Now that the bustle of departure had come, it did not seem so hard to leave the new home on the Republican as they had expected. It had been agreed that the two men should follow in a week, in time to take the last steamboat going down the river in the fall, from Fort Benton, before the closing of navigation for the season. Mr. Bryant, unknown to the boys, had written home to Dixon directing that money be sent in a letter addressed to Charlie, in care of a well-known firm in Leavenworth. They would find it there on their arrival, and that would enable them to pay their way down the river to St. Louis and thence home by the railroad.
“But suppose the money shouldn’t turn up?” asked Charlie, when told of the money awaiting them. He was accustomed to look on the dark side of things, sometimes, so the rest of them thought. “What then?”
“Well, I guess you will have to walk home,” said his uncle, with a smile. “But don’t worry about that. At the worst, you can work your passage to St. Louis, and there you will find your uncle, Oscar G. Bryant, of the firm of Bryant, Wilder & Co. I’ll give you his address, and he will see you through, in case of accidents. But there will be no accidents. What is the use of borrowing trouble about that?” 207
They did not borrow any trouble, and as they drove away from the scenes that had grown so familiar to them, they looked forward, as all boys would, to an adventurous voyage down the Missouri, and a welcome home to their mothers and their friends in dear old Dixon.
The nights were now cold and the days chilly. They had cooked a goodly supply of provisions for their journey, for they had not much ready money to pay for fare by the way. At noon they stopped by the roadside and made a pot of hot coffee, opened their stores of provisions and lunched merrily, gypsy-fashion, caring nothing for the curious looks and inquisitive questions of other wayfarers who passed them. For the first few nights they attempted to sleep in the wagon. But it was fearfully cold, and the wagon-bed, cluttered up with trunks, guns, and other things, gave them very little room. Miserable and sore, they resolved to spend their very last dollar, if need be, in paying for lodging at the wayside inns and hospitable cabins of the settlers along the road. The journey homeward was not nearly so merry as that of the outward trip. But new cabins had been built along their route, and the lads found much amusement in hunting up their former camping-places as they drove along the military road to Fort Leavenworth.
In this way, sleeping at the farm-houses and such casual taverns as had grown up by the highway, 208 and usually getting their supper and breakfast where they slept, they crept slowly toward the river. Sandy was the cashier of the party, although he had preferred that Charlie, being the eldest, should carry their slender supply of cash. Charlie would not take that responsibility; but, as the days went by, he rigorously required an accounting every morning; he was very much afraid that their money would not hold out until they reached Leavenworth.
Twenty miles a day with an ox-team was fairly good travelling; and it was one hundred and fifty miles from the Republican to the Missouri, as the young emigrants travelled the road. A whole week had been consumed by the tedious trip when they drove into the busy and bustling town of Leavenworth, one bright autumnal morning. All along the way they had picked up much information about the movement of steamers, and they were delighted to find that the steamboat “New Lucy” was lying at the levee, ready to sail on the afternoon of the very day they would be in Leavenworth. They camped, for the last time, in the outskirts of the town, a good-natured border-State man affording them shelter in his hay-barn, where they slept soundly all through their last night in “bleeding Kansas.”
The “New Lucy,” from Fort Benton on the upper Missouri, was blowing off steam as they drove down to the levee. Younkins helped them 209 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. Charlie and Oscar went to the warehouse of Osterhaus & Wickham, where they were to find the letter from home, the precious letter containing forty dollars to pay their expenses homeward.
Sandy sat on the pile of trunks watching with great interest the novel sight of hurrying passengers, different from any people he ever saw before; black “roustabouts,” or deck-hands, tumbling the cargo and the firewood on board, singing, shouting, and laughing the while, the white mates overseeing the work with many hard words, and the captain, tough and swarthy, superintending from the upper deck the mates and all hands. A party of nice-looking, citified people, as Sandy thought them, attracted his attention on the upper deck, and he mentally wondered what they could be doing here, so far in the wilderness.
“Car’ yer baggage aboard, boss?” asked a lively young negro, half-clad and hungry-looking.