he
ploughshare, blue, distant woods and yet more distant hills, among
which, to the northwest, the broad river wound and disappeared.
Westward, nothing was to be seen but the green and rolling swales of
the virgin prairie, broken here and there by an outcropping of rock.
And as they looked, a tawny, yellowish creature trotted out from
behind a roll of the prairie, sniffed in the direction of the boys,
and then stealthily disappeared in the wildness of the vast expanse.

[Illustration: THE SETTLERS' FIRST HOME IN THE DESERTED CABIN.]

"A coyote," said Sandy, briefly. "I've seen them in Illinois. But I
wish I had my gun now." His wiser brother laughed as he told him that
it would be a long day before a coyote could be got near enough to be
knocked over with any shot-gun. The coyote, or prairie-wolf, is the
slyest animal that walks on four legs.

The three men and Charlie returned to the further side of the Fork,
and made immediate preparations to move all their goods and effects to
the new home of the emigrants. Sandy and Oscar, being rather too small
to wade the stream without discomfort, while it was so high, were left
on the south bank to receive the returning party.

There the boys sat, hugely enjoying the situation, while the others
were loading the wagon and yoking the oxen on the other side. The lads
could hear the cheery sounds of the men talking, although they could
not see them through the trees that lined the farther bank of the
river. The flow of the stream made a ceaseless lapping against the
brink of the shore. A party of catbirds quarrelled sharply in the
thicket hard by; quail whistled in the underbrush of the adjacent
creek, and overhead a solitary eagle circled slowly around as if
looking down to watch these rude invaders of the privacy of the
dominion that had existed ever since the world began.

Hugging his knees in measureless content, as they sat in the grass by
the river, Sandy asked, almost in a whisper, "Have you ever been
homesick since we left Dixon, Oscar?"

"Just once, Sandy; and that was yesterday when I saw those nice-looking
ladies at the fort out walking in the morning with their children. That
was the first sight that looked like home since we crossed the Missouri."

"Me, too," answered Sandy, soberly. "But this is just about as fine as
anything can be. Only think of it, Oscar! There are buffalo and
antelopes within ten or fifteen miles of here. I know, for Younkins
told me so. An