hey entered
Parkville late in the afternoon. It was a commonplace-looking view of
Kansas, after all, and not at all like what the lads had fancied it
would be. Sandy very emphatically expressed his disappointment.

"What would you have, Sandy?" asked his uncle, with some amusement.
"Did you expect to see wild honey dripping out of the cottonwoods and
sycamores, buffaloes and deer standing up and waiting to be shot at,
and a farm ready to be tilled?"

"Well," replied the boy, a little shamefacedly, "I didn't exactly
expect to see all those things; but somehow the country looks awful
flat and dull. Don't you think so?"

For answer, Mr. Bryant pointed out a line of blue slopes in the
distance. "Those are not very high hills, my boy, to be sure, but they
are on the rolling prairie beyond, and as soon as we get away from the
river we shall find a bluffy and diversified country, I'll warrant
you."

"Yes; don't you remember," broke in Oscar, eagerly, "Governor
Robinson's book told all about the rolling and undulating country of
the Territory, and the streams that run under high bluffs in some
places?"

Sandy admitted that this was true of the book; but he added, "Some
books do lie, though."

"Not Governor Robinson's book," commented his brother Charlie, with a
slight show of resentment. For Charlie had made a study of the reports
from the Promised Land.

But a more pressing matter was the attitude of the border-State men
toward the free-State emigrants, and the question of making the
necessary purchases for their farming scheme. Parkville was all alive
with people, and there were many border-State men among them. Some of
these regarded the newcomers with unmistakable hostility, noting
which, Sandy and Oscar took good care to keep near their two grown-up
protectors; and the two men always went about with their weapons
within easy reaching distance. All of the Borderers were opposed to
any more free-State men going into the Territory; and many of them
were disposed to stop this by force, if necessary. At one time, the
situation looked very serious, and Sandy got his "pepper-box" into
position. But the trouble passed away, and the arrival of fifteen or
twenty teams, accompanied by a full complement of men, checked a
rising storm of wrath.

From Platte City, a short distance up the river, however, came doleful
and distressing stories of the ill-treatment of the free-State men who
had gone that way. They were harassed a