BUFFALO LAND. 



CHAPTER I. 



THE OBJECT OP OUR EXPEDITION A GLIMPSE OP ALASKA THROUGH CAPTAIN WALRUS* 

 GLASS WE ARE TEMPTED BY OUR RECENT PURCHASE ALASKAN GAME OP "OLD 

 SLEDGE" THE EARLY STRUGGLES OP KANSAS THE SMOKY HILL TRAIL INDIAN 

 HIGH ART THE "BORDER-RUFFIAN," PAST AND PRESENT TOPEKA HOW IT RE- 

 CEIVED ITS NAME WAUKARUSA AND ITS LEGEND. 



THE great plains the region of country in which 

 our expedition sojourned for so many months is 

 wilder, and by far more interesting, than those soli- 

 tudes over which the Egyptian Sphynx looks out. 

 The latter are barren and desolate, while the former 

 teem with their savage races and scarcely more savage 

 beasts. The very soil which these tread is written all 

 over with a history of the past, even its surface giving 

 to science wonderful and countless fossils of those ages 

 when the world was young and man not yet born. 



At first, it was rather unsettled which way the 

 steps of our party would turn ; between unexplored 

 territory and that newly acquired, there were several 

 fields open which promised much of interest. Orig- 

 inally, our company numbered a dozen; but Alaska 

 tempted a portion of our savans, and to the fishy and 

 frigid maiden they yielded, drawn by a strange predi- 

 lection for train-oil and seal meat toward the land of 



(25) 



