"Quindaro?" said Oscar, musingly;--"why, that must be an Indian name,--feminine Indian name, too, unless I miss my guess." Mr. Bryant had heard of Quindaro. It was a brand-new town, a few miles down the river, settled by free-State men and named for a young, full-blooded Indian girl of the Delaware tribe. The town was on the borders of the Delaware reservation, which in those days came close to the Missouri River. Charlie, also, had gathered some facts about the town, and he added that Quindaro was a good place to start from, going westward. The party had laid in a stock of groceries--coffee, tea, and other articles of that description--before leaving home. Now they needed staple provisions, a few farming tools, a breaking-plough, and some seed corn. Few thought of planting anything but corn; but the thrifty settlers from Illinois knew the value of fresh vegetables, and they were resolved to have "garden truck" just as soon as seeds could be planted and brought to maturity. "And side-meat?" asked Sandy, wonderingly, as he heard his father inquiring the price of that article of food. Side-meat, in the South and West, is the thin flank of a porker, salted and smoked after the fashion of hams, and in those parts of the Southwest it was (and probably is) the staple article of food among the people. It is sold in long, unattractive-looking slabs; and when Sandy heard its name mentioned, his disgust as well as his wonder was kindled. "Side-meat?" he repeated, with a rising inflection. "Why, I thought we were going to live on game,--birds and buffalo and the like! Side-meat? Well, that makes me sick!" The two men laughed, and Mr. Howell said,-- "Why, Sandy, you are bent on hunting and not on buckling down to farm work. How do you suppose we are going to live if we have nothing to eat but wild game that we kill, and breadstuffs and vegetables that we buy?" Sandy had thought that they might be able to step out into the woods or prairie, between times, as it were, and knock down a few head of game when the day's work was done, or had not begun. When he said as much, the two heads of the party laughed again, and even Charlie joined in the glee. "My dear infant," said his father, seriously, but with a twinkle in his eye, "game is not so plenty anywhere as that; and if it were, we should soon tire of it. Now side-meat 'sticks to the ribs,' as the people hereabouts will tell you, and it is the best thing to fall back upon when fresh meat fails. We can't get along without it, and that is a fact; hey, Charlie?"