his
"pepper-box," as his old-fashioned five-barrelled revolver was
sportively called by the men of those days; for the modern revolver
with one barrel for all the chambers of the weapon had not then come
into use. "Who's afraid?" he repeated fiercely, looking around.
Everybody burst out laughing, and the valorous Sandy looked rather
crestfallen.

"I am afraid, for one," said his father. "I want no fighting, no
bloodshed. I want to get into the Territory and get to work on our
claim, just as soon as possible; but if we can't get there without a
fight, why then, I'll fight. But I ain't seeking for no fight." When
Aleck Howell was excited, his grammar went to the four winds. His view
of the situation commended itself to the approval of Oscar, who said
he had promised his mother that he would avoid every appearance of
hostile intention, keep a civil tongue in his head, have his weapons
out of sight and his powder always dry.

The emigrants decided to go into Kansas by way of Parkville.

At Claybank, half-way between the Iowa line and the Missouri River,
they encountered a drover with a herd of cattle. He was eager to
dicker with the Kansas emigrants, and offered them what they
considered to be a very good bargain in exchanging oxen for their
horses. They were now near the Territory, and the rising prices of
almost everything that immigrants required warned them that they were
not far from the point where an outfit could no longer be bought at
any reasonable price. The boys were loth to part with their buggy;
for, although they had been often compelled to go afoot through some
of the worst roads in the States of Iowa and Missouri, they had clung
to the notion that they might have a pair of horses to take into the
Territory, and, while the buggy was left to them, they had a refuge in
times of weariness with walking; and these were rather frequent. The
wagon was exchanged for another, suitable for oxen.

The immigrants drove gayly into Parkville. They were in sight of the
Promised Land. The Big Muddy, as Missourians affectionately call the
turbid stream that gives name to their State, rolled sluggishly
between the Parkville shore and the low banks fringed with cottonwoods
that were the eastern boundary of Kansas. Looking across, they could
see long lines of white-covered wagons, level plains dotted with
tents, and the rising smoke of many fires, where people who had gone
in ahead of them were cooking their suppers; for t