d Indians,--not wild Indians, but tame ones that are at
peace with the whites. It seems too good to have happened to us;
doesn't it, Oscar?"

Once more the wagon was blocked up for a difficult ford, the lighter
and more perishable articles of its load being packed into a dugout,
or canoe hollowed from a sycamore log, which was the property of
Younkins, and used only at high stages of the water. The three men
guided the wagon and oxen across while Charlie, stripped to his
shirt, pushed the loaded dugout carefully over, and the two boys on
the other bank, full of the importance of the event, received the
solitary voyager, unloaded the canoe, and then transferred the little
cargo to the wagon. The caravan took its way up the rolling ground of
the prairie to the log-cabin. Willing hands unloaded and took into the
house the tools, provisions, and clothes that constituted their all,
and, before the sun went down, the settlers were at home.

While in Manhattan, they had supplied themselves with potatoes; at
Fort Riley they had bought fresh beef from the sutler. Sandy made a
glorious fire in the long-disused fireplace. His father soon had a
batch of biscuits baking in the covered kettle, or Dutch oven, that
they had brought with them from home. Charlie's contribution to the
repast was a pot of excellent coffee, the milk for which, an
unaccustomed luxury, was supplied by the thoughtfulness of Mrs.
Younkins. So, with thankful hearts, they gathered around their frugal
board and took their first meal in their new home.

When supper was done and the cabin, now lighted by the scanty rays of
two tallow candles, had been made tidy for the night, Oscar took out
his violin, and, after much needed tuning, struck into the measure of
wild, warbling "Dundee." All hands took the hint, and all voices were
raised once more to the words of Whittier's song of the "Kansas
Emigrants." Perhaps it was with new spirit and new tenderness that
they sang,--

"No pause, nor rest, save where the streams
That feed the Kansas run,
Save where the pilgrim gonfalon
Shall flout the setting sun!"

"I don't know what the pilgrim's gonfalon is," said Sandy, sleepily,
"but I guess it's all right." The emigrants had crossed the prairies
as of old their father had crossed the sea. They were now at home in
the New West. The night fell dark and still about their lonely cabin
as, with hope and trust, they lai