They fastened them together by nailing
shakes--shingles--from one to the other. Some one remarked that the
nails would pull out the first time the raft struck a snag. Then they
said they would drive in long wooden pins. But father noticed that the
long pins were driven into the sound log, while the ends on the rotten
log were only fastened by the nails.
One of the logs of which the raft was made was much longer than the
other, and on the end of the longer log they put the flag. And over the
rough swift current father walked the dizzy length of that single log
and took down the flag. Mother still keeps that flag as a precious
relic. Several years ago one of the men engaged in that mob ran for
office in Northern Kansas. His opponent borrowed the flag, to use in the
campaign, and returned it in good order. But we have since learned that
he had several copies of it painted, and that one of them is now in the
rooms of the Kansas Historical Society, in the showcase with John
Brown's cap, and is shown as the veritable flag that was on Pardee
Butler's raft.
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