“Friends, most assuredly,” said Mr. Bryant, with a smile. “I guess you have been having hard luck, you appear to be so suspicious.”
“Well, we have, and that’s a fact. But we’re main glad to be able to camp among friends. Jotham, unyoke the cattle after you have driven them into the timber a piece.” He assisted the woman and children to get down from the wagon, and one of the cattle-drivers coming up, drove the team into the woods a short distance, and the tired oxen were soon lying down among the underbrush.
“Well, yes, we have had a pretty hard time getting here. We are the last free-State men allowed over the ferry at Parkville. Where be you from?”
“We are from Lee County, Illinois,” replied Mr. Bryant. “We came in by the way of Parkville, too, a day or two ago; but we stopped at Quindaro. Did you come direct from Parkville?”
The Yankee Emigrant.
“Yes,” replied the man. “We came up the river in the first place, on the steamboat ‘Black Eagle,’ and when we got to Leavenworth, a big crowd of Borderers, seeing us and another lot of free-State men on the boat, refused to let us land. We had to go down the river again. The captain of the boat kicked up a great fuss about it, and wanted to put us ashore on the other side of the river; but the Missouri men wouldn’t have it. They put a ‘committee,’ as they called the two men, on board the steamboat, and they made the skipper take us down the river.”
“How far down did you go?” asked Bryant, his face reddening with anger.