The Boy Settlers Part 5

"It's lucky you haven't any looking-gla.s.s here, young Impudence. If you could see your mother's boy now, you wouldn't know him. Talk about looks! Take a look at the youngster, mates," said Uncle Charlie, bursting into a laugh. A general roar followed the look, for Sandy's appearance was indescribable. In his wild rush through the waters of the creek, he had covered himself from head to foot, and the mud from the wagon had painted his face a brilliant brown; for there is more or less of red oxide of iron in the mud of Kansas creeks.

It was a doleful party that pitched its tent that night on the banks of Soldier Creek and attempted to dry clothes and provisions by the feeble heat of a little sheet-iron stove. Only Sandy, the irrepressible and unconquerable Sandy, preserved his good temper through the trying experience. "It is a part of the play," he said, "and anybody who thinks that crossing the prairie, 'as of old the pilgrims crossed the sea,' is a Sunday-school picnic, might better try it with the Dixon emigrants; that's all."

But, after a very moist and disagreeable night, the sky cleared in the morning. Oscar was out early, looking at the sky; and when he shouted "Westward ho!" with a stentorian voice, everybody came tumbling out to see what was the matter. A long line of white-topped wagons with four yoke of oxen to each, eleven teams all told, was stringing its way along the muddy road in which the red sun was reflected in pools of red liquid mud. The wagons were overflowing with small children; coops of fowls swung from behind, and a general air of thriftiness seemed to be characteristic of the company.

"Which way are you bound?" asked Oscar, cheerily.

"Up the Smoky Hill Fork," replied one of the ox-drivers. "Solomon's Fork, perhaps, but somewhere in that region, anyway."

One of the company lingered behind to see what manner of people these were who were so comfortably camped out in a wall-tent. When he had satisfied his curiosity, he explained that his companions had come from northern Ohio, and were bound to lay out a town of their own in the Smoky Hill region. Oscar, who listened while his father drew this information from the stranger, recalled the fact that the Smoky Hill and the Republican Forks were the branches of the Kaw. Solomon's Fork, he now learned, was one of the tributaries of the Smoky Hill, nearer to the Republican Fork than to the main stream. So he said to his father, when the Ohio man had pa.s.sed on: "If they settle on Solomon's Fork, won't they be neighbors of ours, daddy?"

Mr. Bryant took out a little map of the Territory that he had in his knapsack, and, after some study, made up his mind that the newcomers would not be "neighbors enough to hurt," if they came no nearer the Republican than Solomon's Fork. About thirty-five miles west and south of Fort Riley, which is at the junction of the Smoky Hill and the Republican, Solomon's Fork branches off to the northwest. Settlers anywhere along that line would not be nearer the other fork than eighteen or twenty miles at the nearest. Charlie and Sandy agreed with Oscar that it was quite as near as desirable neighbors should be. The lads were already learning something of the spirit of the West. They had heard of the man who had moved westward when another settler drove his stakes twenty miles from his claim, because the country was "gettin' too crowded."

That day, pa.s.sing through the ragged log village of Tec.u.mseh, they got their first letters from home. When they left Illinois, they had not known just where they would strike, in the Territory, but they had resolved that they would not go further west than Tec.u.mseh; and here they were, with their eyes still fixed toward the west. No matter; just now, news from home was to be devoured before anybody could talk of the possible Kansas home that yet loomed before them in the dim distance. How good it was to learn all about the dear ones left at home; to find that Bose was keeping guard around the house as if he knew that he was the protector of the two mothers left to themselves in one home; to hear that the brindle calf had grown very large, and that a circus was coming to town the very next day after the letter was written!

"That circus has come and gone without our seeing it," said Sandy, solemnly.

"Sandy is as good as a circus, any day," said his uncle, fondly. "The greatest show in the country would have been willing to hire you for a sight, fixed out as you were last night, after we had that upset in the creek." The boys agreed that it was lucky for all hands that the only looking-gla.s.s in camp was the little bit of one hidden away in Uncle Charlie's shaving-case.

The next day, to their great discomfiture, they blundered upon a county election. Trudging into Libertyville, one of the new mushroom towns springing up along the military road that leads from Fort Leavenworth to Fort Riley, they found a great crowd of people gathered around a log-house in which the polls were open. Country officers were to be chosen, and the pro-slavery men, as the Borderers were now called in this part of the country, had rallied in great numbers to carry the election for their men. All was confusion and tumult.

Rough-looking men, well armed and generally loud voiced, with slouched hats and long beards, were galloping about, shouting and making all the noise possible, for no purpose that could be discovered. "Hooray for Cap'n Pate!" was the only intelligible cry that the newcomers could hear; but who Captain Pate was, and why he should be hurrahed for, n.o.body seemed to know. He was not a candidate for anything.

"Hullo! there's our Woburn friend, John Clark," said Mr. Howell. Sure enough, there he was with a vote in his hand going up to the cabin where the polls were open. A lane was formed through the crowd of men who lounged about the cabin, so that a man going up to the door to vote was obliged to run the gauntlet, as it were, of one hundred men, or more, before he reached the door, the lower half of which was boarded up and the upper half left open for the election officers to take and deposit the ballots.

"I don't believe that man has any right to vote here," said Charlie, with an expression of disgust on his face. "Why, he came into the Territory with us, only the other day, and he said he was going up on the Big Blue to settle, and here he is trying to vote!"

"Well," said Uncle Charlie, "I allow he has just as good a right to vote as any of these men who are running the election. I saw some of these very men come riding in from Missouri, when we were one day out of Quindaro." As he spoke, John Clark had reached the voting-place, pursued by many rough epithets flung after him.

He paused before the half-barricaded door and presented his ballot.

"Let's see yer ticket!" shouted one of the men who stood guard, one either side of the cabin-door. He s.n.a.t.c.hed it from Clark's hand, looked at it, and simply said, "H'ist!" The man on the other side of the would-be voter grinned; then both men seized the Woburn man by his arms and waist, and, before he could realize what was happening, he was flung up to the edge of the roof that projected over the low door.

Two other men sitting there grabbed the newcomer by the shoulders and pa.s.sed him up the roof to two others, who, straddling the ridge-pole, were waiting for him. Then the unfortunate Clark disappeared over the top of the cabin, sliding down out of sight on the farther side. The mob set up a wild cheer, and some of them shouted, "We don't want any Yankee votes in this yer 'lection!"

"Shameful! Shameful!" burst forth from Mr. Bryant. "I have heard of such things before now, but I must say I never thought I should see it." He turned angrily to his brother-in-law as Mr. Howell joined the boys in their laugh.

"How can you laugh at such a shameful sight, Aleck Howell? I'm sure it's something to cry over, rather than to laugh at--a spectacle like that! A free American citizen hustled away from the polls in that disgraceful fashion!"

"But, Charlie," said Uncle Aleck, "you'll admit that it was funny to see the Woburn man hoisted over that cabin. Besides, I don't believe he has any right to vote here; do you?"

"He would have been allowed to vote fast enough if he had had the sort of ballot that those fellows want to go into the box. They looked at his ballot, and as soon as they saw what it was, they threw him over the cabin."

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE POLLS AT LIBERTYVILLE. THE WOBURN MAN IS "HOISTED"

OVER THE CABIN.]

Just then, John Clark came back from the ravine into which he had slid from the roof of the log-house, looking very much crestfallen. He explained that he had met some pro-slavery men on the road that morning, and they had told him he could vote, if he chose, and they had furnished him with the necessary ballot.

"They took in my clothes at a glance," said Clark, "and they seemed to suppose that a man with b.u.t.ternut homespun was true-blue; so they didn't ask any questions. I got a free-State ballot from another man and was a-goin' to plump it in; but they were too smart for me, and over I went. No, don't you worry; I ain't a-goin' up there to try it ag'in," he said, angrily, to an insolent horseman, who, riding up, told him not to venture near the polls again if he "did not want to be kicked out like a dog."

"Come on, neighbor; let's be goin'," he said to Uncle Aleck. "I've had enough voting for to-day. Let's light out of this town." Then the men, taking up their ox-goads, drove out of town. They had had their first sight of the struggle for freedom.

CHAPTER VII.

AT THE DIVIDING OF THE WAYS.

The military road, of which I have just spoken, was constructed by the United States Government to connect the military posts of the Far West with one another. Beginning at Fort Leavenworth, on the Missouri River, it pa.s.sed through Fort Riley at the junction of the forks of the Kaw, and then, still keeping up the north side of the Republican Fork, went on to Fort Kearney, still farther west, then to Fort Laramie, which in those days was so far on the frontier of our country that few people ever saw it except military men and the emigrants to California. At the time of which I am writing, there had been a very heavy emigration to California, and companies of emigrants, bound to the Golden Land, still occasionally pa.s.sed along the great military road.

Interlacing this highway were innumerable trails and wagon-tracks, the traces of the great migration to the Eldorado of the Pacific; and here and there were the narrow trails made by Indians on their hunting expeditions and warlike excursions. Roads, such as our emigrants had been accustomed to in Illinois, there were none. First came the faint traces of human feet and of unshod horses and ponies; then the well-defined trail of hunters, trappers, and Indians; then the wagon-track of the military trains, which, in course of time, were smoothed and formed into the military road kept in repair by the United States Government.

Following this road, the Dixon emigrants came upon the broad, bright, and shallow stream of the Big Blue. Fording this, they drove into the rough, new settlement of Manhattan, lately built at the junction of the Blue and the Kaw rivers.

It was a beautiful May day when the travellers entered Manhattan. It was an active and a promising town. Some attempt at the laying out of streets had been made. A long, low building, occupied as a hotel, was actually painted, and on some of the shanties and rude huts of the newly arrived settlers were signs giving notice of hardware, groceries, and other commodities for sale within. On one structure, partly made of sawed boards and partly of canvas, was painted in sprawling letters, "Counsellor at Law."

"You'll find those fellows out in the Indian country," grimly remarked one of the settlers, as the party surveyed this evidence of an advancing civilization.

There was a big steam saw-mill hard by the town, and the chief industry of Manhattan seemed to be the buying and selling of lumber and hardware, and the surveying of land. Mounted men, carrying the tools and instruments of the surveyor, galloped about. Few wheeled vehicles except the ox-carts of emigrants were to be seen anywhere, and the general aspect of the place was that of feverish activity.

Along the banks of the two streams were camped parties of the latest comers, many of whom had brought their wives and children with them.

Parties made up of men only seldom came as far west as this. They pitched their tents nearer the Missouri, where the fight for freedom raged most hotly. A few companies of men did reach the westernmost edge of the new settlements, and the Manhattan Company was one of these.

The three boys from Illinois were absorbed with wonder as they strolled around the new town, taking in the novel sights, as they would if they had been in a great city, instead of a mushroom town that had arisen in a night. During their journey from Libertyville to Manhattan, the Dixon emigrants had lost sight of John Clark, of Woburn; he had hurried on ahead after his rough experience with the election guardians of Libertyville. The boys were wondering if he had reached Manhattan.

"Hullo! There he is now, with all his family around him," said Charlie. "He's got here before us, and can tell all about the lay of the land to the west of us, I dare say."

"I have about made up my mind to squat on Hunter's Creek," said Clark, when the boys had saluted him. "Pretty good land on Hunter's, so I am told; no neighbors, and the land has been surveyed off by the Government surveyors. Hunter's Creek? Well, that's about six miles above the fort. It makes into the Republican, and, so they tell me, there's plenty of wood along the creek, and a good lot of oak and hickory not far off. Timber is what we all want, you know."

As for Bartlett, who had come out from New England with the Clarks, he was inclined to go to the lower side of the Republican Fork, taking to the Smoky Hill country. That was the destination of the Jenness party, who had pa.s.sed the Dixon boys when they were camped after their upset in the creek, several days before. This would leave the Clarks--John and his wife and two children, and his brother Jotham, and Jotham's boy, Pelatiah--to make a settlement by themselves on Hunter's Creek.

Which way were the Dixon boys going? Charlie, the spokesman of the party because he was the eldest, did not know. His father and uncle were out prospecting among the campers now. Sandy was sure that they would go up the Republican Fork. His father had met one of the settlers from that region, and had been very favorably impressed with his report. This Republican Fork man was an Arkansas man, but "a good fellow," so Sandy said. To be a good fellow, according to Sandy's way of putting things, was to be worthy of all confidence and esteem.

Mr. Bryant thought that as there were growing rumors of troublesome Indians, it would be better to take the southern or Smoky Hill route; the bulk of the settlers were going that way, and where there were large numbers there would be safety. While the lads were talking with the Clarks, Bryant and his brother-in-law came up, and, after greeting their former acquaintance and ascertaining whither he was bound, Mr.

Howell told the boys that they had been discussing the advantages of the two routes with Younkins, the settler from Republican Fork, and had decided to go on to "the post," as Fort Riley was generally called, and there decide which way they should go--to the right or to the left.

As to the Clarks, they were determined to take the trail for Hunter's Creek that very day. Bartlett decided to go to the Smoky Hill country.

He cast in his lot with a party of Western men, who had heard glowing reports of the fertility and beauty of the region lying along Solomon's Fork, a tributary of the Smoky Hill. It was in this way that parties split up after they had entered the Promised Land.

Leaving the Clarks to hitch up their teams and part company with Bartlett, the Dixon party returned to their camp, left temporarily in the care of Younkins, who had come to Manhattan for a few supplies, and who had offered to guide the others to a desirable place for settlement which he told them he had in mind for them. Younkins was a kindly and pleasant-faced man, simple in his speech and frontier-like in his manners. Sandy conceived a strong liking for him as soon as they met. The boy and the man were friends at once.

"Well, you see," said Younkins, sitting down on the wagon-tongue, when the party had returned to their camp, "I have been thinking over-like the matter that we were talking about, and I have made up my mind-like that I sha'n't move back to my claim on the south side of the Republican. I'm on the north side, you know, and my old claim on the south side will do just right for my brother Ben; he's coming out in the fall. Now if you want to go up our way, you can have the cabin on that claim. There's n.o.body living in it. It's no great of a cabin, but it's built of hewed timber, well c.h.i.n.ked and comfortable-like. You can have it till Ben comes out, and I'm just a-keeping it for Ben, you know. P'raps he won't want it, and if he doesn't, why, then you and he can make some kind of a d.i.c.ker-like, and you might stay on till you could do better."

"That's a very generous offer of Mr. Younkins's, Charles," said Mr.

Howell to Bryant. "I don't believe we could do better than take it up."

"No, indeed," burst in the impetuous Sandy. "Why, just think of it! A house already built!"

"Little boys should be seen, not heard," said his elder brother, reprovingly. "Suppose you and I wait to see what the old folks have to say before we chip in with any remarks."