The three boys from Illinois were absorbed with wonder as they strolled around the new town, taking in the novel sights, as they would if they had been in a great city, instead of a mushroom town that had arisen in a night. During their journey from Libertyville to Manhattan, the Dixon emigrants had lost sight of John Clark, of Woburn; he had hurried on ahead after his rough experience with the election guardians of Libertyville. The boys were wondering if he had reached Manhattan.
“Hullo! There he is now, with all his family around him,” said Charlie. “He’s got here before us, and can tell all about the lay of the land to the west of us, I dare say.”
“I have about made up my mind to squat on 75 Hunter’s Creek,” said Clark, when the boys had saluted him. “Pretty good land on Hunter’s, so I am told; no neighbors, and the land has been surveyed off by the Government surveyors. Hunter’s Creek? Well, that’s about six miles above the fort. It makes into the Republican, and, so they tell me, there’s plenty of wood along the creek, and a good lot of oak and hickory not far off. Timber is what we all want, you know.”
As for Bartlett, who had come out from New England with the Clarks, he was inclined to go to the lower side of the Republican Fork, taking to the Smoky Hill country. That was the destination of the Jenness party, who had passed the Dixon boys when they were camped after their upset in the creek, several days before. This would leave the Clarks––John and his wife and two children, and his brother Jotham, and Jotham’s boy, Pelatiah––to make a settlement by themselves on Hunter’s Creek.
Which way were the Dixon boys going? Charlie, the spokesman of the party because he was the eldest, did not know. His father and uncle were out prospecting among the campers now. Sandy was sure that they would go up the Republican Fork. His father had met one of the settlers from that region, and had been very favorably impressed with his report. This Republican Fork man was an Arkansas man, but “a good fellow,” so Sandy said. To be a good fellow, according to Sandy’s 76 way of putting things, was to be worthy of all confidence and esteem.
Mr. Bryant thought that as there were growing rumors of troublesome Indians, it would be better to take the southern or Smoky Hill route; the bulk of the settlers were going that way, and where there were large numbers there would be safety. While the lads were talking with the Clarks, Bryant and his brother-in-law came up, and, after greeting their former acquaintance and ascertaining whither he was bound, Mr. Howell told the boys that they had been discussing the advantages of the two routes with Younkins, the settler from Republican Fork, and had decided to go on to “the post,” as Fort Riley was generally called, and there decide which way they should go––to the right or to the left.
As to the Clarks, they were determined to take the trail for Hunter’s Creek that very day. Bartlett decided to go to the Smoky Hill country. He cast in his lot with a party of Western men, who had heard glowing reports of the fertility and beauty of the region lying along Solomon’s Fork, a tributary of the Smoky Hill. It was in this way that parties split up after they had entered the Promised Land.
Leaving the Clarks to hitch up their teams and part company with Bartlett, the Dixon party returned to their camp, left temporarily in the care of Younkins, who had come to Manhattan for a 77 few supplies, and who had offered to guide the others to a desirable place for settlement which he told them he had in mind for them. Younkins was a kindly and pleasant-faced man, simple in his speech and frontier-like in his manners. Sandy conceived a strong liking for him as soon as they met. The boy and the man were friends at once.
“Well, you see,” said Younkins, sitting down on the wagon-tongue, when the party had returned to their camp, “I have been thinking over-like the matter that we were talking about, and I have made up my mind-like that I sha’n’t move back to my claim on the south side of the Republican. I’m on the north side, you know, and my old claim on the south side will do just right for my brother Ben; he’s coming out in the fall. Now if you want to go up our way, you can have the cabin on that claim. There’s nobody living in it. It’s no great of a cabin, but it’s built of hewed timber, well chinked and comfortable-like. You can have it till Ben comes out, and I’m just a-keeping it for Ben, you know. P’raps he won’t want it, and if he doesn’t, why, then you and he can make some kind of a dicker-like, and you might stay on till you could do better.”
“That’s a very generous offer of Mr. Younkins’s, Charles,” said Mr. Howell to Bryant. “I don’t believe we could do better than take it up.”