April 6, 1912 
431 
FOREST AND STREAM 
running to learn the cause of the outcry. To 
my astonishment and bewilderment the eyes of 
the frantic, gesticulating crowd were centered 
upon me, and I began to look myself over in 
search of the cause of such a remarkable demon- 
tration. Just then Skeezik raised his head with 
a snort and began to tremble and to struggle 
violently without, however, making any head¬ 
way. My bewilderment was increasing when in 
the jargon of the shouting multitude I distin¬ 
guished the word, “quicksand.” Then the situ¬ 
ation was clear. In my ignorance I had ridden 
into danger, failing to notice the warning sign 
posted on the river’s brink. I knew that I was 
in no personal danger, but the thought that my 
heedlessness had placed the pony in such a dire 
predicament aroused my keenest sympathies for 
the poor brute. With help I got the pony oub 
but it was not till after many futile attempts 
that I could force the animal into a stream 
again. 
I spent half a day in the city, then learning of 
a very curious natural feature in the township 
of Waukarusa, I saddled up Skeezik and gal¬ 
loped southward. The curiosity in question was 
a pyramidal mound, some three hundred feet in 
height, and upward of an eighth of a mile in 
circumference at the base. Standing alone as 
it did upon a gently undulating prairie, this 
mound appealed forcibly to my imagination as 
I rode slowly around it in the dusk of a mild 
spring evening. I had refrained from question¬ 
ing those who told me of the mound’s existence 
as to existing theories of its origin, preferring 
to form my own, unbiased opinion. But on 
standing face to face with this strange forma¬ 
tion I found intelligent theorizing impossible. 
Determining to inspect the mound in detail on 
the morrow, I cast about me for shelter for the 
night. This I soon found in a snug little cabin 
in a wild plum grove forty rods from the base 
of the mound. Here lived S. B. Smith, a one¬ 
time Connecticut man who had emigrated to 
Kansas in the early fifties. I sat till a late hour 
that night listening to experiences with Quan- 
trell, border ruffianism, John Brown raids, etc., 
through which my host had passed. In the morn¬ 
ing on my declaring my intention to make a 
thorough inspection of Blue Mound, Smith ex¬ 
pressed a wish to accompany me, with which I 
gladly acquiesced. Armed with a bag, a hammer 
and a spade, the purpose of which I could not 
divine, my host and guide took me to the western 
slope of the mound, whence a comparatively easy 
ascent could be made. 
That wonderful pile, which puzzled me the 
previous night, proved absolutely astounding 
when viewed in the broad light of day at close 
range. That the mound was not the result of 
some natural phenomenon was forcibly apparent. 
It was no less the work of human hands than 
the Egyptian pyramids. It was constructed of 
huge bricks which were evidently made from 
the contiguous soil. Smith dug through the 
thick prairie turf and threw out several spade¬ 
fuls of the clayey loam underneath. He then 
called my attention to the presence of number¬ 
less small shells with which the loam was in¬ 
termingled. With his hammer he broke off a 
large fragment from one of the bricks in which 
the same sort of shells were plainly visible. The 
inference was conclusive. Smith e.xplained that 
bricks made from the soil of that region would 
quickly harden in the sun to a firmness consist¬ 
ent with endurance, and declared that the mound 
material had no doubt been procured in this 
manner. 
This mound had evidently been originally con¬ 
structed in pyramidal form, though the action of 
wind and rain through countless years had worn 
away the angles, giving the pile a circular ap¬ 
pearance. It was built up in regular terraces, 
each of a width to make driving a pair of horses 
and a vehicle on their surfaces possible. These 
terraces were about six feet in height, but the 
accumulations at their bases made it possible to 
clamber from one to another, and we soon stood 
on the summit of the mound, a clear but uneven 
space sixty feet in width. 
“Isn’t this worth fighting and suffering for?” 
said my companion, comprehending the vast e.x- 
panse of beautiful landscape, bathed in dew and 
sparkling in the morning sunlight. “Many a 
time when heart sick and well-nigh discour¬ 
aged,” he continued, “have I clambered to this 
spot, viewed the picture which you see spread 
at our feet, and gained fresh courage and 
strength.” 
He called my attention to a stump which stood 
on the extreme pinnacle and told me it was the 
remains of a tall signal pole erected during the 
border ruffian days. A guard was stationed on 
top of the mound both day and night to warn 
the neighboring settlers of any suspicious occur¬ 
rence, such as a body of men or swift-riding 
horsemen appearing on the Missouriward hori¬ 
zon. For one of the bushwhackers’ favorite pas¬ 
times was to run over the line, twenty miles 
away on the Missouri border, swoop down and 
•kill as many settlers as possible and run off their 
horses and cattle. To warn the people against 
these raids, the watcher on the mound would 
display a flag in the day and a lantern .at night. 
Sitting there, overlooking a fifty-mile expanse 
of green, flower-embowered prairie, dotted here 
and there with settlers’ cabins. Smith related 
numerous tales of adventure during the strenu¬ 
ous days before the war. They were intensely 
interesting to me, but without the setting and 
the circumstances the pictures would seem tame 
and commonplace. 
Smith’s theory of the mound was that it had 
been built to serve some such purpose as that 
to which the latter day citizens had put it. Deep 
e.xcavations had failed to discover aught but 
solid wall, though in similar mounds in the 
southern part of the State, large chambers had 
been found which bore evidence of having been 
used for burial places, he said. Subsequently I 
saw these other mounds, about twenty in num¬ 
ber, ranged at regular intervals of about a mile 
on the great plain contiguous to the Indian 
Nation. The silent monuments to some long- 
extinct race filled me with a sense of solemnity 
which I was unable to account for. To think 
that some other race of men would possibly 
speculate upon the evidences of our own exist¬ 
ence was not altogether a pleasant pastime, yet 
the thoughts would occur. 
I again turned my pony’s head westward, 
being anxious to reach Emporia as soon as pos¬ 
sible, having directed most of my traps and ac¬ 
coutrements forwarded to that place. Just as 
I emerged from the timber which skirted the 
banks of Waukarusa Creek I was well-nigh over¬ 
whelmed by a shower of the most ingeniously 
worded billingsgate that it was my fate ever to 
have come in contact with. 
Emerging from the thicket I beheld a string 
of mules, a dozen pairs at least, attached to a 
breaker plow. Guiding the plow, or trying to, 
was a typical Western citizen. The mules pur- 
A WESTERN SCENE TO-DAY—BAND OF DOMESTICATED ELK ON -V RANCH. 
Courtesy G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 
