s. Us children are
to ride in it, with Daniel Boone to help with the driving," Mat added.

Just then Esmond Clarenden appeared at the door.

"How soon do you start, Clarenden?" some one in the crowd inquired.

"Just as soon as I can get a pair of well-broken mules," he replied.
"I'm looking for the man who has them to sell quick. I'm in a hurry."

"What's your great rush?" a well-dressed stranger asked. "They tell me
things look squally out West."

"All the more reason for my being in a hurry then," Uncle Esmond
returned.

"They ain't but three men of you, is they? What do you want of more
mules?" put in an inquisitive idler of the trouble-loving class who
sooner or later turn arguments into bitter brawls.

"These three children and the cook in there have this wagon. They are
all fair drivers, if I can get the right mules," my uncle said.

Women and children did not cross the plains in those days, nor could
public welfare allow that so valuable a piece of property as Aunty Boone
would be in the slave-market should be lost to commerce, and the storm
of protest that followed would have overcome a less determined man. It
was not on account of sympathy for the weak and defenseless that called
out all this abuse, but the lawless spirit that stirs up a mob on the
slightest excuse.

I slid away to the door, where, with Mat and Beverly, I watched Esmond
Clarenden, who was listening with his good-natured smile to all of that
loud street talk.

"No man's life is insurable in these troublesome times, with our troops
right now down in Mexico," a suave Southern trader urged. "Better sell
your slave and put that nice little gal in a boardin'-school somewhere
in the South."

"I'll give you a mighty good bargain for that wench, Clarenden. She
might be worth a clare fortune in New Orleans. What d'ye say to a cool
thousand?" another man declared, with a slow. Southern drawl.

Aunty Boone took the pipe from her lips and looked at the stranger.

"Y'would!" she grunted, stretching her big right hand across her lap,
like a huge paw with claws ready underneath.

"Them plains Injuns never was more _hostile_ than they air right now. I
just got in from the mountains an' I know. An' they're bein' set on by
more _hostile_ Mexican devils, and political _intrigs_," a bearded
mountaineer trapper argued.

"'Sides all that," interposed the suave Southern gentleman, "it's too
early in the spring. Freightin's bound to be delayed by rain