“Why, what’s the matter?  He wont hurt you,” said one of the boys.

“Oh!  Pardee Butler!  He bad man.  Oh!  Oh!” he answered, still dancing and gesticulating.

“Oh, no; he is not a bad man; he never hurt anybody in his life.”

“Oh, yees, Pardee Butler one veree bad man!  He must be one bad man, ’cause they put heem down the river on one raft, down in Kansas.  Pardee Butler must be one veree bad man!”

Father made no more winter trips, but spent his winters at lumbering.  When he first came to Kansas he had bought eighty acres of timber land in the river bottoms, in Missouri, two miles below Atchison.  Mills had been erected along the river, and lumber was at last in good demand.  So he found profitable use for his teams, and large freighting wagons, in working that timber into lumber.

He crossed the plains twice more in the springs of 1863 and 1864.

The Indians often visited their camps, begging for bread, or for sugar or tobacco.  Father said that on his winter trip it made his heart ache to see the pitiable condition of the women and children, chilling around in the loose wigwams during the winter storms.  He often saw the women out in the snow gathering up and carrying great loads of wood on their shoulders.  But he said the most pitiable sight he ever saw was little half-starved, half-naked children, too small to walk, creeping around under his mule’s heels, eagerly eating the grains of corn that they had dropped.

But the Indians were every year growing more restless, and often attacked the trains, to obtain provisions, and cattle and mules.  Father often saw them peering around the bluffs, or along the river banks, watching his movements.  But he was very careful, never allowing the boys or stock to wander off alone, and keeping guards out at night.  Knowing that the Indians were growing dangerous, Bro.  Butcher had insisted on lending him a rifle for his later trips.  One day they were traveling along the Platte River bottoms, the river half a mile to one side, the bluffs a mile or two back on the other.  It seemed impossible for anything to hide in the low grass around them; but father knew that here and there in the grass were wet-weather gullies, deep enough for an Indian to lie in; and his watchful eye detected the grass moving occasionally, here and there.  He halted, telling the men there were Indians in the grass.  At first they made light of it, saying they knew no Indian could hide in that low grass.  But he told them that he had been watching for some time, and thought the Indians were creeping up on them from the river.  He took Bro.  Butcher’s rifle out of the wagon, saying, “I am going down there to see; who will go with me?” But none of them offered to go, except a boy of sixteen, who, seeing the rest would not go, shouldered another gun, saying, “For shame!  I wont see the old man go alone!” The two went down through the grass, and when they reached the river, they saw a number of Indians running