LITMIR.BIZ

      CHAPTER IV.

      McPHERSON AND SEDGWICK VISITED.

      FORT McPherson, Nebraska, afterwards a well built Post constructed of the red cedar which there abounded and gave beauty, when varnished, to all interior wood-work, consisted of only shabby log and adobe quarters upon our arrival, and we were not loath to leave it behind, though each halting place where we could commune with others than our own little party proved a welcome relief. If I could have ridden on horseback for even a brief spell, what a relief it would have been. I had been quite an expert in the saddle from childhood, and had not entirely lost the art. It did seem but fair, if Uncle Sam could only see things that way and consider the personal comfort of women travellers bound to follow their husbands at whatever cost; but the Government carriage, called "ambulance," was always at command upon transition from rail or steam-boat conveyance to the limited methods of transportation on the frontier.

      After another hundred miles of travel, and three hundred and ninety miles from Omaha, we reached Fort Sedgwick with but little to interrupt the con- tinuity of brown grass and sand hills along our immediate route.

      Fort Sedgwick, in the northeast corner of Colo- rado, was the old site of Julesburg, now across the Platte River, and had been burned by the son of

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      old "Little Dog," but had been rebuilt and con- tained a dozen houses and stores. According to the nomenclature of town designation in those days in the West, the tradition is as follows: In the days of the overland stage service, and during the early Mormon migration to Salt Lake, one Jules, a Chero- kee exile, kept the so-called "hotel" there for pass- ing travel, and in the cheerful frankness of western life the place was known as "Dirty Jules Ranch" thence to Jules, finally, Julesburg. Here it was my gaod fortune to meet Captain J. P. W. Neil, belong- ing to the same regiment as my husband, the Eigh- teenth U. S. Infantry ; his company had been left to garrison the post when the regiment went westward the previous May. To this day I feel indebted to Mrs. Neil for ministering to my necessities and giving valuable suggestions for enhancing my com- fort during the wearisome days to follow. And what a blessing to sit at her hospitable board and eat good square meals, if only for a few days.

      The best preserver of kindnesses is the remem- brance of them and perpetual thanksgiving for them. It was said of a Kentucky soldier during the Civil War that often in the camp, far from home, he would stir an invisible beverage with an imaginary spoon. Perhaps I experienced a kindred sensation afterwards, when I recalled the taste and aroma of Mrs. Neil's coffee as contrasted with our own made over a camp fire of "buffalo chips," the only fuel obtainable at times, and if sorrow's crowning sorrow be the remembering of happier days and events, surely there was nothing left for me to do but fortify

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      myself for and not against the decoction of the camp-fire article.

      We had followed the course of the South Platte but now were to cross that strange river, thus de- scribed by one who had made the experiment: "The River Platte is a broad, but dirty, uninviting stream, differing from a slough in having a swift current, often a mile wide, but with no more water than would fill an ordinary canal; three inches of fluid running en the top of several feet of moving quick- sand ; too deep for safe fording; too yellow to wash in ; and too pale to paint with, it is the most useless and disappointing river in America. "

      Such was the Platte River in 1866. To-day the river and its tributaries irrigate one million nine hundred and twenty-five thousand four hundred and sixty-two acres of land, which fifty years ago, or even less, were regarded as worthless. Measure- ments of water once used and then returned to the river bed bring out the fact that a large percentage of the water diverted to a particular canal is not wholly lost but returns to the stream and is used over again. Some of the measurements show that in low water the return seepage tends to increase the flow of the stream rather than to diminish that flow. Such is the statement of the Superintendent of Irrigation Affairs.

      The very anticipation of crossing, or seeming to cross, this strange river at any given point was at least disconcerting, as we had to expect new eddies, more spiteful currents, more desperate quicksands, and constantly varying depths of water, with no

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      competent guide to direct our course. But we had to risk it at Fort Sedgwick, braced up for the ordeal, and entered the stream. I had the uncom- fortable feeling, at times, that we were gliding down- ward, while to the optical vision our mules were certainly headed for the opposite shore. Several long poles were noticed in one place stuck down deep into the Water and sand, and upon anxious inquiry, "What it all meant as a sign," the information was lucidly returned that "they were a warning to trav- ellers to avoid that particular place, as once upon a time, wagons, mules, and men had disappeared beyond recovery." This was not a comforting assurance at that moment to the lone woman in the ambulance, with every nerve on tension, watching progress, hoping, and praying too, for a safe land- ing on the other side.

      I might have felt safer on horseback, as I re- called one occasion during the Civil War when in an emergency I crossed the swollen Harpeth River in Tennessee on the back of a blind mare, guiding by a rope bridle, with the current so swift that the swimming of the beast, with my arms clinging tena- ciously to her neck to keep from drowning, produced a mental fear and physical discomfort that lingered in the memory with special distinctness at this later experience.

      But the Platte River was crossed!

      How I felt the lack of womanly sympathy at such an hour was known only to Him who "marks the sparrows' fall," so much I had to endure in silence. I seemed all along the journey to be possessed of

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      dual mental states, one voiced through outward ex- pression and not the same that held me subcon- sciously to serious duty from beginning to end. It was anything but a pleasure trip, except so far as loyalty to that duty and obedience to orders brought their compensations in doing things because "they can be done." "they must be done," "they will be done." We did not set up a monumental stone after crossing the Platte River. We had no visible ark to lead us as did the Israelites of old, but an over- ruling Providence, our guide, though invisible to mortal sight, then, as ever after in the days to come, was my comfort and my strength.