"I like the furs of animals better than anything for ornament, either to wear or to have in my room," said Kate. "I guess it would make a city girl envious to see my chamber with all its beautiful skins that Joe and Rob have given me. One of these days I mean to have papa send some of those otter and beaver skins to Kansas City, and get them made up into a cape and muff." "He will," said her mother. "I was telling your father only the other day when we were up in your room, that it was a pity so many magnificent skins should be tacked around the walls, and lying on the floor, just for ornament, when there are enough there to make us all a set of winter furs. He said he would send them off in a few days, so I think you will have your wish gratified before long." The boys were sent with the wagon to bring back the meat of the two cows that Joe had killed, and about noon they returned. The robes were very fine ones. Joe asked the Pawnees to tan them for him, and when they were finished, which would be in about a week, he intended to make them a present to his father and mother for their bedroom. The buffalo meat was cut up that evening, by Mr. Thompson, and on the next day was smoked with corn-cobs, which are always used for that purpose out West. While getting the meat ready, Mr. Thompson told the boys that he wouldn't be at all surprised if, when they wanted buffalo again, they would have to go miles away for them, as the country was becoming so thickly settled that the herds might never come as far east as the Oxhide. "Of course," continued he, "the antelope will remain with us a long time yet, but even they will become scarcer each year, and then they, too, will disappear, for it seems that the great ruminants of the plains cannot live with the white man as they can with the savages. The latter have no permanent home, but congregate in temporary villages in the winter, and as soon as spring opens, they are off again, living on horseback and depending upon the chase for their existence. It has ever been so with the Indian since the landing of the Pilgrims, in 1620. The white man has dogged their footsteps as they themselves follow the deer. One of the facetious old bishops of New England, I forgot his name now, said: 'The Puritans, when they landed on Plymouth Rock, first fell upon _their knees_, and then upon the _aboriginees_!' It appears to be the fate of the red men to vanish before the onward march of the whites." "I feel sorry for the Indians, father," said Joe. "I tell you it would have made you almost weep to hear White Wolf, that night we camped on the Walnut, relate in his sorrowful manner how powerful his tribe once was, before the white man took their lands away from them."