TO THE LAND OF THE BUFFALO. 23 



damaged by rain in the bottom, so as the load would pass 

 governmental inspection. We were forced to become parties in 

 this fraud, whether willing or not. We encamped at noon a 

 few hundred yards beyond the Post. 



Fort Kearney is about one hundred and sixty miles from the 

 Missouri. It was established during the Mexican war, the 

 intention being to connect the frontiers with the Pacific by a 

 chain of military posts along the Platte and Columbia rivers. 

 The buildings consisted of barracks, hospital, sutler store and 

 cavalry stables. Some were of logs, others of frame, but the 

 majority were of dried mud and roofed with sods. It was not 

 a very prepossessing place, but after a journey of three hundred 

 miles through a wilderness, we welcomed the sight, as we 

 also did the sound of the bugle that night, and the roll of 

 drum and the shriek of fife the next morning from the 

 musicians of the little garrison. 



At Kearney Finlay left me. Since the train started he had 

 been as sick of his profession as the traditional dog of the pro- 

 verbial broth. He could see no romance in "hollering" at 

 and beating oxen all day and herding them on alternate nights, 

 and was disgusted with his associates. Much as he disliked to 

 leave me, he was determined to quit the train in some way. 

 One dark and stormy night, when on guard near the sand hilfs, 

 he came to camp and, awakening me, tried to persuade me to 

 desert with him and make our way through three hundred 

 miles of wilderness to the Missouri by the route we came. I 

 did not start out with the intention of turning back, and pre- 

 vailed on him to desist from hig^ntention. He was afterwards 

 taken sick, and went back with the next return train. He 

 cried when we parted, and I felt badly enough, for he was my 

 wagon mate and the only congenial comrade I had in all that 

 unkempt gang of ox-drivers. I never heard of Finlay after- 

 wards. 



We left Fort Kearney the morning after our arrival, and 



