340 PLANTER'S HOTEL AT ST JOSEPH. 



mules left to " straddle " the stumps or pass on either side. 

 I saw some partridges (which I did not stop to shoot), 

 but no other game, and at last got out of the woods into 

 a more beaten road. We then came to where the road ran 

 in two directions, so I asked Mr Canterall which I was 

 to take ; he indicated a road with his usual effrontery, but 

 some time afterwards came up to say he had been wrong, 

 and that I must turn back. At last I came to a very fair 

 road, and giving the rein to my mules I trotted on, and 

 not long after came in sight of St Joseph, on the Missouri 

 river, a straggling, but rising, and even then considerable 

 town, fast growing into importance, and on meeting a 

 citizen requested to be informed as to which was the best 

 hotel. 



"The Planter's House, I reckon, yas, sir, 's as good as 

 any; been on a hunt, I 'spose?" eyeing the fowl and 

 bison tails hanging around the front of my ambulance. 

 To this I replied that I had ; and very dusty, very hungry, 

 and very tired, I entered St Joseph and drove to the 

 Planter's Hotel, a building about the size of an English 

 wayside public-house. Pulling up at the door, I went in 

 and found a free-and-easy young fellow lounging about 

 what in England would be called a bar; the floors of 

 the room, of course, dabbled all over with tobacco juice. 

 " Can you recommend me," I said, "to a stable-keeper 

 who can put up seven mules and four horses, my waggons, 

 &c., and can I have some dinner, a bed-room and private 

 sitting-room here for perhaps a week ? I did not tell him 

 who I was, as I had found a man's assertion of his own iden 

 tity was never believed in the United States, when I was 

 greeted word for word with the following reply. " Guess 

 you aire too late for dinner (it was a little after four o'clock, 

 if I remember rightly), but you may have a room, not 



