cards. Is that all right?"

"Yep," said the barkeeper, and he set the bottle down. As the lad went away from the window, with a great load lifted from his heart, the barkeeper put his head out of the opening, looked after him, smiled, and said, "That boy'll do."

When Sandy joined his brother, who was wistfully watching for him, he said, a little less boastfully than might have been expected of him, "That's all right, Charlie. The barkeeper says he will trust me until we get to St. Louis and come aboard to get the luggage. He's a good fellow, even if he did say 'yep' instead of 'yes' when I asked him."

In reply to Charlie's eager questions, Sandy related all that had happened, and Charlie, with secret admiration for his small brother's knack of "cheeking it through," as he expressed it, forbore any further remarks.

"I do believe the water is really rising!" exclaimed the irrepressible youngster, who, now that his latest trouble was fairly over, was already thinking of something else. "Look at that log. When I came out here just after breakfast, this morning, it was high and dry on that shoal. Now one end of it is afloat. See it bob up and down?"

Full of the good news, the lads went hurriedly forward to find Oscar, who, with his friend from Baltimore, was regarding the darkening scene from the other part of the boat.

"She's moving!" excitedly cried Oscar, pointing his finger at the "War Eagle"; and, as he spoke, that steamer slid slowly off the sand-bar, and with her steam-organ playing triumphantly "Oh, aren't you glad you're out of the Wilderness!" a well-known air in those days, she steamed steadily down stream. From all the other boats, still stranded though they were, loud cheers greeted the first to be released from the long embargo. Presently another, the "Thomas H. Benton," slid off, and churning the water with her wheels like a mad thing, took her way down the river. All these boats were flat-bottomed and, as the saying was, "could go anywhere if the ground was a little damp." A rise of a very few inches of water was sufficient to float any one of them. And, in the course of a half-hour, the "New Lucy," to the great joy of her passengers, with one more hoist on her forward spars, was once more in motion, and she too went gayly steaming down the river, her less fortunate companions who were still aground cheering her as she glided along the tortuous channel.

"Well, that was worth waiting some day or two to see," said Oscar, drawing a long breath. "Just listen to that snorting calliope, playing 'Home, Sweet Home' as they go prancing down the Big Muddy. I shall never forget her playing that 'Out of the Wilderness' as she tore out of those shoals. It's a pretty good tune, after all, and the steam-organ is not so bad now that you hear it at a distance."



CHAPTER XX.

STRANDED NEAR HOME.

It was after dark, on a Saturday evening, when the "New Lucy" landed her passengers at the levee, St. Louis. They should have been in the city several hours earlier, and they had expected to arrive by daylight. The lads marvelled much at the sight of the muddy waters of the Missouri running into the pure currents of the Mississippi, twenty miles above St. Louis, the two streams joining but not mingling, the yellow streak of the Big Muddy remaining separate and distinct from the flow of the Mississippi for a long distance below the joining of the two. They had also found new enjoyment in the sight of the great, many-storied steamboats with which the view was now diversified as they drew nearer the beautiful city which had so long been the object of their hopes and longings. They could not help thinking, as they looked at the crowded levee, solid buildings, and slender church spires, that all this was a strange contrast to the lonely prairie and wide, trackless spaces of their old home on the banks of the distant Kansas stream. The Republican Fork seemed to them like a far-off dream, it was so very distant to them now.

"Where are you young fellows going to stop in St. Louis?" asked the pleasant-faced young man from Baltimore.

The lads had scarcely thought of that, and here was the city, the strange city in which they knew nobody, in full sight. They exchanged looks of dismay, Sandy's face wearing an odd look of amusement and apprehension mixed. Charlie timidly asked what hotels were the best. The young man from Baltimore named two or three which he said were "first-class," and Charlie thought to himself that they must avoid those. They had no money to pay for their lodging, no baggage as security for their payment.

As soon as they could get away by themselves, they held a council to determine what was to be done. They had the business address of their uncle, Oscar Bryant, of the firm of Bryant, Wilder & Co., wholesale dealers in agricultural implements, Front Street. But they knew enough about city life to know that it would be hopeless to look for him in his store at night. It would be nearly nine o'clock before they could reach any hotel. What was to be done? Charlie was certain that no hotel clerk would be willing to give them board and lodging, penniless wanderers as they were, with nothing but one small valise to answer as luggage for the party. They could have no money until they found their uncle.

Before they could make up their minds what to do, or which way to turn, the boat had made her landing and was blowing off steam at the levee. The crowds of passengers, glad to escape from the narrow limits of the steamer, were hurrying ashore. The three homeless and houseless lads were carried resistlessly along with the crowd. Charlie regretted that they had not asked if they could stay on the boat until Sunday morning. But Sandy and Oscar both scouted such a confession of their poverty. "Besides," said Sandy, "it is not likely that they would keep any passengers on board here at the levee."

"Ride up? Free 'bus to the Planters'!" cried one of the runners on the levee, and before the other two lads could collect their thoughts, the energetic Sandy had drawn them into the omnibus, and they were on their way to an uptown hotel. When the driver had asked where their baggage was, Sandy, who was ready to take command of things, had airily answered that they would have it sent up from the steamer. There were other passengers in the 'bus, and Charlie, anxious and distressed, had no chance to remonstrate; they were soon rattling and grinding over the pavements of St. Louis. The novelty of the ride and the glitter of the brightly lighted shops in which crowds of people were doing their Saturday-night buying, diverted their attention for a time. Then the omnibus backed up before a handsome hotel, and numerous colored men came hurrying down the steps of the grand entrance to wait upon the new arrivals. With much ceremony and obsequiousness, the three young travellers were ushered into the office, where they wrote their names in a big book, and were escorted to a large and elegant room, in which were ample, even luxurious, sleeping accommodations for the trio.

The colored porter assiduously brushed off the clothing of the lads. "Baggage?" the clerk at the desk had asked when they registered. "Baggage, sah?" the waiter asked again, as he dusted briskly the jackets of the three guests. Neither Charlie nor Oscar had the heart to make reply to this very natural question. It was Sandy who said: "We will not have our baggage up from the steamer to-night. We are going right on up north."

But when Sandy tipped the expectant waiter with the long-treasured silver quarter of a dollar, Charlie fairly groaned, and sinking into a chair as the door closed, said, "Our last quarter! Great Scott, Sandy! are you crazy?"

Sandy, seeing that there was no help for it, put on a bold front, and insisted that they must keep up appearances to the last. He would hunt up Uncle Oscar's place of abode in the city directory after supper, and bright and early Sunday morning he would go and see him. They would be all right then. What use was that confounded old quarter, anyhow? They might as well stand well with the waiter. He might be useful to them. Twenty-five cents would not pay their hotel bill; it would not buy anything they needed in St. Louis. The darky might as well have it.

"And this is one of the swellest and most expensive hotels in the city," cried Charlie, eyeing the costly furniture and fittings of the room in which they were lodged. "I just think that we are travelling under false pretences, putting up at an expensive house like this without a cent in our pockets. Not one cent! What will you do, you cheeky boy, if they ask us for our board in advance? I have heard that they always do that with travellers who have no baggage."

"Well, I don't know what we will do," said Sandy, doggedly. "Suppose we wait until they ask us. There'll be time enough to decide when we are dunned for our bill. I suppose the honestest thing would be to own right up and tell the whole truth. It's nothing to be ashamed of. Lots of people have to do that sort of thing when they get into a tight place."

"But I'm really afraid, Sandy, that they won't believe us," said the practical Oscar. "The world is full of swindlers as well as of honest fellows. They might put us out as adventurers."

"We are not adventurers!" cried Sandy, indignantly. "We are gentlemen when we are at home, able to pay our debts. We are overtaken by an accident," he added, chuckling to himself. "Distressed gentlemen, don't you see?"

"But we might have gone to a cheaper place," moaned Charlie. "Here we are in the highest-priced hotel in St. Louis. I know it, for I heard that Baltimore chap say so. We might have put up at some third-rate house, anyhow."

"But it is the third-rate house that asks you for your baggage, and makes you pay in advance if you don't have any," cried Sandy, triumphantly. "I don't believe that a high-toned hotel like this duns people in advance for their board, especially if it is a casual traveller, such as we are. Anyhow, they haven't dunned us yet, and when they do, I'll engage to see the party through, Master Charlie; so you set your mind at rest." As for Charlie, he insisted that he would keep out of the sight of the hotel clerk, until relief came in the shape of money to pay their bill.

Oscar, who had been reading attentively a printed card tacked to the door of the room, broke in with the declaration that he was hungry, and that supper was served until ten o'clock at night. The others might talk all night, for all he cared; he intended to have some supper. There was no use arguing about the chances of being dunned for their board; the best thing he could think of was to have some board before he was asked to pay for it. And he read out the list of hours for dinner, breakfast, and supper from the card.

"There is merit in your suggestion," said Charlie, with a grim smile. "The dead-broke Boy Settlers from the roaring Republican Fork will descend to the banquet-hall." Charlie was recovering his spirits under Oscar's cool and unconcerned advice to have board before being in the way of paying for it.

After supper, the lads, feeling more cheerful than before, sauntered up to the clerk's desk, and inspected the directory of the city. They found their uncle's name and address, and it gave them a gleam of pleasure to see his well-remembered business card printed on the page opposite. Under the street address was printed Mr. Bryant's place of residence, thus: "h. at Hyde Park."

"Where's that?" asked Sandy, confidently, of the clerk.

"Oh! that's out of the city a few miles. You can ride out there in the stage. Only costs you a quarter."

Only a quarter! And the last quarter had gone to the colored boy with the whisk-broom.

"Here's a go!" said Sandy, for once a little cast down. "We might walk it," Oscar whispered, as they moved away from the desk. But to this Charlie, asserting the authority of an elder brother, steadfastly objected. He knew his Uncle Oscar better than the younger boys did. He remembered that he was a very precise and dignified elderly gentleman. He would be scandalized greatly if his three wandering nephews should come tramping out to his handsome villa on a Sunday, like three vagabonds, to borrow money enough to get home to Dixon with. No; that was not to be thought of. Charlie said he would pawn his watch on Monday morning; he would walk the streets to keep out of the way of the much-dreaded hotel clerk; but, as for trudging out to his Uncle Oscar's on Sunday, he would not do it, nor should either of the others stir a step. So they went to bed, and slept as comfortably in their luxurious apartment as if they had never known anything less handsome, and had money in plenty to pay all demands at sight.

It was a cloudy and chilly November Sunday to which the boys awoke next day. The air was piercingly raw, and the city looked dust-colored and cheerless under the cold, gray sky. Breaking their fast (Charlie keeping one eye on the hotel office), they sallied forth to see the city. They saw it all over, from one end to the other. They walked and walked, and then went back to the hotel; and after dinner, walked and walked again. They hunted up their uncle's store in one of the deserted business streets of the city; and they gazed at its exterior with a curious feeling of relief. There was the sign on the prosperous-looking outside of the building,—"Oscar G. Bryant & Co., Agricultural Implements." There, at least, was a gleam of comfort. The store was a real thing. Their uncle, little though they knew about him, was a real man.

Then, as the evening twilight gathered, they walked out to the borders of the suburb where he lived. They did not venture into the avenue where they had been told his house was, vaguely fearing that he might meet and recognize them. As they turned their steps towards the hotel, Oscar said: "It's lucky there are three of us to keep ourselves in countenance. If that wasn't the case, it would be awfully lonely to think we were so near home, and yet have gone ashore, hard and fast aground; right in sight of port, as it were."

The parents of these boys had been born and brought up near the seacoast of New England, and not a few marine figures of speech were mingled in the family talk. So Charlie took up the parable and gloomily said: "We are as good as castaways in this big ocean of a city, with never a soul to throw us a spar or give us a hand. I never felt so blue in all my life. Look at those children playing in that dooryard. Pretty poor-looking children they are; but they've got a home over their heads to-night. We haven't."

"Oh, pshaw, Charlie!" broke in Sandy; "why will you always look on the dark side of things? I know it's real lonesome here in a strange city, and away from our own folks. But they are not so far away but what we can get to them after a while. And we have got a roof over our heads for to-night, anyway; the Planters' is good enough for me; if you want anything better, you will have to get outside of St. Louis for it; and, what is more, they are not going to dun us for our board bill until after to-day. I'm clean beat out traipsing around this town, and I give you two fellows notice that I am not going to stir a step out of the hotel to-night. Unless it is to go to church," he added by way of postscript.

They did go to church that night, after they had had their supper. It was a big, comfortable, and roomy church, and the lads were shown into a corner pew under the gallery, where they were not conspicuous. The music of choir and organ was soothing and comforting. One of the tunes sung was "Dundee," and each boy thought of their singing the song of "The Kansas Emigrants," as the warbling measures drifted down to them from the organ-loft, lifting their hearts with thoughts that the strangers about them knew nothing of. The preacher's text was "In my father's house are many mansions." Then they looked at each other again, as if to say, "That's a nice text for three homeless boys in a strange city." But nobody even so much as whispered.

Later on in the sermon, when the preacher touched a tender chord in Oscar's heart, alluding to home and friends, and to those who wander far from both, the lad, with a little moisture in his eyes, turned to look at Sandy. He was fast asleep in his snug corner. Oscar made a motion to wake him, but Charlie leaned over and said, "Leave the poor boy alone. He's tired with his long tramp to-day." When they went out after the service was over, Oscar rallied Sandy on his sleeping in church, and the lad replied: "I know it was bad manners, but the last thing I heard the minister say, was 'Rest for the weary.' I thought that was meant for me. Leastways, I found rest for the weary right off, and I guess there was no harm done."

With Monday morning came sunshine and a clear and bracing air. Even Charlie's face wore a cheerful look, the first that he had put on since arriving in St. Louis, although now and again his heart quaked as he heard the hotel porter's voice in the hall roaring out the time of departure for the trains that now began to move from the city in all directions. They had studied the railroad advertisements and time-tables to some purpose, and had discovered that they must cross to East St. Louis, on the Illinois side of the Mississippi River, and there take a train for the northern part of the State, where Dixon is situated. But they must first see their Uncle Oscar, borrow the needed money from him, settle with the steamboat people and the hotel, and then get to the railroad station by eleven o'clock in the forenoon. It was a big morning's work.

They were at their uncle's store before he arrived from his suburban home; and, while they waited, they whisperingly discussed the question, Who should ask for the money? Charlie was at first disposed to put this duty on Sandy; but the other two boys were very sure that it would not look well for the youngest of the party to be the leader on an occasion so important; and Charlie was appointed spokesman.

Mr. Oscar Bryant came in. He was very much surprised to see three strange lads drawn up in a row to receive him. And he was still more taken aback when he learned that they were his nephews, on their way home from Kansas. He had heard of his brother's going out to Kansas, and he had not approved of it at all. He was inclined to think that, on the whole, it would be better for Kansas to have slavery than to do without it. A great many other people in St. Louis thought the same way, at that time, although some of them changed their minds later on.

Mr. Oscar Bryant was a tall, spruce-looking, and severe man in appearance. His hair was gray and brushed stiffly back from his forehead; and his precise, thin, white whiskers were cut "just like a minister's," as Sandy afterwards declared; and when he said that going to Kansas to make it a free State was simply the rankest kind of folly, Charlie's heart sunk, and he thought to himself that the chance of borrowing money from their stern-looking uncle was rather slim.

"But it doesn't make any difference to you boys whether slavery is voted up or down in Kansas, I suppose," he continued, less sternly. "You will live to see the day when, if you live in Kansas, you will own slaves and work them. You can never clear up a wild country like that without slave-labor, depend upon it. I know what I am talking about." And Uncle Oscar stroked his chin in a self-satisfied way, as if he had settled the whole Kansas-Nebraska question in his own manner of thinking. Sandy's brown cheeks flushed and his eyes sparkled. He was about to burst out with an indignant word, when Charlie, alarmed by his small brother's excited looks, blurted out their troubles at once, in order to head off the protest that he expected from Sandy. The lad was silent.

"Eh? what's that?" asked the formal-looking merchant. "Busted? And away from home? Why, certainly, my lads. How much do you need?" And he opened his pocket-book at once. Greatly relieved, perhaps surprised, Charlie told him that they thought that fifty dollars would pay all their bills and get them back to Dixon. The money was promptly handed over, and Charlie, emboldened by this good nature, told his uncle that they still owed for their passage down the river from Leavenworth.

"And did they really trust you three boys for your passage-money? How did that happen?" asked the merchant, with admiration.

Charlie, as spokesman, explained that Sandy had "sparred" their way for them; and when he had told how Sandy still owed for a pack of cards, and how it was his honest face and candid way of doing things that had brought them thus far on their homeward journey, Uncle Oscar, laughing heartily and quite unbending from his formal and dry way of talking, said, "Well done, my little red-hot Abolitionist; you'll get through this world, I'll be bound." He bade the wanderers farewell and goodspeed with much impressiveness and sent messages of good-will to their parents.

"How do you suppose Uncle Oscar knew I was an Abolitionist?" demanded Sandy, as soon as they were out of earshot. "I'm not an Abolitionist, anyhow."

"Well, you're a free-State man; and that's the same thing," said Charlie. "A free-State boy," added Oscar.

With a proud heart the cashier of the Boy Settlers paid their bill at the hotel, and reclaimed their valise from the porter, with whom they had lodged it in the morning before going out. Then they hurried to the levee, and, to their surprise, found that the little steamer that conveyed passengers across the river to the East St. Louis railway station lay close alongside the "New Lucy." Their task of transferring the baggage was easy.

"Say, Sandy, you made the bargain with the clerk to bring us down here on the security of our luggage; it's nothing more than business-like that you should pay him what we owe," said Charlie.

"Right you are, Charlie," added Oscar, "and it's fair that Sandy, who has had the bother of sparring our way for us, should have the proud satisfaction of paying up all old scores." So Sandy, nothing loth, took the roll of bills and marched bravely up to the clerk's office and paid the money due. The handsome clerk looked approvingly at the boy, and said: "Found your friends? Good boy! Well, I wish you good luck."

The barkeeper said he had forgotten all about the pack of cards that he had trusted Sandy with, when the lad gave him the seventy-five cents due him. "I can't always keep account of these little things," he explained.

"But you don't often trust anybody with cards coming down the river, do you?" asked Sandy, surprised.

"Heaps," said the barkeeper.

"And do they always pay?"

"Some of 'em does, and then ag'in, some of 'em doesn't," replied the man, as with a yawn he turned away to rearrange his bottles and glasses.

With the aid of a lounger on the landing, whom they thought they could now afford to fee for a quarter, the youngsters soon transferred their luggage from the "New Lucy" to the little ferry-boat near at hand. To their great pleasure, they found on board the pleasant-faced lady from Baltimore and her party. She was apparently quite as pleased to meet them, and she expressed her regret that they were not going eastward on the train with herself and sons. "We have had such a pleasant trip down the river together," she said. "And you are going back to Illinois? Will you return to Kansas in the spring?"

"We cannot tell yet," replied Charlie, modestly. "That all depends upon how things look in the spring, and what father and Uncle Aleck think about it. We are free-State people, and we want to see the Territory free, you see."

The pleasant-faced lady's forehead was just a little clouded when she said, "You will have your labor lost, if you go to Kansas, then; for it will certainly be a slave State."

They soon were in the cars with their tickets for Dixon bought, and, as Sandy exultingly declared, paid for, and their baggage checked all the way through. Then Sandy said, "I'm sorry that pretty lady from Baltimore is a Border Ruffian."

The other two boys shouted with laughter, and Oscar cried: "She's no Border Ruffian. She's only pro-slavery; and so is Uncle Oscar and lots of others. You ought to be ashamed of yourself to be so—what is it, Charlie? Intolerant, that's what it is."

The train was slowly moving from the rude shed that was dignified by the name of railroad depot. Looking back at the river with their heads out of the windows, for the track lay at right angles with the river bank, they could now see the last of the noble stream on which they had taken their journey downwards from "bleeding Kansas" by the Big Muddy. They were nearing home, and their hearts were all the lighter for the trials and troubles through which they had so lately passed.

"We don't cross the prairies as of old our fathers crossed the sea, any more, do we, Charlie?" said Oscar, as they caught their last glimpse of the mighty Mississippi.

"No," said the elder lad. "We may not be there to see it; but Kansas will be the homestead of the free, for all that. Mind what I say."



Typography by J. S. Cushing & Co., Boston.

Presswork by Berwick & Smith, Boston.

THE END