Time: The month of May. The year, 1859; when the West was new, and the life of the Pioneer difficult and dangerous. Scene: A tiny belt of timber, not far from the spot where not long before, the Marais des Cygnes massacre awoke the people of south-eastern Kansas, and kindled among them the flames of civil war. I. It is a night of storm and darkness. Huge trees are bending their might, and branches, strong or slender, are swaying and snapping under a fierce blast from the northward. Night has closed in, but the ghostly light of a reluctant camp fire reveals a small group of men gathered about its blaze; and back of them, more in the shelter of the timber, a few wagons, -prairie schooners of the staunchest type-from which, now and then, the anxious countenance of a woman, or the eager, curious face of a child, peers out