The day after my arrival at Leavenworth I rode to the Fort to make inquiries about the proper objective point, in view of the particular part I proposed to play in the campaign, as well as to learn the whereabouts of the Commanding General. All information I readily obtained from the Assistant Adjutant General of the Department, General McKeever, who had been left to take charge of the office work at head-quarters, while the general himself was in the field. Owing to the hostilities on the plains, the troops had been almost entirely withdrawn from Fort Leavenworth, leaving but a detachment of the Fourth Artillery as a garrison. In other respects the place was quite lively. Generals Card and Morgan, the former Chief Quartermaster, and the latter chief Commissary of the Department, were up to their ears in business, making contracts for forage and other supplies and organizing the necessary transportation.

From what I learned, Leavenworth was no point to serve my ends, so the next day I took the train on the Kansas Pacific Railway on my route further west. The same night I was delayed at the town of Lawrence, a neat flourishing place, forty miles from Leavenworth, and on the trunk road connecting with the Missouri Pacific Railroad at Kansas City.

This town and Leavenworth are rivals for fame and importance. Leavenworth has the advantage of the proximity of a military post, Lawrence can claim the work shops of the Kansas Pacific railway. If the public economists, already spoken of, succeed in selling the government reservation, Leavenworth "stock" is bound to decline. Lawrence has a little chapter of history, also, to which the people revert with a sort of mixture of sadness and pride. The town and its people were well nigh destroyed by the notorious guerrilla Quantrell, and was again reduced to a dilapidated condition by another raiding party from Missouri. Lawrence is a smaller town than Leavenworth and with fewer fine buildings.

The next morning at ten o'clock I resumed the journey westward by rail. The train was composed of a number of stock cars, laden with horses destined to the various posts to furnish

a remount for the dismounted men of the cavalry regiments, a few freight cars carrying quarter-masters and commissary stores and two passenger cars.

As time wore on and the train sped over its iron path, the evidence of civilization became more rare. The country began to present that monotonous configuration incident to the plains generally. During the day we passed Fort Riley, at the mouth of the Republican river. This fort is one of the old time military establishments of the plains. Built on a high ridge it commands a vast stretch of vision. In early days, though not many years ago, this fort was the centre of military operations on the plains. It was then far beyond the very utmost limits of civilization, and was only reached by the slow means of wagon transportation. It was here for a long time the extensive trains loading for New Mexico fitted out. The glory of the old post has departed. Frontier settlements have sprung up around it in the fertile vallies of the Kaw and the Republican. The wolf's mournful howl no longer is heard. The whistle of the locomotive breaks upon the air suggestive of the miraculous transformation. There was a time when the trooper arrayed for battle might have been seen leaving the protecting walls of Riley to scour the surrounding country in pursuit of a savage foe, or returning to rest from the fatigues of his task, profitless in honors or promotion. To-day the decrepit and exhausted cavalry horse here finds rest and abundance. A squad of infantry soldiers to watch the premises constitutes the garrison.

Further west we passed a hotel, a few shanties and a number of cars upon a side track. The country for some distance was covered with herds of cattle, each with its herders, like so many mounted maniacs darting about, yelling furiously, and cutting right and left with their enormous whips. This point was recorded upon the "schedule" under the sentimental name of Abeline, and I learned was the great rendezvous and shippingpost for Texas cattle. Annually immense droves are brought here across the plains, from a distance of not less than five hun

dred miles and shipped to the eastern markets-St. Louis, Chicago, and the great cities of the Atlantic.

Towards evening an odd buffalo or a small herd of antelopes appeared in the distance, but not in sufficient proximity to get even a good sight.

At eight o'clock the train reached Fort Harker. Here we were delayed some minutes awaiting the special train of the commanding general from the west. We then pushed on to Ellsworth, three miles further.

Owing to hostilities and the presence of Indian war parties along the line of road beyond, the running of trains except by daylight had been abandoned. We were therefore booked for the night. Leaving the train and walking a few hundred feet across an open space covered with boxes, broken barrels, tin cans, and every other variety of rubbish, we reached the "first class" hotel, known as the Anderson House. We e were received at the door by a wizen-faced, spare individual, who was afterwards found to be the proprietor. The hotel was a frame structure about forty feet front and two stories in height. The accommodations were not of the most commodious character, though this inconvenience was obviated by the hospitality, for a pecuniary consideration, of the citizens of the place. Those who could not be accommodated at the hotel, were taken in tow by a seedy African and escorted to some neighboring house or tent to be provided for.

Being the first to reach the hotel I had the first chance of accommodation, and was accordingly assigned to room No. 1. The other passengers were provided for to the extent of five persons in three rooms. The rest of the passengers, now reduced to twenty, either were billeted on the citizens or slept in the cars.

After a supper on buffalo steak, antelope ham, soggy bread, and a cup of warm water, flavored with a grain of coffee or a leaf of tea, the passengers gathered in the hotel office, a small room eight by ten and furnished with a counter and several dilapidated chairs. The proprietor presided. Seating himself

on a three-legged chair and cocking his feet on the stove he entertained himself spinning yarns laudatory of his own prominent career, throwing in occasionally a bit of history connected with the laying out and subsequent growth of the town of Ellsworth. He had not only purchased the site of the town and sold much of it out in small lots, thereby greatly expanding his financial condition, but was also justice of the peace, and in his own idea, the most important personage on the plains. According to his accounts, when the railroad was being constructed up to that point, some preliminary buildings having been thrown together in anticipation of that event, the population consisted of rather a miscellaneous assortment of human beings. Nor was the order of the place any better. Shooting at each other upon trivial grounds was a common pastime, and to kill on an average a man a night was an expected and ordinary occurrence. Drinking shops and gambling dens were the only profitable places of public amusement. Since the railroad had been pushed further west, the town had become quite orderly and the population had at the same time suffered a material diminution. During the night our attention was several times attracted outside by violent yells, accompanied with salvos of uproarious oaths and the usual demonstrations of the scientific use of the fist, but as no one was killed the reputation of the place was not effected, and the parties were allowed plenty of room to finish it out in true frontier style.

A notification that the train would depart at four o'clock in the morning, put a period to the edifying talk of the proprietor, as he found his last listeners were about to try the experiment of slumbering upon all his terrible stories. One rough old customer delivered his valedictory by informing the proprietor, 'that it would be just as much as his life was worth to let him miss the train.”

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CHAPTER II.

BEYOND THE PALE OF CIVILIZATION-THE PLAINS-BUFFALOES-A FUSILADE

HAYS CITY.

Y three o'clock the next morning the passengers were rallied at the hotel, by two colored boys who patrolled the town for that purpose. All bills had been settled in "advance." The landlord a few moments before the start

ing of the train, informed us that "the cooks had overslept themselves, we would have to excuse them but it would be impossible to get breakfast before the train left;" with a parting benediction upon the landlord's head most of the passengers retired to an adjacent "rum mill" and "stowed away" a "slug" or two of "mountain dew" to keep up their spirits. Being thus provided they got on the train, a few minutes ahead of time. The locomotive whistled "up breaks" and away we started westward.

We were now fairly upon the vast expanse of country known as the Plains. The last traces of civilization had disappeared, unless we except the Iron road over which we were running, at the rate of twenty miles an hour, instead of by the earlier emigrant train, at the same rate per day This made the wildness and solitude of the surroundings even more effective. Far in advance the road could be traced winding along over the rolling waste, rarely a straight line for any considerable distance, but taking advantage of natural depressions, avoiding the higher swells, thus saving time, labor, and capital. Nowhere were to be seen grateful visions of farm houses, gardens, fields of waving grain, green pastures, and cattle or sheep. The country was