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"There's a lot of 'em coming out on the trail we saw yesterday, all in Indian file. Hurry up!" and away he darted, Sandy hastening with him to see the wonderful sight. Sure enough, there they were, twenty-five or thirty Indians, blanket Indians, as Younkins would have said, strung along in the narrow trail, all in Indian file.
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.
The three boys were over at the Younkins cabin in quest of news from up the river, where, it was said, a party of California emigrants had been fired upon by the Indians. They found that the party attacked was one coming from California, not migrating thither. It brought the Indian frontier very near the boys to see the shot-riddled wagons, left at Younkins's by the travellers.
And he looked fondly at his freckled nephew as he spoke. "A dibble and a corn-dropper will be more in his way than the rifle, for some weeks to come," said Mr. Howell. "What's a dibble?" asked both of the youngsters at once. The elder man smiled and looked at Younkins as he said, "A dibble, my lambs, is an instrument for the planting of corn.
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.
Younkins explained that the Pottawottomies and the Pawnees, now located to the north, were the only ones who used the trail. "Blanket Indians," he said they were, peaceable creatures enough, but not good neighbors; he did not want any Indians of any sort near him. When one of the boys asked what blanket Indians were, Younkins explained,
Anything that related to the politics of Kansas the boy listened to greedily. "It's something like this," explained Younkins. "You see the free-State men have got a government there at Lawrence which is lawful under the Topeka Legislator', as it were.
Work on the farm was now practically over until time for harvesting was come. So the other two boys accompanied Sandy over to the Younkins side of the river and saw him safely off down the river road leading to the post.
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.
As Charlie and Oscar, pressing on ahead of their elders, came upon the old trail, they loitered about until the rest of the party came up, and then they asked what could have cut that narrow track in the turf, so deep and so narrow. "That's an Injun trail," said Younkins, who, with an uncomfortably new suit of Sunday clothes and a smooth-shaven face, had come over to visit his new neighbors.
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