remedied? Perhaps in this instance it could be explained by the fact that one of them was a prominent member of the Republican party, and the other no less than the Assistant Secretary of State. We were glad to receive our penitent wanderers, who promised to be more careful another time. We slept at Omaha, which is the jumping-off place, and to-morrow morning early we are going to "jump." We have already traveled seventeen hundred and fifty miles, and have not yet begun our real trip. Omaha has still wooden sidewalks and muddy roads; the post-office, school-house, and churches are all built on a grand scale, and the streets laid out in squares and broad avenues. Probably they have already designs for a grand-opera house. One can see FUTURE written all over it.

Mr. Cadwalader had bought in Philadelphia the best comestibles that it could provide, and had them stowed away in big hampers and put in the baggage-car. When the train stopped an hour for food, which it did three times a day, we preferred to spend that hour looking about us and (as Mr. Kasson said) stretching our legs rather than going into the overcrowded eating-rooms, which were reeking of food, loud talk, and ravenous passengers. The stations were always low wooden buildings with a piazza; sometimes no other houses were to be seen. On wooden boxes were enthroned the loafers, who must have ridden miles just to see passengers get in and out of the train. To show how kind these rough people must be when they are not engaged in killing people, chickens foraged about between their huge boots, and I saw a dog quietly asleep within an inch of a kick. As soon as the train started we went into the baggage-car and, seated about on the trunks, enjoyed our delicious feast.

We occupied almost one entire parlor-car. There were only two extra seats, and those were filled by two men surrounded by a mountain of newspapers and magazines of all kinds. I said, nodding toward one of these, "What a handsome man that is!"

"Do you know who it is?" asked Mr. Cadwalader.

"No. How should I?"

"That is the famous scout, Buffalo Bill."

"Really!" I exclaimed. "I had fancied him quite different from that. He looks like the pictures of Charles the First. His eyes are so soft, and he has such lovely brown curls and a could-not-hurt-a-fly look about him."

"Well," said Mr. Cadwalader, "he has killed more men than he can count on his fingers when he tries to go to sleep."

"I can't imagine it," I said, gazing with admiration at Buffalo Bill's fine and kind face and splendid figure. "His friend does not look so amiable."

"I should think not. That is the celebrated Mr. Holmes of Texas. He is a terror in this part of the world."

"He looks it," I said. "See all the pistols he has about him. I can see one in his coat pocket, and one in his vest pocket, and..."

"And many under his coat which you can't see."

Just at that moment the "terror" got up, and, lo! a pistol fell out of his clothing on to the floor. Fortunately, it did not go off, but it frightened us almost out of our senses (the ladies, of course). Buffalo Bill picked up the weapon and handed it back to Mr. Holmes, who put it quietly in his pocket, seeming rather abashed.

Buffalo Bill and his friend walked down the middle of the car, and we were somewhat agitated when he stopped in front of Johan and said in a soft, cooing voice, "Would you take a drink with me, sir?"

We gasped when we saw Johan shake his head and say politely with a smile, "No, thank you." We expected a volley of pistol-shots and the speedy wiping out of us all, but Buffalo Bill merely gave Johan an inquiring look and a tired but sarcastic smile.

Mr. Cadwalader said, hurriedly, to Johan, "Go, for Heaven's sake!"

Johan hastened to follow the good advice and Buffalo Bill, and said with diplomatic artifice, "On second thoughts, sir, I will not refuse your invitation, as I am a little thirsty." On which the three gentlemen went out together.

Johan came back refreshed and radiant. Never had he seen or talked to such a delightful person. Buffalo Bill had offered him some of his own favorite brand of whisky, which Johan found very good.

Johan asked B.B. later, being on more familiar terms, "Would you have been offended if I had refused to drink with you?"

B.B. answered, "If I had not seen that you were a foreigner I should not have liked it," meaning, I suppose, bloody murder and sudden death.

B.B. said the reason why he had chosen Johan out of the rest to drink with was that Johan looked so like the Grand-Duke Alexis, for whom he had been a guide on the prairies some years ago.

General Taylor, son of the former President, joined us at Cheyenne.

We have just passed thirty snow-sheds at Rock Creek, and have seen some wolves and some antelopes roaming about. We looked for buffaloes, but the only buffalo we saw was the mild Bill, who sat quietly reading a magazine, looking at us with his soft-brown eyes.

We were very high up in the Rocky Mountains. All around us was snow, and the view of the blue mountains, the tops of which were quite white, looked beautiful in the distance. There were some Indians on horseback drawn up in file as the train went by. They had all their war-paint on, were covered with picturesque blankets, and their feather head-dresses reached over their horses' backs; they had buckskin leggings covered with beads, which made them look very picturesque. They looked stolidly and indifferently at us while we stared at them admiringly from the car windows. The prairie-dogs looked like squirrels "sitting up so cute," as Miss C. said, "dodging in and out of their holes."

At one of the stations a whole band of Indians climbed into the train with guttural war-whoops and invaded the baggage-car. We thought we were being "held up," but they behaved themselves very well. The thought of Buffalo Bill, to say nothing of Mr. Holmes of Texas with his pistols, reassured us; and the only difference that the presence of the Indians made to us was that we avoided the baggage-car for our midday meal.

At another station a quantity of loafers, mostly Indians, smelling dreadfully of whisky, surrounded us and begged for money. Among them an old Indian woman who looked like the witch of Endor (they said she was over a hundred years old) stretched out a long, bony, orang-outang arm, and when we gave her a few cents the old thing actually grinned with joy. It was painful to see this creature with the accumulated look of greed on her withered old brown face.

Our baggage-master always kept his hat on, slouched at a tremendous angle. We wondered how it could keep on unless it was pinned to his ear. Mr. Kasson begged us to pretend not to notice it, because the man was very sensitive on the subject. He told us his story. The man had been fishing with some friends, near an Indian settlement, when the Indians attacked them and killed the others outright. The baggage-master saved his life by "playing 'possum" (as Mr. K. called pretending to be dead), and the Indians scalped him with a broken tin can. If he had made the slightest movement they would have despatched him. How horrible! We wondered if it could be true!

To-morrow "the distinguished party" mentioned in the paper are going to arrive at Salt Lake City. I will write from there unless I am snatched up by some craving widower, if there exists such a thing as a widower—or by some husband with too few wives.

A wild desire possessed us to sit on the cow-catcher in order to get a better view of the cañon. The engineer refused at first, but gave in at last. He said it was most dangerous.

"You might," he added, "scoop up a Chinaman, or some animal straying on the rails."

"How exciting!" we cried. "Who but a chosen few have the luck to scoop up a live Chinaman?"

Johan had the worst place, and therefore the least chance of getting the Chinaman. He sat up on a little iron seat attached to the boiler, holding on