end 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," o