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1859.]

'CONCORD WAGON' OR STAGE COACH.

159

On the twenty-first of May, the first return coach from the mountains reached Leavenworth. It brought only three thousand five hundred dollars in gold dust; but there was an enthusiastic celebration with sonorous speeches and sanguine predictions. The arriving vehicle was richly decorated, and bore the high-sounding motto:

"The gold mountains of Kansas send greetings to her commercial metropolis.'

Another coach which went out to escort it into the city was correspondingly labeled:

'Leavenworth hears the echo from her mineral mountains and sends it on the wings of lightning to a listening world.'

May 25.-I left Leavenworth by the overland mail carriage built in Concord, New Hampshire, known as the Concord wagon. In a dozen localities its manufacture is imitated with more or less success but never equaled. The little capital of the Granite State alone has the art of making a vehicle which like the one-hoss shay, 'don't break down, but only wears out.' It is covered with duck or canvas, the driver sitting in front, at a slight elevation. above the passengers. Bearing no weight upon the roof, it is less top-heavy than the old-fashioned stage-coach for mud-holes and mountain-sides, where to preserve the center of gravity becomes, with Falstaff's instinct, a great matter.' Like human travelers on life's highway, it goes best under a heavy load. Empty, it jolts and pitches like a ship in a raging sea; filled with passengers and balanced by a proper distribution of baggage in the 'boot' behind, and under the driver's feet before, its motion is easy and elastic. Excelling every other in durability and strength, this hack is used all over our continent and throughout South America.

Two coaches, each drawn by four mules, leave Leavenworth daily and make the entire trip together, for protection in case of danger from Indians. A crowd gathered in front of the Planters' House to see our equipages start. Amid confused ejaculations of 'Good-by, old boy.' 'Write as soon as you get there.' 'Better have your hair cut, so that the Arapahoes can't scalp you.' 'Tell John to send me an ounce of dust.' 'Be sure and give Smith that letter from his wife.' 'Do write the facts about the gold,' the whips cracked and the two stages rolled merrily away.

160

ST. MARY'S CATHOLIC MISSION.

[1859. Beyond Easton and Hickory Point we passed hundreds of freight and emigrant wagons stalled in the mud. William H. Russell the chief freighter of the plains, owns many of them. Last year he employed twenty-five thousand oxen and two thousand wagons, chiefly in transporting supplies for our army in Utah. He stipulates that any one of his teamsters who whips cattle unmercifully or utters an oath, shall forfeit his wages. Of course the precaution proves ineffective, for there is a logical connection between mud-holes and profanity.

Before night we entered the Pottawatomie Indian reservation, where prairie wolves, prairie hens and rabbits abound. Spent the night at Silver Lake, (Station Four,) with a half-breed family. Playing upon the floor were two dusky children both, as we were informed, born like Richard with teeth; and in the mother's arms reposed an infant three months old, whose jaws already displayed similar ornaments.

At midnight arrived two return coaches from the mines. The passengers encountered the Missourian, with whose horrible story we were already familiar. He showed them the severed head of his brother, and declared that he found the brains a delicious morsel. Days' travel sixty-eight miles.

May 26. This morning rode in a driving rain over the prairies. Passed St. Mary's Catholic Mission-a pleasant, home-like group of log-houses, and a little frame church, bearing aloft the cross-— among shade and fruit trees, in a picturesque valley. The mission has been in operation twelve years. In the school-room we saw sixty Indian boys at their lessons.

Rock Creek was swollen to a torrent, which compelled us to spend the afternoon and night at the city of Louisville-a city of three houses. Its hotel affords the inevitable fat pork, hot biscuits and muddy coffee. The landlady is a half-breed; and her two daughters with oval faces, olive complexions and bright black eyes the only pretty Indian girls I have ever seen.

Scores of emigrants are encamping along the stream. One having caught a turtle as large as a peck measure, invited us to partake of a savory soup, which we imbibed from tin cups, sitting on a log.

Two returning coaches filled with passengers were detained on

1859.] HORACE GREELEY TAKING A TOUR.

161

the opposite side of the stream through the night. One enterprising traveler attempted to reach our side in a skiff; but was overturned and gained the bank by swimming. Day's travel twenty-eight miles.

May 27.-At daylight the creek had fallen so that our mules crossed without swimming. Some of the countless emigrants on the road have cows yoked with oxen, serving as motive power by day and giving milk at night. We passed one two-wheeled cart drawn by a horse in the shafts, with a yoke of oxen before him. Beyond the three houses which compose the town of Pittsburg, we crossed the Big Blue river and reached Manhattan-a flourishing Yankee settlement of two or three hundred people in a smooth and beautiful valley. It is overlooked by a conical mound two hundred and fifty feet high, commanding a fine view of the rich, well timbered soil along the Kansas and the Blue.

Thus far I had been the solitary passenger. But at Manhattan Horace Greeley after a tour through the interior to gratify the clamorous settlers with speeches, joined me for the rest of the journey. His overland trip attracted much attention. A farmer asked me if Horace Greeley had failed in business, and was going to Pike's Peak to dig gold! Another inquired if he was about to start a newspaper in Manhattan. And as we were leaving one station an Indian girl said to a new-comer:

'Horace Greeley in his old white coat is sitting in that coach!'

Twenty miles beyond, after passing three large farms based on 'a horizontal rather than a perpendicular agriculture,' we reached Fort Riley, one of our most beautiful military posts, and in the geographical center of our national possessions. All the buildings are two stories high, of light limestone resembling marble.

Just beyond, we crossed the Republican river, which rising near the Rocky Mountains, winds eastward for six hundred miles and here unites with the Smoky Hill Fork to form the Kansas. The dim, conical, smoky hills from which the chief tributary is named are visible on the horizon though a hundred miles distant. Timber abounds near the fort; a cottonwood tree nine feet in diameter, was recently cut here. We stopped for the night at Junction City, (Station Seven,) the frontier post-office and settlement of Kansas.

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A LIMITED STOCK OF GROCERIES.

[1859.

The editor of its weekly newspaper, an old Californian, spoke with great enthusiasm of the Golden State. Mr. Greeley replied:

'I have heard some hundreds of returned Californians use the same expressions; but one thing I cannot understand. If you liked California so well why didn't you stay there?'

'Because I was a d-d fool!' replied the roving journalist.

In the evening by invitation of the citizens, Mr. Greeley addressed an attentive audience in the unfinished stone church. Theme, 'Republicanism.' Day's travel forty miles.

May 28.-At a creek-crossing, a little tent beside our road is labeled 'grocery' in enormous letters.

With keen appetites we awake the melancholy merchant who in green

[graphic]
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whisky barrels.

'Have you any crack

ers?'

GROCERY.

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'Well what have you?'

'Why I have sardines,

pickled oysters, smoking tobacco, and stranger, I

have got some of the best whisky you ever seen since you was born!'

The narrow valleys of the streams are still rich; but the upland soil grows thin and sandy. At one fertile valley-farm we saw herds of fat cattle and a corn-field of a hundred acres, in addition to the common frontier spectacle of a tow-headed mother, with nine tow-headed children.

1859.] A MODEL LETTER OF INTRODUCTION.

Left behind were the last outposts of civilization; now

'Away, away, from the dwellings of men

To the wild deer's haunt, and the buffalo's glen.'

163

Dined at Chapman's creek, in a station of poles covered with sail cloth, but where the host superior to daily drenchings, gave us an admirable meal upon a snowy table-cloth.

Timber disappearing; only straggling fringes remain along the creek, with an occasional solitary tree on the prairie indicating the whereabouts of water.

Began journeying now among the buffalo grass, two inches high, thick, wiry, nutritious and little injured by frost or drowth. Prairies spangled with wild onions, and antelopes bounding over the slopes.

Met thirty Cheyenne Indians on a begging and stealing expedi tion, who asked for whisky and tobacco. Nearly all bore certificates of good character from white men; but one solemn old brave complacently presented me the following testimonial which some wag had given him:

'This Indian is a drunkard, a liar and a notorious old thief; look out for him!'

Stopped for the night at Station Nine, consisting of two tents. In the evening wrote newspaper letters in the coach by a lantern. As the air was damp and chill with rain and the vehicle shaken with wind, I fancy the Tribune printers will find Mr. Greeley's manuscript even less legible than usual. At ten o'clock composed ourselves to sleep in the carriage to the music of howling wolves and heavy thunder.-Day's travel sixty-eight miles.

May 29.-Wild roses, wormwood of various species, thistles, narrow-leafed dock and many other new plants and flowers, some of rare beauty, appear along our road. Crossed Hurricane Creek, named from a furious tornado two weeks ago, which overturned heavy freight wagons, blew a light buggy into fragments, tore open boxes and scattered dry-goods for several miles, and rolled cooking-stoves forty or fifty yards.

The distant slopes are dotted with the antelope, the best living illustration of the poetry of motion. Miles away, when his earthcolored body is quite indistinguishable, one sees his white tail flut

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