pany E, Eleventh Kansas, numbering 120 men) and moved down the line. He struck Quantrill's trail below Aubrey, immediately in the rear of Lieutenant-Colonel Clark's command.

Quantrill, when, after dark, he had baffled his pursuers, stopped to rest 5 miles northeast of Paola, and there, after midnight, a squad of Linn County militia, under Captain Pardee, in search of the trail, alarmed the camp. He at once moved on, and between that point and the Kansas line his column came within gunshot of the advance of about 150 of the Fourth Missouri State militia, under Lieutenant-Colonel [W.] King, which had been ordered from the country of the Little Blue, in Jackson County, down the line, to intercept him. The advance apprised Lieutenant-Colonel King of the approach of another force. Skirmishers were thrown out, but Quantrill, aided by the darkness and broken character of the prairie, eluded the force, and passed on. Lieutenant-Colonel King was unable to find his trail that night.