he old trail, and had gazed on the redskins as they
went "on the warpath."

"Warpath, indeed!" laughed Charlie. "Pot-hunters, that's what they
are. All the warfare they are up to is waged on the poor innocent
buffalo that Younkins says they are killing off and making scarcer
every year."

"If nobody but Indians killed buffalo," said Mr. Bryant, "there would
be no danger of their ever being all killed off. But, in course of
time, I suppose this country will all be settled up, and then there
will be railroads, and after that the buffalo will have to go. Just
now, any white man that can't saddle his horse and go out and kill a
buffalo before breakfast thinks they are getting scarce. But I have
heard some of the soldiers say that away up north of here, a little
later in the season, the settlers cannot keep their crops, the buffalo
roam all over everything so."

"For my part," put in Charlie, "I am not in the least afraid that the
buffalo will be so plenty around these parts that they will hurt our
crops; and I'd just like to see a herd come within shooting distance."
And here he raised his arms, and took aim along an imaginary rifle.

Later in the forenoon, when the two younger boys had reached the end
of the two rows in which they had been planting, Sandy straightened
himself up with an effort, and said, "This is leg-weary work, isn't
it, Oscar? I hate work, anyhow," he added, discontentedly, leaning on
the top of his dibble, and looking off over the wide and green prairie
that stretched toward the setting sun. "I wish I was an Indian."

Oscar burst into a laugh, and said, "Wish you were an Indian!--so you
could go hunting when you like, and not have any work to do? Why,
Sandy, I didn't think that of you."

Sandy colored faintly, and said, "Well, I do hate work, honestly; and
it is only because I know that I ought, and that father expects me to
do my share, that I do it, and never grumble about it. Say, I never do
grumble, do I, Oscar?" he asked earnestly.

"Only once in a while, when you can't help it, Sandy. I don't like
work any better than you do; but it's no use talking about it, we've
got to do it."

"I always feel so in the spring," said Sandy, very gravely and with a
little sigh, as he went pegging away down another furrow.

Forty acres of land was all that the settlers intended to plant with
corn, for the first year. Forty acres does not seem a very large tract
of land to speak of, but when one sees the