The Browns are gone from North Elba. New York State has secured possession of the farm and erected a fitting monument to the memory of John Brown. When the old home is gone, and the monument has been replaced, the great rock will stand there just as Brown found it, seeming to say, "I alone will stay and guard his long repose." Strangers now live in the Thompson home, the evergreen on Jobe's Hill is seen no more, the long wooden bridge over which Old Jim thundered out the distant echo as he hastened the fair Vida through the mountains, has been replaced and each fair day, as the evening sun nears Ontario's restless waves, it kisses a fond adieu to the little cemetery where Mr. and Mrs. Thompson sleep, while a little child smoothes Grandma Vida's silver locks on yonder's distant shore where the grand old Pacific ebbs and flows as time rolls on. [Illustration: YANKEE HORSEMEN. LEFT TO RIGHT, UPPER. PERRIN, PARKHOUSE, WILSON, MERRICK, SLATER. LEFT TO RIGHT, LOWER. JONES, WESTCOTT, COLLINS, GORDON, SHERMAN.] YANKEE HORSEMEN GO WEST The following year, 1865, it appears Gordon and I were not satisfied to let well enough alone, so we gave up our lucrative business for something more leisurely, by going into Batavia, New York, as fruit dealers. We had a stack of money and pitched right in, buying up whole orchards and paying approximately 40 per cent down, and when apples declined from $8.00 to $5.00 per barrel we had hardly enough money left to get out of town with, but our brother, Collins, loaned us all we needed and we struck out again at our old business, undaunted, as though nothing had happened. The next year, 1866, we three brothers, with our wives, and all our teams hung out for the winter at Cleveland, Ohio. Collins and Martha. Merrick and Mary. Gordon and Amanda. In the spring, 1867, with about fifty teams, we scattered over the south and west planning a rendezvous on the Mississippi River, where we all grouped for about three months. Our evenings of sport are better remembered than imagined. We had expanded our business until there were nearly 100 of us, playing tricks on each other, wrestling, lifting, swimming, running horses, telling stories, singing songs, etc.