ON Monday morning last, Mr. Beard and I took our seats in the overland coach, at Denver. Our hopes of a comfortable trip were blasted at the outset: there were seven passengers for Fort Kearney, and four for the "Junction," as it is called, on the Platte. The fare of one hundred and twenty-five dollars which one pays the Holladay Company, is simply for transportation: it includes neither space nor convenience, much less comfort. The coaches are built on the presumption that the American people are lean and of diminutive stature — a mistake at which we should wonder the more, were it not that many of our railroad companies suffer under the same delusion. With a fiery sky overhead, clouds of fine dust rising from beneath, and a prospect of buffalo-gnats and mosquitoes awaiting us, we turned our faces toward "America" in no very cheerful mood.

The adieus to kind friends were spoken, the mail-bags and way-bill were delivered to the coachman, the whip cracked as a sign that our journey of six hundred miles had commenced, and our six horses soon whirled us past the last house of Denver. The programme of the journey was as follows: across the Plains in an east-by-northern course to the Platte, eighty-five miles; thence to Julesburg, on the line between Colorado and Nebraska, one hundred and fifteen miles more; thence, still following the Platte, to Fort Kearney, two hundred miles more; thence to the western end of the Central Pacific Railroad, wherever we might find it. The agent of the Overland Mail Company in Denver was unable to give me any information upon this latter point. There were rumors that the trains had reached Columbus, one hundred miles west of Omaha, and we preferred to believe them, as they made our anticipations of stage travel less formidable.

It was eight o’clock when we started, and with every hour the heat and dust increased. The long range of the Rocky Mountains, to which we fondly looked back, no longer refreshed us with their distant appearance of coolness; they might rather be compared to enamelled pictures of pale violet, slowly fixing their colors in a furnace of quivering heat. The green of the Plains was rapidly drying into a tawny hue, and only the cactus, with its splendid flowers, seemed to rejoice in the season. The long swells, extending north and south, between the tributaries of the Platte, gave some little variety to the road. In the hollows the presence of dark-foliaged cotton-woods told of subterranean moisture, although the creek beds showed only dry, hot gravel. The horses were changed at intervals of eight or ten miles, and, when we had made four stations, I was agreeably surprised on our halting for dinner at a neat frame cottage, with stable and post-office adjoining. The meal, at one dollar and fifty cents, was excellent, the water alone having a suspicious flavor of alkali. We made use of a corrective which I would recommend to all travellers —two or three lemons cut into pieces which can be stuffed into a bottle, which fill with good whiskey.

In the afternoon, when the breathless heat and fine, suffocating dust were scarcely to be endured, there came a merciful relief. The mountain thunder-storm either took a wider sweep than usual, or varied from its course at the head-waters of Cherry Creek, and came down the divides toward us. The cool shadows crept over the landscape, and after a time the rain followed. Then ensued a new annoyance: our outside passengers came in, and ten large persons must occupy the space designed for nine dwarfs. Toward evening the clouds lifted for an hour or two, and we took our last look at the Mountains, lying dark and low on the horizon. The passengers for the Junction were pleasant fellows, and I mean no disrespect in saying that their room was better than their company. After sunset another setting in of rain drove them upon us, and by eleven at night (when we reached their destination) we were all so cramped and benumbed, that I found myself wondering which of the legs under my eyes were going to get out of the coach. I took it for granted that the nearest pair that remained belonged to myself.

The artist and I had now possession of the back seat; but our condition was not greatly improved. We tried various devices with rolls of blankets, but all to no purpose. The coach is so ingeniously constructed that there are no corners to receive one’s head. There is, it is true, an illusive semblance of a corner; if you trust yourself to it, you are likely to lean out with your arm on the hind wheel. Nodding, shifting of tortured joints, and an occasional groan, made up the night. There was no moon, and nothing was visible except the dark circle of the Plains against the sky.

At four o’clock in the morning, as the daylight was creeping up under the clouds, we halted at a singular station. A wall of adobes three feet thick and six in height, pierced with loop-holes for musketry, confronted us. The top was rudely machicolated, and over the main entrance was the inscription, " Fort Wicked." Entering the fortress, we found a long adobe cabin, one part of which was occupied as a store, well stocked with groceries, canned provisions, and liquors. A bearded man, with a good-natured but determined air, asked us if we would stop for breakfast. It was Mr. Godfrey himself, the builder and defender of the fort, which is known all along the Platte as "God-frey’s Ranche." Here, last fall, he, his wife, and "another man," withstood a siege of two days by three hundred Indians, who finally retreated, after losing seventeen of their number. Mr. Godfrey boldly announces that he will never surrender. He is now well prepared, and the rumors of a new Indian war do not give him the least anxiety. He is "bad medicine" to the tribes of the Plains, who are as cowardly as they are cruel. The stable and corral are defended by similar intrenchments.

We had breakfast after an hour’s delay, and then set forward for Julesburg, which was still some eighty miles distant. Daylight revealed the Platte on our left — a narrow, winding, muddy stream, with no timber on its banks. On either side the same bare, brown plain rolled away to the horizon; streaks of sandy soil made the road toilsome to our teams, but as the stations did not average more than ten miles apart we made fair progress. The broad, well-beaten road swarmed with freight teams as the day advanced, and the condition of their cattle showed the excellence of the pasturage on this route. The brownness and apparent barrenness even of this portion of the Plains does not indicate a sterile soil, though it is undoubtedly more arid and sandy than any part of the Smoky Hill route.

The weather favored us beyond expectation. The day was overcast and delightfully cool; mosquitoes and buffalo-gnats did not molest us, and every station we left behind added to our peace of mind. There was little to see beyond the fact that no part of this region is naturally a desert. The game has been driven away — even prairie-dogs are scarce ; — where there was timber it has been destroyed (fire-wood was furnished to the military post at Julesburg last winter at one hundred and twenty-seven dollars per cord !), and the first summer splendor of the flora had passed away. There were some wild sunflowers and lupines, and occasionally great purple beds of the cleome. Sometimes the Platte, forcing its way through the long, monotonous waves of the soil, made for itself the semblance of a valley, with narrow lengths of fresh bottom-land and low knobs of hills; but, on looking back on the day’s journey, I can recall no single feature of prominence. It was one landscape all the way.

Until evening, at least. Then the sun came out and illuminated the barracks of Julesburg, the flag-staff, and flag. The buildings surrounding the parade-ground are of adobes — homely, but clean. The commanding officer’s residence, of the same material — a French cottage, with mansard roof—is actually beautiful. We halted long enough to exchange a few remarks with the officers, and to be assured by them that there was no immediate danger of an Indian attack; then we pushed on to the village of Julesburg, where we found supper, a two-story hotel nearly completed, a store and billiard-room! I perceive that speculation (which is another name for civilization) is anticipating the Pacific Railroad.

We now passed out of Colorado into Nebraska, having made just half the distance from Denver to Fort Kearney. This was a matter for congratulation; but the second night was coming on, and we had little hope that fatigue would bring sleep. One of our passengers only was fortunate. He had the happy faculty of distributing himself, as it seemed, all over the coach, and remaining unconscious, while his head was in the way of one, his hips of another, and his feet of a third. During the day, by mutual arrangement and concession, we relieved our cramped muscles as much as possible; when we settled for the night (a mere make-believe) this was no longer possible, and the season of suffering began. Except while the horses were being changed at the stations, I do not believe that I slept at all. The desperate attempt to do so produced a dim, dazed condition, wherein I heard the constant roll of the wheels, and felt every jolt of the coach.

On Wednesday morning at daybreak we halted for breakfast at Alkali Station, a dreary adobe building in the midst of a dreary landscape, which had not yet shaken off the gray night mist. From this point the country began to improve. The attempts of the Platte to establish a valley of its own gradually succeeded. There were marked lines of bluffy hills on either side, green bottom-lands, now and then imposingly broad, willow-brush along the river-banks and on the scattered islands, and at last clumps of cottonwood trees. We still traversed streaks of sand, still drank alkali water; but the road was alive with teams, and there were grazing and supply ranches at intervals of four or five miles. Here and there new adobe buildings were going up. We saw red cedar logs, which the people informed us came from valleys in the rear of the bluffs; and there was evidently no agriculture, simply because it had not been tried.

The loneliness of the Plains was now so invaded that I could only realize with difficulty where we were. We passed mile after mile of great freight wagons — some of them carrying four tons weight and drawn by six yoke of oxen — of emigrant wagons, where the sunburned women and wild-looking children were stowed among the piled household goods, — there was no end to them. At noon the wagons, under the direction of a train-master, were "corralled" in a half-circle, the oxen turned loose on the bottoms, and the teamsters — except those detailed as cooks — took their ease in the shade between the wheels. They appeared to be scattered portions of a single hundred-mile-long caravan. The ranches were well supplied with those articles which the strong and rather coarse taste of these wagon-men demand: whatever their quality may be, the prices are superb. Mr. Beard bought a small tumbler for seventy-five cents!

Before we reached Cottonwood, which is half way between Julesburg and Fort Kearney, the scenery became pleasant, in spite of its sameness. The valley expanded to a breadth of ten miles, and every winding of the Platte, which here divides into several arms, could be traced by its picturesque lines of timber. On the coach from Omaha we found Colonel Chivington (of Sand Creek memory), who gave us the welcome intelligence that the railroad trains were within sixty-five miles of Fort Kearney. All the passengers had their heads tied up, to keep off the buffalo-gnats; yet we were not molested in the least. At Cottonwood, the bottoms of thick green grass, the clumps and lines of timber, with the first appearance of time ash and elm, were a delight to the eye. Here we got a capital dinner, and the water began to lose its alkaline taste.

All the afternoon the landscapes of the Platte were broad and beautiful. The accession of the north branch gave the river a majestic breadth and sweep; the valley became fifteen or twenty miles wide, between bluffs which now rose high enough to make low, blue headlands in the distance. In some glens on the right we saw red cedar. Here, at least, there is a fine field for agriculture: I doubt, even, whether irrigation will be required. I had not expected to strike the fertile eastern belt of the Plains so soon. It was a warmer counterpart of the rich French lowlands, lacking only the grace given by centuries of human habitation.

We rolled off the fourth hundred miles from Denver during a third painful night, and at six o’clock on Thursday morning drove into the village of Kearney, a mile or two west of the fort. The stage was just ready to start for the end of the railroad, and the local passengers in waiting grudged us time for breakfast. The crossing of the Platte, they said, would take from two to three hours, and we should have trouble in reaching Lone Tree Station by six o’clock in the evening. The station agent, however, was on our side, and we snatched a hasty refreshment before departing for the ferry in an open, jolting wagon. There were twelve hundred Pawnees encamped near the fort, and I should have visited their camp had it been possible. I only saw that Kearney is already a smart little village, which will soon be a town, and the centre of a splendid agricultural region.

The Platte is here a mile wide, its broad yellow surface marked by a thousand shifting currents and the ripple-marks of sand-bars. Two crazy little skiffs were moored to the bank, and in these it appeared we and our baggage were to be transported; another wagon far away on the opposite bank awaited our arrival. There was a pair of short oars in the boat, but the ferryman, instead of taking them, deliberately stripped to the skin and jumped into the water. We were advised to follow his example before taking our seats, but we only partially complied, retaining shirts and coats to ward off the scorching sun. The other boat being similarly prepared, we commenced the transit, which is unique of its kind.

If the Missouri pilot learns a new channel with every voyage, our Platte ferryman had even less dependence on his route. He chose his course entirely by appearances on the surface, avoiding both the sand-bars and the deeper portions, for we stuck fast on the former, and drifted in the latter. His policy was to walk on the very edge of the bar, towing the boat by the bow. Sometimes he walked a hundred yards up stream, then as far down again, tacking and veering like a ship in a shifting gale. At one moment he stood in a foot of water and the boat sat fast; the next, he plunged overhead and clung, floating, to the gunwale, while a passenger rowed. In half an hour we were half-way across; then one of our company stripped and went to the ferryman’s assistance. Between the two, we reached the opposite bank in about an hour; the second boat, which had meanwhile stranded, detained us half an hour more. Such is the Platte — the meanest of rivers!

It was a jolting old mule-wagon which was waiting for us; but a stage we were told would be found some five miles further on! Away we went in the clear, hot sunshine, over meadows of splendid grass, along the edges of beautiful groves and thickets, past the corn-fields of pioneer settlers, when, behold! an islanded arm of the river at least two hundred yards wide appeared before us. We had not yet crossed all the Platte. This arm, however, was fordable; all went well until we reached the middle, when the team stuck. The bottom being quicksand, the moment the wagon stood still the wheels began to sink. Out sprang our ferryman, seized the tires, and urged until we moved again. Then a whiffletree broke, and again we commenced sinking ; the process was repeated several times, and we were all on the point of taking to the river, when a final desperate tug brought us over the last channel.

Once in the stage, we rolled rapidly down the valley. I was surprised to find settlement pushed so far westward. From the time we crossed the Platte we were never out of sight of corn and wheat-fields — and what dark, heavy, luxuriant grain! No irrigation is needed, and there are no finer crops east of the Rocky Mountains. The native grasses are rank and thick as a jungle, and furnish an unlimited quantity of the finest hay. Some of the farmers have planted little groves of cotton-wood about their houses; and the rapidity with which they grow (six to ten feet in a year) shows how easy it will be to reclothe these treeless regions.

We were detained an hour waiting for dinner, and the chances of our catching the evening train so diminished that we presented the driver with a slight testimonial of respect, in order to insure greater speed. The horses were poor and the afternoon very hot, but we reached Lone Tree before six o’clock, and were finally set down in the grass, beside the waiting train, some minutes before its departure. Here there was a saloon and two boarding shanties, which are moved as the road moves. The track is already laid fourteen miles west of the Lone Tree, and is being extended at the rate of a mile and a half per day. Recently two miles and seventeen hundred feet were laid in a single day —the greatest feat of the kind in the history of railroad building! The grading has already passed Fort Kearney, and will reach Cottonwood — half way from Omaha to Denver — by next winter. Who disbelieves in a railroad across the continent now?

When the train started, and the fair sunset sat upon the grassy swells and far dim groves of the Platte, I gave myself up to the exquisite sensation of rest. Aching in every limb, and feverish from loss of sleep, the knowledge that our hardships were over, was almost as soothing as slumber. There were but few passengers on the train, and each of us enjoyed the luxury of a double seat, arranged as a couch, for the night. Daybreak found us within ten miles of Omaha, and at six o’clock we were set down at the hotel, in precisely three days and twenty-two hours from Denver.  NEXT