ERRITORY.

The straggling, unkempt, and forlorn town of Parkville, Missouri, was
crowded with strangers when the emigrants arrived there after a long
and toilsome drive through Iowa. They had crossed the Mississippi from
Illinois into Iowa, at Fulton, on the eastern shore, and after
stopping to rest for a day or two in Clinton, a pretty village on the
opposite bank, had pushed on, their faces ever set westward. Then,
turning in a southwesterly direction, they travelled across the lower
part of the State, and almost before they knew it they were on the
sacred soil of Missouri, the dangers of entering which had been
pictured to them all along the route. They had been warned by the
friendly settlers in Iowa to avoid St. Joseph, one of the crossings
from Missouri into Kansas; it was a nest of Border Ruffians, so they
were told, and they would surely have trouble. They must also steer
clear of Leavenworth; for that town was the headquarters of a number
of Missourians whose names were already terrible all over the Northern
States, from Kansas to Massachusetts Bay.

"But there is the military at Fort Leavenworth," replied Mr. Bryant.
"Surely they will protect the citizens of the United States who are
peaceful and well-behaved. We are only peaceable immigrants."

"Pshaw!" answered an Iowa man. "All the army officers in this part of
the country are pro-slavery men. They are in sympathy with the
pro-slavery men, anyhow, and if they had been sent here to keep
free-State men out of the Territory, they couldn't do any different
from what they are doing. It's an infernal shame, that's what it is."

Bryant said nothing in reply, but as they trudged along, for the roads
were very bad, and they could not often ride in their vehicles now,
his face grew dark and red by turns. Finally he broke out,--

"See here, Aleck," he cried, "I don't want to sneak into the
Territory. If these people think they can scare law-abiding and
peaceable citizens of a free country from going upon the land of these
United States, we might just as well fight first as last. For one, I
will not be driven out of a country that I have got just as much right
to as any of these hot-headed Missouri fellows."

His brother-in-law looked troubled, but before he could speak the
impetuous and fiery Sandy said: "That's the talk, Uncle Charlie!
Let's go in by the shortest way, and tackle the Border Ruffians if
they tackle us. Who's afraid?" And the lad bravely handled