Part 6 (1/2)
”Oh, I know what Uncle Charlie will say,” replied the lad, undismayed.
”He'll say that the Smoky Hill road is the road to take. Say, Uncle Charlie, you see that Mr. Younkins here is willing to live all alone on the bank of the Republican Fork, without any neighbors at all. He isn't afraid of Indians.”
Mr. Bryant smiled, and said that he was not afraid of Indians, but he thought that there might come a time when it would be desirable for a community to stand together as one man. ”Are you a free-State man?” he asked Younkins. This was a home-thrust. Younkins came from a slave State; he was probably a pro-slavery man.
”I'm neither a free-State man nor yet a pro-slavery man,” he said, slowly, and with great deliberation. ”I'm just for Younkins all the time. Fact is,” he continued, ”where I came from most of us are pore whites. I never owned but one darky, and I had him from my grandfather. Ben and me, we sorter quarrelled-like over that darky.
Ben, he thought he oughter had him, and I knowed my grandfather left him to me. So I sold him off, and the neighbors didn't seem to like it. I don't justly know why they didn't like it; but they didn't.
Then Ben, he allowed that I had better light out. So I lit out, and here I am. No, I'm no free-State man, and then ag'in, I'm no man for slavery. I'm just for Younkins. Solomon Younkins is my name.”
Bryant was very clearly prejudiced in favor of the settler from the Republican Fork by this speech; and yet he thought it best to move on to the fort that day and take the matter into consideration.
So he said that if Younkins would accept the hospitality of their tent, the Dixon party would be glad to have him pa.s.s the night with them. Younkins had a horse on which he had ridden down from his place, and with which he had intended to reach home that night. But, for the sake of inducing the new arrivals to go up into his part of the country, he was willing to stay.
”I should think you would be afraid to leave your wife and baby all alone there in the wilderness,” said Sandy, regarding his new friend with evident admiration. ”No neighbor nearer than Hunter's Creek, did you say? How far off is that?”
”Well, a matter of six miles-like,” replied Younkins. ”It isn't often that I do leave them alone over night; but then I have to once in a while. My old woman, she doesn't mind it. She was sort of skeary-like when she first came into the country; but she's got used to it. We don't want any neighbors. If you folks come up to settle, you'll be on the other side of the river,” he said, with unsmiling candor.
”That's near enough--three or four miles, anyway.”
Fort Riley is about ten miles from Manhattan, at the forks of the Kaw.
It was a long drive for one afternoon; but the settlers from Illinois camped on the edge of the military reservation that night. When the boys, curious to see what the fort was like, looked over the premises next morning, they were somewhat disappointed to find that the post was merely a quadrangle of buildings constructed of rough-hammered stone. A few frame houses were scattered about. One of these was the sutler's store, just on the edge of the reservation. But, for the most part, the post consisted of two- or three-story buildings arranged in the form of a hollow square. These were barracks, officers' quarters, and depots for the storage of military supplies and army equipments.
”Why, this is no fort!” said Oscar, contemptuously. ”There isn't even a stockade. What's to prevent a band of Indians raiding through the whole place? I could take it myself, if I had men enough.”
His cousin Charlie laughed, and said: ”Forts are not built out here nowadays to defend a garrison. The army men don't propose to let the Indians get near enough to the post to threaten it. The fact is, I guess, this fort is only a depot-like, as our friend Younkins would say, for the soldiers and for military stores. They don't expect ever to be besieged here; but if there should happen to be trouble anywhere along the frontier, then the soldiers would be here, ready to fly out to the rescue, don't you see?”
”Yes,” answered Sandy; ”and when a part of the garrison had gone to the rescue, as you call it, another party of redskins would swoop down and gobble up the remnant left at the post.”
”If I were you, Master Sandy,” said his brother, ”I wouldn't worry about the soldiers. Uncle Sam built this fort, and there are lots of others like it. I don't know for sure, but my impression is that Uncle Sam knows what is best for the use of the military and for the defence of the frontier. So let's go and take a look at the sutler's store. I want to buy some letter-paper.”
The sutler, in those days, was a very important person in the estimation of the soldiers of a frontier post. Under a license from the War Department of the Government, he kept a store in which was everything that the people at the post could possibly need. Crowded into the long building of the Fort Riley sutler were dry-goods, groceries, hardware, boots and shoes, window-gla.s.s, rope and twine, and even candy of a very poor sort. Hanging from the ceiling of this queer warehouse were sides of smoked meat, strings of onions, oilcloth suits, and other things that were designed for the comfort or convenience of the officers and soldiers, and were not provided by the Government.
”I wonder what soldiers want of calico and ribbons,” whispered Sandy, with a suppressed giggle, as the three lads went prying about.
”Officers and soldiers have their wives and children here, you greeny,” said his brother, sharply. ”Look out there and see 'em.”
And, sure enough, as Sandy's eyes followed the direction of his brother's, he saw two prettily dressed ladies and a group of children walking over the smooth turf that filled the square in the midst of the fort. It gave Sandy a homesick feeling, this sight of a home in the wilderness. Here were families of grown people and children, living apart from the rest of the world. They had been here long before the echo of civil strife in Kansas had reached the Eastern States, and before the first wave of emigration had touched the head-waters of the Kaw. Here they were, a community by themselves, uncaring, apparently, whether slavery was voted up or down. At least, some such thought as this flitted through Sandy's mind as he looked out upon the leisurely life of the fort, just beginning to stir.
All along the outer margin of the reservation were grouped the camps of emigrants; not many of them, but enough to present a curious and picturesque sight. There were a few tents, but most of the emigrants slept in or under their wagons. There were no women or children in these camps, and the hardy men had been so well seasoned by their past experiences, journeying to this far western part of the Territory, that they did not mind the exposure of sleeping on the ground and under the open skies. Soldiers from the fort, off duty and curious to hear the news from the outer world, came lounging around the camps and chatted with the emigrants in that cool, superior manner that marks the private soldier when he meets a civilian on equal footing, away from the haunts of men.
The boys regarded these uniformed military servants of the Government of the United States with great respect, and even with some awe.
These, they thought to themselves, were the men who were there to fight Indians, to protect the border, and to keep back the rising tide of wild hostilities that might, if it were not for them, sweep down upon the feeble Territory and even inundate the whole Western country.
”Perhaps some of Black Hawk's descendants are among the Indians on this very frontier,” said Oscar, impressively. ”And these gold-laced chaps, with shoulder-straps on, are the Zack Taylors and the Robert Andersons who do the fighting,” added Charlie, with a laugh.
Making a few small purchases from the surly sutler of Fort Riley, and then canva.s.sing with the emigrants around the reservation the question of routes and locations, our friends pa.s.sed the forenoon. The elders of the party had anxiously discussed the comparative merits of the Smoky Hill and the Republican Fork country and had finally yielded to the attractions of a cabin ready-built in Younkins's neighborhood, with a garden patch attached, and had decided to go in that direction.
”This is simply bully!” said Sandy Howell, as the little caravan turned to the right and drove up the north bank of the Republican Fork.