They did not borrow any trouble, and as they drove away from the scenes that had grown so familiar to them, they looked forward, as all boys would, to an adventurous voyage down the Missouri, and a welcome home to their mothers and their friends in dear old Dixon. The nights were now cold and the days chilly. They had cooked a goodly supply of provisions for their journey, for they had not much ready money to pay for fare by the way. At noon they stopped by the roadside and made a pot of hot coffee, opened their stores of provisions and lunched merrily, gypsy-fashion, caring nothing for the curious looks and inquisitive questions of other wayfarers who passed them. For the first few nights they attempted to sleep in the wagon. But it was fearfully cold, and the wagon-bed, cluttered up with trunks, guns, and other things, gave them very little room. Miserable and sore, they resolved to spend their very last dollar, if need be, in paying for lodging at the wayside inns and hospitable cabins of the settlers along the road. The journey homeward was not nearly so merry as that of the outward trip. But new cabins had been built along their route, and the lads found much amusement in hunting up their former camping-places as they drove along the military road to Fort Leavenworth. In this way, sleeping at the farm-houses and such casual taverns as had grown up by the highway, and usually getting their supper and breakfast where they slept, they crept slowly toward the river. Sandy was the cashier of the party, although he had preferred that Charlie, being the eldest, should carry their slender supply of cash. Charlie would not take that responsibility; but, as the days went by, he rigorously required an accounting every morning; he was very much afraid that their money would not hold out until they reached Leavenworth. Twenty miles a day with an ox-team was fairly good travelling; and it was one hundred and fifty miles from the Republican to the Missouri, as the young emigrants travelled the road. A whole week had been consumed by the tedious trip when they drove into the busy and bustling town of Leavenworth, one bright autumnal morning. All along the way they had picked up much information about the movement of steamers, and they were delighted to find that the steamboat "New Lucy" was lying at the levee, ready to sail on the afternoon of the very day they would be in Leavenworth. They camped, for the last time, in the outskirts of the town, a good-natured border-State man affording them shelter in his hay-barn, where they slept soundly all through their last night in "bleeding Kansas."