Hppletons* 
 
 ZTown an& Country 
 
 QLibrarp 
 
 No. 289 
 
 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
PERFECTION CITY. 
 
 A Novel of Kansas Life. By ADELA E. 
 ORPEN. No. 212, Appletons Town 
 and Country Library. I2mo. Cloth, 
 $1.00; paper, 50 cents. 
 
 The Opinions of Critics. 
 
 London Spectator : 
 
 " A masterly picture of prairie life." 
 London Literary World: 
 
 "There is pathos and there is stirring and 
 vivid interest. A delightful story, delightfully 
 told." 
 
 New York Bookman : 
 
 " A story as breezy as the prairies." 
 
 Baltimore News : 
 
 " The story has freshness and simplicity, and 
 a number of unique characters sketched with 
 graphic humor." 
 
 Boston Herald : 
 
 "Written with plenty of fire, spirit, and rest 
 less energy." 
 
 San Francisco Chronicle: 
 
 " A strong piece of pen picturing, with clever 
 sketches of life, and frequent bits of fine char 
 
 acter drawing. 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY, NEW YORK. 
 
THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 A STORY OF FREE SOIL AND 
 BORDER RUFFIAN DAYS 
 
 BY 
 
 ADELA E. ORPEN 
 
 AUTHOR OF PERFECTION CITY, ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY 
 1900 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1900, 
 BY D. APPLETON AND COMPANY. 
 
 All rights reserved. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I. THE RENDEZVOUS 
 
 II. NANCY OVERTON 1 
 
 HI. THE FATAL SHOT 20 
 
 IV. THE DELUGE 30 
 
 V. THE BANKS OF JORDAN 38 
 
 VI. BACK INTO SLAVERY 49 
 
 VII. THE BRAND OF CAIN 58 
 
 VIII. AUNT MONIN S STORY 72 
 
 IX. AUNT MONIN S FREEDOM 88 
 
 X. A SUSPECT 12 
 
 XL THE BUFFALO HUNT 119 
 
 XII. HELP AT NEED 134 
 
 XIIL RIDGWAY S DIPLOMACY 147 
 
 XIV. THE HIRED MAN 162 
 
 XV. CONFESSIONS 177 
 
 XVL OFF TO THE WARS 191 
 
 XVIL BUSHWHACKERS 203 
 
 XVIIL DELENDA EST CARTHAGO ! 214 
 
 XIX. SLAVE DRIVING 227 
 
 XX. THE TASK OF SISYPHUS 237 
 
 XXL AUNT MONIN S QUEST 247 
 
 XXII. THE BURNING OF LAWRENCE 266 
 
 XXIII. NANCY MISSING 282 
 
 XXIV. THE RESCUE 290 
 
 v 
 
THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 THE RENDEZVOUS 
 
 A HAZY autumn afternoon, with a bright sun send 
 ing slanting rays of shimmering light across the wide- 
 stretching prairie; a lazy brown horse plodding along, 
 while his rider lurched sleepily from side to side as if 
 dozing in the saddle, and nothing else to be seen as far 
 as the eye could reach. The horizon was like the open 
 sea, limited only by the height of the point of view. It 
 stretched away measureless to the west, and was only 
 stopped in an equally measureless career toward the 
 southeast by a belt of timber showing purple-blue 
 against the copper-gleaming sky. It was toward this 
 belt of timber that the sleepy horseman was riding. 
 
 He was a large man, lean and brown, with long, 
 sinewy arms and bony fingers that seemed as if made 
 to grip and not let go. His bronzed face was devoid of 
 beard, revealing a square jaw and firm-set mouth, while 
 beneath his low hat were two gray eyes, by nature keen, 
 but just now dull with drowsiness. 
 
 The drowsy eyes managed now and again to scan the 
 horizon for a moment in a mechanical sort of way. In 
 one of these sleepy surveys the half -shut eyes detected a 
 small speck, not stationary, but creeping languidly along 
 at right angles to the direction of our slumberous rider. 
 In a flash the sleepy eyes awoke and fixed themselves 
 piercingly upon that speck. The overhanging eye- 
 
 1 
 
2 THE JAY-UAWKE11S 
 
 brows came sharply together, the horse was pulled up, 
 and for the space of half a minute the man s whole 
 powers were concentrated in one steady gaze. The dis 
 tant speck ceased creeping, and for a like space of half 
 a minute also remained stationary. Two specks gazing 
 intently at each other across three miles of prairie and 
 unable to make each other out. They moved on again. 
 Our horseman, no longer sleepy, slung forward his rifle 
 and looked at the cap. lie even changed it for a fresh 
 one from a tin box in his belt. He unstrapped his hol 
 ster and looked carefully at his pistol, and seemed 
 almost to shake himself into a state of loose activity. 
 One became conscious that his sinews and muscles had 
 received orders to be at attention, ready for any demand 
 that might be made upon them. A precisely similar 
 course of overhauling and general preparation was pre 
 sumably in progress on the person of the other speck, 
 which now began more visibly to take on the form of a 
 man on horseback. 
 
 " Making for the crossing/ remarked our rider to 
 himself. " Guess I ain t going to let him get to the 
 creek before me." 
 
 He gave his horse a touch of the spur, whereupon 
 the horse woke up and answered. Horses usually do 
 answer such a spur, for it was the sort called " Mexi 
 can/ with rowels an inch long and smartly sharpened 
 at the point. The rival horseman, if such he was, did 
 not respond to the challenge of a race for the crossing, 
 so that the big man on the brown horse had ample time 
 to cross the water course. There was no river to cross, 
 for the year of 1860 had been the driest known in the 
 short-lived history of Kansas. The rivers were all 
 gone out of the land, and rough and stony tracks alone 
 remained as a memento of their former presence, with 
 here and there a pool, clear and deep, or shallow and 
 slimy, according as it was fed by springs or was the 
 
THE RENDEZVOUS 3 
 
 leavings of the dried-up river. Our rider stumbled 
 briskly over the stony river bed and then sat in a loosely 
 expectant attitude on his horse, facing the creek. A 
 casual observer might not have realized that he had 
 assumed a position which commanded a full view of the 
 track through the woods coming to the crossing, while 
 a broken stump overhung by grapevines almost entirely 
 shielded his horse and formed no inefficient protec 
 tion to his own person. It was in order to get behind 
 this very stump that he had ridden so hard. He had 
 some little time to wait, for the other rider was in 110 
 hurry. He came on at a leisurely pace through the 
 woods, and even beguiled the time by whistling to him 
 self in a lively manner. 
 
 " That coon Heaton! " said the big man as soon as 
 the whistling fell on his ear, and forthwith he came out 
 from behind the stump and rode down to a pool near 
 the crossing, where his horse amused himself by alter 
 nately dipping his nose into the water and then blowing 
 loudly at it. " Hullo, Mills! " observed the whistler in 
 friendly salutation, breaking off abruptly in the middle 
 of the alluring melody of Billy Boy. 
 
 Mills made no reply, but watched the other man 
 crossing the stony bottom, and then ranged up along 
 side of him and said in an interrogative manner. 
 
 " Going? 
 
 " Yes," replied Heaton; " I suppose you re going, 
 too." 
 
 " Pretty near every one s in this ride, I reckon," 
 said the first speaker, and they lapsed into silence, rid 
 ing side by side out of the bottom lands up on to the 
 high prairie once more. Mills looked sharply at his 
 companion s rifle, and then, after a length of time he 
 remarked: " Hain t had it long, I reckon." 
 
 "What? Oh, I see. It s my new rifle Sharpe s 
 carbine. It s only just come down from Kansas City, 
 
4 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 and I thought I might as well bring it along, though 
 of course we sha n t want to use our weapons." Heaton s 
 answer was really more in reply to his companion s 
 inquiring glances than to his spoken words, which were 
 very few indeed. 
 
 " Ever shoot a man ? " inquired Mills. 
 
 " Lord, no ! " answered Heaton in surprise at the 
 question; and it was on the tip of his tongue to add 
 that he had always lived in a civilized land, but he 
 reflected in time that this remark might hurt the feel 
 ings of a Kansas man, so he refrained, and they rode 
 on again in silence. 
 
 " Tain t no sort like shooting buffaloes and deer," 
 observed Mills, who seemed oblivious of both time and 
 space in his conversation. " No, sir; I can tell you if 
 it ain t. I ve seen men as steady as the everlasting 
 rock at buffaloes, and they couldn t hit a man at six 
 yards. You see buffaloes hain t got rifles, and they 
 don t shoot, and men mostly does, and that makes a 
 big difference." 
 
 " I dare say it is the sort of thing to flurry your 
 nerves," remarked Heaton in considerable amusement 
 at his companion s course of reasoning. 
 
 " And the nearer the man is the harder he is to 
 hit. That s my experience," continued Mills, in a medi 
 tative manner. " Guess it s because t other feller s gun 
 looks so all-fired big when he s close up you can t hit 
 him nohow you fix yourself." 
 
 He indulged in a silent laugh which seemed to 
 afford him much inward satisfaction, but the only out 
 ward sign of merriment was a heaving of his big chest. 
 Heaton, on the other hand, gave a big guffaw of amuse 
 ment, which showed that he was not an old hand out 
 there. In fact, Heaton was a recent arrival from Ver 
 mont, a bright intelligent young man, a dare-devil, 
 maybe, but not at all up to the cautious craft of the 
 
THE RENDEZVOUS 5 
 
 older settlers. He would, as we have seen, go whistling 
 through the woods, although he knew there was a 
 strange man in front of him. Mills got behind a 
 stump and waited in a strong position to see who the 
 other man might be. It was the difference be 
 tween five years experience of Kansas and no experi 
 ence of it. 
 
 " Last time I was over the border," resumed Mills, 
 after another profound silence, " we were tracked by 
 twenty Missouri men. They caught up with us just 
 before we got to the border. There were thirty of us, 
 but we had a considerable lot of truck and five or six 
 wagons. We were blazing away as close as could be. 
 Men and horses and guns don t get much nigher one 
 another than we were. There wasn t anybody shot. 
 What beats me is where in thunder the bullets go to. 
 Might as well have been shooting peas for all the harm 
 we did, or good either." 
 
 " Well, there won t be any shooting this time," ob 
 served Heaton. 
 
 " Don t be too sure of that. You can t never say 
 for certain what there won t be in a Jay-Hawk ride. 
 Old John Brown, he didn t like shooting. One time he 
 was dreadful set against any shooting. Guess even he d 
 find it hard sometimes to get along now without it," 
 remarked Mills. 
 
 " You were one of his men, I believe," said Heaton. 
 
 "You may bet on that. I ve been out with old 
 John Brown a good many times. He was the best 
 leader I ever saw. Brown and Montgomery were the 
 two best." 
 
 " And you saw some pretty tall doings out here," 
 observed Heaton, by way of encouraging his taciturn 
 companion to talk. 
 
 "Tall doings and low doings," said Mills emphat 
 ically, " and doings of all sorts." 
 
6 THE JAY-IIA WEEKS 
 
 :< You ve been in most things, I guess/ said the 
 younger man. 
 
 " I was pretty generally round somewhere close. I 
 was in Lawrence when it was burned, and I was at Ossa- 
 watomie." 
 
 " And still you think a man with a gun in his hand 
 is hard to shoot at ten paces/ said Heaton with a 
 laugh. 
 
 " Yaas/ replied Mills with a grin; " mighty hard to 
 shoot till you get used to the uncommon size his rifle 
 looks." 
 
 : You ve a pretty correct eye for the size, haven t 
 you? " remarked Heaton, looking at his tough compan 
 ion in some awe. 
 
 Mills nodded. They rode along in silence for some 
 miles, and at length came to a small log cabin standing 
 just below the bluff over Big Sugar Creek. This cabin 
 was usually a deserted-looking place, with no signs of 
 children or chickens or the cheerful clatter of a settler s 
 dwelling around it, but on the afternoon of which I 
 write it was a scene of activity and excitement. Some 
 twenty horses were hitched to various parts of the di 
 lapidated stake fence that surrounded the house, and 
 four wagons with their big canvas covers stood near by. 
 Men in riding boots, red shirts, and large hats were 
 moving about everywhere, and the place presented an 
 appearance of expectancy punctuated with rifles. A 
 rendezvous clearly, and one that had been numerously 
 attended. 
 
 The arrival of our two horsemen was greeted with 
 satisfaction, or it would be more correct to say that 
 Mills s arrival was so greeted. Heaton s coming seemed 
 to create no emotion whatsoever. A little black- 
 bearded man, who was somewhat remarkable among 
 the others, all of whom were clean shaven, at once 
 hailed our friend Mills. 
 
THE RENDEZVOUS 7 
 
 "I was waiting for you," said the little man in 
 quick, sharp accents. " You are wanted to lead one of 
 the bands. We shall divide into two companies and 
 stampede as many negroes as we can, and get out again 
 before the alarm is given. Sharp is the word. Those 
 Missouri men are mad now." 
 
 " You bet! " remarked Mills. 
 
 " We ll march at daybreak, and be over the border 
 by two hours after sunup. You are to go south by 
 Hillsborough; I am going north. Gather up your nig 
 gers as spry as you can. Wagons to be filled only with 
 women and children. We meet at the Mine Creek 
 crossing. No shooting if you can possibly help it. 
 Those are your orders." 
 
 " All right, captain," said Mills, and the two men 
 separated without a word of further conversation, al 
 though old companions in arms. They had serious 
 work in hand, and wasted no time in idle words. 
 
 " I am going by Hillsborough; you can come with 
 me, if you like," said Mills later on in the evening to 
 Heaton. " There won t be no use for your new rifle 
 in my party, if I can help it." 
 
 " I shouldn t join if there was," replied Heaton with 
 a smile. " This shooting in the cause of freedom isn t 
 to my taste, and there s no need for it either, I m sure." 
 
 " Wai, I dunno," replied Mills in a noncommittal 
 tone. 
 
 The men were busy feeding their horses, and as 
 each one had at least one horse, there was very little 
 time for idle talk. To Heaton, unused as he was to the 
 silent manners of prairie men when out on business, it 
 seemed almost as if they were regarding each other with 
 suspicion. Instead of a free and hearty interchange of 
 semijocular remarks, which is what the young man 
 expected under the circumstances, these men spoke but 
 seldom, and then very much to the point. 
 
THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 "Takin heap o bullets an powder?" said one 
 gray-haired man to another about his own age. 
 "Pretty tole ble. An you?" 
 " Eight smart chance o bullets in this hyar belt o 
 mine/ said the first speaker, tapping his ammunition 
 poiich. " I run out once in Missouri. Man feels pow 
 erful queer and skeery when he knows he s got his last 
 bullet down his bar l." 
 
 The speaker strolled off to his horse, and Ilcaton, 
 with the chattiness of his youth and nature, picked up 
 the thread of conversation. 
 
 " Do you expect to meet with resistance so that the 
 rifles will have to be used?" he asked, more by way 
 of opening the conversation with him who had boasted 
 of his bullets than because he put much faith in what 
 had been said. 
 
 " Dunno. Missouri men is spry nough with their 
 shooting irons, gin rally speakin ." 
 
 "But orders are to have no shooting," replied 
 Jlcaton, not liking this free preparation for a battle. 
 
 " Yaas, but them orders is on y for this hyar ride, 
 an the gin ral order s gin them," said the man, slowly 
 buckling up his pouch. 
 
 " What is the general order? " 
 " Allers to shoot fust." 
 
 Heaton laughed. " Oh, I suppose that is the law of 
 Nature," he repeated lightly. 
 
 " Eeckon I ll feed my critter," said his companion, 
 moving off to where his horse stood tied to the fence. 
 Heaton followed his example, and, having fed his horse, 
 lay down in a corner of the fence to sleep as well as he 
 could until the dawn should send them on their way. 
 But he found it difficult enough to compose his mind 
 to rest. A thousand thoughts rushed through his 
 brain. Recollections of home mixed up with flashing 
 visions of what might be before him in the near future. 
 
THE RENDEZVOUS 9 
 
 His life had hitherto rolled along in the beaten track of 
 civilization., but now for the first time there was a possi 
 bility of his being in conflict with his fellow-men. He 
 might have to fight for his life before another night 
 came on. He might kill a man or be himself killed. 
 The consequences of either alternative were tremen 
 dous. True "no shooting" was the order of the 
 march, but that was an order qualified by that supreme 
 principle which governed every man s action, of " shoot 
 ing first." Heaton couldn t help wondering, as he put 
 his rifle into its case in order to keep it from the night 
 dews, whether he should feel so alarmed at the size 
 of the " other feller s " gun as to be unable to pull his 
 trigger. But of course these were idle fancies. There 
 would be no shooting. Certainly, as far as he was con 
 cerned there would be none. He fell asleep at length 
 with thoughts such as these in his mind, and for some 
 subsequent hours was engaged in a fruitless, but no less 
 frantic endeavour to bring his rifle to his shoulder in 
 order to shoot some man who was already sighting him 
 behind a most alarmingly capacious barrel. He never 
 succeeded in finishing the dream, but awoke again and 
 again to find his heart thumping loudly against his 
 side and beads of perspiration standing thick on his 
 forehead. The horror of the sleep and its dreams was so 
 great that he got up two hours before the dawn and 
 went for a tramp through the soaking grass. 
 
 " I m a pretty coward! " said Heaton to himself with 
 a pang of shame. " The mere prospect of riding on a 
 foray into Missouri has made me shiver with fright, as 
 if I were a girl in a dark room where an owl screeched 
 at her. Bah! What things are nerves! " 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 
 NANCY OVERTON 
 
 A PRETTY girl standing in the sunlight, and a 
 young man looking wistfully at her what could bo 
 more appropriate on a bright afternoon? She knew 
 that he was gazing at her, although she was not looking 
 directly at him. Her eyes were cast down, but she felt 
 his gaze, nevertheless. His glance pierced her sun- 
 bonnet and dyed her round cheeks rosy red. She was 
 not, however, of the meek order of humanity; so, red 
 cheeks or not, she raised her eyes defiantly, and said : 
 
 " No, I won t." 
 
 " Why? " he asked, with a foolish manlike desire to 
 be furnished with a reason. 
 
 " Because I won t; that s why," answered she with a 
 truly womanlike determination to withhold her reason. 
 
 " All the girls are going," said he. 
 
 " Then no one will miss me," said she. 
 
 " Nancy! You know you are the only girl I shall 
 care to see," said he vehemently. 
 
 " Then why did you mention the other girls? " 
 asked she with a flash of her white teeth. 
 
 " Because I thought it might make you want to go, 
 too," said he. 
 
 "Well, it doesn t." 
 
 " Then I sha n t go cither." 
 
 " The other girls will be disappointed." 
 
 " Damn the other girls! " said he furiously. 
 
 10 
 
NANCY OVERTON 11 
 
 " Oh, you bad man, how dare you say such a thing! " 
 
 " You d drive a man clean crazy/ he said, jerking 
 his bridle over his horse s neck. " I suppose that s 
 what girls are made for: to torment a man like the mis 
 chief." 
 
 " Women are made in order to train men," she ob 
 served loftily. 
 
 " Thank you for my training lesson." 
 
 He sprang upon his horse, dug his spur into the ani 
 mal s side, and dashed down the road in a passion of 
 anger. The girl stood quite still, looking intently after 
 him as long as his horse s thundering stride could be 
 heard on the road; and then with a sigh she turned 
 from the bars. 
 
 " I should like to have gone to the corn bee," she 
 remarked aloud. " I do wish he hadn t been the one 
 to ask me. Men are as horrid as they can be ! " 
 
 She stamped her foot angrily, and in her black eyes 
 there came a wicked flash. No, indeed, Nancy Overton 
 was not of the meek order of womankind. Her black 
 eyes, her full red lips, her rosy-red cheeks all beto 
 kened good generous blood in her veins. She was strong, 
 healthy, young, and pretty enough to be as impudent 
 and as defiant as ever she liked to all the young men of 
 the neighbourhood. It did not matter in the least what 
 she did or what she said. They one and all fell madly 
 in love with her just the same, and came day after day 
 to sigh at her feet and to be driven away by her petu 
 lance, just as James Harte had been on this sunny after 
 noon of which I am writing. 
 
 Nancy walked back to the house, a quaint rambling 
 structure with a long veranda, commonly called " de 
 po ch " on one side, and a tall, friendly-looking chim 
 ney rising from the end. The house had begun life 
 some twenty years before by being a log cabin, but now 
 it had grown into quite a substantial dwelling, all of 
 9 
 
12 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 wood, of course, but none the less comfortably clad in 
 garments of blossoming nasturtiums, roses, and fruit- 
 bedecked vines. The deep, shady porch with its trails 
 of climbing plants invited one to come in and rest from 
 the glare of the sunlight. Two doors opened off it, 
 each leading into a capacious room. In one of these 
 rooms at the present moment sat a man to whom Nancy 
 bore that softened and refined likeness which unmis 
 takably proclaimed that they were father and daughter. 
 Overton was a bad-tempered man to all the world ex 
 cept Nancy. No one but Nancy ever dared to say " No " 
 to him, and she only occasionally, when her woman s 
 instinct told her she might do so with impunity. He 
 sat beside a plain oak table, resting one hand heavily 
 upon it, while with the other he flicked at his boot 
 with a short cowhide whip. He looked up as his 
 daughter entered, and she saw the black thundercloud 
 on his brow. Even the dauntless Nancy quailed before 
 that thundercloud. 
 
 " Those free-state men are gathering for another 
 raid, folks was saying up at Papinsville," said Overton, 
 with a strong Missouri accent, but without making use 
 of the oaths that usually garnished a Missouri man s 
 talk. He never swore nor allowed others to swear in 
 Nancy s presence, and the restraint he had exercised 
 upon himself had finally resulted in clearing his lan 
 guage of oaths. Nancy s heart stood still with terror. 
 A free-state raid was the ever-present dread of her 
 life. 
 
 " Has Jim Harte been here lately? " asked Overton. 
 
 " Yes, father; he came to-day to ask me to the 
 corn bee over at the Westertons. It is going to be the 
 biggest bee that ever was here in this part. Every 
 body is going." 
 
 " You can do as you like about going, Nancy, 
 though those Westertons ain t regular downright Mis- 
 
NANCY OVERTON 13 
 
 souri folks, and I don t like their notions. But I want 
 you to remember that if Jim Harte gives warning to 
 those Free-soil scoundrels about my slaves Fll shoot 
 him at sight. Yes, if it was in the meetinghouse 
 itself." 
 
 Nancy turned a trifle pale. 
 
 " You d better warn him. Or if that other fellow, 
 Gleeson he s another of those confounded Free-soilers 
 if he lets on the least wink and we lose our property, 
 he won t wink many more mornings, for I ll shoot him 
 through the chinks of his cabin. There are plenty of 
 holes in it. I could do it as easy as not." 
 
 "Father," faltered Nancy, pale to the very lips, 
 " you wouldn t murder a fellow-creature." 
 
 " Tain t murder. It s defending my rights and 
 looking after my property. Those slaves are mine. 
 I ll not sit by and see them stolen by a lot of rascally 
 Kansas ruffians that only live by running off negroes." 
 
 " I wish we hadn t any slaves, if it s going to lead 
 to strife and bloodshed," said Nancy beneath her 
 breath. 
 
 "What!" exclaimed Overton angrily; "are you 
 coming abolitionist bosh over me? Is that some of the 
 stuff you ve learned from Jim Harte? " 
 
 "Jim Harte never said much about it," returned 
 Nancy, the colour gradually coming back into her 
 plump cheeks. 
 
 " If I thought he was going to teach you such non 
 sense he d have to clear out of this and make tracks, I 
 can tell you," said Overton, looking sternly at her. 
 
 " I don t think Jim Harte teaches me much. I am 
 teaching him," said Nancy, with a dimpling laugh. 
 " At least he said so this evening." 
 
 Overton s brow cleared, and he almost smiled back 
 to Nancy. 
 
 " Well, well, I reckon you can see to that most as 
 
14 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 well as any girl this side the Mississippi. But don t let 
 me hear you talking that way again/ said her father. 
 
 " Who said there was going to be a raid? " 
 
 " A man who came over the line early this morn 
 ing. He said a man asked him was he going to join the 
 ride from Bain s cabin. He shut up pretty quick 
 when he found he was barking up the wrong tree. 
 Only something is fixing at Bain s cabin,, and that s 
 where that old ruffian John Brown used to start his 
 runs from. Sooner than let them get hold of my 
 slaves I d sell every one of them South for fifty dollars 
 apiece." 
 
 " daddy, daddy, you won t sell Aunt Monin! You 
 mustn t sell Aunt Monin! " burst out Nancy with a per 
 fect wail of grief. It was so unexpected that her fa 
 ther was nonplussed for a moment and remained silent. 
 
 " I ll have to sell every one if those Jay-Hawkers 
 come hereabouts," he said somewhat apologetically. 
 
 "But Aunt Monin promise, daddy, not Aunt 
 Monin," persisted Nancy. 
 
 " I guess Aunt Monin wouldn t be much comfort to 
 you if she was run off by free-state men into Kansas, 
 where you d never set an eye on her again," observed 
 her father argumentatively. 
 
 " She wouldn t ever go over the border away from 
 me; I know she wouldn t. She won t ever leave me." 
 
 " They wouldn t ask her leave, but would run her 
 off all the same." 
 
 " No, they wouldn t do that," objected Nancy. 
 
 " How do you know the Jay-Hawkers wouldn t com 
 pel her to go, or any one else they came across in their 
 raids." 
 
 " They only want to set the slaves free," said Nancy 
 unguardedly. 
 
 "Who told you that? " asked her father quickly. 
 
 Nancy, perceiving her mistake, remained silent. 
 
NANCY OVERTON 15 
 
 " Who told you, I say? Some dog of an abolitionist 
 has been trying to get at you. It s that scoundrel Jim 
 Harte ! " said Overton, rising, while his brow darkened 
 angrily. 
 
 " It wasn t Jim Harte/ said Nancy. 
 
 " Then it was that other fellow, Gleeson; I always 
 thought he was a spy." 
 
 " Father, he s not a spy! " cried Nancy in a fright, 
 knowing only too well what would be the fate of a spy 
 in that land at that time. " It is a wicked thing for 
 you to say, and if any harm comes to him through your 
 saying he is one you will be accountable for it." 
 
 Nancy was roused to show more feeling than was 
 habitual with her. 
 
 Her father looked keenly at her white face and 
 flashing eye, and, drawing perchance a wrong conclu 
 sion, said: 
 
 " Oh, if it s him you re hankering for you d better 
 look after him, and he d better look after himself if 
 he s going to play traitor in this county. The boys 
 mostly do what you tell them to, Nancy; but it ull take 
 more than your black eyes to stop em if once they 
 get on the trail of a regular downright traitor." 
 
 Overton walked toward the door, and, turning, spoke 
 a last word : 
 
 " Yankees ain t got no business here in Missouri, 
 anyhow, and the sooner they re all cleared out the better 
 for us and for them, too." 
 
 He left the room, walking with quick angry strides 
 down the porch and on thence toward the fields. 
 Nancy, left to her own thoughts, seemed to find the 
 room too small for her, agitated as she was. Accord 
 ingly, after walking rapidly up and down several times, 
 she, too, left it and hurried off, but not toward the 
 fields. The young girl ran round the house, across the 
 yard, where many chickens, turkeys, and Guinea fowl 
 
16 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 were holding afternoon cackle, and entered a small log 
 cabin some twenty yards away. This log cabin was the 
 kitchen of the place, built isolated and far from the 
 dwelling house, a precaution against heat, brought 
 from southern Virginia by the owners of the place, who 
 hailed from that State. The kitchen would have been 
 utterly dark save for the light that came in through 
 a door which was large and always open, both summer 
 and winter. A huge fireplace occupied the entire end 
 of the room, where three or four mighty logs smoul 
 dered away in a soft bed of white ash. Immense black 
 hooks hung from the black cavern of the chimney, and 
 a number of black pots, skillets, and baking ovens stood 
 in a solemn row against the wall. On the opposite side, 
 in another row, squatted several little negroes, as black 
 and solemn and motionless as the pots. Their beady 
 eyes rolled in their heads as they watched the presiding 
 priestess of this temple moving about with a rolling-pin 
 in her hand. They would have loved to run hither 
 and thither, and to peer into the tempting black pots, 
 but were restrained by a wholesome awe of the priestess 
 and a vivid recollection of the weight of that rolling- 
 pin when she cracked it upon their woolly skulls. 
 
 " Yo ? , Pete, yo pison lazy nigga, jess scoot down de 
 fiel an fetch me han ful ingyons [onions]/ said the 
 woman with the rolling-pin. 
 
 Pete reached the upright position via a Catherine 
 wheel of remarkable velocity, and stood grinning from 
 ear to ear, his red lips shining like two scarlet lines of 
 sealing wax along his white flashing teeth. 
 
 " Pike now, yo ? nigga," said the woman, with a sug 
 gestive twirl of the rolling-pin over her head. Pete 
 uttered a war whoop and was out through the door be 
 fore the twirl was half completed. All the other little 
 niggers rolled their eyes to such an angle of excitement 
 and interest that the whites alone were visible, they 
 
NANCY OVERTON 17 
 
 licked their lips and showed their teeth like a row of 
 manikins set in motion by machinery, but they never 
 stirred from sitting on their small black feet, so perfect 
 was the discipline maintained by the rolling-pin. 
 
 Pete instantly reappeared inside the doorway, the 
 blackest imaginable silhouette against the bright sky, 
 and announced with exultation: 
 
 " Young Miss Nancy, she done comin clar down de 
 ya d to de kitching, she done." 
 
 " Yo clar out an git dem ingyons right smart, or I ll 
 stamp yo two eyes inter one," said the woman in a 
 clear musical voice, very much at variance with the 
 purport of her words. Thus adjured, Pete departed 
 after his onions, and in another moment Nancy stood 
 in the doorway. 
 
 " My honey-chile, dat yo sweet se f comin ter see 
 ole Aunt Monin?" said the negress, turning with 
 eagerness to greet her visitor. 
 
 Aunt Monin was a tall, large woman, with grizzled 
 woolly hair, a black, shiny face, and the keenest eyes 
 that ever kept track of the simultaneous impishness of 
 six little niggers, all trying to steal her honey cakes 
 as fast as she took them out of the oven. She wore a 
 red turban twisted around her head, which made her 
 look even taller than she was, a clean white shirt, and a 
 blue cotton petticoat. Summer or winter, early or late, 
 in snow and in sunshine, Aunt Monin was always just 
 like that. She never looked either hot or cold, but was 
 always alert, clean, shiny, and as black as black could 
 be. Aunt Monin was the cook and also the devoted 
 servant of Miss Nancy, upon whom she lavished that 
 wealth of love and love language that had accumulated 
 in large measure in her breast; perhaps because she had 
 no offspring of her own on whom to lavish it. For Miss 
 Nancy were reserved such expressions as " honey-chile," 
 " de summa rose," and many another, while for the 
 
18 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 little niggers, who were of her own colour, and who 
 might have been supposed to lie near her heart, there 
 was the rolling-pin. 
 
 "Yo niggas, clar out o dat," said Aunt Monin, 
 waving her long black arm around the cabin and point 
 ing to the door. In one instant the squatting young 
 ones had tumbled pellmell out of the door and were ca 
 reering after the chickens and turkeys, to the infinite 
 clatter of all concerned. 
 
 " Miss Nancy, heart s delight, yo jess come an set 
 yo little pearl teeth in dish hyar honey cake," said 
 Aunt Monin in a cooing voice, as if she was talking to a 
 baby. 
 
 "No. I can t eat; it would choke me," said Nancy, 
 with a sob. 
 
 "Lordy, Miss Nancy, chile, what s wrong wid de 
 lamb ? " exclaimed Aunt Monin in an extremity of dis 
 tress. 
 
 "Father says there s going to be a raid out of 
 Kansas." 
 
 Aunt Monin s eyes gave a great flash of light, as if a 
 sudden joy had burst forth from their dusky depths. 
 
 " And he says they ll come this way, maybe," con 
 tinued Nancy, idly poking a stick into the ashes and 
 sending a thousand sparks flying up the chimney. Aunt 
 Monin s eyes rivalled the sparks for brightness. 
 
 " De Lo d has hearn de voice o de pressed an de 
 helpless," said she in deep and solemn tones. 
 
 " But, Aunt Monin, you don t want to go and leave 
 me? You won t, will you?" said Nancy, rousing her 
 self from poking the ashes, and looking up at the old 
 woman in sudden surprise at this unexpected outburst. 
 
 " Honey-chile ! " said the negress in a caressing 
 voice. 
 
 " I couldn t bear to lose you, Aunt Monin. Every 
 thing is changing. It isn t one bit as it used to be long 
 
NANCY OVERTON 19 
 
 ago when we were all so happy/ said Nancy plaintively. 
 " I don t see why people couldn t have stayed as they 
 were." 
 
 " Dere s gwine ter be changes, an de Ian will be 
 made a wilderness, an de howl o de wolf will be hearn/ 
 said Aunt Monin, who was a great person for holding 
 forth to people of her own colour. Among them she 
 enjoyed the reputation of being a sort of prophetess,, a 
 reputation perhaps largely founded upon her power of 
 saying things whereof the meaning was not too clearly 
 obvious. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE FATAL SHOT 
 
 FIVE horsemen were stealthily approaching Over- 
 ton s house, keeping a sharp lookout as they rode, one in 
 front, one behind, and three abreast in the middle. 
 
 " Now this job has got to be done in less than no 
 time, if we are to catch up with the rest of them before 
 they get to the creek," said Mills, who was in command. 
 He rode in the centre, having Heaton on his right and 
 his son, a lad of seventeen, on his left. His keen eyes 
 seemed to take in everything, and yet he had no appear 
 ance of being in a fluster; on the contrary, he was calm 
 and matter of fact to a degree which Heaton found hard 
 to imitate, conscious as he was of a distinct quicken 
 ing of his own pulse now that the time for action drew 
 near. 
 
 " It ull be spryer if we divide, won t it, dad? " said 
 young Mills, who had been preternaturally silent during 
 the ride, but upon whose obtuse mind the approaching 
 crisis seemed to have a vivifying effect. 
 
 " That s so," said his father, vastly gratified at this 
 exhibition of cuteness on the part of his offspring; and 
 then turning to Heaton, he continued. " There ain t 
 goin to be no fuss here, cause there ain t nobody to 
 make it. There s only a gal in the house. Guess you ll 
 go an talk to her a spell while we get them niggers to 
 gether. You ll kinder be agreeable an keep her from 
 runnin off to give the alarm. Guess you can do that 
 20 
 
THE FATAL SHOT 21 
 
 sort o thing real well, an you d be a long sight cuter at 
 it than Tom would." 
 
 He grinned at his son and winked at Heaton, who 
 did not feel at all gratified at the task allotted to him. 
 To try to talk agreeably to a young girl and to engage 
 her attention while his companions were running off her 
 slaves was not heroic. He would much prefer not to 
 see the girl at all, and so he told Mills. 
 
 " Afraid of her screeching? Land sakes, man, if 
 you re as squeamish as all that what in thunder did you 
 come on this ride for? But you needn t be scared bout 
 that. She won t screech, cause we hain t goin after 
 the furniture of the house. Women folks don t ever 
 holler till you begin to bang bout the chairs and beds 
 an things in the house. They mos ly don t mind the 
 slaves bein run off. It s the men gets mad then." 
 
 " I hearn tell there s ole man in the house," ob 
 served Tom Mills, stimulated by the paternal praise to 
 make as good a show as he could of his new powers of 
 usefulness and suggestiveness. 
 
 " Wai, wal, if there be, tain t no great shakes. You 
 can speak to him kinder positive," said Mills, addressing 
 Heaton. " Guess I d better go round straight to the 
 nigger quarters an see an git them all started quick. 
 Nigger babies is mighty slow to pack, anyhow. Ole 
 man Weaver ll go roun by the field an get in the han s. 
 They re boun to be all out thar to-day." 
 
 Heaton listened to this plan of campaign in consid 
 erable disgust. His part seemed not at all attractive. 
 This is frequently the feeling of actors when their roles 
 are being allotted. He intimated to Mills that he would 
 far rather go to the fields and gather up the negroes. 
 
 " No, no; you re too soft to handle niggers," re 
 plied that very outspoken individual. "You just git 
 long an keep the gal quiet. You ll do it fust-rate." 
 
 Heaton felt angry as well as humiliated. 
 
22 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 "And the old man?" 
 
 "Keep him quiet, too; can t you?" replied Mills 
 curtly. 
 
 This completed the young man s discomfiture, for 
 he could not help seeing that he was looked upon as a 
 sort of no-account, who was told off to do the silly work 
 that no one else would undertake. He even began to 
 feel vexed at that girl who was the unconscious cause of 
 his humiliation, and resolved to make no attempt what 
 soever to entertain her, but simply to order her to be 
 quiet. There is nothing that galls a young man so much 
 as to be thought wanting in resource or energy when in 
 the presence of hardy frontier men such as these that 
 Heaton was riding with on this his first Jay-Hawk raid. 
 Mills rode into the negro quarters a collection of 
 log cabins at some distance from the dwelling house. 
 His advent was greeted by a chorus of shouts, barks, 
 and cackles, according as boys, dogs, and chickens be 
 came aware of his presence. 
 
 " Friends," began Mills; but no sooner was the well- 
 recognised formula heard than a shout arose of " Free- 
 soil men! Free-soil men! " intermingled with howls of 
 : <The Jay-Hawkers! the Jay-Hawkers!" None but 
 these ever addressed negroes as " friends." From every 
 cabin came the slaves, all women and children, flocking 
 around Mills, the little ones almost rolling beneath his 
 horse s feet. 
 
 "Oh, mas r, mas r, de Lo d has hearn our voice. 
 De Lo d be praised! We s gwine ter be free! Oh, 
 Lordy, Lordy! Oh, Mas r Jay-Hawker, take me, an me 
 an me! Oh, mas r, take us all! " 
 
 These and many other passionate, incoherent shouts 
 and exclamations greeted Mills s ear as he sat on his 
 horse looking down at the eager black faces beneath 
 him. A huge negro, over six feet high and of hercu 
 lean build rushed around the corner of the huts, his 
 
THE FATAL SHOT 23 
 
 mouth open and his great eyes almost starting out of 
 his head. 
 
 " We s gwine ter be free! " he yelled with panting 
 gasps. " Susanner we s gwine ter be free! Why don t 
 yer shout Glory, halleluiah! now? Dish am better dan 
 de comin of de Lo d yer allers prayin bout. We s free 
 iiiggas now." These remarks he addressed to his wife, 
 a meek-looking mulatto woman with sad black eyes 
 heavy with unshed tears. She stood silent among the 
 shouting throng, holding her little black baby in her 
 arms. The big negro seized the little black baby and 
 held it aloft in one mighty hand, while with the other, 
 clinched as if for fighting, he struck out toward the 
 sun. 
 
 " Yo ll nebber shine on me no mo a slave/ he said 
 fiercely; "no, an yo won t shine on dish hyar nigga 
 boy a slave." 
 
 He shook his fist in the face of Heaven. 
 " De Lord s will be done! " said the meek-eyed wife. 
 "We s free niggas, whedder or no/ replied her 
 husband as he laid the baby again in her arms. 
 
 Caesar was Overton s biggest and strongest slave, 
 and would have been his most valuable one except for a 
 certain fierceness of temper that nothing could tame. 
 In the hope of making him less savage his master had 
 insisted upon his marrying Susannah, a gentle mulatto 
 woman much given to praying, and for a time Cassar 
 had appeared to be content. But when his boy was 
 born the wild, untamed savage spirit within him awoke 
 once more. He was forever brooding over his condi 
 tion and cursing God for the brand of slavery which 
 was set upon his child s brow. His prayerful wife used 
 to be speechless with terror at his wild ravings some 
 times. And though Overton had no idea of the depth 
 of his feelings, he had not failed to perceive that Caesar 
 was a dangerous negro, who would lead a revolt or head 
 
24 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 a stampede with courage and ferocity. Accordingly, 
 his doom was sealed. He was to be sold South, to work 
 away his life in the cotton swamps of Louisiana. The 
 sale had actually taken place, and Caesar, although he 
 knew nothing of it, was at this very moment the prop 
 erty of a New Orleans dealer, and was only left with 
 his old master until the dealer had his troop of slaves 
 ready to start down the river. Then, Overton nattered 
 himself, he would be forever rid of Caesar and his rebel 
 lious influence. In this transaction Susannah had, of 
 course, not been considered. She was to remain where 
 she was and be given to some other man. Slavery did 
 not sanction indissoluble marriage. 
 
 The arrival of Caesar, although it has taken some 
 time to explain, was in reality the affair of a couple of 
 seconds only, and his deep shouts had scarcely added a 
 bass to the noise of the shrill screamings of the women 
 and children when suddenly all the clamour ceased. 
 
 A sharp, quick sound silenced them all, even the 
 dogs. 
 
 A rifle shot rang on the still air. 
 
 r The sentinels, by gosh!" exclaimed Mills, start 
 ing in his saddle and jerking his pistol out of its holster. 
 "Back to your quarters!" he called, and the negroes 
 melted out of sight. 
 
 A long, wailing scream in a girlish voice came from 
 the direction of the house. 
 
 "That fool Heaton has shot the gal," said Mills 
 between his teeth. " The damned Yankee sinner! " 
 
 He put spurs to his horse and dashed up to the 
 house. 
 
 When Heaton, in pursuance of his orders, had sepa 
 rated from the rest of the party, he rode quietly to the 
 house, dismounted, tied his horse to the bars, and 
 abruptly entered the room just opposite him. The sud 
 den change from the dazzling light of the open air to 
 
THE FATAL SHOT 25 
 
 the semidarkness of a well-shaded room at first bewil 
 dered him. He did not clearly perceive either the con 
 tents of the room or its occupants. All he could make 
 out was the vague figure of some one lolling back in a 
 rocking-chair. Heaton concluded this to be the old 
 man of his companions report. 
 
 Accordingly, he walked straight up to him and said: 
 
 " I m a Jay-Hawker. We ve come in a band to free 
 your slaves. ^Resistance is useless; we have surrounded 
 the house." 
 
 Overton, who had in reality been half asleep, opened 
 his eyes without the slightest appearance of alarm. 
 Heaton, now more accustomed to the darkness of the 
 room, began to notice that so far from being an old man 
 he was a man in the prime of life, and a singularly de 
 termined-looking one to boot. He began to wish that 
 he had not come alone on the mission of keeping the 
 folks in the house quiet. Still, as the most dangerous 
 thing he could do would be to show any hesitation in his 
 manner, he stood his ground steadily enough, holding 
 his rifle in his left hand, with his right hand resting on 
 the stock. Overton gave him a steady glare of defi 
 ance, and without taking his eyes off the young man 
 said, pointing to a corner of the room, " Get it." 
 
 He had observed that Heaton was a very young fel 
 low. He noted that his revolver was still tightly 
 strapped up in his holster, instead of being unfastened, 
 ready for instant use, as it should have been. Overton 
 knew the regular Jay-Hawker well, and he came rapidly 
 to the conclusion that he had to deal with a greenhorn 
 whom it would be quite possible to overcome, notwith 
 standing the surprise of the visit. Heaton heard the 
 words, but could not imagine what they meant or to 
 whom they were addressed, not being aware of the pres 
 ence of any one in the room except the man who was 
 glaring at him with such unflinching firmness. A mo- 
 
26 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 ment of breathless silence. Heaton heard a rustling 
 sound, but dared not take his eyes off the man before 
 him, who had risen to his feet and showed that he was 
 both tall and powerfully built. 
 
 Heaton now brought his rifle to full cock, grasping 
 the barrel with his left hand and putting his finger on 
 the trigger. He would have nothing to do but to aim 
 and pull if it should come to the worst. 
 
 The rustling sound came nearer, and into his field 
 of vision there protruded a rifle barrel. It flashed 
 across him now what the order had meant and what the 
 rustling was. 
 
 A woman was handing a gun to the man. 
 
 "If you touch that gun I ll shoot you!" he ex 
 claimed in a high-pitched, agitated voice. 
 
 It was all the work of a second, but Heaton always 
 retained the impression that it was a slow proceeding 
 a most horribly slow proceeding, lengthening out into a 
 hideously protracted span of minutes, hours, almost. 
 The man reached out his hands for the gun, taking it 
 with seeming awkwardness, muzzle foremost, from a 
 woman who now appeared from somewhere, suddenly, as 
 if she had started up from the floor. The man, with the 
 muzzle of his gun in his hand, was rapidly getting it into 
 position. The time had clearly come for obeying that 
 supreme general order of " shooting first." Heaton 
 wondered stupidly, or thought he wondered, how he had 
 so quickly reached that order after entering the room. 
 He couldn t understand it. But instinctively he under 
 stood that rifle barrel that was going to point toward 
 him. The man was turning it. Was he quick at get 
 ting his weapon into position? He (Heaton), he had 
 heard men say, was very quick at bringing his gun up 
 to the shoulder and taking aim. Now was the moment 
 for quickness. How leaden-weighted his barrel seemed! 
 AYould this amazing weight make his hand tremble? 
 
THE FATAL SHOT 27 
 
 Was he sighting too high or not high enough? Good 
 God! He could see nothing; neither the sights, nor 
 the man, nor anything. This, then, was the blindness 
 of shooting which came upon men and prevented them 
 from hitting an enemy even at ten feet. This was what 
 Mills and the others had referred to. 
 
 A loud report rang through the room. 
 
 A shot had been fired. Had he fired it? Heaton 
 did not feel certain. Yet he must have done so, for he 
 had received the kick of his gun in the shoulder. In 
 all his hunting experience he had never before fired 
 without knowing he had done so, and knowing when he 
 had pulled the trigger. 
 
 The other man stood opposite him, but ah, what 
 was that? He was gradually sinking backward, and his 
 gun was falling from his hand. 
 
 It fell with a crash. He raised a nerveless hand to 
 ward his breast. The hand fell back, and then he, too, 
 fell back with a heavy thud. 
 
 Through the room rang the loud, piercing scream of 
 a girlish voice. Heaton stood still in a daze, seeing 
 nothing, all his faculties stunned by that scream that 
 echoed and re-echoed through his brain. Had he not 
 been in such a daze he would have seen that the girl was 
 picking up the gun from the floor, where it had fallen 
 beside the man, and was feverishly endeavouring to pull 
 up the cock with her trembling fingers. He would have 
 seen that after two failures she succeeded in getting it 
 at full cock, and that she was raising it to her shoulder 
 as she knelt upon the ground with one knee. He would 
 have seen that she was aiming straight at him, only he 
 was so bewildered by that scream in his ears that he saw 
 nothing. The heavy barrel was pretty steady, and in 
 another second the trigger would have been pulled, 
 when the inner door burst open and a tall negress 
 sprang into the room. With a bound she was beside 
 3 
 
28 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 that kneeling girl with the rifle to her shoulder, and 
 with one swift blow of her long arm had struck the bar 
 rel up. 
 
 " Vengeance is mine, say de Lo d. Honey-chile, 
 what yo go fo ter do? " 
 
 Heaton s senses began to come back to him. 
 
 " You tarnation fool, what did you shoot him for? " 
 somebody was saying to him, and people knelt down by 
 that man on the floor. A girl began to sob and say, 
 " Father, father! " in such a piteous voice. 
 
 "Plumb through the heart! Wai, you are a cool 
 hand, anyhow. Not one mite flurried in your aim, and 
 your first man too, I guess." 
 
 It was Mills who was speaking, and his words filled 
 Heaton with a fierce loathing. He stumbled out of the 
 room so as to get away from him, and also from that 
 waging cry of a girl s heart-broken grief. But he 
 could not get away from it. It seemed to be following 
 him, and to be continually ringing in his ears. 
 
 The place was alive with people. Negroes, awe 
 struck, running about, with here and there a Jay-Hawk 
 er giving orders. The sentinels had come in at the sound 
 of the shot, not knowing what was to follow. " See that 
 no one gets away to give the alarm," said Mills in the 
 midst of the excitement. " Here, Heaton, you go. 
 Stay at the fork of the road and shoot any one trying to 
 pass you. Don t let one get by. You re such a dead 
 sure shot you can do it." 
 
 " You bet he can, pap," said Tom Mills with a grin 
 of admiring approval. Heaton had risen enormously 
 in his estimation, and he was desirous of expressing his 
 feelings. Accordingly, he stood by him as he unhitched 
 his horse, and observed: 
 
 " Bully shot that, an in a dark room, too ! " 
 
 Heaton looked at him in dumb horror, and, mount 
 ing his horse, rode away. He rode fast to get away from 
 
THE FATAL SHOT 29 
 
 that wailing voice, but it followed him. It seemed to 
 be among the trees and to come down to him from the 
 sky. He reached the fork of the road in a daze and 
 looked up and down mechanically. What was he here 
 for? Oh, yes, he remembered. To shoot people. Was 
 this to be his fate for evermore to shoot people sitting 
 in their own houses or walking along peaceful shady 
 roads through the wailing woods. He put his hand up 
 for his rifle, and discovered he had none. Ah, yes, he 
 must have left it in that dreadful room where the man 
 lay so still on the floor and the girl was weeping over 
 his body and calling him, " Father, father! " 
 
 He took his revolver out of its holster and sat mo 
 tionless on his horse, waiting for somebody to come by 
 that he must kill. Surely this was hell, and his punish 
 ment was that he must go on killing, though his heart 
 froze with horror and his brain was dazed with the wail 
 ing sound of a young girl s weeping. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE DELUGE 
 
 WHILE Heaton in remorse and misery was guarding 
 the fork of the road, the rest of the Jay-Hawkers were 
 collecting the negroes as fast as they could for the re 
 turn journey into Kansas. Mills ordered the wom 
 en and children to be placed in Overton s two-horse 
 wagon, a proceeding which excited undue hopes in the 
 minds of some of the younger members of the commu 
 nity. 
 
 " Hooray, golly! Nigga woman ride in de ole 
 masVs wagon! " yelled a stout fellow of sixteen, caper 
 ing about on his sinewy legs. " Dish nigga ain t gwine 
 ter wo k no mo . Fse gwine ter be free an nebber wo k 
 no mo !" 
 
 " Go long, you young scamp ! Run and catch the 
 pony down yonder in the pasture," said Mills to him. 
 
 "Ain t gwine ter wo k no mo . I se free nigga 
 now," replied the youth with vast dignity. 
 
 "Are you, by thunder? Take that!" said Mills, 
 hitting him across the shoulders with a cowhide whip. 
 The darky gave a duck to escape the blow and a howl 
 to show his appreciation of it, and sped off to catch the 
 pony as directed. "Yah, dat ole Jay-Hawker, he cut 
 wid de lash jes like ole mas r done," commented the lad 
 to himself. 
 
 A black imp about ten years old came along with a 
 battered hat full of fresh white eggs. 
 30 
 
THE DELUGE 31 
 
 " Yo , Pete, whar yo done git eggs? " screamed an 
 other equally black imp of about the same age. 
 
 "I done rob Miss Nancy s hen-roost/ said Pete 
 with a grin of delight. " Fse free nigga too. I steal 
 ebbery day now." 
 
 The exasperated Mills felt called upon to deliver a 
 sort of Declaration of Independence on behalf of these 
 poor creatures who were clearly labouring under a delu 
 sion as to the nature and duties of a state of freedom. 
 
 " Look here, you all. Listen to me now. When you 
 git cross Mine Creek you ll be in Kansas. You ll be 
 free men an women then." ,, 
 
 " Glory, halleluiah! Golly Neddy, oh! " they cried 
 in chorus. 
 
 " Shut up that noise, will you? You ll be free then, 
 I tell yer. You ll have to work for all you have, and 
 all you work for will be yours. You mustn t go an 
 steal from folks. If you do you ll git punished, so you 
 will. If you steal horses you ll git hanged straight off, 
 I can tell yer. These here horses an this here wagon 
 we re goin to take long; they ain t bin stole. We re 
 only takin em in payment from your old master for 
 the work you ve been doin for him while you were 
 slaves. Now, do you understand? " 
 
 " Yes, mas r, we un erstan ! " they cried unani 
 mously. 
 
 " Well, then, git long now. Women an children in 
 the wagon, an the men on the horses. No stealin . 
 Remember, I m boss now, an I don t have no stealin 
 where I m round. Now do you understand? " 
 
 " Yes, mas r, we un erstan ! " they cried again. 
 
 " Remember, no stealin ," repeated Mills in order to 
 drive home his argument. 
 
 " We uns member, mas r," said they with unction. 
 
 Not two minutes elapsed before Mills beheld a 
 couple of urchins standing on the balustrade of the 
 
32 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 veranda engaged in pulling down roses and grapevines 
 by the armful. 
 
 " Quit that! " he roared. " What are you stealin 
 those grapes for? " 
 
 "We ain t stealin , mas r," they replied with ear 
 nestness; " we s on y takin payment for de time we bin 
 ole.mas r s slaves." 
 
 " Clear out o this, you young scoundrel! Don t 
 you touch another thing, or by the Lord we ll leave you 
 behind. You re only fit to be slaves, by gosh! " said 
 Mills in a rage. 
 
 A young black woman came out of the house at this 
 moment with two hats on her head and one in each 
 hand. 
 
 " I se on y takin dish hyar in payment " she be 
 gan apologetically to Mills, who was sitting on his horse 
 opposite the porch steps. 
 
 " Take those hats back, curse you! Don t you lay 
 a finger on anything else, or, by gum, I ll flog you all 
 round," said the luckless man, trying to stem the tide, 
 the flood gates of which he had so easily opened. Other 
 leaders besides the Kansas Jay-Hawkers have found to 
 their cost that in aiming at some high goal they had let 
 loose forces which operated in totally different direc 
 tions from those anticipated. Mills felt disgusted with 
 the negroes, and also with himself, for having to flog 
 into the most elementary honesty those very slaves to 
 free whom he was risking his life. The negroes, on 
 the other hand, considered him a very harsh master, and 
 were in no little doubt whether it was worth being free 
 under such circumstances. To many of them freedom 
 had no charms if bereft of the power of stealing. Hith 
 erto that had been their only form of retributive justice, 
 and it was indeed a poor lookout if their first experi 
 ence of the delights of liberty was to be a restriction of 
 their natural propensities in this line. The opinions of 
 
THE DELUGE 33 
 
 people who have never possessed any property, but are 
 merely chattels themselves, are likely to run in quite 
 other lines than those of the owners of property. Mills, 
 who was not a philosopher to trouble himself with any 
 problems, did not reason this out for himself, but was 
 content to observe that "niggers is all-fired thieves, 
 anyhow," and he determined to see they were located as 
 far as practicable from his own home in Kansas when he 
 got them there. His interest in negroes was very sin 
 cere, but he preferred that his duty should be the excit 
 ing one of running them off out of Missouri, rather than 
 the tamer, albeit equally useful one, of teaching them 
 the elements of individual rights, first among which is 
 that of respect for other people s property. 
 
 The young woman with the hats retired to give back 
 those trophies in a very discontented frame of mind. 
 
 " New mas r powerful ugly temper," she remarked 
 to herself. "Miss Nancy, she heap sight better nor 
 he." 
 
 By this time the Jay-Hawkers had collected their 
 negroes, the children were poking their black faces 
 from under the canvas cover, looking for all the world 
 like a load of inefficiently packed apes who might be 
 relied upon to escape at the first opportunity. The 
 men, with one exception, were either walking or were 
 leading young horses and colts, which at a pinch they 
 could ride. The one exception was that of an old 
 negro nearly ninety years of age who sat on the seat in 
 the women s wagon. All plantations used to have at 
 least one very old man, whose duty it was to sit in the 
 sun on summer days and talk to the passer-by. He was 
 called " uncle " by every one, both white and black, 
 and he usually was the repository of all the lore of the 
 neighbourhood, besides having a good store of vague 
 superstitions and traditional beliefs which came down 
 to him from his African ancestors. Uncle Deedy was 
 
34 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 the oracle of Overtoil s plantation. He it was who 
 could tell by the sound of the tree frogs croaking 
 whether it was " gwine ter rain befo de mo nin " or 
 not. Uncle Deedy could almost forecast the course 
 of the world s history by the way the wild geese flew; at 
 all events, their proceedings on the outward journey 
 were quite enough to settle the weather for the coming 
 summer,, while the return flight to the south was equally 
 valuable as foretelling the weather for the ensuing 
 winter. 
 
 Uncle Deedy, who for the last twenty years had 
 passed an uneventful existence, picking up his chips 
 and corncobs to light his little fire and smoking his 
 stumpy pipe all day long, was immensely perturbed by 
 all the noise and confusion of the raid. He didn t seem 
 able to get hold of the right end of the subject at all, 
 and kept asking was there going to be a prayer meeting, 
 and what brother was going to preach? I have likened 
 the small darkies to apes as they peeped out of the 
 wagon; Uncle Deedy, with his grizzled half-bald head 
 and his fringe of curly hair under the chin, was exceed 
 ingly like an ancient baboon. 
 
 Meantime the raiders were becoming very impatient. 
 They called out several times to Mills to know if he was 
 ready to start. He looked around so as to make quite 
 sure that nobody was left behind, and there, on the top 
 step of the veranda, standing in the full sunlight, with 
 her red and yellow turban gleaming above her shining 
 face, stood Aunt Monin. 
 
 "Hullo, my good soul, you re just in time to be 
 saved. Jump into the wagon," said Mills cheerfully to 
 her. 
 
 " I se jess in time ter ax de blessin o de Lo d for de 
 chillun," she answered solemnly. " Bredern, yo jess 
 same like de chillun o Israel gwine out inter de wil - 
 erness. De Lo d go befo yo by day an by night, an 
 
THE DELUGE 35 
 
 guide yo to de Ian o Canaan. Yo se gwine ter de 
 promise Ian . Glory, halleluiah! " 
 
 " Come long, granny; hurry up," said Mills, impa 
 tient of the delay. 
 
 " No, mas r," she said, bringing her big eyes slowly 
 to bear upon him. " De spirit o de Lo d is pon me ter 
 dwell in de Ian o bon age. I se gwine ter stay wid my 
 honey-chile. De han o de Lo d is heavy pon her in 
 fliction. I can t go for ter leave de lamb. I se gwine 
 ter stay wid her an comfort de chile s heart." 
 
 " Come long, Aunt Monin," called out a woman 
 from the wagon. " Come long inter de Ian o 
 promise." 
 
 " No, Susanner. I sha n t nebber see de Eibber Jor 
 dan. I se lef behin in de Ian o trib lation." 
 
 " Look here, Mills, are you goin to wait here till a 
 nigger camp meetin has sprouted, or are you goin to 
 start home this side o sundown? " called out one of 
 the impatient raiders from the road. 
 
 "All right; go ahead," replied Mills, and then, 
 turning to Aunt Monin, he made a last appeal. " Now, 
 look here, friend. This here s goin to be your last 
 chance o freedom. Will you come or not? " 
 
 " No, mas r, I can t go. De blessin o freedom ud 
 be dus an ashes in my mouth if my honey-chile warn t 
 long wid me too. mas r, my heart s growed roun 
 dat chile like yo nebber can know. Ole Aunt Monin s 
 gwine ter live an die for her honey-chile." 
 
 She turned as she said these words and slowly 
 walked back into the house, while the women in the 
 wagon set up a long drawn chant of Glory, halleluiah! 
 They had meant it to be the song of triumph, but 
 negroes always sing in a minor key, so that the sound 
 which floated back on the still autumn air was that of 
 women wailing together in sorrowful cadence. Fainter 
 and fainter grew the sound as the wagons disappeared 
 
36 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 down the leafy road., until at last there was perfect still 
 ness at the farm the stillness of death. 
 
 Nancy was left alone with her dead. She seemed 
 overwhelmed with the blow that had fallen upon her. 
 Aunt Monin in vain tried to rouse her. Hour after 
 hour she sat in dumb misery,, mourning over the father 
 who had been slain by the ruthless Jay-Hawkers. How 
 long she would have sat beside that sad couch watching 
 her father s face set in its last stern lines of anger and 
 defiance there is no knowing. She was aroused out of 
 her stupor in spite of herself by one of those convulsions 
 of Nature that sometimes visit the Western plains. The 
 day had been bright, almost beyond the brightness of 
 even an October day. The trees were glancing into yel 
 lows and reds earlier than usual, owing to the hot sum 
 mer that had just passed. The sky was brilliant and 
 clear, but in the northwest a small cloud " no bigger 
 than a man s hand " rose about the middle of the after 
 noon. It spread and covered the heavens, and out of 
 its lurid edges darted tongues of flame. A mighty 
 wind heralded the storm, rushing through the woods 
 with a roar, here and there tearing up those trees which 
 had not taken deeply rooted precautions against wind. 
 Behind the wind came the rain, and with the rain came 
 the thunder and lightning, flash upon flash, peal upon 
 peal. The house shook and the trees groaned. The 
 rain came down in torrents that seemed to beat upon the 
 shingle roof like pellets of iron. Never had there been 
 such a storm known in western Missouri as the one 
 which broke over it on the day when Overton was killed 
 and his slaves were run off by the Jay-Hawkers. The 
 storm in all its violence travelled from the west, and for 
 years people used to talk about it, since it may be said 
 to have closed the long and dismal chapter of the fa 
 mous Kansas drought, which went so near to ruining 
 the young country in the early days of its history. The 
 
THE DELUGE 37 
 
 gates of heaven seemed unlocked and the floods rushed 
 forth. The rain of twenty months fell in half that 
 number of hours. 
 
 The storm caught the Jay-Hawkers as they were 
 nearing the woods of Mine Creek. They tried to push 
 on in spite of the fury of the gale, for they wanted to put 
 the creek between themselves and any possible pursuers 
 as soon as might be. But it was found impossible to 
 proceed. The horses became absolutely unmanageable 
 owing to the thunder and lightning, which were awful. 
 Several of the young colts threw their riders and bolted. 
 It was necessary to halt; camp it could not be called 
 where no fires could be lighted nor grass pulled to make 
 beds. The canvas cover of the wagon did not keep out 
 the rain, and at any rate there was not room beneath its 
 dripping roof for half the people who were collected 
 under Mills s melancholy command. The children 
 cried, the women wept and prayed by turns, and the 
 rain poured unceasingly all night long. The negroes 
 spent their first hours of freedom in the midst of misery, 
 terror, cold, and wet. The strains of Glory, halleluiah! 
 had quite ceased, and in their place came frantic pray 
 ers to be saved from a second deluge. They thought of 
 the warm cabins at ole masVs plantation, and of how 
 they had always there found shelter from the wildest 
 storm, and many a regret was uttered for having left 
 them. Freedom has its drawbacks. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE BANKS OF JORDAN 
 
 THE storm raged all night long, but passed away as 
 the sun rose clear over a world half under water. An 
 hour or so after sunrise James Harte came to the deso 
 late house which the Jay-Hawkers had raided. He and 
 his horse were covered with mud, and they looked as if 
 they had come both fast and far. Entering the sitting 
 room, where Aunt Monin was coaxing Nancy to drink a 
 cup of coffee, he went straight up to her, and, taking 
 both her hands in his big palms, said: 
 
 " Nancy, we ve heard how you ve been raided." 
 
 " My father lies there, murdered," said Nancy, point 
 ing to the next room. 
 
 " I swear to avenge his murder," said Harte. 
 Nancy s eyes, dulled by a night of weeping, gave a flash 
 as he said these words. 
 
 " I ll avenge his death until the prairie rings with 
 it. And then, Nancy, I ll come to you for my reward." 
 
 " I don t even know who killed him. I tried to fire 
 the gun myself, but Aunt Monin struck up the barrel," 
 said Nancy in great agitation. She had hardly spoken 
 since the tragedy of the day before, and now her nerv 
 ous excitement began to get the better of her, and her 
 hands trembled piteously, although she tried hard to 
 keep them locked together. 
 
 " Poor Nancy! " said the young man, looking at her 
 pityingly; " I m glad you didn t." 
 
THE BANKS OF JORDAN 39 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Because then I couldn t have shot him myself, and 
 I want to avenge you, Nancy. I can do that to show 
 my love. It s the first thing that I ever could do that 
 you wanted. I m glad old Aunt Monin struck up the 
 gun." 
 
 " You ll never be able now to find the right man. 
 We sha n t ever know who it was," answered Nancy. 
 
 " I ll make sure and get him, anyhow," replied 
 Harte with a significance that was entirely lost on 
 Nancy, absorbed in her own sad thoughts. " I came to 
 tell you the State militia s called out. We re going on 
 the track of the Jay-Hawkers right away." 
 
 " Aren t you a free-state man? " asked Nancy with 
 some slight show of interest. 
 
 "I ain t now, I can tell you. I never had this 
 chance before. I don t care who it was raided your 
 farm, Nancy; I m going long with the men to hunt em 
 down." Harte made out, of course, that all this zeal 
 was for love of Nancy. He did not feel it necessary to 
 explain that he was under the obligation to give some 
 striking proof of his loyalty to his Missouri neighbours, 
 if he wished to escape their animosity. He was a sus 
 pected man, and he had to be extra zealous in order 
 to turn away suspicion from himself. The best proof 
 he could give was by joining in the pursuit of the re 
 treating Jay-Hawkers. If he could but avenge Over- 
 ton s murder he would have such a hold on Nancy s 
 gratitude that she would find it hard to say him nay, and 
 he could not disguise the fact from himself that hither 
 to he had made very slight progress in her regard, not 
 withstanding all his wooing. He determined not to let 
 this opportunity slip. 
 
 "How many men were here, can you tell me? It 
 will help us some to know how many there are out," 
 said he. 
 
40 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " I only saw the one who came into the house/ 7 an 
 swered the poor girl with a spasm of pain. " Aunt 
 Monin saw them; she can tell you." 
 
 Aunt Monin, who had all along been in the room, 
 apparently inattentive to what was going on, but in 
 reality absorbed in listening to every word, now looked 
 up in innocent surprise. 
 
 " Well, now, bout how many men were there, as 
 near as you can calculate ? " he asked of the old negress. 
 
 " Wai, Mas r Jeemes, I was jess stan in on de sta r 
 step o de po ch a-lookin an a-lookin down de road fo ? 
 ter see de sight o de men an bosses an guns shu." 
 
 Now Aunt Monin knew perfectly well that there 
 were five white men and no more engaged in the raid, 
 but she was not going to let on, not she. 
 
 " Was there a big gang fifty? " suggested Harte. 
 
 " I dunno f o shu, mas r. It s dre ful tickler work 
 countin men when dey s ridin roun permisc us, an 
 cavortin ebbery which way. Dey go like streak light- 
 nin an clap roun like thunder. I se powerful cute in 
 reck nin chickuns an mos nebber misses nary one, but 
 men an hosses an guns is long sight more skeery work 
 to reckon. I hain t nebber seed hunderd men so close, 
 pressin slap up gin de bars, in my life befo , an I was 
 sorter skeered an blinded by de rlashin o de rifles. I 
 dunno jess how many dey was, mas r." 
 
 " Where in blazes did they raise a hundred men out 
 of that dried up country I should like to know? " mut 
 tered Harte with a puzzled frown. 
 
 He left Nancy a few minutes later and rode off to 
 join his neighbours, who under the command of the 
 county marshal were turning out with wrath to pursue 
 the Jay-Hawkers. The news of the raid had spread like 
 wildfire, and some twenty men were already assembled. 
 Now, although Harte did not in the least imagine that 
 a hundred men could have been at Overton s farm, still 
 
THE BANKS OF JORDAN 41 
 
 he felt sure there must have been a great number en 
 gaged in the raid for such a powerful impression to have 
 been produced upon Aunt Monin s mind as was evident 
 ly the case. Harte was no match for Aunt Monin, and 
 indeed a free man seldom is a match in cunning for a 
 slave. Cunning is the slave s only weapon of either 
 offence or defence, and they had had several genera 
 tions in which to cultivate it to perfection at the time 
 when Aunt Monin lived. 
 
 The young man soon overtook his companions 
 splashing along through the muddy roads. 
 
 " Git any news o thim ab lish nists? " asked one of 
 the men with an oath. 
 
 " Not much. Only there s been a heap of them 
 over yonder." 
 
 This information seemed to excite the fury of the 
 party, who broke out into a variety of oaths and threats. 
 "The cowardly blue-bellied Yankees! Jess let me 
 git at em! " one would say; " I reckon I d raise the top 
 off his head with this hyar tool pretty tarnel spry, so I 
 would!" 
 
 " Them Free-soilers better not open their mouths 
 nigh me," another would reply. " Reckon I d light a 
 bullet down his throat mighty peart, so I would. I m a 
 mighty keurious customer, I am, when my dander is riz, 
 by thunder! " 
 
 And so on and so forth, with threat after threat 
 expressed in more or less extravagant language. Be 
 guiling the time in this way, the twenty men rode in 
 pursuit of the Jay-Hawkers. It is sometimes said that 
 brave men don t brag. It is not considered good form 
 among certain classes, but it would be a vast mistake, 
 however, to infer that because these men boasted and 
 bragged of what they would do they were necessarily 
 cowards. On the contrary, they were both courageous 
 and remorseless. They were prepared to risk their own 
 
42 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 lives in order to punish the raiders, but assuredly if 
 they caught one, no matter even if wounded or un 
 armed, they would kill him without the slightest hesi 
 tation. Border wars are always waged in a ruthless 
 fashion. 
 
 And the Jay-Hawkers? What of them? 
 
 We left the negroes spending their first night of 
 freedom in rain and regret. At the earliest gleam of 
 daylight Mills and his son rode on to the creek to in 
 spect the ford. The elder man knew pretty certainly 
 what must have happened, but he wished to see with 
 his own eyes. Under ordinary conditions Mine Creek 
 is a river of quite fordable dimensions. During the 
 recent drought, indeed, it had ceased being a river at 
 all, and was merely a succession of pools and dry ridges, 
 like the track of an avalanche. But Kansas soil is firm 
 in character, so that when it rains after a long spell of 
 dry weather the water runs away about as fast as if it 
 fell upon a cement floor. That is what happened now. 
 Every stream and rivulet which owed allegiance to 
 Mine Creek rushed into it with an accumulated debt of 
 waters that filled that hard-pressed river to the utmost. 
 It rose with appalling rapidity, and whereas on the pre 
 ceding day it had been a dry rocky valley, when Mills 
 and his son inspected it Mine Creek was a raging tor 
 rent, ten feet deep, sweeping trees and stones down in 
 the wild swirl of its muddy waters. 
 
 The two men stood for some time gazing at the roar 
 ing torrent, then they retraced their steps to where the 
 miserable camp was. The elder man said never a word, 
 and after a length of time Tom Mills put his thoughts 
 into articulate language. 
 
 " Reckon we hain t got nothin cept a rifle bullet as 
 ud cross Mine Creek now." 
 
 "Reckon rifle bullets ll be slingin round mighty 
 spry afore night," replied his parent. 
 
THE BANKS OF JORDAN 43 
 
 " Low thim Missouri men ll turn out to-day? " in 
 quired Tom with some trepidation of manner. 
 
 " They ll be long afore sundown/ answered his 
 father. 
 
 " What are you go in to do, dad? " 
 
 " Fight/ was the laconic answer. 
 
 When Mills reported the state of the river there 
 was consternation among the Jay-Hawkers. Heaton 
 wanted to try higher up for a ford. The taciturn leader 
 made no observation in reply to this proposal, but only 
 shook his head. So Heaton set out to try higher up, 
 and after an exhausting struggle returned to say that 
 he could not possibly make his way without an axe to 
 cut through the tangled undergrowth of grapevines and 
 small bushes. Then Mills informed him there were 
 steep banks for ten miles on either side, and that this 
 was the only place for crossing. Mills was occupied in 
 carefully peering at the ground and scrutinizing the 
 bushes that grew alongside the track. He seemed to 
 look with such anxiety that at last Heaton asked him if 
 he had lost anything. 
 
 " No, hain t lost nothin ; am tryin to find some 
 thing," replied he, somewhat to Heaton s bewilderment. 
 
 "What?" 
 
 " Tracks." 
 
 "Tracks of what?" asked Heaton, who found the 
 information conveyed by his leader in altogether too 
 concentrated a form to be readily assimilated. Mills 
 looked at the young man in some pity at requiring an 
 explanation of what was so extremely obvious. 
 
 " Tracks o the rest o the men, to see if they ve got 
 long fore us. If they re behind an comin this way, 
 we ll fix the Missourians yet, for we re bout as good as 
 any twenty men anywhere round here, and we ve got 
 twenty reg lar downright pretty rifles. If they ain t 
 behind us, reckon the Missourians ll fix us mos likely." 
 4 
 
44 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 Heaton felt his spirits rise at the thought of an un 
 equal fight, where the inequality would be against him. 
 He would then be able to shake off the recollection of 
 that awful scene of yesterday where the fight had been 
 no fight at all, but only one quick shot with all the 
 advantages on his side. He endeavoured to look for 
 tracks too, but the search was fruitless. The storm 
 had swept them away, even supposing there had been 
 any. 
 
 " Guess we ll kinder say we re a-lookin ? out for em, 
 anyhow," observed Mills. " It ll help keep the women 
 and children from screechin . We ll git long down to 
 the river so we can t be surrounded, an we ll put the 
 wagon in the middle an do what men an rifles can to 
 defen ourselves." 
 
 When the negroes, now somewhat revived by the 
 sunshine, beheld the swollen flood of Mine Creek they 
 were struck with the eternal fitness of things, and at 
 once set up a spontaneous chorus of Glory, halleluiah! 
 We s come to de Eibber Jordan. We s stan in on de 
 banks lookin out into de promise Ian ." 
 
 The enthusiastic chanting of this song engaged 
 their attention for a long time, so that they did not 
 much heed what the white men were doing, but 
 whooped and sang and danced around in the splashy 
 mud, completely happy at being in sight of the " prom 
 ise Ian ." The white men, on the other hand, were 
 very little inclined to sing and whoop, but proceeded 
 with their work in grave silence. They pulled the 
 wagon to the side of the road and endeavoured to hide 
 it by means of branches and saplings piled up against 
 it. There were plenty of torn and broken trees lying 
 around after the storm, so that a very skilful ambuscade 
 was soon constructed. 
 
 By and bye .Mills told them the rest of the Jay- 
 Hawkers would soon be along now, and he intimated 
 
THE BANKS OF JORDAN 45 
 
 with some asperity that they had had enough of whoop 
 ing and howling, and were to be quiet. The negroes, 
 accustomed to unquestioning obedience when under the 
 eye of the master, cowered down in and around the 
 wagon. A feed of corn and cold corn bread was dealt 
 out to horse and man. It was the last they had. 
 
 " I low we d better look to our pistols and rifles, an 
 git our caps ready. There ain t much more time for 
 foolin , cordin to my calkilation o things. We can 
 look out now," said Mills to his companions. Heaton 
 could not but be struck by the extraordinary silence 
 with which they seemed to receive the situation. There 
 was no arguing, no giving of opinions and supporting 
 them with wordy eagerness. Each man seemed satis 
 fied with the decisions of the leader at all events, they 
 accepted them and obeyed them with almost military 
 silence. The young Eastern man was the only one to 
 talk and make comments. 
 
 "We can begin to look out now," repeated Mills 
 softly, as if to himself. 
 
 " For the Jay-Hawkers," said Heaton with a poor at 
 tempt at mirth. 
 
 " For the Jay-Hawkers, if the Lord is good to us, but 
 I don t count on that much when it comes to fighting," 
 replied Mills, without any conscious irreverence. His 
 mind was too intent on the hard facts of the situation 
 for him to pay much attention to the niceties of lan 
 guage. 
 
 " Any good getting those negroes to lend a hand at 
 the fighting? " inquired Heaton, looking with longing 
 eyes upon the stalwart frame of Caesar. 
 
 " Ptcha! No. Niggers can t fight," said Mills with 
 contempt. " Slaves never do. Fightin is work for free 
 men." 
 
 " I don t know that. They have fought sometimes, 
 and gallantly too, in ancient times," replied Heaton, 
 
46 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 drawing from his reading of past ages and not from his 
 knowledge of existing negroes. 
 
 " Don t know nothin bout past times,, an don t 
 want to," said Mills with huge contempt; "but I do 
 know bout niggers, an they don t light. If you let on 
 to them darkies as we re calc latin to have a tight with 
 the Missouri men, they ll set up such a screechin as ull 
 bring the whole swarm o them down slap on us. If 
 we can jess manage to hang on an keep them pesky 
 Missourians back till to-morrow mornin , I calculate we 
 can swim that stream by the time the sun s three hours 
 high. My horse there is the peartest swimmer in Linn 
 County, an he ll do it seven times with two on his back 
 every time. Guess the others ll do it four times, and 
 the colts once each, an that ll take the whole parcel o 
 them across; babies an childern don t make no great 
 differ when it comes to swimmin ." 
 
 Mills chewed meditatively at a stick of thunder- 
 wood, looking the while sharply from beneath his 
 shaggy eyebrows along the road that led out of the 
 wood. All was as quiet and peaceful as if no such con 
 vulsions as storms were possible. The trees were mo 
 tionless, for the wind had died completely away. Flecks 
 of sunlight glinted between the branches and fell slant 
 ing into the muddy pools. The negroes were peering 
 uneasily from among the boughs that hid the wagon. 
 Ca9sar stood in front of the barricade and seemed in 
 doubt what to do. Near him was that active young 
 darky who had declared he was " nebber gwine ter wo k 
 no mo ," a boast which Mills had remembered against 
 him, and in consequence of which he had kept that mis 
 taken youth incessantly employed in every conceivable 
 job, until he heartily regretted his uncomfortable state 
 of freedom. 
 
 " Those niggers has begun to smell out something," 
 remarked Mills. " Here you, Jake," this to the darky 
 
THE BANKS OF JORDAN 47 
 
 already mentioned; " jess you light out an git up to the 
 high prairie, an climb a tree at the edge of the woods, 
 an see if you can see anything comin long the road 
 from Boomsville. If you make out a gang of bout fif 
 teen men comin long, you jess pike back as hard as 
 you can lick, so as we can be gitting sorter ready foi 
 em," concluded Mills with a grim smile. 
 
 Jake swung off at a coon s trot and was speedily lost 
 to sight among the trees. Mills and his four com 
 panions then carefully selected the place from which 
 they were to defend the little camp, each man deciding 
 precisely where he would fire from, so as to be ready to 
 spring into position the moment it should become 
 necessary. Their simple plan was to form a wide semi 
 circle in front of the wagon and to fire from behind the 
 trees. Mill s only hope was that if they could so con 
 ceal themselves as to be absolutely unseen, it was just 
 possible, if startled by a sudden attack, that the Mis- 
 sourians might back out of what would appear to them 
 as an ambuscade. It was but a poor chance, yet it was 
 his only one, for it had now become evident that the 
 rest of the Jay-Hawkers were either on before them out 
 of reach of harm or help, or else that they were them 
 selves hiding somewhere along the river. Mills had 
 only himself to depend upon to get him out of the hob 
 ble in which he found himself. 
 
 Meanwhile the afternoon was wearing on, and Jake 
 did not return. 
 
 Mills approached Caesar where he was leaning 
 against a tree with his great arms folded across his huge 
 chest. Susannah just behind the screen of branches 
 was crooning her baby to sleep. 
 
 " Think that boy Jake ud go to sleep in a tree when 
 he was set to watch for men? " he asked. 
 
 " Dat ar Jake, him pison lazy nigga," replied Caesar 
 with scorn. " I go see dey comin , mas r." 
 
48 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 Off he darted through the woods like a wild boar, 
 crashing along with fierce energy. He soon reached 
 the edge of the timber, and there, not a mile away, com 
 ing on at an easy trot over the brow of the hill, was a 
 band of horsemen sure enough. One startled cry es 
 caped from Caesar s big lips as his practised eye told him 
 these were not Kansas Jay-Hawkers returning from a 
 raid, but Missouri farmers out in pursuit of themselves. 
 Back through the woods he dashed, his eyes starting 
 from their sockets, his wide nostrils distended with 
 panting gasps. 
 
 " Mas r, mas r! " he cried, bounding up to Mills; 
 " dey ain t de Free-soilers; dey s Missouri slave catch 
 ers out on de hunt." 
 
 " I know it, my poor fellow; those are the men Fve 
 been lookin for. Git long into the bush an hide," 
 said Mills, looking at his twitching face with com 
 passion. 
 
 " No, mas r, I ain t gwine ter run. Hain t yer got a 
 bowie knife ter gi me? I can do a heap with a bowie 
 knife." 
 
 " Not much against rifles, but here is one for you. 
 The Lord have mercy on you. It s a bad lookout." 
 
 " I ll kill one white man fore I die," said Caesar, as 
 he twirled his knife savagely over his head. 
 
 The tramp of horses was now heard in the distance. 
 
 Each man silently took up his position in the ap 
 pointed place. 
 
 The tramp grew louder, and the faithless Jake shiv 
 ered in terror as he hid in his tree. He also had recog 
 nised the enemy and, too frightened to do aught but 
 seek to save himself, had crept up higher into the tree, 
 and lay there, scarcely breathing, while twenty men rode 
 down into the woods of Mine Creek, where five Jay- 
 Hawkers and one negro with a knife were waiting to 
 receive them. 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 BACK INTO SLAVERY 
 
 "THERE S nigger tracks!" exclaimed Harte, who 
 was riding in the front rank beside the county marshal. 
 He pointed to the splashy mud alongside the road, 
 where a hundred footmarks showed, the spot in which 
 the negroes had been paddling about during the earlier 
 part of the day. 
 
 : Them dog-gauned Free-soilers, I guess they re 
 skulkin roun hyar in the brushwood/ said the mar 
 shal, calling a halt. 
 
 Five pairs of Free-soil eyes, whether " dog-gauned " 
 01 not I can not say, were at that moment staring 
 straight at the perplexed marshal, and five rifles were 
 levelled at him and his men, only waiting for the word 
 of command to empty their contents in their unsuspect 
 ing bodies. 
 
 "I low them blamed Jay-Hawkers hain t passed 
 long this road many hours back," observed one of the 
 men, bending well down over his horse s neck and star 
 ing into the road. " The mud hain t settled in these 
 hyar tracks." 
 
 The marshal and five men rode cautiously forward. 
 
 :f They might be anywheres roun hyar; the creek is 
 too high for fordin . Hyar, you fellers, jess beat the 
 bush an drive the tarnel varmints out inter the open 
 whar we can shoot em down handy." 
 
 When the marshal gave that order he did not know 
 
 49 
 
50 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 that he was broadside on to Mills s rifle, not forty yards 
 away, but he soon found it out. 
 
 " Fire! " came in a loud voice, and instantly the 
 woods rang with the sound of firearms. 
 
 " Damnation! " said the marshal, as his arm 
 dropped by his side with a bullet through the elbow 
 joint. His horse had kicked at a botfly just as Mills 
 had pulled the trigger, which had in all probability 
 saved the rider s life. One man pitched heavily out of 
 his saddle and lay still in the mud; another was thrown 
 by his wildly rearing horse, maddened by a bullet 
 wound in the nostril. They turned and galloped back 
 to the rest of the party behind. 
 
 " The brush is alive with Jay-Hawkers; we d better 
 turn back and wait for the regulars from Fort Leaven- 
 worth," said the marshal, losing his blood and his nerve 
 at the same moment. 
 
 " There warn t more nor ten men fired or I ll bust," 
 said a young fellow who had kept his wits about him. 
 
 The Missourians evinced a tendency to deliberate. 
 They were doubtful about the numbers they might have 
 against them, though not at all doubtful of their own 
 courage when pitted against an equal force. 
 
 "Whose for wiping out the murdering, thieving 
 scoundrels?" cried Harte. " Eemember Overton. 
 Not one of you ll be safe from Jay-Hawkers if we don t 
 make an end of these now, so that they ll never dare to 
 show their Yankee noses over the border again. Who ll 
 follow me ? " 
 
 A leader was all that they wanted, and a hoarse 
 shout of approval greeted the young man s words. 
 
 " You darned fools, be you goin to run slap into a 
 trap ? " said one of the older and more cautious men. 
 
 " Spread out an take em in the rear," said Harte. 
 " This way, boys! " 
 
 He struck into the bush where the undergrowth was 
 
BACK INTO SLAVERY 51 
 
 thinnest, and was followed by four or five others, while 
 an equal number dived into the woods on the opposite 
 side of the road. This manoeuvre did not escape the 
 penetration of Mills, who hurriedly came out of conceal 
 ment and said to his handful of men: 
 
 "It s all up with us if they close in. Our only 
 chance is to keep outside of them. Spread as much as 
 you can, an do what you can. We can t stan agin em; 
 they re fifty strong." Mills, like leaders of larger 
 forces, exaggerated the strength of the enemy opposed 
 to him. In pursuance of these orders the Jay-Hawkers 
 scrambled through the woods as fast as they could, so 
 as to keep on the outside of their adversaries. A few 
 scattered shots were fired in the brushwood, by whom it 
 was impossible to say. The main body of the Missouri- 
 ans now rode down the track, and when they reached 
 the spot where the first attack had been made and where 
 their companion lay dead in the road they fired right 
 and left into the woods. A scream came from the 
 wagon, where hitherto the negroes had stayed quiet, too 
 frightened to do anything. 
 
 " Oh, Lordy, Lordy, don t shoot, mas r! We s on y 
 po nigga women an chillun." 
 
 " Don t kill the niggers," called out one of the men 
 somewhat unnecessarily, since slaveholders don t kill 
 negroes unless absolutely driven to it. They are too 
 valuable property. 
 
 At this moment Caesar, who had been watching his 
 opportunity from behind a tree, sprang at a man riding 
 a big black horse. He meant to strike the rider, but 
 only succeeded in stabbing the horse in the chest. The 
 animal reared and then fell forward on its knees, of 
 course throwing the man to the ground, where he lay 
 half stunned. Quick as lightning Cassar raised his 
 heavy bowie knife and buried it up to the hilt in the 
 man s back just between the shoulders. The deed was 
 
52 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 seen by half a dozen of the fallen man s companions, 
 and half a dozen rifles were aimed at the negro and 
 emptied in a second. But here again the haste of the 
 aim saved Caesar. Not one of the bullets brought him 
 down, although one laid his cheek open with a ghastly 
 wound, and another hit him in the fleshy part of the 
 shoulder. The sting of the wounds seemed only to nil 
 him with a fury that was not human. He leaped back 
 under cover and hid behind the trees in the thicket, 
 crawling along on his stomach to where Heaton lay in 
 ambush. 
 
 " We must clear out of this at once," said the latter 
 to him hurriedly. " We can t do anything against such 
 odds. The others are gone already. I said I d stay 
 and warn you. Creep along under cover of the river 
 bank the water is falling until you come up with 
 Mills. He s gone that way. Good luck! Keep low, 
 don t let the slave catchers get a sight of you or it s 
 all up." 
 
 " De Jay-Hawkers gone, mas r! " said the negro, as 
 he saw Heaton slip under the bushes and creep away. 
 " Den we s gwine ter be slaves again. Dish nigga 
 won t nebber be slave no mo ," he added in a sudden 
 fury. He was only ten steps from the wagon where his 
 wife and boy were, and the slave catchers were almost 
 upon them now. There were bullets pinging through 
 the woods here and there, but the quick crack of 
 Sharpe s carbine was no longer heard, showing that the 
 Jay-Hawkers had abandoned the fight and were retreat 
 ing. The Missourians were shooting here and there in 
 an aimless way at the foe they had never once seen since 
 the beginning. They mostly hit the trees and fright 
 ened each other s horses. 
 
 The women and children came out in a shivering 
 little group, huddled together in full view in the road, 
 and implored the mercy of their conquerors. Among 
 
BACK INTO SLAVERY 53 
 
 them stood Susannah with her sleeping baby in her 
 arms. A great wave of mad despair surged through 
 poor Caesar s savage mind as he saw them there his 
 wife and his child, the only beings he loved in this 
 world, and they were going back to slavery. It came 
 upon him in one awful moment what slavery was. A 
 slave was only a beast to be bought and sold, to be 
 tracked and hunted down, a brute beast with no heart 
 allowed to beat with the emotions of love and affection 
 nothing but a beast of burden for evermore. And this 
 was to be the fate of his boy that bright little boy who 
 had awakened his father s pride and had nestled at his 
 father s heart. He would never be allowed to love the 
 child nor even to see him grow up, but as soon as the 
 little creature was able to work he would be sold off 
 to wear away his life in some cotton swamp. These 
 thoughts rushed confusedly through Caesar s mind as 
 he stood for a moment trying to think. He was fixing 
 his own destiny and that of his boy in that brief mo 
 ment. The horror of it mounted to his heart. Yes, he 
 could save his boy, and he would save him by the only 
 means left in the slave s power. 
 
 Caesar was not a religious negro, far from it. His 
 was a rebellious, impatient spirit. He refused to be 
 lieve in Susannah s God, for he was the God of the 
 white man he would say, the God who turned a deaf 
 ear to the wailings of the slave. The meek-spirited 
 wife used often to shudder at his wild ravings against 
 the Lord. 
 
 " Dish nigga ain t gwine ter b lieve in de Lo d till 
 he set de niggas free," Caesar said more than once in 
 answer to her pleadings. When the Jay-Hawkers began 
 to run off slaves out of Missouri in order to set them free 
 in Kansas Caesar came to believe it might be the hand 
 of the Lord that was uplifted for them at last. 
 
 But in that grim hour when the Jay-Hawkers crept 
 
54 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 away under the bank of Mine Creek and left the slaves 
 to the mercy of their captors Caesar s wild heart broke 
 within him. The Lord was not going to save them 
 that was clear to his comprehension. All was lost. 
 Still there was the boy. That little innocent creature, 
 perhaps the Lord would look after the little child and 
 have mercy upon it if it were given into his hands. 
 Some confused imagery remained in his mind about 
 crossing the Eiver Jordan and going into some land of 
 promise toward which the negroes were eagerly striv 
 ing,, and about which they sang their rude songs. If 
 the little helpless child were sent alone into the 
 promised land, surely the God in whom Susannah be 
 lieved and to whom she prayed would receive it and 
 cherish it. 
 
 He sprang to where the negroes stood crying for 
 mercy. He was a horrid object. A great wound in his 
 jaw covered his face with blood, and a piece of flesh, 
 like an awful blister, hung red against his black neck. 
 Streams of blood came from his shoulder, but his 
 mighty strength was not yet spent. With a howl like 
 a wild beast he dashed up to his wife, seized the sleeping 
 child from her arms and rushed to the river brink. 
 Taking the infant by one little round leg, he swung it 
 over his head and sent it with a mighty sweep far out 
 into the stream. It plunged head foremost into the 
 yellow flood and disappeared. 
 
 It had never even awakened into consciousness out 
 of its sleep, so swift was the rush that had jerked it 
 from its mother s bosom into eternity. Susannah, with 
 an awful cry, fell face forward and lay without moving 
 in the muddy road. Caesar, like a wounded boar, turned 
 and charged down the road straight at his pursuers. 
 His huge frame was beginning to stagger now, but he 
 rushed with his bowie knife in his hand raised ready to 
 strike. He reached the foremost rider and flung up his 
 
BACK INTO SLAVERY 55 
 
 knife just as two rifle bullets passed through and 
 through his body. The knife sped straight enough, but 
 the hand that hurled it was quivering in its last pulses. 
 The bowie knife stuck in the thick homespun coat be 
 neath the leather belt, but only grazed the skin of the 
 harshest slave owner in all Missouri. 
 
 Csesar fell shot through the heart, and the horses 
 trampled his quivering body into the yellow mud. 
 
 He had killed one white man and saved his boy from 
 slavery. His wild and savage heart lay still enough 
 now, and would never plan murders and burnings and 
 fierce revenges for the wrongs of his rafte as it had so 
 often done in the untamed days of his youth. He was 
 only a savage with a savage s courage and also a savage s 
 ferocity, but under other circumstances he might have 
 been a hero and made a famous name. As it was, he 
 was only a rebellious slave who was killed in a fight, 
 and whose body was trampled to pieces by the horses 
 feet. 
 
 The Missourians surrounded the little group of ter 
 rified slaves and with the butt ends of their guns struck 
 them indiscriminately about the head and shoulders. 
 Pitiful cries and screams for mercy were raised, but in 
 truth very few. of the slaves received any serious dam 
 age. They were adepts at howling, and also adepts at 
 dodging. Had there been any full-grown men among 
 them these would have fared ill, for the Missourians 
 were so infuriated by the death of their comrade at the 
 hands of Caesar that they would have been apt to avenge 
 his death upon the first able-bodied negro they came 
 across. As it was, the men had all escaped Jake in a 
 tree, Caesar by death, and the two others by crawling off 
 into the brushwood. 
 
 Uncle Deedy was still there poor old Uncle Deedy, 
 who was roused up into a state of unwonted animation 
 by all the noise and confusion, so that he began to sing 
 
56 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 in a cracked old voice a hymn of his own making, to the 
 effect that he too, " was gwine down de Kibber Jordan 
 inter de promise Ian , whar he seen de angels a-wash- 
 in o der white-robe gowns." 
 
 " Shut up, you dodderin ole fool! " cried one of the 
 men, menacing him with his rifle butt. Uncle Deedy, 
 absolutely unconscious of all that was going on, only 
 sang the louder, whereupon the man gave him a knock 
 on the head. The blow would scarcely have been felt 
 by a hardy nigger lad, but Uncle Deedy was ninety 
 years old, and it killed him on the spot. 
 
 " Just as well to be rid of him; he only ate up the 
 corn bread and did no good," remarked the man, with 
 philosophy. " Here, pitch him into the river; them 
 young colts is powerful skeered o dead niggers." 
 
 The old man s body was therefore pitched into the 
 river. Thus the youngest and the oldest of that for 
 lorn party of slaves crossed the Eiver Jordan and en 
 tered into their promised land. 
 
 Late that night a miserable herd of negroes was 
 driven into the yard at Overton s farm, and Nancy was 
 bidden out to receive back her property. 
 
 " We hain t got em all. We had to shoot that big 
 nigger o yourn, Caesar, cause he fought like the devil 
 an killed ole man Smith with a bowie knife. Three 
 others run clean off, an one ole one an a baby was 
 drowned in the creek. Sorry we hain t cotched em 
 all." The speaker was the owner of the next farm to 
 Nancy s home. 
 
 " Did you kill him? " asked the young girl, with 
 hurried emphasis on the pronoun. 
 
 "Who? Caesar?" 
 
 " No. My father s murderer did you kill him? " 
 
 " Wai, we can t rightly say," replied the same 
 speaker as before, but with considerable hesitation of 
 manner. " We done a heap o shootin , an I low some- 
 
BACK INTO SLAVERY 57 
 
 body inns ha been hit, cause we hearn an almighty 
 screech. We jess come up to them at the crossin o 
 Mine Creek, an it s pretty close timber thar, an kinder 
 difficult to git the drop on a man." 
 
 " How many Jay-Hawkers were there ? " asked 
 Nancy. 
 
 " We didn t get a good sight o them, so we can t say 
 for certain, but the woods was just full o them we 
 could tell by the shootin ," replied a voice from among 
 the horsemen which Nancy recognised as that of 
 James Harte. 
 
 " Dere was jess five men, mas r," said one of the re 
 captured negroes. "We seed em all day long. Dey 
 was five men, an one warn t on y de size of a small b y." 
 
 Nancy gave a quick scornful laugh. 
 
 " You are valiant men especially you, James Harte. 
 Your vengeance is indeed likely to make the prairie 
 ring. To say that twenty Missouri men couldn t catch 
 five Kansas Jay-Hawkers! You ought to be proud 
 men to-night." 
 
 With another quick scornful laugh she turned on 
 the heel and entered the house. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE BRAND OF CAIN 
 
 HEATON returned to his, lonely cabin beyond Keo- 
 kuk, a sadder man after the abortive Jay-Hawker raid, 
 but not necessarily a wiser one. Sadness and wisdom 
 are not interchangeable terms. The first does not al 
 ways involve the second, for experience may be fruitful 
 in sorrow without supplying the sufferer with any more 
 infallible guide for future conduct than he had before. 
 The shot which he had fired with such fatal aim in that 
 farmhouse down in Missouri had dealt a death wound 
 to some of his most cherished opinions. Brought up in 
 an atmosphere of almost militant abolitionism, Heaton 
 had come to Kansas full of enthusiasm and determined 
 to do what he could to right the great wrong of slavery. 
 He felt it to be the nation s curse, which it was his 
 sacred duty to lessen as far as in him lay. 
 
 Charlie Heaton was just twenty-four, and his gener 
 ous blood had been stirred by the accounts of John 
 Brown s exploits in Kansas exploits that had become 
 all the more noble in the minds of most men since John 
 Brown had set the seal of martyrdom on his opinions. 
 No bold-spirited man having abolitionist views could 
 help having his admiration aroused, nor prevent his 
 heart beating in quick response to the story of John 
 Brown s life and death. It was just the very impulse 
 to start a young fellow like Charlie Heaton on a course 
 of similar dangerous philanthropy. The war in Kansas 
 58 
 
THE BRAND OF CAW 59 
 
 was a tempting scene for such an actor to make his 
 debut. Not that he went to Kansas with a definite idea 
 of taking part in that irregular and savage struggle. 
 On the contrary, being a man of refined feeling, he de 
 termined in his own mind to keep clear of fighting. 
 But he also determined to lend a hand in any work for 
 the freeing of the slaves. That was a noble object, and, 
 as far as one man could, he would devote his energy, 
 ay, his life, to accomplishing the task. 
 
 With his mind set in this way, Charlie arrived in 
 Kansas in the May of 1860, and in the following Octo 
 ber, as we have seen, he joined his first Jay-Hawking 
 raid. Five months on the prairie had modified the 
 opinions he had brought with him from the East. He 
 was just as enthusiastic as ever to make Kansas a free 
 State and to keep the curse of slavery from her borders, 
 but he was more lenient toward the fighting Free-soilers 
 than he had been when merely reading about their 
 many questionable exploits in the safe seclusion of his 
 home in Vermont. Still he resolved to keep clear of 
 fighting, as far as he was concerned. This may seem 
 a strange resolution on the part of a man who was 
 ready to join the Jay-Hawkers, but he had much to 
 learn. 
 
 When starting on the raid he had undoubtedly con 
 templated the possibility of a conflict with the slave 
 owners, and had armed himself with due care for such 
 a contingency. The conflict of his imagination, how 
 ever, had always been in the open, with the odds against 
 his side. It had never once taken on the hideous form 
 of accomplished facts, wherein he was the stealthy at 
 tacker, and where a half -sleeping old man was shot in 
 his own house. Charlie was young, he was a dreamer, 
 he was ambitious. He saw around him a great evil 
 against which his heart revolted. He dreamed that he 
 might help to overcome that evil. He saw himself act- 
 
60 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 ing a not ignoble part in the great drama, and his mind 
 received the meed of its own praise. 
 
 For my part I am sorry for these young dreamers. 
 To them the world is a great stage with all the freshness 
 of their young ambitions concealing its bedraggled 
 scenery. They see themselves taking a leading part, 
 they fancy themselves commanding the applause of a 
 nation and shaping the world s history, and then sud 
 denly they find themselves knocked aside, they know 
 not how, by some unexpected coup de theatre. The 
 bedraggled scenery stands revealed in all its cob 
 webs and dust to their disillusioned eyes, and they dis 
 cover that they were never in a leading part at all, but 
 that quite other actors are at work the whole time aim 
 ing after quite another denouement. Poor young 
 dreamers! 
 
 Of course the Jay-Hawkers did not blame Heaton 
 for his act when once they understood it was a case of 
 " shooting first "; but acquittal by his neighbours was 
 not enough for him. Charlie wanted acquittal by his 
 own conscience. He prized above all else the approval 
 of his best self. He did not shrink from mentally argu 
 ing out the subject. He lived quite alone, so he had 
 plenty of time in which to thrash out the question very 
 fully, and the more he thrashed it the harder it became 
 for him to prove satisfactorily to himself how his shoot 
 ing of the Missourian differed from mere murder. 
 
 The old man was dozing in his chair when he, 
 Charlie Heaton, fully armed, came suddenly upon him 
 and demanded that he should give up his slaves, who 
 were no doubt his most valuable property property 
 moreover, that was recognised by all the laws of the 
 country. True, Heaton did not approve of slavery, 
 held it in abhorrence indeed, but there were other kinds 
 of wealth beside slaves amassed by means of which he 
 also disapproved in a high degree. He set up a law 
 
THE BRAND OF CAIN 61 
 
 unto himself,, and because the man had refused to sur 
 render his property and had evinced a determination to 
 defend it Heaton had killed him. How was this to be 
 distinguished from robbery with violence, followed by 
 murder? After this terrible summing up, the unhappy 
 young man lived over again in imagination that awful 
 moment when he had seen the gun barrel rising and 
 had pulled his own trigger, and the man had fallen back 
 ward on the floor. 
 
 He used to speculate by the hour as to what had 
 been the fate of the girl whose wail of agony would 
 wake him at times out of the soundest sleep. Had he 
 deprived her of her only support in the world? He 
 had heard the men say there were only the two at the 
 farm. Certainly he saw no one else. But then he 
 never saw even that grief-stricken girl, although* she 
 must have been near enough; he only heard her voice. 
 And was she now left desolate, and by his hand? 
 
 Perhaps that wailing cry which haunted him so was 
 in reality the source and origin of much of his mental 
 arguments. His dreams of following, however dis 
 tantly, in the footsteps of John Brown, and of freeing 
 slaves by the score were rudely dispelled by that cry 
 of despair. To bring off a load of slaves into freedpm 
 and to see them caper with joy and shout and clap their 
 hands at being under a free sky where no man might 
 call them his was an inspiriting performance. But this 
 was not what he had done. There were no slaves lib 
 erated. On the contrary, those whom they had brought 
 a little way along the rough road to freedom were back 
 again in slavery and in a much worse plight than before, 
 and Heaton, instead of inspiring recollections, had only 
 that grief-stricken cry of a fatherless girl to bring back 
 with him to his solitary cabin near Keokuk. He had 
 not brought a single slave into freedom; he had carried 
 desolation to a happy home. 
 
62 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 This, then, was the sorry end reached by an enthu 
 siast determined to do his level best to undo a great 
 national wrong. It had one immediate result, however, 
 and that was to fix him in a resolution never again to 
 join in a Jay-Hawkers raid. To do evil that good may 
 come was one of those insidious doctrines of the Romish 
 Church against which his Puritan blood instinctively 
 rebelled. He had committed a murder that good might 
 result. No good had resulted, but only evil, and the 
 brand of Cain was on his brow. If the evil of slavery 
 was to be done away with, it could only be by a great 
 national uprising, and not by isolated acts of vengeance. 
 One ride with the Jay-Hawkers had been enough to 
 cure him of the notion that their rough and spasmodic 
 efforts were going to do any permanent good. 
 
 Meanwhile the young man felt a longing that was 
 rapidly becoming overmastering, to go back into Mis 
 souri and see what had become of that girl. He fancied 
 that if he could only hear her speak, and could look into 
 her face, he might get rid of that wailing cry that so 
 constantly pursued and tormented him both sleeping 
 and waking. He had read in tales of ancient times that 
 when persons were haunted by visions they could best 
 dispel the vision by seeing the actuality of their fancy. 
 This idea, which had at first merely touched his fancy, 
 began erelong to grow into a serious project, so that by 
 Christmas he had firmly resolved to put it into execu 
 tion. It was a mad scheme, considering the disturbed 
 state of the country, and one that could only arise in a 
 mind that had brooded too long in loneliness over a 
 subject that caused deep emotion. For Heaton was 
 emotional in that quiet, self-contained way which can 
 only be the long piled-up inheritance of puritanically 
 repressed natures. He imagined for himself a whole 
 series of pictures of what had been and what was the 
 life history of that girl whom he had never seen, but 
 

 THE BRAND OF CAIN 63 
 
 whose voice he had heard, and around that fanciful 
 image, quite unconsciously to him, began to cluster 
 those little formless impulses which are the first mys 
 terious guides on the road to love. It must be remem 
 bered he was a young man, and he lived alone, his mind 
 dwelling continually on an image of his own creation. 
 The image became part of his daily life and thought; 
 he began to know it, to pity it, and to love it for the 
 very pity which he gave it. 
 
 And this man who was on the point of setting out on 
 a search for an utterly unknown girl by the sound of her 
 voice, this man who was going to run into very palpa 
 ble danger of losing his life in order to silence a sound 
 that existed only in his imagination, was Charlie 
 Heaton, the Vermont Puritan, who had been brought 
 up amid the hardest and most unemotional surround 
 ings, in that arid region of self-satisfied religious ego 
 tism and repression, where romance is shunned as the 
 lure of the evil one, and love admitted as an ill that 
 must be borne for the purposes of social continuity! 
 Nature is strong, however, and has frequently proved too 
 powerful for the bonds of hard asceticism. The un 
 used poetry of the young man s soul, which had been 
 lying by and accumulating during his whole life, now 
 rushed forth and took this romantic, this almost quix 
 otic form. 
 
 Now, although the projected trip and the motive 
 for it might both be considered devoid of common 
 sense, Heaton s Vermont nature came to the rescue in 
 assisting him to work out the practical details of the 
 scheme. Why he went was known but imperfectly even 
 to himself, but the manner of his going was sensible 
 enough. He had let his beard grow after the raid, so 
 that by the middle of January he had very effectually 
 concealed a handsome mouth and a pair of well-cut lips. 
 He did not wish to run the risk of being recognised by 
 
f 
 64: THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 any chance Missourian who might have seen him in 
 the preceding autumn. He might be quixotic and 
 ready to devote his life if he could atone to the girl 
 whose home he had destroyed, but this sentiment did 
 not extend to the extreme of letting himself be shot if 
 he could help it. So he set off with his gun on his 
 shoulder and a chunk of cold corn bread and some dried 
 beef in his pocket. He would go as a hunter in order 
 to give a peaceful excuse for the gun, and as he was 
 an exceptionally good walker, the expedition presented 
 no great difficulties until he reached the border. 
 
 Starting due east from his little log cabin,, he skirted 
 the high prairie of Keokuk, and kept along the edge of 
 the Big Sugar Creek woods. Occasionally he was over 
 taken and passed by other wayfarers moving in more 
 speedy fashion on horseback; but as the day wore on 
 he began to realize that he was alone on the prairie. 
 Considering that it was the month of January, the 
 weather might be said to be warm, but it would be cold 
 enough sleeping on the frost-bound ground with no ex 
 tra covering, so he began to look out rather anxiously 
 for any signs of human habitation. A cabin deserted 
 by one of the settlers which the drought had driven out 
 would do at a pinch, but he would prefer an inhabited 
 cabin with the attendant possibilities of warmth and 
 food. 
 
 A thin spiral of blue smoke which he detected issu 
 ing from the woods that stretched beneath him in the 
 bottom lands looked hopeful, and he made for it with 
 all speed. Somewhat to his surprise he came upon an 
 Indian lodge cosily nestling among the trees, a sight the 
 more unexpected as he imagined the Indians were all 
 gone out of the country. 
 
 A shrill scream, with a deeper toned " Ho, ho, ho! " 
 proclaimed that he was discovered. Since he came as 
 one asking a favour, Heaton thought he had better pro- 
 
THE BRAND OF CAIN 65 
 
 claim his peaceful character in terms not likely to be 
 misunderstood. He therefore reversed his rifle, and, 
 carrying it butt end uppermost, walked straight up to 
 the entrance of the wigwam. 
 
 A savage face streaked with red and yellow and two 
 glaring eyes met his view, as also the end of a flint- 
 pointed arrow. The young man nevertheless walked 
 steadily forward, noting the while that the arrow did 
 not seem very aggressively aimed. A tall, lanky savage 
 with nothing on but a bead belt and some red paint 
 stepped out of the lodge, and Heaton immediately of 
 fered him his hand to shake. The savage seized his 
 hand with a hoarse " Wo, hough sough kee," of wel 
 come, and immediately three other persons came out of 
 the wigwam. These likewise shook hands, with various 
 grunts expressive of various degrees of satisfaction at 
 the unexpected pleasure of his visit. Heaton put his 
 rifle against the centre pole of the lodge, and sat down 
 with the family upon the ground. The chief savage, 
 seeing there was no occasion for personal prowess in 
 overcoming an enemy, resumed his blanket, which the 
 keen air made him draw closely around his shoulders. 
 His wife, who was dressed in a blue skirt, handed him 
 his best leather gaiters embroidered with porcupine 
 quills, and then laced them up for him. After this she 
 spread over both men a warm buffalo robe, and reached 
 them down the calumet of peace, which the Indian and 
 Heaton smoked in turn and in complete silence. 
 
 There was a flat-faced child in leather drawers and 
 tiny blanket waddling about the lodge, and he at once 
 made friends with the visitor. He climbed up his knees 
 and pulled open his necktie, being seemingly much di 
 verted by the incomprehensible way in which that arti 
 cle of man s adornment elongated itself whenever he 
 pulled one end. The child looked in vain on Heaton s 
 fingers for those rings which adorned his father s hands 
 
66 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 by the dozen. He was consoled, however, for his disap 
 pointment on this score by the discovery of a pocket 
 magnifier, and gazed earnestly at the strange sight of 
 his own dirty finger tips when magnified fifteen di 
 ameters. 
 
 The squaw roasted several ears of corn in the hot 
 wood ashes, between two flat stones, and Heaton offered 
 some strips of his dried beef to his hosts. Together 
 they made a silent but sustaining meal, and after supper 
 he retired to the sheltered side of the tent and slept 
 soundly in a bed of pulled prairie grass covered by an 
 Indian buffalo robe. Indians are supposed to be treach 
 erous devils, but Heaton, although his gun would have 
 been a valuable prize and his throat easy to cut as he 
 slept, never experienced a shadow of uneasiness as he 
 lay under the shelter of the red man s tent. In the 
 morning he took leave of his hosts after an interchange 
 of mutually unintelligible compliments and a more in 
 telligible gift of tobacco on his part. The little boy ran 
 after him and clung round his legs, mutely imploring 
 another look at the magnifier; and the mother ran after 
 the boy, no doubt saying, in Indian language, " You 
 naughty child, you mustn t climb up the gentleman s 
 legs and muddy his clothes," as is the practice of moth 
 ers the world over. 
 
 Some time after leaving the Indians Heaton over 
 took a man driving an ox wagon, which is the slowest 
 mode of progression known to civilization. He was 
 walking alongside his team gee-hawing in true Western 
 style when the pedestrian came up with his long swing 
 ing gait. The opportunity of beguiling a tedious hour 
 was too good to be lost, so the man hailed him with 
 eagerness. 
 
 " Say, stranger, be yer gwine ter cross the creek, 
 anyhow? Guess the water s pretty tole ble high." 
 
 " I ve got to ford it somewhere," answered Heaton. 
 
THE BRAND OF CAIN 67 
 
 " Meet ary track o Injuns? " asked the man. 
 
 "Yes; there are some back there/ replied the 
 young man, jerking his thumb over his shoulder. 
 
 "Land!" exclaimed the man in evident alarm. 
 " Be they headin this way? " 
 
 Heaton smiled with some contempt, and then said: 
 " One of them did indeed run after me as I was coming 
 away." 
 
 " Hope you killed him, stranger," said the man ear 
 nestly. 
 
 "Good Lord, no!" said Heaton aghast. "It was 
 only a little child, who wanted to play with my necktie." 
 
 His companion, somewhat ashamed, felt it incum 
 bent upon him to explain. 
 
 " I ain t nary lick afeard o Injuns," he remarked 
 complacently, " on y I d ruther keep tracks a little ways 
 off a set o salvagerous onairthly coons. Keckon ary 
 one o thim comin this yer way, stranger? " 
 
 " No. They were in their tent, and I didn t see any 
 signs of marching. I stayed there last night, had sup 
 per with them, and slept under one of their buffalo 
 robes. They were as kind as could be." 
 
 "Land sakes, stranger! I d liefer sleep a night 
 longside o ten rattlesnakes nor one Injun," said the 
 man in astonishment at such unheard of temerity. 
 
 " Indeed," remarked Heaton contemptuously. 
 
 " Calkerlate they ll be some o them Kickapoos goin 
 up to their reservation. Was there thund rin sight o 
 guns mong em? Injuns is powerful wicked when they 
 has guns." 
 
 " They only had bows and arrows as far as I could 
 see." 
 
 " Eeckon I could lick ary heap o Injuns with bows 
 an arrows if I hed as good a rifle as yourn," said the 
 man, desirous of regaining the ground he felt he might 
 have lost in Heaton s good opinion by his too mani- 
 
68 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 fest exhibition of alarm. He, on the other hand, only 
 anxious to be rid of a disagreeable companion, did 
 not pursue the subject. 
 
 "Do you know the country round here? Perhaps 
 you can direct me." 
 
 " There ain t nary man this side o Fort Leaven- 
 worth kin tell you more names o cities nor I kin, 
 stranger. You may lay on that ar," replied he with 
 boastful emphasis. 
 
 " I am going east toward the border to hunt deer," 
 remarked Heaton. 
 
 " Thar s more cities tween hyar an the Missouri 
 border nor you could find in ary nother airthly spot in 
 creation," he said exultingly. 
 
 "I didn t know there were so many settlers here. 
 I thought the drought had cleared them out," observed 
 Heaton in some surprise. 
 
 " I didn t say thar was settlers," answered the man 
 with a grin; "but thar s a powerful sight o cities. 
 There s Oak City, an London, an Athens plumb ahead 
 o yer on the track to the border." 
 
 "And how many settlers might there be in Lon 
 don? " asked Heaton. 
 
 " Nary one, an never was one." 
 : Then how shall I know which is London and 
 which is Athens when I get there, if there are no set 
 tlers to tell me? " asked Heaton in some amusement. 
 
 "Wai, I low London City ull be easy nough, 
 stranger. You ll git thar bout noon, an the trees is 
 pretty nigh all blazed roun whar the city is." 
 
 " Is Athens equally well laid out and marked? " 
 " I reckon Athens hain t got so far long yit, an it 
 won t be so handy fer yer ter know it. You ll git thar 
 bout three hours fore sundown. The trees ain t 
 blazed, cause thar ain t none roun thar; but you ll see 
 whar two stakes has been druv inter the groun . May- 
 
THE BRAND OF CAIN 69 
 
 be they ain t stan in now. But that s Athens City. I 
 am the founder of that city, stranger, an whar them 
 stakes is druv in is goin ter be the centre of the city 
 jess whar the store, an the post-office, an the meet- 
 in house, an the newspaper office is goin ter be 
 rected." 
 
 Heaton thanked the founder of Athens for his in 
 formation and directions and left him just as his oxen, 
 who had espied a deep mudhole on in front of them in 
 the road, had begun to bellow over the tug and the 
 strain and whip lashings that they knew were imme 
 diately in store for them. Oxen are maddening crea 
 tures to drive. They are like slaves, skilled in all the 
 tricks and devices known to the cunning mind in order 
 to escape work. They will lie for hours perfectly mo 
 tionless in the long grass, not even shaking an ear to 
 remove the flies, and this because their master is hunt 
 ing for them, and they know that head shakes tinkle ox 
 bells, which would at once reveal their presence. They 
 move away when the yoke is raised for their necks, and 
 when at last they are ready to start it is almost a mira 
 cle for anything so big to go so slowly. But there 
 is something almost human in their howling with an 
 guish in anticipation when they see a mudhole ahead, 
 out of which they know they must painfully tug their 
 load. 
 
 The end of the second day s march brought Heaton 
 well over the border into Missouri. He began to go 
 cautiously, because he perceived that he was an object 
 of suspicion to all whom he met. He was in the ene 
 my s country, and every man would look upon him as a 
 foe. Therefore he gave a wide berth to everything like 
 a settlement if he possibly could. This, however, was 
 not always an easy thing to do, and once he found him 
 self walking right into a small village in full view of 
 some negroes working in a field, and this before he was 
 
70 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 aware that there were any houses near. It was a 
 wretched place, with only two or three squalid log 
 cabins in the whole settlement, but these were not unin 
 habited, as Heaton soon found out. He considered that 
 his safest course was to proceed boldly forward as if he 
 belonged to the place. This he set out to do, but he 
 found that it required all his nerve to walk steadily and 
 sedately forward when he became aware that two men 
 were looking at him from behind a half -open door, and 
 that one of the men had a gun in his hand which he was 
 raising to his shoulder. 
 
 Cold chills ran down his back as the young man real 
 ized his position. Nothing on earth could save him if 
 the men chose to fire. His only possible chance was to 
 appear completely at his ease. He therefore began to 
 count his steps softly to himself in order to make sure 
 he was not unconsciously hurrying in the slightest de 
 gree. 
 
 One. Two. Three. Four. He wondered would 
 he get into the twenties before the shot came. Per 
 haps he would be shot at eleven or twelve. He counted 
 steadily on. He was increasing the range at every step 
 now, and adding to his chances of not being hit. He 
 would have given worlds to look back in order to see 
 if they were aiming at him. But he dared not show 
 even this sign of uneasiness. 
 
 Twenty. Twenty-one. He was getting into a long 
 range now. He swayed his body gently, but irregularly, 
 from side to side, as much as he dared, in order to make 
 himself a moving target, if target he was. 
 
 Forty. Forty-one. He must be pretty near out of 
 range. His heart stopped thumping, and a cold sweat 
 came out on his forehead. 
 
 Those were just the most trying steps he ever re 
 membered to have taken in all his life. He walked on 
 steadily until a turn in the road hid the houses from 
 
THE BRAND OF CAIN 71 
 
 sight. Then he went and sat down behind a tree to 
 recover his breath. That slow walk through the vil 
 lage with those two men and their gun pointing at his 
 back had winded him more than the hardest race he 
 Qver ran. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 AUNT MONIN S STORY 
 
 AFTER the failure of her neighbours either to kill or 
 capture her father s murderer Nancy seemed to wrap 
 herself up in a sombre mantle of her own sad thoughts. 
 Alone at the farm, except for the companionship of 
 Aunt Monin, she had abundance of time for brooding 
 over her desolation. The old negress offered consola 
 tion in her own peculiar fashion, but it was not of a 
 kind to be acceptable to Nancy as yet. She was a hot- 
 tempered girl and a loving one. Her father, the only 
 relative she had in the world, had been cruelly torn 
 from her by a violent death. The very strength of her 
 love made her long for vengeance. She was so lone 
 ly, so desolate, so unhappy, that it seemed to her she 
 would not feel such an aching void in her heart if she 
 could have her mind gratified by a signal vengeance. 
 This is a feeling often seen in crude or unformed minds, 
 and Nancy s mind was still very young. But hers was a 
 strong nature, and even when driven by circumstances 
 into a false direction was not one to show any faltering 
 of purpose. She passionately desired vengeance, and 
 could she have met the man who had killed her father 
 she was quite capable of acting herself as the avenger of 
 blood. 
 
 Her nature was almost masculine in its fierceness. 
 She had as yet none of the softness of the girl in mind, 
 although her physical form was both soft and feminine 
 
AUNT MONIN S STORY 73 
 
 in a marked degree. Her soul was unawakened, and 
 her young life had been cast in rugged lines. Her fa 
 ther had been a stern man, though a just one according 
 to his lights, and all her experience lay with hardness. 
 Aunt Monin alone supplied her with the soft loving ele 
 ments, without which no young creature can thrive, 
 while the young men who would fall in love with her 
 were regarded by her with indifference. She had no 
 petty vanity to be gratified by their devotion, for she 
 lived very much isolated, and vanity is a growth largely 
 dependent upon the surroundings of a girl, and is not 
 derived from her own inner consciousness. At this 
 stage of her existence Nancy might be rather looked 
 upon as a wild boy, free in fancy and in soul, acknowl 
 edging no superior, and not familiar enough with the 
 world and the experience of others to know that one 
 day she would inevitably fall under the spell of the 
 tyrannous master who in the end subdues all creatures. 
 She was just at this repellent stage, feeling no need 
 of love other than that amid which she had grown up, 
 when she was overwhelmed by the catastrophe of her 
 father s death. Love, crushed out by that blow, rose 
 up again in bitter hatred toward the slayer of the one 
 person who was most dear to her. 
 
 Aunt Monin preached in vain. 
 
 " Leave de vengeance to de Lo d, Miss Nancy," she 
 would say in reply to her child s oft expressed desire to 
 be revenged on the man who had killed her father. " I 
 will repay, say de Lo d. Dat mean de Lo d he run down 
 de Jay-Hawkers when de right time come. Leave it all 
 in de han s o de Lo d." 
 
 " But I want it to come now in my lifetime," Nancy 
 would say fiercely. 
 
 " No, bressed chile, yo mus leave it in his han s. 
 He choose his own time for runnin em down. De ways 
 o de Lo d is solemn an slow, dat dey is." 
 
74 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " I want it done now. It is only by the hands of 
 men it can be done. Oh, if I were only a man! " 
 
 She clapped her hands angrily together, bewailing 
 her woman s powerlessness. 
 
 " Yo white folks, yo is mighty impatient. Yo 
 dunno how to wait f o de Lo d," remarked Aunt Monin, 
 shaking her turbaned head reprovingly. " Yo ain t 
 larned ter be patient like we niggas. We s bin wait in 
 fo de Lo d all dese y ars, Miss Nancy, an he hain t 
 come to us yet. But we s trustin in him all de while. 
 He come by an bye fo shu ." 
 
 Nancy had heard such expressions as these from 
 the lips of her old nurse all her life long, and had paid 
 very little heed to them, it must be confessed. It was 
 Aunt Monin s way to be always preaching, and Nancy, 
 having grown up with the preaching, accepted it heed 
 lessly, like the rain and the sunshine, as among those 
 things which were continually happening. Now, how 
 ever, her attention was made keener by reason of her 
 own suffering, and her point of view also was changed. 
 Slaves had been among the accepted facts of her life, 
 although from a purely intellectual standpoint she was 
 very much inclined to disapprove of slavery, since it 
 was going to lead to trouble and unhappiness among the 
 whites, as was too bitterly proved by those dreadful Jay- 
 Hawk raids. From the slave s point of view Nancy 
 had never considered the matter at all. Her father s 
 slaves were comfortable, they were well cared for, and 
 she dearly loved Aunt Monin. Surely everybody was 
 as happy as she; Nancy desired them to be. This had 
 been her heedless philosophy hitherto. Now, however, 
 her eyes were made to see more clearly by reason of the 
 sharpening of vision which her own sorrow had brought 
 about. 
 
 Aunt Monin s preaching suddenly struck home, be 
 cause Nancy s mind was in a mood to hear it. She 
 
AUNT MONIN S STOB-Y 75 
 
 looked long and seriously at her old nurse, as the mean 
 ing of her words sank slowly into her mind. Then 
 there was something that the old slave longed for be 
 yond the physical comforts with which she had always 
 been surrounded. Yet Aunt Monin was a petted negro, 
 if ever there was one, not too hard worked, with plenty 
 of all she needed for her simple comforts. Nancy felt 
 a sudden desire to look into her mind to see what were 
 its real thoughts and hopes. She realized all in a mo 
 ment that she did not know this woman on whose knee 
 she had grown up, so to speak, and about whose feelings 
 and thoughts she had hitherto been so carelessly confi 
 dent. This awakening to the fact that one in whose 
 daily life we ourselves share is living a life apart from 
 us and of which we have no knowledge, not infrequently 
 creates a feeling of surprise mingled with resent 
 ment. This was somewhat the case with Nancy, and 
 her next words took on a form indicative of the 
 feeling. 
 
 " Aren t you happy, Aunt Monin? You are kindly 
 treated, you have all you want, you are fed and clothed 
 and never have to think for the morrow. Surely you 
 ought to be completely happy." 
 
 " Ya, Miss Nancy, don t yo know tain t havin belly 
 full o corn makes pusson happy? Niggas ain t like 
 work oxen; dey wants suthin mo nor dat." 
 
 " And I love you, Aunt Monin," said Nancy softly, 
 as if to herself. 
 
 "Ah, my honey-chile," repeated the old woman, with 
 quick response to this show of affection on Nancy s part, 
 " yo is de light o my eyes. Yo is mo ter me dan de 
 whole worl beside. Aunt Monin love yo wid all her 
 ole heart. De Lo d he done make our hearts all de 
 same way, Miss Nancy. Dey ain t black an dey ain t 
 white; dey all de same colour in de sight o de Lo d." 
 
 The old woman fondled her foster child, taking one 
 G 
 
76 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 of her hands between her own two and patting it, while 
 she made cooing noises like a brooding dove. 
 
 " I shouldn t ever want you to go away from me, 
 Aunt Monin," began Nancy. 
 
 " I ain t agwine, honey-chile. Befo de Lo d I ain t 
 nebber gwine ter leave yo ," interrupted Aunt Monin 
 with passionate earnestness. 
 
 " Not even to be free ? " asked Nancy, touched by 
 her affection, but still pursuing her own train of ideas. 
 
 " No, not even ter be free. I wouldn t go an be 
 free an leave my honey-chile. Nebber." 
 
 Nancy knew negroes too well not to be able to dis 
 count their statements liberally, but a sudden thought 
 struck her as Aunt Monin uttered her solemn protesta 
 tion. 
 
 "How is it you didn t go away with the others? 
 Didn t you know they thought they were going off into 
 freedom? " 
 
 " Yes, Miss Nancy, I hearn tell all bout dat. On y 
 I couldn t go long too. Dey was startin for de Ian o 
 Canaan, an was a-singin Glory, halleluiah! but my eyes 
 couldn t foller em. Dey was turn back to whar yo 
 was sittin in fliction an de han o de Lo d was heavy 
 pon yo . Der warn t no freedom fo ole Aunt Monin 
 so long her honey-chile was bidin in de Ian o sorrow 
 an trib lation. If I had sot out on dat journey inter 
 de wil erness I couldn t have gone furder nor de clear- 
 in , cause my heart was stayin behin wid my chile." 
 
 It was impossible to doubt the sincerity of words 
 spoken with such deep earnestness of manner, and 
 Nancy looked at the old woman with a softened glance 
 in her dark eyes. They were together in the small sit 
 ting room, not the big room where Overton had been 
 shot, but in another one also opening off the veranda. 
 Nancy habitually used this room now, for she could not 
 bear the sight of that other one with its terrible memo- 
 
AUNT MONIN S STORY 77 
 
 ries. Feeling very lonely, she used to keep Aunt Monin 
 with her all the time now, and she used to talk to her in 
 a fitful sort of way, just as the ideas came into her head. 
 It was during one of these disconnected talks that she 
 suddenly asked the old woman one day how many chil 
 dren she had had. 
 
 " Real children of your own, Aunt Monin ? " said 
 Nancy, idly poking her needle in and out of her work 
 without sewing at all. 
 
 " Seventeen, Miss Nancy. But dey warn t real chil- 
 lun to me. Dey warn t so real as yo mammy, dat was 
 my fust, an yo , dat was my las . De black chillun 
 warn t so real to me as de white," said Aunt Monin, 
 looking with strange far-away glance out of the window, 
 as if she was gazing at some one who was fading from 
 her sight. 
 
 " Why weren t they real? " asked Nancy, amused at 
 the answer, and not in the least understanding what 
 Aunt Monin meant. 
 
 " Cause dey all sole way South fore dey growed up. 
 I didn t nebber see nary one o them a ter dey ole nough 
 to peck roun by se f ." 
 
 " Oh! " said Nancy in painful surprise, regretting 
 that she had asked the question. " Then I suppose you 
 were glad of me because I stayed; was that it, Aunt 
 Monin?" 
 
 " De Lo d give yo ter me for ter save my soul from 
 de sin o dreadful wickedness. Yo dunno what awful 
 sin yo save me from when yo jess ten days ole an 
 no mo ," said Aunt Monin, with a voice hushed in awe 
 and reverence. 
 
 Nancy was very much astonished and looked at her 
 in silence for a moment or two. 
 
 " Tell me about it," she said at length. 
 
 " Better not, honey," answered the old woman, to 
 Nancy s surprise. 
 
78 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " You must/ said Nancy quickly, too unaccustomed 
 to have a slave say No to bear it with equanimity, and 
 Aunt Monin was too much accustomed to being a slave 
 to refuse further. 
 
 " Yo was jess bo n, chile, an I had my own little 
 babby gal on y month ole, when Mas r John, yo daddy, 
 he done sell one o his nigga women South long wid her 
 chile to de dealer for to work on de plantation. She 
 was call Mander, an she was a po schreechin critter, 
 dre ful cut up, when she hearn she was agwine ter leave 
 her ole man an her chillun. She cry an she fret all de 
 day long, so her babby get de cramp from de milk, what 
 all turn p ison, cause she fret so. An de babby turn 
 yaller, den green, an die slap off. Den Mas r John he 
 come a-swearin roun an tearin ebery which way, cause 
 he done promise to liver nigga woman an chile to de 
 dealer, an he hain t got no chile to liver. Den de slave 
 dealer he come long too, an he swear roun ebery 
 which way, cause he hain t got no chile ter go long 
 wid de woman. He tell Mas r John he off wid de bar 
 gain an Mas r John git mad, an he come slap inter de 
 kitchen an take my little l^bby dat sleepin in de crib 
 an he give it to Mander, an she war carried off by de 
 slave dealer fore I know dat my babby chile gone." 
 
 "Poor Aunt Monin!" said Nancy, gently stroking 
 the old face that was quivering under the recollection of 
 that tragedy of long ago. " And what did you do ? " 
 
 " When I come back from de garden patch f etchin 
 de green corn fo de white folks dinna , I foun de 
 babby gone, an de niggas tell me dat she gone South, 
 sole right way from me. I was jess like de wolf in de 
 wil erness when de hunters done kill her cub. Dat 
 babby war de las o seventeen, an de missis she say I 
 allers keep dat one fo shu . She war in bed an didn t 
 know nuffin bout de sellin . I jess leapt inter de room 
 whar she war lyin with yo by her side. She war drea - 
 
AUNT MONIN S STORY 79 
 
 ful white an skeery-lookin , on y jess her eyes burnin 
 like coals outer de fire. I fall down on de floor an tell 
 her, an I say dat de curse o de Lo d will fall on dish 
 hyar house for de sin o de father. An I gone clean 
 mad fo de grief o losin my little babby." 
 
 "Aunt Monin was this the falling of the curse?" 
 asked Nancy in an awe-struck whisper. 
 
 " Dis was de hand o de Lo d, chile, dat fall heavy on 
 yer father. I was on y po mad nigga woman talkin 
 outer de wickedness o my heart. De Lo d buke me fo 
 my great sin, but de Lo d done take nudder way to buke 
 from what I guess he gwine ter. Sinfu man can t go 
 for to un erstan de ways o de Lo d." 
 
 " Tell me more. What did my poor mother say? 
 She was sorry for you, wasn t she ? " said Nancy very 
 softly. 
 
 " So she was, chile. Her eyes dey got bigger an 
 bigger ebbry day, an I lowed it was de tears she was 
 cryin dat made em so mazin big an shiny. She 
 didn t git well. But I nebber took no notice, cause o 
 de blin ness o my sin an rage. De rage kinder riz up 
 in madness, an I couldn t pray no mo . I could on y 
 lie starin wide- wake an thinkin o de big carvin knife 
 what I has for ter kill de chuckins wid in de kitchen. 
 Dat carvin knife I see befo my eyes in blood red, allers. 
 I used to take an hide it under de wood pile an try for 
 get whar I done put it. Twarn t no sort o use. Jess 
 as soon as I lie down side o dat little empty crib I see 
 de carvin knife gain, an de f eelin come inter my min 
 o ban s tryin ter push me ter git it an draw it cross 
 mas r s throat. Dey was de han s o de debil dat was 
 pushin me, an it was de father o evil what was tempt- 
 in me to venge my babby by killin ole mas r what sold 
 her South. 
 
 " One night it was dre ful col an snowy, an I 
 wrestled wid de debil, an call on de Lo d to save me an 
 
80 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 keep me from murder. But de blood madness riz up 
 an blin me. De voice o de Lo d die Vay. I on y hear 
 Satan temptin me. I riz up an was gwine for ter take 
 dat carvin knife when de do opened an a shinin angel 
 stan on de do step. I low it was de angel o de Lo d 
 comin to take me slap down inter hell for my sinfu 
 wicked thoughts. I drop down on my knees an jess 
 say, Lo d, have mercy on de po slave ! I couldn t say 
 no mo nor nudder word, for all de breath gone clean 
 outer my body. 
 
 "Den I hear a silver-sweet voice say: Po Aunt 
 Monin, hyar is my babby chile, Nancy; I give her to yo 
 for yer own babby, stead o de one I promise yo nebber 
 to sell way from yo . Take her, Aunt Monin, an keep 
 her always, an love her jess like she was yer own little 
 babby. Den she lay de little white chile in my arms, 
 an it put its little mouth up an suck at de po nigga 
 woman s breast. Den de madness go way from my 
 eyes, an I don t nebber see de carvin knife no mo , on y 
 hear de silver-sweet voice o de angel o de Lo d sayin : 
 Take her, Aunt Monin, an keep her an love her, jess 
 like yer own little babby." 
 
 Aunt Monin s voice sunk into a deep whisper. 
 Nancy was sobbing softly. 
 
 " It was my poor mother came that night through 
 the snow to comfort you." 
 
 " Chile, it was de angel o de Lo d. It wasn t no 
 mortal woman pass through de snow dat winter night. 
 She was shinin bright an jess as white as de snow itse f 
 when she stan in de do o de sinfu slave woman what 
 she come to save. Dese eyes o mine seen de glory o 
 de Lo d on dat night, an my ears has heard de voice o 
 de angel o de Lo d speakin to me. She go straight up 
 to heaven from de nigga woman s cabin. In de gray 
 o de mo nin , fore de sun was up, dey foun yo po 
 mother dead, lyin white an still in her bed, an de little 
 
AUNT MONIN S STORY 81 
 
 babby chile she done give ter me was warm an cuddlin 
 close up to de po slave woman s bosom. Dat was de 
 way de Lo d p inted to venge my lost babby, Miss 
 Nancy, an 7 nebber like de sinfu wicked way I wanted 
 ter venge it, by wicked murder dat ud sen me inter 
 ev lastin torment. 
 
 " When dish ole nigga woman die now, she s gwine 
 ter heaven ter meet gain de angel o de Lo d, an she 
 hear gain dat silver-sweet voice speakin to her once 
 mo . An it say, i Well done, Aunt Monin, thou good 
 an faithfu servant! I meet all my lost chillun an 
 live for evermo an rejoice in de Lo d. De ways o de 
 Lo d ain t de same as our po sinfu ways, Miss Nancy. 
 Leave de vengeance ter him ter do it in his own good 
 time." 
 
 Aunt Monin s story sunk deep into Nancy s heart. 
 She was affected at the time by the old woman s pa 
 thetic tale and the thought of all that she must have 
 suffered. But it was not a mere stirring of the surface 
 of her feelings, an effect to disappear in a day. In 
 stead of the dark, brooding desire for vengeance, there 
 now came into her mind another thought, that of her 
 poor young mother in the last hour of her life walking 
 through the snow to comfort the sorrowing slave. 
 Nancy did not regard this event from the scientific 
 standpoint, as the case of a fever patient, who in her 
 delirium slips away and hurries on her death during 
 the careless sleep of the nurse supposed to be watching 
 her. Some of Aunt Monin s religious and mystical fer 
 vour was imbibed by her foster child. The gift of the 
 little white baby to replace the black one that had been 
 so cruelly lost was an expiatory gift. And she, Nancy, 
 was that child. She had been given by her dying moth 
 er to comfort a grief-stricken slave s heart. As she pon 
 dered over this, some of the spirit of that dead mother 
 seemed to instil into her mind. She had never known 
 
82 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 anything about her. Her father, who had been tender 
 ly attached to his wife, couldn t bear to speak of her, 
 and so Nancy had grown up without any mother influ 
 ence at all. Her mother was not a memory, she was 
 not even an imagined picture; she was nothing, she 
 did not exist in her daughter s imagination at all. Now 
 suddenly she appeared before Nancy s mental vision in 
 this dramatic way a shining angel of pity standing in 
 the lowly negro cabin with her babe in her arms. How 
 great must have been her love for the slaves, and how 
 immense her desire to comfort and console, when she 
 gave her only little free-born baby as a healing gift to 
 the distracted slave mother! 
 
 As Nancy s mind dwelt on this image of her un 
 known mother some of the influences which had prompt 
 ed the parent seemed now at work upon the daughter s 
 mind. She had been given in expiation, she had been 
 dedicated almost at birth to comfort the slave s heart. 
 How had she fulfilled this high mission? Of course she 
 loved Aunt Monin, because Aunt Monin was associated 
 with all her childish memories of love and cuddling af 
 fection, but that was a mere every-day return for ordi 
 nary human love. Any other foster child who had a 
 warm-hearted nature would have done the same. Was 
 not her mission something higher and greater than 
 this? A whole train of new thoughts and vague as 
 pirations rushed into Nancy s mind by the door which 
 Aunt Monin s story of her mother s last act had 
 opened upon her. An army of generous emotions 
 took possession of her and drove out that dark tribe 
 of hate and vengeance which hitherto had entirely 
 occupied her soul. The mother spirit, which had 
 culminated in the offering up of her own child, now 
 succeeded to the father spirit, which had hitherto 
 dominated Nancy s mind and tended to make her a 
 hard, uncompromising, and somewhat repellent young 
 
AUNT MONIN S STORY 83 
 
 woman. The softening, womanizing influence came 
 over her soul, awakening new emotions, and resting 
 with the divine touch upon her young nature. She 
 would give herself to the work that had been begun by 
 her mother s dying act. She would be the comfort of 
 the slave. There was no cold debating of the rights 
 and wrongs of the proposition; no weighing the disad 
 vantages against the advantages of slavery. Nancy was 
 not a creature of brain and calculation; she was a warm 
 hearted passionate girl, into whose life there had never 
 come any crisis until that awful one of her father s 
 death, which went near to turning the sweetness of her 
 nature into bitterness and gall. But she was saved 
 from being a bitter, hating woman by her dead mother, 
 and by the same act, too, which had saved poor old Aunt 
 Monin from the deadly sin of murder and bloody venge 
 ance. Not by hate, but by love, is the world to be re 
 generated. The simple old negress out of the suffering 
 of her life had learned this lesson, and was content to 
 walk her road in earnest trustfulness. Slaves seldom 
 feel the impulse to act. The most their life has taught 
 them is to suffer uncomplainingly. A free person of 
 generous emotions is not satisfied with this negative 
 state, but tries to act in accordance with his best aspira 
 tions, and is not content to sit still with folded hands, 
 if there is something he feels ought to be done. Nancy s 
 nature was of this active creative kind. Her new en 
 thusiasm was not content to limit itself to seeing that 
 her negroes had enough to eat and were properly housed. 
 Her quick imagination leaped forward to something 
 greater and nobler than that mere brutish ideal. 
 
 They must be free. 
 
 It was characteristic of her hot impulsive nature 
 that, having once reached this determination, all 
 Nancy s thoughts and all her energies should be turned 
 toward accomplishing the practical execution of the 
 
84 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 scheme. It was not such an easy task as might be im 
 agined by those who have never lived amid slavery. It 
 was not sufficient for her to say to her bondsmen: " Be 
 free. Ye are mine. I bestow freedom upon you." 
 That would be a mere mockery of liberty so long as she 
 let them remain in a slave State, where at any moment, 
 by some whirligig of revised laws, they might be re 
 duced again to slavery. She must take them away and 
 start them in life under a free sky and on a free soil. 
 
 The new spirit working in Nancy did not remain 
 without giving signs of itself and of the change that 
 was going forward in her mind. About a month after 
 her father s death there came the news that a Missouri 
 raid had taken place in Kansas, in which some Free- 
 soil men had been killed. Nancy felt none of the fierce 
 satisfaction at this intelligence which would have been 
 hers in the earlier and unregenerate days of her sorrow. 
 She listened sadly to the account supplied by Mr. Oliver, 
 a loquacious neighbour, who magnified the prowess of 
 the Missourians. She made no comment. Then he 
 told her how they had succeeded in recapturing some 
 slaves who had been run off some months previously, 
 and how these were brought back in triumph to their 
 former masters. 
 
 When Nancy heard this her heart overflowed with 
 the pity born of its new impulses. 
 
 "Oh, I am so sorry!" she said. "Poor creatures, 
 how hard on them! And after they had been free for 
 nearly a year! It was cruel." 
 
 " Wai, Miss Nancy," exclaimed the man, amazed at 
 such language from the lips of a slave owner, " yer own 
 niggers was run off, an you had oughter be glad when 
 the black cusses is cotched." 
 
 " I m not glad. I m sorry, very sorry, when any 
 poor creature struggling for freedom is again cap 
 tured." 
 
AUNT MONIN S STORY 85 
 
 Her cheeks flushed and her eyes flashed. Mr. Oliver 
 looked at her admiringly through his narrow gray-green 
 eyes, although he disapproved in a high degree of her 
 dangerous sentiments. 
 
 " Wai, if them s yer pinions I guess yer d better be 
 makin tracks for Kansas mighty peart. If yo was a 
 man, Miss Nancy, I low yo wouldn t be let live long 
 in this hyar country with them dog-gauned Free-soil 
 idees." 
 
 " I am going to proclaim my opinions aloud where I 
 like and when I like," said Nancy, who was human 
 enough to have her views on the subject made quite 
 clear to her mind by a little opposition. " I hate slav 
 ery. I hate all connected with slavery, and I have good 
 reason to do so. If it hadn t been for slavery my fa 
 ther would have been alive and well to-day, and I 
 shouldn t be alone in the world." Converts are pro 
 verbially keen for their faith, and Nancy spoke with 
 all the zeal of a young convert. 
 
 " Wai, I swan! " exclaimed the man in dismay; " if 
 yo ain t gone an turned ab lishionist, right hyar in 
 Missouri, too! Golly Ned! " 
 
 " If I had my way every slave should be free to 
 morrow," said Nancy with passionate recklessness. 
 
 " An the country plumb ruined the next," said Mr. 
 Oliver quickly. 
 
 " It will be worse ruined by slavery than by any 
 thing else, even a famine; that s what I think," said 
 Nancy. 
 
 " Wai, I guess we ll kinder scoot long a while as we 
 are," he replied with some contempt. " I m powerful 
 glad women hain t got no rights yet a while, Miss 
 Nancy by gosh, I am! " 
 
 " You are afraid we might set the slaves free," said 
 Nancy with a flash of her black eyes. 
 
 The man turned to go and had ridden a few paces 
 
86 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 down the road when he came back again and drew 
 up close to where Nancy still was standing. 
 
 " Look hyar," he said with considerable sharpness 
 of manner, " doan t you go now an try an come yer 
 Yankee Free-soil bosh over the young men roun hyar. 
 They re jess plumb mad bout yer, an would swaller any 
 lies you handed em to eat. We men folks ain t a-goin 
 to have our boys primed up with Yankee lies. An if 
 you light out on that trail we ll scort yer out o Missouri 
 pretty all-fired quick, I can tell you." 
 
 His blood was up and he was angry, but then her 
 blood was up too, and she was also angry. Moreover, 
 she was a Missouri girl, and not the meekest of her sex 
 in the State, either. 
 
 " I thank you for your threat, sir. Southern men 
 often boast of their chivalry. I guess I ll remember 
 this specimen of it. You threaten to hunt a girl out 
 of the place where she was born just because of her 
 opinions, and she an orphan with no one on earth to 
 protect her! I guess I ll lay in a rifle for this winter, 
 and I ll ask the first man I come across to teach me 
 how to use it. Then I ll be ready for you Missouri 
 gentlemen when you come along to hunt me out of 
 house and home, just as if I was a wolf or a mad 
 dog." 
 
 Mr. Oliver s sallow cheek took on a muddy sort of a 
 blush as he slunk back from Nancy s biting words. 
 
 "You gals tongues is bout as full o p ison as a 
 copperhead, I reckon." He fairly turned tail and 
 galloped off before Nancy could say anything more, so 
 afraid was he of her stinging taunts. 
 
 Aunt Monin was standing within the shadow of the 
 doorway, her black face shining with enjoyment. 
 
 " Lordy, Miss Nancy, it done me good on de inside 
 for ter hear yo talk to him. Guess he won t come roun 
 this er way for ter drive yo out o dish hyar house. Dar 
 
AUNT MONIN S STORY 87 
 
 ain t nary man in de whole county as aren t af eerd o de 
 tongue o de pretty gal wid eyes as black as pear pips an 
 cheeks as red as roses. Dey run from de snap o yo 3 
 eyes sooner dey would from de crack o de Jay-Hawker s 
 rifle." 
 
CHAPTEE IX 
 
 AUNT MONIN S FKEEDOM 
 
 NANCY had determined to free her negroes, and she 
 set about it with characteristic energy and promptitude. 
 Her encounter with her neighbour Mr. Oliver only 
 served to hurry on her decision. It was the very next 
 morning, when she and Aunt Monin were together in 
 the little sitting room, that she unfolded her determina 
 tion to the latter. Aunt Monin was working at a patch 
 work quilt of gorgeous colours, while she sat near the 
 fireplace, where a couple of logs of mighty bulk were 
 smouldering away in the lavish fashion known only on 
 a timber farm that wanted clearing. The pale Novem 
 ber sun crept disconsolately through the window pane 
 and lay in ineffectual yellow patches upon the white 
 boarded floor. It gave little heat, but indicated a 
 friendly intention, so that the dog went and lay in the 
 patch, preferring what he considered sun warmth de 
 rived from the outside to the baking heat of the glowing 
 embers on the hearth. The cat preferred the fire heat, 
 being of a feminine nature, pleased with warmth and 
 not particularly addicted to the delights of outdoor life. 
 
 Nancy was there too, with some work on her lap, but 
 she was not plying her needle. She was thinking, and 
 occasionally she turned her glance from the fire to the 
 wrinkled old face of the negress placidly intent on her 
 work. Apart from the eyes, which are extremely full 
 of life and expression, a negro s face does not indicate 
 88 
 
AUNT MONIN S FREEDOM 89 
 
 the varying moods of the mind to the same extent as do 
 the features of a white person. Their black faces be 
 come more akin to those of the lower animals, and one 
 must see their eyes in order to read the face; just as one 
 must see a dog s eyes in order to understand at all what 
 is going forward in the canine mind. As Nancy looked 
 at the old face she wondered whether the twin powers 
 of suffering and of enjoyment were still alive in Aunt 
 Monin for they always reside together or whether in 
 the anguish of her younger days her finer feelings and 
 capacities had been blunted and worn out. She seemed 
 so content now, so peacefully happy, perhaps the day 
 was passed when she could be stirred to great joy and 
 delight in anything. 
 
 So Nancy looked and pondered, and Aunt Monin 
 stitched her red and yellow and blue bits of stuff to 
 gether to make her patchwork quilt. 
 
 " Aunt Monin," said Nancy, going up to her and 
 laying her hand on the shoulder upon which she had so 
 often been carried when a baby, " what should you say 
 if I gave you your freedom? " 
 
 Aunt Monin dropped her work, took a deep breath, 
 but did not speak for a moment or two. Then she said: 
 
 " It would be de secon time de Lo d show me spe 
 cial marcy by yer han , Miss Nancy. Yo bin de bless- 
 in o my life from de fust day yo born." 
 
 Two great tears fell upon the patchwork quilt. 
 
 " Then, Aunt Monin, you shall be free," said Nancy 
 in a solemn voice, not without emotion. 
 
 " Glory, halleluiah: " cried the old woman, jumping 
 to her feet and clapping her hands excitedly together. 
 " My eyes has seen de glory o de comin o de Lo d. 
 I se agwine ter be free! I se agwine ter be free! Neb- 
 ber be slave no mo ! Glory, halleluiah! " 
 
 She capered ecstatically about the room, winding 
 herself up in her reel of cotton the while, until the 
 
90 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 numerous threads began to entangle, and at length 
 brought her to a standstill. Her great eyes were shin 
 ing with tears. Nancy s speculations were fully and 
 promptly answered; the power of deriving enjoyment 
 was not dead in Aunt Monin. Never was a human 
 being more full of it than was that old woman wildly 
 dancing around the room, shouting and singing* with 
 triumph and joy. When she stopped at last, wound 
 up in her own thread, her young mistress went over to 
 a small table under the window and wrote out what she 
 flattered herself was a very legal document, beginning, 
 " I, Nancy Overton, being sole owner of Aunt Monin, 
 my slave, do hereby give and endow her with freedom." 
 She signed and dated her paper and imagined she had 
 done the thing in style. Of course, being unwitnessed, 
 it was worth about as much as an old newspaper wrap 
 per, but this Nancy didn t know. 
 
 " Here, Aunt Monin; take this. Now you are a 
 free woman, as free as I am," said Nancy. 
 
 Aunt Monin took the paper upside down and looked 
 inquiringly at it. 
 
 " What dish hyar, Miss Nancy? " she asked. 
 
 " Your charter of freedom. I ve set you free. You 
 can go where you like and do what you like now," said 
 Nancy, looking at her with shining eyes. She felt ex 
 cited. It seemed a momentous crisis. She was begin 
 ning to pick up the task bequeathed to her by her 
 mother, and to perform her part in the great work of 
 her life. 
 
 " Fse free nigga an can do what I like? " said Aunt 
 Monin, desirous of having a perfectly correct idea of her 
 new position. 
 
 " Yes. You are free. You can do what you like." 
 
 " Den I stay long o yo allers," said the old woman 
 with emphasis, at the same time tossing the paper into 
 the fire with the remark, " I ain t gwine ter stuff dat ar 
 
AUNT MONIN S FREEDOM 91 
 
 paper inter my dress for ter get los an mixed up, so I 
 can t fin my thimble nohow." 
 
 Nancy looked at her with a gasp of surprise. 
 
 " I thought you wanted to be free/ she said in a 
 puzzled tone. 
 
 " I does so, my bressed lamb. I se got mighty long- 
 in ter be free, so I can allers stay long o yo , chile." 
 
 " But then it won t make any difference if you stay 
 with me just as you were before," said Nancy, at a loss 
 to understand the old woman s position. 
 
 " No, honey-chile, der s heap o differ nce. Now I 
 stay long o yo allers, cause I se free nigga, an I work 
 for yo ; an bimeby I min yer little babbies for yo . 
 An I live an die happy ole woman, cause I se free." 
 
 " And what s the difference between that and being 
 my slave ? " inquired Nancy with a smile. 
 
 " Heap sight differ nce. When yo marry, honey- 
 chile, yer mas r might want ter sell me South Vay from 
 yo , an yo couldn t do nuffin for ter help me, jess as yo 
 po mammy couldn t do nuffin for ter save my little 
 babby girl. But now I se free nigga, I stay long o yo 
 allers, an can t nebber be sole South." 
 
 Nancy s eyes filled with tears when she fully under 
 stood the train of reasoning which was actuating her 
 old nurse. 
 
 " Are you quite sure you shall want to stay? " she 
 said. " By and bye it may be different, and you will 
 want to go away." 
 
 " No, no; Aunt Monin nebber go. Lordy, chile, po ? 
 ole Aunt Monin ud be lonely in heaven without her 
 honey-chile was dar too." 
 
 She flung her arms around her foster child and 
 kissed her passionately. Mother love could not be 
 stronger than was the affection which bound Aunt 
 Monin to the white fosterling who had been given to her 
 to replace her own lost child. 
 7 
 
92 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 Fully determined now upon her course of action, 
 Nancy was sufficiently acquainted with the feeling of 
 her neighbours to know that she must keep her plans to 
 herself. If it once got abroad that she was going to set 
 her negroes free, a storm would be raised that might 
 very possibly result in driving her out of the country 
 and them into deeper bondage down South. The great 
 fever heat of the war was rising to the country s brain, 
 and the patient was restless and turbulent. Nancy 
 was already a suspected person, and she had to act with 
 a degree of caution and secrecy very foreign to her na 
 ture and to her age. She did not dare talk over her proj 
 ect with any one, not even with Aunt Monin. If once 
 the negress heard of what she intended, there was an 
 end of secrecy. She must keep her own counsel until 
 the last moment, and not let them know they were 
 bound for Kansas until they were on the point of start 
 ing. Then she might dare tell them, for their own 
 sense of personal implication in a dash for freedom 
 would teach them to be quiet and not to jeopardize 
 their chances by premature boasting. But until that 
 moment arrived she must keep her plans to herself. 
 
 Another reason why Nancy wished to leave the 
 country was the fact that James Harte was still in it. 
 Of all her admirers he was the most persistent and the 
 one she found it hardest to deal with. He was a fierce- 
 tempered, wild young fellow whom every one dreaded, 
 and one whom she emphatically wished to keep at arm s 
 length, and he was just the one who pushed himself into 
 her life whether she would or no. He was brave to 
 recklessness, with that courage which has given an evil 
 reputation to the men who first peopled the new terri 
 tories. He was a law unto himself, and he enforced his 
 law by his personal courage. Nancy was a courageous 
 girl, but she sometimes felt fairly afraid of James Harte. 
 She knew the day would come when he would ask her to 
 
AUNT MONIN S FREEDOM 93 
 
 be his wife. She knew also that she would refuse him, 
 and her heart beat with apprehension to think what 
 might follow then. He had not in so many words de 
 clared himself yet, but he had done so in deeds, and 
 Nancy could not possibly remain blind to the motives 
 which brought him so frequently to her lonely house. 
 He had constituted himself her protector, as it were, and 
 used to look in at all times of the day just to see if she 
 was safe, he said. He was genuinely in love with her, 
 and was also very uneasy about the defenceless position 
 in which she now found herself. 
 
 " Nancy, you hadn t ought to stay here alone. It 
 isn t safe," he said one day, not for the first time by any 
 means. 
 
 " I don t think any harm will come to me," she re 
 plied, with an apparent confidence that was not alto 
 gether consistent with the state of her mind, and was 
 certainly not justified by the state of the country. 
 
 " Just fancy now, if another of those Jay-Hawk 
 raids should come this way. You can never know when 
 they ll come, nor where they ll strike." 
 
 " I should free my slaves at once and welcome," said 
 Nancy with some exultation. " The Jay-Hawkers 
 wouldn t attack defenceless women." 
 
 " Jay-Hawkers are no better than regular bush 
 whackers, and downright scoundrels too," said Harte 
 in reply. " I shouldn t think you needed to be re 
 minded that they do sometimes attack defenceless peo 
 ple." 
 
 " That was a wicked man," said Nancy in sudden 
 agitation. For all her new enthusiasm in the slaves 
 she had not advanced far enough to be able to forgive 
 her father s murderer. " I ll never believe that he 
 came only to free the slaves." 
 
 " Would you know him again if you saw him? " 
 asked Harte. 
 
94: THE JAY-HAWKEHS 
 
 " Yes, I think I should. I feel sure that I would 
 have some instinctive aversion toward him, and that 
 something would tell me if he ever was to come near 
 me/ replied Nancy. " I hope I never shall meet him, 
 for I don t like to think what I might be led to do/ 7 
 
 " Well, I should like to meet him," muttered the 
 young man. " I shouldn t have any doubts as to what 
 I should do. Now, as near as you can remember, what 
 was he like?" 
 
 " He was tall." 
 
 "And dark?" 
 
 " I think so, but I don t feel sure. There was not 
 much light in the room, and I didn t look at him. It 
 was all so fearfully quick, and afterward the room was 
 full of smoke." 
 
 " Had he any mustache? " 
 
 " I feel sure not. I think I remember noticing his 
 mouth when he first spoke," said Nancy, with manifest 
 reluctance. It was a deeply painful subject to her, and 
 one about which she never spoke unless absolutely com 
 pelled to do so. The feeling that perhaps, after all, it 
 was the falling of the curse, and that her father s death 
 was in some measure expiatory, made her all the more 
 anxious never to bring the subject before the minds of 
 other people. 
 
 " There was a coon out there in that dispute we had 
 at the Osage Fork," continued Harte, " I guessed he 
 was the man, and I sighted on him three times; but 
 every time I got the drop on him some cuss came be 
 tween and spoiled my aim. I wasn t sure I ever hit him 
 at all." 
 
 " I am glad you did not," said Nancy in reply to 
 this communication. 
 
 " What! and he might be your father s murderer! " 
 exclaimed ITarte. 
 
 " Then you see he might have been quite another 
 
AUNT MONIN S FREEDOM 95 
 
 man. I have a horror of this sort of killing going on 
 men avenging crimes on the wrong people, and it going 
 on and on until we are in a regular war, with neighbours 
 killing one another. Oh, it is a horrible thought! " 
 said Nancy with a shudder. She could not speak to 
 Harte or to any other person about that feeling in re 
 gard to her father s death which was growing upon her, 
 and which was not so much the result of thought as of 
 a morbid imagination. 
 
 " Folks are talking a lot about war round here now," 
 remarked her visitor. " They re saying tis got to come 
 to that pretty soon now. The South ain t going to 
 stand Lincoln s election as easy as some folks think." 
 
 " Then it will be the vengeance of the Lord for the 
 sin of slavery," said Nancy. 
 
 " Bosh! " said Harte vigorously. 
 
 " Aunt Monin often says the time is coming near 
 when we shall see signs and wonders." 
 
 " Land o Goshen, Nancy, you ain t going to listen 
 to the stuff an old nigger woman tells you! " exclaimed 
 Harte, with sturdy masculine incredulity. " Niggers 
 have been always hollering round and calling on the 
 name of the Lord and so forth. It seems to comfort 
 them in a way." 
 
 " Sometimes the ignorant see what the wise are too 
 blind to perceive," said Nancy in a low voice, following 
 rather the train of her own ideas than the course of 
 Harte s reasoning. 
 
 "Look here, Nancy, I ll tell you just what it is: 
 you are nervous, and low-spirited, and sad. No wonder, 
 after all you ve suffered, and living by yourself, too," 
 said Harte in quick, uneasy sentences, while his voice 
 w r ould quiver in spite of all he could do. " Don t you 
 think that it is time you had some one beside you in 
 case of need? You know all along I ve been loving 
 you, Nancy, and that you ve only got to raise your eye- 
 
96 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 lid and wink a Yes, and I d have been down on my knees 
 and grateful. You don t care for my love one bit; I 
 can see that, you never did, but maybe you d be glad 
 some day to have a man to protect you. I guess I m 
 about the best shot in this county anyhow, and there 
 ain t a man between here and Fort Leavenworth I d 
 be afraid to stand up against. Do you care about that, 
 Nancy?" 
 
 This was possibly an appropriate form in which to 
 cast a declaration of love on the Missouri border, but 
 Nancy could hardly repress a smile as she answered: 
 
 " I know you are a brave man, James, and no wom 
 an could want a braver; but I m not in a mind to 
 marry." 
 
 " But think what would become of you here! You 
 absolutely can t live here, slap on the border almost, 
 without a man to draw a trigger for you/ urged the 
 young man with vehemence. 
 
 " Perhaps I shall go away." 
 
 "What for?" exclaimed he in dismay, not at all 
 relishing this way out of the dilemma. " You were 
 born and reared here. Why should you wish to go 
 away? " 
 
 "Why not? Folks are always moving. I should 
 like to go somewhere else, I think." 
 
 " I couldn t bear to think of it. You mustn t, 
 Nancy," said Harte anxiously. 
 
 " Mr. Oliver said if I didn t change my opinions the 
 men would come and turn me out of the country," said 
 Nancy very unguardedly. 
 
 "Damn them, let them try it!" exclaimed Harte, 
 furiously; " I ll shoot every man jack of them, begin 
 ning with Oliver." 
 
 Nancy sprang startled to her feet. 
 
 " How dare you make such a threat! " she asked in 
 dignantly. "It is this wicked, wicked taking of life 
 
AUNT MONIN S FREEDOM 97 
 
 that is going to bring a curse down upon our land. You 
 think it is nothing to kill a man! " 
 
 "There ain t nothing else for it, oftentimes/ an 
 swered Harte, with unaffected Western philosophy. 
 
 " I don t think it is ever the thing to do," replied 
 Nancy, with an earnestness derived from her personal 
 experience rather than from any careful course of rea 
 soning. 
 
 " I ll do whatever you say, if only you ll marry me," 
 said the young man, with the promissory lavishness ha 
 bitual with one suffering from the passion of love. 
 " You can make me what you will. If you ll marry me, 
 I ll settle down and work a farm, and won t sight a gun 
 on anything with two legs excepting buzzards. If you 
 won t, I ll turn bushwhacker, by thunder, and raid Kan 
 sas as long as I can level a rifle." 
 
 " Is this a threat, Mr. Harte? " asked Nancy stiffly. 
 
 " You girls would drive a man clean crazy with your 
 tormenting ways. Then, when he don t know what he 
 is saying, you turn on him like that," said Harte, trying 
 to bring his furious temper under control. 
 
 " I don t think I ever acted unkindly to you," said 
 Nancy, not without some show of feeling. 
 
 " No, you never did. You were always the nicest 
 girl I ever saw or heard of, but can t you understand? 
 I want you to marry me," he ended, lamely enough, but 
 with a good deal of pathos nevertheless. 
 
 " No, James, I can t," she said as gently as she 
 could, and yet with unmistakable firmness. 
 
 " Won t you change? Girls often do," said he, look 
 ing at her longingly. 
 
 " No, I sha n t change. That is my answer. Try 
 and forget it all, and you will meet some other woman 
 that you will love better," she added, with the usual 
 futile attempt at consolation which women offer under 
 these circumstances. Fortunately she did not volun- 
 
98 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 teer to be a sister to him. Harte s wild temper broke 
 out at what he could not fail to see was a final answer. 
 
 " Then I don t care what I do. I ll go straight to 
 the devil, and you ll have the satisfaction of knowing 
 it is all through your doing/ said he savagely. 
 
 :( Then you would have gone all the same, no matter 
 what had been my answer," replied Nancy, her melting 
 mood quite dispelled by his wild words, and her temper 
 rising too. 
 
 You could have made a good man of me if you had 
 tried; now you ll see what you ve done," said he as he 
 left the room. He flung himself upon his horse and 
 rode furiously away, leaving the young girl half fright 
 ened and wholly angry. A man had no right, she 
 argued to herself, to try and terrify a woman into marry 
 ing him. Any man who could do such a thing would be 
 quite certain to show his violent temper to her as soon 
 as she was his wife. 
 
 Harte, of course, came no more to the farm to see if 
 Nancy were safe, and nobody else took his place of vol 
 unteer protector, for he had, as it were, driven off all 
 her other suitors by the persistence of his wooing. It 
 was very generally known that he was a man that would 
 brook no interference from anybody an attitude of 
 mind which, when backed by the newest rifle and the 
 steadiest hand in the county, was apt to create a feeling 
 of deference in the minds of onlookers. The com 
 plete isolation in which Nancy now found herself only 
 increased her anxiety to be gone out of the country. 
 She was completely out of harmony with everything 
 around her, and she did not feel that her position was 
 one that could long be retained with safety. According 
 ly, she sold her farm to her nearest neighbour, who was 
 none other than the Mr. Oliver who had been the first 
 to threaten her with the wrath of the surrounding slave 
 holders. He felt some slight qualms of conscience at 
 
AUNT MONIN S FREEDOM 99 
 
 i 
 
 having, as it were, frightened her out of the country and 
 then at reaping the benefits of her going; but this did 
 not prevent him from buying her farm at considerably 
 less than its real value and urging her to accept the offer, 
 because nobody was likely to bid anything for it, so he 
 told her. Nancy closed the bargain with him and be 
 lieved what he said until two other men offered her bet 
 ter terms, when, however, it was too late for her to ac 
 cept them. 
 
 There was a dreary auction at the old house the 
 second week of the New Year, when all the neighbours 
 came and ransacked the place, and the auctioneer 
 cracked jokes, as it is his class privilege to do, offering 
 old pots with holes in them to anxious housewives, and 
 recommending them highly for their fascinating capa 
 bilities of letting the water run off the beans without 
 the trouble of taking up the lid and emptying the pot. 
 
 There is nothing so dreary as an empty house after 
 an auction has cleared away everything that had made 
 the four walls look friendly and homelike. The bare 
 ness and discomfort of everything combined with the 
 half -lost sense of familiarity are doubly painful. The 
 rooms are empty and re-echo to our loitering steps with 
 harsh coldness; the passages are full of wailing draughts 
 that seem to mock our mourning with their long-drawn 
 sighs. Visions of past hours of pleasure and ease rise 
 suddenly before us with startling clearness, peopling the 
 empty spaces with the vanished forms of friends who 
 will never again occupy the familiar places. The genial 
 fireplace, where the lightwood used to leap up in glint 
 ing flames amid a storm of sparks, is cold and black, 
 frowning at us with its sullen overhanging mantelpiece. 
 The home is dead, leaving only the corpse of the house 
 behind to remind the sorrower of happier days. We 
 look sadly upon the corpse and think with aching hearts 
 of how fair the home had been. 
 
100 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 It was Nancy s own wish to leave her native State 
 and to begin life anew in Kansas, but when the actu 
 ality of her wish was ripe for accomplishment she was 
 full of grief and despair. She had lived all her life in 
 that home, and although America is too new a world for 
 its children to have taken very firm hold of it with the 
 tendrils of their affections, still, even there, people, if 
 not bitten by the mania of moving, do feel a warm at 
 tachment to the scenes of their childhood. The poor 
 girl sat on a heap of cornshucks in the dismantled sit 
 ting room and wept bitterly. 
 
 " Honey-chile, de wagons is all ready, an de chillun 
 is wrap up in de warm quilts an de buffalo robes, an dey 
 is all dar waitin ter set out. Come long, chile, we mus 
 be gwine." 
 
 " Aunt Monin," sobbed Nancy, " my heart is 
 broken. I haven t got any home left, and nobody to 
 care for me in this wide, wide world." 
 
 " Chile, de Lo d s lookin down pon yo dish bressed 
 minute, an we s all gwine ter set out for de promise 
 Ian ." 
 
 Aunt Monin was radiant with joy and tried to start 
 a chorus of Glory, halleluiah! but none of the other 
 negroes responded. They remembered that other set 
 ting out for the Eiver Jordan when they had lifted up 
 their voices and sung; and they remembered, too, what 
 had befallen them on that fearsome journey toward the 
 promised land. So they were mute now when Nancy 
 climbed into the foremost wagon and gave the signal 
 for the departure. A little caravan of three canvas- 
 covered wagons left the farm and disappeared down the 
 road through the bare trees. At the fork the young 
 girl looked out for one last sight of the home where she 
 had passed all her life, but her eyes were blinded with 
 tears, and she did not see the house, only a blurred shape 
 bewilderingly glancing beyond the leafless trees. 
 
AUNT MONIN S FREEDOM 101 
 
 Shortly afterward they met a man with a rifle on 
 his shoulder, walking down the road in an absent- 
 minded way. He did not seem to notice the wagons, 
 but walked on until he was almost under the noses of 
 the horses. 
 
 " Jah, mas r, won t yer give us room? " called the 
 driver of the first wagon, and the voice seemed to startle 
 the absent-minded pedestrian. He looked up like one 
 bewildered, and, realizing that he was in the very middle 
 of the road, stepped to one side until the wagons had 
 passed. Then he again went forward, looking neither 
 to the right hand nor to the left, but walking like one 
 in a dream, until he too came to the fork. Then he 
 awoke with a start and gazed along the road at the de 
 serted house, as if he expected some fearful object to 
 rush out and confront him. But what fearful object 
 could come out of an utterly deserted house, unless it 
 was a fearful memory? 
 
 And so the stranger stood gazing as he leaned on his 
 rifle, while the wagons crept farther and farther away 
 on their journey toward the land of the free. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 A SUSPECT 
 
 THE recollection of that sunny afternoon in October 
 rose up so clearly in Beaton s mind as he stood gazing 
 at the house where he had learned his first lesson in Jay- 
 Hawking that he was almost unable to shake off the 
 feeling that this was a part of the same terrible day. 
 He looked at the bare trees to prove to himself that a 
 long time had elapsed since he was here before. Then 
 they had been in all the glory of autumn tints, gold and 
 crimson at least, in the morning he had thought they 
 were golden yellow, but afterward they all became crim 
 son and blood red now the trees were bare and the 
 brown earth was dull and scentless, wrapped in winter 
 slumber. The sounds and voices of the woods were 
 stilled. No wee chattering creatures in fur or feather 
 fluttered among the branches or pecked at the tree 
 trunks. Everything was as still as death. Even the 
 house before him looked silent and deathlike as the 
 young man walked slowly toward it. There was no 
 sound either of man or animal as he reached the bars, 
 and his footfall upon the veranda re-echoed loudly in 
 his ears. He knocked at the door, but no one answered. 
 He raised the latch and looked in. The room was bare 
 and comfortless, not a sign of life anywhere. Heaton 
 stepped into it, and then in a flash he felt, rather than 
 saw, that this was the room where he had stood last 
 autumn. There had sat the man in his rocking-chair, 
 102 
 
A SUSPECT 103 
 
 and there he had fallen as Heaton had fired his fatal 
 shot. He took a step forward and saw on the floor a 
 dull red-brown stain. He knew too well what that 
 must be that doleful stain that can never be washed out 
 of boards, but sinks in and lasts for years to mark the 
 spot where life blood has been shed. 
 
 " Like the stain on my heart/ 7 said the young man 
 to himself as he hurriedly left the room, closing the 
 door after him. He sat down on the first step of the 
 veranda, and let his head fall wearily 011 his hand. He 
 experienced a dull sense of disappointment. He had 
 come here upon a foolish, ill-defined errand, not know 
 ing exactly why he came, but from an irresistible de 
 sire to see again that poor girl and understand quite 
 clearly what had become of her. This was the house, 
 he knew that well enough, but the people were all 
 fled, and he would now never know anything about 
 her. Her wailing cry would then always ring in his 
 ears as the only sound her voice was capable of pro 
 ducing. 
 
 "Hullo, stranger! Eeckon yer hain t got much 
 comfort out o that house, anyhow." 
 
 Heaton started. He had not noticed the approach 
 of a man, who now stood leaning against the bars. 
 
 " No, indeed, I haven t/ 7 he replied with consider 
 able earnestness, for the words were so unexpectedly 
 true and applicable to himself. 
 
 " No, siree; it s plumb lonesome, you bet." 
 
 " What has become of the people who lived here? " 
 
 " Know em? " inquired the man, looking keenly 
 at him. 
 
 " No," said Heaton, beginning to rouse up. 
 
 " What yer come hyar for, then? " was the next in 
 quiry, very suspiciously delivered. 
 
 " I am starting on a hunt, and I thought I d stay 
 over the night here, if there had been any one in the 
 
104 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 house/ said Heaton, rapidly perceiving that his inter 
 locutor was looking askance at him. 
 
 " Seed ary head o game? " 
 
 "Not yet. Is there much about this neighbour 
 hood?" 
 
 " What kind was yer lowin ter track? " 
 
 " Deer," replied the young man. 
 
 "No, there ain t no deer" was the reply, with a 
 strong emphasis on the word. 
 
 " Or wolves? " said Heaton, hoping he was not men 
 tioning game that betrayed too great an ignorance of 
 the locality. 
 
 " No, there ain t no wolves" came the answer, with 
 the same curious emphasis which Heaton had already 
 noticed. 
 
 " Well, is there any game worth while ? " 
 
 " Yaas, we hev hed pretty tole ble game roun hyar 
 sometimes," replied the man at the bars with a most 
 exasperating drawl. 
 
 " What do you hunt, then? " inquired Heaton, with 
 some irritation at the unsatisfactory nature of the re 
 plies he had hitherto extracted from his enigmatical 
 questioner. 
 
 "Jay-Hawkers!" said he with sudden fierceness; 
 and then he closed his keen eyes until they were mere 
 slits, out of which he could survey an enemy safely as 
 through narrow loopholes. 
 
 Heaton felt that the situation was becoming critical, 
 and that it might need all his skill to extricate himself 
 from a dilemma which had ugly possibilities about it. 
 
 " I suppose this part of the country is pretty quiet. 
 You don t have any trouble here, do you? " he observed, 
 with a fine assumption of carelessness. 
 
 " We re lowing we ll keep it pretty quiet, you can 
 lay on that," was the ready answer. 
 
 " This ain t very far from Mine Creek, is it ? " next 
 
A SUSPECT 105 
 
 inquired the young man, with a view to leading the con 
 versation into perfectly safe lines. He was not as suc 
 cessful as he could have wished, for the next question 
 he had to meet was: 
 
 " Be yer goin inter Kansas ? " 
 
 " Not at present. I wanted to get the bearings of 
 the country, being a stranger here." 
 
 " That s a Sharpens carbine you ve got thar. Kan 
 sas men has em mostly." 
 
 " Ah, this gun," observed Heaton, rising from the 
 step and preparing to walk up to the man with casual 
 interest. " You ve got a smooth-bore, I see." 
 
 " Stan back thar whar you are, stranger. Don t yer 
 come nary step nigher. I don t low ary pusson ter git 
 the draw on me, an you re jess bout my best shootin 
 range now." 
 
 " Oh, very well," said Heaton contemptuously. " I 
 only wanted to show you my rifle, if you cared to see it." 
 
 " That mought be, stranger. I ain t agoin ter say 
 you ain t all on the square, but this hoss don t let nary 
 man come nigher than he can fix him handy." 
 
 Heaton backed slowly to his position on the steps of 
 the veranda and sat down again with his rifle laid on his 
 knees. He kept his eyes fixed upon the face of the man 
 at the bars, and a scornful smile lurked around his 
 bearded mouth. Keeping his eye also on Heaton, the 
 suspicious Missourian sidled off until out of range, when 
 he briskly walked out of sight among the trees. 
 
 " Precious country this! " thought the young man to 
 himself as he watched this cautious retreat, and then he 
 remembered with a shudder that he had done all that 
 one man could to add to the feeling of dread and sus 
 picion with which a Missourian would naturally view a 
 stranger that might possibly hail from Kansas. 
 
 " I swear before Heaven I ll never do another act 
 which will help to embitter the feeling between my 
 
106 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 fellow-countrymen; but if by shedding my blood I can 
 deliver my land from the curse of slavery then to the 
 last drop I ll give it! " 
 
 That was Charlie Heaton s vow as he stood in the 
 silent porch of Nancy Overtones abandoned home. 
 
 He was never then going to see this girl whose voice 
 haunted him. He could never make reparation in any 
 tangible way to her, as he had half hoped might be 
 possible when he set out on his trip, but he could make 
 vicarious atonement in some other way. The fading of 
 his fanciful dream gave the young man a sense of deso 
 lation. He did not realize until the dream had faded 
 how much his imagination had been alluring him with 
 the idea of doing something to obtain forgiveness from 
 the one whom he had most injured. Sitting on the step 
 of the abandoned house, he realized all at once how ut 
 terly foolish had been his imaginings. The severe prac 
 tical spirit of his upbringing reasserted itself, and he 
 gave over being a fanciful vapouring youth. Now, in 
 deed, that the dream no longer impeded his vision, he 
 perceived into what a serious position it had been the 
 means of leading him. He was actually carrying his 
 life in his hand. He now plainly perceived that his 
 Kansas get-up was recognised by the Missourians, and 
 he had run into this danger for what? He knew when 
 setting out that it was an expedition that would not 
 commend itself to the entirely practical common- 
 sense person, but now he stood revealed to himself as a 
 very tolerable specimen of an idiot on account of what 
 he had done. Charlie Heaton therefore came to his 
 senses on the steps of Nancy s house, and resolved to 
 behave like a reasonable being for the future, and to 
 put vague fancies out of his mind. 
 
 The first result of this reawakening of the Vermont 
 side of his character was the determination to get him 
 self out of Missouri as quickly and as safely as he could, 
 
A SUSPECT 107 
 
 and for this purpose he resolved to be exceedingly cau 
 tious. Accordingly he shouldered his rifle and started 
 homeward, deciding to make for Mine Creek with all 
 expedition. Just before nightfall he met a couple of 
 horsemen who, upon nearer observation, proved to be 
 wearing the United States uniform. They stopped him 
 at once, and he heard, to his great relief, by the first 
 words that they uttered, that he had to deal with edu 
 cated men and officers. They questioned him narrowly 
 as to where he had come from, and pricked up their ears 
 when he said from Kansas. 
 
 " How many men has Montgomery out with him in 
 his army? " 
 
 " Montgomery has no army at all," said Heaton, 
 much astonished at the question. 
 
 " We have information that he has assembled a large 
 force," said the senior officer. 
 
 " That information is very incorrect," returned the 
 young man with a smile. " I was speaking to Mont 
 gomery not a week ago, and he had not a single man 
 with him then, but was just getting along with his farm 
 work like any other settler." 
 
 " He might have got them together since you saw 
 him." 
 
 " Hardly; settlers are not so thick around the Big 
 Sugar district," said Heaton, remembering the episode 
 of Athens, London, and Oak City. 
 
 " They had a big raid last fall, when a hundred men 
 turned out and ran off a lot of negroes and killed a 
 number of Missourians," remarked the senior officer. 
 
 Heaton remained discreetly silent, not considering it 
 wise to set him right on the many points where his in 
 formation was hopelessly incorrect. 
 
 " That s an army knapsack you ve got. Were you 
 ever a soldier? " asked the younger officer, speaking 
 for the first time. 
 8 
 
108 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 "No; I bought it from a man in Lawrence," said 
 Heaton in reply. 
 
 " Ah, I knew you were a free-state man. Now take 
 a piece of advice from one who knows something about 
 these parts of the world. Clear out of Kansas unless 
 you want to be mixed up in the ugliest border war you 
 ever dreamed of. We re pretty near into it now, and I 
 can tell you these Missouri men are devils when their 
 blood is up, and you Kansas fellows are every whit as 
 bad. This isn t going to be a good spot for quiet, re 
 spectable people during the next couple of years. You 
 may bet on that." 
 
 " I dare say you are right in all probability," re 
 marked Heaton. " I shouldn t wonder if I acted upon 
 the advice in a sort of a way. I m thinking of going on 
 a buffalo hunt out toward Salina." 
 
 " A very good plan," said the officer genially. " I d 
 have you follow it out. And here s a hint for you till 
 you get safe among your buffaloes. Don t go near any 
 house if you can possibly help it, for as likely as not 
 you ll be shot from behind your back if you do. Safe 
 out of Missouri and good luck to you! " 
 
 When Heaton came to the crossing of Mine Creek 
 he saw that the waters, though by no means so high as 
 on that day when they fought and lost the battle beside 
 the river, were high enough to stop a man on foot. 
 Anxious as he was to get across, there was nothing for 
 it but to wait until some wagon came by which would 
 ferry him over. Luck favoured him; a wagon came 
 lumbering along, and a man hailed him from under the 
 cover. 
 
 " Hullo, stranger! Is the river too deep to cross? " 
 
 " I was just wondering about it myself," answered 
 Heaton. 
 
 The individual who had first spoken disappeared in 
 side his wagon, and Heaton began to wonder if he was 
 
A SUSPECT 109 
 
 going to shoot him from behind that place of conceal 
 ment. He was prepared for anything now in Missouri. 
 After a moment s suspense there appeared from the tail 
 of the wagon a wild-looking child, half boy, half girl, 
 who clambered nimbly down by the feed box and began 
 rapidly to unhitch the larger of the two horses, a big 
 brown mare, who knew her well apparently, since she 
 rubbed her nose confidentially upon the child s bare 
 head. With the utmost speed and without a particle of 
 fear the small person had the mare free of the wagon in 
 a trice, when, standing upon the pole, she stripped off 
 the harness from over the animal s tail with a most 
 professional twirl. Heaton had watched her proceed 
 ings with some amusement, wondering how she could 
 possibly get the hames and collar off so big a horse. 
 The child, however, was not at a loss as to how to pro 
 ceed. She first unbuckled the underneath strap, and 
 then, putting her foot on the knee of the mare and 
 twining her two vigorous hands in its mane, she liter 
 ally swung herself on its back, astride, of course. From 
 this point of vantage she slung the unbuckled harness 
 clear of the animal s feet and remained herself seated 
 barebacked in triumph upon the unharnessed mare. 
 
 "Well done!" exclaimed Heaton admiringly; "I 
 never saw a horse unharnessed in finer style." 
 
 The child smiled with gratification. 
 
 " The mare ain t no trouble; I can always manage 
 her. He s the bother to harness," pointing to the other 
 horse, who was still hitched to the wagon. 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " Cause he steps away when I want to put the hous 
 ing on his back, and then I fall down with it and tanglo 
 
 up . 
 
 At this moment the child s father emerged from the 
 interior of the wagon, having divested himself of all his 
 heavy clothes, and coming forth clad only in shirt and 
 
HO THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 trousers. Without a word he took the little girl s place 
 on the big mare and rode straight into the water. She,, 
 meanwhile watching with the keenest interest, placed 
 herself beside Heaton and made intelligent comments 
 upon the proceedings. 
 
 " The creek s powerful high, ain t it? " 
 
 " Yes,, it is a bad crossing." 
 
 " Guess pap ll do it an git cross on Brown Bess. 
 She s mighty cute at swimmin ." 
 
 " But see, she s stopped." 
 
 " Oh, that ain t nothin . Brown Bess is on y jess 
 smellin how deep it is. Hark how she blows an 
 spouts! " 
 
 The mare was indeed blowing loudly at the water, 
 which was over the rider s bare feet and was getting 
 deeper at every step she took. Very slowly they waded 
 across; once only the mare went down into a hole, and 
 the rider got something of a ducking. 
 
 " Land," exclaimed the child, who at once seemed 
 to grasp the situation in all its bearings, " if ther ain t 
 a hole plumb in the crossin ! Guess we ain t goin to 
 get over to-night." 
 
 But she had miscalculated the cuteness both of 
 Brown Bess and her rider, who were carefully outlining 
 that hole by means of their feet. When its dimensions 
 were made clear to the man, he and his horse came drip 
 ping back again to where the wagon stood. 
 
 " Can we cross, Washington?" asked a voice from 
 the interior of the wagon, and for the first time Heaton 
 became aware that there was a woman inside. 
 
 " We ll try, wifie," said the rider of the wet horse. 
 
 Heaton came forward and offered to help in any way 
 that he could, and in return asked for a seat over the 
 ford. The man eyed him with misgiving, especially 
 the rifle and pistols, which were the most evident arti 
 cles of Heaton s equipment. 
 
A SUSPECT 
 
 " Well, stranger, Fm a man of peace; a nonresist- 
 ant by conviction, and I don t know as I should be ex 
 actly justified in carrying so many weapons of offence 
 into Kansas, where, as I m told, there are already too 
 many." He spake with a certain sing-song cadence, as 
 if he was in the habit of speaking a good deal at meeting 
 with his eyes shut. 
 
 t( You needn t be alarmed," said Heaton, suppress 
 ing a smile with some difficulty; " my warlike arms are 
 not intended for the slaughter of anything more ter 
 rible than a few buffaloes for food." 
 
 " Stranger, I don t know as it would be possible to 
 put firearms to a worse use. I can t think of a greater 
 waste, and a wickeder waste, than killing innocent crea 
 tures in order to poison human beings," said he with 
 fervour. 
 
 "I m not going to poison anybody," answered 
 Heaton with amazement. " I am only going to get 
 food for myself." 
 
 " Buffalo meat is poison, deadly poison. I m a vege 
 tarian by conviction," returned the man impressively. 
 
 " Oh! " said Heaton with feebleness, but he really 
 did not know what else to say. 
 
 "Yes, I am, and I think for human beings to eat 
 dead corpses " 
 
 "Washington, are you going to cross or are you 
 not? " called a sharp voice from the inside. 
 
 "Yes, yes, to be sure. Stranger, just lend a hand 
 to help hoist up this load, would you? I ve got a few 
 planks, and we can put them across the body of the 
 wagon, and then we ll put the women s truck on top of 
 them to keep dry." 
 
 Washington spoke sharply and quickly, very much 
 to the purpose, moreover, as if he had roused up from 
 the meeting with shut eyes, and had opened them to 
 become a thoroughly practical man, unbothered by con- 
 
112 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 victions of any sort. The planks were rapidly made 
 into a kind of platform, upon which was reared a pyra 
 mid of " women s truck " which could not stand water, 
 such as sugar, flour, rice, etc. This being fastened 
 down, was to be held in position by Heaton, and they 
 were ready for the great effort. 
 
 There was first a fierce downward plunge through 
 the gully that cut the steep mud banks, before they 
 reached the water at all. The reins were already being 
 tightened in Washington s grasp, the whip was raised, 
 when Heaton suddenly called out: 
 
 " Where s the child? She isn t in the wagon." 
 
 " She s putting on the drag to the hind wheel. 
 Gee up, Bess! Now, then! Easy! Whoa! Easy! 
 Easy, now! " 
 
 The wagon lurched, pitched, rushed down the steep, 
 slippery gully, stopped for one second at the edge of the 
 water, when Heaton heard the sharp rattle of the drag 
 chain, then into the water with them. The little girl 
 was nowhere to be seen, but Heaton had all he could do 
 to keep his load steady, and had no spare attention to 
 bestow on her for the moment. The water rose in the 
 body of the wagon, and he realized that he was standing 
 in exceedingly cold water. The vehicle creaked and 
 the horses snorted loudly, the waters swirled by. The 
 driver stood up and yelled to his animals. 
 
 " Lord a mussy," said the wife, " my bag o flour 
 ull be wet, and it s the very best whites! " 
 
 The water remained stationary; they swayed gently 
 along, cleared safely that hole in the middle, and at 
 length began to emerge from the creek. 
 
 "Now, then, go it! Bess, Bill! Geeup! Hisk 
 now, gerree! " 
 
 You could hear the horses as they strained at the 
 collar. They were struggling up the companion gully 
 at the other side out of the river. You could hear their 
 
A SUSPECT 113 
 
 muscles almost crack with the tension, and there was 
 the child whooping and screeching at them, dancing in 
 an ecstasy of excitement under their very noses, as they 
 laboured valiantly through the sticky mud. At length 
 they stood on the top, panting, trembling in every limb, 
 and the driver jumped down to see if anything had been 
 smashed in the struggle, and Heaton jumped down too 
 to ask the little girl how she had got over. 
 
 " In the feed box, behind there," she answered, 
 pointing to a small trough fastened to the rear of the 
 wagon; " I hopped in just at the minute I took the 
 drag off, when the hind wheel was running into the 
 water." The mother felt her bag of " best whites," and 
 rinding even the bottom untouched by water gave a sigh 
 of relief. 
 
 " I shall have my sody biscuits, after all," she re 
 marked with a smack of her thin lips. 
 
 "Ugly, ain t it?" said Washington, feeling his 
 horses legs carefully one by one; "kills the critters, 
 that sort o work." 
 
 " Very hard on them indeed," replied Heaton; " but 
 you did it in fine style. Thank you for the ferry. I 
 don t know how I should have got across without your 
 help." 
 
 " You re welcome, stranger. Goin far? " 
 
 " I ve got a cabin at Keokuk. I must get there 
 some time." 
 
 "Afoot?" 
 
 " Yes; I m walking." 
 
 " Our house ain t far off, if you d like to break your 
 journey. Eh, wife? " 
 
 " Of course," said the wife, cordially re-echoing her 
 husband s invitation; "and I ll have some sody bis 
 cuits to-night, the minute we get home." 
 
 " Thank you; I ll accept with pleasure," answered 
 Heaton, to whom this hospitality was doubly welcome, 
 
114 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 since he was far from home, and had not a notion where 
 he should otherwise have spent the night. 
 
 " Mam s sody biscuits is jess plumb," said the child, 
 sitting down beside him and gathering up the reins in 
 her small brown hands, while her father dived into the 
 wagon to put on again the warm clothes which he had 
 thrown off for the anxious and difficult effort of the 
 crossing of Mine Creek. 
 
 Resisting very earnest appeals to become a vegeta 
 rian and to settle down on the next quarter section and 
 help them spread their principles, Heaton left his kind 
 hosts after a couple of days and returned home in 
 order to make preparations for his buffalo hunt. Be 
 sides being an exciting adventure, the trip was going to 
 be a profitable one as well. Food was scarce in Kansas, 
 owing to the drought of the preceding summer. It was 
 called a " famine " in excitable newspaper articles, but 
 fortunately people in Kansas did not know what a real 
 famine was, and so gave that name of terrible signifi 
 cance to the scarcity of food which had begun to make 
 itself felt. 
 
 A strong young fellow, who was a capital shot, could 
 not better employ his strength and skill than in hunting 
 to obtain food which he could easily sell at good prices. 
 Accordingly, soon after that mad expedition into Mis 
 souri, Heaton closed the door of his cabin at Keokuk, 
 and went up to Lawrence. His plan was to join with a 
 young fellow of his acquaintance, John P. Eidgway, to 
 provide themselves with a couple of teams, and to start 
 for the plains as soon as possible. Salina was their 
 ultimate destination, a place as its name indicates, on 
 the edge of that great alkali region where Nature had 
 taken heed, by impregnating the water with poisonous 
 salts, to keep man at bay, at any rate, for some time. 
 The buffaloes like to browse on such plains, for the salt 
 licks, as they are called, form inexhaustible spots of de- 
 
A SUSPECT 115 
 
 light to them, while if they take care to have a running 
 river within measurable distance of their feeding 
 grounds they can bid defiance to thirst. 
 
 One journey across the dull, monotonous prairie is 
 very like another. There is the early start in the gray 
 starlight of the winter s morning, when the horses bits 
 are so cold that the animals rear when they are being 
 forced into their mouths and one s fingers are so numb 
 that buckles and straps become endowed with a miracu 
 lous power of not fitting into each other. There is the 
 cold choking breakfast of corn bread and dried beef, al 
 most as hard to chew as a feed of oats, after which there 
 is a stiff climb into the driving seat. Hard, unyielding 
 buffalo robes are drawn about one s frozen feet, and stiff 
 ened half-dried gloves are pulled over one s awkward 
 fingers; these exhaust the possible comforts of the heed 
 ful driver. A swear or two, and the journey begins just 
 as the chill sun comes winking over a frosty horizon. 
 Then comes a long morning of endless rolling prairie, 
 trotted over if the load be light and the horses strong 
 and well fed, crawled over with a full wagon or a weak 
 team. This puts one to sleep, bobbing and nodding 
 over the reins. There is no interest, no excitement, no 
 nothing. There is not even a ditch to fall into. No, 
 nor a stone or a bush that the horses might shy at, if the 
 poor brutes faculty for shying had not been worn out 
 of them years before by hard work. 
 
 There is nothing but brownish yellow dry grass for 
 miles and miles in all directions, with a wriggling thread 
 of a road creeping along among its mounds and rolling 
 slopes a mere track, scarce to be distinguished from no 
 track, but laid down on maps and spoken of by pro 
 spective settlers and boasting land agents as (in this 
 case) the great Santa Fe road. 
 
 There is the midday halt, a time of relaxation for 
 man and beast in a long winter s journey. The sun has 
 
116 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 warmed the world. Fingers, buffalo robes, and straps 
 and buckles are limber once more and have become 
 workable. The corn bread and dried beef choke less 
 emphatically than in the morning. There is perchance 
 milk to drink with it, if a settler s house has been lately 
 passed, and there is a good long stretch to be enjoyed 
 in the yellow grass. The horses munch their corn 
 gratefully and go to sleep standing, their great heads 
 dropping lower and lower, until their noses bump 
 against the hub of the hind wheel, when they awake 
 with a start and a rattle of their harness that arouses the 
 sleepy drivers in the grass. Then there is the long 
 afternoon, the counterpart of the morning, with the 
 pleasant prospect of the dinner halt left out, to be 
 ended after dusk by the night s camp. A hot supper 
 and a fire for your feet are the great luxuries of camping 
 out, tempered by smoky food and blisters on your fin 
 gers from handling burning sticks. One hour of per 
 haps perfect enjoyment is now relished as the drivers 
 sit round the fire and smoke their well-earned pipes. 
 This is the time for good stories and pleasant talk. If 
 there is an absence of wind and snow and rain, coupled 
 with the bodily presence of plenty of brushwood and 
 sticks, a good fire may be built and a comfortable night 
 may be passed by tired teamsters with their toes to the 
 fire and their noses under buffalo robes. After the 
 night comes the morning with its repetition of dark 
 ness, cold, and the dismal work of getting under way 
 before sunup. 
 
 Heaton and his chum were good hands at camping, 
 the former because he was a healthy young fellow who 
 did not mind roughing it, the latter because he was an 
 old hand at it, and knew how to extract the greatest 
 possible comfort out of the most unpromising circum 
 stances. He could select a good camping out place 
 with unerring judgment, and make a warm dry bed for 
 
A SUSPECT 117 
 
 himself if there was an armful of prairie grass to be got 
 anywhere round. Heaton enjoyed the wildness and 
 novelty of it all, but his friend Eidgway, as soon as he 
 had provided for his immediate comfort, used to think 
 of nothing but of how much money he could make by 
 selling the meat they were going to get. 
 
 The air was full of rumours of war. South Carolina 
 had seceded, and newspapers printed in Charleston used 
 to head items from Washington as, " News from 
 Abroad." Men did not know clearly what was before 
 the nation, but the blindest could not fail to perceive 
 that a crisis was approaching which would decide a 
 people s destiny. Around their camp fire at night the 
 two young men had many a discussion about the prob 
 able course of events. 
 
 " I ll bet my bottom dollar on war," Eidgway would 
 say. He was an educated man, but his education was 
 now somewhat obscured by a heavy varnish of Western 
 thought and expression. 
 
 " I m afraid it must come to that," Heaton would 
 answer. 
 
 " Afraid! " exclaimed Eidgway, after one of these 
 customary preliminaries of conversation. "Western 
 men haven t got much to be afraid of in a thundering 
 good war, anyhow." 
 
 " But war is never good, whether thundering or not. 
 It is a terrible evil, only to be resorted to in order to 
 avert a greater." 
 
 " That may be the case with you Eastern men. But 
 see how it will work here. Prices will go up like 
 
 shot." 
 
 " Will you volunteer? " asked Heaton, not inter 
 ested in prices whether up or down. 
 
 " No, siree. I sha n t enlist, I can tell you. I ll buy 
 up all the horses I can lay a finger on and sell them 
 down at Fort Leavenworth. That s what I advise you 
 
118 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 to do too. There s a pile to be made out of that, if 
 only we have a war." 
 
 " I shall volunteer/ repeated Heaton dreamily. 
 
 " Catch me! " remarked Ridgway. 
 
 "Perhaps there ll be enforced enlistment. You d 
 be taken among the first, a strapping young fellow and 
 a good shot/ observed Heaton. 
 
 " I ll get my front teeth drawn sooner than that," 
 said Ridgway, with decision. 
 
 "What good would that do? Only spoil your 
 beauty." 
 
 " 1 couldn t bite off the cartridges. I heard a fellow 
 say at Fort Leavenworth that no man could be a soldier 
 now who couldn t bite with his front teeth, on account 
 of these new cartridges." 
 
 Heaton laughed. "You weren t born yesterday, 
 that s clear, anyway. 
 
 " There ain t no one ll take such good care of John 
 P. Ridgway as I shall, you bet." 
 
 He was not really a bad young fellow at heart, for all 
 he was so self-centred. He didn t " lay out " to be any 
 thing else than a thoroughly wide-awake Western man, 
 trying to get ahead of every other man if he possibly 
 could, but he was good-natured to his friends and was 
 not at all selfish in little things, which, after all, is what 
 tells in every-day life. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 THE BUFFALO HUNT 
 
 SALINA was a miserable little squatter town on the 
 very last limit of civilization. It would have been ut 
 terly ashamed of itself only that it looked hopefully for 
 ward to the day when it should be a proud city. It 
 never reached that day, but this failure could not be 
 expected to trouble its early aspirations, any more than 
 the prospective failure of a middle-aged man could 
 weigh in anticipation on his boyhood. Salina was 
 young, therefore she was proud and hopeful. South of 
 Salina, some thirteen miles away, rise the " Smoky 
 Hills," as lonely and desolate a place as can well be 
 imagined, but one possessed of a certain fascination for 
 travellers in the days long ago when that region was as 
 yet well-nigh unexplored. No interest attaches to a 
 low range of monotonous hills when you know exactly 
 what other range comes next, and so on and so forth 
 to the end of the map. But when Heaton went to 
 Salina the Smoky Hills were the very edge of civiliza 
 tion. Beyond them imagination and the buffaloes held 
 possession of the plains, and this was exhilarating. 
 When one morning he walked toward them and saw a 
 small ravine with some trees refracted clean out of the 
 depression in which they habitually lay he felt a keen 
 delight in the novel spectacle. The blue haze which 
 hangs over the hills and which furnishes them with 
 their name was still visible in winter, though in a less 
 
 119 
 
120 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 degree than in summer and autumn. Beyond these 
 delights of pure sentiment Salina possesses no charm 
 whatever, and after laying in a further supply of neces 
 sary provisions the hunters went forward. 
 
 A local man, a wolf hunter, accompanied them in 
 order to get their protection in return for hints about 
 the country, such as strangers might find useful. Wolf 
 hunter is a fine sounding name for one who followed a 
 mean and most unsportsmanlike trade. Never a shot 
 fired he, never a trap did he set, but merely entered 
 upon his trip with his pockets stuffed with strychnine. 
 Having poisoned a quantity of meat near some water he 
 sat down and waited. The wolves came, ate, drank, 
 and were conquered. This wholesale poisoning cleared 
 every dog out of the country as well as the wolves. 
 When man invades a new region he lays about him right 
 masterfully; trees, animals, everything is swept away 
 wholesale, until nothing remains but malarial fever and 
 the mosquitoes to reduce him to a proper sense of his 
 own relations to the universe. 
 
 Twenty-five miles was a short day s trip, but as 
 that was the distance of a certain cave known to the 
 wolf killer Heaton and Eidgway determined to camp 
 there for the night. 
 
 " It s a powerful cute cave," said the wolf killer; 
 " slep there heap o times. There ain t nothin better 
 nor a cave, mos as lief sleep there as in any cabin I ever 
 seed. There ain t no children screechin in the cave, 
 and they most allers is in cabins. Children is pesky 
 critturs for making noises." He was in the habit of 
 lying " in cache " for the wolves to come along and feed 
 on his poison meat, so the constant noise of children 
 struck him as something particularly odious and diffi 
 cult to deal with. 
 
 "Land o liberty! do you call that a cave?" cried 
 Ilidgway, when he was shown a hole in the rock where 
 
THE BUFFALO HUNT 121 
 
 a man could with circumspection stand up in one spot 
 only. 
 
 "Wai, I guess you won t git any better cave nor 
 this no, not if you scour the plain as far as Pike s 
 Peak/ said the wolf killer, somewhat crestfallen at the 
 scorn with which his cave was viewed. 
 
 " It s bigger than the wagon, at any rate," said 
 Heaton politely. 
 
 " Guess if that ar cloud come long this er way you 
 won t find the cave so bad." 
 
 They all three got into the cave and soon fell asleep, 
 as tired men do when they lie down. In the middle of 
 the night Heaton was roused by feeling something tug 
 ging at his beard. He put up his hand and caught 
 hold of a rat. 
 
 " Yah! " he yelled, having a special horror of rats. 
 At the same instant there was a flash of lightning and a 
 clap of thunder right overhead. 
 
 " What s the matter with you? " growled Ridgway. 
 " Are you struck by lightning? " 
 
 " No," said Heaton; " but there was a rat eating my 
 beard." 
 
 " What a tarnation howl for nothin ! " remarked the 
 wolf killer, wrapping his head in his buffalo robe and 
 going off to sleep again. 
 
 It thundered and lightened and rained a good part 
 of the night, but the cave kept the men dry. When 
 they saw their soaked wagon covers in the morning, 
 with the wet trickling down every rib and making pools 
 inside, the wolf killer asked, with a triumphant air: 
 
 " Wai, what d yer think o the cave now yer ve tried 
 it?" 
 
 " I wouldn t have been anywhere else last night for 
 ten dollars," said Ridgway, making the amende hono 
 rable. 
 
 " Jess so. I lowed you d fin it fust-rate when you 
 
122 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 knowed by trial what it was. I don t never say what 
 a horse is worth myself until I ve tried it." 
 
 " It s a good, safe rule to go on/ assented Heaton. 
 
 The wolf killer grinned affably. 
 
 " You ll be a-scenting them buffaloes bout sundown 
 to-morrow," he observed by way of parting advice, as 
 the young men were preparing to go their way. " Buff - 
 loes ain t af eared of nothin cept a man stan ing on his 
 hind legs. You ll have to crope up on yer belly ter git 
 inter range. The bulls is pesky critters to kill an pow 
 erful tough to eat." 
 
 " We sha n t waste a shot on a bull, I can tell you," 
 remarked Ridgway. " We ain t like those fellows that 
 jest lamm away at anything for the fun of it. We re 
 going to make money out of this business or I ll declare 
 off, I will." 
 
 " Guess you re smart nough, so I ll git, anyhow. 
 Mornin ." 
 
 He trudged off through the short yellow grass, and 
 the young men drove away in another direction, and 
 they soon lost sight of each other. 
 
 It was not without reason that the wolf hunter had 
 said they would be " scenting " the buffaloes, for the 
 first intimation that the hunters had of the proximity 
 of their game was conveyed to them by the sense of 
 smell. Dead animals in every stage of decomposition 
 were strewn all along the track they were following. A 
 great amount of buffalo meat had been taken in this 
 season of dearth, but the slaughter and waste had been 
 greater still. Animals had been destroyed by the thou 
 sand, to serve no possible good, while their rotting car 
 casses only helped to vitiate the air for miles around. 
 The buffaloes backed slowly farther and farther away 
 from the destructive advance of man, and were fully 
 sixty miles from Salina when Heaton and Ridgway went 
 forth to hunt. 
 
THE BUFFALO HUNT 123 
 
 A long dreary day of drizzling rain had to be en 
 dured before they reached the hunting grounds. Eidg- 
 way was filled with disgust. 
 
 " Unless this wet spell stops we sha n t be able to 
 save half our meat. We can t salt very much, and 
 there ll be no keeping it unless we are helped by a 
 frost/ 
 
 The outlook was not cheering from the money point 
 of view, but when they saw a dark brown line against 
 the distant horizon their spirits rose and the hunter in 
 stinct was awakened. 
 
 These were the buffaloes. 
 
 The wagons and horses were left, and the hunt be 
 gan by Heaton and Eidgway walking on their hands and 
 knees for fully half a mile. Never before had Heaton 
 covered so short a distance in so painful a manner. His 
 knees were bruised and so were his hands, his shoul 
 ders ached, and his head seemed to be bursting with the 
 pressure on the back of his neck. Several times he 
 lay flat down in his misery and actually groaned. 
 Eidgway also lay down, only he swore with vigour to 
 relieve the pressure of his feelings. Again they crept 
 forward, in single file this time so as to lesson the 
 chance of being seen, Eidgway in front with the 
 muzzle of his gun pointing forward, Heaton just be 
 hind with his muzzle pointing backward. At last 
 they got within a long-range shot, when an old cow, 
 who had been looking intently at them from a slight 
 hillock, came to the conclusion that there was some 
 thing uncanny in the curious long beast that was 
 creeping up. She gave a loud bellow of alarm, and 
 instantly the whole herd galloped off a half mile or 
 more. 
 
 "The blamed critters!" said Eidgway in disgust. 
 " Just see how spry they scoot along on all fours and 
 look at us! " 
 9 
 
124 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 Heaton lay on his back and stretched himself in 
 order to rest his strained muscles. 
 
 " I suppose we ll have to crawl after them. About 
 what is a good day s march for a buffalo hunt, eh? Two 
 miles? I don t think my knees will stand more than 
 that," he observed, looking up at the watery sky. The 
 rain had stopped, but "the ground was wet to add to 
 their discomfort. 
 
 " Now, whatever you do, mind and don t hit a bull," 
 said his companion. " They always charge when 
 wounded, and they are the deuce to manage. You 
 might as well have a tiger at you. There was a fellow 
 killed here this summer, I hear a fool of an Irishman; 
 he got his dander up shooting and blazed away anyhow. 
 The first thing he knew he hit a bull in the flank, but 
 didn t break a leg or disable him, and the next thing 
 he knew that bull was down on him like a streak of 
 greased lightning and the Irishman was gone to the 
 place where good Irishmen go, or where the bad ones 
 are sent to jest tossed clean out o life while you d say 
 Stars and Stripes. " 
 
 Again they crawled or rather wormed themselves 
 forward, single file as before, and this time they got near 
 enough for Ridgway to fire. He did so, and the animal 
 instantly lowered his head. 
 
 "Jerusalem, if it ain t a bull!" exclaimed the 
 hunter, enlightened as to the sex of the buffalo by the 
 way in which it had resented being shot. 
 
 "Lord!" exclaimed Heaton; "what had best be 
 done? " 
 
 " Lie quite still; he don t see us. He s a young one 
 and not very cute yet. He don t know what to do." 
 
 "Lucky for us!" 
 
 " You bet. Guess I ll be more careful next time," 
 said Eidgway, considerably crestfallen at his mistake. 
 
 They lay still a long time until the herd had again 
 
THE BUFFALO HUNT 125 
 
 settled down to feeding, and then they got a little nearer 
 by working themselves forward with their elbows while 
 lying flat on their stomachs. 
 
 " A quarter of a mile a week would be a good racing 
 record for this method of locomotion," remarked Hea 
 ton, with concentrated scorn. 
 
 They were now within about a hundred yards of the 
 herd as near as it was safe to get. 
 
 " Now, then, show your style. We shaVt get a bet 
 ter range than this," said Eidgway. 
 
 Heaton fired, and a fat cow fell. 
 
 Instantly the herd was in commotion. They never 
 attempted to run away, but crowded round their 
 wounded comrade and showed the greatest concern for 
 her, bellowing and making cries of distress. As she 
 fell to rise no more the bulls became greatly agitated. 
 They tried to raise her with their horns, putting their 
 great shaggy heads under her heaving flanks and doing 
 their best to prop her up and get her on her feet again. 
 
 "Poor brutes! " said Heaton, watching their futile 
 efforts with a feeling of pity. " See how distressed they 
 are! Man only is remorseless, crushing and destroying 
 everything in his relentless march toward his own com 
 fort." 
 
 Two more young heifers were shot. The bulls faced 
 round, forming a ring on the outside of the herd, bel 
 lowing and glaring in aimless fury at the invisible foe 
 that was harassing them. There was a vast amount of 
 useless courage and anger stored up in their shaggy 
 breasts, if only they had known upon whom and what 
 to expend it. Fortunately for the hunters they did not 
 know, so the men lay in the grass loading and firing 
 very slowly and with much difficulty, while the bulls 
 stamped and pawed and bellowed to no purpose. As 
 often as they quieted down and opened the line of de 
 fence somewhat, another shot, another pinging whir 
 
126 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 through the air, and another bellow of despair, told 
 that some one had fired and some one had fallen. And 
 after each shot the bulls offered again their useless help 
 in trying to raise the stricken cow, and again faced 
 round and roared and bellowed with impotent rage. 
 They did not understand that it was the firing did them 
 the harm, or they could easily have trotted out of harm s 
 way; or possibly they did understand that, but could not 
 make out where the shot came from, seeing no enemy. 
 
 The hunt, if that is the name to be given to the 
 crawl, and the snake wriggle, and the firing, had lasted 
 about three hours, when Ridgway said: 
 
 " We ve got two wagon loads now; we can t carry off 
 any more meat." 
 
 " Then in Heaven s name let us stop; I ve had 
 enough of shooting like this," said Heaton, who very 
 quickly got his fill of mere killing. " How shall we 
 drive off the herd so that we can gather up our meat? " 
 
 "Just stand up, and say Glory, halleluiah! or Star- 
 Spangled Banner, or any other tarnation thing you like, 
 loud enough, and they ll stampede straight." 
 
 So they stood up and yelled in unison, and the buffa 
 loes, at last recognising the enemy of their race, gal 
 loped off in terror, with a few wounded animals in their 
 midst, who later, no doubt, dropped in their tracks and 
 added a few more whiffs to the pestiferous air of the 
 plains where the hunters love to operate. 
 
 Two puny men standing up and yelling at a thou 
 sand buffaloes to make them run is surely a striking 
 example of the force of mind over matter. Any one of 
 those bulls could have crushed the life out of those 
 hunters, the herd with a rush could have stamped them 
 into dust in a few seconds, and yet they fled before 
 their puny adversaries, carrying away in one thunder 
 ous rush all that strength and courage with which they 
 had been so uselessly endowed. The mighty herds that 
 
THE BUFFALO HUNT 127 
 
 used to darken the prairies in the days long ago are all 
 gone, and in their place stands man, lord of creation, 
 exultingly surveying the desert which he has made 
 around him by the extermination of the wild creatures 
 of the earth. Instead of buffaloes on the prairies, as in 
 the brave days of old, we now have the domestic pig 
 wallowing in the mire and eating the putrid slush of 
 kitchen refuse; and this is civilization! Some of us 
 there are who would prefer the buffaloes. 
 
 And now there followed another scene in the pro 
 ceedings of so disagreeable a character that we had best 
 draw a veil over it, and if the veil were anything like 
 Heaton, his hands, his clothes, his hair, his boots, in 
 fact every inch of him, it would be a very bloody veil 
 indeed. 
 
 Suffice it to say that after two days of desperate hard 
 work they had all their meat safe and salted down and 
 packed in the wagons. The buffalo hides were rolled 
 up tight and placed at the bottom of the wagons under 
 the meat, while the beefsteaks, cut into long thin strips, 
 were hung all over the outside, thus ornamenting the 
 canvas covers with a gruesome fringe. Heaton s nerves 
 were none of the strongest, and he was disgusted with 
 the details of the job, but he never shirked his share 
 of the work from first to last. But when it was all over 
 and he had made a certain amount of progress toward 
 cleaning himself once more he remarked, while putting 
 his hunting knife finally into its sheath: 
 
 " Well, if there is one thing that would make a man 
 abjure the flesh and the devil and turn, vegetarian I 
 think it is a spell of butchering work after a buffalo 
 hunt." 
 
 The long homeward journey back across the plains 
 to civilization and commercial profits began under the 
 happiest auspices. The weather "had come round," 
 Ridgway remarked, as if it was a sulky person who was 
 
128 THE JAY-HAWKEUS 
 
 beginning to relent into civility again. The wet drizzle 
 had ceased, and a dry northwest wind was blowing keen 
 ly across the open prairie. The sharp wind searched 
 out the sore and bruised spots on their knees and made 
 them smart. But it was good for their load of meat, 
 and morning, noon, and night, when the load had to be 
 taken out, shifted, salted, and smelled anew, he greeted 
 the wind with many words of approval and commenda 
 tion. 
 
 " This is bully. We shaVt lose a pound of meat if 
 it lasts. We could stand a spell of yet colder weather 
 though." 
 
 And the wind kindly accommodated them with " a 
 spell." It froze at night and did not thaw by day. 
 The loads of meat did not require three shifts a day, 
 but only two. The strips of beefsteak outside got stiff 
 and rattled against the stays of the wagons in a grizzly 
 manner, " like dead men s bones," Heaton suggested. 
 
 At Fort Eiley they had their horses fresh shod with 
 frost calks. The people there urged them to stay, as 
 the weather looked like turning dangerously cold. It 
 had done so a couple of years before, when several team 
 sters, caught out in a snowstorm, had been frozen to 
 death. But the young men felt equal to withstanding 
 any amount of cold themselves, and they were anxious 
 to sell their meat. They were advised in any case to 
 avoid passing through the Pottawatomi reservation, 
 since there the houses were few and far between, and it 
 would be hard for them to obtain shelter. So, at the 
 cost of making their journey somewhat longer, they de 
 termined to take the southern and more settled route to 
 Lawrence. 
 
 This route would take them through such classic 
 and poetic spots as Mountain City, Alma, Brownsville, 
 Cow Corner, Carthnge, and Big Spring. At each of 
 these centres the blacksmith at Fort Riley could vouch 
 
THE BUFFALO HUNT 129 
 
 for the existence of log cabins, whether inhabited or 
 not he could not undertake to say, not having " hearn 
 tell " of the district for some time past. It was not the 
 season for much traffic. 
 
 The northwest wind blew keener and keener, the 
 meat was frozen into solid chunks and had not to be 
 shifted at all, which saved them a good deal of labour, 
 but the creeks were beginning to freeze, and they had 
 to break the ice with axes before crossing, which was 
 wet and miserably cold work. The ice, it should be 
 observed, was in the intermediate stage of freezing, 
 thick enough to make the horses slip and run the risk 
 of breaking their legs, and yet not thick enough to bear 
 the weight of the wagons. 
 
 " Guess we ll have earned our money when we get 
 it," observed Eidgway, as he sat on the frozen ground 
 and pulled off his fast-freezing boots in order to put on 
 a dry pair. They had just passed a very nasty creek, 
 neither water nor hard ice, but an abominable compro 
 mise between the .two, through which they had to hack 
 their way up to their knees in freezing water. 
 
 "It s all right if only it doesn t snow," observed 
 Heaton, looking anxiously at the sky. " Out in Ver 
 mont we used always to look for snow with a lead-col 
 oured sky like that in winter." 
 
 " Gol dern it, if it snows we ll never get through," 
 said Ridgway, looking anxiously at the leaden sky him 
 self. " We re eight miles from Carthage by my reckon 
 ing. Let s push ahead and cross the last creek by day 
 light, anyhow. Once we get out of the bottom land we 
 can smell our way to Carthage, I reckon." 
 
 So they pushed along as fast as tired and heavy- 
 laden horses could, and got through the creek by the 
 last shreds of daylight, just as a few fine flakes of snow, 
 or rather snow dust, began to be driven against their 
 faces by a fierce northwester. 
 
130 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " This is one of those Dakota gales the Indians tell 
 about, saying they bury men as they walk and smother 
 buffaloes in their tracks. If Carthage don t show up 
 pretty smart we ll go the way of the buffaloes, I reckon." 
 
 Eidgway was clearly anxious, and made all possible 
 haste, but it was slow work, since the long hill out of 
 the bottom lands had necessitated their doubling teams 
 to draw up the wagons. One load was standing safely 
 on the high prairie, and the four horses had brought up 
 the second nearly to the top, when the snowstorm be 
 came rapidly thicker. 
 
 Heaton was in front with a lantern trying to make 
 out the track, when a sudden snap and a stoppage of the 
 horses betokened disaster. 
 
 "What s the matter?" he shouted through the 
 storm. 
 
 " Don t know yet," said Eidgway, climbing down out 
 of his driving seat and beginning to feel among the 
 horses and the harness for evidence of the nature of the 
 disaster which had stopped them. Heaton came up to 
 him with the lantern. 
 
 " The pole, by Jupiter! " exclaimed Eidgway. 
 " Broken clean across." 
 
 " That s a pretty how d ye do," said Heaton. 
 " What s to be done now? " 
 
 " We ve got to leave this wagon here in its tracks 
 and go ahead with the other to Carthage. Guess we ll 
 make it to-night with four horses." 
 
 " And leave this wagon here in the road! Suppose 
 other folks come by there ll be a collision," remarked 
 Heaton. 
 
 " Guess there ain t no other fools cavortin around 
 to-night cept ourselves," replied Eidgway with a laugh, 
 as he began to get his horses free from the disabled 
 wagon as fast as he could. 
 
 Meantime the snowstorm was becoming every min- 
 
THE BUFFALO HUNT 131 
 
 ute more severe and the cold more biting. It was with 
 difficulty that they were able to make out the other 
 wagon in the blinding storm. The horses got fright 
 ened, and, tired as they were, would hardly stand to be 
 hitched up. 
 
 " We ll freeze if we attempt to camp in such a gale. 
 We must try for Carthage. It lies due east two miles 
 from the crossing," said Eidgway, setting his teeth and 
 roaring at Heaton, who was carrying the lantern in. 
 order to show the track more clearly to the driver of the 
 wagon. The storm and the darkness increased. The 
 fringe of frozen meat rattled furiously upon the wagon 
 top, almost frightening even Eidgway by the tremen 
 dous bumps it gave. The driving snow seemed like a 
 dust storm, so fine and dry as almost to smother them. 
 The horses commenced to cough and sneeze, evidently 
 suffering also, and the youngest began to pant as if 
 choking. Suddenly the wagon went plumb down on 
 one side and stuck. Eidgway got down again and 
 Heaton came back. 
 
 " Another pole gone? " 
 
 " No. Got into a ploughed furrow, by gosh. Car 
 thage ain t a pistol shot from here, if we can only find it 
 in this blamed storm." 
 
 " If it s only a pistol shot away a pistol shot will 
 rouse it up. I ll fire into the air." 
 
 " Tain t a bad notion. Blaze away." 
 
 Heaton fired, and very faintly across the storm there 
 came the sound of a dog barking. 
 
 " Hark! That s it," said Eidgway. " It s straight 
 ahead." 
 
 " I thought it came from the right," said Heaton. 
 
 " Try the horses. My gray mare s as good as a com 
 pass. You bet she knows straighter than we do where 
 that bark came from." 
 
 When the horses were unfastened from the wagon 
 
132 TEE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 the young men mounted the best of each pair, and the 
 gray mare was given her head. She started straight off 
 nearly in the direction they had come, heading against 
 the storm, with ears laid back on her neck and head 
 down. The others followed, snorting and coughing, 
 much frightened at the howling storm. 
 
 " The mare s at fault," said Eidgway, pulling her 
 up and ranging alongside of Heaton. " We ve lost the 
 scent and the wagon too. We ll freeze here inside the 
 ploughed land less we can make that blamed cabin." 
 
 " I ll try another shot," said Heaton, suiting the ac 
 tion to the word. A much louder bark answered the 
 signal, and a faint flashing light seemed to flicker be 
 fore them. The gray mare whinnied. 
 
 " By Jupiter! she s right as usual," cried Kidgway 
 triumphantly. " Good old girl! " 
 
 Not twenty yards away they came upon a fence. 
 The barking grew louder, and mingled with it and the 
 roar of the storm there came a faint cry, as of a woman s 
 voice. Another flicker of light. 
 
 " They re signalling to us," said Heaton, and raising 
 his voice he gave a long-sustained, high-pitched Swiss 
 yodel note, which sounded over the roar of the storm, 
 and was answered by a chorus of scr earnings. 
 
 " Dish way, Sambo; dish ere de bars! " yelled the 
 voice of an unmistakable negro. 
 
 " I never knew a darky act so well the part of an 
 angel of light," said Ridgway, coming up to the bars 
 which a pair of young negroes were letting down with 
 energy. 
 
 " Dat yo , Sambo? " they asked. 
 
 "Where s the house?" asked Ridgway in reply. 
 " Show us the way." 
 
 The lads led the men and their horses toward the 
 glimmering light. The door was open, and a darkly 
 outlined figure stood there. 
 
THE BUFFALO HUNT 133 
 
 " Can you take us in, stranger? " asked Ridgway. 
 " We re caught by the storm, and we ve got four horses 
 here." 
 
 " Certainly," answered a sweet girlish voice. " It s 
 an awful night for man or horse. Pete and Moses, go 
 and show them the stable. There is room for four 
 horses and there is some fodder. Isn t Sambo come? " 
 she added to Moses. 
 
 " No; only white gen lemen," he replied. 
 
 " Thank you, madam," said Heaton. 
 
 " Thank your stars we re out of that storm. We d 
 have all been dead by morning," remarked Ridgway to 
 Heaton as they followed, under the guidance of the 
 darkies, to where there was shelter to be obtained for 
 their exhausted horses. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 HELP AT NEED 
 
 IT will be remembered that when Nancy Overton 
 sold her farm in Missouri it was with the object of pro 
 ceeding into Kansas and settling on free soil along with 
 her negroes, to whom she would thereby give their 
 freedom. She was only a young and generous girl, very 
 ignorant of the world and its ways, following in a very 
 impulsive manner her own high purpose without much 
 forethought. For example, had she been wise, or 
 " cute," as the expression goes, she would never have 
 gone to settle in the dead of winter, but would have 
 waited until the spring opened. But she never thought 
 of that. She was eager to be gone with her slaves and 
 save them while yet there was time. 
 
 The journey took more money than she had ex 
 pected, so that she found herself unable to buy a farm 
 large enough for her small colony near Lawrence. 
 Prices were too high. People told her, however, that 
 she could get land very cheap a little way west, and in 
 particular at a spot called Carthage. There the soil was 
 good, the river valley gave convenient timber, and alto 
 gether it was represented as an ideal spot. So Nancy, 
 with her negroes, departed out of Lawrence and went 
 to Carthage. Sure enough she found a little cluster of 
 cabins of various sizes, and among them one very toler 
 able house. The place belonged to a man who was eager 
 to sell. He had had ague for eight weeks, and so had 
 134 
 
HELP AT NEED 135 
 
 his family; they were indeed mere shaking skeletons. 
 Nancy quickly concluded the bargain, buying the land, 
 farming implements, and a few gaunt specimens of 
 cows from the sickly owner. She paid very nearly all 
 the ready money she had, and was obliged to throw in 
 one wagon and a pair of horses besides. Into this 
 wagon the late owner got. and drove away, leaving Nancy 
 the sole owner of the aspiring town of Carthage, with 
 the land thereunto appertaining. 
 
 There were several log cabins collected around the 
 house, and into these Nancy apportioned her negroes, 
 some twelve souls in all, including the children. Now, 
 twelve people, even if their skins be black, eat a good 
 deal, and before she had been many days in her new 
 house Nancy realized that she had not enough corn on 
 the premises to keep them going for a week. She dis 
 covered to her horror that the corn stacks, which she 
 had bought standing, and which looked fine enough, 
 had been burrowed into and were almost skinned of 
 their ears of corn. She had never properly calculated 
 either the food supply or the trickiness of a Western 
 farmer, and the vender had not reminded her of her 
 omission. The Carthaginian indeed, true to his name, 
 had displayed a veritable " Punic perfidy." The coun 
 try round about was bare of inhabitants. They had fled 
 from the wrath to come in the shape of scarcity of food, 
 which was likely to become greater and greater as time 
 went on. Tecumseh, the nearest town, was seven miles 
 away, and was too busy with its own a.ffairs to be both 
 ered with a young woman and a parcel of freed negroes. 
 
 These poor creatures were not much consolation to 
 their somewhat quixotic mistress, at least with the ex 
 ception of Aunt Monin. They had of course no self- 
 dependence, but expected to be fed regularly, as they 
 had been accustomed to be fed in Missouri. They were 
 satisfied with corn bread, but there must be enough and 
 
136 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 to spare of that. At her wits end to know what to do, 
 Nancy had sent her eldest negro, a youth of about 
 seventeen, Sambo by name, and by nature the wildest 
 coon that ever capered, into Tecumseh, to try to ex 
 change a pair of horses for a load of corn. She directed 
 him to go to a merchant with whom she had had some 
 dealings, and implored the latter to attend to this busi 
 ness for her, as they were starving. Sambo had been 
 gone two days, and there was no news of him. Nancy 
 began to perceive that she should have gone herself into 
 Tecumseh, and not have deputed a negro boy to under 
 take such an important piece of business; but she was 
 busy overseeing the cutting up of some logs which had 
 to be obtained by dismantling an old log cabin which 
 they did not immediately require. It was heavy work, 
 which the negroes always shirked unless she was look 
 ing on and lending an occasional hand, and since their 
 fuel for the winter was to be obtained that way and no 
 other, it was important to keep it going. 
 
 The weather had become exceedingly cold. The 
 negroes shrivelled up and were well-nigh useless, so she 
 brought them into her own house in order that a single 
 fire might suffice to warm them all with the least pos 
 sible expenditure of the precious logs. They had 
 passed a long and anxious day, with very little to eat, 
 when the snowstorm came on, and poor Nancy s heart 
 sank within her. Darkness, and no Sambo and no corn 
 what was she to do ? There was only a very little meal 
 left in the bag, scarcely enough to give one whole pone 
 to each person, and three pones per diem with plenty of 
 milk was the minimum upon which a negro could well 
 live. 
 
 The milk, which was scarce, was given to the young 
 est children, and Nancy, declaring she did not feel 
 hungry, sat down in a corner of the room, buried her 
 face in her hands, and wept. She had meant well, but 
 
HELP AT NEED 137 
 
 her good intentions seemed all turning to evil. She 
 had meant to act a noble part, setting her negroes free 
 to begin a fresh life, unbranded by the curse of slavery, 
 but all she had done was to bring them from plenty into 
 famine and possible death upon the snow-driven prairie. 
 Her heart turned longingly back to that cosy home in 
 Missouri, and she sobbed aloud. 
 
 " Chile, what yo pinin bout? " said Aunt Monin s 
 voice at her ear. 
 
 " All my life is a failure, and I don t know what to 
 do," said Nancy, helplessly raising her tear-dimmed 
 eyes to her old nurse s face. The other negroes were 
 lying, and squatting, and sitting around the fire in vari 
 ous attitudes of warmth and content. They were talk 
 ing together in low, subdued tones under the awe-in 
 spiring presence of " Miss Nancy," upon whom they 
 still looked with a species of distant reverence. 
 
 "Yo jess put yo trus in de Lo d, my precious 
 honey-chile. He comfo t yo in yer fliction." 
 
 " He will not feed us, Aunt Monin, if we can t get 
 corn," was Nancy s melancholy answer. 
 
 " De Lo d he sen food out o de storm, as he sen 
 manna in de wil erness, ter feed his chillun," said the 
 old woman, a sort of religious frenzy lighting up her 
 face and making her eyes flame. 
 
 " Jess look yonder at young ole Carlo pup, he done 
 scent suthin! " cried one of the young darkies at the 
 fire. They all jumped up as the big yellow dog went to 
 the door and seemed to listen and sniff under the sill. 
 
 "See dar now!" cried Aunt Monin, with exulta 
 tion. "Dat s Sambo a-comin home wid de corn. 
 Glory, halleluiah! " 
 
 " Open the door and show a light. Get a torch of 
 pine wood. It is dark outside," said Nancy. 
 
 They opened the door, and a swirl of snow came in 
 through the opening, although it was on the south side, 
 
138 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 and therefore somewhat sheltered from the full fury of 
 the gale. 
 
 " Lordy, oh! " cried one of the darkies, driven back 
 in alarm; " dat ar Sambo he git snowed up in de drif ." 
 
 " Take the dog out with you and listen/ said Nancy. 
 
 " Don t yer go for ter shut de door! " cried the lad 
 in an extremity of terror, shaking from head to foot 
 from the combined effects of fright and of cold. 
 
 " Yo , Pete, yo p ison lazy nigga, yo come back in 
 hyar. I go long o dat dorg an bring Sambo in. De 
 Lo d done hearn de voice o de widder an de orphing," 
 said Aunt Monin in a state of extreme exaltation and 
 excitement. She was on the point of stepping straight 
 out just as she stood in her thin cotton frock, when 
 Nancy hastily wrapped her in a huge quilt, head and all, 
 merely leaving her eyes uncovered. 
 
 " Don t venture a single step beyond the corner of 
 the house," she urged upon the old woman anxiously, as 
 the latter left the room. 
 
 The instant the door was opened the dog gave a loud 
 sharp bark. 
 
 " Dat Sambo fo shu ," said Aunt Monin with much 
 satisfaction. 
 
 She went to the corner of the house and listened in 
 tently for some minutes, then she went to another cor 
 ner and listened again, bearing her ole head to the 
 storm, but all in vain; she could hear nothing save the 
 roar of the gale. 
 
 "Lan ! Dish ole nigga can t hear worth a rotten 
 corncob. I se gettin deef, dat I is, anyhow." 
 
 She was just turning back to the door when a sharp, 
 quick sound aroused even her old ears. A pistol shot, 
 and not far away either. The dog barked furiously. 
 Aunt Monin set up a shrill scream as she ran exultingly 
 back to the house. 
 
 " Dar s de help de Lo d sen yo , Miss Nancy, in yer 
 
HELP AT NEED 139 
 
 tribulation. He done got to de bars! " she cried ex 
 citedly. " Yo , Pete, an Moses, jess scoot out an let 
 down de bars so as de wagon ull git safe in. We s 
 gwine ter joice in de bundance o de Ian , an have hot 
 corn cake fo de supper." 
 
 The dog was growling fiercely, and the negroes with 
 shrill screamings and screechings rushed forth with 
 naming pieces of pitch pine in their hands, which they 
 snatched from the fire, but which the storm extin 
 guished almost as soon as they got outside. 
 
 " Shut the dog up in my room, Susannah. He might 
 frighten the horses by barking and jumping around 
 them in the dark." 
 
 Susannah put her arms around the dog s neck and 
 took him into Nancy s private room, which opened off 
 the kitchen and was reserved to her use, no one but 
 Aunt Monin ever being supposed to enter it. Susannah 
 was a gentle, vacant-eyed creature, who had never recov 
 ered the shock of her baby s death at Mine Creek. She 
 was quite harmless, however, and evinced a doglike 
 affection for Nancy. She was not unhappy, for kindly 
 Providence in crushing her with a blow had mercifully 
 laid the hand of oblivion upon her clouded brain. The 
 vacant eye betokened the vacant mind. 
 
 As we have seen, it was not Sambo with a load of 
 corn, but the two hard-pressed hunters who came to 
 Nancy out of the storm. Although her native kindness 
 of heart and the hospitality taught by Western life 
 made her receive these unexpected guests with cordial 
 ity, she was in truth grievously disappointed to see them 
 instead of Sambo, whose return she was so anxiously 
 awaiting. She could give them shelter from the storm, 
 but she could not give them food. There was no food 
 left, except that mere pittance of cornmeal, and if Sam 
 bo did not come sheer starvation stared her in the face. 
 What should she do? She shrank with nervous dread 
 10 
 
140 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 from proclaiming her destitution before these strangers, 
 but she knew that sooner or later it would have to come 
 out that she had no corn. It came out very soon, for 
 Heaton shortly returned to the house in quest of a feed 
 of corn for his horses, as his own was in the wagon that 
 was stalled in the ploughed furrows. 
 
 In the uncertain light of the nickering fire the 
 young man at first thought there was no one but negroes 
 in the room when he entered it; then he saw Nancy, 
 and, taking off his hat, said: 
 
 " I come as a beggar. Can you give us a feed for our 
 horses? " 
 
 " I would gladly, if I had any corn," answered 
 Nancy in a sad voice; " but I have none. We were ex 
 pecting the wagon with a load when you came. There 
 is some fodder in the loft over the feed troughs. Give 
 that to your horses/ Heaton thanked her and went 
 back to the stable, escorted by the faithful Moses, who 
 would have faced any snowstorm that ever blew out of 
 Dakota for the honour and excitement of following a 
 strange white man around and hearing him talk, with 
 the chance of occasionally getting in a word of his own. 
 
 One of the chances now occurred, and Moses made 
 the most of it. 
 
 " We hain t got nary ear o corn f o ter roas f o we 
 uns ter eat, mas r. We done eat de corn way from de 
 horses a ready," said he, as soon as they found them 
 selves once more under the shelter of the stable. 
 
 " Good Lord, Bidgway! these poor creatures are 
 starving! They haven t a grain of corn for man or 
 beast." 
 
 " Jerusalem! " whistled Kidgway; " we can t stir a 
 step to-morrow unless these horses are well fed." 
 
 " Oh, confound the horses! " replied Heaton angrily. 
 " I tell you the people haven t anything to eat, and 
 there s a young girl in the house, too." 
 
HELP AT NEED 
 
 "Well, I m sorry for her, so I am. This ain t no 
 place for young girls/ answered Eidgway, climbing 
 into the loft and reaching down the fodder. Too much 
 depended upon his horses for him not to make them as 
 comfortable as he possibly could under the circum 
 stances. 
 
 " This loft will be a slap-up place for us to sleep; 
 fodder keeps out the cold if you burrow into it/ he add 
 ed, always having an eye to the future. 
 
 " Say, you darkies, what s the name of your mas 
 ter? " inquired Heaton. 
 
 " We uns hain t got none, mas r." 
 
 " That s a fact, anyhow," laughed Eidgway. " This 
 is a free State, you know. I wonder at your asking the 
 question." 
 
 " I mean who owns the farm? " 
 
 " Miss Nancy, she done buy de Ian ." 
 
 " Isn t there any man about the place ? " 
 
 " No, mas r; on y we niggas an Miss Nancy." 
 
 " Land sakes, you don t say so! " ejaculated Eidgway 
 in amazement. 
 
 " Who is the young lady in the house? " 
 
 " Dat ar Miss Nancy," replied the lads in chorus. 
 
 "Lord! and she s not got any corn! " said Heaton, 
 putting out his lantern preparatory to opening the 
 door. When they did so they found themselves envel 
 oped in a swirl of choking snow dust, but the house was 
 not far, and, guided by its glimmering light, they rushed 
 across the yard. 
 
 "This is my companion Eidgway," said Heaton, 
 undertaking the duties of introduction, since he had 
 already been in the house and seen its youthful mistress. 
 " My name is Heaton, and we are buffalo hunters." 
 
 Then, of course, followed an account of the even 
 ing s disasters which had led them to Nancy s door. 
 "It was the greatest good luck I ever had," said 
 
142 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 Heaton. " To think of your dog being let out just in 
 time to bark at my pistol shot! " 
 
 "Young man/ said Aunt Monin impressively, 
 " twarn t on y luck what d rect yo ter dish house. 
 It was de han o de Lo d sen yo hyar ter save yo ." 
 
 "Well, granny, you are right, anyhow, in saying it 
 was the saving of us," assented Heaton readily. " We d 
 have stood a poor chance of walking if we d been obliged 
 to sleep on the open prairie on such a night as this." 
 
 " De han o de Lo d d rect yo ter dish house f er ter 
 save yo , body an soul," said Aunt Monin, looking far 
 away over his head and speaking in a strain of exalted 
 enthusiasm. 
 
 Eidgway gave a short laugh, Heaton was non 
 plussed, and Nancy felt a little ashamed. 
 
 " She is sometimes a little strange in her language," 
 she said apologetically to the young men. " She was 
 much excited by the storm, and was just predicting help 
 when you came up." 
 
 Whenever Nancy spoke to Heaton Aunt Monin 
 watched the pair with a curious gaze, looking intently 
 from one to the other as if she expected something more 
 remarkable than polite interchange of news between 
 total strangers. 
 
 " We are not much help, I fear," said Heaton hur 
 riedly, in answer to Nancy s observation, " only an 
 added burden, but to-morrow we shall be able to get 
 our wagon and " 
 
 " Any carpenters hereabouts? " burst in Eidgway 
 hastily, evidently with a desire to stop Heaton from 
 saying anything as to what their wagons contained. He 
 knew that if the negroes were hungry, and aware that 
 there was meat around, they would get it. Although 
 sorry for anybody who might be suffering from hunger, 
 he had no notion of giving a fortnight s desperate hard 
 work in order to feed a parcel of niggers who were noth- 
 
HELP AT NEED 143 
 
 ing to him. There were plenty of hungry people in the 
 world. It was not his business to look after them, but 
 to look out for the interests of John P. Ridgway. All 
 of which was very sound individualism, no doubt, and 
 perhaps not bad philosophy. 
 
 " No, there is no carpenter nearer than Teeumseh, 
 which is seven miles away/ replied Nancy. 
 
 " Maybe we can fix it up ourselves to hold out until 
 we get into a town. We ve got a broken pole, you know, 
 and the wagon- is stuck fast till it is mended." 
 
 " I ve a few pieces of timber; if you can mend it 
 with them you are welcome/ 7 said Nancy. 
 
 " Ain t you got no men folks about the farm? " 
 asked Eidgway, full of curiosity. 
 
 "No; I am the only white person here/ she said 
 with a sweep of her hand, indicating the negroes, who 
 had formed a circle a little outside when the " white 
 gen lemen " came in and sat down by the fire. These 
 darkies were of course immensely interested at the ar 
 rival of two white folks, but inborn curiosity could 
 hardly account for the way in which some of the elder 
 ones stared at Heaton and made signs to one another 
 as they stared. 
 
 " Lord! how do you work the farm? They don t do 
 work worth much," said Ridgway, much amazed at 
 Nancy s answer. " Didn t you raise any corn? " 
 
 " I have only just bought this place. In fact, I have 
 only just come," said she, with some hesitation of man 
 ner. " They were my slaves in Missouri, and I brought 
 them into Kansas to be free." 
 
 " Phew! " whistled Ridgway. 
 
 "You did a noble, generous act," burst ou^ Hea 
 ton. " It is splendid to hear of a person doing such a 
 thing! " 
 
 Nancy blushed up to her forehead, and the firelight 
 danced on her face glowing with the sudden rosy hue. 
 
144 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 It was the first word of commendation she had ever 
 received for what she had done, and her blood beat with 
 a quicker pulse in her veins. It is pleasant to be 
 praised, and all the more when the praise comes in an 
 unlooked-for way. 
 
 "Most folks thought I was a fool/ she said with 
 some embarrassment. 
 
 "People are so absorbed in their own mean lives 
 they can t understand a grand action like that/ said 
 Ileaton with enthusiasm. 
 
 " How ll you feed em this winter? " asked Eidgway, 
 and his question was like a cold douche upon Nancy s 
 glowing pleasure at Heaton s praise. 
 
 " I don t know," she stammered; " I m trying to sell 
 some horses in Tecumseh. I brought six horses and 
 three wagons out of Missouri. They ought to fetch a 
 good price. They are good strong horses." 
 
 "How much do you want for them?" inquired 
 Eidgway, with an eye to business. 
 
 " I don t know," replied Nancy simply. " I told the 
 negro to get as much corn as he could for them in ex 
 change. We must have something to eat, even if the 
 horses have to be sold at a sacrifice." 
 
 "When did you send him?" next inquired Eidg 
 way. 
 
 " Day before yesterday." 
 " And he ain t back? " 
 " No." 
 
 "Then he s skedaddled with your horses, an you 
 won t see him again, I guess," said Eidgway in a tone 
 of conviction. 
 
 " Oh, don t say that! " burst out Nancy with uncon 
 trollable anguish. "We are left without horses, or 
 food, or anything if he doesn t come back." She sobbed 
 aloud. 
 
 " Don t distress yourself so," said Heaton earnestly. 
 
HELP AT NEED 145 
 
 " I ve got a wagon load of sound meat not a quarter of a 
 mile from here, and you shall have it to-morrow, half an 
 hour after sunrise." 
 
 " I didn t mean to break down like that. I have no 
 right to bring my troubles forward," said Nancy with 
 her chin quivering convulsively; " only you frightened 
 me by saying Sambo wouldn t come back." She turned 
 toward Ridgway and smiled a tearful smile. 
 
 " Twill be all right. Don t you take on," said that 
 energetic young man cheerfully. " Guess I ll ride in to 
 Tecumseh first thing in the morning, an sorter look up 
 Sambo an persuade him to come back with his load of 
 corn. Niggers can mostly be persuaded with a cowhide 
 whip or a pistol bullet, if obstinate." 
 
 He was sorry for her in her helplessness, and if a 
 little work on his part could make her comfortable he 
 would give it ungrudgingly, but he wasn t such a " natu 
 ral-born idiot " as to give his meat for nothing, like that 
 " darned fool " Heaton. 
 
 At this moment the door of the inner room opened 
 and Susannah with the yellow dog came out. The dog 
 went up to the strangers to smell at their legs, but the 
 moment Susannah caught sight of them in the flicker 
 ing light she gave a wild screech, and fell upon her 
 knees in a paroxysm of weeping and praying. 
 
 " What ails the woman? " said Ridgway. 
 
 " She is not right in her mind since she lost her 
 baby. Don t notice her," said Nancy. And then, turn 
 ing to the old negress, she said somewhat sharply: 
 " Aunt Monin, take her to the loft. And you young 
 darkies go too." She was annoyed to think that these 
 strange men should see all the defects of her household 
 at the first moment. 
 
 They all left the room and went out to their cabins 
 to sleep, but Susannah s cries could be heard above the 
 storm for some minutes. 
 
146 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 The two young men also went off to their sleeping 
 place over the stable among the cornshucks. 
 
 " Wai, I ll bust, but it s the maddest house I ever 
 saw," remarked Ridgway, as he lay down and dragged 
 around him a thick quilt which Aunt Monin had sup 
 plied. 
 
 " She s the finest girl ever I saw. To think of her 
 freeing her slaves like that! " said Heaton. 
 
 " And bringing them here in the dead of winter to 
 starve," grunted Ridgway. 
 
 "They shaVt starve," said Heaton; "I swear 
 that! " 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 THE sun rose bright and clear over the storm-driven 
 prairie. The wind had sported with the snow and built 
 it into a thousand curious forms. Frozen ripples, as if 
 a sea had been stayed in its course, flowed over broad 
 flat fields; high piled ridges, with a regular cutting arete 
 on the sheltered side, had ranged themselves on the 
 edges of the hollows into immature Alps; while deep 
 drifts of finest snow, hard frozen into a compact mass, 
 filled the hollows themselves. Again, the wind had or 
 dered that certain places should be bare, and these were 
 denuded of every speck of snow as if carefully swept by 
 a myriad brooms. The fences, fortified by long-drawn 
 breastworks thrown up by the snow, presented a for 
 midable appearance, with the stakes and riders showing 
 above the rest of the rails and sticking out like so many 
 black rifles from amid the dazzling white defences. 
 Snow, even if helped by a Dakota gale, is, however, 
 somewhat at a disadvantage on the open prairie. It can 
 not build as freely and as fantastically as when it gets 
 into a land of bush and brake, of bluff and crag, against 
 which to pile up its erections. Still, it did the best it 
 could under the circumstances, and failed not to seize 
 every available opportunity. Thus the wagon of meat 
 which was stuck in the furrow land was a fine piece of 
 good luck. So the wind-driven snow played about that 
 wagon, burying first one wheel and then another, and 
 
 147 
 
148 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 then scooping up with violent gusts all the snow thus 
 collected and depositing it on the lee side. This seemed 
 so fine a notion that all during that wild night the snow 
 went on piling and building around the stalled wagon, 
 until in the morning a vast, shapeless edifice caught the 
 rays of the rising sun and threw back a thousand tinted 
 sparkles from its glittering walls. As it sported with 
 the wagon, so it dallied with the house, huts, and stalls 
 of Carthage, building, altering, and moulding to suit 
 its wayward fancy, until that little hamlet looked like a 
 collection of enormous white ant-hills, out of which 
 stuck black chimneys, with here and there a forgotten 
 peephole of a window which the snow in its wild hurry 
 had omitted to plaster up. 
 
 Into this new and fantastic world the two young 
 hunters looked with many a grunt of dissatisfaction 
 when next morning they arose out of their bed of corn- 
 shucks. The grotesque aspect of the house door, buried 
 nearly to its lintel in snow, did not appeal to their a3s- 
 thetic sense, but the fact that the door had to be dug 
 out, and that probably by themselves, appealed very 
 strongly to their physical senses by suggesting the 
 amount of muscular effort that was now required of 
 them. Fortunately, the stable door faced the north 
 west, and consequently was one of those spots which 
 the gale had concluded to sweep clean. So the two 
 men were quickly abroad and as quickly at work. 
 Pete and Moses showed them where the shovels were 
 kept and then stood shiveringly by to see the white 
 men work, as with a measured scrape, scrunch, and 
 swing they began to clear a path to the blocked door 
 way. 
 
 Nancy, too, heard the sound, so strong and so steady, 
 and so uninterrupted, and a feeling of hope and trust 
 fulness filled her heart. Here were white men on 
 whom she could rely. They were not like those poor 
 
RIDGWAY S DIPLOMACY 149 
 
 helpless negroes who never had any advice or assistance 
 to offer, but only leaned upon her, depending upon her 
 for everything, until the burden had become almost too 
 great for her to bear. 
 
 Heaton fairly shovelled himself into the kitchen, 
 and was the first to greet Nancy with a cheerful " Good 
 morning." It was the first time he had seen her in 
 clear light, so that he could really get a good look at her 
 and he thought he had never seen a sweeter face. She 
 was not the rosy-cheeked, saucy girl we saw in the sun 
 light of that October day not long passed. She was now 
 a serious pale woman, with, nevertheless, a most touch 
 ing look of girlishness transfiguring her whole aspect. 
 Sorrow and anxiety had paled her once plump cheek, 
 and all the tears she had shed had taken some of the fire 
 out of her eyes, but she was none the less beautiful for 
 that. The defiant sparkle of her glance was indeed 
 gone, but an added touch of seriousness had made her 
 face more attractive than ever. Heaton was fascinated 
 with it. 
 
 " I ve come to say I m going for the meat now," he 
 remarked brightly. " Now then, granny, put the ket 
 tle on, and we ll all have breakfast." 
 
 Aunt Monin was looking at him intently, as if ab 
 sorbed in her own thoughts. She started when he ad 
 dressed her, and said quickly: 
 
 " Yes, mas r, Fse gwine ter cook de breakfast dish 
 hyar bressed minute, I is." 
 
 " That s right. I ll go now for the meat and corn- 
 meal." 
 
 Heaton left the kitchen, and Nancy looked after him 
 with admiration, so full was he of life, energy, and re 
 source. It was a comfort to be taken care of by this 
 capable man, even though only for a single day, and he 
 a stranger. Aunt Monin was watching Nancy with 
 curious intentness for the moment or two that they were 
 
150 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 face to face, and when the young man had left the 
 kitchen she said: 
 
 " Chile, yo member how Aunt Monin prophesy de 
 Lo d sen help ter yo outer de storm an de snow an cle 
 win ? Yo see he done it, chile. Now Aunt Moniii 
 raise up her voice an speak gain. Don t yer go for ter 
 fly in de face o Prov dence an rejec de min strations o 
 de Lo d. Be meek an lowly, an member de ways o de 
 Lo d ain t like white folks ways. He venge himself in 
 his own way jess when de due time is complished. 
 Member dat, honey-chile." 
 
 Nancy was so accustomed to Aunt Monin s holding 
 forth in her own mystical semibiblical language that 
 she frequently gave her but a listless attention. She 
 saw no reason why more importance than usual should 
 be attached to her words this morning. They went in 
 at one ear and out at the other, and were clean forgotten 
 long before Heaton got back through the snowdrifts 
 with his load of food. 
 
 Soon there arose a most savoury smell of juicy meat 
 frying and frizzling over the fire, mixed with the aro 
 matic odour of coffee. Aunt Monin was in her glory 
 again. She turned the meat and sprinkled just a hint 
 of pepper over it, she set the coffee to drain, and 
 she mixed up a dozen pones and popped them into the 
 clean glowing ashes to bake, and all this she did and 
 yet kept the circle of hungry negroes in order and at 
 work. 
 
 " Yo , Pete, pull dat smokin log outer de fire. Dat 
 spile my bes pones an make em smoky, so de white 
 folks can t eat em. White folks ain t like niggas, as 
 can eat ary sort o corn bread. Yo , M linder da, wha 
 fo yo starin at de white gen lemen like yo moon 
 struck? Set de table. Git de bes white linen table- 
 clof . Spry now, else I ll whack yer brains out wid dish 
 hyar log o wood. Lize Jane, reach down de chiny 
 
RIDGWAY S DIPLOMACY 151 
 
 cups. White gen lemen don t drink coffee outer tin 
 mugs, yo ignunt black nigga. Whar yo riz? " 
 
 And so on and so forth, with an eye upon every one 
 and a threat for most. The unemployed negro children 
 were made to sit motionless, so as not to " sturb de 
 white folks/ Eidgway had fed the horses while Aunt 
 Monin was seeing about the breakfast, and he now 
 joined the expectant throng in the kitchen, stamping 
 the snow off his big boots and coming into the room like 
 a bit of a northwester himself. 
 
 "Well, that do sniff good, granny," he observed, 
 coming up to the fire. " Breakfast time most ready, 
 eh?" 
 
 "Yes, mas r, I se done cooked ebbryt ing," said 
 Aunt Monin, glowing with pride at having once more 
 good victuals upon which to expend her culinary skill. 
 
 Nancy and her two guests sat down to the table. 
 The negroes eyed them longingly, and M linder evinced 
 a tendency to sit down too, only Aunt Monin s eagle eye 
 was upon her in an instant. 
 
 " Yo m lasses-f ace nigga, whar yo gwine ? " she ex 
 claimed with wrath. " What f o yo don t wait on de 
 white folks? Yo done clean forgot yer manners. 
 M linder, I shamed o yo , I is! " 
 
 M linder slunk away abashed, and with a sweep that 
 would have done credit to a London butler Aunt Monin 
 handed a dish of smoking steak to Nancy, saying: 
 " Miss Nancy, will yo have some o dish hyar steak, or 
 maybe yo fer ter wait for de stew? " 
 
 Nancy smiled, and the white folks helped them 
 selves abundantly. 
 
 "Won t you give some to those hungry little 
 devils? " said Heaton, nodding toward the silent row of 
 little niggers, who were watching every mouthful. 
 " They look as though they could eat us with their 
 eyes." 
 
152 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " Yo niggas," exclaimed the ever-vigilant Aunt 
 Monin, " what fo yo gap in like dat? Turn roun eb- 
 bery last one o yo , an face de wall. Don t yo go fer 
 ter look roun now, else I ll slit yer tongues out an fry 
 em thout a grain o salt." 
 
 This complicated threat overawed the little darkies, 
 who turned their backs upon the too tempting scene, 
 and were perforce content to imbibe delight by means 
 only of their sense of smell. When they were not look 
 ing Aunt Monin dug out of the hot ashes her heap of 
 pones and hoecakes, skilfully blew off the flakes of 
 white ash, and piled them upon a wooden trencher. 
 She next poured the stewed meat into a great tin basin 
 and gave it to M linder. Lize Jane took the smoking 
 bread. 
 
 " Now pike," said Aunt Monin with a magisterial 
 wave of her long arm. " Don t yo show yer black 
 faces hyar gain dish mo nin ." 
 
 The little darkies fled out after the two women and 
 the smoking food to devour it in their own cabin beside 
 the house. Aunt Monin sat down with a sigh of relief. 
 
 " Dem black niggas ain t fit fer white folks ter sit 
 wid," she observed scornfully, apparently quite oblivi 
 ous of the fact that her own face was as black as black 
 could be. 
 
 " Come along, granny, and eat something yourself 
 now. You ve earned it, anyhow," said Ridgway, mo 
 tioning her to a chair near Nancy s. 
 
 Aunt Monin drew herself up with offended dignity. 
 
 " I ain t like dey ignunt niggas out dar. I se bin 
 allers in good famblies outer ole Virginny. I don t neb- 
 ber sit down long o white gen lemen an Miss Nancy. 
 I allers wait on Miss Nancy, mas r." 
 
 " And you couldn t do a. wiser and better thing," 
 said Heaton, seeing his young hostess look a little em 
 barrassed. 
 
RIDGWAY S DIPLOMACY 153 
 
 Much to Ridgway s disgust he found upon examina 
 tion that the drifts were absolutely impassable between 
 Carthage and the creek, so that he was obliged to run 
 the risk of letting his wagon stand out another day all 
 by itself on the road up from the bottom land. Com 
 forting himself with the reflection that probably no one 
 would be abroad on that road, he and Heaton devoted 
 their horses and their energies to bringing up to the 
 house the wagon which they had abandoned the night 
 before. This was a job of some difficulty, as several 
 drifts had to be cut through, and those young imps of 
 darkness Pete and Moses had to work in a way they 
 never dreamed of before. When the wagon was at 
 length brought alongside of the house they were not 
 even then permitted to rest, but were set to chopping 
 wood by their relentless taskmasters, who sawed and 
 split wood with ceaseless energy and diligence them 
 selves. Night brought them repose at last, and the 
 weary Pete, lying down in his cornshucks beside the 
 exhausted Moses, remarked, as he pulled his warm quilt 
 up level with his eyes: 
 
 " Dey white folks when dey got free niggas dey 
 work em powerful heavy. Golly, I nebber seed ole 
 mas r drive de niggas so hard as dish hyar free mas r 
 done! " 
 
 " Hope he ll break his ole neck tryin fo ter bu st de 
 wagon fru de snowdrif," said Moses, aching in every 
 limb and revengefully inclined. 
 
 The next morning, before the break of day, to the 
 disgusted surprise of the lazy negroes, those two inde 
 fatigable white men were up feeding and cleaning their 
 horses, and were actually whistling at their work, too. 
 Pete and Moses rolled reluctantly out from their corn- 
 shucks, for Ridgway came and stirred them firmly with 
 the toe of his heavy jack boot. 
 
 " Now then, you darkies, just scuttle round. It s 
 
154 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 most daylight now, an we ve a heap to do before sun 
 down this day, you bet." 
 
 They yawned, they groaned, they shivered in dis 
 gust, but they had to turn out, nevertheless, before the 
 orders of that inexorable white man. Hit or miss, 
 Eidgway determined to bring his wagon into safety be 
 fore night fell. So after a hurried breakfast they set 
 off with all four horses and such tools and implements 
 as they thought necessary in order to cut the wagon 
 out and mend the pole. Moses and Pete shovelled out 
 drifts and laboured fiercely under the eye of Ridgway, 
 while Heaton, who was very handy with tools, fixed up 
 the pole and fastened trace chains to the body of the 
 wagon so that the pull of the leading horses might be 
 brought to bear. It was late at night before the creak 
 ing vehicle came groaning and labouring up to the 
 house, and Moses and Pete declared many times that 
 they would " a heap sight sooner be slaves down in ole 
 Missouri than free niggas in Kansas." 
 
 It was with feelings of keen delight that the young 
 men looked forward to spending the evening with 
 Nancy after the hard day s work in the snowdrifts. 
 The thought of the cheerful kitchen with its bright fire 
 blazing on the hearth was not more alluring to them 
 than was the picture of the pretty young girl who would 
 be there to receive and welcome them. Women did not 
 abound on the prairies in the old days. Many cabins 
 were tenanted only by men, and personal discomfort, 
 always abundant in a settler s home, simply raged un 
 checked in the masculine abode. It is a singular fact 
 that, whereas men are very fond of their comfort and 
 are determined to obtain it at all hazards and regardless 
 of expense in civilization witness the surpassing com 
 forts of the London Club when it falls upon them to 
 work out their own notions of comfort with their own 
 hands they usually evince a most helpless inefficiency. 
 
RIDGWAY S DIPLOMACY 155 
 
 They do without things and put up with defects that 
 under other circumstances would provoke a storm of 
 protest. Again, men are strangely devoid of a sense 
 of proportion in matters of housekeeping, and show a 
 quaint disinclination to doing the smallest and lightest 
 housework, even if it is for their own immediate and 
 personal convenience. Thus, I have known a man grow 
 peas in his garden digging the ground, making the 
 drills, sowing the seed, earthing up the young plants, 
 staking them when older, down to picking and shelling 
 the pods, all with due labour and care and yet finally 
 fail ignominiously in providing himself with a whole 
 some dish, simply because he would not take the trouble 
 to boil the peas, but preferred to eat them raw instead. 
 
 Now Heaton had been doing his own housework 
 entirely since he came to Kansas; that is to say, he had 
 made his own corn bread very badly oftentimes and 
 had boiled his own bacon and beans far too little to 
 be tasty for a good many months now, and Kldgway, 
 though a much better and more painstaking cook, had 
 got thoroughly sick of his own cuisine. What an amaz 
 ing piece of good luck it was to find themselves sur 
 rounded by a womanly household, the kitchen tidy and 
 warm, the supper ready and cooked, when they got 
 in at night! This was simple bliss to men who had 
 been used to finding their house cold and dark when 
 they came home, and upon whose tired minds and 
 bodies the thought of the preparation of supper fell like 
 an additional load when they remembered that it meant 
 first getting the wood and then lighting the fire before 
 they could even think of mixing the meal and water for 
 their corn bread. And then there was Nancy. Could 
 mortals want more in the way of enjoyment as they sat 
 round the fire, stretching their limbs before the welcome 
 blaze, than to hear her silver laughter and to watch her 
 bright face changing with every moment as thoughts 
 11 
 
156 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 and pleasant fancies flitted across her mind in obedience 
 to the images called up by the genial chatter. If they 
 had one wish unfulfilled it was only until Nancy assured 
 them that she did not mind their smoking, and, in fact, 
 expected them to light their pipes, whereupon Aunt 
 Monin poked a lot of clear burning embers from under 
 the logs and told them to " set fire." 
 
 To those accustomed to the more cumbrous and dila 
 tory methods of civilization it may seem strange that 
 Nancy should have become so friendly with two utter 
 strangers in so short a space of time. Life on the 
 prairie is freed from the trammels and trappings of 
 convention. The people are simple, their ways are 
 primitive, and they quickly form ties of friendship, not 
 waiting until a thousand and one formalities have been 
 completed, as is the case in the more complex relations 
 of older communities. 
 
 If the young men looked forward with delight to 
 spending the evening with Nancy, she on her side ex 
 perienced a feeling of pleasurable excitement in expect 
 ing them. The day now held something new for her, 
 and she brightened up both physically and mentally. 
 Nancy had lived too much alone, cut off from the stimu 
 lus of outside opinion. Public opinion did not exist 
 among the slaves, at least not in a way to make itself 
 felt. She lacked this most needful stimulus, without 
 which no human being can put forth his best exertions. 
 She had lived entirely alone since her father s death, 
 and was drawing upon the ever lessening reserve of her 
 own innate energy, and she had already become con 
 scious of what an exhausting process this was. These 
 young men from the outside world brought a fresh train 
 of thoughts into her mind and created new motives of 
 action. Vanity, I trust, will not be laid to Nancy s 
 charge when it is found that one of the first outward 
 and manifest signs of this reawakening interest in life 
 
RIDGWAY S DIPLOMACY 157 
 
 was a desire to improve her personal appearance. She 
 put on a fresh frock for the evening and twisted her 
 abundant black hair into a most becoming knot at the 
 back of her shapely head, and twice put on and twice 
 took off a tiny coral spray before she could make up her 
 mind on which side of her hair it looked best. 
 
 All this while Sambo had not appeared, nor of course 
 had the load of corn so ardently expected from Tecum- 
 seh. On the third morning the snow began to show 
 signs of giving way before the combined effect of an 
 abundance of sunshine and an absence of wind. Bidg- 
 way thought he might be able to push through to Te- 
 cumseh, as the roads would in all probability be some 
 what more open near the town. Accordingly, after hav 
 ing consulted with Heaton and carefully examined his 
 firearms, he mounted his horse and rode off. He carried 
 his companion s breech-loading carbine slung over his 
 shoulder. When Nancy inquired the object of all these 
 warlike preparations, he replied that he had lived in 
 Kansas a good spell now, and he had always found a 
 first-class revolver mortal handy in any argument he 
 might have if folks was downright obstinate. 
 
 Nancy looked scared and said: " Oh please, I d rather 
 never get the horses or the corn or anything, if it means 
 some one is to be killed." 
 
 " Bless you, I ain t goin to kill anybody," replied 
 Ridgway confidently. "I m only taking these tools 
 along so as to make folks kinder reasonable." He rode 
 off with a pleasant smile and nod, leaving Nancy with 
 her heart full of dread and anxiety. 
 
 "Do you think he is a man of peace?" she asked 
 of Heaton, who was sawing up wood. 
 
 "Well, I can t say that it is against his principles 
 to use firearms. He isn t a nonresistant, you know, but 
 he isn t one bit quarrelsome. I can answer for that; I 
 know him well," replied the young man reassuringly. 
 
158 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " There is nothing so dreadful as for people to rush 
 into desperate measures, even to redress a wrong," said 
 Nancy with an expression of pain on her face. 
 
 " That s very true," said Heaton earnestly. 
 
 " Don t you think Kansas men are very quick to re 
 sort to desperate methods?" asked Nancy, balancing 
 herself on a log of wood so as to keep out of the slushy 
 snow. He was at work on the sheltered side of the 
 house, where the sun was already making successful in 
 roads on the snow. 
 
 " Sometimes they find themselves in desperate 
 straits," replied Heaton, who found this a painful sub 
 ject. " People s motives can t always be safely judged 
 by their actions in cases of emergency." 
 
 " 1 suppose so. I used to feel differently about it. 
 But I have changed," said Nancy thoughtfully. 
 
 " And so have I," assented Heaton with considerable 
 warmth of feeling. " I don t feel at all about this 
 border war as I did when I first came out." 
 
 " Oh, it is dreadful, dreadful! " said Nancy with a 
 shudder. " You don t know what it is like with those 
 terrible raids into Missouri. I have known such awful 
 deeds done." 
 
 " So have I," said Heaton, " on both sides of the 
 border. War is a grim pastime. Miss Nancy, and equally 
 hideous whichever side you look at it." 
 
 Nancy looked doubtfully at him for a moment in 
 silence. 
 
 "How do you think it will end?" she asked. 
 
 " Heaven only knows. Nations must atone for their 
 sins even as individuals do." 
 
 " If we only can be spared from war and the shed 
 ding of blood. That seems to me too terrible even to 
 contemplate." 
 
 "It could be done if there were many like you in 
 the South a slave owner bringing her slaves into free- 
 
RIDGWAY S DIPLOMACY 159 
 
 dom of her own free will and generosity," said the 
 young man, looking at her, his eyes bright with admi 
 ration. 
 
 u Hush," said Nancy hurriedly, " don t speak of it 
 like that; it was an atonement." 
 
 An atonement! Heaton wondered for what. But 
 he dared not question her further it was manifestly a 
 painful subject so he took up his saw again, and Nancy 
 went back into the house. 
 
 Meanwhile Kidgway was " bu stin fru de drif s," as 
 Pete expressed it, a slow and exhausting operation that 
 fatigued both man and horse. It was the middle of 
 the afternoon before he at last rode into Tecumseh, and 
 after some little time, acting upon Nancy s instructions, 
 he proceeded to Woodhouse s store, where she expected 
 he would get news of her man Sambo and learn the re 
 sult of his mission. So far he had followed Nancy s 
 orders, but from the moment he got into the store he 
 pursued a line of action of his own devising, very far 
 removed from the gentle expressions of anxiety with 
 which she, poor girl, had charged him. 
 
 There were several men lounging in the store when 
 Eidgway slouched in, pistol, carbine, and all, his hat well 
 on one side, and a huge cigar in his mouth. 
 
 " Guess you ll be ole man Woodhouse," he observed, 
 with a total absence of his usual modes of expression 
 and putting on a most formidable drawl. 
 
 " Yes, stranger, that s my name," answered the 
 storekeeper with the professional alacrity of his tribe. 
 
 Eidgway made no reply, but sat down on a barrel of 
 sugar and smoked away in complete silence. The men 
 eyed him with considerable interest and evident curi 
 osity. After a length of time he said, apparently ad 
 dressing a coil of rope that hung from the rafters: 
 
 "Why hain t you bought Nancy Overton s horses? 
 What s the matter with them? Ain t they sound?" 
 
160 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " I ain t agoin to say as ther s ary thing the matter 
 with them/ replied Woodhouse in a nettled manner. 
 
 Then you have bought em/ said Kidgway quickly, 
 withdrawing his eyes from the coil of rope and suddenly 
 facing the storekeeper with a steady stare. 
 
 " No, I haven t/ said Woodhouse angrily, thinking 
 that the young man was in some way trying to trap him 
 into committing himself too soon. 
 
 " Glad to hear you say so," drawled Eidgway. " I 
 have." 
 
 Woodhouse actually gasped with surprise. 
 
 " This ain t fair, stranger," he spluttered. " Them 
 horses is in my stable, an I m agoin to keep em." 
 
 Eidgway sprang to his feet and slung the carbine 
 off his shoulder in a twinkling. 
 
 " You re going to keep em, by thunder, after I tell 
 you I ve bought em! I d like to see you do it. I come 
 here straight and all on the square and ask you if you ve 
 bought them horses, and you tell me here before these 
 witnesses you hain t bought em. Then I tell you I 
 have, and you say you ll keep em anyhow. I ain t a 
 smooth man to argue with, leastways bout horses which 
 I ve been an bought. No, by gosh, I ain t smooth. My 
 name s John P. Eidgway, of Lawrence, and most folks 
 know that name all the way from Kansas City to the 
 Pottawatomi reservation." 
 
 The stir that the announcement of his name had 
 created bore evidence to the truth of the boast. Most 
 people did know the name as belonging to a young man 
 who had won for himself a reputation for cool bravery 
 and daring where such reputations were not to be earned 
 without deeds to match. 
 
 Woodhouse backed down visibly. " I ain t agoin to 
 spile your bargain," he said with a feeble smile. 
 
 " Knew you wouldn t, stranger," said Eidgway affa 
 bly, " jest as soon as you learned you had a regular 
 
RIDGWAY S DIPLOMACY 161 
 
 downright Kansas man to deal with. Guess I ll go 
 long and have a look at that team now. Got ary lan 
 tern to lend me?" 
 
 Woodhouse was only too anxious to be rid of his 
 formidable guest, so he offered to come himself and show 
 him where the horses were stabled. So the pair went off 
 together in much outward show of amity, and in a few 
 minutes Eidgway emerged from Woodhouse s stable 
 leading the two teams of horses himself, for, as he re 
 marked, it would be sorter unhandy for him not to have 
 them along with his own nag where he was stopping. 
 He chuckled to himself several times as he strode 
 through the snowy road of Tecumseh, remarking, " he 
 was most skeered out of his skin, the darned white- 
 livered prairie dog." 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE HIRED MAN 
 
 RIDGWAY returned triumphant next day with the 
 wagon, a load of corn, and the two teams of horses be 
 sides. He had bought the load of corn, he and Heaton 
 jointly raising the money, which they were able to do 
 on the security of their buffalo hides. Both Ridgway 
 and Heaton were known in Tecumseh to be honest men, 
 and their credit consequently was good. Sambo of 
 course returned also, for he had at once appeared on the 
 surface the moment that Ridgway had got hold of the 
 horses. He was in deep tribulation, and expressed much 
 concern for Miss Nancy, left without any food by reason 
 of the dawdling of the storekeeper, who would neither 
 say " yes " nor " no " about the horses, nor give him 
 a load of corn, nor allow him to take the animals else 
 where. Poor Sambo was at his wits end to know what 
 to do. 
 
 When Nancy saw both the load of corn and her two 
 pairs of horses her heart thumped with terror. She fled 
 out hurriedly to the bars, and with white face ran up 
 to Ridgway. 
 
 " How is it you ve got them both? " she asked anx 
 iously. 
 
 "It s all right," replied the young man genially. 
 " He didn t want the horses and we ve bought the corn. 
 My mate and me ll want some of it, and you can take 
 the rest." 
 
 162 
 
THE HIRED MAN 163 
 
 " Did you kill him? " said Nancy, her lips twitching 
 so that she was hardly able to articulate. 
 
 "Lord, no! "What do you take us for? Tigers? 
 Kansas men ain t always sighting down on a man and 
 killing him." 
 
 Eidgway spoke with a certain abruptness of manner, 
 showing that he was somewhat offended at the extremely 
 low opinion his hostess held of Kansas men. 
 
 " Oh, I m so glad! " exclaimed Nancy with a sigh of 
 relief. "I couldn t guess how you had managed, and 
 you know you did take your gun and pistol," she added 
 apologetically, as if there was some excuse for her femi 
 nine alarms. 
 
 " I always take my arms along," replied the young 
 man, " cause I ve found them often useful in making 
 people civil and quick to understand my arguments 
 sorter brightens up their intellects a bit. But I hain t 
 never shot a man without he drove me to it first." 
 
 " Yes, yes, I know," she replied, clasping her hands 
 nervously together; " but it comes to that so quick some 
 times." 
 
 "Well, you needn t take on this time anyhow; I 
 hain t fired a shot since I rode off yesterday." 
 
 The two young buffalo hunters stayed nearly a week 
 at Carthage, at the end of which time the roads were 
 open enough for traffic to begin once more, the pole was 
 mended, and Ridgway began to get restless. 
 
 " I guess we d better be starting pretty quick now, or 
 else that buffalo meat of ours ll go to fatten these here 
 niggers," he remarked to Heaton, after they had fod 
 dered their horses one night and were standing at the 
 stable door. " There s bound to be a spell of wet 
 weather soon now, and this snow ll melt, and then the 
 creeks ull be over their banks, and we won t get a pound 
 of our meat into Lawrence. I say, let s start before 
 sunup to-morrow." 
 
164 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " Well/ remarked Heaton with a certain hesitation 
 of manner, " I was not thinking of starting just yet." 
 
 " I tell you that meat won t stand a thaw. It ll go 
 bad before we can unload, if we don t mind." 
 
 " I guess I ll unload here," said Heaton. 
 
 Eidgway whistled. 
 
 " Has she bought your load? What did she give you 
 for it?" 
 
 " No, she didn t buy the load. I gave it to her, and 
 I ve promised to stay and see her crop in, as hired man." 
 
 " Jerusalem! " was all Eidgway said, and then he 
 laughed out loud, and Heaton felt inclined to be angry 
 with him. 
 
 It was quite true, however. Heaton had decided 
 to remain and work the farm for Nancy, to be paid 
 eventually by having half the proceeds of the crops. She 
 was too ignorant of the details of farming to realize in 
 its entirety what a good bargain she had made, but a 
 load of anxiety was thereby lifted from her shoulders, 
 and she experienced a corresponding sense of relief. She 
 and Heaton had settled this little matter on the day 
 when Eidgway had gone off to the blacksmith s to get 
 the irons put on his new wagon pole. They had looked 
 over the farm land together, and the young man had 
 rapidly explained to her what he considered would be 
 the best course for her to adopt with regard to the en 
 suing year. In the first place she should fence in a 
 bit of her pasture land in order to keep one horse always 
 within reach, so as to be able to catch the others with 
 the least possible loss of time; half a day s precious work 
 ing hours were often lost by men who had to hunt their 
 horses on foot. Nancy listened with deep interest to 
 all he had to tell her, and then she confided in him how 
 she feared the negroes could never be made to work 
 hard without being driven to it, and how she would 
 not resort to severe measures with them, because she 
 
THE HIRED MAN 165 
 
 could not help feeling that she owed them reparation 
 and must always treat them tenderly. Then he again 
 expressed his admiration for what she had done, saying 
 it was an act of atonement for the wrongdoing of others 
 that could not fail to turn into a great success. He was 
 cordial, he was enthusiastic, and finally he ended by 
 offering to stay for half a year and see her through the 
 worst part of the season, so that her grand experiment 
 might have a fair start. The proposition was very sud 
 den, and Nancy did not reply for a few moments while 
 she was thinking it over. Heaton s heart stood still with 
 apprehension for fear she might say " no," but she did 
 not. She said " yes," and then Heaton thanked her 
 warmly for permitting him to become in a measure asso 
 ciated with her act of generosity for the benefit of the 
 negroes, adding that he had come to Kansas burning 
 with a desire to do something for them, and to help to 
 right the wrong, but as yet he had not seen his way to 
 doing any good. 
 
 So Heaton remained as " hired man " to Nancy 
 Overton, and Eidgway drove off alone with his wagon 
 load of buffalo meat. When he reached the corner of 
 the farm he stopped and looked about him very care 
 fully, and then with a chuckle he remarked: 
 
 " One hundred and sixty acres of good upland 
 prairie, a sound frame house, a log stable, three nigger 
 cabins, two wagons and four horses, and a pretty wife 
 ain t a bad price to get for one load of buffalo meat. 
 Charlie Heaton ain t the blamed coon I thought he was. 
 Wonder if I ll get half as good a price for my load? " 
 
 Life at Carthage was a very different thing after 
 Heaton became the " hired man " from what it had been 
 before. Energy and hopefulness seemed to infuse and 
 inspire everybody and everything. As the ground was 
 still covered with snow it was impossible to do any farm 
 work, and the negroes naturally expected that they 
 
166 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 would be allowed to huddle over the fire in an attitude 
 of expectancy for the summer sunshine. The idea of 
 setting out to work in the snow seemed to them pre 
 posterous. Heaton was born in the mountains of north 
 ern Vermont, where the snow lasts at least five months 
 in the year; therefore he took it as a matter of course. 
 His mind and body were both braced to it by hereditary 
 sturdiness and constant exposure. 
 
 " We ll be able to split enough rails for the pasture 
 fence, if this snow lasts/ he remarked to Nancy as they 
 were sitting together at supper. " I ll take Sambo and 
 we ll begin to-morrow." 
 
 Nancy owned an acre of bottom land well grown 
 with trees, and these Heaton decided to cut down and 
 split into rails. Splitting rails is almost the hardest 
 work that ever falls to a farmer to do. Horses can not 
 help. The entire work has to be performed by man, 
 from the laborious cutting down of the tree to the driv 
 ing in of the wedges into the sawn lengths, until with 
 a crack the log bursts throughout, generally with a 
 jagged end that has to be chopped clean. Sambo and 
 Heaton split rails all day, not even coming back for 
 dinner, as that would have caused a loss of some of the 
 precious hours of daylight, but sitting down on a log 
 and eating their bread and meat as quickly as they 
 could. 
 
 Experiences like this make even negroes thoughtful. 
 Sambo came home heavy-hearted and tired in every 
 limb. Pete and Moses were full of sympathy and anx 
 ious inquiry. 
 
 "Mas r Heaton dribe yo mighty ha d Sambo? Yo 
 don t nebber cotch time f o ter res ? " 
 
 " Nary minute; jes kep lammin Vay at dem logs 
 like he made o brass an cowhide. An we uns gotter 
 go outer gain in de mo nin , fore de break o day," 
 added Sambo in a deeply melancholy voice. 
 
THE HIRED MAN 167 
 
 " What yer gwine ter do, Sambo? " 
 
 " I se gwine ter run way gain, an be slave down in 
 ole Missouri. I ain t gwine ter stan bein free no mo / 
 said Sambo with desperate firmness. 
 
 " Mebbe yo ll be sole South if yo go inter Missouri/ 
 suggested Pete. 
 
 " Den I wo k longside de udder niggas. Yo can t 
 nebber be druv so all-fired hard when dar s a heap o 
 niggas in de field an on y one overseer to em. He 
 hain t got eyes all roun his head, I reckon. When yo 
 is workin longside o one white man, an he s workin 
 too, dat s when yer back s reg lar broke," said Sambo, 
 speaking from bitter experience. 
 
 Now just as these three darkies were thus unfold 
 ing their grievances to each other the door opened and 
 Heaton came in with a tin pail in his hand. 
 
 " See here, Sambo, here s your supper of stewed 
 meat," said he, setting down the steaming pail and tak 
 ing off the cover. " You must eat a good supper or else 
 you ll not be able to work. Starved horses don t pull." 
 
 He left the pail at the elbow of the astonished darky, 
 who never before had known a white man come to a 
 nigger s cabin in order to make sure that he was well 
 fed. As he ate the savoury and sustaining food he felt 
 mollified toward freedom and its conditions. 
 
 " Dish hyar bully," he observed, eating his stew with 
 vast relish and giving never a spoonful to the greedy 
 Pete and Moses. " Dat dar Mas r Heaton he s despit 
 hard driver an no mistake, but he s gran ter feed his 
 niggas." 
 
 Sometimes Heaton would take out his gun and shoot 
 prairie chickens, of which Nancy was very fond, and 
 which Aunt Monin could serve up in a way that would 
 tempt the appetite of an epicure. Heaton, with his 
 Eastern ideas of equality, would have had the prairie 
 chickens served all around to the population as far as 
 
168 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 they would go, only Aunt Monin had her say upon such 
 a course. 
 
 " Lordy, Mas r Charlie,, yo ll spile dem niggas. Dey 
 nebber be no good no mo . What for yo give em white 
 folks s meat like dat? Dey on y spise yo an say yo 
 don t know ary differ nce tween niggas an white folks. 
 Fore I give dem prairie chickens to de darkies I feed 
 em to de dorg. Dat s how Aunt Monin fix it." 
 
 " She has her own ideas of rank and quality, which 
 are not lightly to be set aside/ said Nancy in explana 
 tion, for Heaton was rather nonplussed by this theory 
 of the inequality between white and black palates. 
 
 "I must say I find it hard to always understand 
 the ideas you Southerners hold in regard to colored per 
 sons," said he, somewhat amused. 
 
 " I ain t no pinion o cullod pussons, " remarked 
 Aunt Monin with the most scornful contempt. " Whar 
 I been raised down in ole Virginny dar warn t no cul 
 lod pusson. Dar was niggas, an field han s, an dar 
 was servants in good famblies. I warn t nebber a field 
 han . I was allers servant in de big house. Niggas out 
 in Missouri dey is powerful ignunt; dey don t know 
 nuffm how ter have fore white folks dey don t, fo 
 shu." 
 
 " Aunt Monin, I think you d spoil any one," said 
 Heaton, amused at her quaint philosophy. 
 
 " Mas r Charlie, yo jess go fo ter axe Pete an 
 Moses if Aunt Monin ebber spile ary nigga dat yet been 
 bo n," she answered severely. 
 
 " What about me ? " asked Nancy. 
 
 " Ah, yo ? , honey-chile, nuffin spile yo ," said the old 
 woman, turning a beaming look of love to her foster 
 child. " De sunshine on de roses an de dewdrops 
 hangin to em can t spile em dey s roses all de while. 
 Dat de way long o yo , chile." 
 
 Country life is often considered monotonous by 
 
THE HIRED MAN 169 
 
 those whose only idea of life is the never-ending succes 
 sion of the more or less fierce excitements supplied by 
 towns and cities. Farm life can never be entirely mo 
 notonous to a woman if she takes into her heart the 
 many creatures of the farm and gives them that ma 
 ternal interest that is always near the surface of any 
 really womanly nature. By habit as well as by instinct 
 a woman takes to young creatures, and if she helps to 
 minister to their wants they very soon enter into her 
 life and fill it full of interests. 
 
 Take the early visit to the first calf of the season. 
 With what interest one opens the door of the cow shed. 
 There is the mother, gently anxious, mooing at frequent 
 intervals, and eagerly watching over her shoulder to 
 see that no one touches that precious youngster of hers 
 who has come to fulfil the overpowering mother in 
 stinct. And the youngster himself, standing with four 
 legs stretched widely apart, so as to get as firm and 
 broad a base as he can for his soft and tremulous body, 
 he meets you with a whimsical stare of surprise sur 
 prise at the shaking insufficiency of his own legs, as well 
 as amazement that a being so singular as yourself should 
 come to see him. Did ever a lady hear that Mrs. So-and- 
 So was in the drawing-room waiting to see her with 
 half as much satisfaction as that with which the mis- 
 tress of a farm receives the news of the arrival of the 
 first spring calf? 
 
 Of the playfulness of lambs it befits no mere mortal 
 now to speak in common prose, since the poets have long 
 since sung their praises in verse. For this reason pri 
 marily I do not mention them, but also because there 
 were no lambs on Nancy s farm, sheep being an un 
 known animal to the prairie farmer. But chickens 
 abounded, and in these she rejoiced with a truly femi 
 nine delight. Hens, being of a shy and secluded nature, 
 unresponsive to advances, and also not much in evidence 
 
170 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 in places where poets roam about in quest of rhymes 
 and suitable subjects for verse, have not been selected 
 for the same amount of eulogy and favour as has fallen 
 to the share of the lucky lamb. Chickens, however, are 
 not to be despised. The newborn chicken is almost 
 the only creature that comes into the world a beautiful 
 object instead of a repulsive fright. The much-lauded 
 lamb is ungainly, thin-bodied, and outrageously big 
 kneed; puppies are blind, helpless, hairy slugs; kittens 
 are mere sightless rats without the power of locomotion; 
 birds of the air are wide-mouthed skinny creatures, 
 shamelessly devoid of clothing, so that their internal 
 organisms can be plainly traced through their trans 
 parent skins even without the aid of the Rontgen rays; 
 foals are set upon stilts and can t get their heads to the 
 ground; but the chick conies into the world open-eyed, 
 alert, firm on its tiny legs, able to feed itself, and, above 
 all, decently clad in fascinating down. Chickens and 
 baby pigs carry the palm for beauty in the first stages 
 of their existence. 
 
 Of pigs Nancy had none as yet, but a few samples of 
 the more portable and prolific hen had been brought in 
 a coop from Missouri, and these were early a source of 
 interest to her. She was not a novice, however, to the 
 delights of country life, and knew well all about hens 
 and chickens and all the small and large creatures that 
 make up the complete farm family, but her interest in 
 them had to be stimulated anew, just as her interest 
 in everything had to be reawakened into activity once 
 more. Without knowing it, she drew her inspiration 
 of life entirely from her "hired man," this complete 
 stranger who had suddenly come into her small world 
 and filled it so full. On his side, the "hired man" 
 drew his inspiration no less completely from Nancy, 
 this youthful lady whom he served so well, but he 
 was keenly awake to the state of his own feelings and 
 
THE HIRED MAN 171 
 
 knew pretty well what was happening to himself at 
 least. 
 
 It was a strange life they led, meeting only at meal 
 times and in the long pleasant evenings when they two 
 and Aunt Monin would sit in the flickering firelight 
 talking. Sometimes Heaton would tell of the far-away 
 Eastern States where he had lived such a different sort of 
 life, but generally indeed they talked about the passing 
 events of the day. These were so fresh and so varied 
 to their young imaginations that they felt very little 
 need to draw upon past times. The present was so de 
 lightful. Aunt Monin, who surrounded her " honey- 
 chile " with such ceaseless care and tenderness, joined 
 now in every one of her joys, as in the past she had 
 consoled her in her tribulation. Heaton had come quite 
 to like the old negress. She seemed to him different 
 from the ordinary run of negroes; perhaps she was rec 
 ommended to him unconsciously by the love which 
 Nancy bore her old nurse. Be that as it may, the three 
 lived their strange, lonely^ hard-working life together 
 and were completely happy. 
 
 The winter yielded slowly to the spring. The logs 
 were split, the pasture fenced in, and a good supply of 
 firewood was cut ready for use by the time the land 
 was open for ploughing, when all hands were of course 
 turned on to farm work. Heaton looked further ahead 
 than the end of the world in his preparations for the 
 future, at least so it seemed to the lazy negroes who 
 never thought of cutting wood more than a day ahead at 
 the most. 
 
 Aunt Monin, who though a negro to the heart s core 
 was not at all lazy, was consumed with admiration for 
 " Mas r Charlie," as she invariably called him. The 
 other negroes addressed him as " Mas r Ileaton " to his 
 face and " ole man " Heaton behind his back. She felt 
 it her duty frequently to call Nancy s attention to the 
 12 
 
172 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 amount of work which he did and to the general air 
 of prosperous exertion which he had brought into the 
 place, an unnecessary precaution since the young mis 
 tress was thoroughly aware of it herself. 
 
 " I disremember I ebber say a truer word, Miss 
 Nancy, dan when I say dat outer de sto m an de win 
 an de snow come de help sent by de Lo d. Yo ain t 
 gwine ter forgit dat, is yo , chile? " 
 
 " No, Aunt Monin, I sha n t ever forget." 
 " An nebber min if suthin happen by an bye dat s 
 special uncommon, don t yo go an forgit dat, chile." 
 Once when holding forth in this manner on her 
 favourite topic she suddenly asked, " Yo ebber see 
 Mas r Charlie fore he come slap outer de snowstorm 
 dat night?" As she put this question she looked curi 
 ously at Nancy, as if trying to read her very thoughts. 
 " Of course not; I never saw him before. How 
 should I?" 
 
 " Him ain t a Kansas man anyhow, dat s shu ." 
 " He came out from Vermont State last summer." 
 " See dat now! " exclaimed she with apparent tri~ 
 umph; " I knowed he warn t no poor white trash, like 
 dese hyar folks in Kansas." 
 
 But if Aunt Monin took an especial interest in 
 Heaton, Susannah, on the other hand, could not endure 
 the sight of him. This was rather an annoyance to 
 Nancy at first, for she had made the mulatto woman 
 into a second house servant, useful in the domestic work 
 along with Aunt Monin. In the beginning these two 
 had always come into the kitchen of an evening when 
 the day s work was over and Heaton was enjoying the 
 customary long chat with Nancy before making off 
 to his own abode, one of the three log cabins which he 
 had appropriated to his own use. Susannah would gaze 
 at him with fascinated eyes for a long time in silence, 
 after which she would suddenly fall a-weeping and 
 
THE HIRED MAN 173 
 
 a-praying in a frantic manner,, and would have to be 
 quieted by Aunt Monin. This distressed Nancy so much 
 that Susannah was bid spend her evenings henceforth 
 along with the other negroes in their particular cabins. 
 Heaton had never been accustomed to negroes and 
 knew nothing about them. Indeed, he rather disliked 
 them than otherwise, considering them, rightly enough, 
 as poor shiftless, lazy creatures, of not much use in the 
 world, but rather an impediment to hard energetic work, 
 which was the god of the regular Down Easter. He did 
 not like their black faces; he had, in fact, in common 
 with so many Northerners, almost a repugnance to them, 
 not having been accustomed to them from early child 
 hood. It used to make him squirm to see Nancy put 
 her hands on Aunt Monin s cheek and pat it as she often 
 did. He did not like the touch of their soft oily skin 
 nor the odour that undoubtedly belonged to them. This 
 " nigger smell," as it was contemptuously styled, was 
 denied by fervid friends of the black man as an ignorant 
 libel; it is now known to exist as a scientific fact. All 
 this combined to make Heaton desire to have the negroes 
 as little as possible in personal contact with himself, 
 but he was strictly just toward them and animated by 
 a deep desire to do all he could to ameliorate their con 
 dition. Though he might not like to touch them, he 
 never ill treated them in the slightest degree, nor even 
 in moments of extreme exasperation did he ever swear 
 at them. The negroes, on their side, understood his jus 
 tice in a measure, but they realized much more fully his 
 personal repugnance to themselves, and resented it far 
 more than they would have done a little swearing and 
 an occasional kick or two. Therefore they did not like 
 him, and always kept at a distance from him, never, 
 with the exception of Aunt Monin, speaking to him 
 unless obliged to do so. He, on his side, laboured under 
 all a Northerner s disadvantages, and never could see 
 
174 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 any difference between one negro and another. They 
 were all black to him, and for a length of time he did 
 not know the difference between M linder and Lize 
 Jane, though Lize Jane was the mother of three chil 
 dren and M linder was a girl of sixteen. 
 
 But though Heaton did not recognise the negroes, 
 they recognised him, and it was whispered among them 
 from the first that he was one of the men who tried 
 to run them off in the autumn, when " ole mas r " was 
 killed in the sitting room and Caesar had drowned his 
 child in a frenzy at Mine Creek. No whisper of this 
 ever came to Nancy s ears, however, for Aunt Monin, 
 who had heard their talk, declared in her most impres 
 sive manner that she would whip into a jelly the first 
 nigger who opened his lips upon so painful a subject to 
 Miss Nancy. And since they all loved Nancy in their 
 way and were grateful to her for what she had done 
 for them, they held their tongues, affection and fear 
 both operating to insure silence. 
 
 Sambo alone groaned in secret over his wrongs, and 
 notwithstanding good suppers determined to run away 
 from the hard work. He confided his intentions to Pete 
 and Moses, and those young darkies, although deeply 
 sympathetic, were torn with feelings of conflicting duty, 
 first to Sambo and then to Miss Nancy. They compro 
 mised by telling Aunt Monin what was in the wind, and 
 she, of course, went straight to Nancy with the news. 
 
 The poor girl was deeply grieved, feeling that the 
 great boon of freedom ought to have made Sambo for 
 ever grateful, or at least that he ought to have been 
 quite frank and open with her. 
 
 " Depend upon it he does not understand his posi 
 tion," remarked Heaton, who was present when Aunt 
 Monin, her eyes blazing with wrath, told the story. " If 
 the fellow knows he may go any minute and that you 
 will pay him his wages he will probably quite give up the 
 
THE HIRED MAN 175 
 
 idea. I have made him go pretty fast ahead with the 
 work, and he isn t broken into it yet. The best thing 
 would be to have him in at once and talk the matter over 
 with him." 
 
 Accordingly, Sambo was fetched, looking very much 
 scared indeed. 
 
 " I hear you are thinking of leaving Miss Nancy." 
 observed Heaton in a friendly manner, which utterly 
 astounded Sambo, who expected to be threatened with 
 a cowhiding at least, if not with actual death, for at 
 tempting to run away, so utterly ignorant was he of 
 the primary elements of the status of freedom. 
 
 He made some stammering protest which Heaton 
 failed to understand. 
 
 " Were you thinking of going to Kansas City ? 
 There is work to be had there, steamboat loading, but 
 it is very heavy work and generally kills off young fel 
 lows like you. I think you had better stay with Miss 
 Nancy until the spring is well opened. Then you can 
 hire out with some farmer and get good wages straight 
 on through the summer. There ll be work going and 
 plenty this year, I expect. But if you really want to 
 go now, you can do so. Miss Nancy will pay you 
 your wages, since you have worked for her as a free 
 negro." 
 
 Nancy handed him a bundle of greenbacks, saying: 
 " This is all I can afford, Sambo. I hope you will do 
 well. I have done my best by you." 
 
 Her voice quivered. Sambo was utterly overcome, 
 and fell upon his knees, blubbering like a baby. 
 
 " Lordy, Miss Nancy, don t want nebber for ter go 
 way from yo . Sambo stay an work for yo all his life, 
 so he will. On y please, Miss Nancy, yo ax Mas r 
 Heaton he let me off nudder half hour at dinna time 
 for ter go sleep a ter eatin de vittles." 
 
 Heaton could not help laughing. " Poor devil! I 
 
176 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 suppose I did work him too hard, and he is not used 
 to it." 
 
 Sambo returned to his cabin and kicked both Pete 
 and Moses for having dared to tell Miss Nancy he was 
 going to run away, and promised them a thorough 
 thrashing for themselves if they did not work their level 
 best for her every day of their lives for evermore. The 
 youths were amazed, but forbore from comments, as they 
 were howling over the kicks already received, and were, 
 moreover, in momentary dread of receiving another dose 
 should they offend Sambo in his present savage mood. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 CONFESSIONS 
 
 THE spring of 1861 had begun, that spring which 
 was to blossom into such a summer and to bear such 
 bitter fruit in the autumn. From the South the storm 
 clouds were rolling up, and the North was preparing to 
 meet secession by force. Excitement was rising to 
 fever heat in almost every corner of the country, except 
 perhaps in that little spot where our interest is concen 
 trated. Nancy and Heaton paid little or no attention 
 to the storm that was brewing. Too far removed from 
 civilization to feel more than a faint throb of its feverish 
 pulse, these two young people were so pleasantly ab 
 sorbed in themselves and in each other that they did 
 not pay heed even to that symptom of the oncoming of 
 the great struggle. Heaton had no thought, no wish, 
 that was not bounded by and centred in that tiny hamlet. 
 
 Of course he had fallen in love with Nancy. It 
 would have been preposterous if he had not done so. 
 He, a young man depending for his whole companion 
 ship on a young girl, a very pretty young girl, with 
 whom he was constantly associating to the exclusion of 
 every other girl under the canopy of heaven. He fell in 
 love with her at once, and he fell deeply in love, more 
 over. He knew it, and he also knew that she would love 
 him; this, not from inordinate self-conceit, but from the 
 plain fact that there was no one else to take her atten 
 tion off himself. 
 
 177 
 
178 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 Now Heaton was of a romantic turn of mind, al 
 though he did not suspect this, and sometimes he used 
 to feel a shade of regret that his own love story, the 
 poem of his whole life, was so smooth and uneventful. 
 He saw Nancy every day; saw her with her negroes 
 around her, the gentle yet firm mistress kindly ruling 
 them for their own good; saw her occupied with the 
 daily duties of the house, eagerly absorbed in the ex 
 citements incident to the hatching of early chickens; 
 saw her gently concerned when the meal bin was run 
 ning low and the horses were not available to go to the 
 gristmill; in fact, saw her fulfilling the duties of her 
 station with seriousness and forethought. He knew 
 that he loved her. He knew too that when the time 
 came he could with a word awaken the love light in her 
 eyes. There were no doubtings and trepidations. Did 
 not love, imperious, wayward love, demand something 
 more than this? Some greater test and trial of devo 
 tion? 
 
 Nancy with her clear limpid eyes stood before him 
 revealed in the girlish innocence of her heart. He never 
 suspected that there might be a fountain of passionate 
 womanly feeling beneath that calm and gentle exterior 
 he knew so well. As they sat in the firelight of an 
 evening, while Aunt Monin poked at the logs as it was 
 her constant delight to do, Heaton would sometimes 
 fall into a waking dream. Nancy, sitting there in her 
 low chair, was not the young girl of the present moment, 
 she was the image of the future wife. And he no 
 longer saw her sitting idly, shielding her face from the 
 bright wood blaze with her small vigorous hands, but 
 his fancy pictured her leaning over something that was 
 nestling against her gentle bosom, while those soft 
 round arms curved themselves into a warm cradle that 
 held within their sheltering barrier something inex 
 pressibly precious. This was the picture the young 
 
CONFESSIONS 179 
 
 man saw in the firelight in the days when the war clouds 
 were rolling up blacker and blacker from the South. 
 
 How calm and uneventful the future stretched out 
 before them! They would live at Carthage, he and 
 Nancy together, growing old in the home they had built 
 up for themselves, and hand in hand they would walk 
 on toward the land of the hereafter. Thus mused the 
 young man, holding his first love dream to his heart. 
 Storm clouds might gather unheeded in South Carolina; 
 none were visible over the wide-stretching horizon 
 around Carthage. 
 
 At least not to his eyes. 
 
 But others there were whose vision was clearer. 
 Aunt Monin saw and rejoiced in the love that was com 
 ing into her honey-chile s life, the strong, manly love 
 that she needed to give centre and aim to her own af 
 fections and to round off her being; but Aunt Monin 
 dreaded what might happen when Nancy came to know, 
 what sooner or later she must find out, the part that 
 Heaton had unwittingly played in her past life. She 
 knew that there was a side to Nancy s character unsus 
 pected by Heaton, a determination and a will that 
 seemed almost foreign to so young and gentle a crea 
 ture. It was there, however, and Aunt Monin, who 
 longed to see her fosterling married to this stalwart 
 young fellow, dreaded what might be the direction that 
 strong will would take when she discovered the secret 
 which each was keeping so unconsciously from the 
 other. The secret had not yet been told, and all the 
 old woman could hope was that it might not be told 
 until Nancy was Heaton s wedded wife, when she would 
 find it impossible to break away from him, even in the 
 first outrush of her grief and despair. Meantime, all 
 she could do was to preach in her own mystical way to 
 her honey-chile, and thus prepare her as well as she 
 could for the shock, without actually telling her any- 
 
180 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 thing. This she accordingly did at all seasons and 
 under all possible circumstances; but her words bore no 
 immediate fruit, as Nancy s mind was not prepared to 
 understand their true significance,, and Aunt Monin 
 dared not make them any plainer. 
 
 Love transfigures all things and can shed a halo of 
 rose-tinted light over the most commonplace scene. 
 No girl can ever forget the moment when she first hears 
 the words that awake her heart to love, nor can she shut 
 out from her eyes the scene where those words were 
 spoken. It is photographed upon her mind in the flash 
 which floods her soul with light, and there it remains 
 printed to the last day of her life. Heaton and Nancy 
 were returning together from the pasture field that lay 
 at a short distance from the house, where he had just 
 impounded a wild young Indian pony which he in 
 tended to train for Nancy s sole use. It was the first 
 present he had given her, and she was pleased beyond 
 measure at the wild beautiful young creature. They 
 had watched the pony for some time, and were going 
 back toward the house, when Heaton suddenly spoke in 
 a voice that vibrated with a different tone from what 
 Nancy had ever heard before. He told her in a few 
 manly words of his love for her, and asked her to be his 
 wife, and she, not surprised and not startled, had an 
 swered a firm, full-voiced " Yes." Then he took her 
 in his arms and gave her the first love kiss that had ever 
 touched those sweet lips of hers. The sun was just 
 sinking below the distant horizon, a red glowing ball of 
 fire, and as it disappeared great bands of crimson and 
 gold streaked the sky above the blue edge of the prairie, 
 looking for all the world like a city on fire, belching 
 smoke and flame into the air. That was the scene im 
 printed by love s first words on Nancy s mental vision, 
 never to be effaced. In after years it often rose up 
 again before her. It was an omen, but one not to be 
 
CONFESSIONS 181 
 
 understood until after the accomplishment of the des 
 tiny it foretold. Such, however, has always been the 
 nature of omens. 
 
 Aunt Monin was transported with delight when 
 Nancy, with smiles and blushes and a few tears, an 
 nounced her engagement to Heaton. 
 
 " There is no one now to wish me joy but you, Aunt 
 Monin. Kiss me, mawmee," she said, using her baby 
 name for her nurse. 
 
 " Honey-chile, yo jess fulnllin de d sign o de Lo d 
 when he sen Mas r Charlie hyar outer de snowstorm. 
 Dat war de special Prov dence I done tell yo bout. 
 Now yo ? raise off de curse, an make yer way smooth 
 fore de Lo d, an yer days long in de Ian . Honey-chile, 
 yer mother what give yo ter me f er ter save me from de 
 sin o murder, she see now dis hyar spiation jess gwine 
 ter be complish, an she rejoice wid de lamb." 
 
 Aunt Monin s mystical language was not very clear 
 to Nancy s comprehension, but there was no mistaking 
 her earnest satisfaction at the marriage her beloved 
 child was going to make. 
 
 Heaton was even more bewildered by Aunt Monin s 
 congratulations. 
 
 " Mas r Charlie, the han what take way kin give 
 back. Yo jess take that honey-chile ter yer heart an 
 love her all the days o yer life. If yo ebber cause her 
 pang o sorrow, den de curse come down gain an blight 
 yer life." 
 
 " Well, Aunt Monin, she ll never shed a tear if I can 
 help it. You may be sure of that," he said in reply to 
 her somewhat oracular remarks. 
 
 " Ain t so sure o dat by long sight, Mas r Charlie. 
 Dat s jess what s troubling me yo dunno what yo do. 
 Mebbe yo go way an leave her." 
 
 " How dare you hint at such a thing! " said Heaton 
 in a blaze of wrath. 
 
182 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " Bar s strange an wonderful times a-comin , Mas r 
 Charlie, an de heavens is full o signs an won ers. Yo 
 see dat blood-red streak in de sky dis night? Dat mean 
 suthin awful s gwine ter happen/ replied Aunt Monin, 
 taking refuge in mystery and vagueness. 
 
 "What? The red sunset, do you mean? It may 
 betoken a storm to-morrow, that s all/ said Heaton 
 with a laugh. 
 
 Ten upon it, Mas r Charlie, dat mean suthin more 
 nor rain an win . I se sight ol er nor yo be, an I neb- 
 ber seed de sky dartin flames like dat nowhere, an I war 
 riz in ole Virginny whar dey have heap o tings dese 
 hyar folks out on de plains nebber hearn tell on." 
 
 How swiftly sped the days of their courtship, and 
 how sweetly! 
 
 There was no reason why they should not be married 
 out of hand, a course that Heaton strongly approved of, 
 but Nancy, womanlike, wanted to get a few new things 
 for the occasion. No woman, be she ever so prosaic, 
 could feel that she was properly married unless she had 
 something new in the way of clothes. Aunt Monin, 
 while anxious for an immediate wedding, was strong on 
 this point. Miss Nancy s mother was married in white 
 muslin, with a crown of flowers on her head, and she 
 was married down in "ole Virginny." Nothing else 
 must Nancy wear but white muslin, and in order to have 
 the similarity more complete she must be married in the 
 middle of April, just as that mother had been whom 
 Nancy had never seen, but who had become such a po 
 tent influence in her daughter s life. 
 
 Mrs. Grundy certainly did not emigrate to Kansas 
 with the first rush of settlers. They lived too far apart 
 and were too busy with their own concerns to have much 
 spare time for criticising their neighbours. Still, wher 
 ever two or three women are gathered together one of 
 them is pretty sure to arrogate to herself the office of 
 
CONFESSIONS 183 
 
 critic. Nancy s nearest neighbour, many miles off to 
 be sure, was a widow woman with a son just grown up, 
 and she had had her eye upon Nancy from the start as a 
 possible match for her gawk of a boy. She had sent 
 him on all sorts of errands to Nancy s house, but, as he 
 was hopelessly shy, he did himself and his suit no good, 
 and his mother used to scold him on his return. 
 
 Mrs. Hale that was the self-constituted critic s 
 name felt it her bounden duty to tell Nancy whenever 
 she made any mistakes, and shortly after Heaton s first 
 arrival at Carthage her sense of this duty necessitated 
 her telling Nancy what a mistake it was to take him on 
 as " hired man." 
 
 " I low you can t pay him no sorter wage as ull 
 make him stay," she remarked on her first visit, after 
 hearing of the new white man at Carthage. 
 
 " He s going to stay till the crop is cut, anyway," 
 said Nancy, rather proud of the opportunity of showing 
 Mrs. Hale that she understood her own interest. 
 
 " Wai, I reckon he ll mos likely put in a power o 
 corn as you can t hill up an cut no, not if you had 
 twice as many han s as you hev. You hed oughter hev 
 consulted my son Jeemes. He s powerful cute bout 
 f armin an all that. There ain t nary one on the prairie 
 ull git ahead o Jeemes, you bet." 
 
 When Mrs. Hale saw Heaton, as she managed to do 
 by staying uninvited to supper and finally all night, to 
 Nancy s complete disgust, she had fierce qualms of 
 jealousy as the mother of a possible suitor in face of a 
 probably successful rival. 
 
 " Whar you come from? " she asked abruptly. 
 
 " From Vermont," answered Heaton, raising his hat 
 with the manners of another civilization. 
 
 " Guess you ll not make any great shakes o ? f armin 
 out this er way," replied Mrs. Hale, eying him critically. 
 " There was a feller outer Philydelphy hyar las year an 
 
184 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 he war sold outer farm an Ian pretty quick, I can tell 
 yer. Kansas ain t no place for them sarcy Down East 
 folks." 
 
 " We sometimes succeed where there is hard work to 
 be done/ said Heaton, half vexed at her outrageous self- 
 satisfied impudence. 
 
 " I m outer ole Kentuck. My ole man he come 
 long hyar mos as early as anybody, he did, an he kep 
 a-movin long an raisin corn in new Ian mos every 
 year." 
 
 " How did you get on in the drought last year? " 
 
 " We done pretty toPble. My ole man he tuck an 
 died o the shake an fever, an Jeemes he lowed there 
 warn t nary thing better ter do than to go a-raidin . 
 So he Jay-Hawked a spell down in Missouri, an he got 
 a heap o corn an truck," said Mrs. Hale affably. 
 
 "It was a sinful, wicked thing to do," burst out 
 Fancy passionately. " I don t see how you people, who 
 are all for freedom and call yourselves Free-soilers, 
 dare do such things. It is just simple robbery and 
 nothing else. That s what I think." 
 
 "Wai, mos everybody in Kansas is a Jay-Hawker. 
 They can git a heap o stuff right handy that er way," 
 said Mrs. Hale in defence of the absent Jeemes. 
 
 " I don t believe it. They are not all Jay-Hawkers. 
 Kansas men aren t all robbers, are they, Mr. Heaton ? " 
 said Nancy with flashing eyes. 
 
 " No, indeed," said he earnestly. " The best of the 
 Jay-Hawkers are not robbers; they don t raid for the 
 sake of stealing at all, but for the purpose of freeing the 
 slaves. A great many people are beginning to think 
 that even with this sole object in view it is a dangerous 
 practice. I think so myself. That s not the way to set 
 things right." 
 
 " Ef I war a gal as war a-lookin out for a husband," 
 remarked Mrs. Hale somewhat contemptuously in re- 
 
CONFESSIONS 185 
 
 ply, " I wouldn t look twice at ary man as couldn t ride 
 as peart as any on a Jay-Hawk raid. What we women 
 folk wants is a man as can use his rifle quick an straight 
 an defen us, an not them sneakin Yankee fellers as 
 on y kin talk like a preacher. They ain t no sorter use 
 on the prairie. We ain t ready yet for preachin fellers. 
 We s turnin up fresh sod, that s what we re doin ." 
 
 " I d as soon marry a road robber as a Jay-Hawker," 
 said Nancy angrily in reply to this exposition of out- 
 and-out Kansas views. 
 
 " Wai, mos gals out whar I was riz kinder waited till 
 they was axed," remarked Mrs. Hale, with a sting at the 
 end of her tongue that would have done credit to a 
 fashionable lady, and yet she was nothing but an igno 
 rant settler s wife. But she knew where to hit, espe 
 cially as Heaton was present. " Ther hain t nary Jay- 
 Hawker axed yer, has ther yit? Mebbe they wouldn t 
 care for a wife with no sort o sperrit o her own. My 
 son Jeemes wouldn t, anyhow." , 
 
 This was too good an opening for a return shot for 
 Nancy to neglect. 
 
 <f I dare say your son s spirit has mostly gone in Jay- 
 Hawking," she said with a toss of her head. " Anyhow, 
 he don t seem to have much left to show off in conversa 
 tion. He sat here two hours by the clock last week, and 
 all he said was, ^ Ma s ole yaller hen done laid an egg 
 thout ary shell. " 
 
 Heaton burst out laughing and made his escape 
 from the kitchen, thinking that Nancy was a match for 
 Mrs. Hale without any of his clumsy assistance. He 
 did not reappear again that evening, leaving Nancy to 
 wrestle with her visitor as best she could. Mrs. Hale, 
 thus relieved from the irritating cause of her ill temper, 
 became more agreeable and entertained her hostess 
 throughout the evening with a continual flow of con 
 versation, wherein boastings of herself and her son 
 
186 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 Jeemes took a leading part. In the morning when 
 Heaton brought her horse ready saddled for her to ride 
 home, she even relented so far toward that young man 
 as to remark, that she " calculated he warn t gwinter lope 
 roun thar ary spell longer ner he could help, an she 
 hearn tell thar war a man outer Tecumseh as war speer- 
 in roun ter fin a man for ter tend store for him, an 
 mebbe he d suit thar." 
 
 Heaton thanked her for the hint, but said that he 
 was quite satisfied with his present situation. 
 
 What Nancy had said to Mrs. Hale in her anger re 
 mained with him, however, and he often thought over it, 
 wondering in his own mind if he should tell her that he, 
 too, had once ridden in a Jay-Hawk raid to his own deep 
 sorrow. Nancy was, he realized, a woman of strong 
 feeling, and he did not know how it might affect her at 
 titude of mind toward himself if she knew that he had 
 been mixed up in one of those very expeditions about 
 which she used such uncompromising expressions. No 
 one could deplore the results of that fatal ride more 
 than he did himself, but it was quite another thing for 
 him to see the disapproval which he felt reflected in the 
 beautiful eyes of the girl he loved. He did not feel 
 himself such a hero as to be able to run the risk of chill 
 ing her regard for him by telling her of the raid. This 
 was the feeling he had in the early days of their ac 
 quaintance, and somehow after they were engaged he 
 did not find it one whit more easy to tell her. He dread 
 ed lest she might think that he ought to have told her 
 before asking her to be his wife; and so the days slipped 
 by and the story was still untold. 
 
 Their wedding day was fast approaching, and Heaton 
 took himself seriously to task. It was not right to let 
 her marry him without knowing this fact of his past life. 
 Come what may, she must be told before they were mar 
 ried. Of course, in his heart he knew that she loved 
 
CONFESSIONS 187 
 
 him too well to give him up for an act which he had 
 long since bitterly repented, and which, after all, was 
 not an uncommon occurrence in the society in which 
 they both lived. People are judged by the prevailing 
 standard of their surroundings, and not by a foreign or 
 ideal standard. It was their intention to be married in 
 Tecumseh, and then to go to Fort Leavenworth for a 
 week, when they would make some small household 
 purchases upon which Nancy had set her woman s 
 heart. This brief wedding tour would not take Heaton 
 away from the farm work for too long at this important 
 season of the year. 
 
 The evening before they were to go away to be mar 
 ried Heaton and Nancy were sitting together in the 
 kitchen alone. All their small preparations were made, 
 and they were to make an early start the next morning, 
 accompanied by Aunt Monin and Sambo, who, after 
 acting the part respectively of bridesmaid and grooms 
 man, were to bring back the wagon, while the newly 
 wedded pair were to proceed by stagecoach to Fort 
 Leavenworth for their honeymoon, as it is called, or 
 honey week, as it was really to be. 
 
 Heaton, loverlike, was holding Nancy s hand as he 
 sat beside her. 
 
 " My dearest girl, there is something I want to tell 
 you. I am going to confess, as they say. I don t want 
 you to marry a man about whom you ll have anything to 
 discover later on." 
 
 His voice was not quite steady, and a fine observer 
 would have noticed that he drew his breath quickly, as 
 if he were not quite sure of himself. Nancy turned her 
 dark eyes upon him and gave him a look of loving 
 trustfulness, as much as to say that absolution awaited 
 him. Confession was but a formula. 
 
 " Nobody can feel more strongly about the evils of 
 
 Jaw-Hawking than I do. You have often heard me sav 
 
 13 J 
 
188 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 so; but when I first came out here I was full of wild 
 excitement. The John Brown fever had caught me, 
 and I saw nothing unjust in freeing negroes by force. 
 I saw only the ultimate effect that of freeing the slaves. 
 I did not realize what might be the accompanying de 
 tails. There was a raid last year, and hearing my neigh 
 bours speak about it I joined, without any distinct com 
 prehension of what I was aiming at accomplishing, and 
 God knows without any idea of what I was going to do." 
 
 "What time of year was it?" asked Nancy. She 
 withdrew her hand from his clasp. He felt a pang at 
 her doing so, but he answered the question. 
 
 " It was the second week in October." 
 
 Heaton did not look at Nancy as he spoke; he feared 
 to meet some look of disapproval in her dark glance. 
 Had he looked he would have been startled to see how 
 ghastly white she had become. He continued his nar 
 rative in a steady voice, telling the plain facts, not try 
 ing to excuse himself in any way. 
 
 " I was living at Keokuk, in the southern part of the 
 State, where I told you I have some land. We rode 
 across the Missouri line and separated into parties of 
 five, to go to the different farms around and collect up 
 the negroes. I was ordered to go into a certain house 
 and keep the inmates quiet. They told me I would 
 have no trouble, as there were only women and an old 
 man there. I remember the house so well, standing a 
 little way back from the road, looking so peaceful in 
 the afternoon sunlight. There was a veranda with 
 some grapevines and roses growing over it, and a bit 
 of ivy just turning red at one end." 
 
 Nancy s face was awful to behold. Her eyes glit 
 tered unnaturally and were distended as if she were 
 looking at some hideous object that froze her heart 
 with horror, yet from which she was unable to remove 
 her horror-stricken gaze. Her cheeks were colourless, 
 
CONFESSIONS 189 
 
 her lips were blanched. Heaton without looking at her 
 continued his story, longing for some sign of affection 
 and forgiveness from her, yet too proud and too just to 
 beg for it until the whole of his fault should have been 
 laid before her. 
 
 " I went into the sitting room; it was darkened, but 
 a man sat in a chair. I told him I was a Jay-Hawker, 
 and had come for his slaves; that resistance was useless. 
 He raised his head, gave me such a look of defiance, and 
 told some one to fetch his gun. I didn t see any one 
 in the room. I dared not take my eyes off that man s 
 fierce face for fear that he should spring upon me and 
 unarm me. Some one, a girl I think, handed him a 
 gun, and I saw him raise it to fire. It was my life 
 against his. I had never meant to kill him, but he 
 forced my hand. I had to do it to save myself. Was it 
 very wrong, Nancy?" 
 
 He looked at her then. Great God! was that Nancy? 
 
 She had risen to her feet and was backing slowly 
 away from him; she threw up her hands with a gurgling 
 cry in horrid imitation of that man in Missouri after 
 he had been shot, and her head was falling back, her 
 eyes staring, her face a dreadful green-white hue, the 
 hue of death. The door of the inner room opened 
 quickly, and she fell back into the arms of Aunt Monin, 
 who had heard the cry. Heaton gazed at her in speech 
 less amaze. He had never suspected that her feeling 
 about the events of that raid would have been so strong. 
 
 "Ah, Mas r Charlie," said Aunt Monin s voice in 
 deeply sorrowful cadence, " yo done hit her plumb fru 
 de heart, jess like yo did her father. Po honey- 
 chile! " 
 
 Heaton gave a hoarse cry. 
 
 " What does it mean? " he asked, panting. 
 
 " Dat war her father yo killed las fall in Missouri. 
 I seed yo an knowed yo gain de minute yo come inter 
 
190 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 dish hyar house. She nebber knowed yo , an now she s 
 struck fru de heart by yer han too, Mas r Charlie, 
 same like her ole dad war." 
 
 " This is the curse of God ! " exclaimed Heaton, 
 rushing wildly out through the door into the gathering 
 dusk. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 OFF TO THE WAES 
 
 HEATON spent the night which should have been the 
 last of his bachelor life wandering about the prairie, a 
 prey to the wildest grief. To think that of all the men 
 who fell in the long border war which was waged be 
 tween Kansas and Missouri the only one he had killed 
 should have been Nancy s father! Hers, then, was that 
 wailing cry that had rung in his ears that day and had 
 rung in his heart for so many days afterward. How 
 cruel, how inexorable was Fate, which had decreed that 
 he who loved her with his whole heart should be the one 
 to make her life desolate! He could not picture to him 
 self a more awful destiny, and turn it as he would in 
 his mind he could see no light and no hope anywhere. 
 The brand of Cain was on him still, and verily his pun 
 ishment was almost more than he could bear. So all 
 through the spring night he wandered about, too 
 wretched to remain at home, and on the morning that 
 was to have been his wedding day he returned to his 
 little cabin, looking as if a year of suffering had passed 
 over his head. 
 
 The news that Miss Nancy was ill and that the wed 
 ding had been put off soon spread among the negroes, 
 who went about with faces of mystery, wondering what 
 had happened. No one but Aunt Monin knew that it 
 was Heat-on who had fired that fatal shot, and she had 
 never told any one. The other negroes, although per- 
 
 191 
 
192 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 fectly aware that he had ridden in the raid and was 
 among those who fought at Mine Creek,, did not know 
 the particulars of what had taken place beyond their im 
 mediate observation. None of them had been in the 
 house when Overton was killed, and, beyond the fact 
 that the old mas r had been shot by one of the Jay- 
 Hawkers, they knew nothing. Thus they had no clew 
 as to the cause of Nancy s sudden illness, but they were 
 full of curiosity and awe. Heaton spent the whole 
 day shut up in his cabin, seeing no one and speaking to 
 no one. Poor fellow! It was a lonely vigil for him to 
 keep on that day of all days. 
 
 Toward the afternoon Aunt Monin went to him with 
 some food. He was sitting with his head buried in his 
 hands, the picture of hopeless despair. 
 
 " Mas r Charlie, why don t yo pray for de Lo d ter 
 show yo some sign, so yo know what ter do in de day 
 o fliction ? " said she, looking sorrowfully at him in 
 his dumb despair. 
 
 " I can t," said Heaton, raising two mournful eyes 
 to her face with a look of hopeless misery. " Tell me, 
 how is she ? " 
 
 " Dat honey-chile s heart done broke/ answered the 
 old woman with a sob. 
 
 " Can t you comfort her? Can t you say something 
 to her? " he asked with pitiful eagerness. 
 
 " Ole Aunt Monin can t say nuffin, Mas r Charlie. 
 She on y pray, an mebbe de LoM he put words o com 
 fort inter de ole nigga woman s mouth what ll give hope 
 an cons lation to de suif rin chile." 
 
 "What did she say?" 
 
 " She don t say a heap nohow, Mas r Charlie. She 
 like she done lost de power o speech sometimes, an she 
 on y sob an cry an say dat she love yo so, ah, dat she 
 love yo so! " 
 
 Heaton shivered. 
 
OFF TO THE WARS 193 
 
 " Dat honey-chile/ went on Aunt Monin, while the 
 tears ran down her old withered cheeks, " she ain t like 
 mos gals. She war allers mighty lonesome, an live by 
 herse f de whole life long. She didn t go fo ter have 
 heap o lations, like some folks. She hadn t no mother, 
 on y jess her ole dad, what she love. Den de han o de 
 Lo d fall pon him, an he war taken from her. Den she 
 didn t have nobody lef cept ole Aunt Monin to love. 
 Den bimeby yo come long, Mas r Charlie, an I low dat 
 war de spiation fo dat sin o spillin blood. An she 
 love yo like yo don t know how much. She jess give 
 yo all de love dat go ter father an mother an * sisters in 
 mos gals. She didn t have nary one to love cept yo , 
 an yo got it all. Den dar come de rev lation bout de 
 killin o de ole mas r. An she pears like she can t 
 nebber forgit dat yer han has pulled de trigger what kill 
 her old dad. She don see dat war de han o de Lo d 
 what done dat ar in spiation o de sin what he guilty 
 of." 
 
 Heaton was not listening to this last remark, and if 
 he had listened he would not have understood to what 
 she alluded. His mind was riveted upon one thought: 
 his hand had slain her father. Could he marvel that 
 she shrank from him instinctively? She saw blood 
 on his hand, and that blood was her father s. It 
 would be almost unnatural had she not shrunk from 
 him, and yet he was the one being in the whole world 
 whom she most loved. 
 
 " I must see her," he said at length. " I must try 
 and talk to her and set it before her in a different light." 
 
 He started to leave the cabin, but Aunt Monin 
 stepped quickly before him. " Mas r Charlie, yo 
 mustn t go an try fo ter see her. She don t want yo 
 ter do dat. She done tole me so." 
 
 The young man sat down again. Nancy s slightest 
 wish was law to him. 
 
194: THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " By and bye mayn t I see her? I am sure I could 
 say something to her/ he urged. 
 
 Aunt Monin shook her head. 
 
 " I don t reckon you ll ebber see her gain." 
 
 Heaton sprang up with a passionate cry. 
 
 " Aunt Monin, don t say that! It is wicked. She 
 will love me again after a while when she has had a 
 little time to get over it." 
 
 " Mas r Charlie, she love yo now dish bressed min 
 ute. Dat what she say all de night long, dat she love 
 yo so. Dat s why she s gwine way." 
 
 " She mustn t go away. Why should she go?" he 
 asked, tramping up and down the small room, pressing 
 his hands together in his agony of mind. 
 
 " She say she gwine way cause she can t stay near 
 yo , an she love yo always. She s gwine ter Lawrence 
 ter live dar. An she say yo can keep de farm an de 
 crop." 
 
 " Tell her she mustn t," said Heaton with desperate 
 earnestness. " Tell her that if she does not want to 
 see me, I will go away. Tell her I will stay away until 
 she calls me back. She must not go away. I can not 
 bear it. I have twice wrecked her happiness and twice 
 broken up her home. Oh, my God! " 
 
 He sat down again and hid his face in his hands, 
 his whole frame shaken by a bitter sob that came from 
 his very heart. Aunt Monin looked at him in mournful , 
 silence, and when the frantic paroxysm of his grief 
 had spent itself, she said: " Can t yo eat a little mite o 
 vittles, Mas r Charlie?" She set the plate she had 
 brought before him on the table, but he only shook his 
 head and pushed it away. 
 
 " Miss Nancy, she done tole me ter make yo eat a 
 speck o suthin," said the old woman. 
 
 "Did she want me to?" asked Heaton, raising his 
 eyes. 
 
OFF TO THE WARS 195 
 
 " Yes, Mas r Charlie." 
 
 He forced himself to eat a few mouthfuls, and then 
 Aunt Monin went away, leaving him to his mournful re 
 flections. 
 
 When two days, two unutterably long days, had 
 passed, and still Nancy did not see him, he began to 
 realize that it was her determination not to see him 
 again. The thought when first it presented itself to his 
 mind had been dismissed as too miserable to be en 
 dured, but as time went on and still Nancy would not 
 see him he began to perceive that the idea must be 
 borne no matter how terrible it was. For them to re 
 main so close together and yet so far apart was living 
 death to them both. Life like that could not go on. 
 He resolved, therefore, to go away at once. It was 
 with a sort of savage rage that he saw there was work 
 for him to do which might soon put an end to all his 
 misery. 
 
 It was the third week in the month of April. Fort 
 Sumter had been fired upon and captured by impudent 
 South Carolina, and already the ominous tramp had 
 begun in the North of men marching South to fight 
 for the preservation of the Union, which, whether they 
 reasoned it out or not, was instinctively felt to be the 
 very life of the nation. The first call had been made 
 for volunteers to serve for ninety days, so little did men 
 then foresee the course of that long and bloody struggle. 
 On the fourth day of his misery Heaton rode into Te- 
 cumseh and gave in his name as a volunteer. He was 
 ordered to join a troop from Fort Leavenworth which 
 was to start for the Potomac, whither all the men were 
 hurrying, and that within twenty-four hours. Time 
 pressed and men were wanted to defend the capital as 
 fast as possible. The Sixth Massachusetts had already 
 gone to Washington, and had been set upon by the 
 roughs of Baltimore, and had been obliged to fire their 
 
196 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 first shots in the streets of that town in self-defence. 
 The war had in veriest truth begun. 
 
 Notwithstanding his grief and the bitter ending of 
 his brief love story, Heaton could not help a certain 
 feeling of exhilaration as he rode back from Tecumseh 
 to Carthage. He had now something to do, something 
 that would absorb all his faculties and give no time for 
 vain regrets and hopeless musings. Physical exertion 
 in some measure drives away sorrow. It is the deadly 
 inaction after grief that makes such deep scars upon 
 the heart. Thus men are the more rapidly able to re 
 cover after a blow than women, because they are out in 
 the world and can not give so much time to their sor 
 rows as women can. As he rode along the familiar 
 track the young man paused for a moment to look about 
 him. His eye swept the horizon, bordered by the blue 
 woods of the Kaw Eiver, as it came from the mysterious 
 West and pursued its way to the far distant Gulf of 
 Mexico. The rolling slope of the near ridge of prairie 
 showed the tender green of the early springing grass, 
 and there in the foreground lay the cluster of cabins 
 which had been to him a home, and which held all that 
 was most dear to him on earth. There was Nancy s 
 window, and there the door where in memory he would 
 see her stand long after he had left her, maybe, forever. 
 That was the door where he had seen her standing on 
 that snowy night with the nickering firelight just catch 
 ing the silhouette of her face and drawing shining lines 
 of light in her black hair. 
 
 People say that when men are dying they see visions 
 with wonderful clearness. As Heaton sat on his horse 
 looking at this view he wondered if he were killed 
 should he have time before breathing his last to see 
 again once more that vision of Nancy in the doorway. 
 That was the vision he wanted to carry with him into 
 the grave, and not that other vision of a grief-stricken 
 
OFF TO THE WARS 197 
 
 woman with despairing cry falling backward into the 
 arms of her old nurse. 
 
 Was this, then, to be the end of his young love dream 
 that love dream that had seemed to him to be destined 
 to follow so serene and smooth a course? He remem 
 bered with a pang of remorse how sometimes half- 
 formed thoughts or fancies had swept across his mind 
 that the course of his love was too uneventful, too fair, 
 too unruffled. His feelings of vague discontent and 
 longing for more excitement had really been but the 
 merest ripple upon the calm surface of his life. But 
 now in the shipwreck of his happiness he looked back, 
 reproaching himself. Were there envious Fates, then, 
 who overruled man s destiny to his own destruction, 
 and because he may have sighed for a slight breeze took 
 hellish delight in sending a hurricane to dash him upon 
 the rocks and shatter him to pieces? Surely this was 
 a pagan notion that no man now could hold for true, but 
 in times past there must have been bitter experiences 
 of such sudden shifts of fortune to make men set up the 
 idea that they must propitiate the Fates by the sacri 
 fice of something valuable. Yet in the very telling of 
 the story of such sacrifice its uselessness was impressed 
 upon the hearer. Polycrates couldn t save himself. 
 Fate hurled back his priceless ring, determined to be 
 revenged on him in more direful ways for his too great 
 happiness and good fortune. So it was with Heaton 
 to-day. Man has learned much, but not how to save 
 himself from the strokes of ill fortune that seem to be 
 stored up and held in readiness for all time. The most 
 that philosophy or religion can teach is simply either to 
 endure with fortitude or to bow the head in humility. 
 Man s life track is marked out beforehand for him, but 
 marked with clumsy disregard of the fate of him who 
 has to travel it. There are no danger signals up nor 
 beacon lights burning at the deadly turning points 
 
198 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 nothing to show him where lies the hidden danger, the 
 after-effects of which will be so terrible. He is bidden 
 follow the track in blind helplessness, often, no doubt, 
 passing close to perils that would have been fatal, only 
 he slipped unconsciously by just on the safe side, but 
 sometimes falling a victim because, just as unconscious 
 ly, he veered to the danger side. The dividing line is 
 so narrow that none can see it, and so mankind in blind 
 ness, but ever in hope, pursues his course along the 
 track of life, where many, long before the goal is 
 reached, stumble and fall to rise no more. 
 
 Thus musing on his own fate Heaton rode up to the 
 bars, where he was roused from his gloomy meditations 
 by the two young darkies Pete and Moses, who ran out 
 to take his horse. They were accustomed to his silence, 
 doubly accentuated during this season of mourning and 
 doubt, but they glanced at him curiously, for with the 
 sharpness of slaves, who are wont to read every look in 
 their master s face and to shape their course accordingly, 
 they perceived, as it were, an added line of sternness 
 about his mouth. 
 
 " Tell Sambo to get out the wagon and the brown 
 horses. I am going into Tecumseh again to-day, and I 
 shall want him to bring home the wagon. I m not 
 coming back any more," said Heaton as he gave his 
 bridle rein to Pete. 
 
 " Whar yo gwine, mas r?" asked Moses, venturing 
 upon the extreme audacity of a direct question, since 
 the extraordinary circumstances seemed to warrant lib 
 erties being taken. 
 
 " I m going to the war, to be killed most likely," 
 answered Heaton bitterly. 
 
 The young darkies instantly set up a lugubrious 
 howl, not unmelodious in the distance, their official 
 signal of grief, much resorted to by negroes on the occa 
 sion of a death. Heaton walked away to his cabin to 
 
OFF TO THE WARS 199 
 
 make his rapid preparations and to write a letter of 
 farewell to Nancy. The news of his departure and the 
 object of his going soon became known, and a vast 
 amount of howling resulted, for the negroes felt in duty 
 bound to mourn for the " mas r." They could not for 
 get the absolute justice and unvarying kindness with 
 which he had always treated them. Very soon their 
 native desire to make a song and a dance of everything 
 began to assert itself. Words slipped into the howlings, 
 which became more musical. The tendency to chant 
 their emotions and dance to them is indicative of a 
 very primitive stage of human development. The idea 
 clashes with our notions of what is seemly, because we 
 have relegated singing and dancing, especially dancing, 
 only to moments of the most frivolous leisure, but 
 among the ruder races of mankind dancing and sing 
 ing hold quite another position. The dancing dervishes 
 are far from being animated by frivolity, and the Irish 
 peasant s keen at a funeral is a sign of deep woe. The 
 keen, or melodious howl in a minor key, fittingly ex 
 presses their grief at the death of their beloved one. It 
 strikes us as uncouth, because it is not the custom for 
 the rigid self-contained Anglo-Saxon to howl with any 
 thing but rage. 
 
 The negroes perhaps brought their mournful death 
 cadences with them from Africa, and nothing that has 
 taken place in their history from that time forward is 
 sufficiently exhilarating to cause them to change their 
 songs into a major key. I know of no sound more in- 
 laden with sorrow and mourning than that of real 
 negroes singing their real songs. These songs are rude 
 and violate every rule known to our rhymesters, but they 
 carry a burden of sadness in their cadence which would 
 make the reputation of half a dozen poets could they 
 incorporate it into their carefully polished elegies. 
 
 " Is there any one dying among the negroes that 
 
200 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 they sing like that? " asked Nancy, hearing the wailing 
 and recognising it as a sign of woe. 
 
 " No, Miss Nancy, dar ain t no nigga dyin dish 
 time. Dey s on y singin de good-bye song fo Mas r 
 Charlie. He s gwine off to de war, an he won t nebber 
 come back no mo . He s gwine ter lay down his life fo 
 de niggas an free de slaves." 
 
 Aunt Monin had no authority for any of these state 
 ments except of course that Heaton had volunteered 
 for a soldier, but she was a strong partisan, and her 
 affection for "Mas r Charlie" prompted her to place 
 him in the most affecting light possible. 
 
 " Oh, not yet, not now! " exclaimed Nancy, suddenly 
 brought face to face with the thought that Heaton was 
 going from her, and that she would see him no more. 
 
 " Yes, Miss Nancy, he s gwine for shu . Sambo done 
 hitch up de brown bosses in de wagon for ter take him 
 way to die." 
 
 This was pure hyperbole, but Nancy did not wait 
 to reason. All her love rose up in her heart, overwhelm 
 ing every other recollection. Charlie was going off to 
 the wars, and she loved him so. 
 
 Ah, me! In those years how many times in every 
 village, in every State, was the same tragedy repeated! 
 Soldiers going away amid hurried farewells, and broken 
 hearted girls sobbing out their hearts for the lovers who 
 might never come back to them. 
 
 The negroes who were clustering around the wagon 
 and talking to Sambo were startled by the sudden flash 
 of Nancy, who sped past them, her dark hair streaming 
 down her back, her black eyes glittering unnaturally in 
 her white face. She went straight from her door to 
 Heaton s little cabin and entered breathless. He had 
 finished his brief letter to her, and was standing up put 
 ting on his cartridge belt when, without a note of warn 
 ing, Nancy came in. 
 
OFF TO THE WARS 201 
 
 It was not a moment for words. Their hearts were 
 too full for that slow and imperfect medium of com 
 munication. Instinctively they fell back upon Nature s 
 simple language. Nancy threw herself sobbing upon 
 Heaton s bosom, and he clasped her in his arms,, kissing 
 her dark hair. After some moments she raised her 
 tearful eyes and said under her breath, " Are you really 
 going, Charlie?" 
 
 " Yes, dearest. It is best so. It is my expiation. 
 If I come back, will you forgive me by and bye? If I 
 never come back, will you forgive me now? " 
 
 There was forgiveness, there was despair, in the 
 cry with which Nancy again threw her arms around 
 his neck and laid her soft cheek against the cartridges 
 and pressed those destructive objects into her tender 
 flesh. Heaton patted the quivering form and in a chok 
 ing voice tried to comfort her, but what comfort was 
 possible at such a moment? So she laid her head down 
 and wept, as hundreds of others were weeping that 
 night and clinging around their lovers necks in an 
 agony of hopeless despair. 
 
 " De wagon s ready, mas r, an de bosses is stompin 
 der hoofs off," said Sambo, poking his black face in 
 through the door. 
 
 " Send Aunt Monin here/ said Heaton, not daring 
 to leave poor Nancy alone in the supreme moment of 
 her despair. 
 
 The old woman came quickly enough. Her loving 
 heart told her why she was wanted. 
 
 " Take care of her, Aunt Monin," said he, putting 
 Nancy into the arms that had sheltered her since baby 
 hood. 
 
 " Honey-chile, trust in de Lo d dat he watch over 
 Mas r Charlie in de midst o de roar o de battle. Pray 
 to de Lo d, chile." 
 
 Nancy knelt, burying her face in her hands in silent 
 
202 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 misery; her dark hair fell around her as a veil. The old 
 negress, standing over her. raised her wrinkled face up 
 ward and, stretching out her hands, said: 
 
 " Lo d, have mercy pon all those in sorrow an flic- 
 tion an comfort der hearts." 
 
 "Amen!" said Heaton as he softly left the room. 
 And that was the last image of Nancy that he carried 
 away with him to the war, the image of her kneeling at 
 her nurse s feet, with her dark hair shading her face 
 and her form vibrating with sobs. 
 
 The negroes broke out afresh in their wailing as the 
 w r agon moved off. It was their farewell. 
 
 " Mas r done gone to de war, 
 He nebber come back no mo , 
 An de tree frog sing on his grave, 
 Way down in ole Virginny, oh! " 
 
 The rise and fall of the cadence could still be heard 
 long after Heaton had got beyond the reach of the very 
 lugubrious dirge which sent quite a shiver of forebod 
 ing over him. 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 BUSHWHACKERS 
 
 THAT same spring month which saw the rebellion 
 begin on the banks of the Potomac let loose the dogs 
 of war all along the Missouri line. War indeed had 
 existed in a spasmodic form for full five years or more, 
 but it was not called by that name; and the raids on one 
 side and the other were extolled cr decried according 
 to the bias of the people engaged in them or of the 
 sufferers from them. Such a training made very relent 
 less soldiers when the time came to give the raiders on 
 both sides that title. Quiet settlers on the border aban 
 doned their farms, for Missouri was just on the dividing 
 line between North and South, and while the northern 
 half of it remained in the Union, the southern portion 
 sympathized with the secession States. According as 
 the fortune of war swayed and changed, so the line of 
 demarcation was pushed farther up toward St. Louis 
 or was rolled back to Arkansas. Such a land was no 
 place for peaceful farming folk; it was much too dis 
 turbed for them. Men don t care to plant corn, if the 
 field is to be used for a battle ground, to be ridden over 
 by the living and cumbered by the dead, when the crop 
 is half grown. Nor do they relish raising horses, if they 
 are likely to be taken when old enough for the saddle, 
 even if paid a good price for them in worthless Confed 
 erate paper. Thus the rich land near the line became 
 deserted by men, and the deer roamed in and rested 
 14 203 
 
204 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 beneath the shade of peach trees heavy laden with velvet 
 fruit which no one was there to gather. The hogs, too, 
 let loose out of their once narrow pens, got thin from 
 lack of fattening food, but the sinews of their legs re 
 sumed power to move their bodies once more, and swift 
 as the flight of a hound was the rush of the black 
 bristling hogs crashing through the tangled underwood. 
 They enjoyed the peaches and drove out the deer with 
 many a grunt of deep satisfaction as they munched up 
 the fallen fruit, extracting the last invigorating whiff 
 of prussic acid from out the cracked stone before swal 
 lowing it. Oh, those were gay times for the hogs down 
 in Missouri when the farmers had fled and left their 
 orchards to the swine! But it was less cheerful after the 
 first frost had sent down the shower of shrivelled and 
 sweet-tasting persimmons, too soon to be devoured, leav 
 ing nothing behind but frozen ground and acorns lying 
 under the leaves. Then the hogs had to root and bur 
 row and toil from morn till night to get food, and all 
 the while they got thinner and thinner, and the sinews 
 of their legs stood out like whipcord. They had not 
 much weight to carry, but their weak legs were not able 
 for the lightened load. So, wondering perchance at the 
 change that had come over the world, now all cornless 
 for them, the hogs rooted away in the woods and got 
 lankier day by day. 
 
 Along with the deer and the hogs another class of 
 creatures arose and swarmed upon the Missouri line. 
 These were the " bushwhackers/ a name full of mean 
 ing that needs little elucidation. When society comes 
 to the boil there is a lot of scum that rises to the top. 
 The bushwhackers were the Missouri scum. Bands of 
 reckless men under a yet more reckless leader used to 
 collect and dash across the line into Kansas to catch 
 runaway negroes and do whatever damage they could 
 to those who protected or harboured the escaped slaves. 
 
BUSHWHACKERS 205 
 
 It was the counter-blast to the Jay-Hawkers, and the 
 last effort of expiring slavery. 
 
 Among the leaders who made for themselves a name 
 in this wild warfare none was better known and none 
 more justly feared than the border ruffian Quantrell. 
 He came from no one knew where, and he went no one 
 knew whither, but he left always a broad trail of burning 
 houses behind him to show his path in Kansas. Winter 
 and summer, day and night, sometimes in the north 
 near Kansas City, sometimes as far down as Fort Scott, 
 Quantrell was known to lead his furious raids, gathering 
 up negroes and destroying houses as he passed. He 
 never ill used the women or molested young children 
 that is white women and children, but he had a short 
 sharp way with men, even white ones, which often ended 
 with a rifle bullet. He rapidly built up a reputation for 
 dare-devil bravery, which, combined with his severity, 
 soon made his name a terror to all within reach, and 
 one never knew how far his reach might eventually ex 
 tend. At first he confined himself to operations within 
 a day s ride of the line, but as his fame spread and the 
 number of his followers increased he extended the area 
 of his influence. No one within twenty miles of the 
 line dared call himself safe. 
 
 The tales of Quantrell and his doings spread far over 
 the land, and assuredly lost nothing on the way in the 
 telling. At the first hint that he might be near the 
 negroes took to the woods in every direction, remaining 
 for days together cowering down under the brushwood, 
 for no negro who had ever looked on the great bush 
 whacker s face had come back to tell what Quantrell 
 was like. If he could not carry off or drive the negroes 
 before him back into slavery he would deliberately 
 shoot them. Never, under any circumstances, did he 
 leave a free negro behind him, and few were those who 
 managed to escape out of his clutches once he headed 
 
206 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 them toward Missouri. Small wonder, therefore, if 
 they dreaded him as the chicken dreads the hawk, and 
 that they should, like frightened chickens, flee under 
 cover at the first hint of his presence in their neighbour 
 hood. 
 
 The name and fame of Quantrell had, of course, 
 reached Carthage, and the little colony of negroes who 
 lived there under Nancy s sheltering wing; but they 
 felt secure in the distance which separated them from 
 Missouri. When Nancy heard accounts of how he had 
 swooped down and carried off negroes from near Law 
 rence itself, and taken them away from the midst of a 
 determined and well-armed free-state population, she 
 blessed the lucky chance which had brought her and 
 them to Carthage far out of harm s way. Whenever the 
 negroes came to tell her of some fresh raid, which very 
 certainly lost nothing in dramatic horror on passing 
 through their minds, Nancy would always say at the end 
 of the recital how thankful she was that they had Law 
 rence between them and harm, and were safe. 
 
 The negroes themselves, however, did not feel the 
 same sense of security. Their lives were one long dread 
 and terror for fear of being caught and brought back 
 into Missouri. Many a time as they sat around their 
 fire roasting their ears of corn for supper they would 
 talk over the chances and alarms of a raid. The sub 
 ject seemed to have a fascination for them. 
 
 " Yo , Sambo, whar ll yo hide when de bushwhack 
 ers come long hyar? " Pete would ask, with his beady 
 eyes fixed on his own ear of corn for fear that Moses 
 might grab it, under the impression that it was a better 
 one than his or was in a more favourable place for 
 being thoroughly roasted without burning. 
 
 " Dish nigga ain t agwine ter hide," Sambo replied 
 with stern scorn. 
 
 " Whar yo gwine ter git then? " 
 
BUSHWHACKERS 207 
 
 "Fse gwine ter fight," Sambo answered with a 
 thump on his chest, rolling his eyes until the whites 
 showed all around. This mightily pleased the small 
 darkies, who admired nothing so much as courage, of 
 which they themselves never exhibited a trace at any 
 moment in their lives. M linder admired it, too, for 
 whose sole benefit, if the truth be told, Sambo was thus 
 boasting. 
 
 " La, Sambo, yo ain t got no gun; yo can t fight 
 nohow," M linder said, belittling his valour. M linder 
 was quite aware of Sambo s admiration, but loved to 
 appear to depreciate his prowess, a peculiarity often ob 
 served in women, whatever may happen to be the colour 
 of their skin. 
 
 " I kin fight thout ary gun. Thar ain t nothin I 
 can t fight with," replied Sambo boastfully, " when I se 
 got ladies ter defen ." 
 
 " Lawk, how yo does run long! " said M linder, 
 hardly able to conceal her admiration for the hero. 
 
 " I jess take chunk o wood an bust Quantrell s 
 head off kerflop," exclaimed Pete, excited by all this 
 talk. 
 
 " Yah, yo go long! " exclaimed Aunt Monin scorn 
 fully. " Young rooster make mo racket an crowin 
 dan de hen dat lay de egg, but de ole woman don neb- 
 ber go ter look whar he s bin a-settin ." 
 
 Pete subsided under the laugh called up by this 
 rebuke. 
 
 " If Mas r Heaton he bin hyar, he done build up a 
 fort an bring de sojers," remarked Moses, who had seen 
 some in Tecumseh once and had never recovered from 
 the amazement which their shiny swords had created in 
 his mind. 
 
 " Yo shet yer mouf ; yo dunno numn bout sojers 
 an forts an fightin ," observed Sambo, anxious to mo 
 nopolize the talk as well as the Admiration of the circle. 
 
208 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " Fse gwine ter sharpen de ole axe mighty sharp an 
 grin it to de razor edge on de grin stone." 
 
 "Whatfo P" asked Pete. 
 
 Sambo looked scornfully at him and remained con 
 temptuously silent. 
 
 " Speck yo gwine ter chop off de head o ole man 
 Quantrell," said M linder exultingly. 
 
 Sambo, as became a great hero, said nothing to this 
 flattering assumption, but pulled his ear of corn from 
 before the fire, rubbed a sprinkle of salt into the long 
 luscious rows of grains, and began thoughtfully to 
 gnaw at it with his strong white teeth. This was the sig 
 nal for all the other negroes to begin, and nothing was 
 heard but the grinding of their powerful teeth, much as 
 if they had been a lot of black ponies at a feed of corn. 
 
 The slow year dragged wearily along at Carthage, 
 and never since the day when he had closed the door 
 on her, kneeling at Aunt Monin s feet, had Heaton 
 sent a word to Nancy. She did not know whether he 
 was dead or alive. She did not even know where he 
 had gone. She read the papers with eagerness, and 
 followed the lists of killed, wounded, and missing ac 
 cording as they appeared after the various battles; at 
 first with many a heartache, wondering what was the 
 history of different ones whose names for some reason 
 or other struck her fancy, but soon this feeling wore off. 
 She had no more sorrow to expend vaguely on names 
 that carried no personal image with them. Her heart 
 used to beat wildly when she came across the name of 
 Heaton, as she did more than once, even when coupled 
 with initials not belonging to the one whose fate so 
 deeply interested her. Once she read among the list of 
 wounded, " Captain Charles Heaton, slightly," and in 
 the next list he appeared as severely wounded, and she 
 at once made up her mind that it was Charlie, and that 
 he was going to die. 
 
BUSHWHACKERS 209 
 
 Of course Nancy talked to Aunt Monin about this 
 new cause of grief. She talked to her about everything. 
 She was the one companion the young girl had, but 
 nothing that she could say was likely to upset the old 
 woman s firm convictions on this subject. 
 
 "Mas r Charlie warn t agwine ter die. He was 
 gwine ter come back to em. Cause why? He was 
 p inted to save Miss Nancy, like he done save em all in 
 de snow in de winter time." 
 
 When Aunt Monin had once adopted a particular 
 theory of life as an article of her faith, as in the case of 
 other teachers greater than she, it was impossible to 
 make her give any heed to anything that seemed to con 
 flict with her theories. She had made up her mind on 
 the subject of Heaton s return, and was unvarying in her 
 steadfast belief. In her secret heart Nancy got a great 
 deal of consolation out of this positiveness of conviction, 
 and used frequently to say things in order to draw from 
 Aunt Monin a renewed expression of her belief that 
 " Mas r Charlie was coming home soon as de wa over." 
 " When Mas r Charlie come home from de wa , he ll 
 be mad dat de ole fence roun de paster ain t men ed up," 
 she would say when her eagle eye detected a fence rail 
 broken or thrown down. " Mas r Charlie he powerful 
 tickler, an have his fence mighty peart an strong, dat 
 he is, fo shu ." 
 
 Observations like these were a great comfort to 
 Nancy and seemed to put new life and hope into her. 
 Aunt Monin s love for her honey-chile had taught her 
 how best to comfort and console her during these long 
 weary months of anxiety and loneliness. 
 
 The cabin which Heaton had made use of for his 
 dwelling place had remained unoccupied since he left. 
 Nancy could not bear to let the negroes have it, so it re 
 mained locked up, and she kept the key. It contained 
 nothing except a few of his old coats, which still hung 
 
210 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 on pegs against the wall. The meagre furniture Nancy 
 had removed into her own house. Aunt Monin ob 
 jected to this empty house remaining unused. When 
 the rats got into the corncrib she suggested that the 
 meal bins, at all events, should be put into that cabin, 
 for then the dog could be shut up with them, and he 
 would soon make a clearance of the rats. This was ac 
 cordingly done, and Nancy still kept the key in her pos 
 session, all the more necessary now since it didn t do to 
 let negroes have the run of any food, even if it 
 were only corn meal; they were so wastefully extrava 
 gant whenever there was plenty. 
 
 Somewhere toward the end of a very hot August 
 John P. Ridgway, who had been doing a thriving busi 
 ness in the matter of selling cavalry horses to the Fed 
 eral Government, found himself at Tecumseh, and, re 
 membering his friends at Carthage, thought he would 
 look them up. He had heard nothing of them since 
 some time in the spring, when Heaton had written to 
 him about the coming marriage, and he had sent a cor 
 dial letter of felicitation in reply. Eiding up to the bars 
 on the afternoon in question, he was pleased to see 
 Nancy standing in her doorway, much the same as he 
 had seen her stand on that winter s night six months be 
 fore. He came forward with a bright smile, and said, 
 in a loud and hearty voice : 
 
 "Well, Mrs. Heaton, howdy? Getting long pretty 
 spry, eh?" 
 
 Nancy blushed painfully up to the roots of her hair 
 and retreated back a step or two, without making any 
 reply to this salutation. 
 
 Ridgway saw that he had made some mistake, but 
 he was a man of not very delicate feeling, so he contin 
 ued, not one whit abashed: 
 
 "Old man dead? Is he? Dear, dear, I am sorry, so 
 I am." 
 
BUSHWHACKERS 211 
 
 " Mas r Charlie done volunteer f o de wa long while 
 back, mas r. We dunno whar he be, an Miss Nancy 
 Overton she done live hyar an run de farm all by her- 
 se f," said Aunt Monin, coming to the rescue of a some 
 what difficult situation. Eidgway gave a prolonged 
 whistle, then a good stare at Nancy, watching the rich 
 colour die slowly out of her face, leaving it somewhat 
 wan and pale looking. 
 
 " Well, I swan! " he ejaculated after a few mo 
 ments profound meditation. "He wasn t so sot on 
 fighting as that. I never should have guessed he d been 
 the one to volunteer, anyhow." 
 
 " Why not? " asked Nancy quickly. " He was the 
 first man to respond to the call in this neighbourhood." 
 There was a ring of exultation in her voice that did not 
 escape her visitor. 
 
 " Do tell! Then he s gone for the three years en 
 listment, you bet. The ninety-day men are back a good 
 while. Some of em got enough of fighting in their 
 ninety days, I can tell you." 
 
 " Mr. Heaton will not come back until the war is 
 over, and this sinful blot of slavery wiped off the land," 
 said Nancy. 
 
 Kidgway looked at her narrowly from between his 
 half-closed eyelids. 
 
 " Going to wait for him? " he inquired slowly. 
 
 " Yes, I am going to wait for him till he comes 
 back," said Nancy, meeting the look unflinchingly and 
 replying to the unmistakable meaning of his question 
 in an unmistakable manner. 
 
 " And if he don t never come back? Folks do get 
 killed in war, you know," continued Eidgway, still look 
 ing at her in the same intent way. 
 
 " Then I ll wait for him all my life, and we shall 
 meet beyond the grave," replied Nancy with deep ear 
 nest voice. 
 
212 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " Well, I swan! " said Kidgway, after which he re 
 lapsed into silence for some time. " What beats me is 
 why the blamed coon volunteered/ he remarked at 
 length in a tone of puzzled commiseration. " He 
 warn t fond of fighting I know for certain. Charlie 
 Heaton warn t tough enough for that kind o work. 
 He had a heap o notions bout right and wrong and jus 
 tice and such like fooling. Notions only gets in a 
 man s way when he s a soldier; when there s fighting 
 work to be done he d better get shut o poetry and fine 
 ideas, I can tell you. Charlie never could do that. He 
 was a powerful soft-hearted fellow for a Kansas man. I 
 never see his beat for that. There was a fellow down in 
 Missouri he killed in a raid. All fair and square, you 
 know killed him in front, as a gentleman should; no 
 sneaking round from behind a tree. And t other fellow 
 had a gun too, only he warn t quick enough to get the 
 drop on him. Well, you wouldn t believe, Miss Over- 
 ton, but that soft-hearted boy was always thinking 
 about that shooting and grieving over it. He told me 
 the whole story one night when we were out buffalo 
 hunting together, and I did laugh, I can tell you. The 
 idea of such a little thing as that coming into a fellow s 
 head and making him uneasy! Queer, warn t it? " 
 
 When Bidgway looked around for Nancy s answer 
 he found, to his surprise, that she had left the room. 
 She must have slipped away when he was laughing at 
 the recollection of Heaton s absurd notions. Aunt 
 Monin came to say that her young mistress was suddenly 
 seized with faintness, and that she could not see him 
 again. The young man was sincerely sorry to hear this, 
 and left many messages of commiseration with the 
 old negress when he rode away. He was sorely puzzled 
 at the position of affairs at Carthage, and when he had 
 reached the rising ground from which he had looked 
 around him in the winter and commented upon Heaton s 
 
BUSHWHACKERS 213 
 
 remarkable cuteness he again pulled up and surveyed 
 the scene thoughtfully. 
 
 " Volunteered in his wedding week. The dog- 
 gauned cuss! " he observed. Then, after a long look 
 around he added: " And she s going to wait for him. 
 The darned fools, both! " 
 
 With that he rode off to Tecumseh to see after his 
 cavalry colts. 
 
CHAPTEE XVIII 
 
 DELENDA EST GARTH AGO ! 
 
 THE years of the war were long, long years. It 
 would be hard to say whether the hours dragged more 
 slowly for those left at home, living their lives in anx 
 ious suspense, or for the men at the front, with the dan 
 gers and fierce excitements of battle alternating with 
 the drudgery of camp life and the suffering of the hos 
 pital tent. War as seen from afar is mainly a series of 
 pictorial effects in illustrated newspapers, finished off 
 by the triumphant return of the battered battalions, 
 more glorious and popular in their rags than in the 
 finest parade smartness of a birthday review. War, as 
 seen at first hand, presents a very different aspect. 
 Happily, no imagination is vivid enough to make us 
 realize an actual battle, or even the details of a slight 
 skirmish. The first sight of even the merest fringe of 
 war is such as to leave an impression that nothing will 
 ever afterward efface. The coldest heart that ever pul 
 sated beats quicker at the sight of a regiment marching 
 to the front. There they go bravely forward, following 
 their flag and their music with bright eyes gleaming and 
 heads erect. Poor atoms in a regiment, how many of 
 you will ever come back? And if you do, will your eyes 
 then be bright and your gallant heads erect? No. You 
 will crawl home, many of you, poor maimed creatures 
 with the vigour of manhood forever crushed out. 
 
 The war of the secession was a long, fierce struggle, 
 214 
 
DELENDA EST CARTHAGO! 215 
 
 lasting over months and years. It was none of those 
 campaigns of a few weeks which nowadays are some 
 times called wars. It was of the old-fashioned fighting 
 kind of war, when men met in mortal combat. It 
 was a bloody war, for both sides fought with courage 
 and determination. The South sent up its men in 
 thousands until there were none left but old ones at 
 home; and the North sent down its men in thousands, 
 having plenty more to draw from. There was an end 
 less procession of young manhood converging on Rich 
 mond for years and years, and of that procession only 
 very few ever got safely home again. Richmond was 
 like a furnace, said a Southern mother, a roaring, raging 
 furnace, and the young men were hurled into it like 
 logs of wood; and out of that furnace, when the great 
 conflagration was over, there came forth but a few 
 ashes. 
 
 There was no spot in all the wide area of the United 
 States so remote or so secluded that it could hide itself 
 away from the war. If, happily, it was far enough re 
 moved from Mason and Dixon s line to be forever be 
 yond sound of trumpet call and rifle shot, at least there 
 were within its borders hearts that throbbed with anx 
 ious love for those at the front. Every village and ham 
 let, nay, almost every house, was in direct communica 
 tion with the army by .the universal connecting tele 
 graph of human love. After every battle and every 
 skirmish, how those poor human telegraph threads 
 throbbed with the anguish of palpitating anxiety, or too 
 often with the certainty of hopeless despair! 
 
 Carthage, away off on the rolling prairie, far from 
 any neighbour, set down there in the midst of wild un 
 trammelled Nature Carthage too had its private wire 
 to the front, along which Nancy s heartaches used to 
 pulsate, as she nightly prayed for that dear life which 
 was more than all the world to her, and which had been 
 
216 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 offered up for her country s sake. Yet all the while life 
 seemed to flow smoothly forward for Nancy and her 
 little colony of negroes. At last she began to see that 
 as far as material success was concerned she was succeed 
 ing. Two whole years had elapsed since Charlie Heaton 
 had gone away. It was spring again, and Nancy was 
 full of the manifold duties of getting forward with her 
 crop. She understood more about work now. She had 
 turned the corner of her difficulties. For two years her 
 seed sowings had been blessed with bountiful harvest 
 ings,, and now the rich purple prairie soil turned up 
 broad acres of ploughed land to the life-giving rays of 
 the warm spring sunshine. Nothing had begun to 
 sprout as yet, but there was a sense of growing in the 
 very air. The first great bluebottle fly had buzzed 
 around Nancy as she stood in the south doorway, bask 
 ing in the genial warmth of the sun. She welcomed 
 him and rejoiced over his cheerful buzz. One fly is wel 
 come as a harbinger of spring. When they come in 
 batches of a million and a half at a time the welcome, 
 which would have been cordial if concentrated upon a 
 single individual, does not suffice to go round. 
 
 It was on one of these warm spring days, when the 
 air was soft and the prairie had just begun to clothe it 
 self in tender green, that Nancy was returning home 
 from a neighbour s farm some ten miles away to the 
 west of her house. She had been to get some water 
 melon seeds of a kind warranted to thrive in a dry 
 country, which she intended to plant in generous pro 
 fusion for the benefit of the negroes, who revel in water 
 melons. The days was bright and clear, and, as the 
 sun was at her back, it being already late in the after 
 noon, she was able to see with singular distinctness. 
 Her house stood high up on the open prairie, unshad 
 owed by a single tree, and was visible for miles around. 
 As she rode along, Nancy became aware, when still some 
 
DELENDA EST CARTHAGO! 217 
 
 three miles off, that there was a certain amount of move 
 ment around the buildings. Dim shadows appeared to 
 traverse the brightness of the house where the sun shone 
 full upon the western side. Nancy, like all healthy 
 Western girls, had keen sight. Her black eyes were not 
 troubled by following the crooked and crabbed out 
 lines of print, nor did sitting up late tend to dim 
 their brightness. Therefore, as she rode homeward she 
 amused herself by scrutinizing the houses carefully, try 
 ing to make out what was going forward during her ab 
 sence. What puzzled her most was an occasional bright 
 flash, as if some child were whisking about a looking- 
 glass or somebody were kicking about tin milk pans 
 upon which the sun was beaming steadily. She could 
 not make it out. The flashings became brighter and 
 more puzzling the longer she looked at them. 
 
 At length she pulled up and took a steady sight. 
 Yes, there were undoubtedly a number of persons mov 
 ing about casting the puzzling shadows. She was 
 vexed. It was unpardonable of the negroes to leave 
 their work and prance about like that just because her 
 back was turned. She felt incensed at their dishonest 
 laziness; they had learned some of the virtues of free 
 dom by this time, and should know better. She rode 
 smartly forward for half a mile and then stopped once 
 more. The moving figures were not negroes. They 
 were men on horseback, and in great numbers, too. 
 The flashings must be from rifle barrels or swords. 
 Nothing but steel flashed back the sun s level rays in 
 so vivid a manner. 
 
 Soldiers! What were they doing at her house? 
 Nancy wondered, and again rode forward. The move 
 ment ceased around the house. A black mass was col 
 lecting at the bars. Somehow they didn t give the im 
 pression of soldiers. There seemed too much of a helter- 
 skelter confusion for the movements of trained troops. 
 
218 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 They were riding away. That was just as well. Nancy 
 slackened her speed. She did not particularly care to 
 meet a band of soldiers. Sometimes they were noisy 
 and not especially under control,, as, for instance, that 
 unruly Irish regiment encamped east of Tecumseh. So 
 she loitered along in order to let the men get clear away 
 before she returned. She would hear all about the visit 
 from Aunt Monin and the rest the moment she got back. 
 Suddenly she started in her saddle. What was that? 
 Columns of blue curling smoke rising from among the 
 corn stacks, eddying over the hayrick, and issuing from 
 the windows of her house. 
 
 Nancy laid her rawhide whip across her horse s flank 
 and rode madly toward the house. The blue columns 
 got thicker and thicker, belching upward toward the 
 sky in heavy spiral masses. Fast and furiously as she 
 rode, however, the flames were quicker than she was. 
 By the time she got to the bars the flames were curling 
 up forty feet over her corn stacks and the wicked red 
 tongues were licking the lintel of the kitchen door, 
 while the stable and henhouse were both alight, the 
 maddened fowls flying with croaks of terror before the 
 fierce blaze. 
 
 Not a soul was to be seen, and no sound but the roar 
 ing of the flames. Her frightened horse refused to pass 
 the bars and snorted loudly at the fearful sight. Tying 
 him hurriedly to the fence, Nancy rushed to the cabins, 
 which showed as yet no signs of fire. The first she went 
 to was Charlie Heaton s long vacant house. The door 
 was burst open, and a pile of shucks and straw in the 
 middle of the floor showed that the enemy had been at 
 work there too. The cornshucks had been set on fire, 
 but there being nothing else for them to burn they had 
 gone out, leaving only a blackened heap of smouldering 
 ashes behind. These Nancy scattered and stamped out 
 with her feet; then she went to the next cabin, but there 
 
DELENDA EST CARTHAGO! 219 
 
 she was met by a burst of flame. The work had been 
 more thoroughly done, because the kindling fire of corn- 
 shucks had been supplemented by the clothes and fur 
 niture and bedding in the house. The cabins were all 
 alight, while the air was full of flying, burning fluff 
 from the hay and corn stacks. She could not stay in 
 Heaton s cabin on account of the suffocating smoke 
 which collected in it. She was driven to take refuge in 
 the newly ploughed field. The sun sank below the 
 western horizon, and the darkening evening sky was 
 lighted up by the glare of the burning buildings. 
 
 Hour after hour, all through that spring night, 
 Nancy sat in the cornfield, watching her home burn it 
 self out to the last cinder. The only building that re 
 mained standing was Heaton s little cabin, and into this 
 she crept in the gray hours of the morning, shivering 
 with cold and the exhaustion of those hours of melan 
 choly watching. She huddled Beaton s old working 
 coat around herself and lay down on the floor, where, 
 in sheer misery, she cried herself to sleep amid the 
 blackened ruins of her house and home. Hours after 
 ward she was aroused by hearing voices. Frightened at 
 the thought of human beings near her, she crept to the 
 window and peeped out. A couple of men stood there, 
 whom she recognised as settlers from beyond the creek. 
 Accordingly, she ventured forth from her hiding place. 
 
 "By gosh! be that you, Miss Overton? We lowed 
 Quantrell hed lit out with the whole on yer," 
 
 " I suppose it was Quantrell/ said Nancy wearily. 
 
 " You may lay it were that same. Thar ain t nary 
 nother ? ud do such a sight o burnin as him. Thar s a 
 broad trail o* burnin* hind him, anyhow. The all-fired 
 cuss has lighted a heap o houses the whole way down to 
 the Missouri line." 
 
 " All my negroes are gone too," said Nancy with a 
 shiver. " Not one is left, not even old Aunt Monin." 
 15 
 
220 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 She fairly broke down and sobbed aloud. The men 
 looked very sorrowful. 
 
 " We ll hev to riz up an hang every man in Missouri 
 as far as the Osage," said one of the men, by way of 
 offering the comfort of revenge to Nancy. " This 
 hyar sort o cavortin roun an burnin out folks hes got 
 ter be shut down." 
 
 " There are soldiers in Tecumseh and Topeka; why 
 didn t they stop Quantrell? " asked Nancy, with the ig 
 norance of a woman. 
 
 " Sojers," observed one of the men, Wilson by name, 
 " ain t much good for catching bushwhackers. They re 
 sorter slow an solemn ter ride with. They ain t spry 
 nough for that kinder work, an they hes ter git counted 
 an mounted satisfact ry, an a heap o foolin hes ter be 
 gone through fore they re ready ter begin. For ter 
 catch up with bushwhackers you hes ter be mighty 
 limber, an ready ter jump inter yer saddle an sling up 
 yer rifle quick as a cat can wink her eye." 
 
 " You bet that s how it ll have to be done, if it ever 
 is done," assented his companion. " This here farm is 
 most busted up, marm. I don t calc late you ll be low 
 ing to stay this ways any more." 
 
 " I don t know what to do. I haven t a friend that I 
 can go to in all the world, and no money now. Every 
 thing is gone," said Nancy piteously, her great eyes full 
 of tears. 
 
 Poor child, it was hard after all her brave attempts 
 to do her duty! Destiny was too strong for her; she 
 must give up. She grieved for the destruction of her 
 home, around which her heart had begun to twine in af 
 fectionate interest, but what she felt most deeply was 
 the fate of her negroes. She had sacrificed everything 
 in order to free them and to do what she could to re 
 store to them the boon of freedom from which they had 
 been so long debarred, and now, just as success seemed 
 
DELENDA EST CARTHAGO! 221 
 
 to crown her efforts, came this crushing blow. They 
 were torn away from her by a band of robbers who 
 would exult in their sufferings. They were now in the 
 hands of the most relentless enemies of their race, 
 and she who had loved them so well was powerless to 
 save them. 
 
 Wilson and his companion tried hard to induce 
 Nancy to leave the blackened ruins of her home and 
 come away at once with them. Each in turn offered her 
 his own horse to ride, declaring he could walk easy 
 enough. She decided to remain one day there, however, 
 taking shelter in the one cabin that was left among the 
 ruins of Carthage. She said that perhaps her horse 
 would come back, and that she wanted to be there to 
 catch him. She referred, of course, to the one she had 
 tied to the bars the evening before, but who had broken 
 loose and run off in terror at the flames. She said she 
 hoped the horse would come back, but what she really 
 hoped was that possibly some of the negroes might man 
 age to escape from their captors, in which case they 
 would be sure to make for Carthage, and she wanted to 
 be there to receive them. It was a foolish, unreasoning 
 hope, but she could not resign herself all in a moment 
 to the bitter thought of losing Aunt Monin forever. 
 The two settlers left her regretfully after doing what 
 little they could to make her comfortable. They made 
 a fire for her there was plenty of charred timber about 
 and saw that she could make herself some bread, there 
 being some meal left in the bins. This done, they took 
 their departure, Wilson promising to come for her with 
 his wagon the very next day, when she would have to 
 come home with him no matter whether the horse had 
 returned or not. He was a poor man, a struggling West 
 ern settler with few cattle and a large family, but he 
 told Nancy she was welcome to come and stay at his 
 house a year if she liked. When real affliction over- 
 
222 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 takes one there is nothing can exceed the sterling kind 
 ness of a prairie settler. There is no passing by on the 
 other side on the prairie. When a traveller has fallen 
 among thieves the next man that conies along offers 
 him help with the best heart and the worst grammar 
 possible. 
 
 Nancy slept that night on the floor of Heaton s 
 cabin, covered by one of his old coats. In the middle 
 of the night her somewhat nervous slumbers were 
 broken by the sound of a wailing voice. It was a wild, 
 unearthly sound, and Nancy started up full of alarm in 
 a moment. Everything she had ever heard of in the 
 way of terrors, natural or supernatural, rushed into her 
 mind with exceeding clearness. Indeed, she was in a 
 sufficiently helpless and unprotected state to warrant 
 her feeling uncomfortable at the thought of there being 
 strange persons about. She was absolutely alone, half 
 a dozen miles from the nearest neighbour, and without 
 even a horse to carry her into safety by flight. She re 
 pented of her determination to wait for her negroes at 
 Carthage. Why had she been so mad as to stay here 
 in this deserted cabin? Why had she not gone away 
 with Wilson into safety while yet there was time? Her 
 heart thumped in her throat. She felt like shrieking 
 aloud from very terror, but she managed to check the 
 mad impulse to do so. She buried her head in Heaton s 
 coat and kissed the rough material in memory of the 
 brave heart that once beat under its homely folds. 
 
 Charlie, Charlie, if only you were here now to 
 defend her! 
 
 The wailing cry came distinctly nearer. It could 
 not possibly proceed from an animal, for it made articu 
 late sounds. Nancy crept out of her cabin, for it 
 seemed less dreadful to meet the thing, whatever it was, 
 in the open than to be caught in a trap in the house. 
 She held the coat tightly around her to try and smother 
 
DELENDA EST CARTHAGO! 223 
 
 the chattering of her teeth, which seemed to her to 
 clatter like a sawmill. 
 
 A dark shape flitted among the shadowy heaps of 
 blackened ruins. That much she could distinguish in 
 the starlight, and the crackle of the cinders, as it moved 
 among the charred beams of the houses, proved to her 
 that it was not a diseased fancy of her overwrought 
 brain. 
 
 By and bye the phantom came near to the cabin, 
 under the wall of which Nancy was cowering in the 
 shadow. It went in, and all was silent. Each moment 
 she expected to behold some horrid phantasm; she hard 
 ly knew what she most feared, but something still more 
 dreadful than the dim and uncertain terror that was 
 chilling her heart s blood. A murmuring sound came 
 from the cabin, at first faint and indistinct, like the dis 
 tant sough of wind in the pine trees. Then this 
 changed into a woman s droning voice singing over and 
 over the same words: 
 
 " Mas r Charlie done gone ter de war, 
 We won t nebber see him no rno ! 
 De tree frog sing on his grave, 
 Way done in ole Virginny, oh ! " 
 
 Nancy knew that chant well enough, because ever 
 since Heaton went away the negroes were in the habit 
 of singing it every now and then, particularly after 
 hearing that there had been a battle anywhere in which 
 he might be presumed to have been engaged. Evi 
 dently here was one of her negroes back again, and in 
 stead of welcoming her with joy, Nancy was shivering 
 with fright outside the house. 
 
 " Is that you, Melinda? " asked the young girl, going 
 to the door and waiting at the threshold. The singer 
 instantly stopped her song on hearing herself addressed, 
 but did not reply. This puzzled Nancy, but when the 
 
224: THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 doleful ditty was immediately resumed she concluded it 
 was the crazy mulatto woman. 
 
 " Susannah, where have you come from? " she asked 
 in the hope of learning something about the rest of the 
 negroes. 
 
 " Susannah, don t yer cry," was all the answer 
 she got, and this being a well-known revival hymn did 
 not advance matters much further toward a mutual 
 understanding. 
 
 Guided by the voice, she groped her way to where 
 the woman sat crooning to herself, and laid her hand on 
 the face of the singer, but beyond kissing the hand she 
 made no reply. The young girl nestled up to the 
 woman, deriving comfort from the companionship of 
 even a crazy negress, so lonely and desolate was she. 
 She longed to get some information from her concern 
 ing the fate of the others, but, knowing from expe 
 rience how useless would be the attempt, she sat 
 silent until the singer grew tired of the sound of her 
 own voice. 
 
 " Where s Aunt Monin? " she asked suddenly in the 
 hope of rousing the torpid brain. The effect was not 
 what she had anticipated. The answer came at once, 
 clear and unfaltering, in Aunt Monin s own voice and 
 words: 
 
 " Honey-chile, don t yo go for ter sgress gin de 
 will o de Lo d. Yo bide de time o de Lo d an wait in 
 mility for de day o grace." Nancy was electrified, and 
 starting up she said, eagerly: " Aunt Monin, is it you? 
 Tell me. Tell your own chile is it you, or is it a 
 spirit come to mock me?" She was in the greatest 
 distress and agitation. Her companion, however, took 
 not the slightest notice of her, but began again to 
 wail that dirge about Mas r Charlie and his grave. This 
 was too much for Nancy s overstrained nerves; she 
 sobbed aloud. The eerie singer took no notice, but 
 
DELENDA EST CARTHAGO! 225 
 
 wailed and sang, and sang and wailed the whole of the 
 night. 
 
 At the first streak of dawn Nancy pulled her out into 
 the open air to examine her features, for the similarity 
 of voice and expression had been so bewilderingly like 
 Aunt Monin that she could not feel sure which of the 
 two had come back to her through the darkness and the 
 night. Aunt Monin was jet black, and would not have 
 been visible at all in the faint morning light, so when 
 Nancy discerned a face before her she knew it was the 
 mulatto woman, whose yellow features were already be 
 coming visible. 
 
 " Susannah, why do you talk like Aunt Monin? " 
 she asked sternly. 
 
 " Jess put yer trus in de Lo d. He guide yo outer 
 de Ian o wil erness an struction. Look befo yo , 
 honey-chile, in hope an faith, an don nebber look be- 
 hin ," answered Susannah, but the imitation, though 
 still remarkable, was less startling than in the dark, 
 when it appeared to Nancy like magic. The name of 
 Aunt Monin seemed to have the power of projecting 
 some of her thoughts and expressions on poor Susan 
 nah s confused brain, for whenever Nancy repeated it to 
 her she was sure to say something similar to what Aunt 
 Monin used to say upon all and every occasion. As for 
 giving the faintest clew about what had happened, she 
 was totally unable to do so. 
 
 "Is Aunt Monin gone?" asked Nancy, hoping to 
 gather some crumbs of information from the outburst 
 the name would cause. 
 
 " I se gwine down inter Egyp , inter de Ian o bond 
 age, an my eyes sha n t nebber see de honey-chile no 
 mo , but de han o de Lo d stain her an pertec her in 
 de hours o fliction," replied Susannah, and Nancy 
 wept. 
 
 The sun rose unclouded over the heap of blackened 
 
226 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 ruins where once had stood Carthage, and in the dis 
 tance across the twinkling dewy grass came a white- 
 covered wagon shining in the morning light. It was 
 Wilson, who started before dawn to come and fetch 
 Nancy to where she would be safe among friends. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 SLAVE DRIVING 
 
 SAMBO had often rehearsed an imaginary attack by 
 Quantrell, in resisting which he, Sambo, would per 
 form prodigies of valour with his razor-edged axe. The 
 subject indeed was a favourite one with him, both for 
 boastful talk and still more bumptious private imagin 
 ings. When the attack really came, however, Sambo 
 was utterly overwhelmed and cut but a sorry figure, 
 like many another boaster occupying a more exalted 
 position than that poor darky at Carthage. 
 
 It happened in this wise. 
 
 He was drawing in the last loads of fodder out of 
 the field where, according to prairie custom, it had re 
 mained in stacks during the winter, and was standing on 
 the top of his load, while Pete and Moses pitched up 
 the long and heavy sheaves to him. This was charac 
 teristic of negro work. The strongest man takes the 
 lightest end of the log and uses his superiority to force 
 the weaker ones to save him labour. Sambo was of 
 course much stronger than either Pete or Moses, and 
 pitching up heavy sheaves of Indian cornstalks is far 
 heavier work than merely arranging them on the 
 wagon. Accordingly, Sambo arranged them, and Pete 
 and Moses pitched for dear life. As he was thus stand 
 ing on the top of his fodder, urging the small boys to 
 greater exertion and taking his own task very easily, 
 he looked around him in a leisurely manner. By and 
 
 227 
 
228 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 bye he observed several horsemen on the south side of 
 the farm,, and by a strange coincidence a couple more 
 seemed to be making for the bars on the north side. It 
 was a very unusual occurrence to see so many people in 
 that remote neighbourhood. 
 
 As Nancy was away, Sambo felt it incumbent on 
 him to do the civil by all visitors. Therefore he hopped 
 nimbly down off his wagon and ran to the bars, leav 
 ing Pete and Moses to mop their steaming brows and 
 throw themselves on the ground to rest. 
 
 " Sa J> you darky, ole man to home? " hailed one of 
 the horsemen from the bars. 
 
 "No, sar; dar ain t nobuddy hyar ccpt we cullod 
 pussons," replied Sambo in his grandest manner. He 
 visibly swelled out with pride, and stood affably grinning 
 at the two horseman. One of them laughed aloud at 
 the answer, and made some remark to his companion, at 
 the same time throwing him a coil of fine rope which 
 the latter cast over his saddle horn. The first speaker 
 then turned his horse s head and galloped off toward 
 the gully, a small valley where the grass grew long and 
 the cattle love to hide. Sambo stood a few paces inside 
 the bars, prepared to do the polite should occasion arise. 
 As soon therefore as the first horseman had ridden away, 
 he said to the one who remained behind: 
 
 " Gwine ter light an water up yer critter? " 
 
 "Yaas, I reckon Pll light a while. Jess let down 
 them bars." 
 
 Sambo came forward with alacrity, and as he stooped 
 to lower the topmost rail to the ground he heard a slight 
 whir about his ears as something dropped on his shoul 
 ders. He put up his hands to feel what it was and re 
 ceived a smart chuck under his chin which nearly sent 
 him off his feet. There was a rope around his neck 
 a rope with a running noose at one end and the other 
 end in the hand of the man on horseback. 
 
SLAVE DRIVING 220 
 
 u Don t yer holler or I ll hang yer right plumb hyar 
 to the horn o my saddle, by thunder! " remarked he, 
 with another suggestive chuck to the rope. Sambo s 
 jaw dropped and he turned green with terror. 
 
 " No, mas r," he faltered, trying to ease his neck 
 with a twist. 
 
 " Now then, yo nigger, let down them bars mighty 
 peart, or yo ll be riz oft yer feet." 
 
 Sambo took down the bars with speed, finding it 
 difficult to breath with that fearful rope about his neck. 
 A loud noise attracted his attention, and, rolling his 
 eyes around, he beheld a troop of men gallop up out of 
 the gully. 
 
 " Got yer colt hitched up?" asked one of the new 
 comers with a laugh. 
 
 " Yaas; an he s as gentle as a lamb, you bet. Look 
 hyar. Gee! haw! " said Sambo s captor, imitating the 
 words used in driving oxen, and at the same time jerk 
 ing in the rope. Of course Sambo came up quickly with 
 the jerk. All the men laughed. 
 
 " That colt s broke in mighty quick, anyhow," said 
 one of them with gusto. 
 
 " Git now, an scoop up the balance o the black 
 cusses, so we can make tracks fore the word is passed," 
 observed the man with the lasso, who seemed to be in 
 command of the party. They moved forward, Sambo 
 close alongside of his captor in the front rank, and in 
 this humiliating position he came up to the door of the 
 house and was confronted by M linder standing there 
 open-mouthed. 
 
 " Lordy, Sambo, whar yo gwine tied up like dat 
 ar? " she asked in amazement. 
 
 "We re Quantrell s men," was the dread reply. 
 " Any nigger tryin to break way ull git a bullet 
 through him; any woman ull git a lariat rope roun her 
 neck like this hyar nigger, an ull have to go afoot way 
 
230 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 down to the Missouri line. Now yo ll know what yer 
 has to expect from yer new masters." 
 
 The negroes shrunk together as the men dismounted 
 and rapidly examined the premises. No one but Aunt 
 Monin said a single word. The rest accepted their 
 destiny in silence. They knew Quantrell s name only 
 too well, and they also knew the character of his men 
 too well to risk angering them in any way. Aunt Monin, 
 however, faced the men dauntlessly. 
 
 " What fo yo come hyar to dish hyar house? We s 
 all free niggas, we is. Our mistress, what own us all 
 down in Missouri, she done sot us free. De slave owner 
 kin do what he likes wid his slaves/ she said valiantly, 
 bringing forward all her powers of argument. 
 
 There ain t no free niggers anywheres in sight o 
 Quantrell an his men. Git long, granny. Yer boun 
 for Dixie s land, anyhow/ was the answer she received. 
 "Yo ll riz up all de free-state men from here to 
 Lawrence an git em a ter yo ," she said, falling back 
 upon threats. 
 
 "Quantrell an his men ain t skeered o free-state 
 men an Lawrence. They re goin to wipe out the whole 
 o the dog-gauned set o cussed ab lishionists." 
 
 Neither reasoning nor threat was of any avail. Aunt 
 Monin was bundled along and forced to mount up be 
 hind one of the riders, just as the other negroes were, 
 not excepting Susannah, who lifted up her voice in 
 song, and, inappropriately enough, began to chant 
 "Glory, halleluiah! we s boun fo de promise Ian ." 
 The fodder was pitched out of the wagon, where Pete 
 and Moses had loaded it up with such excessive expendi 
 ture of muscle and energy, and into it were packed those 
 two astonished darkies and the rest of the children, to 
 gether with such valuables as the men upon hasty sur 
 vey deemed it advisable to steal, and then the wagon 
 was sent off at a quick trot. 
 
SLAVE DRIVING 231 
 
 A man who had hitherto remained somewhat apart 
 now rode up and inquired in a sharp voice: 
 
 " Ready there, are you ? " 
 
 " You bet it s ready. Dry as lightwood. Will burn 
 like pitch/ was the answer. 
 
 " Then fire up and march/ said the man, who was 
 evidently the leader of the gang. He rode rapidly on 
 toward the front and passed Aunt Monin sitting behind 
 her horseman. She started as she beheld his face. 
 
 " De Lo d is lookin down on yo , Mas r J eemes," 
 she said in a loud voice, " an he sees dish hyar de worse 
 day s work yo ebber done in all yer life." 
 
 " Choke that old hag and throw her body down the 
 well to poison the water rats," said the man savagely. 
 " I ll not have cackling niggers here, and she s too old 
 to fetch more than a hundred and fifty dollars anywhere. 
 It ain t worth while toting her South." 
 
 " Shut up, granny. He s all-fired mad at jabbering 
 niggers, and he ll do what he says, by thunder." 
 
 " You bet! " said Aunt Monin s own cavalier. 
 " Quantrell he s drowned a heap o ole niggers as was 
 kinder in his way. This coon don t like that sorter 
 work. They screeches awful. Pesky critters to screech 
 is nigger women when y er chuckin em under to drown. 
 They jess lay holt on yer and sticks like pitch plaster." 
 
 Perceiving from these remarks the character of the 
 men who had captured them, Aunt Monin deemed it 
 wise to hold her tongue, and so the troop rode away just 
 as Nancy was congratulating herself upon the departure 
 of what she thought might be a lot of unruly Irish sol 
 diers. 
 
 Quantrell s band rode hard and did not draw rein 
 until late in the night, when they got into the timber 
 land at Rock Creek. Here they were joined by another 
 contingent with a swarm of recaptured slaves. Evi 
 dently it was a big raid, and they had collected a lot of 
 
232 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 booty. Keeping clear of the settlements, they made for 
 the line in a southeasterly direction toward Black Jack. 
 The luckless Sambo, tied by the neck, was driven in 
 front of the group, and was obliged to run for fear of 
 the horses stepping on him. For fifteen miles on a 
 warm spring day, with the sun beating on his head, that 
 hapless negro had to run, veritably for his life, and his 
 terror and struggles formed a source of never-ending 
 amusement to his brutal captors. At last he went 
 raving mad, foamed at the mouth, cursed and swore, 
 and dashed himself about until the rope tore the skin 
 off his neck and shoulders and he presented a frightful 
 aspect, covered with blood and his wild eyes rolling in 
 his head. Seeing that his market value was likely to 
 be depreciated, Quantrell at length ordered him to be 
 placed in one of the wagons, and the men were deprived 
 of an agreeable sort of sport. Susannah, whose mental 
 deficiency had been soon discovered, was set down on 
 the road a few miles from Carthage. 
 
 " Crazy niggers ain t no more use than dead ones," 
 said Quantrell. " Turn her loose." 
 
 One of the men suggested firing at her as she ran, 
 and had actually unslung his rifle preparatory to in 
 dulging in a little moving-target practice, when Quan 
 trell sternly bade him put up his gun. 
 
 " What are you going to waste good powder and 
 ball for on such infernal fooling? Don t you guess we 
 may have more than enough to do with our powder 
 before we quit Kansas? " 
 
 The fellow, who was a young one out on his first 
 ride, looked much abashed at receiving such a public 
 rebuke from so famous a leader, and slunk into the rear 
 to hide his mortification. Although the raiders kept 
 clear of the settlements, they passed some isolated dwell 
 ings and were seen by various people as they rode along. 
 So large and imposing a body could hardly escape notice 
 
SLAVE DRIVING 233 
 
 even on the prairie. The news of their presence soon 
 spread in spite of their fast riding. It was somewhere 
 in the neighbourhood of Black Jack that a doddering 
 old man, riding a sorry-looking mule, joined them. He 
 seemed much delighted at finding himself on the same 
 road as so grand a company, and asked innumerable 
 questions as to where they were going to settle. He 
 " lowed they d got a sight o ? land somewheres roun 
 as ud take such a power o hands to till." In short, he 
 was so loquacious and so foolishly simple that some of 
 the young men began to get some fun out of him. They 
 worked upon his terrors by all sorts of tales, and finally 
 wound up by declaring they shouldn t wonder if they 
 lighted on Quantrell in the course of the day. 
 
 At the mention of the dreaded name the old man 
 begged them to take him along with them and save him 
 from the great guerrilla chief. When they rallied him 
 on his fears he began to boast in the most outrageous 
 manner of how he could fight, and then would sink into 
 a limp state of trepidation at the merest hint thrown out 
 by one of the men that Quantrell was at Bloomington, 
 and might be expected to come that way. In short, the 
 old man was rare sport, and even the stern-faced leader, 
 Quantrell himself, relaxed into more than one smile at 
 the silliness of this crazy old man on the dejected mule. 
 
 He rode with them the rest of the day, and even 
 camped with them at night in the woods of Blue Creek. 
 He seemed much delighted with the noise and confusion 
 of picketing out the horses and the general scrimmage 
 that arises when people camp for the night. He wan 
 dered around mumbling to himself, nobody paying the 
 slightest heed to him. Thus, when it was quite dark, 
 he stumbled in among the negro men, who were huddled 
 together, tied with ropes, and somewhat insufficiently 
 guarded by a few sentries who had no light by which 
 to see their prisoners. The only fire of the camp was 
 
234 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 at a little distance, and was for the comfort of the white 
 men of the party. So the silly old man sat down with 
 the negroes in the dark, while the mules and horses, and 
 the men, and the women and children made consider 
 able noise among them, so that nobody heard him as 
 he softly whispered something in the ears of the bound 
 prisoners words that sounded to them like the silver 
 trumpet of an angel, nor did the sentries perceive that 
 he was, with a razorlike knife, cutting across the ropes 
 that tied the men together. He had thus liberated some 
 nine full-grown negro men when he slipped quietly off 
 into the bush still unnoticed by anybody at all. In a 
 few minutes the woods rang with a series of the most 
 appalling war whoops that ever chilled a settler s heart, 
 followed by howls and shrieks, as if fifty men were butch 
 ering fifty more with every refinement of cruelty. The 
 camp was instantly in an uproar. Shots were fired all 
 round in the seeming direction of the noises. Some of 
 the mules were thus hit, and they squealed and, break 
 ing their lariat ropes, bounded off, bursting through the 
 horses and setting them mad with fright. The shoot 
 ing, the shouting, the plunging and rearing, lasted sev 
 eral minutes, making a most tremendous noise, as if a 
 battle was in progress. When the mad confusion had 
 subsided it was discovered to the wild amazement of 
 everybody that all the able-bodied negroes had utterly 
 disappeared, no one knew when, no one knew whither. 
 
 The old man too was gone, but this fact did not re 
 ceive any notice in the confusion of the supposed night 
 attack. Indeed he was quite forgotten, as other and 
 more important matters claimed everybody s attention. 
 He was only remembered when, on saddling up in the 
 early morning, something odd was found to be fastened 
 to the halter of Quantrell s horse, which, upon exami 
 nation, proved to be the long and venerable beard worn 
 by that crazy old man. 
 
SLAVE DRIVING 235 
 
 " He was a spy, by thunder! " exclaimed Quantrell 
 furiously, when it dawned upon him that he had been 
 made a fool of. " A damned Yankee spy, that s what he 
 was, and I never scented it time enough to shoot him." 
 
 After this the raiders hurried forward as fast as they 
 could, for the news of their whereabouts could not re 
 main secret, and Kansas men would be arming for the 
 pursuit. Once over the line, they scattered in all direc 
 tions, so that the trail might be lost. The young men 
 who had joined for the fun of the thing rode home as 
 rapidly as possible, thanking their stars that they had 
 come back with whole hides out of Kansas; and the old 
 hands, who made a business of raiding, hurried off their 
 band of recaptured slaves toward the Arkansas border 
 with a view to getting them South as fast as possible. 
 Straight south they rode, keeping well inside the Mis 
 souri line, along that track of derelict land where the 
 hogs were toiling for their scanty subsistence. They had 
 got as far as Papinsville on their southern march when 
 Aunt Monin was taken most violently ill. Her suffer 
 ings, to judge by her lamentations, must have been acute 
 in the extreme. Her shrieks and cries filled the cabin 
 where the negroes were shut up for the night, and in the 
 morning when the time came to move forward, as it did 
 very early in the dim light, she was rigid, with eyes rolled 
 inside out and mouth foaming. A terrible spectacle 
 indeed. One of the men in charge of the captives gave 
 her a smart kick, which failed to create any effect or to 
 arouse her in the least. 
 
 " That ole nigger s jess bout bust up," he remarked 
 to his pal. " Tain t no sorter use loiterin roun count 
 o her." So he reported the old nigger woman as dead, 
 and the party, with the rest of the captives, moved off. 
 Aunt Monin s recovery dated from the moment that she 
 became aware she was quite alone. She sat up and 
 peered around her. She stood up, and finally shook her 
 16 
 
236 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 vigorous old fist in the direction in which the slave 
 catchers had disappeared, saying: 
 
 " Aha, yo ole thief, yo ain t nowheres so cute as 
 ole Aunt Monin. Yo low yo s mighty peart for shu , 
 on y yo can t see nuffin cept yer ole red nose. Bah! 
 I spit on yo , I does." 
 
 Whereupon she stalked out of the hut completely 
 recovered from the terrifying fits that had held grip of 
 her all during the night. Clearly Aunt Monin was a 
 very vigorous old woman both in mind and body. 
 
CHAPTEE XX 
 
 THE TASK OF SISYPHUS 
 
 THE education gained in life on a slave plantation is 
 not one calculated to teach helpfulness and self-reliance. 
 There are too many hands whose bounden duty it is to 
 lighten the load on the shoulders of master and mistress 
 for such shoulders to gain very sturdy proportions. 
 Nancy suffered from the defects of her education, and 
 those defects were only in part corrected by the natural 
 force of her character and the energy which was derived 
 from her great pride. She was an exceedingly proud 
 girl, one who writhed under a sense of obligation, unless 
 indeed it was toward some person whom she loved. 
 Then her very pride it was that taught her a sweet hu 
 mility, as though she could show no greater proof of her 
 love than in subduing that pride and being the gentle 
 recipient of favours from the beloved hand. 
 
 Pride is of many complexions, and the ways in which 
 it expresses itself are without number. The pride of 
 the poor Southerner, pinched for money, out at the 
 elbows, was a source of never-failing derision to the 
 keen, successful Yankee, full of commerical prosperity. 
 To the self-made man there is nothing so contemptible 
 as the pride that is founded upon anything but individ 
 ual exertion and the results thereof. The Southerners 
 had made no very signal exertion until the war of seces 
 sion, and they had therefore to fall back upon the pride 
 of having ancestors and the accumulated succession of 
 
 237 
 
238 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 ideas to be derived from that circumstance. The self- 
 made man, of course, has, so to speak, no ancestors, or 
 only such as serve the purpose of a dark background of 
 failure to show up all the more vividly the bright lights 
 of his own subsequent success in life. The pride, how 
 ever, of the ruined Southerner, relying for its exist 
 ence on a misty but distinguished line of forefathers, is 
 of the same quality of mind as that of the aggressive 
 Yankee, counting up his swelling millions and rejoicing 
 in his cuteness in having been able to create them. The 
 mere outsider may be pardoned if he fails to see much 
 to deride in the former or to extol in the latter. 
 
 In the first hours of her desolation and terror after 
 her home was burned Nancy was willing to be helped by 
 any kindly soul who would bestow succour. When driv 
 ing away in Wilson s wagon toward his house she ex 
 perienced nothing but a sense of comfort and security 
 at being near a man ready and able to protect her. Wil 
 son, moreover, was a kindly hearted, fatherly sort of 
 man who seemed to take an interest in her, and he did 
 not season that interest with the bitter salt of adverse 
 criticism for past failures to do the right thing, after 
 the manner of so many well-meaning people, who there 
 by implant a sense of exasperation in the hearts of 
 those whom they wish to befriend. Nancy was thank 
 ful to him for coming to her in her adversity, and for 
 the moment she could think of nothing but of the re 
 lief of getting to his house, where she would be safe and 
 could rest. 
 
 This feeling lasted during the ten-mile drive to the 
 Wilsons home, but it rapidly gave place to another feel 
 ing when she saw Mrs. Wilson, a kind-hearted, sour- 
 tongued woman, whose nerves were as unstrung as over 
 work, poor health, and many children could make them. 
 She had been much concerned at the account her hus 
 band had given her of Nancy s misfortune, and she was 
 
THE TASK OF SISYPHUS 239 
 
 quite prepared to show a thankful spirit to Providence 
 for sparing her home from the raiders in the tangible 
 form of kindness to Nancy. But gratitude to Provi 
 dence, Mrs. Wilson opined, did not include hospitality 
 toward Nancy s black servant, as she chose to consider 
 Susannah, whose unexpected arrival brought into 
 prominence rather the sour tongue than the kind heart. 
 
 " Land sakes, Darius, you don t tell me there s a 
 black woman come long too ! " she observed to her hus 
 band in clear thin tones that were perfectly audible to 
 the newly arrived guest. Nancy s pride received a stab 
 through and through. She almost gasped. 
 
 " Pears like as if there must be a sight o useless 
 folks round in the world if them as is homeless has 
 servants to wait on their poverty," she added, apparently 
 to the long-enduring Darius, but in effect to Nancy. 
 
 " I am sorry to be a burden, Mrs. Wilson," began the 
 young girl, the hot colour flooding her pale cheeks as 
 she spoke, " but " 
 
 " You ain t a mite o burden," broke in her hostess, 
 smitten in her heart and laying strong emphasis upon 
 the personal pronoun. " I was only saying as I don t 
 guess coloured folks is much use, anyhow," which, it 
 may be noted, was not in the least what Mrs. Wilson had 
 really said. Apologies, however, should not be too 
 closely analyzed lest they fall to pieces under the pro 
 cess. 
 
 " Wai, wal," said Wilson with much cheeriness, for 
 he was in the habit of sweetening his wife s remarks, 
 knowing how much they needed it, " guess we re all 
 pretty tol ble hungry, wifle. Can t you scare up some 
 sort o fixin s to eat an don t wait for dinner? Dinner, 
 cordin to my pinion, is clean out o sight when it s two 
 hours off an you are powerful hungry." 
 
 " There s food kep hot o purpose in the oven, fa 
 ther, an there s plenty too for the coloured woman," re- 
 
24:0 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 plied his wife, making the amende honorable according 
 to her best ability. 
 
 The food, though good, very nearly choked Nancy, 
 hungry as she was. And this shows the strength of her 
 pride, for hunger as a rule brings people smartly to a 
 dead level of mere animal sensation, wherein all the 
 finer fibres of the mind are completely dulled, so that 
 they give over feeling, or perhaps it would be more cor 
 rect to say that for the time being they do not vibrate to 
 the finer feelings. Wilson, with the hearty good nature 
 of a strong man and feeling pity for Nancy s desolation, 
 had brought her to his house without definite invitation 
 and without limiting her stay in any way. It never oc 
 curred to him to do so. It very quickly occurred to his 
 wife, however, to inquire how long she was likely to be 
 their guest. 
 
 " Why, Lordy, Lordy, jess as long as she likes," re 
 plied the heedless husband. 
 
 " And the coloured woman ? I want to know, Da 
 rius, if we ve got to keep the two of them all summer? " 
 asked his wife, her keen green-gray eyes looking him 
 through and through, and her thin pale lips shutting 
 tightly over her mouth once they had let the words 
 out. 
 
 " I guess she ll do kinder handy as a hired girl, an 
 help you see to things an mind the children, Cinthy," 
 replied her foolish lord. 
 
 " Darius Wilson, I m surprised at you! " observed 
 his wife severely, at which Darius looked uneasily first 
 at one boot heel and then at the other. " Do you guess 
 I m going to begin having those lazy no-account negro 
 women around in my house hindering me in my work 
 me as had fifteen cows all to my own hand in York State 
 and washed and scalded the milk pans every blessed 
 day without a mite o help from anybody! No, Darius, 
 I ain t going to have the folks down to Oneonta say as 
 
THE TASK OF SISYPHUS 241 
 
 Cinthy Wilson can do her housework no more, and is 
 drove to take a sloppy coloured woman to mess round in 
 her house." 
 
 This was the form Mrs. Wilson s pride took, and 
 Darius in the course of his married life had frequently 
 to suffer at the hands of those scalded milk pans and 
 those fifteen cows, if one may be permitted the use of 
 so violent a metaphor. 
 
 This, then, was the somewhat unfriendly haven into 
 which Pate had guided Nancy Overton. As we have 
 said, her education and her experience were both de 
 fective, but her pride now came to the rescue and sup 
 plied motive power enough to overcome all difficulties. 
 Instead of remaining a passive eater of food under the 
 Wilsons roof, not a week elapsed before she had made 
 her plans and taken her decision. The raiders under 
 Quantrell had, it is true, burned everything she pos 
 sessed that is, all that was combustible. They could 
 not burn the land, however. Accordingly, that remained 
 to Nancy, and once more the luckless girl found herself 
 with a farm to sell. But the blackened and devastated 
 ruins of Carthage constituted a very different sort of as 
 set from that snug farm down in Missouri, as she soon 
 found out. However, there was a man in Tecumseh 
 who agreed to give her a few hundred dollars for her 
 land. She eagerly closed with the bargain, absurdly 
 disadvantageous as it was, and with feverish haste re 
 turned to the Wilsons with the money, part of which 
 had been paid to her to clinch the bargain. 
 
 Once more there was a burning spot on her cheeks as 
 she again broached the subject of her board and lodging 
 while with the worthy farmer and his wife. This time 
 her eyes sparkled with something that was not tender 
 ness of feeling as she handed a small roll of green 
 backs to Mrs. Wilson. 
 
 " We have, I am sure, been a great burden to you, 
 
242 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 Mrs. Wilson, my poor afflicted Susannah and myself,, but 
 if you will accept this small sum in payment for our 
 board and lodging I shall be glad." 
 
 Mrs. Wilson made some slight show of resistance 
 and then accepted the money, but she kept the fact a 
 secret from her good-tempered husband, as there were 
 certain things about which he was exceedingly obsti 
 nate and determined. The unerring instinct derived 
 from twenty years of wedded life made her know that 
 this question of taking money from Nancy for her board 
 would be just one of those very things. Paying the 
 money gratified Nancy s pride, accepting it enabled Mrs. 
 Wilson to buy several much-needed articles of apparel 
 for the children, and Darius was not troubled with any 
 details likely to disturb the even tenor of his good hu 
 mour. Mrs. Wilson compromised with her conscience 
 by giving Susannah quite a number of sound and useful 
 articles of clothing, so that altogether that forlorn per 
 son was quite respectably made up for her new life in 
 Lawrence. She and her scarcely less forlorn young 
 mistress left the Wilsons and started out upon the world 
 together. Seldom had a more helpless pair faced the 
 unknown under more depressing circumstances. 
 
 The sense of her complete failure came upon Nancy 
 with ever increasing force. Had it not been for Susan 
 nah s helplessness and the knowledge that she must ex 
 ert herself for the sake of the mulatto woman, perhaps 
 she would never have borne up against it all. With the 
 crazy woman entirely dependent upon her, the young 
 girl felt some of the responsibilities a mother might 
 feel who had a child to take care of. She must struggle 
 on and make another effort for the sake of Susannah, 
 the last of her family of negroes. 
 
 Instinct rather than an aptitude for business told 
 her what to do. There is always one sort of work which 
 is wanted in every community, one sort of work that 
 
THE TASK OF SISYPHUS 243 
 
 pays, one sort of work that women are fitted for. Nancy 
 had failed as an enthusiastic enfranchiser of slaves; she 
 could no longer hope to succeed as a Kansas settler, but 
 there was one thing she could do. She could cook for 
 hungry men. Behold her, then, in very different cir 
 cumstances from what we have hitherto seen her. She 
 is shorn of the glory of being a queen on a small scale 
 over her little kingdom of slaves or freed negroes. She 
 is no longer the centre of her little world, as she has 
 been hitherto, the one to whom all looked up. It is 
 recorded of a king of France that once when a foreign 
 sovereign was coming to pay him a visit at Versailles 
 his Majesty showed the greatest alarm and concern at 
 the expected event. It turned out that the cause of this 
 seemingly groundless perturbation was the fact that his 
 Majesty felt he did not know how to behave to an equal, 
 having never before been anything but in veriest truth 
 the monarch of all he surveyed. Owing to her strange 
 ly isolated life and the condition under which she had 
 lived at Carthage, Nancy had in a small measure been 
 like the king of France. Her will, gentle though it was, 
 had been law, and her rule was uncontested. A long 
 continuance of this life of isolation combined with 
 native pride would in the end have made her a hard, 
 imperious woman. To develop such a character there 
 is not needed a kingdom as large as France. A 
 small country place will suffice, if the initial native 
 pride be there and unquestioning obedience be its 
 portion. 
 
 The swift destruction that overwhelmed Carthage 
 and the consequent destitution of its young mistress 
 may have been necessary to the development of her 
 character as well as to its training, but it was one of 
 those bitter lessons the utility of which is much more 
 clearly apparent to the onlooker than to the person 
 smarting under the severity of the training. Nancy did 
 
244 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 not look upon it as a chastening that she deserved. She 
 did not consider her pride needed any chastening. On 
 the contrary, she called upon it to carry her through the 
 trials which even she foresaw were in store for her. 
 Life looked very dreary as she entered upon this new 
 phase of her existence. Charlie Heaton was gone, per 
 haps never to return, and now Aunt Monin too was 
 lost. She literally had nothing on the face of God s 
 earth to love but a crazy mulatto woman. This crazy 
 woman, an added burden some would have thought, was 
 the one thing that saved her. The necessity of taking 
 care of Susannah made work imperative, and the mind 
 can not sink into hopeless despair when the body is 
 hard worked. 
 
 It was hard work and no mistake. 
 
 Nancy rented a small wooden house, a mere shanty 
 of two rooms with a loft. Over the door of this shanty 
 she painted in bold letters with her own hand, " Eating 
 House." There were a good many people, teamsters 
 and the like, passing through Lawrence on their 
 way out West, and it was Nancy s hope to attract to 
 her modest restaurant those who were too poor to 
 go to the Free State Hotel. Hungry men soon scent 
 good food. Nancy s eating house, although standing 
 away from the main street, did not long remain un 
 discovered. She began to get a little custom imme 
 diately, and before the summer was well set in had 
 as much work as she and Susannah could possibly 
 manage. 
 
 The ancient Greeks created Sisyphus and his stone 
 forever rolling from the top of the hill as an embodi 
 ment of the idea of never-ending labour. The modern 
 antitype is a woman doing housework. No sooner had 
 Sisyphus got his stone to the hilltop than, we are told, 
 it tumbled inconveniently to the bottom, and he had to 
 begin his labour all over again. So with housework. 
 
THE TASK OF SISYPHUS 245 
 
 No sooner is the last pot washed and the last plate put 
 on the dresser after breakfast than down comes the 
 first saucepan preparatory to dinner. All the work 
 has to be done over again, and the sinful confusion 
 of an after-dinner kitchen is hardly resolved into or 
 der when the riot of the on-coming supper begins to 
 make itself felt. We have no authoritative statement 
 as to how his stone rolling affected the temper of Sisy 
 phus, but if we are to judge by the effect of prolonged 
 housework on cooks, he must have been as cross as ten 
 cats. 
 
 This, then, is the work that Nancy plunged into 
 along with Susannah when she set up her eating house 
 in the back street of Lawrence. She was young, strong, 
 and healthy, and Susannah worked with the passive en 
 durance of a machine, yet the two women were tired to 
 death every night when at length they laid their weary 
 bodies to rest in the hot and dark little loft which Nancy 
 dignified by the name of " her room." The summer 
 came scorching on, as it does in Kansas, first with a hot 
 whiff and then with a blast as from a smelting furnace. 
 It scorched up the grass and made the trees by the Kaw 
 Kiver look as if a prairie fire had passed that way. Even 
 the water in the river looked hot and listless, and, as 
 though it had no more energy to run its long course to 
 the sea, it only crawled slimily along, trembling under 
 the fierce glare of a pitiless sun that made the sky cop 
 per hued with the heat. 
 
 Yet the baking of pumpkin pies by the acre and the 
 boiling of bacon and beans by the cart load, with the 
 daily mixing up of hot soda biscuits, went on uninter 
 rupted in the little eating house. Small wonder that 
 Nancy looked pale and thin, and that the curl went out 
 of her crisp black hair, leaving limp little rings lying 
 flatly on her white forehead. Her vigorous young 
 hands were marked with many a red sign of scald and 
 
246 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 burn, and her white round arms, bare high over the 
 elbow, were dappled with flour, as she bravely worked 
 on, baking, boiling, stewing, and roasting, washing and 
 cleaning all day long, to stagger wearily to rest when 
 the night at length came. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 AUNT MONIN S QUEST 
 
 WHEN Aunt Monin arose after her miraculous re 
 covery from "fits," and had expressed her wrath arid 
 contempt for her stupid captors in the emphatic way al 
 ready set forth, she found herself entirely thrown upon 
 her own wits for support. She determined, in the first 
 instance, to lie perdu until darkness set in, for she 
 knew that she was in the enemy s country, and that it 
 would be difficult for her to give a plausible account of 
 herself, supposing she came across any one who chose 
 to make inquiries. Accordingly, she crept off to an old 
 empty corncrib that stood in a neighbouring field, and 
 curled herself up among the cornshucks to pass the 
 day. What she hoped for was to come across some 
 friendly darkey, who, knowing the locality, would help 
 her to get safely away. She passed the hours in softly 
 talking and singing to herself, except when she slept, 
 which she did lightly at intervals. It was during one 
 of these fox s sleeps that a boy appeared chanting melo 
 diously, "Come, oh, my hogs, ain t yer gwine ter be 
 fed," in a beautiful minor cadence quite foreign to the 
 commonplace meaning of the words. Aunt Monin 
 awoke instantly, or rather opened her other eye, for one 
 may be said to have remained open all the time, and sat 
 up. A youth of about fourteen pulled open the rickety 
 door and began to grab at the shucks nearest to him, 
 while grunts and squeals in all keys denoted that his 
 
 247 
 
248 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 cantata had not been sung to an unappreciative au 
 dience. 
 
 " What for yo come so late, chile? Fse bin waitin 
 an waitin everlastin long/ observed Aunt Monin 
 somewhat sternly. 
 
 "Lordy! Golly Ned!" exclaimed the boy, consid 
 erably startled. Who dat dar? " 
 
 He dropped his shucks and backed hurriedly out of 
 the door. 
 
 " Come back hyar, yo poor silly possum. Don t yo 
 know ole Aunt Monin? I se s prised at yo , I is," re 
 marked the old woman with scorn. The boy was 
 abashed, as she meant he should be, and came again 
 into the doorway apologetically. 
 
 " Dish hyar crib is mighty kinder dark," he said; " I 
 nebber seed yo ." 
 
 " In course yo didn t; dat why I done holler out ter 
 yo ," said Aunt Monin, " so yo needn t be skeered o 
 nothin ." 
 
 " I warn t nary mite skeered," replied the boy, de 
 tecting in this remark a distinct slur upon his man 
 hood. 
 
 "Knowed yo warn t," answered Aunt Monin cor 
 dially. " No sorter chile I hearn tell on was skeered o 
 ole Aunt Monin." 
 
 She laughed cheerfully. 
 
 " Yo bet," said the boy, grinning likewise. 
 
 International diplomacy itself could not go further 
 for mutual pretences and complete falsification of the 
 truth, veiled in conventional courtesies. 
 
 " Jess run long an tell em ole Aunt Monin s bin 
 powerful sick an weak an sorter stan s in the need o 
 sistance," said she, eying him keenly. 
 
 " Got ter feed dem hogs fust," said the boy, " else 
 ole mas r crack my skull for me." 
 
 " To be shu . Yo don t go for to not feed dem 
 
AUNT MONIN S QUEST 249 
 
 hogs, on y den yo tell yer mammy what I done say," re 
 peated Aunt Monin. 
 
 " Mammy done gone way." 
 
 " Whar? " asked Aunt Monin with keenest anxiety 
 of voice and manner. " Now, chile, yo don t go for ter 
 tell me she done gone clar off, an dat I ain t gwine ter 
 see her no mo ." 
 
 "Mammy she stay with ole man Lewis down to 
 the ordinary. She done hire out dar and cook fo ole 
 man Lewis. Mas r Tom he don t keep all his niggas to 
 home no mo now." 
 
 Aunt Monin took in all these details in a twinkling. 
 
 " Den I se gwine ter see her gain," she said with a 
 sigh of satisfied affection; " when yo gwine down ter de 
 ordinary, chile? " 
 
 " Mas r Tom he don t say nuffin. I go long dar jess 
 when I want ter. We uns mos like free niggas now. 
 Mammy she done give me jumble cakes and m larses 
 candy fo Marfa Jane." 
 
 The lad fed his hogs, while Aunt Monin stood lean 
 ing against the doorway, talking unconcernedly to him, 
 and thus learning incidentally all she wanted in regard 
 to where she was. He, having accepted her as an old ac 
 quaintance of his mother s whom he ought to have re 
 membered but did not, was perfectly friendly and 
 chatty. 
 
 " Eeckon I ll go long wid yo , honey," said Aunt 
 Monin when the evening job was over and he came to 
 shut up the crib. I se kinder lonesome hyar, an sorter 
 longin ter see Marfa Jane." 
 
 So the pair set off together, and Aunt Monin con 
 gratulated herself on having begun so very well in find 
 ing just the sort of person who was likely to be useful 
 to her. The corncrib where she had been hiding was 
 situated in a clump of trees, and when Aunt Monin 
 emerged from this place of concealment she at once no- 
 
250 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 ticed the deserted look of everything. Some blackened 
 heaps, now half grown over with weeds and grass, told 
 their tale plainly enough, and if the story needed any 
 annotation this was supplied by the appearance of the 
 few existing houses, which, though small and wretched, 
 were one and all perfectly new. The place had been 
 burned, and that within a couple of years. 
 
 " Who done burn dish hyar city? " she asked, swing 
 ing her long arm comprehensively around the desolate 
 scene. 
 
 " Jay-Hawkers outer Kansas. Ole Mas r Tom dey 
 burn up his house an all de corn too, an he don t do 
 nuffin now on y drink heap o whisky an lamm his nig- 
 gas," replied the boy with a grin of amusement. 
 
 They thus proceeded to a wretched hovel where roll 
 ing blissfully in the dust was Marfa Jane, a fat spoiled 
 child of nine, who howled at the sight of the newcomer. 
 The mother had not yet returned from her culinary 
 duties at Lewis s ordinary. 
 
 " Marfa Jane, yo hain t got no manners, yo hain t," 
 said Aunt Monin severely. " I ain t agwine ter tell yer 
 mammy if yo come right hyar an behave like a good 
 little gal." 
 
 Marfa Jane subsided, but edged away, keeping a 
 sharp lookout upon the stranger. The way in which 
 Aunt Monin took command of that hut, and how she or 
 dered the children to produce their provisions, and the 
 speed with which she tossed together a pone and baked 
 it in the hot ashes, giving it to them to eat just at the 
 right moment, was a sight. The two children were de 
 lighted with their new friend and cuddled up to her 
 when she began to sing song after song in her sweet 
 old quavering voice. 
 
 Of course Aunt Monin s diplomacy was all directed 
 toward the attainment of a single purpose, namely, her 
 escape back into Kansas. Her mind was set on return- 
 
AUNT MONIN S QUEST 251 
 
 ing to Carthage and to Nancy. No matter how far phe 
 might have been carried by her captors she would never 
 have abandoned that object as long as life lasted. She 
 had begun to look out for her opportunity almost from 
 the outset, but it was not till she reached Papinsville 
 that chance favoured her by a change in the men who 
 had charge of the party. When the cook at Lewis s 
 ordinary returned, it is needless to say that to her Aunt 
 Monin at once explained who she was and what was the 
 help she wanted. 
 
 " Sis er," said the cook eagerly, " I se gwine ter list 
 the help o de bredren. Dar s Brer Henry Jeemes down 
 de turnpike, an he s jess gran to riz up an pray on dish 
 hyar un ertakin . Bar s signs an won ers in de Ian , 
 sis er, an de sperit o de Lo d move de multitude to 
 strive fo righteousness," said sister Lu, who was greatly 
 given to Aunt Monin s own practice of holding mystic 
 ally forth. " De han o de Lo d is riz up. Glory, halle 
 luiah! Dem ole bushwhackers under ole man Holtz- 
 claw is somewhar roun in de brush south o Jefferson," 
 she added, a bit of worldly gossip bursting into her mys 
 ticism and streaking it like a shaft of light thrown 
 across a foggy atmosphere. 
 
 " Is dem ole secesh bushwhackers anywhars roun 
 hyar? " inquired Aunt Monin, with an eye to personal 
 consequences. 
 
 " I hearn tell de secesh armies is comin right long 
 dish time. Dey is gwine ter whop dem Yankees, any 
 how," replied sister Lu, who from being cook in a tav 
 ern frequented by Southerners was imbued with their 
 faulty notions concerning the progress of the war and 
 the probable course thereof. 
 
 " Sis er, I se gwine ter start fer my honey-chile dish 
 bressed night/ announced Aunt Monin, who saw all 
 sorts of dangers to herself in the near proximity of vic 
 torious Confederate armies. 
 17 
 
252 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " Sis er, yo ain t gwine ter set out on dish journey 
 thout takin council o de bredren an axin de blessin 
 o de Lo d in full meetin ?" remonstrated sister Lu, 
 with a relapse into the religious character again. 
 
 " Eeckon de blessin o de Lo d ain t partic lar sot on 
 comin down through yer meetin house. He can sen it 
 right long anywheres/ replied Aunt Monin, with the 
 natural scorn of a rival exponent of religion in face of 
 one who arrogated superior airs unto herself. 
 
 "Which way yo gwine ter start? " asked sister Lu, 
 coming to practical details. 
 
 " I s gwine northwest. We come southeast; I know 
 dat ar," answered Aunt Monin, who had all a negro s 
 unerring instinct for direction. 
 
 " De brush in de Osage is plumb full o bushwhack 
 ers. I seed a man las week tole me/ said sister Lu 
 anxiously. 
 
 Aunt Monin rose up and stood a long, lank form tow 
 ering high above sister Lu s fat, stumpy body. Her 
 great black eyes shone with an unearthly sort of lustre. 
 
 " I se gwine/ she announced briefly. 
 
 " Sis er, ax de blessin on dish hyar un ertakin / re 
 monstrated her companion. 
 
 " Eeckon I ll sorter ax de blessin while I m makin 
 tracks fo Kansas. De Lo d he ll un erstan how dish 
 ole nigga s in powerful hurry, an he ll listen while I m 
 goin long de road ter my honey-chile. Dat chile ain t 
 nebber slep nary night way from ole Aunt Monin since 
 she war ten days ole. She ll be a-callin out for me. 
 Hark! I mos allers hears her voice in de trees, an 
 comin down from de sky a-sayin , Aunt Monin, Aunt 
 Monin, come back ter yer honey-chile. ; 
 
 "Ain t yo got on y one chile?" asked sister Lu, 
 to whom this seemed an unexampled state of affairs with 
 a healthy negro woman. 
 
 " On y dat one what de Lo d sen ter me in do hours 
 
AUNT MONIN S QUEST 253 
 
 o sin an fiction fer ter save my soul from struction," 
 answered Aunt Monin, who could be as vague as sister 
 Lu when once she started in that line. 
 
 Nothing could turn her from her purpose of starting 
 off that very same night on her return journey into 
 Kansas; so, with a good store of hard corn bread, than 
 which there is nothing more sustaining or more porta 
 ble, Aunt Monin stepped out into the darkness with no 
 guide but the north star and her faith in God. She 
 never had a moment s doubt that she could get back 
 into Kansas, if only she was not stopped by the bush 
 whackers. Her constant dread was that she might 
 run into a stray troop of them. Accordingly, she re 
 solved to do all her walking by night and to lie hidden 
 during the hours of daylight. Aunt Monin was at an 
 age when exertion, if supported by a fervent inward im 
 pulse, seemed to have no effect upon her. Her long 
 lean arms hung limply by her side, and her long lean 
 legs swung over the ground with a shaking sort of gait 
 that reminded one, ridiculously enough, of a camel. 
 She did not carry an ounce of useless flesh. Her body 
 was made of bones and whipcord, and her mind was set 
 to a single purpose. Just the type of a fanatic, per 
 haps, but the type that accomplishes what it sets out 
 to do in all ages and in all climes. 
 
 Leaving Papinsville just as the moon rose, Aunt 
 Monin found herself following a northwesterly course 
 by a road which seemed latterly to have fallen into dis 
 use. Trees lay across it in the bottom land, while in 
 the open the grass had overgrown the deep ruts of for 
 mer wagon tracks. All through the silent night she 
 tramped steadily onward. Morning found her on the 
 highlands overlooking the valley of the Osage. She 
 stopped to rest and to eat some of her corn bread; mean 
 while she gazed keenly about her. There was no poetry 
 or sentiment in her that vibrated to the strange wild- 
 
254 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 ness of the scene around her. All the poetry of Aunt 
 Monin s nature had long since run to love of her 
 " honey-chile," leaving nothing to feed other emotions. 
 But she looked none the less keenly at the scene before 
 her. Suddenly she jumped up and struck her lean 
 hands smartly together. 
 
 " Glory, halleluiah! " she sang with a ring of ex 
 ultation. " I knowed de Lo d was guidin me slap 
 outer de Ian o bondage way down inter de Ian o 
 freedom. Dar flows de Ribber Jordan. I se gwine 
 ter cross over into de Ian o Canaan. Glory, halle 
 luiah! 
 
 She had recognised the scene, and this outburst was 
 caused by the fact that Mine Creek, the border stream, 
 lay within reach of her active limbs; another night s 
 walk would bring her to its fateful banks. No wonder 
 that she intoned her song of triumph. Not very far 
 away up the river valley was the farm where she had 
 lived, the farm where " ole mas r " had been killed by 
 the Jay-Hawkers, and where the drama of Nancy s life 
 had begun. The old negress rested during the day 
 curled up on the sunny side of a cottonwood bush, like a 
 copperhead basking in the fresh warmth of the spring 
 sunshine. Such a proceeding, as this would have been 
 destructive to any but a negro as hard and as tough as 
 Aunt Monin. She, however, felt no more harm from it 
 than if she had actually been the snake to which she 
 has been likened. As soon as night came on again up 
 she started, her soul exulting in the thought of her 
 nearness to the border. Considerable time was lost in 
 going around the head waters of two or three unfordable 
 creeks that flowed into the Osage; thus it was not until 
 the afternoon of the third day from Papinsville that 
 she found herself on the banks of Mine Creek. She had 
 not met a living creature during the whole march. 
 This would not have been possible in the days before 
 
AUNT MONIN S QUEST 255 
 
 the war, but that part of Missouri was, as we have al 
 ready said, quite deserted. 
 
 At the creek she found a man trying to get a load 
 of coal across, a doubtful proceeding, as his horses 
 seemed hardly up to the work. He had evidently come 
 from the coal mine, and was going into Kansas with a 
 heavy load. Aunt Monin concluded he must be going 
 home, and that his home was in Kansas; therefore he 
 must be a free-state man, and she might trust him. 
 Coming out of the brushwood where she had been lying 
 concealed, she said: 
 
 " I ll help yo unload half dat dar, if yo ll give me a 
 hoist over de Ribber Jordan, mas r." 
 
 " I don t take toll from coloured people. Hop in, 
 my good soul," replied the man with unmistakable abo 
 litionist manner and diction. " I never heard this 
 creek called the Eiver Jordan before. Mine Creek is 
 the name it mostly goes by round here." 
 
 " It am de Bibber Jordan, mas r, cause I se gwine 
 ter cross it inter de promise Ian ," replied Aunt Monin 
 impressively, as she clambered up beside him on the 
 driving board. 
 
 He gave a satisfied grunt of amusement, and they 
 plunged into the water. Mine Creek was only moder 
 ately high now and presented no particular difficulties 
 in the crossing at this time; but just on the other side 
 of the water there was a most portentous mudhole, into 
 which the heavy laden coal wagon plunged and there 
 stuck fast. The driver urged his horses; they tried 
 once or twice, and then gave it up, as horses always do 
 when they imagine they are stalled. 
 
 " Well, I swan! " said the man with resignation. 
 
 " Pray to de Lo d, mas r, an unload de wagon," said 
 Aunt Monin. 
 
 " Sound advice," said her companion with a chuckle, 
 " sound practical advice. Reminds me of Cromwell s 
 
256 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 direction to trust in the Lord and keep your powder 
 dry. Did you ever hear of that, granny ? " 
 
 " No, mas r, nebber hearn tell o Cromwell. Was he 
 riz out in Missouri ? " 
 
 " No; but his spirit seems to have come there to 
 dwell. Guess I ll unhitch and come down to-morrow 
 with four horses. You can come along home with me. 
 I don t live far, and I guess you ll be glad of a good 
 night s rest, eh?" 
 
 " Yes, mas r, I would. I ve come afoot from Pa- 
 pinsville, an I se gwine ter Carthage," replied Aunt 
 Monin simply. 
 
 " Well, I ll help you along the road a bit," said her 
 new friend kindly, as he brought his now released horses 
 out of the mudhole, leaving the wagon behind. He was 
 as good as his word and lost no time in making inquiries 
 for some one going north with a wagon. In this way 
 Aunt Monin got various " lifts " from different team 
 sters, so that she did not have to depend very much on 
 her own powers of walking, and she reached Tecumseh 
 far sooner than she would have done if left to her own 
 devices; in fact, she was there some ten days or so after 
 crossing Mine Creek. 
 
 It was with a heart overflowing with joy that she set 
 out at length on the familiar road from Tecumseh to 
 Carthage. It was a little over three weeks since the 
 raiders had carried her off from Nancy, and as she 
 tramped along she began to act over and over again the 
 great scene of her meeting with .her " honey-chile " 
 which was so soon to be a reality. It was a fresh May 
 morning, and the dew twinkled merrily on the grass 
 which was still in the tender green of early spring, be 
 fore the wear and tear of summer had tarnished its 
 beauty. The air was still and clear, and the sky bright 
 shining blue. There was a hush over the prairie, a sol 
 emn loneliness that would have struck a more imagina- 
 
AUNT MONIN S QUEST 257 
 
 tive traveller. There are no birds on those wide-reach 
 ing plains; the air is dead to their song and their chat 
 ter. Sometimes a solitary crow flies slowly along utter 
 ing occasional croaks of discontent, but of song birds 
 there are none. High in the air, faintly specking the 
 blue vault of heaven, were to be seen little V-shaped pat 
 terns, like triangles with no base, moving apex foremost 
 straight north, and from time to time these baseless 
 triangles sent forth long shrill screams. They were 
 the wild geese flying north, a sure sign that summer 
 was coming. Unerringly they winged their way to 
 ward the distant north in one long flight from the 
 shores of the Mexican Gulf to the lone lands of the arc 
 tic seas. Always flying in carefully constructed tri 
 angles with the chief in front, steadily breasting their 
 way north across that immense continent, they used to 
 pass over the prairies in countless thousands every 
 spring and autumn. 
 
 As steadily as the wild geese, if not so fast, Aunt 
 Monin pursued her way toward Carthage. Her excite 
 ment increased as she came into the last bottom land, 
 and she knew she would get a sight of Carthage when 
 once she stood on the top of the next ridge. Her faith 
 ful heart swelled with love and a feeling of immense 
 pride mingled therewith. She would tell her child that 
 no one, not even the dreaded slave catchers themselves, 
 were as strong as her love. No one was cute enough to 
 keep old Aunt Monin from breaking away and getting 
 back to her honey-chile. She began with the dramatic 
 instincts of her race to declaim about it aloud, setting 
 her words to a sort of harmonious droning song. The 
 rude mind invariably turns to declamation and melody 
 to express emotion, and the negro falls instinctively into 
 lyric poetry of a boastful character in moments of great 
 excitement: 
 
258 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " De ole slave cotchers done gone dor way, 
 Can t fer ter keep de ole woman safe ; 
 De ole slave cotchers dey better blin der eyes, 
 Don t fer ter know when de ole nigga dies." 
 
 Thus chanted Aunt Monin victoriously as she 
 mounted the last slope up to the high prairie. Her 
 feelings became so excited she could not stay to finish 
 her song of triumph, but ended in the dear old familiar 
 Glory, halleluiah! in one great howl of joy as she got 
 to the top. 
 
 Carthage, with its little cluster of huts around the 
 frame house, should have showed up clear against the 
 western horizon, about three miles ahead. She had 
 often seen it thus outlined against the red setting sun 
 on returning from Tecumseh. There was nothing on 
 the horizon line to-day. " Glory, halleluiah! " died on 
 Aunt Monin s lips, and a wail of despair came in its 
 place. 
 
 " Whar de home o de honey-chile ? " she cried, gaz 
 ing with wide open eyes at the strange scene. One little 
 hut alone stood where there used to be at least a half 
 dozen buildings. As she neared the familiar spot she 
 perceived the heaps of blackened ruins, which only too 
 clearly told their tale. Some cattle were standing in 
 what had been Nancy s little flower garden. When the 
 poor old negress saw this her heart overflowed in a tor 
 rent of passionate grief. It was like being suddenly 
 confronted with the stiffened corpse of a baby of whose 
 death she had not heard. It was the reality of the deso 
 lation brought home to her own sight and feeling. She 
 wept and prayed by turns, as she wandered broken 
 hearted among the ruins of Nancy s home. 
 
 " De han o de stroyer is laid on my honey-chile," 
 she cried aloud, " an des lation an struction has 
 fallen pon her. Aunt Monin warn t dar fer ter stain 
 her an comfort her in her fliction. Oh, my honey- 
 
AUNT MONIN S QUEST 259 
 
 chile! Whar yo gone way from cle sight o yer po ole 
 Aunt Monin? " 
 
 Weeping, praying,, and singing by turns, the old 
 woman spent hours wandering aimlessly about those 
 blackened heaps. Sometimes she would tell herself 
 which were the different houses upon whose ruins she 
 was standing, but after every outburst she resumed her 
 despairing cry for her lost " honey-chile." 
 
 As the negroes had been all hurried away by Quan- 
 trell s raiders before the houses were set on fire, they 
 had not known that the place was burned, for prisoners 
 don t hear much news from the captors. Aunt Monin 
 therefore was ignorant of the destruction of Nancy s 
 home, and the shock of her disappointment was corre 
 spondingly cruel after having lived all those days in 
 hope and confidence. Had she reasoned on the subject 
 she might have suspected it, but negroes never reason; 
 they only feel, and that too when facts are forced upon 
 them. Aunt Monin had never for one moment im 
 agined that she would not find Nancy in her old home, 
 and the joy of once more seeing that child of her heart 
 had been the only emotion that had occupied her mind 
 during the whole time of her absence. She never 
 thought or w r ondered about anything else. Nancy was 
 at Carthage alone, and she, Aunt Monin, was going to 
 return to her. The disappointment was so great, so 
 cruel, that for some hours the poor old soul seemed ab 
 solutely stunned by it. Her wits, sharpened to the at 
 tainment of the one object of her life, seemed now to 
 have deserted her. She couldn t think of anything. 
 She didn t try. She was benumbed and gave up, mak 
 ing no mental effort whatsoever to face this new dis 
 aster. How long she would have stayed at Carthage 
 singing over the dirge of her despair, it is impossible to 
 say. She was at length aroused by the arrival of a 
 darky who came to look after the cows that were in- 
 
260 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 quisitively poking around the ruins and trampling over 
 Nancy s little flower garden. He was immensely sur 
 prised to see Aunt Monin, whom he knew. 
 
 " Who done dat dar? " inquired Aunt Monin, point 
 ing to the blackened ruins. 
 
 " Ole man Quantrell. We uns lowed he done run 
 yo niggas off," replied the darky. 
 
 " De day o judgmental come ter him. He ll have 
 ter answer to de angel o de Lo d f o de evil dat he done. 
 He ll have ter pay back to de Lo d in suff rin fo de 
 struction an des lation o dish hyar home, an de Lo d 
 he ll sen his soul to hell for retribution/ said Aunt 
 Monin, indulging in the luxury of a deferred vengeance. 
 
 The darky was impressed with the notion of this 
 being a sort of prayer meeting; accordingly he said 
 " Glory, halleluiah! Amen," and rolled up his eyes until 
 the whites only remained visible. 
 
 " Whar Miss Nancy gone? " she next inquired. 
 
 "Gone off East," he said, repeating what he had 
 casually heard. " She an de mad nigga, Susanner, 
 done gone off together." 
 
 Aunt Monin began to wail afresh. The friendly 
 darky at length persuaded her to come home with him, 
 so that " his ole woman could fix her up and feed her." 
 Having now no aim or object in life and no plans of 
 any sort, she went willingly enough with him. She 
 stayed some little time with these kindly souls, making 
 no effort to find Nancy beyond asking those she hap 
 pened to meet "whar she done gone?" Her return 
 from Papinsville across the border back to Carthage had 
 been executed with such energy and such skill it may 
 seem surprising that the same person should now be in 
 capable of further effort. The journey from over the 
 border presented difficulties, no doubt, but they were all 
 difficulties she could grapple with, because she under 
 stood them. The foxlike necessity for walking at night 
 
AUNT MONIN S QUEST 261 
 
 so as to keep out of sight of the bushwhackers was a 
 stratagem within her comprehension; the physical ex 
 ertion was not much at her age, buoyed up as she was by 
 the hope of soon seeing Nancy again. Now that that 
 hope was gone, she seemed to sink at once into helpless 
 ness and to have lost the power of devising any plans. 
 How to set about finding her honey-chile in that vast 
 vague region known as " the East " was a problem quite 
 beyond her powers to solve. She could, of course, 
 neither read nor write, and if she could I don t know 
 that the accomplishment would have helped her much. 
 The only thing that occurred to her was to " ax folks," 
 and unfortunately she did not chance across the Wil 
 sons, the only people who could have told her anything 
 of her lost one. Having come to this decision in consul 
 tation with her negro hosts, she again, according to their 
 advice, chose Kansas City as the place where asking 
 would be of the most use. In this she was well advised 
 apparently, since Kansas City was the gate of northern 
 Kansas the gate, moreover, through which most people 
 passed on their way to and from the interior. 
 
 She soon became known on the levee at Kansas City. 
 She used to go down to the steamboat landing to meet 
 all the boats coming up or down the river, but it was 
 mostly the up-river steamers she haunted with particu 
 lar perseverance; for having come to think Nancy was 
 gone East she was forever hoping to get news of her 
 from that direction. The steamboat men took a friend 
 ly interest in her and used to buoy her up with false 
 hopes; it seemed to them so pathetic to see that old 
 negress always at the landing, day after day, wistfully 
 scanning the hurrying passengers for a face she was 
 never destined to see among them. The negro hands 
 on the boats in especial were interested in her quest, and 
 made inquiries down the river as far even as St. Louis, 
 all to no purpose of course, since each revolution of the 
 
262 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 paddle wheel eastward took them away from where 
 Nancy was baking her pumpkin pies and boiling her 
 bacon and beans. 
 
 ^ Aunt Monin s search was not wholly in vain. A 
 friend turned up one morning on board the boat from 
 St. Louis, a grinning, delighted friend, none other than 
 the redoubtable Sambo, who appeared in all the glory of 
 first-class waiterhood on board the steamer. Her heart 
 leaped with joy to see his happy conceited face once 
 more, but she wasn t going to let on before him, not 
 she. Eying him therefore with a glance of stern in 
 quiry she asked: 
 
 Yo ? , Sambo, whar yo bin all dish time? What fo 
 yo nebber come back befo ? Fse bin waitin a lono- 
 while." 
 
 "Fse pusson what had speriences," replied Sambo 
 in his best manner, which had become several degrees 
 finer since he was a steamer hand in regular employ 
 ment. " Fse done seed a heap, Aunt Monin, since we 
 uns was run off by Quantrell. Fse bin in a big fight." 
 
 He had, in fact, escaped from his captors near the 
 Mississippi, for they had suddenly to scatter, owing to 
 the unexpected approach of some Federal troops. One 
 of those numberless small conflicts between General 
 Price s forces and the Federals took place, and Sambo, 
 hearing the sound of heavy guns, crept into a hollow log 
 and lay there for a day and a night in mortal terror. 
 He was far beyond the range of the largest gun except 
 in his imagination, but he endured all the frights of a 
 real battle in the most vivid completeness. 
 
 "Why don t yo make quiries bout Miss Nancy?" 
 asked Aunt Monin jealously. 
 
 " I se gwine ter. Fse gwine ter pay my spects to 
 Miss Nancy dish hyar bressed day," replied Sambo with 
 alacrity. 
 
 " Boy, I se done lost her/ said Aunt Monin, catch- 
 
AUNT MONIN S QUEST 263 
 
 ing his arm anxiously and gazing at him with wistful 
 eyes. " Dar ain t bin nary minute since we was run off 
 clat I don t think bout my chile, but de Lo d s deaf 
 to my prayer. I se done lost her, and I can t find her." 
 
 Aunt Monin s voice trailed off into a wail of sorrow. 
 
 " I se gwine ter look for her. Don t yo make no 
 mo lamentation. I ll fin her, Aunt Monin," said Sam 
 bo, never the one to think lightly of his own powers. 
 
 "Wharyo look?" 
 
 " I se gwine ter make quiries roun mong de white 
 gemblemen. I se got consid ble quaintance mong 
 white gemblemen now," said Sambo, swelling with im 
 portance. Aunt Monin was too eager in her quest to 
 think of damping his courage, otherwise she would have 
 put a pin into the outrageously distended balloon of his 
 self-conceit. 
 
 One day in high midsummer Sambo arrived at the 
 landing stage in a state of turbulent excitement. 
 
 " Ho, Aunt Monin! " he shouted triumphantly; 
 " look hyar! Fse foun him fer yo ." 
 
 " Has yo got word o my honey-chile ? " demanded 
 the old woman, whose mind seemed now capable of 
 holding only one idea. 
 
 " Mos as good as dat," said Sambo. " Mas r Cap- 
 ting Charlie Heaton he on de steamboat. He come fer 
 ter git Miss Nancy." 
 
 A long, gaunt, cadaverous creature, with shoulders 
 sticking out like plough handles, and flabby clothes 
 flopping around legs like telegraph posts, came along 
 the gangway. He had a yellow-greenish face and a long 
 beard. Of Charlie Heaton s handsome face there re 
 mained nothing recognisable except his eyes. To such 
 a pass had a wound and swamp fever reduced the once 
 dashing soldier. He had considered himself an invalid, 
 but the thought that Nancy was gone and must be found 
 by him seemed to endow his lean body with an almost 
 
264 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 superhuman energy. He had come back on sick leave 
 to see Nancy, and to be petted and nursed by her back 
 into the life which he had all but lost in the cause to 
 which he had devoted himself. After long, weary 
 months of illness and suffering it seemed to him that 
 perhaps his atonement was complete and that she would 
 forgive him. And now, just as he was at the end of his 
 journey, he seemed to have come also to the end of 
 his hopes. 
 
 The disappointment had the exactly opposite effect 
 upon him from what it had had on Aunt Monin. It 
 roused him to instant energy and action. Sambo had 
 told him all there was to be told, and before he reached 
 Kansas City his plans were made. 
 
 " Dish is de han o de Lo d! " exclaimed Aunt Mo 
 nin, as she saw him and recognised the advent of a su 
 perior intelligence to be added now to her own devotion 
 in prosecuting the quest. 
 
 " I guess we ll find her out somehow," said he, with 
 kindly encouragement, in reply to the old nurse s rhap 
 sodies. 
 
 He proceeded in a most methodical manner, one 
 which brought result so speedily that Aunt Monin saw 
 in it a special providence, and became more and more 
 mystical day by day. Captain Heaton simply went to 
 the Government office at Lecompton and found out who 
 paid the taxes on Nancy s quarter section of land. He 
 took both Sambo and Aunt Monin with him, for he 
 knew that the surest way to Nancy s heart was through 
 those slaves for whose sake she had sacrificed so much. 
 Sambo was intelligently useful, Aunt Monin was ecstat 
 ically hopeful and in a perennial state of composing 
 songs of triumph relative to her meeting again with her 
 "honey-chile." Having discovered the owner of the 
 land, it was easy to learn Nancy s whereabouts from him. 
 
 These various inquiries had consumed some little 
 
AUNT MONIN S QUEST 265 
 
 time, so that it was not until the evening of the 21st of 
 August that Heaton at length found himself driving to 
 ward the town of Lawrence. The 21st of August, 1863, 
 was a black day in the annals of Lawrence, and as Hea 
 ton looked down upon the town his heart stood still with 
 horror. 
 
 Instead of the bright little town nestling among the 
 trees on the Kaw Eiver, a great smoking gap of black 
 ened ruins lay between Winthrop Street and Warren 
 Street, while on either side of Massachusetts Street two 
 long lines of shapeless cinders marked where the busi 
 ness houses had stood. Columns of smoke rose on the 
 motionless air from a dozen widely separated points of 
 the town. But it was not the smoke nor the blackened 
 heaps bordering Massachusetts Street that made Hea- 
 ton s eyes dilate with horror. It was the quick, sharp 
 sounds of stray pistol shots here and there and the long- 
 drawn wailings of women who were crouching over ob 
 jects that lay upon the ground in the streets. 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 THE BUENING OF LAWKENCE 
 
 WE left Nancy running her eating house at Law 
 rence with the help of Susannah. We find her there 
 on the 1st of August working steadily and bravely at 
 the same business. She had come to be pretty well 
 known in Lawrence, where she had arrived as a total 
 stranger not so many months before. John P. Ridg- 
 way, who would have been a good friend to her, was far 
 away. He had been drafted off as a soldier not having 
 adopted the desperate measure of drawing his front 
 teeth and though he had not Heaton s dreamy en 
 thusiastic patriotism, he had plenty of pride, and de 
 termined, as he must be a soldier, to be the best there 
 was going. And that is just what he was, about the 
 best cavalry soldier that ever threw a leg across a saddle. 
 He was far away in Tennessee and knew nothing about 
 Nancy s coming to Lawrence. She did not lack for 
 friends, however. Far from it. 
 
 The persons who frequented the new eating house 
 were mostly teamsters; that is to say, young men who 
 carried freight to and fro between Lawrence and the 
 neighbouring towns. These were not slow to find out 
 what a charming landlady it was who presided at the 
 little eating house. Such attractive girls did not often 
 appear before their delighted eyes, and it is not an exag 
 geration to say that Nancy might have been engaged 
 every week to a new suitor if she had permitted half of 
 200 
 
THE BURNING OF LAWRENCE 267 
 
 the men to make love to her who evinced a desire to do 
 so. At last she fairly took flight from her too ardent 
 admirers and devoted herself to the kitchen, while Su 
 sannah was sent in to wait on the men at dinner. Under 
 the steady influence of hard work, the mad mulatto 
 woman had settled down into being a quiet and fairly 
 efficient servant. She never gave way now to those 
 crazy outbursts of excitement, and Nancy hoped she was 
 going to get over them altogether. 
 
 Suddenly one day Susannah was reduced to a state 
 of helpless abject terror by the appearance of a new 
 guest at the eating house. He was a tall man of about 
 thirty-five, wearing the ordinary big hat, red shirt, and 
 heavy riding boots of the plains. There was nothing 
 remarkable about him. He seemed a well set up, vigor 
 ous man with face bronzed by long exposure to the ele 
 ments. He had a stern look, and his dark eyebrows met 
 in a frown, but one sometimes sees this expression in 
 people of the gentlest character if the skin of their fore 
 head be loose and easily moved. This man came in a 
 short time before dinner and sat down, thus intimating 
 his desire to partake of the forthcoming meal. No 
 sooner did Susannah see him than she dropped the 
 pitcher of water she was carrying to the table and fled 
 screeching to the kitchen. Nancy was keenly annoyed. 
 She found it impossible to quiet the woman or to dis 
 cover the cause of her outburst. Nothing remained, 
 therefore, but for her to go into the dining room her 
 self, leaving Susannah in charge of the kitchen, thus 
 reversing their respective duties. 
 
 Nancy s appearance, as unexpected as it was wel 
 come, was the signal for s, volley of delighted exclama 
 tions and comments from the assembled men, to most 
 of whom she was well known and to many of whom she 
 was an object of hopeless devotion. The stranger looked 
 up at the commotion and his eyes encountered Nancy s. 
 18 
 
268 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 "By thunder!" he exclaimed, starting to his 
 feet. 
 
 Nancy started too and turned very white, hut she 
 did not drop the dish of heans she was carrying; she 
 only gripped it the tighter. 
 
 "Wai, stranger, I guess you re surprised at some 
 thing," remarked the man opposite, eying him sternly. 
 
 " I was for a moment," said the newcomer, sitting 
 down again,, hut not taking his eyes off Nancy. 
 
 She had regained her colour and something more 
 than was usual, for her cheeks glowed hrightly and her 
 eyes seemed to sparkle. The men gazed at her in ad 
 miration; only the new guest frowned as well as stared. 
 Some of the rejected ones felt this to he an indirect in 
 sult to their bewitching landlady, and would in a mo 
 ment have made it the ground for picking up a quarrel 
 then and there, only they knew that Nancy didn t allow 
 any brawls to take place at her table. They accord 
 ingly endeavoured to be sarcastic. 
 
 " Wai, stranger, guess this is your fust visit to Law 
 rence, anyhow," commented a young fellow who sat op 
 posite the glum visitor. 
 
 " No, sir, I ve been here before." 
 
 " Sorter lowed as you hadn t seed Miss Nancy afore, 
 as you was kinder surprised." 
 
 " I have seen Miss Nancy Overton often." 
 
 " Land! Miss Nancy didn t look as she was all-fired 
 glad to see you." 
 
 " I don t inquire into the reasons of ladies doings, 
 but I always do of men," replied the black-browed 
 stranger with unmistakable enmity. Silence fell upon 
 the guests, who plied their knives with speed and effec 
 tiveness. Nancy waited upon them without a word. 
 When the dinner was over, all the men rose to go about 
 their several affairs. Only the stranger remained be 
 hind, obstinately sitting on his bench, staring vacantly 
 
THE BURNING OF LAWRENCE 269 
 
 up at the rafters of the low room, bent on outstaying 
 every one else. With many a wrathful glance his late 
 table associates passed him and went out, and finally 
 when they were all gone he got up and walked boldly 
 into the small kitchen. Susannah fled at the sight of 
 him out through the back door and hid behind the wood 
 pile. Nancy held her ground, although a close observer 
 would have seen that she was both nervous and fright 
 ened at his presence. 
 
 " Nancy, has it come to this ? " he said, with more 
 gentleness of manner than any one would have thought 
 him capable of from the roughness and gruffness he had 
 maintained in the dining room. 
 
 " I am living here. I have done so for some time," 
 answered Nancy very quietly. 
 
 " As drudge to rough teamsters? " 
 
 " No; as a free woman who is working for her liv 
 ing/ retorted she, with something of her old spirit 
 coming back to her. 
 
 " I don t see any difference. You are a mere servant 
 to these men." 
 
 " I am not. I am mistress of this house, and I allow 
 in this room only those whom I choose," she said with 
 suggestive firmness. 
 
 "I ain t going to get angry with you, Nancy," he 
 resumed in a conciliatory manner, " but you can t stay 
 here. I advise you to leave as soon as you can." 
 
 " James Harte, you forget who you are talking to," 
 said Nancy haughtily. " I don t leave my own home 
 at the order of a stranger, I can tell you." 
 
 " I wish you wouldn t call me a stranger. I mean 
 well by you," answered Harte, for it was he who had so 
 strangely appeared at Nancy s eating house. 
 
 " I am sure you do," said she, at once softening. 
 
 He seemed at a loss how to proceed. He looked 
 around, frowned, appeared on the point of speaking, and 
 
270 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 finally got up, saying he would come again in the 
 evening. 
 
 " I want to talk with you, Nancy, so don t have any 
 of those men around. It will be the worse for them and 
 for you." 
 
 He spoke in a masterful way, to which Nancy was 
 but little accustomed and which grated on her proud 
 spirit. 
 
 " If you want to see me for a short while I can spare 
 the time after the work is over. Come at eight o clock," 
 she said, not daring to refuse to see him and yet dread 
 ing his visit keenly. She suspected that he wanted to 
 renew his suit, and she considered that if he was going 
 to live in Lawrence it might be just as well to get it 
 over once for all and to make him clearly understand 
 that she could never listen to him. There was a curious 
 note in Harte s manner that Nancy failed to explain to 
 herself an air of command, as if his impetuous temper 
 had been growing in its self-assertion until now it would 
 brook no denial. He had a careless air of peremptori- 
 ness, as if he was in the habit of ordering men about 
 and of being obeyed. She looked forward, therefore, 
 to the evening s talk with no little trepidation. 
 
 Punctual to the minute there he was, looking, if pos 
 sible, sterner than ever, with the black frown deepening 
 over his eyes. It was a handsome face, but one that was 
 not pleasant to look upon, for there were possibilities of 
 cruelty lurking about that set mouth, and the blue-gray 
 eyes looked as if they could be relentless enough. James 
 Harte had changed a good deal since Nancy last saw 
 him, and he had changed for the worse. Life was not 
 softening his rugged nature, but was casting it into 
 harder and more immovable lines. 
 
 " I guess you don t forget what we talked about the 
 last time I saw you down in Missouri," said Harte, seat 
 ing himself opposite Nancy and looking her squarely in 
 
THE BURNING OF LAWRENCE 271 
 
 the face. His eyes were not those to sink before any 
 one s, whether man s or woman s. 
 
 " Yes, I remember, James, and no doubt you remem 
 ber what my answer was. It is the same now." 
 
 " I hadn t inquired about that yet," said Harte with 
 a slight sneer. 
 
 Nancy flushed at this taunt. 
 
 " I guess you re a regular out and out free-state 
 woman by this time? " w r as his next somewhat unlooked- 
 for observation. 
 
 " I am more against slavery than ever. This war 
 doesn t make folks love it. I should think even you 
 might understand that. I suppose you are secesh, aren t 
 you? The war is costing us all that is nearest and dear 
 est," said Nancy earnestly. 
 
 " Exactly. And I reckon you d be glad to do 
 anything you could to save the folks on your side, 
 eh?" 
 
 Nancy looked at him inquiringly, but did not reply. 
 
 " Now I m coming to the point where we left off in 
 Missouri three years ago. You wouldn t marry me then, 
 because you didn t care about me, and I couldn t offer 
 you enough to make you care about me. Things are 
 changed now, Nancy. There ain t many things I can t 
 offer you that a woman would want, and I say I love 
 you all the same. Y r ou are the only girl I ever saw with 
 a spirit I could admire. I ve seen enough girls that 
 would have been willing and glad to have me, but I 
 don t want a mean-spirited, clinging wife. I want a wife 
 with a spice of the devil in her, like you, Nancy. I don t 
 believe there s anything would frighten you, by gosh, 
 and I admire that, I do." 
 
 Nancy listened in speechless amazement to this ex 
 traordinary declaration of love. 
 
 " You don t seem to have understood what I said," 
 she observed at length. 
 
272 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " Yes, I understood right enough/ he interrupted, 
 and then continued in the same measured,, stern voice, 
 as if he were reading out the rules of punishment to a 
 mutinous regiment. " You don t love me, and you 
 think you won t marry me. Well, women often marry 
 men they don t particularly care for, if the men can 
 give them something they do care for very much. Now 
 I can do this. You are a free-state woman, and you 
 would like your own folks round here to escape the 
 horrors of war. Listen. If you ll marry me I ll give 
 you the town of Lawrence the property and the lives 
 of the people safe. There ain t another girl twixt here 
 and Memphis can "boast of an offer like that." 
 
 Nancy was frightened. She felt sure the man was 
 mad. She was alone, and he looked black and stern 
 enough for any piece of devilry. She gazed at him fasci 
 nated with fear she whom he had been just praising as 
 a girl who was afraid of nothing. 
 
 " What s your answer? " 
 
 " I don t understand what you mean. How can you 
 give me Lawrence? " 
 
 " I can give it to you, and I will do so, by God, if 
 you ll marry me. But you must be quick. Maybe I m 
 playing with my life, and most folks would say I was a 
 darned fool too; all for the sake of a girl who don t care 
 one wink of her bright eyes for me. You must answer 
 quick and straight, for I ain t the man to dangle round a 
 woman s skirts, even if it s you. You must say yes or 
 no to-night. To-morrow it will be too late; I shall be 
 gone. If you ll come away with me in the morning we ll 
 get married right away. I ll give you Lawrence, the 
 lives of the men, the homes of the women and children. 
 Say yes, Nancy, and you won t regret it. You ll have 
 done more for your folks and the side you take than 
 two hundred soldiers; there ain t another woman be 
 tween the Potomac and the Mississippi could do half as 
 
THE BURNING OF LAWRENCE 273 
 
 much. Say no, and your life won t be long enough for 
 your remorse." 
 
 The danger was very near, but mad or no, Nancy 
 must meet him, and she did so with a direct refusal. He 
 stopped, and she could hear him breathing heavily while 
 his nostrils twitched. She knew the furious temper of 
 old, and wondered where the storm would break, and 
 how she should withstand it. 
 
 "Think again, Nancy. Lawrence against a girl s 
 fancy," he said, making an effort to control himself. 
 
 " I don t believe a word of what you say, James 
 Harte. You think to frighten me into marrying you 
 by this bugbear of a story." 
 
 " It s the truth, I swear to God it is," he interrupted. 
 " Lawrence isn t yours. I don t know what you 
 mean by giving it to me. Free cities don t lie in the 
 hollow of a man s hand, like an ear of corn." 
 
 " Don t it, by thunder! Lawrence does lie in the 
 hollow of my hand, and I can give it to you as a wedding 
 
 gift, or I can " 
 
 " You are raving mad, James Harte, and I won t 
 listen to any more of your wild words," interrupted 
 Nancy vehemently, as she saw the door open and two 
 of her oldest and most respected boarders come into 
 the apartment. Never before did she look upon their 
 rough faces with such joy. Harte turned with a 
 smothered oath, and in a few moments rose to leave 
 the room. As he said good-bye he repeated under his 
 breath: 
 
 " Think again, Nancy. I give you one more chance." 
 " Never! " said she boldly, confident now her friends 
 were near. 
 
 " Then damn Lawrence and you! " said Harte, furi 
 ously grinding his teeth as he strode from the room to 
 the great relief of Nancy. What he had meant by his 
 threats or whether he had meant anything, she did not 
 
274 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 stop to inquire; she was only thankful he was gone, 
 never, she hoped, to return. 
 
 Try as she might to dismiss all memory of him from 
 her mind, the recollection of his threats was soon forced 
 upon her, for the air was full of rumours. Vague 
 whispers went about, anxious inquiries were made which 
 none could answer. One of those chronic periods of 
 excitement and suspense was creeping upon Lawrence 
 when the word " raid " was passed from mouth to 
 mouth. The teamsters at the eating house talked loudly 
 about it and continuously and the news was not long in 
 reaching Nancy in the midst of her beans and bacon 
 and her hot soda biscuits. It came upon her that per 
 haps this might be the explanation of James Harte s 
 curious threat and still more curious offer. She spoke 
 about it to some of her boarders. They were convinced 
 he was a spy, and were consequently full of regret that 
 they hadn t " dropped him on sight." Word passed 
 around that spies were abroad, and this did not tend to 
 allay the excitement. Help was asked from Fort 
 Leavenworth, and two cannon came lumbering along, 
 only to be met by orders from headquarters to go 
 home again, so they lumbered back. Such is military 
 prescience. General Collamore, the mayor, heard re 
 ports of Nancy s late visitor, and the eating house was 
 amazed to see him on horseback prance up to its modest 
 door. Nancy was summoned from her pumpkin pies, 
 and appeared with bare arms and a snowy dab of flour 
 like a white rose ornamenting her black hair. The 
 mayor, being but a man, smiled at the pretty young 
 landlady and called her " my dear." 
 
 He inquired minutely into the appearance and tactics 
 of the spy she was supposed to have had under her roof, 
 and Nancy with a sweet blush told him of James Harte s 
 singular offer of marriage. 
 
 "And you said no, didn t you?" asked the mayor, 
 
THE BURNING OF LAWRENCE 275 
 
 distinctly amused at what he took to be a lover s 
 stratagem. 
 
 " Of course I refused," answered Nancy. 
 " Quite right, my dear. You are far too pretty for a 
 rascally butternut. You just wait until the gallant boys 
 in blue come marching home victorious, and then you 
 choose a dashing soldier for yourself," said the cheer 
 ful mayor. 
 
 A look of such unmistakable pain passed over the 
 young girl s sweet face that the kindly mayor saw he 
 had touched what was perhaps an aching wound. 
 
 "My child," he said gently, "you have chosen a 
 loyal soldier already. I trust all goes well with him." 
 
 " I don t know. He went away long ago," she said 
 quietly. 
 
 " God grant he may come back safe to you! " 
 The mayor rode away, feeling that, except for the 
 pleasure of looking upon a very pretty face and hearing 
 a sweet young voice, he had certainly wasted some of 
 the public time which might have been better employed 
 in arranging for the defence of the town. 
 
 The excitement continued to increase. People went 
 about in fear and trembling. Arms were collected at 
 the courthouse, and every man was ordered to go there 
 upon the first appearance of danger. Two or three com 
 panies of State militia came in from neighbouring towns 
 and idled around the streets. 
 Nothing happened. 
 
 The hot days scorched along, and scouts returning 
 from the direction of Franklin and the border reported 
 all quiet there. The overland mail ran unmolested 
 through Black Jack and streeled off toward the limit 
 less West in a continuous cloud of dust of its own 
 raising. 
 
 The little eating house stood on the very western 
 limit of Lawrence, an isolated shanty in its own plot of 
 
276 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 ground. Just behind it was a large field of corn, now 
 in its summer height, with great nodding plumes of 
 florescence on the ends of its lofty stalks. Occasionally, 
 when there was a little wind stirring, Nancy used to 
 listen to the rustle of the large ribbonlike leaves. It 
 reminded her of the sound of the trees down in Missouri, 
 a sound she had not often heard since coming to Kan 
 sas, and it was welcome to her as a memory of brighter 
 days. The weeks passed, and the idea of a raid being 
 imminent passed also. Nobody saw any sign of the 
 gathering storm, and the military authorities at Kansas 
 City were cheerfully serene. Lawrence had been so 
 often frightened that people began to laugh at her fears. 
 The militiamen laughed loudest, and, turning back dis 
 gusted, went home to their farm work again, confident 
 in the strength of the soldiers to stop raiders from com 
 ing over the border. The panic was over, and Lawrence 
 went about its manifold business on the 20th of August, 
 and expected to do so on the next and following days. 
 
 Early hours used to obtain on the prairie, and Nancy 
 was just opening the door at half past five on the morn 
 ing of the 21st to intimate that breakfast would be ready 
 in half an hour, when her " chore boy " bounced in, ab 
 solutely green with terror. This was a young darky who 
 used to draw water from the well and fetch and carry 
 generally for the household. 
 
 " Oh, Lordy, Lordy! " he cried, trying to creep under 
 the table. 
 
 " What s the matter with you, Hercky? Has any 
 body beaten you?" asked Nancy, surprised at his con 
 duct. 
 
 " Oh, Lordy, Lordy! I seed em," replied the de 
 moralized Hercules incomprehensibly. 
 
 "Seen who?" 
 
 "De bushwhackers ridin long by de breshwood," 
 said the shivering lad. 
 
THE BURNING OF LAWRENCE 277 
 
 " Nonsense! They were some of our troops. We are 
 going to have soldiers here now. Get out from under 
 the table and draw the water for breakfast. I want three 
 bucketfuls." 
 
 Hercules arose trembling and went to the well, his 
 eyes rolling horribly in his head. Nancy watched him 
 in scornful amusement for a second. He let down the 
 bucket and had begun to wind up the windlass when his 
 rolling eyes caught sight of some object that caused him 
 violent emotion. 
 
 " Oh, Lordy, dar dey is! I know dem butternuts. 
 Oh, Lordy! " 
 
 Without delay he sprang back out of reach of the 
 windlass, let go the handle, and fled. The released 
 handle flew violently round as the bucket fell back with 
 a splash into the well. Hercules was out of sight in the 
 cornfield, and a negro in a cornfield is as impossible 
 to find as the proverbial needle in a bundle of hay. The 
 corn was eight feet high, growing like sturdy bamboos 
 covered with broad leaves, and the field contained forty 
 acres. Five hundred men could hide in such a place. 
 
 "Well, to be sure, talk of ghosts and the fear 
 thereof! " said Nancy, smiling at the flight of the re 
 doubtable Hercules. She went herself to the well and 
 began to wind up the bucket, but something caught her 
 eye, for she turned very white. She did not let go the 
 handle, but wound at it for dear life, and then left it 
 standing on the edge of the well and ran back into the 
 house, all of a tremble. 
 
 "Susannah, the woods are full of bushwhackers! 
 I saw them. Oh, what shall we do? " she said, with the 
 instinct of a woman, which is to ask for help in the 
 first moment of danger. 
 
 " Ain t I got my flapjacks light wid de beating? " 
 said Susannah inconsequently. Her mind was set to 
 cooking, and could not be moved therefrom without 
 
278 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 some external excitement. This impetus was not lack 
 ing on the present occasion. A moment after the town 
 rang with yells, shouts, and the quick reports of pistol 
 shots. 
 
 Nancy went to shut the door with a view to placing 
 that feeble barrier between her and the danger. 
 
 " Oh, Lordy, Lordy, dar s ole man Quantrell! " 
 shrieked Susannah, and the name seemed to be taken 
 up by a hundred voices. " Quantrell! Quantrell! " was 
 echoed back from the houses. 
 
 A tall man on a big horse galloped by the door. 
 Nancy saw him as he flashed by. 
 
 " I am Quantrell! Down with the blue-bellied Yan 
 kees! Shoot every one! " 
 
 The figure was that of James Harte, but the face 
 was that of a devil. 
 
 They swarmed in from everywhere. The Waukarusa 
 woods seemed to yield up men like falling leaves, so 
 great was the multitude. They thundered up Main 
 Street, firing right and left. Their horses bounded over 
 the ground, and at every bound there was a shot sent 
 into some door or window. Straight on to the new 
 hotel they rushed as the big gong sounded, calling the 
 guests from their beds. It was a rueful awakening. In 
 batches and squads they were marched out, and many 
 were shot down on the pavement, a few paces away from 
 the house where they had lately been peacefully sleep 
 ing. Men were summoned to open their doors, and a 
 quick shot was the death-dealing visitor they admitted. 
 Women came tremblingly forth clasping their children 
 in their arms, and the raiders first looted and then 
 burned their houses. 
 
 Lawrence, which had made ready for repelling an 
 attack three weeks before, was now caught totally un 
 armed and unprepared. Arms and ammunition were 
 locked up in fatal security in the courthouse, and that 
 
THE BURNING OF LAWRENCE 279 
 
 Quantrell had seized. It was not for nothing that the 
 raider chief had come into Lawrence to see how the 
 land lay and to note where his attack should be deliv 
 ered. In the intervals of his strange wooing of Nancy 
 he had not been idle. 
 
 There was no resistance, no fighting even, only a 
 string of murders enduring nearly all day. Nancy re 
 mained for some hours in her house, dreading to leave 
 it and yet fearful of remaining. The flying townsfolk 
 made for the woods. Some got there, some crept into 
 the ravine overgrown with brushwood which bisects the 
 town. They were pursued by the raiders to the very 
 edge of this ravine, but no one dared explore it. Desper 
 ate men, driven at bay in a thicket, were not the prey 
 the raiders cared to face. Scores of fugitives made for 
 the cornfield behind Nancy s house. Poor panting 
 creatures with glaring bloodshot eyes rushed wildly past 
 her door and leaped into the kindly shelter of the tall 
 growing maize. After them came the butternuts begirt 
 with pistols, firing at every step. Running aim is not a 
 steady aim, so most of the fugitives gained the corn 
 field; a few who were wounded were overtaken and shot 
 in the very verge of the safe retreat. 
 
 The sun rose higher and higher over the unhappy 
 town. Not a breath of air was there to stir a leaf or to 
 give movement to the dense suffocating smoke from the 
 burning of the wooden houses. The heat was intoler 
 able, and those wretched fugitives cowering in the corn 
 field were going mad with thirst. The baking sun beat 
 straight down on them now, the bamboolike stems of 
 the corn giving no help and no shadow. Some of them 
 crept cautiously to the edge next Nancy s house. They 
 called to her in timorous tones. 
 
 " Water! " was their cry. " Give us water, for God s 
 sake! " 
 
 Nancy heard the prayer, and hearing, answered it. 
 
280 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 She took bucket after bucket of cool life-giving water 
 from her well down into the sweltering cornfield to the 
 gasping fugitives hiding there. Coming out after one 
 of these journeys of mercy,, she found a troop of Mis- 
 sourians ransacking her house preparatory to setting it 
 on fire. 
 
 " What have you got in that cornfield? " they asked 
 her. 
 
 " Go in and see/ she replied haughtily. "Go; you 
 will find it the hottest place you ve been in to-day. 
 Try it." 
 
 " Maybe it s the State militia coming up/ suggested 
 one of the raiders, who was employed in smashing 
 Nancy s simple furniture. 
 
 The words State militia set them furious. 
 
 " Tell us or we ll throw you down the well. Who s 
 in there?" 
 
 " Go. You ll find out/ replied Nancy dauntlessly, 
 well knowing that the best chance she had of screening 
 the fugitives was by letting the raiders imagine the field 
 concealed the militia. 
 
 " Take her to Quantrell. He ll know how to make 
 her speak/ said one of the ruffians, evidently half 
 drunk. 
 
 She was seized in a moment and swung upon a horse. 
 The rest of the party mounted fast. Susannah, scared 
 from the house by the flames, at this instant rushed 
 out with her clothes on fire. Nancy tried to spring down 
 from the horse and go to her assistance. 
 
 " Are you fiends in human shape that you can see 
 a woman burn to death ? " she cried in horror. 
 
 " Eeckon I can quiet her screeches, anyhow," said 
 one of the raiders, drawing his pistol and firing at the 
 frantic woman. 
 
 "Quit that, you damn fool! The chief don t low 
 killin o women," roared a companion, who was evi- 
 
THE BURNING OF LAWRENCE 281 
 
 dently a beginner at the work. The mulatto woman fell 
 in a heap on the ground, and the last speaker took off 
 his wide-brimmed hat and flapped out the flames. 
 
 " Nigger women don t count in any orders as I know 
 on/ said the one who had fired, as he sulkily put up his 
 weapon. 
 
 "You ll bring Quantrell down on us, you blamed 
 fool! " scolded the other. 
 
 " I ll bring my revolver down on you this minute 
 and let the daylight into you if you dare say another 
 word to me," returned his fraternal companion in arms. 
 
 Nancy made another effort to break away and go to 
 Susannah s assistance, but a bird caught in a net was 
 not more powerless than she. The men made sport of 
 her frantic despair and without difficulty held her 
 powerless. Resigning herself to the inevitable, she re 
 mained sullenly quiet. One hopeless glance she cast 
 back toward Susannah, who lay prone upon the ground, 
 whether dead or not she could not say. Thus Nancy 
 was separated from the last of her former slaves, from 
 those poor creatures for whom she had sacrificed so 
 much. Amid smoke and flame, a captive among brutal 
 raiders, she disappeared from her little eating house in 
 Lawrence toward the middle of the day when that luck 
 less dwelling, together with half of the town, disap 
 peared off the face of the earth. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIII 
 
 NANCY MISSING 
 
 THIS, then, was the sight that met Heaton s eye as 
 he looked down upon Lawrence, a black, smoking mass 
 in the centre of the town, and here and there red glow 
 ing flames where some of the houses last set on fire were 
 slowly consuming their timbers. He was a soldier and 
 had seen two years and a half of active warfare, he knew 
 the grim details of his terrible profession very thor 
 oughly, but never before had he experienced such a 
 heart-sickening shock as when he looked down upon 
 Lawrence on that summer day. He knew at a glance 
 what had happened as well as if he had been told. It 
 had been raided. 
 
 A town that is burned by accident looks very differ 
 ent in its ruins from the town that is burned by the 
 hand of the foe. In the former case the fire burns from 
 one great centre, and the inhabitants, like ants, rudely 
 disturbed in their nests, are seen hurrying hither and 
 thither in endless confusion. The town that is pur 
 posely fired burns from many isolated points here, 
 there, everywhere and the inhabitants, if there are any 
 to be seen, are neither noisy nor numerous. Many are 
 dead, more have fled, and those that remain are too 
 terrified and too overwhelmed to make loud lament. A 
 few women who have lost all may be heard pitifully 
 wailing over the dead bodies of their husbands and sons, 
 or they may be seen miserably searching among the 
 282 
 
NANCY MISSING 283 
 
 blackened ruins of their homes for some relic more pre 
 cious than life. 
 
 Where was Nancy? An awful fear clutched at his 
 heart, for he knew that although war is not waged 
 against women, still a pretty and helpless young girl 
 had a thousand dangers to meet in the sacking of a town 
 by a band of irregular troops. Alas, poor Charlie, what 
 a home-coming from the wars was this! 
 
 Leaving Aunt Monin with the wagon and horses in 
 the woods at the edge of the town, he and Sambo went 
 forward cautiously, not knowing what might be the 
 state of affairs. Sambo, not the bravest of mortals as 
 we know, was from his inordinate vanity made stalwart 
 on this occasion. He would not show cowardice before 
 Mas r Capting Heaton, and marched therefore sturdily 
 alongside of his commanding officer, keeping a lynx- 
 eyed watch on every side. He espied the skulking fugi 
 tives in the brushwood of the gorge, and at first thought 
 them the enemy, but a nearer inspection showed him 
 his mistake. The people, moreover, were beginning to 
 come forth, assured as they were by the women that the 
 raiders were gone. 
 
 Then began the search for Nancy. No one in the 
 distracted groups he questioned seemed to have heard 
 her name, or else they had lost all memory of everything 
 except their own immediate sorrows. Most of them 
 indeed were looking for their own dead. One piteous 
 father was frantically tearing at the red-hot cinders of 
 his own house, trying to find some trace of his lost son. 
 Poor father! Better for him if a kindly earth could 
 have hidden what he found from his sight, leaving him 
 with only the memory of his son living and in the first 
 glow of his young manhood. In his two years and a 
 half of soldiering Heaton had more than once searched 
 a battlefield. He had sought the shattered remnants of 
 his company after the repulse from Corinth. lie knew 
 19 
 
284: THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 what it was to look for comrades among the disfigured 
 bodies that dotted many a hard-fought field. His heart 
 was not hardened by his war experience, but his nerves 
 were steadied, so that he could look on unmoved at 
 awful sights. But in all the battlefields he had searched 
 it was only for soldiers and fighting men he looked. 
 He had never hunted among the dead for the one 
 he loved best on earth. That he might have to do 
 among the blistering ruins of Lawrence, and his eyes 
 were blinded with a burning agony of tears and his 
 hands quivered as if he were new to the work and had 
 not seen thousands of men die around him more than 
 once. 
 
 It could not be that Nancy, whose bright young 
 figure rose before his memory so distinctly, was among 
 those shapeless and charred masses that people were be 
 ginning to remove from among the ruins of the burned 
 buildings. The thought was too horrible. He would 
 not let it come into his mind. Still, amid the confusion 
 he could not find any one who knew her or had ever 
 heard of her little eating house, and thus he too wan 
 dered up and down Massachusetts Street half distracted 
 with anxiety, while the weeping women were mourning 
 over their dead laid out on the pathway. Sambo rushed 
 hither and thither in a state of frantic grief, calling 
 upon all and sundry to give him information with truly 
 irregulated negro vehemence. By this time even the 
 negroes began to take heart of grace and to creep forth 
 out of their hiding places, and Sambo immediately 
 pounced upon a couple, demanding to know " whar Miss 
 Nancy done live?" There is a freemasonry among 
 negroes and a power of quick interchange of news that 
 amazes white people, who depend on the papers to do 
 this for them. Sambo demanded news of the darkies, 
 and they instantly supplied it. Thus it was he who dis 
 covered where the little eating house had stood, and 
 
NANCY MISSING 285 
 
 thither he and Heaton rushed with panting eagerness. 
 They found the house smoking in its ruins, and lying 
 in the yard was Susannah where she had fallen when 
 shot by the Missourian. The near approach of death 
 had cleared the blurred vision of the poor creature. 
 When the two men spoke to her she looked up and in 
 stantly recognised them. 
 
 " My poor woman, can I help you ? " asked Heaton 
 pitifully. 
 
 " No, Mas r Heaton, Fse mos done wid dish wicked 
 worlV 
 
 "Who are you?" asked the young man, astonished 
 at being recognised. 
 
 " Fse Miss Nancy s Susanner." 
 
 "Where is she?" gasped he, kneeling down beside 
 her to catch the feeble words. " Tell me. What has 
 become of her? Did she escape? " 
 
 " No, Mas r Heaton, she s in de han s o de raiders. 
 Dey done tote her off on hoss." 
 
 " Oh, my God! " cried the unfortunate young man 
 to whom this answer carried an awful significance. 
 
 " Which way did they go? How long are they gone? 
 Can you tell me?" 
 
 " Dey go a while back," said Susannah faintly. " It 
 war Mas r Jeemes Harte what done de raid. I seed him 
 ride in." 
 
 " Dat de same as ole man Quantrell what run we uns 
 off an burn Miss Nancy s farm," said Sambo. " Mas r 
 Jeemes won t go f er ter hurt her, cause he wanted ter 
 marry her down in ole Missouri." 
 
 As consolation this news carried a sting in it for 
 Heaton. 
 
 " Sambo, stay with this poor woman and do what you 
 can for her. I m going to start the pursuit," said 
 Heaton briefly. " Good-bye, Susannah; I ll try and 
 bring Miss Nancy back to you." 
 
286 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 He walked rapidly off in the direction of the woods, 
 where his wagon and horses were. 
 
 " Sambo, yo go long too," said Susannah. " IV 
 can len a han in de fight. Yo can t do nuffin fer me. 
 Fse gwine dish night inter paradise. I done seed my 
 ole man what war killed at Mine Creek. He mighty 
 kin , an he heckon ter me fer ter hurry up. An Sambo 
 he got de babby in de arms, an dat chile he jess as fat 
 an cute as he can be. I se powerful curious fer ter 
 hurry up, an I low I ain t gwine ter be long agoin ." 
 
 The dying woman began to babble about her little 
 baby. Sambo was eager to follow Mas r Heaton and to 
 be forward in the rescue of Miss Nancy, but dared not 
 disobey orders. He hesitated what to do. At this 
 moment a small darky came creeping out of the corn 
 field. This was the redoubtable Hercules, who seeing 
 Sambo standing there came to the conclusion that the 
 butternuts must be gone and that he might safely ven 
 ture forth. 
 
 " Is yo huntin fer Miss Nancy? " he inquired. 
 
 " Yaas, sonny, come hyar an tell me whar she gone," 
 said Sambo eagerly. 
 
 " Down yonder," said the boy, jerking his thumb 
 over his shoulder in the direction of the river. 
 
 " War dar powerful heap on em? " 
 
 " Nary heap; on y four men. I seed ? em goin long 
 de track down by de ribber. I seed em from de corn- 
 fiel ." 
 
 Hercules brought some water in his hat and streamed 
 it over the dying woman s face and hands to cool her 
 burning wounds, but she was past all suffering. The 
 water, how r ever, seemed to revive her for the moment. 
 Susannah, who had appeared all but dead, opened her 
 eyes, and, seeing the two negroes there, spoke again: 
 
 " Sambo, go long an help save Miss Nancy," she 
 said jerkily. " Tell her de ole mad nigga woman ain t 
 
NANCY MISSING 287 
 
 mad now. She gwine ter der place whar de Lo d keep 
 her babby-chile safe for her. Go long, Sambo." 
 
 She relapsed into unconsciousness. They waited for 
 the end. Suddenly raising herself /she spoke in a loud 
 clear voice that startled them dreadfully. 
 
 " What for yo don t go an save her? De raiders 
 carry her down to de big ribber whar de water run deep 
 an swif . Dey s gwine ter drown her. Save dat po 
 chile." 
 
 Sambo gazed at her in a fascinated sort of fright as 
 she sank back again. She was evidently breathing her 
 last. 
 
 " Yo nigga," exclaimed Hercules, gripping Sambo 
 by the arm, " dat what de butternuts gwine ter do. 
 Dey s gwine ter drown Miss Nancy. Oh, Lordy, Lordy! 
 Dey hain t toted her by de big road to Franklin; dey 
 done go by de track down long de ribber. Ole man got 
 de rope roun de saddle horn, an dey tie her han s 
 behin her back an carry her oft on de brown hoss. 
 Lordy, Lordy! " 
 
 " Is yo shu ? " asked Sambo in a terrified voice. 
 
 " Dey s gwine ter drown her," sobbed Hercules, who 
 was very much attached to Nancy. " Drown her in de 
 deep hole roun beyon de maple trees dar. I seed de 
 rope on de saddle horn." 
 
 The terrors that Hercules expressed with such ve 
 hemence infected Sambo. He did not stay to reason. 
 Miss Nancy was in danger, and he, Sambo, must fly to 
 the rescue. His firs and only idea was to let Captain 
 Heaton know. He captured a stray mule by a dexterity 
 known only to a negro, and, leaping upon its astonished 
 back, drove it by means of his flapping hat with a speed 
 which only a negro can get out of a mule. 
 
 Believing that Nancy was in the hands of a former 
 lover from Missouri, Heaton could not bring himself to 
 imagine that any immediate harm would come to her, 
 
288 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 whatever might be the distant result. Southern men did 
 not often molest women. Therefore his plan was to 
 organize a pursuit as rapidly as possible, and for this 
 purpose he was proceeding to Blanton in order to as 
 semble men whose nerves had not been so shaken as was 
 the case with the newly raided citizens of Lawrence. 
 He thought it highly probable that from there he might, 
 with even a small body of men, intercept the raiders, 
 who would infallibly retreat by the Franklin road. He 
 had not gone far in this direction when he was over 
 taken by the frantic Sambo on the barebacked mule. 
 
 " Lordy, Lordy! Mas r Capting Heaton, he done tote 
 her off ter der ribber fer ter drown her. Ole Susanner 
 and de nigga tole me so/ was the appalling message he 
 delivered as soon as he got within shouting distance. 
 Never before or since was a team driven with such furi 
 ous speed as when Charlie Heaton, standing up in his 
 wagon, lashed his horses along the road leading to the 
 river followed by Sambo, urging on his mule with his 
 flapping hat. What Heaton intended to do was not very 
 clear in his own mind. He was too frantic to think or 
 make any plan. Somewhere along that river bank Nancy 
 was drowning, and he would save her or perish in the 
 attempt. Men joined him as he dashed along, men who 
 seemed to pick up the news from the air, or maybe it 
 was from Sambo on the mule. They began to gather 
 and to come swiftly by that pretty road that skirts the 
 Kaw River, where the trees dip down into the clear 
 water and tone its reflecting surface with their brilliant 
 tints. A man coming out of the Bush, and recognising 
 that these were friends that now swept along, hailed 
 him. 
 
 " Stranger, halt there a minute. There s a gang o 
 bushwhackers just a little while back carried a girl down 
 to the bend in the river. They were all pretty drunk 
 and I 
 
NANCY MISSING 289 
 
 Heaton leaped from the wagon. 
 
 "Which way? Those are the ones we re after. 
 Sambo, here take this knife and do what you can to save 
 Miss Nancy." Quick, sharp, and soldierlike were his 
 orders, but Heaton s face was ghastly to look upon and 
 his eyes glared. His long thin hands were like eagle s 
 claws and savagely gripped his weapons. He and Sambo 
 crept into the brushwood in the direction indicated by 
 their informant. After them came Aunt Monin, crawl 
 ing along like a fox, making no noise. Two or three 
 more had come up by this time, and they too entered 
 the bush at different points, so as to make sure of catch 
 ing the bushwhackers. 
 
CHAPTEE XXIV 
 
 THE RESCUE 
 
 WHEN Nancy had been led by her ruffian captors 
 to their " chief " she had at first experienced a feeling 
 of relief on beholding that he was none other than 
 James Harte. The name of Quantrell had filled her 
 with well-founded alarm, but when she saw that it be 
 longed to her old admirer James Harte she could not 
 help feeling that he at least would allow no harm to be 
 done to her. Perhaps this might have been so had Harte 
 been in full possession of his faculties at this moment, 
 but such was not the case. Nancy had some difficulty 
 in recognising him even, he was so altered from what 
 he had been a few days before when he had made her 
 the strange offer of Lawrence if she would accept him. 
 She understood him now, and she realized how truth 
 fully exact was his boast that he held the town in the 
 hollow of his hand. He was now grimy-looking and 
 dirty with the smoke of battle, but it was not the filth 
 of his person that alarmed Nancy, it was the awful 
 bloodshot glare of his eye. Standing on the ruins of 
 the town he had destroyed, he was giving his orders for 
 the withdrawal of his men when Nancy was brought up. 
 
 " Take everything you like and burn the rest; then 
 light out for the border." 
 
 "Here s suthin ye ll like to take long, captain. 
 She s bin givin information to folks down in the corn 
 field over yonder. Maybe it s militia s thar," said one of 
 290 
 
THE RESCUE 291 
 
 Nancy s captors, thrusting her forward until she stood 
 within a couple of feet of Quantrell. He glared at her 
 with a savage scowl. 
 
 " So, ho! You ve come to your senses, have you? " 
 he said with a jerk between his words that showed he 
 had been drinking. 
 
 "James Harte, what have you done?" said Nancy 
 sternly, hoping to overawe him with the steadiness of 
 her manner. Poor girl! If that "was her only defence it 
 was not worth much. 
 
 " I m Quantrell, by thunder! Let no one dare to 
 call me anything else or I ll let the daylight into him 
 pretty quick," was his answer, which showed Nancy that 
 to try and reason with him in his present condition was 
 utterly useless, and might be very dangerous. She looked 
 helplessly around the group, but every face bore the mark 
 of that increase of savagery that is obtained by a free 
 use and abuse of whisky. Silence was the safest thing 
 for her under these circumstances. Accordingly, she re 
 mained silent while the final orders were being given. 
 Then she was hoisted on to a horse in front of a big 
 man who spoke only a few words, but these betrayed his 
 German origin. This individual appeared to be Quan- 
 trell s right-hand man. 
 
 A helter-skelter troop streamed out of Lawrence, 
 a good many taking the Franklin road, others again 
 going almost due east. To break up the band seemed 
 to be their purpose, so that each party might the more 
 readily escape into Missouri with the booty. A few well- 
 loaded wagons moved forward as fast as possible, fol 
 lowed by a rabble on horseback, for the men were now 
 so drunk and noisy they had lost all semblance of mili 
 tary order and discipline. Some distance behind this 
 last band came Quantrell with his captive, his German 
 lieutenant, and a few others. Nancy had no other 
 thought but that they would carry her off into Missouri, 
 
292 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 and she hoped that when once there better feelings 
 would prevail, and that she might eventually be set free. 
 But when she saw that her captors were leaving both the 
 Franklin road and the main body of their party, and 
 were making for the river by a track that followed its 
 banks, her heart gave a great throb of terror. They 
 were not going to take her into Missouri. 
 
 What were they going to do with her? 
 
 She asked the German who was riding behind her on 
 the big horse, but he only laughed, and his laugh had 
 an evil sound in it. He, like the rest, reeked of whisky. 
 She made a sudden movement as if to throw herself 
 from the horse, and found to her dismay that not only 
 were her hands bound, but that she was also tied to the 
 German by a rope around his waist. She did not know 
 when he had slipped the cord around her. She tried 
 to look back at Quantrell, but he was riding straight 
 behind, and she could only hear the tapping of his 
 horse s feet on the ground. 
 
 By and bye they reached the river flowing along 
 under the sunlit trees. It flashed across her that they 
 were going to drown her in their drunken fury and rage. 
 Therefore they had brought her to this lonely spot, so 
 as to be out of reach of the possible pity and interfer 
 ence of the less savage of the raiders. She was young, 
 and the smooth-gliding, treacherous river would soon 
 close over her and tell no tale. A choking lump rose in 
 her throat. This, then, was the end. She had come 
 here to die alone. It was not maybe the worst fate that 
 might befall her. She would meet death calmly, and 
 her haughty spirit rose. She would not lower herself to 
 beg her life from these drunken ruffians. Her prayers 
 would be rare sport for them to flout. She could and 
 she would balk them of that brutal delight. 
 
 They followed along by the river brink for some way 
 until they came to a sort of clearing where a wood- 
 
THE RESCUE 293 
 
 cutter must have lately been at work, for a cord of wood 
 was piled near by. Here they dismounted, lifted her 
 from her horse and tied her to a tree. They were four 
 men who now confronted Nancy James Harte, the 
 sullen German, and two others all four more or less 
 drunk. The two who were more drunk were perhaps a 
 shade less cruel than the two who retained more of the 
 tiger in their rage. 
 
 " Well," said James Harte, speaking with less firm 
 ness and rapidity of enunciation than Nancy had ever 
 heard him speak before, " I reckon you know now I m 
 a man of my word, don t you? " 
 
 Nancy looked at him with wide-eyed terror, but did 
 not reply to this vague question. 
 
 " I offered you Lawrence if you d marry me, didn t 
 I? Offered you many lives, didn t I, if you d say yes 
 and marry me ? " 
 
 " And I said no," answered Nancy firmly, meeting 
 his gaze unflinchingly. 
 
 " You did. Reckon you thought I wasn t going to 
 keep my word; but I did. I offered you all those lives 
 for your answer. I m coming down in my bargain now. 
 I ll offer you only one life to-day your own. Maybe 
 that ll make you listen to reason. Will you marry me, 
 Nancy?" 
 
 He pointed with dread significance to the river. 
 " It s your own life against the answer. Remember 
 that." 
 
 " No, I will never marry you. Ruffian! Murderer! 
 Drown me if you will; I can die." 
 
 Her lips were colourless, but they neither faltered 
 nor trembled as she hurled out her defiance. 
 
 Harte uttered a savage oath. He seemed to hesitate 
 a moment, looked around, and, going up to the wood 
 pile, said: 
 
 " That s your answer, is it? Well, this is mine." 
 
294 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 He began to pull down the logs of wood from the 
 pile, muttering something to the German, who helped 
 him. The other two looked sulkily on, taking no part 
 one way or the other. 
 
 Nancy had nerved herself to meet death calmly and 
 with dignity, but it was death by drowning, where the 
 merciful river would receive her into its bosom, and in 
 a moment or two would close her life without sharp 
 agony. She had not summoned her nerve to meet an 
 other and far more horrible death. 
 
 A wild cry burst from her colourless lips. 
 "0 God! Are you going to burn me to death? 
 Are you men born of women that you can stand and 
 look on such a deed as that?" she added, appealing to 
 the^two who seemed mere spectators of the scene. 
 
 " No, I reckon I won t look on/ replied one of the 
 pair. This ain t what I joined this ride for. I m go 
 ing to git, I am." 
 
 He walked deliberately off, mounted his horse, and 
 rode away without once turning his head. His com 
 panion seemed undecided what to do. Quantrell and 
 the German dragged the logs to the river s edge, and the 
 latter laughed as he did so. Quantrell was a man of 
 fierce passions which three years of border ruffianism 
 had brutalized, but he would never have done what he 
 did had he not been inflamed by drink. He was enraged 
 against Nancy, and his reason being obscured by drink, 
 he did not distinctly understand what he was doing, 
 nor the full savagery of the act. The German s head 
 was steadier; he, though also drunk, understood quite 
 well what was on foot. 
 
 "Reckon I ll sorter stan sentry down thar on the 
 road, so as ter keep folks from spilin this picnic party," 
 observed the third ruffian, who had been standing look 
 ing on with slight show of interest in the proceedings of 
 the other two. He accordingly walked off, leading his 
 
THE RESCUE 295 
 
 horse away through the trees, leaving Nancy alone 
 with the two men from whose rage she had most to 
 dread. 
 
 The poor girl lived through a liftime of agony as 
 her terrified eyes fixed in an awful stare gazed at them 
 pulling about the logs. 
 
 They made a platform of the timber, tying the logs 
 together with their lariat ropes, and when thus tied 
 they began to heave them into the water by means of a 
 couple of poles. Once floating in the river, the logs of 
 course spread out level and presented the upper surface 
 of an uneven raft. A couple of light boughs were added 
 transversely, and these two were also tied down to the 
 rest of the logs. When the raft was thus complete the 
 men laughed and seemed pleased at their work. Then 
 they came to their prisoner tied to the tree, unfastened 
 her, and rapidly placing her on the raft, shoved it off 
 into the river by means of their poles. 
 
 So quick had been the climax that Nancy had 
 scarcely time to realize that they were not going to burn 
 her alive, as she at first imagined, before she found her 
 self floating down the Kaw Eiver on this frail bark. 
 Her weight sent the logs down farther into the water, 
 which rippled up between the openings and splashed 
 around the ends. The current caught her and swung 
 her soon into the middle of the stream, as, huddled in a 
 heap with her face hidden in her hands, she started on 
 her fearsome voyage. The two men laughed loud and 
 long, as though they relished the complete success of 
 their enterprise a laugh that was heard by a stealthy 
 negro creeping along in the brushwood. 
 
 That stealthy negro was Sambo, who, realizing that 
 he was nearing some one, and most probably the very 
 men they were in search of, crept off to warn Heaton, 
 who was beating the bush close along the water s edge 
 a little way back. 
 
296 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 " Mas r capting, I specks dey s yonder/ said Sambo 
 in a quick whisper. " I hearn em laugh, an dar s 
 hosses too." 
 
 Together they now crept forward cautiously, not 
 knowing how many men there might be. A sudden sur 
 prise was their only chance. They heard the sound of 
 horses as they came to the little clearing where the 
 wood pile was all scattered about. 
 
 " There isn t any one here. You ve made a mis 
 take/ said Heaton, preparing to rush on in further 
 search. 
 
 " Dey was here, mas r. Dem s fresh tracks/ said 
 Sambo, with negro instinct at once examining the 
 ground. " Dish hyar water s muddy. Dey s bin f oolin 
 in de ribber." He went to the water s edge, peering 
 on the ground. Heaton examined the bank with fever 
 ish haste. 
 
 Suddenly Sambo nearly jumped into the river. 
 
 " Lordy, mas r, see dat dar! Dar s a woman out on 
 de planks. Look dar, gwine down de ribber! Lordy, 
 it s Miss Nancy! " 
 
 Heaton looked, but with eyes that could not compete 
 with a darky s telescopic vision. He saw, indeed, some 
 thing on the water floating downstream. 
 
 Sambo screamed with excitement. 
 
 " Dat dar Miss Nancy fo shu . De nigga boy said 
 dey was gwine ter drown her, and dat s de way dey 
 done it! " 
 
 " Miss Nancy, yo ho ! " he bawled as loud as he 
 could, and Heaton too yelled, but the huddled figure on 
 the raft did not move. Aunt Monin and a couple of 
 men now came up through the bush and were added 
 to the party. 
 
 " Yo*, Aunt Monin, ain t dat dar a woman? " asked 
 Sambo, catching her by the arm and pointing to 
 that moving object on the face of the waters. Aunt 
 
THE RESCUE 297 
 
 Monin brought her far-sighted old eyes to bear upon 
 it for a moment, and said: 
 
 " Dat my honey-chile! " 
 
 Then she, too, sent a loud cry down the river after 
 that forlorn figure on the raft. Heaton fired a couple 
 of shots to attract her attention, but Nancy had heard 
 too many cries and pistol shots on that fearsome day 
 for her numbed brain to take any cognizance of either 
 the one or the other. She never moved, but crouched 
 despairingly on her narrow raft. 
 
 Then Aunt Monin came and stood in the very edge 
 of the water, and, raising her old head high in the air, 
 began to sing an old lullaby song with which long ago 
 she used to hush Nancy to sleep. She had sung that 
 tune hundreds of times to her foster child in the old 
 days in Missouri, but never had she sung it as she did on 
 this day, when her high-pitched, quavering old voice 
 seemed filled with a more than human strength, as 
 she sent the sounds wailing over the waters. Again 
 and again she repeated the familiar refrain which 
 crossed the river and seemed to echo back from 
 the woods beyond. Downstream went the sound too, 
 hurrying after Nancy, vibrating with familiar energy 
 upon her dazed brain, and waking hope at last in 
 her despairing heart. The sounds came she knew 
 not whence from heaven, maybe but Nancy heard, 
 and hearing, looked up and raised her head from her 
 hands. 
 
 And thus she floated out of sight around a bend in 
 the river, while old Aunt Monin sang on to the woods 
 and her own heart. 
 
 She was alone, for Heaton was wildly dashing along 
 the road on one of his horses, while Sambo followed on 
 another. There was a sawmill, he was told, farther 
 down, where he could get planks and boards, for boats 
 there were none on the Kaw River, On, on, they rode, 
 
298 THE JAY-HAWKERS 
 
 their horses answering to the desperate whip, and after 
 them came an ever-gathering troop. 
 
 A Lawrence woman out on the river! Cast adrift 
 there to perish by the raiders! 
 
 The woods gave up their hiding fugitives, and they 
 too joined in the rush for the sawmill, but none could 
 overtake those two who rode so furiously in front. 
 
 With hurried, panting words the news was soon told, 
 and eager hands were shoving planks into the river and 
 lashing them together. Heaton, with a board in his 
 hands and Sambo with another had hardly pushed off, 
 when a shout came from higher up the banks: " She s 
 coming! She s coming! " 
 
 It was all they could do with their clumsy paddles 
 to bring their raft into the middle of the current and 
 to keep it steady, while with straining eyes they sought 
 to catch sight of that frail bark with its precious 
 freight. 
 
 A small dark speck upon the shining river, floating 
 down in midstream. How their hearts beat as they 
 watched it coming nearer and nearer, until they could 
 discern the little figure on the raft! 
 
 It was Nancy kneeling with clasped hands, her long 
 black hair falling over her shoulders like a mantle. 
 The raft neither swayed this way nor that, but steadily 
 pursued its course down the middle of the river, where 
 that other raft was waiting to catch the poor castaway. 
 
 Heaton carefully gauged its direction and stood fair 
 in its course, as it floated down nearer and ever nearer. 
 The moment it came within reach, lying fullstretch on 
 his own raft, he seized a corner of the other, and, quick 
 ly passing a rope round the end log, lashed it in two 
 places firmly to his own. Then he crept along the raft 
 until he was beside Nancy, who seemed all the time as 
 one in a dream. 
 
 The successive terrors of the day had nearly be- 
 
THE RESCUE 299 
 
 numbed the poor girl s brain, so that when she heard 
 the voice of her lover pouring disjointed words of love 
 and thankfulness into her ears, she thought for a mo 
 ment that the bitterness of dying must be passed, and 
 that they had met on the other side of the river of 
 death. 
 
 With infinite tenderness Heaton supported the poor 
 little form in his loving arms, as the united rafts, guid 
 ed by Sambo, moved slowly athwart the stream and were 
 brought, lower down, safe to shore. 
 
 Some weeks later, in one of the unburned houses of 
 Lawrence, a small party was assembled to witness a wed 
 ding. Aunt Monin was superintending that wedding, 
 so we can guess whose it was, and she was instructing 
 the minister who was to perform the ceremony as to 
 what he was to say in his nuptial discourse. 
 
 " An yo had oughter sist pon de fac how de Lo d 
 he p int his own way fer ter venge himself," she ob 
 served, to the entire mystification of the poor man. 
 " He don t go fer tcr venge one killin by anudder, like 
 poor foolish man does. Dat ain t de way o de Lo d. 
 He cleanse de ban o dc blood o de father by lettin it 
 save de chile. Dat de way o spiation he p inted in his 
 wisdom." 
 
 Needless to say, these points were not emphasized in 
 the discourse delivered by the minister, an omission 
 which surprised Aunt Monin, but one which she re 
 solved to supplement at the first opportunity. 
 
 It was a fine sight to behold her in a most glorious 
 new turban, standing behind her honey-chile on this 
 supreme day when she was going to be united to the 
 choice of her heart. Aunt Monin, impressionable like 
 all her race, was full of excitement and feeling. Great 
 tears flowed down her black cheeks as she stood behind 
 her mistress, as quaint a bridesmaid as ever graced a 
 20 
 
300 THE JAY-IIAWKERS 
 
 wedding. Her towering form, with its flaming topknot, 
 entirely overshadowed Nancy, and went a good ways to 
 ward eclipsing Captain Heaton himself, tall as he was. 
 
 She wiped away the fast-falling tears with her big 
 apron, and, turning a stern eye upon Sambo, who was 
 doing duty as groomsman, said, in a voice clearly audi 
 ble to every one present: 
 
 " Yo , Sambo, why don t yo joice? Dish hyar s 
 Miss Nancy s weddin , an if I cotch yo snufTlin I ll 
 bust ycr two eyes inter one." 
 
 THE END 
 
"A FRESH AND CHARMING NOVEL/ 
 
 The Last Lady of Mulberry. 
 
 A Story of Italian New York. By HENRY WIL 
 TON THOMAS. Illustrated by Emil Pollak. I2mo. 
 Cloth, $1.50. 
 
 " By far the most complete and satisfying description that 
 has been given of life in the Italian quarter of New York. . . . 
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 tion moves in a rich atmosphere, albeit that of the poorest of 
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 drawn." New York Herald. 
 
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BY ALBERT LEE. 
 
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 The Log of a Sea-Waif. 
 
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FELIX GRAS S ROMANCES. 
 
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