The little party rushed to embrace the young adventurer, and, in their first flush of surprise, n.o.body remembered to be severe with him for his carelessness. Quite the hero of the hour, the lad sat on the table and told them his tale, how he had lost his way, and how hospitably and well he had been cared for at Fuller's.

"Fuller's!" exclaimed his uncle. "What in the world took you so far off your track as Fuller's? You must have gone at least ten miles out of your way."

"Yes, Uncle Charlie," said the boy, "it's just as easy to travel ten miles out of the way as it is to go one. All you have to do is to get your face in the wrong way, and all the rest is easy. Just keep a-going; that's what I did. I turned to the right instead of to the left, and for once I found that the right was wrong."

A burst of laughter from Oscar, who had been opening the sack that held Sandy's purchases, interrupted the story.

"Just see what a hodgepodge of a mess Sandy has brought home! Tobacco, biscuits, ginger, and I don't know what not, all in a pudding. It only lacks milk and eggs to make it a cracker pudding flavored with ginger and smoking-tobacco!" And everybody joined in the laugh that a glance at Sandy's load called forth.

"Yes," said the blushing boy; "I forgot to tie the bag at both ends, and the jouncing up and down of Younkins's old horse (dear me! wasn't he a hard trotter!) must have made a mash of everything in the bag.

The paper of tobacco burst, and then I suppose the ginger followed; the jolting of poor old 'Dobbin' did the rest. Ruined, daddy? Nothing worth saving?"

Mr. Howell ruefully acknowledged that the mixture was not good to eat, nor yet to smoke, and certainly not to make gingerbread of. So, after picking out some of the larger pieces of the biscuits, the rest was thrown away, greatly to Sandy's mortification.

"All of my journey gone for nothing," he said, with a sigh.

"Never mind, my boy," said his father, fondly; "since you have come back alive and well, let the rest of the business care for itself. As long as you are alive, and the redskins have not captured you, I am satisfied."

Such was Sandy's welcome home.

With the following Monday morning came hard work,--harder work, so Sandy thought, than miserably trying to find one's way in the darkness of a strange region of country. For another log-house, this time on the prairie claim, was to be begun at once. They might be called on at any time to give up the cabin in which they were simply tenants at will, and it was necessary that a house of some sort be put on the claim that they had staked out and planted. The corn was up and doing well. Sun and rain had contributed to hasten on the corn-field, and the vines of the melons were vigorously pushing their way up and down the hills of grain. Charlie wondered what they would do with so many watermelons when they ripened; there would be hundreds of them; and the mouths that were to eat them, although now watering for the delicious fruit, were not numerous enough to make away with a hundredth part of what would be ripe very soon. There was no market nearer than the post, and there were many melon-patches between Whittier's and the fort.

But the new log-house, taken hold of with energy, was soon built up to the height where the roof was to be put on. At this juncture, Younkins advised them to roof over the cabin slightly, make a corn-bin of it, and wait for developments. For, he argued, if there should be any rush of emigrants and settlers to that part of the country, so that their claims were in danger of dispute, they would have ample warning, and could make ready for an immediate occupation of the place. If n.o.body came, then the corn-house, or bin, would be all they wanted of the structure.

But Mr. Howell, who took the lead in all such matters, shook his head doubtfully. He was not in favor of evading the land laws; he was more afraid of the claim being jumped. If they were to come home from a hunting trip, some time, and find their log-cabin occupied by a "claim-jumper," or "squatter," as these interlopers are called, and their farm in the possession of strangers, wouldn't they feel cheap?

He thought so.

"Say, Uncle Aleck," said Oscar, "why not finish it off as a cabin to live in, put in the corn when it ripens, and then we shall have the concern as a dwelling, in case there is any danger of the claim being jumped?"

"Great head, Oscar," said his uncle, admiringly. "That is the best notion yet. We will complete the cabin just as if we were to move into it, and if anybody who looks like an intended claim-jumper comes prowling around, we will take the alarm and move in. But so far, I'm sure, there's been no rush to these parts. It's past planting season, and it is not likely that anybody will get up this way, now so far west, without our knowing it."

So the log-cabin, or, as they called it, "Whittier, Number Two," was finished with all that the land laws required, with a window filled with panes of gla.s.s, a door, and a "stick chimney" built of sticks plastered with clay, a floor and s.p.a.ce enough on the ground to take care of a family twice as large as theirs, in case of need. When all was done, they felt that they were now able to hold their farming claim as well as their timber claim, for on each was a goodly log-house, fit to live in and comfortable for the coming winter if they should make up their minds to live in the two cabins during that trying season.

The boys took great satisfaction in their kitchen-garden near the house in which they were tenants; for when Younkins lived there, he had ploughed and spaded the patch, and planted it two seasons, so now it was an old piece of ground compared with the wild land that had just been broken up around it. In their garden-spot they had planted a variety of vegetables for the table, and in the glorious Kansas sunshine, watered by frequent showers, they were thriving wonderfully.

They promised themselves much pleasure and profit from a garden that they would make by their new cabin, when another summer should come.

"Younkins says that he can walk all over his melon-patch on the other side of the Fork, stepping only on the melons and never touching the ground once," said Oscar, one day, later in the season, as they were feasting themselves on one of the delicious watermelons that now so plentifully dotted their own corn-field.

"What a big story!" exclaimed both of the other boys at once. But Oscar appealed to his father, who came striding by the edge of the field where they chatted together. Had he ever heard of such a thing?

"Well," said Mr. Bryant, good-naturedly, "I have heard of melons so thick in a patch, and so big around, that the sunshine couldn't get to the ground except at high noon. How is that for a tall story?"

The boys protested that that was only a tale of fancy. Could it be possible that anybody could raise melons so thickly together as Mr.

Younkins had said he had seen them? Mr. Bryant, having kicked open a fine melon, took out the heart of it to refresh himself with, as was the manner of the settlers, where the fruit was so plenty and the market so far out of reach; then, between long drafts of the delicious pulp, he explained that certain things, melons for example, flourished better on the virgin soil of the sod than elsewhere.

"Another year or so," he said, "and you will never see on this patch of land such melons as these. They will never do so well again on this soil as this year. I never saw such big melons as these, and if we had planted them a little nearer together, I don't in the least doubt that any smart boy, like Sandy here, could walk all over the field stepping from one melon to another, if he only had a pole to balance himself with as he walked. There would be nothing very 'wonderful-like' about that. It's a pity that we have no use for these, there are so many of them and they are so good. Pity some of the folks at home haven't a few of them--a hundred or two, for instance."

It did seem a great waste of good things that these hundreds and hundreds of great watermelons should decay on the ground for lack of somebody to eat them. In the very wantonness of their plenty the settlers had been accustomed to break open two or three of the finest of the fruit before they could satisfy themselves that they had got one of the best. Even then they only took the choicest parts, leaving the rest to the birds. By night, too, the coyotes, or prairie-wolves, mean and sneaking things that they were, would steal down into the melon-patch, and, in the desperation of their hunger, nose into the broken melons left by the settlers, and attempt to drag away some of the fragments, all the time uttering their fiendish yelps and howls.

Somebody had told the boys that the juice of watermelons boiled to a thick syrup was a very good subst.i.tute for mola.s.ses. Younkins told them that, back in old Missouri, "many families never had any other kind of sweetenin' in the house than watermelon mola.s.ses." So Charlie made an experiment with the juice boiled until it was pretty thick.

All hands tasted it, and all hands voted that it was very poor stuff.

They decided that they could not make their superabundance of watermelons useful except as an occasional refreshment.

CHAPTER XV.

PLAY COMES AFTER WORK.

The two cabins built, wood for the winter cut and hauled, and the planting all done, there was now nothing left to do but to wait and see the crop ripen. Their good friend Younkins was in the same fortunate condition, and he was ready to suggest, to the intense delight of the boys, that they might be able to run into a herd of buffalo, if they should take a notion to follow the old Indian trail out to the feeding-grounds. In those days there was no hunting west of the new settlement, except that by the Indians. In that vague and mysterious way by which reports travel--in the air, as it were--among all frontier settlements, they had heard that buffalo were plenty in the vast ranges to the westward, the herds moving slowly northward, grazing as they went. It was now the season of wild game, and so the boys were sent across to Younkins's to ask him what he thought of a buffalo-hunting trip.

Reaching his cabin, the good woman of the house told them that he had gone into the tall timber near by, thinking he heard some sort of wild birds in the underbrush. He had taken his gun with him; in fact, Younkins was seldom seen without his gun, except when he was at work in the fields. The boys gleefully followed Younkins's trail into the forest, making for an opening about a half-mile away, where Mrs.

Younkins thought he was most likely to be found. "Major," the big yellow dog, a special pet of Sandy's, accompanied them, although his mistress vainly tried to coax him back. Major was fond of boys'

society.

"There's Younkins now!" cried Oscar, as they drew near an opening in the wood into which the hot sunlight poured. Younkins was half crouching and cautiously making his way into the nearer side of the opening, and the boys, knowing that he was on the track of game, silently drew near, afraid of disturbing the hunter or the hunted.

Suddenly Major, catching sight of the game, bounded forward with a loud bark into the tangle of berry bushes and vines. There was a confused noise of wings, a whistle of alarm which also sounded like the gobble of a turkey, and four tremendous birds rose up, and with a motion, that was partly a run and partly a flying, they disappeared into the depths of the forest. To their intense surprise, the usually placid Younkins turned savagely upon the dog, and saying, "Drat that fool dog!" fired one barrel loaded with fine bird-shot into poor Major.

"Four as fine wild turkeys as you ever saw in your life!" he explained, as if in apology to the boys. "I was sure of at least two of 'em; and that lunkhead of a dog must needs dash in and scare 'em up. It's too pesky blamed bad!"

The boys were greatly mortified at the disaster that they had brought upon Younkins and Major by bringing the dog out with them. But when Charlie, as the eldest, explained that they had no idea that Major would work mischief, Younkins said, "Never mind, boys, for you did not know what was going on-like."

Younkins, ashamed, apparently, of his burst of temper, stooped down, and discovering that Major's wounds were not very serious, extracted the shot, plucked a few leaves of some plant that he seemed to know all about, and pressed the juice into the wounds made by the shot. The boys looked on with silent admiration. This man knew everything, they thought. They had often marvelled to see how easily and unerringly he found his way through woods, streams, and over prairies; now he showed them another gift. He was a "natural-born doctor," as his wife proudly said of him.

"No turkey for supper to-night," said Younkins, as he picked up his shot-gun and returned with the boys to the cabin. He was "right glad,"

he said, to agree to go on a buffalo hunt, if the rest of the party would like to go. He knew there must be buffalo off to the westward.

He went with Mr. Fuller and Mr. Battles last year, about this time, and they had great luck. He would come over that evening and set a date with the other men for starting out together.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THEY WERE FEASTING THEMSELVES ON ONE OF THE DELICIOUS WATERMELONS THAT NOW SO PLENTIFULLY DOTTED THEIR OWN CORN-FIELD.]

Elated with this ready consent of Younkins, the lads went across the ford, eager to tell their elders the story of the wild turkeys and poor Major's exploit. Sandy, carrying his shot-gun on his shoulder, lingered behind while the other two boys hurried up the trail to the log-cabin. He fancied that he heard a noise as of ducks quacking, in the creek that emptied into the Fork just below the ford. So, making his way softly to the densely wooded bank of the creek, he parted the branches with great caution and looked in. What a sight it was! At least fifty fine black ducks were swimming around, feeding and quacking sociably together, entirely unconscious of the wide-open blue eyes that were staring at them from behind the covert of the thicket.

Sandy thought them even more wonderful and beautiful than the young fawn and his dam that he had seen on the Fort Riley trail. For a moment, fascinated by the rare spectacle, he gazed wonderingly at the ducks as they swam around, chasing each other, and eagerly hunting for food. It was but for a moment, however. Then he raised his shot-gun, and taking aim into the thickest of the flock, fired both barrels in quick succession. Instantly the gay clamor of the pretty creatures ceased, and the flock rose with a loud whirring of wings, and wheeled away over the tree-tops. The surface of the water, to Sandy's excited imagination, seemed to be fairly covered with birds, some dead, and some struggling with wounded limbs. The other two boys, startled by the double report from Sandy's gun, came scampering down the trail, just as the lad, all excitement, was stripping off his clothes to wade into the creek for his game.

"Ducks! Black ducks! I've shot a million of 'em!" cried the boy, exultingly; and in another instant he plunged into the water up to his middle, gathering the ducks by the legs and bringing them to the bank, where Charlie and Oscar, discreetly keeping out of the oozy creek, received them, counting the birds as they threw them on the gra.s.s.

"Eighteen, all told!" shouted Oscar, when the last bird had been caught, as it floundered about among the weeds, and brought ash.o.r.e.

"Eighteen ducks in two shots!" cried Sandy, his freckled face fairly beaming with delight. "Did ever anybody see such luck?"

They all thought that n.o.body ever had.

"What's that on your leg?" asked Oscar, stooping to pick from Sandy's leg a long, brown object looking like a flat worm. To the boys'

intense astonishment, the thing would not come off, but stretched out several inches in length, holding on by one end.

Sandy howled with pain. "It is something that bites," he cried.