238 BUFFALO LAND. 



i 



but quickly recovering himself, began to put forth 

 wonderful exertions to prepare a second dinner, the 

 new comers having consented, after some hesitation, 

 to become our guests during the nooning hour. 



Before proceeding to give the reader the history of 

 this interesting family, I ought, perhaps, to say that 

 I do so with their express permission, the only dis- 

 guise being that, at his request, the father will here be 

 designated by his Christian name, Sydney. 



These people, after an absence of about a year, were 

 now returning from Elizabeth City, a recently-started 

 mining town in New Mexico, to their former home, 

 about forty miles east of our present camp, which they 

 had left the preceding season under circumstances that 

 were sad,' indeed. About three years before, the fam- 

 ily, then consisting of Mr. Sydney and wife, and 

 their two daughters, had moved from Ohio to Kansas 

 and settled on a tributary of the Solomon. Availing 

 himself of the homestead law, Mr. Sydney took a 

 tract of one hundred and sixty acres, and commenced 

 improving it. One of the daughters soon married a 

 young man to whom she had been betrothed at the 

 East, and who at once set earnestly to work to make 

 for himself and young wife a home in the new land. 

 The houses of the father and the child were but half a 

 mile apart, and, no timber intervening, each could be 

 plainly seen from the other. For a time this little 

 colony of two families was very happy. Having had 

 the first choice, their farms were well situated, em- 

 bracing both river and valley, and their herds, pro- 

 vided with rich and unlimited range, increased 

 rapidly. Soon rumors came from below that a rail- 



