"By jolly, Rob, you are a lucky dog; but if any one read of the way you caught it, they wouldn't believe it. I never heard of such a thing before. I sha'n't have to hunt one to-morrow now, and I'm glad of it, for I want to go to the fort to try to find out how the Indian war is coming on." "Well, Joe," said his mother, "as you needn't shoot one now, suppose you kill and pick it while Rob is milking, then hang it up somewhere so that the lynxes can't get it, and in the morning Gertie and I will get it ready for the oven." Joe then took it from Rob, who was still holding the struggling creature by the legs, and taking it to the woodpile, he chopped off its head, then he picked it, and hung it up in the smoke-house as the safest place until his mother was ready for it in the morning. Thanksgiving day opened clear and cool, but not at all cold, for November in Kansas is one of the most delightful months in the whole year. The Indian summer is then at its height, and the amber mist hangs in light clouds on every hill, giving to all objects a smoky hue. This mist rests particularly on the bluffs bordering that stream to which General John C. Fremont gave the name of "The Smoky Hill Fork of the Republican." He first saw it in the late autumn of 1843, when on his exploring expedition to the Rocky Mountains, and it is into that river that the Oxhide empties itself only a short distance from Errolstrath ranche. It was intended to have dinner served promptly at noon, and Mrs. Thompson had so announced to her husband and children, who were all anxious for twelve o'clock to strike. About ten, while she and Gertrude were busy in the kitchen, the boys out in the yard, and Mr. Thompson in the timber, marking some trees he planned to cut down, there rode up to the front porch a strange-looking figure on a roan pony which was evidently nearly blown in consequence of the pace at which it had been driven. The strange object was seemingly a girl, but she was one mass of rags over which was thrown a red blanket, Indian fashion. Her hair was unkempt, and she sat crossways on her animal, like a savage. Mrs. Thompson, hearing the sound of a horse's hoofs on the buffalo sod in front of the house, went out with her dish-cloth in her hand to see who the intruder might be. Looking at her, she at first thought one of the Pawnee boys had come for Joe, but when she heard in a sad and apparently disappointed tone a voice which she could never have forgotten: "My heavens! mamma, don't you know me?" she recognized it as that of her lost daughter Kate. The cloth dropped from her hand, and she fell prone upon the porch, overcome by the shock. Just as Gertrude, who had heard her mother's smothered groan, ran out with a tin dipper of water to dash into her face, Kate dismounted, and rushing to where her mother was lying, she threw her arms around her neck and began to sob violently.