We were looking upstream to where the huge old tree stood out against the golden horizon. "Let's buy that land, Phil, and build a house under the big cottonwood some day." "All right, I'm to go out there again soon. Will you go too?" "Of course," Marjie assented, "if you want me to." "I am sure I'd never want to take any other girl out there, but just you, dear," I declared. And then we talked of other things, and promised to put our letters next day, into the deep crevice we had called our post-office these many years. Before we parted that night, I said: "I'm thinking of going up to Topeka when the band goes to the big political speaking, next week. I will write to you. And be sure to let me find a letter in 'Rockport' when I get back. I'll be so lonely up there." "Well, find some pretty girl and let her kill time for you." "Will you and Judson kill time down here?" "Ugh! no," Marjie shivered in disgust. "I can't bear the sight of his face any more." "Good! I'll not try to be any more miserable by being bored with somebody I don't care for at Topeka. But don't forget the letter. Good-night, little sweetheart," and after the fashion of lovers, I said good-bye. Kansas is essentially a land of young politicians. When O'mie took his band to the capital city to play martial music for the big political rally, there were more young men than gray beards on the speakers' stand and on the front seats. I had gone with the Springvale crowd on this jaunt, but I did not consider myself a person of importance. "There's Judge Baronet's son; he's just out of Harvard. He's got big influence with the party down his way. His father always runs away ahead of his ticket and has the whole district about as he wants it. That's the boy that saved Springvale one night when the pro-slavery crowd was goin' to burn it, the year of the Quantrill raid." So, I heard myself exploited in the hotel lobby of the old Teft House. "What's Tell Mapleson after this year, d'ye reckon? Come in a week ago. He's the doggondest feller to be after somethin', an' gets it, too, somehow." The speaker was a seasoned politician of the hotel lobby variety. "Oh, he's got a big suit of some kind back East. It's a case of money bein' left to heirs, and he's looking out that the heirs don't get it." "Ain't it awful about the Saline country?" a bystander broke in here. "Just awful! Saw a man from out there last night by the name of Morton. He said that them Cheyennes are raidin' an' murderin' all that can't get into the towns. Lord pity the unprotected settlers way out in that lonely country. This man said they just killed the little children before their mothers' eyes, after they'd scalped and tomahawked the fathers. Just beat them to death, and then carried off the women. Oh, God! but it's awful."