Conservative * 9
mysterious Pawnee Republic in Nebras
ka ; mysterious in that no man can tell
why it was BO called. These well-fenced
fields , these thrifty orchards and some
times elaborate farm-buildings , give no
hint of the previous occupation , ended
BO short a time ago after so many ages
of continuance ; but the trails of the
buffalo are still plain , carved deep in
the hill-sides , and as the dusk gathers in
the east and the landscape becomes
veiled one can imngine that he sees
Indian encampments on open reaches of
prairie , near the cottonwood fringed
creeks ; the cluster of tepees , the herded
ponies , the wood fires , the squaws put
tering about the evening meal.
Imliuna.
It is dark , being December , when we
reach Hntchinson , where we are fed and
where the roaring of great steam-
whistles proclaims a manufacturing
town. Here , in fact , commercial use is
made on a large scale of the salt waters
which , being so widely scattered in this
region , cut so large a figure in the ex
perience of the first explorers. Some
were glad to make their soup thereof ,
finding it , when done , already seasoned
to their taste ; others , arriving choked
with thirst at a long-pursued stream ,
would be struck with despair at finding
it bitter salt.
Here we cross the Arkansas , and the
fancy is led away up its winding bed to
the solemn mass of Pike's Peak , under
whose mighty shadow its first sources
trickle forth. Here the river swings
away northward in the Great Bend , for
the extremity of which the old trail has
shaped its course since it left the Kan
sas. The earlier line of the railroad
follows around that big curve also , but
trains do not now run so that one can
see that region by daylight. It is a pity ,
for that is interesting country , in a
) reminiscent way. There the traveler
found himself in the territory of the
dreaded Pawnees ; at first a famous re
sort for buffalo , later the most danger
ous region along the line ; there is
Pawnee Greek , where many a party has
been ambushed , and Pawnee Bock ,
where more than one handful of Indian-
fighters have deemed themselves lucky
to be able to take refuge.
The Night Run.
All night we are toiling up the Arkan
sas. We pass a number of places re
nowned in frontier history. There is
Ohouteau's Island , or The Caches
where , 72 years ago , a party of adven
turers , escaping from the Oomanches
hid their goods in holes in the sand by
night that they might fly the faster
There is the station called Oimarrone
the Lower Crossing of the freighting
days , where the two routes to Santa Fe
diverged ; one running across country
from this point , much the shorter , bu
lacking in wood , water and pasturage
and therefore the scene sometimes o
horrible sufferings. And there is Bent's
Fort , near the location of that ancient
rading-post , preserving the name of a
once famous family whose story has not
) een written. There is material for a
great book in the history of those four
mothers and their half-breed progeny ,
'rom ' Governor Charles Bent , murdered
by the people of Taos in 1847 , to one-
eyed George Bent , the outlaw , killed by
; he troops in the Indian outbreak of
1864 ; and material for many books in
he careers of some of the frequenters of
the old fort ; Jim Beokwourth , Kit
Carson , Bad hand Fitzpatriok , Fremont ,
Parkman , General Kearney , Colonel
Doniphan , these are a few of the names
that mention of Bent's Fore brings to
mind.
Colorado.
In the morning the prudent traveler
whose quarters are on the right-hand
side of the train has a fine string of
snowy mountains in sight from the
first breaking of day. This is the
Oulebras Range , not lofty mountains as
compared with parts of the system
further north , but very good to look at.
There is no monotony in a mountain
chain , as there is in prairie country ,
though in the one case you have the
same things before your eyes for hours
at a time while in the other objects are
continually changing. Here we have
the Spanish Peaks presented to us for
the greater part of the forenoon until
in fact , we cross the Raton Range ; two
beautifully shaped mountains , or sum
mits to one mountain , of apparently
identical size and outline , and now
shining in noble white under the cloud
less sky ; one's eyes follow them contin
ually and seek them eagerly again when
near hills hide them from view.
Here is Trinidad , named by the pious
Spaniards for the Holy Trinity ; here
we see what great coal mines have
grown out of the prospecting of those
large ants , which the soldiers of Kear
ney's army saw in 1846 , bringing parti
cles of anthracite coal to the surface and
making their ant-hills of them. And
here we enter the region of adobe houses
which prevail from this latitude south
ward and which always make a first
impression of being very miserable little
mud-heaps. Here they are yellow
further along they are bright brick-red
partaking as a matter of course of the
color of the soil. The eye is continually
misled in the calculating of distances
as it rests on the passing hillside at a
fancied range of 100 yards , it is bewild
ered at finding that objects are really a
quarter of a mile away. A group of
men swing into view , and are seen for
a moment as toy figures ; a bunch o
horses come in sight and appear to be
the tiny animals out of a Noah's Ark.
Antiquities.
This is now the exact line of the old
trail , and places of historical interes
are pointed out , and with apparent
accuracy , to such passengers as seem to
have time for that kind of thing , by the
official who escorts each caravan in
turn over the line and looks after their
comfort and welfare. Here is Simpson's
Rest , where a stone obelisk is seen on a
dizzy height , commemorative of an
early settler with a taste for isolation ;
here is Fisher's Peak , scene of an episode
of the Mexican war , when an officer
started to climb it before breakfast and
returned to camp on the second evening ;
thus first giving rise , perhaps , to the
story now found attached to most
mountain peak ) in the west. And here ,
most interesting and authentic of all , is
old Uncle Dick Wooton's ranch and
boll-house , built in his old age by one of
the picturesque early band of trappers
and Indian fighters , who occupied him
self with improving the wagon road
over this range. The place is plainly
visible on the right , shortly before the
summit is reached ; the old man died
there only some five years ago , but it
is already tumbling into decay.
The Divide.
The train labors up the mountain-side
by a tortuous route , affording many fine
views of distant snowy peaks superim
posed upon the nearer mountains. The
line between Colorado and the territory
of New Mexico nearly the last of our
once numerous sisterhood of territories
is crossed at almost the same time as
the divide of the Raton Range , the high
est point on the A. T. & S. F. system ,
7622 feet above sea level ; we drag
through a weary tunnel , and emerge
into foreign lands. A poster on the first
section -house is headed "Aviso ; " these
dark-faced laborers in the track gangs
are Mexicans ; their mud villages and
swarming brown babies belong to
another civilization than that wo saw
yesterday from these same windows.
The harder the climb on the other
side the more easily do we slip down on
this. The train runs , as they say , like a
scared wolf ; the children lean out at
the windows to watch the two mighty
engines scuttling ahead as they appear
on one side or the other in rounding the
sudden curves. And presently we find
ourselves down on the plain at the town
of Raton , which yon must pronounce
Rattoon , and where , it is gratifying to
observe , the drama of "Quo Vadis" is
soon to be presented at the opera house.
The Vegas.
Thence we pass forth over the wide
plains that are known by the Spanish
name for "meadows. " They are very
flat , very dry , very long. There are
places provided for water to run off , set
down on the map as affluents of the
Canadian river , but there is no water to
run ; at some time there must have been
much water to dig those channels ,
which look as if they had been scooped
out of the solid rook by an enormous