"Yes, got a whole charge of quail shot slapped inter him. You see the way it was, wer this. Most every section has one or two scraggy, rattle-brained fellers, allers loungin' round, takin' free drinks, and starvin' ther families. Whar we come from was one of this sort, never of no account to no one. We had a temperance meetin' one day, and this Hib, as they called him, wer opposed to it. He was afraid they 'd shut up Old Bung's whisky shed. Well, we was all a gathered, listenin' to the serpent and its poisoned sting, and that sort o' thing, and had about concluded to go for Old Bung, when that contrairy, ornery Hib broke us up. He goes and gets a fresh coon skin, and sneaks all round the school-house, draggin' it arter him, and makin' a sort o' scented circle. Then he goes and gets Shed Tail there, who was powerful on coons, and sets him on that thar track. Shed give just one sniff, and opened right out. The way he shied round that school-house wer a sin. In five minutes, all the dogs of the village were at his heels, and goin' round that circle like the spokes in a wheel. "It was just a round ring of the loudest yelling you ever heard. Every dog thought the one just ahead of him had the coon. All the meetin' folks come a pourin' out, with sticks and chairs, and what with beatin' and coaxin' they got all off the trail but old Shed. Half the people went to chasin' that dorg, while the balance held onto the others. But Shed just stuck to that coon track, like all possessed, dodgin' atween our legs, or sheerin' off, and catchin' ther trail agin just beyond. He finally upset Old Squire Bundy's wife, and the Squire got mad, and slapped some No. 7 into his ribs." The shed-tail's owner, waxing more and more eloquent with his subject, had just commenced the narrative of another Indian battle in which his favorite had figured, when we became interested in a wordy political combat between Tenacious Gripe and a genuine specimen of the "reconstructed," the first and only one of that genus that we saw in Kansas. His clothes had the famous butternut dye, and his shirt bosom was mapped into numerous creeks and rivers by the brown stains of tobacco overflows. The dispute waxed warm, and grew more and more prolific of eloquence. At length, the reconstructed beat a retreat, and our orator was left in triumphant possession of the field. Drawing fresh inspiration from his success, Gripe devoted another hour to an account of the early struggles in Kansas against these "mean whites." He gave us many vivid descriptions of the time when men died that their children might live. Among other relations was that of the expedition under Montgomery, to rescue the two companions of old John Brown from the prison at Charlestown, Virginia, a short time after the stern hero himself had there been hung.