But I did not take on my new name without a struggle, for Flora and Fanny had become dear to me since leaving Madison--my first horses. How I got my second team of horses is connected with one of the most important incidents in my life; it was a long time before I got them and it will be some time before I can tell about it. In the meantime, there were Flora and Fanny, hitched to Dunlap and Thatcher's light wagon, disappearing among the burr oaks toward the Dubuque highway. I thought of my pride as I drove away from Madison with these two steeds, and of the pretty figure I cut the morning when red-haired Alice climbed up, offered to go with me, and kissed me before she climbed down. Would she have done this if I had been driving oxen, or still worse, those animals which few thought worth anything as draught animals--cows? And then I thought of Flora's lameness the day before yesterday. Was it honest to let Dunlap and Thatcher drive off to liberate the nation with a horse that might go lame? "Let me have a horse," said I to Preston. "I want to catch them and tell them something." I rode up behind the Abolitionists' wagon, waving my hat and shouting. They pulled up and waited. "What's up?" asked Dunlap. "Going with us after all? I hope so, my boy." "No," said I, "I just wanted to say that that nigh mare was lame day before yesterday, and I--I--I didn't want you to start off with her without knowing it." Dunlap asked about her lameness, and got out to look her over. He felt of her muscles, and carefully scrutinized her for swelling or swinney or splint or spavin or thoroughpin. Then he lifted one foot after another, and cleaned out about the frog, tapping the hoof all over for soreness. Down deep beside the frog of the foot which she had favored he found a little pebble. "That's what it was," said he, holding the pebble up. "She'll be all right now. Thank you for telling me. It was the square thing to do." "If you don't feel safe to go on with the team," said I, "I'll trade back." "No," said he, "we're needed in Kansas; and," turning up an oil-cloth and showing me a dozen or so of the Sharp's rifles, "so are these. And let me tell you, boy, if I'm any judge of men, the time will come when you won't feel so bad to lose half a dozen horses, as you feel now to be traded out of Flora and Fanny, and make a hundred dollars by the trade. Get up, Flora; go long, Fanny; good-by, Jake!" And they drove off to the Border Wars. I had made my first sacrifice to the cause of the productiveness of the Vandemark Farm.