ng actual settlement, a great rush was made into the territories
by members of both political parties. These became the gladiators, with
Kansas the arena, for a bitter, bloody contest between those desiring
and those opposing the extension of slave territory.

Having already decided upon his location, father was among the first,
after the bill was passed, to file a claim and procure the necessary
papers, and shortly afterward he had a transient abiding-place prepared
for us. Whatever mother may have thought of the one-roomed cabin, whose
chinks let in the sun by day and the moon and stars by night, and whose
carpet was nature's greenest velvet, life in it was a perennial picnic
for the children. Meantime father was at work on our permanent home,
and before the summer fled we were domiciled in a large double-log
house--rough and primitive, but solid and comfort-breeding.

This same autumn held an episode so deeply graven in my memory that time
has not blurred a dine of it. Jane, our faithful maid of all work, who
went with us to our Western home, had little time to play the governess.
Household duties claimed her every waking hour, as mother was delicate,
and the family a large one; so Turk officiated as both guardian and
playmate of the children.

One golden September day Eliza and I set out after wild flowers,
accompanied by Turk and mother's caution not to stray too far, as wild
beasts, 'twas said, lurked in the neighboring forest; but the prettiest
flowers were always just beyond, and we wandered afield until we reached
a fringe of timber half a mile from the house, where we tarried under
the trees. Meantime mother grew alarmed, and Will was dispatched after
the absent tots.

Turk, as we recalled, had sought to put a check upon our wanderings, and
when we entered the woods his restlessness increased. Suddenly he began
to paw up the carpet of dry leaves, and a few moments later the shrill
scream of a panther echoed through the forest aisles.

Eliza was barely six years old, and I was not yet four. We clung to
each other in voiceless terror. Then from afar came a familiar
whistle--Will's call to his dog. That heartened us, babes as we were,
for was not our brother our reliance in every emergency? Rescue was
at hand; but Turk continued tearing up the leaves, after signaling his
master with a loud bark. Then, pulling at our dresses, he indicated the
refuge he had dug for us. Here we lay down, and the dog covered us w