explanations had been made,
all laughed, stretched themselves, and then went to bed again to dream
of Missouri raiders.

The sun was well up in the sky next day, when the emigrants, having
completed their purchases, yoked their oxen and drove up through the
settlement and ascended the rolling swale of land that lay beyond the
groves skirting the river. Here were camps of other emigrants who had
moved out of Quindaro before them, or had come down from the point on
the Missouri opposite Parkville, in order to get on to the road that
led westward and south of the Kaw. It was a beautifully wooded
country. When the lads admired the trees, Mr. Howell somewhat
contemptuously said: "Not much good, chiefly black-jacks and
scrub-oaks"; but the woods were pleasant to drive through, and when
they came upon scattered farms and plantations with comfortable
log-cabins set in the midst of cultivated fields, the admiration of
the party was excited.

"Only look, Uncle Charlie," cried Sandy, "there's a real flower-garden
full of hollyhocks and marigolds; and there's a rose-bush climbing
over that log-cabin!" It was too early to distinguish one flower from
another by its blooms, but Sandy's sharp eyes had detected the leaves
of the old-fashioned flowers that he loved so well, which he knew were
only just planted in the farther northern air of their home in
Illinois. It was a pleasant-looking Kansas home, and Sandy wondered
how it happened that this cosey living-place had grown up so quickly
in this new Territory. It looked as if it were many years old, he
said.

"We are still on the Delaware Indian reservation," replied his uncle.
"The Government has given the tribe a big tract of land here and away
up to the Kaw. They've been here for years, and they are good farmers,
I should say, judging from the looks of things hereabouts."

Just then, as if to explain matters, a decent-looking man, dressed in
the rude fashion of the frontier, but in civilized clothes, came out
of the cabin, and, pipe in mouth, stared not unkindly at the passing
wagon and its party.

"Howdy," he civilly replied to a friendly greeting from Mr. Howell.
The boys knew that "How" was a customary salutation among Indians, but
"Howdy" struck them as being comic; Sandy laughed as he turned away
his face. Mr. Bryant lingered while the slow-moving oxen plodded their
way along the road, and the boys, too, halted to hear what the
dark-skinned man had to say. But the Indian