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Updated: June 16, 2025
But they didn't make much out of me, after all." Very happy were those three boys that evening, as, filled with roast wild duck, they sat by and heard their elders discuss with Younkins the details of the grand buffalo hunt that was now to be organized. Younkins had seen Mr. Fuller, who had agreed to make one of the party. So there would be four men and the three boys to compose the expedition.
Then their garments were rolled up in bundles, each man and boy taking his own on his head, and wading deliberately into the water, the sedate Younkins being the leader. It seemed a little dangerous. The stream was about one hundred rods wide, and the current was tolerably swift, swollen by the inrush of smaller streams above.
His father soon had a batch of biscuits baking in the covered kettle, or Dutch oven, that they had brought with them from home. Charlie's contribution to the repast was a pot of excellent coffee, the milk for which, an unaccustomed luxury, was supplied by the thoughtfulness of Mrs. Younkins.
Charlie will be able to enter the same quantity three years from now, when he will be twenty-one; and as for you and Oscar, if you each add to your present years as many as will make you twenty-one, you can tell when you will be able to enter and own the same amount of land; provided it is not all gone by that time. Good morning, Mr. Younkins."
Younkins helped them unload their baggage, wrung their hands, one after another, with real tears in his eyes, for he had learned to love these hearty, happy lads, and then drove away with his cattle to pen them for the day and night that he should be there.
He was thinking of making a trip to "the river," as the settlers around there always called the Missouri, one hundred and fifty miles distant. But Younkins assured his friends that they were welcome to live in his cabin where they still were at home, for another year, if they liked, and he would haul from the river any purchases that they might make.
They had listened with delight while Younkins told stories of buffalo and antelope hunting, of Indian "scares," and of the many queer adventures of settlers on this distant frontier. "What is there west of this?" asked Charlie, as the party were dividing the floor and the shallow loft among themselves for the night. "Nothing but Indians and buffalo," said Younkins, sententiously.
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?"
"Just about this time, though, the men that were stationed at Fort Riley are all down at Lawrence to keep the free-State people from sweeping the streets with free-State brooms, or something that-a-way," said Younkins, determined to have his gibe at the useless soldiery, as he seemed to think them. Oscar was interested at once.
The river was rather high as yet; for the snow, melting in the far-off Rocky Mountains as the summer advanced, had swollen all the tributaries of the Republican Fork, and the effects of the rise were to be seen far down on the Kaw. The newcomers were initiated into the fashion of the country by Younkins, who directed each one to take off all clothes but his shirt and hat.
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