Shortly after this affair, I came home again on a visit and found father there sick with fever, and confined to his bed.  One day my old enemy rode up to the house on my pony Prince, which he had stolen from me.

“What is your business here to-day?” asked mother.

“I am looking for the old man,” he replied.  “I am going to search the house, and if I find him I am going to kill him.  Here, you girls,” said he, addressing my sisters, “get me some dinner, and get it quick, too, for I am as hungry as a wolf.”

“Very well; pray be seated, and we’ll get you something to eat,” said one of my sisters, without exhibiting the least sign of fear.

He sat down, and while they were preparing a dinner for him, he took out a big knife and sharpened it on a whetstone, repeating his threat of searching the house and killing my father.

I had witnessed the whole proceeding, and heard the threats, and I determined that the man should never go up stairs where father was lying in bed, unable to rise.  Taking a double-barreled pistol which I had recently bought, I went to the head of the stairs, cocked the weapon, and waited for the ruffian to come up, determined, that the moment he set foot on the steps I would kill him.  I was relieved, however, from the stern necessity, as he did not make his appearance.

The brute was considerably intoxicated when he came to the house, and the longer he sat still the more his brain became muddled with liquor, and he actually forgot what he had come there for.  After he had eaten his dinner, he mounted his horse and rode off, and it was a fortunate thing for him that he did.

Father soon recovered and returned to Grasshopper Falls, while I resumed my cattle herding.

CHAPTER IV.

YOUTHFUL EXPERIENCES.

In July, 1856, the people living in the vicinity of our home—­feeling the necessity of more extensive educational facilities for their children than they had yet had—­started a subscription school in a little log cabin on the bank of the creek, which for a while proved quite a success.  My mother being very anxious to have me attend this school, I acceded to her oft-repeated wishes, and returning home, I became a pupil of the institution.  I made considerable progress in my studies—­such as they were—­and was getting along very well in every other respect, until I became involved in my first love affair.

Like all school-boys, I had a sweetheart with whom I was “dead in love”—­in a juvenile way.  Her name was Mary Hyatt.  Of course I had a rival, Stephen Gobel, a boy about three years my senior—­the “bully” of the school.  He was terribly jealous, and sought in every way to revenge himself upon me for having won the childish affections of sweet little Mary.