looked extremely strong. He had a deadly quarrel with the murdered man; he had been seen prying through the church window, as if to mark his victim; and his face had been recognised in the bush by his rival in love, his enemy in a family feud. Worse remained behind. An officer, kicking about the bush, picked up a piece of wadding, and on smoothing out the paper, found it had been torn from a copy of the Globe, a newspaper published at St. Louis. Hinchcliffe, the post-master of Carterville, testified that no one except Russell received that journal. The officers arrested Russell, found a shotted gun in his room, and, on drawing the charge, they pulled out a piece of wadding, which was found to join and fit the paper picked up, in the shape of wadding, in the bush. Yet Tom escaped conviction. This escape was due to another cousin, a girl named Mattie, who swore-first, that she was paying a visit to her uncle Russell on the day when Dave Bulliner was shot; and second, that her cousin Tom was at home the whole day and night; and third, most positively, that about eight o'clock in the evening, he bade them all good-night and went to bed. Squire Strover, who heard the case, was of

opinion that this evidence was enough. The prisoner

was discharged.

Disgusted with such law as they found in the Prairie lands, the Bulliners snatched their guns and marked their victims. Sisney was reserved for the anniversary of George's death, but Henderson, his chief supporter, was taken off at once. Jack Bulliner, with two companions, lay behind a heap of logs in Henderson's field, and as the farmer turned his plough, they fired into him a whole round of buck-shot. Henderson lived a week. Before he died, he made a statement that, according to his true belief, Jack Bulliner was one of his assailants. In a neighbouring field, a man named Ditmore was at work, and heard the assailing party fire. Within a week, Ditmore was shot.

Hinchcliffe, a

Hinchcliffe was the next to fall. physician, as well as a postmaster, was often out at night, attending on his patients. He was riding home one evening in the dark, when spits of fire came out of a copse, near the lane, and struck him dead. His horse was also killed.

Suspicion points to Cousin Tom and Texas Jack, as the assassins of Hinchcliffe, but Cousin Tom

and Texas Jack are ugly customers to tackle. No sheriff cares to undertake the job. Much feeling is excited by this bloody deed, for Hinchcliffe was a favourite in the place; yet, down to this moment, no one has been punished for the crime.

In truth, the deed was ceasing to be a theme for talk, until the anniversary of Bulliner's murder came, and the vendetta was renewed in the attempt on Sisney's life.

Colonel Sisney has removed his family to Carbondale.

251

CHAPTER XXV.

THE RED WAR.

FORT LEAVENWORTH, and the young city of Leavenworth, growing up under her guns, are ruffled by some recent incidents of the Red war; a war which often hides itself from sight, but never wholly ceases, in countries where the Red and White men are contending for the soil.

Bad blood is always flowing on the frontier line which separates the White State of Kansas from the Red Territory of Cheyennes and Osages. The savages are rich in ponies, and the settlers are accused of stealing them; the citizens are rich in cattle, and the hunters are accused of lifting them. Both charges are too often just. A frontier settler helps himself as freely to a horse or mule as to an antelope or elk; an Indian kills his neighbour's ox as readily as he slings a buffalo calf. White men shoot game in sport, on which bucks and braves

go out and kill their enemy's cows. They say it is only sport. When a more deadly raid is meant, they call the Light Horse, the Mourning Band, or some such Indian league, and riding to the settled parts, select a lonely ranch, surround the pales, rush on the doors, scalp every living male, eat up the food, set fire to the farms, and carry off the women to their camps.

In May last year a son of Little Robe, a Cheyenne chief, came over the border into Kansas with his band. His herds, he said, had been driven by White thieves, and in revenge, he stole a herd of cattle from the nearest run. Some cavalry, then patrolling on the Kansas line, gave chase, came up with the marauders, mauled the chief, and recovered the stolen stock.

Unable to meet the Whites in open field, the Cheyennes, in accordance with their custom and the genius of their league, are using the knife. A man at the Agency breaks his leg, and Hollway, a son of the agency physician, is nursing the invalid, when a Cheyenne brave creeps into the sick man's hut, and plunges a knife into young Hollway's heart. The next victims are two Irish herders, Monahan and