"I must confess I can't," I replied. "Let me look over your finger." Then I saw it. It wasn't one hundred feet away. A single white-painted post stood beside the track, and on it was nailed a cross-bar, lettered in bold type, "Korty;" underneath was a letter-box. That was the town. There was no section house, no water tank, no break in the wire fence, and there being, of course, no general delivery window in the "post-office," I did not ask for my mail.
On the way to North Platte, we passed the site of old Ft. McPherson, where Buffalo Bill, the celebrated scout, once lived and won his fame and title by providing buffalo meat for the Government, and also the site of a notorious Pawnee village, now called Pawnee Springs. We reached North Platte, situated at the confluence of the North and South Platte rivers, which form the great River Platte, Saturday afternoon, and spent Sunday in a manner to meet the approval of the most pious.
That first evening I lectured from a large dry-goods box on a prominent corner.
Sunday afternoon an old friend and classmate drove me into the country to the famous "Scout's Rest Ranch," the estate of Mr. Cody (Buffalo Bill), where I saw a herd of buffalo and a cornfield of 500 acres.
"There is quite a contrast between your cornfield and mine," I said to the manager.
"How big a cornfield have you?"
"Just a small one," I replied. "One acher on each big toe."
"I see, only sufficient for your own use," came the response; "your 'stock in' trade, as it were." Then the ranchman purchased a photo, and we two grown-up school boys drove back to town, in time to escape a thunder shower.
The country between North Platte and Julesburg is a desolate and barren region. Occasionally we could see a ranch house, sometimes cattle grazing on I knew not what. There was plenty of alkali grass in the bottom lands of the Platte, and further back on the mesa, patches of the short and nutritious buffalo grass, half seared by the scorching sun. The railway stations, with one or two exceptions, consisted of water tanks and section houses, where water could be procured. At Ogalala we met a train-load of Christian Endeavorers, and had a chance to quench our thirst.