man who,
John thought, looked like a pirate. The boys led the men and their
horses up the dry limestone bed of the stream to the swimming hole--a
deep pool in the creek. The coming of the soldiers made a stir in the
town. For they were not "regulars"; they were known as the Red Legs,
but called themselves "The Army of the Border." Under Captain J. Lord
Lee--whose life afterwards touched Barclay's sometimes--"The Army of
the Border," being about forty in number, came to Sycamore Ridge that
night, and greatly to the scandal of the decent village, there
appeared with the men two women in short skirts and red leggins, who
were introduced at Schnitzler's saloon as Happy Hally and Lady Lee.
"The Army of the Border," under J. Lord and Lady Lee,--as they were
known,--proceeded to get bawling drunk, whereupon they introduced to
the town the song which for the moment was the national hymn of
Kansas:--

"Am I a soldier of the boss,
A follower of Jim Lane?
Then should I fear to steal a hoss,
Or blush to ride the same."

As the night deepened and Henry Schnitzler's supply of liquor seemed
exhaustless, the Army of the Border went from song to war and wandered
about banging doors and demanding to know if any white-livered
Missourian in the town was man enough to come out and fight. At
half-past one the Army of the Border had either gone back to camp, or
propped itself up against the sides of the buildings in peaceful
sleep, when the screech of the brakes on the wheels of the stage was
heard half a mile away as it lumbered down the steep bank of the
Sycamore, and then the town woke up. As the stage rolled down Main
Street, the male portion of Sycamore Ridge lined up before the Thayer
House to see who would get out and to learn the news from the
gathering storm in the world outside. As the crowd stood there, and
while the driver was climbing from his box, little John Barclay,
white-faced, clad in his night drawers, came flying into the crowd
from behind a building.

"Mother--" he gasped, "mother--says--come--mother says some one
come quick--there's a man there--trying to break in!" And finding
that he had made himself understood, the boy darted back across the
common toward home. The little white figure kept ahead of the men, and
when they arrived, they found Mrs. Barclay standing in the door of her
house, with a lantern in one hand and a carbine in the crook of her
arm. In the dark, somewhere over toward the