Quitting Fort Riley, we found ourselves at once upon the plains. No more sycamore and white-oak and honey-locust; no more of the rich deep green of the cottonwood groves; but yellow earth, yellow flowers, yellow grass, and here and there groves of giant sunflowers with yellow blooms, but no more trees.
As the sun set, we came on a body of cavalry marching slowly from the plains toward the fort. Before them, at some little distance, walked a sad-faced man on foot, in sober riding-dress, with a repeating carbine slung across his back. It was Sherman returning from his expedition to Santa Fé.
CHAPTER X.
LETTER FROM DENVER.
Monday, 3d September.
My dear ——,
Here we are, scalps and all.
On Tuesday last, at sundown, we left Fort Riley, and supped at Junction City, the extreme point that “civilization” has reached upon the plains. Civilization means whisky: post-offices don‘t count.
It was here that it first dawned upon us that we were being charged 500 dollars to guard the United States Californian mail, with the compensation of the chance of being ourselves able to rob it with impunity. It is at all events the case that we, well armed as the mail officers at Leavenworth insisted on our being, sat inside with forty-two cwt. of mail, in open bags, and over a great portion of the route had only the driver with us, without whose knowledge we could have read all and stolen most of the letters, and with whose knowledge, but against whose will, we could have carried off the whole, leaving him gagged, bound, and at the mercy of the Indians. As it was, a mail-bag fell out one day, without the knowledge of either Dixon or the driver, who were outside, and I had to shout pretty freely before they would pull up.
On Wednesday we had our last “squar’ meal” in the shape of a breakfast, at Fort Ellsworth, and soon were out upon the almost unknown plains. In the morning we caught up and passed long wagon trains, each wagon drawn by eight oxen, and guarded by two drivers and one horseman, all armed with breech-loading rifles and revolvers, or with the new “repeaters,” before which breech-loaders and revolvers must alike go down. All day we kept a sharp look-out for a party of seven American officers, who, in defiance of the scout‘s advice, had gone out from the fort to hunt buffalo upon the track. About sundown we came into the little station of Lost Creek. The ranchmen told us that they had, during the day, been driven in from their work by a party of Cheyennes, and that they had some doubts as to the wisdom of the officers in going out to hunt.
Just as we were leaving the station, one of the officers’ horses dashed in riderless, and was caught; and about two miles from the station we passed another on its back, ripped up either by a knife or buffalo horn. The saddle was gone, but there were no other marks of a fight. We believe that these officers were routed by buffalo, not Cheyennes, but still we should be glad to hear of them.