s the leveller and rodman.

When the three victims in the chairs had been reduced to a similar state
of baldness, their places were instantly occupied by the remaining
members of the party. The whole performance was conducted amid the most
uproarious fun, of which the recently promoted assistant engineer was
the ruling spirit.

As the chairs became empty for the third time, and the nine bald-headed
members prepared to depart, each declaring that the others were the most
comical-looking objects he had ever seen, they suddenly caught sight of
Glen, and a rush was made for him. In another moment, despite his
struggles, he too was seated in a barber's chair, and was rapidly
growing as bald as his fellow-explorers.

"You'll look worse than a boiled owl, Glen," remarked "Billy" Brackett,
encouragingly.

"And be a living terror to Injuns," cried another.

"It'll be the greatest comfort in the world, old man, to feel that
though you may be killed, you can't be scalped," shouted a third.

Realizing that resistance was useless, Glen submitted to the shearing
process with as good a grace as possible. A few minutes later, wearing a
very loose-fitting hat, he was marching up the street with his jovial
comrades, joining with the full strength of his lungs in the popular
chorus of

"The bald-headed man, who's been always in the van
Of everything that's going, since the world first began."

Chapter XII.

STARTING ACROSS THE PLAINS.

Transforming themselves into a party of bald-heads was the last of the
absurd pranks with which the young engineers entertained the good people
of Kansas City for many a long day. At the same hour on the following
evening they were well on their way towards the far West in a
dilapidated passenger-coach attached to a freight train loaded with
tents and supplies of every description for their long trip.

By the next noon, after a hard, rough ride of nearly two hundred miles,
the end of the track was reached. It was on a treeless prairie, sweeping
away as far as the eye could see on all sides. Here was spread a thick
green carpet of short buffalo grass, and into this carpet were woven
exquisite patterns of innumerable flowers. The place was at the junction
of the Kaw River with one of its numerous branches, and where but a few
weeks before wild Indians had camped and vast herds of buffalo had
pastured, a railroad town of several hundred rough frame houses,
shanties, and tents had