48 A CALIFORNIA TRAMP. 



to come to " ambulance." Those who had any sentiment 

 about them could imagine the hopes and fears enveloped in 

 the leathern mail bag on the way to cheer or sadden, unless 

 nipped by the killing frost of train robbery. Plain, matter- 

 of-fact fellows saw a wagon with six mules on the trot, or 

 gallop when possible, clouded with dust or wading in splash- 

 ing mud. 



And now the Kansas prairies, then virgin, over which we so 

 slowly traveled, are covered with farms and villages. The 

 watchful house-dog replaces the howling wolf. The bellowing 

 buffalo, which darkened his pasturage, has made way for 

 herds of cattle, the marauding Indian for the useful 

 farmer. The children of the ignoble red men I saw, instead 

 of practicing with their mimic bows and arrows on rabbits 

 or prairie dogs, or shooting pennies from stakes for the amuse- 

 ment of flush palefaces, are learning agriculture from 

 Eastern farmers, and successfully, too. Where the ox-train 

 moved at the rate of ten or fifteen miles per da}^, trains of 

 another kind travel six hundred. Where the emigrant plodded 

 his weary way, thousands of excursionists annually flock to 

 California. Colorado, which we traversed a desert wilderness, 

 is now a prosperous state, its seeming barrenness reclaimed by 

 irrigation, and its repulsive mountains teeming with precious 

 metals. The city of Denver had not been located. 



With all these changes I can hardly realize what a country 

 I passed through thirty years ago. 



