From all the frontier life, rough-hewn and coarse, the elements came
that helped to make the big brave West to-day, and I know now that not
the least of source and growth of power for these came out of the
strength and strife of the things known only to the men who followed the
Santa Fe Trail.
III
DEFENDING THE TRAIL
XVIII
WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN
The mind hath a thousand eyes,
And the heart but one.
--BOURDILLON.
Busy years, each one a dramatic era all its own, made up the annals of
the Middle West as the nation began to feel the thrill for expansion in
its pulse-beat. The territorial days of Kansas were big with the tragic
events of border warfare, and her birth into statehood marked the
commencement of the four years of civil strife whose record played a
mighty part in shaping human destiny.
Meanwhile the sunny Kansas prairies lay waiting for the hearthstone and
the plow. And young men, trained in camp and battle-field, looked
westward for adventure, fortune, future homes and fame. But the tribes,
whose hunting-grounds had been the green and grassy plains, yielded
slowly, foot by foot, their stubborn claim, marking in human blood the
price of each acre of the prairie sod.
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