put on, and throwing a white cloth over his horse, rode away, telling us that he would not be at home that night, and that we need not look for him until we saw him.  Day after day those men followed him, like hounds after a wolf.  Through the day he rode here and there, spending the night with first one neighbor, then another.  One day, when uncle was working at his cabin, some South Carolinians rode up, and not seeing father, they searched the woods and ravine near by, and rode away.  Father spent one night with Mr. Duncan, and had just gone out of sight in the morning, when the South.  Carolinians rode up.

“Does Pardee Butler ride a bay horse?” they asked.

“No, sir,” replied Mr. Duncan.

“We saw a man ride into the woods just now,” said they, “that looked like Pardee Butler, but he was riding a bay horse.”

“Pardee Butler never rides a bay horse.”  And so they went the other way.  Father rode a spirited young “copper-bottom” horse, named Copper, that looked either bay or gray at a distance, as the light happened to shine.

One day, father went to the post-office after his mail, and two young neighbors riding up, and seeing his horse hitched there, thought to have some fun.  With loud shouts they galloped up, and hearing them, he stepped to the door, sprang on his horse, and dashed off over the hill, with them after him.  But when they reached the top of the hill they found that he was standing on the ground behind his horse, with his pistol levelled at them across his saddle.  They were glad to make themselves known, and own up to the joke.

Father slipped home a few minutes almost every day, to let us know that he was yet alive, and to see if we were safe.  Every night we fastened up the house, expecting that before morning the Ruffians would try to burst in to search for father.  Those were days of terrible anxiety for mother, for she thought every time father rode away that it was probably their last parting.  Yet she was brave and quiet, and said little.

But father grew tired of being dogged, and told us that he was going to Lawrence.  He was gone some time and we did not know where he was.

My little four year old brother George heard much talk of Border Ruffians, and he went around flourishing a long thorn for a dagger, and boasting in childish accent:  “Bad Border ’uffians s’an’t get my pa.  I hit ’em in ’e eye wid my dagger.”  One day I was helping uncle drop corn, when George came running to us, much excited.  “I foun’ a Border ‘uffian!  I foun’ a Border ’uffian!  I hit ’em in ’e eye!  I hit ’em in ’e eye!” We ran to see what he had found, and he ran ahead, picking up pebbles as he ran, “to fro at ’e bad Border ’uffian.”  What do you think he had found?  A mud turtle!  And that was his idea of a Border Ruffian.  But he had a chance to see one.  One day, while father was away, two men rode up to the house, whom we knew to be Border Ruffians by their red shirts and the