This arrangement was satisfactorily accomplished, and
they moved out in a sort of military style. And then they launched out
on the almost endless western prairie, said then to be a thousand miles
wide, containing few trees, and generally unknown.
These Illinois boys were young and full of mirth and fun which was
continually overflowing. They seemed to think they were to be on a sort
of every day picnic and bound to make life as merry and happy as it
could be. One of the boys was Ed Doty who was a sort of model traveler
in this line. A camp life suited him; he could drive an ox team, cook a
meal of victuals, turn a pan of flap-jacks with a flop, and possessed
many other frontier accomplishments. One day when Doty was engaged in
the duty of cooking flap-jacks another frolicsome fellow came up and
took off the cook's hat and commenced going through the motions of a
barber giving his customer a vigorous shampoo, saying:--"_I am going to
make a Jayhawker out of you, old boy_." Now it happened at the election
for captain in this division that Ed Doty was chosen captain, and no
sooner was the choice declared than the boys took the newly elected
captain on their shoulders and carried him around the camp introducing
him as the _King Bird of the Jayhawkers_. So their division was
afterwards known as The Jayhawkers, but whether the word originated with
them, and John Brown forgot to give them credit, or whether it was some
old frontier word used in sport on the occasion is more than I will
undertake to say; however the boys felt proud of their title and the
organization has been kept up to this day by the survivors, as will be
related further on.
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