e came through Ioway, and that to
Ioway we must go; so they rather let up on us, and set us ashore just
opposite Wyandotte. I was mighty 'fraid they'd make us swear we
wouldn't go back into Kansas some other way; but they didn't, and so
we stivered along the road eastwards after they set us ashore, and
then we fetched a half-circle around and got into Parkville."

"I shouldn't wonder if you bought those clothes that you have got on
at Parkville," said Mr. Howell, with a smile.

"You guess about right," said the sad-colored stranger. "A very nice
sort of a man we met at the fork of the road, as you turn off to go to
Parkville from the river road, told me that my clothes were too
Yankee. I wore 'em all the way from Woburn, Massachusetts, where we
came from, and I hated to give 'em up. But discretion is better than
valor, I have heern tell; so I made the trade, and here I am."

"We had no difficulty getting across at Parkville," said Mr. Bryant,
"except that we did have to go over in the night in a sneaking fashion
that I did not like."

"Well," answered the stranger, "as a special favor, they let us
across, seeing that we had had such hard luck. That's a nice-looking
fiddle you've got there, sonny," he abruptly interjected, as he took
Oscar's violin from his unwilling hand. "I used to play the fiddle
once, myself," he added. Then, drawing the bow over the strings in a
light and artistic manner, he began to play "Bonnie Doon."

"Come, John," his wife said wearily, "it's time the children were
under cover. Let go the fiddle until we've had supper."

John reluctantly handed back the violin, and the newcomers were soon
in the midst of their preparations for the night's rest. Later on in
the evening, John Clark, as the head of the party introduced himself,
came over to the Dixon camp, and gave them all the news. Clark was one
of those who had been helped by the New England Emigrant Aid Society,
an organization with headquarters in the Eastern States, and with
agents in the West. He had been fitted out at Council Bluffs, Iowa,
but for some unexplained reason had wandered down as far south as
Kansas City, and there had boarded the "Black Eagle" with his family
and outfit. One of the two men with him was his brother; the other
was a neighbor who had cast in his lot with him. The tall lad was John
Clark's nephew.

In one way or another, Clark had managed to pick up much gossip about
the country and what was going on. At Te