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By Root 1780 0

one. This wasn’t much of a farm—underbrush had already encroached on the fields, and sure enough, a couple of half-grown hogs were rooting around out there, along with some crows and a few buzzards. I dismounted Athens, thinking I would look in a window, but the only opening was covered with oiled paper, not affording much of a view, so I finally made an end to my hesitation and went up the stoop and banged on the door. The good thing was that I had the sun at my back. I banged again. Athens, and my pistol, were right behind me. He practically had his foot on the step with mine. The door opened suddenly, and Athens threw up his head.

A young man with no clothes on except his drawers stood blinking in the doorway. He looked as surprised as I did, I’m sure, as he said, "G— d— , that an’t you, Clark! I thought—"

"Who the h—," shouted a voice from inside. "That Clark? I’m starvin’!"

"An’t Clark!"

Now there were three young men in the door, in different states of undress, and the third one to come up had a pistol, which he cocked. I dropped Athens’s reins, pushed the door open with my left hand, and stepped into the room, saying in my croak, "Boys! I’m here to make you famous! We heard about you in—in Saint Louis, and I come from the Missouri Democrat to find out your story! From there, who knows—maybe it’ll go all around the country." I figured even these boys would be impressed by the most famous paper in the state.

"Saint Louis?" said one boy.

"Where’s Clark?" said another.

But the boy with the pistol didn’t say a thing. I continued, "We got an artist all ready to take your likeness and then make an etching of you, three heads"—I saw another one sitting up in his blankets on the floor—"four heads in one picture, and Clark, too, that’s five." It was hard to talk fast in my croak and still be understood, and the boys were sleepy and didn’t look like they were quite following me.

"Who’re you?" said Pistol.

Well, I didn’t quite remember just at that very minute. "Don’t matter," I croaked. "You boys are the ones who matter. I’m just a reporter—"

"What’s your name?" insisted Pistol.

It came to me. "Lyman. Lyman Arquette. I’m from Palmyra!"

"Haw!" said one of the boys. "I’m from Hannibal! You know the Smart family up there in Palmyra?"

I smiled, readying an evasion, but the boy in the bedclothes got up, saying, "Shut up, Lewis." To me, he said, "You get in here and shut the G— — d- door!"

I did as I was told. Once the door was closed, two things were apparent to me: I was a little distant from my weapon and, depending on Athens, getting more so, and it was plenty dark inside the cabin, with only the sunlight coming through cracks in the chinking to see by. Even so, as my eyes adjusted, I could see that the boys weren’t all boys. The last to get up, who seemed to be the leader, was my age (as a woman) or older, as was one of the others—they had thick beards. The one who’d opened the door was younger, maybe fourteen, and the one with the pistol was a little older than that, maybe sixteen. They were all unwashed, hirsute, and in poor flesh, and the air of the cabin was overpowering. This group didn’t look either happy or healthy. I croaked, "You boys killed any abolitionists?"

’Almost had us one," said Lewis. "We laid in wait for him, and he come right along, jest the way we thought he would—"

"He’d been out nigger-stealin’ that very night, I’ll bet," exclaimed the youngest boy as he pulled on a pair of trousers.

"But he musta heard us, because when we come out into the road to stop him, he had his pistols out already, and he shot Mabee’s horse, here! Can you believe that? He shot his horse right out from under him and run off. I call that lily-livered."

"Didn’t even stand to fight!" said the youngest.

"That’s the only one we’ve found," said Lewis, "but the next time, we’ll be ready, because we know they an’t real men you ken expect a good fight from, but you got to shoot ’em down like a dog!"

This time, I had my notebook out and was scribbling at it. The older men hadn’t said anything, but they hadn’t stopped the