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 Younkin